The Scarsdale Inquirer

VOLUME 93, NUMBER 3

Founded in 1901

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

HE WAS HERE

MLK spoke in Scarsdale, March 31, 1960

By ANDY BASS
Next Monday, the nation will
again honor one of the most admired figures in history with the
30th observance of the Martin
Luther King Jr. Day federal holiday. Through his eloquence and
courage in the face of hostility, the
civil rights icon led a movement
that reshaped American history.
While Kings life is worthy of
universal celebration, Scarsdale
has added reason to take pride in
commemorating his legacy.
On March 31, 1960, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
came to Scarsdale to deliver a
sermon at the Scarsdale Community Baptist Church at the corner
of Popham and Autenrieth roads,
championing the philosophy of
nonviolence for which he became famous.
If your reaction is one of astonishment, youre not alone. Even
longtime village residents with a
penchant for local history have
never heard about Kings visit.
Somehow, a sermon by one of
our greatest orators, delivered in
the heart of the village, during the
heat of the civil rights movement,
has vanished from the collective
memory of the community.
But now, nearly 55 years after
it occurred, a picture has finally
emerged of Kings visit here and
how it came about. That a detailed story of Kings visit can
now be told is attributable to the
foresight of King himself.
In the fall of 1964, shortly
after being awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize, King donated most
of his papers to Boston University where he obtained his Ph.D.
in systematic theology in 1955.
Today, the Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. Archive at the Boston
University Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center is the

Quotes from MLKs Scarsdale sermon

Hate is like a cancer. It
gnaws away the best part of our
lives.
Love seeks to integrate,
to build up, to reconcile and to
redeem. When an individual
finds himself on the road to hate,
he finds himself on the road to
disintegration. If you love your
enemy you have before you the
power to redeem him.
We must delve deeper into
the philosophy of nonviolence
which has as its base the philosophy of love.
Force begets force: It is a
descending spiral that ends in
destruction for everybody.
To those who would try to
keep us down we say: We will
wear you down with our capacity
largest repository for Kings papers prior to 1964. Among the
items in the collection are 17 correspondences related to his 1960
visit to Scarsdale.
The records reveal that the
credit for Kings visit to Scarsdale lies with one man the
Reverend Dr. M. Forest Ashbrook. An Edgemont resident,
Ashbrook was a member of the
Scarsdale Community Baptist
Churchs board of deacons. He
invited King to speak in a Lenten
service at the church.
Described by Baptist historian and former pastor Everett C.
Goodwin as a highly regarded
denominational leader, Ashbrook had been serving since
1940 as the executive director of
the Ministers and Missionaries
Benefit Board of the American
Baptist Convention, an organization that provides pensions for

2015 S.I. Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

to suffer. Maybe you will put us

in jail and we will go with smiles
on our faces, but we will still love
you. Bomb our churches and our
homes and we will still love you.
We will meet your capacity to inflict suffering with our capacity
to endure suffering.
There are a lot of people it
is pretty hard to like, people
who are trying to defeat you at
every turn and to bomb your
home. But you can still love
them and respect them as human
beings.
We must never use second
and third class methods to attain
first class citizenship.
The Reporter Dispatch,
April 1, 1960

The announcement of Dr.

Martin Luther Kings visit in
the Scarsdale Community
Baptist Church bulletin

Forest Ashbrook
retired Baptist ministers.
Ashbrooks effort to bring
King to Scarsdale began in January of 1959. Rather than attempting to contact King directly, he
extended the invitation through
another historic civil rights fig-

ure, Bayard Rustin.

Best known for his role as the
lead organizer of the 1963 March
on Washington, Rustin became a
close advisor to King in 1956 during the early stages of the Montgomery bus boycott. A seminal
event in the American civil rights
movement, the boycott was trigContinued on next page

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015/THE SCARSDALE INQUIRER/REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

