Let the Trumpet Sound

by Stephen B. Oates

“militant man”: Rosa Parks interview with John H. Britton, Sept. 28, 1967, BOHC; also Nixon interview with Oates, Aug. 17, 1979; Raines, 38–39; STF, 138–42; Yeakey, 33–34, 111–30.

  Rosa Parks: Selby, 54, 57–59; Parks interview, BOHC; Nixon interview with Oates; Raines, 43–44.

  “have took”: STF, 44–45; Selby, 59.

  “clock on the wall”: STF, 48; also Yeakey, 290–91.

  “external expression”: STF, 51–52.

  “come quickly”: ibid., 53.

  “My Gawd”: Nixon interview with Oates; Selby, 60.

  “Mr. Chairman”: STF, 56. Yeakey, 324, 324n, indicates that the meeting established a permanent organization.

  “much time”: Nixon interview with Oates; Raines, 49.

  “has to do it”: Coretta King, 116.

  choice of King: Nixon interview with Oates; S. S. Seay interview with Judy Barton, Jan. 25, 1972, and Rufus Lewis interview with Barton, Jan. 24, 1972, MLK(CSC); Selby, 61; Yeakey, 324–25; Simms interview with Oates; Ebony (Dec., 1964) 126.

  “what the hell”: Raines, 49; also Nixon interview with Oates; STF, 57; Reddick, 124; Selby, 61–62.

  “whatever you do” to “eternal edicts”: STF, 59–60.

  King’s speech: Donald H. Smith, “Martin Luther King, Jr.: In the Beginning at Montgomery,” Southern Speech Journal (fall, 1968), 12–16; Yeakey, 334–40; STF, 60–64; Simms interview with Oates; text of speech in the Harry Wachtel Papers, New York City.

  “has been moved”: I have a Dream: Highlight, from the Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Center for Cassette Studies, Hollywood, Calif., [n.d.]).

  “my heart” to “open your mouth”: STF, 64–70.

  “Caleb”: Lincoln, 224.

  meeting with city commissioners: STF, 108–13; Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 9, 1955; Atlanta Journal, Dec. 8–9, 1955; Yeakey, 430–37.

  “rainy day”: Walton, pt. I, 17–20.

  “talked shop”: Simms interview with Oates.

  “not walking for myself”: STF, 77–78.

  “soul is rested”: Raines, 61; SL, 125.

  “Pooh!”: George Barrett, “Montgomery: Testing Ground,” NYT Mag. (Dec. 16, 1956), 50.

  “boycott terrible”: STF, 79.

  “believe”: Simms interview with Oates; also Barrett, “Montgomery,” NYT MAG., 50.

  “race pride”: Carl T. Rowan, Go South to Sorrow (New York, 1957), 127.

  “Negroes of Montgomery”: Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 12, 1955. Because of her letter, segregationists subjected Juliette Morgan to a steady barrage of abuse by letter and telephone. A fragile and sensitive young woman, she could not bear the persecution she received: in 1957, she killed herself with an overdose of sleeping pills.

  “little illustrative gestures”: quoted in Reddick, 12.

  King’s teachings: These paragraphs are a composite of King’s remarks at the mass meetings. They draw from STF, 85–87; I Have a Dream (cassette); Reddick, 12–13; Chester Bowles, “What Negroes Can Learn from Gandhi,” Saturday Evening Post (Mar. 1, 1958), 93.

  “that boy talkin’ about”: Abernathy interview with Oates; also Simms interview with Oates.

  “hears Dr. King”: Wofford, “Birthday Party,” MLK(BU); Reddick, 131; Tallmer.

  “only language”: STF, 88.

  second meeting: STF, 113–18; Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 18, 1955; Yeakey, 445–54.

  “firmly he believed”: STF, 119.

  Graetz: AOC, 20; Walton, pt. II, 19; Reddick, 123–24.

  “folded their hands” to “mistake”: PI, 66–67; STF, 209.

  mayor’s committee meeting: STF, 119–21; Yeakey, 454–59.

