First Listen: Lead by Being Led, Part 2

Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership: Inspiration and Wisdom for Challenging Times
by Donald T. Phillips

(Page 2 of 2)

5. Innovate

The bus boycott created a major problem for Montgomery's African-American leadership. How would they get thousands of citizens to and from work without the benefit of the method of transportation to which people had long been accustomed?

Because they were faced with a new problem, one that had not been encountered before, it was obvious that they were going to have to generate some creative and imaginative solutions. Accordingly, the MIA set up a transportation committee to deal directly with the question to how to get people around town.

Someone came up with the idea of contacting all the taxi cab companies in town to work out some sort of a deal. Sensing a possible windfall in business, eight of Montgomery's taxi businesses agreed to transport people for the same fare as that charged on city buses cents.

The committee also devised a clever car pool system with more than forty pickup and dispatch stations located strategically around the city. Hundreds of people volunteered automobiles and their time in order to make the car pool successful. People who did not work offered to drive any time of day (some drove all day long). Many who had jobs volunteered to drive before and after working hours. With generous donations, the MIA purchased a number of station wagons, dubbed them "rolling churches," and registered them as church property. Within a relatively brief period of time, more than three hundred automobiles were being dispatched in a well-thought-through system that efficiently moved people around town.

Where was Martin King during the implementation of these five steps? Even though elected president of the MIA, he was not as far out in front as most people naturally think a leader's place should be. He was, in fact, pretty much in the middle of the pack, perhaps even a bit to the rear.

Martin was something of a reluctant leader at first. He feared that he would take on too much for one person to handle and often related to others that he had been "suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest." "Everything happened so quickly," he said, "that I had no time to think through the implication of such leadership. . . . I neither started the protest nor suggested it," he admitted. "I simply responded to the call of the people for a spokesman." Having been asked to serve, however, he couldn't say no. "[So] we started our struggle together."

Naturally tentative at first, he followed the lead of others, worked in groups, and made no major policy decisions without the input and approval of other leaders in the MIA. Because he had not sought the point-and even hesitated at accepting it-Martin may have been the best possible leader for the movement to have had under the circumstances. To paraphrase Plato: "Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it." At that moment in time, the people of Montgomery involved in the bus boycott may have needed a leader whom they could trust to listen-one who rode with them-more than they needed someone who would simply tell them what to do.

While it's true that the people chose him to lead because, among other things, he had no known agenda, he had a high rate of energy, he was perceived as someone who would try to do the right thing, and he could communicate effectively-Martin, by his own admission, was "unprepared for the role." "This is not the life I expected to lead. But gradually you take some responsibility, then a little more. . . . You have to give yourself entirely. Then once you make up your mind that you are giving yourself, you are prepared to do anything that serves that Cause and advances the Movement. I have reached that point. I have given myself fully."

Early on in the Montgomery movement, Martin was gauging the wishes of the vast majority of people-following their lead. Essentially he was listening. And in doing so, he was gaining greater and greater trust from people as the months went by.

The best leaders realize that people want to know that their ideas and thoughts are being, at the very least, heard. Only then can there be a chance that those concerns may be acted upon. When leaders listen first, then speak, they are engendering trust in those who would follow. Furthermore, listening is not only an important aspect of leadership, it is an art. Like a painter in touch with his subject, effective listeners take in everything they hear, analyze it within the context of the environment, and then create an image for their minds to absorb. Stephen R. Covey, in Principle-Centered Leadership, wrote that leaders "listen to others with genuine empathy," and that they "seek first to understand, then to be understood." In essence, then, leaders simply must be good listeners. How else can they understand and act for "certain goals that represent the values-the wants and needs, the aspirations and expectations-of the people they represent?"

The desire for lifelong learning common to many creative leaders (including Martin Luther King, Jr.) also fosters an equally strong tendency to listen. That's because listening and learning go together. As the adage goes: "You can't learn anything if you are always talking." Deborah Tannen, in You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation, noted that "listening is a way to show interest and caring" and that women "hear a language of connection and intimacy." With this realization, one can logically conclude that the art of listening-a decidedly more female characteristic than male-is a critical part of the language of connection. And connecting with people is something at which all leaders must excel if they are to be successful. As a matter of fact, listening itself is so critical in leadership that any leader who is not a good listener will be a failure.

In general, the skilled art of listening has four major benefits for any individual who desires to lead people. It 1) builds trust, 2) facilitates understanding of the people's aspirations and expectations, 3) enables learning, and 4) fosters connection and rapport with others.

Once Martin King formally assumed the mantle of leadership, he did not fail to step forward and take on responsibility for key management issues, and was proactive on a variety of levels. For instance, he oversaw the renting of office space and hiring of a small staff for the MIA. He constantly monitored the boycott's progress and effectiveness and, in response, worked with the leadership group to reevaluate and reset goals-and then create methods for implementation. Also, in an ongoing effort to keep the people informed, he increased the number of mass meetings held each week. At many of these gatherings, Martin took it upon himself to describe the movement as part of a much broader issue. In so doing, he inspired sustained involvement of a wide range of individuals.

