“not interested” to “wrong way”: WGH, 63–77; also King, “State of the Movement,” SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov. 28, 1967, SCLC.
“fearful men” and “come too far”: King, “Nonviolence,” Ebony, 27; King’s remarks, SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov. 14, 1966, MLK(CSC).
“a decade”: WGH, 3.
writing WGH: correspondence regarding the manuscript, Dec., 1966, to Mar., 1967, JD; Ebony (June, 1967), 112–19; HSCAH, VI, 289. Much of the book grew out of King’s speech and discussions at SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov. 14, 1966, SCLC and MLK(CSC). Compare these documents with WGH.
“been as moved” and “superb”: Geneveive Young to Daves, Mar. 9, 1967, and [Canfield] to Daves, Mar. 10, 1967. JD.
“can’t be silent” and “not centering this”: King’s address, SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., May 29–31, 1967, MLK(CSC); NYT, Apr. 2, 1967; King, “Casualties of the War in Vietnam,” Feb. 25, 1967, SCLC; Lee interview with Oates; Robinson interview with Oates; also HSCAH, VI, 289; Lincoln, 205–7; Thomas Edward Offenburger interview, July 2, 1968, BOHC; Young’s comments in Friends; Wachtel interview with Oates, Aug. 1, 1978.
“great nation”: King, “Casualties,” SCLC.
PART NINE: THE HOUR OF RECKONING
King’s speech: ibid., published in a pamphlet entitled Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. John C. Bennett, Dr. Henry Steele Commager, Rabbi Abraham Heschel Speak on the War in Vietnam (Committee of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam, 1967), 5–9.
RFK and the war: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 772–73, 782.
LBJ and FBI: Dick Schaap, R.F.K. (paperback ed., New York, 1968), 35; HSCAH, VI, 289–90; open letter on King’s antiwar stand by William J. vanden Heuvel, Feb. 17, 1967, in King Name File, LBJ.
Whitney Young incident: Lincoln, 205–6; Wachtel interview with Oates.
“all white people”: NYT, Apr. 5, 1967.
Riverside speech: King, “Beyond Vietnam,” Speak on the War, 10–16; Bennett’s remarks, ibid., 19.
“belong to us” and “not a mystic”: Coretta King, 294; Lincoln, 203.
critical reaction: NYT, Apr. 6, 1967; HSCAH, VI, 296; Lincoln, 213; John P. Roche to LBJ, Apr. 5, 1966, Bayard Rustin Name File, LBJ; Congressional Record, May 3, 1967; Newsweek (Apr. 17, 1967), 46; Life (Apr. 21, 1967), 4; Washington Post, Apr. 6, 1967; NYT, Apr. 7, 1967; Rowan’s column in Akron Beacon-Journal, clipping, MLK(CSC), and Rowan’s contact with the White House in George Christian memo for the President, Apr. 8, 1967, King Name File, LBJ; Lincoln, 212–18; NYT, Apr. 13, 1967. Ralph McGill of the Atlanta Constitution also criticized King’s stand against the war; he and his wife even wrote King a personal letter expressing their “deep dismay and profound regret” at having to disagree with him. Ralph and Bernice McGill to King, May 1, 1967, MLK(CSC).
King’s response: Young quoted in Mark Lane and Dick Gregory, Code Name “Zorro”: The Murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977), 103; Wachtel interview with Oates; Lee interview with Oates. The Johnson White House did in fact encourage the critical response to King’s speech, and the list of “secret” FBI reports to the White House, still classified in LBJ, indicates that the administration and the bureau were in close and frequent contact about King’s antiwar activities.
“stand idly by” to “justice everywhere”: King’s comments in Speak on the War, 28; NYT, Apr. 13, 1967; King, “Proposed Vietnam Form Letter” [1967], MLK(CSC); newspaper clipping on King’s speech in Toledo, Ohio, Sept. 30, 1967, and King, “The Domestic Impact of the War on America,” Chicago, Ill., Nov. 11, 1967, SCLC.
