Hellhound On His Trail Part 1

h.e.l.lhound on His Trail.

by Hampton Sides.

A NOTE TO READERS.

I was just a kid when it happened--six years old, living in a rambling brick house on Cherry Road close by the Southern Railway. My father worked for the Memphis law firm that represented King when he came to town on behalf of the garbage workers, and I remember my dad rus.h.i.+ng home that night, pouring a screwdriver or three, and talking with alarm about what had happened and what it meant for the city and the nation and the world. I remember the curfew, the wail of sirens, a line of soldiers with fixed bayonets. I remember seeing tanks for the first time. Mainly, I recall the fear in the adult voices coming over the radio and television--the undertow of panic, as it seemed to everyone that our city was ripping apart.

Four days after the a.s.sa.s.sination, Coretta Scott King arrived in Memphis, wearing her widow's veil, and led the peaceful march her husband could not lead. For several miles, tens of thousands of mourners threaded through the somber downtown streets to city hall. Enveloped in the beautiful sadness, no one breathed a word. There was no shouting or picketing, not even a song. The only sound was leather on pavement.

All writers sooner or later go back to the place where they came from. With this book, I wanted to go back to the pivotal moment pivotal moment in the place where I came from. In April 1968, a killer rode into a city I know and love. He set himself up with a high-powered rifle a few blocks from the Mississippi River and took aim at history. The shock waves still emanate from room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, and continue to register across the globe. The Lorraine has become an international shrine, visited by the likes of the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela and the boys from U2--a holy place. People come from all over the world to stand on the balcony where King stood, squinting in the humidity, surveying the sight lines of fate. They try to imagine what really happened, and what larger plots might have been stirring in the shadows. in the place where I came from. In April 1968, a killer rode into a city I know and love. He set himself up with a high-powered rifle a few blocks from the Mississippi River and took aim at history. The shock waves still emanate from room 306 at the Lorraine Motel, and continue to register across the globe. The Lorraine has become an international shrine, visited by the likes of the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela and the boys from U2--a holy place. People come from all over the world to stand on the balcony where King stood, squinting in the humidity, surveying the sight lines of fate. They try to imagine what really happened, and what larger plots might have been stirring in the shadows.

The first writer I ever met, the great Memphis historian Shelby Foote, once said of his Civil War trilogy that he had "employed the novelist's methods without his license," and that's a good rule of thumb for what I've attempted here. Though I've tried to make the narrative as fluidly readable as possible, this is a work of nonfiction. Every scene is supported by the historical record. Every physical and atmospheric detail arises from factual evidence. And every conversation is reconstructed from doc.u.ments. I've consulted congressional testimony, newspaper accounts, oral histories, memoirs, court proceedings, autopsy reports, archival news footage, crime scene photographs, and official reports filed by the Memphis authorities, the FBI, the U.S. Justice Department, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Scotland Yard. Along the way, I've conducted scores of personal interviews and traveled tens of thousands of miles--from Puerto Vallarta to London, from St. Louis to Lisbon. Readers who are curious about how I constructed the narrative will find my sources cited in copious detail in the notes and bibliography.

As for King's a.s.sa.s.sin, I've let his story speak for itself. Whether witlessly, incidentally, or on purpose, he left behind a ma.s.sive body of evidence. Much of my account of his worldwide travels comes from his own words. The rest comes from the record. The killer left his fingerprints, both literal and figurative, over everything.

HAMPTON SIDES, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO.

PROLOGUE.

#416-J.

April 23, 1967 Jefferson City, Missouri

THE PRISON BAKERS sweated in the glare of the ovens, making bread for the hungry men of the honor farm. Since dawn, they'd prepared more than sixty loaves, and now the kitchen was redolent with the tang of yeast as the fresh bread cooled on the racks before slicing. A guard, armed but not very vigilant, patrolled the galley perimeter.

One of the bakers on this bright Sunday morning was Prisoner #00416-J, a slender, fair-skinned man in his late thirties whose raven hair was flecked with gray at the sideburns. Beneath a flour-dusted ap.r.o.n, he wore his standard-issue garb--a green cotton s.h.i.+rt and matching pants with a bright identifying stripe down the outseam. Convicted of armed robbery in 1960, 416-J had served seven years inside the Missouri State Penitentiary at Jefferson City; before that, he'd put in four grim years in Leavenworth for stealing--and fraudulently cas.h.i.+ng--several thousand dollars' worth of postal money orders. He'd spent most of his adult life behind the bars of one jail or another and had become a stir-wise creature, canny to the ways of prison survival.

