At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

  “Refer to that Howard University speech”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 5:10 P.M., Aug. 20, 1965, Cit. 8578, Audiotape WH6508.07, LBJ.

  pitched battle, at Chu Lai: NYT, Aug. 22, 1965, p. IV-1.

  “I’ve said that, Mr. President”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 5:10 P.M., Aug. 20, 1965, Cit. 8578, Audiotape WH6508.07, LBJ.

  switched briefly to derisive laughter: Office conversation after LBJ phone call with MLK, with voices, including LBJ, Harry McPherson, Lee White, and perhaps Jack Valenti, 5:24 P.M., Aug. 20, 1965, Cit. 8579–80, Audiotape WH6508.07, LBJ.

  Harry McPherson had drafted: McPherson remarks in PBS documentary, The Great Society Remembered, Guggenheim Productions, Inc., 1985.

  The President admonished King on Vietnam: Garrow, Bearing, p. 440.

  “Let’s get up a program”: Office conversation after LBJ phone call with MLK, with voices, including LBJ, Harry McPherson, Lee White, and perhaps Jack Valenti, 5:24 P.M., Aug. 20, 1965, Cit. 8579–80, Audiotape WH6508.07, LBJ.

  “Who of you could have predicted”: NYT, Aug. 21, 1965, pp. 1, 8.

  “What does he mean”: LBJ phone call with Lee White, 7:40 P.M., Aug. 21, 1965, Cit. 8608, Audiotape WH6508.09, LBJ.

  had maneuvered J. Edgar Hoover: Branch, Pillar, pp. 365–74.

  Katzenbach gently corrected: In a phone call six days after the Daniels murder, LBJ exhorted Attorney General Katzenbach to push a home rule bill with the argument that it was harder to gain the vote for Washington, D.C., than for “Downs County” or Mississippi. LBJ: “Where is Downs County?” Katzenbach: “Lowndes.” LBJ: “Alabama? Lowndes.” Katzenbach: “Lowndes is in Alabama.” LBJ: “Now. A man’s got a whole lot better chance of getting the vote in Lowndes, a nigra has, in Lowndes County, Alabama, than he has of getting the vote in the District of Columbia Committee in the House of Representatives.” LBJ phone call with Nicholas Katzenbach, 2:50 P.M., Aug. 26, 1965, Cit. 8639, Audiotape WH6508.11, LBJ.

  He first told FBI agents: Teletype, Mobile Office, to Director, 1:36 A.M., Aug. 21, 1965, FJMD-2.

  Alabama authorities reversed themselves: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 195, 201.

  identification badge was merely a gun permit: Teletype, Office, Mobile to Director, 2:31 P.M., Aug. 24, 1965, FJMD-22; Director to FBI Mobile, Aug. 26, 1965, FJMD-26.

  “alone and acted independently”: Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 2, 1965, FJMD-53.

  “is being conducted at the specific request”: Ibid.

  Rev. John Morris sought help from his friend: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 199–200.

  “We all did it”: Branch, Parting, p. 891.

  Gardenia White, granddaughter of Rosie Steele: Int. Gardenia White, March 10, 2000; int. Timothy Mays, March 9, 2000.

  petition that records be opened: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 253; NYT, Oct. 26, 1965, p. 28.

  pitch for the Mets: “For Instance, Can She Pitch for Mets?,” NYT, Aug. 20, 1965, p. 1.

  laws of thirty states from Massachusetts to Wyoming: Table 8, “State Laws with Respect to Jury Service by Women, as of January 1965,” in Plaintiffs’ Brief, Vol. 1, by Charles Morgan, Jr., Orzell Billingsley, Jr., Judge Dorothy Kenyon, Dr. Pauli Murray, and Melvin L. Wulf, White v. Crook, Civil Action No. 2263-N.

  upheld a state law: Hoyt v. Florida, 368 U.S. 57 (1961), cited in Pauli Murray and Mary O. Eastwood, “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” George Washington Law Review, December 1965, p. 237.

  Pauli Murray: Murray, Song, pp. 115, 239, 359–64; Olson, Daughters, pp. 285–90.

