At Canaan's Edge

by Taylor Branch

Roy Wilkins had seethed: Ibid., pp. 177–78, 355; Davis, Race, pp. 183–84.

  Chicago bootlegger and petty criminal: Ibid.; Berry, Amazing Grace, p. 17.

  Wilkins publicized: “NAACP May Oust Evers As Aide in Mississippi,” NYT, Sept. 10, 1965, p. 22.

  demanded that King withdraw Rev. Al Sampson: Archie Jones, acting president of the Natchez NAACP branch, to MLK, Oct. 19, 1965, A/SC4f12.

  “Natchez Boycott Ends”: NYT, Dec. 4, 1965, p. 1.

  Success made Charles Evers indispensable: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 356–62; Davis, Race, pp. 187–92.

  destroyed the building next door: Davis, Race, p. 168; Dittmer, Local People, p. 353.

  local sentries posted themselves: King, Freedom Song, p. 512.

  staff members themselves stockpiled firearms: Annie Pearl Avery, “There Are No Cowards in My Family,” unpublished interview with Dorothy Zellner, 1997, courtesy of Judy Richardson.

  Annie Pearl Avery: Ibid.; int. Scott B. Smith, April 12, 2003; Carmichael, Ready, p. 465.

  Bill Ware: Carson, Struggle, pp. 192–95.

  with Dennis Sweeney into a short-lived marriage: King, Freedom Song, pp. 510–16; Chafe, Never, pp. 450–53.

  “There seem to be many parallels”: Casey Hayden and Mary King, “A Kind of Memo,” dated November 18, 1965, published as “Sex and Caste,” in Liberation, April 1966, pp. 35–36; King, Freedom Song, pp. 437–67; Curry et al., Deep, pp. 371–72.

  staff of fifteen dwindled away: Dittmer, Local People, p. 361.

  three of them: Notes, staff meeting, Nov. 2, 1965, Reel 37, SNCC.

  In the absence of Silas Norman: Int. Silas Norman, June 28, 2000.

  Alabama SNCC staff gathered to confront: Notes, staff meeting, Nov. 2, 1965, Reel 37, SNCC.

  their relative skills as chase drivers: Int. Bob Mants, Sept. 8, 2000.

  began to approach white registration: Eagles, Outside Agitator, p. 197.

  Tuskegee Boy Scout camp: Diary of Francis Walter, Oct. 9, 1965, courtesy of Francis Walter; int. Martha Prescod Norman, June 29, 2000.

  Rev. Francis Walter, succeeded Daniels: Francis Walter, “Report by the Director, Selma Inter-Religious Project, October 25, 1965,” BIR/FW2f5; Callahan, Quilting Bee, p. 10; int. Francis X. Walter by Stanley Smith, August 1968, RJB; int. Francis Walter, Sept. 7, 2000. In addition to the Synagogue Council of America, the Selma Inter-Religious Project was sponsored by the National Council of Churches of Christ, the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice, and the Unitarian-Universalist Association.

  November election of farm councils: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 134–36; Cleophus Hobbs and Terry Shaw, “Report: Hale County,” Aug. 26, 1965, Reel 18, SNCC; Tina Harris, “Money Spent for ASCS Workshop, Sept. 17–18, 1965,” with undated “MEMO” on the workshop from “Janet, Tina” to “Silas, Muriel, Staff,” Reel 37, SNCC. The farm council elections were held by the Agriculture Department’s Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS), which had been formed in 1961.

  A lone SCLC emissary turned up: Diary of Francis Walter, Oct. 18, 1965, courtesy of Francis Walter.

  she had tried to resume her graduate studies: Int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000.

  “She won’t move”: Diary of Francis Walter, Oct. 18, 1965, courtesy of Francis Walter.

  She yearned to join the SNCC staff: Int. Gloria Larry House, June 29, 2000; int. Francis X. Walter by Stanley Smith, August 1968, RJB, pp. 15–16; Diary of Francis Walter, Oct. 18, 1965, courtesy of Francis Walter. Walter encountered Larry at both the Oct. 9 and Oct. 18 meetings.

  stayed just long enough to testify: SAC, Mobile, to Director, Oct. 12, 1965, FVL-492. The frightened witness Leroy Moton, who had been riding with Viola Liuzzo when Klansmen shot her on March 25, 1965, was secluded before the Liuzzo trial as a volunteer teacher at the SCLC Freedom School in Crawfordville, Georgia, where KKK violence followed him.