More than two thousand inmates were crammed inside "Jeff City," this vast Gothic bastille, which, upon its founding in 1836, was the first U.S. prison west of the Mississippi. Over the decades, it had developed a reputation as a school for rogues--and as one of America's most violent prisons. In 1954, a team of corrections experts described riot-p.r.o.ne Jeff City this way: "Square foot for square foot, it is the bloodiest forty-seven acres in America."1 Yet the prison complex was set in a lazy, almost bucolic part of the Midwest. Beyond the limestone walls, tugboats churned through the Missouri River, and Vs of geese honked in the haze along the flyway toward summer haunts. Freight trains could often be heard singing out their whistle sighs as they clacked and heaved on the old tracks that ran beside the river. Yet the prison complex was set in a lazy, almost bucolic part of the Midwest. Beyond the limestone walls, tugboats churned through the Missouri River, and Vs of geese honked in the haze along the flyway toward summer haunts. Freight trains could often be heard singing out their whistle sighs as they clacked and heaved on the old tracks that ran beside the river.

At Jeff City, 416-J had spent a lot of time looking out over that countryside, dreaming of how to get himself there. He'd become an old hand in the bakery; he had done kitchen work for years and never made any trouble--in fact he scarcely drew any attention to himself at all. Most prison officials didn't know his name and could barely recall his face--to them he was just another inmate with a number. One Jeff City warden described him as "penny ante." A corrections commissioner put it slightly more bluntly: "He was just a nothing nothing here." here."2 A state psychiatrist had examined 416-J the year before and had found that though he wasn't outright crazy, he was "an interesting and rather complicated individual3--a sociopathic personality who is severely neurotic." He was intelligent enough, with an IQ of 106, slightly above average. But the psychiatrist noted that the prisoner suffered from "undue anxiety" and "obsessive compulsive concerns" about his physical health. He was a thoroughgoing hypochondriac, always complaining of maladies and poring over medical books. He imagined he had heart palpitations and suffered from some strange malformation of his cranium. He often could be seen with a stopwatch in hand, checking his own pulse. His stomach bothered him, necessitating that he eat bland foods. He took Librium for his nerves4 and various painkillers for his nearly incessant headaches, but the doctor thought he should have more attention. and various painkillers for his nearly incessant headaches, but the doctor thought he should have more attention.

"It is felt that he is in need of psychiatric help,"5 the state shrink observed in closing. "He is becoming increasingly concerned about himself." This evaluation could have been used to describe a lot of prisoners in Jeff City--maybe hundreds of them--so the corrections officers paid little attention to the psychiatrist's report. the state shrink observed in closing. "He is becoming increasingly concerned about himself." This evaluation could have been used to describe a lot of prisoners in Jeff City--maybe hundreds of them--so the corrections officers paid little attention to the psychiatrist's report.

IF THE GUARDS had been watching him closely during the past few weeks of April 1967, they would have observed that 416-J was behaving strangely. He had been plowing through travel books about Mexico and checked out an English-Spanish dictionary from the prison library. He experimented with making his skin darker by applying a walnut dye.6 He drank considerable quant.i.ties of mineral oil He drank considerable quant.i.ties of mineral oil7 (one of the many odd health remedies he swore by) and stayed up far into the night, his mind racing with ideas. (one of the many odd health remedies he swore by) and stayed up far into the night, his mind racing with ideas.

Often as not, those ideas were fueled by amphetamines, which by whatever name--speed, bennies, splash, spaniels--were rife inside the walls of Jeff City. He usually took the drug in pill or powder form, but he also shot up with needles, and he was known among the prison population as a "merchant" in the amphetamine trade. "When he was using,"8 said one inmate who'd known him for years, "he would lay down in his cell and he would think. He would say how it made his mind clear up. He would go all the way back until he was six or seven years old. Or, he might go over a job and see the mistakes he had made." said one inmate who'd known him for years, "he would lay down in his cell and he would think. He would say how it made his mind clear up. He would go all the way back until he was six or seven years old. Or, he might go over a job and see the mistakes he had made."

Lately, 416-J had been practicing yoga in his cell, or at least something that looked looked like yoga. He would curl himself in a tiny ball and hold the position for hours, straining to crunch his body into the tightest possible s.p.a.ce. This human pretzeling might have looked odd to a guard walking the cell block, but then 416-J was always doing push-ups and calisthenics, always grunting and walking on his hands and carrying on in there. like yoga. He would curl himself in a tiny ball and hold the position for hours, straining to crunch his body into the tightest possible s.p.a.ce. This human pretzeling might have looked odd to a guard walking the cell block, but then 416-J was always doing push-ups and calisthenics, always grunting and walking on his hands and carrying on in there.

But there was something else: just the day before, on April 22, 416-J had received a guest down in the visitation room. This was highly unusual--he was a loner who seemed to have no family or friends on the outside. The prison grapevine had it that the visitor was his brother9 from St. Louis, but 416-J would not talk about it to anyone. from St. Louis, but 416-J would not talk about it to anyone.

