Pillar of Fire

by Taylor Branch

  fn “You’re a patriot”: LBJ phone call with Doug Wynn, Aug. 25, 1964, Cit. 5209, Audiotape WH6408.38, LBJ.

  fn Klan death threats: LBJ phone call with Jack Valenti, Aug. 31, 1964, Cit. 5286, Audiotape WH6408.43, LBJ; LBJ phone call with Nicholas Katzenbach, Aug. 31, 1964, Cit. 5294, Audiotape WH6408.43, LBJ.

  riots and demonstrations: LBJ phone call with Walter Jenkins, Aug. 25, 1964, Cit. 5210, Audiotape WH6408.38, LBJ.

  Watson angrily ordered: Walter Adams to Walter Jenkins, Sept. 1, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

  Moses waved off: Dittmer, Local People, p. 299.

  Reedy hesitantly answered a summons: Reedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, p. 55.

  “By God, I’m gonna go”: Int. George Reedy, May 8, 1991.

  “the dumb bastards on your side”: Int. Joseph Rauh, Oct. 17, 1983.

  “I honestly don’t care”: Int. Joseph Rauh by Anne Romaine, June 1967, A/AR.

  “You’re a traitor”: Forman, Black Revolutionaries, p. 392.

  drunk in a bar: Int. Jack Pratt, March 25, 1991.

  King delivered a speech: Int. Robert P. Moses, March 13, 1988. “King was neutral,” said Moses. “He wasn’t taking Bayard’s position.”

  conflicted private advice: Int. Edwin King by Anne Romaine, Nov. 1966, A/AR.

  “Moses could have been Socrates”: Burner, Gently He Shall Lead, p. 187.

  people back home were counting on them: Int. Victoria Gray Adams, May 14, 1991.

  “When they got through”: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 340-41.

  “We didn’t come”: Carson, In Struggle, p. 126; Mills, This Little Light, p. 132.

  Reuther’s bracing news: PDD, 10:00 A.M., 11:20 A.M., Aug. 26, 1964.

  agreement by Martin Luther King: Young, Easy Burden, p. 310.

  “vast bulk”: WP, Aug. 26, 1964, p. 1.

  ducked three calls: PDD, Aug. 26, 1964.

  spontaneous midday walk: Ibid. Goldman, Tragedy, pp. 249-50.

  “One of them must now”: CBS Television, The Making of the President 1964, Tape No. 65043 PST, PEA.

  “We’re going to nominate your boy”: Humphrey, The Education, pp. 303-4.

  scrambled the entire presidential entourage: Goldman, Tragedy, pp. 250-51.

  a helicopter blade: Int. George Reedy, May 8, 1991.

  unbroken wave of applause: Guthman, We Band of Brothers, p. 291; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, pp. 717-18.

  “Party and nation”: CBS Television, The Making of the President 1964, Tape No. 65043 PST, PEA.

  strongly suspected aides: Int. George Reedy, May 8, 1991.

  “quit because Mr. Johnson”: NYT, Aug. 29, 1964, p. 6.

  “I don’t want to louse”: LBJ phone call with George Reedy, Aug. 30, 1964, Cit. 5270, Audiotape WH6408.42, LBJ. Reedy first despaired about the leak of his “resignation” in a phone call with LBJ, Aug. 26, 1964, Cit. 5243, Audiotape WH6408.40, LBJ.

  Deke DeLoach applied successfully: DeLoach to Mohr, Aug. 29, 1964, cited in Church, Hearings Before the Select Committee, pp. 624-30. On the memo Hoover wrote, “DeLoach should receive a meritorious award.”

  wearing black neck placards: Mills, This Little Light, p. 131.

  Atlantic City a bitter turning point: Int. Robert P. Moses, Oct. 11, 1983, March 13, 1988, Feb. 15, 1991; also Dittmer, Local People, p. 362.

  Hamer led farewell: Belfrage, Freedom Summer, pp. 255-56.

  birthday celebration illuminated: Kasher, Photographic History, p. 158.

  veered across the airfield: Miller, Lyndon, pp. 480-81; Graham, Personal History, pp. 360-67.

  “We’re going to Texas”: Humphrey, The Education, p. 305.

  “I looked ridiculous”: Ibid., p. 307.