  “was it part of your duties”: NYT, Oct. 21, 1965, pp. 1, 28.

  serving as a pallbearer at his funeral: Jones to DeLoach, Aug. 24, 1965, FVL-449.

  “I’m not going to meet with ’em”: McWhorter, Carry, pp. 251–53.

  gentleman segregationist: Ibid., pp. 180–81, 190–92.

  befitting a former FBI agent: Ibid. Hanes remained on the FBI Special Correspondents’ List in 1965, and had exchanged complimentary notes with J. Edgar Hoover during the “notorious liar” controversy with Martin Luther King, urging the Director “not to succumb to leftist pressure groups and resign or retire.” Jones to DeLoach, Aug. 24, 1965, FVL-449.

  “Parable of the Two Goats”: SAC, Mobile, to Director, Oct. 22, 1965, FVL-523.

  “Maybe the murderer”: Stanton, From Selma, pp. 127–28.

  “It is absolutely undisputed”: NYT, Oct. 23, 1965, p. 1.

  Flowers posted a well-known marksman: Int. Richmond Flowers, Aug. 9, 1990. “When I stood up inside the rail,” Flowers recalled, “he [state trooper bodyguard Harvey Wilson] stood up and faced the courtroom, and always had his coat kicked back with his pistol [showing]. He was an excellent marksman, and everybody knew it.”

  support for the ACLU: NYT, Oct. 26, 1965, p. 28.

  “chamber of horrors”: Joe Califano to LBJ, Oct. 25, 1965, WHCF, Box 56, LBJ. Califano attached for LBJ recent memos by Lee White (October 13) and George Reedy (October 2) on the same subject, growing out of the Tom Coleman trial.

  King was in Europe: Garrow, Bearing, p. 451; MLK, schedule for October 1965, A/KP1f30.

  blues pianist Memphis Slim: Jet, Nov. 11, 1965, pp. 50–52.

  “the beginning of vigilante justice”: NYT, Oct. 24, 1965, pp. 1, 78.

  “OPEN SEASON” bumper stickers: Stanton, From Selma, p. 128.

  threat relayed from Lowndes County: Mobile Office LHM, “Unknown Subject; Threat to Kill Martin Luther King, Jr.—Victim,” Oct. 28, 1965, FK-[serial number illegible].

  Andrew Young told Stanley Levison: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, Oct. 26, 1965, FLNY-9-739a; FBI Headquarters LHM dated Oct. 26, 1965, FK-[serial number illegible].

  Unremitting intrigue seeped: Cf. NYT, March 14, 1965, p. 33; NYT, June 20, 1965, p. 28; NYT, June 23, 1965, p. 23; int. Marc Tanenbaum, Feb. 5, 1991; int. Frank Murphy, March 8, 1991; int. John Oesterreicher, May 24, 1991; int. Thomas Stransky, Feb. 27, 1992.

  “not only did not recognize Him”: NYT, April 11, 1965, p. IV-4.

  Vatican deputies removed from Nostra Aetate: NYT, Sept. 11, 1965, p. 1.

  “realized fairly late”: Joseph Roddy, “How the Jews Changed Catholic Thinking,” Look, Jan. 25, 1966, p. 23.

  American cardinals led unsuccessful fights: Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, pp. 108–21; Yzermans, ed., Participation, pp. 581–85.

  word “deicide” raised thorny heresies: Remarks to the council by Augustin Cardinal Bea, Oct. 14, 1965, in Bea, Church, pp. 169–72; Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, pp. 106–7.

  Rabbi Abraham Heschel had dared to plead: Branch, Pillar, pp. 167–69, 482–85.

  Last-minute scandalmongers: Vorgimler, ed., Commentary, p. 122.

  porters lifted the papal sedan: Associated Press, World in 1965, pp. 232–36.

  Votes against Nostra Aetate collapsed: Bea, Church, pp. 24–27; NYT, Oct. 29, 1965, p. 1.

