Mother Pollard

Mother Pollard told Dr. King
"God's Gonna Take Care of You"

I have been tortured without and tormented within by the raging fires of tribulation... I have been forced to muster what strength and courage I have to withstand howling winds of pain and jostling storms of adversity. But as the years have unfolded the eloquently simple words of Mother Pollard have come back again and again to give light and peace and guidance to my troubled soul, “God's gonna take care of you.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.[1]

Mother Pollard (c. 1882–1885 – before 1963) was one of the participants in the 1955–1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the U.S. civil rights movement that produced a political and social protest campaign against the policy of racial segregation on the public transit system of Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr. recounted in his writings[2] that after several weeks of walking to her destinations rather than take the bus, Mother Pollard was asked if she was tired, to which she replied, "My feets is tired, but my soul is rested."[3]

It was also told, in Freedom Walkers, that she was close to being 72 years old.[4]

References

  1. Spady, James G. (23 January 2013). Driver, R. Sonny, ed. ""The Folks Made Me Preach:" Dr. Martin Luther King and His Religious Tradition" (PDF). SCOOP U.S.A. R. Sonny Driver. 53 (2): 5. |chapter= ignored (help)
  2. May 14 Archived October 7, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
  3. King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1963). "IV". The Strength to Love. New York: Harper & Row. pp. 125–127. OCLC 577614.
    Related article: "The Strength to Love by The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963). From Chapter IV" (PDF). Jan Hus Presbyterian Church & Neighborhood House / RayBagnuolo.net. 16 January 2011. pp. 7–8.
  4. Kasher, Steven (1996). The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954–68. New York: Abbeville Press. pp. 35, 37, 172, 253. ISBN 0789201232. OCLC 34076501.


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