“some black sitting in the White House”: Draft, Speech File, LMP.
“Louis and I continued”: Wofford, “Remembering Shriver on JFK’s Inauguration Day.” Though not part of their official duties, multiple times a week Wofford and Martin convened in Shriver’s Mayflower hotel room to help shape what would become the Peace Corps. The Chicago Daily Defender wrote that Martin, Shriver, and Wofford’s vision “will be reassuring in Africa and in underdeveloped countries where the Peace Corps will meet its real tests” (Robert G. Spivack, “Watch on the Potomac,” Chicago Daily Defender, March 29, 1961). Robert Troutman, the Kennedys’ Atlanta contact who tried to derail involvement in the King case, stopped in to see Shriver and, after admitting things worked out unexpectedly well, added, “But I hope all you bomb-throwers will now be corralled in one place, like the Peace Corps, so all your energies can be directed overseas instead of toward Georgia.” Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 99.
“His career would have been bright”: Booker, “Richard Nixon Tells.”
“be in it but not of it”: Morrow, Forty Years a Guinea Pig, 6.
“a certain nuisance value”: Ibid., 7.
“As I turned to go inside”: Nixon, Memoirs of Richard Nixon, 227–28.
The Georgia Court of Appeals: “King’s Sentence Ruled in Error,” ADW, March 8, 1961.
Daddy King was out there: “Adults Join Youth on Picket Lines,” AI, Dec. 15, 1961.
“with dignity and without incident”: Burns, “Integration of Atlanta Public Schools.”
Days later, Black customers: Clemmons, Rich’s, 130–31.
“Today, a Negro stands no chance”: A. S. “Doc” Young, “The Big Beat: Final Election Comments,” Los Angeles Sentinel, Nov. 17, 1960.
“There’s no question”: Sabato, Kennedy Half-Century, 395.
EPILOGUE: THE DUNGEON SHOOK
“not surprise, but shock”: King, My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., 293.
“Well, I tell you, it’s pretty bad”: King, My Life, My Love, My Legacy, 161.
“I always thought I would go”: Ibid., 163.
When the news reached him: Lonnie King, interview.
“Wyatt Tee will be handling”: Ibid. As the sit-in campaign wound down, Lonnie believed his leadership team had forged the best agreement they could to integrate downtown businesses; the catch was that city leaders felt it should be implemented only after vital school desegregation in the fall. The student activist feared the reaction this compromise he helped forge might receive. At a final mass meeting on March 10, 1961, Daddy King tried to sell the student community on the new compromise terms, but the crowd grew so unruly that even his preacher’s voice could not be heard. Worse, King senior lost his temper, bellowing toward the students’ disrespect, “I’ve been working for civil rights for over thirty years.” From the upper balcony, a woman shouted out, “That’s what’s wrong.” Lonnie thought he saw Daddy King’s heart breaking, and he quickly went out of the room to call Dr. King, pleading, “We need you to come over here to calm this crowd down.” One more time, King did what Lonnie asked. Lonnie remembers the way King entered the angry meeting, personally shaken that his father, after all he had done for them, should be exposed to this fury. Lonnie describes what King did: “This man took the crowd up the hill and back to the valley … with tears in his eyes.” Lonnie watched with amazement at how King eased people’s frustration, until they could finally accept a painful path to progress.
Recovering from having had acid thrown in his face while picketing, Lonnie felt so exhausted from his efforts that he, as well as Herschelle Sullivan, tried to resign. In an acrimonious session, students refused to let them, but feeling burned out from all he had risked, Lonnie left Atlanta a few months later for a new start at Howard Law School.
Harris Wofford, by then president of SUNY: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 201.
“I felt that he was a friend”: Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, 257.
“I still had the feeling”: Coretta King, interview by Jean Stein, American Journey interview transcript, Jean Stein Personal Papers, JFKL.
“My family has experience”: Burns, Burial for a King, 39.