  “outside agitators” to “love campaign”: Rowan, Sorrow, 122, 125, 133; Montgomery Advertiser, Dec. 13, 1955.

  “disturbers of the peace”: PI, 68.

  “communist infiltration”: King to Homer Greene, July 10, 1956, MLK(BU); Abernathy interview with Oates. See also King’s remarks about fear, Mar. 23, 1956, MLK(CSC).

  “all these years”: King, “Civil Disobedience,” New South, 9; STF, 39–40.

  boycott song: Walton, pt. I, 18–19.

  rivalries and King’s resignation offer: STF, 122–23; Yeakey, 482; Coretta King, 122.

  “about the boycott”: Walton, pt. 1, 19; also Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 22, 1956.

  “pussy-footing”: STF, 126; Walton, pt. 1, 20.

  King’s arrest: STF, 127–31; Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 29, 1956.

  hate letters and phone calls: “A Good white citizen of Montgomery” to King [n.d.], MLK(BU); STF, 132–33; AOC, 19.

  King’s fears: Walton, pt. I, 152; DeWolf interview, BOHC; Martin Luther King, “Reflections,” Chicago speech, 1966, in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Speeches and Sermons (tape); STF, 133; SL, 125–26.

  voice in kitchen: King, “Reflections” SL, 113; STF, 133–34; AOC, 19; Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 27, 1957.

  bombing: Coretta King, 128–30; STF, 137–38; Walton, pt. I, 20; AOC, 19; Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 31, 1956.

  “not bad men”: STF, 138–39.

  “totally nonviolent”: Bayard Rustin interview with Oates, Dec. 12, 1979; Rustin interview with T. H. Baker, June 17 and 30, 1969, LBJ.

  “sense of manhood”: Testament, 233; STF, 140–44; Abernathy interview with Oates.

  “course of human events”: Bayard Rustin, “Montgomery Diary,” Liberation (Apr., 1956), 9–10; Montgomery Advertiser, Feb. 11, 1956.

  “Autherine,” “like war,” and “bomb us”: Martin Luther King, Jr., “Our Struggle,” Liberation (Apr., 1965), 5; Rustin, “Diary,” ibid., 7.

  stands up to Daddy King: STF, 143–46; Raines, 64–65, 353–54; Mays, Born, 267–68; Yeakey, 520.

  “holiday atmosphere”: STF, 146; Montgomery Advertiser, Feb. 24, 1956.

  “wonderful talk”: Coretta King, 138.

  Rustin: Rustin interview with Oates; Rustin interview, LBJ; Bayard Rustin, Down the Line (Chicago, 1971), 109–10; Raines, 54; Selby, 245–61.

  “make the challenge”: Raines, 55.

  Daddy King’s prayer: ibid., 57; Rustin interview with Oates.

  King’s trial: New Republic (Apr. 2, 1956), 5; Newsweek (Apr. 2, 1956); Montgomery Advertiser, March 20 and 21, 1956; STF, 146–50; Yeakey, 521–27; Reddick, 142–45; Walton, pt. II, 27–28; Roy Wilkins to King, Mar. 18 and May 8, 1956, and King to Wilkins, May 1, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “international stamping grounds”: Simms interview with Oates; clippings in B. J. Simms scrapbook.

  “thumbnail sketch”: Glenn Smiley interview with Katherine M. Shannon, Sept. 12, 1967, BOHC.

  “electronic perception”: Watters, 45.

  “THANK YOU”: “Chris” to King, Feb. 27, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “statesmanlike leadership”: H. C. Diehl to King, Nov. 26, 1956, ibid.

  “personal direction”: Friends. The love and hate mail to King was voluminous (see MLK[BU]).

  “must confess”: King to H. Bulacher, Sept. 20, 1956, and to Wilbert J. Johnson, Sept. 24, 1956, ibid., are two examples.

  “worry about him”: Reddick, 177.

