TCXPI Presents January Is Martin Luther King, Jr. Month
Before he led the Montgomery bus boycott or marched on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. was a chain-smoking, pool-playing student at Crozer Theological College just discovering his passion for social justice.
Embarrassed by the emotionalism—“the shouting and the stomping”—of black religion, the young King considered careers in law and medicine. He enrolled at Morehouse College, in Atlanta, where he wound up majoring in sociology. But his continuing desire to bring social change ultimately led him to enter Crozer, a Protestant seminary near Philadelphia.
In September 1944, fifteen-year-old Morehouse freshman Martin Luther King Jr. needed a haircut. He’d heard about a fellow student who cut hair in the basement of the college’s Graves Hall. The barber, named Walter McCall, was a twenty-one-year-old army veteran. ML heard that he was cutting hair for a dime, so he went to him and gave it a try.
After one cut, McCall asked for the dime. ML explained that he didn’t have a coin on him but that he’d pay him later. This idea of an IOU system did not sit well with McCall. You and I both know you have a dime, he insisted. “Man. I haven’t got it now,” ML replied. “So there’s nothing you can do about it, unless you want to go to the grass.” The phrase “go to the grass” was new to McCall, but he knew what it meant: King believed he could take him in a fight. McCall tackled his customer and they wrestled on the floor—a vet fighting a teenager. The pushing and shoving eventually made its way outside onto the lawn, their bout intense enough to attract other students. For those who saw the fight, many expected the older soldier to easily beat upon the smaller, less experienced ML. But for one of the few times in ML’s young life, he fought back, and he earned the vet’s respect.
The two young men quickly became friends. “I always called him ‘Mike’ and he called me ‘Mac,’ ” said McCall years later. They bonded despite being opposites in almost every way. ML was cautious and reserved, living comfortably … as the son of a successful preacher. McCall was bolder and louder, and always struggling to make ends meet … In a way, each friend had what the other wanted: Mac envied ML’s financial situation and parental support, while ML longed for Mac’s hard-earned life experience and his knack for livening up any social encounter.
To the best of TCXPI’s knowledge, this image is the property of public domain.
For further reading, please visit:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/young-martin-luther-king-jr/552512/
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