  “So do not become proud”: Romans 11:20, cited in Nostra Aetate, footnote 12.

  “a turning point in 1,900 years”: NYT, Oct. 29, 1965, p. 24.

  Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik: “Scholar Delimits Interfaith Talks: Rabbi Says Theology Should Not Be Discussed,” NYT, Jan. 30, 1966, p. 75; “Rabbi Says Faiths Are Not Related,” NYT, Aug. 16, 1964, p. 7; Gilbert, Vatican, pp. 292–301; Branch, Pillar, p. 484.

  issued Dabru Emet: “Dabru Emet,” NYT, Sept. 10, 2000, p. 23.

  series of eight elaborated propositions: Frymer-Kensky et al., eds., Christianity, passim; Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies, Baltimore, www.icjs.org/what/njsp/ index.html.

  demonstrations over the weekend of October 16: Wells, War Withi
n, pp. 56–57.

  David Miller, a young Catholic Worker pacifist: Powers, War, pp. 86–87.

  “a significant political act”: NYT, Oct. 16, 1965, pp. 1–2.

  “They are not promoting peace”: Reston, “Washington: The Stupidity of Intelligence,” NYT, Oct. 16, 1965.

  “shocked at pictures”: Congressional Record, Oct. 18, 1965, p. S-27251.

  Congress had outlawed the willful defacement: Friedland, Lift Up, p. 158; Powers, War, p. 86.

  “if we tuck tail and run now”: Congressional Record, Oct. 18, 1965, pp. S-27253–54.

  “the wailing, quailing”: Ibid., p. 27254.

  Katzenbach pledged to investigate: NYT, Oct. 18, 1965, p. 1.

  “in the direction of treason”: Wells, War, p. 58.

  Nixon said that to tolerate comfort: Menashe and Radosh, eds., Teach-Ins, p. 233.

  “would feel toward his country”: NYT, Oct. 26, 1965, p. 4.

  “annoying clamor”: John K. Jessup, “The Answer to What VIETNIKS Call a Moral Issue,” Life, Oct. 29, 1965, p. 40-D.

  “vicious, venomous, and vile”: Congressional Record, Oct. 18, 1965, p. S-27252.

  Public animus surged so broadly: “Church Assails Draft Dodgers,” NYT, Oct. 20, 1965, pp. 1, 2.

  “build not burn”: Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, p. 60.

  “It concerns us”: NYT, Oct. 26, 1965, p. 4.

  Rabbi Heschel spontaneously assured reporters: Hall, Because, p. 14.

  “Are we then finished?”: Friedland, Lift Up, p. 159.

  “evil of indifference”: Branch, Pillar, pp. 167–68.

  Heschel joined Neuhaus: Hall, Because, p. 15; Friedland, Lift Up, pp. 161–63.

  “the most miserable mob scene ever”: DeBenedetti, Ordeal, pp. 128–29.

  A Pennsylvania Klan leader committed suicide: NYT, Oct. 31, 1965, p. 1; NYT, Nov. 1, 1965, p. 1.

  Murky reports from Indonesia: Ibid.

  a “human wave” attack: NYT, Oct. 31, 1965, p. 1.

  hamlet of Deduc: NYT, Oct. 31, 1965, p. 1; NYT, Nov. 1, 1965, p. 1.

  Norman Morrison saw: NYT, Nov. 7, 1965, p. 2; Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, pp. 1–3; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 129.

  “always before my eyes”: Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 25, 1965, p. B-1.

  “nobody opposes the war in Vietnam”: Baltimore Sun, Nov. 2, 1965, p. 10.

  Morrison chafed gently: Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 25, 1965, p. B-1.

