Ralph Abernathy
Ralph David Abernathy (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was an American civil rights leader. Newly married and having recently accepted the call to pastor a Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, Ralph and his wife Juanita met and became friends with another young Baptist minister and his wife, Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King. The two couples shared many evenings over dinner together discussing ideas, sharing inspiration and friendship. Ultimately, plans were laid for the nonviolent civil rights movement began by the two men and led by Martin Luther King. Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King were best of friends, partners and colleagues. They initiated the most famous Montgomery bus boycott following the arrest of Rosa Parks, and many marches and protests against the "Jim Crow" segregation laws in the south and discriminatory practices through out the United States. They shared many a jail cell following arrests for their peaceful protests. Abernathy was only a few paces behind King when King's life was cut short by an assassin's bullet in Memphis, Tennessee. Abernathy went on to lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that the two had founded together, following King's death.
Early Life
Abernathy was the tenth child of William and Louivery Abernathy, a well respected family of Linden, Alabama. His baptismal name was David after the biblical figure who conquered Goliath. William and Louivery hoped he would embody the same faith and courage of the biblical David. His maternal grandmother, a midwife who aided in his delivery, sensed he had special potential.
Most of the people in Linden, Alabama made their living as farmers. The Abernathy's were no exception. William was a stern and hardworking man who believed the way to improve the lot of African-Americans was prosperity gained through hard work. Through practicing this belief, he slowly invested in land until he owned five hundred acres, one of the largest farms in the area. Due to W.L.'s hard work and frugality, the family was better off than most white families in Linden. In addition, William served on the school board for the black high school in the community, as deacon of the Hopewell Baptist Church and was the first black man to serve on a grand jury in the county.
As stern as his father was, David's mother was kind and loving. She was quiet, gentle and devoted to God and her family. Through her example of motherly love, Louivery taught her children about love and responsibility.
When the Great Depression hit, the Abernathy family was largely insulated from its effects because the farm produced a bounty of all manner of food. Cash crops like cotton could be sold or traded to meet other needs.
The Abernathy family were comfortable but very thrifty. Young David wore hand me down clothes and played with second hand toys. When he started school, he was given the used books of his older brother William. David longed for new books of his very own. His mother saw his anguish about this and just this once, she intervened and stood up to her husband on David's behalf. New books were purchased for the young student. He knew it was his mother's love and understanding of his need that made this happen.
David's family was very religious, regularly attending church and sunday school. David absorbed knowledge of Bible stories and the life of Jesus Christ. At a young age, he began to dream of becoming a pastor. When he was only seven years old, he longed for a personal experience with God. His mother told him to spend a day fasting and praying so that he would hear God's voice and have God "grab his soul". One day David skipped breakfast and spent the day outside praying. Mid-afternoon young Abernathy had the experience he was waiting for. "I only know that a sudden peace flooded my soul, and in an instant I was a different human being", he told in his autobiography. Once touched by God, the young boy headed into the kitchen for a meal of biscuits.
Farm life meant hard work for the whole family. David was assigned to help his mother in the house while the rest of the family tended the fields. He rose early to start the fire in the woodburning stove, milk cows, gather eggs, feed livestock, do errands for his mother and help with meals. He also watched his younger siblings, Susie and James Earl. When he had a free moment, he read or wrote or played ball with his sisters and brothers in the fields. This was a big happy family that enjoyed mealtimes together.
It was when David was twelve that his sister began calling him Ralph David after a teacher she respected. The name held and the rest of the world came to know him as Ralph David.
In addition to the immediate family, many relatives lived nearby. Ralph knew he needed to behave himself when he was out and about because it was likely he would run into someone he knew. He was especially close to his paternal grandfather, George Abernathy, who told stories about his slave years, focusing on the pleasant memories rather than dwelling on bitterness.
Ralph had little contact with whites growing up, so little experience with racism but his father had warned the children that playing with white children could lead to trouble. He only experienced one dangerous encounter with a hateful white man, but was saved by a storekeeper who knew his father, and spoke up on his behalf.
When Ralph David was just a teenager, his father suffered a fatal stroke. Ralph's grandfather George never got over his grief, and passed on several years later.
As World War II began, Ralph's three older brothers left home to serve.
