Pillar of Fire
Page 89
William Stringfellow stunned: Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 15, 1963. Also numerous interviews including Albert Vorspan (who also served on Stringfellow’s panel), Aug. 13, 1992; Metz Rollins, Dec. 13, 1991. “I feared for Bill’s life,” recalled Rev. Will D. Campbell (int. Will D. Campbell, Aug. 13, 1992), adding that Rabbi Heschel was puzzled by Stringfellow’s additional comment that Americans had failed the race issue for lack of a proper baptism, meaning a rebirth to a wholly new outlook. “Why did he say that?” Heschel asked Campbell. “What if I said the issue is circumcision?”
advance text of Rev. Will D. Campbell: Time, Jan. 25, 1963, p. 66; int. Will D. Campbell, Aug. 13, 1992.
“It is too late for us”: Ibid. Also Chicago Tribune, Jan. 16, 1963.
“our whole future as a nation”: NYT, Jan. 15, 1963, p. 16.
handwritten additions reflected a raw edginess: Speech, “A Challenge to the Churches and Synagogues,” Jan. 17, 1963, A/KS4. Also CD, Jan. 19, 1963, p. 1.
“I wonder why”: Chicago Daily News, Jan. 16, 1963.
“The greatest heresy is despair”: Chicago Sun-Times, Jan. 16, 1963. Also Ahmann, Challenge to Religion, p. 55ff.
“We all died”: Heschel, Echo of Eternity, p. 112.
“Moralists of all ages”: Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 1, p. 204.
eager devotion of King: Int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991; int. C. T. Vivian, May 26, 1990.
recognized by W. E. B. Du Bois: In Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, p. 216: “…the preacher is the most unique personality developed by the Negro on American soil.”
“May the problem of race”: Speech, “A Challenge to the Churches and Synagogues,” Jan. 17, 1963, A/KS4.
Heschel quoted the same: Ahmann, Challenge to Religion, p. 70; reprinted in Heschel, Insecurity of Freedom, pp. 85-100.
to illustrate the emotive force: Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 1, pp. 212-13.
“the voice that God has lent”: Ibid., p. 5.
vowed to see more of each other: Int. Marc Tanenbaum, Jan. 2, 1990, and Feb. 5, 1991; int. Albert Vorspan, Aug. 13, 1992; int. Arnold Aronson, March 5, 1991.
“We just thought”: Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 13, 1963.
“doleful hand wringing”: Time, Jan. 25, 1963, p. 66.
volunteer clergy resolved to continue: Int. Mathew Ahmann and Jerome Ernst, Feb. 12, 1991; int. Metz Rollins, Dec. 13, 1991.
“bring sanity back”: Mathew Ahmann confidential report, Oct. 6, 1963, A/SC35f28.
3. LBJ IN ST. AUGUSTINE
Lyndon Johnson waved: Florida Times-Union, March 11, 1963, p. 1, March 12, 1963, p. 1; Miami Herald, March 12, 1963, p. 14A; Daily Diary of the Vice President, March 11, 1963, LBJ.
Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés: Colburn, Racial Change, p. 13; Lyon, Enterprise of Florida, passim; int. Eugene Lyon, Dec. 10, 1992.
presence at Nombre de Dios: Lyon, Enterprise of Florida, p. 115.
exterminate an explorer’s colony of French Huguenots: Running just ahead of the Spanish competition, Charles IX of France had sent two expeditions to build a surviving but hard-pressed French outpost at Fort Caroline, near the mouth of the present St. Johns River in Florida. Menéndez conquered Fort Caroline on September 20, 1565, and later executed two groups of straggling prisoners in numbers totaling some four hundred. Ibid., pp. 120-27.
five hundred African slaves: In December 1565 Menéndez asked King Philip for an additional one thousand slave licenses for use in Florida, but complicated reversals forced his return to Spain before he could pursue his plans. Ibid., pp. 136-37.
