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PART SIX Spreading ofthe Wings CHAPTER 16 KING AND THE GREENING OF THE MOVEMENT THE fiRST CAPITAL OF the Confederacy had become the mecca of the civil rights movement in America, and an eloquent Baptist preacher sat as its high priest and stood as its prophet. A tiny schoolteacher named Rosa Parks prepared the ground in December 1955, by preferring a seat in the city jail to a seat in the back of a city bus. A Montgomery Pullman porter, E. D. Nixon, designed the edifice when he conceived the plan to "pull the people off the buses," a boycott of the city transportation system. But it was Martin Luther King, Jr., who established the shrine of Gandhian nonviolence in a southern city in the United States of America, drawing to him, as a magnet, pilgrims and press from all over the world. There was none of the strident rhetoric that had characterized the struggle for so long. It was now a seductive gentleness: "Though you hate us ... yet we will love you; and we will wear you down with our capacity to suffer." The action, however, was sinewy and tough. Tens of thousands of weary blacks walked miles to work and back home, refusing to ride segregated buses. Despite sore feet and aching muscles, they sang: Ain't gonna let nobody Turn me roun', turn me roun', Turn me roun'. Con' keep on a walkin', Keep on a talkin' Walkin' to the Promised Land. 186 LAY BARE THE HEART Here was a movement of black Americans flying in the face of the American cult of "the big fist wins." Here was a movement dedicated to the proposition that one could win without using any fists at all, except those pounding within the soul. King's Montgomery protest not only repudiated the violent machismo of America; it also stirred to awakening another America-the America of Emerson and Thoreau, of the Quakers, of the abolitionists, the America of principle and compassion. A part of America was born again, one might say, and the rebirth lasted through the decade of the sixties. On the first day of the Montgomery bus boycott, I sat in Jerry Wurf's office, and together we listened to the news from Montgomery. I went home early. After dinner, Lula and I sat down with a glass of wine. Gretchen was in my lap, licking my face. "Jim, I know you have mixed feelings about the developments in Montgomery , but-" "What do you mean, mixed feelings?" I said. "I think it's the greatest thing that's-" "Jim, this is me, Lula. I know you have mixed feelings, you're human. But don't. Please don't. This is precisely the spark that you've been working and hoping for, for years. The nonviolent moment now has the nation 's attention, and it's off and running. But you tilled the field, Jim. I know you'll share in the harvest. I know you will." With unerring perception, Lula had read my thoughts. The great day has come at last. The nonviolent movement in America is airborne. Why am I not more exuberant? Is it because it is not I who leads it? Is there a green-eyed monster peering through my eyes? I had labored a decade and a half in the vineyards of nonviolence. Now, out of nowhere, someone comes and harvests the grapes and drinks the wine. I am only human. What I have hated most in people is pettiness. Am I now consumed by that which I hate? I must kill the green beast inside if I am to battle the dragons outside and keep faith with that child in Holly Springs and that teenager in Marshall, Texas. But can I? Am I enough of a person to see the spotlight on another while I do my dance in the low lights and shadows? Shortly after the bus boycott had begun, A. Philip Randolph phoned to ask me to come to a small meeting at his office to discuss Montgomery. Also invited were Bayard Rustin and William Worthy, Jr., a young black activist and writer. Phil told us of his delight at what was happening at last in a larger southern city, and under inspired charismatic leadership. He had not heard of Dr. King before, but after all, he was very young-under thirty. The Reverend Dr. King clearly had the ability to speak effectively, not only to his constituency, Randolph observed, but...

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