Death of a King

by Tavis Smiley

  Though it was a completely different context, perhaps Doc thought of the four innocent girls—three of whom were young teenagers—killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, the same church where Doc and his supporters had often met.

  Lives ended by hatred.

  All lives precious in God’s sight.

  The women had much to say, and Doc carefully considered their words. When they were through, he briefly tried to explain himself. He was a preacher who espoused the Christian gospel of love. His job was to love, not to judge. He spoke of the abysmal social and economic conditions that plagued black America. He described these as desperate times. He also explained why he still clung to his belief in nonviolence. In his view, nonviolence not only ultimately produces positive change but protects the peaceful integrity of our very souls.

  The women may or may not have agreed. But they were moved by the fact that this famous minister had taken the time to hear them out—and had taken them seriously. He said that no matter where we may be in our life’s journey, we are all children of God. That statement touched their hearts.

  After the women left, Doc returned to his reflection on the death of innocence. His mind drifted back to the darkest of days in Birmingham, when he had delivered the eulogy at the funeral of the girls, who, before the detonation of the bomb, were on their way to a Sunday school lesson called “The Love That Forgives.” It was then that he said, “Life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood.… If one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him.… God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.”

  That eulogy was one of the few times Doc was ever seen weeping openly in public.

  A few days after Cleveland, there is no peace in Louisville, the hometown of Muhammad Ali. In national news, there is word that, in retaliation for the boxer’s refusal to be drafted, the World Boxing Association is on the verge of summarily stripping the champ of his championship belt.

  Doc has come to Louisville to join forces with his baby brother, A. D.—the minister at the local Zion Baptist Church—in a march protesting the city’s racist housing practices. Four hundred people join the ministers, who face a bevy of angry hecklers. Rocks hurled by the haters strike both Doc and A. D. The wounds are not critical. Retaliation is not an option. The brothers march on.

  Later that day the news about Ali is confirmed: his antiwar stance has gotten him banned from boxing. A. D. remembers how only a month ago, during the SCLC board meeting right here in Louisville, Doc excused himself from a strategy session and slipped away to a private meeting with Ali.

  The two men—the Baptist pacifist preacher and the Muslim heavyweight brawler—understand each other on the deepest level. Both charismatic stars, they are continually pursued by willing women wherever they travel. But each is also a serious thinker who addresses the issue of racism in a unique way. Despite Ali’s close association with Malcolm X, he sees King as a fighter for the cause of justice. Doc applauds Ali’s brave opposition to the war. He has been moved by Ali’s commonsense statement widely embraced by the black community: “You keep asking me, no matter how long, about the war in Vietnam, I sing this song. I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong. Ain’t no Vietcong ever called me nigger.”

  “He is giving up even fame,” Doc would later say in support of the champ. “He is giving up millions of dollars in order to stand up for what his conscience tells him is right.… There is a very dangerous development in the nation now to equate dissent with disloyalty.”

  While Doc’s public work is all about peaceful dissent, disloyalty to his wife, Coretta, brings heavy guilt to his heart. It is, for instance, after meeting with Ali and concluding the SCLC board meeting in Louisville that Doc begins what Georgia Davis, a woman who will soon be elected the first black state senator in Kentucky, would claim decades later to be an affair with her.

  Back in Atlanta on the last Sunday in April, Doc uses his sermon to sort out his feelings. He wants his church to understand this uproar over his antiwar position. He implores Stokely Carmichael, who happens to be in the city, to attend the morning service at Ebenezer. At the Mobilization rally in New York, Stokely was clearly the star. Now here in his home church, playing on his home court, Doc is eager for the young radical to hear him at his very best. Doc feels an urgent need to gain Stokely’s allegiance.

  “They applauded us when we non-violently decided to sit in at lunch counters,” Doc preaches. “They applauded us on the Freedom Rides when we accepted blows without retaliation. They praised us in Albany and Birmingham and Selma.… Oh, the press was so noble in its applause, so noble in its praise when I was saying be non-violent toward Bull Connor.… There’s something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that will praise you when you say, ‘Be non-violent toward [segregationist sheriff] Jim Clark,’ but will curse you and damn you when you say, ‘Be non-violent toward little brown Vietnamese children.’ There’s something wrong with the press.”

  Doc doesn’t go long without mentioning “the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking out against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men, for communists and capitalists, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that he died for them? What, then, can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro, or to Mao, as a faithful minister to Jesus Christ? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life? Finally, I must be true to my conviction that I share with all men, the calling to be the son of the Living God. Beyond the calling of race or nation or creed is this vocation of sonship and brotherhood. And because I believe the Father is deeply concerned, especially for His suffering and helpless and outcast children, I come today to speak for them.”

  A little later in the sermon, looking directly at Carmichael, Doc becomes more pointedly political.

  “Oh, my friends,” he preaches, “if there is any one thing that we must see today it is that these are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people are rising up as never before.…

  “I speak out against this war, not in anger, but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and, above all, with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as a moral example of the world.”