King’s defenders: Parks, Born Black, 107; NYT, Apr. 6, 1967; Rustin, Line, 169; Mays, Born, 270–71; Christianity and Crisis (May 1, 1967), 89–90; New York Post, Apr. 14, 1967; Niebuhr’s foreword in Speak on the War, 3.
“many of these people”: Wachtel interview with Oates; Rustin interview with Oates; Lincoln, 207.
“just read it”: Lincoln, 187; NYT, Apr. 16, 1967. King spoke again on “Casualties of the War in Vietnam,” copy in MLK(CSC).
Cleveland and Berkeley: Lincoln, 190–211.
“the stirrings”: U.S. News & World Report (May 8, 1967), 14; King’s remarks, July 10, 1967, MLK(CSC). Documents on the Vietnam summer are in the records of Andrew Young, Officer of the Executive Director, SCLC.
“substantial number” and “only you could hear”: Fred Panzer memo to the President, May 19, 1967, King Name File, LBJ; memo for the President, Aug. 3, 1967, ibid.; Sidey, “L.B.J.,” Time (Feb. 10, 1975), 16.
“the nuts” and “possibly survive”: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 777, 823; memo for the President, Aug. 3, 1967, King Name File, LBJ. For the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations against King, see FAR, 536, 568–69, and Garrow, FBI, 182–88.
“chaos and destruction”: telegram, July 25, 1967, King Name File, LBJ.
“How can the administration”: King, “Domestic Impact of the War,” SCLC; TC, 59.
“criminal disobedience” and “outstripped”: W and M, 4; New York Review of Books (Aug. 24, 1967), 3; also Lionel Lokos, House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King (New York, 1968), 342ff.
“No man,” terribly sad, “Supreme Court”: W and M, 3–4, 254–55; King’s statement, Oct. 30, 1967, MLK(CSC).
“seriously question” and “deep rage”: Coretta King, 297; TC, 15; also Washington Post, Feb. 11, 1968.
“transitory drama” and “arsenal of nonviolence”: King’s statement before SCLC’s annual convention, Aug. 15, 1967, SCLC; TC, 14.
“an oppressive society”: U.S. News & World Report (Aug. 28, 1967), 10; King, “The Crisis of America’s Cities,” SCLC’s annual convention, Aug. 15, 1967, SCLC; TC, 15; NYT, Dec. 5, 1967. For the origins and background of King’s project, see Offenburger’s interview and Katherine Shannon’s interview with Claudia Rawles, Aug. 12, 1968, BOHC; Coretta King, 297–98.
“misguided Moses” and “we don’t want”: HSCAH, VI, 293–95; W and M, 2.
planning the campaign: King’s remarks, SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov., 1967, MLK(CSC); King, “The State of the Movement,” SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov. 28, 1967, SCLC; TC, 14–15, 55, 60–62, 77; Williams interview with Oates; Bernard Lafayette interview with Oates, Oct. 19, 1981; Wachtel interview with Oates, Oct. 18, 1978; Robinson interview with Oates; King’s statement in Chicago conference, Jan. 5, 1968, and King, “Why We Must Go to Washington,” Jan. 15, 1968, MLK(CSC); Bevel interview and Albert Sampson interview with Katherine Shannon, July 18, 1968, and Offenburger interview, BOHC; Fager, Uncertain Reconstruction, 15; Lee interview with Oates.
press conference: King’s statement, Dec. 4, 1967, MLK(CSC); NYT, Dec. 5, 1967.
“international emergency” and “all life”: TC, 62, 69–70.
“bowing to the trend,” “peripatetic parsons,” “lock up Martin Luther King”: HSCAH, VII, 107; St. Louis Globe-Democrat clipping, Dec. 10 [18?], 1967, LBJ; L. E. Quarmstrong to the President, Jan. 3, 1968, King Name File, ibid.
“criminal disobedience” and “whatever form”: memorandum for the President, Feb. 14, 1968, and Larry Temple memo for W. Marvin Watson, Feb. 19, 1968, King Name File, LBJ; copy SCLC “staff only” memo, Jan. 1, 1968, in possession of the White House, ibid.; Whitney Young interview, ibid.; Washington Post, Feb. 2, 1968.
