At Canaan's Edge (112 page)

I
N
August of 1983, completing the first year's run of archival work on a book project contractually designed for three years, I stayed a week at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. The assassination site, which is now the widely acclaimed National Civil Rights Museum, was then more or less a flophouse. Guests were obliged to knock at the office to be let in each time they returned, as the room keys had been stolen. One moment from that research trip struck me with particular force: a television news outtake of one young white reporter struggling to coax any word from Ralph Abernathy on the night of the murder, then giving up, unexpectedly jumpstarting him with a question about the past, and finally struggling just as hard to interrupt nonstop reveries about an unknown man. Something about the memory of Vernon Johns revived Abernathy from mortal shock into mirth and wonder.

Homework on Johns, King's predecessor at his first pulpit, did far more than enliven my own interviews with Abernathy, which had been wooden at best. Almost any mention of Johns started an engine of candor in many preachers of their generation, and the lively character who emerged suggested a way out of my first paralysis: how to begin without an essay on Southern black churches, which would violate a cardinal rule that storytelling narrative offers the most durable path for historical work across racial barriers. Vernon Johns seemed human and authentic enough to bring alive the culture of American black churches in the age of segregation.

Alice Mayhew is one of the few editors who would support a first chapter for
Parting the Waters
that set aside historical interest in King to introduce a predecessor drawn from folk sources. Her confidence has sustained this trilogy for two extra decades. We share devotion to the material, and I will always treasure her friendship. Many of her colleagues at Simon & Schuster have carried heavy loads gracefully again through the production for this volume, especially our skillful coordinator, Roger Labrie, along with Karolina Harris, Irene Kheradi, Ted Landry, Victoria Meyer, Allison Murray, Jackie Seow, Gypsy da Silva, and John Wahler. Carolyn Reidy and David Rosenthal kept faith from the top. Elisa Rivlin provided able counsel. Copy editor Fred Chase patiently cleaned the words, and Kevin Kwan tracked down the illustrations. Elizabeth Hayes fostered promotion, Sonny Luo solved technical problems, and I wish to thank the many publishing professionals who tended this book beyond my sight.

By gathering the television outtakes with a host of oral histories and artifacts from 1968, eighty citizens from an ad hoc Memphis Search for Meaning Committee created the most unique of many special archives indispensable to research in the civil rights era. Eleanor McKay, John Terreo, David and Carol Yellin, and author Joan Turner Beifuss guided me through the resulting Mississippi Valley Collection at Memphis State University. To study the Jonathan Daniels Collection at the library of Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, I relied on Barbara Bishop, Esther Griswold, and David Siegenthaler. Wendy Chmielewski steered me through the vast holdings of the Swarthmore College Peace Collection at the McCabe Library in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

This work rests on documentary sources from many institutions acknowledged in the two previous volumes, but several of new or continuing value merit special notice. Coretta Scott King kindly encouraged me to continue work in the central repository of primary documents at the King Library and Archives in Atlanta, where archivist Cynthia P. Lewis offered knowledgeable help. Among the employees of libraries and archives cited here, I am especially indebted to the following: Claudia Anderson, Barbara Constable, Regina Greenwell, Tina Houston, Harry Middleton, Rebekah Ross, E. Philip Scott, and Linda Sulkey of the Lyndon B. Johnson Library in Austin, Texas; David Coleman, Taylor Fain, Kent Germany, Max Holland, Ken Hughes, Frederik Lovevall, Timothy Naftali, Jon Rosenberg, Lorraine Settimo, David Shreve, and Philip Zelikow of the Presidential Recordings Project at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs, where I have benefited greatly from an advisory role in the transcription and interpretation of the newly released Lyndon Johnson tape recordings; Debbie Beatty, David M. Hardy, John Kelso, Linda Kloss, Helen Ann Near, and Tamara Lingham of the FBI's Records Management Division; Linda Evans, Archie Motley, Ralph Pugh, and Corey Seeman of the Chicago Historical Society; Judy Edelhoff, Katherine King, Mary Roonan, and Steve Tilly of the National Archives; James H. Hutson of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress; Mark J. Duffy and Jennifer Peters of the Archives of the Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas; Melissa Bush and George King of the Richard B. Russell Library at the University of Georgia in Athens; Kristin Gleeson, Sarah Vilan Kuhn, Peggy Lou Shriver, and Margaret Sly of the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ann L. Koch and Deborah Slinghuff of the Sheridan Libraries at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore; and Carla Hayden of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