MLK
Continued from previous page

gered by the arrest of Rosa Parks

on Dec. 1, 1955 for refusing to
yield her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus.
It was Kings leadership as
president of the Montgomery Improvement Association during the
successful 382-day boycott that
first brought him to the worlds
attention. Rustin mentored King
throughout the boycott on the
philosophy and practice of nonviolent direct action. Rustin was
also instrumental in the creation
of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, which
provided King a platform to coordinate campaigns and spread his
influence throughout the nation.
As King advisor Andrew Young
said in a 2003 interview, Bayard
was to him like an older brother.
Rustins connection to Ashbrook is less clear, but the two
were likely acquainted through
their association with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Christian pacifist organization known
for its civil rights work. In 1959,
at the same time he held the fulltime paid position of executive
director of the MMBB, Ashbrook
was also serving as treasurer of
FOR. Rustin had been a key figure in FOR from 1941 to 1953,
most famously as a participant
in the Journey of Reconciliation
in 1947 that challenged segregation laws on interstate buses in
the Upper South through civil
disobedience. It is likely that
Ashbrooks time with the group
overlapped with Rustins.
Ashbrooks first letter was sent
to Rustin at the Manhattan offices of the War Resisters League,
the secular pacifist organization.
Rustin had become WRLs executive secretary in 1953.
Ashbrook began his letter,
Dear Mr. Rustin: The Scarsdale
Community Baptist Church, of
which I am a member, is planning a series of Lenten Services
in 1960 in which we hope to
have outstanding speakers who
will bring messages of unusual
significance for the day in which
we live. It is our plan that there
be an honorarium of $150 plus

expenses for each speaker. We

would like very much to have Dr.
Martin Luther King be with us on
one of these occasions.
Ashbrook listed open dates,
then concluded, I shall greatly
appreciate your bringing this
matter to Dr. Kings attention on
next Monday. It will be a great
pleasure and, I believe, an important opportunity for extension of
influence if Dr. King finds it possible to be with us next year.
The dinner was an annual WRL
event then just three days away at
which King was slated to speak.
But it appears that Rustin neither
brought the matter up with King
at the dinner nor forwarded him
the original letter. The day following the dinner, King departed
on a six-week trip that included a
tour of India to learn more about
the nonviolent philosophy and
practices of Mahatma Gandhi.
Although described by Goodwin as a somewhat shy and
sometimes taciturn man, Ashbrook was persistent in his effort
to bring King to Scarsdale. He
tried again that spring, a few days
before King was scheduled to
appear at an event organized by
Rustin, the second youth march
for integrated schools held in the
nations capital.
This time, he reached Rustin
first by phone, then followed up
with a letter on April 16, 1959.
In it, he mentioned that Edwin
T. Dahlberg and Robert J. McCracken had both committed to
take part in the series. This news
would likely impress King as
both Dahlberg and McCracken
were prominent Baptist clergymen well known for their advocacy of pacifism and civil rights.
(A few years later, McCracken
would serve as interim minister
of the Scarsdale church.)
Ashbrook listed the remaining
open dates, then wrote, We are
very anxious to have Dr. King
with us and are stalling confirming any other dates until we have
word from him. He concluded,
I believe this occasion will afford an opportunity for Dr. King
to bring a message that will have
far-reaching influence.
This time, Rustin came
through. On May 11, Ashbrook
received a telegram that read,

2015 S.I. Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

WILL ARRANGE TO BE
WITH YOU MARCH 31, 1960.
CONTACT ME CONCERNING
FURTHER DETAILS. MARTIN
L. KING, JR.
Ashbrook acknowledged the
telegram in a letter to King confirming the date and time. We
are delighted that you have found
it possible to be with us Your
leadership in the Montgomery,
Alabama, situation in terms of
nonviolence and the relevance
of that message for us in America and in the world has been a
creative witness of the essential
meaning of the Christian message. We covet for our community hearing you.
Five months later, in October
of 1959, the churchs founding
and senior minister, Herbert W.
Hansen, wrote to King: We are
very happy that Forest Ashbrook
could prevail upon you to participate in this and we are looking
forward to your visit with us.
Ashbrook next wrote to King
on Jan. 29 wanting to know what
he would be speaking about. It
is our thought that you could
be of greatest help to us if you
would discuss the nonviolent approach which you have made so
successfully in dealing with the
struggle in Montgomery, Ashbrook wrote. Then I would hope
that you would feel at liberty to
go beyond that and apply this
particular approach to any and
all problems which you feel need
our consideration at this time. We
will be happy to have a subject
which you feel will cover in general what you are going to say.
After not hearing immediately
back from King, Ashbrook tried
to reach him by phone. On Feb.
9, an apologetic King wrote
back, explaining that he had
been in the process of moving
from Montgomery to Atlanta to
become co-pastor with his father
of Ebenezer Baptist Church. The
move would allow him to devote
more time to the burgeoning civil rights movement. That same
week saw the first Greensboro
sit-ins protesting segregation at
Woolworth lunch counters.
King went on to explain what
he would be speaking about at
the service. My subject will be
Loving Your Enemies. This will