At around eight o'clock this morning, he was allowed to leave his cell and head up to the kitchen. He toted a small sack of toiletries, which drew no one's attention, since culinary employees like him were allowed to shower and shave in the kitchen bathroom. He took the elevator up to the bakery, arriving well before the start of his eleven o'clock s.h.i.+ft. He proceeded to cook--and devour--a rather astonis.h.i.+ng quant.i.ty of eggs10: one dozen.

Then 416-J slipped into the break room, ostensibly to wash up. Inside his sack were a small mirror, a comb, a razor with several extra blades, a bar of soap, and twenty candy bars. There was also a Channel Master pocket transistor radio that he'd bought from the prison canteen two days earlier. As required by Jeff City rules, the number 00416, in tiny print, was permanently etched on the side of the radio's housing. In his shoes, pressing uncomfortably into the soles of his feet, were two wads of cash11 totaling nearly three hundred dollars. totaling nearly three hundred dollars.

Somewhere in the break room, several days earlier, 416-J had hidden a clean white s.h.i.+rt, and a pair of prison pants that he had dyed black with stencil ink, taking special care to cover up the telltale stripe down the side. Quickly, he removed his prison garb, then slipped on the black pants and white s.h.i.+rt. He put his prison uniform back on back on, so that he now wore two layers of clothing.

Next, 416-J took the elevator down to the loading dock area, where a hinged metal box had been partially loaded with fresh bread for the honor farm. The box--four feet by three feet by three feet--was easily large enough for a man to climb inside. And that's exactly what the prisoner did. He crushed several layers of the warm soft bread as he eased himself into the box, and then curled into a tight fetal ball.

At this point he must have had an accomplice--or several accomplices--because a false bottom, punctured with tiny holes for ventilation, was placed on top of him. And then, above that, several more layers of bread were loaded into the box until it was filled. The hinged lid was closed tight. Then the box was dollied outside and placed near the lip of the loading dock.

A few minutes later, a freight truck pulled up. Two inmates hoisted the bread crate into the bed of the truck, which was enclosed with a canopy on three sides but open in the rear. When the prisoners waved the truck on, the driver pulled out from the loading area and approached the security tunnel. An officer came out and inspected the vehicle for a stowaway. He checked the undercarriage and the engine. Then he climbed up into the truck bed to examine the cargo.

The prisoner, hot and clammy inside his tight berth, breathed uneasily in the doughy fumes as someone above him opened the lid of the bread box. The guard thumped and shook the container a bit but saw to his satisfaction that the loaves were stacked all the way to the top. The prisoner must have sighed in relief as he heard the box lid swing shut.

Stepping back from the truck, the guard nodded his okay. The gate clicked open and the driver roared on, bound for the honor farm.

THAT SAME MORNING, at precisely the moment 416-J was making his escape, a politician whom the prisoner greatly admired sat a thousand miles away in an NBC television studio. Facing questions from the moderator, Lawrence Spivak of Meet the Press Meet the Press, this controversial figure announced to the country that he was considering running for the White House. His name was George C. Wallace, the former governor of Alabama who had stunned the nation a few years earlier by standing in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to prevent integration.

The forty-seven-year-old George Wallace was a firebrand who typically pranced and fulminated and played to the audience with his energetically arching beetled brows; it was sometimes said that he could strut while sitting.12 On this morning, however, Wallace tried to project an air of presidential sophistication and calm. He wore a crisp suit, modulated his voice, and kept his stage theatrics to a minimum. His usual oil slick of hair seemed to s.h.i.+ne just a little less greasily. He was not a racist, Wallace wanted to a.s.sure the nation, and his campaign was not predicated on a "backlash against anybody of color." On this morning, however, Wallace tried to project an air of presidential sophistication and calm. He wore a crisp suit, modulated his voice, and kept his stage theatrics to a minimum. His usual oil slick of hair seemed to s.h.i.+ne just a little less greasily. He was not a racist, Wallace wanted to a.s.sure the nation, and his campaign was not predicated on a "backlash against anybody of color."13 However, he added, "There is is a backlash against big government in this country." He looked deep into the camera, his bituminous eyes lit up for the millions of Americans who were waking across the heartland. a backlash against big government in this country." He looked deep into the camera, his bituminous eyes lit up for the millions of Americans who were waking across the heartland.

"This is a movement of the people,"14 he said, "and it doesn't make any difference whether the leading politicians endorse it or not." His campaign would focus on the "average man in the street ... this man in the textile mill, this man in the steel mill, the barber, the beautician, the policeman on the beat, the little businessman. They are the ones. Those are the ma.s.s of people that are going to support a change on the domestic scene in this country." he said, "and it doesn't make any difference whether the leading politicians endorse it or not." His campaign would focus on the "average man in the street ... this man in the textile mill, this man in the steel mill, the barber, the beautician, the policeman on the beat, the little businessman. They are the ones. Those are the ma.s.s of people that are going to support a change on the domestic scene in this country."

