[African-Americana] King, Martin Luther, Jr. Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

An Important Association Copy of Martin Luther King's, Jr.'s Memoir of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Inscribed to Early Organizers of the Boycott, Alfonso and Lucy B. Campbell

New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, (1958). First edition. 8vo. 230 pp. Association copy, inscribed and signed by Martin Luther King, Jr., to Alfonso L. Campbell, Sr., and his wife, Lucy B. Campbell, participants and among the early organizers of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: "To:/Mr. & Mrs. A.L. Campbell/With best wishes/and warm Personal/Regards/Martin L. King Jr." Illustrated with photographic reproductions. Original quarter black cloth over blue cloth-covered boards, stamped in silver, wear to corners and spine ends, light wear along extremities; all edges trimmed; in supplied contemporary price-clipped dust-jacket, and with original tattered dust-jacket; initialed by Lucy Campbell along each edge ("LBC"); gutter worn at recto of rear free endpaper; with Lucy Campbell's illustrated book-plate on front paste-down, and signed and addressed by her on same.

An important association copy of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, first book, inscribed by him to Alfonso L. Campbell and his wife, Lucy B. Campbell, prominent members of the Montgomery, Alabama African American community and among the early organizers of the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56.

When the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) was formed on December 5, 1955, Alfonso Campbell was selected, alongside his close friend Rufus Lewis, to co-chair the MIA's Transportation Committee. The Committee played a critical role in the boycott's ultimate success by creating a vast carpool and taxi network in Montgomery (called "rolling churches") to sustain the protest by circumventing the city's bus system. Alfonso, Lewis, and their numerous volunteers, devised a network of over 40 pick-up and drop-off stations that shuttled virtually all 50,000 of the city's Black residents (more than one-third of the city's entire population) to and from their jobs, churches, schools, and everyday affairs, during the 13-month-long protest. With over a decade of experience as Supervisor of Transportation at Alabama State, Alfonso was instrumental in helping maintain the efficient operation of this complex transportation system, and helped map routes and secure automobiles, fuel, and maintenance, all in the face of harassment and violence from the city's police force (in one instance he was given six tickets in a two-hour period for transporting protesters) and local white population, and at great personal risk to his job at Alabama State. Concurrent with this role, Alfonso also served as chair of the MIA's Purchasing Committee, and through his connections as a part-time car salesman he successfully purchased over a dozen automobiles used in the MIA's carpool system, a noteworthy feat when dealerships routinely refused to do business with boycott supporters. As Jo Ann Robinson, president of the Women's Political Council, wrote in her memoir regarding Alfonso and the Transportation Committee's work, The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It: The Memoir of Jo Ann Gibson Robinson (The University of Tennessee Press, 1987), "the members of the Transportation Committee...did a superb job mapping out the routes for Negroes in every section of the city, and all got free service." (p. 93), and described their work as "so effectively planned that many writers described it as comparable in precision to a military operation." (p. 55). During the long months when the boycott's success was uncertain, the MIA held weekly mass meetings and sermons--often led by Dr. King and First Baptist Church Pastor and Campbell family friend, Ralph Abernathy--to keep the African American community mobilized, which Alfonso and Lucy often attended. During this time Lucy began to chronicle the events and record the experiences of the boycott's participants in an album that is now held in the archives of the Ollie L. Brown Afro-American Heritage Special Collection at The Levi Watkins Learning Center at Alabama State University. Following the Supreme Court ruling in Browder v. Gayle that ended segregation on public transportation, Dr. King officially ended the boycott on December 20, 1956. The following morning Alfonso rode on one of the first desegregated buses in Montgomery alongside Dr. King and other Black leaders in the community who had tirelessly worked to achieve their goal.

Alfonso and Lucy first met Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1954 when King gave his first sermon as the 20th Pastor of the prominent Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. At the time, King was a relatively unknown figure among Montgomery's Black community, and had only recently accepted the position as Pastor, while finishing his doctoral studies at Boston University. Once at Dexter Dr. King quickly sought ways to revitalize the church and make it more socially involved, such as encouraging members to register to vote and join the NAACP. The Campbells and their family were active and respected members of the Baptist community in and around Montgomery, and were drawn by news of the new, young, and energetic pastor. Alfonso was 50 years old when he first met the 25-year-old King, and along with his brother Elisha, was a life-long Deacon at St. James Baptist Church in Waugh, Alabama. Alfonso and his brother were connected to Dexter's storied history through their relative, the Reverend Robert Chapman Judkins, who served as the 13th Pastor of Dexter from 1905-16, and had hosted several social justice forums there that were attended by luminaries such as Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver and W.E.B. Du Bois. While Dexter was not the Campbell family's church, during King's six-year tenure as pastor of Dexter they often attended his sermons, and Lucy and her children regularly attended Sunday School there, where King frequently participated. When the Montgomery Bus Boycott took shape in the winter of 1955, following the arrest of activist and Campbell family friend Rosa Parks, Alfonso and Lucy became some of its most active participants and among its early organizers who sought justice. They attended the first mass community meeting held at Holt Street Baptist Church on December 5, 1955 that created the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) to guide the boycott, and they elected Dr. King as its president. It was organized by Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Council, E.D. Nixon of the NAACP, and other Black leaders in Montgomery. In the years following the boycott the Campbells remained friends with the King family, and remained involved with the MIA, before they moved to Virginia in 1964.

Alfonso Leon Campbell, Sr. (1904-2002) was born in Mitchell Station, Alabama, completed his early education in Mt. Meigs, Alabama, and attended and graduated from the State Normal High School in Montgomery. He graduated from Alabama State Teachers College (Alabama State University) in 1934, where he was a star football and baseball player (he was inducted into the ASU Athletic Hall of Fame in 1983). Following graduation he briefly taught at the State Normal High School before becoming Supervisor of Transportation at his alma mater, ASU. He served in the Army during World War II where he participated in the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, rose to the rank of Master Sergeant, and was decorated with four Bronze Stars. Following the war he resumed his work at ASU where he met his wife, Lucy Barnes, who he married in May, 1946. Like Dr. King, he was a proud life-long member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, and in1963 he became Assistant Dean of Men at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University).

Lucy Barnes Campbell (1920-2013) was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and graduated from Portsmouth's I.C. Norcom High School. She was a member of the first graduating class of North Carolina Central University's School of Library Science and, following graduation briefly served as a librarian at Darden High School in Wilson, North Carolina. She remained at Darden before accepting a position as a staff librarian at Alabama State where she met Alfonso in the 1940s. She returned to the Portsmouth area with her family in 1963 when she accepted a position as circulation librarian at Hampton Institute, and where she published works on the history of the Library School there. Lucy was a life-long member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.

A unique copy of this important chronicle of one of the most critical events of the 20th century Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

Provenance

Alfonso L. Campbell and Lucy B. Campbell, thence by descent in the family