earliest documentary slave records: Lyon, Richer Than We Thought, pp. 75-76, 96-97.
more than fifty years before: The work of several historians, including Eugene Lyon, Paul Hoffman, and Jane Landers, indicates that Spaniards actually held African bondsmen on future U.S. territory even before Menéndez reached St. Augustine in 1565. Beginning with Ponce de León in 1513, expeditions by Spanish colonizers such as Lucas Vázquez de Ayllon (1526), Panfilo de Narváez (1528), and Hernando de Soto (1539) had royal permission to bring up to one hundred slaves. Vázquez de Ayllon brought eight slaves, some of whom staged a revolt in 1526—more than eighty years before the first English colonists landed at Jamestown in 1607. But the Spanish settlements earlier than St. Augustine did not survive and most demographic records perished with them. See Jane Landers, “Africans in the Land of Ayllon” in Cook, Land of Ayllon, pp. 105-23; Hoffman, New Andalucía, esp. pp. 60, 78, 82; Lyon, Enterprise of Florida, pp. 39, 54, 136-37, 195.
fn “Twenty Negars”: e.g. Woodson, Negro in Our History, p. 21; Quarles, Negro in the Making, p. 33; Lincoln, Negro Pilgrimage, pp. 10-11; Jordan, White Over Black, p. 44; Rice, Black Slavery, pp. 52-53; Grant, Black Protest, pp. 7-17.
chartering Fort Mose: Jane Landers, “Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida,” American Historical Review, Spring 1990, pp. 9-30.
penalty of castration: Jordan, White Over Black, p. 155.
archevil haven: Religious passion inflamed the colonial competition between the English and Spanish, and it also complicated each side’s attitude toward the subordinated peoples. As a general rule, Spaniards considered their idea of slavery less odious to Africans than English chattel slavery. On the other hand, they felt at a disadvantage in dealing with Native Americans, in part because to them the Protestant departure from the structured doctrine of the Catholic Church was so shocking as to seem somehow in league with the vague practices of the Indians. According to Lyon, adelantado Menéndez himself “was strongly convinced that Protestant heretics and American aboriginals held similar beliefs, probably Satanic in origin.” Lyon, Enterprise of Florida, p. 42.
“Turnbull’s niggers”: Int. David Nolan, April 4, 1991; Gannon, Florida: A Short History, pp. 20-21.
polls showed Robert Ripley: Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 102.
faces instead of their backs: Int. Michael V. Gannon, April 2, 1991. As the priest-historian in charge of the St. Augustine mission, Gannon accompanied Archbishop Hurley to Rome for the first session of the Vatican Council in the fall of 1962.
“Fifty-five”: Int. Michael V. Gannon, Dec. 12, 1992.
letter asking Johnson: Fulwood and Hawthorne to LBJ, Feb. 23, 1963, III-C-24, NAACP.
three formal readings: Int. Fannie Fulwood, April 6, 1991.
“no event in which I will participate”: LBJ to Fulwood, March 7, 1963, David Colburn papers, UF.
chief aide to Florida Senator George Smathers: Int. Scott Peek, Dec. 10, 1992. Peek was administrative assistant to Smathers. Also int. Fannie Fulwood, April 6, 1991. Documentary references to the negotiations before LBJ’s visit include the transcript of a March 12, 1963, meeting with the St. Augustine city manager, III-C-24, NAACP; Fulwood and Hawthorne to President Kennedy, May 4, 1963, Box 24, Lee White Papers, JFK; Colburn, Racial Change, pp. 32-33; Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, pp. 18-19.
a mob had punished: Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, p. 15.
Henry Thomas decided to apply: Int. Henry Thomas, March 14, 1991; Colburn, Racial Change, p. 28.
Henry Thomas had become: Branch, Parting, pp. 412-18, 472-84.
froze up inside: Int. Fannie Fulwood, April 6, 1991.
Roy Wilkins called: Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, p. 18.
