When Samuel L Jackson took Martin Luther King Sr hostage in college
Since making his feature film debut in 1972 blaxploitation drama Together for Days, Samuel L Jackson has worked his way up the Hollywood ranks to become the single highest-grossing actor in the history of cinema.
He’s also one of the most prolific, with his eclectic filmography having accrued over 200 credits that range from blockbuster franchises and prestige dramas to broad comedies and straight-to-video dreck. Before he got his foot in the door, though, he orchestrated a hostage situation during his student days.
Jackson was expelled from Morehouse College in 1969 after deciding the best way to stage a protest at his disappointment in the educational institute’s curriculum and administration was to take the board members hostage and lock them down on campus, one of whom happened to be Martin Luther King Sr.
As well as his expulsion, he was charged and convicted of unlawful confinement before eventually being allowed to return and complete his studies in 1972. This came the year after Jackson had served as an usher at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr, which didn’t affect his intentions of taking the civil rights movement leader’s father hostage when he decided drastic measures were necessary.
Recalling the situation to The Hollywood Reporter, Jackson revealed that King Sr was escorted to safety during the takeover: “Our understanding was that, once we locked them in, we were in violation of a whole bunch of laws. Dr. King’s father, who was on the board, had some chest pains,” he said. “We didn’t want to unlock the door, so we just put him on a ladder, put him out the window, and sent him down.”
Continuing, Jackson noted that “the whole thing lasted a day and a half,” but there was still another twist in the tale: “We negotiated that they wouldn’t kick out of school,” he remarked, “And then when everybody was gone for the year, they kicked us out of school.” Of course, he was eventually allowed back in, although the situation could have easily gotten out of hand and resulted in a lot more than simple exile from Morehouse.
Jackson would decide to major in drama upon his second stab at academia, which proved to be an inspired course of action considering everything that he’s accomplished in the 50 years since he began his big screen career. Even at that, taking hostages wasn’t the only major incident of his 1969.
The star revealed that “somebody from the FBI came to my mom’s house” that very same year to tell her “she needed to get me out of Atlanta before I got killed”. According to Jackson, his acquaintances were in the crosshairs of the federal government, and he was best off getting as far away from it as possible.
