Continuing the Struggle for Racial Justice – King’s Visits to Oberlin

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made several visits to Oberlin during the Civil Rights Movement. King’s first official visit to Oberlin, in February of 1957, was just a couple months after he and the Montgomery Improvement Association successfully ended their 381-day bus boycott. It was during this historic boycott that King began to make a name for himself as a leader in the movement. Oberlin was fortunate to have Dr. King speak not once, but three times, during his visit. Speaking on the topics “Justice Without Violence” and “The New Negro in the South” at the First Church of Oberlin and on “The Montgomery Story” during a noon assembly at Finney Chapel, Dr. King enlightened the college and town communities as to the nature of the growing Civil Rights Movement. Dr. King’s constant activism was proving to be quite a surprise to his Dexter Avenue Baptist Church congregation in Montgomery, who had appointed him in hopes that he would be less radical than their former pastor, Oberlin graduate Vernon Johns. Continue reading The time is always right to do what is right” – Martin Luther King Jr. →