“I don’t really see anything”: Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, 257.
“Although they were political figures”: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy and His Times, 876.
“You will never know the meaning”: Carson, Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., 184.
Kennedy’s death being the first: Martin memoir draft, Speeches and Writings File, LMP. As he records in his unpublished autobiographical papers, when Martin heard the news Kennedy had been shot, he was at a work lunch. He immediately took off running down K Street to the DNC offices. After an aimless hour there, he decided to go to the White House, not knowing what else to do. There he encountered Shriver, who was already working on funeral arrangements, having been selected by the family to head up this unimaginably difficult task. Even in his shock, Shriver was relieved to see an old trusted partner like Martin arrive; Martin remembered fondly how then Shriver referenced the “magic” Martin helped create in the old CRS days. Over the next four days, emotionally wrought, they worked together under incredible pressure.
They heard the sound of Marine One landing on the South Lawn, bringing President Johnson to the White House, his new home. As he always did, Shriver gathered ideas from everyone, arranging everything for the arrival of the president’s casket at the East Room. Working deep into the night, Martin finally saw the headlights of the motorcade approaching the North Lawn. Soldiers carried the flag-covered bier, with Jackie and Bobby led by Shriver, to where the casket would rest in the center of the darkened East Room. Martin looked on as Jackie lit the candles, still in her bloodstained pink suit, and at last he then wept. He went home for four hours of sleep, then returned to assist the family however he could.
The third member of the CRS team almost made it back to America to be with them. When Wofford was awakened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the sickening news that the president was dead, he rushed to turn on his shortwave radio. Hearing that the emperor Haile Selassie would be flying to the funeral, he rushed to the airport to talk himself onto the plane, but it was taking off just as Wofford arrived.
On the day of the burial, Martin marched in the funeral procession, walking alongside other Kennedy friends and staffers down Connecticut Avenue toward St. Matthew’s in cold sunlight. Reaching the Arlington National Cemetery burial site, dark leaves strewn everywhere, he noticed Nixon standing in the back of the throng. Martin thought that Kennedy’s rival seemed younger than he had imagined, and wondered what Nixon must be pondering, watching his opponent honored among the nation’s fallen.
his daughter Anita’s wedding: Poinsett, Walking with Presidents, 165.
“it’s not credible”: Dwight Chapin, interview by Timothy Naftali, April 2, 2007, Richard Nixon Oral History Project, RNL.
“a prisoner of the moment”: Perlstein, Nixonland, 263.
“The danger of the Republican Party”: Rampersad, Jackie Robinson, 384.
Goldwater supporters in Georgia: Farrington, Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP, 131.
to attend would be “grandstanding”: Safire, Before the Fall, 59–60; Safire, “View from the Grandstand.”
“This can never be talked about”: Chapin, interview by Naftali, April 2, 2007.
“Dwight, how’s our trip to Atlanta”: This and the exchange that follows also come from ibid. Nixon barked at Chapin what was supposed to have been deduced: “The whole purpose in our doing it was so that we would do it privately, we were not taking advantage of it, and we would not have to go to the funeral.”
“Many have said you helped”: WSB-TV newsfilm clip of an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nov. 22, 1963, UGA Libraries, Digital Library of Georgia. King said, “I was very upset and couldn’t adjust to it, and could hardly believe it in the very beginning.” He was asked what it was like to live under the
threat of his own assassination: “This is where I have decided to stand, and I believe firmly that this cause is right. And that someone must have the courage and the fortitude to stand up for it, even if it means suffering or even if it means death.” This was his reality. If he had to die for this movement, it would be worth it, “to free the soul of our nation and free our children from a permanent spiritual death.”
memorial march in Memphis: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 203.
put King’s interests above his brother’s: In Bobby’s oral history interview, when asked why Wofford was not named to the post, Bobby was cutting to the extreme: “Harris Wofford was very emotionally involved in all these matters and was rather in some areas a slight madman.” Bobby amplified this in his oral history, saying, “And the person who was logical for the position was Harris Wofford, who wanted the position, and who Sargent Shriver and everybody who was associated with our fight on civil rights wanted for that job.” A tape of Bobby’s caustic assessment is featured in the documentary on Wofford’s life titled, after this quotation, Slightly Mad.