  “She can reverse the verdict”: Plaintiffs’ Brief, Vol. 1, by Charles Morgan, Jr., Orzell Billingsley, Jr., Judge Dorothy Kenyon, Dr. Pauli Murray, and Melvin L. Wulf, Whitev. Crook, Civil Action No. 2263-N, p. 61.

  parents smuggled or shooed them: Int. Sammy Bailey, April 11, 2003.

  Stokely Carmichael was collecting firearms: McGowan to Rosen, Aug. 20, 1965, FJMD-15.

  “Sheriff Clark has deputized”: SC, Aug. 28–29, 1965, p. 1; SNCC press release dated Aug. 20, 1965, Reel 16, SNCC.

  “have gone into hiding”: Ibid.

  Gloria Larry turned up safe: Int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000. 313 “jailhouse giveaway plot”: Int. Martha Prescod Norman, June 29, 2000; int. Silas Norman, June 28 and Aug. 25, 2000; int. Jimmy Rogers, March 12, 2003; int. Ruby Sales, March 22, 2003.

  murders of Herbert Lee and Louis Allen: Branch, Parting, pp. 509–22; Branch, Pillar, pp. 222–23.

  hide the key Hayneville witnesses from FBI agents: FBI Mobile to Director, 1:36 A.M., Aug. 21, 1965, FJMD-2; FBI Mobile to Director, 6:57 P.M., Aug. 21, 1965, FJMD-3; Rosen to Belmont, Aug. 21, 1965, FJMD-16. The investigating FBI agents complained to headquarters that SNCC witnesses talked to reporters but not to them, and that SNCC leaders in Selma refused to make the witnesses available unless conditions were negotiated to guarantee their safety. Director J. Edgar Hoover approved instructions that no interviews were to be conducted in the SNCC office, and that “the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee should not dictate the terms under which our interviews would be conducted.”

  she called Rev. Frank Mathews: Int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000; Mendelsohn, Martyrs, p. 218.

  Rabbi Harold Saperstein found sponsors: Int. Harold and Marcia Saperstein, Dec. 12, 1991; int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000.

  with Rev. Bruce Hanson: Int. Bruce Hanson, Feb. 22, 1991; int. David Saperstein and Al Vorspan, May 23, 1991.

  to accompany by charter relay: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 182; Charles H. Douglass to C. C. J. Carpenter, Aug. 26, 1965, BIR/C8f25. Rev. Douglass, then rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Montgomery, reported to Bishop Carpenter that after the first radio reports of a shooting in Hayneville, he had learned from a funeral contact at White Chapel that a body had been delivered there with no identification except a 1961 Virginia Military Institute class ring. From its engraved hometown of Keene, New Hampshire, Douglass had located the Daniels parish and home through Episcopal channels, notified Mrs. Constance Daniels of the murder, and suggested that she remove her son’s body “directly” to New Hampshire. “I told her I felt this was best for her and certainly for our situation in Alabama,” Douglass wrote Carpenter. As an aside, Douglass advised the bishop of inside information from Lowndes authorities that the Daniels prisoners had “made a shambles of the jail” and then provoked Deputy Sheriff Coleman with “a considerable amount of verbal taunting.” The general reaction to the shooting in Montgomery, he wrote, was “about what you would expect with a mixture of regret but an overtone of ‘they had it coming to them.’”

  “several Negroes who had known”: NYT, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 24.

  The Times already had published: NYT, Aug. 21, 1965, p. 9.

  “raw material for living theology”: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 183.

  an effete Yankee who chose strangely: Josiah Bunting int. by Daniel Zwerdling, Weekend All Things Considered, National Public Radio, Aug. 23, 1997, JDC; Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 11–18; int. William Braithwaite, Feb. 9, 2001.

  “as well as some magnificent buffoons”: Daniels valedictory address, 1961, courtesy of William Braithwaite.

  sang “We Shall Overcome”: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 182–84.

  “We want to show the people”: NYT, Aug. 23, 1965, p. 19.

