Authors: Lamar Waldron
Zimbabwe) as soon as possible. In testimony, Ray said that “as a con, he
knew phony passports were generally available for about a thousand
dollars.” Instead, the fugitive Ray used the money to purchase the car
and remain in the US, when he could have bought a fake passport and
still had enough money to leave North America. Ray would remain in
Birmingham, apparently “on ice,” waiting for his next assignment for
more than a month.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Alabama remained a bastion of segregation in 1967, but neighboring
states like Georgia were undergoing a transformation that mirrored
America’s troubled, sometimes violent progress on issues of race.
Advances in the struggle for civil rights were used by some politicians
and other leaders to polarize large segments of the population along
racial lines, laying the groundwork for more violence. The two national
leaders who were the focus of the most extreme emotions on the issue
of civil rights were Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.
By the summer of 1967, Bobby Kennedy had recovered from the con-
troversies that had dogged him earlier in the year, and was once again
ahead of President Lyndon B. Johnson in polls for the 1968 presidential
race. However, Bobby continued to publicly support LBJ while resist-
ing pressure from his friends and advisors to enter the race. Despite
his growing differences with LBJ on Vietnam and the need for faster
progress on programs to help the poor, Bobby was unable to explain
clearly to advisors why he was unwilling to run against LBJ. He couldn’t
tell them that while Jack Anderson’s revelations about his 1963 Cuban
operations had stopped, Bobby didn’t know what other information
about him LBJ might have turned up in their aftermath. Bobby was
reluctant to find out by running against LBJ and potentially stirring up
the matter again.1
However, Bobby’s increasing focus on civil rights and poverty in the
wake of his Mississippi trip was slowly increasing his popularity, not
just among minorities but also with poor whites and even liberals, who
had long viewed Bobby with suspicion. Bobby’s determination to aid
the poor only increased when the New York senator found appalling
poverty among migrant laborers in his own state. Since 1966, Bobby had
championed the cause of California migrant leader Cesar Chavez, devel-
oping with Chavez the type of personal rapport and friendship Bobby
had with Harry Williams. While Bobby’s meetings with Cesar Chavez
in California garnered headlines and resentment from conservative farm
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owners, Bobby’s little-publicized discovery of horrible conditions in
New York showed him that the plight of the poor was a national problem
that needed national solutions. To Bobby, migrant-worker issues, civil
rights, poverty, and even Vietnam were all one cause—that of standing
up for the less fortunate who were held down by laws or force.2 Though
Bobby was not yet willing to challenge LBJ openly for the presidency,
he could use his considerable powers of publicity to draw attention to
the issues he cared about.
However, Bobby’s growing public status as a champion of the down-
trodden only fueled the hatred directed at him by the far Right and
extreme conservatives. These hardliners still had roles in mainstream
politics and large corporations, not only in the South, but also in other
regions of the country. Developments in the summer of 1967 gave them
new ammunition to use in stoking the racial fear and anger that they
frequently directed toward Bobby Kennedy and civil rights leaders like
Martin Luther King. LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall, a key player in
the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision against segregated schools,
to be the first black member of the court. Activist groups like the Black
Panthers became more prominent, and the images of gun-toting black
militants rattled segments of the white population. Young black men in
the inner cities felt increasingly impatient for change after promises of
Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” antipoverty programs, and they were
often receptive to more radical leaders like H. Rap Brown, the new head
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Brown turned his
back on Dr. King’s nonviolence, reportedly telling a Black Power confer-
ence that blacks should “wage guerilla war on the honkie white man”
and declaring, “I love violence.”3
For a variety of reasons, violence exploded in many of the nation’s
inner cities in the summer of 1967, most prominently in Newark and in
Detroit, site of the most deadly race riot in US history until that point,
with a death toll of thirty-eight and damage estimated at half a billion
dollars. According to one account, “racial strife . . . erupted in 70 cities,
including Atlanta, Boston, Philadelphia, Birmingham, New York, [and]
Cincinnati.”4 Often overlooked are the race riots that summer in Tampa,
Florida (in June), and in Memphis (on July 20)—along with those in
Atlanta, they would have unexpected consequences for Martin Luther
King.
For Georgia white supremacist Joseph Milteer, the summer 1967 race
riots would have been both a blessing and a curse. In the short term,
they might have boosted contributions from his supporters. While the
racial troubles in Atlanta in the summer of 1967 didn’t rise to the level of
full-scale race riots (as the city had experienced the previous summer),
riots in neighboring states like Tennessee, North Carolina, and Florida
would have worried the white, blue-collar workers Milteer targeted, a
fear he would have been able to exploit.
On the other hand, the riots would have increased the pressure on
Milteer from his most extremist longtime contributors, who wanted
to see Martin Luther King killed. Though Dr. King received a steady
stream of death threats, there had been no recent public attempts on his
life—nothing that Milteer could claim credit for. Milteer was sixty-five
years old, and the money he collected for his anti-King, anti–civil rights
efforts supplemented his slowly dwindling inheritance. The money
Milteer had accumulated, plus his interest in the land his associates
had purchased just across the Georgia border in North Carolina, would
give him a financial cushion in his old age. By all accounts, Milteer was
a true believer who wasn’t just pushing his brand of racial hatred for
money, but his golden years would be a nightmare if his most faithful
contributors came to feel he’d bilked them. Some of his supporters were
members of violent groups like the Klan, and Milteer knew what could
happen to the targets of their wrath.
