{"id":74283,"date":"2018-12-18T16:46:45","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T22:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=74283"},"modified":"2018-12-18T22:19:52","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T04:19:52","slug":"mlk-protector-paves-road-for-others-to-accomplish-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/mlk-protector-paves-road-for-others-to-accomplish-more\/","title":{"rendered":"MLK protector paves road for others to \u2018accomplish more\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Dwight A. Weingarten<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

No one knew the building of Warren Avenue Congregational Church better than Rozell \u201cPrexy\u201d Nesbitt, whose first encounter with the church came as a 4-year-old in 1948 after his parents rolled him into the Sunday\u00a0 school with a broken leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, the truth be told, I was the first black person in the building,\u201d said Nesbitt, now 74, whose parents would join the church soon after Nesbitt\u2019s inauspicious first visit.<\/p>\n

Nearly two decades later, \u00a0the same church welcomed the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1966 as the organization made the church its headquarters<\/a> in their campaign to end slum housing.<\/p>\n

Though the Voting Rights Act had been passed the previous summer after the Selma-to-Montgomery march, churches and government officials in Chicago were not eager to welcome King.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big black churches, and churches in general, were scared to death of [Mayor Richard J.] Daley,\u201d said Nesbitt. \u201cDaley did not want King in Chicago at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

While home for the summer from Antioch College, at his mother\u2019s urging, Nesbitt volunteered with SCLC working out of the familiar West Side church, which was built in 1889 and now named the New Greater St. John Community Missionary Baptist Church.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rozell \u201cPrexy\u201d Nesbitt (striped jacket) participates in a Sunday school lesson at Warren Avenue Congregational Church circa 1958. (Photo: Courtesy of Rozell Nesbitt)<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201c[King] sat and listened to me\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

That summer, in a march for integrated housing through Marquette Park, Nesbitt served as one of King\u2019s protectors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was scared to death,\u201d said Nesbitt, who recalls angry white women throwing dog excrement as well as a stone that passed by him and hit King, knocking him to the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrexy, I thought you were this great football player,\u201d\u00a0 Nesbitt recalls King saying in reference to his career as a running back and co-captain of the team at Francis W. Parker School.<\/p>\n

As King was whisked away in a car, Nesbitt and other marchers were put on buses by Chicago police officers, driven back to the safety of a black neighborhood.<\/p>\n

Nesbitt\u2019s volunteer work with SCLC included more than just protective services. He was used as a prospective homebuyer in an attempt to expose racially restrictive real estate practices.<\/p>\n

His work for SCLC also came after his year abroad at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, a trip that served as a valuable source of knowledge to Rev. King.<\/p>\n

\u201c[King] sat and listened to me talk about Africa\u2026for about an hour and a half, two hours,\u201d Nesbitt said, \u201cand from then on he would always call me ‘Prex.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

King was one of many that Nesbitt, an adjunct professor of history at Columbia College,\u00a0 has educated over the years about issues in Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrexy really had an understanding based off his trip,\u201d said Basil Clunie, who met Nesbitt nearly 50 years ago while working with Nesbitt in the Coalition for Illinois Divestment from South Africa.<\/p>\n

Nesbitt also leads educational tours of Southern Africa and Latin America through his organization “Making the Road,”<\/a> which he founded in 1980.<\/p>\n