What is the importance of the Holt Street Baptist Church in the novel, Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues?

The Holt Street Baptist Church is a nucleus of comfort and hope for the Merryfields. At church, they are surrounded by people who welcome and care about them and seek the same goals. The church is crowded by people who are polite and respectful towards each other. Mama Merryfield is guided inside, while Alfa sits near an open window and listens to hymns and prayers broadcasted over loudspeakers. Like a pep rally, church leaders, featuring real ministers Reverend Martin Luther King., Jr., and Reverend Ralph Abernathy, tell the congregation about discussions with city and bus officials and outlines African American demands for equitable transportation based on "first come, first served" and legal efforts to change the segregated system. These speeches boost people's spirits, and they respond with cheers and applause. Alfa gets "goose bumps" when he realizes that Montgomery's boycott could stop bus segregation throughout the United States. The church fills him with pride and optimism.