From Lakeland, Florida, of (mostly) fond memory, comes a story by the Lakeland Ledger’s very good religion reporter, Cary McMullen, on Rev. Earl Stallings, a Baptist minister, who was one of the 8 clergymen in Birmingham who supported Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the one who was mentioned by name in King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It’s a rather complicated story, and because of various turns of events, the final version of the Letter ended up criticizing the clergymen as a symbol of over-cautious moderates. But:

In January 1963, two days after Alabama Gov. George Wallace declared "segregation forever" in his inaugural address, Stallings joined seven other clergymen at a meeting. Five of the eight were bishops — two Methodist, two Episcopal and one Catholic. One was a Reform rabbi. Only Stallings and the Rev. Edward Ramage of First Presbyterian Church were Protestant pastors.

They drafted and signed a statement, "An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense," which was a rejection of hard-line segregation. Among other things, it declared that "every human being" was entitled to "all basic rights, privileges, and responsibilities that belong to humanity."

At the time the statement appeared, King and his aides were making plans for a series of demonstrations to test Birmingham’s segregation laws. They were opposed by the segregationist politician Eugene "Bull" Connor, who vowed to arrest any demonstrators.

On Good Friday, fearing violence, the eight clergymen hastily drew up another statement, printed in the papers the next day, that called the demonstrations "unwise and untimely." Pointing to a runoff election the previous week that had voted Connor out of office, they stated "extreme measures" were unjustified. And they commended local law enforcement for using restraint.

What happened, of course, was that Connor’s law enforcement brigade abandoned restraint, so the clergymen’s praise became problematic when taken out of context.

It’s a good article – Rev. Stallings died in Lakeland in February (hence the reason for the article)