Pillar of Fire

by Taylor Branch

  Barnett was the brother: Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 25, 1964, FMB-1227.

  guarded even from his employers: Katzenbach pressed FBI officials to reveal how they had located the three bodies, fearing that extralegal methods such as wiretaps might “taint” evidence for the entire case. After a long bureaucratic struggle, the FBI acknowledged paying a confidential source for the location, but Sullivan refused to reveal the identity of the source to the Justice Department, fearing leaks and threats on the source’s life. Cf. Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 16, 1964, FMB-NR; Rosen to [redacted], Sept. 17, 1964, FMB-1172; Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 21, 1964, FMB-NR.

  “all of your agents”: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 172.

  Katzenbach wired formal orders: Rosen to Belmont, Sept. 25, 1964, FMB-1226.

  eight-point contingency plan: Ibid., pp. 2-3.

  begged not to be called: Mars, Witness, pp. 134-40.

  Sullivan cajoled witnesses: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  Officer Wallace Miller: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 157-62; Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, pp. 429-31.

  “If Wallace Miller”: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  outdone by a young street agent: Ibid.

  “I’ve been expecting you”: Vollers, Ghosts of Mississippi, pp. 220-21.

  hundred dollars a week: Huie, Three Lives, p. 154.

  forty pages of notes: Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, p. 434.

  Sam Bowers quoted: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 175-76.

  “Once we had Miller”: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  “the greatest repository”: NYT, Sept. 28, 1964, p. 1.

  Philadelphia riot police: NYT, Sept. 1, 1964, p. 1.

  firebombs struck [the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner]: Cf. LAT, Aug. 20, 1964.

  stomped them on a Sunday afternoon: Boston FBI report dated Sept. 16, 1964 (including Barnette statement of Sept. 2, 1964), FMXNY-4966; Aubrey Barnette with Edward Linn, “The Black Muslims Are a Fraud,” Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 27, 1965.

  Rev. Virgil Wood ran behind: Int. Virgil Wood, Aug. 2, 1994.

  fn “Now the Black Muslims”: Kup’s Show, Feb. 27, 1965, transcript in Chicago FBI report of March 15, 1965, FMX-NR.

  twenty-two people had heard Benjamin 2X: New York LHM dated Sept. 10, 1964, FMXNY-4946.

  shutting down the wiretap: Assistant Attorney General J. Walter Yeagley to Hoover, Sept. 2, 1964, FMX-149; Hoover to SAC, New York, Oct. 2, 1964, FMX-155.

  fn closing intercept: SAC, New York, to Director, Oct. 2, 1964, FMX-163, p. 7; SAC, New York, to Director, Oct. 3, 1964, FMX-159.

  “does not have a hundred”: SAC, Chicago, to Director, Sept. 8, 1964, FMX-NR.

  “Other messengers like Moses”: NYT, Aug. 28, 1964, p. 28.

  “to be the strongest black man”: Chicago American, Sept. 15, 1964; news clip in RS, File 589, CHS.

  Philadelphia’s Venango Ballroom: Philadelphia LHM dated Oct. 8, 1964, FMXNY-5036, pp. 1-9; int. Benjamin Karim, March 19, 1991.

  Muslims should forget: Ibid. Also int. Warith D. Mohammed, Nov. 14, 1991.

  Wallace knowingly launched: Chicago LHM dated Aug. 19, 1964, FMXNY-4880.

  Peabody unexpectedly lost: NYT, Sept. 12, 1964, p. 10.

  “everything on a silver platter”: NYT, Sept. 21, 1964, p. 1.

  one million people hailed: White, The Making, pp. 366-67; Miller, Lyndon, pp. 481-82; Valenti, Very Human President, pp. 160-61.

  Berkeley students protested: Heirich, The Beginning, pp. 98-119.

  “All right”: Ibid., p. 118.

  expeditions of five hundred: Viorst, Fire in the Streets, pp. 290-91.

  “the Muslims pulled a car”: FBI wiretap intercept reported in SAC, Phoenix, to SAC, Boston, Oct. 2, 1964, FMXNY-5010.

  eventual conviction in January: Aubrey Barnette with Edward Linn, “The Black Muslims Are a Fraud,” Saturday Evening Post, Feb. 27, 1965, p. 29.

