At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

Pandemonium reigned: Orfield, Reconstruction, pp. 78–80; Marion S. Barry and Betty Garman, “SNCC: A Special Report on Southern School Desegregation,” Sept. 1965, pp. 1–8 (courtesy of Betty Garman Robinson).

  mostly second-career school administrators: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 52.

  Temporary S: Ibid., p. 102; Janover to U.S. Circuit Judge Damon J. Keith et al., January 30, 1997, private papers of Robert H. Janover.

  Johnson swore Nabrit to silence: James M. Nabrit oral history by Stephen Goodell, March 28, 1969, LBJ.

  lawyers addressed intergovernmental disputes: Cf. Alan G. Marer to Stephen Pollack, June 11, 1965, Administrative History/Department of Justice, Vol. 7, Part 10, a[1], LBJ. Also Pollack to Katzenbach, June 11, 1965, St. John Barrett to Pollack, June 15, 1965, and John Doar to S. A. Andretta, July 9, 1965, all in Legislative Background, VRA ’65, Box 1, LBJ.

  The guiding strategy, announced in advance: NYT, June 20, 1965, p. 1.

  “The courts acting alone have failed”: United States v. Jefferson County Board of Education, 372 F.2d 836 (1966), at 847, italics in original.

  thirty front-line civil rights lawyers: John Doar, “The Work of the Civil Rights Division in Enforcing Voting Rights Under the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960,” 1989, courtesy of John Doar.

  seventy Negroes tried to walk: WATS report, June 3, 1965, Reel 16, SNCC; NYT, June 4, 1965, p. 17; Jet, June 24, 1965, pp. 14–17.

  violence struck Bogalusa, Louisiana: NYT, June 4, 1965, p. 17; Meier, CORE, pp. 345–50.

  “face up to the sixty-four-dollar question”: FRUS, Vol. 2, p. 709; PDD, June 3, 1965, p. 1.

  “off the streets”: PPP 1965, Vol. 2, pp. 627–30.

  intended agenda on race: Goodwin, Remembering, pp. 342–45; James M. Nabrit oral history by Stephen Goodell, March 28, 1969, LBJ.

  “But freedom is not enough”: NYT, June 5, 1965, p. 14; “Remarks of the President at Howard University, Washington, D.C., ‘To Fulfill These Rights,’ June 4, 1965,” LBJ.

  Johnson confessed a national legacy: Wood, Radicalism, pp. 144–45.

  Like Lincoln, who quoted Psalm 19: Ibid., pp. 155–59.

  “remarkable in the history”: NYT, June 5, 1965, pp. 1, 14.

  “for your magnificent speech”: MLK telegram to LBJ, June 7, 1965, A/KP13f8.

  “seem incredibly puny”: NYT, June 6, 1965, p. IV-10.

  “the failure of Negro family life”: Mary McGrory, “President Talks Frankly to Negroes,” WS, June 6, 1965.

  inklings of political mayhem: Melman, America, pp. 133–35.

  “half-witted white kids”: NYT, June 6, 1965, p. 53.

  investigation to be reopened: Baltimore Sun, Dec. 20, 1998, p. C-1.

  “Flight Out of Egypt”: Ottley, Lonely, pp. 159–72.

  not yet established its first public high school for Negroes: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 13.

  two thousand reaching the Illinois Central Terminal: Lemann, Promised, pp. 15–17, 43.

  “HALF A MILLION DARKIES”: Ottley, Lonely, p. 171; Joravsky, Race, p. 8.

  “shall be filled solidly”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 46.

  Eugene Williams floated across an imaginary line: Tuttle, Riot, pp. 3–10; Waskow, Race Riot, pp. 38–59; Ottley, Lonely, p. 184; Joravsky, Race, p. 7.

  Al Capone’s headquarters: Pacyga, Chicago, p. 301.

  Café de Champion: Travis, Black Chicago, p. 40.

  “I saw Duke Ellington”: Ibid., p. 78.

