Martin Luther King Jr. Special Edition
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C A L L
January 19, 2000
FEBRUARY FREEDOM DAYS
M O M EN TS IN CIVIL RIGHTS
HISTORY
pated. From Baptist Seminary, Fisk
University, Meharry Medical, and
Tennessee State, students descended
on N ashville’s First Baptist Church.
Then neatly dressed rows o f students
were dispatched to downtown sit-in
sites.
B y J a m s A dams :
‘As late as 1945, Portland w as
known as the ‘W orst C ity in Race
R e la tio n s N o rth o f th e M ason
D ixon L in e ,” ' w rote E dw in W.
Berry, executive secretary o f the
Urban League o f Portland, O regon.
It was “a N orthern City with a South
ern E xposure.” Four years later,
the city had a different look and
feel. But had it really changed?
Hoping for a success story for their
F e b ru a ry 1949 “ B r o th e rh o o d
M onth” issue, editors o f the C hris
tian R egister asked Berry for an
update.
Berry w ould cite a decline in
police brutality and gains in jobs,
public service, hom e purchases,
public schools, and n ew spaper cov
erage o f blacks in stories unrelated
to crim e and sports. Portland had a
new appellation, the “N ation’s M ost
Im proved in Race R elations.” But
being the “m ost im proved” and be
ing the “best” w ere tw o different
things. In 1945, B erry c re d ited
“greed, hate, and vested interests”
with keeping segregation alive. In
1949, Jim Crow w as dow n but not
TO
C5
A C T IO N
How does it feel
to be among those
who didn’t look
the other way?
Harlem finally got its “start” with a
W illiam s-hosted reception at the
Fund. A ttracting board members,
fans, and funds, and the choir per
formed its first major concert seven
weeks later. Said Tumbull, “Music is
very magical, able to transform chil
dren with no more than lint in their
To right the wrongs of the world takes strength
and conviction. We offer our humble thanks to
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those who do.
out. “H e’s a part o f the great m any
‘bystanders’...n eith e r a part o f the
forw ard looking citizens, nor o f
the reactionaries. O verw helm ingly -g
possessed with inertia (they are) <3
governed by tradition rather than by 2
conviction
c
So w hat helped create the new
atm osphere in Portland? N ature and
time. In 1948, a flood destroyed
the nearby city o f V anport. T w enty-
tw o th o u sa n d p eo p le
had
to
be
re lo c a te d .w ith in m in
utes, and there w as sim
ply no tim e for the Red
C ross to im plem ent seg
regation. Em ergency in
terracial contact helped
forge change. W hen la
bor leaders m ade deseg
regated facilities a con
dition for P ortland’s b e
com ing their 1948 co n
vention city, restaurants
and hotels changed for
the good o f their b usi
nesses. Then there was
the issue o f vigilance.
C ity policy w as reg u
la rly d e c id e d on th e
“ c r u d e p r e m is e th a t
you’ll holler w hen you’re
hurt." W ith 300,000 indi
pockets and honey in their throats
vidual pieces o f educational m ate
On this Valentine’s Day, what could
into grand performers on the whole
rial on race relations, a PR cam paign
be more special than the love ofa chi Id
stage.” His love o f music had done
to broadcast m edia, a speakers bu
just that. Love will fin d a way...
o f a child - or. better still, the love o f
reau, and library tables w ell stocked
thousands o f children - in other
words, the story o f the Boys Choir of
brary tables well stocked w ith hand
Harlem and its founder. Dr. Walter
outs, the U rban League had decided
Pictured on the cover o f Time
Turnbull.
to holler - loud and often.