“preside over”: clipping, ibid.
FBI: HSCAH, VI, 72–77, 213, 217–21, 301–6, 321, 338, 366, 374–75; VII, 140–41; FAR, 536, 542, 546, 574.
“Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll”: King, “Unfulfilled Dreams,” Mar. 3, 1968, MLK(CSC); also Garrow, FBI, 186.
“big nigger”: FAR, 470–90; HSCAH, VII, 173–74.
“you, Andy,” “cannot worry,” “strain of wondering”: YPI, 74; Coretta King, 304; Gibson interview, BOHC; also Abernathy in HSCAH, I, 21, 22; Raines, 55.
“happens to me” and “physical exam”: Coretta King, 304; Raines, 431; Young, “Remembering Dr. King,” in Obst, Sixties, 232; Ho
well, 19.
Rustin’s objections: Rustin, Line, 202–5; Rustin interview with Oates; Washington Post, Feb. 26, 1968.
“five years wearier” and “merely postponed”: Baldwin, No Name in the Street (paperback ed., 1973), 141–42.
“deep apprehensions,” “terrible shape,” “different person”: Rustin interview, LBJ; Young quoted in George Goodman, “He Lives, Man!” Look (Apr. 15, 1969), 29; Oates interviews with Williams, Abernathy, Lee, Wachtel, and Lafayette; Offenburger interview, BOHC.
“Every now and then”: recorded on King: Speeches and Sermons (cassette).
“give us a chance,” “areas of agreement,” “here to deal”: Washington Star, Feb. 8, 1968; Washington Post, Feb. 11, 1968; King’s remarks at SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., Nov., 1967, MLK(CSC).
“have not given up”: King, “Showdown for Nonviolence,” Look (Apr. 16, 1968), 25.
“ability, togetherness”: King’s remarks recorded on I Have a Dream (cassette).
master plan: Fager, Uncertain Resurrection, 17–18; King, “Showdown,” Look, 23–25; TC, 16; King’s speech before the Ministers Leadership Training Program, Miami, Fla., Feb. 19, 1968, SCLC; King, “See You in Washington,” MLK(CSC); King, “Conversation with Martin Luther King,” Sixty-eighth Annual Convention of the Rabbinical Assembly, Mar. 25, 1968, 17–19, copy in author’s possession; Lafayette interview with Oates. Staff assignments, field reports, and other documents about the poor people’s campaign are in SCLC.
“mammoth job”: Coretta King, 299.
“an awareness,” “what the powers,” “White America”: Oates interviews with Lee, Rustin, Lafayette, Wachtel, and Williams; Vincent Harding interview with Vincent Browne, Aug. 16, 1968, BOHC; PI, 194; also King’s speech at SCLC’s staff retreat, Frogmore, S.C., May 29–31, 1967, MLK(CSC).
King on Marx: In a speech at SCLC’s staff retreat at Frogmore, S.C., on Nov. 14, 1967, King told his aides and advisers that “I look at Marx with a yes and a no.” He liked Marx’s “great passion for social justice.” But Marx was wrong when, in the process of working out a dialectical materialism from Hegel and Feuerbach, he failed to discern the spiritual in human life and to understand that means and ends must cohere. “The great weakness in Karl Marx is right here,” King declared. He went on: “Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Marxism fails to realize that life is individual. Truth is found neither in the rugged individualism of capitalism nor in the impersonal collectivism of Communism. The kingdom of God is found in a synthesis that combines the truths of these two opposites. Now this is where I leave brother Marx and move on toward the kingdom.” MLK(CSC).
PART TEN: FREE AT LAST
“Whenever you set out”: King, “Unfulfilled Dreams,” Mar. 3, 1968, ibid.
Acapulco: HSCAH, I, 25–26, 33–34; Abernathy interview with Oates; Raines, 470.
“confronted the establishment”: Freedomways (spring, 1968), 10–11.
