MLK & UU Timeline

For over twenty years, I’ve been a Unitarian-Universalist, and I didn’t know most of this stuff until I started researching MLK two years ago. If you haven’t listened to his speech “The Other America”, follow this link and do that instead of reading my blog post. 

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1950s, Boston: King and his wife reportedly attend Unitarian services and consider joining Unitarianism. [UU World 2002]

1965, Selma: First Rev James Reeb and then, two weeks later, Viola Liuzzo are killed—both UUs.

Reeb, eight years earlier, had switched from Presbyterian to Unitarian in order to pursue a ministry focused on social justice. He answered King’s call for white clergy to join his nonviolent protest movement, and Reeb did. He left behind a wife and from children. Two other UU ministers were beaten alongside him and survived. Reeb’s death provoked a national outcry against southern racists. King said that Reeb symbolized “the forces of good will in our nation”. [wikipedia]

Liuzzo, hearing of Reeb’s death, went south to volunteer at Selma herself. She was a volunteer driver, and KKK members shot and killed her. She left behind a husband and five children. Her funeral brought King and other leaders together again. In the trial it turned out that the FBI had an informant in the car, one whose mission was in part to destabilize the Klan by encouraging violence. To distract the media, the FBI released disinformation smearing Liuzzo as a Communist who had abandoned her family. [wikipedia]

1966, Unitarian-Universalist Association’s General Assembly: King gives the then–prestigious Ware Lecture with a speech entitled, “Don’t Sleep Through the Revolution”. He calls on UUs to support open housing legislation, which would indeed pass after King’s death. In general, he calls on UUs to focus on changing policy. [UUA website]

1967, Beacon Press: We publish King’s last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? He re-affirms his commitment to nonviolence, and he proposes abolishing poverty with a guaranteed income. Cornel West called the book King’s “most prophetic challenge to powers that be and his most progressive program for the wretched of the earth”. [wikipedia]

1968, March, Washington, DC

“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Said in his speech “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”, paraphrasing Unitarian minister Theodore Parker (1810–1860).

1968, April, Memphis: King is assassinated, six months after publicly pivoting to focus on militarism and poverty as well as racism.