Becoming King: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Making of a National Leader

5 “Living under the Tension”

115 5 “Living under the Tension” They begin to wonder all over the nation, how is it we can keep walking in Montgomery? How is it we can keep burning out our rubber? How is it we can keep living under the tension? And we can cry out to the nation, “We can do it because we know that as we walk, God walks with us.” —Martin Luther King Jr., September 1956 Just a few short days after the bombing of his home, King delivered a sermon at Dexter with a title he could easily embrace: “It’s Hard to Be a Christian.” The past two months of King’s life had been extremely challenging. As the most visible face of the bus boycott, he had become a lightning rod for criticism, threats, and even violence. Despite his sufferings , King reminded the people of Dexter that the Christian faith is by definition costly. This was not time to substitute “a cushion for a cross” or to have “a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds.” He called for a more authentic Christianity that is by definition “hard because it demands a dangerous and costly altruism. It demands that the ‘I’ be immersed in the deep waters of ‘thou.’” The people of Dexter knew they were not the only Christians in Montgomery. That same morning, hymns were emanating from the all-white Dexter Avenue Methodist Church just a block away. The hypocrisy of many of Montgomery’s white Christians was fair game this Sunday, as King blasted “white people who are for justice” but who are “afraid to speak.” King concluded by reminding his congregation that Christianity demands “putting our whole being in the struggle against evil, whatever the cost.”1 The coming eleven months would prove to be costly for many involved in the local struggle. In addition to facing varied and perpetual manifestations of white racism, King and other boycott leaders tried to keep the community united in purpose. Accusations that the MIA had 116 BECOMING KING mismanaged funds would add to the pressures facing King and other leaders. In response, they sought to maintain unity by closing ranks. Vigorous debate over the direction of the local movement became less regular as clergy gained greater power within the MIA. Meanwhile, E. D. Nixon’s role diminished over the course of the year. Living under the tension of segregation, white attacks, and internal conflict, leaders fixed all their energies on a skirmish over bus policies while economic initiatives were relegated to the back burner. Much of the early promise for a local sustained assault on white supremacy never materialized. They failed to develop concrete plans for African American economic development after the boycott. The MIA would win the battle over buses, but the tension they lived under each day would leave the larger war for equality and justice unresolved. The January 30, 1956, bombing of King’s home was but the most sensational result of the “get-tough” policy toward boycott participants of Montgomery mayor William “Tacky” Gayle. Despite the onslaught, King and the people did not back down. Instead they went on the offensive, going ahead with plans to file suit in federal courts claiming bus segregation was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Filing the lawsuit ran contrary to the original demands of the MIA, but as early as the evening of Parks’s arrest, Nixon and others had in mind the notion of a test case to strike down segregation on the city’s buses. The intransigence of the city commissioners coupled with the use of violence convinced the leadership of the MIA that only the courts would settle this issue, and that meant challenging segregation.2 The MIA leadership could not ignore the violence. An attempted bombing of Nixon’s home on February 1 reinforced the sober reality that any of them might be next. At an executive board meeting just a few days later, King addressed a recent “increase in the amount of violence” and innumerable threats since the city’s commissioners “joined the white Citizens Council.” In response, the MIA beefed up security measures for mass meetings, but King insisted: “We’re not going to give up; they can drop bombs in my house every day. I’m firmer now than ever.”3 The first task for attorney Fred Gray in developing the case that would become Browder v. Gayle was finding a group of people willing to serve as plaintiffs...