Bobby justified choosing the white corporate lawyer Burke Marshall over Wofford (a man Wofford magnanimously suggested) by saying, “I didn’t want to have someone in the Civil Rights Division who was dealing not from fact but was dealing from emotion and who wasn’t going to give what was in the best interest of President Kennedy … I wanted advice and ideas from somebody who had the same interests and motivation that I did.” Under further prompting, Bobby added, in reference to Wofford’s work founding the Peace Corps with Shriver, that Wofford was “a fine fellow. And he did a terrific job … I just don’t think that he would have been fitted for the position.”
Just to make sure his instinct was correct, Bobby had Byron White, the new deputy attorney general, have a drink with Wofford. White asked, “What did you think of Bob Kennedy’s call to the judge in the Martin Luther King case?” Wofford, perhaps thinking he should appear tough-minded, offered, “I thought it was unprofessional, but not enough to disbar him, but it was pretty bad.” White said, “Well, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m the one who recommended to Bob that he call the judge.” (Wofford, interview by Hackman, #3, JFKL.) As a cautious Kennedy adviser, White was making a quite unlikely claim, about a call that was only later seen as a wise move. Hearing this dubious claim, Wofford realized another avenue into power was likely closed to him. Sorensen would be one of the few Kennedy staffers to ever admit being against Kennedy calling Coretta, something he later confessed had been a personal oversight. Sorensen remembered a staff debate over whether the call should be made, which was more likely some discussion of whether the call should have been made (Counselor, 271). Others, like O’Donnell and Richard Goodwin, would in later years remember themselves as having been open to, or even encouraging, the call.
he asked the president to let him: Wofford to President Kennedy, Jan. 23 and March 7, 1962, Papers of John F. Kennedy, Presidential Papers, President’s Office Files, JFKL. In bidding farewell to Wofford, the president said, “It will take some more time, but I want you to know that we are going to do all these things” (Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 125). The habitually ironic Kennedy sounded uncharacteristically earnest: “You will see, with time, I’m going to do them all.” He was right that Wofford’s list would eventually be realized, but time was not what he had. It was the last time they would ever speak.
It was on Ethiopian radio: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 171.
“They say that his call”: Ibid., 11.
“I let Nixon in”: Lonnie King, interview. Daddy King’s autobiography lists a number of famous people at his son’s funeral, but interestingly omits Nixon’s name. King Sr., Daddy King, 173.
Atlanta in 1964 on political business: Martin flew down to Atlanta in 1964 to ensure the minister’s cooperation nixing a fraudulent RNC leaflet telling Black voters that they should write in King for president. Martin sat across from King in his humble Sunset Avenue home, impressed by how the leader made you feel you were important by how he listened. On that visit, Martin was in Atlanta only three hours, with King happy to denounce any claim he was in any way a candidate, so Martin set up a King press conference and heard it on the radio in his taxi back to the airport.
“an apostle of love”: Remarks by Louis Martin, Deputy Chairman, Democratic National Committee. Speech at the Colorado State Young Democrats Convention, Denver, April 27, 1968, LMP.
“turning point in King’s life”: Martin memoir draft, LMP.
“Our time seems to be”: Speech at the Colorado State Young Democrats Convention, Denver, April 27, 1968, LMP.
“How had it all come to this?”: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 203.
“Are you going to march”: Thomas, Being Nixon, 158.
“For Martin King marching was”: Wofford, Of Kennedys and Kings, 201.
“Can I get a ride?”: Chapin, interview by Naftali, RNL. It was surreal for the cabdriver that the presidential candidate Richard Nixon and Wilt Chamberlain were packing into his car.
