"We’re going to put you in God’s hands"

A Conversation with Freeman Hrabowski III

Constant Wonder host Marcus Smith interviewed Freeman Hrabowski III in early 2024, in preparation for his BYU forum address on February 27, 2024. He is President Emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, after serving 30 years at the helm. As a 12-year-old boy in 1963, he heard Martin Luther King, Jr. speak in church. And next day, May 4, Hrabowski marched, was spat on by Bull Connor, and spent five nights in jail. The following is a brief excerpt from their conversation.

On hearing Dr. King and deciding to march…

My parents were keeping me happy by allowing me to do the two things I loved most. Eating. So, I was eating M&M’s, the good kind, with the peanuts.  And I was doing my algebra.  This was in May. And we were doing word problems. And so I was sitting in the back of the church doing my math, eating the M&M’s, and trying to listen.  

And the man was captivating. He certainly was. And he said if the children participate in this peaceful protest, all of America will understand that even our young people know the difference between right and wrong, and they want the best education possible. 

The most important point, though, is that he inspired us to think about how the world might be. Tomorrow can be better than the world today if we make it so. And of course, by this time I’m saying, What’s his name? Who is this again? And this is when they said, again, the name I’d heard, I just hadn’t thought about it as a kid: Dr. Martin Luther King.

I went home and just with great excitement said, “I want to go. I want to go.” And of course, they said, “No, you can’t go.” And I said, “You made me go and listen. And I did some of that and now you won’t let me go. You guys are hypocrites.”   

At that time, you did not tell your parents they were hypocrites. My daddy immediately said, “Go to your room, son.” My mother was shaking her head, and I knew I was in trouble. It was a tough night. 

They woke me early the next morning. When they came into the room, they both looked like they’d been crying. I got really scared. I was really worried. And I said, “What’s wrong?” And they said, “We couldn’t sleep. We talked and prayed all night.  Because we wanted to do the right thing, and we wanted to protect our child. It wasn’t that we didn’t trust you. When we said you couldn’t go, it was that we don’t trust the people who will be over you, because if you march, you’re going to jail.” 

As I recall, they even asked me to tell them again why I wanted to do this. And we had one more conversation, and that’s when my parents said, “We’re going to let you go, but we’re going to put you in God’s hands, and we want you to be careful and to continue to pray the whole time.”

On his five nights in jail…

We were treated like animals or slaves, with too many people in little spaces and not enough restrooms. And children who were younger than I was were crying. They put us in with the “bad boys,” the kids who were there not because of the marching. Some of those children who marched with me were beaten. 

I had my little group that I was responsible for. I was 12, but I was about to go to the 10th grade. I had skipped some grades. So I was more mature. But the point is that at night when the bad boys were going to come across to intimidate or beat up somebody, I had to do something to protect these kids. And the one book that was around was Bibles. And so, I used the Bible with the children to read and at nighttime. At night when somebody would come over trying to bother some of my kids, I’d start reciting the Lord is my shepherd, and the kids would say, “The Lord is my shepherd.”  “I shall not want.” “I shall not want.” And the nice thing was I learned that the bad boys were scared of God, too. So they would leave my kids alone. 

This conversation excerpt has been edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full interview below.

Marcus Smith is the host of Constant Wonder, produced by BYUradio.