I met MLK in 1959. He told me something I’ll never forget.
As my teacher that day, King instructed less through what he said than in how he said it.
Thump, thump, thump. The sound wove harmlessly through my dreams until a loud voice roused me: “Mr. Fernandez, open this door!” I sat up as my brain kept fumbling. Where was I?
The answer came in pieces. YMCA. Montgomery, Ala. Spring 1959. I was 24 years old, an Army veteran working on a research paper for a course at the University of New Hampshire.
At the door, two men in suits barked names I quickly forgot while flashing badges I’d always remember. “We’re from the FBI,” they said, “and we have questions. Who are you? Where do you come from? Why are you in Montgomery?”
I explained to them that, for my government course, I’d decided to explore the aftermath of the 1956 Montgomery bus boycott. But weeks of research had convinced me that working from Durham, N.H., I’d never fully understand the issue. So I arranged interviews with a dozen key civil rights figures. Including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
I explained all this, and finally, the agents turned to leave. “I wouldn’t stay in Montgomery very long,” one of them warned.
The experience gave me a firsthand look at the climate in Montgomery during those days of the civil rights movement, with King at its center.
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When I tell people I interviewed King as a young college student, their first question is usually: “How?” The answer is that, in a blend of optimism and naivete reserved for the young, I sent a letter, followed by a phone call. And he agreed to speak with me.
So, for my college’s spring break, I hitchhiked from New Hampshire to Alabama and Atlanta.
When I got to Atlanta, I saw some signs of integration, though I did notice that many Black passengers still sat in the back of the bus. I asked King about that later in the day, when we met in his office at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his father was pastor.
“Change for any of us comes slowly,” was his response. Words of wisdom, definitely. But as my teacher that day, King instructed less through what he said than in how he said it.
“Change for any of us comes slowly,” was his response.
This champion of social justice, whose face I’d seen on the cover of Time, spent the first moments of our interview asking about my life, acting as if he had no commitment more important than talking to a college student nervously clutching a yellow legal pad.
Curiosity and inclusiveness, I learned, characterized his leadership. When questioned, he acknowledged the personal cost of his role in the movement. But he rarely used the word I; far more common were we and us.
At one point as we talked, I offhandedly referred to opponents of civil rights as “rednecks” and “white trash.” King let the conversation continue a while before quietly challenging me.
“Dick, when we use words like redneck and white trash, that’s a way of objectifying the other person or group. We cut off the possibility of conversation with them, of eventually winning them to our side.”
That simple word — we — transformed his comment from criticism to a guide for my life and eventual ministry. I would encounter King several more times, including during preparations for his April 4, 1967, speech at Riverside Church in New York, condemning the Vietnam War. His speech that night was a full-blown critique of the war in all of its manifestations. The depth and breadth of the criticism was stunning. Soon after, he became a cochair of the organization that had sponsored the speech — Clergy and Laity Concerned (called then Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam), of which I was the director.
But my enduring image of him comes from our time in his office in 1959, just the two of us. I hear his voice prodding me gently, and I remember his lesson, which I interpreted this way: Respect the people you’re arguing with. Because if you’re ruthless about trying to get what you want, even victory won’t wind up tasting very sweet.
If King were with us today, I believe he would do everything in his power to break open the red and blue silos that dominate our political rhetoric and judgment. He would remind us that the first step on the ladder to justice begins with the realization that as advocates for social change, we are always in a lover’s quarrel — and not a grudge match — with those we oppose.
The Rev. Richard Fernandez is a minister in the United Church of Christ, a founder and present board member of the Philadelphia Interfaith Center, and lives at Cathedral Village in Roxborough.