Charles Evers was the first black mayor of an integrated city in Mississippi in Fayette. He was also the state Field Secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) with an office in Jackson, MS. John Perkins was a black pastor preaching the gospel and helping the black community in Mendenhall, MS.
David Nicholas is a white man who went with John MacArthur to Mendenhall in 1968 to assist John Perkins. While they were there Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee while he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.
I talked to Nicholas on February 23. He is the President of Shasta Bible College and Graduate School in Redding, CA. Previous to our phone conversation, I emailed him several times.
From: Brent Detwiler abrentdetwiler@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 1:35 PM
To: David Nicholas sbcadm@shasta.edu
Subject: Letter Attesting John MacArthur Trip to Memphis
Hello Dr. Nicholas,
Phil Johnson did an interview with Justin Peters on Tuesday during which he highlighted a June 19, 2020 letter written by you (see screen shot below) attesting to the fact that John MacArthur made a trip to Memphis in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Phil said he would post the letter online but I can’t find it. I’ve written Phil for a link but he has not responded to me. Therefore, is it possible you could provide me a copy of the letter? I’d be most appreciative.
Brent Detwiler
From: Brent Detwiler abrentdetwiler@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 4:36 PM
To: David Nicholas sbcadm@shasta.edu
Subject: RE: Letter Attesting John MacArthur Trip to Memphis
I have been provided a copy of your letter. No need to provide it.
From: Brent Detwiler abrentdetwiler@gmail.com
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2021 6:24 PM
To: David Nicholas sbcadm@shasta.edu; Jane Deangelo jdeangelo13@shasta.edu
Subject: Trip to Memphis
[Jane, please bring to David’s attention if needed. Thank you.]
Hi David,
I just finished reading your excellent letter. Very moving. I highly commend you for the work you did with John Perkins and John MacArthur in the 1960’s. Those were harrowing times.
I think you’ll appreciate this article. I found it riveting. You refer to these terrible events in your letter.
Jackson Free Press
Radical Faith: The Revolution of John Perkins
By Jessica Kinnison
December 17, 2008
I’ve followed John Perkins for decades. I remember buying A Quiet Revolution soon after I graduated from seminary in 1979.
In 1982, I helped start a church planting ministry. I was a church planter, pastor, and theologian for 30 years. I am presently a writer and President of Aletheia Ministries.
I’ve read various accounts about the trip to Memphis. Here is what you say in the letter.
“Later we traveled to Memphis and stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot and looked out the window of the bathroom of the rooming house where James Earl Ray aimed his .30-06 at Rev. King.”
Could you answer a couple questions for me?
First, when did you travel to Memphis, or put another way, how long after the assassination did you make the trip?
Second, who went with you on the trip?
I find it confusing because Charles Evers and John Perkins never mentioned a trip to the motel or rooming house.
I’d sure appreciate your insights.
Thanks,
Brent
From: Brent Detwiler abrentdetwiler@gmail.com
Sent: Saturday, February 20, 2021 11:48 AM
To: David Nicholas sbcadm@shasta.edu; Jane Deangelo jdeangelo13@shasta.edu
Subject: Answer to Question About Trip to Memphis
Importance: High
David,
Could you get back to me today or Monday? I’d really appreciate an answer to my question.
Thank you
Brent
I did not receive a response so I called Nicholas on his cell phone on February 23. During the conversation, he made several emphatic statements that dealt a death blow to John MacArthur’s repeated claim he learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination the evening of April 4 in Jackson, Mississippi with Charles Evers and John Perkins who then saved him from grave danger and immediately took him to Memphis, Tennessee to see what happened.
Here is an audio link to the following three statements. I provide it knowing MacArthur and Johnson would deny Nicholas said these things without hard evidence to back it up. I’d also encourage people read the following article as a precursor to this article.
Exposing the Hellacious Lies Advanced by Phil Johnson’s in Interview with Justin Peters about John MacArthur’s Trip to Assassination Site of Martin Luther King Jr.
Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 3:04PM
Statement 1
Evers Did Not Go to Memphis with MacArthur
Detwiler: Did Charles Evers go with you on that trip up to Memphis?
Nicholas: Charles Evers was the mayor.
Detwiler: Right, did he join you on the trip to go up to Memphis?
Nicholas: No, no, no, no. He was in Fayette.
Detwiler: Right. He had his hands full with the riots there, didn’t he?
Nicholas: He did. They wouldn’t go anywhere. They were staying there you know; Charles Evers was.
Statement 2
Perkins Did Not Go to Memphis with MacArthur
Nicholas: I don’t know if that clears up your confusion or not.
Detwiler: Well it is helpful to hear the words from your own mouth. I still have serious questions about it. John Perkins has denied making the trip.
Nicholas: What!
Detwiler: Un huh. Yep.
Nicholas: Making what trip?
Detwiler: To Memphis.
Nicholas: Well he didn’t, he probably didn’t go to Memphis. I don’t think he did. He took us to Fayetteville, not Memphis. We went to Memphis on our own.
Detwiler: Okay. I see. So John Perkins did not go with you to Memphis?
Nicholas: No!
Statement 3
Meeting with Evers Took Place on April 5 Not April 4
Nicholas: And Charles Evers was the mayor of Fayette, which was the city that was close to where Mendenhall was. And so he [Perkins] drove us to Fayette through all the barricades. There were blacks out there milling around about ready to protest you know because King had been shot. And here we were five white guys, you know with John Perkins, a black guy driving us. And as we were driving through the barricades people were asking, “So are you guys soul?” We said, “Yea, we soul.”
Detwiler: I’ll be anything you want me to be.
Nicholas: We got through the barricades and went up to Charles Evers office. Now Charles Evers was the brother of Medgar Evers, who had been assassinated in 1963, I think it was.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: So he was kind of a victim of the civils rights movement. And so Charles Evers was in his office and we walked in and he was very gracious and we got talking to him and explained why we were there you know and how concerned we were.
In contrast, this is what John MacArthur claimed in his earliest accounts and thereafter.
Certainties That Drive Enduring Ministry (Part 2)
John MacArthur
Desiring God 2007 National Conference
September 29, 2007
Look, I was down in the South, I was down in the South in the office of Charles Evers – the brother of Medgar Evers – when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. I was in Jackson, Mississippi with some leaders down there and they actually put me in a car and took me to Memphis and put me, they took me into the building where James Earl Ray shot him.
A Retrospective on 40 Years: John MacArthur with Rick Holland
January 25, 2009
Well it was during those times that I was there and I will never forget, I can’t tell you the whole story, but I’ll never forget one night, I was in the middle of Jackson, Mississippi in the office of a man named Charles Evers. And Charles was talking and a man burst through the door and said, “Martin Luther King has been assassinated.” That happened that night while I was there with Charles and John and some others. And the immediate issue was that there were serious things going on in the street in Jackson and they were trying to get me out of there because I was as pale as a ghost. And here we were worried what might happen to me. And so they escorted me. And then they said, “We want to, we want to go, we’re going to Memphis, we want to see what happened.” So they took me.