  Newspapers had published: Baltimore Sun, Aug. 3, 1965, republished Nov. 4, 1965, p. 18.

  petitioned the White House: Morrison to “Mr. President,” April 14, 15, and 16, 1965, WHCF, Name File, LBJ.

  notes to his “fellow” seminarian Bill Moyers: Morrison to Moyers, Feb. 15, 1964, and July 24, 1965, WHCF, Name File, LBJ. In the first letter, Morrison offered encouragement to the early Johnson administration, including a long-range appraisal of the Cold War: “Our governmental system is not nearly as easily transportable as the Russian one, but it has stood longer and is universally recognized as more idealistic, based as it is on the dignity of man as created in the image of justice and goodness for all. Our main disadvantage is that we are too far ahead to identify with the have-nots. The world is already fearful and jealous of our power. We are muscle-bound in foreign affairs with little in the way of practical and consistent alternatives to offer to revolutionary minded have-nots. Our prime exportable gift has so far been to assure protection with massive, essentially irrelevant, military strength…. China is determined to identify herself with the revolutions of the world even if it means breaking her ties with Russia. The country that can best fit itself to identify with the revolutions of the future will have gained the world by 2000. This will certainly not be Russia.” Morrison’s second letter to Moyers, just before LBJ announced the major troop commitment to Vietnam, pleaded: “Many of us had begun to feel that it wasn’t worth writing any more as things went from bad to worse. If the right decision is made it will have to be great and probably not helpful politically…. We pray that you and your boss will have the courage to replace patriotism with a true God.”

  “Every day we sin more”: Morrison to LBJ, Feb. 17, 1965, WHCF, Name File, LBJ.

  “Dearest Anne”: Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 25, 1965, p. B-1.

  “He was a torch”: NYT, Nov. 3, 1965, pp. 1, 8.

  rescue nurse Cloretta Jones: Jet, Nov. 25, 1965, pp. 22–23.

  “Baltimore Quaker with Baby”: Baltimore Sun, Nov. 3, 1965, p. 1.

  devoted two subsequent profiles: “Colleagues Stunned by Quaker’s Self-Immolation,” NYT, Nov. 4, 1965, p. 5; “Death of a Quaker: His Friends See a Lesson,” NYT, Nov. 7, 1965, p. 2.

  “alien to the American temper”: NYT, Nov. 11, 1965, p. 46.

  “macabre act of protest”: Newsweek, Nov. 15, 1965.

  “to avert our eyes”: Christian Century, Nov. 17, 1965, p. 1404.

  “raspingly discordant”: Mrs. R. W. Barney in Christian Century, Jan. 12, 1966, p. 84.

  poet laureate To Huu: NYT, Dec. 11, 2002, p. 30; Appy, Patriots, p. 155.

  “Emily, my child, it’s almost dark”: “Emily, My Child,” by To Huu, Nov. 1965, translation from Vietnamese courtesy of Lady Borton.

  married and pregnant Emily Morrison: Anne Morrison Welsh letter to “Dear Friends,” May 1999, courtesy of Margot Watson.

  “many, many Vietnamese men cried”: Appy, Patriots, pp. 150–55, 228–31.

  Robert McNamara, in his eighties: Ibid., p. 153.

  “within forty feet of my Pentagon window”: McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 216–17. Although witnesses put the site at least 150 feet from his third-floor office at the Pentagon, McNamara brings it much closer in his 1995 memoir.

  this time in Union Square: DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 129.

  “Do not weep for Norman Morrison”: Zaroulis and Sullivan, Who Spoke Up?, pp. 61–62.

  “I’m a Catholic Worker”: NYT, Nov. 10, 1965, pp. 1, 5.

  “terribly unfortunate”: Ibid.

  Friends of LaPorte said: NYT, Nov. 11, 1965, p. 4; DeBenedetti, Ordeal, p. 130.

  feared that suicide protest would alienate: Robinson, Abraham, p. 202.

  “something radically wrong somewhere”: Friedland, Lift Up, pp. 160–61.

  expired after power was restored: NYT, Nov. 11, 1965, p. 4; Associated Press, World in 1965, pp. 208–13; NYT, Aug. 15, 2003, p. 22.

  “The people of New York City”: Heschel, “No Religion Is an Island,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review, Vol. 21, No. 2, Part 1, Jan. 1966, p. 118.

  24: ENEMY POLITICS

  “I trust that you will not”: MLK to J. William Fulbright, Nov. 8, 1965, A/KP24f49.

