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141 5 Dr. King’s Painful Dilemma I don’t really have the strength to fight this issue [of Vietnam] and keep my civil rights fight going. —martin luther King Jr., September 15, 1965 on the evening of monday, march 15, 1965, martin luther King Jr. was emotionally and physically drained. He huddled with a few close aides in front of a small black-and-white television in a living room in Selma, alabama, anxiously awaiting President Johnson’s address to Congress on the issue of civil rights. For the past two months, the civil rights movement had made a stand for voting rights in Selma, a former slave market in the heart of the Black Belt. although african americans made up 57 percent of Selma’s population, less than 1 percent were eligible to vote.1 it had been a vicious campaign. Southern vigilantes had recently murdered James Reeb, a white Unitarian minister, and Jimmie lee Jackson, a young african american. more murders would follow. throughout the ordeal, King had maintained his usual whirlwind schedule—what andrew Young called King’s “war on sleep.”2 along with nearly 3,500 other civil rights workers, including 700 teenagers, King had been jailed for attempting to register to vote. in Dallas County, Sheriff Jim Clark and his “posse” of white citizens patrolled the streets of Selma, determined to control african americans by sheer physical intimidation (including the use of electric cattle prods).3 earlier, King had remarked, “We’ll have some funerals to deal with in the Black Belt of alabama and we won’t just be burying segregation , we’ll be burying some of us.”4 King’s closest friend Ralph abernathy recalled, “martin had been receiving an excessive number of death threats as a result of the Selma campaign, perhaps more than any other time in his career.”5 142 Selma to Saigon only eight days earlier, on march 7, the violence had climaxed when alabama state troopers clubbed, trampled, and tear-gassed approximately 500 unarmed protesters who had just begun a highly publicized march to montgomery to present a petition of grievances to governor george Wallace. Images of helmeted officers clubbing demonstrators who were kneeling in prayer, shrouded in an eerie fog of tear gas, were captured by television cameras and shown on the evening news, sparking a national and international furor. it soon became known as “Bloody Sunday.” to make matters worse, the long-standing friction between SnCC and King resurfaced. SnCC had spent months organizing a grassroots movement, but King had just come to Selma and seized the spotlight. SnCC excoriated him for refusing to disobey a federal court injunction forbidding the march. Upon learning that King had made a deal with federal officials not to march, a livid James Forman denounced King’s “trickery” and angrily declared that “SnCC would no longer work with the SClC.”6 the bloodbath in Selma outraged lyndon Johnson, who that same weekend made the critical decision to dispatch the first battalion of ground troops to South Vietnam to protect the U.S. air base at Da nang. after Bloody Sunday, the ongoing saga in Selma seized the president’s attention , and he interrupted a number of sensitive meetings on the situation in Vietnam to deal with the brewing crisis in alabama.7 more than a thousand civil rights demonstrators flocked to the White House, denouncing Johnson’s failure to send troops to quell the police riot in Selma. they carried placards that said, “lBJ, just you wait . . . see what happens in ’68.”8 after a particularly contentious meeting with governor Wallace, the president requested permission to address a joint session of Congress to present a voting rights bill—the first time in nineteen years that a president had addressed Congress on a domestic matter.9 the president had been apprehensive and moody since his decision to send ground troops to Vietnam, but the First lady noted that his mood brightened at the prospect of delivering a major speech on civil rights.10 as Johnson walked into the chamber to thunderous applause, King nervously pulled his armchair closer to the tV in the living room of Selma dentist James Jackson, who had opened his home to King during the tumultuous weeks of the voting rights campaign. the tension was palpable as Johnson began his address. Johnson’s prime-time speech, delivered live to more than 70 million viewers, was one of the greatest presidential addresses in american history , and it...

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