Letter to the Editor: A lesson is civil rights

In researching "Remembering Judy" which was published in the Winter 2014 issue of Social Register Observer magazine, I ran across something that brought tears to my eyes. My former lower school principal at Rye Country Day, Sam Peabody, a highly-respected educator and scion of a centuries old shipping fortune, had a mother who was recognized by Dr. Martin Luther King for her contribution to the St. Augustine movement. As I told my Columbia College students last evening, Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" was at work here.

Dr. King realized that African-Americans had laid all of the foundations that would eventually lead to passage of The Civil Rights Act. But he also realized, as Adam Smith did, that "division of labor" would help the cause. For example, Adam Smith's thinking caused Warren Buffett to donate $37.1 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation a few years ago. Why? Because Buffett knew that Bill Gates could give away the Buffett fortune better than he himself could.

Enter 72-year-old Mary Parkman Peabody, responding to a recruiting drive by Dr. King and the SCLC. While this patrician white lady, dripping in pearls, was attempting to get arrested in St. Augustine at a table with African Americans, her daughter, Marietta Tree, was impatiently waiting in her Barbados home along with her guest, the Queen Mother. Finally, the Queen Mother had to leave, but not before telling Marietta Tree, "I do hope your mother gets arrested soon."

Mary Peabody's arrest was front-page news internationally. Dr. Martin Luther King sent a heartfelt telegram to her son, Gov. Endicott Peabody of Massachusetts, who lost a primary challenge by supporting his mother's extremely courageous act. What was needed was an individual so prominent that the world would realize that it was time to come out against "the American Holocaust."

My cousin will be taking my fiancée and I to dinner in Winter Park tomorrow evening. It was his Uncle Nick who outwitted George Wallace in the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" as Kennedy's deputy attorney general. LBJ promoted Nick Katzenbach to Attorney General.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 didn't please everyone as evidenced by South Carolina v. Katzenbach.

— Will Graves

Business Ethics Instructor

Columbia College - Orlando