  “Cousin Oriole, wake up!”: PDD, Aug. 28, 1964.

  35. “WE SEE THE GIANTS…”

  twenty-three Coca-Cola signs: Good, Trouble I’ve Seen, pp. 175-93.

  “There’s no crime in Georgia”: Ibid., p. 182.

  Loretta Lackey sat mute: Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 2, 1964, FLP-261.

  “Doctor, does that mean”: Good, Trouble I’ve Seen, p. 185.

  “my mind is boiling”: Ibid., pp. 189-90.

  preying carpetbaggers: SAC, Atlanta, to Director, Sept. 8, 1964, FLP-274, p. 4.

  “Don’t come back”: NYT, Sept. 5, 1964, pp. 1, 9.

  acquitted the defendants: Jack Nelson, “Backlash and Black Power: A Reporter’s Reflections,” New South, Winter 1967, p. 41.

  state authorities aborted: Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 8, 1964, FLP-285.

  “cost my good county”: H. C. Echols to Hoover, Oct. 17, 1964, FLP-341.

  J. Edgar Hoover replied: Hoover to H. C. Echols, Oct. 21, 1964, FLP-342.

  “telephonically advised”: Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 4, 1964, FLP-271.

  notices on the Penn trial: Cf. Hoover instruction written on Atlanta teletype to Hoover dated Aug. 14, 1964, FLP-208.

  “certain to raise speculation”: Katzenbach to LBJ, Sept. 4, 1964, Ex HU2/ST 24, Box 27, LBJ.

  President had publicly forecast: PPP, press conference of Aug. 8, 1964.

  audience with Pope Paul VI: Cf. Archbishop Paul Hallinan (Atlanta) to Cardinal Cicognani, Andrew Young telegram to Cicognani, Hallinan to MLK, and Hallinan to Archbishop Martin O’Connor (Rome), all Sept. 4, 1964, A/KP12f17.

  income tax trial in 1960: Branch, Parting, pp. 293-99, 308-11.

  represented Elijah Muhammad: Int. Chauncey Eskridge, Feb. 22, 1985.

  recent marriage: Ali married Sonji Roi of Gary, Indiana, on Aug. 14, 1964. NYT, Aug. 15, 1964, p. 17.

  “is keeping up with MLK”: Wiretap log reprinted in United States v. Clay, 430 F2d 165 (1970), p. 168.

  Nearly five years later: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 202, 282. On first discovery that Ali had been overheard on wiretaps, see NYT, Aug. 31, 1968, p. 21.

  Hoover launched a crossfire: “Hoover Brands Negro Columnist as a ‘Racist,’” Miami Herald, June 25, 1969, p. 3; Rowan, “It Is Time for J. Edgar Hoover to Go,” Washington Star, June 15, 1969; Rowan, Breaking the Barriers, pp. 293-94; Hoover to Tolson, DeLoach, and Sullivan, June 24, 1964, FK-3613.

  blamed the late Robert Kennedy: “Bobby Approved King Wiretap, FBI Says,” Miami Herald, June 19, 1969, p. 1.

  banished Special Agent Nichols: Int. Robert Nichols, May 29, 1984.

  “end of innocence”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 302.

  “things could never be the same”: Sellers, River of No Return, p. 111.

  “Well, I’ll give fifty years”: Int. Robert P. Moses, Feb. 15, 1991.

  “it never occurred to us”: Mary King, Freedom Song, pp. 344-45.

  Lewis called it a blow: Carson, In Struggle, p. 127. Also Forman, Black Revolutionaries, pp. 395-96.

  “Who holds the power?” (emphasis added): Sherrod newsletter of Oct. 12, 1964, Union Theological Seminary, A/CS5f8, pp. 10-11.

  SNCC had grown: Forman, Black Revolutionaries, pp. 423-24.

  144 far-flung field organizers: Minutes, Executive Committee, Sept. 4, 1964, A/SN6.

  $165,000 in one New York: Minutes, Executive Committee, Sept. 5, 1964, A/SN6.

  “the problem is deeper”: Minutes, Executive Committee, Sept. 4, 1964, A/SN6.

