c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Jack U. Harwell is an RNS correspondent in Atlanta and was editor of The Christian Index, the state Southern Baptist paper in Georgia, at the time of the King assassination.)

ATLANTA _ Thirty years after the assassination in Memphis of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., I want to offer some words of hope about racial reconciliation _ words whose journey began with the awful and awe-full events of that traumatic weekend.

The revered civil rights leader lived in my town. His church, Ebenezer Baptist, was just a mile away from my office, where I was editor of The Christian Index, the state Southern Baptist paper in Georgia and the oldest religious newspaper in America.

Our paper went to press on Monday afternoon and was printed Tuesday morning. And, of course, my editorial for the next issue had already been written when the shots rang out in Memphis that Thursday afternoon of April 4, 1968.

Like millions of Americans, my family and I stayed up most of Thursday night, glued to the television and the unfolding reports of the assassination and its aftermath _ the angry violence erupting in some places, the shock and numbing disbelief in others.

About 4 a.m. Friday morning, I went to my typewriter and began a new editorial. I called it”A Martyr Has Fallen, But His Crusade Continues.” I called King”my spiritual brother, and yours”and urged white Georgia Baptists to take up his cause of racial justice by repudiating the leadership of people such as segregationist governors George Wallace of Alabama and Lester Maddox of Georgia _ civil rights foes who had reaped political rewards by their opposition to King’s nonviolent crusades throughout the South.

And I called on Georgia Baptists to”be in the forefront of those calling for Christian love and human equality for all of our citizens.” Early Monday morning, April 8 _ even before the editorial was set in type and the day before King’s somber yet majestic funeral in Atlanta _ the largest radio station in the city called me at home.

They said they could find almost no white religious leaders in the city who would speak a calming word about King’s death and asked if I had prepared anything for the paper on the assassination. They asked me to read my new editorial on the air.

Within minutes, I was called by other radio, TV and newspaper reporters. When I got to my office, reporters and cameras were waiting for me. They recorded me reading the editorial and replayed it throughout Monday and Tuesday.

I was aware that my voice was still a minority view in the white community and told my family and staff to brace themselves, that we would be assaulted by those who didn’t like what I had written.

And responses did come.

But, here’s where the message of hope begins to shine through.

We received nearly 500 responses to my King editorial _ an amazing number for any subject. And, to my amazement, more than 80 percent of those responses were positive. Perhaps most surprisingly, 90 percent of the supportive responses came from laypeople _ those often stereotyped as racist _ not from clergy.

Other signs of hope came in the immediate days following the funeral.

Just two days later, a prominent Georgia Baptist layman strode into my office. He didn’t say,”Hello,”or,”How are you?”He blurted out,”Sit down and listen!””Martin Luther King wasn’t my spiritual brother and I didn’t like what you wrote about him,”he began, then launched into an hourlong rant, pouring out all the classic racist diatribe so typical of the segregated South:”Martin Luther King was an agitator, a communist, a race-baiter, a law-breaker, a womanizer,”he said.

After venting his anger, I asked for 15 minutes to respond. I reached on my office shelf and pulled down a Bible, showing him a few New Testament verses from Colossians, Romans, Galatians, and I Peter about love and equality.

He then made a statement that will ring in my memory until I die.”Jack,”he said,”I have been a Baptist 61 years and I didn’t know those verses were in the Bible! You and I have got to talk again.” One month later he walked in again. This time he was calm and courteous.”Get that Bible down and show me some more verses like you showed me last time,”he said and I did.”I will see you again in one month,”he said.

His monthly visits continued for a full year. At the end of the year he came in gently and quietly and made the second statement I will never forget.”You have shown me that a 71-year-old, deep-dyed, Southern segregationist can change his mind when he is forced to look at the Bible. And I want to show you how much I appreciate it.”He handed me a $1,000 check for The Christian Index endowment fund.

In another incident shortly after the King editorial appeared, I received a church newsletter from a major Baptist church in east Georgia.

The pastor had taken extreme offense at the editorial and took the entire front page of his church bulletin to blast me and King. It was a vitriolic column, one of the nastiest, racist attacks I had ever read.

I think the pastor honestly thought he was representing the feelings of his parishioners.

But to my happy surprise, during the next two weeks, I received 35 individual, hand-written letters from members of the congregation, disagreeing with their pastor and endorsing what I had written.

All 35 letters echoed the same theme:”Our pastor doesn’t speak for us. You were right. King was our spiritual brother and his cause of racial justice is correct. Don’t back up!” Flooding into my mind came the words of Mahatma Gandhi, often quoted by King:”I must hurry and catch up with the people. I’m their leader.” But there is a contemporary sequel to these stories.

Fast-forward 30 years and know of a new Baptist group called the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate group formed seven years ago for Baptists who are open and inclusive _ both racially and ethnically.

Today the moderator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in one state is the daughter of the same man who stormed into my office in 1968.

And in another state, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship coordinator is the daughter of the pastor who wrote the blistering church newsletter attack on King and me in 1968.

Yes, there is hope in doing what is right. Patience is required to see the results. But results do come.

DEA END HARWELL