At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

  France’s subsequent eight-year war: Shaplen, Lost, p. xi; Fall, Viet Nams, p. 129; Appy, Patriots, pp. 44–47.

  “Well, you know”: Int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.

  had pressured Ho to accept far less at Geneva: Karnow, Vietnam, pp. 215–21; Duiker, Ho, pp. 457–61; Langguth, Our Vietnam, pp. 78–80.

  “a very dangerous enemy”: Richard Russell interviewed on CBS, Face the Nation, Aug. 1, 1965.

  The session lasted seventy minutes: NYT, Sept. 11, 1965, p. 9; Jet, Sept. 30, 1965, p. 7.

  “In short,” he told them: MLK and Goldberg press conferences at the U.N., Sept. 10, 1965, A/KS.

  “We will not be forced out”: Ibid.

  “intemperate alignment with the forces of appeasement”: Senator Thomas J. Dodd statement, “Dr. Martin Luther King’s Activities in Connection with U.S. Foreign Policy,” reprinted in Congressional Record, Sept. 15, 1965, p. S-23908.

  King convened an emergency conference call: Garrow, Bearing, p. 445.

  “I want a little advice”: Wiretap transcript of MLK conference phone call with Stanley Levison, Andrew Young, Clarence Jones, Harry Wachtel, Cleveland Robinson, Wyatt Tee Walker, and Walter Fauntroy, Sept. 12, 1965, FLNY-9-695a.

  the FBI promptly reported back to the White House: FBI HQ LHM dated Sept. 15, 1965, FK-1866; Marvin Watson to LBJ, 8:20 P.M., Sept. 15, 1965, Box 32, OFMS, LBJ.

  politically “insane” proposal: Wiretap transcript of phone call between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, Sept. 13, 1965, FLNY-9-696a.

  “Dr. King Wants Red China in U.N.”: WP, Sept. 11, 1965, p. 7.

  “Should I say in this speech”: Wiretap transcript of MLK conference phone call with Stanley Levison, Bayard Rustin, Andrew Young, Harry Wachtel, and John Barber, Sept. 28, 1965, FLNY-9-711a, cited in Garrow, Bearing, pp. 697–98.

  “certain factors bearing”: Untitled MLK statement, Oct. 5, 1965, A/KS.

  “another example of the high-handed attitude”: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Sept. 10, 1965, FK-1861.

  SCLC staff retreat at the Quaker Penn Center: Garrow, Bearing, p. 446.

  mentioned his escape wish: Power, I Will, p. 9.

  boarded the presidential yacht Honey Fitz: The Sept. 21 date comes from King’s “Schedule for the Month of September 1965,” A/SC1f30, and from Whitney M. Young, Jr., et al. to John H. Johnson, Oct. 4, 1965, A/KP13f4.

  “For the first time in history”: Jet, Oct. 7, 1965, pp. 8–10.

  The cruise began with decorum: Ibid.; Garrow, Bearing, p. 447.

  The running count of desegregation plans: WP, Sept. 12, 1965, p. 6.

  escalated dispute about what was evasion or raw truth: Int. Wiley Branton, Sept. 28, 1983; Rainwater and Yancey, Moynihan Report, pp. 195–96.

  “almost turned the boat over”: Herbers, Priority, pp. 126–28.

  President Johnson stripped Humphrey: Califano, Triumph, pp. 64–69; Califano to Katzenbach, Sept. 1, 1965, WHCF, Box 56, LBJ; Humphrey, Education, pp. 408–9; Graham, Civil Rights Era, pp. 184–86; Mann, Walls, pp. 484–87.

  Wiley Branton reluctantly accepted: Int. Wiley Branton, Sept. 28, 1983.

  Reporters soon questioned the effect: John Herbers, “Rights Blocs Fear Easing of Enforcement by U.S.,” NYT, Oct. 17, 1965, p. 1.

  “yacht-wide discussion of Vietnam”: Whitney M. Young, Jr., et al. to John H. Johnson, Oct. 4, 1965, A/KP13f4.