“Could you put things aside”: Wofford, interview.
a “monkey wrench” into the talks: Farrell, Richard Nixon, 638.
“lay off pro-Negro crap”: Ibid., 332.
“Nixon always couched his views”: Kotlowski, Nixon’s Civil Rights, 268.
“The GOP didn’t give a damn”: Farrington, Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP, 181.
“The Richard Nixon I met”: Robinson, I Never Had It Made, 135.
“The best political writing”: Woodward and Bernstein, Final Days, 450. Whether Nixon actually meant to order a specific Watergate break-in remains a disputed point, but the president’s obsession over O’Brien, and his rants that encouraged the establishing of a political operation that undertook a range of crimes, are certain.
Wofford said that Shriver: Wofford, interview.
“I have to do this”: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, 500.
“It ends with me getting killed”: Ibid., 469.
“The details and symbols of your life”: James Baldwin, “My Dungeon Shook” (1962), in Collected Essays, 294–95.
“jail cells are not dungeons”: Carson, Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr., 307.
“He shared very little”: Young, interview by the authors.
“paralyzing fear of being alone”: Young, Easy Burden, 175.
“an old Christian idea”: Ibid.
“was going to be one challenge”: Young, interview by the authors.
“was crucial to his decision”: Ibid.
“a good case can be made”: Stossel, “Good Works of Sargent Shriver.”
“We need dramatic action”: “Kennedy White House” document, June 16, 1963, LMP.
“If one of my daughters”: Martin, interview by Grele, #3, JFKL.
Martin never asked for any credit: Dr. Toni Martin, interview.
Vernon Jordan and Andrew Young advised him: Jordan, interview; Young, interview.
“a pinch hitter”: “‘Godfather of Black Politics’ Returns to Capital,” Chicago Sun Times, Oct. 29, 1978, clipping in LMP.
“godfather of many of the specific”: Shriver to Martin, April 17, 1990, LMP.
DNC’s Lawrence O’Brien Achievement Award: New York Voice Harlem USA, Oct. 8–14, 1992, clipping in LMP.
“Kennedy would never have telephoned”: Shriver remarks at Martin funeral, provided by Trudy Martin Hatter to the authors. Lady Bird Johnson attended Martin’s D.C. service and former president Jimmy Carter called Gertrude Martin.
“the unsung, unheralded, and to some, unknown”: Vernon Jordan remarks at Louis Martin’s funeral, provided by Jordan to the authors.
“imagination and guts”: Louis Martin, “New Senator, a Friend of King,” Chicago Defender, May 18, 1991.
“Is this the Lonnie King”: Lonnie King, interview.
In 2017, Lonnie and Charles Black: Jeremy Redmon, “Georgia Activists, Immigrants Without Legal Status Find Common Cause,” AJC,
March 29, 2016.
“That’s my last hurrah”: Lonnie King, interview.
“Well done, brave warrior”: Lonnie King, obituary, www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/lonnie-king-obituary?pid=191739403&page=3.
writing a New York Times op-ed: Harris Wofford, “Finding Love Again, This Time with a Man,” NYT, April 24, 2016.
“It wasn’t just a job”: Poinsett, Walking with Presidents, 11.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Abernathy, Ralph David. And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography. New York: Harper & Row, 1989.
Abram, Morris B. The Day Is Short: An Autobiography. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.
Aitken, Jonathan. Nixon: A Life. Washington, D.C.: Regnery History, 1993.
Allen, Ivan, Jr. Mayor: Notes on the Sixties. With Paul Hemphill. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971.
Ambrose, Stephen E. Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913–1962. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
Baldwin, James. Collected Essays. Edited by Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998.
Bass, Jack. Taming the Storm: The Life and Times of Judge Frank M. Johnson Jr. and the South’s Fight over Civil Rights. New York: Doubleday, 1993.
Bass, S. Jonathan. Blessed Are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
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