$159 phone bill: Gloster Current (national director of branches, NAACP) to Robert Saunders (Florida field secretary), March 22, 1963, III-C-305, NAACP.
Reedy, true to his promise: Int. Fannie Fulwood, April 6, 1991; int. Katherine and Henry Twine, April 2, 1991.
beneath the Tojetti ceilings: Gannon, Florida: A Short History, p. 57.
treasurer to Smathers: Herbert E. Wolfe owned several banks and a construction company, among other holdings: Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, p. 12.
“I’m eatin’ with ’em!”: Int. Scott Peek, Dec. 10, 1992.
“Don’t forget us”: Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, pp. 17-18.
“St. Augustine Pledged”: Florida Times-Union, March 12, 1963, pp. 1, 2, 21, 25.
“the local problem which existed”: Scott Peek to George Reedy, March 13 and March 14, 1963, Box 226, Vice Presidential Papers, LBJ.
tape recorder on an empty table: Colburn, Racial Change, p. 33.
“would make the city” to “they should have the fortitude to say so”: Transcript of “Informal Conference between City Manager Charles F. Barrier and Representatives of local branch of NAACP, held in office of city manager on March 12, 1963,” III-C-24, NAACP.
deceived with false promises: Ibid. Also Eubanks and Hayling to Vice President Johnson, Aug. 3, 1963, cited in “Racial and Civil Disorders in St. Augustine,” a Report of the Legislative Investigation Committee of the Florida Legislature, Feb. 1965, pp. 67-68, reprinted in Garrow, ed., St. Augustine. In its “Report on the Open Meeting in St. Augustine, Florida, August 16 [1963],” the Florida Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded that “promises of meeting with the Negro leaders were violated immediately on his [LBJ’s] departure”—Papers of Judge Brian Simplon, UF.
“Since St. Augustine”: Fullerwood and Hawthorne to JFK, May 4, 1963, Box 24, Lee White Papers. JFK. The letter actually reads “it’s [sic] inception.”
Kennedy did not reply: On behalf of Fullerwood, Hayling wrote JFK’s assistant press secretary Andrew Hatcher on May 26, pressing for an answer to the May 4 letter, but no response appears in the files. Box 24, Lee White Papers, JFK.
“defeats the very purpose”: Garrow, ed., St. Augustine, p. 20. Shelley actually wrote “polarities,” corrected here to “polarizes.”
“People on the scene”: Blind memorandum on St. Augustine, appended to an Aug. 8, 1963, letter to Wyatt Walker from Hobart Taylor, Jr., executive vice chairman of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, A/KP20f40.
4. GAMBLERS IN LAW
Jones worked simultaneously: Cf. April 1963 correspondence between Jones and Melvin Wulf regarding the entry of the ACLU into the Sullivan case as an amicus, A/KP11f24.
servants to the Lippincott family: Branch, Parting, pp. 317-18; int. Clarence Jones, Nov. 22 and Nov. 25, 1983.
“When a gambler gets”: James v. Powell, Jr., Record on Appeal, Supreme Court, New York County Index No. 11333-1960, p. 267; NYT, April 4, 1963, p. 37.
“Cool Breeze, you can’t”: James v. Powell, Jr., p. 253.
in the head with a hammer: Ibid., p. 130ff. On James’s background, see also WP, Feb. 14, 1967, p. B11, together with W. Montague Cobb to Drew Pearson, Feb. 17, 1967, Box G260, Drew Pearson Papers, LBJ.
“Do I look like a fool to you?”: James v. Powell, Jr., Record on Appeal, Supreme Court, New York County Index No. 11333-1960, p. 267.
slipped into the courtroom with a whispered: Int. Charles McKinney, Jan. 21, 1992.
neither they nor Powell’s closest aides: Ibid. Also int. Percy Sutton, Nov. 28, 1989; int. Livingstone Wingate, July 8, 1992.
opposing lawyer summoned Powell: NYT, April 4, 1963, p. 37.
crippled Jewish children: NYT, April 5, 1963, pp. 1, 20.
advertisement placed by friends: NYT, March 29, 1960, p. 25. On New York Times v. Sullivan, see Lewis, Make No Law, passim; Branch, Parting, pp. 289-96, 370-71.
damages of $500,000: Lewis, Make No Law, pp. 35, 151.