For the FRUS series of official government documents essential to passages on the Vietnam War, I am grateful to editorial teams led by Glenn W. LaFantasie, David C. Humphrey, Edward C. Keefer, Ronald D. Landa, David S. Patterson, Kent Sieg, and Louis J. Smith. For reciprocal study in Vietnam, I am grateful above all for the courtesy of Lady Borton, along with Christian G. Appy, Murray Hiebert, and Nguyen Qui Duc, who suggested or arranged the following contacts for an all-too-brief research visit in Hanoi: Nguyen Thi Ngoc Toan, David Elder, Vo Dien Bien, Col. Chuck Searcy, Dinh Xuan Lam, Ngo van Hoa, David Thomas, David Lamb, Sandy Northrop, Duong Hanh, Nguyen Hoang van Khoan, Hoang Cong Thuy, and Dang Hoang Tinh, director of the Ho Chi Minh Museum.

This work relies heavily on oral history to retrieve firsthand memories. Those who provided interviews are listed throughout the notes in numbers far too great to repeat here, but I want to emphasize my gratitude to them. In this volume, for their generous help in locating witnesses in Lowndes County, Alabama, I am indebted to Catherine Coleman Flowers, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, and the late Timothy Mays.

At my alma mater, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jacquelyn Hall offered cooperation and advice in the general discipline of oral history, along with her associates Johanna Clark-Sayer, Melynn Glusman, and Beth Millwood. Timothy D. Pyatt, Rachel Canada, Richard A. Shrader, and Anne Skilton provided archival advice along with primary information from the Southern Historical Collection. Its curator, Timothy West, has agreed to catalogue and preserve all my cumulative source material, including recorded interviews, for the use of future researchers.

For advice and help beyond contributions cited in the notes, the following people more than deserve public thanks: Roland M. Baumann, Bill Baxter, Agieb Bilal, Philathia Bolton, Franklin Branch, Rosann Catalano, Robin Coblentz, Andrew Foster Connors, Connie Curry, Richard Deats, Jack D. Ellis, Ray English, Dorothy and Nicole Fall, Jo Freeman, Roger and Frances Gench, Lex Gillespie, Lawrence and Monica Guyot, Seymour Hersh, Tom Houck, Martha Hunt Huie, Maurice Hundley, Robert H. Janover, Teresa Johanson, Loch Johnson, Janice Kaguyutan, Laurel Kamen, Randy Kryn, Christopher Leighton, Willy Leventhal, Mary Lilliboe, Jerry Mitchell, Charles F. Newman, Gustav Niebuhr, Jan Nunley, Peggy Obrecht, David Person, Frank Madison Reid, Judy Richardson, Guido van Rijn, John Roberts, Betty Garman Robinson, Howard Romaine, John Rothchild, Lisa Rzepka, Yusuf Salaam, Rose and Hank Sanders, Nuvolina Sherlock, Maria Varela, Levi Watkins, Penny and Kendall Weaver, Susan Weld, George B. Wiley, Curtis Wilkie, Mary Jane Wilkinson, Lawrence Wofford, and Edwin M. Yoder; plus Paola di Floria, Alice Rubin, and Jay Leavy of CounterPoint Films; Mary Ellen Gale, Michael Lottman, Jim Peppler, and Robert Ellis Smith, formerly of the
Southern Courier;
Bruce Hartford and colleagues at the Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement web-site; and Sara Rostolder Mandell and Jane Ramsey of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs in Chicago.

