* * *
For the third morning in a row, Judge Mitchell convened his court. The crowd that had packed the courtroom two days earlier had evaporated. Maybe it was the bomb threat the day before; maybe expectations were low for this procedural hearing on Hollowell’s motion to have King released on bond. A.D. was the only member of the King family able to attend, though he was joined by Abernathy. Yet soon after opening the morning session, Judge Mitchell delivered shocking news to the few who were present. With an earnest air, the judge announced that he had been more carefully reading the laws of the State of Georgia since Hollowell had filed his bill of exceptions the day before.
It was now his considered conclusion that for a misdemeanor King should be free while the verdict was being appealed.
The courtroom stirred with amazement. Mitchell went on: the question was no longer whether King should be held, but simply what amount the bond should be. Hollowell jumped in to propose, based on the testimonies to King’s good character in this courtroom, that it not be more than a thousand dollars. Jack Smith countered with two thousand dollars, and Mitchell went with the larger figure without much deliberation. It was a parting shot directed at King, but Hollowell knew he had achieved a significant victory: they could bring King home for the time being. Hollowell had the bond money ready within an hour.
In the meantime, Mitchell assembled the press and proceeded to read a statement. Clearly, he wanted the nation, and his hometown, to know why he had so unexpectedly reversed his decision. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, as you no doubt know, pressure has been put upon me in this case urging the release of the defendant and people of other views urging that I deny his release. The pressure favoring his release has even come from those close to the presidential candidate.”
Having dropped that bombshell, Mitchell offered up the paradox that nothing—nothing—could have affected his lofty, unprejudiced legal judgment while giving the impression that something in fact had: “However, I would like to say that this pressure has not influenced me in any of my decisions in this matter … I have followed the law.” He claimed to have done that in revoking King’s probation, and now in concurring with Hollowell’s reasoning in his bill of exceptions. “Therefore, I have no alternative except to grant bail during this appeal in this portion of the case pending before me now.” After Mitchell had boxed himself into a legal corner, it turned out it was Hollowell who offered him an escape route.
Reporters immediately pressed Mitchell for more details on this contact with someone close to a presidential candidate, but he said he could not give more details while continuing to do so. He said he had not heard from the Nixon side; it was a Kennedy brother, not the candidate, and when asked then whether it was Bobby or Teddy, he said, “Well, I will say that I have never heard Ted’s name mentioned.”
Abernathy then said to reporters his soon-to-be-famous phrase: “Time for all of us to take off our Nixon buttons.” As Hollowell raced to get the release papers in order, students and Black community leaders were already planning King’s welcome-home rally. They wanted to make it as big as possible, and to hold it that night, if they could just get him home.
Hollowell now rushed to get Judge Mitchell’s paperwork to the state corrections director, granting the state prison permission to release King. The DeKalb County sheriff confirmed that King did not have to be returned to his custody, but a corrections official said that in order to let King go, they needed documentation of King’s bond payment to be presented at Reidsville. A journalist from CBS Atlanta’s Channel 5, Ed Blair, asked Hollowell how he was going to get to Reidsville to retrieve his client. Hollowell responded that he would drive, of course. But Blair had a proposition: he would charter a plane for Hollowell if his cameras could record the first interview with a liberated Dr. King. That was an easy call for Hollowell: every minute mattered when a client was in Reidsville.
Blair was not the only person planning to fly to Reidsville to witness King’s release. NBC’s Channel 2 and a film company both got their own planes, and Reverend Abernathy, Wyatt Tee Walker, and A.D. chartered one as well, in place of their earlier idea of a prayer caravan driving to Reidsville. The SCLC team wanted to bring King home to Atlanta as quickly as possible, unable to relax as long as he was in prison. So now, four small private planes raced toward the same destination.
* * *
At Kennedy headquarters, the press staffer Roger Tubby was telling John Seigenthaler, “Crazy judge down there says Bobby called him on the phone. And I’m getting calls; what should I say?”
