A Conversation With. . .
President Emeritus Of Claremont
Graduate University John Maguire

By Stacy Lawrence
Staff Writer

John Maguire will never forget his first encounter with a “precocious” divinity student who later became the leader of a movement that swept through the nation.

In 1951, Maguire visited a theological seminary in Pennsylvania, where he heard a young Martin Luther King Jr. give a welcoming speech to curious students.

“He was an incredible, forceful speaker,” Maguire says. “He was only 21 years old at the time, so clearly he had the gifts of oratory from a very young age.”

Maguire, an accomplished civil rights activist and president emeritus of Claremont Graduate University, shared common ground with the man whose gifted rhetoric spurred action around the country and caused many to think globally.

“He had the most radical, fresh vision. He really made it international,” says Maguire, who is also senior fellow of the Institute for Democratic Renewal. Maguire’s life journey sometimes mirrored the path of King.

Ironically, King’s death confirmed the truth about society’s ills, about hate, about racial injustices plaguing mankind. Maguire believes King’s premature death shattered his cohesive vision to attain a “beloved community.” And though he outwardly opposed the Vietnam War, comparing the exploitation abroad to the segregation at home, his message was stopped short.

“When King was murdered, no one could deny then that there were forces of racial hatred loose in the land,” Maguire says. “Those forces had to be defeated. He had already spoken about a way to do it. He had already demonstrated ways to do it. Our goal was really to take the King legacy and try to move it forward. Of course, the movement was carried forward by thousands of unknown, unsung people.”

On February 24, at the annual interfaith/intercultural breakfast hosted by the California Conference for Equality and Justice, Maguire continues where King left off. He says King’s message is just as relevant today.

King studied theology and philosophy and identified specific actions to address the problems he witnessed firsthand. He provided a template that, with unified efforts, could be applied to communities here and now.

“He intended to make it systematic,” Maguire explains. “Toward the end, he began to say, ‘Here’s the diagnosis – here’s what’s wrong with America, the world, and here’s what we’ve got to do about it.’”

The press often asked what it meant to have a beloved community. According to Maguire, King’s message was specific: transform our values, reorder our priorities and practice social tough love. He is outlining this agenda in Long Beach.

The relationship between King and Maguire spanned 17 years during the heart of the civil rights movement, beginning in 1951, continuing with the Freedom Rides in 1961 and culminating with a lifetime connection to The King Center in Atlanta.

Prior to that, Maguire lived “a typical, segregated life,” never thinking about issues of racial and social justice. “If anything, [I] assumed the white privileges,” he says.

The two were assigned as weekend roommates at the seminary, learning about each other during late-night conversations: both had “bullies” for fathers, lived in the South and were raised in middle-class, Baptist families. And while King certainly influenced Maguire’s thoughts about the disparity between blacks and whites, he also credits his travels abroad as a Fulbright scholar to expanding his scope internationally.

“As I look back, I’m struck by how insular and provincial my upbringing had been,” Maguire says. “This was my first chance to ever go abroad, [and] it had a tremendous impact. I became international in my outlook.”

When Maguire and his wife, Billie, returned from Scotland in 1954, they began looking for an apartment near Yale University. Signs that read “No Negros need apply” prompted Maguire and his friends to canvass door to door, reversing Yale’s support of discriminatory practices in a week’s time. This marked Maguire’s first successful “direct nonviolent action,” a theory King applied to oppose what he and his followers believed to be immoral, illegal laws.

Maguire stayed in touch with King while in the multidisciplinary graduate program at Yale, where he studied literature, psychiatry and religion. He later accepted a position at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. As King started his first ministry in Montgomery, Alabama, Maguire put him in touch with Cliff and Virginia Durr, “white liberals” who became King’s close friends.

Around the time Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat for a white passenger, King joined the Montgomery Improvement Association, a civic group of mostly African-American pastors. Realizing they could garner international media attention about social injustices, the association organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955.

