ministry has been cited as resulting from a gift for oratory and a "proclivity for dogged enquiry" (Lewis 20, 24), which eventually steered King toward philosophy and theology. Also at work may have been King's first direct experience of racism. Lewis (17) cites King's being compelled to eat behind a curtain on a railway dining car, so as not to offend the sensibilities of the white passengers. During one summer vacation in 1946, King wrote a letter to the editor of the Atlanta Constitution that called for equality of opportunity and rights for all races (Carson 15). Though having misgivings about the "emotionalism of much Negro religion," he was drawn to the ministry at least in part by the example of Daddy King, and in 1948, during his senior year at Morehouse College, King was ordained a minister in Ebenezer Baptist Church. From there he proceeded to Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, whence he graduated in 1951, at the top of his class. That same year he enrolled as a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Boston University.
It was while at Crozer that King read Marx, attracted by his sharp critique of the social inequities of capitalism but repelled by Marx's atheism, "ethical relativism, and a strangulating totalitarianism" (Carson 22). Pacifist and liberal teachings also came into the mix, though King was skeptical of the power of love as "superficial optimism" or "false idealism" (Carson 27) to overcome evil. Only after close study of the teachings of Gandhi, who had "lift[ed] the love ethic of Jesus . . . to a powerful and effective social force on a large scale" (Carson 24), did King's views of the transformational power of love and nonviolence in social action crystallize.
King's theological studies deepened at Boston University. The Autobiography cites his struggle with fundamentalist, liberal, and neo-orthodox Christianity. Rejecting the simplistic nature of fundamentalism, King absorbed features of liberal Christia...