  Singer Cab Calloway enjoyed: Ibid., p. 40.

  the largest Protestant congregation: Tuttle, Riot, p. 98; Pacyga, Chicago, p. 328; Branch, Parting, pp. 55–56; Branch, Pillar, pp. 28–29.

  Greater Bethel AME bought the Jewish Lakeside Club: Esquire, May 1989, p. 94.

  Chicago’s oldest synagogue: Pacyga, Chicago, pp. 312–13, 326.

  “Each machine did the work”: Lemann, Promised, pp. 3–5.

  average of five hundred Negroes: Ibid., p. 70.

  this time into West Chicago: Esquire, May 1989, pp. 94, 96.

  lumped together as the “German Jews”: Ibid; also, Hertzberg, Jews in America, pp. 177–88; Johnson, History of the Jews, pp. 369–75.

  Marshall Field retail stores at last modified company rules: Ralph, Northern, p. 11; Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 58.

  Elizabeth Wood: Joravsky, Race, pp. 21–24; Cohen, Pharaoh, pp. 70–73.

  besieged new apartments near Midway Airport: Lemann, Promised, p. 71.

  Trumbull Park Homes: Cohen, Pharaoh, pp. 101–4.

  “My people will be in the streets”: Joravsky, Race, p. 25.

  victory margin of 125,000 votes: Cohen, Pharaoh, pp. 137–41; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 53.

  Robert Taylor Homes: Pacyga, Chicago, pp. 352–55.

  two of the three poorest census tracts: Hodgson, Islam, p. 295.

  Negro ward bosses simply bought enough memberships: Cohen, Pharaoh, pp. 205–7; Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 155.

  claiming 50,000 members: Travis, Black Chicago, p. 143. Author Travis was elected president of the Chicago NAACP chapter in 1959.

  “De Facto Segregation in the Chicago Public Schools”: Crisis, February 1958, pp. 87–127; Ralph, Northern, p. 15.

  School Superintendent Benjamin Willis: Ralph, Northern, p. 20; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 77.

  When a small group of parents sued in 1961: Webb v. The Board of Education of the City of Chicago, Civ. No. 61C1569 D.C., N.D., Ill.; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 85–86.

  ,000 “extra” students: Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 283.

  “Big Ben the Builder” and “an administrative cyclone”: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 161.

  corroborate allegations of managed disparity: Ibid., pp. 156–58; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 95–96; Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 284.

  To settle the 1961 Webb case: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 116–18: Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 308; Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 162.

  “Then came Birmingham”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 107.

  Mayor Daley instructed Democratic precinct captains: Cohen, Pharaoh, pp. 308–9.

  “Willis—Wallace”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 118–20.

  Nearly a quarter of a million students boycotted classrooms: Ibid.; Jet, Nov. 7, 1963, pp. 48–55; Ralph, Northern, p. 21.

  “Negroes are still a minority”: Chicago Tribune, Oct. 24, 1963, cited in Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 119–20.

  were divided in the giddy aftermath: Int. Lawrence Landry, April 30, 1991; int. Donald Rose, Feb. 21, 1985.

  the Daley organization actively opposed: Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 313.

  the turnout of roughly 150,000: Ibid.; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 133; Ralph, Northern, p. 22.

  “Many Negroes have improved”: Business Week, Feb. 1, 1964, p. 38, cited in Lemann, Promised, p. 112.

  “alternately frightened or bored much”: Chicago Daily News, Feb. 20, 1965, cited in Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 151.

  switched votes to grant Willis: Cohen, Pharoah, p. 328. The three swing votes on the eleven-member board had been reported to be against Willis, and their private correspondence reflected such sentiment. “I can’t vouch for the other two but my guess is that all three of us would be ‘con’ on another four year term,” wrote Cyrus Adams to board president Frank Whiston. “Marge [Wilde] gets madder at Ben than I do.” Adams to Whiston, Jan. 18, 1965, Box 9, Cyrus Adams Papers, CHS.

  Dissenters instantly faulted them: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 153–54.

  “the usually legalistic Chicago NAACP”: Jet, June 24, 1965, p. 20.

  King’s aide James Bevel: Garrow, Bearing, p. 432.

