Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been 93 years old today. His journey as a civil rights leader was profoundly important to Beauford and I want to acknowledge this fact and celebrate his birth in today's blog post.
Dr. King is mentioned three times in Beauford's biography entitled Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney. Author David Leeming first evokes King's name in the chapter called "Boston and Harlem," when he refers to William Monroe Trotter as possibly being the "ancestor" of Dr. King's nonviolent civil disobedience movement. In the same chapter, he notes that Beauford moved from Boston to New York City in November of the year of King's birth.
Much later in the book, Leeming indicates that Dr. King's assassination had a "disastrous" effect on Beauford's mental health.
Dr. King and Beauford both loved jazz and gospel music, and both particularly loved Mahalia Jackson's singing. Watch a video of Jackson singing to Dr. King at a 1967 Chicago, IL church service here:
and watch her sing "I'm glad salvation is free"—a song that Beauford recalled as he traveled back to his hometown of Knoxville, TN in March 1950—here.
Happy Birthday, Dr. King!
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