Then, with a faint snarl, Wallace squinted at the camera and said: "If the politicians get in the way15 of this movement, a lot of them are going to get run over." of this movement, a lot of them are going to get run over."

ONCE OUTSIDE THE walls of Jeff City, 416-J crawled out of the box, trampling and mas.h.i.+ng the bread as he wriggled himself free. The bread was so ruined that when it arrived at its destination, the farmhands gave it all to the chickens.16 Standing in the truck bed under the covered canopy, the prisoner stripped out of his uniform and stuffed the old green prison clothes in his sack. Having peeled down to his dyed black pants and white s.h.i.+rt, he now looked pa.s.sably like a civilian. The truck crossed over the river and was now moving along at nearly fifty miles an hour, too fast for him to make a safe exit. But when the driver slowed for a few seconds at the graveled entrance to the farm, the prisoner leaped out of the back. The truck chuffed on--the driver hadn't seen him in his mirror. Standing in the truck bed under the covered canopy, the prisoner stripped out of his uniform and stuffed the old green prison clothes in his sack. Having peeled down to his dyed black pants and white s.h.i.+rt, he now looked pa.s.sably like a civilian. The truck crossed over the river and was now moving along at nearly fifty miles an hour, too fast for him to make a safe exit. But when the driver slowed for a few seconds at the graveled entrance to the farm, the prisoner leaped out of the back. The truck chuffed on--the driver hadn't seen him in his mirror.

Now 416-J walked hurriedly down to the river's edge. He made for an old junkyard near the bridge and hid in the weeds among the rusted husks of abandoned cars, keeping his ears tuned all day for the sound of men on horseback or the yelping of bloodhounds. Every so often he turned on his little transistor radio for bulletins announcing his escape. So far, so good: the newscasts mentioned nothing, although soon the Missouri Corrections Department would put out a "Wanted" notice with a modest reward of fifty dollars for his recapture.

Once darkness descended, he crossed back over the river and began walking west along the railroad tracks toward Kansas City--which was a ruse, for he had no intention of going to Kansas City. The prison officials knew he had family in St. Louis (about a hundred miles due east), and they would naturally suspect that he'd head in that direction. By walking west toward Kansas, he hoped he could buy some time.

So for six days he clomped west along the railroad tracks, eating his stash of candy bars, drinking water from the occasional spring, and lighting campfires with matches he stole from an old trailer. "I looked at the stars a lot,"17 he said later. "I hadn't seen them for quite a while." One night a couple of railroad crewmen startled him as he warmed himself by the fire. He told them he'd been hunting along the river and had gotten drenched. They seemed to buy his story and left him alone. But then another night he saw state troopers patrolling the rural road that paralleled the tracks, and he was sure they were on his scent. he said later. "I hadn't seen them for quite a while." One night a couple of railroad crewmen startled him as he warmed himself by the fire. He told them he'd been hunting along the river and had gotten drenched. They seemed to buy his story and left him alone. But then another night he saw state troopers patrolling the rural road that paralleled the tracks, and he was sure they were on his scent.

By the sixth day, however, he began to sense that the heat was off. He kept listening to his radio and was surprised that the newscasts made no mention of his escape. Somewhere along the way, he found a file or some other suitable tool and tried to rub away his prison number--00416--from the housing of the radio.

On the sixth night, he saw a little store in the distance, its lights gleaming invitingly. Not wanting to look like a desperado, he cleaned himself as best he could and shambled inside. He bought sandwiches and some beer--the first real food he'd had since the enormous mess of eggs he'd fixed for himself in the prison bakery.

He was ravenous, footsore, and irritable from a fugitive week of tense nerves relieved by little sleep. But now, as he ate his sandwiches, he might have allowed himself a smirk of satisfaction. A bread box! A bread box! He had to savor it, had to congratulate the cla.s.sic beauty of the feat. Jeff City was an impossible joint to break out of--that's what he'd always heard, that's what most of its denizens believed. In the inst.i.tutional memory of the place, there had only been three known escapes--and they had all failed. He had to savor it, had to congratulate the cla.s.sic beauty of the feat. Jeff City was an impossible joint to break out of--that's what he'd always heard, that's what most of its denizens believed. In the inst.i.tutional memory of the place, there had only been three known escapes--and they had all failed.

He'd been stuck inside Jeff City's sad gray ramparts for seven years, and he had another eighteen hanging over him. While there, he'd organized his life around the goal of escape--it was the central idea that had focused and sustained him. He'd scrimped and schemed in the shadows of a deliberate and tenacious obscurity. He'd perfected a kind of anti-ident.i.ty, so that no one would notice him when he was there--or miss him when he was gone.