  “Civil rights forces of Chicago”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 155.

  his first trip to jail: Albert Anderson Raby file, RS, CHS; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 156.

  When students organized their own walkout: Jet, June 24, 1965, p. 20; Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 328; Orfield, Reconstruct
ion, p. 164.

  determined remnant of 252 people: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 157; Associated Press, World in 1965, p. 260.

  “one of the largest mass arrests”: Ralph, Northern, p. 25.

  “Who is this man Al Raby?”: Cohen, Pharaoh, p. 328.

  press inquiries and an FBI investigation: Chicago Daily News, June 14, 1965, p. 8; Chicago LHM dated July 30, 1965, FAR-1.

  five years of night classes: Robert McClory, “The Activist,” Chicago Tribune Sunday Magazine, April 17, 1983, p. 27ff.

  Teachers for Integrated Schools: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 87.

  “You don’t think these children”: Jet, July 15, 1965, p. 48.

  he joined 196 people handcuffed the next day: Ralph, Northern, p. 26; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 157–58.

  Raby, like Morrisroe: Int. Al Raby, Feb. 20, 1985; int. Richard Morrisroe, Feb. 20, 2002.

  reciprocal entreaties for King: Ibid.; New York LHM dated June 14, 1965, FSC-NR; int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990; Chicago Sun Times, April 2, 1965, p. 1; Chicago Tribune, April 6, 1965, p. 1.

  King promised a reply: Garrow, Bearing, p. 428.

  a graduation address at Wilberforce College: Jet, June 24, 1965, p. 27.

  press inquiries about Communism: UPI dispatch of June 16, 1965, which quotes King: “I’m just not going to keep answering these charges against me,” in FK-NR; “Martin Luther King: Eye of Civil Rights Storm,” in Baltimore Evening Sun, June 20, 1965, p. D-3.

  more complaints about his staff: Cf. Randolph T. Blackwell to MLK, June 10, 1965, A/KP28f21.

  Mary probably was not a virgin: Rev. Matthew E. Neil to MLK, June 3, 1965, with attached draft reply to Rev. Alexander Shaw and handwritten notes by Andrew Young, A/KP34f5.

  distraught Hofstra University officials: Wiretap conversation of Clarence Jones with Harry Wachtel, cited in New York LHM dated June 16, 1965, FK-NR.

  oversleeping, hurrying into robes: Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, Jan. 14, 1999.

  King’s previous visit there: Elyria Chronicle-Telegram, Oct. 24, 1964; Oberlin News-Tribune, Oct. 29, 1964.

  “It is not enough to say”: Oberlin alumni magazine, August, 1965, pp. 4–6.

  at Antioch College: “Negotiate Vietnam Peace Doctor King Says at Antioch,” Dayton Daily News, June 20, 1965, re MLK address at 10:00 A.M., June 19, 1965, cited in Cincinnati LHM dated June 22, 1965, FK-1510.

  Hosea Williams introduced Bayard Rustin: SCOPE orientation June 15, 1965, Hosea Williams, Tape 29, King Archives.

  “Negroes have seen what white America”: SCOPE orientation, June 15, 1965, Hosea Williams, Tape 155, King Archives.

  King took a mixed tactical line: Garrow, Bearing, p. 428.

  “Greetings from the Chicago movement”: WATS report, June 15, 1965, Reel 16, SNCC.

  John Lewis and two hundred new prisoners: Dittmer, Local People, p. 345; Light, p. 161.

  The Mississippi dragnets made front-page news: NYT, June 15, 1965, p. 1; NYT, June 16, 1965, p. 1.

  “We just been doing it”: NYT, June 16, 1965, p. 21.

  find out what happened to her mother: Int. June Johnson, April 9, 1992.

  they lied miserably to their friends: Curry et al., Deep, p. 205.

  “COME TO JACKSON”: MFDP to MLK (in Jamaica), June 22, 1965, A/KP16f6; int. Lawrence Guyot, Feb. 1, 1991.

