The photographs are faded now, some nearly a half- century old.
The man with gold-rimmed glasses and long, white sideburns traced his finger along one image. His voice intoned the names like a bell.
“This was 1962, and that’s Martin sitting on the bus right after he got out of jail in Albany, Ga.,” he said. “Next to him is Ralph. And behind them is, well, me.”
That would be the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., his top aide Ralph Abernathy, and the Rev. James Peters, then a young pastor who would march and stand with the civil-rights leader dozens of times before King was gunned down in Memphis, Tenn., 40 years ago today.
Peters lives in Denver’s Southmoor neighborhood. He recently retired after 28 years at New Hope Baptist Church.
As he has done 39 other Aprils, Peters took time this week to remember his friend and mentor. The two met in 1956. Peters was 23, King 27.
“He was beyond his years in wisdom,” Peters said. “He simply believed we could change the soul of America without violence. He was a giant.”
Peters joined King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1959. Four years later, Peters stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, listening to the “I Have a Dream” speech, one of the greatest ever delivered.
“That day he was never better,” he recalled. “He was always good, but that day . . .”
Peters fell into the cadence of the famed “let freedom ring” passage. “Now that was a speech,” he said.
A month after that watershed event, Peters attended the funeral of the four girls slain by racists in a Birmingham, Ala., church bombing. King spoke at the service.
“His face was just etched with pain,” Peters said.
Peters knew the emotion well. He grew up in Washington, D.C., during the 1930s and 1940s. In those days, the nation’s capital was as segregated as any Deep South city: separate hotels, housing, schools, theaters and hospitals.
He was a precocious kid, and the irony was not lost on him.
“It was an amazing contradiction to walk down Constitution Avenue and see all those words about freedom and justice etched in stone, knowing they didn’t include me,” Peters said. “It was staggering.”
Those experiences steeled him for challenges to come.
Peters recalls a night in Birmingham’s A.G. Gaston Motel in May 1963. It had just been bombed by would-be assassins. Peters and other ministers arrived before King and huddled in one room.
“Martin came to us and said, ‘Fellows, you can’t be afraid. We live under this every day of our lives. But we have to stand up for what we believe.’ I took that very seriously.”
King lived under enormous pressure, shouldering the twin burdens of the civil-rights cause and being a public man. But Peters saw a playful side.
“He was a big sports fan and rooted for the Atlanta Braves,” Peters said. “He liked to shoot pool.”
He grinned. “Once I even beat him playing ping-pong.”
I asked Peters what King might think if he could see his country today. There was a thoughtful pause.
“He’d be embarrassed that so many things are named after him,” he said. “That wasn’t who he was.
“And he’d be happy for the progress we’ve made but disappointed we haven’t made more.”
That’s why his cause — our cause — remains alive.
William Porter’s column runs twice a week. Reach him at 303-954-1977 or wporter@denverpost.com.