  Moses faction and a Forman faction: Int. Robert P. Moses, Aug. 19, 1983, Feb. 15, 1991; int. Robert P. Moses by Joseph Sinsheimer, Dec. 5, 1984; Forman, Black Revolutionaries, pp. 411-33.

  applications from more than a hundred: Minutes, Executive Committee, Sept. 5, 1964, p. 7, A/SN6.

  guests for the Belafonte trip: Minutes, Executive Committee, Sept. 4, 1964, A/SN6.

  eleven flew to Guinea: Ibid. Also Carson, In Struggle, p. 134; Neary, Julian Bond, p. 73.

  Hamer’s wide-eyed exclamations: Mills, This Little Light, pp. 134-36.

  Belafonte rushed off: Ibid.; int. Harry Belafonte, March 6-7, 1985; Hampton, Voices of Freedom, pp. 204-6.

  broke happily into tears: Jack O’Dell, “Like in Mississippi,” Freedomways, 2nd Quarter, 1965, pp. 234-35.

  with Belafonte presiding: Int. John Le
wis by Archie Allen, Sept. 24, 1969, AAP.

  “I realized on this trip”: Forman, Black Revolutionaries, p. 409.

  braided in cornrows: Mills, This Little Light, p. 137.

  “sold about three million of you”: Int. Matthew Jones by Archie Allen, Nov. 9, 1969, AAP.

  all but two went home early: Forman, Black Revolutionaries, p. 411.

  SNCC-style tour: “The Trip,” report submitted by John Lewis and Donald Harris, Dec. 14, 1964, 14 pp., A/SC45f14.

  Malcolm entranced them: Hampton, Voices of Freedom, p. 206; Carson, In Struggle, p. 135; int. John Lewis by Archie Allen, 1969, pp. 169-71, AAP.

  Lewis visited the cabaret: Int. John Lewis by Archie Allen, Sept. 24, 1969, AAP.

  press conference at Boston University: Tape recording and transcript of press conference, Sept. 11, 1964, BUK.

  passed through the Berlin Wall: NYT, Sept. 13, 1964, p. 66; Jet, Sept. 24, 1964, p. 6.

  “For the first time”: MLK Berlin sermon of Sept. 13, 1964, A/KS6.

  “like grasshoppers”: Numbers 13:32-33.

  Theological Seminary of Berlin: MLK to Bishop Otto Dibelius (thank-you letter), Sept. 28, 1964, A/KP12f3.

  “It would be shocking indeed”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Aug. 31, 1964, FK-450.

  Malone notified headquarters: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Sept. 8, 1964, FK-452; U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before the Select Committee on Assassinations, vol. VII, p. 257.

  “drastically watered down”: NYT, June 12, 1964, p. 1.

  Behind closed doors: Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, pp. 59-65; “AJC White Paper, 1964-65,” pp. 68-95, AJC; NYT, Sept. 4, 1964, p. 2.

  “I am ready to go to Auschwitz”: Heschel statement of Sept. 3, 1964, IAD, AJC.

  fn Soloveitchik rejected: NYT, Aug. 16, 1964, p. 7.

  entreaties that he not go: Int. Sylvia Heschel, Feb. 4, 1991; int. Marc Tanenbaum, Feb. 5, 1991.

  protection from Rabbi Louis Finkelstein: Louis Finkelstein, “Three Meetings with Abraham Heschel,” America, March 10, 1973, pp. 203-4.

  plead face-to-face with Pope Paul VI: Moore, Human and the Holy, p. 13.

  “mostly with words”: Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, p. 105.

  “Magno cum dolore”: Ibid., p. 83.

  “all peoples will address”: NYT, Nov. 21, 1964, p. 9; int. John Oesterreicher, May 24, 1991.

  “Who Crucified Christ?”: The Jerusalem Times, cited in Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, p. 105.

  SCLC office announced: “Martin Luther King to Meet with Pope Paul,” SCLC press release dated Sept. 16, 1964, by Barbara Suarez, A/KS.

  “to determine if there”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Sept. 17, 1964, FK-479, reprinted in U.S. House of Representatives, Hearings Before the Select Committee on Assassinations, vol. VII, pp. 257-58.

  matched Hoover’s longevity: Cf. “Monsignor Cicognani,” Commonweal, Jan. 5, 1934, pp. 269-70.

