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Sunday, January 20, 2002

By Ervin Dyer, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Martin Luther King Jr. mounted the stage at the 1963 March on Washington to tell the throngs he had a dream. Countless Sunday mornings before then, he'd taken to a pulpit to tell his congregations he had a God.

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The Rev. King is, perhaps, most famous for that early '60s civil rights oration, delivered in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial that warm August day. His words -- "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty we are free at last!" -- solidified his image as a 20th-century social activist.

What gets lost in the din of his historical achievements is that within King beat the heart of a Baptist preacher, said Mervyn A. Warren, a professor of religion at Oakwood College in Huntsville, Ala.

King, the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, sprang from the "womb of the black church," writes Warren in his new book, "King Came Preaching: The Pulpit Power of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr." (Intervarsity Press, $19.99).

Different from the other biographies of King, which dwell on the minister's life or social activism, Warren's book focuses on the pastor.

"I tried to get away from the public speaking and the mass rallies," said Warren. "I wanted to get the essence of the preacher."

To do that, Warren analyzed 17 of King's sermons for their content, language and theme. He got permission to publish the full text of three of King's sermons and one speech that has never been published.

In compiling his book, Warren spoke with King biographers and studied articles about King. He met the Georgia minister only once, in 1966, when Warren was a doctoral student at Michigan State University and pursuing a dissertation on King's sermons. He flew to O'Hare Airport in Chicago and spent a day with King, who was preparing for a civil rights rally.

Warren recalled that he was nervous to meet King, who was surrounded by FBI agents, police and reporters.

He said that while King weighed his words during their interview, he was personable, putting Warren at ease.

What did he discover? "King was not a social activist," Warren said. "He was someone, however, who attempted to apply to society the claims of the Gospel."

In doing so, King was hoisted into the civil rights movement while he was a young preacher at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala. Because of his advanced degrees, the community thought he "could be the lips to articulate its needs." After the arrest of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott, the rest is history.

Biographers have painted King as a man of striking contrasts. He was a minister who had extramarital affairs. He was a loving father who often sacrificed his family's financial comfort to the movement. Nevertheless, in sermons, King abstained from focusing on his personal contradictions, Warren said.

Instead, he concentrated on the eternal principles of forgiveness, prayer and love, matters that Warren called the "womp and the wump of life."

Though his sermons were vigorous, King, who once considered becoming a doctor or a lawyer, thought that much of black religion was too emotional. He studied the thoughtful delivery of black theologians such as Dr. Benjamin Mays and sought to make his sermons more intellectual.

In fact, most of King's sermons were shaped by his scholarly and extemporaneous approach.

Before he gained national prominence, these were the two characteristics that made King a star in black religious circles.

"He was known as a great voice," said J. Van Alfred Winsett, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, Hill District, and a friend of King. "In our national conventions, he was a legend," set apart, said Winsett, by his forward-thinking ideas and the resonance of his voice.

"His extemporaneous preaching came naturally. It was like a message directly from God."

Oliver Montgomery, president of the Penn Hills chapter of the NAACP, recalled traveling to New York City in the '60s for a labor convention, and, while there, he went to a Sunday service at Riverside Baptist Church to hear King preach. He remembered that the figure in the pulpit -- in the dark suit and white shirt -- was humble.

"Being around King was like being around the pope," said Montgomery. "He held people in awe."

Montgomery said the sermon focused on the meaning and power of love and the purpose of peaceful disobedience.

"I remember him saying you should never allow any man to make you stoop so low as to make you hate him."

King delivered one of his most famous public speeches the night before his assassination in 1968. In Memphis on behalf of underpaid black garbagemen, King spoke of going to the "promised land," a reference to dying that many consider prophetic.

The speech, according to Warren, was a departure for King, whose primary aim was to lead individuals to develop a relationship with God.

And while King often used the same themes in his speeches and sermons, he varied the content and generally used only notes or an outline to familiarize himself with his ideas.

King told Warren, "Without a manuscript, I can communicate better with an audience. Furthermore, I have greater rapport and power when I am able to look the audience in the eye."