158 BECOMING KING already revealed this to the organization. After studying her situation and realizing that the whole protest revolves around her name, I am recom- mending that $250.00 be given to her from the Relief Fund.” He later added, “You may make it three hundred dollars ($300.00) if you feel so disposed.” Minutes from an early March relief committee meeting indi- cate Parks received $300 from the MIA. While Nixon and Virginia Durr remained frustrated by what they deemed to be insufficient local support for Parks, the action by the MIA indicates that King was trying to do 17 something on her behalf. By midsummer, after enduring over eighteen months of harassment and threats while struggling to find consistent employment, Parks elected to leave Montgomery. In response, the MIA declared August 5 “Rosa Parks Day” and held a program on her behalf that evening. They provid- ed her a gift of around $800 collected from area churches. A few weeks later, Parks penned a letter to King thanking him and the MIA board for their generosity. She was sad that she had to leave Montgomery but be- lieved living near her brother in Detroit would be better for her mother and husband. While Parks left gracefully, some believed movement lead- ers had neglected to provide her with enough support and adequate op- portunities. Nixon claimed that on the evening of the program held in her honor, he “almost cussed at Mt. Zion,” the church that hosted the event. He later added: It’s a shame before God, here is the women responsible for this thing and got to leave home for bread. Raising a little pitiful seven or eight hundred dollars and give her then stick your chest out and think you’ve done something. But the people got car- ried away with Reverend King and forgot about everyone else. And like a woman told me coming down on the airplane one day, “Mr. Nixon, I don’t know what those black folks would have done in Montgomery if Reverend King had not come to town.” I said, “If Mrs. Parks had gotten up and given that cracker her seat you’d never heard of Reverend King,” which is true. King did not disagree with Nixon’s assessment of Parks’s role in the boy- cott. In early September, King and Parks saw one another at Highlander