Wilkins and his Washington representative, Clarence Mitchell, convinced White House aides that they had headed off a plan by King to march on Washington in protest against Eisenhower’s “failure.” This line, along with private remarks by NAACP counsel Thurgood Marshall that King was an “opportunist” and a “first-rate rabble-rouser,” helped ingratiate the NAACP with the Administration as the more responsible, businesslike wing of the Negro movement.
