Let the Trumpet Sound

by Stephen B. Oates

  “difficult,” “made Negroes feel,” and “vigorous and firm”: King, “Who Is Their God?” Nation (Oct. 13, 1962), 209–10; DTTP, 64; King, “Bold Design for a New South,” Nation (Mar. 30, 1963), 259–62. See also King’s statement on Ole Miss, Sept., 1962, MLK(CSC).

  second Emancipation Proclamation: King, “The Luminous Promise,” Progressive (Dec., 1962), 34–37; King, “Emancipation Proclamation,” New York Amsterdam News, Nov. 10, 1962; King’s speech before the Interfaith Conference on Civil Rights, Chicago, Jan. 15, 1963, MLK(CSC); King, “Bold Design,” Nation, 262. See also King’s speech before District 65, DWA, New York City, Oct. 23, 1963, recorded on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Speaks to District 65 DWA (New York, [n.d.]). King had also discoursed on a second Emancipation Proclamation in May, 1962, when he had presented Kennedy with a bound draft of such a document (see King’s speech of May 17, 1962, in MLK[BU]).

  “badge of honor”: King telegram to Shuttlesworth, Apr. 4, 1960, MLK(BU).

  Shuttlesworth: Raines, 154–55; Fred Shuttlesworth interview with Mosby, Sept., 1968, BOHC; newspaper clippings in Fred Shuttlesworth Papers, MLK(CSC); WCW, 51–53.

  “know-how”: Shuttlesworth interview, BOHC.

  “segregated city”: Los Angeles newspaper clipping, dated Jan. 8, 1960, MLK(BU).

  “crack that city” and “radiate”: Walker interview, BOHC; Stanley Levison in Jean Stein and George Plimpton (eds.), American Journey: The Times of Robert Kennedy (New York, 1970), 114.

  “don’t win” and “we could chew”: MOY, 15; Walker interview, BOHC; WCW, 43, 54–55. Garrow, FBI, 58, drawing on bureau documents opened to him, indicates that the retreat occurred on Jan. 10 and 11, 1963. King and other participants said it was a three-day retreat.

  “world opinion” and “Instead of submitting”: TC, 54; WCW, 37; also King’s speech in Nashville, Tenn., Dec. 27, 1962, MLK(BU); Lee interview with Oates; Levison in Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, 114–15; Shuttlesworth in Raines, 155. David J. Garrow, Protest at Selma: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (New Haven and London, 1978), 221–25, also argues this point, although he downplays the moral, idealistic side of Project C. Andrew Young, in his interview in LBJ, denied that provocation ever became part of SCLC’s strategy, but the weight of evidence proves him wrong.

  “nigger mayor” and Bull Connor: Joe David Brown, “Birmingham, Alabama: A City in Fear,” Saturday Evening Post (Mar. 2, 1963), 16–17; American Heritage Foundation, Freedom Train Records, Box 219, National Archives; Newsweek (Apr. 22, 1963), 28–29, and (Dec. 8, 1969), 79.

  Wallace: Brown, “Birmingham,” Saturday Evening Post, 14; Marshall Frady, Wallace (Cleveland, Ohio, 1968), 131–35.

  code names, “make a point,” “cradle of the Confederacy”: MOY, 16; Walker interview, BOHC; Levison in Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, 115; Brown, “Birmingham,” Saturday Evening Post, 14; Frady, Wallace, 142.

  “kind of action” and “Only a Negro”: Dunbar, “Negro Leader,” Look, 96; Integrated Education (Mar. 1963), 18–19.

  “any interest”: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 328.

  “political football” and planning: WCW, 53–58; Walker interview, BOHC; Lee interview with Oates; W and M, 51–56.

  “dignified Bull Connor” and “task force”: WCW, 58, 59.

  “soul of Birmingham, “Mahatma goes,” “sole purpose,” and “ready to change”: ibid., 62, 66; Watters, 265; W and M, 64.

  unifying the Negro community: WCW, 65–68; PI, 67; Walker interview, Shuttlesworth interview, and Emory Jackson interview with Stanley Smith, Feb., 1968, BOHC; Raines, 143; Kunstler, 183–84.