Seigenthaler said, “Just flat deny it. I put him on a plane last night.” He repeated the story of how Bobby had said he would not call the judge. “Yes, he was thinking about it. That probably got around and somebody picked that up maybe … Forget it, he didn’t do it.”
Martin was at the CRS office that morning when he heard from Tubby that the campaign was planning a press conference. Martin said, “What do they want to hold a press conference for?”
The press aide told him, “Well, they’re trying to deny that report on the wire that Bobby called Mitchell.”
“Well, he did,” Martin said, thinking of the call he had received from Bobby in the middle of the night.
“No, they’re going to have a press conference and deny it.”
Martin ran out of his office and back down K Street as he had done the previous day. He needed to stop the press team from going on the record with something that not only was untrue but undercut Martin’s goal of connecting with Black voters.
Arriving at 1001 Connecticut Avenue, Martin found Tubby and, catching his breath, said, “Listen, don’t put out any denial yet, because the facts are, he’s made the call.” He pleaded, “For God’s sake, don’t call any press conference. Cancel this thing. Bobby did call him.”
Tubby said no, he’d already denied it because Bobby had not done this. He had just spoken with Bobby’s assistant John Seigenthaler, who was sure Bobby had not called. Martin said, “Listen, Bobby called me and said he called him. We’ll be embarrassed.”
* * *
The two partners must have missed each other in the CRS office because Wofford was not operating with an understanding of what Martin already knew. Wofford’s phone rang and he heard the distinctive, halting delivery of the NBC journalist David Brinkley: “There’s a crazy story coming over the wire that now a brother of the Senator has intervened, and called the Judge directly to get King released.” He asked if “a brother of Kennedy had called the Judge in Georgia to get King off. Could this be true? And which brother?”
Wofford did not think that Ted, organizing the campaign in California, could have done such a thing. And after the flogging he’d received from Bobby the day before, he could not fathom that he might have done something. He concluded, “It just can’t be true, David.”
“Well, we’re going on the air in about ten minutes. Should I disregard this story?”
“I think you can. It just can’t be true.” Brinkley said he would take his word for it and not mention it on the evening news.
* * *
Hollowell attempted to shake Warden Balkcom’s hand, but seeing a cameraman next to him, the prison official said, “Hell, no, don’t do that. You want me to lose my job?” Balkcom would not have survived so many different gubernatorial administrations without political savvy. He used to offer his Tattnall County home cooking to legislators he intended to win over. This charm, however, did not completely mask the toughness needed to rule over a citadel like Reidsville.
Once Hollowell smoothed over the awkward interaction, King was brought in and the paperwork was approved. Balkcom admitted, “I’m sure glad to see you fellas. We’ve about burned out three telephone transformers with all the calls we’ve been getting.”
King changed back into his usual somber black pastor’s suit. He almost left without his license, which was being held in the prison office, but remembered it. He put it back into his wallet; a driver’s li
cense had started the whole saga, after all. He walked through the prison gates, carrying his belongings in two brown paper bags. As of 3:46 p.m., he was a free man. Hollowell was moved by a chant rising from the segregated Black section of the prison, beginning with a prisoner whose cell faced the front: “Long live the King! Long live the King!”
* * *
Hundreds of hours of film documenting the rest of King’s life survive, offering a sometimes haunting vision of just how he spoke, how others related to his physical presence. Almost nothing from those nine days in 1960 survives on film, and the brief minute of black-and-white footage, showing King emerging from Reidsville accompanied by Hollowell, Walker, and Abernathy, is a rare surviving relic. It is Hollowell who mostly fills the frame—tall, impressive, and clearly pleased at the turn of events. King’s demeanor as he nears the camera is more reserved; as always, he is the eye at the center of the storm that formed about him. King, Hollowell, Walker, and Abernathy exchange smiles as they pass through the gated opening in the chain-link prison fence.
