Although Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known as the preeminent leader of the modern Civil Rights Movement, he was first and foremost a follower of Jesus and minister of the gospel. An event that happened 65 years ago this week makes that clear. In January 1956, the Montgomery bus boycott was in its second month. The vast majority of the Black community refused to use the segregated city buses. As always happened in the campaigns of non-violent resistance, white opponents responded with backlash including threats and violence. As a public leader of the bus boycott, Dr. King started to receive regular threats against himself and his family. On the night of January 27, another threatening phone call caused a spiritual crisis for the 27 year old Dr. King. In a moment of doubt and despair, he received a direct experience of God’s presence and promise to be with him throughout the struggle. Just three days later on January 30, a bomb exploded on the porch of the parsonage where the King family lived. Fortunately no one was injured. The experience of January 27 provided a foundation of faith that enabled him to not only endure the 381 day bus boycott but to continue to endure ongoing resistance and threats and violence for the next 12 years until his assassination in April 1968. The video posted below is a recording of a sermon that Dr. King gave in 1967 in which he recalls the pivotal experience of January 27, 1956. If you cannot listen to the whole sermon, the section from 14:07-23:27 describes that life changing and sustaining experience. The assurance of God’s presence and promise is still a foundation for any faith based struggle for justice today. You and I may not have an experience as dramatic as Dr. King’s, but the same promise is given to us by Jesus, “I am with you always to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)
