Pillar of Fire (126 page)

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Authors: Taylor Branch

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praised Judge Bryan Simpson: NYT, Aug. 6, 1964, p. 16; “Defense Fund Attorneys Win St. Augustine, Fla. Victory,” NAACP LDEF press release, Aug. 8, 1964, A/KP17f14.

grand jury undercut Simpson: “Further Presentment of Grand Jury,” Aug. 5, 1964, A/KP20f42; Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, p. 344.

“out of line”: “Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine,” p. 48, in Garrow, ed.,
St. Augustine
.

have the judge impeached: Colburn,
Racial Change
, pp. 131-35.

bouts of depression and letdown: Int. Katherine and Henry Twine, April 2, 1991. “Hayling was bitter,” SCLC staff leader John Gibson told historian David Garrow. “He felt we'd dumped him.” Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, p. 685.

“On the surface”: Hayling and Twine, “Dear Fellow Citizens,” Sept. 22, 1964, A/SC139f10.

“terrific squabble”: Wiretap conversation of Aug. 5, 1964, described in New York LHM dated Aug. 6, 1964, FK-NR.

“thinking now prevalent”: Ibid.

for a lost passport: DeWolf to MLK, Aug. 9, 1964, A/KP4f37.

meeting with President Johnson: MLK to LBJ, Aug. 7, 1964, King Name File, LBJ, cited in Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, p. 685.

pulpit appearance for Ralph Abernathy: MLK telegram to Dr. O. Clay Maxwell, Sr., Aug. 6, 1964, A/KP15f26.

services on Sunday, August 9: NYT, Aug. 10, 1964, p. 1.

“no leader outside of Harlem”: NYT, Aug. 10, 1964, p. 15.

“The church must be reminded”: “A Knock at Midnight,” MLK sermon delivered Aug. 9, 1964, A/KS6.

Monday at Amherst: NYT, Aug. 11, 1964, p. 25.

long strategy meetings: King's calendar cleared seven hours, 11:00
A.M.
-6:00
P.M.
, on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1964: log, A/SC29.

Research Committee: Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, pp. 332, 414-15; int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1963.

proposed
Playboy
interview with King: Andrew Young to Alex Haley, Aug. 10, 1964, A/KP19f40.

fn Haley promised to donate: Alex Haley telegram to Dora McDonald, July 6, 1964, A/KP19f40.

reprimanding one of their own number: Jones to MLK, Aug. 24, 1964, A/KP13f23. “It upset Martin that I said that,” recalled Jones of his complimentary references to Malcolm X. Int. Clarence Jones, Oct. 26, 1983.

Rustin undertook: Int. Clarence Jones, Jan. 26, 1984. Jones recalled that Rustin “just assumed the role of calling the White House.” The available records indicate that Rustin acted in King's name, with an imprecise mix of maverick initiative and prior approval.

“Mr. Rustin told me very confidentially”: Mary White to Valenti, 6:30
P.M.
, Aug. 11, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

“If it looks like”: Lee White to LBJ, Aug. 12, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

awkward minuet continued: New York LHM dated Aug. 14, 1964, FR-NR; Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, p. 345.

“King has made it so crystal clear”: Lee White to LBJ, re “Conversation with Bayard Rustin,” Aug. 13, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

instructions from Johnson: PDD, phone log, Aug. 13, 1964; LBJ's handwritten note on Lee White to LBJ, Aug. 13, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

“We'd have more damn wars”: LBJ phone call with Walter Reuther, Aug. 17, 1964, Cit. 5003, Audiotape WH6408.27, LBJ.

“if we mess with the group”: LBJ phone call with Hubert Humphrey, 11:05
A.M.
, Aug. 14, 1964, Cit. 4917-18, Audiotape WH6408.19, LBJ.

James Rowe to identify: LBJ phone call with James Rowe, Aug. 14, 1964, Cit. 4935, Audiotape WH6408.20, LBJ.

“panicky or desperate”: LBJ phone call with Roy Wilkins, Aug. 15, 1964, Cit. 4940-41, Audiotape WH6408.21, LBJ.

fn “The motivation of King”: Ibid.

“questionable people that met here”: LBJ phone call with Walter Reuther, Aug. 17, 1964, Cit. 5003, Audiotape WH6408.27, LBJ.

“I did not detect any anger”: Lee White to LBJ, Aug. 13, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

tour in Holland: NYT, Aug. 16, 1964, p. 64.

