Had stormy weather not kept her away, Jo Ann Kaelin Jones might have been at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech in Memphis 40 years ago Thursday.
She had attended a few of his speeches before, without much thought to the gravity of the history unfolding.
When King was assassinated on the balcony of his motel room the next evening, it was a different story.
There was no way she would miss the memorial march for him.
The retired Magnolia librarian, then a nun in the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Ky., was teaching in a suburban Catholic school in Memphis at the time.
She was also attending the meetings of civil rights groups — part of a directive from the Catholic Church to its leaders after the Second Vatican Council to be more active in ecumenical and community groups.
“We were trying to branch out,” she remembered. “With the coming of the Vatican Council, that brought about a lot of changes. … We were being more a part of the community at large. We were called to be a Christian witness in addition to being teachers in the Catholic school.”
That focus led Jones and other nuns in her religious community to tutor inner-city youths on Saturdays and attend an interracial council’s meetings.
At the time, Jones said, the actions were an honest effort to reach out as a church, but not necessarily something she and her fellow sisters realized the magnitude of.
“I wouldn’t say there was a lot of opposition,” she said. “We just felt the call to work.”
But, Jones said, the death of King was pivotal in her realization of the significance of social change occurring around her.
“It was a communal experience I’ll never forget,” she said. “I felt I was a part of history. I was honored and grateful for the opportunity. … Every time I sing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ I remember that march.”
The experience shaped her life’s trajectory.
What was once a religious obligation became a deeply-held personal belief in the need for building bridges.
Jones attended a racial reconciliation seminar in Cleveland, Ohio, that aimed to train leaders on the subject of race relations, and when she was later re-assigned by her religious community to teach at a school in Yazoo City, she decided to dedicate herself to teaching poor children in a historically neglected school that sorely needed help.
She would later leave the sisterhood, convinced her role in doing God’s work was in lay ministry.
“That was a motivating summer for me,” she said. “I came so enthused and idealistic. I was only in my 20s wanting to change the world.”
The starting point, Jones maintains, was hearing King speak.
“I felt that this man was kind of like a prophet,” she said. “A person sent from God with all his frailties to be a person in our American history that would be a witness to the world of peace, love and justice. … We talk about the prophets in the Old Testament. They were frail and flawed also, as we all are, but God uses us to do his work.”
Her friend, Sister Catherine Arnold, now living in Kentucky, remembers both the march and jumble of feelings participants felt in detail.
“I had spent years there (in Memphis) growing up as a victim of the culture that was prevalent,” Arnold said. “Prior to that horrific evening, I was anything but Christian. When I heard that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot I felt a real sense of guilt and knew that I had to redeem myself. … I will always remember the atmosphere that prevailed as we marched. There was peace among the marchers despite the armed soldiers with guns drawn on the rooftops. For the first time in my life I stood in the midst of my black brothers and sisters and did not feel any difference. It was the most tangible experience of God’s grace I have ever had.”
Jones, who went on to spend 31 years as a teacher in Yazoo City, Fayette, Gloster, Jackson, McComb and Magnolia, sees the event the same way.
“For me it was a turning point,” she said. “It just broadened my world.”
