Cyrus B. King:
Institute of Religion, United Church, Raleigh, NC (1940-1965)

From 1940-1965 the United Church of Raleigh located on the corner of Hillsborough St. and Dawson St. sponsored the Institute of Religion. On six successive Monday nights in January and February a nationally prominent speaker would address an audience drawn from the entire community. Prior to the address of the evening a dinner was served and series of classes on a variety of subjects pertinent to the issues of the day were offered. Unique for those years was the fact that from its inception the Institute was fully integrated. African Americans and whites ate together, studied together, sat together and listened to together. To my knowledge those were the only full-integrated events in the city of Raleigh in those years.

Among the prominent speakers such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey, Reinhold Neibuhr, Hodding Carter and Rufus Jones, were seven outstanding African-Americans: Ralph Bunche (1950); Benjamin Mays (1954); James Robinson (1957); Martin Luther King (1958); Percy Julian (1959); James Lawson (1961); and James Farmer (1963). Three of these speakers are featured prominently in Eyes on the Prize. Martin Luther King, of course, became the preeminent leader for civil rights and non-violence. When he spoke to the Institute in 1958 h had led the successful Montgomery bus boycott but he had not become the national figure that he was destined to become.  James Lawson trained the leaders of the student nonviolent movement such as Diana Nash, James Bevel and John Lewis who were so important in the Movement and also prominent in Eyes on the Prize.  James Farmer, Director of CORE (Congress on Racial Equity), lie the others a marvelous orator, was the organizer of the Freedom Blues Rides through the South that resulted in terrible violence that TV viewers watched with horror on the evening news.

My wife and I attended these Institute of Religion sessions and as members of the planning committee we had the privilege of meeting and visiting with the speakers at receptions following each program.  It is my judgment that the Institute of Religion, sponsored by the United Church, now Community United Church of Christ, made a significant contribution to the racial justice in Raleigh.  For many of us, our Institute participation gave us the courage to join the street marches and boycotts in the 1960s calling for open accommodations for all citizens without regard to race. The leadership for these marches came from the African-American students at Shaw University and Saint Augustine’s College but some of us middle class white folks are now very pleased that we had the courage to follow their leadership although at the time we did it with fear and trembling.