Elijah Lewis: “I think this particular deacon, as head of the deacon board, he made a great contribution, and I think when historians…”

“I think this particular deacon, as head of the deacon board, he made a great contribution, and I think when historians pick up their pens and write about this period, they would have to say that this one man had the insight, the vision, to go to Atlanta, as the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) suggested, and convince Dr. King not to go to Chattanooga, Tennessee, but to come to Montgomery, Alabama. That is something I think from time to time in human history, call it what you may, it may be the spirit of history, that tends to track one down, and so Martin Luther King, Jr., was there at the right time in the right city to change not just Alabama, the South, but the Nation. I think because of what happened in Montgomery, in Birmingham, in Selma, we have witnessed what I like to call a nonviolent revolution. We live in a different country, a better country, and we are a better people. I think we saw that. We saw the changes in Selma. We saw it in Birmingham when a middle-aged man walked up to me and said, I want to apologize for what happened here a few years ago. I am sorry. And I think that is very much in keeping with the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence which was very much a part of the movement.”