  “so involved”: King to Rustin, July 10, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “extremely vulnerable”: King to Dr. William L. Bentley, Nov. 1, 1956, ibid; Reddick, 7; see also the many letters containing contributions, in MLK(BU). Dominic J. Capeci, Jr., “From Harlem to Montgomery: The Bus Boycotts and Leadership of Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Historian (Aug., 1979), 732–33, documents Powell’s contributions to the Montgomery protest. At the height of the protest, MIA’s weekly expenses ran around $5,000, mostly for the transportation system and the office (see King to Rustin, Sept. 20, 1956, MLK[BU]).

  “tragic sabotage”: STF, 151. See Yeakey, 500ff, for the complicated legal maneuvers.

  King’s world view: These paragraphs are a composite of King’s speeches and public utterances that year. These include “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore,” in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, May 17, 1956, typescr
ipt copy in MLK(BU), published in SL, 76–85; “A Realistic Look at the Question of Progress in the Area of Race Relations,” given before the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, New York City, May 17, 1956, MLK(BU); speech given before the NAACP national convention, San Francisco, Calif., June 27, 1956, typescript in ibid., published version in U.S. News & World Report (Aug. 3, 1956), 82, 87–89; “The Most Durable Power,” Christian Century (Nov., 1957), 708; “Facing the Challenge of a New Age,” given at the First Annual Institute on Nonviolence, Montgomery, Ala., Dec. 3, 1956, typescript in MLK(BU), published in Phylon (Apr., 1957), 25–34.

  “without eating”: King to S. S. Robinson, Oct. 3, 1956, and King affidavit, Dec. 10, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “spiritual renewal”: DeWolf to King, Nov. 9, 1956, ibid.; DeWolf interview, BOHC.

  “powerful address”: Nov. 27, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “If the city officials”: Coretta King, 141.

  “backed us up” and “these months”: PI, 66; STF, 158–59; SL, 65.

  “clock said”: Charles E. Fager, Selma, 1965, (New York, 1974), 132–35.

  “United States Supreme Court” and “God Almighty”: STF, 160; Nixon interview with Oates.

  “Any attempt,” “allow niggers,” “circus parade”: Martin Luther King, Jr., “We Are Still Walking,” Liberation (Dec., 1956), 6; STF, 162, 167; Afro-American, Dec. 1, 1956.

  meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church: Walton, pt. III, 104; STF, 160–62; Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 15, 1956; King, “Still Walking,” Liberation, 7.

  “a Messiah”: AOC, 20.

  “May God” and “Your fight”: William Holmes Borders to King, Dec. 19, 1956, and anonymous letter to King, Dec. 31, 1956, MLK(BU).

  “City Commission”: STF, 170.

  “spiritual force”: ibid., 169; King to Sellers and others, Dec. 19, 1956, MLK(BU); Smiley interview, BOHC.

  King’s speech: typescript in MLK(BU), published in Phylon (Apr., 1957), 25–34.

  “rather die,” “Reverend King asked,” “sit in front”: STF, 172–74; Wofford, “Birthday Party,” MLK(BU).

  “pains me”: Rowan, Sorrow, 129. For the cost of the boycott, see Walton, pt. III, 103, and AOC, 19.

  “Almost every week”: King’s Annual Report to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, 1956–57, 3–4, MLK(BU).

  “Dr. King’s charisma”: Rustin interview, LBJ; Rustin interview with Oates; see also Ella Baker’s interview with John H. Britton, June 19 and July 19, 1969, BOHC.

  leaflets: Walton, pt. IV, 148–49.

  southern conference call: copy, Jan. 7, 1957, MLK(BU); King to Sidney Kaufman, Nov. 7, 1960, ibid.; Rustin, Line, 160; Baker interview, BOHC.

  “When they bomb”: Walton, pt. IV, 150.

  SCLC manifesto: MLK(BU); Reddick, 184–85.

  “wish I could”: Rustin, Line, 103.

  “have to die”: STF, 177–78; Ebony (May, 1968), 142.

  “We decided”: Reddick, 210.

  “things in Montgomery,” “those Negroes,” “anyone fool you”: STF, 181, 184; Abel Plenn, “Report on Montgomery a Year After,” NYT Mag. (Dec. 29, 1957), 11, 36, 38; also Barrett, “Montgomery,” ibid., 50, and Simms and Nixon interviews with Oates. On the other hand, Wakefield, Revolt, 91–93, found little change in white attitudes after the boycott.