Harry Belafonte, who once stalled me for years as a most reticent interview subject, has become a stalwart partner and friend in ongoing efforts to translate the civil rights era into film. Associates on this path of heartbreak and hope have included Jon Avnet, Jonathan Demme, Jed Dietz, Tom Fontana, Susan Lyne, Paul Nagle, Anna Hamilton Phelan, Arnold Rifkin, Carol Schreder, Helen Verno, Paula Weinstein, and Winifred White-Neisser.

Martha Healy diligently carried out the primary transcription for the Johnson telephone recordings. Dan Hartman of Discount Computer Service kept the machines running, and Jennifer Helfrich of Iseeman, Inc. showed me how to navigate data programs.

More personally, I want to thank Julian Bond, Pam Horowitz, and Kent Germany for insightful critiques of the early manuscript. They may try to blame me for errors they should have caught, but discerning readers now know better. Examples from the movement always refilled the well of inspiration. My literary agent, Liz Darhansoff, helped keep our family solvent and cheerful through many contract extensions. Through the hardships and joys of her own career, Christy has built our partnership of the heart. Our daughter, Macy, has grown to zestful independence. Our son, Franklin, who was born weeks before my first trip to the Lorraine Motel, finished college in time to help me with final research. I give thanks to my mother, the dear memory of my father, and many loved ones for sustaining me in the blessing of a life's work.

ABBREVIATIONS USED

INTRODUCTION

“every votary of freedom”: Federalist No. 39, in Rossiter, ed.,
Federalist,
p. 240.

“virtue in the people”: Wood,
Radicalism,
pp. 234–35; Ketcham,
Madison,
p. 262.

“Sir, I know just how”: Branch,
Pillar,
p. 509.

“rise up and live out”: Washington, ed.,
Testament,
p. 219.

“as old as the Scriptures”: Branch,
Parting,
pp. 823–24.

“I believe that unarmed truth”: Branch,
Pillar,
p. 541.

“But what is government”: Federalist No. 51, in Rossiter, ed.,
Federalist,
p. 322.

1: WARNING

Haynes spread word: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

hens would not lay eggs properly: Int. Mary Lee King, June 28, 2000.

plainspoken Hulda Coleman: Eagles,
Outside Agitator,
pp. 185–89.

Haynes had confided to Coleman: Int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; Couto,
Ain't

Gonna,
pp. 89–90.

last attempt to register: Eagles,
Outside Agitator,
pp. 120–21.

Mt. Carmel Baptist on February 28, 1965: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000.

shotguns and rifles: SAC, Mobile, to Director, March 1, 1965, FDCA-442.

said he had been braced: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

recognized among the Klansmen: Int. Bernice Johnson, Feb. 16, 2001.

dumped the body of Bud Rudolph: Int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000.

There was Tom Coleman: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000; Eagles,
Outside Agitator,
pp. 187–91.

Sheriff Jesse Coleman: Eagles,
Outside Agitator,
pp. 100–101, 186.

barely a fifth of the county's households had telephone service: Ibid., p. 109.

the only armed pickup sighted: Int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000.

fell to deacon John Hulett: Eagles,
Outside Agitator,
pp. 122–23; Couto,
Ain't Gonna,
pp. 84, 94–96.

slave ancestor was said to have founded Mt. Carmel Baptist: Int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000. A plaque outside Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, Gordonville, Alabama, reads, “Founded 1819—Rev. J. Hullett.”

led a close convoy: Ibid.

“If I have to leave, you take it”: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

never again in the twentieth century: Ibid.

2: SCOUTS

James Bevel was preaching: Fager,
Selma, 1965,
pp. 82–83.

twelfth chapter of Acts: Acts 12:2–3.

walked with them from this same church in a night vigil: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 592–94.

“a nightmare of State Police stupidity and brutality”: Garrow,
Protest,
p. 62.

