22
The most racist city in America was probably Birmingham, Alabama. George Jakes flew there in April 1963.
Last time he came to Alabama, he recalled vividly, they had tried to kill him.
Birmingham was a dirty industrial city, and from the plane it had a delicate rose-pink aura of pollution, like the chiffon scarf around the neck of an old prostitute.
George felt the hostility as he walked through the terminal. He was the only coloured man in a suit. He remembered the attack on him and Maria and the Freedom Riders in Anniston, just sixty miles away: the bombs, the baseball bats, the whirling lengths of iron chain, and most of all the faces, twisted and deformed into masks of hatred and madness.
He walked out of the airport, located the taxi stand, and got into the first car in line.
‘Get out of the car, boy,’ said the driver.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I don’t drive for no goddamn Nigras.’
George sighed. He was reluctant to get out. He felt like sitting here in protest. He did not like to make things easy for racists. But he had a job to do in Birmingham, and he could not do it in jail. So he got out.
Standing by the open door, he looked down the line. The car behind had a white driver: he assumed he would get the same treatment again. Then, three cars back, a dark-brown arm came out of the window and waved at him.
He stepped away from the first cab.
‘Close the door!’ the driver yelled.
George hesitated, then said: ‘I don’t close doors for no goddamn segregationists.’ It was not a very good line, but it gave him some small satisfaction, and he walked away leaving the door wide open.
He jumped into the cab with the black driver. ‘I know where you’re going,’ the man said. ‘Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.’
The church was the base of fiery preacher Fred Shuttlesworth. He had founded the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, after the state courts outlawed the moderate National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Clearly, George thought, any Negro arriving at the airport was assumed to be a civil rights campaigner.
But George was not going to the church. ‘Take me to the Gaston Motel, please,’ he said.
‘I know the Gaston,’ said the driver. ‘I saw Little Stevie Wonder in the lounge there. It’s just a block from the church.’
It was a hot day and the cab had no air-conditioning. George wound down the window and let the slipstream cool his perspiring skin.
He had been sent by Bobby Kennedy with a message for Martin Luther King. The message was stop pushing, calm things down, end your protests, things are changing. George had a feeling that Dr King was not going to like it.
The Gaston was a low-built modern hotel. Its owner, A. G. Gaston, was a coal miner who had become Birmingham’s leading black businessman. George knew that Gaston was nervous about the disruption being brought to Birmingham by King’s campaign, but gave his qualified support nonetheless. George’s taxi drove through the entrance into a motor court.
Martin Luther King was in room 30, the motel’s only suite; but before seeing him, George had lunch with Verena Marquand in the nearby Jockey Boy Restaurant. When he asked for his hamburger medium rare, the waitress looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.
Verena ordered a salad. She looked more alluring than ever in white pants and a black blouse. George wondered if she had a boyfriend. ‘You’re on a downhill slope,’ he said to her while they were waiting for their food. ‘First Atlanta, now Birmingham. Come to Washington, before you find yourself stuck in Mudslide, Mississippi.’ He was teasing, but he did think that if she came to Washington he might ask her out on a date.
‘I go where the movement takes me,’ she replied seriously.
Their lunch arrived. ‘Why did King decide to target this town?’ George asked while they were eating.
‘The Commissioner of Public Safety – effectively the chief of police – is a vicious white racist called Eugene “Bull” Connor.’
‘I’ve seen his name in the papers.’
‘The nickname tells you all you need to know about him. As if that were not enough, Birmingham also has the most violent chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.’
‘Any idea why?’
‘This is a steel town, and the industry is in decline. Skilled, high-wage jobs have always been reserved for white men, while blacks do low-paid work such as cleaning. Now the whites are desperately trying to maintain their prosperity and privileges – just at the moment when blacks are asking for their fair share.’
It was a crisp analysis, and George’s respect for Verena went up a notch. ‘How does that show itself ?’
‘Klan members throw home-made bombs at the homes of prosperous Negroes in mixed neighbourhoods. Some people call this town Bombingham. Needless to say, the police never arrest anyone for the bombings, and the FBI somehow just can’t seem to figure out who might be doing it.’