That night, 416-J called his brother18 and arranged a rendezvous spot. Then he hopped an eastbound freight train. and arranged a rendezvous spot. Then he hopped an eastbound freight train.19 Feeling what must have been some mixture of anxiety and delight, he rolled past the Jeff City prison complex. How many jittery nights had he lain awake in his prison cell, listening to the whistle of locomotives running over these same tracks that now gave him flight? Feeling what must have been some mixture of anxiety and delight, he rolled past the Jeff City prison complex. How many jittery nights had he lain awake in his prison cell, listening to the whistle of locomotives running over these same tracks that now gave him flight?

Sprung from Jeff City's walls, he let his mind begin to churn with thoughts of other jobs, other projects of greater complexity and ambition. But now he was heading home, in the direction of St. Louis.

BOOK ONE.

IN THE CITY OF THE KINGS.

When I took up the cross I recognized its meaning ...

The cross is something that you bear and ultimately that you die on.MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (1967)

1

CITY OF WHITE GOLD CITY OF WHITE GOLD

IN EARLY MAY 1967, three hundred miles downstream from St. Louis, the citizens of Memphis stood along the cobblestoned banks, enjoying the musky coolness of the river. Seventy-five thousand people, dressed to be seen, waited in the twilight. They'd come from all the secret krewes20--from the Mystic Society of the Memphi, from Osiris and RaMet and Sphinx. They'd come from all the clubs--Chickasaw, University, Colonial, Hunt and Polo, the Memphis Country Club--and from the garden societies. The good families, the old families, in their finest James Davis clothes, bourbon flasks in hand, a.s.sembled for the start of the South's Greatest Party.

The brown Mississippi, wide with northern snowmelt, was a confusion of crosscurrents and boils. In the main channel, whole trees could be seen shooting downstream. A mile across the river lay the floodplain of Arkansas, a world of chiggers and alligator gars and water moccasins that lived in swampy oxbow lakes. On the long sandbars, feral pigs ran among graveyards of driftwood and rotten cypress stumps.

But in the clearings beyond these wild margins were hundreds and hundreds of miles of cotton fields. Cotton as far as the eye could see, row after perfect row. Gossypium hirsutum Gossypium hirsutum. White gold, mined from the world's richest alluvium.

Memphis was built on the spot21 where the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, in 1541, became the first European to lay eyes on the Mississippi River. The city was founded 278 years later by Andrew Jackson and a group of his investor cronies, and named for the ancient Egyptian capital near the Giza pyramids. Memphis didn't really take off, however, until the dense hardwood forests along the river began to be cleared in the mid-nineteenth century, finally making farmable the flat, rich floodplain known as the Mississippi Delta. As the country slid toward Civil War, Memphis became the capital of a region that was constructing a last frenzied iteration of Southern planter society. If the Delta came late to cotton, it came to it with a vengeance, and with all the defiant desperation of someone following a wounded creed. where the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto, in 1541, became the first European to lay eyes on the Mississippi River. The city was founded 278 years later by Andrew Jackson and a group of his investor cronies, and named for the ancient Egyptian capital near the Giza pyramids. Memphis didn't really take off, however, until the dense hardwood forests along the river began to be cleared in the mid-nineteenth century, finally making farmable the flat, rich floodplain known as the Mississippi Delta. As the country slid toward Civil War, Memphis became the capital of a region that was constructing a last frenzied iteration of Southern planter society. If the Delta came late to cotton, it came to it with a vengeance, and with all the defiant desperation of someone following a wounded creed.

Cotton had grown along the Nile near the original Memphis, and cotton was what modern Memphis had come to celebrate on this fine humid evening of May 10, 1967. In the fields of Arkansas, and down in nearby Mississippi, the little darlings had already begun to push through the dirt, the crop dusters were preparing to rain down their chemicals, and the old true cycle was in the offing. Now it was time for Memphians to pay homage and to bless another season in cotton's splendid realm.

The thirty-third annual Cotton Carnival, Memphis's answer to Mardi Gras, was about to begin. Later in the week, there would be luncheons, trade shows, and charity b.a.l.l.s. A beauty contest would declare the fairest Maid of Cotton. Many thousands would visit the giant midway and attend parades with elaborate floats, some of them spun from cotton, depicting the gone-but-not-forgotten Old South and the treachery of the long-snouted boll weevil. All week there would be parties on the rooftop of the Peabody Hotel, where mallard ducks lived in a scaled-down mansion when they weren't marching down a red carpet to splash around in the lobby fountain.

Tonight was the high pageant that kicked off the whole week--the majestic arrival of the King and Queen, sitting upon their thrones with their sequined court all around them, on a great glittery barge that was scheduled to nudge into the Memphis harbor shortly after sunset. It was a celebration not only of cotton but also of the peculiarly settled life that thrived on it--the life of dove hunts and pig roasts and debutante b.a.l.l.s, the genteel agrarian world that could still be found in the fertile realms surrounding Memphis.

