The Cellmate

Being a Tuskegee University student during the Montgomery Bus Boycott – less than an hour away from campus – Grady Butler first felt the urge to participate in social justice initiatives. After graduating, he began seminary at Morehouse College Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta, GA, in 1959. In his first year, Butler joined the student movement for civil rights, and became a member of the Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights. Several hundred students from Atlanta University Center Consortium organized and invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to join them in a 1960 demonstration in downtown Atlanta restaurants and department stores. Little did Grady know how impactful it would be to sit next do Dr. King in jail for four straight days afterward…