January 13, 2021 The Skanner Portland & Seattle Page 7
Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
How Civil Rights
Leader Wyatt Tee
Walker Revived
Hope After MLK’s
Death
By Corey D. B. Walker,
University of Richmond
F
our years after
the
assassination
of Martin Luther
King, Jr., the nov-
elist James Baldwin
would write on the pag-
es of Esquire magazine,
“Since Martin’s death, in
Memphis, and that tre-
mendous day in Atlanta,
something has altered in
me, something has gone
away.”
Baldwin wrote about
how “the act of faith” –
that is, his belief that the
movement would change
white Americans and
ultimately America –
maintained him through
the years of the Black
freedom
movement,
through marches and
petitions and torturous
setbacks.
After King’s death,
Baldwin found it hard to
keep that faith.
Nearly two weeks after
King’s funeral, in April
of 1968, King’s confi-
dant and former strate-
gist Wyatt Tee Walker
tried to renew this faith.
Drawing on a tradition
of Black faith, Walker
encouraged a grieving
community to embrace
hope even in the face of
despair.
As a scholar of religion
and American public
life, I recognize the im-
portant lessons Walker
offers for current times
when America is deeply
divided.
Faith in action
Black public faith has
a storied place in Amer-
ican life.
The Black church has
been a place of fellow-
ship and affirmation
from colonial America to
modern day, empower-
ing individuals to under-
take public acts to trans-
form politics and society.
The 19th-century Na-
tional Negro Conven-
tion movement, which
ran from 1831 to 1864,
demonstrated this Black
faith in action. Its leaders
advocated for the aboli-
Civil rights leader Wyatt Tee Walker addresses a crowd at St. Phillips AME Church in Atlanta. Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images
tion of slavery and full
citizenship for African
Americans. One activ-
ist reflected years later
that the “colored conven-
tions” were “almost as
frequent as church meet-
ings.”
The civil rights move-
ment carried this faith in
“
worshipers’ energy” so
they could deal with the
“rigors and racism of ‘a
cruel, cruel world’ from
Monday though Satur-
day.”
It was this faith that
empowered many Afri-
can Americans to main-
tain their faith in the pos-
The sermons and songs of
Black faith empowered and
sustained African Ameri-
cans, even in bleak times
action forward. Theolo-
gian Dwight Hopkins has
written how the sermons
and songs of Black faith
empowered and sus-
tained African Ameri-
cans, even in bleak times.
These practices on Sun-
day morning, he noted
served to “recharge the
sibilities of democracy
while facing entrenched
white opposition to their
civil rights. Marches, sit-
ins, demonstrations and
mass meetings were all
public displays of black
faith.
The risk of faith
In the wake of King’s as-
sassination, the words of
his last published book,
“Where Do We Go From
Here? Chaos or Com-
munity,”
reverberated
throughout the nation.
Urban
rebellions
erupted in the wake of
King’s death. With parts
of over 100 cities smol-
dering or in ruins, cha-
os seemed a more likely
future in 1968 America
than community.
In a sermon called
“Faith as Taking the
Risk,” delivered at Princ-
eton Theological Sem-
inary, Walker sought
to address a question
posed by a young theolo-
gian James H. Cone after
King’s death: “Without
King, where was the
hope?”
Deftly navigating the
tension between hope
and despair, Walker
based his message on the
response of the Hebrew
prophet Elisha in the
Book of Kings who faced
crisis and despair with
an invading Syrian army,
widespread famine and
people ready to give up.
Drawing inspiration
from the faith of the com-
See WALKER on page 8