  Far greater trouble erupted: Orfield, Reconstruction, pp. 181–202; Herbers, Priority, pp. 139–41; Fairclough, Redeem, p. 283; Jet, Oct. 21, 1965, pp. 22–24; Harold M. Baron to Edwin C. Berry, “Title VI of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Federal Aid Controversy in Chicago,” Nov. 5, 1965, A/SC150f26.

  Commissioner Francis Keppel informed: Keppel to Benjamin C. Willis, Sept. 30, 1965, and Keppel to Ray Page, Sept. 30, 1965, Cyrus Adams Papers, Box 13, CHS.

  “despotic, alarming, and threatening”: Willis press release, Oct. 2, 1965, in ibid.

  political lightning in fact did flash: Orfield, Reconstruction, pp. 191–92; Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, pp. 350–51; WP, Oct. 3, 1965, p. 5.

  Mayor Daley pulled Lyndon Johnson aside: Dallek, Flawed, p. 324; Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, p. 352.

  Staff briefings feverishly assured him: Douglas Cater to LBJ, 10:45 P.M., Oct. 3, 1965, and Douglas Cater to LBJ, Oct. 5, 1965, EX HU 2-5/ST13, Box 54, LBJ.

  Johnson’s special emissary reached agreement: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 195.

  with predictable results: Katzenbach to Lee White and Douglas Cater, Dec. 17, 1965, EX HU 2-5/ST13, Box 54, LBJ; Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 202.

  Keppel sank into bureaucratic quarantine: Douglas Cater oral history by David G. McComb, April 29, 1969, pp. 21–22, LBJ.

  “I was hopeless”: In a confidential oral history nearly three years later, Keppel recalled the Chicago incident as a “colossal defeat” that “will probably be put on my gravestone.” Francis Keppel oral history by John Singerhoff, July 18, 1968, LBJ, pp. 21–23. Also, Francis Keppel oral history by David G. McComb, April 21, 1969, LBJ, pp. 25–26; Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, p. 353.

  “I feel wonderful”: Orfield, Reconstruction, p. 189.

  “shameless display of naked political power”: CDD, Oct. 7, 1965, p. 1.

  an extended conference of two hundred activists: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 182ff; Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, pp. 355–56.

  “If Negroes cannot break up a ghetto”: Garrow, Bearing, p. 448. Similarly, Bevel wrote: “Our task is not to patch up the ghetto, but to abolish it.” James Bevel, “SCLC—Chicago Report,” Oct. 26, 1965, A/KP5f26.

  “Nonviolence is the only honorable way”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, p. 185.

  dominant organization of Negro Baptists: Branch, Parting, pp. 500–507.

  “I don’t consider Mayor Daley”: Garrow, Bearing, p. 448.

  he preached hope by analogy: Branch, Pillar, pp. 487–89.

  “There are giants”: Deuteronomy 1; Joshua 1–2.

  outreach groups in fifteen categories: James Bevel, “SCLC—Chicago Report,” Nov. 8, 1965, A/SC150f22.

  shaved head and a copy of Leo Tolstoy’s What Then Must We Do?: Ralph, Northern, pp. 49–50. 335 reports by police surveillance agents: Investigator’s report/Intelligence Division, Chicago police department, Oct. 20, 1965, File 951-B, RS, CHS: investigator’s reports, Nov. 4 and Dec. 21, 1965, File 940, RS, CHS.

  “In the south, we are taunted”: King, “Next Stop: The North,” Saturday Review, Nov. 13, 1965, p. 105.

  tensions within the hybrid network: Ralph, Northern, pp. 51–55.

  “When the grass turns green”: Anderson and Pickering, Confronting, pp. 186–87.

  “something new”: Ibid., p. 188.

  23: IDENTITY

  Goldberg’s new U.N. apartment: Cohen and Taylor, Pharaoh, p. 351. While finalizing plans to host the Johnsons for dinner on Sunday, October 3, Goldberg asked to meet LBJ at the airport and fly with him by helicopter to Liberty Island. “Because I’m an immigrant,” Goldberg told Johnson, “and I’d love to see you sign that bill.” (LBJ phone call with Arthur Goldberg, 7:02 P.M., Oct. 1, 1965, Cit. 9006, Audiotape WH6510.01, LBJ.)