  He seldom spoke of Daniels: Int. Jimmy Rogers, March 12, 2003; int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000; int. Bob Mants, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Gloria Larry House, June 29,2000.

  came to remember that he had opposed: Int. Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Jan. 31, 1984.

  “We ain’t going to resurrect Jon”: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 181.

  Carmichael asked SNCC’s research director: Carson, Struggle, p. 165; Jeffries, “Freedom Politics,” p. 89.

  Jack Minnis had come late to civil rights: Int. Jack Minnis, April 7–8, 2001.

  “That Great Medicare Bill”: Minnis, Life with Lyndon in the Great Society, Vol. 1, No. 27, Aug. 5, 1965, JMP.

  “Great Philosopher of Non-
violence”: Ibid., Vol. 1, No. 29, Aug. 19, 1965, JMP.

  “just how phony the Civil Rights Act”: Ibid., Vol. 1, No. 30, Aug. 26, 1965, JMP.

  “When we think of all the murders”: Ibid., Vol. 1, No. 28, Aug. 12, 1965, JMP.

  He scoffed at Johnson’s ballyhooed promise: Int. Jack Minnis, April 8, 2001.

  “Here’s what I’ve been able to glean”: Minnis to SNCC staff in Alabama, Sept. 4, 1965, A/SN94.

  Matt Murphy died in a highway accident: Jet, Sept. 9, 1965, p. 9; SC, Aug. 28–29, 1965, p. 1; Stanton, From Selma, p. 123.

  Rev. Francis Walter happened to be making a courtesy visit: Int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000; John Ruskin sermon, “A New Understanding of the White Problem,” attached to Ruskin to Francis Walter, Dec. 16, 1965, BIR/FW2f5. Ruskin, a Unitarian minister from San Diego, had met Rev. Walter on a pilgrimage to Selma. He recalled in his sermon that Rev. Mathews of St. Paul’s was explaining to them his reservations about the civil rights movement, largely by recounting the troubles Daniels had caused at his worship services: “When the telephone rang and the rector answered it and was informed that Jonathan Daniels had just been shot and killed over at Hayneville, in Lowndes County. This shook us all up very badly and, after a few important telephone calls, we had a moment of memorial prayers for Jonathan Daniels. Then Father Walters asked his colleague in the ministry for permission to have a memorial service for Jonathan Daniels at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. The rector refused and stuck to his refusal because, as he said, ‘A memorial service for Jonathan Daniels would just turn into a demonstration.’ The real irony of this became apparent the following Monday when a newspaper carried the picture of a funeral service for the late Mr. Matt Murphy, the notorious Klan leader.”

  “another civil rights demonstration”: “Statement by the Rev. T. Frank Mathews, Rector of St. Paul’s Church, Selma, Alabama, in Reply to a request from The Living Church for a Comment Regarding the Death of Jonathan Daniels,” Aug. 24, 1965. “It is my understanding that a Memorial Service is being planned for Brown’s Chapel,” the statement concluded. “Any additional service in St. Paul’s would appear to the community of Selma to be another civil rights demonstration for which we do not feel this church building should be used or the liturgy of the Church employed. I do not feel that Rev. John Morris understands the situation here in Selma, or he would not have been critical of a decision that is calculated to avoid further discord and to support the efforts of thinking and concerned persons toward the restoring of a spirit of good will among both races in this community where Jonathan Daniels lived and worked the last five months of his life.”

  funeral for Matt Murphy two days later: Ibid.; Peter L. Albrecht to Rt. Rev. Anson P. Stokes of Boston, Aug. 27, 1965, JDC.

  “chaplains to the dying order”: NYT, April 11, 1960, p. 25.

  Yet Carpenter also suffered Klan threats: Int. George Murray, July 16, 1987. Murray, who succeeded Carpenter as bishop, recalls that Carpenter defied one direct death threat on the telephone. Many Alabamians rebuked Carpenter for his public criticism of Governor George Wallace’s “segregation forever” speech. Cf. Maurice Rogers to Carpenter (“Your disgusting, cowardly statement of January 16, 1963…. ), Jan. 16, 1963, BIR/C12f29.

