Rev. Dr. Otis Moss

For Reverend Dr. Otis Moss, courage strong enough even to outweigh the possibility of death is based on a lived experience of brutality. 

A pastor for half a century, Moss was a key member of the civil rights movement spearheaded by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s and 1960s. He headed up operations in Ohio, amongst other critical duties, as a close personal friend and “sounding board” for both King and his father. Moss marched with King in Selma, Alabama and was involved in other public clashes where the full weight of Southern law savagely clubbed and beat the civil rights protesters—men, women and children, of all ages and races. 

Moss lived through challenging and trying times, but never lost faith in what he was doing. He showed incredible courage and perseverance for standing up and fighting for what he and millions of others believed in. 

“Growing up in the segregated South, we also grew up with the reality of lynching, of the Ku Klux Klan, racism, segregation,” Moss said. “There were signs everywhere, separating the races, and they were written in bold print—‘White only,’ ‘Colored only’—everywhere.” 

Now 87 years of age (at the time of this printing), Moss found his purpose, and the beginnings of what courage requires, as a youth. He was 12, growing up in rural Georgia, when a man he regarded as a cousin, Reese Gilbert, was arrested, brutally treated, and died while in custody. Gilbert, then in his 40s, was a successful, industrious black man who had accumulated 110 acres of land. A deacon in his local church, Gilbert was respected in his community. He was shot five times and an autopsy report found that every bone in his body had been broken. The local sheriff said he killed Gilbert in self-defense. In a sense, it could be said that the Klan reached out and lynched one of the most respected citizens, black or white, in the community as a substitute for a black man they could not find.

For Moss and his family, later acts of brutality—the killing of three young civil rights activists in Mississippi, the church bombing in Birmingham, the assassination of King and the murder of Medgar Evers—all tied back on a personal level to the death of Gilbert. That connection ignited a sense of courage and purpose-centered living.

“There was no question in our family about the injustice, about the brutality, about the evil,” Moss said. “There was an indescribable teaching that we had the responsibility of standing up as best we could, or as best we can now, against this kind of evil, this kind of injustice, against this kind of hate. Our faith taught us the best way to stand against it was to refuse to be a part of it within our own context.”

Seeing the debilitating effects of racism within his community at a young age galvanized Moss to stand up and act. He was aware of the struggles his people were facing and strong enough to try to do something about them. This drive to change something as large as civil injustice required Moss to both harness an inner resolve and have a broad perspective on his community. He wasn’t thinking about himself, or even his local community. He was focused on improving the lives of millions across the entire United States. 

Moss saw MLK as a mentor and worked together to effect change for millions. “I had some of the same teachers and mentors [as] Dr. Martin Luther King… before I arrived at Morehouse College. We both had the same college president. We heard some of the same speeches, charges, calls, and challenges in the same chapel setting.” Since both Moss and MLK were exposed to some of the same experiences earlier in life, they both identified and acted on problems in similar ways.  Moss quickly assumed a leadership role as a freshman at Morehouse because of his commitment and his focus on using spirituality as a guiding post. 

Later, in 1960, Moss became the acting chair of the Atlanta movement in King’s place, because King had gone to jail with the students who were arrested in Atlanta during an organized sit-in.

“I had three responsibilities: One, to help keep the movement going, out of jail. Two, to communicate with all of those that were in jail; and three, to initiate negotiation with the merchants and those that ran the department stores, other stores, with lunch counters for the purpose of getting those places de-segregated. All of this became a part of my life’s work and ministry down to this very hour.”

This responsibility in the movement at a young age re-enforced the fact that Moss could use the principles, like non-violence, that MLK laid out for the movement. It is apparent that he possessed the ability to remain calm and act according to his morals. 

He recalls one moment in which MLK demonstrated the incredible ability to reflect on his morals to keep the movement going. “That night, he received a threat—this was January 1956—and the voice on the other end [of the phone call] proceeded to issue all kinds of racist insults and said, ‘If you’re not out of town in a few days, you and your family will be destroyed.’” 

Everybody, but Dr. King was asleep. He hung up the phone and could not go back to sleep. He went in the kitchen and prepared a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table and began to pray aloud saying, not just in thought but in words, ‘I’ve been given the responsibility to lead the movement and do what is right. Now, I am at the end of my powers. I sought to do what I felt was right’. As he prayed this prayer of confession, and a prayer of announcement and pronouncement of human limitations, he heard an inner voice saying, ‘Stand up for justice, stand up for righteousness, I will be by your side, forever.’ Suddenly, in a kind of miraculous way, the fear disappeared.”

A few days later King’s front porch was dynamited. His wife, Coretta, and baby were home but uninjured. Coretta King had heard a noise in the front of the house and rushed to the back with her child. The black community rallied around the Kings’ house after the explosion. Some carried weapons and were ready to respond with vengeful violence. King came out on the porch and urged those with weapons to go home. His sense of courage in creating change through non-violence remained intact.

Moss said he believed King saved members of the crowd that day in Montgomery. If they had attacked, they would have been outnumbered and beaten back by police, stalling the movement—or worse. Instead of an indication of weakness, Moss said the power of King’s purpose and commitment to non-violence, even at that difficult moment, strengthened the movement.

It is easy for all of us to appreciate the constraint it took to keep the movement alive in a non-violent fashion. In other key members of the movement like Moss, this constraint was made possible by the firm foundation of spirituality and love laid down by decades of suffering and learning. 

“We did not take non-violence lightly,” said Moss. “We sought to study its meaning, to understand its implications, and to appreciate that a kind of courage and commitment, not perfectly but, we were willing to take the risk of believing it was the right thing to do. It was the wise thing to do. It was the moral thing to do. In retrospect, we won.” 

Moss ends his interview with a piece of knowledge we can all learn from. When talking about how he could remain committed to the movement in a non-violent fashion, he explains, “It’s allowing one’s body to become a witness to what one’s heart is committed to.”

Sequel: Courage That Brings Light and Lift to Darkness:   

The life of Otis Moss, a lively octogenarian, civil rights activist, minister, educator, and community builder is illustrative of a humble, confident, defiant, loyal man of soul and spirit. It is easy to pronounce love over evil. But to live it is another matter. Intellectually it sounds like the right thing. But in practice, we know there are often underlying fears, uncertainty, safety, pride, or an overbearing inner tension between attack and restraint.

Moss mentioned to me that when he has been threatened or rebuked, verbally or physically, it sometimes has taken every ounce of energy to respond with love and kindness. Not in a wimpy or mealy-mouthed manner, but with equal amounts of both candor and care. That is, to be straight yet thoughtful of the fear, insecurities, and need for respect of the attacker. The human side of us may ask how do we face force, farce, or violence with respect and still be strong? The temptation, of course, is to mimic the very behavior we abhor: bullying, sarcasm, insults, or name-calling. While it may temporarily provide salve for the wounded spirit, it still reduces us to a lower level of being and encourages others to continue with such behavior. Equally important, our courage toward a given path of being and doing may fall prey to a distracted course of action, undermining the intentions and efforts we seek in the first place.

Courage is about stepping up and out to shape a better future when the stakes are high and the consequences are unknown. It is about reaching into the void of the undefined and giving it clothes to make it real and recognizable. We may not always believe we are able or worthy, but we generally can recognize if we are on a path that speaks to us with honor, honesty, and interest. Such a path of authentic voice may not come cheaply. There are emotional costs to recognizing and engaging our inner self as it is and fully coming to terms with all of who we are. But are we not worth the effort? Are we not worth a better future?