  DcLoach took a bulletin: Lee White to LBJ, Oct. 1, 1964, Ex HU2/ST24, LBJ.

  editor hazarded: Dittmer, Local People, pp. 309-11.

  “local officials are publicly”: Lee White to LBJ, Sept. 30, 1964, w/ attached Katzenbach to LBJ, Sept. 28, 1964, Ex HU2/ST24, LBJ.

  Four Episcopal ministers: NYT, Oct. 1, 1964, p. 32.

  “Some were bombings by white people.”: Ibid.

  Dittmer later discounted: Dittmer, Local People, p. 310.

  three Klansmen: NYT, Oct. 2, 1964, p. 27; speech of Gov. Paul Johnson, Oct. 1, 1964, WLBT news film 2770/F1800, MDAH; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 166-68; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Law Enforcement, pp. 37-39. The U.S. Civil Rights Commission reported that most of the weekly bombings were carried out by a Ku Klux Klan klavern called the South Pike Rifleman’s Association, organized as an affiliate of the National Rifle Association in order to purchase arms and ammunition at discount. The klavern was known informally as the Wolf Pack.

  King announced this news: NYT, Oct. 2, 1964, p. 27; Jet, Oct. 14, 1964, pp. 4-7.

  fn transcripts of the McComb broadcasts: Vol. 9, FCC Case No. 16663, NA.

  fn landmark 1969 decision: WLBT case summary, Cole and Ottinger, Reluctant Regulators, pp. 63-68.

  Watkins soon released: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, pp. 169-71.

  “blindness and indifference”: Tucker, Mississippi from Within, p. 127.

  Pearson sent bond money: “Running Summary of Incidents During the ‘Freedom Vote’ Campaign,” pp. 89-90, A/KP7f26.

  “Statement of Principles”: Dittmer, Local People, p. 312.

  “Judge Orders Secrecy”: NYT, Oct. 3, 1964, p. 1.

  fn first baby boom cohort: Jones, Great Expectations, pp. 70-73.

  all Thursday night huge throngs: Heirich, The Beginning, pp. 129-44; Viorst, Fire in the Streets, pp. 291-92.

  FBI agents arrested: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 174.

  “Violence Not Linked”: NYT, Oct. 4, 1964, p. 1.

  located Jimmy Jordan: Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 179.

  Proctor petitioned: Int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991.

  “affiliations, the black-white problem”: Anonymous, “Introduction: Semi-Introspective,” paper for the Nov. 1964 Waveland conference, b1f11, A/CS.

  “Why do we organize”: Memo re “SNCC Staff Retreat,” Oct. 1964, b1f11, A/SC.

  “After the election”: Memo “From Sherrod,” ibid. It begins: “First of all, let us thank God for the wisdom of the pinched toe and the empty belly.” It ends: “We were kids; now we’re grown-up-almost. We still have a little time before the giant awakes. This may be the last time; I don’t know.”

  “Well, shit on”: Minutes, 5th District Meeting, Nov. 25, 1964, A/SN 100f13, p. 9.

  “I have begun to split up”: Anonymous, “Introduction: Semi-Introspective,” paper for the Nov. 1964 Waveland conference, b1f11, A/CS.

  “One reason guys fight”: Minutes, 5th District Meeting, Nov. 25, 1964, A/SN 100f13, p. 9.

  The internal contest was widely defined: Carson, In Struggle, pp. 138-42; Forman, Black Revolutionaries, pp. 411-37; Mary King, Freedom Song, pp. 437-74; Dittmer, Local People, pp. 315-37. At Waveland on Nov. 6, 1964, Forman was quoted as follows: “Someone has said there is a power struggle going on…,” in minutes, A/SN7.

  Moses sat silent: Int. Robert P. Moses, Aug. 10, 1983, Feb. 15, 1991.

  silent pantomime: Int. Mike Sayer, June 25, 1992.

  “Moses is drinking”: Poem by Mississippi volunteer Dov Green, quoted in Mary King, Freedom Song, pp. 441-42.

  “Rivals are not enemies”: Mike Miller to SNCC National Staff, Oct. 23, 1964, courtesy of Mike Miller.

  “If we assign a quota”: Anonymous, “Introduction: Semi-Introspective,” paper for the Nov. 1964 Waveland conference, b1f11, A/CS.