Nicholas also wrote a letter in June 2020 that categorical rebuts MacArthur’s story. I’ve included it at the end of this article. Voice of Calvary Church was John Perkin’s church.
Nicholas Letter to Shasta Bible College & Graduate School
June 19, 2020
One night after our team ministered at Voice of Calvary Church, we walked in the darkness to our car (there were no street lights in the black quarter of Mendenhall) and started to leave. Almost immediately, bright red lights came on behind us. It was the local Sheriff. He pulled us over and asked for John MacArthur’s driver license. This was a problem because John had unintentionally left his license back at our motel. The Sheriff then demanded that we show up at his office the following day at 10:00 a.m. Our entire team arrived on time and as we walked in, the office radio was blaring out the news that Rev. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis. We were shocked by this news but astounded by the jubilant reaction of the law enforcement officers in the Sheriff’s office.
MacArthur, Nicholas and the three other men on their team, learned about the assassination on April 5 at 10 a.m. (not April 4 at 7:05 p.m.) in the Sheriff’s office (not Ever’s office) in Mendenhall (not Jackson).
Nicholas Letter to Shasta Bible College & Graduate School
June 19, 2020
Continued
Following our encounter with the Sheriff, John Perkins suggested we visit his friend, Charles Evers, Mayor of Fayette, MS, brother of American civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, who was assassinated July 2, 1963 in Jackson, MS. He drove all five of us through the barricades erected to control the crowds of black folk protesting the death of Dr. King. There we were, five white guys being driven by a black man, something that in those days was certain to raise suspicion. As we drove through they yelled out, “Are you guys “soul?” We quickly answered, “Yeah, we’re “soul.” When we finally made it to Mayor Evers’ office, John Perkins introduced us and as we sat before him sharing why we were there, a red phone rang on his desk. It was President Lyndon Baines Johnson, begging Mayor Evers to come to Wash., D.C. and help quell the protests there. Mayor Evers replied, “I’m sorry Mr. President, I can’t come. I have my hands full here.”
Nicholas was 78 years old when he wrote the letter (he is three years younger than MacArthur). I’ve been told his memory is poor. I think Perkins and “all five us” met with Evers but not in Fayette because Evers was not the mayor at the time. The event Nicholas describes took place on April 5, 1968. Evers became mayor of Fayette 14 months later on June 3, 1969. He is confused.
Moreover, there were no “barricades erected to control the crowds of black folk protesting the death of Dr. King” in Fayette. Fayette is a small town (1,613 people in 2010 census). Jackson is the capital and largest city in Mississippi (160,629 people in 2010 census). Evers had his “hands full” in Jackson, not Fayette.
Therefore, Perkins drove MacArthur, Nicholas, and the other men to Jackson to meet with Evers in his NAACP office the day after the assassination. While there, President Johnson called him. That is credible. Evers was friends with Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., Bobby Kennedy, etc.
As a result of the meeting with Evers, the five of them “were asked to speak and minister in music at public school assemblies all around Jackson, Fayette and Mendenhall.” Later, MacArthur, Nicholas and their three white friends who were musicians travelled to Memphis.
Nicholas Letter to Shasta Bible College & Graduate School
June 19, 2020
Continued
Later we traveled to Memphis and stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot and looked out the window of the bathroom of the rooming house where James Earl Ray aimed his .30-06 at Rev. King. But as a result of that meeting with Mayor Evers, our team, including John MacArthur, myself, and three other musically talented men from BIOLA University, were asked to speak and minister in music at public school assemblies all around Jackson, Fayette and Mendenhall.
Below is a complete transcript of my 32 minute conversation with Nicholas. I’ve left nothing out. In a couple places, I could not make out Nicholas’s words. That is indicated by … In a couple places, I was uncertain of spellings. Otherwise, it is complete and verbatim.
Nicholas’s intent was to defend his friend, John MacArthur, not expose him. Yet, it was apparent to me, he was not familiar with MacArthur’s bogus narrative. For example, MacArthur’s lie that he was in Evers’ office with Perkins when “a man burst through the door and said, ‘Martin Luther King has been assassinated.’” Or that he was the only white man in the meeting with Evers and Perkins. Or the claim, he drove to Memphis with Evers and Perkins. These were all blatant lies. Nicholas was completely unaware.
Here is my full conversation with Nicholas. I’ve added comments and created sections for ease of reading.
Phone Conversation with Dr. David Nicholas
President, Shasta Bible College & Graduate School
Redding, California
February 23, 2021
Nicholas: Hello.
Detwiler: Hello.
Nicholas: Hello.
Detwiler: Yes, is this David?
Nicholas: I think so. Last time I looked.
Detwiler: Alright. Very good. Hi David, this is Brent Detwiler calling.
Nicholas: And you are calling about what?
Comment:
He thought I was a salesman.
##
Detwiler: Let’s see, I had sent you a couple of emails. Did you receive those?
Nicholas: You know, I have no idea. I’ve had a board meeting.
Detwiler: Okay. Let’s see, I think I sent it last week and then I sent a follow up, I think on Saturday.
Nicholas: Tell me what’s you line? We get a lot of calls like this and I can’t remember everything.
Detwiler: Right, I understand.
Nicholas: My mind is not on that, instead of what I am doing. Who are you? Who do you represent?
Detwiler: Let’s see. I am the President of Aletheia Ministries. I was a part of Sovereign Grace Ministries for many years. I’ve been a church planter, a theologian.
Nicholas: Okay.
Detwiler: I am now a writer. I am very familiar with John MacArthur and Phil Johnson.
Nicholas: Oh yea. Okay. I thought you were trying to sell me something.
Detwiler: No. No. It looks like you have beautiful place there in Redding [CA]. Wow. I’ve already been to seminary a long time ago but I wouldn’t mind coming there for studies.
Nicholas: Well we would love to have you.
Detwiler: Oh my. My question, and I am now looking for it in my email. Phil was interviewed recently by Justin Peters; I assume you know who Justin is.
Nicholas: I do now. I saw it in fact. A guy named Paul Stein wrote me and wanted a copy of my letter I wrote.
Comment:
He didn’t know who Peters’ was but watched his interview with Johnson after Paul Stein (whom I don’t know) contacted him.
##
Detwiler: Okay. I was just wondering. It has been a little bit confusing to me, the trip that you took with John MacArthur up to Memphis, when did that occur and who were the gentlemen that also went with you? That was basically the gist of my question.
Nicholas: 1968. It was John and myself and John Perkins. We had three guys from Biola. Rick some body. I forget their names right now. They were musicians. I play trombone. I also preach. So John and I were the ones who did most of the preaching. But we were there, we were there with John Perkins who had Voice of Calvary Ministries that his dad sponsored, Jack MacArthur. It was a ministry outgrowth from his dad’s church.
Comment:
Nicholas is not saying Perkins went to Memphis. He is saying they “were there” in Mendenhall with Perkins.
##
Detwiler: Right. In Mississippi. Yea.