Before examining the steps taken by Milteer and his associates that led
to King’s death, it’s important to put their actions in context by taking a
snapshot of the racial politics of the time. Race relations and civil rights
underwent a rapid transformation in the 1960s, with some racial condi-
tions affecting the nation as a whole, while others were specific to parts
of the South, like New Orleans, Atlanta, and Memphis. What happened
in those cities in 1967 and early 1968 would cause Dr. King’s assassina-
tion to be planned at that particular time and place.
In 1967, the majority of the country—even well-educated people
and authority figures—held views that are considered racist today. On
June 12, 1967, the day before LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall to the
Supreme Court, the court finally struck down laws in sixteen states
barring interracial marriage. Many people today might be surprised
to learn that as recently as 1967, three-fourths of the American public
was against interracial marriage. The language of the Virginia Supreme
Court justices, whose decision upholding the ban was reversed by the US
Supreme Court, sounds shocking in hindsight. The supposedly distin-
guished Virginia justices said the ban was needed to stop “the corruption
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LEGACY OF SECRECY
of blood” that might create “a mongrel breed of citizens” resulting in
“the obliteration of racial pride” for the white race.5
Attitudes like that among mainstream leaders make it easy to see
why the civil rights stands of Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, LBJ,
and JFK were considered so groundbreaking—and, by some, danger-
ous. The anti–civil rights John Birch Society had begun a slow decline
after Barry Goldwater sought its support prior to his landslide loss in
the 1964 presidential election, but many prominent citizens in the South
and elsewhere were still members of groups like the loosely organized
White Citizens’ Councils. By 1967, some chapters were calling them-
selves simply Citizens’ Councils, but their anti–civil rights, anti–Martin
Luther King stance remained. The White Citizens’ Councils have been
described as “the Klan in suits and ties,” and David Halberstam said
their “members are respectable citizens of the community.” That was
especially true in the Deep South, where the Klan took on an increasingly
blue-collar bent as its membership declined in the 1960s. Membership
in the White Citizens’ Councils also declined after its peak in the 1950s,
but to a lesser extent, and it remained acceptable in many cities for
prominent professionals and officials to be members.6
Though Halberstam points out that while the Councils gave the
appearance of a “civic luncheon club [with] speakers from the ministry
and the universities,” their essential message was often similar to
Stoner’s and the Klan’s. An Atlanta Citizens’ Council member stated
that Jews were responsible for the Holocaust and a synagogue bomb-
ing because they worshipped “the Baal of Socialism and Communism,”
while a Memphis member said, “The NAACP is the worst organization
to come along since the one that crucified Christ.”7
Most White Citizens’ Council chapters, Birchers, and the Klan were
avid supporters of former Alabama governor George Wallace, who in
1967 was gearing up for a presidential run the following year. While
Wallace didn’t think he could win, he thought he might be able to gain
enough electoral votes to throw the election to the House of Representa-
tives, where his block of votes could allow him to be a kingmaker.8
However, Wallace and his supporters present a more complex pic-
ture than appears on the surface. Most people don’t realize that the
NAACP supported Wallace when he first ran for governor—and lost.
He switched his position, sought the support of the Klan and other
racist groups, and won. Thus, Wallace’s racist policies may have been
more pragmatic pandering than his sincere beliefs. This notion raises an
important point in the story of King’s murder: Many professional racists
also had a strong profit motive.9
According to one survey of the time, a quarter of Wallace’s supporters
had an unexpected second choice for president: Bobby Kennedy. Those
people were supporting Wallace not necessarily because he espoused
racism, but because he was an alternative to a political and economic
system they felt had failed them. Their attitude resulted from seeing
political and business leaders use racism to distract working families
and the rural populace from issues like better schools, unions, improved
access to medical care, and decent housing. For decades, those people
were taught to blame black people, instead of unresponsive leaders, for
their problems, but now a quarter of them were finally receptive to a
solution beyond racism—hence their admiration for Bobby Kennedy.10
While it was openly acceptable to be a Wallace supporter in most parts
of the country, Joseph Milteer aligned himself with a gamut of groups,
including some that advocated more extreme forms of racism and vio-
lence. Like the prominent lawyer and the dentist who were his partners
in the auto workers’ scam and the King plot, Milteer belonged to the
Atlanta White Citizens’ Council, considered almost respectable in the
city (it
was
respectable in most other Southern towns). Yet Milteer also
served as a recruiter for the racist and anti-Semitic National States Rights
Party of J. B. Stoner, an organization shunned by polite society.11
Stoner, who would later be convicted for the 1958 bombing of a black
church, had caused whites to riot against blacks in 1964 in St. Augus-
tine, Florida, following an appearance by Martin Luther King. After
Dr. King’s murder, Stoner would be James Earl Ray’s third attorney
and would employ one of Ray’s brothers for a time. The FBI and Con-
gressional investigators looked at Stoner in King’s assassination, but
no evidence ever surfaced that connected him to the murder. However,
Stoner was in the perfect position to be used by Joseph Milteer after
King’s murder, as a conduit of instructions and information.
Joseph Milteer also had associates in the higher levels of the various
Klan groups, which were responsible for most of the racial violence in