The minister steps forward to speak with Blair, and the other reporters crowd in. “Dr. King, you’ve heard the reports that Senator John Kennedy’s family brought influence to bear to win your release from prison; would you comment on that?”
King says slowly and methodically, looking straight into the camera,
Well, I owe a great debt of gratitude to Senator Kennedy and his family for this. I don’t know the details of it, but naturally I’m very happy to know of Senator Kennedy’s concern and all that he did to make this possible. I might say that there are no political implications here, I’m sure the Senator did it because of his real concern and his humanitarian bent, and I will always say that I am deeply indebted to him for it.
To another reporter outside the prison, King would say, “I understand from very reliable sources that Senator Kennedy served as a great force in making the release possible … I think a great deal of Senator Kennedy.” He did not know the full story, but King said, “The Kennedy group did make definite contacts and did a great deal to make my release possible.” King said he had not heard from Nixon and knew of no efforts to help him from anyone on the Republican side.
While it has generally been thought that King never seriously considered an endorsement, he said, perhaps moved by his freedom, “I think I’ll wait until a day or two before the election, then state who my personal preference happens to be.” He nodded, bringing the short interview to a close, and the group moved on toward the airfield, eager to reach Atlanta and the long-delayed homecoming celebration.
* * *
Louis Martin managed to get the press conference called off, but Seigenthaler soon got Bobby on the phone: “Bob, you’d never believe the story that the AP has got out.” Bobby was still in New York; his brother was hitting four boroughs from Eastern Parkway Arena to Sunnyside Gardens, and doing two Seventh Avenue rallies.
Bobby replied, “What’s that?”
“That crazy judge says—he’s going to be a real idiot—he says that you called him on the telephone complaining about this.” Seigenthaler added, “He thinks you’re a young whippersnapper sticking your nose into the judicial process of the State of Georgia. I told the press section of the National Committee that you didn’t do any such thing as that and for them to issue a denial.”
“What did you say?”
“I told Tubby to put out a denial.”
There was a long pause. “John, you’d better get Tubby to put out another statement. I did call him.” Seigenthaler was in shock. “I just got so pissed off and I did it.” Getting warmed up, Bobby explained more: “I kept thinking that it was so outrageous. When I got off the airplane, I’d made up my mind that somebody had to talk to that judge.”
“I can’t believe it,” Seigenthaler said.
“Yes, it just burned me all the way up here on the plane … The more I thought about the injustice of it, the more I thought what a son of a bitch that judge was. I made it clear to him that it was not a political call; that I am a lawyer, one who believes in the right of all defendants to make bond.” He claimed to have no knowledge that the judge was going to divulge their conversation, but figured the judge saw some political gain in doing so.
All that off his chest, Bobby told the still stunned aide to gather the CRS team together and draft a statement, as innocuous as possible. So it was Seigenthaler who confirmed the story for Wofford, and Wofford was in as deep a state of disbelief as anyone else. The mavericks had just been outdone.
Seigenthaler told Wofford, exaggerating slightly, “He just woke up this morning and he was so damn mad that that cracker judge should put a decent American in jail for driving with an out-of-state driver’s license, clearly on the grounds of color, and screwing up his brother’s campaign to boot, that he just got the judge on the phone and said to him, ‘Are you an American? Do you know what it means to be an American? You get King out of jail!’”
That manner would not have astonished anyone who knew of Bobby’s reputation for abrasiveness. But there was more to Bobby than just this pugnacity; there was vulnerability and a concern for injustice as well. As O’Donnell noted, “Jack was the tough one. Not Bobby. Jack would cut you off at the knees. Bobby would say, ‘Why are we doing that to this guy?’” Bobby was the family’s most sensitive boy, sticking closest to his mother, struggling to make friends at new schools, physically clumsy in a family that prized athleticism. He was seen, not without cause, as needlessly obnoxious—a young man concealing his insecurities by way of a stern and unyielding manner. Jack’s cheerfulness seemed immune to whatever the world threw at him, while Bobby’s emotions remained apparent to all around him. Jack could charm, and Jack could forgive, but it was hard to find these qualities in his younger brother, who saw things in starkly moralistic terms and was prepared to do whatever was necessary. Yet as Arthur Schlesinger put it, “John Kennedy was a realist brilliantly disguised as a romantic, Robert a romantic stubbornly disguised as a realist.”
