But before he could speak into it, the state troopers arrived.
They wore blue helmets and they carried carbines and double-barrelled shotguns. They arrived in a rush, most in cars, some on horseback. Within seconds there were two hundred or more. George stared in horror. This was a catastrophe – they would restart the riot. But that was what Governor George Wallace wanted, he realized. Wallace, like Bull Connor and the bombers, saw that the only hope now for the segregationists was a complete breakdown of law and order.
A car drew up and Wallace’s Director of Public Safety, Colonel Al Lingo, jumped out, toting a shotgun. Two men with him, apparently bodyguards, had Thompson sub-machine guns.
Chief Moore holstered his walkie-talkie. He spoke softly, but carefully did not address Lingo by his military rank. ‘If you’d leave, Mr Lingo, I’d appreciate it.’
Lingo did not trouble to be courteous. ‘Get your cowardly ass back to your office,’ he said. ‘I’m in charge now, and my orders are to put those black bastards to bed.’
George expected them to tell him to get lost, but they were too intent on their argument to care about him.
‘Those guns are not needed,’ said Moore. ‘Will you please put them up? Somebody’s going to get killed.’
‘You’re damn right!’ said Lingo.
George walked away quickly, heading back to the motel.
Just before he went inside he turned to look, just in time to see the state troopers charge the crowd.
Then the riot started all over again.
George found Verena in the motel courtyard. ‘I have to go to Washington,’ he said.
He did not want to go. He wanted to spend time with Verena, talking to her, deepening their new-found intimacy. He wanted to make her fall in love with him. But that would have to wait.
She said: ‘What are you going to do in Washington?’
‘Make sure the Kennedy brothers understand what’s happening. They have to be told that Governor Wallace is provoking violence in order to undermine the deal.’
‘It’s three o’clock in the morning.’
‘I’d like to get to the airport as early as possible and catch the first flight out. I might have to go via Atlanta.’
‘How will you get to the airport?’
‘I’m going to look for a taxi.’
‘No cab will pick up a black man tonight – especially one with a lump on his forehead.’
George touched his face exploratively and found a bump just where she said. ‘How did that happen?’ he said.
‘I seem to remember seeing a bottle hit you.’
‘Oh, yes. Well, it may be dumb, but I have to try to get to the airport.’
‘What about your luggage?’
‘I can’t pack in the dark. Besides, I don’t have much. I’m just going to go.’
‘Be careful,’ she said.
He kissed her. She put her arms around his neck and pressed her slim body to his. ‘It was great,’ she whispered. Then she let him go.
He left the motel. The avenues heading directly downtown were blocked to the east: he would have to take a circuitous route. He walked west then north, then turned east when he felt he was well clear of the rioting. He did not see any taxis. He might have to wait for the first bus of Sunday morning.
A faint light was showing in the eastern sky when a car screeched to a halt alongside him. He got ready to run, fearing white vigilantes, then changed his mind when three state troopers got out, rifles at the ready.
They won’t need much of an excuse to kill me, he thought fearfully.
The leader was a short man with a swagger. George noticed he had a sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve. ‘Where are you going, boy?’ the sergeant said.
‘I’m trying to get to the airport, Sarge,’ George said. ‘Maybe you can tell me where I can find a taxicab.’
The leader turned to the others with a grin. ‘He’s trying to get to the airport,’ he repeated, as if the idea were risible. ‘He thinks we can help him find a taxi!’
His subordinates laughed appreciatively.
‘What are you going to do at the airport?’ the sergeant asked George. ‘Clean the toilets?’
‘I’m going to catch a plane to Washington. I work at the Department of Justice. I’m a lawyer.’
‘Is that so? Well, I work for George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama, and we don’t pay too much mind to Washington, down here. So get in the goddamn car before I break your woolly head.’
‘What are you arresting me for?’
‘Don’t get smart with me, boy.’
‘If you seize me without good cause, you’re a criminal, not a trooper.’
With a sudden quick motion the sergeant swung his rifle, butt first. George ducked and instinctively raised his hand to protect his face. The wooden butt of the rifle struck his left wrist painfully. The other two troopers seized his arms. He offered no resistance, but they dragged him along as if he were struggling. The sergeant opened the rear door of the car and they threw him on the back seat. They slammed the door before he was fully inside, and it jammed his leg, causing him to shout in pain. They opened the door again, shoved his injured leg inside, and closed the door.
He lay slumped on the back seat. His leg hurt but his wrist was worse. They can do anything they like to us, he thought, because we’re black. At that moment he wished he had thrown rocks and bottles at the police instead of running around telling people to calm down and go home.
The troopers drove to the Gaston. There they opened the back door of the car and pushed George out. Holding his left wrist in his right hand, he limped back into the courtyard.
*
Later that Sunday morning George at last found a working taxi with a black driver and went to the airport, where he caught a flight to Washington. His left wrist hurt so badly that he could not use his arm, and kept his hand in his pocket for support. The wrist was swollen, and to ease the pain he took off his watch and unbuttoned his shirt cuff.
From a payphone at National Airport he called the Department of Justice and learned that there would be an emergency meeting at the White House at 6 p.m. The President was flying in from Camp David, and Burke Marshall had been helicoptered in from West Virginia. Bobby was on his way to Justice and urgently required a briefing and no, there was no time for George to go home and change his clothes.
Vowing to keep a clean shirt in his desk drawer from now on, George got a taxi to the Justice Department and went straight to Bobby’s office.
George insisted that his injuries were too trivial to require medical treatment, though he winced every time he tried to move his left arm. He summarized the night’s events for the Attorney General and a group of advisors including Marshall. For some reason Bobby’s huge black Newfoundland dog, Brumus, was there too.
‘The truce that was agreed with such difficulty this week is now in jeopardy,’ George told them in conclusion. ‘The bombings, and the brutality of the state troopers, have weakened the Negroes’ commitment to non-violence. On the other side, the riots threaten to undermine the position of the whites who negotiated with Martin Luther King. The enemies of integration, George Wallace and Bull Connor, hope that one side or both will renounce the agreement. Somehow we have to prevent that happening.’
‘Well, that’s pretty clear,’ said Bobby.
They all got into Bobby’s car, a Ford Galaxie 500. It was summer, and he had the top down. They drove the short distance to the White House. Brumus enjoyed the ride.
Several thousand demonstrators were outside the White House, noticeably a mixture of black and white, carrying placards that said: SAVE THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF BIRMINGHAM.
President Kennedy was in the Oval Office, sitting in his favourite chair, a rocker, waiting for the group from Justice. With him was a powerful trio of military men: Bob McNamara, the whiz kid Secretary of Defense, plus the Army Secretary and the Army Chief of Staff.
This group had gathered here today, George realized, because the Negroes of Birmingham had started fires and thrown bottles last night. Such an emergency meeting had never been called during all the years of non-violent civil rights protest, even when the Ku Klux Klan bombed the homes of Negroes. Rioting brought results.