  “my influence is not sufficiently strong”: Fulbright to MLK, Dec. 13, 1965, A/KP24f50.

  surrender the purchase documents for a 1965 Chevrolet: Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 8, 1965, FK-NR. The Hosea Williams case, which never became public, began in mid-October and is covered by a host of documents in the FBI’s file on SCLC, beginning Rosen to Belmont, Oct. 18, 1965, headed “Unknown Subjects Morris Findlay, Hosea Williams, Harold Belton Andrews, Interstate Transportation of Stolen Motor Vehicle,” FSC-NR.

  he was determined first to wring a refund: SAC, New York, to Hoover, Nov. 10, 1965, FSC-893. A copy of this wiretap report on Stanley Levison’s conversations about the car investigation made its way into the King section of Hoover’s Official and Confidential Files.

  “Hosea has a problem”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Andrew Young and Stanley Levison, 11:30 A.M., Nov. 6, 1965, FLNY-9-750.

  “Martin acted as if the bottom”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, 12:04 P.M., Nov. 6, 1965, FLNY-9-750a.

  advisers analyzed the treasury crisis: New York LHM dated Nov. 8, 1965, FSC-886; Baumgardner to Sullivan, Nov. 10, 1965, FSC-880.

  to buy Abernathy a new automobile: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between MLK and Stanley Levison, Oct. 1, 1965, FLNY-9-750a; New York LH
M dated Oct. 4, 1965, FSC-717. King reported to Levison that only one of fifty solicited donors had responded, but that Abernathy had obtained a $3,000 car. To avert potential embarrassment, King wanted to reimburse SCLC, and Levison, though sharply critical of Abernathy, agreed to contribute half the money himself.

  King wrote a detailed letter to American Express: MLK to Carl W. Volckmann, American Express Company, Nov. 15, 1965, A/KP2f26; Carl W. Volckmann to Abernathy, Sept. 13, 1965, A/KP2f26.

  introduced by American Express in 1959: Laurel Kamen to the author, Sept. 5, 2003.

  Young and the New York advisers: Int. Harry Wachtel, Nov. 29, 1983.

  resigning his vested career as a chemist: Hosea L. Williams telegram to William M. Seabron in the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Oct. 12, 1965, A/KP35f17.

  “Hosea Williams is the Director”: Rosen to Belmont, Oct. 22, 1965, “Harold Belton Andrews/Interstate Transportation of a Stolen Motor Vehicle,” FSC-NR.

  skeptical federal prosecutors: R. I. Shroder to Rosen, Oct. 28, 1965, FSC-NR; Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 1, 1965, FSC-NR.

  infuriated Deke DeLoach: DeLoach to Mohr, Oct. 29, 1965, FSC-NR.

  Alan Belmont: Belmont to Tolson, Oct. 29, 1965, FK-NR.

  “The Dept Attys may have gotten”: Hoover note on DeLoach to Mohr, Oct. 29, 1965, FSC-NR.

  The FBI scrambled in November: Cf. Rosen to Belmont, Nov. 10, 1965, FSC-894.

  Katzenbach stressed that skilled defense lawyers: Katzenbach oral history by Paige E. Mulhollan, Nov. 12, 1968, p. 33ff., LBJ; int. Nicholas Katzenbach, June 14, 1991.

  months of cajolery: Ibid.; see above, pp. 187–89.

  “As a consequence”: Hoover to “THE ATTORNEY GENERAL,” Sept. 14, 1965, untitled, Section 114, FHOC.

  “Because of the importance”: Hoover, “MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL RE: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,” Oct. 19, 1965, FK-1990; Sullivan to Belmont, Oct. 14, 1995, FK-1981.

  Hoover sent Katzenbach two nearly identical notices: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Oct. 29, 1965, FK-2021; Hoover, “MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERAL RE: MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.,” Dec. 1, 1965, FK-2183.

  Agents recruited bookkeeper James Harrison: Garrow, FBI and King, p. 178.

  “thought and imagination”: Director to SAC, Atlanta, Nov. 10, 1965, FK-2025. For other examples of FBI communications aimed to infiltrate SCLC, and learn more of internal dissension or bickering “which might be exploited under the counterintelligence program,” see Director to SAC, Atlanta, Sept. 27, 1965, FSC-657; SAC, Atlanta, to Director, Nov. 2, 1965, FSC-838; SAC, New York, to Director, Nov. 8, 1965, FSC-856.