Samuel L. Jackson’s Wild College Days: When He Held Martin Luther King Sr. Hostage and Ushered at MLK Jr.’s Funeral
Samuel L. Jackson, the Hollywood powerhouse with over 200 movie credits, didn’t start his career anywhere close to the spotlight. Back in his college days, he was deep into activism – so much so that he once took Martin Luther King Sr. hostage during a student protest. And, as if that wasn’t enough of a plot twist, he’d actually worked as an usher at Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral just a year before.
The Hostage Incident That Shook Morehouse College
It was 1969, and Jackson was frustrated with what he saw as failures at Morehouse College, especially with its curriculum and administration. Alongside some fellow students, he staged a protest by locking several board members in a room on campus – one of whom was Martin Luther King Sr., the father of the late civil rights icon. Reflecting on the event years later, Jackson told The Hollywood Reporter, “Our understanding was that, once we locked them in, we were in violation of a whole bunch of laws.”
I hadn’t been that political before. We didn’t have a lot of civil rights protests in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I grew up. I read about the ones going on around the country and talked to my grandparents and my mom. When I went to college in 1966, that’s where I met the first guys that had been to Vietnam. We were in the halls running around late at night, playing cards and music. These guys were studying and would get really angry: “You’re gonna be dead if you don’t buckle down and get with these books, because as soon as your status is wrong, next thing you know, you’ll be in the war.” We were like, “What war?” And then my cousin, who was my age, got killed in 1967.
I came to a realization that we were being groomed to be something that I didn’t necessarily want to be. The Morehouse College administration was rooted in some old-school things that the majority of us students didn’t believe. You would be a great doctor, a great lawyer, maybe a great scientist. I was skeptical of that. I didn’t want to be just another Negro in the, you know, advancement of America card. We had no connection to the people that we lived around. I was skeptical of that. We didn’t even have a black studies class. There was no student involvement on the board. Those were the things we had to change.
We actually petitioned the Morehouse board in 1969 to meet with them, but the black people who were around them said, “No way, you can’t come in here. You can’t talk to them.” Somebody said, “Well, let’s lock the door and keep them in there,” because we had read about the lock-ins on other campuses. They had these chains on the walkways to keep us off the grass, and we used those. Our understanding was that, once we locked them in, we were in violation of a whole bunch of laws. Dr. King’s father, who was on the board, had some chest pains. We didn’t want to unlock the door, so we just put him on a ladder, put him out the window, and sent him down. The whole thing lasted a day and a half. We negotiated that they wouldn’t kick us out of school. And then when everybody was gone for the year, they kicked us out of school.
Things got tense when King Sr. started having chest pains. Despite this unexpected twist, the group stuck to their plan. “We didn’t want to unlock the door,” Jackson explained, “so we just put him on a ladder, put him out the window, and sent him down.” It was a gutsy move for a college protest, but Jackson and his crew were determined. The standoff lasted “a day and a half,” Jackson said. They managed to get a promise that they wouldn’t be expelled, but as Jackson put it, “When everybody was gone for the year, they kicked us out of school.” Although Jackson was ultimately expelled, he did make his way back in 1972 to finish his degree.
From Usher at King’s Funeral to Student Rebel
There’s a surreal connection here: Jackson had served as an usher at Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral just the year before. After King Jr.’s assassination in 1968, Jackson found himself deeply moved by the loss and even more driven to push for change. But when change didn’t come as quickly as hoped, Jackson’s passion led him to take dramatic action – even if it meant detaining MLK Jr.’s father during a protest.
The FBI Steps In
It wasn’t just the Morehouse administration that got involved – the FBI was watching, too. According to Jackson, an agent showed up at his mother’s house, urging her to get him out of Atlanta. “Somebody from the FBI came to my mom’s house” and warned her “she needed to get me out of Atlanta before I got killed.” The agency had been keeping an eye on several of Jackson’s associates, seeing them as potential threats during a volatile period in the South.
From Activist to Actor
After finally returning to Morehouse, Jackson decided to major in drama – a decision that would shape the rest of his life. The transition from activist to actor wasn’t an obvious one, but it let Jackson channel his energy in new directions. Fast-forward a few decades, and he’s become a fixture in cinema, famous for everything from Pulp Fiction to his recurring role as Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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