“He won't be gone”: LBJ phone call with Lee White, Aug. 13, 1964, Cit. 4912, Audiotape WH6408.19, LBJ.

Adickes gave in to six students: Int. Sandra Adickes, June 25, 1994. Adickes, a young teacher of four years' experience in New York City elementary schools, had been introduced to movement-style education in 1963 as a volunteer in Prince Edward County, Virginia, where public schools had been closed since 1959 to avoid integration. Smith,
Closed Their Schools, passim
; Branch,
Parting
, p. 413.

Herring arrived twenty minutes later: NYT, Aug. 15, 1964, p. 22; Holt,
The Summer
, p. 239. Mayor Pittman told reporters that routine inventory would be completed over the weekend, but he closed the library indefinitely when a second group of Freedom Schoolers presented themselves Monday morning. NYT, Aug. 19, 1964, p. 26.

“We have to serve the colored”:
Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co
., 398 U.S. 144 (1970).

fn Harlan delivered: Ibid.

airstrip near Greenwood: Int. Harry Belafonte, March 6-7, 1985; Forman,
Black Revolutionaries
, p. 385.

Idella Craft achieved local fame: Int. James Moore, June 25, 1992.

“I am thirty-seven years old”: Sutherland,
Letters from Mississippi
, pp. 183-84.

special beds and all-night sentries: Int. Dorothy Zellner, Dec. 12, 1991.

Poitier did calisthenics: Int. Harry Belafonte, March 6-7, 1985.

noise emptied Lula's Restaurant: Report labeled “Shooting of Silas McGhee, 8/15, 8:45
P.M.
,” William Hodes Files, SHSW; NYT, Aug. 16, 1964, p. 55; Payne,
Light of Freedom
, pp. 211-13.

McGhee himself reared up: Int. Silas McGhee, June 26, 1992.

Belfrage nervously ducked home: Belfrage,
Freedom Summer
, pp. 231-41.

parallel crises elsewhere: Holt,
The Summer
, pp. 241-42; “Mississippi Bombings, Burnings Since June 16,” A/SN36f6.

Moses balanced his footing: Kasher,
Photographic History
, pp. 154-55.

renewed by telegram: Rustin to Lee White, Aug. 17, 1964, PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

White said the meeting was set: NY LHM dated Aug. 20, 1964, FR-NR.

Kennedy had sandwiched: Branch,
Parting
, pp. 834-35.

“He says the chances”: Moyers to LBJ, Aug. 19, 1964, Ex PL1/ST24, LBJ.

intercept on King's guest home: King and his family were staying with Justine and Louis Smadbeck, friends of Coretta King. Garrow,
FBI and Martin
, p. 118; Coretta King,
My Life
, p. 251.

King and his allies: Garrow,
Bearing the Cross
, p. 346; NY LHM dated Aug. 20, 1964, FR-NR.

Johnson's entire purpose: Lee White to LBJ, “Notes for Meeting with Negro Leaders,” Aug. 19, 1964, Ex HU2, PR8-1, Box 3, LBJ.

“Deke's information is that”: Unsigned memo (from Lee White), Ex PL1/ST24, LBJ.

fifty-nine minutes: PDD, Aug. 19, 1964.

“regret that I am unable”: MLK telegram to LBJ (dictated by Andrew Young), Aug. 19, 1964, A/KP27f7.

“The attached telegram”: Lee White to LBJ, Aug. 19, 1964, Ex PL1/ST24, Box 81, LBJ.

“whole life's work”: LBJ phone call with George Reedy, 12:34
P.M.
, Aug. 19, 1964, Cit. 5030, Audiotape WH6408.28, LBJ.

direct statement or release: There were scattered small stories on the rumors, without citing the telegram, e.g., “LBJ Gets Negro Warning,” WP, Aug. 20, 1964, p. 4.

their own peculiar crisis: “A check here at the Bureau fails to reflect that we knew anything about the cake.” DeLoach to Mohr, Aug. 19, 1964, FLP-210. “The success of this technique was proven, inasmuch as Guest furnished damaging information.” SAC, Atlanta, to Hoover, Aug. 1964, FLP-213.

Moses ended the three-day staff conference: NYT, Aug. 20, 1964, p. 1; Holt,
The Summer
, pp. 246-47.