‘No surprise there. J. Edgar Hoover can’t find the Mafia, either. But he knows the name of every Communist in America.’
‘However, white rule is weakening here. Some people are beginning to realize it does the town no good. Bull Connor just lost an election for mayor.’
‘I know. The White House view is that Birmingham’s Negroes will get what they want in due course, if they’re patient.’
‘Dr King’s view is that now is the time to pile on the pressure.’
‘And how is that working out?’
‘To be frank, we’re disappointed. When we sit in at a lunch counter, the waitresses turn out the lights and say sorry, they’re closing.’
‘A clever move. Some towns did something similar to the Freedom Riders. Instead of making a fuss, they just ignored what was happening. But that level of restraint is too much for most segregationists, and they soon reverted to beating people up.’
‘Bull Connor won’t give us a permit to demonstrate, so our marches are illegal, and the protestors are usually jailed; but they’re too few to make the national news.’
‘So maybe it’s time for another change of tactics.’
A young black woman came into the café and approached their table. ‘The Reverend Dr King is free to see you now, Mr Jakes.’
George and Verena left their lunches half-eaten. As with the President, you did not ask Dr King to wait while you finished what you were doing.
They returned to the Gaston and went upstairs to King’s suite. As always, he was dressed in a dark business suit: the heat seemed to make little difference to him. George was struck again by how small he was, and how handsome. This time King was less wary, more welcoming. ‘Sit down, please,’ he said, waving to a couch. His voice was mild, even when his words were barbed: ‘What has the Attorney General got to tell me that he can’t say over the phone?’
‘He wants you to consider delaying your campaign here in Alabama.’
‘Somehow I’m not surprised.’
‘He supports what you’re trying to achieve, but he feels the protest may be ill-timed.’
‘Tell me why.’
‘Bull Connor has just lost the election for mayor to Albert Boutwell. There’s a new city government. Boutwell is a reformer.’
‘Some people feel Boutwell is just a more dignified version of Bull Connor.’
‘Reverend, that may be so; but Bobby would like you to give Boutwell the chance to prove himself – one way or the other.’
‘I see. So that message is: Wait.’
‘Yes, sir.’
King looked at Verena, as if inviting her to comment, but she said nothing.
After a moment King said: ‘Last September, Birmingham businessmen promised to remove humiliating “Whites Only” signs from their stores and, in return, Fred Shuttlesworth agreed to a moratorium on demonstrations. We kept our promise, but the businessmen broke theirs. As has happened so many times, our hopes were blasted.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said George. ‘But—’
King ignored the interruption. ‘Non-violent direct action seeks to create so much tension, and sense of crisis, that a community is forced to confront the issue and open the door to sincere negotiation. You ask me to give Boutwell time to show his true colours. Boutwell may be less of a brute than Connor, but he is a segregationist, dedicated to keeping the status quo. He needs to be prodded to act.’
This was so reasonable that George could not even pretend to disagree, though the likelihood of his changing King’s mind seemed to be fading rapidly.
‘We have never made a gain, in civil rights, without pressure,’ King went on. ‘Frankly, George, I have yet to engage in a campaign that was “well-timed” in the eyes of men such as Bobby Kennedy. For years now I have heard the word: “Wait”. It rings in my ears with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” always means “Never”. We have waited three hundred and forty years for our rights. African nations are moving with jet-like speed towards independence, but we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.’
George realized now that he was hearing a sermon being rehearsed, but he was no less mesmerized. He had abandoned all hope of fulfilling his mission for Bobby.
‘Our great stumbling block, in our stride toward freedom, is not the White Citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner. It’s the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who constantly says, like Bobby Kennedy: “I agree with the goal you seek, but I cannot condone your methods.” He paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom.’
Now George felt ashamed, for he was Bobby’s messenger.
‘We will have to repent, in this generation, not merely for the hateful words and actions of bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good,’ King said, and George had to struggle against tears. ‘The time is always ripe to do right. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” said the prophet Amos. You tell Bobby Kennedy that, George.’
‘Yes, sir, I will,’ said George.