As the nation remembers the life of Martin Luther King today, we might also remember how Dr. King touched the lives of residents in our town. Documenting these moments when events of monumental significance intersect with our town's history allows us an intimate point of connection, transforming our familiar landscape by providing a larger historical context.
On May 22, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke at Westport's Temple Israel. The occasion was the temple's five year anniversary, at whose rededication ceremony he had been invited to speak. Westport artist Roe Halper, then a member of Temple Israel, presented Dr. King with three low-relief wood carvings. She had created them to capture images from the 1963 Birmingham Civil Rights battle.
Local papers (archives are available at the Westport Library) covered Dr. King's talk, where Rabbi Byron T. Rubenstein introduced him as “a prophet of our times.” History continues to prove this description strikingly accurate.
“Because of scientific genius, the world has become geographically one,” Dr. King told the assembled crowd that day. “It must be socially one as well. We must live together or perish.”
About a month after hosting Dr. King in Westport, Rabbi Rubenstein was one of 16 rabbis who traveled to St. Augustine to march alongside Dr. King. He was among the Civil Rights activists arrested and jailed overnight. On June 21, 1964, he told Westport's The Town Crier that he was “enthusiastic about the determination of Dr. King.”
“When they say they love everybody,” he continued, “in a real sense they mean it.”
The Town Crier reported, on April 11, 1968, that 700 mourners participated in the march, which began on the Saugatuck Congregational Church's lawn, continued down Myrtle Avenue, Avery Place, and Main Street, and concluded at Jesup Green for a memorial service.
According to Woody Klein's Westport, Connecticut, a decade after Dr. King's visit to Westport, Norwalk's Grace Baptist held a memorial gathering in Dr. King's memory, where Rabbi Rubenstein again recalled his time with Dr. King.
“It was in jail that I came to know the greatness of Dr. King,” Klein quotes Rabbi Rubenstein as saying. “While in jail, I never heard a word of hate or bitterness from that man, only worship of faith, joy, and determination."
For further reading: Westport author, artist, and activist Tracy Sugarman spent the summer of 1964 in Mississippi documenting Freedom Summer. His memoir on the subject—We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi—provides an extraordinarily moving account of the time.
This story was originally posted Jan. 16, 2012.