At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

  a formal letter of inquiry: Daniels and Upham to Rt. Rev. C. C. J. Carpenter, April 21, 1965, BIR/C8f24.

  “I pray he doesn’t get bumped off”: Daniels to Mary Elizabeth Macnaughtan, April 12, 1965, in Schneider, Martyr, pp. 70–72.

  SNCC disorganization bordering on anarchy: Carson, Struggle, pp. 154–57; Fleming, Soon, pp. 158–59.

  “How do you deal with people”: Minutes, executive committee meeting, April 12–14, 1965, Holly Springs, Miss., p. 2, SNCC Records, 1964–65, SC659, SHSW.

  “I will not look for them”: Ibid., p. 11.

  first major rally against the Vietnam War: Cagin and Dray, Not Afraid, p. 438ff; Dellinger, From Yale, pp. 198–201; Longenecker, Peacemaker, p. 295; Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, p. 40; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, pp. 111–12.

  Moses had presided: Carson, Struggle, pp. 111–14, 142–48; Branch, Pillar, pp. 193–94, 222–24.

  left Mississippi for Selma: Minutes, executive committee meeting, April 12–14, 1965, Holly Springs, Miss., pp. 10–11, SNCC Records, 1964–65, SC659, SHSW.

  “How many of us are willing”: Minutes, SNCC meeting of “12:30 AM Friday,” March 26, 1965, Folder 15-20, Reel 37, SNCC.

  “completely fraudulent”: “Special Report: The New Voting Bill,” March 23, 1965, JMP.

  “Lyndon and Hubert”: Life with Lyndon in the Great Society, April 15, 1965, Vol. 1, No. 12, JMP.

  “since the power structure is so immoral”: Barbara Brandt, “Why People Become Corrupt,” March 28, 1965, JMP.

  “What in the hell is going on?”: Penny Patch, Chris Williams, Elaine LeLott, Lewis Grant, and Ed Brown to “Sncc folk,” March 19, 1965, JMP; Curry et al., Deep, pp. 153–65.

  “We destroy each other”: Journal of Elaine DeLott (Baker), March 16, 1965, cited in Curry et al., Deep, p. 278.

  Silas Norman chastised Ivanhoe Donaldson: Minutes, executive committee meeting, April 12–14, 1965, Holly Springs, Miss., p. 16, SNCC Records, 1964–65, SC659, SHSW.

  “What will Julian do”: Ibid., p. 27.

  triple the personal reach of the campaign: Charles Cobb, “Atlanta, The Bond Campaign,” Reel 20, SNCC; int. Frank Soracco, Sept. 13, 1990; int. Charles Cobb, Aug. 20, 1991; int. Ivanhoe Donaldson and Charles Cobb, Nov. 30, 2000.

  “If the direction really comes”: Minutes of Alabama staff meeting, April 21–22, 1965, p. 7, ASN94.

  “People get strength from each other”: Minutes of Alabama staff meeting, April 23, 1965, p. 2, ASN94.

  lacked indoor plumbing: Int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000.

  “My head done blossomed”: Int. Bob Mants, Sept. 8, 2000.

  “I seed y’all up there”: Ibid.

  he recruited Scott B. Smith: Carson, Struggle, p. 163; minutes, executive committee meeting, April 12–14, 1965, Holly Springs, Miss., p. 11, SNCC Records, 1964–65, SC659, SHSW.

  cultivated a backwoods aura: Int. Jimmy Rogers, March 7, 2000; int. Silas Norman, June 28, 2000; int. Scott B. Smith, April 11, 2003.

  “powder keg”: Minutes of Alabama staff meeting, April 23, 1965, p. 3, A/SN94.

  “The people didn’t know”: Carson, Struggle, p. 164.

  “go through the SNCC workers”: Ibid., p. 1.

  “Milestones on the Road to Freedom”: Boston Globe, April 23, 1965, p. 1.

  “For one who has been barricaded”: MLK speech of April 22, 1965, Massachusetts House Document 4155, located in RFK Papers, JFK.

  “He never mentioned Boston”: “Dr. King Enthralls Legislature,” Boston Globe, April 23, 1965, p. 19.

