Ralph Edwin King Jr. (born September 20, 1936), better known as Ed King, is a United Methodist minister, civil rights activist, and retired educator. He was a key figure in historic civil rights events taking place in Mississippi, including the Jackson Woolworth’s sit-in of 1963 and the Freedom Summer project in 1964. Rev. King held the position of chaplain and dean of students, 1963–1967, at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. At this critical juncture of the civil rights movement, historian John Dittmer described King as “the most visible white activist in the Mississippi movement.”
As Tougaloo College chaplain, King collaborated with many of the key figures in the civil rights movement, including Bob Moses and others from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Medgar Evers of the NAACP, James Farmer and David Dennis of CORE, Dr. Martin Luther King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and activists from the Mississippi COFO (Council of Federated Organizations), including Fannie Lou Hamer, Lawrence Guyot, and John Salter.
King was also a co-founder of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), a member of the Democratic National Committee, and a delegate to three Democratic National Conventions. He and other surviving MFDP delegates were honored at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston on the 40th anniversary of their efforts to end racial discrimination in the Democratic party.
Early life
King was born on September 20, 1936, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Ralph Edwin King Sr. and Julia Wilma Tucker King. His father, whose family came from West Virginia and Louisiana, was an engineer with the Mississippi River Commission. His mother’s family had deep roots in the antebellum history of Mississippi. King’s great-grandfather had served under General Robert E. Lee, and his grandfather, J.W. Tucker, was sheriff of Warren County, Mississippi.
As a youngster growing up in historic Vicksburg, King was deeply moved by stories of the deprivation his family suffered during what was called the “Yankee torture” of the besieged city near the end of the Civil War. Ed spent many hours at the Vicksburg battleground, reflecting on the great costs of war. While still in his teens, he was drawn to pacifism and became an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi. Later, he recalled that pacifism came to him much earlier than more progressive attitudes about race.
A good but not overly distinguished student, King was never subjected to standardized testing until his senior year at Carr Central High School. Suffering a sinus infection while taking the SAT test, he was convinced he’d done poorly and would never be admitted to Millsaps College, a popular destination for high achievers. “Two weeks later I learned I had won a scholarship," King said, "having probably placed second or third in the state.”
Education
Millsaps College (1954–1958) While still in high school, King attended church youth meetings at Millsaps College, a Methodist liberal arts school in Jackson. He never considered going to any college other than Millsaps, where, as a student, he was to witness firsthand the depth of white resistance to the Supreme Court’s landmark desegregation decision, Brown v. Board of Education.
As an undergraduate at Millsaps, King attended all-white Citizens' Councils meetings and was dismayed to see how white moderates were forced into silence. He also participated in interracial meetings at nearby Tougaloo College, where he met Medgar Evers and other prominent black civil rights leaders. Other important influences for King at Millsaps were sociology chair Ernst Borinski (a refugee from Nazi Germany), vocal critic of segregation George Maddox, and philosophy chair Robert Bergmark.
Boston University (1958–1963) After graduating from Millsaps in 1958, King left Mississippi to attend Boston University School of Theology, where he became a regular participant in interdisciplinary meetings of religious, pacifist, and civil rights activists.
In December 1958, he met Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama, starting a friendship that led to his involvement in the planning of the 1960 civil rights sit-ins with Rev. Jim Lawson of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It was in Montgomery in March 1960 that Ed King was first arrested for acts of civil disobedience.
King received two degrees from Boston University: Master of Divinity (1961) and Master of Sacred Theology (1963).
Other education
King also attended the University of Michigan (summer 1956) and Harvard Divinity School (on a Merrill Fellowship, 1966).