Opening the Doors: The Desegregation of the University of Alabama and the Fight for Civil Rights in Tuscaloosa

14. The Rise of Reverend Rogers: 1954–64

chapter 14 The Rise of Reverend Rogers 1954–64 He was really encouraged by Dr. King to go. In the winter of 1964, a change befell Tuscaloosa. The small south­ ern town was less than a year removed from Wallace’s stand, but already the local AfricanAmeri ­cancommunitywasbeginningtofeelempowered.Whilethepast decade had witnessed vari­ ous efforts at improving race relations—in­ clud­ ing the formation of the Human Rights Council, the first integrated meeting group in Alabama, as well as the Ministers’ Alliance, a contingency of local reverends dedicated to seeking peaceful solutions—the city’s civil rights movement gained the most momentum at the hands of the Tuscaloosa Citizens for Action Committee. While many were involved with Tuscaloosa’s civil rights movement prior to the arrival of Reverend T. Y. Rogers, an even greater portion of the African Ameri­ can community was spurred to action following his entrance onto the scene. This shift to activism was not the work of a single person, but the resultofaconcertedeffortonthepartofmany .Nevertheless,whenthetall,lean twenty-­ eight-­ year-­ old man arrived in Tuscaloosa to answer the call for First African Baptist Church’s need for a reverend, many came to listen. 118 The Movement While the church deacons knew little of T. Y. Rogers, they wholly trusted his recommender: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose recommendation ensured that the town wasn’t merely getting a reverend, but a civil rights leader as well. % Theophilus Yelverton Rogers was born and raised in Coatopa, Alabama, a small, rural town seventy miles southwest of Tuscaloosa. He was the eldest of three, a mostly quiet young man, described by his youngest sister, Bettye­Rogers Maye, as “older than his years.” Rogers Maye was five years younger thanherbrother,andevenatanearlyagesheviewedhimas“aserious-­minded person.” “He didn’t do a lot of playing around with my sister and I the way I guess many siblings did,” she explained. Instead, he could of­ten be found with his ear tilted to the radio, listening intently to the day’s news. “We didn’t have television growing up, but he loved listening to the radio,” Rogers Maye continued . “I can remember when the National Democratic Presidential electionswouldbeon .Hewouldalwayswanttolistentotheradiotoseewhatwas­ going on, to see who was winning and that kind of thing.” Rogers’s interest in politics continued to grow, and after graduating from high school in 1952, he left Coatopa for Montgomery’s his­ tori­ cally black university, Alabama State, where he double majored in po­ liti­ cal science and music. Yet his religious upbringing also drove him toward dedicating a life to God, and it wasn’t long before his interests shifted to the ever-­blurring region between politics and religion. In 1954, the eighteen-­ year-­ old Rogers found himself chairman of his university’s chapter of theStudent ChristianAssociation , and in an effort to embrace his new role, he invited an up-­ and-­ coming Montgomery reverend named Martin Luther King Jr. to speak to his or­ga­ni­ za­ tion. The reverend agreed. It was likely there, in the halls of Alabama State University, that T. Y.Rogers first met the man who not only inspired his journey into the ministry, but also set his compass to Tuscaloosa a decade later. King seemed equally impressed by the young student, and in 1956, after the Montgomery bus boycott expanded into a movement, a time-­ strapped King asked Rogers to serve as an assistant pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist— anenormousvoteofconfidencefortherecentcollegegraduatewithnoformal The Rise of Reverend Rogers 119 ministerial training. Humbled, Rogers graciously accepted, admitting later that while he and King shared much in common, their similarities in conviction and oratory proved both a blessing and a curse. “There were times when I would have to do counseling and answer questions ,andkeepdowntheconflictswithintheor­ga­ni­za­tion,becausehecouldn’t be there all the time,” Rogers explained, noting some of his responsibilities as assistant pastor. “And I had to do it as [King] would do it, because, you see, I wasn’t projecting my own self. I was projecting Martin Luther King into the church situation. I was always in the background, although I may have been doing it, because I was trying to do it as he would have done it.” Eventually, his projections of King proved problematic, making it difficult for some to differentiate between the assistant pastor and his mentor. For many of the congregants at Dexter Avenue Baptist, Rogers’s King impersonation seemed a bit too...