  A pastor from Huntsville, Alabama: Press release, Commission on Religion and Race, National Council of Churches, June 22, 1965, regarding an inspection report filed by Rev. W. Raymond Berry, United Church of Huntsville, Alabama, Rev. Ian J. McCrae of Indianapolis, and John M. Pratt, counsel for the CORR, in RG5, Box 16f10, NCC, POH.

  “We inspected what we can only describe”: Statement by The Rev. Ian McCrae, The Rev. W. Raymond Berry, and John M. Pratt, June 22, 1965, Folder 125, Reel 43, SNCC.

  fell on June 12 to a military junta: Karnow, Vietnam, p. 427; FRUS, Vol. 2, pp. 761–62.

  “absolutely the bottom”: McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 186.

  “thus, we are approaching the kind of warfare”: Westmoreland to Admiral Ulysses Sharp, June 13, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 2, p. 1.

  Westmoreland’s new “bombshell” appeal: Westmoreland to Admiral Ulysses Sharp, June 7, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 2, p. 733ff; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 187–93.

  still being shipped: McNamara, In Retrospect, p. 183; FRUS, Vol. 2, pp. 736–41; LBJ phone call with Robert McNamara, 12:05 P.M., June 21, 1965, Cit. 8167, Audiotape WH6506.05, LBJ.

  “to protect us against catastrophe”: LBJ phone call with Robert McNamara, 7:15 P.M., April 20, 1965, Cit. 7356, Audiotape WH6504.05, LBJ. McNamara used variants of the word “catastrophe” four times in his brief conversation with President Johnson from a conference in Honolulu. He reported success in persuading departing ambassador Maxwell Taylor to accept “in good humor” the unavoidable use of American troops, which Taylor had opposed.

  “the North Vietnamese just said”: LBJ phone call with Senator Birch Bayh, 1:20 P.M., June 15, 1965, Cit. 8135, Audiotape WH6506.03, LBJ.

  “except just praying and gasping”: LBJ phone call with Robert McNamara, 12:15 P.M., June 21, 1965, Cit. 8168–69, Audiotape WH6506.05, LBJ.

  McGeorge Bundy debated the Vietnam War: NYT, June 22, 1965, p. 1; CBS News Special Report, Vietnam Dialogue, T77:0571, MOB.

  stopped short of an argument: Powers, War, pp. 67–69; Wells, War Within, p. 33.

  “I may have been dead wrong”: Bird, Color, p. 321.

  furious with Bundy for disregarding direct and indirect warnings: LBJ phone call with Bill Moyers, 9:15 P.M., May 13, 1965, Cit. 7659, Audiotape WH6505.11, LBJ; LBJ phone call with Abe Fortas (“Mr. Davidson”), 8:45 P.M., May 14, 1965, Cit. 7684–87, Audiotape WH6505.13, LBJ.

  “I’m just against the White House debating”: LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy, 12:45 P.M., May 31, 1965, Cit. 7852, Audiotape WH6505.34, LBJ.

  “Did we use conventional uh, weapons?”: LBJ phone call with Gerald R. Ford, 7:50 P.M., June 17, 1965, Cit. 8154–55, Audiotape WH6506.05, LBJ.

  “There are some things”: LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy, 12:45 P.M., May 31, 1965, Cit. 7852, Audiotape WH6505.34, LBJ.

  “The president sent me down”: Langguth, Our Vietnam, pp. 367–69; Bird, Color, pp. 321–23.

  “I am pretty depressed”: LBJ phone call with Robert McNamara, 8:41 A.M., July 2, 1965, Cit. 8302, Audiotape WH6507.01, LBJ, cited in Beschloss, Reaching, p. 381.

  “If we succeed”: CIA memorandum to McNamara, June 30, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, p. 86.

  “last clear chance”: George Ball, “Cutting Our Losses in South Viet-Nam,” undated (circa June 28, 1965), ibid., pp. 62–66.

  “drifting toward a major war”: Ball to LBJ, June 18, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 16–21.

  “No one can assure you”: George Ball, “A Compromise Solution for South Viet-Nam,” undated (circa July 1, 1965), ibid., pp. 106–9 (italics in original).