give an opportunity to discuss

the nonviolent approach under
the theme of Christian love, he
wrote. King also informed Ashbrook that he would stay overnight at a Manhattan hotel.
At this time another interested party entered the picture
Kings book publisher Eugene
Exman. As editor/manager of
Harper & Rows religious books
department, Exman had worked
with King on his first book,
Stride Toward Freedom: The
Montgomery Story, and was
pressing him for another.
Exman, who also lived in
Edgemont, had learned of Kings
upcoming visit to Scarsdale. He
informed Ashbrook of his intention to invite King to dinner at
his home at 140 Old Army Road
before the church service.
King wrote back to Exman on
Feb. 9 to gladly accept the invitation, and ended, We may find
time to talk about the proposed
book of sermons.
On March 18, Hansen wrote
King to inquire about his expenses and travel plans and offered assistance. He enclosed the
churchs Lenten services program and a train timetable for
Scarsdale.
On March 28, King sent Hansen his itinerary. He would fly into
New York the afternoon of the
service, check into his hotel, then
catch a train arriving in Scarsdale
at 5:31 p.m. King went on to inform Hansen that his colleague,
the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, would
accompany him. I am looking
forward to being with you and
the members of your church with
great anticipation, he wrote.
Martin King To Speak March
31 read the above-the-fold front
page headline of the March 25
edition of The Scarsdale Inquirer.
While not the lead story that week,
the placement of Kings photo
above the headline made the article difficult to miss. Everyone
is welcome, it announced.
After 14 months of outreach
and planning, the evening of
Kings Lenten sermon at the
Scarsdale Community Baptist
Church had finally arrived.
The Reverend Dr. Robert M.
Puckett, the churchs associate

Continued on next page

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015/THE SCARSDALE INQUIRER/REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION

MLK
Continued from previous page

minister from 1959 to 1964, recalls Kings arrival at the church

by car. Despite the fact that
Kings home had been bombed in
1956 and he had suffered a nearfatal stabbing at a book-signing
in 1958, Puckett recalls no police
presence at the church that evening. The retired minister most
remembers the turnout for the
event: The church was full and
overflowing for the service, recalls Puckett, 88. Many visitors
in addition to members.
Among those in the overflowing crowd was 14-year-old Eastchester resident Dave Eldredge,
his older brother Niles, 17, and
parents Elly and Bob.
That evening nearly 55 years
ago left an impression on Eldredge that lasts to this day. He
was first struck by the people
filing in to the church, of whom
around 10 percent were AfricanAmerican. This stood out since
the church had not a single black
member in 1960. He recalls the
mood as one of subdued excitement as the audience awaited
Kings entrance.
Dr. King was every bit the
spellbinding orator, Eldredge
recalls, describing the sermon as
superb and riveting.
Eldredeg recalled a hushed
silence after the service as all the
congregants queued up to shake
Dr. Kings hand in the vestibule
going out of the church, When we
shook his hand, Dad said that they
were the softest hands he could
remember having ever shaken
Since everyone wanted to shake
[Kings] hand, it took perhaps
half an hour to clear the church.
King then met privately with
Puckett and other church leaders.
Despite the opportunity, neither Eldredge nor Puckett have
any recollection of anyone snapping a photo of King or asking
for his autograph.
The following day, Hansen
wrote King to thank him for taking part in the service. You did
a splendid job and we are most
grateful to you, he wrote.
On April 6, King wrote to
thank Hansen and the church for