  5 Kiernan Report on Education: NYT, April 23, 1965, p. 15.

  “Every Negro must prepare”: Boston Globe, April 23, 1965, p. 19.

  a weak case for a Boston movement: Int. Virgil Wood, Aug. 2, 1994; int. Paul Chapman, Nov. 4, 1994; int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990; Rev. Gilbert Caldwell to the author, Feb. 10, 1998; Boston LHM dated April 16, 1965, FK-NR.

  “horribly divided along class lines”: Archie C. Epps to MLK, April 19, 1965, A/KP33f4.

  Elliot Richardson a sporting nickname: Int. Virgil Wood, Aug. 2, 1984; int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991; New York Herald Tribune, April 24, 1965, p. 1.

  indeed went to Selma: Kabaservice, Guardians, pp. 229–30.

  The voting rights bill still faced crippling amendments: NYT, April 22, 1965, p. 21.

  mere 1.18 percent of Negro students: MLK speech to NYC Bar Association, April 21, 1965, A/KS8, p. 11.

  rally on Boston Common: “Dr. King, in Boston Common Rally, Warns Against Nation of Onlookers,” NYT, April 24, 1965, p. 1.

  Within sight of gravestones: NYT, March 19, 1965, p. 21.

  “King’s New Tack”: New York Herald Tribune, April 24, 1965, p. 1.

  Muste and Benjamin Spock: A. J. Muste to MLK, April 25, 1965, A/SC4:44; Benjamin Spock to MLK, April 30, 1965, A/KP23f4.

  a motion to rescind an invitation to King: NYT, April 23, 1965, p. 14; NYT, April 24, 1965, p. 39; NYT, April 25, 1965, p. 56.

  St. John’s Episcopal of Savannah: NYT, April 25, 1965, p. 79; NYT, April 30, 1965, p. 13.

  First Baptist of Houston: NYT, April 25, 1965, p. 74.

  his sleeping pills no longer worked: Int. Harry Wachtel, May 17, 1990.

  “not using those words, of course”: Wachtel and Rustin conversation, April 21, 1965, FK-NR.

  “Normally they’re tellin’ you”: LBJ phone call with Lee White, 7:54 A.M., April 20, 1965, Cit. 7353-54, Audiotape WH6504.05, LBJ.

  “None of them want to do it”: LBJ phone call with Clarence Mitchell, 8:45 P.M., May 6, 1965, Cit. 7580, Audiotape WH6505.05, LBJ.

  to picket the Bishop of Alabama: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 56.

  She took off her shoes: Judy Upham oral history dated July 26, 1966, pp. 47–52, JDC.

  leaflet of grievance against Bishop Carpenter: ESCRU statement of April 29, 1965, signed by Jonathan Daniels, Judith Upham, Rev. Albert Dreisbach, Rev. Henri Stines, and Rev. John B. Morris, BIR/C8f24. (“The Carpenter of Birmingham must not be allowed to forever deny the Carpenter of Nazareth…”)

  “I cannot imagine the good people”: Carpenter to Daniels and Upham, April 23, 1965, BIR/C8f24.

  When the seminarians reluctantly complied: Upham and Daniels, “To Whom It May Concern,” May 12, 1965, BIR/C8f24.

  “go to church with eyes closed”: Daniels and Upham to Carpenter, April 28, 1965, in Schneider, Martyr, p. 76.

  “There is a difference between humility”: Ibid.

  conduct involuntarily repelled Upham: Judy Upham oral history dated July 26, 1966, pp. 54–55, JDC.

  tracked the arrival of Clarence Jones: SAC, Atlanta, to Director, April 30, 1965, FSN NR.

  two sides vented familiar disputes: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 423–24; Branch, Parting, pp. 578–79.

  “more dramatic”: Int. Harry Belafonte, March 6, 1985.

  cooperative statement between King and Lewis: Joint statement, April 30, 1965, A/SC27f55.

  “these things could not be allowed to fester”: NYT, May 1, 1965, p. 9; CD, May 5, 1965, p. 4.

  “I think the cats are honest”: Minutes of Alabama staff meeting, April 21–22, 1965, p. 2, A/SN94.

