The country was unrecognizable now, Cath Johansen said, but it looked the same as it ever had to Stella. Tom Pearson and Dale Johansen and Percy White wouldn’t storm a colored man’s porch and yank him out of his kitchen, wouldn’t stomp his hands, wouldn’t shoot him five times. These were fine people, good people, who donated to charities and winced at newsreels of southern sheriffs swinging billy clubs at colored college students. They thought King was an impressive speaker, maybe even agreed with some of his ideas. They wouldn’t have sent a bullet into his head—they might have even cried
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