I Shared the Dream - Georgia Davis Powers

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      Copyright Acknowledgments

      The author and publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from the following copyrighted material:

      “The Country Preacher’s Folk Prayer” by Leonard A. Slade, Jr., Professor of English and Africana Studies, State University of New York at Albany. Copyright ® Another Black Voice: A Different Drummer, Winston-Derek Publishers Inc. Used with permission.

      Copyright © 1995 by Georgia Davis Powers

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, including electronic, mechanical, or any information storage or retrieval, except as may be expressly permitted in the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher.

      Requests for permission should be addressed to:

      New Horizon Press

      P.O. Box 669

      Far Hills, NJ 07931

      Powers, Georgia Davis.

      I Shared the Dream: The Pride, Passion, and Politics of the first Black Senator from Kentucky

      Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 94-66756

      ISBN-13 (eBook): 978-0-88282-509-0

      New Horizon Press

      Second Printing, 1995

      15 14 13 12 11 2 3 4 5 6

      This book is dedicated to the cherished memory of

      my mother, Frances Walker Montgomery;

      my father, Ben Gore Montgomery;

      and their descendants.

      —G.D.P.

      CONTENTS

      III THE CIVIL RIGHTS YEARS

      6 FATEFUL CHOICES

      7 A MEETING

      IV THE POLITICAL YEARS

      8 SMALL STEPS, BIG CHOICES

      9 SELMA

      10 MOVING AHEAD

      11 CROSSING THE LINE

      12 MARCHES AND PRIMARIES

      13 M.L.

      14 PREMONITIONS

      15 SWEET VICTORY

      16 SENATOR GEORGIA M. DAVIS

      17 THE LADY FROM JEFFERSON 33

      18 R&R

      19 THE LAST NIGHT

      V THE SUNSET YEARS

      20 AFTER THE NIGHTMARE

      21 HARD WORK AND DESPAIR

      22 TAKING MY PLACE

      23 IN THE FRAY

      24 HATRED’S UGLY HEAD

      25 PUBLIC SUCCESS, PRIVATE SORROW

      26 MOSES, THE ORATOR

      27 THE LAST FEW PLAYS

      EPILOGUE

      AFTERWORD

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I thank the following people and organizations for their help and belief in me:

      Maxine Brown, CEO and president of the Fund for Women, Inc., for presenting me with a personal computer upon my retirement.

      The Kentucky Foundation for Women, Inc., founded by Sallie Bingham, for the grant given to a person (who requests anonymity) to assist me.

      James L. Powers for his encouragement, patience, and love.

       AUTHOR’S NOTE

      These are the actual experiences and personal history of Georgia Davis Powers and this book reflects her opinions of the past, present, and future. The personalities, events, actions, and conversations portrayed within the story have been reconstructed from her memory, documents, letters, personal papers, press accounts, and the memories of other participants. In an effort to safeguard the privacy of certain individuals, the author has changed their names and, in some cases, altered otherwise identifying characteristics. Events involving the characters happened as described; only minor details have been changed.

       PROLOGUE

      I was standing in front of the dresser mirror patting my hair when I heard the shot. A woman screamed, “Oh my God! They’ve shot Dr. King!” I rushed to the door of my motel room and flung it open. Uniformed policemen were entering the courtyard. Where had they come from so fast, I wondered? Later I learned that the police station was just seconds away on the corner.

      Someone was pointing to the second floor. I looked up to my left and gasped. One of Dr. King’s knees stuck straight up in the air and I could make out the bottom of one foot. People in the courtyard had scattered to take cover. Without pausing, I hurried up the stairs closest to my room. Reaching King’s room, I stepped inside and saw Andy Young and Ralph Abernathy, their faces grim, feverishly telephoning for an ambulance. They hardly noticed me, and I went out on the balcony.

      Alone, I walked over and looked at Dr. King. He was lying in a pool of blood that was widening as I stood there staring. The bullet had pierced the right side of his neck. His tie had been severed from the knot. Both the knot and an inch of tie were sticking up. It is a picture permanently imprinted in my mind.

      A siren wailed. I went over to the iron railing and looked down. A black ambulance, looking more like a patrol car, was making its way in. By this time the courtyard was crowded with people, many crying or praying.

      Two medics from the ambulance hurried upstairs. They lifted Dr. King onto a stretcher, then brought him down to the courtyard. I hurried after them. Andy Young and Ralph Abernathy did the same.

      I had always been terrified of being exposed. Only once did I put such thoughts aside. When they put Dr. King into the ambulance, I instinctively began climbing in to go with him. Andy Young gently pulled me back. “No, Senator,” he said, “I don’t think you want to do that.”

      A decision—perhaps not even consciously made—had placed me at the side of Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the civil rights movement, on the day he died. Suddenly, the memory of our last telephone call accosted me. “Senator, please come to Memphis, I need you,” he had said. I had come, but it hadn’t helped. Nothing had.

      Again the vision of his body flashed through my mind. I am descending into hell, I thought. I remembered all the preachers I had ever heard, describing the fiery furnaces of hell. I knew they were wrong; hell is not hot. Hell is cold.

      As icy cold as I was now. Was I condemned to live forever shaking, unable to get warm, I wondered, while he lies colder still, in his grave? The thought was unbearable. I would gladly

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