“They had to have someone who could be the face of it,” Maguire says of King’s early days as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. “They all met, and they kind of drafted him. There was no question that the best public speaker [was] this new, young guy.”

Lasting just over a year, the boycott proved successful when the federal court declared segregation on Alabama’s public transit system to be unconstitutional.

“He was influenced by Gahndi,” Maguire says of King’s techniques. “They said, ‘We’re willing to pay the consequences. If we have to go to jail for this, we’ll do it. But we’re going to dramatize the illegality and the inequality of these laws,’” relating to voting or public accommodation or interstate travel.

Laws regarding segregation on local public transportation had been defeated, but those relating to interstate travel had not. A racially mixed group – known as the Freedom Riders – attempted to overturn federal legislation. They set out to travel from Washington, D.C., through the South to Jackson, Mississippi. As part of the group that sparked angry, violent protests, Maguire was arrested in his hometown of Montgomery in May 1961.

“Buses were set on fire, [people] were beaten; it was a terrible summer,” Maguire says. “But it turned out our arrest . . . started a case that made its way all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

He notes the Interstate Commerce Commission lifted segregation laws just six months after the Freedom Rides, while the U.S. Supreme Court declared them to be unconstitutional in 1964.

During the early to mid-’60s, Maguire remained in frequent contact with King, driving him and his colleagues to private colleges in New England for fundraising.

“They needed money desperately, and these were wealthy, prominent private colleges,” he says. “I would meet them and drive them there about two weekends a month. Of course, that kept me in steady conversation with him about what he was doing.”

Maguire says King’s opposition to the Vietnam War marked a turning point because “no racial leader had spoken out about American involvement overseas.”

“He drew a deep connection between what was happening in the United States and our involvement in Vietnam,” he adds. “Then, at his death, people sort of went their [separate] ways – some of the black leaders went into business; many tried their hand at politics. He held it all together – politics and economics and international relations.”

King received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. By 1967, Maguire was leading fundraising efforts to establish a facility that housed a library and archive center and served as a place for civil rights activists to rest, rejuvenate, study and go back in the field. Just eight months later, King was assassinated.

King’s wife, Coretta, completed his vision and established The King Center in Atlanta. She decided that Dr. Benjamin Mays, King’s mentor and president of Morehouse College, should lead the new center. Maguire served as the first chairman, from 1968-1969, until Mays assumed the role after retirement. Maguire is a lifetime member of the board.

Maguire remembers going to Atlanta after hearing the news of King’s death; Coretta asked him to sweep the house as guests poured into the home. Maguire and Billie, four months pregnant at the time, named their daughter Ann King.

Today, Maguire says the country has made great strides in civil rights and higher education, as more African-American students pursue their degree. He notes a university’s population should reflect that of the surrounding community, though the economic downturn has impacted minority groups.

As for voters electing the country’s first black president, Maguire believes Obama has politically re-engaged “a whole segment of the population that was really disillusioned.”

“He has stood for a new vision of a beloved community rhetorically,” Maguire says, noting he’s the first president to do so since Lincoln.

Even though Obama has been criticized for failing to fully implement his “bold and comprehensive” vision, Maguire says he has encouraged new political leadership and appointed many African-American leaders in key roles.

“Obama’s problem is that he may not have narrowed down his agenda well enough to the doable,” Maguire says.

While King supported a guaranteed annual income for all Americans, Maguire says that he looked beyond government to solve society’s shortfalls. King believed the private sector, universities and communities should be equally accountable. This might be where King and Obama differ in their vision.

“The goal would be to take the vision of a beloved community and have each institution ask itself, ‘What part of this can we uniquely do?’” Maguire says.

The 19th Annual Interfaith/Intercultural Breakfast, hosted by the California Conference for Equality and Justice, begins at 7:30 a.m. on February 24 at the Hyatt Regency Ballroom, 200 S. Pine Ave. Registration is at 6:45 a.m. Individual tickets are $38. Parking is free. For more information, call 562/435-8184 or visit www.cacej.org.