At Canaan's Edge (10 page)

Passions ran more freely away from the eye of decision. In Montgomery, a joint session of the legislature was cheering a guest speaker who sought repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act as “unnatural law,” and the Alabama House commended Governor Wallace by resolution for stopping “an unruly mob” on Sunday. Among rallies on the other side, Michigan governor George Romney was leading a Joshua-like march of ten thousand people five times around the Detroit federal building, and six hundred picketed a New York City FBI office to demand U.S. protection for Negro voting rights in Alabama. In Washington, sit-ins at the Justice Department grew nearly tenfold from the twenty-odd of the previous day, and on the White House sidewalk marched seven hundred pickets, including mothers with baby carriages and one novel placard: “Johnson Is Goldwater in Disguise.” The President, distracted from strategy talks on education and a grand ceremony to sign the Appalachian Regional Development Act, veered into a private soliloquy on the urgency of Negro voting rights that astounded six top congressional leaders, including four Southerners. “Good Lord, Mr. President,” gasped Speaker John McCormack of Massachusetts, “why don't you say that to the people?”

“At the right time I will,” said Johnson.

In Selma, long past lunch, the Episcopal seminarians found themselves hungry and partially separated. Jonathan Daniels, the student with scruples about treading on the authority of the local bishop, wandered off in search of a candy bar, leaving Judith Upham to watch the gear they had pared down to a minimum for the walk to Montgomery. A sudden roar signaled King's emergence and brought Daniels running back empty-handed to hear the indistinct drone of a bullhorn far ahead. “Almighty God, thou has called us to walk for freedom, even as thou did the children of Israel,” King began in prayer from the steps of Brown Chapel. When he finished, freedom chants soared above what the
New York Times
called “a great rustling” in the lines. As aides tried to dress the columns two abreast, King shouted for them to stay on the shoulder of the road and not to panic. “I say to you this afternoon that I would rather die on the highways of Alabama than make a butchery of my conscience,” he cried out through the bullhorn, and a cheer spread rearward. His final, rhythmic sentences urged nonviolence. “If you can't be nonviolent, don't get in here,” he said. “If you can't accept blows without retaliating, don't get in the line.”

At 2:17
P.M.
, as recorded by FBI observers, King stepped off, and competing songs broke out along the long chain waiting to follow. Ahead, a moving cloud of reporters noted that some white bystanders motioned for calm while others muttered or shouted insults. “You son of a bitch!” yelled one man at King. “You want to vote—why don't you act like a human being?” King said nothing, until a breathless Governor Collins jumped from his government sedan for an emergency walking conference. “They” had promised not to attack, Collins confided, so long as the march kept to the route they marked on the crudely drawn street map he handed to King. Collins emphasized the importance of keeping strictly on the path, which puzzled King because the map prescribed the simple, normal route for voting rights marches toward the courthouse as far as Broad Street, where a leftward turn ascended Pettus Bridge. King could only guess that Governor Wallace and his troopers needed to pretend that he was submitting to orders as a kind of salve for their aroused martial instincts, which were loath to let the renewed march of Negroes go unpunished. Or perhaps they meant to jostle his fear by advertising interest in his movements. In any case, King's worries went beyond trusting the flimsy, irrational promise of the map. He still doubted that he could control the entire diverse crowd to follow him in retreat if he reached the far side of the bridge. “I'll do my best,” he told Collins, who rushed back across the bridge with a parting vow to do the same. He would stand close to Colonel Lingo and Sheriff Clark as a federal presence to inhibit violence, risking the appearance of complicity if he failed.

On Broad Street, at the foot of Pettus Bridge, Deputy U.S. Marshal Stanley Fountain confronted King with a raised hand and a signed copy of Judge Johnson's court order. As he formally read the full text of some six hundred judicial words (“This cause is now submitted on the verified complaint…. Negroes to register and become voters…attempted a march along the public highway on March 7…. Plaintiffs say they desire to resume…. In consideration of the foregoing…plaintiffs and other members of their class, and those acting in concert with them, be and each is hereby enjoined and restrained…”), King's eyes drifted until Fountain began to explain the practical effects. “I am aware of the order,” he said, snapping to. He hesitated, then waived ceremonial speech in favor of a simple request to move forward.

