The Seminarian: Martin Luther King Jr. Comes of Age

By: Patrick Parr, David J. Garrow - foreword

Narrated by: Brad Sanders

Martin Luther King Jr. was a cautious 19-year-old rookie preacher when he left Atlanta, Georgia, to attend seminary up north. Immediately at Crozer Theological Seminary, King, or "ML" back then, found that he was surrounded by a white staff and white professors. Even his dorm room had once been used by wounded Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.

His fellow seminarians were almost all older; soldiers who'd fought in World War II, pacifists who'd chosen to resist fighting. Young and alone, it would take the friendships of Walter McCall, Horace Whitaker, and the mentorship of Rev. J. Pius Barbour to begin to grow in this new environment.

During seminary, ML was a prankster and a late-night, chain-smoking pool player who fell in love with a white woman while facing discrimination from students and the surrounding area of Chester, Pennsylvania. In class, ML performed well, but started a habit of plagiarizing that extended throughout his academic career. Between the years 1948-1951, ML King Jr. delivered dozens of sermons around the Philadelphia area, had a gun pointed at him twice, and eventually became student body president. In the end, his experiences at Crozer shaped him into a man ready to take on even greater challenges. The Seminarian is the first full-length narrative and definitive account of MLK's years as a divinity student at Crozer Theological Seminary. Long passed over by biographers and historians, this three-year period in King's life was vital in preparing him for his difficult road ahead.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2018 Patrick Parr (P)2018 ListenUp Audiobooks

As a current seminarian, I could relate ...

...to the shaping that takes place in a person who has a hope for making a difference in our everyday life.

First of all, excellent topic and thorough research from many different sources who have been in proximity and relationship to the young ML. I also appreciated hearing how the events of the day that impacted his life personally but also events that were happening in his school and world also affected ML (and the other students/staff). Details about every aspect of his life in seminary helped me to imagine what it might have been like and some of the tensions he faced in that time.

I should maybe add that I am a mixed race older student at my seminary which is primarily white (in Central Texas). I did very much appreciate that the reader of this audiobook sounds like an African/Black American although the author is Caucasian. The reader read with gusto as well. The writing kept me engaged, although I wondered if some of the topics (deep dive into aspects of study or preaching) will be as appreciated by those who have not attended seminary or Bible school. I could relate to those topics and especially the pulpit supply preaching opportunities as well as the question of how to develop oneself as a person- do you keep your traditional culture (of preaching or Biblical hermeneutics) or do you embrace the exposure of ideas and new ways that are offered from attending a school in a totally different community/ beliefs than what you are accustomed? The answer for myself and for ML as affirmed to me through this book was that our shaping is a personal and unique journey for each one of us. This book unfolds semester by semester after a setting the stage with the introduction and sharing a bit of what happened after.

I loved this book and glad I initially ran across it posted up in my local library for the upcoming Rev Dr MLK Jr holiday.

King's seminary years

Summary: Exploration of King’s years at Crozer Seminary, from the time he was 19 to 21.

The Seminarian is the first book to deal particularly with Martin Luther King’s seminary experience. MLK was young, only 19 when he graduated from Morehouse College and started his seminary program. Crozier was also his first extended time away from home and a predominately White institution, although by the time of his graduation, about half of the small class was Black. But the institution, the professors, the administration the curriculum was White.

The Seminarian is well written and organized. It is well documented and in areas where there is necessarily speculation, that speculation is well explained and clearly understood as speculation. In addition to talking about King’s coming to maturity and grappling with his call to ministry and covering the curriculum and education at Crozier, there are two main contributions that I think The Seminarian provides to King scholarship (at least at the lay level).

First, there is lots of discussion and documentation of King’s romance with Betty Moitz, a White woman and the daughter of seminary cook. (King worked in the cafeteria so also knew Betty’s mother well.) That romance, which was very guarded, proceeded very slowly, but ended before it went too deeply. It appears that King reluctantly broke the romance off because he was encouraged to by his friends who were concerned that King would both not be able to be a preacher in the Black church with a White wife and that King would not be able to move south at all with White wife. It appears that King’s family never knew about the romance. Parr did speak to Betty Moitz and other friends of King’s at the time that did know about the romance and the discussion is something new to King scholarship.

Second, and not new to King scholarship, but I think helpfully presented, is King’s plagiarism. Parr had access to many of King’s papers and documented thoroughly that King at the time plagiarized routinely in his writing. This was both sloppy citations and presenting others work as his own. From what Parr can tell there was no example of any of his professors pushing him to do a better job citing his papers or explaining the problems of plagiarism. This was a different era, papers were mostly hand written and there were not tools for professors to check papers for plagiarism. Some reviews I have read have complained that Parr was simply trying to explain away King’s plagiarism. But I do think the discussion is helpful because while not removing King’s culpability in the plagiarism, there was a responsibility for his teachers (both at Morehouse and Crozier) to have done better job teaching the reasons for proper attribution and how to do it.

The Seminarian was not comprehensive of the three years at Crozier. As was pointed out in one of the Amazon reviews, the book really could have explored the support structure of the broader Black community. There is lots of discussion about Rev Barber, a local pastor who mentored King and allowed him to preach at his church regularly. However, the broader Black community was an area that was inadequately investigated. King is discussed preaching at local churches regularly. And how he benefited from the small income that his preaching gave (as well as how his father’s connections helped facilitate that preaching.) But what explored was mostly explored from the perspective of individuals within the Black community and not the role of the Black community itself. I do think this is likely a weakness that is a result of Parr being a White man.

I am very glad that I read this. I have been in a bit of a reading funk lately and this is the first book I have read straight through in weeks. It reminds me that I really do want to read some more of the fully length biographies of King this year. The King presented here was a real person. He played pool, and played it well. He was both rebelling from his father’s control and growing into his own calling. He was learning and exploring new ideas and new contexts. He was only 21 when he graduated, but there is a maturity here that I think does matter to his later years. Most of his classmates were much older than he was, but he was class president and in charge of the student led chapels and both his leadership roles and the older students I think did help mature him.