MURIEL HUMPHREY What do your advisors say?
SENATOR HUBERT HUMPHREY If I tie myself too close to Lyndon I’ll lose my freedom but—I’m more worried about compromising myself.
A moment
What does my chief advisor think?
MURIEL HUMPHREY Does he really support the Bill?
SENATOR HUBERT HUMPHREY With Lyndon you never know but even if he means just half of what he says, we could change this Country forever.
MURIEL HUMPHREY (softly) And you could be President.
Muriel kisses Humphrey as LIGHTS DOWN. UP on MLK/LBJ in the Oval Office. A BUTLER brings out a silver coffee set. LBJ pours for both men.
MLK My people are deeply concerned, Mr. President.
LBJ I understand.
MLK You promised the country a civil rights bill and the Voting Rights component is critical . . .
LBJ . . . Absolutely critical, and we’re gonna fix that, just not in this Bill. Right now, we’re gonna take care of segregation in Public Accommodations first. Do you know every year my cook, Zephyr Wright, best chicken-fried steak you ever put in your mouth, well, every year, she and her husband drive my Packard from Washington back down to the Ranch for me. Now Zephyr’s college educated and all, but she can’t use any restrooms on any of those highways ’cause they’re all “whites only.” She’s got to squat in a field by the side of the road to pee like a dog! Now, that’s just not right, and by God, we’re gonna fix that.
MLK (pointedly) The Civil Right Bill of 1957 was supposed to fix that.
As LBJ puts several teaspoons of sugar in his own tea . . .
LBJ Now, if you’re gonna quote my record, sir, you gotta quote the whole thing. I’m a Roosevelt New Dealer at heart. As a matter of fact, John F. Kennedy was a little too conservative for my taste.
MLK I don’t need to tell you how significant the Negro vote was in President Kennedy’s election.
LBJ President Kennedy was always very appreciative of your vote.
MLK He didn’t have my vote. (off LBJ’s look) Georgia officials declared I hadn’t lived long enough in Atlanta and Alabama officials said it was too late to vote absentee. Voting Rights matter, Mr. President. Nothing will ever really change in this country until Negroes can vote.
LBJ The next Bill will be Voting Rights.
MLK After President Kennedy’s election, Eisenhower publicly declared that his party had taken the Negro vote for granted. I would hate to see the Democratic Party make the same mistake.
LBJ If you think Barry Goldwater is a legitimate heir to Abraham Lincoln, then you should vote for him! Civil rights is not the only thing I’m interested in, Dr. King. We got people in this country livin’ in unbelievable poverty. I know, I grew up like that in the Hill Country. Picking cotton on my hands and knees. Harnessed like a mule to a road plow. Living off the bitter charity of my neighbors. No silver spoon in my mouth like Bobby Kennedy! But I gotta dream, see, where we change all that. We are gonna declare a “War on Poverty” and by God, we’re gonna beat it!
MLK A War on Poverty?
LBJ That’s right! I got all kinds of Federal programs in mind on Health, Education, Literacy, Jobs, you name it. We’re gonna change this country, top to bottom!
MLK That sounds—extraordinary.
LBJ There you go!
MLK I would very enthusiastically support legislation to that effect but—right now—I need to be able to go back to my people and tell them that this President is committed to civil rights and that this Bill, even without voting rights, will still be a strong Bill, with no further changes. If I can’t do that, I will lose their faith, and in their despair, I don’t know what will happen.
LBJ Is that a threat?
MLK Certainly not. I don’t want any spontaneous demonstrations in the street any more than you do but in order to avoid that kind of situation I need to be able to deliver meaningful reform.
LBJ OK. OK, here’s what I need. The Bill is stuck in Judge Smith’s Rules Committee . . . Walter! . . . (back to King) . . . and I need at least eight votes to pry it out. 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats. WALTER!
Walter runs in.
Gimme that list of names. (Walter hands him the list.)You get your people in each of these districts, your ministers, clergy, Union supporters, and what have you, to lobby these Representatives to release that Bill. (hands list to MLK) Lobbyin’ is just like propositioning women, you know?
MLK hesitates. Is this a coded reference to his own philandering?