"Our struggle here," he said a few months into the boycotts "is not merely for Montgomery but it is really a struggle for the whole of America." At other meetings, he merely expressed the feelings of the vast majority of participants. "As I look at it, I guess I have committed three sins. The first sin I have committed is being born a Negro. The second sin that I have committed, along with all of us, is being subjected to the battering rams of segregation and oppression. The third and more basic sin which all of us have committed is the sin of having the moral courage to stand up and express our weariness of this oppression." At most meetings a vote was held where the people unanimously agreed to continue the boycott.

As the cost of running the MIA and the boycott increased to $5,000 a month, Martin hit the road to give fund-raising speeches. Because the Montgomery movement had generated national attention, leaders of the MIA were in constant demand to tell their story. And because of his excellent speaking ability, Martin was the most popular of the group. Everywhere he went, he told the Montgomery story with eloquence, made it compelling to the audience, and constantly employed metaphor and drama. "Montgomery is known as the Cradle of the Confederacy," he'd say. "It has been a quiet cradle for a long, long time. But now the cradle is rocking. Dixie has a heart all right," he'd tell his audience. "But it's having a little heart trouble right now." Within a year of the beginning of the bus boycott, more than seven thousand individual contributions had been received from around the world totaling nearly $250,000.

The MIA needed every penny of that money to combat the resistance of the white establishment to the movement. The success of the boycott was evident early as the bus company quickly released a statement that it was losing twenty-two cents for every mile each bus traveled. As a result, a variety of methods were attempted to halt the movement. Bus runs in some of the black sections of town were canceled-but revenues went down even further. The police commissioner warned all taxi cab companies that they had better charge the legal minimum of forty-five cents per rider or they would be fined. That move effectively eliminated the use of taxis as a form of cheap transportation. At the same time, city policemen began harassing and dispersing groups of people waiting at pickup points for the car pool. And then one day, insurance policies on the MIA's station wagons were unexpectedly and mysteriously canceled-which prevented the vehicles from being used in the car pool transport system. Government leaders even attempted to settle the dispute with three African-American ministers who were not leaders in the MIA. When the city announced that a permanent settlement had been reached, MIA executives moved quickly to denounce the agreement as a farce. They confronted the black preachers, forced a retraction, and then announced publicly that the boycott would continue.

By the end of October 1956, Montgomery city attorneys finally devised a move that looked like it was going to end the movement once and for all. They petitioned the court to issue an injunction dissolving the MIA's car pool as a private enterprise operating without a permit. When a temporary injunction against the car pool was issued, MIA leaders stopped the project. As Martin later explained: "Many persons would have been arrested . . . cited for contempt of court and a lot of money would have been tied up and paid out. So, on [that] basis, as law-abiding citizens, we abided by the injunction."

At that point, things looked bleak for the protesters. They had managed to stay off the buses for nearly a year. But now their chief form of alternate transportation had been effectively eliminated and they were going to be tied up in court defending themselves against a city that also demanded $15,000 in punitive fines. Even though he had private doubts, Martin maintained an outwardly optimistic attitude. "The car pool is out of operation," he told the press. "[But] I don't believe any court would be ambitious enough to get an injunction against feet. . . . So we're going to continue to walk and share rides."

On November 13, Martin, as president of the MIA and chief defendant in the city's legal action, was sitting at the head table preparing for a long day in court, when he was handed a note. It informed him that the U.S. Supreme Court had just upheld a lower court decision that declared Alabama's laws on bus segregation unconstitutional. He immediately realized that the Court's decision meant victory for the Montgomery movement regardless of the city's current legal action. "The universe is on the side of justice," Martin declared euphorically. That night, MIA leaders held an executive session and agreed to call two simultaneous mass meetings to inform the people of the new development. In addition, they would recommend that the boycott be continued until the Supreme Court's order was formally mandated in Montgomery.

When Martin spoke at one of the mass meetings, he told his audience of the Supreme Court's decision and what it meant. The crowd was delirious with excitement, but he cautioned them: "I would be terribly disappointed," he said, "if any of you go back to the buses bragging. We won a victory. . . . But we must take this not as a victory over the white man but as a victory for justice and democracy. . . . Let us go back to the buses in all humility and with gratitude to Almighty God for making this decision possible." After his speech, the audience joyously and overwhelmingly voted to endorse the leadership's recommendations.

Five weeks later, when the Supreme Court order finally reached Montgomery, the MIA called two more mass meetings, distributed a leaflet entitled "Integrated Bus Suggestions," and released the following statement (written by Martin Luther King, Jr.) to the African-American community:

This is the time that we must evince calm dignity and wise restraint. Emotions must not run wild. Violence must not come from any of us, for if we become victimized with violent intents, we will have walked in vain, and our twelve months of glorious dignity will be transformed into an eve of gloomy catastrophe. As we go back to the buses let us be loving enough to turn an enemy into a friend. We must now move from protest to reconciliation. . . . With this dedication we will be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man's inhumanity to man to the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.