  “twisted and distorted by the harsh injustice”: WP, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 7.

  inexorably diversified American culture: Schuck, Diversity, pp. 87–99.

  A school in Falls Church: Joel Swerdlow, “Changing America,” National Geographic, Sept. 2001, pp. 42–61.

  “America was built by a nation of strangers”: WP, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 7.

  joined the two great civil rights laws: King, Making, pp. 243–53.

  Yet these high stakes went strangely unnoticed: Schuck, Diversity, p. 87.

  “Johnson Offers Haven”: WP, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 1.

  “liberalizes immigration policies”: NYT, Oct. 4, 1965, pp. 1, 4.

  Few outlets went on to describe the law: “Congress Sends Immigration Bill to White House,” NYT, Oct. 1, 1965, p. 1; editorial, “Nation of Strangers,” WP, Oct. 5, 1965, p. 16; “Immigration Change, P
apal Visit Mesh,” Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 5, 1965, p. 1.

  “an Englishman is better than a Spaniard”: Celler remarks, Congressional Record, Aug. 25, 1965, p. 21755.

  “Anthropologists, historians, and lexicographers”: Ervin remarks, Congressional Record, March 4, 1965, p. 4145.

  “forlorn fight to preserve”: Ervin remarks, Congressional Record, Sept. 17, 1965, p. 24232.

  “It’s really amazing”: WSJ, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 16.

  “a complete annihilation of justice”: Clarke, Wrestlin’, p. 162.

  Jones made a special trip: Ibid., p. 24.

  “My soul was on fire then”: Mayer, All on Fire, pp. 51–56.

  “Could I do more for the ultimate good”: Clarke, Wrestlin’, p. 14.

  “Apostle to the Negro Slaves”: Ibid., p. xxi.

  “There has been neglect”: Jones, Religious, p. 276.

  masters could address slaves as brothers or sisters: Clarke, Wrestlin’, p. 107.

  “The brain of the Negro”: Menand, Metaphysical, p. 109.

  Agassiz declared as a matter of science: Ibid., pp. 97–116; Gossett, Race, pp. 59–61; Clarke, Wrestlin’, pp. 108–12.

  “abhorrent to our nature”: Menand, Metaphysical, p. 115.

  “the manly population descended”: Ibid.

  “We cannot cry out against the Papists”: Jones, Religious, p. 167.

  “certain that the salvation of one soul”: Clarke, Wrestlin’, p. 27.

  Agassiz had captured Boston: Menand, Metaphysical, pp. 97–101.

  Craniologists Samuel Morton and Josiah Nott: Ibid., pp. 102–12; Gossett, Race, pp. 58–66.

  An explosion of typologies: Gossett, Race, pp. 69–83.

  “It is possible that Boas”: Ibid., pp. 418, 429–30; King, Making, p. 70.

  first Naturalization Act of 1790: Lopez, White, pp. 1–3, 42–43.

  Congress raised the stakes of whiteness: Ibid., pp. 46–47.

  Syrians, Armenians, and Moroccans: Ibid., p. 67.

  turned down a decorated Navy veteran: In re Knight, 171 F. 299,300 (E.D.N.Y. 1909), cited in ibid., p. 59.

  “cannot be supposed to have clothed His Divinity”: In re Dow, 213 F. 355, at 364, cited in ibid., pp. 74–75.

  “What is the white race?”: Ibid.

  “the words ‘white person’”: Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 197 (1922).

  citizenship petition of Takao Ozawa: Lopez, White, pp. 79–86.

  the Justices were plainly vexed: Ibid., pp. 70–72, 86–92.

  racial term “Caucasian” appeared to rest: Gossett, Race, pp. 37–39.

  “What we now hold”: U.S. v. Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923), cited in Gossett, Race, pp. 86–92.

  “For the Court, science fell from grace”: Gossett, Race, p. 94.

