Swift Deliverance

With an air of martyrdom, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., determined, soft-spoken Negro leader in the South's struggle for civil rights, submitted to handcuffing in the Atlanta suburb of Decatur last week and was led off to the Reidsville state prison to serve a four-month sentence.

What was he guilty of? The whole performance reeked of red-neck justice. King and some 50 supporters had been arrested the week before by Atlanta police for picketing and sit-in demonstrations at downtown department store lunch counters that refused them service. It was a touchy situation, and Atlanta's Mayor William Hartsfield hoped not to inflame it. But hard-bitten Judge Oscar Mitchell of De Kalb County's criminal and civil court decided that King's arrest in Atlanta violated a year's probation imposed on King in late September, along with a $25 fine, for driving in Georgia with an Alabama license. King's lawyers argued that the year's probation and the new sentence were longer than state laws allowed.

With an air of wonderment, the Rev. Dr. King found himself free the next day. The same Judge Mitchell released him on $2,000 bond until an appeal could be heard by a higher court. What had happened in between? For one thing, Judge Mitchell had discovered that the law compelled him to grant bail to King. And the influential Atlanta Constitution had editorialized: "Any ends of justice that could be served by holding Dr. King in prison would be minor indeed compared to the wreckage of this community's reputation for racial restraint." Furthermore, Jack Kennedy's brother Bobby had a phone conversation with Judge Mitchell, and Jack himself had called Mrs. King to voice his "concern."

The Rev. Dr. King and his followers rallied that evening in Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church to give thanks to God for his deliverance. The Rev. Dr. King's father stood up at the rally to add his thanks elsewhere: he had planned to vote for Vice President Nixon, he said, because of Jack Kennedy's religion, but from now on he could be counted as a Kennedy man. Said he: "Jack Kennedy has the moral courage to stand up for what he knows is right."

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