“Making a Contribution” 79    ing the Brown v. Board of Education decision, most local leaders set their sights on challenging Jim Crow segregation while relegating economic 51 and quality of life issues to a secondary position. King happened to be the pastor of an African American church with a professional “silk-stocking” reputation. Although he enjoyed preaching to an educated congregation, he was never comfortable with the per- ceived exclusivity of Dexter. While he appreciated their staid responses to his preaching, he bristled at the undertones of haughtiness that often went hand in hand with a congregation largely comprised of profession- als. Convinced that true worship would transcend class distinctions, King challenged Dexter to become more educationally and socioeconomically inclusive: “Worship at its best is a social experience where people of all lev- els of life come together and communicate with a common father. Here the employer and the employee, the rich and the poor, the white collar worker and the common laborer all come together in a vast unity. Here we come to see that although we have different callings in life we are all the children of a common father, who is the father of both the rich and the poor.” King’s earliest preaching experiences had been at his father’s primarily working-class church in Atlanta. He did not want Dexter to become Ebenezer, but he did want Dexter to become a place where any member of his father’s congregation would be welcomed and embraced. King’s desire to build ties with the working class played a significant role 52 in uniting the people in the days to come. King also hoped to build bridges with the white community. Recog- nizing the presence in Montgomery of men and women like Aubrey Wil- liams, Clifford and Virginia Durr, and Clara Rutledge reaffirmed King’s belief that goodwill was possible from the white race. While he did not dismiss the persistence of white racism, King encouraged his congrega- tion to overcome the temptation to paint all whites with the same brush: “The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances.” King offered an extremely positive assessment of the potential of whites who are “some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality.” High- lighting the role of whites in the founding of the NAACP, King noted the organization still “gains a great deal of support from northern and south-