“I hold in my hand”: Powell speech of Jan. 13, 1960, reprinted in the Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3007.
“Louis the Gimp”: Ibid.
“both numbers and narcotics”: Powell speech of Feb. 25, 1960, reprinted in the Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3013.
“pauperizing Harlem”: Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., p. 430.
all 212 New York police captains: Powell speech of Feb. 25, 1960, reprinted in the Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3013.
“We have in our hands”: Powell speech of Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3035.
first salvos drew: In a notable exception, the New York Post did publish a series on police corruption in the rackets, beginning on Feb. 29, 1960. The team of reporters, headed by the pioneer Negro journalist at a major white news organization, Ted Poston, openly acknowledged Powell as a catalyst.
“All pads are due”: Powell speech of Feb. 25, 1960, reprinted in the Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3013.
only the quiet resignation: Powell speech of March 2, 1960, reprinted in the Feb. 18, 1965, Congressional Record, p. 3013ff.
“who lives luxuriously”: Ibid.
reiterate the “bag” system: Powell speeches of Feb. 25 and March 2, 1960, ibid.
trapdoors of public scandal: Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., pp. 434-45; Jacobs, Freedom Minus One, p. 116ff.
Supreme Court agreed to review: On January 7, 1963. Jacobs, Freedom Minus One, p. 112.
“a 66-year-old domestic”: NYT, April 5, 1963, p. 20. Another newspaper rhapsodized over Esther James as a “good citizen” who fought a lonely battle against sinister forces, including Powell and the mob: New York World Telegram, April 5, 1963, p. 3.
“If you dance”: Branch, Parting, p. 277.
no racial issues pressed: Lewis, Make No Law, p. 109.
King lawyers welcomed: Int. Clarence Jones, Nov. 22, 1983; int. Harry Wachtel, Oct. 27, 1983.
split off the newspaper: Ibid. Also Lewis, Make No Law, p. 43.
seize the property of the four preachers: Ibid. Also Branch, Parting, pp. 571, 580.
Lord, Day & Lord: Lewis, Make No Law, p. 43.
“the unfriendliest newspaper”: Adam Clayton Powell speech of Feb. 18, 1965, in Congressional Record of same day, p. 3037.
detailed account on the front page: “Powell Assailed in House Speech” (by Rep. John Ashbrook), NYT, Feb. 27, 1963, p. 1.
Arthur Powers was shot: NYT, Oct. 21, 1964, p. 23.
“finger woman”: Adam Clayton Powell speech of Feb. 18, 1965, in Congressional Record of same day, p. 3035.
“I am against numbers”: NYT, Jan. 4, 1960, p. 9.
offended editors: Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., p. 432.
“his notably racist attitudes”: NYT, Jan. 26, 1960, p. 32.
possessed soul: Glenn T. Eskew in Garrow, Birmingham, pp. 13-62.
conviction from the 1961 Freedom Rides: Lewis, Make No Law, pp. 162-63.
Shuttlesworth had assured King: Branch, Parting, p. 691. Andrew Young recalled the vote of the ministers in a speech at Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Nov. 15, 1992.
out of jail and back again: Branch, Parting, pp. 708-11, 725-31.
“I’m writing this letter”: Int. Clarence Jones, Nov. 25, 1983.
“when the cup of endurance”: “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” quotations from Washington, Testament of Hope, pp. 289-303.
addressed the eight Birmingham clergy in dozens of voices: Branch, Parting, pp. 734-45.
shockingly held kings and peasants: Heschel, The Prophets, Vol. 1, pp. 159-67.
the power of the appeal lay dormant: Branch, Parting, p. 744.
still another landmark Supreme Court case: Walker v. City of Birmingham. Sec Westin, Trial of Martin Luther King, passim.