MLK I’m not sure I understand.
LBJ I knew this fella once, a real ladies man, got more pussy than you ever saw, and I said to him, “What’s your secret?” And he said he’d go into a bar and ask each woman if she wanted to go out. “Boy, you musta got slapped a lot,” I said. “Oh, hell, yeah,” he says, “but I also got me a lot of yeses.” We only need eight yeses to get it out of Judge Smith’s committee.
A moment.
MLK Alright.
LBJ Alright.
LIGHTS shift. UP on REPRESENTATIVE “JUDGE” SMITH.
REP. JUDGE SMITH You invite me over here, Mr. President, to apply the ole Texas Twist?
A BLACK BUTLER serves both men drinks.
LBJ Don’t believe everything you hear, Judge; we’re just two old friends talking over a glass of Cutty. Now, you’ve done a helluva job bottling up that Bill in Committee, and I reckon all the folks back home will know you for a man who stands up for his beliefs, but it’s time to turn it loose now.
REP. JUDGE SMITH In good conscience, I don’t think I can do that, Mr. President.
LBJ This is a popular Bill, Judge. It’s bad for the Democratic party to be seen blocking it.
REP. JUDGE SMITH Then you should get a Discharge Petition but if you had those votes in the House, I guess we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
LBJ Well, you’re right about that. Which is why I’ve decided to move the Bill out on a procedural vote. I have 11 votes from your Committee to send the Bill to the floor.
A moment.
REP. JUDGE SMITH Bullshit.
LBJ hands him a piece of paper.
LBJ You know what was surprisin’? It wasn’t all that hard to line up the votes against you. Now, how is that gonna play back home, Judge, your own Committee over-ridin’ its Chairman? Some people will no doubt be suggestin’ that maybe you’re gettin’ too old for all this. The DNC was just on me the other day sayin’ maybe we oughta start lookin’ at some young blood in Virginia but I told them, NO, I said, Judge Smith is a team player and he’s gonna do the right thing! Isn’t he?
Freshen that drink for you?
TB reads: CIVIL RIGHTS BILL MOVES TO HOUSE!
LIGHTS UP on hotel room and meeting of the Council for Federated Organizations (COFO). Present are MLK, RALPH ABERNATHY, BOB MOSES (SNCC), STOKELY CARMICHAEL (SNCC), and ROY WILKINS (NAACP).
In a SPOT US, we see FBI AGENTS secretly tape-recording scene.
MLK He said he’d get it out of Committee and by God, he did.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL And all it cost us was the Voting Rights section. Hell, let’s just declare victory and go home!
ROY WILKINS If you spent a little less time in the backwoods of Mississippi, Stokely, and a little more time in the back halls of Congress, maybe you would understand how things work.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL Oh, I understand how things work, Mista Wilkins. The House nigra always thinks he’s better then the field nigra.
ROY WILKINS Don’t you get up on your hind legs with me. I was working for the Cause while your mother was still wiping your ass.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL And accomplishing what, exactly? I mean aside from getting yourself invited to the White House for tea.
ROY WILKINS
STOKELY CARMICHAEL
Every major legislative and judicial victory of the last fifty years has been the work of the NAACP!
It wasn’t until Negroes took to the streets, that we started to get things done in this country. SNCC did that! SNCC did that!
ROY WILKINS Like the deaths of those four little girls in Birmingham.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL Oh, I see, we gonna blame the victim for the lynching!
MLK Gentlemen, this is not helpful! Given our success extracting the Bill from Judge Smith’s committee, the President has asked for our continued assistance in lobbying Congress.
BOB MOSES Do we have to endorse his candidacy as well?
MLK (smiling) Are you leaning Republican this election, Bob? Goldwater came out against civil rights.
RALPH ABERNATHY (sarcastic) Purely on Constitutional grounds, you understand—personally Goldwater deplores racism.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL I think asking for my vote while denying me the right to vote is bullshit.
ROY WILKINS The Bill still gives us a lot.
BOB MOSES Unless he gives that away, too.
MLK I have his word there will be no more compromises.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL “His word?” Are you serious?
