Authors: Taylor Branch
“obviously shaken by his defeat”: NYT, May 17, 1966, p. 22.
“Delta Devil”: William A. Price, “SNCC Charts a Course,”
National Guardian,
June 4, 1966, p. 1, Folder 21, Reel 53, SNCC.
identified the new chairman: Gene Roberts, “New Leaders and New Course for âSnick,'” NYT, May 22, 1966, p. 4-E.
exchanged gunfire inside a Chicago YMCA: Ralph,
Northern,
pp. 94â95; Garrow,
Bearing,
p. 471; Cohen and Taylor,
Pharaoh,
pp. 378â79; Chicago LHM dated May 23, 1966, FK-2541.
“the instinctive drama”: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and an unknown male, May 13, 1966, FLNY-9-938a.
“The people in the North”: SC, May 28â29, 1966, p. 6.
Levison huddled in King's Hamlin Avenue tenement: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Marilyn Hanesworth (for Clarence Jones), May 11, 1966, FLNY-9-936a; New York LHMs dated May 10 and May 18, 1966, FK-NR.
abandoned the slum “trusteeship”: NYT, April 6, 1966, p. 28; NYT, April 7, 1966, p. 25; “King Done with Slum Building,”
Chicago Daily News,
April 15, 1966; “Find King Attorney Owns Flats in Probe of Slum Properties,”
Chicago Sun-Times,
April 24, 1966; “Legislation Urged to Protect Tenants' Protest Rights,”
Chicago Sun-Times,
April 25, 1966; “Report from Bob Johnson,
Jet
Magazine, Re
Chicago Sun-Times
article concerning Chauncey Eskridge, April 25, 1966,” A/KP10f3.
deficit he projected: Levison to MLK, May 20, 1966, A/KP14f41; wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Clarence Jones, June 10, 1966, FLNY-9-966a.
the Dow Jones Industrial Average: John Rothchild to the author, May 10, 2004.
begged him for a $28,000 loan: Wiretap transcript of telephone conversation between Stanley Levison and Adele Kanter, May 16, 1966, FLNY-9-941a.
“grapes of wrath are stored”: Philip Dripps, “The Northern Offensive: King in Chicago,”
Christian Advocate,
June 2, 1966.
Berkeley on May 21: SAC, Mobile, to Director, July 12, 1966, FBPA-8.
took it as a calming sign: Int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000.
“There was something in Alabama”: John Hulett, Los Angeles speech of May 22, 1966 in
The Black Panther Party,
a Merit Publishers pamphlet, June 1966, pp. 11â13.
“useless endeavor”: “Rights Unit Quits Parley in Capital,” NYT, May 24, 1966, p. 28; “SNCC Statement on the White House Conference,” May 23, 1966, with attached transcript of press questions, BIR/FW1f45. The statement was signed by all then members of SNCC's new central committee: James Forman, Charles Cobb, Fred Meely, Robert Mants, Ralph Featherstone, John Lewis, Ivanhoe Donaldson, Courtland Cox, Robert Smith, and Jack Minnis, plus Stokely Carmichael as chairman.
“the extreme black racists”: WP, May 25, 1966, p. 25.
“which we hope will dramatize”: Anderson and Pickering,
Confronting,
pp. 193â94.
“if I have to tack them on the door”: Garrow,
Bearing,
p. 472.
King shuttled between Chicago and Washington: Wiretap transcript of telephone conference call among MLK, Stanley Levison, Clarence Jones, and Walter Fauntroy, May 28, 1966, FLNY-9-953a.
“I always hate to talk”: Transcript,
Face the Nation,
Vol. 9, Program 22, May 29, 1966, pp. 143â47.
A. J. Muste had arranged: Robinson,
Abraham,
p. 133; Thich Nhat Hahn,
Lotus,
p. 88.
latest crises in South Vietnam: Cf. “Buddhists Charge Betrayal in Junta's Move on Danang,” NYT, May 19, 1966, p. 1; “Ky Denounces Thich Tri Quang, Top Buddhist Leader, as a Red,” NYT, May 22, 1966, p. 6; “Johnson Appeals for Unity in War/ Ky's Forces Gain/ Unrest Deplored,” NYT, May 22, 1966, p. 1; “Buddhist Students Wreck American Center in Hue,” May 27, 1966, p. 1; “Student Mob in Hue Burns American Consular Office,” June 1, 1966, p. 1.