On December 21, 1956, at 6:00 a.m., Martin King, Ralph Abernathy, E. D. Nixon, Rosa Parks, and Glen Smiley (a white minister from Texas who had supported the boycott) waited at a corner bus stop near the King home. "I had decided I should not sit back and watch," remembered Martin, "but should lead them back to the buses myself."

When the bus pulled up, Martin was the first to board. "The bus driver greeted me with a cordial smile," he later wrote. "As I put my fare in the box he said: ?I believe you are Reverend King, aren't you?' I answered: ?Yes, I am.' ?We are glad to have you this morning,' he said." Martin thanked the driver, took a seat next to Glen Smiley as the others boarded the bus, and then the bus pulled out.

The Montgomery bus boycott lasted for over a year days to be exact. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on both sides. More than forty thousand people, as Martin Luther King, Jr., said, "expressed in a massive act of noncooperation their determination to be free. They came to see that it was ultimately more honorable to walk the streets in dignity than to ride the buses in humiliation."

It wouldn't be long before the rest of the South, and ultimately the rest of the nation, was embroiled in a social revolution-with periodic episodes of intense violence-that would last for more than a decade. In general most of the violent acts occurred as retaliation or revenge by the opposing side after some momentous advance.

In Montgomery, for instance, there was an immediate backlash in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision and the MIA's resulting victory. The Ku Klux Klan rose up and terrorized the African-American sections of town. Snipers began firing on buses and gangs of white racists attacked helpless passengers. A pregnant woman was shot in the leg while a teenage girl was savagely beaten. At least five black churches were bombed-two of which were completely destroyed. Several ministers' homes were also damaged by bombs, including Ralph Abernathy's and E. D. Nixon's. When Martin toured the ruins, he blamed himself for the suffering. "We are dealing with crazy people," he exclaimed. "I am to blame." But others near him assured King that the violence was not his fault and that they still supported him. "We are all together until the end," they told him.

People realized that, through the entire year of the movement, it had been Martin King among the leaders who had, perhaps, suffered most of all. He had received thirty threatening phone calls and letters a day. He was arrested for driving thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five-mile-per-hour zone. And he was indicted by a grand jury (along with eighty-nine other members of the MIA) for violating Alabama's boycott law and for "being party to a conspiracy." He was found guilty, and fined $1,000. Although released on appeal, he had become a convicted criminal in the eyes of the law.

Retaliation against him also took the form of serious physical violence. Someone fired a shotgun through the front door of the King home and, in two separate instances, threw bombs onto the front porch. One, with twelve sticks of dynamite, smoldered but did not explode. The other blew up the porch and a good portion of the front of the house while Coretta, their baby daughter, Yolanda, and a neighbor (all unhurt) were in the back kitchen.

After this act of violence, Martin's father, known as Daddy King, insisted that his son leave Montgomery and return to Atlanta for his own safety and that of his family. But with his wife, Coretta's, support, he stood up to Daddy King and refused to leave. He also took on the white establishment. "Tell Montgomery that they can keep shooting and I'm going to stand up to them," he said defiantly. "Tell Montgomery they can keep bombing and I'm going to stand up to them."

In addition, Martin encouraged the people involved in the protest, many of whom were afraid, not to back down-and to remember what they were fighting for: "This is a conflict between justice and injustice," he said at a mass meeting. "If we are arrested every day, if we are exploited every day, if we are trampled over every day, don't ever let anyone pull you so low as to hate them. . . . Let us not lose faith in democracy. For with all of its weaknesses, there is a ground and a basis of hope in our democratic creed."

After his own house was bombed, hundreds of angry people came over to survey the damage and retaliate. The policemen present, fearing the group would turn into a violent mob, asked King to come out and speak. When Martin stepped out onto what was left of his porch, he held up his hand and the agitated crowd grew silent. "Everything's all right," he said at first. "The police are investigating and nobody has been hurt."

Then he tried to calm the crowd. "I want you to go home and put down your weapons. We cannot solve this problem through retaliatory violence," he told them. "We must love our white brothers, no matter what they do to us. We must make them know that we love them. . . . This is what we must live by. We must meet hate with love."

When Martin finished, everybody went back to their homes. And there was no further violence that night.

"As people began to derive inspiration from their involvement, I realized that the choice leaves your own hands. The people expect you to give them leadership. You see them growing as they move into action, and then you know you no longer have a choice, you can't decide whether to stay in it or get out of it, you must stay in it."

Martin Luther King, Jr., November 1956

"I had decided I should not sit back and watch, but should lead them back to the buses myself."

Martin Luther King, Jr., December 1, 1956

© 1998 by Donald T. Phillips

About the Author

Donald T. Phillips is a widely recognized figure I the field of leadership. His books include Lincoln on Leadership, The Founding Fathers on Leadership, and Martin Luther King, Jr., on Leadership. He speaks frequently around the country to various corporations, government groups, and professional organizations.