The senator had to walk a fine line: show decency to a black man without alienating the white community.ĭuring the presidential campaign, Kennedy raised suspicions in the black community by his blatant courtship of Southern white support. But if he acted on King’s behalf, he risked a vicious backlash from Southern whites. If Kennedy were able to play a decisive role in King’s release, the black community was likely to reward him with an outpouring of support. In a meeting with Kennedy just weeks earlier, King had urged the senator to take some dramatic action to prove to blacks that his commitment to their cause was genuine. Kennedy was motivated by his outrage, by his sympathy for the King family, and by bald political calculation.
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Some quiet, back-channel way had to be found to free the civil rights leader. On that same Wednesday morning, Senator John Kennedy phoned the governor of Georgia, Ernest Vandiver. If he were put to hard labor, as the judge had ordered, he would work side by side in a road gang with ruthless white criminals, many of them killers who had nothing to lose and everything to gain-national notoriety and prison respect-by murdering a black celebrity. By dawn, King discovered he had been granted a less evil fate as the squad car turned into the maximum security state prison in Reidsville.īut his danger was far from over. An hour passed, and he realized he was deep into “cracker” country where no one protested a lynching. had no idea where the two deputies were taking him. On that early Wednesday morning, Martin Luther King Jr. King, “we would really see where these guys stand.” The students’ passion-and conscience-were impossible for Martin Luther King Jr. King being involved in it,” said student leader Lonnie C. If King were arrested with dozens of young protesters, then both contenders would have no choice but to speak out. King advised the students to hold off until after the presidential election now just weeks away but the students saw an opportunity to force the candidates to address the issue of segregation. The young activists urged King to come along-and go to jail with them-to draw attention to their campaign. Its target was one of Atlanta’s venerable institutions, Rich’s department store its goal: to desegregate the store’s snack bars and restaurants. The SNCC was well-organized and impatient. But the band of youths, members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, insisted. King hadn’t wanted to join the student-led sit-in. She was six months pregnant with their third child, and she had already had an emotional week. Like all black men, King feared the chilling portent of a late-night drive into the countryside it had happened to others, the stories he’d heard were horrific.Īt home in Atlanta, Coretta King knew nothing of her husband’s ominous ride.