  “did not hesitate” and “a cracker”: WCW, 62; Raines, 148–49; Vincent Harding, “A Beginning in Birmingham,” Reporter (June 6, 1963), 16.

  “personal witnesses”: WCW, 71; Raines, 143–44; Walker interview, BOHC.

  “raw tyranny” to “can’t stop us”: statement in MLK(CSC).

  meeting in Room 30: WCW, 71–74; Abernathy interview with Oates.

  “redemptive influence of suffering” and “like Jesus”: Coretta King, 223.

  “most frustrating hours” and “cannot express”: WCW, 74–75; PI, 78; Stanley Levison to Joan Daves, [1963], JD.

  “so polite”: Coretta King, 227.

  how King wrote the “Letter”: Levison to Daves, [1963], JD; Coretta King, 228; Kunstler, 187. Walker, in his BOHC interview, denied that any portion of the “Letter” was written on toilet paper. But in his interview in Selby, 285, he contradicted himself, asserting that parts of the document were “written on toilet paper and newspaper.”

  “Letter”: WCW, 76–95. For a textual analysis, see Haig Bosmajian’s essay in Lincoln, 128–43.

  “historic documents” and “Call it”: Walker interview, BOHC; also Selby, 285. John W. Macy, Jr., chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, read the “Letter” and sent a copy to Robert Kennedy. “I have found the reading of this document a very enlightening experience,” he wrote in an accompanying missive. “Although the views are expressed passionately they have an intellectual and spiritual value which demonstrates the strength of King’s leadership.” (Macy to Kennedy, June 6, 1963, Burke Marshall Papers, JFK.) The New York Times chose not to publish the “Letter” because it was to appear in other periodicals. (See Lewis Bergman to King, May 17, 1963, MLK[CSC].)

  “silly thing”: Watters, 237.

  “business leaders” and “more troops”: W and M, 141; Walker interview, BOHC; also YPI; Kunstler, 188–89.

  “new dimension” and “terrible time”: WCW, 96; Lee interview with Oates.

  “family life”: WGH, 128; WCW, 96; Lee interview with Oates; Abernathy interview with Oates; Walker interview, BOHC; Kunstler, 189; Coretta King, 231.

  “you want”: WCW, 98; PI, 78; Dave Dellinger, “The Negroes of Birmingham,” Liberation (summer, 1963), 21.

  “fifteen years from now”: Raines, 171.

  “Oh man,” “beautiful,” “for my children,” and “during the centuries”: Walker interview, BOHC; PI, 78; WCW, 97, 99.

  “everybody to listen” and “Double D Day”: Barbara Deming, “Notes After Birmingham,” Liberation (summer, 1963), 15; Coretta King, 229.

  dogs and fire hoses: NYT, May 4, 1963; Deming, “After Birmingham,” Liberation, 14; Lincoln, 113–14; Raines, 146; Time (May 10, 1963), 19.

  “your children”: Time (May 10, 1963), 19; King’s remarks to the mass meeting, May 3, 1963, MLK(CSC); W and M, 145.

  “disgrace” and “well understand”: FAR, 348; U.S. Information Agency, Survey of World-wide Response to Birmingham, May 9 and 11, 1963, Robert F. Kennedy Papers (Attorney General Correspondence), JFK; Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 959.

  “them goddamn son-bitches” and “WE WANT FREEDOM”: Raines, 177; Deming, “After Birmingham,” Liberation, 15; Walker interview, BOHC.

  “our white brothers”: King’s universal message on Negro nonviolence since the Montgomery bus boycott, recorded on I Have a Dream (cassette).

  Billups march: Dellinger, “Birmingham,” Liberation, 19; WCW, 101; PI, 67.

