Percy Marquand said: “You’re the talent, Dave. They need you. Without you they don’t have a show. You have power. Use it to do good.”

Charlie said: “Get real. There’s no show without National Soap. We’ll have trouble finding a new sponsor—especially after people find out why Mr. Wharton pulled out.”

Wharton had not actually said he would withdraw his sponsorship over the kiss, Dave noted. Nor had Charlie said that finding a new sponsor would be impossible—just difficult. If Dave insisted on keeping the kiss, the show might go on, and Dave’s television career might survive.

Perhaps.

“Is this really my decision?” he said.

Evie said: “Looks like it.”

Was he prepared to take the risk?

No, he was not.

“The kiss comes out,” he said.

• • •

Jasper Murray flew to Memphis in April to check out a strike by sanitation workers that was becoming violent.

Jasper knew about violence. All men, including himself, had it in them to be either peaceable or vicious, according to circumstances, he believed. Their natural inclination was to lead a quiet, law-abiding life; but given the right sort of encouragement most of them were capable of committing torture, rape, and murder. He knew.

So when he came to Memphis he listened to both sides. The city hall spokesman said that outside agitators were inciting the strikers to violent behavior. The campaigners blamed police brutality.

Jasper asked: “Who is in charge?”

The answer was Henry Loeb.

Loeb, the Democrat mayor of Memphis, was openly racist, Jasper learned. He believed in segregation, supported “separate but equal” facilities for whites and blacks, and publicly railed against court-ordered integration.

And almost all the sanitation workers were black.

Their wages were so low that many qualified for welfare. They had to do compulsory unpaid overtime. And the city would not recognize their union.

But it was the issue of safety that started the strike. Two men were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. Loeb refused to retire obsolete trucks or tighten safety rules.

The city council voted to end the strike by recognizing the union, but Loeb overrode the council.

The protest spread.

It got national attention when Martin Luther King weighed in on the side of the sanitation men.

King flew in for his second visit on the same day as Jasper, April 3, 1968, a Wednesday. That evening a storm darkened the city. In pounding rain, Jasper went to hear King speak to a rally at the Mason Temple.

Ralph Abernathy was the warm-up man. Taller and darker than King, less handsome and more aggressive, he was—according to gossip—King’s drinking and womanizing buddy as well as his closest ally and friend.

The audience consisted of sanitation workers and their families and supporters. Looking at their worn shoes and their old coats and hats, Jasper realized that these were some of the poorest people in America. They were ill-educated and they did dirty jobs and they lived in a city that called them second-class citizens, nigras, boys. But they had spirit. They were not going to take it any longer. They believed in a better life. They had a dream.