  Carmichael and Scott B. Smith ran into the seminarians again Sunday night: Judy Upham oral history, dated July 26, 1966, pp. 28, 57, JDC.

  Daniels and Upham managed: Ibid., pp. 58–60.

  Armed registrars processed sixty of 150 applicants: Garrow, Protest, p. 127; Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 131.

  week-long trial in Hayneville: Stanton, From Selma, pp. 111–23; Mendelsohn, Martyrs, pp. 191–93.

  Inspector Joe Sullivan: Rosen to Belmont, May 4, 1965, FVL-291; Rosen to Belmont, May 6, 1965, FVL-325.

  Klan Klonsel Matt Murphy: NYT, May 7, 1965, p. 25.

  “treacherous as a rattlesnake”: Associated Press, World in 1965, p. 198.

  “a traitor and a pimp and an agent of Castro”: NYT, May 6, 1965, p. 24.

  “No one, prosecutor or defense lawyer”: NYT, May 7, 1965, p. 25.

  “sees you d
riving your Negro maid home”: Ibid.

  Katzenbach privately braced: Hoover to Tolson et al., May 7, 1965, FVL-302.

  the jury made front-page news: “Liuzzo Case Jury Retires for Night Without a Verdict,” NYT, May 7, 1965, p. 1.

  Farmer Edmund Sallee said: NYT, May 8, 1965, p. 15.

  “should have stayed home”: “Murder in Alabama: American Wives Think Viola Liuzzo Should Have Stayed Home,” Ladies’ Home Journal, July 1965, pp. 42–44; Stanton, From Selma, pp. 170–72.

  they could have won over the two holdouts: NYT, May 8, 1965, p. 15; St. Petersburg Times, May 8, 1965, p. 1, FVL-331.

  vowing to flush him from hiding: SAC, Mobile, to Director, May 5, 1965, FVL-332.

  Katzenbach prevailed upon Paul Johnston: NYT, May 30, 1965, p. 1; New York Herald Tribune, June 6, 1965.

  “You presently refuse to abide”: Cabaniss, Johnston, Gardner & Clark to Paul Johnston, May 24, 1965, Box 3, BIR/PJ.

  Nationally prominent lawyers and judges: Cf. Charles Alan Wright to Johnston, May 28, 1965, Box 3, BIR/PJ; J. Skelly Wright to Johnston, June 2, 1965, Box 1, BIR/PJ; Bernard G. Segal to Johnston w/ encl. Maxwell M. Rabb to Johnston, June 3, 1965, Box 1, BIR/PJ.

  U.S. Justice Department task force: Ralph S. Hornblower III to Michael E. Shaheen, Jr., “Synopsis of Task Force Report on Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr.,” Dec. 4, 1979, DOJ, pp. 1–9.

  detailed mass of Rowe’s FBI record: McWhorter, Carry, pp. 192–213, 434–36, 542.

  claim to have killed a black man: Ibid., pp. 500–502.

  “What sorely troubles me”: Inez Robb, “Some Disturbing Questions,” Washington Daily News, May 17, 1965, p. 27, cited in Stanton, From Selma, p. 52.

  “Back in the ’30s or ’40s”: Handwritten note (“This is absolutely untrue…”) on Jones to DeLoach, May 19, 1965, FVL-NR.

  “No,” Hoover scrawled: Handwritten note on Jones to DeLoach, May 25, 1965, FVL-NR.

  “Bundy Is Unable to Appear”: NYT, May 16, 1965, p. 1.

  the principal debater’s late scratch: White House memos on Bundy’s planned debate include James C. Thomson to Bundy, May 14, 1965; Chester L. Cooper to Bundy, May 14, 1965; and Chester L. Cooper to Bundy, May 15, 1965, all in McGeorge Bundy Office Files, Box 18-19, LBJ. Cooper assured Bundy that he had “underplayed the nature and extent of our advance preparations” to inquiring reporters. Walt Rostow, who would succeed Bundy as National Security Adviser, represented the State Department at the teach-in and confided afterward in a classified memo that the critics “represent in academic life a minority of no great distinction.” Rostow to Rusk (“Hold for Bundy”), May 17, 1965, McGeorge Bundy Office Files, Box 18–19, LBJ.

  negotiations in the Dominican Republic: Szulc, Diary, pp. 4–11; Dallek, Flawed, pp. 262–63; Associated Press, World in 1965, pp. 88–93; Draper, Abuse, pp. 9–14.

  patched radio feed to 100,000 listeners: DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 115; Powers, War, p. 61.

