The Forgotten Martin Luther King: Local Pastor

MONTGOMERY, Ala.--Martin Luther King Jr. led a nonviolent freedom movement and became a world figure. But he was first and foremost a pastor.

"The pastor role was central to everything, virtually everything, that Dr. King achieved," Lewis Baldwin, professor of religious studies at Vanderbilt University, told the PBS program "Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly." Baldwin has written widely on King's religion.

As the nation prepares to mark King's birthday on Jan. 16, Baldwin said he fears King's pastoral side is being forgotten. He believes the nation must develop an appreciation for that part of King's life if it is to fully grasp the whole of King's life and legacy.

"Being a pastor, for him, was being a civil-rights leader," Baldwin said. In many ways, Baldwin noted, King was simply carrying on the family business.

"His father was a pastor. His grandfather had been a pastor. His great-grandfather had been a pastor, and several of his uncles were preachers and pastors," Baldwin said. "It was very much a part of his religious background."

King was 25 and finishing his doctoral dissertation at Boston University when he was appointed to his first pastorate--at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. The church was founded in 1877, in a former slave-traders' pen. At the time it was called the Second Colored Baptist Church. In 1879 the congregation moved to its current location, next to the state Capitol building.

King, who was hired in 1954, was the church's 20th pastor. And he came to the church after a period of internal tensions in the congregation. Church leaders said they were looking for a "non-controversial" pastor who could help restore morale.

The young pastor arrived with a 34-point plan for the congregation's future. Today, the church--which has officially changed its name to the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church--looks pretty much the same as when King was there. The pews date back to the 1880s but the pulpit was King's addition. "It was one of his 34-point recommendations that the congregation buy new pulpit furniture," said the Rev. Michael Thurman, the current pastor of the church.

A preacher and redeemer of souls
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