Nicholas: And we went back there to help John Perkins. And one night, we had been ministering at the church, after the service, it was dark in the black quarter of Mendenhall, we came out of the service, and got in the car and John was driving. We had had to stay in a motel in Jackson because there was nothing much in Mendenhall at that time. There was several of us from the team. And so we came out and got in the car and took off and all of a sudden we had red lights behind us. It was the sheriff. It was Sheriff Willis. And we stopped and he asked for John’s license and he didn’t have it. He left it at the motel.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: So he said I want to see you guys in my office, in the sheriff’s office, tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock.
Detwiler: Uh huh.
Comment:
They did not spend the night in jail which is the vainglorious story MacArthur and Johnson have told since at least 2006.
##
Nicholas: So we dutifully got up and appeared in the office at 10 o’clock. And we walked in the office and the radio was blaring and people were jumping around rejoicing.
Detwiler: That’s terrible.
Nicholas: The news on the radio was that Martin Luther had been shot in Memphis.
Detwiler: Yea.
Nicholas: So we didn’t really appreciate what was happening. We showed it with our body language and demeanor and the sheriff’s wasn’t too happy about that. He thought we were there to help John Perkins, who he thought was just a civil rights leader. He didn’t care nothing about John’s ministry.
Detwiler: Right.
Comment:
This is the same story he tells in his June 2020 letter.
##
Nicholas: John had come back there to start a preschool. And start a medical clinic. And start a church and he was helping the blacks. He and Vera Mae, his wife, and his family was young then. I taught his son Phillip to play the trombone while I was there. We were there for two weeks.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: So he came out, I can see his name tag right now, it said Sheriff Willis.
Detwiler: Amazing.
Nicholas: As he approached us he said, he says, “We know why you are here.” He says, “I’ll have you know you step out of line one time and we will take care of you and do it all legal like.”
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: “My granddaddy was sheriff of this town. And my Daddy and I have been sheriff for 25 years.” He says, “You step out of line one time and we’ll do it all legal like.”
Detwiler: Yep.
Nicholas: And so he threatened to beat us with a belt. But there were five of us. And you know nothing happened. MacArthur showed his license. And the unhappy sheriff, you know he let us go. He didn’t arrest us. We drove off happy that we got out of there.
Detwiler: Right.
Comment:
“He didn’t arrest us.” Nicholas doesn’t know MacArthur (and Johnson) has been lying for over 15 years saying he was arrested, put in jail, and had all his money taken by Sheriff Willis for preaching the gospel.
“When I was down in Mississippi years ago, I was arrested by those kinds of people for preaching the gospel in black high schools, and I was put in jail, and they took all my money away.” (John MacArthur, Grace Community Church, Aug. 20, 2017)
“In the years when conflict was rife over civil rights legislation in the deep south, John MacArthur was locked up by a gung-ho Mississippi sheriff for preaching the gospel. MacArthur was leading a group of young people on a summer missions trip, doing evangelistic work in some of Mississippi’s most impoverished communities. At the time, MacArthur was working in partnership with John Perkins, a respected black Christian leader.” (Phil Johnson, John MacArthur arrested in Mississippi, Feb. 10, 2006)
“When I was very young, just out of seminary, the civil rights movement was flourishing, John [Perkins] invited me down to Mendenhall, Mississippi. Because of my association with him, the sheriff hauled me into jail and he said, “We are fining you for doing what you’re doing.” I said, “I’m preaching the gospel.” And he said, “Well we are fining you.” I said, “How much?” He said, “How much you got?” He took all my money which wasn’t a whole lot.” (John MacArthur, Mullins Lectures at SBTS, 2014)
Ten days after I talked to Nicholas, Julie Roys from The Roys Report talked to him. Here what’s she wrote.
“I spoke with Nicholas on the phone and he confirmed that MacArthur was not arrested that night, nor did MacArthur spend any time in jail. Nicholas also said that MacArthur did not give the sheriff any money either.” (Julie Roys, Is John MacArthur’s Story about Martin Luther King Jr.’s Assassination True? March 5, 2021)
##
Nicholas: But we were concerned about what happen. And we got with John Perkins. We got back with him and he said well let’s go to Memphis. And I said let’s go to Fayette.
Comment:
This is a misstatement. In his letter Nicholas wrote, “Following our encounter with the Sheriff, John Perkins suggested we visit his friend, Charles Evers, Mayor of Fayette, MS.”
##
Nicholas: And Charles Evers was the mayor of Fayette, which was the city that was close to where Mendenhall was. And so he drove us to Fayette through all the barricades. There were blacks out there milling around about ready to protest you know because King had been shot. And here we were five white guys, you know with John Perkins, a black guy driving us. And as we were driving through the barricades people were asking, “So are you guys soul?” We said, “Yea, we soul.”
Detwiler: I’ll be anything you want me to be.
Nicholas: We got through the barricades and went up to Charles Evers office. Now Charles Evers was the brother of Medgar Evers, who had been assassinated in 1963, I think it was.
Detwiler: Right.
Comment:
As pointed out already, Evers was not the mayor of Fayette when King was murdered. Nicholas is also confused about the cities. He says, “Fayette, which was the city that was close to where Mendenhall was.” That is incorrect. Jackson and Mendenhall are 33 miles apart (41 minute drive). Fayette and Mendenhall are 82 miles apart (101 minute drive). This is another confirmation they met in Jackson.
##
Nicholas: So he [Medgar Evers] was kind of a victim of the civils rights movement. And so Charles Evers was in his office and we walked in and he was very gracious and we got talking to him and explained why we were there you know and how concerned we were. And as we sat there talking, the red phone on his desk rang. He picked up the phone and it was President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Detwiler: Amazing.
Nicholas: Begging Charles Evers to come to Washington D.C. to help settle things down with the blacks. And his words were exactly these, “I am sorry Mr. President, I just can’t come. I’ve got my hands full here.”
Detwiler: Yep. Yes.
Nicholas: That ended the conversation so we talked about what we could do so it ended up they wanted us to hold assemblies in the high schools to keep the kids settled down you know.
Detwiler: Yes.
Comment:
They went into the black high schools for public assemblies immediately. There was no trip to Memphis. Even MacArthur mentions it in a Q&A session with Grace Community Church.
“It was so interesting because John [Perkins] reminded me at the table of something I’d forgotten. He said, “When Martin Luther King was killed, we had to go preach the next two days. We had to go preach in black high schools.” He said, “While the world was trying to figure out what was happening, the black kids were weeping. Every high school we went to,” he said, “the black kids were weeping because of the death of Martin Luther King.” (John MacArthur, Q&A, GCC, Fall 2014)
Up until now, I think Nicholas has been honest with me though mistaken. That changes.
##
Nicholas: And so we did do that later on but the first thing we did was, John Perkins says well lets go to Memphis and let’s see where he was shot. So we drove to Memphis. And we went to the Lorraine Hotel. And we walked up the stairs to the second floor and we stood in front of the room, you know where he was shot. And there was still blood on the balcony. Signs of blood there on the balcony. It has just happened the day before. Or the same day, I forget. Or the day after. I forget which. We were there and looked down from the balcony and we saw that the border house where James Earl Ray had shot from. And we said, well let’s go down there and see if we can get in.
