I
february 4, 1963
Many thanks to Groton Trustee Jonathan Klein, CEO of Getty Images, for providing many of the Quarterly’s historic photos.
t had been nearly nine years since the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision banned segregated schools, and seven years since Rosa
Parks’ arrest inspired the Montgomery bus boycott. Just four months earlier, President Kennedy had sent troops to quell the violence sparked by James Meredith’s enrollment as the first black at the University of Mississippi. Civil rights protests were on the nightly news and the movement’s leaders well established on February 4, 1963, when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at Groton. Over a two-day visit, Dr. King preached in the Chapel, gave an evening lecture in the Hall, and met with students for an informal discussion. Six weeks later, he would be arrested in Alabama and pen his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Six months after visiting Groton, during the March on Washington, Dr. King would deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech, and the following year he would win the Nobel Peace Prize. “There was the sense that the country was undergoing major convulsions, both domestically and internationally with the escalating Vietnam War, and that in our isolated country outpost of Groton, we were at the very edge of it,” recalled Barton Lane ’66. “So it was remarkable
In the Words of Dr. King
T
hough most alumni who heard Dr. King speak at Groton do not recall specifics of his message, many commented on his deep, sonorous tone and his slow, measured cadence. “What I remember is his extraordinary oratorical style,” said Edward Childs ’67, who was a Second Former when Dr. King spoke. “I was completely captivated by what he said and mesmerized by his presentation even though I didn’t fully understand all he was saying. He spoke with the rhetorical style of a minister from the South. He spoke in these long eloquent phrases full of metaphors. I had not been exposed to that before.” Dr. King opened his Groton speech referencing the “all men are created equal” passage of the Declaration of Independence and its “amazing universalism. It does not say ‘some men,’ but it says ‘all men.’ It does not say ‘all white men,’ but it says ‘all men,’ which includes black men. It does not say ‘all Gentiles,’ but it says ‘all men,’ which includes Jews. It doesn’t say ‘all Protestants,’ but it says ‘all men,’ which includes Catholics.” Dr. King
14 | Quarterly Winter 2013
explained that the American dream offers dignity and worth to every man, but that since its birth, the nation “has been divided against herself.’’ He called slavery and racial segregation “strange paradoxes,” considering the egalitarian words of the Declaration of Independence. Themes and a few key phrases overlap between the Groton speech and the “I Have a Dream” speech delivered six months later. For example, in the Groton speech, Dr. King said, “I’m
convinced that we will be able to transform the
jangling discords of America into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. ...And with this determination and with this
we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope...” In faith,
“I Have a Dream,” he said, “With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into