Martin Luther King was in Room 30, the motel’s only suite; but before seeing him George had lunch with Verena Marquand in the nearby Jockey Boy Restaurant. When he asked for his hamburger medium rare, the waitress looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language.

Verena ordered a salad. She looked more alluring than ever in white pants and a black blouse. George wondered if she had a boyfriend. “You’re on a downhill slope,” he said to her while they were waiting for their food. “First Atlanta, now Birmingham. Come to Washington, before you find yourself stuck in Mudslide, Mississippi.” He was teasing, but he did think that if she came to Washington he might ask her out on a date.

“I go where the movement takes me,” she replied seriously.

Their lunch arrived. “Why did King decide to target this town?” George asked while they were eating.

“The commissioner of public safety—effectively the chief of police—is a vicious white racist called Eugene ‘Bull’ Connor.”

“I’ve seen his name in the papers.”

“The nickname tells you all you need to know about him. As if that were not enough, Birmingham also has the most violent chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.”

“Any idea why?”

“This is a steel town, and the industry is in decline. Skilled, high-wage jobs have always been reserved for white men, while blacks do low-paid work such as cleaning. Now the whites are desperately trying to maintain their prosperity and privileges—just at the moment when blacks are asking for their fair share.”

It was a crisp analysis, and George’s respect for Verena went up a notch. “How does that show itself?”

“Klan members throw homemade bombs at the homes of prosperous Negroes in mixed neighborhoods. Some people call this town Bombingham. Needless to say, the police never arrest anyone for the bombings, and the FBI somehow just can’t seem to figure out who might be doing it.”

“No surprise there. J. Edgar Hoover can’t find the Mafia, either. But he knows the name of every Communist in America.”

“However, white rule is weakening here. Some people are beginning to realize it does the town no good. Bull Connor just lost an election for mayor.”

“I know. The White House view is that Birmingham’s Negroes will get what they want in due course, if they’re patient.”

“Dr. King’s view is that now is the time to pile on the pressure.”

“And how is that working out?”

“To be frank, we’re disappointed. When we sit-in at a lunch counter, the waitresses turn out the lights and say sorry, they’re closing.”

“A clever move. Some towns did something similar to the Freedom Riders. Instead of making a fuss, they just ignored what was happening. But that level of restraint is too much for most segregationists, and they soon reverted to beating people up.”

“Bull Connor won’t give us a permit to demonstrate, so our marches are illegal, and the protesters are usually jailed; but they’re too few to make the national news.”