Cotton, cotton everywhere. Crane operators, hoisting dozens of five-hundred-pound cotton bales, had constructed colossal arches that spanned the downtown streets. All attendees were urged to wear cotton, and they did: party girls in crinoline dresses, dandies in seersucker suits, children in starched oxford cloth. People even ate cotton candy while they waited with the crowds for the Royal Barge to arrive.

Representatives from all echelons of the Delta cotton world had joined the ma.s.ses on the river--the factors, the cla.s.sers, the ginners, the brokers, the seed sellers, the plantation owners, the compress owners, the board members of the Cotton Exchange, the loan officers from the Union Planters Bank, the chemical engineers who'd learned how to tease out the plant's oils and secret compounds for every industrial purpose Mammon could devise.

Cotton's presence, and cotton's past, could be felt everywhere along the shadowed waterfront. Behind the cheering crowds, high on the magnolia-lined bluff once occupied by Chickasaw Indians, sat Confederate Park, with its bronze statue of Jefferson Davis, who'd made his home in Memphis after the Civil War. A block from the park was the place on Adams Avenue where Nathan Bedford Forrest once operated a giant slave market, said to be the South's largest, that boasted "the best selected a.s.sortment of field hands, house servants, and mechanics ... with fresh supplies of likely Young Negroes."

Running lengthwise along the same bluff lay Front Street, cotton's main drag.22 In the upstairs cla.s.sing rooms, sharp-eyed savants still graded cotton samples by pure intuition under north-facing skylights--judging according to quaint industry distinctions like "strict low middling" or "strict good ordinary." Memphis remained one of the largest cotton markets in the world, with ma.s.sive fortunes made and lost and made again. Many of the names were legends--Dunavant, Cook, Turley, Hohenberg, Allenberg--high rollers in a vaguely druidic enterprise. In October, during harvest time, the skies above Front Street still swirled with snows of lint. In the upstairs cla.s.sing rooms, sharp-eyed savants still graded cotton samples by pure intuition under north-facing skylights--judging according to quaint industry distinctions like "strict low middling" or "strict good ordinary." Memphis remained one of the largest cotton markets in the world, with ma.s.sive fortunes made and lost and made again. Many of the names were legends--Dunavant, Cook, Turley, Hohenberg, Allenberg--high rollers in a vaguely druidic enterprise. In October, during harvest time, the skies above Front Street still swirled with snows of lint.

Cotton cotton cotton. Memphis couldn't get enough of it. Cotton was still king. It would always be king.

IN TRUTH, THOUGH no one wanted to talk about it on that roistering night in 1967, the old world of Delta cotton was in serious trouble. Life on the plantations had changed so fast it was hardly recognizable. Soybeans had made inroads as the new mono-crop of choice. Polyester had encroached upon the American wardrobe. Ma.s.sive mechanized cotton pickers, along with new soups of pesticides and herbicides, had rendered largely obsolete the life of the Delta sharecropper. Thus demoted by petrochemicals and machines, many thousands of black field hands and their families steadily left the plantations over the decades and came to Memphis--the nearest city, and the only American city of any size named after an African capital.

Other than mule skinning or chopping cotton, though, most Delta field hands had little in the way of marketable skills when they came to the city. Some found success playing the blues on Beale Street--the central thoroughfare of black Memphis. But most settled into low-end jobs that merely recapitulated the racial and socioeconomic hierarchy they'd known on the plantations. Many became maids, janitors, waiters, yardmen, cooks, stevedores. Some had no choice but to take the lowest-end job of all: they reported to the Public Works Department and became garbagemen.

At least they'd come to a city with a history that was rich and gothic and weird. Memphis, this city of 600,000 people wedged in the southwestern crotch of Tennessee, had always had a touch of madness but also a prodigious and sometimes profane sense of humor. It was a town known for its outlandish characters and half-demented geniuses: wrestlers, riverboat captains, inventors, gamblers, snake-oil salesmen, musicians high on some peculiar native vibe that could be felt but whose existence could not be proved. For 150 years, all the pain and pathos of the river seemed to wash up on the cobblestoned banks. In 1878, the city was nearly completely destroyed by a yellow fever epidemic,23 but the Metropolis of the American Nile had recovered, madder and stranger and more full of brawling ambition than ever. Memphis, as one writer famously put it, "was built on a bluff but the Metropolis of the American Nile had recovered, madder and stranger and more full of brawling ambition than ever. Memphis, as one writer famously put it, "was built on a bluff24 and run on the same principle." and run on the same principle."

