Retired Episcopal priest Alfred Clark Martin dies

During the civil-rights and Vietnam War era, young Episcopal priest Fred Martin held two firm opinions: that segregation was wrong and that the Vietnam War was unjust.

"When he saw something wrong, he spoke out. He fought his battles where he stood," said his wife of 48 years, Diane Sadler Martin.

Not long after arriving to lead St. John's Episcopal Church in Halifax, he delivered the baccalaureate sermon of the first integrated graduating class at Halifax County High School.

"He praised the class for such a peaceful integration, quoted Martin Luther King, and told students to study Thomas Aquinas' comments about a just war before they thought about serving in the Army," his wife said.

The next day, local newspaper headlines proclaimed that St. John's vestry did not support his views.

"The KKK gave us two weeks to get out of town. They burned a cross on our lawn. They'd call us every day and play this music. I slept with a gun on one side of the bed and Fred slept with a gun on the other," his wife said.

"Amazingly, he could stand up to those people. He told them, 'If you really do not like what I'm preaching, there are 125 churches in this county,'" his wife said.

The Rev. Alfred Clark Martin, who preached at black and white churches in small towns and villages in Southside Virginia for 32 years, died May 19, on his 72nd birthday, of complications of leukemia in a Henrico County hospital.

He will be remembered at a celebration of life service sometime this summer at St. John's Episcopal Church in Halifax, where he retired in 1993 after 28 years.

He drew inspiration, his wife said, from admonitions to "preach with a Bible in one hand and The New York Times in the other" and that "what a preacher does or tries to do from his pulpit on a Sunday morning can be the most important thing that will happen in his village all week."

His ministry also included churches in Kenbridge, Crewe, Victoria, Boydton, Clarkton and Danville, and he served three terms as dean of Convocation 9 of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia.

Mr. Martin, of Richmond and Topping, was born in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., and grew up in Yorktown. He graduated in English in 1959 from the University of Virginia, where he was a first lieutenant in the Army's Reserve Officer Training Corps. He graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary in 1961 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1962.

In addition to his wife, survivors include five sons, Dirck Martin of Chapel Hill, N.C., Kyle Martin and Brian Martin, both of Richmond, Bruce Martin of Athens, Ohio, and Watson Martin of Roanoke; four daughters, Laura Martin and Elizabeth "Lee" Brfeeinb, both of Richmond, Heather Swift of Hudson, Ohio, and Anna Maas of Louisville, Ky.; a brother, Peter N. Martin of Manakin; a half brother, John W. Martin of Green Spring; and 16 grandchildren.