MLK He’s made Humphrey floor manager of the bill.
RALPH ABERNATHY And you know he’s on our side.
MLK And Johnson knows that if he breaks his promise, there will be demonstrations all over the country.
ROY WILKINS No, there will most certainly not be!
MLK Until this Bill passes, Roy, we have to hold his feet to the fire! While he’s running for election he doesn’t want us in the street.
RALPH ABERNATHY And that’s the leverage we have.
BOB MOSES (to MLK) It’s only a threat if you’re willing to use it, Doc. If he doesn’t deliver, will you support a public action?
MLK I will be in the street myself. Now, will SNCC work with us?
BOB MOSES I can’t support a Bill without Voting Rights.
MLK I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you not to work against it. Look, the President is also planning new legislation that will bring a huge Federal intervention in Poverty, Hunger, and Jobs. Think about what that would mean to our people.
ROY WILKINS He said that to you?
MLK He called it a “War on Poverty.”
STOKELY CARMICHAEL Forty acres and a mule. What if he’s just sweet talkin’ you until the election?
MLK What if he’s serious?
STOKELY looks to MOSES.
BOB MOSES OK. We won’t campaign against the Bill. For now. But SNCC isn’t gonna ring any doorbells for LBJ neither.
MLK Fair enough.
BOB MOSES But we’re not gonna sit on our hands.
ROY WILKINS And what does the visionary Bob Moses propose?
BOB MOSES “Freedom Summer.” We are going to send hundreds of student volunteers down to Mississippi, flood the state with our people, to educate and register Negro voters.
RALPH ABERNATHY (stunned) Mississippi?
ROY WILKINS You are out of your ever-loving mind.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL Not just black volunteers. White students, too.
ROY WILKINS Worse and worse. If just one of your white volunteers gets hurt, you will do irreparable damage to the Cause.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL Whereas if one of our Negro volunteers gets hurt, who gives a fuck? Yeah, there may be trouble. That’s the point, isn’t it? When Dr. King talks about “surfacing evil for all the world to see” what he means is deliberately provoking some red-neck to bust my head on National TV.
RALPH ABERNATHY That’s an absurd reduction of Dr. King’s philosophy!
STOKELY CARMICHAEL The Birmingham campaign was dying until you put children on the street in harm’s way. Dogs biting kids. Children being blasted with fire hoses. That got the press all excited, didn’t it? That got the President’s attention. If it takes some white kid getting smacked around to shed just a little light on the darkness that is Mississippi, well why not?
ROY WILKINS Because people will die in Mississippi.
STOKELY CARMICHAEL People are dying in Mississippi!
ROY WILKINS Those deaths will be on your head! I cannot support this!
BOB MOSES Nobody’s asking for your permission, Roy!
MLK Alright, alright! Let’s calm down. I think we can all agree that nobody here is gonna have to do something they can’t get behind, but there’s nothing that says we can’t move ahead on multiple fronts at the same time. We should respond to the elimination of voting rights, and Freedom Summer is a great way to do that. At the same time, Roy, you’re right, the Bill still gives us a lot. Nobody in this room has your legislative experience. Clearly, you and the NAACP should take the lead on our lobbying effort in DC.
RALPH ABERNATHY Meanwhile, SCLC will mobilize religious leaders and our labor allies to bring pressure to bear at home.
MLK That way we’re not gonna give them a moment’s rest.
RALPH ABERNATHY Anywhere.
BOB MOSES We need funding.
Wilkins laughs.
ROY WILKINS Here it comes. Big talk, then both hands out!
MLK We’ll help.
RALPH ABERNATHY . . . Martin, how are we gonna . . .
MLK (sharply) . . . just arrange a few more speeches, Ralph.
RALPH ABERNATHY When? You’re already . . .
MLK At this point what difference does it make?! (to Moses) All right?
A moment. Moses nods. King looks to Wilkins.
All right?
Wilkins nods reluctantly. A moment.
RALPH ABERNATHY Gentlemen?
Moses, Wilkins and Stokely leave.
One of these days, Stokely and Wilkins are just gonna kill each other, right there in the middle of the room.
