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For Donzaleigh
Abernathy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights
Movement were more than a dream. Abernathy’s parents,
Juanita Jones and Reverend Ralph Abernathy, have been
described as King’s “closest friends” and co-creators of the
American Civil Rights Movement.
While
Donzaleigh’s young life was forged in the crucible of the
powerful, nonviolent social movement, she is now a
critically acclaimed actress, author and activist,
fulfilling her own dreams.
I spoke
with Abernathy prior to her keynote address for the 2017
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Celebration at The
University of Toledo’s Savage Arena.
This is part one of the interview.
Perryman:
It is not well known that your father, Ralph David Abernathy
and your mom were co-creators of the Civil Rights Movement
along with Dr. King. How did it all come about?
Abernathy:
Well, at the time, my dad was Dean of Men at Alabama State
University and also the pastor of First Baptist Church,
which was the largest black church in Montgomery, Alabama.
When Martin Luther King came to Montgomery, they had met
each other while my dad was at graduate school, and so they
became friends. But my dad had just completed the membership
drive for the Montgomery NAACP and King was working on his
dissertation for his doctorate degree from Boston
University. Daddy’s membership drive, which was the most
successful membership drive ever at the time, had come to a
close and my dad was going to go and get his doctorate’s
degree also. But then Rosa Parks was arrested, and they had
been talking about the crisis and what was happening to
black people in Montgomery.
My dad’s
mentor, Dr. Vernon Johns, had gotten my dad all involved. My
dad’s grandfather, Grandpa George, a biracial man and who
was 12 years old when Abraham Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation, also influenced my father.
Grandpa George grew up under reconstruction as a free man
with the right to vote and then the new century came and
black people lost their voting rights.
So, he
taught my grandfather, my father’s father, as well as my
father, about Reconstruction, about black people having the
right to vote, about black people losing that right to vote,
how imperative it was that we must fight that good fight for
our rights. And my father’s father used to say to him that
justice would not always be denied to Negroes, the bottom
rail would come to the top.
And so,
that set the tone for what would be my father’s life. He
organized his first boycott when he was at Linden Academy,
he organized his second boycott when he was president of the
student body at Alabama State, and the Montgomery bus
boycott would be my dad’s third boycott. And so what
happened was that when Rosa Parks was arrested, because my
dad was the number two guy of the Montgomery NAACP, E.D.
Nixon called him that evening, which was my mother’s
birthday, December 1, to tell him that Rosa had been
arrested.
And Rosa
was not the first or the second, but she was the third black
woman to be arrested on the Montgomery bus just for refusing
to give up her seat. E.D. Nixon, who was a Pullman porter,
said “I’ve gotta leave town, Ralph, but we gotta do
something” and my dad said, “Okay, I got this.”
The
following morning, my dad met with the ministers at the
Ministers Conference and issued the first call for the
creation of the Civil Rights Movement. He called upon all
of those black ministers to join him in what would be an
organized bus boycott. He said to Martin Luther King, who
was his best friend, “I need you to come join me in this.”
Uncle
Martin said, “Listen, I’m working on my dissertation, but
what you can do is you can use my church.” So my dad said
he would come by every night and pick up Uncle Martin and
take him to the mass meetings, and then on the third day,
Uncle Martin was chosen as the head of the Montgomery
Improvement Association because he was the only black
minister who had a doctorate degree and they figured that a
black man with a doctorate degree, white people would listen
better to him than a minister who was just a reverend. And
so my mother wrote the business plan for the Montgomery bus
boycott.
After my
dad made the announcement on December 10 calling for the
creation of this bus boycott, Jo Ann Robinson, who was my
dad’s fellow professor over at Alabama State, and others
passed out fliers to the school children to take to their
parents. My mother typed fliers and paid young boys to pass
out those fliers and that’s how it all began. And so that’s
why my parents are co-founders of the American Civil Rights
Movement.
If my
dad had not decided to organize his third boycott December
1, 1955, we never would have had a Civil Rights Movement,
Uncle Martin would’ve just been a great minister who
would’ve probably become a college professor and
specializing in philosophy and Rosa Parks would’ve just been
another black woman who’d been arrested on the bus, but my
dad changed all that.
