Martin Luther King Jr. “A Knock at Midnight” - February 11, 1962

A Knock at Midnight

Details

King penned this sermon outline for the Youth Sunday Services of the Woman's Convention Auxiliary, National Baptist Convention. A report of the proceedings described King as “the Mahatma Gandhi—in the present day American race crisis.”1 Written on stationery of the Woman's Auxiliary, it is based on Jesus' illustration of a neighbors response to a persistent friend seeking bread at midnight. Drawing on D. T. Niles's homily “Evangelism, King notes that while many look to the church during their time of need, “hundreds & [thousands] of men and women in quest for the bread of social justice” leave disappointed.2 King later prepared a full version of this sermon for publication in Strength to Love.3