Clayborne Carson - A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Permission has been graciously granted to include excerpts from the following:

Precious Lord, Take My Hand, by Thomas A. Dorsey. 1938 (Renewed) Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. All Rights for the World Outside U.S.A. controlled by Unichappell Music Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission of Warner Bros. Publications U.S. Inc., Miami, FL 33014

Be the Best of Whatever You Are, by Douglas Malloch. 1926 The Scott Dowd Company. 1954 Helen M. Malloch, renewed.

If I Can Help Somebody. Copyright 1944 by Lafluer Music Ltd., Copyright Renewed. Reprinted by permission of Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.

Sermons used by permission of Intellectual Properties Management, Atlanta, Georgia, as Exclusive Manager of the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Copyright 1998 The Heirs to the Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

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ISBN: 978-0-7595-2019-6

First eBook Edition: October 2009

We must draw strength from the deep reservoir of Dr. Kings wisdom. It is midnight, but dawn is coming. There is a Knock at Midnight in every age, every decade. We can and must respond.

Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, Jr.

It is good for us, at this moment, to hear the melodious voice of a man who had the propensity to reach beyond his days and impact generations. As we reflect upon his memory, we cannot resist the temptation to measure how far we have come and thereby see how far we have to go.

Bishop T. D. Jakes, Sr.

A grateful world gave him the Nobel Peace Prize, a national holiday, and imprinted him forever on the conscience of humanity.

Reverend C. T. Vivian

Martins range is from the earth to the heavens and throughout the whole universe, and he brings it all back in a simple way to the difficult life that all must live in our troubled world . These powerful sermons spoke to the inner hearts of the people who listened to them.

Father Theodore Hesburgh

I am convinced that Martins faith in the precious, embracing, amazing love of God was rewarded. Several years after his death I saw my friend in a dream. Its all right, Vincent. It is well with my soul. Somehow that message seemed large enough for me, for all of us, forever.

Dr.Vincent Harding

A Knock at Midnight is an outgrowth of the King Papers Projects ongoing effort to produce an authoritative fourteen-volume edition of Kings most significant correspondence, sermons, speeches, published writings, and unpublished manuscripts. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, Inc., initiated this long-term documentary research and publication venture, which is being conducted in association with the King Estate, Stanford University, Emory University, and the University of California Press. Major finanical supporters of the project include the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, and the Lilly Endowment. The editors wish to thank all the individuals associated with these institutions who have assisted in our efforts to assemble the extant recordings and transcripts of Kings sermons.

In particular, this book results from the determined efforts of Dexter King, Chairman, President, and CEO of the King Center, and Phillip Jones, Chairman and CEO of Intellectual Properties Management (IPM), to expose the King Papers Projects scholarly research to a broader audience. Their help, along with the assistance of King Center founder Coretta Scott King, has greatly increased the amount of available documentary materials regarding Martin Luther King, Jr. Tricia Harris of IPM helped coordinate this project. This book is the first fruit of a continuing collaboration that will enhance popular understanding of Kings life and thought.

The staff of Warner Books also provided necessary assistance to insure that this book was produced with care as well as dispatch. We thank especially our editor, Airi Dekidjiev, as well as Judith McGuinn and Maja Thomas of the Audio Books division.

Finally, we express appreciation for the support we have received from the staff of the King Papers Project, including managing editor Susan Carson, project administrator Francine Marsh-Davis, and research assistants Adrienne Clay and Kerry Taylor. Numerous researchers were involved in assembling and cataloging King-related documents and assisting in the difficult task of producing accurate transcripts of audio recordings that were more than thirty years old. The contribution of Emory University doctoral student Kris Sheppard was especially important in producing the transcriptions in this book. We appreciate the assistance of Robin Brooks of the King Center, who facilitated our efforts to obtain audio recordings. Finally, we also thank the student researchers in our Summer 1997 King Fellows Program, including Brandi Clay Brimmer, Joy Clinkscales, Andrew Davidson, Barbara Ifejika, and Hanan Aisha Hardy.

Intellectual Properties Management (IPM) wishes to thank the King family for their support of the IPM/Warner Books joint venture. Special thanks to Coretta Scott King and Dexter Scott King for their invaluable input into A Knock at Midnight. IPM also wishes to thank Laurence Kirshbaum, Maureen Egen, and the entire Warner Books staff for their dedication and partnership.

The King family wishes to thank Intellectual Properties Management for its continued support and vision for the King legacy. They also wish to thank all of the introduction writers, editors, and everyone involved in the preparation of A Knock at Midnight.

T he world saw him as a marching protest leader, but Martin Luther King, Jr., was first and foremost a preacher. In the quiet recesses of my heart, he once remarked, I am fundamentally a clergyman, a Baptist preacher. King saw his religious identity as his being and heritage, his inheritance as the son of a Baptist preacher, the grandson of a Baptist preacher, and the great-grandson of a Baptist preacher.

The remarkable sermons in this volume bear the imprint of Kings strong family ties to African-American religious traditions. Kings own ancestors were powerful preachers who were dedicated to challenging the status quo. His great-grandfather Willis Williams began preaching in antebellum Georgia and witnessed the emergence of independent black Baptist congregations after the Civil War. In 1894 his grandfather A. D. Williams accepted the call to a small, struggling congregation in Atlanta, and under his leadership Ebenezer Baptist Church became a bedrock of the thriving Auburn Avenue community. In 1895 the Reverend Williams was among the founders of the National Baptist Convention, the largest African-American organization. After Williamss death in 1931, his widow, Jennie Celeste Parks Williams, used her influence to ensure that her son-in-law became Ebenezers new pastor. The Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. (widely known later as Daddy King) guided the church during the difficult years of the Great Depression and would in time become even more prominent than his father-in-law in national Baptist circles.