While a student in Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, Pastor Stoney Shaw saw news reports that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the city, leading a march for equal housing.
“You are going to join them, aren’t you?” wife Robbie observed to Stoney. That is precisely what he did.
“I just knew there was a young black couple with a 2 year old son that wanted for him the same thing that we wanted for our 2 year old son…to live wherever they were able to live. That is why I marched for open housing … “
In his marching with another white seminary student, Dr. King approached the two of them and asked: “What are you boys doing here?” Stoney responded that he wanted young black fathers, fathers like himself, to live wherever they chose, to have the same freedom that he and his young family enjoyed.
Dr. King response: “Good answer!”
There was a humorous side of the story: Dr. King was then approached by other national civil rights leaders. They spoke to him and then got in a car and were driven away. Then the police came. Pastor Stoney – now our pastor — was arrested and fingerprinted!
“What’s wrong with this picture?” Stoney laughs.
At the police station, he gave as his address that of Southern Seminary where he was a student. A sizable group of black student marchers behind him also listed their address as that of the Seminary, none of whom were actually students at the seminary.
Thus the next day’s news reports appeared to indicate that a large group of Southern Seminary students had been arrested and fingerprinted!.
Stoney recalled with a smile: “I don’t think Seminary President Dr. Duke McCall was too happy.”
“I always like to remind folks that all of my arrests were ‘thrown out,’ he said.
Joan and I would love him anyway … police record or not. He’s our pastor!
We who know him … and who are reminded of his early days of taking a stand for justice and freedom … know that he, once again, did the right thing! He is still doing it.
In this radio conversation he also calls attention to a major emphasis in his ministry and lifestyle:
“Every Christian should have a daily “Quiet Time” with God!
As of this writing Pastor Stoney Shaw is transitioning from being the Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ferguson, MO (15 minutes northeast of the St. Louis Airport), into retirement.
Hear him now tell the story … in his own words.
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