The Belltower, Samford University

September 8, 2006

Historian Remembers Civil Rights Era Pastor Earl Stallings

"... While other white ministers did fold their hands and sit quietly during the civil rights crisis in Birmingham, Reverend Stallings proclaimed his love of mercy and justice by welcoming black visitors to First Baptist on Easter Sunday 1963..."

I first heard the name Earl Stallings as an undergraduate journalism major at UAB. My professor passed out copies of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” and there, on the typed page at the bottom of a list of seven other names, was Earl Stallings. I knew little about him, other than King addressed this document to Stallings and seven other clergy in the Birmingham area. “Who were these men and what did they stand for?” I asked my instructor. I’ll never forget his response...(more...)

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