  “activities which have taken place”: King’s statement, May 7, 1963, MLK(CSC).

  children’s impact: Dellinger, “Birmingham,” Liberation, 21; Abernathy interview with Oates.

  negotiations: Harding, “Beginning,” Reporter, 13–19; Burke Marshall interview with T. H. Baker, Oct. 28, 1968, LBJ; WCW, 102–06; Raines, 145, 163–65; Walker interview, BOHC; Young in Stein and Plimpton, American Journey, 116–117; Wachtel interview with Oates; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 329.

  Shuttlesworth: Shuttlesworth interview and Walker interview, BOHC; Raines, 157–60.

  “same thing” and “city of Birmingham”: W and M, 149.

  “whole fucking city”: Wyatt Walker quoted in Lewis, 202; also WCW, 107; PI, 67; King, “What a Mother Should Tell Her Child,” May 12, 1963, MLK(CSC); Deming, “After Birmingham,” Liberation, 13; Walker interview, BOHC; Birmingham News, May 12, 1963.

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nbsp; “won’t destroy,” “Whatever happens,” and “This nigger”: Harding, “Beginning,” Reporter, 13, 18; Michael Dorman, We Shall Overcome (paperback ed., New York, 1965), 197.

  campaign accomplishments: Kenneth C. Royall and Earl H. Blaik, Report, Dec. 16, 1963, Marshall Papers, JFK; Newsweek (Dec. 8, 1969), 79; WCW, 113–14; W and M, 195–96.

  “backbone of Negroes”: Jackson interview, BOHC.

  “turning point”: Dellinger, “Birmingham,” Liberation, 18, 21; “Seeds of Liberation: Integration Leaders Examine Lessons of Birmingham,” ibid. (June, 1964), 4; Shuttlesworth interview, BOHC.

  poll: Newsweek (July 29, 1963), 30–32.

  “magic touch,” “greatest human being,” and “my book”: Lincoln, 116–17; U.S. News & World Report (June 13, 1963), 21; Smiley interview, BOHC.

  “issue a call” and “White House believes”: Atlanta Constitution, June 10, 1963; Levison to Joan Daves, [1963], JD.

  “sensitivity training”: Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 96.

  “fatuous display”: King, “The Negro Vote,” May, 1966, JD.

  “more he saw”: Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 97, 99, 441; also Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 343, 346–47; John Doar and Burke Marshall in Stein and Plimptom, American Journey, 122–23.

  Kennedy’s speech: Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 964–65.

  “most earnest”: WCW, 144; copy in MLK(CSC).

  “This reveals”: King’s statement, June 12, 1963, MLK(CSC).

  “first written”: King, “Let Justice Roll Down,” Nation (Mar. 15, 1965), 271–72; King, “Comments on John F. Kennedy,” JD.

  meeting with Kennedy: Schlesinger, Thousand Days, 968–71; WCW, 132; A. Philip Randolph interview with Thomas H. Baker, Oct. 29, 1968, LBJ.

  Rose Garden: Howell, 17; Raines, 430–31; Demaris, Director, 210; SSCFR, 97; DTTP, 64; Navasky, 143; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 357–58; Garrow, FBI, 40–44, 57–61.

  “present connections”: King to O’Dell, July 3, 1963, copy in Marshall Papers, JFK; also in Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 143–44.

  “some other side” and “dumbfounded”: Kennedy and Marshall interview with Lewis, VI, 674–81; Wofford, 216.

  “My skills,” “misleading charges,” and “a spy”: Levison to King, Dec. 15, 1959, MLK(BU); Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 148; transcript of the Levison hearing, Apr. 30, 1962, in the Robert Kennedy Papers, JFK; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 354.

  Levison’s Communist background: Garrow, FBI, 26–57, 85.

  “Burke never said”: Howell, 17.

  “induced him to break,” “drifting back,” and “I have decided”: Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 358; Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 144, 146, 148. Navasky suggests that King and Levison openly resumed their association in the fall of 1963. King asked Wachtel to meet with Levison and hear his story; Wachtel did so and “cleared him” for King, who then restored Levison as an adviser. Wachtel thought this occurred in 1965 (Wachtel to Oates, Feb. 26, 1980). In early 1964, however, Levison contributed $100 to SCLC, and King wrote him a letter of thanks (Feb. 7, 1964). See the correspondence in MLK(CSC).

