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Home , Walter Fauntroy

Simmering Feud Comes to a Boil Over the Civil Rights Leader's Book

standing in line, some for almost two hours? a "Judas" for serving up his allegations of

warrior some top black leaders have branded attacked by such luminaries as Andrew book and an autograph from a civil rights Jr.? Martin Luther King Jr.'s extramarital esca-

professionals, like 49-year-old Carl Franklin, Why are they willing to plop down $25 for a liam Gray, Benjamin Hooks and ? pades?

who allowed loyalists to use the $15 million

shunning of her late husband's top deputy, , an institution herself shrugging off calls to boycott a book that critics howl threatens to tarnish King and

turn Abernathy into the movement's Salmi grams analyst, suffer a twinge of remorse for Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonvio- Young, , Walter Fauntroy, Wil- confidant and best friend? Didn't Franklin

take notice of last week's public graveside lent Social Change to launch the official Rushdie for ratting on the dreamer? rebuke of the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy

The Abernathy Uproar

ATLANTA—So why are scores of black Just why

Or is there no concern for The Widow,

Does no one care that the author has been

And doesn't Franklin, a government pro-

is

Washington Post Staff Writer

By Art Harris /

Carl Franklin here, bending

/

.

'

and-pepper hair and mustache who whispers over the soft-spoken minister with the salt-

.38 on his hip eyes the patient, racially mixed gratitude, then signs his name in the shadow Bookstore for their turn. of New Age tape racks? A bodyguard with a ers who try to make decisions for me, who want to dictate what crowd of 150 standing in line at the Oxford

think," says Franklin with a shrug.

ter from the postwar trenches of America's under fire, fighting back in yet another chap-

long dormant . said his bodyguard, Virgil Walker, a retired with Bryant Gumbel on NBC's "Today" show

simmering feud between King's most trust- yesterday. All was not peace and love in the

there is "Donahue." four death threats against Dr. Abernathy,"

land of nonviolent social protest. Today

ed colleague, who friends say has been hurt trolling around his house."

New York City police officer. "We've turned them over to the Atlanta police. They're pa-

minds of black America boils down to a long-

"I resent any so-called black or white lead-

"God bless you," says Abernathy, the man

"We've had crank calls and maybe three or

It was the night before an intense session

The latest skirmish for the hearts and

See ABERNATHY,1314, Col. 1

I

should read and

on the day before King was assassinated. Abernathy, right, with Martin Luther King Jr.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

■

••,...•••••• B14 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1989 . THE Abernathy Controversy

ABERNATHY, From B1 conjuring an Abernathy afflicted with each other before. Their relationship mental and physical infirmities. was a close one. Knowing that some- by a lack of recognition over the years, But at least one movement legend, one would be with Martin to watch out and black leaders who have taken up , jumped to Abernathy's for him, I spoke to the women, then the reins of the movement. side. "It's nothing new, except that the excused myself and went off to bed." On one side is Abernathy, 63, slow other books have not dealt with his last He left the motel room they were of speech after two strokes—but "not night," said Farmer, now a history pro- sharing unlocked, he says, and the next of mind," he says. On the other are fessor at Mary Washington College. morning encountered a third woman barricades manned by an all-star cast Farmer also said he understands why who was irate that King had apparently of black leaders, including former others are upset about the book, ac- not spent the night in his bed. Aber- members of King's inner circle gone knowledging that "they feel it tarnishes nathy writes that King "lay down on his ballistic with virulent attacks to dis- the image of Dr. King.. . . [Butt I think bed, curled up like a small child, and credit one of their own. it's largely irrelevant. King did so looked over at me. 'She's mad at me,' For years, J. Edgar Hoover's FBI much good, he accomplished so many he said. 'She came in this morning and tried to peddle stories about King's re- things of terribly great importance. I found my bed empty.' " portedly active sex life in an attempt to think that history will dwell on those King then asked Abernathy to "do sabotage a movement the bureau good things, just as most historians something," he writes. "Call her and viewed as a communist plot. Those re- have dwelled on the good things done see if you can straighten things out." ports were not ignored by such earlier by John F. Kennedy, and not on his af- Soon there was a fight, King "lost his chroniclers of King's life and times as fairs with Marilyn Monroe and many temper . . . and knocked her across the David J. Garrow. other women." bed. It was more a shove than a real "It's truly inescapable to avoid deal- Bristles Lowery, "I'm questioning blow." She stormed out, heading to the ing with in the FBI context," says Gar- his memory, his motive. I'm question- airport as King shouted for her to stay, row, a 1987 Pulitzer Prize winner for ing it all." Abernathy writes. his biography, "." "I wrote nothing out of malice," Ab- "This has been part of the record. It's ernathy says. "Martin was my closest something one has to confront. What's "I can't see anything but jealousy," friend, my buddy. . . . unique about King's private life was says Abernathy, reflecting in a Sunday "For years, he had been placed in not anything he did, but the extent it school classroom at his West Hunter the position of being a saint, a Jesus, a was surveilled and recorded. Only be- Street Baptist Church. He sits beneath God, but he was merely mortal, flesh cause of the FBI's obsession has it at- a poster proclaiming "Smile, God and blood.. . . If I hadn't written about tained this sort of cultural status." Loves You." what I saw, they would have accused me of whitewashing history. It's only But the Rev. , presi- Why did he write that King emerged two pages out of more than 600. The dent of the Southern Christian Leader- from a bedroom at a supporter's Mem- book is a tribute to my friend." ship Conference that King—and later phis home after a late steak dinner He disputes critics who charge that Abernathy—once headed said the lat- they shared the niglitt before he was he ranks as an assassin of sorts who est book "can do serious harm" by gunned down? Why' did he have to gunned down a memory leaders have serving up kinky ammunition to such write that King passed that night in the fought to build up as an icon of hope to movement enemies as Sen. Jesse company of two different women and blacks. Rather, Abernathy says, he Helms, the North Carolina Republican that King shoved a third woman across wanted to portray a great man with who tried to shotgun the national King his motel bed after an argument— "human frailties," to inspire ghetto holiday. mere hours before the fatal shots? youths that it is possible to achieve "We don't care what the David Gar- Why did he write all this in "And the great things even if "they may have row types write, what strangers write, Walls Came Tumbling Down'? made mistakes." the people who have been getting stuff Abernathy writes that after the late He said it was understandable that out of FBI files for years," says Low- dinner, he and King were driven to the King's charisma drew fans who ery. "But this comes from a person Lorraine Motel, where Martin's broth- swarmed after he emerged from jail or who claimed to be his closest and de- er, A.D. King, had arrived from out of public speeches. "He yielded to temp- arest friend. That puts it in an entirely town: ". . . When we got to A.D.'s mo- tation just like I yielded," he said, per- different category." tel room, we found that he was not up. haps referring to an incident his attack- Lowery, among dozens of leaders A.D. had had a couple of drinks, and ers are quick to point out—an episode who banded together against Aber- there was a white woman with him. detailed in "Parting the Waters," the nathy in recent days, not only disputes "But there was a black woman in the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning book by the accuracy of the recollections about room as well, a member of the Ken- . how King spent his last night in Mem- tucky legislature; and she had clearly Branch reports that an irate hus- phis, but other aspects of the book, come to see Martin. They had known band chased Abernathy down from his ...40paager.,