  At the end of the sermon, Stokely is among those who rise to give the preacher a standing ovation.

  Doc wonders whether he has really won over Carmichael and the impatient black youth whom Carmichael represents. He wonders whether he has even won over the confidence of his own organization, increasingly critical of his every move.

  No matter: it is good to be home, good to be together with Coretta and his young children, Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice, good to preach at Ebenezer before those who know and love him best. Among his beloved congregation, the goodwill is strong.

  But the goodwill does not transfer to other settings, or other cities. In the venomous climate of America in 1967, goodwill is one thing that does not last long.

  Chapter Five

  THE BLOODIEST MONTH OF ALL

  It’s the third week of May and the weather has turned warm in Savannah, Georgia. Doc lets out a long sigh as he walks off the plane. It’s been a hellacious winter and spring. He welcomes this early taste of summer’s heat. He also welcomes the idea of being whisked off to South Carolina’s St. Helena Island, a retreat that affords him an opportunity to relax. And yet the prospect
of meeting with the entire staff of SCLC—some seventy members strong—is far from relaxing. The organization is at war with itself. More than at any other time in SCLC history, the rank and file are emboldened to question Doc’s leadership. Just as firebrand radicals like Carmichael are upstaging Doc from outside SCLC, there are young leaders inside the group who represent the same kind of generational divide.

  Jesse Jackson, for example, is the tall, dashing, twenty-five-year-old former football hero turned minister turned rising star. Having taken over Operation Breadbasket in Chicago—a branch of SCLC that focuses on economic equity in the urban ghettoes—Jackson appeals to youth in a way that Doc does not. Even Doc’s staunchest supporters are beginning to whisper among themselves that if anyone can compete with the Black Power advocates for the heart and soul of the black community, it’s going to be a charismatic figure like Jesse, not Doc.

  For now, though, Doc puts away those thoughts. He greets Tom Barnwell, who has come to the airport to drive him to St. Helena Island, an hour up the coast.

  “Loosen your tie, Doc,” says Tom, “and enjoy the ride.”

  The most formal of men, Doc rarely removes his coat and tie, but St. Helena is one spot where he can loosen up. St. Helena is a lush sea island, a casual-clothes-only kind of place. Free from the pressure of reporters or photographers, Doc can stroll the forty acres of the Penn Center, the grounds of one of the earliest schools for freed slaves and the location of the SCLC conference. Penn is also one of the few settings in the Deep South where interracial conclaves have been conducted without hassle. It is a bucolic sanctuary, a place apart.

  Driving up Highway 21, Tom relishes this time alone with Doc. A man who speaks his mind, Tom wants to talk economics. He initiates a conversation about his concern that SCLC’s focus on boycotting businesses refusing to recirculate money back into black neighborhoods could negatively impact black employees of those very businesses. Brothers and sisters could lose their jobs.

  Although Doc usually enjoys a lively intellectual exchange, this time he resists. With the window rolled down and fresh air blowing in, he’d rather relax, have a smoke, and save the heavy discussions till later.

  “No, Brother Barnwell,” is all he says, “the Lord will provide.”

  Sensing that Doc isn’t in a talkative mood, Tom asks whether he’d like to listen to the radio. Of course. When Tom explains that there may not be gospel music at this time of day, Doc assures him that there’s nothing wrong with a little rhythm and blues. Tom slides the dial to a station that’s playing the opening strains of “When Something Is Wrong with My Baby,” the current hit by Sam and Dave, one of Doc’s favorites.

  A fan of the deep-fried Southern soul coming off Memphis’s Stax record label, Doc lets his mind slide back to a few months earlier, when, on an off night in New York, he slipped into Madison Square Garden to see Ike and Tina Turner open for Sam and Dave. The memory brings a smile to his lips. Tina sang and shimmied with such sensuous sway that the crowd wouldn’t stop calling her name—“Tina! Tina! Tina!”—even after she had exited the stage and Sam and Dave had come on. The Dynamic Duo, as Sam and Dave were billed, finally won over the fans, but only after removing their jackets and shirts. Doc loved the show from start to finish. Along with the rest of the crowd, he got his groove on. He felt renewed. Backstage, he congratulated the guys, acknowledging the herculean effort it had taken, after Tina’s triumph, to recapture the musical momentum. He took the opportunity to ask Sam and Dave to join him on an SCLC fund-raising tour he is planning for this summer. The guys unhesitatingly agreed. So had Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Harry Belafonte, and the Staple Singers.

  As the Sam and Dave song fades, Doc thinks ahead to the tour. Given SCLC’s precarious finances, it’s critical that the concerts are successful.

  “I found a gospel station, Doc,” says Tom Barnwell. “This should make you happy.”