  “a small state of personal crisis”: Bird, Color, pp. 332–35.

  a “middle way” proposal: William Bundy, “A ‘Middle Way’ Course of Action in South-Vietnam,” July 1, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 113–15.

  rushed to the White House a note of distress: McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 192–95; Rusk, As I Saw It, p. 450.

  “would lead to our ruin”: Rusk to LBJ, “Viet-Nam,” July 1, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 104–6.

  Rusk pushed to restrict: McGeorge Bundy to LBJ, 5:50 P.M., July 1, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 115–16. (“I find that both Rusk and McNamara feel strongly that the George Ball paper should not be argued with you in front of any audience larger than yourself, Rusk, McNamara, Ball, and me. They feel that it is exceedingly dangerous to have this possibility reported in a wider circle.”)

  Harold G. Bennett: Ibid., p. 46; Langguth, Our Vietnam, p. 369.

  thought he was deceitfully pro-war: Steel, Walter Lippmann, pp. 574–75.

  “any area where blood could be spilled”: LBJ phone call with McGeorge Bundy, 12:45 P.M., May 31, 1965
, Cit. 7852, Audiotape WH6505.34, LBJ.

  McNamara winced: McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 193–94.

  “rash to the point of folly”: Bundy to LBJ, June 30, 1965, in FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 90–91; Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 439–40.

  “What are the chances”: Bundy to LBJ, July 1, 1965, ibid., pp. 117–18.

  “Still more brutally”: Bundy to LBJ, June 30, 1965, FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 90–91.

  “You think that we can really beat”: LBJ phone call with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11:02 A.M., July 2, 1965, Cit. 8303, Audiotape WH6507.01, LBJ, in Beschloss, Reaching, pp. 383–84.

  seemed to Eisenhower a plaintive tone: “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation: 10:55 A.M., July 2, 1965,” Papers 1961–69, Box 10, DDE.

  for a cross-examination that ran nearly two hours: FRUS, Vol. 3, pp. 118–19; McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 195–96; Bird, Color, pp. 335–36; Langguth, Our Vietnam, pp. 372–73.

  caught the press by surprise: NYT, July 3, 1965, p. 1; PDD, July 2, 1965, p. 1, LBJ.

  I could not help but think”: Johnson, Diary, pp. 293–94.

  on her eighteenth birthday: Ibid.; Caro, Means, p. 138.

  discrimination complaints: Greenberg, Crusaders, p. 413.

  EEOC mediators settled 110 of those complaints: Graham, Civil Rights Era, pp. 234–37.

  fifteen to the Justice Department for litigation over such issues: Ibid., p. 248; Greenberg, Crusaders, pp. 414–29.

  Quarles v. Philip Morris: 279 F. Supp. 505 (1968); NYT, May 3, 1967, p. 35.

  “What about sex?”: Graham, Civil Rights, p. 211.

  “Executive training programs”: NYT, Sept. 13, 1964, p. 47.

  “a mischievous joke perpetrated”: Harrison, Sex, p. 188.

  Southerners had introduced sex equality: Carl M. Brauer, “Women Activists, Southern Conservatives, and the Prohibition of Sex Discrimination in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” Journal of Southern History, Vol. 49, No. 1, Feb. 1983; Jo Freeman, “How ‘Sex’ Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism As a Maker of Public Policy,” Law and Inequality, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1991; Branch, Pillar, pp. 231–34. Brauer notes (p. 53) that the Johnson administration supported the sex provision in order to keep the civil rights bill intact on its treacherous course through both houses of Congress, and that Johnson himself endorsed it in an April 1964 letter to Mrs. Modell Scruggs. Freeman emphasizes the lobbying role played by the National Women’s Party and others, which mitigates the “fluke” interpretation of the sex amendment. All studies emphasize the leadership of Rep. Martha Griffiths (D.-Mich), who rose on the House floor on February 8, 1964, amid titters over the surprise amendment, to begin a scolding, stirring argument for the provision on its own merits. Had there been any doubt that “women were a second-class sex,” she declared, “the laughter would have proved it.”