It was a city that, since its very inception, had been perched on the racial fault line. The first mayor, Marcus Brutus Winchester,25 created a major scandal by falling for, and eventually marrying, a "woman of color." One of the area's most fascinating citizens in the late 1820s, a Scottish-born utopian named f.a.n.n.y Wright, created an experimental commune of slaves whom she sought to educate and bring into full citizens.h.i.+p. Several generations later, Memphis gave the world Ida B. Wells, created a major scandal by falling for, and eventually marrying, a "woman of color." One of the area's most fascinating citizens in the late 1820s, a Scottish-born utopian named f.a.n.n.y Wright, created an experimental commune of slaves whom she sought to educate and bring into full citizens.h.i.+p. Several generations later, Memphis gave the world Ida B. Wells,26 an early t.i.tan of the civil rights movement, a woman of profound courage who, in the 1890s, repeatedly risked a.s.sa.s.sination with eloquent protests against lynching. Then there was the ever-cryptic Mr. Forrest, who quit his slave mart and took up a sword in the Civil War, becoming one of the most wickedly brilliant generals in American history. After the war he returned to Memphis, where, after briefly serving as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, he apparently experienced an epiphany--renouncing the Klan an early t.i.tan of the civil rights movement, a woman of profound courage who, in the 1890s, repeatedly risked a.s.sa.s.sination with eloquent protests against lynching. Then there was the ever-cryptic Mr. Forrest, who quit his slave mart and took up a sword in the Civil War, becoming one of the most wickedly brilliant generals in American history. After the war he returned to Memphis, where, after briefly serving as the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, he apparently experienced an epiphany--renouncing the Klan27 with seeming genuineness and calling for racial reconciliation shortly before his death. with seeming genuineness and calling for racial reconciliation shortly before his death.

But music was the city's greatest gift and particular genius: the blues of W. C. Handy's Beale Street, the soul of Stax Records, and a certain interracial sound stew that a redneck wizard named Sam Phillips cooked up in a tiny studio on Union Avenue, less than a hundred yards from where Forrest lay buried. At its essence, the music of Memphis was about the fecund intermingling of black and white. Elvis Presley, coaxed and prodded by Phillips, found a way to trans.m.u.te the raw sound of Beale Street into something that would resonate across the world. The stars, white and black, who had pa.s.sed through the studios and nightclubs of Memphis were as numerous as they were legendary: not just Elvis, but Rufus Thomas, Johnny Cash, B. B. King, Albert King, Carl Perkins, Ike Turner, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Roy Orbison, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Otis Redding, John Lee Hooker, Memphis Minnie, Memphis Slim. The phantom-like Robert Johnson, perhaps the greatest of the Delta bluesmen, lived in and around Memphis much of his short, tragic life. It could be argued that over the decades, Memphis's musical ferment had done more to integrate the country than a hundred pieces of legislation.

In a way, cotton was at the center of the ferment, for cotton had sp.a.w.ned the blues, and cotton had built the city that gave the blues its first wider expression. But there was no mistaking the fact that most black folks in Memphis were good and done with cotton, and they hated most everything about the hairy p.r.i.c.kly shrub that had so long enslaved them. Certainly not many black people were to be found on the banks of the river on that May night in 1967, awaiting the arrival of the Royal Barge.

THE SKIES OVER Arkansas ripened to a final brilliant red before closing into darkness. It seemed as though the sun had literally buried itself in cotton fields. An orchestra played strains of Vivaldi, and the heavens crackled with fireworks.

Then, from under the bridge, the dazzling vessel slipped into view, with the crowds gasping in wonder. At first it was just a burst of bright light, a diaphanous vision floating out on the currents. As it drew nearer to the harbor, the ravis.h.i.+ng details began to emerge. The barge was the size of a football field, with a giant art deco cotton boll rising over the sparkling set. Egyptian motifs were woven into the decorations--pyramids, sphinxes, hieroglyphics: the Old South meets the land of the pharaohs.

Seated on their thrones high up in the towering boll were King Joseph and Queen Blanche, 1967's monarchs, wearing their crowns, holding their scepters. As always, they'd been chosen in secret, by some obscure protocol known only to the Mystic Society of the Memphi. As always, he was an older man, a business potentate, while she was a nubile paragon of Southern pulchritude, college aged and presumably a virgin. They were blindingly white people, in blindingly white clothes, sitting high in their resplendent perch. In unison, they cupped their gloved hands and gave the crowds tiny swiveling waves, as if to say, Here we are! ... There you are! ... We're all here! Here we are! ... There you are! ... We're all here!

More than a hundred people made up the royal court, all posed together on the barge like the largest wedding party ever a.s.sembled. There were the d.u.c.h.esses, the counts, the pages, the princesses and their tuxedoed escorts. There were the young girls, who curtsied with labored formality and attended the train of Her Majesty's gown. There were the weevils, the masked green jesters28 whose ident.i.ties were unknown. On one side of the Royal Barge stood the Ladies of the Realm--belles from plantation towns all over the Mississippi Delta. On the other side were the Ladies-in-Waiting--belles from the city, from good families, and of marriageable age. whose ident.i.ties were unknown. On one side of the Royal Barge stood the Ladies of the Realm--belles from plantation towns all over the Mississippi Delta. On the other side were the Ladies-in-Waiting--belles from the city, from good families, and of marriageable age.