Comment:
Perkins never said, “Let’s go to Memphis and let’s see where he was shot.” Nicholas claims, “So we drove to Memphis.” He includes Perkins. That is false. Nicholas also says, “It has just happened the day before. Or the same day, I forget. Or the day after. I forget which.” “The day before” is April 4. “The same day” is April 5 when they arrived. “The day after” the assassination is April 5.
Nicholas also states, “We saw that the border house where James Earl Ray had shot from. And we said, well let’s go down there and see if we can get in.” It was impossible to get into the bathroom in the boarding house on April 4 or April 5. It was under guard and bathroom was still being processed for evidence. There was no access by anyone except crime scene investigators. Nicholas lies.
##
Nicholas: So we went down there and we got in the house some way, we went to the bathroom, and stood in the bathtub and looked out the window and we saw the same site that he saw. You know he was taking a bead on Martin Luther King from the window there in the bathroom. John [MacArthur] was there. I was there. John didn’t make the story up. It is totally true. And I know that people are trying to question it you know and all the details. It was as basically I have said.
Comment:
The lie continues. They did not get into the bathroom “some way.” They would have been arrested had they tried. There were armed guards outside the bathroom on April 5 and 6. Paige Rogers and I have documented the fact in previous articles. Read Rogers here. No one was standing in the bathtub the night of the assassination or the day after the assassination. That’s a complete fabrication.
##
Nicholas: And so I wrote this letter, when I wrote this letter after George Floyd’s death, I included that account in my letter showing we know what prejudice was. We are not sure if George Floyd was actually murdered or not. It was probably an overdose, we know now, but at the time nobody knew what happened and it may have been the officers knee who killed him. We are not sure. But I wanted to verify the fact that we had experienced prejudice first hand.
I remember one Sunday, we went to, the first we were there. I was there twice. John was there 3 or 4 times, 3 times I think. But the first two times I was with him. The first time we had one piano player with us and that was the only music. I played trombone and I preached; there was just three of us. We experienced what prejudice was because people just look daggers at us when we were driving around with the black people in the car.
Detwiler: Sure. Sure.
Nicholas: It was, it was. We went to church in Jackson, First Baptist Church of Jackson, we walked in the adult class, and the people were so overwhelmingly welcome with gooey southern hospitality you know and “We sure like having you guys here.”
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: “Well what are you guys doing here in Mississippi.” “Well, we are ministering to the black schools and churches.” “Your what?”
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: And their demeanor changed immediately. They turned cold as ice. That just wasn’t done. I mean one of the guys I recruited for L.A. Baptist College, as a result of that night, we recruited two guys to come played basketball. At the time, I was the Director of Admissions at L.A. Baptist College which is now Master’s. I recruited Dolphus Weary, who is in the Hall of Fame at Master’s. I brought him out from Mississippi, he went to Piney Wood school, a school for talented black kids endowed by a very wealthy black man who was a philanthropist, and John Perkins had led him to Christ, and his friend, Jimmy Walker. I refer to both those guys in the letter. At the time, neither Jimmy Walker nor Dolphus Weary could even walk in the [white] church. They couldn’t even enter the church. They were black. That is how bad it was. And truth be known the pastor of that church was so upset by what was happening, it drove him, he committed suicide as he jumped out the second story window of the church. It was so bad.
Detwiler: Incredible. Awful.
Nicholas: I was up speaking at a church in Cotton Field [MS], and John Perkins took me out there, this was an all-black church you know. And I got in the pulpit, I walked in the pulpit and I got to preaching and of course they are all saying, “Sure enough, that’s right. Preach it brother!” Well a woman stood up and walk out in the middle of my message. I thought “What did I say?” Afterwards, John Perkins said “We got to go over to Miss so and so for some refreshments,” and so we did. We went to her house and he says, “Mrs. so and so wants to talk to you in the kitchen.” I thought, “Oh, oh.” I walked into the kitchen and this is what she said to me. “Pastor Nicholas, I am so sorry I walked out of your sermon. There ain’t never been no white man in our pulpit ever.”
Detwiler: Oh wow. Great. It worked both ways.
Nicholas: And she apologized.
Detwiler: Excellent. Wow.
Nicholas: We had a great time there. We went to the high schools. We went and played football with the guys at the high school. Most of us played football so. MacArthur of course, was a big star in college. I went to college with him and also seminary. We had a little team at L.A. Pacific College – which was Free Methodists. We both ended up there because I had transferred from Westmont. I had been elected as President of the largest youth association in L.A. for Baptists churches. And of course with his dad there as youth pastor; so he came from Bob Jones, he wasn’t a youth pastor then, he came from Bob Jones because things had gotten tight because Bob Jones had kicked his dad off the board. And taken the word of somebody who was unhappy with his ministry and told Bob Jones Jr. and so Bob Jones Jr. kicked him off the board.
Johnny, he wasn’t surrendered to the Lord then. And on his way back after his second year, he was in an accident. He was thrown out of a Volkswagen going some 50 mph and the driver pulled over to try to help and pass somebody and hit the shoulder and it flipped and he flew out and he skidded down the highway on his rear end for about 50 yards and skinned up his own whole back and the palms of his hands trying to stop.
I’d been at his house. His dad had a pool. I’d go over there and we would swim. He would say, “Hey, look at my back, I still have asphalt in my back.” I have a picture of that and he spent three months you know in the hospital and after that he flew back after some black nurse in Alabama scrubbed all the asphalt out of his back. But that was before all this happen. That was before we met. At Pacific, we became friends there. We were two Baptist men in a Free Methodist School. Two baptistic guys in a Free Methodist school.
Comment:
Nicholas enjoyed telling me his stories.
##
Detwiler: Did Charles Evers go with you on that trip up to Memphis?
Nicholas: Charles Evers was the mayor.
Detwiler: Right, did he join you on the trip to go up to Memphis?
Nicholas: No, no, no, no. He was in Fayette.
Detwiler: Right. He had his hands full with the riots there, didn’t he?
Nicholas: He did. They wouldn’t go anywhere. They were staying there you know; Charles Evers was.
Comment:
Nicholas was wrong about Fayette. The threat of riots was in Jackson. Evers was not yet mayor of Fayette. He was in Jackson in his NAACP office.
##
Nicholas: You know he wasn’t a good guy to begin with. He kind of straightened out but he was involved in a lot of things before he became mayor.
Detwiler: Right. Yes.
Nicholas: But a lot of people liked him and elected him mayor. He just died just recently. And he made the statement that he didn’t remember John MacArthur. Well that doesn’t surprise me, who was John MacArthur back in those days, he wasn’t famous. We were two guys who came with John Perkins. He knew John Perkins. But John was helping the blacks you know. See John’s brother had been shot by a deputy sheriff allegedly for stealing hubcaps.
Detwiler: Right.
Comments:
Nicholas seems unaware of the claims made by MacArthur about his supposed friendship with Evers. All the references below to “they” or “we” have primary reference to Charles Evers and John Perkins. Underling is mine.