  “American race”: King, Making, p. 131.

  Immigration Restriction League: Ibid., p. 52.

  Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor: Ibid., pp. 166–75; Gossett, Race, pp. 401–6.

  eugenics, a term coined by Darwin’s cousin: Gossett, Race, p. 155.

  eugenics later became stigmatized by association with the Nazis: Ibid., pp. 427–29, 445. Two generations before Hitler, eugenics was popular in progressive American magazines and scholarly journals. Gossett (pp. 306–7) quotes an 1895 article in Political Science Quarterly by Columbia University professor John W. Burgess: “We must preserve our Aryan nationality in the state, and admit to its membership only such non-Aryan race-elements as shall have become Aryanized in spirit and in genius by contact with it, if we would build the superstructure of the ideal American commonwealth.”

  “belonged to the political vocabulary”: King, Making, p. 168.

  “There are certain parts of Europe”: Ibid., p. 75.

  “You cannot have free institutions”: Ibid., pp. 153–55.

  “a branch of the Mongolian race”: Congressional Record, Dec. 31, 1914, pp. 804–5.

  4 National Origins Act: King, Making, pp. 199–228.

  “sturdy stocks of the north of Europe”: Ibid., p. 51.

  “National eugenics is the long-term cure”: Ibid., p. 185.

  The Chicago Tribune pronounced: Gossett, Race, p. 407.

  Ed “Strangler” Lewis to a draw: Int. George Murray, July 16, 1987; int. Douglas Carpenter (son), July 1, 1987. Biographical material also drawn from the Carpenter Papers collection at the Birmingham Public Library.

  reduced the American school population: Felix X. Cohen, “Immigration and National Welfare,” a pamphlet of the League for Industrial Democracy, 1940, p. 4.

  the McCarran-Walter Act renewed: King, Making, pp. 224, 238, 244–46.

  The Old Midway Church property: Branch, Parting, p. 689.

  “fanatics of the worst sort”: Myers, Children, Vol. 1, p. 23.

  “openly professed the orthodox faith”: Ibid., Vol. 4, pp. 49–51. “And moreover, under the old Constitution of the United States, we never had a Christian president,” Rev. Jones wrote to his son on March 7, 1862. “General Washington was a communing member of the Episcopal Church; and while it is hoped and believed that he was a true Christian, yet the evidence is not so clear and satisfactory as we could wish. Our first President [Confederate Jefferson Davis] is accredited a Christian man…. His proclamation is Christian throughout in language and spirit; and the close of his inaugural address, in prayer to God as the Head of a great nation in such a time as the present, melts into tenderness under a consciousness of weakness and imperfection, and yet rises into the sublimity of faith—the sublimity of an unshaken faith. Oh, for pious rulers and officers!”

  his last public sermon: Myers, Children, Vol. 3, pp. 306–9; Clarke, Wrestlin’, p. 172. “Our meeting of our new General Assemble, independent of the old, was fully, every presbytery in the Confederate States being represented,” Jones wrote his son on December 20, 1861. “By request of the assembly I delivered an address before that body, the Tuesday evening after it commenced its sessions, on the religious instruction of the Negroes—one of the rare opportunities granted me of doing good.”

  first-named addressee: Branch, Parting, pp. 741–42.

  Hayneville, an abbreviated trial: Summary in Mobile FBI report dated Oct. 7, 1965, FJMD-49, pp. 1–3.

  “shocked and amazed”: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 202–3.

  “I was afraid”: Ibid., p. 215.

  commenced trial all on the same day: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 206–16.

  holler down to the yard for witnesses: NYT, Oct. 1, 1965, pp. 1, 3; Robert E. Smith, “Coleman Tried Among Friends,” SC, Oct. 3–4, 1965, p. 1.

  according to case historian Charles Eagles: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 218–42.

  keep a dove hunting date: Ibid., p. 244.

  “lives by quite different concepts”: Eric Sevareid remarks, CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite, Sept. 30, 1965, transcript in JDC.

