Redemption

had not been intimidated by the fame of the legendary writer or by his overbearing personality. He had refused to “play second fiddle” to Papa Hemingway, Cody said.¹⁷

In the presence of King, however, Burch showed a surprising humility. It was a rare instance of Burch deferring to someone, Cody would say. He attributed Burch’s reaction to a kind of spell cast by King’s harmonious voice and calm manner. It was as if King possessed “an almost messianic or historical aura,” Cody would say.¹⁸

That afternoon Burch and the city’s lawyers met with Judge Brown in his chambers at the courthouse. Brown agreed to schedule a re-hearing on the injunction at 9:30 the next morning. Returning to their genteel law office off Court Square in downtown Memphis, Burch and his associates prepared to work all night building a case against the injunction.

Chapter 10

Invaders

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

—MLK, “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963

THE FEDERAL INJUNCTION threatened to derail the march on Monday, but that was not King’s only worry. If he did lead the march, with or without the court’s blessing, there was the alarming possibility that rowdies would replay the violence of March 28.

King was pursuing a strategy to avoid that outcome. He intended to recruit the Invaders as parade marshals. He reasoned that if the Black Power group marched under his banner, younger and more disaffected members in the African American community would take their cues from the Invaders and not cause trouble during the march.

King believed that a similar strategy had worked for him in Chicago in 1966, when he had been pursuing a campaign to improve the deplorable state of the city’s slum housing. To build grassroots support, he sought the cooperation of ghetto residents. Recruiting large numbers of them to put their bodies on the line in marches and protests became an overriding goal. But his efforts to mobilize support in the slums stalled without the involvement of an inner-city power broker: the street gangs of Chicago.

So King met with the gangs—the Vice Lords, Cobras, and Blackstone Rangers—seeking their support. It did not go well. He was stunned by their belligerence, their angry tirades, and coarse language. All the same, King did not stop talking with them. The sessions stretched late into many a night. He tried reasoning with them in a kind of tutorial, pointing out why they should trust him, why they should cooperate with him, why they ought to believe in nonviolence. Historian Stephen Oates described the tenor of the talkathons: “Gently, with great sincerity, King would explain the nature and purpose of nonviolence, asking them to try it as an experiment and put away their guns and knives.”¹

Against all odds, his words struck a responsive chord with some gang members. According to one estimate, two hundred of them pledged themselves to nonviolent marches following King through the streets of Chicago. From the experience of Chicago he drew a lesson. As he wrote in his 1967 book, The Trumpet of Conscience, “I am convinced that even very violent temperaments can be channeled through nonviolent discipline.”²

What worked in Chicago, he concluded, could serve as a model for defusing the Black Power militancy that he feared might disrupt the Washington campaign. At a news conference on February 16, 1968, he had unveiled details of the antipoverty push. On the question of how he would counter Black Power–inspired violence, he cited his success with the gangs in Chicago. “We’ve worked in communities before where nationalists existed, where persons who believe in violence have existed,” he said, “and yet we’ve been able to discipline them.” He cited his experience with the Blackstone Rangers, terming them “the worst gang in Chicago,” but said they had “marched in the demonstrations with us, and they never retaliated with a single act of violence.”³

In Memphis the Invaders were eager to talk to King. About a dozen of them were checked into Rooms 315 and 316 of the Lorraine. That morning they had met with King’s aides. Next they were to meet with him. Early in the afternoon, Charles Cabbage led his group to the dining room on the second floor of the motel to wait for him.

It would not be the first time that King had met with Cabbage. He and two other Invaders had turned up at King’s room in the Holiday Inn Rivermont on the morning after the riot. (When the rioting broke out, King had taken refuge at the Holiday Inn in accord with a policeman’s instructions. The officer had warned that the mayhem in the streets would block the route to the Lorraine, and he had escorted King to the Holiday Inn, where he stayed the night.)

According to one unofficial report that circulated immediately after the riot, it was the Invaders who were responsible for the looting and vandalism or at least had provoked youths to violence. King was aware of the report and believed it to be true. His despair over the rioting had not eased. He was profoundly depressed. Even so, he greeted Cabbage and his companions courteously. King wanted to know: would the Invaders help him stage a peaceful march?

Cabbage would remember how much at ease he felt in King’s company. He would say that he could feel “peace around that man. It was one of the few times in my life when I wasn’t actually fighting something.”⁴ In just a few moments, it seemed that they had a deal. The Invaders would have a voice in planning the march. In exchange, King would help them secure funds to support their community-outreach programs in the inner city.

To nail down the agreement, King had assigned James Orange, Hosea Williams, and James Bevel to continue the discussions with the Invaders. On the evening of April 1, the Invaders and aides had gathered at the Lorraine.

Facing off against the trio of Orange,