“God loves us”: Testament, 175; King, “See You in Washington,” Jan. 17, 1968, MLK(CSC); TC, 76–78. Garrow, FBI, 215, argues that “the experiences of the 1960s had taught [King] that optimism was unjustified” and that “at his death King’s optimism had been wholly erased.” While Garrow is a fine King scholar, his argument does not accord with the evidence cited in this reference.
“a physician’s warning” and “This means”: FAR, 356–57; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 846.
“devoid of statesmanship”: Testament, 234.
King and RFK: Los Angeles Times, Mar. 17, 1968; King, “Conversation,” Rabbinical Assembly convention, 3–4; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 790, 799, 873, 907; Wachtel interview with Oates; Young interview, LBJ. For King’s and Kennedy’s sympathies for one another, see King to Kennedy, Mar. 2, 1966, and especially Kennedy to King, May 4, 1967, MLK(CSC).
“racist decision making”: Testament, 231.
“wanted to escalate”: Richard Moon interview with James Mosby, July 10, 1968, BOHC; also H. Ralph Jackson interview with James Mosby, July 10, 1968, ibid.
“poor folks”: Lee interview with Oates; also Offenburger interview, BOHC; FAR, 359; HSCAH, I, 14–15.
King’s speech: the transcript in MLK(CSC) seems incomplete; cf. recorded version on I Have a Dream (cassette); also HSCAH, VI, 472, 571; Offenburger and Moon interviews, BOHC.
“talk about fighting”: Watters, 354; HSCAH, VI, 574–75; FAR, 539.
“How do you live?”: King’s sermon, Washington Episcopal Cathedral, Mar. 31, 1968, JD; King, “Conversation,” Rabbinical Assembly convention, 17.
“get the message”: W and M, 263; HSCAH, IV, 247–48.
“sometimes wonder,” “You know, Harry,” “got scary,” “deeper than that”: Oates interviews with Rustin, Wachtel, and Lee.
Rabbinical Assembly convention: King, “Conversation,” author’s possession; Wachtel interview with Oates.
the Logans: Gerald Frank, An American Death (paperback ed., New York, 1973), 49–50; Lee interview with Oates. Frank misdates the visit.
“very unsavory characters”: Smith interview with James Mosby, July 11, 1968, BOHC.
disrupted march: HSCAH, I, 15–16; VI, 410, 416, 431–32, 451, 473–81; FAR, 361–62, 539–41; Smith and Moon interviews, BOHC; W and M, 263; Selby, 146.
“intelligence work”: W and M, 264; Lee interview with Oates.
“adhere to nonviolence” and “must come back”: HSCA, I, 16, 35; Raines, 465; W and M, 264.
Invaders: FAR, 362. Testimony varies as to what was said in the meeting. Abernathy’s version is in HSCAH, I, 17, and in Raines, 465; Calvin Taylor’s and Charles Cabbage’s versions in HSCAH, VI, 451–54, 510–12, 516.
King’s press conference: Memphis Commercial Appeal, Mar. 30, 1968; HSCAH, I, 17.
“had never seen” and “get out of Memphis”: Raines, 465; also HSCAH, I, 17.
“Dr. King’s pose” and “the prelude”: Memphis Commercial Appeal, Mar. 30, 1968; St. Louis Globe-Democrat, March 30–31, 1968; HSCAH, VI, 412; VII, 107; FAR, 468, 537–38, 577. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that the FBI was not involved in any assassination plot against King. Hoover did not want him murdered: that would only make King a martyr. No, the director and his men hoped to break and drive King in humiliation from public life. Mark Lane is simply wrong in accusing the FBI of complicity in an assassination plot. For a discussion of the many inaccuracies in Lane’s chapters in Code Name “Zorro,” see FAR, 557n.
Ebenezer staff meeting: Fauntroy interview with Oates; Selby, 146–47; Raines, 467; HSCAH, I, 18; Lee interview with Oates; Lafayette interview with Oates; Frank, American Death, 89.
