A remarkable piece of history, unseen for over seven decades, has emerged from a family's private collection in Pennsylvania. The discovery is believed to be the earliest known film footage of a young Martin Luther King Jr, captured years before he became the iconic leader of the American civil rights movement.
A Family Heirloom Reveals a Historic Figure
The story begins with Jason Ipock, who decided to digitise his family's old home movies to preserve them. Among the worn film canisters was one with a simple but striking label: "Martin Luther King." The film, shot in May 1950, was recorded by Jason's grandfather, Garrison Durham Ipock, a fellow divinity student at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania.
Garrison Ipock, a Second World War veteran and communications officer, was one year ahead of King at the seminary. Known for his interest in new technology, he owned one of the area's first televisions, which reportedly attracted fellow students, including the young man then known as ML.
The 13-minute colour film primarily shows the Ipock family at the Philadelphia zoo. However, the final five minutes document the seminary's graduation day on 9 May 1950. It captures professors and students, including several of King's influential teachers, mingling on the lawn.
The Pivotal Three-Second Glimpse
The film's historic value crystallises in a brief, three-second clip. It shows a 21-year-old Martin Luther King Jr, wearing a white coat, standing beside a young white woman named Betty Moitz, his girlfriend at the time. They notice the camera and turn towards it, with Betty smiling and King appearing content.
This fleeting moment is profoundly significant. Unless the King family possesses other unreleased material, this stands as the earliest film recording of King in motion. Furthermore, it visually corroborates his serious romantic relationship with Betty Moitz, a story first detailed in historian David Garrow's 1986 biography.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Garrow notes the film underscores "what a genuinely happy and privileged life MLK had up until the Montgomery bus boycott in December 1955." For biographer Jonathan Eig, viewing the clip was "a thrill... like seeing a long-lost friend on the street, only better. It's a new window on one of our most important lives."
A Forbidden Love and a Future Unwritten
The context of the footage is crucial. King's years at Crozer (1948-1951) were a formative period where he developed his intellectual voice away from his father's shadow in Atlanta. In the spring of 1950, his relationship with Betty was, in her words, at its most serious; they were "madly, madly in love."
Yet, their interracial romance existed under the threat of severe social stigma. Fellow seminarian Cyril Pyle, also seen in the film, admitted to monitoring the relationship, fearing it was "a dangerous situation" that could damage King's future. At the time, 29 US states banned interracial marriage, and a 1958 Gallup poll showed only 4% public approval for such unions.
The pressure ultimately contributed to their parting. King's mentor, Reverend J Pius Barbour, later said the breakup left King "as a man with a broken heart. He never recovered." The film captures a poignant micro-moment before King's destiny was fully formed—before the Maple Shade incident a month later, his presidency of the student body, and his eventual commitment to Boston University.
For Jason Ipock, the film transformed from a "merely an interesting footnote" into a vital piece of history meant to be shared. For the public and historians, it is an extraordinary gift: a moving, humanising glimpse of an icon on the cusp of greatness, preserved by chance in a family's home movie.