making his visit to Scarsdale

such a meaningful one. He concluded, I will long remember
the experience and the warm fellowship. Please extend my best
regards to all of the good people
that I met.
The only post-event coverage
of Kings sermon appeared in
the next days Reporter Dispatch.
The 600-word article was headlined, Non-Violent Tactics to
Triumph in Civil Rights Battle,
Dr. King Says. The article, with
no byline, appeared only in the
Scarsdale area edition, and deep
into the paper on page 15. The
Yonkers-based Herald Statesman,
a sister publication, published a
condensed 100-word version of
the article under the headline,
Scarsdale Hears Dr. King.
But that was it. Despite its
front page article in advance of
the visit, The Scarsdale Inquirer
inexplicably had no reporting afterward of Kings visit.
And with the exception of
brief references in The Papers
of Martin Luther King, a sevenvolume collection published by
Stanford Universitys King Papers Project, there has been no
mention of Kings visit to Scarsdale since 1960.
It would be another three years
before King found time to finish
his book of sermons for Exman.
Published in September of 1963,
Strength to Love includes a
version of the sermon King delivered in Scarsdale, Loving Your
Enemies. It is one of only three
extant versions of the sermon
in print. The other two are transcripts made from audio recordings of versions he delivered in
Montgomery in 1957 and Detroit
in 1961.
Puckett knows of no recording
having been made of the Scarsdale sermon. King, as is common
with preachers, delivered his sermons without the aid of notes or
prepared remarks. That leaves
The Reporter Dispatch article
as the only record of the exact
words King spoke in Scarsdale
that evening. (See sidebar.)
Loving Your Enemies is
one of the 10 or 12 sermons that
King often preached around the
country, explains Arizona State
University English professor

2015 S.I. Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Keith D. Miller, author of Voice

of Deliverance: The Language of
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its
Sources.
In this sermon and elsewhere,
King doesnt demonize his opponents. He treats them as mistaken
and correctable, no matter how
violently they act toward civil
rights marchers. He preached
the same core themes of nonviolence, love and forgiveness
throughout his career.
According to Patrick Raftery,
the librarian at the Westchester
County Historical Society, King
made a total of 10 public appearances in Westchester County
during his lifetime, all between
1959 and 1965, but he never
again make a public appearance
in Scarsdale. Bu that wasnt for a
lack of trying. Just three months
after his visit to the church,
Scarsdale High School senior
Kerry McGrath wrote to King in
her role as Assembly Committee chairman. The students of
Scarsdale High School, through
their student government, have
expressed a desire to have you
come to speak at one of our assemblies next year, she wrote.
King replied to McGrath on
Aug. 4, 1960. He expressed deep
gratitude for the invitation but
wrote, I must decline in view of
an already overcrowded schedule
for the next 10 or 12 months.
Whenever people reminisce
about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., invariably they will
bring up where they were the
night of April 4, 1968.
Eldredge was a senior in college. I believe it was around 8
p.m. when a friend came into
my dorm room and told me
that Dr. King had been shot,
he recalls. The memories of
that night in March 1960 came
flooding back to me as I processed the terrible news.
Robert Pucketts daughter,
Donna Cox, was too young to remember Kings visit to Scarsdale,
but she has a lasting memory as a
12year-old in 1968 of his assassination. I only recall witnessing
my father weep once in the pulpit
and it was the Sunday after Dr.
King was assassinated, she said.
In Scarsdale, the response was
one of epic proportions. The

week after the assassination, the

headline in The Scarsdale Inquirer read, Scarsdale Mourns King;
2,000 Appear At Vigil; Town
Steps Up Help. The article reported flags being lowered to half
mast, schools being closed the
day of the funeral in mourning,
and village businesses voluntarily closing during the funeral.
But the most impressive spectacle was the silent march in
honor of King held on the Sunday three days after the tragedy.
Organized by members of the
Scarsdale Clergy Club and led
by its members and the village
board, the march began at Butler Field and proceeded to Chase
Park for a memorial service. The
Inquirer reported that the march
stretched at one point from the
post office to Wayside Lane. It
was a display unlike any seen before or since in Scarsdale.
The article on the march
did not mention that King had
preached just feet from the park
only eight years earlier.
Four weeks after its lead story
on the local reaction to the assassination, the Inquirer reported
another death that had a connection to King, in the more traditional location of the obituary
page. Its headline read, Rev.
M.F. Ashbrook.
The brief summary noted that
the 71-year-old Ashbrook had
been a member of the Scarsdale
Community Baptist Church until moving to Phoenix in 1962.
There was no mention of his
most historically significant contribution, not just to the church,
but to the broader community in
which he lived.
But for those like Eldredge
who were present at the Scarsdale
Community Baptist Church on
March 31, 1960, the lack of mentions over the past 55 years has
done nothing to dull the indelible
mark left by that evening: Hearing Dr. King speak and shaking
his hand as the congregation exited is one of the most memorable
events of my life, he said.
The writer invites those with
memories or items related to
Kings 1960 visit or the 1968
tribute to contact him at andy_
[email protected].