“congratulating me for”: Wachtel interview with Oates. King’s sermon, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” given at the Washington Episcopal Cathedral, is in JD.
“sorry for the delay,” “ridiculous,” “very well”: King, “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top,” Memphis, Tenn., Apr. 3, 1968, MLK(CSC); HSCAH, I, 33, 37; IV, 249; VI, 411–12, 547; Raines, 467–68; Lee interview with Oates.
“no police” and “not going to be stopped”: HSCAH, IV, 204–8, 257–59; FAR, 385–86, 547–51; W and M, 266.
“most peaceful warrior” and “Come on, Ralph”: this scene draws from Lafayette interview with Oates; Raines, 468; Lee interview with Oates; Dorothy Cotton conversation with Oates, Oct. 19, 1981; HSCAH, I, 18.
King’s speech: “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top,” printed copy in MLK(CSC), recorded on I Have a Dream (cassette); full recording in the National Archives.
“almost morbid”: FAR, 364.
“broken the cycle”: Lee interview with Oates; also Raines, 468; FAR, 364.
“Come on now”: Abernathy to Gregory in Lane and Gregory, Code Name “Zorro,” 117; Abernathy interview with Oates.
“cutting up”: FAR, 364; also Williams in Friends; Offenburger interview, BOHC.
Invader meeting: FAR, 364; HSCAH, I, 27, 28–29; VI, 417, 461, 466–67, 488–90, 512, 518–19; Lee interview with Oa
tes.
“doesn’t matter”: Abernathy interview with Oates; Abernathy to Gregory in Lane and Gregory, Code Name “Zorro,” 119; Raines, 468.
“so happy,” “magnificent,” “home free”: Raines, 468; W and M, 269–70; FAR, 365–66; HSCAH, I, 19; Lee interview with Oates.
“go to West Hunter”: HSCAH, I, 19–20, 30–31; FAR, 365; Abernathy interview with Oates.
“OK, Doc” to “on the balcony”: FAR, 365–66; HSCAH, I, 20.
“hurt you,” “Solomon,” “make sure you play,” “Jesse”: FAR, 366–67; Lee and Abernathy interviews with Oates; Raines, 469.
the shooting: FAR, 367–69, 375–77; HSCAH, I, 20, 24–25, 32; VI, 418–20, 423–27; Abernathy, Lee, and Williams interviews with Oates; Raines, 468–70; Frank, American Death, 91–92.
the hospital: Frank, American Death, 110, 113–16; HSCAH, I, 20–21, 58; Lee and Abernathy interviews with Oates; FAR, 369, 374; Raines, 471.
the morgue: Frank, American Death, 130; Raines, 472; Abernathy interview with Oates; NYT, Apr. 8, 1968; Lincoln, 223; FAR, 373; HSCAH, I, 36–37. Abernathy told Gregory that the brown paper bag was hooked to King’s toe. See Lane and Gregory, Code Name “Zorro,” 121.
“in a few seconds”: Daddy King, 188–89; also Ivan Allen, Jr., interview, May 15, 1969, LBJ; Sam Williams in Friends.
“national disaster,” “killed Dr. King,” “got the s.o.b.”: NYT, Apr. 5, 1968; Schulke, King, 202; Manchester, Glory, 1128; HSCAH, I, 107.
James Earl Ray: the evidence amassed by the House Select Committee on Assassinations points conclusively, I believe, to Ray as King’s lone assassin and to a link between Ray and Kaufmann and Sutherland, the two men who had offered “hit” money for King’s life. See FAR, 378–83, 423ff.
world reaction: NYT, Apr. 6, 1968.
“M.L.!” and “never hated anybody”: Daddy King, 190; NYT, Apr. 8, 1968.
funeral and burial: transcript of the funeral service, Apr. 9, 1968, MLK(CSC), partly recorded on I Have a Dream (cassette); NYT, Apr. 10, 1968; Coretta King, 329–34, 353. In his eulogy to King, Mays mistakenly claimed that King was the grandson of a slave on his father’s side. It was his mother’s side.
Let the Trumpet Sound Page 69