Mennonite Central Committee News Service
October 23, 1962
III - Albany: The Search for Reconciliation
by Vincent and Rosemarie
Harding
Christmas, 1961, was a bright and
sunny day in Albany, Georgia. When we arrived there with friends
from Koinonia Farm on our first visit to the city the temperature
was pleasantly in the upper 70's. There seemed to be little outward
indication of the tensions that ran deeply into the heart of
the community. Things did indeed seem to be calm and peaceful,
just as the city fathers claimed, while they tried to woo new
businesses to this economically thriving industrial city of 58,000
persons.
However, our first stop was at the
attractive home of Slater King, vice president of The Albany
Movement, and there the veil of tranquility was removed. Just
two weeks earlier Slater and his wife had left their three young
children to go to jail, along with hundreds of other Negroes
of Albany. Their imprisonments had been the result of peaceful
demonstrations which sought to protest the rigid segregation
of their city. Earlier they had attempted to be heard through
the regular channels of the city government, but they had been
rebuffed. No friends among the whites of the city offered help.
No white Christian ministers sought reconciliation.
Then, after an integrated group of
Freedom Riders had been arrested for using the facilities in
the Albany bus terminal--facilities legally under desegregation
orders--the Negroes of Albany felt themselves without choice.
They must let their protests be heard, and if their voices would
not be heeded, then they would offer their bodies in silent marches
for justice. So, they marched--soon joined by Martin Luther King--until
there were 700 arrests. They were determined not to stop until
the evil of segregation was erased from their city. At the height
of the marches, shortly before Christmas, the city seemed to
be relenting, and a "truce" was called which brought
the release of all the prisoners. (It later proved a false hope.)
So Slater and Marian were in their home when we arrived. They
helped us to see that tranquility was only on the surface of
Albany. Beneath there were ancient fears, memories of continual
injustices, and written or unwritten divisive signs of "white"
and "colored" every- where, even inside the jail.
Before our visit was over, we had
met the Kings' neighbor from across the street, Dr. William Anderson,
the young osteopath who headed the Albany Movement. As were leaving
town, we also stopped at the house of C.B. King, Slater's brother,
who was lawyer for the group. He is the only Negro lawyer in
Albany. That Christmas Day we began our periodic 165-mile pilgrimage
from Atlanta to Albany, our pilgrimage in search of understanding
and reconciliation.
Before long we had come to know the
Negro leaders of the city. With amazing openness they accepted
us into their councils. At the outset we sought to make it clear
that our first allegiance was neither to Negro or to white, but
to Christ and His Way of disciplined love. We would walk with
them, sharing the burden of their oppression as, long as we could
do so in the spirit of our Master, we told them. On these terms
they accepted us, and some especially Dr. Anderson, clearly yearned
for help in the way of reconciling love. Often, in the midst
of some of Albany's darkest nights, the two of us prayed together
in his room.
However, we had not come to the South or to
Albany to minister exclusively to Negroes, and they understood
this. They had their doubts as to whether any of the white political
or social leaders would speak to Negroes who were also "outsiders."
We understood their doubts, but we were determined to find out
for ourselves. We needed to open communications between the two
groups. So, through phone calls we began to knock on many doors.
It still amazes us how many were opened wide. As the months went
on in Albany, we spent an average of eight days each month there.
During the summer it rose to three weeks each month. Soon we
were speaking regularly with the mayor, the chief of police,
and some of the religious leaders of the community. Finally,
someone suggested that we try to get to the city commissioner
who was reputedly the most segregationist-minded of all. Again
the door opened wide and a friendship actually developed, a friendship
in which we have seen this man (who is our own age) actually
growing. (Recently, when we suggested jokingly that we name our
baby after him, he quickly said, "No, you should name him
Freedom Harding. ")
Eventually, there grew an understanding
among the whites, too, of our purpose in the city. They knew
we were not neutral; as Christians we had to be against an evil
system such as segregation. But they knew, too, that our ultimate
goal was to help Albany find its true peace, a peace that would
run far beneath the surface; and in the deepest part of their
hearts they really wanted this too. They were not free to act
upon this longing, though. All of them, politician, lawyer, businessman,
pastor and police chief, were prisoners in the system that they
had found and had added to. Somehow they sensed that we understood
their agonies and that our ministry was also for them.
Throughout the winter and spring of
the year we labored with Negroes and whites to help hammer out
a solution. Twice we seemed near to the edge of meaningful and
just resolution. But the powers of fear and mistrust are strong
and the overall answer would not come easily. Finally, in what
some persons believed to be a basically political move, Martin
Luther King was called back to Albany in July for sentencing.
He and his companion, Ralph Abernathy,
chose to serve the sentence as an act of moral protest against
what they considered an unjust law. It was obvious that they
were being sentenced for opposing segregation, whatever the technicality
might be, and they were prepared to pay the price. After some
confusion about Dr. King's mysterious release, Albany was alive
with protest again, and before the summer had ended more than
400 persons had been arrested.
It was during July that Vincent experienced
his first taste of a jall sentence. Marian King, now pregnant,
and with her three-year old daughter in her arms, had been hit
and kicked by police officers as she visited some of the imprisoned
protestors who had been sent to a neighboring jail. That night
tempers were high and violence was threatened as many Negroes
swore revenge for so cruel an act. It seemed clear that some
public response needed to be made to this public act. The Negroes
of Albany needed to know that evil could be resisted without
resort to further evil. It had to be clearly resisted though.
Prayer has forever been one means of struggling against the forces
of evil and it was thought that prayer before the city hall would
speak symbolically of the public mourning and of the need for
repentance on every side. It would be prayer, too, for the life
of a citizen of. Albany and for her persecutors. (The worship
of the sanctuary often needs to be taken into the market place--
always trusting that our motives might be predominantly pure.
The word must become flesh in the midst of men's struggles.)
Believing that such an act would help
to avert violence, Vincent intended to go by himself out of our
personal affection for Marian King and out of our concern for
the entire situation. Six other persons decided to join him.
They were all arrested by the chief of police, after a warning,
in front of City Hall. There was no violence that night, but
after Vincent had spent three nights and two days in jail, there
seemed to be a danger again. Both Dr. King and Police Chief Pritchett
urged him to come out and lead the search for a peaceful way.
His fellow prisoners agreed that this was best. Finally, Chief
Pritchett himself signed Vincent's bond, asking him to continue
the ministry in their city. The next day, Slater's brother, Attorney
King, was beaten on the head by a sheriff in Albany. Again violence
threatened, Vincent went with a group of twelve men through the
streets of Albany that night, speaking in bars, pool halls and
barbershops, calling for a Christian' response to violence. Once
more the night was quiet.
However, the quiet did not mean that
Albany had found its peace. Our task will not be done until it
appears to be on its way. Many things have changed since that
Christmas Day last year, but the struggle for a new community
of respect and justice, encircled by love, is a long and hard
one. Because we are convinced that a peace church belongs in
the midst of every such struggle, ministering to both sides,
seeking and serving the cause of truth, we shall probably be
back in Albany before this appears in print. One thing we know
for certain: We shall overcome, not because of who we are, but
because of what God has already overcome through Christ.
- 30 -
Ik23october62