Nine Days
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Tatum, Gloria. “Atlanta Student Movement Historical Trail to Be Unveiled with Interactive Markers.” Atlanta Progressive News, Oct. 31, 2014. atlantaprogressivenews.com/2014/10/31/atlanta-student-movement-historical-trail-to-be-unveiled-with-interactive-markers/.
Weaver, Amy. “Auburn University Student Recalls Being One of MLK Jr.’s Foot Soldiers.” Opelika-Auburn News, Feb. 18, 2008. www.oanow.com/news/auburn-university-student-recalls-being-one-of-mlk-jr-s/article_e020c376-f900-5559-ab77-aa6a2ba1226f.html.
Williamson, Heidi. “Julian Bond: A Final Interview.” Newsweek, Aug. 17, 2015. www.newsweek.com/julian-bond-final-interview-363577.
Wofford, Harris. “Remembering Shriver on JFK’s Inauguration Day.” cnn.com, Jan. 21, 2011. www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/20/wofford.shriver.speech/index.html.
Zengerle, Jason. “The Man Who Was Everywhere.” New Republic, Nov. 20, 2014. newrepublic.com/article/120160/harris-wofford-20th-centurys-most-serendipitous-man.
INTERVIEWS
Black, Charles, by the authors, May 18, 2017.
Goodwin, Richard, by the authors, Jan. 23, 2017.
Jordan, Vernon, by the authors, June 23, 2017.
King, Lonnie, by the authors, 2017–2018.
Martin, Toni, by the authors, May 16, 2017.
Moss, Otis, by the authors, May 27, 2017.
Orbert, Blondean, by Jeff Clemmons, shared with the authors.
Person, Charles, by the authors, May 12, 2017.
Rich, Sally, by the authors, June 28, 2017.
Seigenthaler, John, by Larry Tye, Aug. 30, 2011, shared with the authors.
Wofford, Harris, by the authors, 2016–2017.
Wofford, Harris, by Taylor Branch, interview notes, Wofford Folder 957 in the Taylor Branch Papers #5047, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Young, Andrew, by the authors, Aug. 29, 2017.
NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS
Atlanta Constitution
Atlanta Daily World
Atlanta Inquirer
Atlanta Journal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Baltimore Afro-American
Baltimore Sun
Boston Globe
Chicago Daily Defender
Chicago Daily Tribune
Chicago Defender
Chicago Sun Times
Christian Science Monitor
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cleveland Call and Post
Daily News (New York)
DeKalb New Era
Ebony
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Jet
Kansas City Times
The Knoxville News-Sentinel
Los Angeles Sentinel
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Negro Digest
New York Amsterdam News
New York Herald Tribune
New York Times
New York Voice Harlem USA
The Philadelphia Daily News
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Tribune
Pittsburgh Courier
Republican and Herald (Pottsville, Pennsylvania)
Rome News-Tribune
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
Suffolk County News
Tri-State Defender (Memphis)
Washington Post
Women’s Wear Daily
The York Dispatch
ORAL HISTORIES
Bond, Julian. “Discusses History of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,” Feb. 2, 2010, University of Virginia School of Law. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtVPgK_5UmU.
______. Interview by Bob Short, Feb. 27, 2012, Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, Russell Library, University of Georgia.
Booker, Simeon. Interview by John Stewart, April 24, 1967, JFKL Oral History Program.
Calhoun, John. Interview by John Britton, May 23, 1968, Ralph Bunch Oral History Collection, Howard University.
Challenor, Herschelle. Interview by Jeanne Law Bohannon, Aug. 25, 2017, Atlanta Student Movement Project, Kennesaw State University.
______. Interview by Vicki Crawford, June 14, 2017, King Collection. www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFEA2ftqRI.
Chapin, Dwight. Interview by Timothy Naftali, April 2, 2007, Richard Nixon Oral History Project, Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
Curry, Constance. “Circle of Trust,” unpublished memoir chapter, provided to the authors.