  “we really believe”: Frank Smith, “Position Paper No. 1,” b1f11, A/CS.

  a prophetic paper, written anonymously: Mary King, Freedom Song, pp. 567-69.

  “I was sure that we”: Ibid., p. 439.

  “the best way to keep
someone”: Harris, Dreams Die Hard, p. 88.

  “tried to give equal weight”: Forman, Black Revolutionaries, p. 418.

  “the cities are our jungles”: Bob Moses and Dennis Sweeney at SNCC “1st West Coast Conference,” Stanford University, Nov. 1964, Tape No. 239, A/JF.

  Proctor patiently visited to “Sir, I know just how you feel.”: Statement of James Jordan, Nov. 5, 1964, and statement of Horace Doyle Barnette, Nov. 20, 1964, in prosecutive summary dated Dec. 19, 1964, FMB-1613; Whitehead, Attack on Terror, p. 183; int. Joseph Sullivan, Feb. 3, 1991; Cagin and Dray, We Are Not Afraid, pp. 294, 393, 432-34.

  37: LANDSLIDE

  fn “I don’t want you sneaking”: Halberstam, October 1964, p. 55.

  throat of a borrowed tuba: Ibid., p. 317.

  Jenkins quietly submitted: U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 26, 1964, pp. 54-56; Clifford, Counsel, pp. 399-402.

  “verbally caressed”: Miller, Lyndon, p. 485.

  On October 9: PDD, Oct. 9, 1964, LBJ.

  “nonparticipation, but just short”: WP, Oct. 10, 1964, p. 1.

  “knows the sound of the wind”: New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 10, 1964, p. 2.

  “I thought he had”: “Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner in New Orleans,” Oct. 9, 1964, pp. 1281-88, PPP.

  “‘Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!’”: Johnson, The Vantage Point, p. 110; int. Horace Busby, Feb. 3, 1992.

  “The audience gasped”: Goldman, Tragedy, pp. 292-94.

  “a physical thing”: Valenti, Very Human President, p. 161.

  climactic phrase was rendered: Jet, Oct. 22, 1964, p. 4; PPP, 1964, p. 1286; AJ, Oct. 10, 1964, p. 1.

  “Nigra! Nigra! Nigra!”: Miller, Lyndon, p. 485.

  “Johnson Hits at Hatred”: AJ, Oct. 10, 1964, p. 1.

  “tired and negative”: “BUZZ” (Horace Busby) to LBJ, nd, b10, Moyers Papers, LBJ.

  “transparent exploitation of racism”: NYT, Oct. 14, 1964, p. 20.

  “Travail and torment”: NYT, Oct. 4, 1964, p. 1.

  confidential October reports: Larry O’Brien to LBJ, Oct. 6, 11, 20, and 23, 1964, Box 3, Henry Wilson Papers, LBJ.

  “It is becoming more and more apparent”: O’Brien to LBJ, Oct. 11, 1964, Box 3, Henry Wilson Papers, LBJ.

  “Separate political structures”: O’Brien notified Johnson that St. Augustine, Florida, was an extreme case in which racial conflict caused the existing white Democratic structure literally to dissolve, as “it has proved impossible to get a campaign chairman so far.” O’Brien to LBJ, “Florida Organizational Meeting,” Oct. 20, 1964, Box 3, Henry Wilson Papers, LBJ.

  Powell was still bargaining: Hamilton, Adam Clayton Powell, pp. 438-39.

  “we must see this is done”: O’Brien to LBJ, Oct. 23, 1964, Box 3, Henry Wilson Papers, LBJ.

  “look like Johnson has me”: Bayard Rustin-Walter Fauntroy conversation of Oct. 17, 1964, cited in NY LHM dated Oct. 20, 1964, FK-NR.

  King delivered four speeches: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 354.

  Dr. Asa Yancey: Jet, Oct. 29, 1964, p. 23.

  King instructed his assistant: Int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985.

  kept him off the board: Int. Benjamin Mays, March 6, 1984.

  Hallinan appeared in person: Coretta King, My Life, p. 17; Young, Easy Burden, p. 313.

  King chuckled: Jet, Oct. 29, 1964, pp. 14-21.

  “a beautiful bright shining light of hope”: Ibid., p. 21.