  Columnist Max Friedman: Friedman, “Verdict in Hayneville Outrages Jonathan Daniels’ Home Town,” undated, copy in JDC; Friedman, “Martin Luther King Could Share Bertrand Russell’s Pitiable Fate,” LAT, Aug. 20, 1965, p. II-5.

  “an obscene caricature of justice”: BN, Oct. 3, 1965.

  “All across the land”: AC, Oct. 7, 1965, p. 4.

  has “broken the heart of Dixie”: “Verdict in Hayneville,” WP, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 22.

  In Natchez, Mississippi: SCLC Press Release, “In response to an invitation from Charles Evers,” Sept. 2, 1965, A/KS; Hoover memo for Tolson et al., 10:45 A.M., Sept. 2, 1965, FCT-NR; NYT, Sept. 3, 1965, p. 1; NYT, Sept. 4, 1965, p. 22; MLK column re Natchez, “Special to the Amsterdam News,” Sept. 17, 1965, A/KP17f10; William H. Booth, president, Jamaica, NY, NAACP, to MLK, Sept. 23, 1965, A/KP17f10; Garrow, Bearing, p. 446.

  “All Negro patients”: Junius Griffin, Ed Clayton, and Robert Green to MLK, “Re: On Site Visitation to Natchez, Mississippi,” Sept. 27, 1965, A/SC146f24.

  long protest lines filed into downtown Natchez: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 357–58; Davis, Race, pp.
185–86; Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 1.

  transferred those above twelve years of age: Ibid.; Dorie Ladner and Charlie Horowitz, WATS report from Natchez, Oct. 4, 1965, Reel 16, SNCC; SC, Aug. 30–31, 1965, p. 2.

  “Several people were unable”: Phil Lapansky and Charlie Horowitz, WATS report from Natchez, Oct. 5, 1965, Reel 16, SNCC.

  “Crawfordville, Ga.”: NYT, Oct. 1, 1965, p. 1.

  “Kill him!”: Baltimore Evening Sun, Oct. 4, 1965, p. 2.

  protests with mixed success: MS, Oct. 22, 1965, p. 21.

  back from the planning workshops in Chicago: “Dr. King ‘Marching’ on Crawfordville,” CDD, Oct. 11, 1965, p. 3.

  “The hardship of the rural South”: MLK speech at Crawfordville, Georgia, Oct. 11, 1965, A/KS; Garrow, Bearing, p. 450.

  night rally on October 11: SC, Oct. 23–24, 1965, p. 4.

  dismissal of Turner and five colleagues: NYT, July 7, 1965, p. 22.

  Willie Bolden led two hundred: Athens Daily News, Oct. 13, 1965, p. 1; Augusta Chronicle, Oct. 13, 1965, p. 2.

  graphic picture of Myers: NYT, Oct. 13, 1965, p. 1.

  bushwhacking of Lieutenant Colonel Lemuel Penn: Branch, Pillar, pp. 398–99, 427–29.

  eighty-one minutes to acquit: Ibid., pp. 477–78.

  the Justice Department was trying to convince: Ibid., pp. 608–9; Rosen to DeLoach, March 30, 1968, FLP-399; “Interesting Case Memorandum,” Nov. 1, 1968, FLP-NR.

  “I think a soldier in uniform”: Branch, Pillar, pp. 437–38. LBJ erred in suggesting that Penn was shot wearing his uniform. Lt. Col. Penn and his companions, having completed their two weeks of summer training at Fort Benning, were off-duty in civilian clothes. Their uniforms did hang in the back seat, but did not figure in the Supreme Court’s March 28, 1966, decision to reinstate the federal indictment.

  a federal judge lifted curfews: Dittmer, Local People, p. 358.

  “Move Them Niggers North”: Davis, Race, p. 186.

  “Never,” Mayor John Nosser announced: Ibid., p. 189.

  Born in Lebanon: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 358–59.

  lay off nearly half: Davis, Race, pp. 173, 185.

  offering police escort at Negro funerals: Ibid., p. 172.

  “We’re armed”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 354.