MLK Well, in that case, we’ll sell tickets and maybe I can stop giving speeches.
They both laugh; their momentary estrangement forgotten.
RALPH ABERNATHY Your meeting tomorrow morning with the Catholic Interracial Council has been moved to 8:00 AM. Car will take you to the airport afterwards for your speech in Cincinnati to the International Union of Laundry Workers. Afternoon flight to Cleveland and the United Synagogue of America dinner. Next morning is Western Michigan University. You need anything?
MLK I’m fine.
RALPH ABERNATHY Good night then.
Abernathy leaves. MLK pours a drink. The bedroom door opens. In the spill of light, a beautiful WOMAN stands there, smiling suggestively at MLK.
WOMAN Is the coast clear?
MLK smiles at her.
MLK Give me a minute?
WOMAN When you’re ready.
She goes back into the room.
MLK drinks. LIGHTS DOWN on room. SPOT lingers on FBI agent—SPOT UP on Hoover/Deloach. Hoover holds aloft a reel of incriminating tape.
J. EDGAR HOOVER (triumphant) THIS TAPE WILL KILL THE BURR-HEAD! I want a “highlights” reel sent over to Walter Jenkins at the White House immediately. There’s no way the President can ignore this!
LIGHTS shift to Oval Office. LBJ walks in with headphones on, listening to the sex tapes with delight.
LBJ The sex-mad preacher.
J. EDGAR HOOVER His hypocrisy is disgusting!
Laughing, LBJ takes off his headphones.
His hypocrisy is disgusting. The man is a flagrant adulterer.
LBJ Oh my, a Southern preacher who screws his choir. Who ever heard of that? Jay, if you arrested every politician and preacher who strayed from the marital bed wouldn’t be nobody in Congress or the pulpit. Whatever a man gets up to in his privacy is his own business.
&n
bsp; J. EDGAR HOOVER His moral turpitude is just the tip of the iceberg! I am sure . . .
LBJ (cutting him off) Jay. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, so, keep an eye on him, sure, but while I’m trying to get this Bill passed, this is not helpful, you understand me?
J. EDGAR HOOVER Yes, sir.
LBJ leaves. Deloach approaches quietly.
DEKE DELOACH Call off the surveillance teams?
A moment.
J. EDGAR HOOVER It’s our job to protect the President from his enemies. And from himself. Expand our surveillance; find me another way to expose King. (stops and considers) Maybe a word with one of our good friends in the Press.
SPOT DOWN on Hoover/Deloach.
TB reads: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 8 MONTHS TO THE ELECTION.
Witnesses assemble facing audience. SPOTS pick out individuals as they “address” the House, speaking directly to the audience. LBJ watches carefully from the upper gallery.
SPEAKER JOHN MCCORMACK (D-MA) We will now call the House of Representatives to order to consider House Bill 736, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
REP. JUDGE SMITH (D-VA) This Bill is nothing less than an assault on the Constitution by the Federal Government. Who are we to tell the owner of a cafe who he can hire and who he can serve? Who are we to tell a state that they may not pass segregation laws?
REP. EMANUEL CELLER (D-NY) Congress not only has the legal right to pass such a law, it has the moral responsibility to ensure equality for all.
REP. WILLIAM COLMER (D-MISS) Congress is allowin’ itself to be stampeded on this issue out of fear! Are we to yield to threats of demonstrations, even riots, by minority groups—“blackmail,” if you will?
REP. BILL MCCULLOCH (R-OHIO) Not fear, but belief in the equality of man induces me to support this legislation. As a conservative Republican, I believe that state authority should not be needlessly usurped by a centralized government but I also believe that the Constitution doesn’t say that whites alone shall have our basic rights, but that we all shall have them.
REP. JUDGE SMITH (D-VA) I would like to introduce an amendment here that would exempt local businesses in public accommodations. For instance, if you were a Chiropodist and had your office in a hotel. If I were cuttin’ corns I would want to know whose feet I would have to be monkeyin’ around with. I would want to know whether they smelled good or bad. Chiropodists, like other minorities, got rights, too. To force them to work violates the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition against slavery or involuntary servitude!
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