Young Adulthood
In April 1944, Ralph received orders to report to Fort Benning, Georgia for his army physical. He was barely 18 years old. He was called to active duty and was sent with other recruits to Fort Devens, Massachussetts for basic training. Abernathy was dedicated to doing his best and worked hard. He was promoted to platoon sergeant and soon afterwards, boarded a ship bound for France with his platoon. Although the war in Europe was all but over by the time they arrived, they traveled through the continent for "mop up" duty. Ralph saw first hand the devastation that war had brought to the cities and the suffering upon the people of both sides. This experience was pivotal in his decision to commit to a life of nonviolence.
One rainy night Sergeant Abernathy was supervising the punishment of two of his soldiers, who had been ordered to dig a deep hole. He got thoroughly soaked and chilled and fell ill with rheumatic fever. When the rest of his unit was shipped to the South Pacific, he was not well enough to join them and was sent home. Many years later he learned that he and one other soldier in his unit were the only ones to survive the war.
After serving in the army during World War II, he enrolled at Alabama State University, in Montgomery, Alabama, graduating with a degree in mathematics in 1950.
Not far into his college work, Ralph's mother's health began to decline due to rheumatoid arthritis. Ralph was home for Thanksgiving in 1947 to see her for the last time. She died two days later. Ralph was overcome by the fond memories of his youth and the grief of losing his mother. Even though he was one of the youngest, his siblings turned to him as the head of the family.
His involvement in political activism began in college while he was a member of student government and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. He led demonstrations protesting the lack of heat and hot water in his dormitory and the dreadful food served in the cafeteria. In addition, a civics professor explained the power that voting would have for black people. Abernathy grew so inspired by the idea that he convinced a group of students to go to the Montgomery courthouse and register to vote. His colleagues failed to fill in all the blanks on the long complicated literacy test form and were refused. But Abernathy filled in every blank on the form and was rewarded with a voter registration card.
Ralph became more and more devoted to God and his church. On Mother's Day 1948, he stood up at Hopewell Baptist Church and announced his call to the ministry of Jesus Christ.
It was during these college years that Ralph met and began to spend time with Juanita Odessa Jones, a woman whose quick wit and strong character, he admired a great deal. She would eventually become his wife (even though she was determined not to become a preacher's wife).
In 1951 he earned an M.A. in sociology from Atlanta University (later Clark Atlanta University). During the year spent in Atlanta, Ralph was given the opportunity to be a guest preacher in many churches in the area. One sunday, he attended service at Ebenezer Baptist Church to hear another guest preacher, also a student, by the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. He knew immediately that King was an outstanding man.
Career and Legacy
Following graduation, Abernathy took a job as dean of men at Alabama Sate University. He also took a part-time pastorship of Eastern Star Baptist Church in Demopolis, Alabama, near his hometown of Linden. Just one year later, when he was only twenty six, the people of the 100 year old First Baptist Church of Montgomery asked him to be their pastor. He accepted the role.
Once settled into the community at First Baptist Church, Abernathy was ready to share his home and life with a wife. On August 13, 1952, he and Juanita became husband and wife.
The Abernathys enjoyed opening their home and table for guests. One night the young preacher, Martin Luther King Jr. found his way to their dinner table while being considered for the pastorship of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. King was offered the position. Soon Martin and Coretta were regular dinner partners with Juanita and Ralph. The women took turns cooking dinner. A close and enduring friendship and partnership formed between Ralph Abernathy and Dr. Martin Luther King.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
In 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Abernathy and King organized the bus boycott in Montgomery. After a year, the boycott finally ended when the United States Supreme Court affirmed the U.S. District Court's ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional.
Soon after the boycott ended, Abernathy and King met with other African American pastors and formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conferenceto organize peaceful marches and protests for achievement of civil rights for blacks in all spheres of life in the South. King was appointed president and Abernathy became the Secretary-Treasurer. The main purpose of the organization was to bring an end to segregation and to bring about the creation of civil rights legislation.
Birmingham Demonstrations
In the spring of 1963 King and Abernathy and the SCLC leadership orchestrated a massive effort to desgregate Birmingham,Alabama. National media focused attention on the rough treatment of African American protesters by Eugene Connor, Birmingham's director of public safety. King and Abernathy were arrested and jailed along with 3,000 others who were protesting segretated conditions in the city. These demonstrations drew attention to the issue to such a degree that 250 cities of the south initiated desegregation efforts, opening thousands of schools and other public and private facilities to people of all races for the first time.
