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Before his “I Have A Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington, civil rights leader Martin Luther King gave an earlier version of the address in Rocky Mount in 1962.

North Carolinians did not wait for the emergence of a national civil rights leader to begin the movement at home.

The state was already deep in the fight by the time Martin Luther King Jr. was recognized as a national leader in the late 1950s with activists focused on integration, employment and increasing voter registration.

“That is not to suggest that King was undeserving,” Levine Museum of the New South staff historian Willie Griffin said. “He was one of the most thoughtful and important leaders that Black Americans have ever seen. He is what a leader should be. He was constantly evolving and trying to bring people together.”   

Kelly Alexander Sr. reactivated Charlotte’s NAACP branch in 1940, helping it become the nation’s largest chapter. “MR. NAACP,” as Alexander was known, would serve as president from 1940-1944, and later executive secretary from 1944 until he died in 1985.

“I have to remind people that North Carolina’s civil rights engine was a well-oiled machine by the time King really emerged in 1957,” Griffin said. “You had a network of organizations across the state who were already working to dismantle inequality, particularly in terms of integration.”

A group of Black men attempted to play golf at Bonnie Brae Golf Course in Revolution Park in December 1951, issuing a challenge to segregation in Mecklenburg County despite their being denied entry. Sixteen people, including Charles Leeper, would file a petition in court that same month. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund joined them in the fight.

The battle for integration in Mecklenburg County continued. Dorothy Counts, Delois Huntley, Girvaud Roberts and Gus Roberts integrated four all-white schools in 1957. Counts spent four days at Harding High School before withdrawing and moving out of state.

Johnson C. Smith University students Charles Jones, Brumit Delaney, Clyde Carter and Haywood Davenport organized sit-in protests in 1960, which led to the integration of lunch counter restaurants across Charlotte. King’s first visit to Charlotte came that September. He referenced the sit-ins during his address, calling for wade-ins at beaches and pools and kneel-ins at churches. King also warned against token-integration, which Charlotte was heavily invested in.

“If you look at the times King came to Charlotte, or even North Carolina, he often made reference to the fact that people in the Deep South looked to North Carolina for inspiration,” Griffin said.

In 1943, 16-year-old Doris Lyons was fined $5 for refusing to ride in the back of the bus – which was required for Black passengers. The arresting officer was absolved of assault and battery charges. When King arrived on the scene, he advocated for police reform.

King visited Durham in 1956, which is where Alexander connected with him. Alexander broached the possibility of King coming to Charlotte, which he would do three times prior to his death. He was supposed to come to Charlotte in September 1958, but two days prior he was stabbed by Izola Curry in New York. Ralph David Abernathy went in his place.

“Not many people know about this attempt on his life,” Griffin said.

Abernathy, King’s top lieutenant, spoke of the Promised Land in his Charlotte address at the Park Center, signaling the developing rhetoric for King’s best-known speech: “I Have a Dream.” King first used those words in an address in 1962 in Rocky Mount.

“Abernathy advocated for a community of good will and brotherhood, where all men can live together in peace and freedom rings from every mountainside—even the southern mountainside,” Griffin said. “He echoed King’s sentiment about North Carolina. He suggested African Americans in the South look upon North Carolina as one of the most

progressive southern states, but he warned them that they had not reached the Promised Land just yet, but the fact that African Americans in the late 1950s were seemingly working together with white leaders, he said that showed a sign of good faith.”

King visited Charlotte twice more, including a stop at Johnson C. Smith University in 1966. As more students became involved in protests, he encouraged them not to be angry or bitter in their work.

“Those were trying times,” Griffin said. “A lot of students were being attacked wherever they went. He was trying to keep African Americans dedicated to non-violence.”

Other key moments of Charlotte’s contribution to the civil rights movement included the election of Fred Alexander to City Council in 1965. Alexander was the Mecklenburg County’s first Black elected official since Reconstruction, and he went on to serve five terms. In 1964, attorney Julius Chambers filed a federal lawsuit, Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. The lawsuit represented 10 Black families who claimed the school district intentionally maintained segregation through its assignment polices. The Supreme Court ruled to oversee measures to help facilitate school integration.

“Again, folks in North Carolina were not waiting on King to emerge for the movement to start here,” Griffin said. “We had a well-equipped and capable cadre of leadership that had already been on the ground.”  

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