By Deborah Bailey
AFRO Contributing Editor
dbailey@afro.com
Seated humbly in a chair on the platform of the Washington National Cathedral, former United Nations Ambassador and Congressman Andrew Young preached extemporaneously Jan. 14. King confidante, friend, collaborator and fellow pastor, Young is among a dwindling number of activists who worked and served full time in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s.
Young knew King from the start of the Civil Rights Movement and was at King’s side as he died in 1968 on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. As few movement veterans can, Young is still able to offer a first-hand account of times that transformed both him as a man and the world.
Young’s recollections of King as the young, inexperienced pastor of the conservative Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. in 1955, set the tone for the conversation.
“Martin had no time. He received the announcement one hour before the start of the meeting. He rose to the occasion with less than one hour to prepare himself and made one of the better speeches of his career,” Young said, referring to the speech made at Montgomery’s Holt Street Baptist Church, urging the continuation of the bus boycott.
Young said the Montgomery bus boycott was originally planned to last one day, but persisted for 381 days until November 1956, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal on public transportation systems.
History changed King’s trajectory as well, said Young, who spoke about his involvement in a series of civil rights campaigns King led in Georgia, Alabama, Washington, D.C and Alabama. But Young said the campaign in Chicago, Ill. Introduced King to another side of the American cultural dilemma.
“More and more he began to see the problems we were having in Northern cities were not just social; they were economic,” said Young. “That commitment led him to Memphis,” he added, noting that sanitation workers were preparing to strike after the accidental deaths of sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker.
“I think he knew his days were numbered. I think he had decided if he gave his life had decided if he gave his life, he wanted it to be for the least of these, God’s children. The sanitation workers, the garbage workers were a perfect example of ‘the least of these.’ The garbage workers had no benefits, no retirement,” Young said. “They were still virtual slaves in our modern democracy. I think he knew. Everything about the way he acted in those next several days led us to believe that he knew he was going to his death.”
“When I heard that shot, I looked up at Martin Luther King and ran to the top of the steps. realized that…the bullet moved faster than his feelings,” said Young.
The grand sanctuary of the National Cathedral became pin-drop silent. “He probably never felt that bullet,” he said. “I think that’s the reason why, 50 something-odd years later, we’re still gathering all over the world to celebrate him…and the values for which he gave his life,” Young said of King. “He probably never heard that bullet. I thought that maybe it’s true that someone can go straight from this life to heaven on a flaming chariot.”
Randolph Hollerith, dean of the National Cathedral, captured the sentiments of the parishioners and visitors who came to hear Young’s presentation.
“Sir, you honor us today. Wherever I go and whatever I do I’ll always remember these words and you sitting in this chair offering them,” Hollerith said to Young, before the entire congregation.
Others attending felt a similar sense of awe following the service.
“I’m so grateful for Rev. Young’s account of MLK’s life, in which he breathed new life,” said Natalie Doyle.
Georgianne Thomas was also grateful to be in attendance.
“Thank you, Ambassador Young, for your long committed service to our community,” said Thomas. “We live Black – daily. Unless you live it, you will never understand it.”