  “race-mixing”: STF, 185.

  “unarmed, unorganized”: WCW, 34.

  “tremendous facility”: Raines, 56; Yeakey, vii.

  “our heads up”: Plenn, “Report,” NYT Mag., 36.

  “great transforming power”: King to Rev. J. O. A. Stevens, Dec. 22, 1959, MLK(BU).

  “new heights”: Joseph R. Washington, Jr., Black Religion: the Negro and Christianity in the United States (Boston, 1964), 25, in an otherwise muddled critique of King’s love as “the regulating ideal.”

  “really disturbed”: Coretta King, 149–50; Lincoln, 119.

  PART THREE: FREEDOM IS NEVER FREE

  “idea out of my mind”: Jan. 4, 1957, MLK(BU).

  “white South”: PI, 72; Reddick, 22–23.

  Ghana trip: Reddick, 181–82; King’s speech as quoted in the Charleston Gazette, Jan. 25, 1960; King’s sermon, Nov. 15, 1964, MLK(CSC); Homer A. Jack, “Conversation in Ghana,” Christian Century (Apr. 10, 1957), 446–47.

  “talked angrily”: Coretta King, 157.

  “land of my father’s fathers” and “rebirth”: Reddick, 21–22, 183.

  King’s African concerns: King to Chief Luthuli, Dec. 8, 1959, and to Editorial Committee of Dissent, June 1, 1959, MLK(BU); King’s typescript introduction to an American Committee on Africa pamphlet, Oct., 1959, and scores of other documents and correspondence relating to Africa in ibid. and in MLK(CSC).

  “return to Africa”: King to Edward H. Page, June 12, 1957, MLK(BU).

  “French Revolution” and “never separated”: “The Most Dangerous Negro,” Time (May 28, 1979), 18; also Jervis Anderson, A. Philip Randolph: A Biographical Portrait (New York, 1973).

  “spiritual undergirding”: Thomas Kilgore, Jr., and others to James Hicks, June 4, 1957, MLK(BU); Rustin interview with Oates; Reddick, 186–90.

  King’s speech: typescript, MLK(BU).

  “from Prayer Pilgrimage”: New York Amsterdam News, June 1, 1957.

  “After living”: King to Congressman Charles E. Chamberlain, May 1, 1957, MLK(BU).

  “His travels”: King to Mazo, Sept. 2, 1958, ibid.

  “lethargy”: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Robert Kennedy and His Times (Boston, 1958), 287; also Steven F. Lawson, Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969 (New York, 1976), 140–202.

  “right to vote”: King letters to Benjamin Mays and to many others, Dec. 12–17, 1957, and SCLC news releases, memoranda, and other items relating to SCLC’s formation and the Crusade for Citizenship, MLK(BU); King to Thor Andersen, Jan. 31, 1962, MLK(CSC). See also August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, CORE: A Study in the Civil Rights Movement (paperback ed., Urbana, III., 1975), 72–79. Rustin maintains that King added “Christian” to the SCLC’s initial name of the Southern Leadership Conference (Rustin interview with Oates).

  Ella Baker: Baker interview, BOHC. While Baker was deeply committed to the movement and a leading spirit behind the formation of SCLC, she had sharp ideological differences with King that subsequently embittered her memories of him and the SCLC ministers with whom she worked. In May, 1958, John L. Tilley, a Baltimore pastor and educator, became permanent executive director, with Baker functioning as associate director. But in April, 1959, King relieved Tilley because he was “not producing” (King to Theodore E. Brown, Oct. 19, 1959, MLK[BU]). Baker then served as executive director until Wyatt Walker assumed the post in 1960.

  “spiritual strategy”: King to Byrd, Apr. 25, 1957, MLK(BU).

  “a tragic revelation”: King to Joseph Tusiani, August 8, 1959, ibid.