Fountain stood aside at the flashpoint of commitment. “I intend in no way to interfere with your movement,” he announced, formalizing the choice of federal authorities not to repress the march in advance, like Alabama. “Let's go,” said King. FBI agents recorded that he “ignored” the court order at 2:35
P.M
. and led the climb up Pettus Bridge, the ranks closing beyond the Selma line to four abreast. A dismayed John Doar stood by, knowing that every step opened the marchers to a contempt judgment that would shift the federal government toward an unwelcome alliance with Alabama.

S
ILENCE AND
bright sunshine fell on the second march to crest the bridge high above the Alabama River, as though re-creating Sunday's instant history on a larger scale. More than twice as many blue helmets spanned Highway 80 on the flatland below, from a deployment to Selma that the local newspaper put at five hundred Alabama troopers. Major Cloud stood a short distance behind his previous position to accommodate some 150 foreign and domestic journalists who crowded along the shoulders, and again confronted the approaching lines with orders to disperse. King sparred briefly over rights, then secured from Cloud a brief truce for prayerful decision. The front ranks knelt at his beckoning, and a wave of dry-throated marchers sank slowly behind them for nearly a mile to six ambulances poised in the rear, far past earshot of Ralph Abernathy's public prayer—“We come to present our bodies as a living sacrifice…” A few skeptics stood on lookout near the front, peeking. One bruised, blue-collar veteran of Sunday wore his construction helmet as a precaution.

Attorney General Katzenbach called the White House at 2:56
P.M
. “We're at the critical moment,” he told Bill Moyers. “I'll keep you posted.” Chain-smoking cigarettes at his desk, Katzenbach monitored a speaker phone connected by open line to John Doar. Noise crackled above static. “What's that applause?” asked Katzenbach.

“They're cheering the white women,” Doar replied. Two dignitaries, initially held back in case of another preemptive charge by troopers, slowly made their way into the standoff on the arm of Rev. Farley Wheelwright. Newspapers would identify them as Mrs. Paul Douglas, wife of the Democratic senator from Illinois, and Mrs. Charles Tobey, widow of the late Republican senator from New Hampshire—both wearing dress gloves and hats, one in pearls. Tobey's daughter, psychiatrist Belinda Strait, had been among the medical volunteers overwhelmed on Sunday. “And now one of them is talking to King,” Doar reported.

From another roadside telephone, on through concluding prayers by Bishop Lord and Rabbi Dresner, Colonel Lingo exchanged information and orders over an open line to Governor Wallace. As the marchers began to rise again from the pavement, some singing the movement standard “We Shall Overcome” and others easing forward with scattered cheers, Major Cloud executed a surprise maneuver. “Troopers, withdraw!” he shouted, and the officers swung back from the center of the road with their portable barricades. To the horror of bystanders Doar and Collins, the way to Montgomery lay open.

King stood stunned at the divide, with but an instant to decide whether this was a trap or a miraculous parting of the Red Sea. If he stepped ahead, the thrill of heroic redemption for Bloody Sunday could give way to any number of reversals—arrests, attacks, laughingstock exhaustion in hostile country—all with marchers compromised as flagrant transgressors of the federal order. If he stepped back, he could lose or divide the movement under a cloud of timidity. If he hesitated or failed, at least some of the marchers would surge through the corridor of blue uniforms toward their goal.

“We will go back to the church now!” shouted King, peeling around. Abernathy and the congressional wives fell in, as did James Farmer of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Rev. Robert Spike, head of the National Council of Churches' Commission on Religion and Race. Andrew Young stationed himself at the point to wave oncoming marchers into a turnaround loop. SNCC leaders James Forman and Silas Norman, who had moved ahead, wheeled to catch up from behind, utterly perplexed. From the roadside, Governor Collins remained petrified that a stray gunshot from angry whites or a runaway marcher could break the spell of disengagement. Doar exclaimed over the telephone that there was a switch, gaining momentum. “Now I'm sure,” he told the Attorney General. “The crowd's turning back.” Katzenbach called the White House with the news. FBI agents dryly notified headquarters that King retreated at 3:09
P.M.
, five minutes after greeting Mrs. Douglas.