  “We are here to serve notice”: Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, pp. 156–58.

  “the very sure and very terrible consequences”: Ibid., pp. 165–71.

  Famously, he observed: NYT, May 16, 1965, pp. 1, 62; Bird, Color, p. 319; Powers, War, p. 62.

  parallel campus debates: Cf. Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, pp. 23–29, for an account of the teach-in at Washington University of St. Louis, which stretched over thirteen hours into the early morning of May 16.

  limiting speakers to professors and government officials: Joan Wallach Scott, “The Teach-In: A National Movement or the End of an Affair?,” in Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, pp. 190–93.

  “battle of the eggheads”: Bird, Color, p. 318. Journalist Meg Greenfield found the panel of war critics to be imbalanced with physical scientists and psychologists over political scientists, which she thought contributed to an overall “diffusiveness, pointlessness, and the final lack of any coherent and identifiable argument.” Reporter, June 3, 1965, pp. 16–19.

  Daniel Ellsberg: NYT, May 16, 1965, p. 62.

  “from the standpoint of maximizing”: NYT, May 17, 1965, pp. 30–31.

  a more raucous panoply of speakers: Robert Randolph, “2,000 at Berkeley Teach-In on Vietnam,” National Guardian, May 29, 1965, in Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, pp. 32–36.

  “should be repudiated by all true scholars”: Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, p. 29.

  Staughton Lynd of Yale: Ibid., pp. 54–59.

  expounded on the threat of nuclear annihilation: Petras, ed., We Accuse, pp. 73–82.

  “Jefferson for me is an ultimate”: Ibid., pp. 83–98.

  “out of the pusillanimities”: Ibid., pp. 6–22.

  Julian Bond’s unheralded victory: “Bond Wins Ga. House Primary,” SNCC newsletter The Student Voice, April 30, 1965, p. 2, in Carson, Ed., Student, p. 216; Neary, Julian Bond, p. 82.

  long poem he had written for a girlfriend: Int. Charles Cobb, Aug. 29, 1991.

  So cry not just for Jackson: Petras, ed., We Accuse, pp. 135–41. The poem appears elsewhere in slightly different form: “Charlie’s poem,” The Student Voice, June 6, 1965, reprinted in Carson, ed., Student, pp. 221–22; Untitled in ten-folio manuscript, “i want to say/about all,” JMP.

  “their familiar role of opposing all wars”: Friedland, Lift Up, p. 144.

  “California ain’t nothing but Mississippi”: Petras, ed., We Accuse, pp. 118–35.

  “among the greatest human beings”: Ibid., p. 149.

  “I saw a picture in an AP release”: Ibid., pp. 149–53.

  Sunday’s San Francisco Examiner ignored: Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, p. 36.

  “a bleary-eyed, bearded young man”: NYT, May 23, 1965, p. 26.

  “Fuck Defense Fund”: Heirich, Beginning, pp. 256–58.

  “moral spastics”: Ibid., p. 264.

  Jesse Unruh initiated: Ibid., p. 275.

  A bomb threat: [Name deleted] to W. C. Sullivan, May 20, 1965, FHHH-NR.

  He met privately with Vice President Hubert Humphrey: Ibid. Also Garrow, Bearing, p. 426.

  Among King’s worries: Two separate New York LHMs dated May 25, 1965, FK-NR.

  believing Levison would regain unfair access: Int. Harry Wachtel, May 17, 1990.

  he had prevailed upon Archibald Carey: Church, Supplementary Detailed, p. 171; Garrow, Bearing, p. 425.

  “I interrupted Dr. Carey”: DeLoach to Mohr, May 19, 1965, FAC-30.

  Carey had cured: Branch, Pillar, pp. 533–34.

  authorized the leak of confidential bug and wiretap information: Church, Supplementary Detailed, p. 175; Garrow, FBI and King, pp. 170, 275.