  “the greatest of American ideals”: RFK to MLK, Oct. 14, 1964, Box 21, RFK Senate Papers, JFK.

  telegram warmly commending King: LBJ to MLK, 10:06 P.M., Oct. 16, 1964 (from aboard Air Force One), King Name File, LBJ.

  hysteria over Walter Jenkins: NYT, Oct. 15, 1964, pp. 1, 31, Oct. 16, 1964, pp. 1, 20; Kearns, Lyndon Johnson, pp. 207-9; Goldman, Tragedy, pp. 295-98; Clifford, Counsel, pp. 401-2; Miller, Lyndon, pp. 486-87; DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI, pp. 384-87.

  “And if Lincoln abolished”: PPP, LBJ speech of Oct. 15, 1964, p. 1343.

  spotless personnel file: Califano, Triumph and Tragedy, pp. 19-20.

  get-well flowers: NYT, Oct. 28, 1964, p. 34.

  “top alley cat”: Garrow, FBI and Martin, pp. 121-22; Powers, Secrecy and Power, p. 418; Summers, Official and Confidential, p. 357.

  “No Evidence Is Uncovered”: NYT, Oct. 23, 1964, p. 1.

  “mysterious disease”: Gentry, J. Edgar Hoover, pp. 580-81.

  engulfed by the news: Manchester, Glory and the Dream, p. 1262.

  South Vietnam’s execution: NYT, Oct. 11, 1964, p. 12, Oct. 12, 1964, p. 3, Oct. 13, 1964, p. 1, Oct. 15, 1964, p. 12.

  Mantle’s eighteenth: Halberstam, October 1964, pp. 344-49.

  “bound to be seriously detrimental”: NYT, Oct. 15, 1964, p. 31.

  never registered: NYT, Oct. 24, 1964, p. 13.

  specialized tour: Int. Jack Pratt, March 25, 1991; Stern, Calculating Visions, pp. 213-14; Jet, Nov. 12, 1964, pp. 8-10; NYT, Oct. 30, 1964, p. 24; Bayard Rustin Oral History, June 17, 1969, LBJ.

  Addison Junior High: Int. Jack Pratt, March 25, 1991.

  “All of us have the privilege”: MLK remarks of Oct. 22, 1964, Tape No. 62, A/KS.

  quarrels festered: Int. Bernard Lee, June 19, 1985; int. Dora McDonald, Dec. 31, 1990; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991; Bayard Rustin-A. J. Muste conversation of Oct. 15, 1964, cited in NY LHM dated Oct. 16, 1964, FK-NR; Young, Easy Burden, p. 320.

  “Dr. King can’t come”: Int. Jack Pratt, March 25, 1991.

  “Proposition 14 is sinful”: Notes on Los Angeles speech of Oct. 27, 1964, A/KS6.

  “the right of any person”: Time, Sept. 25, 1964, p. 23; Jet, Oct. 22, 1964, pp. 58-61.

  “This is a strange year”: NYT editorial quoted in California Eagle, Oct. 1, 1964, p. 2.

  Ronald Reagan emerged: Cannon, Reagan, pp. 13, 98-99.

  repudiated just before it was broadcast: Edwards, Goldwater, pp. 329-37.

  “Should Moses have told”: Edwards, Reagan, pp. 235-46.

  repeat national telecast: Ibid., pp. 77-80.

  King tour rolled back: Garrow, Bearing the Cross, p. 357.

  “Brother Goldwater has presented”: Baltimore Sun, Nov. 7, 1964, p. 18.

  Rustin as sideman: Baltimore LHM dated Nov. 2, 1964, FSC-NR.

  Martin had no trouble: Poinsett, Louis Martin, pp. 146-47.

  disavowed the leaflets: Baumgardner to Sullivan, Nov. 2, 1964, FK-511; Baltimore Sun, Nov. 3, 1964, p. 1; Cosman, ed., Republican Politics, p. 33.

  “cater to the prurient curiosity”: NYT, Oct. 30, 1964, p. 1.

  defended the clergy: Ibid.

  “I first learned”: Miller, Lyndon, p. 489.

  “God, I hate”: PDD, Nov. 3, 1964, p. 2, LBJ.

  helicopters grounded: PDD, Nov. 4, 1964, p. 3, LBJ.