  Paul VI greeted King: Rome Daily American, Sept. 19, 1964, FK-463; NYT, Sept. 19, 1964, p. 3.

  “I am amazed”: Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 121.

  “a new and transparently disingenuous”: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 120-21.

  dropped plans to attend: Wachtel to “My dear Martin,” Oct. 2, 1964 (apologizing for failure to attend), A/KP25f27.

  agents who knew Daddy King: Garrow, FBI and Martin, p. 120.

  five hundred SCLC delegates: NYT, Sept. 30, 1964, p. 22.

  “get program printed”: Handwritten item No. 9 in MLK convention list headed “C.T.,” A/KP31f8.

  “send letter in my name”: Handwritten item No. 2 in MLK convention list headed “Andy Young,” A/KP31f8.

  King himself issued: Handwritten “Executive Orders,” A/KP31f8.

  receipts of $626,000: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 353.

  leaving behind a suit jacket: Ritz Hotel general manager to MLK, Sept. 22, 1964, A/SC1f20; log, Research Committee meeting, A/SC29.

  preached for Fred Shuttlesworth: MLK appointments log for Sept. 27, 1964, A/SC29; Shuttlesworth to MLK, date na, A/KP22f12.

  begged off one engagement: MLK to Ted Brown, Sept. 25, 1964, A/KP3f17.

  generally cordial reception: Intercepted comments by Bayard Rustin on Oct. 2, 1964, in FBI HQ blind memorandum of Oct. 6, 1964, FK-NR.

  “extremely cooperative and reliable”: SAC, Savannah to Director, Sept. 26, 1964, Section 24, FHOC.

  dropped three bugging devices: Sizoo to Sullivan, Sept. 30, 1964, citing microphone surveillance request by Savannah SAC Edward L. Boyle, FSC-174.

  well-placed physical surveillance: Savannah LHM dated Oct. 1, 1964, FSC-171.

  segregationist bomb threat: Savannah LHM dated Oct. 1, 1964, FSC-181.

  Eskridge established: Trust agreement dated and executed Sept. 29, 1964, by MLK, Eskridge, Shuttlesworth, Abernathy, and Archibald Carey, A/SC49f6.

  his son might be a candidate: Minutes, SCLC board meeting of Sept. 30, 1964, A/KP29f4.

  five hundred delegates: NYT, Oct. 2, 1964, p. 27.

  “have our Valley Forges” to “battle is in our hands”: Annual Report of MLK to the 8th Annual SCLC Convention, Savannah, Georgia, delivered Oct. 1, 1964, A/KS6; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, pp. 353-54.

  36. MOVEMENTS UNBOUND

  first run of sixty-three weeks: NYT, Sept. 1, 1964, p. 30.

  “a benign infection”: The New Yorker, Aug. 29, 1964, p. 14.

  adoring youth riots: Rolling Stone Rock Almanac, pp. 90-92.

  Chagall installed: NYT, Sept. 7, 1964, p. 21.

  “steerable parachute”: NYT, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 86.

  “bothersome hump”: NYT, Dec. 13, 1964, p. 86.

  girl counting: Manchester, Glory and the Dream, p. 1260; Edwards, Goldwater, pp. 299-300.

  40 percent more than Johnson: Edwards, Goldwater, p. 287.

  using grim phrases: Ibid., p. 319.

  “lobbing one into the men’s room”: Manchester, Glory and the Dream, p. 1260.

  “The President and the Bomb”: NYT, Sept. 9, 1964, p. 42.

  relished tales of his grandfather: Rochlin, Pioneer Jews, pp. 127-31, 224-25.

  unmentionable on any account: Cf. NYT, July 16, 1964, p. 17.

  nose of Lincoln’s bust: NYT, Aug. 20, 1964, p. 1.

  “the more the federal government”: NYT, Sept. 12, 1964, p. 10.

  “to tell you what to print”: NYT, Sept. 16, 1964, p. 12.

  took the edge off: Good, Trouble I’ve Seen, pp. 210-11.

  “an invisible silken curtain”: Johnson, White House Diary, pp. 195-96.

  rejected its last Republican: Cohodas, Strom Thurmond, p. 26.

  outlaw fraternal orders: Woodward, Strange Career, p. 100.

  hegemony produced 98 percent: Cohodas, Strom Thurmond, p. 37.

