The Abernathy Uproar Simmering Feud Comes to a Boil Over the Civil Rights Leader's Book over the soft-spoken minister with the salt- By Art Harris / Washington Post Staff Writer / and-pepper hair and mustache who whispers gratitude, then signs his name in the shadow ATLANTA—So why are scores of black of New Age tape racks? A bodyguard with a professionals, like 49-year-old Carl Franklin, .38 on his hip eyes the patient, racially mixed standing in line, some for almost two hours? crowd of 150 standing in line at the Oxford Why are they willing to plop down $25 for a Bookstore for their turn. book and an autograph from a civil rights "I resent any so-called black or white lead- warrior some top black leaders have branded ers who try to make decisions for me, who a "Judas" for serving up his allegations of want to dictate what I should read and Martin Luther King Jr.'s extramarital esca- think," says Franklin with a shrug. pades? "God bless you," says Abernathy, the man Does no one care that the author has been under fire, fighting back in yet another chap- attacked by such luminaries as Andrew ter from the postwar trenches of America's Young, Jesse Jackson, Walter Fauntroy, Wil- long dormant civil rights movement. liam Gray, Benjamin Hooks and John Lewis? It was the night before an intense session Or is there no concern for The Widow, with Bryant Gumbel on NBC's "Today" show Coretta Scott King, an institution herself yesterday. All was not peace and love in the who allowed loyalists to use the $15 million land of nonviolent social protest. Today Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonvio- there is "Donahue." lent Social Change to launch the official "We've had crank calls and maybe three or shunning of her late husband's top deputy, four death threats against Dr. Abernathy," confidant and best friend? Didn't Franklin said his bodyguard, Virgil Walker, a retired take notice of last week's public graveside New York City police officer. "We've turned rebuke of the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy them over to the Atlanta police. They're pa- Jr.? trolling around his house." And doesn't Franklin, a government pro- grams analyst, suffer a twinge of remorse for shrugging off calls to boycott a book that The latest skirmish for the hearts and minds of black America boils down to a long- critics howl threatens to tarnish King and ■••,...•••••• turn Abernathy into the movement's Salmi.' simmering feud between King's most trust- ASSOCIATED PRESS Rushdie for ratting on the dreamer? ed colleague, who friends say has been hurt Abernathy, right, with Martin Luther King Jr. Just why is Carl Franklin here, bending See ABERNATHY,1314, Col. 1 on the day before King was assassinated. 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 James Farmer, 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, "Bearing the Cross." "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. Joseph Lowery, 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- Taylor Branch. 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.