  Johnson overwhelmed Goldwater: White, The Making, Appendix A.

  fn Roosevelt’s record: Edwards, Goldwater, p. 338. For Nixon’s 1972 result, see Haldeman, Haldeman Diaries, p. 532, or Ambrose, Ruin and Recovery, p. 11. In 1984, Ronald Reagan won 59 percent of the popular vote and a record 525 electoral votes.

  forty-eight House seats: Cosman, ed., Republican Politics, p. 167.

  keenest predictor of outcome: White, The Making, p. 304.

  George Bush: Time, Oct. 16, 1964, p. 39.

  To the Negro”: Reporter, Dec. 17, 1964, p. 20.

  “White Backlash Doesn’t Develop”: NYT, Nov. 5, 1964, p. 1.

  “Backlash proved only a flick”: Goldman, Tragedy, p. 303.

  “one-shot affair”: WP, Nov. 5, 1964, p. 11.

  Proposition 14 carried California: Lynn W. Eley and Thomas W. Casstevens, The Politics of Fair-Housing Legislation. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing Co., 1968, esp. pp. 261-84.

  headed toward Supreme Court: Reitman v. Mulkey, 87 S. Ct. 1627 (1967).

  “the most important civil rights case”: Nathan Lewin to the Solicitor General, Jan. 9, 1967, Admin. Hist./Dept. of Justice, Vol. 7, Part xb[2], LBJ. If the Supreme Court upheld Proposition 14, warned Lewin, “it will doubtless throttle the l
ast hopes for fair-housing legislation in this country.” On May 29, 1967, the Court overturned Proposition 14 in a 5-4 decision, holding that it “involves the state in racial discrimination.” By then, California governor Reagan advocated legislative repeal of the Rumford Act.

  oppose the Voting Rights Act of 1965: Cannon, Role of a Lifetime, pp. 518-25.

  “indisputable proof”: Edwards, Goldwater, p. 344.

  “a minority party indefinitely”: Ibid.

  “an end to a competitive”: Ibid.

  “problems likely to arise”: Henry Wilson to Larry O’Brien, Nov. 25, 1964, Box 4, Henry Wilson Papers, 25pp., LBJ.

  “based around the right to vote”: NYT, Nov. 5, 1964, p. 1.

  SCLC organization chart: Among papers for the SCLC executive staff meeting at the Gaston Motel in Birmingham, Nov. 12-13, 1964, A/KP32f8.

  “never reach the point”: Minutes, executive staff meeting, Nov. 12-13, 1964, A/KP32f8.

  “the ontological need”: Harry Boyte, “Dialogue—An Interpretation,” presented at SCLC executive staff meeting, Nov. 12, 1964, A/KP32f8.

  Bevel proposed Selma: Minutes, executive staff meeting, Nov. 10-12, 1964, A/KP32f8; Garrow, Bearing the Cross, pp. 358-59; int. C. T. Vivian, May 26, 1990.

  bombardment of proposals: Hoover memos to Katzenbach, Moyers, Marshall, and Yeagley, all Nov. 6, 1964, FK-NR; New York LHM dated Nov. 10, 1964, FK-NR; Hoover cable to Legat London, Nov. 10, 1964, FK-517; blind memo headed “Martin Luther King, Jr.,” dated Nov. 12, 1964, FK-521; New York LHM dated Nov. 18, 1964, FK-NR.

  “loom large”: New York LHM dated Nov. 24, 1964, FK-NR.

  “peephole journalism”: Raines, My Soul, pp. 407-8; int. Eugene Patterson, April 6, 1991.

  “carries the seed”: “Discerning the Signs of History,” MLK sermon of Nov. 15, 1964, A/KS7.

  New York’s Abyssinian Baptist: Lewis, King, p. 256; MLK sermon of Nov. 15, 1964, A/KS7.

  collection of $1,844.80: Powell to MLK, Nov. 16, 1964, A/KP19f45.

  no King girlfriend: Int. Eugene Patterson, April 6, 1991.

  “site of renewed SCLC activity”: SAC, Miami, to Director and Mobile, Nov. 17, 1964, FSC-203X.

  exclusively female reporters: Int. Sarah McLendon, July 2, 1997; int. Else Carper, July 2, 1997; int. Betty Beale, July 2, 1997; int. Frances Lewine, July 2, 1997; int Mary McGrory, July 1, 1997; int. Helene Monberg, July 2, 1997; DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI, pp. 203-4.