The court moved about the barge in a carefully ch.o.r.eographed promenade. Everyone was smiling, bowing, waving, beaming. "Don't get wise with me," the king warned, "or I'll have you all beheaded." When the music reached a fever pitch, King Joseph and Queen Blanche rose and took a bow. All along the bluff, the seventy-five thousand loyal subjects erupted in thunderous cheers: Hail, King Cotton and His Queen!

Then, in a swirl of lights, the court began to parade off the stage, and off the barge, and onto the old cobblestones, the royals closely guarded by uniformed young men dressed as Confederate colonels. Like Peabody ducks, the revelers strutted down a long red carpet to a waiting convoy of Cadillac convertibles and were whisked away to the first parties of the season.

2 GOING FOR BROKE GOING FOR BROKE

SIX MONTHS LATER, in November 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. found himself in Frogmore, in the swampy Low Country of South Carolina not far from Hilton Head, where his civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leaders.h.i.+p Conference, was having its annual conclave. King had decided to use the retreat as a platform to announce a bold new direction for the SCLC. With nearly a hundred staffers, board members, and volunteers in attendance, he would unveil an ambitious turn in the organization's focus. It would be controversial, radical, revolutionary in scope.

King had decided that late next spring--the spring of 1968--he would return to the Was.h.i.+ngton Mall, the site of his triumphant "I have a dream" speech. Only this time, he envisioned something much more confrontational than an afternoon of soaring oratory. Instead, he would bring an army of poor people from all around the country--not just African-Americans, but indigents from various Indian tribes, whites from Appalachia, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Eskimos, Pacific islanders from the U.S. territories. They would camp out on the Mall for weeks, living in a vast shantytown at the foot of the monuments. They would paralyze the city. They would tie up traffic. They would hold daily sit-ins in the halls of government. They would occupy the nation's capital and refuse to leave until their demands were met. It would be an act of civil disobedience on a scale never witnessed before. The only precedent that King could come up with was the Bonus Marchers, the World War I veterans who descended on Was.h.i.+ngton in the summer of 1932 to claim their promised benefits.

King had been moving in this direction for years, but his thinking had really crystallized over the summer, after the horrific riots in Detroit and Newark led him to believe that America--its structures and its practices, its very idea idea--was in serious trouble. "For years," he said, "I labored with reforming29 the existing inst.i.tutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values." the existing inst.i.tutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values."

America, he believed, was now a sick society in need of "radical moral surgery." It had become arrogant, selfish, more interested in things than in people. Was.h.i.+ngton was moving forward with its disastrous war in Southeast Asia while pursuing Cold War policies that seemed to be taking the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. "My own government,"30 he said, has become "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." he said, has become "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

The specter of ma.s.s riots was a symptom of a larger disease within the body politic, he said. Consumed by Vietnam, the s.p.a.ce race, and other expensive military-industrial projects, the government was unwilling to confront the appalling conditions in the ghettos of America. This lack of compa.s.sion was shortsighted, he felt, for if something wasn't done immediately, there would be more riots next summer--much more destructive riots. King genuinely feared the country might slip into a race war that would lead, ultimately, to a right-wing takeover and a kind of fascist police state.

Some of the root problems had to do with capitalism itself, he argued. For years, King had been accused of being a secret Communist, which was flatly untrue, but for several years he had had been moving toward advocating a form of democratic socialism similar to that practiced in Scandinavia (a notion inspired in part by his 1964 visit to Sweden and Norway to collect his n.o.bel Peace Prize). "The good and just society," been moving toward advocating a form of democratic socialism similar to that practiced in Scandinavia (a notion inspired in part by his 1964 visit to Sweden and Norway to collect his n.o.bel Peace Prize). "The good and just society,"31 he said, "is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the ant.i.thesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism he said, "is neither the thesis of capitalism nor the ant.i.thesis of communism, but a socially conscious democracy which reconciles the truths of individualism and and collectivism." collectivism."

King's vision for a poor people's descent on Was.h.i.+ngton had grown out of months of soul-searching, and a summer he spent living in a tenement in one of Chicago's worst slums. He'd been thinking closely and intensely about poverty--its origins, solutions, and effects. He viewed the new campaign as an alternative to riots, a last chance for nonviolence. His Poor People's Army would demand that the government initiate a kind of Marshall Plan to attack poverty in America--programs for ma.s.s job creation, health care, better schools, and a guaranteed minimum income for every person in the land.