Davis, June Wilson. Interview by Jeanne Law Bohannon, May 19, 2017, Atlanta Student Movement, Kennesaw State University. Stories from the Trenches: Women on the Move(ments), 1940s–2018. 2018 Women’s History Month Finale Panel, March 28, 2018, Atlanta Student Movement, Kennesaw State University.
Fort, Vincent Dean. “The Atlanta Sit-In Movement, 1960–1961: An Oral Study” (1980). ETD Collection for AUC Robert W. Woodruff Library. Paper 2433.
Hartsfield, William B. Interview by Charles T. Morrissey, Jan. 6, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
Hesburgh, Theodore M. Interview by Joseph E. O’Connor, March 27, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
Hoytt, Marilyn Pryce. Interview by Jeanne Law Bohannon, July 13, 2018, Atlanta Student Movement Project, Kennesaw State University. soar.kennesaw.edu/handle/11360/2384.
Iles-Foster, Gwendolyn. Interview by Junior and Senior Everest High School students, D. C. Everest Oral History Project, 2012. www.crmvet.org/nars/fosterg.htm.
King, Lonnie. Interview by Jeanne Law Bohannon, July 19, 2017, Atlanta Student Movement Project, Kennesaw State University.
______. Interview by Ashley Burke, Georgia State University.
______. Interview by Emilye Crosby, May 29, 2013, U.S. Civil Rights History Project, Library of Congress. www.loc.gov/item/afc2010039_crhp0090/.
______. Interview by Bob Short, Sept. 28, 2009, Reflections on Georgia Politics Oral History Collection, ROGP 086, Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens.
______. Interview by Voices Across the Color Line Oral History Project, Atlanta History Center.
______. King Collection Oral History, Morehouse College. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCIjGroKWzI.
______. “On Student Movements and the Civil Rights Movement,” Feb. 18, 2012, University of Georgia Social Work. www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfYVXgJAiow.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Interview by Berl I. Bernhard, March 9, 1964, JFKL Oral History Program.
Lawson, Belford V. Interview by Ronald J. Grele, Jan. 11, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
Lawson, Marjorie McKenzie. Interview by Ronald J. Grele, Oct. 25, 1965, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Ronald J. Grele, #2, JFKL Oral History Program.
Martin, Louis. Interview by Ed Edwin, #3, May 2, 1985, Columbia University Oral History Collection, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Ed Edwin, #10, Sept. 18, 1986, Columbia University Oral History Collection.
______. Interview by Ronald Grele, #1, March 14, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Ronald Grele, #2, April 7, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Ronald Grele, #3, May 11, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by David G. McComb, #1, May 14, 1969, LBJ Library Oral Histories, LBJ Presidential Library.
______. Interview by Anthony K. Shriver, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Robert Wright, March 25, 1970, Civil Rights Documentation Project, Bunch Collection, Howard University.
McGill, Ralph E. Interview by Charles T. Morrissey, Jan. 6, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
Mitchell, Clarence M. Interview by John Stewart, Feb. 9 and 23, 1967, JFKL Oral History Program.
Morrow, E. Frederic. Interview by Ed Erwin, April 15, 1968, Columbia Center for Oral History Archives, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
Morton, Thruston B. Interview by Stephen Hess, Aug. 4, 1964, JFKL Oral History Program.
Moss, Otis. Atlanta Student Movement, City of Atlanta. vimeo.com/110629334.
______. Interview by Jeanne Law Bohannon, Aug. 25, 2017, Atlanta Student Movement Project, Kennesaw State University.
Reeves, Frank. Interview by John F. Stewart, March 29, 1967, JFKL Oral History Program.
Rogers, William P. Interview by John T. Mason Jr., June 28, 1968, Eisenhower Administration Project, Butler Library Oral History Collection, Columbia University.
Seigenthaler, John. Interview by William A. Geoghegan, #1, July 22, 1964, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Ronald J. Grele, #2, Feb. 21, 1966, JFKL Oral History Program.
Shriver, Sargent, Louis Martin, Harris Wofford, Franklin Williams, Sam Proctor, and Parren Mitchell. Interview by Anthony K. Shriver, Kennedy’s Call to King: Six Perspectives, fall 1988, Independent Study, Georgetown University, JFKL Oral History Program.