  It does. It’s an old Mahalia Jackson hymn from way back when—“In the Upper Room.” The story is about dwelling in the upper room with Jesus, trusting his grace and power, seeking his love in prayer. The enormous richness of her voice stirs Doc mightily. He struggles to keep from crying—not for sadness but for the melodic majesty of God’s glory. Doc is close not only to the song but to the singer herself. He calls his friend “Halie.” The only woman at the podium during the March on Washington, Halie, the consummate performer, was the one who realized on that monumental day that Doc’s oration was at one point beginning to lag.

  “Tell ’em about the dream, Doc,” Halie urged King, having heard him employ the catchphrase in earlier speeches. “Tell ’em about the dream.”

  When Doc took her cue and began reciting the “I have a dream” refrain, Halie broke into a wide smile. The day was won.

  This day in South Carolina is being brightened by the music from Tom Barnwell’s radio. Soul music, whether secular or sacred, energizes Doc’s spirit. The low-country landscape soothes his eyes as the sound of another gospel favorite, the Caravans’ “Mary, Don’t You Weep,” soothes his ears. While there is no reason to weep, there is good reason to gird himself for a conference that will be anything but soothing.

  In a small cottage on the edge of the Penn Center campus in St. Helena Island’s Frogmore community, Doc awakes after a restless night. The full staff is waiting for him in the main meeting room. He walks through the marshy terrain at a brisk pace, hoping that the daytime portion of the conference will adjourn while there is still enough light for a softball game.

  He thinks back on the recent tensions and sharp divisions inside SCLC, an organization that is more fractious than ever. His top-ranking lieutenant and closest friend, Ralph Abernathy, a fellow Baptist preacher and the man with whom Doc began the Montgomery Bus Boycott back in the winter of ’55, has been demonstrably discontent since traveling to Sweden for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in the winter of ’64. Outside the hotel, the honor guard arrived in a grand state car to drive the party to the ceremony at the University of Oslo. Doc and Coretta got in the car, but when Abernathy made a move to join them, he was abruptly stopped. Ralph protested, explaining that, along with Doc, he was a coleader of the movement. The guard was unmoved. No entrée for Ralph. Abernathy’s jaw tightened. It became even tighter when, believing that he should have been given half of the $54,000 prize money, he received nothing. Doc, the youngest man in history to receive this honor, put the entire amount back into the movement, not only rejecting Abernathy’s plea but Coretta’s as well. She had wanted to use the funds to set up a $5,000 college fund for each of their four children.

  It was during the Nobel Prize acceptance speech that Doc expressed his “audacious faith in the future of mankind.” He went on, “I refuse to accept the idea that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life which surrounds him. I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

  “I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.”

  The Oslo trip had been planned by Bayard Rustin, the great intellectual strategist who had led Doc to Gandhi’s nonviolent philosophy. Bayard is also an unapologetically gay member of the SCLC inner circle. He is now among the most vehement opponents of the Riverside speech. This week at Frogmore there is painful tension between Doc and Bayard. Regarding Rustin, Doc also carries a bit of guilt.

  Back in the summer of 1960, Rustin had put together a plan to march on the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. This was the convocation that nominated the John Kennedy / Lyndon Johnson ticket to oppose Richard Nixon / Henry Cabot Lodge. The protest was to underscore civil rights issues. But Adam Clayton Powell Jr. of New York, the powerful black congressman and ch
arismatic Harlem minister, opposed the march, viewing it as an unnecessary disruption. When Rustin refused to cancel it, Powell threatened to reveal false information that Doc and Bayard were lovers. Troubled by how such rumors might injure the cause, Doc took his time in making a decision. Meanwhile, convinced of the importance of the demonstration, Rustin took matters into his own hands. He gave up his position as special assistant to King and director of the New York office of SCLC. He expected Doc to reject the resignation. When, in fact, Doc accepted it, Bayard was crushed. A. J. Muste, the brilliant clergyman-activist, wrote that he was “personally ashamed of Martin.”

  Eventually Rustin went back to work for Doc and planned some of the movement’s most spectacular successes. At this moment, though—in May 1967—Bayard’s estrangement only adds to Doc’s feeling of isolation, even as he walks into the meeting hall, where dozens of staff members are milling about.

  Over sweet rolls and coffee there’s a feeling of nervous anticipation. Doc is greeted warmly. His subordinates are always excited by his presence, and it’s not too often that they see him in an open-collared short-sleeve shirt.

  Before things get started, Frieda Mitchell, a teacher who will eventually become the first black school board member in Beaufort County, South Carolina, approaches Doc. She realizes that this may not be the right time or place, but she has wanted to ask him a question for years. She’s thinking of all the ugly and humiliating oppression that she has faced as a black woman living in the South.

  “How can you tell me to love people who treat me as if I were not human?” she asks Doc.

  Doc sees the sincerity in Frieda’s eyes. He carefully considers her question. “We are created in God’s image,” he says. “So you love the image of God in that person.”

  As the meeting kicks off and his allies confront him about his vision of what SCLC must do this coming summer, Doc tries to remember the words he has just spoken to Frieda. It isn’t easy.