Chapter 3, Niebuhr and the Pool Tables, Summary and Analysis

When Martin Luther King Jr. arrived at Crozer Theological Seminary he found a world he had never known before. There were pool tables in the basement rec room. This was a surprise to King because he had always shunned pool halls as places that encouraged low behaviors. There were ten Negro students out of thirty-five, a surprise to most of the students who had thought there would only be a handful of token Negroes at the school. There were no locks on the doors and the students were encouraged to participate in freethinking that went beyond what King had been accustomed to in Atlanta.

Courses took up most of King's time and attention the first year at Crozer. One of these classes was a course on the Old Testament, taught by...