  “that the sight of the great Bishop”: Will Scarlett to “Chuck” [Carpenter], July 22, 1960, BIR/C15f16.

  “May I rest your coat?”: Int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000.

  Walter relocated to New Jersey: Int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000. Callahan, Quilting Bee, pp. 7–8; Shattuck, Episcopalians, pp. 119, 198.

  orders to lock St. Paul’s: Frank Mathews to The Rt. Rev. C. C. J. Carpenter, Aug. 24, 1965, BIR/C8f25.

  “If I antagonize them they’ll get vicious”: Frank Mathews to George [Murray], Oct. 14, 1965, BIR/C10f57.

  I am not able to grant”: Carpenter to Francis X. Walter, Oct. 5, 1965, BIR/C10f57.

  When Walter appealed to Carpenter’s kindly heir: Walter to The Right Rev. George Murray, Oct. 4, 1965, BIR/C10f57.

  “One of the heartbreaking things”: George Murray to Francis X. Walter, Oct. 12, 1965, BIR/C10f57.

  Walter persisted on his own: “Meeting of a Steering Committee of the Selma Inter-religious Project, September 23, 1965, Episcopal Church Center, New York City,” Rev. Francis Walter, Rev. Arthur Walmsley, Rev. Homer Jack, Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Rev. Bruce Hanson, BIR/FW2f8; Francis Walter to George Murray, Oct. 14, 1965, BIR/C10f57. “I was saddened by the letter you sent October 12,” Walter replied to Bishop Murray, “but more distressed by the apparent vacuum it creates between the diocese and the [Selma Inter-Religious] Project. It is the last thing I intend to embarrass or insult you or the Diocese of Alabama. Given this feeling of mine and your position of being unable to cooperate or ask others to do so, I am not going to ask for an appointment with anyone at Diocesan House, nor will I embarrass you by dropping by. Though my thinking is not settled on what my relations should now be with clergy in the towns I will be visiting, I think I’ll adopt the same general policy…. I’m assuming that my staying away from Episcopalians is roughly what you want.”

  pending application for parenthood by adoption: Walter to Bishop Leland Stark, Jan. 30, 1967, BIR/FW1f24; int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000; Callahan, Quilting Bee, pp. 9–10.

  th General Assembly: NYT, April 23, 1965, p. 14; NYT, April 25, 1965, p. 56.

  King traded places with another Negro speaker: Int. Gayraud Wilmore, May 14, 1992.

  “The ultimate logic of racism”: MLK address, “The Church and the Frontier,” Aug. 21, 1965, A/KS9.

  “our whole programmatic thrust”: Wiretap transcript of MLK phone call with Stanley Levison, Aug. 25, 1965, FLNY-9-677.

  “Martin called a quick meeting”: Wiretap transcript of Stanley Levison phone call with Andrew Levison, Aug. 25, 1965, FLNY-9-677a.

  passed the immigration reform bill: Congressional Record, Aug. 25, 1965, pp. 21820–21; NYT, Aug. 26, 1965, p. 1.

  “And we’ll bring Edgar Hoover”: LBJ phone call with Nicholas Katzenbach, 2:50 P.M., Aug. 26, 1965, Cit. 8639, Audiotape WH6508.11, LBJ.

  King’s gathering convened: Garrow, Bearing, pp. 441–43; Longenecker, Peacemaker, pp. 304–5.

  George Metcalfe turned his car key: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 353–54; Davis, Race, pp. 180–83; Associated Press, World in 1965, p. 152.

  previous year of intensified terror: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 304–8; Branch, Pillar, pp. 495–97.

  “In my candid opinion”: R. T. [Randy] Blackwell to MLK and RDA, Aug. 25, 1965, A/KP28f23.

  Drawbacks plagued every option: Int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990.

  Bevel offered at a mass meeting: Sermon, “A New Understanding of the White Problem,” attached to a letter from John Ruskin Clark to Francis X. Walter, Dec. 16, 1965, BIR/FW2f5, p. 3.