  “will make a Czar of the President”: Ibid., p. 333.

  “go all the way and change parties”: Ibid., p. 340.

  “The Democratic Party”: “Television Address of Senator Strom Thurmond to the People of South Carolina on the 1964 Presidential Race, September 16, 1964,” Congressional Record, Sept. 17, 1964, pp. S22302-5.

  distinctive new lapel pin: NYT, Sept. 18, 1964, p. 1.

  minimized the switch: NYT, Sept. 17, 1964, p. 42.

  Democratic chairman questioned: Columbia, South Carolina, The State, Sept. 17, 1964, pp. 1, 6.

  Hollis Watkins claimed: Int. Hollis Watkins by Joseph Sinsheimer, Feb. 13, 1985; int. Hollis Watkins, June 22, 1992; int. Mike Sayer, June 25, 1992.

  burned there in a single week: July 17-24, 1964, in “Mississippi Bombings, Burnings Since June 16,” A/SN36f6.

  conquered a pronounced stutter: Int. Mike Miller, June 24, 1994.

  undiminished vigilante rampage: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement, pp. 30-35; Dittmer, Local People, pp. 305-7.

  Festival of Football Queens: Heirich, The Beginning, p. 44.

  picketed the Oakland Tribune. Viorst, Fire in the Streets, pp. 284-86.

  twenty-six-foot-wide brick strip: Heirich, The Beginning, pp. 49-65.

  �
�People grab whatever”: Harris, Dreams Die Hard, pp. 79-80.

  one with a punctured eardrum: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 306-7.

  “We have jointly manned the tables”: Heirich, The Beginning, p. 81.

  “Let Savio speak”: Ibid., pp. 90-93.

  Savio’s desire to be identified: Mike Miller to the author, Dec. 2, 1992.

  chapters must confine themselves: Int. Mike Miller, June 24, 1994.

  “let us try to avoid”: “Rough Minutes of a Meeting Called by the National Council of Churches to Discuss the Mississippi Project,” Sept. 18, 1964, A/SN115f3; Carson, In Struggle, p. 137.

  neutral facilitators: Int. Jack Pratt, March 25, 1991.

  transported Alyene Quin: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 307-8.

  “when he doesn’t even have a garage”: Tucker, Mississippi from Within, p. 124; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement, pp. 33-35.

  “argued strenuously”: Lee White to Jack Valenti, “Request for Meeting with the President by McComb, Mississippi Bombing Victims,” Sept. 23, 1964, HU2/ST24, Box 27, LBJ.

  met with columnist Drew Pearson: Remarks on McComb by Bob Moses, Dennis Sweeney, and Mike Miller, at SNCC “West Coast Conference,” Nov. 1964, Tape No. 239, A/JF.

  “Do you think I would”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 308.

  “nothing in the history”: Jet, Oct. 7, 1964, pp. 16-21.

  two more bombings: Homes of Ardis Garner and Matthew Jackson. “Mississippi Bombings, Burnings Since June 16,” A/SN36f6; MS, Nov. 20, 1964, pp. 12-13.

  “criminal syndicalism”: Harris, Dreams Die Hard, p. 80; NYT, Sept. 27, 1964, p. 41.

  “They are coming through”: Lee White to LBJ, Sept. 24, 1964, HU2/ST24, Box 27, LBJ.

  several minutes with Johnson: PDD, Sept. 24, 1964.

  “New Dulles Mission Urged”: NYT, Sept. 26, 1964, p. 23.

  yard of the Natchez mayor: “Mississippi Bombings, Burnings Since June 16,” A/SN36f6.

  “I never said they were good kids”: Tucker, Mississippi from Within, p. 124.

  eight hundred cases: Int. Roy Moore, June 22, 1992.

  fn Moore’s volunteers: Ibid.; Ungar, FBI, p. 204.

  surfaced in a McComb newspaper: Dittmer, Local People, p. 309.

  hauling one hundred: SAC, Jackson, to Director, Sept. 17, 1964, FMB-1170.

  two grand juries dueled: SAC, Jackson, to Director, Sept. 18, 1964, FMB-1178.

  “the most courageous sheriff”: Mars, Witness, p. 129.