Washington project, 448
Wyatt Tee Walker, 156, 157
“Southern Manifesto, The,” 92
South Vietnam, 373, 374, 433
South View Cemetery, 497, 498
Soviet Union, 40
Spectator, the, 304
Spelman College, 161, 495
Spock, Dr. Benjamin, 381, 440
Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, 427, 440
Steele, Reverend C. K., 108
Stevenson, Adlai, 159, 414
Stewart, Potter, 446
Stokes, Carl, 444, 445
Stoner, J. B., 298, 299, 335
Strength to Love (King), 283, 295
Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (King), 125, 127–132, 137, 249, 270
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 155, 160, 170, 195, 197, 269, 290, 308, 311, 312, 396, 419
Adult Advisory Committee, 155
anti-Semitism, 474
antiwhite policies, 459
in Chicago, 406, 414, 416, 417
feud with King, 396
in Mississippi, 306–309, 396, 401, 403, 405
in Selma, 327, 330, 341, 347, 352, 353
Study of History, A (Toynbee), 133
Sullivan, William, 264, 266, 316, 331
Summer Community Organization and Political Education Project (SCOPE), 366, 367, 379, 380
“Summit Agreement,” 415
Sunday School Publishing Board, 286
Sutherland, John, 455, 480
Swann, Dana, 299, 300
Tallahassee bus boycott, 108
Terrorism, 62
Tet offensive, 467
Third World, 468
Thoreau, Henry David, 23, 32, 66, 77, 86, 497
“Three Dimensions of a Complete Life, The” (King), 48, 319
Thurmond, Strom, 255
Tidwell, Richard “Peanut,” 410
Till, Emmett, 62
Tillich, Paul, 46, 47
Time, 115, 233, 254, 279, 280, 281
Tolson, Clyde, 265
Totalitarianism, 30
Totten, C. K., 80
Toynbee, Arnold, 133
Trailways Bus Terminal, 188
Transportation, integrated, 122. See also Montgomery bus boycott
Truman, President Harry S., 134, 170
“Uncle Toms,” 199
Union Theological Seminary, 34, 433
Unitarian-Universalist Association, 394
United Automobile Workers, 188. 240
United Church of Christ, 184
United Nations, 134, 381, 394
United Steelworkers, 354
University of Alabama, 92, 213, 244, 268, 327
University of California, 442
University of Georgia, 173
University of Minnesota, 119
University of Mississippi, 116, 206
University of Oklahoma Law School, 36
University of Pennsylvania, 25
University of Texas at Arlington, 494
University of Texas Law School, 36
Urban League. See National Urban League
U.S. Congress, 457, 460, 461
U.S. Department of Agriculture, 287
U.S. Information Agency, 315
U.S. News & World Report, 153
U.S. Supreme Court, 58, 61, 99, 174, 212, 213, 308, 309, 446, 447, 470
Montgomery bus boycott decision, 102, 103, 106
Vesey, Denmark, 420
Vietnam, 373–376, 380, 381, 394, 419, 427, 428
antiwar activity, 431, 433–436, 438–440, 449, 467
reaction to antiwar sentiment, 437–439
Tet offensive, 467
Vietcong. See National Liberation Front
Violence. See Black Power
Virginia Union University, 156
Vivian, C. T., 151, 286–288, 294, 296, 299, 344, 496
Voter Education Project, 179
Voter-registration efforts, 123, 129, 130, 144, 145, 205, 366, 367
See also Enfranchisement
Voting Rights Bill, 343, 354, 355, 365, 368, 369, 370, 373, 399
Voting Rights programs, 313, 322, 326, 330, 342, 371
Voyeurism, 316
Wachtel, Harry, 193, 280, 281, 291, 292, 312, 316–318, 332, 343, 368, 380, 381, 417, 432, 472, 473, 476, 482
Waggonner, Joe D., 437
Wagner, Robert, 306
Wagner Labor Relations Act, 186
Walker, Wyatt Tee, 156, 157, 178, 182, 189, 194, 210, 215, 216, 219, 222, 230, 231, 280, 281, 286, 288, 300, 308, 436, 449
Walker v. Birmingham, 232, 446, 470
Wallace, George Corley, 213, 239, 240, 244, 265, 330, 346, 350, 354, 356, 362, 363, 364, 371, 496
Wallace, Henry, 249
Warren, Robert Penn, 304
Washington, Booker T., 21, 22, 23, 71, 130, 425
Washington Episcopal Cathedral, 482
Washington march, 246, 255–264
Washington mass civil-disobedience campaign, 448–456. See also Poor People’s March; Washington Spring Project
Washington Police Department, 264
