You know, he wrote a thing that it was . . . All those others looked at
it and just shook their heads in amazement. Zinn, as far as I know, was
never in Albany, Georgia. It was all after it was over. And putting me
in the same category with a Bull Conner . . . After King left Albany,
Georgia he was at his lowest peak. He was defeated.
Page 23
Moneywise, he had had to spend all that money in Albany for nothing. He
went back. He had to make a start. He went to Birmingham. All right.
Bull Conners, who was public safety director or something over there,
while all this was going on in Albany he had sent Moye, who was chief of
police in Birmingham, down. He stayed two or three weeks there observing
and staying with me. All right, when they started there, Conners sent
for me. He said, "I want you to come over here. We'll pay you." It was
an outrageous price they was paying me. The city council said, "Go ahead
and do it." So I went across. I met with him. And Moye was a close
personal friend of mine for years. All right, I met with them. I told
them things. The night they blew up King's motel I was there. And that
resulted into just a terrible situation down there, you know. And I told
them, I said, "You ought to put a guard. Now the Klan has said they're
going to use violence on this man. They was meeting thirty miles over
there in Bessemer, saying what they were going to do. "I don't give a
damn if they blow him up; whatever happens, I'm not going to protect
him." So I said, "OK, Mr. Conners. Tomorrow I'll catch the next plane
out, because you're wasting my time." Well, they blew him up that night,
and they tore up every police car they had the next day. And I left; I
didn't have anything in common with Bull Conners. Now I went to
Montgomery to see Dr. King. And the rumor was out, somebody had wrote (I
think it was in the
Atlanta General Constitution) that
King was going to return to Albany. So I went to see Dr. King in
Montgomery; went over to the FBI post, the intelligence post where
they'd send in all this stuff to Hoover, you know. And I asked them
where he was. They told me where he was, at some old [unknown] hotel. And I went up there,
Page 24
and I looked at the place. I told one of my men, Superintendent Mannley,
who was with me, I said, "Dr. King wouldn't be caught in that place.
Let's go over to the college." So we went over and got over there, and I
guess we were about the only whites around. And I was trying to see
somebody that I knew, and about that time Andrew Young saw me. And he
hollered, and took me up to this house. And he said, "Dr. King is not
here. He's out in the country. I'll take you out to him." So I went out
and talked to Dr. King for about an hour and a half. He told me, he
said, "Don't you listen to nobody. I don't have anything to come back to
Albany for. I don't even like to hear of Albany. I'm not coming back
there. You go ahead and tend to your business. You won't ever be
bothered with me again." So I got in the car and went back. And that
night before I left they had a march. And that's when the first deputies
in Montgomery come out with those horses and whips and stuff. And the
Montgomery police were trying to do what was right, but the sheriff come
in with them mounted posse and went up on porches bullwhipping people,
and horses kicking people.
Now this Clark, I knew the chief of police in Selma; his name was
Mulligan. They had some other fellow over there, a great big fellow; I
forget his name. But Clark, there was nothing in common with me and
Clark. You know, Clark's in North Carolina now, down around or some
place selling real estate. But there was nothing in common with me and
him. As I stated to the national press, Bull Conners and Jamie Moore—not
Jamie Moore, Clark—did more to pass the Public Accommodations bill than
Martin Luther King or Roy Wilkins or any others, because they are the
ones that put national focus on violence and mistreatment of blacks and
got their sympathy. And that bill passed, and they are responsible for
it.
Page 25 It's a good bill. I was glad to see it. But
they're the ones that did it. There's no comparison between me and Bull
Conners or Jimmy Clark.