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BY IRA ZEPP

By now, we all know that Martin Luther King Jr., was a civil rights activist, a rhetorician without equal, a prophetic voice who spoke truth to power, and one who used the method of nonviolence to achieve enormous social change for his people. But there are other little known and interesting facts about King which help complete the story of his heroic life. For example:

? The name 'Michael King' is recorded on his birth certificate in 1929. It was a name given him by his father who was also called 'Mike.' Actually, 'Mike?s' father had given him the name of Martin Luther, after two of his brothers. At age five, when young Mike Jr. joined the church, his father changed his own name back to Martin Luther and his son?s to Martin Luther King Jr.

? In 1964, Martin King Jr. was the youngest person in history (age 35) to receive the Nobel Peace Laureate.

? King taught a philosophy seminar at Morehouse College, his undergraduate alma mater, in the fall of 1961, and Julian Bond was in that class. Bond recalls how King, on a moment?s notice, could recite paragraph after paragraph from Socrates and Plato.

? King skipped the ninth and 12th grades and entered Morehouse at 15. He graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary at age 22 (almost an unheard of age for the average seminary graduate) and was awarded his Ph.D. from Boston University at age 26.

? Although he received the grades of C and C+ in his preaching courses at Crozer (imagine Einstein flunking high school physics), he graduated at the head of his class at Crozer, was president of the student body and applied to graduate programs at Edinburgh and Boston. He was accepted by both of these top-notch universities.

? King?s famous 'Dream Speech' in August 1963, was not planned for that day. The words he wrote for the event dealt with the counterfeit check given to black Americans by the U.S. government. 'That check,' said King, 'has bounced because of insufficient funds.' After that eight-minute prepared text was over, King was so caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment that he spontaneously delivered the 'Dream Speech' he?d given several times in the previous year. The second half of the speech however - his dream for America - now has completely overshadowed the brief one intended for that March on Washington.

? The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, invited King to join him for a week-long retreat at Gethsemane Monastery in Kentucky, beginning April 1, 1968. King instead decided to continue his work with the garbage workers in Memphis and was assassinated three days later, April 4, 1968.

? Otto Preminger asked King to play the black senator from Georgia in his film 'Advise and Consent.' Furthermore, a group of liberal friends, including William Sloane Coffin and Carey McWilliams, wanted King to start a third party in 1968. King?s response: 'I have no ambitions in life but to achieve excellence in the Christian ministry.'

? Soon after he was granted his Ph.D. from Boston University, King was offered deanships at Fisk University, Howard University and a professorship at Garrett-Evangelical Seminary in Chicago.

? Joann Robinson, head of the Woman?s Political Council and a teacher at Alabama State, conceived the idea of a bus boycott before King arrived in Montgomery.

? King evolved from a romantic liberal dreamer (bus boycott and race issues) to a realistic radical revolutionary (Poor People?s Campaign and economic issues).

? Martin King and Malcolm X met only once for a few minutes on March 26, 1964. Both were attending a U.S. Senate debate on the Civil Rights? Bill. Malcolm said to him, 'Now you will be investigated.' In fact, Martin and Malcolm were moving closer to each other?s positions in the mid-60s. Malcolm was moderating his incendiary rhetoric and appeared in Selma in January 1965 to speak on behalf of King. At the same time, King was becoming more impatient and aggressive in word and deed.

? King first heard 'We Shall Overcome' at Highlander Folk School, sung by the well-known folk singer, Pete Seeger.

? In December of l967, during a Christmas sermon at his Ebenezer Church in Atlanta, King mentioned several times that his 'dream' for America had become a 'nightmare.' It is a speech we will never hear on the anniversaries of his birth and death.

? McDaniel College (then Western Maryland College) might have been the last college where King would speak. He had to cancel his March 10, 1968, lecture at the College because of an urgent call to mediate the Biafran-Nigerian conflict, a serious national crisis in that area of Africa.

Alas, the accidents and ironies of history.

The Rev. Ira G. Zepp is a retired Elder who taught at Western Maryland College. His previous writings on Martin Luther King Jr. have received much acclaim.

SIDEBAR:
April 4 is the anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The first permanent memorial to King in Maryland is being built on the campus of Anne Arundel Community College.

Carl O. Snowden, aide to the county executive, and Sandra Ferguson, of the Baltimore-Washington Conference, are calling on United Methodists to raise funds to complete the $250,000 memorial by Aug. 28.

Checks may be mailed to: Dr. Martin Luther King Committee, Inc.; P.O. Box 371, Annapolis, MD 21404.