And
that’s why my dad was always there with Martin Luther King,
that’s why he was never a lieutenant. He was the advisor,
he was the thinker, he was the planner, and that’s why he
was always with Uncle Martin, and people always questioned
“Why does Martin Luther King have Ralph Abernathy with him
all the time? Why are they inseparable?” The answer is:
Because they were doing something together.
Uncle
Martin was a great prophetic speaker and an incredible
voice, but my dad was the thinker behind all of that, the
planner, the strategist, the person who kept everything
together. He was the man who was determined to make
history. Dad was the man who is responsible for the holiday
that we celebrate; the man who found his way to figure out
how to honor his friend. So, in 1969 he went on that
mission, took it to Congressman John Conyers and to Senator
Ed Brooke, and then when Congress passed the bill into law,
they paused and thanked my father. But history doesn’t
record him for all the great things that he did, but he did
those great things.
Perryman:
Interesting. Please share with our readers about what you
witnessed during those times. What was it like, as a child,
to experience journeying through the struggle of the Civil
Rights Movement with your dad and Dr. King.
Abernathy:
Well, you know I thought it was really profound and at first
I assumed other children lived like us, but they didn’t.
Only the King children lived like we did. It was terrifying
because there were daily death threats and that was
horrific. Going to bed every single night of my youth
hugging the wall and being afraid that they were going to
bomb our home again. People calling our house calling us
the ‘N’ word, or having to say goodbye to my father every
Monday morning and being afraid that he would die. He told
us that one day, he would not come back through that door
and that we needed to be prepared for that.
It was
incredible going on Civil Rights marches and participating,
attending the march on Washington and seeing that sea of
people. Sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,
running around Abraham Lincoln, thinking that I knew what
was happening, but not really knowing what was happening.
Going on
the Selma to Montgomery march, they used to give us a salt
tablet so that we wouldn’t have to go to the restroom.
Marching and feeling free, yet still having fear that the
KKK would harm us. Being frightened because they burned
crosses and killed people on a regular basis, and my dad
would come home and open up his briefcase and I rambled
through the briefcase and would see the photographs from
Associated Press or from UPI, United Press International,
and seeing bloody photographs of black people and being
afraid they were going to do that to my dad.
Knowing
that my dad was in jail and being repeatedly jailed for
doing good, not for doing bad or going to various
establishments that we knew were segregated and wanting to
get something to eat and watch my dad having to go in the
back door to get food for us or riding shotgun on Highway 80
as we rode from my dad’s family’s home in Linden from Selma
to Montgomery and watching every car and everyone on the
road for fear somebody was going to drive by and shoot us
and kill us like they killed Viola Gregg Liuzzo, and then
being traumatized so that I would refuse to use the bathroom
in a church after the bomb went off at 16th Street Baptist
Church, being traumatized, completely traumatized because of
that.
But
then, that was the great joy of growing up with Uncle
Martin. It was just nothing but fun and laughter, and we
spent our summer vacations together and we spent every
Saturday night and Sunday together, and then if they were in
town on Wednesday, they’d take us swimming, the men would,
and that was great.
And it
was wonderful to see them on the news. The horrible part,
and we saw them on the news every week, but the horrible
part was seeing them on TV the night that Uncle Martin was
assassinated. Even though, and my brother and my sister said
it was a crown and a curse, and Yolanda King, Martin’s
daughter, used to say we were cursed.
But, I
thought it was a blessing because I wouldn’t trade it for
anything in the world, and I wouldn’t trade my skin color
for anything in the world because we are descendants of
slaves. We are also the descendants of kings and queens
from Africa who were brought here against our will and
chained in the bottom of ships and brought to this great
land, and we built this land.
My
mother’s mother is of Native American ancestry and so this
is the land of my people as well. My blood and my history
are entrenched in this land. My people have lived here, the
Native American side of us, for as long as humans have
inhabited this land.
So yeah,
this is my home and so I realized that there was a higher
power that connected me to this great father and amazingly
beautiful mother, and that I’m blessed, no matter or
whatever the hardships that have been in our lives. We’re
still blessed.
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org
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