The Dexter Parsonage
Walking in Dr. King's Footsteps: A Reflection from Montgomery - Pastor Kevin
During our time in Montgomery, we had driven by the Dexter parsonage on our bus tour, but something within me felt compelled to return. So during our group's free time, I walked back—1.5 miles from our hotel to the parsonage—needing to see it for myself, to stand where Dr. King had lived.
Standing in front of the parsonage, looking at the right side stoop where the bombing had taken place just underneath the porch in front of me, I found myself reflecting on that pivotal night of January 30, 1956, when his home was bombed while Coretta and baby Yolanda were inside. As an aside—I'm generally a calm and level-headed person who doesn't mind people coming after me. However, I do not respond well when people threaten my family ("just sayin," as our amazing tour guide Wanda often repeated with her personal asides and sometimes comical additions to her storytelling).
But not Preacher King.
When an angry, armed crowd gathered outside his bombed home seeking vengeance, Dr. King stepped onto that front porch and spoke words that changed history: "If you have weapons, take them home. We cannot solve this problem through violence. We must meet violence with non-violence."
In that moment of crisis, I honestly fear what I would have done. Preacher King chose love over hate, peace over retaliation, hope over despair.
After that powerful reflection, I walked from the parsonage to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church with a playlist of civil rights songs filling my ears, following the same path Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. likely took countless times during the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
As a pastor in Raleigh, I'm vividly aware that standing up for justice when it's difficult, choosing love when hate seems easier, and leading people toward light even in the darkest moments—none of this comes naturally. Dr. King's courage at just 27 years old challenges me to examine my own impulses and instincts.
Walking that short distance between his home and his pulpit, with those freedom songs echoing in my ears, I began to think that perhaps this path represents a daily journey we're all called to make—from the easy and broad path to the narrow and more difficult one, from the comfort of willful unknowing to the dis-ease that comes from no longer looking away from hard truths, from indifference and apathy to engagement and action, from paralyzing fear to empowering faith, hope, and love.
At least that's my reflection from Montgomery. My hope. One might even dare to call it a dream.
Just sayin.