“King Equates Rights Fight”:
Chicago Tribune,
June 1, 1963, p. B-3.
Thich Nhat Hanh for a tour of witness: “A Proposal for Peace,” Statement read by Thich Nhat Hanh in Washington, D.C., June 1, 1966, in Thich Nhat Hahn,
Love,
p. 49ff.
“more my brother than many”: Friedland,
Lift Up,
pp. 170â71; “3 Clergymen Here Begin Protest Fast,” NYT, July 4, 1966, p. 2.
“The purple-robed Buddhist monk”: WP, June 6, 1966, p. 9.
“Now the U.S. has become”: Thich Nhat Hanh, “Our Green Garden,”
New York Review of Books,
June 9, 1966, in Thich Nhat Hahn,
Love,
p. 57ff.
refused burial in his home state: “Slain Negro G.I.'s Mother Charges Cemetery Bias,” NYT, May 27, 1966, p. 32; “Viet Nam Not Segregated,” SC, May 28â29, 1966, p. 1.
“My son was not a shoeshine boy”: “No Room in the Cemetery,” BAA, June 4, 1966, in Library of America Anthology,
Reporting Vietnam,
pp. 259â61.
“Negro G.I.'s Burial”: NYT, May 28, 1966, p. 28; “Military Burial for PFC Williams/ 145 Miles from His Home,” SC, June 4â5, 1966, p. 1; “Negro G.I. Is Buried at Andersonville,” NYT, May 31, 1966, p. 24.
defeated a bill to disperse:
Chicago Tribune,
May 31, 1966, p. 11.
Mildred and Richard Loving: WP, March 8, 1966, p. 1; 206 Va. 924, 147 S.E. 2d 78 (1966).
subtler “family purity” laws: “Race, Sex, and Forbidden Unions,” NYT, Dec. 14, 2003, p. WK-4; “Bans on Interracial Unions Offer Perspective on Gay Ones,” NYT, March 17, 2004, p. 16;
Loving v. Virginia
388 U.S. 1 (1967), at 7, 11.
Outside the Sheraton-Park: “Militants Fail to Sway Delegates,” WP, June 2, 1966, p. 1; “Picketers, Conferees Swap Jests,” WP, June 2, 1966, p. 4; SC, June 4â5, 1966, p. 1.
“Black Jesus!”: NYT, June 2, 1966, p. 21.
“the conference might be demoralized”: Harry McPherson memo of June 2, 1966, attached to PDD, June 2, 1966, LBJ; Robert E. Kintner, “Appearance at the Civil Rights Conference, Sheraton Park Hotel,” 3:00
P.M.
, June 1, 1966, White House Conference, Box 56, LBJ.
a motorcade ventured from the White House: PDD, June 1, 1966, LBJ; int. Harry McPherson, Oct. 10, 1991.
“does not require that righteous anger be silenced”: NYT, June 2, 1966, p. 1.
seventeen ovations:
Jet,
June 16, 1966, pp. 16â20.
“In the light of his car”: McPherson,
Political,
pp. 347â48.
Johnson had engineered a wondrous truce: Rainwater and Yancey,
Moynihan Report,
pp. 271â91; Anderson and Pickering,
Confronting,
pp. 194â95; Garrow,
Bearing,
p. 473.
attractive female college students: Int. Harry McPherson, Oct. 10, 1991;
Jet,
June 16, 1966, p. 31.
“a silent, unnoticed delegate”: NYT, June 4, 1966, p. 12.
“Rights Session Rejects”: WP, June 3, 1966, p. 1.
“conspicuously missing”: Ibid.
“I submit that the history”: WP, June 2, 1966, p. 4.
“a boy on a man's errand”: Williams,
Thurgood Marshall,
pp. 252, 341.
“his wife came nearer”: Lewis,
King,
p. 312.
“to heal the broken-hearted”: MLK sermon, “Guidelines for a Constructive Church,” Ebenezer Baptist Church, June 5, 1966, Tape 59, A/KS; Carson and Holloran, eds.,
Knock,
pp. 101â15.
staff to be dismantled by Tuesday: “SCLC Moves Out of Ala.,” SC, June 4â5, 1966, p. 1.
Lucius Amerson of Tuskegee: Jack Nelson, “Negro Wins Ala. Sheriff Nomination,” WP, June 1, 1966, p. 4;
Jet,
June 16, 1966, pp. 8â11.
“if I can find qualified white people”:
Jet,
June 16, 1966, p. 30.
