Martin Luther King Jr.'s ties to Pittsburgh, region remembered

Though not as memorable as some of the other iconic moments during his life, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did have several connections to Pittsburgh and the region.

Here is a brief look at some of the local ties to the civil rights leader and minister.

EARLY VISITS TO PITTSBURGH

As Rick Sebak chronicled in 2017 in Pittsburgh Magazine, King first visited Pittsburgh in May 1956 to speak to youth groups at Ebenezer Baptist Church in the Hill District.

He returned two years later to preach at two Sunday services at Central Baptist Church , also in the Hill District.

King headlined Freedom Jubilee events in 1960 and 1961 at Forbes Field in Oakland, calling segregation “nothing but slavery covered up with the niceties of complexity.”

AP

Coretta Scott King kisses her husband the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. outside the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala., on March 22, 1956. King was found guilty of conspiracy to boycott city buses in a campaign to desegregate the bus system, but a judge suspended his $500 fine pending appeal.

PITT TALK

King returned in November 1966 to speak to about 2,000 people inside the University of Pittsburgh Student Union Ballroom. He later fielded questions in the union’s Lower Lounge.

According to The Pitt News, King’s address was titled “The Future of Integration” and he spent most of his talk discussing problems “that remain the ‘Negro’s burden and the white man’s shame.’” That included economic deprivation.

“If the whole nation faced the Negro’s problem, we would be in the midst of a major, staggering depression,” the student newspaper quoted King as saying.

King called for a “massive action program” that would cost billions of dollars to end blight in inner cities and relieve the economic condition of African-Americans.

“If we can spend $24 billion a year in Vietnam and $20 billion for a space program, we can spend the billions of dollars needed to put God’s children in their rightful place,” King said, drawing wide applause, the paper reported.

Tribune-Review file

A file photo of a mural depicting Martin Luther King Jr. in Wilkinsburg.

OPEN INVITATIONS

The King Center archives contain a number of letters written from people in Pittsburgh to King, including one from Eleanor Lofton, acting publisher of The Pittsburgh Courier in 1965. She sought a message from King to include in the newspaper’s “Brotherhood” edition in February 1965.

Another letter in the archives shows that King wrote the McKeesport branch of the NAACP in March 1962 to decline an invitation to speak.

AP

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial for his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963.