WASHINGTON POST

was never considered King material. . . If this [the sexual disclosure] was a burst of honesty, why was it not more than just a blip in this whole book?" "With two recent books—both Pulit- zer Prize winners—talking openly about Martin's infidelity, I knew that if 1 ignored the subject, then reviewers and readers would say, 'He's not tell- ing the truth so the rest of his book is unreliable as well'," said Abernathy in a statement he passed out to reporters.

After Abernathy's book began mak- ing the rounds, Atlanta insurance mil- lionaire Jesse Hill, chairman of the board of the King Center, pressed Ab- ernathy to repudiate his work, then ral- lied black leaders to attack him, Aber- nathy fired back that they were just part of a black establishment grown

ACENCI FRANCE•PRESSE rich, famous and lazy living off of The Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, left, greets Benjamin Hooks yesterday, King's image—and called for rededica- tion: He urged them to work less to- Montgomery, Ala., church with a gun That crusade lasted 381 days, ending ward immortalizing King and more to- and hatchet, claiming the pastor was with a Supreme Court decision declaring ward attacking problems of the ghetto sleeping with his wife. The man, a for- unconstitutional Alabama's laws on bus poor. Abernathy said that if he failed to mer Alabama State college football segregation. During that time, Aber- use this opportunity to refocus the de- player was charged with assault with nathy saw his church and home bombed. bate, "I know Martin would admonish intent to murder but was acquitted lat- None of his family— his wife, Juanita, or me for the desecration of his dream." er that year. his four children—were hurt. If critics hoped to derail sales, the "When anyone wanted to joke about After the boycott, King and Aber- plan backfired. Harper & Row, the Ralph," says one critic, "we'd just say, nathy founded the Montgomery Im- publisher, has ordered 10,000 more 'Hatchet.' That was our code for provement Association, a forerunner books after a first printing of 30,000. Ralph." to the SCLC. Later, at the SCLC, King "We certainly didn't expect a firestorm and his top deputy Abernathy, plotted like this," says a delighted publicist. strategy;sije by side, they faced vio- Once they were like brothers, shar- lence froirewhite mobs and wound up ing a friendship that took root in Mont- in jail 13 times together. "The truth doesn't diminish my ap- gomery in the mid-'50s, when the civil On the stump, Abernathy says he preciation for what Dr. King accom- rights movement was barely starting readily took a back seat to King, warm- plished in civil rights," says Carl Frank- to rumble. had just been ing crowds for the main event. Public- lin, two books in hand, one for his jailed for disputing a bus driver over ly, King designated him successor—a daughter, an aspiring writer. designated white seating. fact supporters say rankled not only "I just don't believe in censorship," It was time to stand up, figured two Mrs. King, but ambitious young Turks he says, as the crowd in Oxford Book- young pastors, and so began an epic in the ranks, like Jesse Jackson. store snakes forward. "I have a great I chapter in the fight for racial justice in But some historians and former col- deal of faith in Dr. Abernathy. . . . the emerging South: Abernathy, a leagues say it was Abernathy who don't feel he's going to lie ... Dr. King Montgomery-born grandson of a slave smarted that his role was not larger in was a great man. He did great deeds, and World War II veteran, and King, the King's lifetime, or the hereafter. Tay- but being a hero doesn't keep you from preacher's son from Atlanta, began or- lor Branch calls Abernathy's book a re- being human, with desires and needs of ganizing the historic Montgomery bus action to "a lifetime of cumulative bit- fulfillment. boycott to end segregated public transit. terness by Abernathy over the fact he "It should be told as it happened."