Wofford, Martin, and Seigenthaler set about the business of damage control. The first order of business was to craft a statement denying that their boss had asked for a favor from a sitting judge, which would land them in deeper trouble.
Finally, they came up with a statement that read, “Robert F. Kennedy said tonight he telephoned Judge Mitchell to inquire as to whether the Rev. Martin Luther King had a constitutional right to bail. Mr. Kennedy said he did this after many inquiries were made at his office concerning this matter.” They concluded, “That is the extent of the matter and any suggestion that interference was involved is untrue.”
* * *
Sitting in a single-engine plane in a field near Reidsville with Hollowell, Abernathy, A.D., and Walker, King was at last ready to lift off. Just as the pilot started the engine, however, they heard a grinding sound, then paralyzing silence. They were momentarily frightened that someone had sabotaged the plane—a final attempt to kill King. But then the engine coughed and roared to life. The little plane jumped forward, sped along the short runway, and rose over the roads King had traveled in the back of a police car on Wednesday night. Reidsville shrank behind them into the countryside, swallowed by the dusk.
They landed at the Peachtree-DeKalb Airport in Chamblee, north of Atlanta, just past 5:50 p.m., with a few dozen family members and friends awaiting them, along with expectant photographers and reporters. The men emerged, waving, and King’s family surrounded him, happy and grateful to be reunited. Yoki and Marty shyly stood alongside Coretta as she embraced and kissed her husband. Eight students, with signs reading, “Welcome home, Dr. King,” surrounded the exuberant family. Marty jumped into his father’s arms and King lifted him up—Marty’s wish to see his father return on a little plane come true. Yoki, in a plaid school dress and with a bow in her hair, looked up at her dad. Reporters asked King if he was now voting for Kennedy, but King quietly said that as the leader of a nonpartisan organization he would not publicly disclose his choice.
He thanked the prison warden for his treatment.
The family had chartered a long black limousine to take them home, and they climbed inside to head down the highway. As they approached the Fulton County line, they suddenly saw three hundred students assembled to greet King. They stood just feet from the border, but they would not step into the county that had jailed him without just cause. King told the driver to stop, and the little caravan following close behind slowed. The students were dressed in their finest sit-in suits and dresses. They had borrowed four buses from the colleges, and when those were full, some forty more cars drove groups of students to this impromptu rally to thank King for all he had endured. He had stood with them, and they wanted to communicate that they had not forgotten him during those nine days. As King stepped out and waved, the minister was lifted onto someone’s shoulders so all could get a clear view of him. The students roared, “Welcome home, Dr. King.”
At that moment, the young white Journal reporter Pat Watters witnessed something that changed his life. King looked younger and more vulnerable than Watters had imagined: “not softness, not naïveté, but somehow hurtable.” Crowded along the edge of the road in the light of a full moon, the students seemed unbreakably unified. They linked arms and began to sing a song Watters had never heard before: “We Shall Overcome.” The human chain swayed as the students sang in the fall moonlight.
Watters stepped out of his car and into the soft evening wind. The students stood exposed on a roadside so near DeKalb County, targets for anyone hiding in wait, and Watters was overwhelmed by how unafraid they appeared. He tried to catch the words of this unfamiliar song. He heard the line “We shall overcome some day.” There was such hope, such assurance, in these words. As he stood on the shoulder of a Georgia highway, all that Watters had accepted growing up in the Jim Crow South was thrown into sharp relief.
Nine Days Page 21