“They actually put me in a car and took me to Memphis. They took me into the building where James Earl Ray shot him. I know those people; I’ve known them through the years and ministered there.” (Account 1)
“He [Evers] was a friend of John’s [Perkins] and I had come to know him [Evers]. And we were sitting there and he was trying to explain to me that night in Jackson what was going on. They were trying to get me out of there because I was as pale as a ghost. And so they escorted me. So they took me [to Memphis]. So we went to the motel, up to the landing, saw the blood.” (Account 2)
“John [MacArthur] was in Jackson, Mississippi, talking with a group that included John Perkins and Charles Evers. John, the only white person present. [They] were discussing events. The group’s reaction was to drive through the night to Memphis and John went with them. As they left the house in Jackson he needed the care of his friends.” (Account 3)
“I was in the room when Martin Luther King was assassinated with those black leaders. We went to Memphis, and I stood on the blood spots on that motel with those men. Those men were my friends.” (Account 6)
“One of the men leading our group was Charles Evers. We drove to Memphis. We were at the Lorraine Motel, standing on the balcony where he was shot. We were also shown the place where James Earl Ray stood on a toilet to fire the fatal shot.” (Account 7)
##
Nicholas: And that is why he [Perkins] left Mississippi to begin with. And he had a lot of hostility toward what happened you know. He came back [to MS].
Detwiler: Right
Nicholas: Well, he worked at Safeway. Then got involved in John MacArthur’s dad’s church and found Christ [in Van Nuys, CA].
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: And God changed his life. He changed his heart. And he went back down there and started that ministry, Voice of Calvary. All we were doing, we going back there to help him and Voice of Calvary Ministry and to reach kids for Christ. Ultimately, you know in those assemblies, we had three thousand kids sign cards to receive Christ as a result of John’s messages. And I didn’t preach in the assemblies, he did. He’d give his testimony how God had brought him to place where he surrendered to ministry through the accident I just told you about. And that’s what we were doing the whole time we were there. Both in churches and then schools.
Detwiler: Right. Phenomenal.
Comment:
Now the conversation changes. He seems suspicious of me.
##
Nicholas: So I don’t know why you are calling about this but you must want some clarification about something so.
Detwiler: Yea. Yea. I read quite a bit about it and it has been confusing to me?
Nicholas: Why?
Detwiler: Because I am just wondering, because one of the statements that John had made was that he was there within hours of the assassination.
Nicholas: Well, that’s true. He was in Memphis within hours. We went right up there. Right away.
Comment:
There was no hesitation in his answer. His voice was confident. They arrived in Memphis within hours of the assassination. They went “up there” “right away.”
##
Detwiler: When do you think you arrived? Do you remember?
Nicholas: I think later that day [Apr. 5].
Detwiler: The day after, I assume, right, the assassination [Apr. 5]?
Nicholas: I can’t remember, I think if I remember correctly, we went right after we left the sheriff’s office and went back to John. So John took us up to see Evers you know.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: I don’t know if we went up there right after we met Evers. We might have that same day because we wanted to go up there and see what happened. But Evers didn’t go with us.
Comment:
This is another explicit denial. “Evers didn’t go with us.”
##
Detwiler: Okay, so that would have been the day after the assassination?
Nicholas: Probably. I’ll say this, either the same day or the day after. I am not sure which it was. It was when we were able to go but I think, I would expect, I just can’t tell you exactly. My memory doesn’t serve me well in terms of the time frame. It was hours, it might have been 24 hours, it might have been hours after we heard the message that he was shot in the police station and then we went back to meet Evers.
Comment:
King was pronounced dead on April 4 at 7:05 p.m. MacArthur and Nicholas learned about it in the sheriff’s office on April 5 at 10:00 am. Then Perkins took them to see Evers in Jackson which was a 40 minute drive. They supposedly left Jackson “right away” without Perkins or Evers and drove to Memphis which was a 3 hour drive. (I guess Perkins hitchhiked home to Mendenhall all lonesome – lol.) Taken at face value, MacArthur, Nicholas, and their three friends were standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel on April 5 at 3 p.m. and soon after standing in the bathtub across the street! I believe he was lying to me.
##
Detwiler: And were you or John ever arrested?
Nicholas: No.
Detwiler: Or he just got pulled over, right?
Nicholas: No, we were not formally put in jail. We were not arrested. The closest thing we were to being arrested was he commanded us to be in the office the next day.
Detwiler: Boy, that is the old South isn’t it? My goodness.
Nicholas: If we hadn’t done that I’m sure we would have been arrested. The threats he made to us in the office were almost as bad as being arrested. It was more in a general sense. We were in jail.
Comment:
MacArthur has made up and embellished stories about himself for decades. Then he will lie to cover them up when exposed and attack the people exposing him via his surrogates while claiming he is suffering for the gospel. It is sick operation.
This is what he did in 2019 with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges when they put The Master’s University and Seminary on probation. This is what he did with health officials from Los Angeles County who were trying to enforce COVID protocols like they were with everyone else. That is what he is doing now. He claims I am persecuting him for preaching the gospel because I hate the gospel. He is sociopathic. He pretends suffering for righteousness sake while fully knowing he is being exposed by God for unrighteousness sake. He uses this tactic to deceive his followers. He has no fear of God. Only a love for increasing and preserving his mythological legend.
##
Detwiler: Right. And I guess they were kind of following you guys around the night before.
Nicholas: Oh they did.
Detwiler: And then they just kind of pulled you over to what, intimidate you?
Nicholas: They laid for us. They thought we were there as civil rights workers.
Detwiler: So you were going to cause disturbances.
Nicholas: Yea, they thought we were in league with John but they misunderstood what John was doing.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: John Perkins. You can’t believe the looks I go when I was being driven around by a black guy. We went in one station, one time a gas station, the guy who was driving said, “Now I want to warn you this guy who owns the station is a member of the Klan.” And as we went into that station, and he saw me in the car with that black guy, I mean if looks could kill, I would have been dead.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: The first time we arrived, the first time we arrived, the first time I went there, the first time, it was the night of the Old Miss Alabama football game.
Detwiler: Oh wow.
Nicholas: And there was not a place to stay either in Jackson or in Mendenhall.
Detwiler: I bet.
Nicholas: So John Perkins arranged for us to stay with his bus driver, who bused the kids. His name was Herbert, big guy with missing teeth in the front. And he had a humble house. We walked in that house. I mean it was like a throwback to the 1800’s. He had a bathtub in the middle of the living room. He had an authentic feather bed. And John and I slept in that feathered bed. We went to the house and he says, “Matt, Matt I sure hope the Klan doesn’t find out that you are here.”
Comment:
Matt must be one of the musicians from Biola College in La Mirada, CA.
##
Detwiler: Really. Yes, I’ve had the opportunity to travel to various parts of the world and had those kinds of experiences in places like Cuba and India, China and Myanmar, where they are following you, they are intimidating you, so you just experienced it in the deep South. Right.
