92 BECOMING KING the black man was born again in Montgomery. On that morning when they tried Mrs. Rosa Parks, the whole courtroom and all out in the street was crowded with black men. They was saying, ‘Brother Nick, Brother Nick, what’s happening?’ I tells them she’s found guilty. They was mad then. They said, ‘Brother Nick, if you don’t come out, you know what we gonna do? We gonna come in there and get you.’ There must’ve been over five hundred men there.” Parks’s guilty verdict, coupled with the early success of the boycott, further galvanized the city’s African Ameri- can community as they prepared to meet at Holt Street Baptist Church 12 that evening. In the afternoon, community leaders gathered in an attempt to or- ganize in the wake of the success of the one-day boycott. They met at Reverend Bennett’s Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, with Reverend Bennett again presiding. The decision to have the meeting at Mt. Zion reflected both the low level of trust between many of the city’s pastors and an attempt to remain united as the protest developed. Many believed the non-Baptist ministers would not have attended had the meeting been held at the Baptist Center under the direction of Reverend Hubbard, who served as president of the Baptist Ministers Conference. Therefore they chose to meet at a Methodist church in order to bolster whatever frail unity existed in the moment. As had been the case a few days earlier, the meeting began with attempts to wrest control away from Reverend Bennett, who again held onto the floor. At this point, Robert Matthews of the NAACP suggested that some in the meeting were trying to spy on the proceedings in order to report back to white leaders. In the midst of the chaos, those gathered finally decided to form an executive committee that would meet behind closed doors to determine the shape of the organization and make plans for the mass meeting that evening. According to Abernathy, eighteen people were chosen to serve on the 13 committee. When the executive meeting began, Abernathy suggested they call their new organization the “Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA),” a proposal that was quickly accepted. The meeting’s momentum soon slowed as several leaders wanted to be able to keep their affiliation with the MIA secret. Most local clergy had learned to be cautious in chal- lenging racial mores, as they balanced advocating for their race while not