magazine’s February 18, 1957, issue
Walter Turnbull knew the trans
was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the
formative powerofm usic. It had taken
Montgomery Bus Boycott’s twenty-
in 1926, Dr. C arter G. W oodson
him from the cotton fields o f Mis
eight-year-old
hero. In its lead, the
launched the first N egro H istory
sissippi to the concert stages o f the
story
touted
“the
scholarly Negro
W eek. F o r th e g re a te r p a rt o f
w orld. A grad u ate o f T ougaloo
Baptist
minister
who
in little more
A m erican history, m ost blacks had
Coll/ege and Manhattan School of
than
a
year
has
risen
from
nowhere to
been forbidden to read and w rite by
Music, he wanted to share his love o f
become
one
one
o
f
the
nation’s
re
law. W hen the laws w ere changed,
music. “My childhood may have been
markable leaders o f men.” Not only
we w ere still unable to read about
different from the one children ex
had King not come from “nowhere,”
our historic selves because histo
perience now adays in New York
as the son o f a prominent Atlanta
rians had system atically expunged
City,” he said. “But we share poverty
pastor-father and m usician-m other
the black presence from scholar
and a sense o f hope and a desire for
iie had come from the pride o f a
ship. S tanding in the shade o f our
better things to come.” In 1967, he
people
who, 13 years later, wondered
own sun, m ost blacks neither knew
began a small boys choir at Harlem’s
where
all
the promises they had suf
the history o f our people, nor knew
Ephesus Church while teaching in
fered
so
much
to exact had gone.
that there w as a history to be known.
the New York City schools. When a
So successful had the ‘m is-educa
teacher’s strike divided loyalties and
tion,” as W oodson called it, been
put children “at risk” in the cynicism
that those w ho condem ned blacks
>ruary 27, 1965, a funeral
o f the adult crisis, Tumbull taught
as being devoid o f a culture and
cortege drove onto the grounds o f
throughout the strike. When he found
w ithout a past predating slavery
FemcliffCemetary in Hartsdale, New
him self faced with a music apprecia
w ere actually believed. W oodson
York, bearing the body o f the man
tion class o f one hundred students,
sought to uplift an intellectually
bom Malcolm Little, who had come to
his choir idea came to the rescue and
devastated people - reinform ing the
be loved, revered, feared, and slain as
expanded his pool o f students to au
w ay A frican A m ericans saw them
Malcolm X. On his pilgrimage to Mecca
dition for the church choir. But when
selves by filling in the m issing
the year before, he had found special
fire gutted the church, the boys choir
pages o f history.
peace, and would this day take his
barely lumbered along. Then, in 1974,
eternal rest as El Hajj Malik el Shabazz.
Tumhull was advised to set up a non
As gravediggers stood at the ready to
profit corporation to attract the nec
o S a t u m a y ^ e n r u a r y l 3 , 1960,
receive him, shovels in hand, the mourn
essary funds to nurture his idea. For
inspired by G reensboro’s sponta
ers said “no." They would bury Brother
that, however, he needed a strong
neous, successful, and fast-spread
Malcolm themselves. They would dig
board o f directors. As chairman,
ing sit-in m o v em en t, N ash v ille
hchoped to attract Franklin Williams
aplaceofrest for “our prince." as he had
launched its own sit-ins. Just the night
- a former Civil Rights lawyer and
been eulogized in poetic elegy just
before. Rev. James Lawson had con
hours earlier by his friend, the noted
ambassador to Ghana - who was then
v en ed w h at b e c a m e th e sit-in
actor Ossie Davis.
president o f the Phelps Stokes Fund.
m ovem ent’s first mass meeting. The
Williams didn't feel the idea was
This is an excerpt from the book
next morning he activated a plan in
right for him. But he offered to help
"Freedom Days ”. Permission for re
which 500 students participated. From
attract others. On February 14,1975,
print was given by John Wiley and
Baptist Seminary, Fisk University,
a seven-year-old Boys C hoir o f
Sons, Inc.
M eharry M edical, and Tennessee
Bank of America honors
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bank of America.
www.bankofamerica.com
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AtSAFECO^ YveshqreDr, King 'sdream.
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•
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•
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future guide the efforts of every employee and
manager
Managing diversity is an inclusive process of developing all our
employees to maximize their potential.
We are proud to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and pledge our
continued efforts to make his dream a reality.
S A F E C O
SAFECO Insurance Company.
4101 SW Kruse Way
Lake Oswego, OR 97035
www.safeco.com
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