  “It is an axiom of nonviolent action”: King address to the American Jewish Congress, May 20, 1965, A/KS.

  enigmatic notice on back pages: NYT, May 21, 1965, p. 36.

  filed a cloture petition: Congressional Record, May 21, 1965, p. S-11188; NYT, May 22, 1965, p. 1.

  “Disappointment is a hallmark”: King sermon, “How to Deal with Grief,” May 23, 1965, A/KS4.

  repeating his text from Jeremiah: Jeremiah 10:19.

  another trademark sermon: Cf. “Why Could We Not Cast Him Out?,” Branch, Parting, pp. 700–702.

  “I’ve been to the mountaintop”: King sermon, “How to Deal with Grief,” May 23, 1965, A/KS4.

  cloture tally of 70–30: NYT, May 26, 1965, p. 1.

  “Fake! Fake! Fake!”: Ibid.

  a clash of iconic images: Remnick, King, pp. 252, 258; Associated Press, World in 1965, pp. 96–97. Author Remnick found Neil Leifer’s photograph perhaps “the most lasting image of Ali in the ring, period.”

  “strategy adviser”: Jet, June 10, 1965, pp. 52–55.

  “Uncle Tom was not an inferior Negro”: Remnick, King, p. 246.

  Hollywood films since 1927: Watkins, Real Side, pp. 200–202, 226–8, 247–62. Born on May 30, 1902, in Key West, Florida, Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry (named by his father for four U.S. Presidents) had been half a World War I vaudeville act first called Skeeter and Rastus, then St
ep ’n Fetchit. Perry kept the stage name when his partner quit, and made his debut as Stepin Fetchit in silent films of the 1920s.

  McGeorge Bundy returned: Szulc, Diary, p. 285.

  “use of citizen-owned television airways”: NYT, May 27, 1965, p. 1.

  one of only two Republican votes: Ibid., p. 24.

  “final resting place of the Constitution”: Congressional Record, May 26, 1965, p. S-11732.

  Defeated Southern Democrats foresaw: Ibid., passim, pp. S-11715–11752.

  “garden variety”: Branch, Pillar, p. 334.

  Russell was one of the few: Ibid., p. 258.

  disdained both the Lewiston fight and Ali himself: NYT, May 27, 1965, p. 1; Remnick, King, p. 247; Sports Illustrated, June 7, 1965, pp. 12, 22–25.

  “on behalf of a heartened nation”: NYT, May 27, 1965, p. 1.

  “another pygmy at his feet”: Tom Wicker, “Lyndon Johnson Is 10 Feet Tall,” NYT Magazine, May 23, 1965, p. 23ff.

  18: LEAPS OF FAITH

  to stampede the sleepiest bureaucracy in Washington: Francis Keppel oral history by John Singerhoff, July 18, 1968, LBJ, p. 15.

  “We believe we are entitled”: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 88.

  “screaming and hollering revolution”: LBJ phone call with Carl Sanders, 8:35 P.M., May 13, 1965, Cit. 7656-58, Audiotape WH6505.11, LBJ.

  delivery to Sanders of a mounted deer head: Ibid.

  “I’ve got my back to the wall”: LBJ phone call with Carl Sanders, 11:46 A.M., May 18, 1965, Cit. 7752, Audiotape WH6505.22, LBJ.

  “Virtually all place the burden”: Roy Wilkins to Francis Keppel, May 13, 1965, private papers of Robert H. Janover, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Janover was a member of the consulting task force on school desegregation for the U.S. Office of Education, 1965–66.

  complained of nitpicking: William Mills, counsel for a North Carolina school board, wrote that “every time the Board whatever it is told is lacking or needs to be done in order to comply, some other ‘bureaucrat’ gets hold of the plan and makes an additional demand.” William L. Mills, Jr., to Senator B. Everett Jordan (D.-N.C.), June 5, 1965, private papers of Robert H. Janover.

  “It is most disturbing to me”: Sam J. Ervin, Jr., to [HEW Secretary] Anthony J. Celebrezze, June 10, 1965, private papers of Robert H. Janover.