Washington Post, 217, 315, 365
Washington Spring Project, 456, 460, 468, 470, 476, 489. See also Poor People’s campaign
Watson, John B., 37
Watters, Pat, 98, 164, 190, 191, 353, 405
Watts riots, 377, 378, 392, 410
Weaver, Robert C., 173
Webb, Sheyann, 339, 340
Webb Oratorical Contest, 19
Weinberg, Meyer, 416
Welfare, 311, 390
“We Shall Overcome,” 151, 155, 165, 190, 220, 339, 363, 473
Wesley, Cynthia, 267
Western Illinois University, 286
West Hunter Baptist Church, 183
Where Do We Go from Here? (King), 422–427, 450
White, Lee, 343
White Citizens’ Councils, 51, 61, 62, 66, 71, 83, 91, 103, 326, 361
“White House Conference on Civil Rights,” 395
White obstructionism, 123
White supremacy, 51, 116, 117, 213, 308, 309, 335, 345, 401
Why We Can’t Wait (King), 256, 269, 270, 294, 295, 302, 303, 304
Wieman, Henry Nelson, 46, 47
Wilkins, Roy, 119, 124, 133, 163, 246, 256, 291, 305, 309, 314, 331, 370, 376, 397, 398, 405, 421, 438, 441, 478, 496
Williams, Alberta. See King, Alberta Williams (Mrs. Martin Luther, Sr.)
Williams, Alberta (Mrs. Adam Daniel), 5, 8, 9, 12, 13
Williams, Camilla, 258
Williams, Daniel Hale, 425
Williams, Hosea, 280, 285, 287, 288, 294, 295, 299, 300, 330, 339, 340, 347, 348, 356, 361, 366, 379, 457, 489, 495
Williams, Reverend Adam Daniel, 6, 7, 12
Willis, Benjamin C., 368, 369
Will to Power, The (Nietzsche), 31
Wiretaps, 264, 265, 266, 284
Wofford, Harris, 127, 140, 158, 165, 172, 249, 349, 360, 363
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 381
Woods, Granville T., 425
Woodward, C. Vann, 447
Works Progress Administration, 445
Wretched of the Earth, The (Fanon), 420
Wright, Richard, 128, 426
Yale Divinity School, 132
Yale University, 298
Yorty, Sam, 377, 378
Young, Andrew, 248, 250, 266, 267, 280, 311, 317, 329, 332, 379, 380, 381, 382, 411, 456, 465, 473, 482
in Albany, 194, 196, 197, 199, 205, 206
at Black Mountain, 291, 292
in Chicago, 411
King and, 285
in Memphis, 489, 490, 492, 495
in Mississippi, 306, 403
in St. Augustine, 295, 306
SCLC, 184, 185, 288
in Selma, 341, 342, 359
Young, Whitney, 246, 305, 376, 397, 398, 421, 432, 438, 441, 496
Young Communist League, 94
Younge Street Elementary School, 10
&
nbsp; Young Men’s Business Club, 268
Zinn, Howard, 329
Zion Hill Baptist Church, 220
Books by Stephen B. Oates
William Faulkner: The Man and the Artist
Biography as High Adventure: Life-Writers Speak on Their Art
Abraham Lincoln: The Man Behind the Myths
THE CIVIL WAR QUARTET:
Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr.
With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln
The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner’s Fierce Rebellion
To Purge This Land with Blood: A Biography of John Brown
Our Fiery Trial
Portrait of America (2 volumes)
Visions of Glory
Rip Ford’s Texas
Confederate Cavalry West of the River
Copyright
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LET THE TRUMPET SOUND: A LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Copyright © 1982, 1994 by Stephen B. Oates. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* This Prologue is adapted from “How the Trumpet Came to Sound,” which was presented at Baylor University in conjunction with the 1990 Charles Edmondson Historical Lecture and which was first published by the Baylor University Press, copyright © 1991 by the Markham Press Fund of Baylor University Press.
* See David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King: From “Solo” to Memphis (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 26–57.
* Marc Pachter, ed., Telling Lives: The Biographer’s Art (New York: New Republic Books/National Portrait Gallery, 1979), 24–25.
† Paul Mariani, A Usable Past: Essays on Modern and Contemporary Poetry (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1984), 18–19, 22–23.
