Re From the Archives (April 24): I vividly recall Martin Luther King Jr. preaching at the Chapel. It was March 13, 1960, and I read the Scripture: First Thessalonians 2:1-8. I recall this because I so marked these verses in my study Bible and noted that the passage provides applicability to the peaceful resistance of the sit-ins and demonstrations in the South. I was the leader of the Baptist students at Princeton, which may have been why I was chosen as reader. (At the time I was also national president of the Baptist Student Movement of American Baptists, U.S.A.) I had just returned from a meeting of the National Student Christian Federation, where we had formulated a statement in affirmation of the sit-ins and civil rights. I gave a copy to Dr. King and explained briefly our support for these causes. I am very honored to have had the opportunity to meet and participate in worship with him.
I later worked at Colgate Rochester Divinity School/Bexley Hall/Crozer Theological Seminary. Crozer was where Dr. King studied and received his first theological degree. His nephew came as a student, and I was honored to help arrange the visits of Coretta Scott King and her sister, as well as King’s father, “Daddy King,” on different occasions at the school.