“Negroes could be heard screaming”: NYT, Feb. 20, 1965, p. 1.

“is falling kind of hard on me”: Int. James Bevel, Nov. 23, 1997, Dec. 10, 1998; int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990.

“go unto the king”: Esther 4:8.

“We must go to Montgomery and see the king!”: Fager,
Selma, 1965,
p. 83; Branch,
Pillar,
p. 599.

Rev. Lorenzo Harrison burst through the doors: NYT, March 1, 1965, p. 17; SAC, Mobile, to Director, Feb. 28, 1965, FDCA-450.

“I said you ought not to be crying”:
Jet,
March 11, 1965, p. 4.

Then Harrison himself broke down: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

open Tabernacle Baptist for the first church meeting: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 81–84.

“inasmuch as Harris [sic] could furnish”: SAC, Mobile, to Director, March 1, 1965, FDCA-442.

scouted into Lowndes County along Highway 80: Int. James Bevel, Sept. 6, 2000;

“Great Day at Trickem Fork,”
Saturday Evening Post,
May 22, 1965, p. 94.

“Dr. King asked us to come down here”: Alvin Adams, “SCLC Organizing in Lowndes County, Alabama,” JMP.

no church yet dared to open its doors: SAC, Mobile, to Director, Feb. 16, 1965, FDCA-345.

others warily had gauged: STJ, Feb. 26, 1965, p. 1.

“My few days here are a refreshing”: LAHE, Feb. 26, 1965, p. B-1.

death threats from callers: Ibid. Also SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, Feb. 23, 1965, FK-914; SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, Feb. 24, 1965, FK-980; Los Angeles LHM dated Feb. 26, 1965, FK-NR.

News stories tracked a manhunt: LAT, Feb. 27, 1965; BAA, March 6, 1965, p. 1.

Reporters pressed King: Transcript of MLK press conference at L.A. Airport, Feb. 24, 1965, A/KS.

In his sermon at Victory Baptist: CDD, March 1, 1965, pp. 1, 10.

“the biggest hypocrite alive”: Branch,
Pillar,
p. 598.

“pitifully wasted”: NYT, Feb. 22, 1965, p. 20.

I flunked on you, Sully”: Int. Jean Jackson, May 27, 1990.

one of Coretta King's music teachers: Ibid.

Bevel himself claimed to hear voices: Int. James Bevel, Dec. 19, 1998.

denounced Bevel to King as unstable: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991; int. Willie Bolden, May 14, 1992.

King refused his insistent demands: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 76, 196–97.

King had indulged Bevel: Branch,
Parting,
pp. 753–54; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.

King was in Selma largely on a quixotic leap: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 138–40, 165, 524.

discovered wandering Selma's streets: Ibid., pp. 598–99; Fager,
Selma, 1965,
p. 81.

Hotspur and Joan of Arc: Branch,
Parting,
pp. 424–25, 559; Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 54–57.

“How dare you, lie to me”: Int. James Bevel, Nov. 23, 1997; int. Diane Nash, Dec. 8, 1998.

“rise up and live out the true meaning”: Washington, ed.,
Testament,
p. 219.

“how worthy I'm going to try to be”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 9:20
P.M.
, Nov. 25, (the day of President Kennedy's funeral), Beschloss,
Taking,
p. 39.

Then Johnson had turned suddenly coy and insecure: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 452–54.

“That will answer seventy percent of your problems”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 12:06
P.M.
, Jan. 15, 1965, Cit. 6736-37, Audiotape WH6501.04, LBJ.

“That'll get you a message that all the eloquence”: Ibid.

When a haggard King placed an ad: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 580–84.

FBI agents overheard his call: Branigan to W. C. Sullivan, Feb. 28, 1965, FK-983.

“a return to Reconstruction”: Horace Busby to Bill Moyers and Lee White, “The Voting Rights Message,” Feb. 27, 1965, Legislative Background, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Box 1, LBJ.