Tubby, Roger W. Interview by Joseph E. O’Connor, Jan. 16, 1967, JFKL Oral History Program.
Vandiver, Ernest. Interview by Clifford Kuhn, Jan. 25, 1994, P1994–02, Series A. Georgia Governors, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library (GSU), Atlanta.
______. Interview by Charles Pyle, March 20 and July 28, 1986, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Special Collections and Archives, GSU, Atlanta.
______. Interview by John F. Stewart, May 22, 1967, JFKL Oral History Program.
Wilkins, Roy. Interview by Berl Bernhard, Aug. 13, 1964, JFKL Oral History Program.
Williams, Franklin. Interview by Anthony K. Shriver, fall 1988, JFKL Oral History Program.
Wofford, Harris. Interview by Berl Bernhard, #1, Nov. 29, 1965, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Blackside Inc., Oct. 31, 1985, for “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years (1954–1965),” Washington University Libraries, Film and Media Archive, Henry Hampton Collection.
______. Interview by Larry Hackman, #2, May 22, 1968, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Larry Hackman, #3, Feb. 3, 1969, JFKL Oral History Program.
______. Interview by Carol Quirke, Dec. 19, 2011, SUNY Old Westbury Oral History. www.oldwestburyoralhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/wofford-h-transcript.pdf.
______. Interview by Voices of the Civil Rights Movement, “Participating with Dr. King,” Dec. 4, 2015. voicesofthecivilrightsmovement.com/Video-Collection/2015/12/04/participating-with-dr-king.
Women of the Atlanta Student Movement, 2017 Women’s History Month Finale Panel, March 31, 2017, Kennesaw State University. soar.kennesaw.edu/bitstream/handle/11360/2407/WHM2017-transcription.pdf.
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS
Taylor Branch Papers, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Donald Hollowell Papers, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.
Louis Martin Papers, Library of Congress.
E. Frederic Morrow Papers, Amistad Research Center, Tulane University.
E. Frederic Morrow Papers, Vivian G. Harsh Research Collection, Chicago Public Library.
NAACP Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
Richard Nixon Presidential Library.
TV AND FILM
American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver, PBS, 2008. Documentary.
Harris Wofford: Slightly Mad. Dir. Jacob Finkel. Corporation for Civic Documentaries, 2017. Documentary.
King. History Channel, 2008. Documentary.
WSB-TV (Atlanta television station) newsfilm clip of an interview with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Atlanta, Nov. 22, 1963, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 1116, 22:35/30:13, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leaving the Georgia State Prison in the company of Donald Hollowell, Ralph D. Abernathy, and Wyatt T. Walker, Reidsville, Georgia, Oct. 27, 1960, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0767, 28:41/29:40, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking about the civil rights movement after being arrested during a sit-in at Rich’s department store, Atlanta, Oct. 19, 1960, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0826, 50:16/51:19, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
WSB-TV newsfilm clip of Mayor William B. Hartsfield speaking to reporters about recent civil rights demonstrations and the arrest of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta, Oct. 24, 1960, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0962, 45:39/53:08, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.
DISSERTATIONS AND THESES
Curry, Kristina. “The Rhetoric of Louis E. Martin, ‘Godfather of Black Politics.’” PhD diss., Georgia State University, 2013.
Griffin, Willie James. “Courier of Crisis, Messenger of Hope: Trezzvant W. Anderson and the Black Freedom Struggle for Economic Justice.” PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2016.
Sullivan, Matthew E. “A Symbol of Virtue or a Strategy for Votes? John F. Kennedy’s Telephone Call to Coretta King and Its Social and Political Consequences.” Master’s thesis, Brandeis University, 2013.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We saw the story of these nine days of crisis, of possibility, as one that needed to be told, a story we Americans need to remember: that decency and a moral compass actually can make a difference in our national life. There is real human cost in this story; three of our protagonists would, in the end, be killed. Yet we embarked on this book believing these nine days provide a profound reminder that friendship, sacrifice, and moral courage are essential elements of our heritage.