Negro candidates fell to fear and inexperience: “Kirksey Is Only Negro to Win Outside Macon [County],” SC, June 4â5, 1966, p. 1.
King and Coretta visited: AC, Sept. 12, 1966; ESCRU newsletter, Sept. 29, 1966, courtesy of John B. Morris.
Robert Kennedy landed: Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy,
pp. 800â808; Thomas,
Robert Kennedy,
pp. 321â23.
“those of Dutch descent”: Arriving statement, Johannesburg, South Africa, June 4, 1966, 11:40
P.M.
, Adam Walinsky Papers, Box 14, JFK.
a battery-operated tape recorder: Frank Taylor, “In South Africa,”
National Observer,
June 13, 1966, pp. 1, 17.
suggested by Allard Lowenstein: Chafe,
Never,
pp. 282â84; Allard K. Lowenstein, oral history by Larry J. Hackman, April 23, 1969, and Dec. 2, 1969, JFK.
had sought out Bob Moses: Branch,
Pillar,
pp. 118â23.
largely on an impulsive dare: Thomas,
Robert Kennedy,
p. 321.
“What if God is black?”: Senator Robert Kennedy, “Suppose God Is Black,”
Look,
Aug. 23, 1966, p. 44ff.
“the one who was beaten in 1888”: Frank Taylor, “In South Africa,”
National Observer,
June 13, 1966, p. 1.
“We stand here in the name of freedom”: Schlesinger,
Robert Kennedy,
pp. 803â4; address of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, June 6, 1966, RFK Senate Papers, Box 17, JFK.
The Cape Town speech stirred imagination: “Kennedy Denounces Apartheid as Evil,” NYT, June 7, 1966, p. 1.
“enthusiastic appreciation”: Edwin Espy, General Secretary, National Council of Churches, to RFK (“Reinhold Niebuhr joins me⦔), June 7, 1966, RFK Senate Papers, Box 13, JFK.
“political safari”: WP, June 5, 1966, p. 1.
“attempting to shake hands”: “With Robert Kennedy in White Africa,”
U.S. News & World Report,
June 20, 1966, p. 46.
wag hung a sign:
Jet,
June 23, 1966, pp. 26â27.
negligible response to his published memoir: Williams,
King God Didn't Save,
pp. 92â94.
he resented gossip about poor spring grades: NYT, June 5, 1966, p. 78.
reports noted eccentricities: Ibid.; NYT, June 6, 1966, pp. 1, 27.
“I only want James Meredith”: NYT, June 7, 1966, p. 1; James H. Meredith, “Big Changes Are Coming,”
Saturday Evening Post,
Aug. 13, 1966, in Library of America Anthology,
Reporting Civil Rights,
pp. 520â24;
Jet,
June 23, 1966, pp. 14â21;
U.S. News & World Report,
June 20, 1966, pp. 36â38; Dittmer,
Local People,
p. 392.
flashed news of Meredith's death: “Meredith Death Reported on TV in Error,” NYT, June 7, 1966, p. 29.
“He was furious with me”: Young,
Burden,
pp. 393â94.
Twenty-one marchers: Garrow,
Bearing,
pp. 475â76; int. James Lawson, Nov. 14, 1983.
Troopers knocked Cleveland Sellers to the ground: Sellers,
River,
p. 161.
highlight the next day's front pages: “Troopers Shove Group Resuming Meredith March,” NYT, June 8, 1966, p. 1.
closing prayers in a pasture: SC, June 10â11, 1966, pp. 1, 6; Garrow,
Bearing,
p. 476.
Carmichael apologized: Carmichael,
Ready,
p. 503.
rally of a thousand people: NYT, June 8, 1966, p. 1;
Jet,
June 23, 1966, pp. 16â20; Lewis,
King,
pp. 319â20.
“He was an expert in that”: King speech at Meredith rally, June 7, 1966, A/KS.
debate shifted to the Lorraine Motel: Dittmer,
Local People,
pp. 392â93; Viorst,
Fire,
pp. 371â73; Stokely Carmichael and James Forman conversation, Tape 229, A/JF.
Roy Wilkins lost any small inclination: Wilkins,
Standing,
pp. 315â16; Carson,
Struggle,
pp. 207â8.
“Dr. King, I'm really sorry for you”: Int. Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Jan. 31, 1984.
old-fashioned strap undershirt: Morgan,
One Man,
pp. 71â74.