March On Washington
The success of this effort also helped embolden Pres. John F. Kennedy to send a civil rights bill to the U.S. Congress. Civil Rights leaders demonstrated their support of this bill by organizing a massive march on Washington D.C. held on August 28, 1963. Over 250,000 people joined the march. The following summer the Civil Rights Act was passed. In 1965, the Voting Rights Act was passed.
Abernathy was with Martin Luther King in Memphis, Tennessee when King was assassinated. In fact, they shared Room 307 at the Lorraine Motel the night before.
Abernathy assumed the presidency of the SCLC after King's death. Less than a week after the assassination, Abernathy led a march to support striking sanitation workers in Memphis. In May 1968 he, among others including Jesse Jackson, organized the Poor People's Campaign (PPC) March on Washington, D.C.Hoping to bring attention to the plight of the nation's impoverished, he constructed huts in the nation's capital, precipitating a showdown with the police. The settlement was named "Resurrection City". Abernathy slept in a hotel during the campaign. On June 19 he held a speech at the Lincoln Memorial, in front of tens of thousands of black and white citizens.
Lacking King's leadership and vision, the PPC at Resurrection City quickly became an embarrassment to the civil rights movement. Its demands were unreasonable, and did not fit the political mood of the country. Abernathy began to lose control of the situation to more fiery leaders like Jesse Jackson. Rapes and robberies among the camping protesters became a problem, and there was no police force to keep order. Eventually on June 24, the federal government had to move in, using force to disband the protesters. Abernathy was jailed for nearly three weeks following the collapse of this ill-planned enterprise.
On June 15, 1969, the eve of the launch of Apollo 11, Abernathy arrived at Cape Canaveral with several hundred members of the Poor People's Campaign to protest the money being spent on space exploration, while so many people remained poor. He was met by Thomas O. Paine, the administrator of NASA, who was informed that in the face of such suffering, space flight represented an inhuman priority and funds should be spent instead to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend the sick, and house the homeless. Paine told Abernathy that the advances in space exploration were child's play compared to the tremendously difficult human problems of the society, and told him that "if we could solve the problems of poverty by not pushing the button to launch men to the moon tomorrow, then we would not push that button." On the day of the launch, Abernathy led a small group of protesters in the restricted guest viewing area of the space center, chanting, "We are not astronauts, but we are people." The protest, which had originally been planned by Martin Luther King, failed to generate any support for Abernathy's cause.
Abernathy resigned in 1977 to run unsuccessfully for a Georgia congressional seat.
In 1980, Abernathy was the most prominent African American to endorse Ronald Reagan, along with Hosea Williams and Charles Evers. Abernathy later said he was very disappointed with the Reagan administration's civil rights policies, and he did not endorse him for reelection in 1984.
In the 1980s Abernathy co-founded the American Freedom Coalition, with Robert Grant. The AFC received major funding from Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church and works in partnership with The Washington Times, CAUSA, the American Constitution Committee, and other Unification Church related organizations.[1] Abernathy served as Vice President of American Freedom Coalition until his death in 1990.
He and his wife, Juanita, had four children. His youngest daughter, Donzaleigh Abernathy, is an actress and writer.
Abernathy died on April 17, 1990.
Abernathy received many awards, most notably honorary degrees from Long Island University in New York; Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia; Kalamazoo College in Michigan, and his alma mater, Alabama State University. Interstate 20 and Abernathy Road, in Atlanta, are named in his honor.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
Abernathy, R. (1989). And the walls came tumbling down and autobiography. New York: Harper & Row
Reef, Catherine. (1995). Ralph David Abernathy. A people in focus book. Parsippany, N.J.: Dillon Press.
Abernathy, Donzaleigh. (2003). Partners to history Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph David Abernathy, and the civil rights movement. New York: Crown Publishers.
Rediger, Pat. (1996). Great African Americans in Civil Rights. Outstanding African Americans. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Crabtree Pub. Co.
External links
- Ralph Abernathy (entry in the New Georgia Encyclopedia)
See also
| Preceded by: Martin Luther King |
SCLC President 1968 – 1977 |
Succeeded by: Joseph Lowery |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Abernathy, Ralph |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Abernathy, Ralph David |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | U.S. civil rights leader |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 11, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Linden, Alabama, United States of America |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 17, 1990 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America |
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