Collins was euphoric. “If I hadn't done anything else in my lifetime,” he would record confidentially a decade later, “I had something to feel good about.” In Washington, Katzenbach numbly withdrew from the commotion of his own office to ponder the government's future stance toward the entangled parties. “Now I want to think about this awhile,” he said. For those returning to Selma across Pettus Bridge, a geyser of emotion blended joy with rage. A Roman Catholic priest cried out, “Thank you, Lord.” Tears welled up in some who felt spared recurrent terror, while others sobbed over the letdown from a transcendent moment. Rev. Edwin King, who had been jailed and beaten and defrocked for integration in Mississippi, cried fitfully over a U-turn he considered a disastrous waste of moral courage, and forever lost trust in Martin Luther King. James Forman and other SNCC leaders fretted about treachery and betrayal of an unprecedented nonviolent army that had been stoked to march or die. Silas Norman, having set aside his fear and strategic dissent to join this time, sagged with fresh humiliation for being swept along backward without knowing why, and vowed never again to march in Selma. Willie Ricks moaned over the suddenness, believing that with any preparation the SNCC organizers could have bolted past King to steal most of the march. When an elder cautioned that leadership division was lethal for minorities, Ricks and others launched a spirited rendition of “Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round.” Their sarcasm was well disguised by the metaphorical optimism of the traditional movement hymn as it wafted along the lines.

Outpourings from the front ranks doubled back past those still wondering what had happened beyond the bridge. Some of the Episcopal seminarians mumbled, “Well, crud,” fighting anticlimax. Back outside Brown Chapel, stuck once again in the overflow crowds, they absorbed movement lore that no showdown was ever simple and no tactical move above criticism from those who bore witness in demonstrations. They welcomed the dramatic arrival by charter flight of the first Episcopal bishop, James Pike of California, who offered an apology that he was too late to march—but censured him for self-importance when he hurried off again moments later. They observed the manpower that still poured into Selma, including two new planeloads of clergy from the Midwest, and sifted rumors of leadership disputes about how and when to use them.

Inside the church, King described the truncated march as “the greatest demonstration for freedom, the greatest confrontation so far in the South.” A young man rose from the pews with a rare challenge: “Why didn't we just sit down in the highway and wait until the injunction was lifted?” King replied indirectly, omitting practicalities and legal details to insist that the voting rights movement would not rest until marchers reached Montgomery by the thousands. In his turn from the pulpit, James Forman raised a collateral discontent. “I've paid my dues in Selma,” he declared. “I've been to jail here, I've been beaten here, so I have the right to ask this: why was there violence on Sunday and none on Tuesday? You know the answer. They don't beat white people. It's Negroes they beat and kill.” A Selma Negro addressed an undertone of Forman's diagnosis. “You're right, they didn't beat us today because the world was here with us,” he said. “But that's what we want. Don't let these white people feel that we don't appreciate their coming.” Leaders tried to elevate the unsettled mood with upbeat sermons and youth songs, such as “I've Got the Love of Jesus in My Heart.”

L
UGGAGE AND
opinions crossed in all directions outside. Most of the senior seminarians caught rides toward an airport, hurrying back to finish thesis papers for graduation. Notice passed by word of mouth drew upward of fifty Unitarians to a five o'clock caucus outside the church, where discussion of extending their vigil led some to retrieve suitcases from cars bound for Atlanta and stow them again in the parsonage. One group wandered down Sylvan Street into Amelia Boynton's insurance office, which doubled as SCLC headquarters, seeking tips on where to have supper.

“Do you prefer to eat with your own kind?” Diane Nash asked politely. When they expressed a desire instead for integrated facilities, if they existed, she smiled and directed them to a small restaurant with two names and an informal address, Southern style. Local people all called it “Eddie's,” but strangers needed to look for a hand-lettered “Walker's Café” sign on the round Coca-Cola ad above an exterior window. There the Unitarians found a dinner atmosphere of millennial rarity. Columnist Jimmy Hicks of the
New York Amsterdam News
sat with Negro reporters from Chicago, pointing out prominent intellectuals scattered among the regular clientele of day laborers. “Imagine a Harvard theologian eating soul food,” joked one of them. Unitarian Clark Olsen recognized at a nearby table a fellow resident of Berkeley, California, in Mario Savio, whose experience as a summer volunteer in Mississippi had spurred him into leadership of the ongoing Free Speech Movement at the Berkeley university campus, making Savio arguably the first nationally known white student of the civil rights era. The Unitarians avoided the tins of snuff and jars of pigs' feet on the counter, but savored the last plates of fried chicken, turnip greens, and cornbread from a kitchen stripped clean. Above the jumble of conversations, a jukebox recycled the prophetic anthem of the late pop star Sam Cooke, “A Change Is Gonna Come.”