  King’s speech and conversation afterward: King, “Some Things We Must Do,” MLK(CSC), and Wofford, “Birthday Party,” ibid; Paul Simon to Oates, Aug. 14, 1978; Chester Bowles, “What Negroes Can Learn from Gandhi,” Saturday Evening Post (Mar. 1, 1958), 89; Wofford, 12.

  “We have been growing”: Dec. 13, 1957, MLK(BU).

  “immediately and tremendously winning”: Lincoln, 90–94.

  “great pity”: Jan. 3, 1958, MLK(BU).

  “We feel”: King’s remarks on voting, Nov. 6, 1957, MLK(CSC), and King to Jesse Hill, Jr., Jan. 28, 1959, MLK(BU).

  King’s speech: MLK(BU).

  “joy” and “Atlanta succeeds”: King to Hill, Jan. 28, 1959, ibid.

  “helpful hand”: Arthur L. Johnson to King, Mar. 6, 1958, ibid.

  “dolled-up Uncle Tomism”: Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch, Feb. 27 and Mar. 6, 1958.

  “writing on his book”: Hilda S. Proctor to Mark Starr, Apr. 22, 1958, MLK(BU). The extensive correspondence surrounding the preparation of STF is in ibid. Stanley Levison warned King not to make it seem as though everything in the protest “depended on you” and was especially critical of King’s final chapter, offering some r
evisions that were used in the text. A few days later, though, he wrote King that he hadn’t praised the chapter enough and that it contained “a wealth of striking ideas of high leadership caliber.” (Levison to King, Apr. 1 and 7, 1958, ibid.) King asserted later that “the Montgomery story was never a drama with only one actor. More precisely it was always a drama with many actors, each playing his part exceedingly well.” (King’s MIA speech, Dec. 3, 1959, SCLC.)

  Arnold’s and Popper’s objections: Arnold to King, May 5, 1958, and Popper to King, [n.d.], ibid.; also STF, 93.

  “so many problems,” “President Eisenhower,” and “rage and despair”: Reddick, 223; WCW, 143; and Coretta King, 162.

  King’s arrest and trial: Reddick, 225–29; Coretta King, 162–65; King’s statement to Judge Eugene Loe, Sept. 5, 1958, MLK(BU).

  reviews: clippings and copies of, as well as correspondence on sales and foreign-language editions, in ibid.

  “dark moments”: King to Harry S. Ashmore, Jan. 22, 1959, ibid.

  “a marked man”: J. Raymond Henderson to King, Sept. 17, 1958, ibid.

  King’s stabbing: King’s recollections in “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” Apr. 3, 1968, Memphis, Tenn., MLK(CSC); “The Woman Behind Martin Luther King,” Ebony (Jan., 1959), 33; WCW, 17; King to Randolph, Nov. 8, 1959, MLK(BU); Mrs. L. Zinberg to King, 1958, ibid.; Coretta King, 168–72; Reddick, 229–31. Ultimately, Randolph and New York City citizens raised $2,287.50 for King’s hospital expenses (see Randolph to King, Dec. 18, 1958, MLK [BU]).

  “Southern segregation struggle,” “difficult period, “pick-pockets,” and “so frustrating”: King, “My Trip to India,” 2, typescript, MLK(BU); King to Hilda S. Proctor, Dec. 22, 1958, and Gregg to King, Jan. 23, 1959, ibid.

  India trip: King, “My Trip,” 2–11, published as “My Trip to the Land of Gandhi,” Ebony (July, 1959), 84–86, 88–90, 92; newspaper clippings, Feb. 13, Mar. 3 and 13, 1959, MLK(BU); WCW, 134–35; SL, 84–85; TC, 69; Coretta King, 173–77.

  “difficult problems”: King to James Bristol, Mar. 30, 1959, MLK(BU).

  Good Samaritan: King, “Mountaintop,” Apr. 3, 1968, MLK(CSC).

  “marvelous thing” to “victim of discrimination”: PN, 441; King, “Hammer on Civil Rights,” Nation (Mar. 9, 1964), 95; King’s statement, Mar. 18, 1959, MLK(BU).