"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."
Mahatma Ghandi
A segregated waiting room at a public bus terminal in the south; 1961
When I first learned of the initial meeting between President Elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, to discuss the position of Secretary of State, the prized cabinet seat up for grabs in the new administration of the 45th President of The United States, I immediately thought of the extraordinary weight of that phone call. It was after all a call being made from the next president to a man who had similarly tried four years earlier to win the election as the republican nominee, and then in the weeks leading up to the current election had gone out of his way to articulate his personal vote of no confidence by calling him "a phony" and "a fraud." No matter the sharp criticism that immediately followed of Mr. Romney’s trip to New Jersey I appreciated the fact that when the President calls – you answer, and this he did.
I was reminded of the seriousness of that call, not by the political pundits who will find no absolution in any choice Mr. Trump ultimately makes to lead the same office that Hillary Clinton administered, yet who was also vilified in all her deeds and emails by her triumphant and divisive opponent, but from a story I had been reading from a time in our nation’s history of very similar division and social strife. It was 1961 and it wasn't a call from President John F. Kennedy, but his brother Robert, the Attorney General of the United States, that set my mind in parallel thoughts of the importance of answering the phone when you know the incoming call is not one you totally expected, nor one that you particularly crave, but you recognize the area code of 202 as originating from the center of Washington D.C., from the White House itself.​
The call sixty-five years ago I’m referring to was made from a stationary analog phone, that more closely resembled a gaming console, in size and shape, the likes of which can only be found today in a museum, from the desk of Robert F. Kennedy in Washington D.C to the New Orleans motel room of John Seigenthaler, an assistant to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, John Doar. It was a call Mr. Seigenthaler detailed in the PBS documentary "Freedom Riders," as one that when he answered began with the terse voice of RFK asking "Who the hell is Diane Nash?"
The setup for the phone call is a lengthy one and one I intend to write about in subsequent blogs, focusing on the history of the civil rights movement, since it's a theme in the book I am currently writing. One of my favorite sources for the story of the heroic 'Freedom Riders' is Taylor Branch's Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63. It's the second book in a volume of three that forever altered my opinion of the struggle for civil rights in this country. Mr Branch spent twenty-four years of his life completing the work that focuses on the movement's leader Martin Luther King Jr but encompasses enormous details through masterful storytelling of every individual contributor and event that marked, shaped and melded a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War in the tumultuous years of a divided nation, from 1954 until his tragic and untimely murder in 1968. It is in the context of the story of the 'Freedom Riders' that began in May of 1961 that I write of an urgent phone call from The White House.
American Experience; Freedom Riders
Robert Kennedy was entrenched in the first year of his brother’s presidency, and his own appointment to the position of Attorney General had not been without controversy. He was viewed as substantially inexperienced, having only recently gained any national attention as the chief counsel of the Senate Labor Rackets Committee from 1957 to 1959. But as JFK took to the oval office in January of 1961 it was soon evident that his most trusted and closest advisor would be his brother Robert, who had led his successful and also low odds candidacy for the presidency to a slim winning margin against the Republican Vice President Richard Nixon.
The Department of Justice was, as it is today, located just down the street and around the corner from the White House at 950 Pennsylvania Ave, about a ten minute walk between the two offices, but as the dust was just beginning to settle from the hubris of the inauguration, racial tensions in the south were escalating in the face of a well-organized civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr, so it's unlikely that Robert would be found anywhere but at The White House as the crisis began . Not a crisis resulting from the events that were taking shape in the deep south, but one ominously taking shape because of the divisive gap that was growing between U.S. and Soviet Union relations in 1961. At about the time that the Kennedy brothers had settled into Washington D.C. an alleged 'missile gap' had been perceived as a serious nuclear threat when Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev boasted to the world that the USSR was building missiles "like sausages" when in fact the actual numbers and capabilities of such weapons were nowhere close to his assertions. So it was a global political battle between the two superpowers that had the Kennedys attention that summer and not a group of activist interstate bus riders from Nashville.
Mr. Seigenthaler had been dispatched from Washington directly by Robert Kennedy to fly immediately to Birmingham, Alabama to assist in a difficult situation, as a representative of the government, when a group of the first 'Freedom Riders', who were attempting to fly to New Orleans after being beaten and nearly burned to death when their bus was attacked and set ablaze on an Alabama highway by members of the Klu Klux Klan, were subsequently stuck in the Birmingham airport terminal due to repeated bomb threats being phoned into authorities concerning their planned flight.
The Greyhound bus carrying the Freedom Riders burns on the side of the road in Anniston, Alabama.
He had arrived on the first available flight and had quickly and effectively solved the problem. After learning that each time a flight departing to New Orleans was announced, and subsequently incoming calls would flood the airport switchboard with bomb threats, he advised airport authorities to create a diversionary flight announcement to New Orleans and board the 'Freedom Riders' on a separate plane. This tactic worked and Mr Seigenthaler boarded the flight with the battered activists to New Orleans, the destination of this first group of riders, having intended to arrive there for a rally celebrating the anniversary of the Brown Decision, a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.
After safely arriving late at night in Louisiana they eagerly sought some much-needed rest. It was hoped it would be a night to attempt to clear their minds and begin to heal from their physical and emotional wounds suffered at the hands of the attackers in Alabama who been armed with segregationist hate aided and spurred on by the local chief of police. This is where Mr. Seigenthaler found himself, responsible now for the safety of the injured and frightened activists, finally asleep from a long stressful day, when in the middle of the night, his motel room phone rang. No caller-id and no operator to patch the caller through were present as he sleepily lifted the handset and heard The Attorney General of the United States on the other end of the line speak those tense words directly to him without introduction; "Who the Hell is Diane Nash?" And with those words began a phone conversation that would ultimately begin in earnest the support required from Washington to assist the leadership of the movement underway in the south paving the bumpy, blood soaked road to the civil rights act of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965.
John Seigenthaler, assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, 1961