Nicholas: We did. We did. This has been over 50 years ago this happened. I wasn’t even married then. I’ve been married going on 51 years now. And I was at USC [University of Southern California] at the time. I was getting my undergraduate work at USC in the summer times, you know, and also some times in the spring. I’d take a class at USC; I was in seminary at the same time. I was taking two programs at one time. So I had to miss my Psychology of Education class to go back there. I was young. And I talked to my professor who ironically was a former pastor who had gotten involved in immorality and ended up getting a Ph.D. and was teaching at USC. I knew who he was. He just overthrew his former faith was just in class smoking one cigarette after another, talking about all the women he had counseled, shady things about that, you know the guy was an apostate, I think, he pastored Harvest Bible Church, a church my uncle pastored. He didn’t know I knew that but he graded. I went up to him and I said, “Your know your lectures are like, you are a psychological homilitian.” My psychology lectures were like a sermon. I think he finally got the picture that I kind of knew what he was about but he graciously had let me off from class and I missed an examination but I came back to take the exam. I took the exam in Downey in his psychology office. He was a psychologist and counselor so when I got back I had to face the exam. You know, but it was a long time. I finished my, I went to USC in the summer times and sometime during the spring and fall at night for four years. I got my M.Div. and my Master of Science degree kind of concurrently.
Detwiler: That was a lot of work.
Nicholas: Yea.
Detwiler: Well congratulations on your 50th anniversary there at Shasta. That is quite a milestone. My goodness.
Nicholas: Yea. Yea. We are in our 50th year. I’ve been here going on 36 years. It was started by Royal Blue who ministered for many years at Van Nuys Baptist Church. He was under Porter Blink [spelling uncertain] when Porter Blink was pastor of that church. The first time I met Royal Blue was at Arrowhead, a camp at Arrowhead, called Arrow Pines. And he knew Johnny too as a kid.
Detwiler: Amazing
Nicholas: Johnny is now, I think 81, and he will soon be, if isn’t 82 by now, he will be soon, and I am 79. But you know, he may not have said, he didn’t have maybe the clarity that I have of what happened back then, I don’t know. I know that people have said he said this and did this, it is kind of stupid because he is talking about something that happened 50 years ago that I am just verifying that actually happened. And I think what I have written down I know is true. The guy I just talked to Paul Stein, he had talked to Phil Johnson and Phil Johnson produced the letter I wrote because I sent it to Phil Johnson just because I knew this was happening, and I said “Here are the facts of that trip, I am getting tire of hearing MacArthur criticized because of what he said. It is ridiculous. We didn’t make this stuff up, it happened.” So I tried to give a more legitimate timeline of what happened and a more accurate account. But he is not lying about it he is just talking generally about what happened.
Comment:
Once again, Nicholas has no idea the fabricated story MacArthur has repeatedly told people since 2007. Ironically, he says “I am just verifying that actually happened” and “here are the facts of that trip.” The facts included 1) Evers did not go to Memphis, 2) Perkins did not go to Memphis, and 3) they learned of the assassination in the sheriff’s office the next day. In telling the truth, he obliterated MacArthur’s account.
##
Nicholas: I don’t know if that clears up your confusion or not.
Detwiler: Well it is helpful to hear the words from your own mouth. I still have serious questions about it. John Perkins has denied making the trip.
Nicholas: What!
Detwiler: Un huh. Yep.
Nicholas: Making what trip?
Detwiler: To Memphis.
Nicholas: Well he didn’t, he probably didn’t go to Memphis. I don’t think he did. He took us to Fayetteville [Jackson], not Memphis. We went to Memphis on our own.
Detwiler: Okay. I see. So John Perkins did not go with you to Memphis?
Nicholas: No!
Detwiler: Okay. Alright. I see.
Comment:
This is a laser guided missile that takes out MacArthur’s lie he went to Memphis with Perkins.
##
Nicholas: I know John Perkins. He has a Zoom Bible study every Tuesday. He is now 91.
Detwiler: I know he is something else.
Nicholas: And I talked to him. The last time I tune in I talked to him. He remembered who I was. He remembered I had been there.
Detwiler: Right. Yes. I remember reading his book Quiet Revolution, it came out in 1980, it was after Let Justice Roll Down. I thought, wow that is pretty phenomenal what he is doing in the South.
Nicholas: Did you see my letter?
Detwiler: Yes, I did. I did.
Nicholas: I think if you see the letter you will see the time frame you know. I don’t think I said that John went with us to Memphis.
Detwiler: Very good. Well thank you very much for your time. I very much appreciate it.
Comment:
Nicholas did not say Perkins went to Memphis with them. This is all he said about the trip. The “we” refers to Nicholas, MacArthur and the three musicians.
“Later we traveled to Memphis and stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot and looked out the window of the bathroom of the rooming house where James Earl Ray aimed his .30-06 at Rev. King.”
##
Nicholas: How did you get the letter?
Detwiler: Let’s see. Well, I saw it referenced.
Nicholas:: By Phil Johnson?
Detwiler: Yes, right. Yes. And then Justin put a link [to the letter], I couldn’t get the link to work, but somebody else sent it to me so.
Nicholas: They did.
Detwiler: Yea. I thought, wow, that is a real moving story of you guys being down there in the South preaching during that time because it was a dangerous time.
Nicholas: Where do you live?
Detwiler: I live - I was from North Carolina. I now live in Arizona.
Nicholas: Oh you do. You are from North Carolina?
Detwiler: Yep.
Nicholas: Yea, I sent it to my friend Mack Katovich [spelling uncertain]. I met him when I was at USC and we have been friends ever since. He was for 36 years the supervisor of the Los Angeles…, which included Burbank on down through Montebello, the San Gabriel Valley and up to Lancaster and the upper valley in Palmdale. His area was as larger as Long Island. So I sent it to him just recently too and he was, he didn’t know we had been involved back there, but he was real impressed with the letter I wrote. Called me and we talked about it. Well what I have written is from my memory, you know, the closest I can come to a timeline of what happened, but I think it is pretty accurate, I stand by it.
Detwiler: Okay. Well very good.
Comment:
In the providence of God, Phil Johnson provides the letter to Justin Peters thinking it will support MacArthur’s story. Instead, it decimates his story. “Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain. … The One enthroned in heaven laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.” (Ps. 2:1,4)
##
Nicholas: Remember, John Perkins is 91 you know, but he is pretty sharp, and he would know if he went to Memphis or not. So I don’t think, I don’t know if John [MacArthur] said he [Perkins] was in Memphis. He may have gotten confused. I had to go back and review, you know, where Charles Evers really was. And I remember now it was Fayette, which was a little town, a smaller town, it wasn’t Memphis. But Fayette was around the area there where John Perkins was working. And that’s how we got there so fast. So, Evers was definitely not in a position to go to Memphis. We only went to Memphis, kind of out of curiosity. We decided, let’s go see what happened. Let’s go see where the place was.
Detwiler: Right.
Nicholas: It was a spur of the moment decision; it wasn’t an organized thing. And we just went up there to see. It was historical. We didn’t want to miss it.
Comment:
Nicholas says “I had to go back and review, you know, where Charles Evers really was. And I remember now it was Fayette, which was a little town, a smaller town, it wasn’t Memphis.” He is talking about the review he did last year regarding where they met with Evers. He got it all wrong in his letter and with me. Just the opposite is true. Jackson is 40 minutes from Mendenhall. Fayette is 1 hour 40 minutes from Mendenhall. He also adds, “It wasn’t Memphis.” He is confused. Of course, they didn’t meet in Memphis 240 miles away. I think he meant to say they didn’t meet in Jackson. He is mistaken.
