The Age of Eisenhower: America and the World in the 1950s

by William I. Hitchcock

the racial struggle and called for the president to turn his attention to Montgomery, a city marred by racial violence, the bombing of the homes of religious leaders, mass arrests, and intimidation of black citizens: “Hundreds of Negroes are being arrested daily on trumped up charges and fined. The revival of the Ku Klux Klan is a constant threat and the robed members are allowed to demonstrate in the city without police interference whatsoever. Thousands of Negroes in the city of Montgomery and the state of Alabama are deprived of their right to vote.” Surely now was the time for the president to use “the power of your office to see that the proper investigation is made in Montgomery and Alabama to the end that justice and law will prevail.” The voice was that of Martin Luther King Jr., still leading the nine-month-old bus boycott in Montgomery, still clinging to the hope that Washington would respond to the outcry of black citizens across the South who clamored for justice.