The divide between Black and white was so distinct and dangerous in Dallas in 1963 that when civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. came to town, he wasn’t welcomed in any Black churches, according to a 2018 WFAA report commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination.
“Peter Johnson, who was friends with Dr. King, said the pastors didn't want to upset the white establishment,” the report noted. "’It hurt Dr. King's feelings,’ Johnson said. ‘It really hurt his feelings.’”
King ended up speaking at the Music Hall at Fair Park in January 1963 when he couldn't secure a church pulpit from which to preach.
In the 2013 book, Dallas 1963, written by Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis and excerpted by The Texas Observer, the authors discuss that night when King spoke in Dallas to around 2,500 listeners. Fair Park was a noteworthy location for an event featuring King at that point in time.
For many years, the State Fair of Texas allowed Black attendees only on designated “Negro Achievement Day,” while at other points in its history the Fair had hosted a highly attended “Ku Klux Klan Day.” The Fair officially desegregated in 1967, four years after King’s Music Hall speech.
A gospel choir was a part of the festivities, as was a mob of protestors who claimed King was a communist.
According to the book, a bomb scare increased the simmering tension at the site.
“By 8 p.m. the police have finally determined that the bomb threat is probably, hopefully, just a hoax to drive King’s audience away,” the excerpt read. “The police teams still circulate inside and outside, keeping a wary eye on the roaming picketers. The police push them at least 25 feet away from the building, so the attendees can continue to enter in an orderly fashion.”
When King finally takes the stage, he gets right to the point, with the book laying out how the speech proceeded:
King decides to focus his Dallas speech on “America’s Dream.”
“Segregation is the strange paradox of the principle that all men are created equal,” he begins, his voice ringing over the hushed audience.
Many people in the room have never heard King speak in person.
“We must get rid of the notion, once and for all, that there is a superior and an inferior race.”
Suddenly, some people are on their feet, interrupting him with rising applause. King pauses and then seems to echo what James has been searching for, pushing for, hoping for in Dallas since the moment he arrived in the city:
“We must develop a powerful action program to break down the barriers of segregation,” and we must be honest “with ourselves and our white brothers: Segregation is wrong. It is a new formula of slavery covered up with nice complexities.”
That wasn’t the only visit the civil rights icon, who would’ve turned 95 on Jan. 15, made to North Texas. His first trip to Dallas took place in 1956, when he preached at Good Street Baptist Church. That was followed by a visit to Fort Worth in 1959. He would come back to Dallas after his 1963 Fair Park speech to speak at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium in 1966.
According to a 2020 article published by Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), King spoke to 2,400 people on March 17, 1966. In his talk, the final one he would give in Dallas before his death two years later, he touched on the themes of peace and unity that had inspired millions and helped bring about unprecedented change in America that continues to be a goal today.
“And so you, out of love, stand up because you want to redeem him,” King said. “And the object is never to annihilate your opponent but to convert him and bring him to that brighter day when he can stand up and see that all men are brothers.”
