wikipedia | Farmer reports a dialogue between Wilkins and King:[18]
- Wilkins: One of these days, Martin, some bright reporter is going to take a good hard look at Montgomery and discover that despite all the hoopla, your boycott didn't desegregate a single city bus. It was the quiet NAACP-type legal action that did it.
- King: We're fully aware of that, Roy. And we in the SCLC believe that it's going to have to be a partnership between nonviolent direct action and legal action if we're going to get the job done.
- Wilkins: In fact, Martin, if you have desegregated anything by your efforts, kindly enlighten me.
- King: Well, I guess about the only thing I've desegregated so far is a few human hearts.
- Wilkins (nodding): Yes, I'm sure you have done that, and that's important. So keep on doing it; I'm sure it will help the cause in the long run.
Malcolm X claimed in his November 1963 "Message to the Grass Roots"
speech that the White power structure created the Council for United
Civil Rights Leadership specifically for the purpose of infiltrating and
coopting a revolutionary march on Washington.[26]
His account parallels those assembled later by historians, beginning
with discord among moderate civil rights leaders: "As these Negroes of
national stature began to attack each other, they began to lose their
control of the Negro masses."[27]
X suggests that revolutionary actions became inevitable after the breakdown of nonviolence in Birmingham:[26]
Negroes was out there in the streets. They was talking about we was going to march on Washington. By the way, right at that time Birmingham had exploded, and the Negroes in Birmingham—remember, they also exploded. They began to stab the crackers in the back and bust them up 'side their head—yes, they did. That's when Kennedy sent in the troops, down in Birmingham. [...] the Negroes started talking—about what? We're going to march on Washington, march on the Senate, march on the White House, march on the Congress, and tie it up, bring it to a halt; don't let the government proceed. They even said they was [sic] going out to the airport and lay down on the runway and don't let no airplanes land. I'm telling you what they said. That was revolution. That was revolution. That was the black revolution. It was the grass roots out there in the street. Scared the white man to death, scared the White power structure in Washington, D. C. to death; I was there.
He goes on to describe the meeting in the Carlyle Hotel:[26]
A philanthropic society headed by a white man named Stephen Currier called all the top civil-rights leaders together at the Carlyle Hotel. And he told them that, "By you all fighting each other, you are destroying the civil-rights movement. And since you're fighting over money from white liberals, let us set up what is known as the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership. Let's form this council, and all the civil-rights organizations will belong to it, and we'll use it for fund-raising purposes." Let me show you how tricky the white man is. And as soon as they got it formed, they elected Whitney Young as the chairman, and who [do] you think became the co-chairman? Stephen Currier, the white man, a millionaire.
Once these leaders agreed to the CUCRL bargain, they gained access to the resources of the white power structure:[26]
Soon as they got the setup organized, the white man made available to them top public relations experts; opened the news media across the country at their disposal; and then they begin to project these Big Six as the leaders of the march. Originally, they weren't even in the march.
As a result, the March did not threaten systemic racism:[26]
They controlled it so tight—they told those Negroes what time to hit town, how to come, where to stop, what signs to carry, what song to sing, what speech they could make, and what speech they couldn't make; and then told them to get out town by sundown. And everyone of those Toms was out of town by sundown.
Audio rights
King announced in October 1963 that he was assigning all rights to the recording of his "I Have a Dream" speech to the Council.[28]
The Council subsequently released an official recording of speeches
at the March, titled "We Shall Overcome". It includes speeches from
King, Wilkins, Young, Rustin, Lewis, Randolph, Walter Reuther, and Joachim Prinz, as well as music from Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Odetta, Marian Anderson, and Peter, Paul & Mary. This record sold for $3.00 by mail or $3.98 retail.[29][30]
Legal action was taken to halt sales of other recordings.[28] Clarence Jones
argued that Mr. Maestro Inc and Twentieth Century Fox had infringed on
the group's copyright. The defendants argued that King was a public
figure and his words were in the public domain.[31]
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