Pardon King

"Forgotten is forgiven."  -   F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Fisk University is a small, historically black, liberal arts college in Nashville, Tennessee. The university has graduated more than its share of prominent black Americans. However, one graduate has not been permitted to attend a class reunion in 38 years. Dr. Preston T. King is professor of political philosophy at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. He is also a convicted draft dodger who escaped a prison sentence by fleeing while on bail. If he visits the United States, he will be arrested.

King grew up in rural segregated Albany, Georgia in the post-war years. Preston King was one of the ambitious sons of Clennon W. King, a black businessman. Clennon King insisted on proper manners and that his children address all people as Mr. or Mrs., regardless of color. This principled insistence on signs of respect lies at the bottom of this now decades-old story.

In 1954, the United States Supreme Court, in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education, struck down the doctrine of "separate but equal." Forcibly segregated schools are inherently unequal. In that same year, Preston King received his draft deferment for college study.

In 1958, Preston King was offered a scholarship and applied for an extension of his deferment so that he might pursue a doctorate abroad. Jacqueline Terry is the only surviving member of that draft board and was secretary of the board at the time. On behalf of the board, Terry wrote a letter declining the deferment. Rather than addressing Preston King as Mr. King or Mr. Preston King, the letter began "Dear Preston."

The apparent lack of respect offended Preston King and he wrote back to the draft board:

"I have received government orders with which I cannot in principle comply due to the defect in form ... And in the end I should rather sit in prison, or do whatever else, than submit  -   an act which I could never square with my conscience  -  to this reflection of stupid and inane racialism in government."

Rather than sitting in prison, in the end he chose "whatever else" and fled to England were he ultimately earned a doctorate and became a respected scholar and member of his university community.

At his 1960 federal trial, Preston King's family argued that King was not avoiding duty, but objected to the discriminatory application of the selective service process. This is where the facts become contested. At the trial, there was no evidence offered that white inductees and black inductees were addressed differently in letters. Terry now claims that all potential inductees were addressed by their first names, whether black or white. In addition, no evidence was offered that showed that whites in similar academic positions were granted deferments, while King was not. Terry says that the draft board records from that time have been destroyed.

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