Samuel L. Jackson Once Held Martin Luther King Sr. Hostage To Make Change, But It Got Him Expelled

And you only have to look at Jackson’s dramatic educational background for proof. In 1966 the Deep Blue Sea star enrolled at Morehouse College, a predominantly black institution in Atlanta. This also happened to be civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.’s alma mater. Jackson’s world would soon collide with the civil rights activist’s and in more ways than one.

You might not be aware that Jackson got involved in a hostage crisis that involved King Jr.’s same-named father. Yes, this sounds like a storyline from a Hollywood movie, but it actually happened. And the Academy Award nominee would end up getting expelled from his college as a result. So what exactly went down between the pair?

Well, the story starts to take shape two years into Jackson’s studies at Morehouse College, in 1968. This was when King Jr. was gunned down in an assassination that sent shockwaves around the world. In a 2018 chat with magazine The Hollywood Reporter Jackson recalled the moment he heard the news.

Jackson said, “I was actually in the liquor store buying a quart of beer because it was campus movie night. The cashier said, ‘Dr. King got shot.’ I said, ‘Is he dead?’ And he said, ‘No, not yet.’ Sadly, the civil rights activist did end up passing away from his injuries.

The campus movie night was subsequently interrupted and like every other person in the theater Jackson left. He said, “I went back to my dorm and couldn’t find my roommate. Came to find out he was already in the streets with a whole bunch of other people, tearing up and burning up our neighborhood.”

Robert Culp and Bill Cosby reportedly then invited various collegegoers, including Jackson, to join them on a flight to Memphis for a protest march. The star favorite remembered, “We all thought it was probably going to be something physical, even though the National Guard was there. Culp and Cosby were trying to give us instructions on how to carry ourselves and enact King’s dream of being non-violent.”

Jackson recalled what he had been thinking at the time. He said, “We were glad there was something we could do other than burn, loot, and destroy our own neighborhood. That we could do something that’s going to make these people’s lives better. Especially knowing that King was killed for something as simple as, in that moment, a garbagemen’s strike.”

While Jackson was busy protesting in Memphis, King Jr.’s body was moved to another overwhelmingly black institution to lie in state. Spelman College was located right alongside Morehouse. And this is how Jackson ended up serving as an usher for the activist’s funeral. The actor recalled how surreal the whole experience had felt at the time.

Jackson said, “I remember Mahalia Jackson singing. I’d been listening to her all my life so it was great to hear her sing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” live. I remember seeing people like Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier. People that I thought I’d never see, let alone have a relationship with later on in life. The funeral was pretty much a blur.”

You might be surprised to learn that Jackson had no prior history of protesting. He explained, “We didn’t have a lot of civil rights protests in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I grew up. I read about the ones going on around the country and talked to my grandparents and my mom. When I went to college in 1966 that’s where I met the first guys that had been to Vietnam.”

Discussing his response to King Jr.’s passing in 2008 in a chat with Parade magazine, Jackson explained, “I was angry about the assassination but I wasn’t shocked by it. I knew that change was going to take something different — not sit-ins, not peaceful coexistence.” It’s fair to say that Jackson’s college protest was anything but peaceful.

Jackson admitted that a sense of anger had built up inside him which stemmed from his childhood in a segregated and suppressive society. He went on to reference the places that were known as “whites only” and the racial slurs to which he was subjected, too. And frustratingly the Patriot Games star was left with no option but to keep quiet about all the injustice.

A candid Jackson continued, “There was nothing I could do about it then. I couldn’t even say some of the things that made me angry. It would have gotten me killed.” But during his college years, Jackson realized he had the capacity to fight back.

In 1969 Jackson and several fellow politically-minded Morehouse attendees decided that it was about time the college had more African-American governors on its board. They believed that the curriculum should also be changed to better reflect its clientele, too. And they also decided that the best way to make trustees listen was by holding them hostage for two days.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter Jackson explained exactly why he felt the need to take such measures. The actor said, “The Morehouse College administration was rooted in some old-school things that the majority of us students didn’t believe. You would be a great doctor, a great lawyer, maybe a great scientist. I was skeptical of that. I didn’t want to be just another Negro in the, you know, advancement of America card.”

