Earl Stallings, Alabama pastor caught in civil rights squeeze, dead at 89

Posted: 3/06/06

Earl Stallings, Alabama pastor caught
in civil rights squeeze, dead at 89

By Robert Marus

Associated Baptist Press

LAKELAND, Fla. (ABP)—A white Baptist pastor who was made both famous and infamous by Martin Luther King Jr.’s legendary “Letter From Birmingham Jail” has died.

Earl Stallings, who was pastor of Birmingham’s First Baptist Church when King penned his famous missive in 1963, died Feb. 23 at a retirement home in Lakeland, Fla. He was 89.

Stallings was one of a group of eight prominent white Birmingham clerics—including a Jewish rabbi, Catholic, Methodist and Episcopal bishops, and the pastor of the city’s First Presbyterian Church—calling themselves the “Reconciliation Committee.” In the midst of King’s protests against the city’s segregated public facilities and notoriously racist government, the group penned a public statement April 12, 1963.

In it they urged King and other African-American leaders to back off their protests because, they believed, the protests were counter-productive. “When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets,” they wrote.

King’s letter, written in response while he was jailed four days later, was a scathing denunciation of the attitude of white Southern moderates toward the movement.

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate,” King wrote.

“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action;’ who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”

But King also singled Stallings out in the letter with praise for the stance he took on integrating his congregation.

“I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a non-segregated basis,” he wrote.

As a result of his moderate stance, Stallings became the target of both conservative segregationists and liberal integrationists. Tension over the issue so divided the church that it eventually split over the issue, following Stallings’ departure.

In 1965, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church of Marietta, Ga., where he stayed for 11 years. He ended his career working in senior adult ministries for the Arizona Baptist Convention.

James Netherton, president of Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn., praised Stallings, an alumnus of the school. “Dr. Earl Stallings was a wonderful witness for Christ and a man who understood first-hand that doing what is right transcends doing what is easy,” he said. “He welcomed everyone to church when closing the door would have provided him more job security and spared him death threats.”

Stallings was born on March 20, 1916, in Durham, N.C. After graduating from Carson-Newman, he earned a master of theology degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Prior to his pastorates in Alabama and Georgia, he served churches in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Ocala, Fla.

His wife, Ruth, preceded him in death. Survivors include one son, James Stallings of Wauchula, Fla.; one grandson, James Stallings of Wauchula; one granddaughter, Meredith Beeson Stallings Bolinski of Atlanta; and several nephews, including Carl Bowen of Albemarle, N.C., and Bryant Stallings of Cary, N.C.

He was buried Feb. 26 in Florida.