He also adds, “We only went to Memphis, kind of out of curiosity. We decided, let’s go see what happened. Let’s go see where the place was.” That is completely different than MacArthur’s account. He continues.
##
Detwiler: Right. And then you headed back to Mendenhall, I guess. Right?
Nicholas: Yea that is where we were working and staying. We stayed in Jackson because there weren’t too many motels in Mendenhall. At that time, we had, we left that morning for, to go in to minister and John left his wallet in the motel. Didn’t have it with him that night. So that’s why we got pulled over. … I don’t know what he would have done if John has his license. But he wanted to see us in the office. We didn’t know that night he was going to be shot the next day. So things happened so fast.
Detwiler: Right. He was shot the night before. Right.
Comment:
The “spur of the moment” “out of curiosity” trip to Memphis occurred sometime after they returned to Mendenhall to speak to in public assemblies in the high schools, not before.
They leave their motel the morning of April 4 for a day of ministry in Mendenhall. That night they ministered with Perkins at his Voice of Calvary Church. After the meeting, they were pulled over by Sherriff Willis.
Then Nicholas says “We didn’t know that night [Apr. 4] he was going to be shot the next day [Apr 5].” He is confused again. I sought to correct him, “He was shot the night before” they were in the Sherriff’s office on April 5.
##
Nicholas: But I wouldn’t have any second thoughts about what John said. It is so. What he said was basically true. And he’s probably read my letter by now and probably remind himself of what the timeline was, you know. You know, John’s been through, I mean he’s been so much over the last 50 years, good grief. If people want to hold him to every little minute detail that he says and try to accuse him of falsehood, I think that is just ridiculous.
Detwiler: Uh hum. Okay, well once again thank you sir. Much appreciated.
Nicholas: You’re welcome.
Detwiler: The Lord bless your day.
Nicholas: If you have any more questions give me a call.
Detwiler: Okay. Great. Thank you. Bye- bye.
Nicholas: Bye-bye.
Comment:
Nicholas ends with “If people want to hold him to every little minute detail that he says and try to accuse him of falsehood, I think that is just ridiculous.” The “minute detail” is when they arrived in Memphis. MacArthur repeatedly said “within hours” of the assassination. Nicholas says within 24 hours.
Nicholas is in the dark. He is unfamiliar with MacArthur’s false narrative. All Nicholas knows is they took a trip to Memphis and he claims they arrived around 3 p.m. on April 5. That is not possible. They were in the high schools and churches on April 5 and 6 with Perkins.
I think Nicholas, MacArthur, and their three white friends, took a trip to Memphis on April 7 or thereafter before they returned to California. I think Nicholas is covering up for MacArthur regarding when they arrived.
I go into much more detail exposing MacArthur’s “renowned story” in the article below. For example, when the five supposedly arrived in Memphis there was a public viewing, memorial service, and procession of the body taking place. It was a historic day but Nicholas and MacArthur never mention these events.
God is sovereign over all. I tried to get answers to my questions via email. No response. As I result I placed a call. That led to our conversation. In the humor and providence of God, Nicholas provided information that blew up MacArthur’s entire narrative though he was attempting to justify his narrative. Such is the might and the wisdom of God.
##
Addendum: Nicholas Letter
Office of the President
2951 Goodwater Ave.
Redding, CA 96002
530-221-4275 Ext. 31 Cell: (530) 227-4275
www.shasta.edu sbcadm@shasta.edu
Shasta Bible College and Graduate School
6/19/20
Dear SBC&GS Family:
Ephesians 1:11 tells us that “God works all things after the counsel of His divine will.” Sometimes that concept is difficult to accept, but we must remind ourselves that it reflects an undeniable Biblical truth: The sovereignty of God. Nothing happens apart from His sovereign plan. Also, according to Romans 8:28, “All things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.” He is never taken by surprise. The unsettling effects of Covid19 and the subsequent requirements related to “sheltering in place” and “social distancing” have taken a tragic toll on our nation both economically and emotionally. The mandatory shutdown of so many allegedly “nonessential” businesses, the suspension of corporate worship in our churches, the closure of our classrooms and cancelation of so many extracurricular activities including traditional graduations has not been easy. Then, just as we are beginning to inch back toward normalcy, the image of George Floyd with his neck under the knee of Minnesota police officer, Derek Chauvin, was beamed into our national consciences, initiating a wave of peaceful protests mixed with Antifa-style insurrection and anarchy across the nation.
I have not met George Floyd, but whatever the reason for his arrest, he in no way deserved the kind of treatment he received from the four Minnesota police officers who were definitely not representative of the upstanding law enforcement personnel who put their lives on the line each day to protect their communities. The fine law enforcement officers I know think what happened to George Floyd was reprehensible. Why do I say that? Because back in the late 1960’s I personally saw and experienced this kind of racial hatred and discrimination first hand when I ministered with John MacArthur in and around Jackson, Mississippi. We were there at the invitation of Rev. John Perkins, who had come to Christ through the ministry of John’s Dad, Dr. Jack MacArthur, then Pastor of the MacArthur Memorial Bible Church in Burbank, CA. Pastor Perkins’ personal testimony and ministry left an indelible impression on my life.
John Perkins was from Mendenhall, MS. His brother died in his arms after being shot by a Deputy Marshall for allegedly stealing hubcaps off a car. Bitter and disillusioned, he moved to CA with his family, determined never to return to Mississippi. But God had a different plan. Having heard the life-changing gospel of Christ under the powerful and persuasive preaching of Pastor Jack MacArthur, Founder of Voice of Calvary Radio and Television; he ultimately returned to Mendenhall, MS to establish his own Voice of Calvary Church, which included a pre-school head-start program and eventually a medical clinic for the black community. Even though Pastor Perkins was beaten and tortured by the local Sherriff and state police, including having the two outside prongs of a fork shoved up his nose, because they only viewed him as a civil rights leader, he persevered in his ministry with God’s evident blessing.
One night after our team ministered at Voice of Calvary Church, we walked in the darkness to our car (there were no street lights in the black quarter of Mendenhall) and started to leave. Almost immediately, bright red lights came on behind us. It was the local Sheriff. He pulled us over and asked for John MacArthur’s driver license. This was a problem because John had unintentionally left his license back at our motel. The Sheriff then demanded that we show up at his office the following day at 10:00 a.m. Our entire team arrived on time and as we walked in, the office radio was blaring out the news that Rev. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in Memphis. We were shocked by this news but astounded by the jubilant reaction of the law enforcement officers in the Sheriff’s office.
Why? Because when we failed to join their jubilation, the Sheriff was not happy. He informed us that he knew why we were there in Mendenhall (assuming we were civil rights workers helping John Perkins). I’ll never forget the name tag on his uniform. It said, “Sheriff Willis.” He continued by telling us, “I’ve been Sheriff of this town for 25 years and my daddy before me and my granddaddy before him. You step out of line one time and we’ll take care of you and do it all legal-like.” He then threatened to beat us, mentioning the use of a belt, which was probably an idle threat since there were five of us; and after John MacArthur produced his license, we breathed a sigh of relief as we left his office. All we wanted to do was to assist John Perkins in reaching the black community for Christ, and being from CA where attitudes were far different, we were shocked by the Sheriff’s reaction both toward the assassination of MLK and us!
