Description: Author...... CHALMERS, Dr. Allan K Title....... They Shall Be Free Publisher... Garden City: Doubleday, 1951 Intro. by Walter White. 255 p . 1st ed. C.L. Dellums' copy, SIGNED by him on the front & rear paste-downs.Story of the Scottsboro case written by the chairman of the Scottsboro Defense Committee Allan Knight Chalmers served as a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., during King’s years at Boston University, and continued to influence King throughout the civil rights movement. In Stride Toward Freedom, King’s memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott, he wrote of Chalmers’ commitment to social justice, which was rooted in his optimism and faith in humanity. Allan Knight Chalmers served as a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr., during King’s years at Boston University, and continued to influence King throughout the civil rights movement. In Stride Toward Freedom, King’s memoir of the Montgomery bus boycott, he wrote of Chalmers’ commitment to social justice, which was rooted in his optimism and faith in humanity. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1897, Chalmers received his BA (1917) from Johns Hopkins University and his BD (1922) from Yale University. He joined the faculty at Boston University in 1948 after serving as minister of New York’s Broadway Tabernacle Congregational Church for 18 years. During his career, he was chair of the Scottsboro Defense Committee during the 1930s, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, treasurer of the NAACP, and was active in the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Religion and Labor Foundation. Chalmers retired from Boston University’s faculty in 1962. Chalmers was a personal and professional supporter of King and the movement. In early 1956, as treasurer of the NAACP, he wrote to King promising to support the Montgomery bus boycott: “We will back you at the national level without any question” (Papers 3:173). In December 1960 he organized a meeting of leaders from various civil rights organizations, such as FOR, the American Friends Service Committee, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America, Congress of Racial Equality, and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to discuss how they could cooperate to move desegregation forward in the South. Earlier in 1960 Chalmers had expressed his personal concern for King after meeting with civil rights supporters in New York. In a 6 March letter, he told King: “It is possible that the strenuousness of the job that you are up against plus the pressure even of such friends as we are has filled your program so full that your opportunities for reflection have been taken away.” Chalmers warned: “A man gets thin if he does not read, becomes inaccurate if he does not write, but most of all loses a profoundness if he does not think” (Papers 5:435n). Chalmers remained active in the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and in other peace, religious, and political groups until his death. Allan Knight Chalmers was a social justice activist who mentored Martin Luther King Jr. during King's time at Boston University. Chalmers, who was a minister, engaged in numerous civil rights activities and played a major role in key civil rights organizations. This collection contains material on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s as well as the crucial years of the black freedom movement that preceded it. It includes clippings, articles, and other printed material on the civil rights movement. For example, it has information on or correspondence from a number of civil rights organizations and leaders, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Martin Luther King Jr., James Forman, A. Philip Randolph, Kivie Kaplan, Coretta Scott King, Ralph Bunche, James Farmer, Thurgood Marshall, Stokely Carmichael, and the Alabama Council on Human Relations. In particular, it contains information on the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, of which Chalmers was president, and the Scottsboro Boys case of 1937. Chalmers was chairperson of the Scottsboro Defense Committee from 1935 to 1945. Concerning his role, there are letters from the NAACP, the 'boys,' and the NAACP as well as financial records of the committee, indirect correspondence of Eleanor Roosevelt's interest, information on the Communist Party, and other materials. This collection includes tape recordings of a few of Chalmers's sermons: 'Religion and Discrimination,' April 5, 1964 (Box 57, also see Box 82). In addition, it has a number of printed copies of his sermons, lectures, and speeches, including a memorial address he delivered for NAACP leader Walter White in 1955 and his address upon retiring form the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund PORTLAND, Me., Jan. 23—The Rev. Dr. Allan Knight Chalmers, minister of the Broadway Congregational Tabernacle in New York from 1930 to 1948, died here today. He was 74 years old and lived in Kennebunkport. Rights and Peace Leader Dr. Chalmers was a leader in both the civil rights and Christian peace movements. Typical of his preaching on those subjects was his farewell sermon at the Broadway Tabernacle in 1948, when he said: “I cannot reconcile the principles of Christianity with the practices of war. Does that mean, ‘except under certain circumstances?’ Or, again, a man is a man, except in some instances of where race, color or creed is involved. “There can be no exceptions. Men come to you and say, ‘But you've got to be practical.’ The answer still is the same—there are no exceptions.” Dr. Chalmers served as professor of preaching and applied Christianity at the Boston University School of Theology, from 1948 to 1962. Headed Defense Funds He had been chairman of the Scottsboro Defense Committee and he was a past president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He had also served as a director of the American Civil Liberties Union. Dig deeper into the moment.Special offer: Subscribe for $1 a week.Until 1970 he taught parttime at St. Francis College in Biddeford, Me., and conducted several seminars at the Grad uate Theological Union at Berkeley, Calif. Dr. Chalmers was born in Cleveland. He was graduated from Johns Hopkins University, in 1917 and received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Yale in 1922. In World War I he served with the Foyer de Soldat of the French Army and with the Motor Transport Corps of the United States Army. He was ordained a minister of the Congregational Church in 1922. Dr. Chalmers was a founder of the New York Ministers’ Peace Group Meeting in Riverside Church in 1935. He had served as a trustee of Talladega (Ala.) University, Berea (Ky.) College and the Wiltwyck School of New York. Editors’ Picks Louis Menand Examines the Churn of American Culture After World War II After Covid Upended a Dying Woman’s Rome Dream, Her Twin Stepped In A Small Two-Bedroom or a Big Studio With a View? Here Were Their Options.Continue reading the main storyDr. Chalmers was on the executive committee of several organizations, including the Religion and Labor Foundation, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Fair Employment Practices Council. He received the Alper Award of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1963. He was the author of “The Commonplace Prodigal,” published in 1934; “Candles in the Wind,” 1947; “High Wind at Noon,” 1948; “They Shall Be Free,” 1951, and “That Revolutionary—Christ,” 1957. Surviving are his widow, the former Margaret Glenn Post; a daughter, Mrs. Gustave Todrank; a brother; three sisters and two grandchildren.
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