  “In the South, we always had segregationists”: Minutes, SCLC executive staff meeting, Aug. 26–28, 1965, A/KP32f9.

  King chose Chicago: Ibid.; Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 174–77; Ralph, Northern, p. 42.

  “In Selma, we didn’t organize”: Int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990; Ralph, Northern, p. 51.

  “Have you read the Moynihan Report”: Transcript, CBS, Face the Nation, Aug. 29, 1965.

  Public schools opened across the South: NYT, Aug. 31, 1965, p. 1.

  Peggy Williams: NYT, Sept. 1, 1965, p. 21.

  “Several parents welcomed us”: NYT, Aug. 31, 1965, p. 42.

  Arthur Goldberg had invited him: NYT, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 3, Sept. 1, 1965, p. 12; Harry Wachtel to MLK, Sept. 2, 1965, A/KP25f32.

  arrested for stealing SCLC’s office safe: AC, Sept. 1, 1965, p. 1; wiretap transcript of MLK phone call with Stanley Levison, Sept. 6, 1965, FLNY-9-689a.

  “Martin—for your info—Sincerest regards, Adam”: Powell note on copy of letter to “My dear Wyatt,” Aug. 31, 1965, A/KP19f45. 323 “No one spoke to me”: SC, Sept. 4–5, 1965, p. 1. 323 “Some of the white children”: NYT, Sept. 1, 1965, p. 20.

  22: FRAGILE
ALLIANCE

  King prepared diligently to see Ambassador Goldberg: Harry Wachtel to MLK, Sept. 2, 1965, A/KP25f32; int. Harry Wachtel, Nov. 29, 1983; int. Bayard Rustin, Sept. 24, 1984; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.

  Young arranged for briefings: Young, Burden, pp. 430–31.

  research papers from King’s neighbor: Int. Vincent Harding, Dec. 30, 2004.

  a Vietnamese of destiny volunteered to translate: Ho Chi Minh background from Fall, Viet Nams, pp. 81–102; Shaplen, Lost, pp. 35–46; Duiker, Ho, pp. 36–51; Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 130–38.

  a disastrously premature uprising in 1940: Duiker, Ho, pp. 242–48.

  “France became a colony just like us!”: Borton, Sorrow, p. 52.

  cooperation of American OSS officers: Patti, Why, passim; Duiker, Ho, pp. 282ff; Appy, Patriots, pp. 38–41; Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 146–63.

  this historical moment that King emphasized: Int. Harry Wachtel, Nov. 29, 1983.

  Huge crowds had gathered outside: Patti, Why, pp. 163–65.

  1.5 million Vietnamese had died of starvation: Duiker, Ho, p. 330; Shaplen, Lost, p. 46; Karnow, Vietnam, p. 160; Borton, Sorrow, p. 63.

  ten days of nearly bloodless revolution: Duiker, Ho, pp. 310–20; Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 160–63; Patti, Why, pp. 165–68.

  Ho Chi Minh invited the American OSS commander: Patti, Why, pp. 220–24, 243–47.

  “All men are created equal”: Ibid., pp. 250–53; Duiker, Ho, pp. 322–23.

  Joseph Stalin: Duiker, Ho, pp. 420–25.

  plundered the feeble new country: Patti, Why, pp. 284–93; Karnow, Vietnam, p. 167.

  ordered every clock in Vietnam set back: Patti, Why, p. 293.

  “If the French should invade”: Giap, Unforgettable, p. 31.

  British forces entered southern Vietnam: Patti, Why, pp. 297–99; Duiker, Ho, pp. 332–37.

  “Your mission is to reestablish”: De Gaulle to Leclerc, Sept. 25, 1945, cited in Duiker, Ho, p. 353.

  “If I listened to such nonsense”: Ibid., p. 355.

  shelled the port city of Haiphong: Ibid., pp. 388–97; Patti, Why, pp. 382–83.

  King told Goldberg: Int. Harry Wachtel, Nov. 29, 1983; int. Bayard Rustin, Sept. 24, 1984; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.