  “exercise in futility” to “tell someone”: NYT, May 11, 1963; Gordon Parks, Born Black (New York, 1971), 44.

  TV interview: Malcolm X in “The Negro and the American Promise,” hosted by Kenneth B. Clark and produced for National Educational Television by WGBH-TV, Boston, film copy in the Audio-Visual Department, National Archives. Clark also interviewed King and James Baldwin in the series and published all three interviews in Clark (ed.), The Negro Protest (Boston, 1963). Since Malcolm X’s language was considerably toned down in the published version, I have drawn quotations from the original televised interview.

  “strange dream”: King to Kivie Kaplan, Mar. 6, 1961, MLK(BU).

  “fellow leader”: Malcolm X to King, July 21, 1960, ibid.

  Clark’s criticisms: M. H. Ahmann (ed.), The New Negro (Notre Dame, Ind., 1961), 36, 37; Clark’s comments in “The Negro and the American Promise,” National Archives.

  “because violence”: PI, 74; see also King’s interview with Robert Penn Warren, Mar. 18, 1964, and King to Mrs. Malcolm X, Feb. 26, 1965, MLK(CSC).

  “ain’t what we ought to be”: MOY, 27.

  “they’ve heard those things”: King’s interview with Warren, Mar. 18, 1964, MLK(CSC); also King to Henry Hitt Crane, July 24, 1964, ibid.

  “so many injunctions”: Kunstler, 228.

  “summer of 1963” to “at last”: WCW, 15–26, 111–12, 116–17; MOY, 25–26.

  planning the march: Rustin interview, LBJ; Bayard Rustin, “The Washington March—a 10-Year Perspective,” The Crisis (Aug.–Sept., 1973), 224–27; Rustin, Line, 109; NBC, Meet the Press: Guests—Mr. Roy Wilkins…and Dr. Martin Luther King…August 25, 1963 (Washington, D.C., 1963); WCW, 122; Bayard Rustin interview with WINS of New York, Aug. 21, 1963, tape in MLK(BU); Viorst, Fire in the Streets, 199–227.

  “no way” to “You go on”: Fauntroy interview with Oates.

  “echo”: Coretta King, 236; Ralph Abernathy, “Martin Luther King’s Dream,” in Lynda Rosen Obst (ed.), The Sixties (New York, 1977), 94; Walker interview, BOHC.

  “served to strengthen” and “press had expected”: WCW, 142, 122–24.

  “tens of thousands”: New York Herald-Tribune, Aug. 29, 1963.

  “high on a crowd”: Duckett interview with Oates; Abernathy, “Dream,” in Obst, Sixties, 94.

  King’s speech: audio cassette (National Archives) and King: A Filmed Record. See also the various drafts in MLK(CSC).

  “that thing”: Walker interview, BOHC; Abernathy, “Dream,” in Obst, Sixties, 94; Abernathy interview with Oates.

  “most moving”: undated newspaper clipping (circa Sept., 1964), MLK(BU).

  “Farce on Washington” and “That day”: Malcolm X (with the assistance of Alex Haley), Autobiography (paperback ed., New York, 1966), 281; James Baldwin, No Name in the Street (paperback ed., New York, 1973), 140.

  Meeting with Kennedy: Roy Wilkins interview with Thomas H. Baker, Apr. 1, 1969, and Randolph interview, LBJ; DTTP, 64.

  “totally outside” and “all these years”: Rustin interview with Oates.

  “watch out”: Fauntroy interview with Oates; Coretta King, 240–42.

  “want y’all’: Rustin interview with Oates.

  “morality play”: Lincoln, 194.