“The end is tonight”: NYT, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 85.

churches burned that night: NYT, Aug. 20, 1964, p. 13; “Mississippi Bombings, Burnings Since June 16,” A/SN36f6.

“For so long as man”: NYT, Aug. 21, 1964, p. 1; Goldman,
Tragedy
, pp. 223-24.

scapegoat Adam Yarmolinsky: Ibid. Yarmolinsky that very day was sending out job queries, complete with his résumé and letters of recommendation. Yarmolinsky to Earl C. Bolton (University of California, Berkeley) and Anne Ford (Houghton Mifflin), Aug. 20, 1964, Box 12, Yarmolinsky Papers, JFK.

President who fished from his pocket: WP, Aug. 21, 1964, p. 2; PDD, Aug. 20, 1964.

interviewed Stokely Carmichael: Correspondent Larry Grelman,
Mississippi Negro 1964
, WHWH-Princeton, Tape No. 64016 NWR, PEA.

34. A D
OG IN THE
M
ANGER
: T
HE
A
TLANTIC
C
ITY
C
OMPROMISE

Wallace hotly denounced: NYT, Aug. 22, 1964, p. 6; WP, Aug. 22, 1964, p. 5.

arranged by recent state law: NYT, Aug. 21, 1964, p. 1.

Gem Motel on Pacific: Dittmer,
Local People
, p. 286.

“a hymn-singing group”: WP, Aug. 22, 1964, p. 4.

Schwerner's station wagon: Sellers,
River of No Return
, p. 108.

“IV. B. 2.”: “Essential Legal Points for Briefing the Delegates,” b16f740, Edwin King Papers, TOU.

Sweeney escorted: Harris,
Dreams Die Hard
, p. 71.

cautious sympathy: Int. Charles Cobb, Aug. 20, 1991.

panel of historians: NYT, Aug. 21, 1964, p. 12.

Saturday morning breakfast: Int. Mendy Samstein by Anne Romaine, Sept. 4, 1966, A/AR.

Democrats had resolved: NYT, June 28, 1964, p. 43.

“Joe, they've screwed you!”: Mills,
This Little Light
, p. 116.

strategy needed cameras: Int. Joseph Rauh, Oct. 17, 1983.

“This is a helluva thing”: LBJ phone call with Walter Jenkins, 8:30
P.M.
, Aug. 21, 1964, Cit. 5107, Audiotape WH6408.32, LBJ.

“I don't give a damn”: LBJ phone call with Walter Reuther, 8:56
P.M.
, Aug. 21, 1964, Cit. 5112, Audiotape WH6408.32, LBJ.

“I never heard of it”: LBJ phone call with Hubert Humphrey, 12:15
P.M.
, Aug. 25, 1964, Cit. 5181, Audiotape WH6408.36, LBJ.

“We have only an hour”: WP, Aug. 23, 1964, pp. 1, 24.

“could seat a dozen dead dodos”: “Brief Submitted by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party,” prepared by Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., assisted by Eleanor K. Holmes and H. Miles Jaffee, Aug. 1964, p. 2.

“On them is the blood”: WP, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 24.

“over one hundred ministers”: NYT, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 81.

Rauh objected: Mills,
This Little Light
, p. 118.

“It was the 31st”: Ibid., pp. 119-21.

Hamer vanished: Holt,
The Summer
, p. 169; Carson,
In Struggle
, p. 125; Dittmer,
Local People
, p. 288.

“We will return”: Blackside, Inc. PBS series,
Eyes on the Prize
, I vol. 5,
Mississippi: Is This America
?

Johnson was hosting thirty: PDD, 2:30-5:25
P.M.
, Aug. 22, 1964.

Four strays: NYT, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 1.

calling for a general walkout: NYT, Aug. 25, 1964, p. 23.

“a very enjoyable”: WP, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 1.

“Johnson Still Silent”: Ibid.

stood in silent tribute: Ibid.

“I say to you that”: MLK statement of Aug. 22, 1964, A/SC27f40.

“a political cross”: WP, Aug. 23, 1964, p. 1.

“the party in Mississippi”: Ibid., p. 26.

yanked FBI technicians out: Turner to Branigan, Aug. 23, 1964, FK-440.

room directly below: WP, Jan. 26, 1975, p. 1.

“Lyndon is way out of line”: DeLoach,
Hoover's FBI
, p. 5.

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