Following our encounter with the Sheriff, John Perkins suggested we visit his friend, Charles Evers, Mayor of Fayette, MS, brother of American civil rights activist, Medgar Evers, who was assassinated July 2, 1963 in Jackson, MS. He drove all five of us through the barricades erected to control the crowds of black folk protesting the death of Dr. King. There we were, five white guys being driven by a black man, something that in those days was certain to raise suspicion. As we drove through they yelled out, “Are you guys “soul?” We quickly answered, “Yeah, we’re “soul.” When we finally made it to Mayor Evers’ office, John Perkins introduced us and as we sat before him sharing why we were there, a red phone rang on his desk. It was President Lyndon Baines Johnson, begging Mayor Evers to come to Wash., D.C. and help quell the protests there. Mayor Evers replied, “I’m sorry Mr. President, I can’t come. I have my hands full here.” Later we traveled to Memphis and stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel where Dr. King was shot and looked out the window of the bathroom of the rooming house where James Earl Ray aimed his .30-06 at Rev. King. But as a result of that meeting with Mayor Evers, our team, including John MacArthur, myself, and three other musically talented men from BIOLA University, were asked to speak and minister in music at public school assemblies all around Jackson, Fayette and Mendenhall. Again, God transformed what could have been a disastrous situation into an opportunity to share the gospel message with thousands of black young people. In fact, over 3,000 students filled out cards affirming they wanted to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior as a result of John MacArthur’s testimony and messages.
During the two years I was part of that Voice of Calvary team we saw God’s hand at work in remarkable ways. As I was back then Director of Admissions at Los Angeles Baptist College in So. CA’s Santa Clarita Valley, I was on the lookout for talented basketball players for our basketball coach, Pete Reese. One day John Perkins arranged for us to minister at Piney Woods School, a privately funded school for gifted young black students. That day we met two outstanding players, Dolphus Weary and Jimmy Walker. When I shared with them the possibility of a scholarship to Los Angeles Baptist College (now The Master’s University), they were immediately interested. So, it was my privilege to recruit those two young basketball players, whom John Perkins had led to faith in Christ. In fact, they were the first black students ever to reside on campus. And, they were exceptional athletes! With their help, along with another 6’10” recruit I eventually led to Christ, LABC beat BIOLA for the first time in its history.
Dolphus Weary and Jimmy Walker, completed their education and returned to Mendenhall. Dolphus later succeeded John Perkins as the Director of Mendenhall Ministries and wrote a fascinating book entitled, “I Ain’t Com’in Back,” chronicling the prejudice and discrimination he experienced growing up in Mendenhall. Jimmy ended up working with young people through the YMCA. Dr. John M. Perkins went on to be a powerful voice for racial reconciliation, assisted by his sons, ministering as a Bible teacher, best-selling author, philosopher and community developer and eventually establishing the John & Vera Mae Perkins Foundation which funds and promotes Transformation, Restoration and Reconciliation, both vertical and horizontal. Their philosophy features a community development concept based on practical Biblical principles developed over 60 years of living and working in poor communities while promoting racial reconciliation. He and his wife, Vera Mae, just celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. His book, Let Justice Roll Down, was inspired by the Old Testament Prophet, Amos, a reluctant humble sheepherder from the southern town of Tekoa, who claimed he was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. But It was Amos who uttered that cry “Let justice roll down” in exasperation after God sent him to Bethel, the main center of Israel’s golden-calf worship (7:13), to expose and denounce the oppression of the poor and the crushing of the needy in the mountains of Samaria. He even referred to the upper-class ladies of Samaria as “cows of Bashan” (4:1). Although he began by pronouncing judgment on surrounding nations, his prophetic rhetoric suddenly pivoted to what J. Sidlow Baxter describes as a “scathing threat of coming judgment on Israel” because they had failed to heed God’s consistent warnings and judgments. He condemned Israel’s continual lack of justice and the hypocrisy of their feasts and solemn assemblies. Amos 5:21-24 graphically describes God’s attitude toward their stiff-necked intransigence:
“I hate and despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them: and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them.
Take away from me the noise of your songs: to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
An example of John Perkins’ impact was seen in the attitude of protesters this past week in Fayetteville, N.C. There an attitude of reconciliation was evident as a white law enforcement officer and black protesters wept and prayed together. Most legitimate protesters abhor Antifa’s violent insurrectionist and those claiming to be with the Black Lives Matter movement who join in the burning and looting. Such anarchists have their own agenda and they are paid to cause chaos and advance the socialistic/Marxist political aspirations of misguided political leaders. Others are looking only for an opportunity to loot. What is needed now is a firm commitment to racial reconciliation which can only be effectively realized by minds and hearts that are changed by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. The bottom line is that racism is sin! And unless sin is dealt with by accepting Christ as Savior and Lord, which is prerequisite to becoming a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), no amount of legislation will change the human heart; red, yellow, black or white. Much progress has been made since our team’s time in Mississippi during the 1960’s from a legal standpoint. But racism still persists in raising its ugly head. We who are believers in Christ, committed to living out Biblical precepts, must emulate Christ’s example of humility and concern for others, regardless of the color of our skin (Phil. 2:3-5). After all, the Bible tells us in Acts 17:26-27a “And He made from one man (some translations say “one blood”) every nation of mankind to live on the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God . . . .” As a pre-med student in college, my physiology and genetics professor emphasized that the basic blood types are found in all races, only by different percentages. Thus the KJV translation “made from one blood” certainly applies in that sense.
Here at Shasta Bible College & Graduate School our priority is to cultivate a campus atmosphere conducive to spiritual growth coupled with academic excellence and compassion for the souls of men and women. Our passion is to mentor and mold future servant-leaders who will impact their world for Christ. Our purpose is to produce Ephesians 2 Christians for such a time as this, who are not only vertically reconciled according to Eph. 2:4-6, but also horizontally reconciled with fellow believers of all races and ethnic backgrounds through the atoning work of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ on the cross as illustrated in Eph. 2:11-19. In this current environment God has given us an opportunity to be salt and light. Let’s not miss this opportunity to correct the injustices of both the past and the present. May God grant us the grace to do what needs to be done to share the transforming message of the Gospel and to implement Christ’s example of love and forgiveness.
I invite you to explore and share the superb educational possibilities available here at Shasta Bible College & Graduate School. We are fast approaching our 50th Anniversary (Jan. 2021) and we are grateful to God for the hundreds of alumni who are now serving Christ across the nation and around the world. We would love for you to consider being part of our campus family, either as a student, prayer warrior or financial supporter. If you’re a prospective student, it’s easy to apply. Just click on the APPLY tab located on the home page of our website and follow the prompts. Questions? Feel free to phone our admissions office at (530) 221-4275 or toll-free at 1-800-800-4SBC.
Yours for equipping His servant-leaders,
David R. Nicholas, Th.D.
President
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