Jackson said, “We actually petitioned the Morehouse board in 1969 to meet with them, but the black people who were around them said, ‘No way, you can’t come in here. You can’t talk to them.’” So instead the actor and friends borrowed some chains that had been placed to keep students off the grass and locked the trustees inside.

But there was one board member who Jackson and co. decided to set free due to special circumstances. King Sr. had started to develop chest pains and so was allowed to leave, albeit via a ladder and window rather than the front locked door. The rest of the hostages, though, were kept inside for nearly two days.

So did this approach have the desired effect? Well, not exactly. Jackson was expelled from Morehouse for his role in the hostage situation. And if that wasn’t serious enough, his protesting also attracted the attention of the FBI! The actor revealed to Parade that he had initially felt a sense of pride about such strong-arm tactics.

Jackson said, “I was in that radical faction. We were buying guns, getting ready for armed struggle. All of a sudden I felt I had a voice. I was somebody. I could make a difference.” But the star’s activist ambitions took something of a hit when the FBI came a calling.

And as you would expect Jackson’s mother wasn’t best pleased about this development. The Negotiator star recalled, “One day my mom showed up and put me on a plane to L.A. She said, ‘Do not come back to Atlanta.’ The FBI had been to the house and told her that if I didn’t get out of Atlanta there was a good possibility I’d be dead within a year. She freaked out.’”

In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter Jackson admitted that he’d been in a gung-ho state of mind at the time. He recalled, “I got caught up and actually started to think that there was going to be an armed rebellion in America. It wasn’t just going to be a racial war. It was going to be more than that. It’s basically what it is now. Young against the old. The establishment against the anti-establishment.”

Recalling the moment that his mother put paid to his armed rebellion dreams Jackson said, “She showed up and said she was going to take me to lunch. I got in the car and she drove me to the airport and said, ‘Get on this plane, do not get off. I’ll talk to you when you get to your aunt’s in L.A.’”

Jackson did as he was told by his mother and spent the next two years working for the social services department in Los Angeles. But the Django Unchained star couldn’t keep away too long. In 1971 he re-applied to the school that had previously expelled him. And perhaps surprisingly, they agreed to take him back.

This time around, though, Jackson wanted to let his acting skills do all of the talking. The star told Parade, “I decided that theater would now be my politics. It could engage people and affect the way they think. It might even change some minds.”

Jackson got more than he bargained for when he returned to Morehouse. It was while rehearsing for a student play at the college that he met his future wife: Spelman drama major LaTanya Richardson. Jackson claimed he knew instantly she was the one, adding, “From then on, we were always together and we’ve stayed that way.”

After graduating from Morehouse in 1972 Jackson continued to align himself with the cause. He became a member of the Black Image Theatre Company, performing to predominantly Caucasian audiences in sketches with a political theme. The Shaft star had actually been influenced to return to acting by a production staged by the Negro Ensemble Company.

Jackson has continued to fight for what he believes in. In 2008 he campaigned on behalf of Barack Obama for the 2008 Presidential election. The star told the press at the time that his candidate of choice personified the American Dream, adding. “I am a child of segregation. When I grew up and people told me I could be president I knew it was a lie. But now we have a representative.”

In 2012 Jackson drew comparisons between his evil house slave in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and a senior politician. He argued that his character Stephen Warren “had the same moral compass as [Justice] Clarence Thomas does.” Jackson also took aim at the same man in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, asking rhetorically whether he’d consider an about-turn on the interracial marriage ruling known as Loving v. Virginia.

And in 2012 Jackson implored the famous people who’d poured a bucket of freezing cold water over their heads in aid of ALS to perform another charitable act. The School Daze star posted a video clip in which he said, “I challenge all of you to sing that “We Ain’t Gonna Stop Till People Are Free” song.” This track was an expression of support for the protest against the police’s responses to various high-profile cases involving African-Americans.