172 BECOMING KING the approval of Martin Luther King. All evidence is absolutely conclusive that in Monday’s election the Negro votes will decide who will be mayor of Montgomery unless the white voters wake up, fight Negro bloc voting with white bloc voting, get behind one of the two candidates and thus 45 take the balance of power out of control of race agitators.” Perhaps taking their cue from the WCC, in April the board of Trinity Presbyterian Church sent a letter to Mrs. Arnold Smith, who was serv- ing as president of the congregation’s women’s ministry. The letter in- structed Smith to stop being so outspoken regarding the need for racial justice in Montgomery, noting “We would earnestly recommend to you that in your program of work you avoid these questions and leave them out of your consideration entirely.” Some chose to use violence rather than letters to communicate their displeasure with those agitating for racial change. Throughout Alabama, there were “several serious incidents of beatings and kidnappings” of African Americans. Fred Shuttlesworth, the president of Birmingham’s Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, sent King a letter seeking more direct organization and action throughout the state. Shuttlesworth had grown weary of conferences and summits that failed to produce “positive action.” He urged King to rec- ognize the limits of oratory, for “when the flowery speeches have been made, we still have the hard job of getting down and helping people to work to reach the idealistic state of human affairs which we desire.” In late May, three Montgomery African Americans were severely beaten and MIA member Horace G. Bell disappeared near a lake in Selma. When Bell’s body was recovered a few days later, authorities claimed he had drowned, but local blacks suspected he had been but the latest victim of racial violence. The incidents led King to write to the Alabama governor, John Malcolm Patterson, seeking prompt action as “to allow these inci- dents to go without public cognizance of them will encourage greater 46 and more frequent acts of violence by these irresponsible persons.” During the summer of 1959, King continued to lobby for structural change while also attacking the illogical nature of common racist argu- ments. King believed that in order to effectively work for social change in Montgomery, one must realize that biblically based and logically sound arguments would not sway those committed to segregation. In a sermon titled “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart,” King argued: “There are