The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. is an iconic figure around the city. You see his image painted on walls in schools, housing projects, churches, and African American neighborhoods. This is the imaginary presence of the Atlanta, Georgia pastor who has inspired a nation. His civil rights movement was also a historic national event. However, you may be surprised about how often the man from Atlanta showed his presence in the everyday life of the city since at least 1950.
Queens as the training ground for America’s great civil rights leader
Did you know that in the Fall of 1950 that he did a seminary internship in East Flushing, Queens? This area, which overlapped with Corona, became so famous from the large and prominent African American community that it became labeled by an anthropologist as “Black Corona.” The legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong lived here as did Malcolm X. The young student King interned at a church, the First Baptist Church of East Elmhurst (Corona), that had 1000-1500 attenders every Sunday. In 2022, it celebrated its 100th Anniversary.
As a young student, King was trying to get away from the shadow of his famous pastor-father, the Reverend Martin Luther King, sr. Though the son went to a Southern college, he quickly made his way north to seminary, Crozier Theological Seminary in the Philadelphia area, and then to Boston University. He was uncoupling a little bit from the weight of being a Preacher’s Kid. In seminary, He was known as a ladies’ man, a pool shark, and not too diligent in his studies. so, when the crafty pool player took up a pastoral internship in East Elmhurst at the church of a friend of his father, he walked into a hornet’s nest.
Looking at the field report on King’s internship filled out by the Revered William E. Gardner, it seems that the local pastor decided to give the young ne’er-do-well a taste of bitter medicine. Gardner gave an “A” rating for “poise” and “self-confidence,” but crushed that praise with a note that that young intern had: “An attitude of aloofness, disdain & possible snobbishness which prevent his coming to close grips with the rank and file of ordinary people.” He evidently saw King as someone whose pretensions knew few boundaries.
He said King got a “C” in cooperation, preparation, concern for individuals in the group, and willingness to accept criticism, He allowed only a “B” for each aspect of pulpit performance. You get the feeling that he felt King was just clocking his time until he got back to pursuing the “important” fun things of the world. Gardner concludes that the seminarian showed off “a smugness that refuses to adapt itself to the demands of ministering effectively to the average Negro congregation.”
Wow, the local pastor really let King have it: only above average in the use of his voice or the content of his preaching and uninterested in getting people to cooperate with him. Maybe, this shocking evaluation helped King to get back onto the path to being one of the greatest preachers and dynamic leaders of a historic social movement. He also soon fell in love with a non-Georigian Coretta Scott and maybe that had something to do with his change of direction.
But a kick in the pants to the pastoral success of one of our greatest religious leaders started here in East Elmhurst, Queens, New York City.
