Phale Hale was introduced to an 18-year-old southern beauty named Cleo Ingram by a friend at Spelman College. That fall, Phale would visit Cleo at school while other boyfriends were visiting. He was undeterred, often eating the candy they had brought her.
Phale graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1940. While there, he met Joel King – the younger brother of Martin Luther King sr. King was a pastor of a local church and Morehouse alum. Hale would eventually meet Martin Jr and develop a lifelong friendship with the entire King family.
Phale and Cleo were married a couple of years later.
Reverend Phale Hale became pastor of the Union Grove Baptist Church in Columbus in 1950. He arrived here from Ft. Wayne. When the legendary Vernon Johns left Dexter Ave Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in 1954, Hale was considered for the pastorship. In the end, 25-year-old Martin Luther King Jr was chosen.
A year later, after the arrest of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr led a massive 13-month bus boycott that ended with a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Segregation on public buses was declared unconstitutional. Reverend Hale decided to start inviting Dr King to Columbus.
Martin Luther King Jr spoke on Sat April 14, 1956 @ Vets Memorial in Columbus, addressing the statewide NAACP membership to raise money for the bus boycotters in Montgomery. King also spoke from the Union Grove pulpit to an overflowing crowd. Each time he came to Columbus, he was hosted by Phale & Cleo Hale. On this visit, Cleo was eight months pregnant with son Hilton. The Hales often hosted visiting ministers and other dignitaries at their home because of the difficulty blacks faced in finding hotel rooms due to racism.
Phale & Cleo Hale were staunch members of the NAACP and traveled to many Baptist conventions together. There, they connected with some great black ministers including Adam Clayton Powell from Harlem and of course MLK jr. The Hales and the Kings got to catch up.
Together, Phale and Cleo had four children. Daughter Janice was born in 1948. She became a college professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. In her book, ‘Unbanking the Fire’, she recounts being thrilled to sit next to 31-yr-old Dr. King at her family’s dinner table in Columbus when she was 12. Dr King’s parents “Martin Luther King, Sr and Mrs King were like grandparents to me,” she says.
She also remembers the overflow crowds he drew. She called it ‘double Easter’. Chairs in the aisles, people in the basement, and people standing outside to hear him speak.
MLK spoke in Columbus to help celebrate the 71st anniversary of Union Grove Baptist Church. King preached that Sunday sermon. They had a guest book where he signed his name and dated it Nov 22, 1959.
Dr Martin Luther King Jr was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1964 following his courageous and inspiring shoulder-to-shoulder walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.
Hilton Hale remembers when his father took him to hear Dr King speak in southwestern Ohio at a church that was surrounded by police and state troopers. Hilton says he didn’t know why the police were there.
Dr King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. Rev Phale Hale gave a eulogy for Dr King in Columbus a couple of days later at the state fairgrounds coliseum before 8000 people.
On November 19, 1968, the Columbus Metropolitan Library dedicated the first public library in the nation named after Dr Martin Luther King Jr. More than 1000 people gathered outside 1600 E Long St to hear Martin Luther King Sr deliver the dedication speech.
Dr. King espoused racial justice & nonviolence at Ohio Northern University three months before he died. “White society is more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than equality,” said MLK. He was scheduled to speak in Cleveland six days after his death.
Phale & his wife Cleo maintained a bedroom in their home devoted to MLK’s memory. The bed King slept in had a small, gold plate on the headboard. They also had a framed portrait of King, a bust, and a few documents.
Reverend Hale served in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1967 to 1980 where he helped to put the first black teller in a bank in Columbus, the first black highway patrolman on the highway in Ohio, and the first black professor on staff at the Ohio State University. He also served as chairman of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission from 1983 to 1988.
Phale Hale Sr died on May 29, 2009. He was 94. He is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus, one of the very places he fought to desegregate. He was pastor of the Union Grove Baptist Church for 43 years.
Reverend Hale was a warrior and a champion for the poor. His greatest devotions were to the low income for whom he worked tirelessly to avail better housing at an affordable price. He left this planet and this community a better place.
When they were young, Phale and Martin Jr were told on more than one occasion that they bore a striking resemblance to one another. We could say the same thing today about their legacies.
The 41st annual Dr Martin Luther King, Jr Birthday Breakfast will be held on Monday morning, Jan 19 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.
Sources: Tigerland by Wil Haygood; Phale D. Hale Sr, Ohio Statehouse, www.ohiostatehouse.org; Rev Dr. Phale D Hale Sr oral history, Ohio History Connection, ohiomemory.org; Phale D Hale Sr, Obituary, Columbus Dispatch, June 1-4, 2009, legacy.com; ‘Former legislator a civil rights leader’, the Columbus Dispatch, June 2, 2009, dispatch.com; ‘The wife of Reverend Phale D Hale, Columbus’, UPI, Dec 13, 1980, UPI.com; Rev Phale D Hale, digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org; ‘Like the end of the world for us’ by Holly Zachariah and Mary Beth Lane, April 1, 2018, Columbus Dispatch, dispatch.com; ‘MLK signed guestbook’, May 7, 2020, swanngalleries.com; Cleo Ingram Hale, Obituary, May 8, 2013, Diehl-Whittaker Funeral Services, diehl-whittaker.com; ‘Unbank the Fire – visions for the education of African American Children’ by Janice E Hale, 1994; Ohio Historical Marker, MLK jr Library, 1600 E Long Street; ‘King at Morehouse’, www.morehouse.edu; Featured picture is of Reverend Phale D Hale and Columbus mayor Jack Sensenbrenner talking at the Dr Martin Luther King Jr memorial service at the Ohio State Fair Coliseum on Sunday, April 7, 1968, Columbus Call & Post. Courtesy Columbus Metropolitan Library.