At Canaan's Edge

America in the King Years, 1965-68

Taylor Branch

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780684857138
• eBook ISBN: 9781416558712
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 is the final volume in Taylor Branch's magnificent history of America in the years of the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War, recognized universally as the definitive account and ultimate recognition of Martin Luther King's heroic place in the nation's history.

The final volume of Taylor Branch's monumental, much honored, and definitive history of the Civil Rights Movement (America in the King Years), At Canaan's Edge covers the final years of King's struggle to hold his non-violent movement together in the face of factionalism within the Movement, hostility and harassment of the Johnson Administration, the country torn apart by Vietnam, and his own attempt (and failure) to take the Freedom Movement north.

At Canaan's Edge traces a seminal era in our defining national story, freedom. The narrative resumes in Selma, crucible of the voting rights struggle for black people across the South. The time is early 1965, when the modern Civil Rights Movement enters its second decade since the Supreme Court's Brown decision declared segregation by race a violation of the Constitution.

From Selma, King's non-violent Movement is under threat from competing forces inside and outside. Branch chronicles the dramatic voting rights drives in Mississippi and Alabama, Meredith's murder, the challenge to King from the Johnson Administration and the FBI and other enemies. When King tries to bring his Movement north (to Chicago), he falters. Finally we reach Memphis, the garbage strike, King's assassination.

Branch's magnificent trilogy makes clear why the Civil Rights Movement, and indeed King's leadership, are among the nation's enduring achievements.

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS USED

INTRODUCTION

“every votary of freedom”: Federalist No. 39, in Rossiter, ed., Federalist, p. 240.

“virtue in the people”: Wood, Radicalism, pp. 234–35; Ketcham, Madison, p. 262.

“Sir, I know just how”: Branch, Pillar, p. 509.

“rise up and live out”: Washington, ed., Testament, p. 219.

“as old as the Scriptures”: Branch, Parting, pp. 823–24.

“I believe that unarmed truth”: Branch, Pillar, p. 541.

“But what is government”: Federalist No. 51, in Rossiter, ed., Federalist, p. 322.

1: WARNING

Haynes spread word: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

hens would not lay eggs properly: Int. Mary Lee King, June 28, 2000.

plainspoken Hulda Coleman: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 185–89.

Haynes had confided to Coleman: Int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; Couto, Ain’t

Gonna, pp. 89–90.

last attempt to register: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 120–21.

Mt. Carmel Baptist on February 28, 1965: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000.

shotguns and rifles: SAC, Mobile, to Director, March 1, 1965, FDCA-442.

said he had been braced: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

recognized among the Klansmen: Int. Bernice Johnson, Feb. 16, 2001.

dumped the body of Bud Rudolph: Int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000.

There was Tom Coleman: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000; int. Uralee Haynes, Sept. 8, 2000; int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000; Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 187–91.

Sheriff Jesse Coleman: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 100–101, 186.

barely a fifth of the county’s households had telephone service: Ibid., p. 109.

the only armed pickup sighted: Int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000.

fell to deacon John Hulett: Eagles, Outside Agitator, pp. 122–23; Couto, Ain’t Gonna, pp. 84, 94–96.

slave ancestor was said to have founded Mt. Carmel Baptist: Int. John Hulett, Sept. 8, 2000. A plaque outside Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, Gordonville, Alabama, reads, “Founded 1819—Rev. J. Hullett.”

led a close convoy: Ibid.

“If I have to leave, you take it”: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

never again in the twentieth century: Ibid.

2: SCOUTS

James Bevel was preaching: Fager, Selma, 1965, pp. 82–83.

twelfth chapter of Acts: Acts 12:2–3.

walked with them from this same church in a night vigil: Branch, Pillar, pp. 592–94.

“a nightmare of State Police stupidity and brutality”: Garrow, Protest, p. 62.

“Negroes could be heard screaming”: NYT, Feb. 20, 1965, p. 1.

“is falling kind of hard on me”: Int. James Bevel, Nov. 23, 1997, Dec. 10, 1998; int. Bernard Lafayette, May 28, 1990.

“go unto the king”: Esther 4:8.

“We must go to Montgomery and see the king!”: Fager, Selma, 1965, p. 83; Branch, Pillar, p. 599.

