Death of a King: The Real Story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Final Year by Tavis Smiley

Author:Tavis Smiley [Smiley, Tavis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography / Political, Biography &#38, History / Modern / 20th Century, History / United States / 20th Century, Autobiography / Social Activists, Autobiography / Historical, Autobiography / Religious
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2014-09-09T04:00:00+00:00

PART II

THE FINAL SEASON

The Last Three Months

Chapter Thirteen

THIRTY-NINE

The year begins ominously.

The war is six years old, soon to be the longest in American history—nearly sixteen thousand Americans killed and a hundred thousand wounded so far. Hoping to finally destroy the enemy, in the first month of 1968 President Johnson unleashes an eleven-week bombing attack on North Vietnam.

J. Edgar Hoover renews his own attack, doubling down on his plans to destroy Doc through the FBI’s network of paid informers.

Doc’s allies Benjamin Spock and William Sloane Coffin are indicted by the Justice Department for helping young men oppose the draft. Infuriated, Doc calls a press conference in which he attacks the indictments, speaks favorably of Eugene McCarthy’s campaign to unseat Johnson, and criticizes Bobby Kennedy for being lackluster in his opposition to the war.

Maintaining his furious pace, Doc flies to California to support Joan Baez, still imprisoned in Oakland for blocking the entrance to a military center. After the visit, he addresses the press.

There are tough questions about his relationship to Adam Clayton Powell, who has publicly announced that Martin Luther King Jr. no longer subscribes to nonviolence. Coming on top of the insults he suffered in Bimini, this takes Doc by surprise. With all due respect to the congressman, he unequivocally refutes the statement. Yet in spite of this blatant misrepresentation, Doc sends a gracious letter to Powell, urging him to return to New York, where his leadership is needed. “You beat the white man at his game,” Doc writes, “and became a fighting symbol of power.”

His aides are astounded that Doc is able to turn the other cheek and offer the congressman such support.

“Radical love,” Harry Belafonte will later reflect, “is Doc’s great hallmark. Loving those who are twisting your words. Loving those moving against you. Loving those looking to take your spot and undermine your authority. In the end, Doc is not only offering unconditional love, but he’s supporting every organization and individual fighting for the liberation of people throughout the globe. He never allows political discourse to overwhelm his revolutionary moral vision.”

Doc’s next challenge is to sell his vision to SCLC.

He tells the press that tomorrow he’s off to Atlanta, where he will give his troops “marching orders to go into fifteen communities where we will be mobilizing people by the thousands for a massive demonstration in Washington on a quest for jobs and income.”

His mission at this latest SCLC staff meeting is clear: this time he will finally and firmly establish the fact that his priority is a Poor People’s Campaign in the spring, and that his priority will prevail.

But will it? In Atlanta, the staff remains in revolt. Dissent erupts from the get-go. Doc has to deal with the heated resistance of James Bevel and Jesse Jackson, who are, in the words of one of Doc’s aides, “competing with him for leadership.” The infighting is brutal. At the end of the day, his patience stretched to the limit, Doc is ready to leave. But Andy Young won’t allow it.

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