We feel lucky to have had the opportunity to tell the largely forgotten saga of the CRS team and of the Atlanta circle around MLK before the years of his blinding fame. We have sought to tell it truthfully, as it deserves.
We are grateful to Louis Martin’s daughters for their generosity of time and invaluable help in this project. Dr. Toni Martin and Trudy Martin Hatter shared moving memories of their father. We are particularly grateful for Mrs. Hatter’s sending us a program from her father’s funeral, where Shriver’s and Wofford’s names appear as a last notation of a consequential bond. Mrs. Hatter also had the crucial idea of helping us get in touch with a legendary figure who revered her father, Vernon Jordan. Once Jordan heard the name Louis Martin, he was eager to talk about his political mentor, as well as his legal mentor: Donald Hollowell. Jordan conveyed the underappreciated greatness of both men, even finding his eulogy from Martin’s funeral, which he movingly read in his office as if he were delivering the eulogy again.
We thank Ambassador Andrew Young for taking the time to give us perceptive recollections of King, and Patra Marsden for arranging our meeting. Ambassador Young was one of the few people with whom King reflected about the ride to Reidsville, so his testimony was a key authentication of our telling of it. He affirmed our sense of how transformative this experience was for King, reinforcing our belief that his facing down death during these days showed King his path forward.
For interviews and other crucial help, we thank Jack Bass, Timuel Black, Jeanne Law Bohannon of the Atlanta Student Movement Project at Kennesaw State University, Charles Calloway, Dr. Clayborne Carson of the indispensable King Papers at Stanford University, Andrew Cohen, Georgia Secretary of the Senate David A. Cook, Adam Conner, Joshua Farrington, Richard and Doris Kearns Goodwin, Peter Hanig, Vicki Heyman, Chris Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Rabbi Robert Mar
x, Walter Massey, Mike Naple, Steven Puzzo, Sally Rich and Julia Shivers, Mark Shriver, Christian Washington, and Jim Whitters.
The author of Rich’s: A Southern Institution, Jeff Clemmons, was always available to answer questions about the fabled department store and Atlanta in 1960, and provided us with his interview of Blondean Orbert before her passing, for which we are grateful.
Larry Tye, author of Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, was generous to provide us with the interview he did with John Seigenthaler shortly before the death of Bobby’s 1960 assistant.
The civil rights movement participant Constance Curry was present at the Rich’s arrest. It was so kind of her to share with us, before her passing, what she drafted about that day for her memoirs.
Thank you to the outstanding, helpful staff of the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, Atlanta University Library, Auburn Avenue Research Library, Chicago Public Library, Georgia State Library, Library of Congress, John F. Kennedy Presidential Library (Maryrose Grossman and James Hill), Nixon Library (Meghan Lee-Parker), the King Center, and the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center at Howard University (Meaghan Alston). In this, our third book together, we are aware that nothing good happens without librarians.
Thank you to our readers for their wise feedback: Emma Cronin, Lindsay Holst, Callie Siskel, and Jamia Wilson.
Our agents Katherine Flynn and Ike Williams were immediately supportive of the notion of Nine Days, and Katherine’s intrepid efforts to make this book a reality are deeply appreciated. Without her intelligent focus, the proposal would never have gone beyond mere hope and into the hands of a remarkable editor. We are beyond grateful to Colin Dickerman, an editor of keen eye and generous spirit, who took us and our manuscript along on his own professional journey—a ride that we will be forever grateful for. The book at every stage was greatly improved by his team at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, in the daily care and scrutiny of Dominique Lear and Ian Van Wye. We particularly appreciate Ian stewarding the book through its last stages and Alex Star’s support.
There are two people without whom this book would not be possible: Lonnie King and Harris Wofford. Though they both died before this book was published, we feel blessed to have shared hours of conversation with these two. Spending time with both was a joy. They taught us a simple but bold lesson: it is possible to change history, but you must be brave enough to put your life and reputation on the line, heedless of fame.