154 BECOMING KING oppression and slavery and exploitation? Why is it, God? Why is it simply because some of your children ask to be treated as first-class human be- ings they are trampled over, have their homes bombed, their children are pushed from their classrooms and sometimes little children are thrown into the deep waters of Mississippi?” King’s specific questions for God reveal his commitment to wrestle along with the people through the most perplexing challenges of life in the segregated South. While happy the boycott was successful, they experienced in its wake the full onslaught of racist resistance to social change. In the face of such hatred, King’s faith remained steadfast as Easter “answers the profound question that we confront in Montgomery. And if we can just stand with it, if we can just live with Good Friday, things will be all right. For I know that Easter is coming and I can see it coming now. As I look over the world, as I look at America. I can see Easter coming, in race relations. I can see it coming 9 on every hand. I see it coming in Montgomery.” King’s frequent travels meant he had fewer opportunities to see Easter coming in Montgomery. When Pulpit Digest requested that King provide a sermon on race relations for publication, King declined, citing “an ex- tremely crowded and strenuous schedule for the last two or three years, I have not had the opportunity to write most of the sermons that I preach. In most cases I have had to content myself with a rather detailed out- line.” His energies were increasingly directed toward achieving national objectives. In May, King joined A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP in calling for a march on Washington, D.C., dubbed the “Prayer Pilgrimage for Free- dom.” Set for the third anniversary of the Brown decision, the organizers stressed that “eight states have defied the nation’s highest court and have refused to begin in good will, with all deliberate speed, to comply with its ruling.” In their attempt to garner participants for the march, the spon- sors noted the passivity of law enforcement while “ministers have been ar- rested, threatened and shot,” “churches and homes have been bombed,” and “school children have been threatened with mobs.” William Holmes Borders, the pastor of Atlanta’s Wheat Street Baptist Church, attended the organizational meeting for the march and responded with a brief note to King. Concerned that there was no concrete plan for action beyond the event, Borders suggested an agenda that included integrating buses