I think this one may be old news to you, but important for those new to the subject...
John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Phone Call That Changed History
by Steven Levingston
TIME, June 20, 2017
Excerpt...
At home in Atlanta, Coretta King knew nothing of her husband’s ominous ride. She was six months pregnant with their third child, and she had already had an emotional week.
Snip...
On that early Wednesday morning, Martin Luther King Jr. had no idea where the two deputies were taking him. An hour passed, and he realized he was deep into “cracker” country where no one protested a lynching. By dawn, King discovered he had been granted a less evil fate as the squad car turned into the maximum security state prison in Reidsville.
Snip...
On that same Wednesday morning, Senator John Kennedy phoned the governor of Georgia, Ernest Vandiver. Some quiet, back-channel way had to be found to free the civil rights leader. Kennedy was motivated by his outrage, by his sympathy for the King family, and by bald political calculation. In a meeting with Kennedy just weeks earlier, King had urged the senator to take some dramatic action to prove to blacks that his commitment to their cause was genuine. His moment had arrived. If Kennedy were able to play a decisive role in King’s release, the black community was likely to reward him with an outpouring of support. But if he acted on King’s behalf, he risked a vicious backlash from Southern whites. The senator had to walk a fine line: show decency to a black man without alienating the white community.
During the presidential campaign, Kennedy raised suspicions in the black community by his blatant courtship of Southern white support. After the Democratic National Convention in July, he began shoring up his reputation among Southern leaders, meeting privately with them to allay fears that he would be an aggressive civil rights president. Kennedy promised Governor Vandiver that as president he would never use federal troops to force Georgia to desegregate its schools. In return, Vandiver declared his preference for the senator and vowed to lead Georgia into the Kennedy column on Election Day.
Now, some three months later, early in the morning at the governor’s mansion in Atlanta, the telephone jangled on the bedside table, waking Vandiver and his wife. On the line was Senator John Kennedy speaking in his New England accent. “Governor,” he said, according to Vandiver’s recollection of the conversation, “is there any way that you think you could get Martin Luther King out of jail? It would be of tremendous benefit to me.”
“Senator, I don’t know whether we can get him released or not,” Vandiver replied.
“Would you try and see what you can do and call me back?” Kennedy said.
Working in secrecy, Vandiver swung into action for the senator.
As news of King’s jailing spread, both presidential candidates received a petition from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and nearly twenty other civil rights organizations demanding that they “speak out against the imprisonment.”
Continues...
https://time.com/4817240/martin-luther-king-john-kennedy-phone-call/
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