Rev. Lorenzo Harrison burst through the doors: NYT, March 1, 1965, p. 17; SAC, Mobile, to Director, Feb. 28, 1965, FDCA-450.

“I said you ought not to be crying”: Jet, March 11, 1965, p. 4.

Then Harrison himself broke down: Int. Lorenzo Harrison, Sept. 8, 2000.

open Tabernacle Baptist for the first church meeting: Branch, Pillar, pp. 81–84.

“inasmuch as Harris [sic] could furnish”: SAC, Mobile, to Director, March 1, 1965, FDCA-442.

scouted into Lowndes County along Highway 80: Int. James Bevel, Sept. 6, 2000;

“Great Day at Trickem Fork,” Saturday Evening Post, May 22, 1965, p. 94.

“Dr. King asked us to come down here”: Alvin Adams, “SCLC Organizing in Lowndes County, Alabama,” JMP.

no church yet dared to open its doors: SAC, Mobile, to Director, Feb. 16, 1965, FDCA-345.

others warily had gauged: STJ, Feb. 26, 1965, p. 1.

“My few days here are a refreshing”: LAHE, Feb. 26, 1965, p. B-1.

death threats from callers: Ibid. Also SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, Feb. 23, 1965, FK-914; SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, Feb. 24, 1965, FK-980; Los Angeles LHM dated Feb. 26, 1965, FK-NR.

News stories tracked a manhunt: LAT, Feb. 27, 1965; BAA, March 6, 1965, p. 1.

Reporters pressed King: Transcript of MLK press conference at L.A. Airport, Feb. 24, 1965, A/KS.

In his sermon at Victory Baptist: CDD, March 1, 1965, pp. 1, 10.

“the biggest hypocrite alive”: Branch, Pillar, p. 598.

“pitifully wasted”: NYT, Feb. 22, 1965, p. 20.

I flunked on you, Sully”: Int. Jean Jackson, May 27, 1990.

one of Coretta King’s music teachers: Ibid.

Bevel himself claimed to hear voices: Int. James Bevel, Dec. 19, 1998.

denounced Bevel to King as unstable: Int. Hosea Williams, Oct. 29, 1991; int. Willie Bolden, May 14, 1992.

King refused his insistent demands: Branch, Pillar, pp. 76, 196–97.

King had indulged Bevel: Branch, Parting, pp. 753–54; int. Andrew Young, Oct. 26, 1991.

King was in Selma largely on a quixotic leap: Branch, Pillar, pp. 138–40, 165, 524.

discovered wandering Selma’s streets: Ibid., pp. 598–99; Fager, Selma, 1965, p. 81.

Hotspur and Joan of Arc: Branch, Parting, pp. 424–25, 559; Branch, Pillar, pp. 54–57.

“How dare you, lie to me”: Int. James Bevel, Nov. 23, 1997; int. Diane Nash, Dec. 8, 1998.

“rise up and live out the true meaning”: Washington, ed., Testament, p. 219.

“how worthy I’m going to try to be”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 9:20 P.M., Nov. 25, (the day of President Kennedy’s funeral), Beschloss, Taking, p. 39.

Then Johnson had turned suddenly coy and insecure: Branch, Pillar, pp. 452–54.

“That will answer seventy percent of your problems”: LBJ phone call with MLK, 12:06 P.M., Jan. 15, 1965, Cit. 6736-37, Audiotape WH6501.04, LBJ.

“That’ll get you a message that all the eloquence”: Ibid.

When a haggard King placed an ad: Branch, Pillar, pp. 580–84.

FBI agents overheard his call: Branigan to W. C. Sullivan, Feb. 28, 1965, FK-983.

“a return to Reconstruction”: Horace Busby to Bill Moyers and Lee White, “The Voting Rights Message,” Feb. 27, 1965, Legislative Background, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Box 1, LBJ.

Katzenbach himself strongly oppo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• ALSO BY TAYLOR BRANCH
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• I.Selma: The Last Revolution
• II. HIGH TIDE
• III. CROSSROADS IN FREEDOM AND WAR
• IV. PASSION
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• PHOTO CREDITS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Photographic Insert