  Willard Hotel party, Hoover, and FBI: NYT, Mar. 9, 1975; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 339, 360, 362–63; FAR, 531–32; HSCAH, VI, 66, 140–42; Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 137, 139, 142 and 142n, 150–151; Demaris, Director, 9, 13, 30–36, 44, 96, 231; Sullivan, Bureau, 139–40. Garrow, FBI, 151–77, argues that Hoover was just a voyeur when it came to King’s sexual affairs and that it was William Sullivan, New England born and bred, who reacted to them with a “Puritan’s” revulsion. This argument not only betrays a misconception of the sexual attitudes of the historical Puritans, but also disregards a persuasive body of evidence about Hoover’s obsession with and repugnance for King’s sexual behavior. It is possible, in any case, for a man like Hoover to be both titillated and repelled by the details of King’s sex life.

  Kennedy and the wiretaps: Kennedy interview with Lewis, VI, 671–72, JFK; HSCAH, VI, 187, 188, 190, 191, 211–12; Navasky, Kennedy Justice, 137–53; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 359–61.

  FBI monograph: Kennedy and Marshall interview with Lewis, VI, 9–10, 687–91, JFK; U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Department of Justice Task Force to Review the FBI-Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations (Jan. 11, 1977), 120, 176; SSCFR, 108, 111–33, 136–37; HSCAH, VI, 68–69, 352; FAR, 572–73; Demaris, Director, 139, 170; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 361–62; Garrow, FBI, 73–75.

  “We knew” and “political scandal”: Howell, 15; Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy, 361.

  “My God,” “Dear God,” “sin and evil,” and “this bestial”: PI; King’s sermon, Sept. 22, 1963, MLK(CSC); Charles Morgan, Jr., A Time to Speak (New York, 1964), 161–63.

  �
�poverty of conscience”: WCW, 113.

  “Every little individual”: Raines, 182–83.

  “not for that” and “did not die”: Coretta King, 243; King’s eulogy, MLK(CSC); also Washington Star, Sept. 19, 1963; NYT, Nov. 21, 1977.

  “fullest unity”: WCW, 115; also King’s statement, Oct. 8, 1963, MLK(CSC); Atlanta Constitution, Oct. 8, 1963.

  “men have dreamed”: copies in MLK(BU) and MLK(CSC).

  Kennedy assassination: Coretta King, 243–45; Lee interview with Oates; newspaper clippings, MLK(BU).

  “I am shocked”: King’s statement, Nov. 22, 1963, MLK(CSC).

  “events of those days”: quoted in William Manchester, The Glory and the Dream: A Narrative History of America (paperback ed., 1975), 1007.

  King on JFK: King, “Comments on John F. Kennedy,” JD; WCW, 143–47; DTTP, 61, 64; King, “What Killed John F. Kennedy?” New York Amsterdam News, Dec. 21, 1963; also King to Henry H. Crane, Dec. 13, 1963, and King’s interview for JFK, MLK(CSC).

  “intellectual involvement”: WCW, 146; King, “Our New President,” New York Amsterdam News, Feb. 1, 1964.

  “kinky sexual preferences,” “heard him say,” “don’t trust anybody”: Hugh Sidey, “L.B.J., Hoover and Domestic Spying,” Time (Feb. 10, 1975), 16; Demaris, Director, 170; also Merle Miller, Lyndon: An Oral Biography (New York, 1980), passim.

  “pain of injustice,” “blot,” “had to act”: Doris Kearns, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (New York, 1976), 65–66, 147–48; Lyndon Baines Johnson, The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963–1969 (New York, 1971), 155.

  “every ounce,” “No memorial,” “had not died”: Johnson, Vantage Point, 29, 157; W and M, 155.

  “college try” and “means business”: LBJ, White House Diary and Diary Backup, Dec. 3, 1963, LBJ; LBJ to King, Dec. 2, 1963, King Name File, ibid.; MOY, 27.

  “see Lyndon Johnson”: YPI, 75; also Young interview, LBJ.

  “While boasting”: King’s speech, Dec. 15, 1963, MLK(CSC); Time (Dec. 27, 1963), 19.

  “Dr. King”: PI, 66.

  PART SIX: LIFE’S RESTLESS SEA

  “that’s Birmingham” and “civil rights issue”: MOY, 13.