* Kennedy’s staff denied that he had authorized Hartsfield’s statement. A Kennedy aide, the staff said, had merely asked about King’s constitutional rights.
* In point of fact, Kennedy was only now starting to comprehend the white South’s rigidity and defensiveness on the race issue. Before Oxford, the President had subscribed to the old southern view of Reconstruction, which blamed Dixie’s postwar suffering on the federal government, Yankee carpetbaggers, turncoat southern whites, and inept ex-slaves. After Oxford, the Mississippi legislature compiled a report that blamed the entire crisis there on the U.S. marshals. Once he read that, Kennedy told his brother that he could never again believe the old interpretation of Reconstruction. If southern whites could behave this way now, he said, they must have behaved the same way a hundred years ago.
* When Shuttlesworth got out of the hospital and first learned that King intended to cancel demonstrations, he blew up. “You and I promised that we would not stop demonstrating until we had the victory,” he yelled at King. “Now, that’s it, That’s it.” He reminded King of what his critics often said: “You go to a point and then you stop. You won’t be stopping here.” If King called off the marches, Shuttlesworth said, “I’m gon’ lead the last demonstration with what last little ounce I have.” But at last King and his lieutenants calmed him down and persuaded him to go along with them. “We had a terrible time with Fred,” Walker recalled. “But Fred was under a great deal of strain himself. He was not well physically. He saw Birmingham as something which he built with spit and Scotch tape, and he did. We never could have been able to pull Birmingham off if it had not been for his Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Some people said, ‘Fred’s a little crazy.’ Well, you need to be a little crazy to be in Birmingham.”
† The accord did not affect the Walker case and the five-day jail sentences Judge Jenkins had imposed on King, Walker, Abernathy, and Shuttlesworth. On May 15, 1963, the Alabama Supreme Court accepted their appeal and in December, 1965, sustained their convictions. The Walker appeal went on to the U.S. Supreme Court (see p. 446). Meanwhile King and the other defendants were free on bond pending final disposition of the case.
* O’Dell denied the story and continued to show up for work at SCLC’s New York office. Hoover and his men took due note of this, regarding it as further proof of King’s mendacity and deception.
* The bureau refused to divulge its earlier evidence or Levison lest that endanger its source in the Communist Party.
* Some of Malcolm’s diatribes against King may have stemmed from jealousy. In Newsweek’s poll after Birmingham, American Negroes ranked Malcolm and the Muslims last of all Negro groups in terms of popularity and effectiveness. Back in 1960, Malcolm had called King “a spokesman and fellow leader of our people” and even invited him to address a Muslim rally in New York.
* Investigations by a U.S. House Select Committee in 1978 found no such evidence on King either.
* In November, 1977, Chambliss was tried for the bombing and convicted of first-degree murder in a local trial that made national headlines. His attorney was Art Haynes, the former city commissioner.
* More than three years after the murders, thanks to new testimony, a white federal jury found Price and six of the other defendants guilty, and Cox sentenced them to three-to ten-year jail sentences. Rainey and seven others, however, were acquitted.
* There had been gains in Georgia and South Carolina, although more than half the eligible Negroes there still couldn’t vote. An average of 72 percent of the voting-age blacks remained disfranchised in the five deep southern states; 57 percent in the South as a whole. The overall increase in the number of registered voting-age Negroes in Dixie was only 14 percent between 1960 and 1964. For King and other civil-rights leaders, this was unacceptable.
* The bureau continued to bug King’s hotel rooms until January, 1966, when a threatened congressional investigation impelled it to terminate the electronic surveillance of King. On April 30, 1965, King moved to a new home in Atlanta, but the FBI for some reason did not tap his new phone. The telephone taps on SCLC’s Atlanta headquarters ended in June, 1966, when Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach ordered them discontinued. Thereafter, informant Harrison was the FBI’s chief Atlanta source for information about King and SCLC.
* Five days later, Wallace finally met with a biracial committee and promised to consider the Negroes’ petition, Later an interracial group placed ten black-draped coffins on the marble walk outside the capitol; the coffins equaled the number of civil-rights murders in Alabama during the previous two years.
* This was in a harsh review of Where Do We Go f
rom Here?, which came out that embattled summer and which Kopkind dismissed as a middle-class tome. Historian Martin Duberman, on the other hand, found the book a justifiably severe indictment of white America. Other reviewers praised King in particular for his analysis of Black Power.
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