Remembering MLK and His Uncle

Fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered by an assassin's bullet.  It was a tragic, sad event in a tumultuous year.  I was 13 years old.

As we mark the anniversary, let's remember King's historic significance as a fearless truth-teller and a force for good, instrumental in compelling our society to move forward.  Let's remember his commitment to peace and justice.  Let's applaud the progress which has occurred and acknowledge that, half a century later, there is still so much more to be done.

And let's shamefully recognize that we have a blatant racist in the White House, a humiliating fact which dishonors Dr. King and his legacy.  (We can rectify that error this November and again in 2020.)
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I'll share a related remembrance which recently percolated to the surface of my memory banks.  (I wonder if my sister recalls this.)

Martin Luther King Jr.'s uncle Joel lived and worked in Mansfield, Ohio, my home town.  The Rev. Joel L. King Sr. was Martin Sr.'s brother, and like his brother and his nephew, a preacher.  Joel King was the long-time pastor of Mount Hermon Baptist, a small black church.  I don't know how he wound up in Mansfield.

From the weekly church directory

I never met this Rev. King, but I saw his photo every Saturday in my local newspaper.  This was back in the day when most newspapers ran a weekly directory of churches, with each listing essentially a small advertisement.  It was common knowledge that Pastor Joel was MLK's uncle, and although he was there for many of his nephew's speeches and marches, he stayed in the background, and when back in Mansfield didn't trumpet his family connection.

News Journal, November 21, 1970

That always puzzled me.  If I'd have been him, my church directory listing would've fairly screamed, "Hey man!  I'm Martin Luther King's uncle!  Come and hear me speak!"  But he never used MLK that way.  Probably felt such self-promotion was undignified.

Rev. Joel L. King Sr. died in Mansfield in 1996 at age 81.  His son, Rev. Joel L. King Jr., lives in Gahanna on the east side of Columbus, and is vice chairman of the Ohio MLK Commission.