 Martin Luther King, Jr. Raya marched several times at King's side and suffered three times at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, including one occasion when he was kidnapped and severely beaten by three Klansmen.Defying the threat of excommunication issued by Roman Catholic Archbishop Thomas Toolen, Raya helped King and other civil rights demonstrators organize protests and marches throughout Alabama during the 1960s.Raya went on to found Saint Moses the Black Mission, the first Eastern Catholic mission for African Americans, located in downtown Birmingham.