go. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s a lowdown shame.”
The next Sunday night worship, after the offering, C. C. asked the members who did not leave after the offering to remain for a few minutes.
After the offering, the members who frequented the “Red Onion” left as before. C. C. spoke to the members that remained.
“I’m going over to the place across the street where some of you say our members are. All of you who will, follow me. We are going just to see, not talk.”
The “Red Onion” was just across the street from the church. C. C. walked out, followed by deacons and other church leaders and members. As the pastor and church members walked in single file toward the Red Onion, they began to hear the music. They heard blues and swing growing louder. When they entered, the dancing church members were “getting down.” They had no idea that their space had been invaded by their fellow church members. Suddenly, someone yelled, “O Lord. It’s the pastor and deacons. They are in here.”
The dancing churchgoers still had their choir robes on or across their shoulders. Dancing ushers wore their church usher badges. All were adults who knew the latest dance craze. Immediately, panic struck. The dancing churchgoers ran in every direction. But the only way out was the front door. They were trapped. When the dancing and music stopped, C. C. said, “Shame on you. All of you church members should be ashamed. And before you sing in the choir or usher again, you will have to talk to the church congregation.”
Later, when I grew older and talked to C. C. and reminisced with some of those who had been involved in the dancing, I was told, “Boy, I wished Jesus Himself had come into that place, rather than your father. I was so embarrassed.”
The next Sunday worship was very sobering. More than twenty-five persons came before the church at the time of the invitation to discipleship. All of them apologized and were restored. This was a time before television and very few people had radios. But this action spread throughout the city by word of mouth and established C. C. as a stern pastor.
In September 1956, when coming home from Lincoln High School, I noticed my dad’s big dog wrestling with another dog. Being a lover of animals, I walked between them and was bitten on the knee. My mother saw it from the kitchen window. She was frantic. My dad came from his study into the kitchen. He was quite agitated. I had no idea how serious it was.
There was an immediate search for the strange dog. Our dog had been vaccinated. The police looked throughout the city without any success in finding the dog. I began taking the regimen of fourteen shots at Green’s Clinic to prevent rabies.
After the painful round of fourteen injections for fourteen consecutive days, I became very ill. I had no appetite and began losing weight. When my condition did not improve, I was admitted to Ruston General Hospital. I spent the next eight months in and out of the hospital. I missed the remainder of that school year. One evening, I heard C. C. and my doctor in a serious discussion.
“Reverend, do you want to tell your son or would you like me to do it?” Dr. Bruce Everett asked.
“No one is going to tell my boy he isn’t going to live,” Dad replied.
Doctor Everett left the room. My mother was in tears. My father spent the nights with me, and my mother stayed home with my siblings and prepared to go to work at Lincoln Elementary School each day. On the night of the serious discussion with the doctor about whether I would live or not, C. C. came to my bed, and before going to sleep, he knelt and prayed a brief prayer.
“Lord, I’ve been standing by your Son for these years. I just need you to stand by mine.”
This was around the beginning of spring. I was released from the hospital a few days later.
All the ministers included in this writing were introduced to me by my father. There are many others, but these are the ministers that greatly influenced me and my generation. I was influenced by John Bishop Huey, Clyde Lewis Oliver, David V. Martin, J. D. Jackson, David Matthews, and L. D. Scott, who said, “Son, you are standing on your father’s shoulders, so you are expected to go higher.”
In 1957, while my parents were attending graduate schools in New York, my mother at Columbia University and C. C. at Union Theological Seminary, I met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. C. C. took my sister Patricia, brother John, and me to Brooklyn, New York, to worship at the Cornerstone Baptist Church; Dr. Sandy F. Ray was the pastor. We sat in the overflow section after walking several blocks looking for parking. I watched Dr. King mount the pulpit dressed in a dark gray jacket, matching gray slacks and tie with “spit” shined wing tip shoes. Even the youngest worshippers like me were on the edge of our seats as Dr. King told of the Montgomery bus boycott and combined his word power with the story of Calvary.
After a standing ovation, C. C. said, “We’ll wait until the last person shakes his hand, and we’ll go speak to him and leave.” After Dr. King had given and received the last hug and handshake from the well-dressed worshippers, he looked in our direction.
“MC,” he said, very surprised to see C. C. “What are you doing here in New York?”
“My wife and I are attending grad school here. I want you to meet my children, and I want them to know you.” Beginning with my sister Patricia, then John, Dr. King shook our hands, asking our names and what grade we were in. When it came my turn, he asked “And what do you want to be when you grow up? A preacher like your daddy?”
I replied very softly, “Yes.”
I remember trying to preach at age seven, only to not receive encouragement from C. C., he didn’t encourage “boy preachers.”
The next year, 1958, less than nine months later, my sister Claudette was traveling alone by train from Ruston, Louisiana, our hometown, to Atlanta, Georgia. She had been accepted as a freshman at Spelman College. Our house phone rang, and C. C. left the dinner table and answered. We knew something was wrong when we heard C. C. telling her, “Calm down. Don’t cry. Listen carefully, find a uniformed worker of the train, tell him what happened, and they’ll put you on a train back to Atlanta.” She had missed her stop. Next, C. C. reached in a nearby drawer and retrieved an address book; he gave information to the operator. Moments later, as all of us gathered around C. C., he said, “Mrs. King, this is C. C. McLain in Ruston, Louisiana. I know your husband and saw him last year in New York.” After exchanging pleasantries, C. C. explained the dilemma and then hung up the telephone.
“What is it, Claude?” my mother asked.
C. C. explained, and we returned to the dinner table. About three hours later, there was a call from Atlanta. Mrs. King and two other ladies from Ebenezer Baptist Church had gotten Claudette situated in a dormitory at Spelman.
Later, C. C. explained how he first met MLK Jr. “The National Baptist Congress met in Denver, Colorado, in 1956. This was around the midway point of the Montgomery bus boycott. By this time, King had become a national figure. So the congress elected him as vice president. However, J. H. Jackson, the convention president, did not agree to King being vice president of the congress, and he arrived in Denver, Colorado, and removed King from the position. Martin was hurt. He was young, in his twenties. Because of Dr. Jackson’s decision, most ministers seemed to back away from Martin. I spent a half day consoling him,” C. C. said.
“I said to Martin, the congress nor the convention will provide a platform large enough for you and your work. The Baptist denomination will not be big enough. God will provide a universal platform for you. Just wait and see,” C. C. said. “Martin was sad, hurt, and embarrassed. Jackson demonstrated