5. TO VOTE IN MISSISSIPPI: ADVANCE BY RETREAT
Moses was not from Mississippi: Moses description from Branch, Parting, pp. 325-31, 492ff.
Doar sought out Moses: Branch, Parting, pp. 508-10.
clandestine tour of Mississippi: Ibid., pp. 401-11; John Doar speech, “The Work of the Civil Rights Division in Enforcing Voting Rights Under the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960,” courtesy of John Doar.
crammed Moses and seventeen others: Charles McDew oral history, p. 82ff, CRDP/OH.
“We had, to put it mildly”: Branch, Parting, p. 560.
“continuing problem”: “Special Report Mississippi Field Secretary,” dated Oct. 12, 1961, and cover memo from Gloster B. Current, NAACP Director of Branches, dated Oct. 31, 1961, III-A-253, NAACP.
Medgar Evers broke down: Salter, Jackson, Mississippi, p. 21; Evers, For Us, the Living, pp. 215-23; Silver, Closed Society, pp. 93-95; Lord, P
ast That Would Not Die, p. 66.
insisted that his own wife: Evers, For Us, the Living, p. 139.
“That’s all right, son”: Ibid., p. 225.
Vernon Dahmer (pronounced “Daymer”): Sources include interviews with his widow, Ellie Dahmer, and numerous family, June 21, 1992; Vernon Dahmer, Jr., June 23, 1992; Alvin Dahmer, Jan. 12, 1993; Raylawni Young Branch, June 22, 1992; Hollis Watkins, June 22, 1992; Victoria Gray Adams, May 14, 1991; Lawrence Guyot, Feb. 1, 1991; Joyce Ladner, Feb. 22, 1991; J. C. Fairley, June 20, 1992; Rev. John Cameron, June 23, 1992; Rev. Robert Beech, Dec. 8, 1991; J. L. Martin, June 21, 1992. Also int. Hollis Watkins by Joe Sinsheimer, Feb. 13, 1985; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 236ff; and the Vernon Dahmer research file, courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
collecting the eggs: Int. Alvin Dahmer, Jan, 12, 1993.
had not allowed a single Negro: United States v. Lynd, 301 F.2d 818 (1962), p. 821.
Dahmer lost his bank credit: Int. Dahmer family, June 21, 1992.
met secretly in the Dahmer living room: Ibid. Also int. Raylawni Young Branch, June 22, 1992.
that Dahmer be expelled from Shady Grove: Ibid. Also int. J. C. Fairley, June 20, 1992; int. Alvin Dahmer, Jan. 12, 1993. The Dahmers recall that those expelled with Vernon Dahmer were George Kelly (a cousin), Major Bourne (owner of the downtown Negro grocery), and Silas Newell.
Moses pleaded: Int. Hollis Watkins, June 22, 1992; int. Hollis Watkins by Joe Sinsheimer, Feb. 13, 1985; int. Dahmer family, June 21, 1992.
meeting of NAACP chapter presidents: Together with interview material from Moses, Hollis Watkins, and the Dahmer family, the rough dates fit best with an NAACP convention described in Salter, Jackson, Mississippi, pp. 34-35.
“I’ll take them both”: Background on the placement of Watkins and Hayes at the Dahmer farm from interviews with Robert P. Moses, Feb. 15, 1991; int. Dahmer family, June 21, 1992; int. Hollis Watkins, June 22, 1992, and Jan. 11, 1993.
workshops on nonviolence: Branch, Parting, pp. 143, 204-5, 260-64, 274-93.
Nash who sent: Ibid., pp. 424-25, 430-44.
Nashville trio stayed on: Zinn, New Abolitionists, p. 79; int. James Bevel, May 17, 1985.
shrewdly prosecuted Nash and Bevel: Jet, Dec. 21, 1961, pp. 6-7.