"The Secret Agony of Martin Luther King"

Time’s latest issue contains a large excerpt from the final book in Taylor Branch’s classic history of the Civil Right’s Movement. “At Canaan’s Edge” is due out this year.

“Assassination threats were constant, and King had always been haunted by premonitions of a premature death, but now they seemed to intensify.”

“By April 2, Hoover formally requested permission to reinstall wiretaps at SCLC. Two days later, the Mississippi FBI office sent headquarters a two-pronged counterintelligence program, or cointelpro, proposal, first, to breed confusion and resentment on King’s poverty tours by spreading false information about whether he or surrogates would appear at scheduled rallies, and second, to undermine his image by distributing leaflets skewering King as a fancy dresser who deserted his people. The combination would “discredit King and his aides with poor Negroes who he is seeking support from,” argued Mississippi, but the bureau would not have time to act on the plan.”

TheStateOf…MLK. “Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. “–Letter From the Birmingham Jail