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| 127 CHAPTER TEN Martin, Stanley, and Clarence A t the end of the day, Martin Luther King Jr. was a preacher, an oratorical wizard,whoknewhowtoplaymusicwithpeople’semotions.Ironically, he hadn’t spent a lot of time as a child and teenager, very much in the looming shadow of his father at Ebenezer, fancying himself as a pastor. His vast intellectual curiosity, his embracing of philosophers and ideas, generally led him to think of himself as a future campus professor or even the president of a college. He may have truly discovered his own pulpit powers—and may have been entrappedbythem—thateveninginMontgomeryin1955whenhestoodupand spoke out for the city’s blacks and their right to dignity in the buses and streets of that city. Recruited to the presidency of the hastily formed Montgomery Improvement Association, not particularly seeking acclaim or notoriety, he 128| CHAPTER TEN opened his mouth and altered history that night by the simple eloquence of his words and the trumpet sound of his voice. Bayard Rustin heard it and summoned Stanley Levison from New York to Montgomery. Levison heard it and decided on the spot that this young man and the cause he was creating were his own life’s work, even as his old Communist impulses were fading in the glow of King’s rhetoric. By 1960, stabbed, bruised, stalked, arrested, confined, at once maligned and exalted, King had gained the callused confidence of a man clearly working in his own element. He was both a convicted felon and the subject for a fawning cover story in Time magazine. He was more than a parish minister; he was the self-critical, doubt-ridden, yet quietly valiant symbol of America’s unrealized contrition with itself for the four-hundred-year crime of African bondage and degradation. Depending upon how one looked at it, everything had gone right—or wrong—for Martin King. His was a fateful arc and he submitted to it. But he never gave up his most basic role and opportunity as the man in the pulpit who could influence other people’s lives. And so it was with the California-based entertainment attorney named Clarence B. Jones. A dashing black man with a flair for good suits and fashion sunglasses, successful, erudite, and ambitious, Jones and his wife were doing well in the Pasadena area as the 1960s rolled across the continent. Jones was hardworking, smart, and lavish. He never lost touch with his roots in Cornwell Heights, Pennsylvania, and he carried the educational imprint of the boarding school nuns at the Order of the Sacred Heart who essentially raised him. But he didn’t permit the color of his skin to interfere with his healthy American determination to thrive and prosper. Worldly andsavvy, Joneswasprobablyawareofthefrightfullegaltroubles being faced by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama in 1960. He likely knew some of the details: outlandish state claims of tax evasion and underreported income, contrived and illegal detention in a state penal facility, and a broad flouting of how the law is supposed to work in a republic. Jones knew, but he was not involved on any visceral level. He also did not know Dr. King. However, some of King’s associates knew of Jones. MARTIN, STANLEY, AND CLARENCE| 129 Jones remembered those days as we sat together in the boardroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, where he is a professor, mentor, and living connection to the days when King was still alive and forging a sea change in the direction of this nation. “Initially, a mutual acquaintance of ours from Boston University called me. He said I’d be a valuable addition to the legal team defending Dr. King in Alabama. I declined at first. But then Martin happened to be speaking in Los Angeles that very week. Somebody from the sclc called me and asked if he could stop by the house and visit. Just to say hello. Well, I could hardly say no.” Clarence did not think too much about the possible effect of his unusual and stately house upon the Gandhian Reverend King. The home had a retractable ceiling that accommodated a towering palm tree that grew out from within the structure. From inside, one could see feathery clouds during the day or a canopy of stars at night. An abundant, brimming spread of flowers and plants, from hyacinths to kangaroo paws to begonias, gave the mansion the appearance of a botanical garden. It...

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