HungryBlues

From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 4)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

On July 3, 1963, Roosevelt Tatum was interviewed another time by FBI Agents in Birmingham, Alabama. In this meeting Tatum signed a statement recanting his previous allegations regarding the role of the Birmingham Police in the bombing of A. D. and Naomi King's home. Here is an excerpt from Tatum's retraction:

I did not see any suspicious persons or suspicious cars that night and I have no knowledge whatever as to who may have been responsible for the explosions at Rev. King's home. . . .

Later, after the explosions, I saw Police Squad Car #49 parked at the King residence. I remember thinking that Car #49 got to the scene mighty soon after the explosion and I also knew Car #49 does not patrol that area. There was some talk later among the people who gathered at the scene that the police sure got there quick and I thought maybe the police had something to do with the explosion. However, I did not see any police car around the King residence before the explosion and I have no knowledge that anyone connected with the Police Dept. was involved in any way.

Some five or six weeks later I got drunk one Saturday, and went to Rev. King's house and told him and some white fellow named Greenberg that I actually saw two police men in Car 49 place something on Rev. King's property just before the explosion. After I told my story, Rev. King or somebody called the FBI, and I told the F.B.I. [sic] the same bunch of lies. The plain truth is I don't know anything whatever as to who may have caused this explosion. I saw no suspicious persons or cars that night and there is absolutely no other information which I can furnish. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526. Prosecutive Summary Report, Names And Addresses Of Witnesses And Testimony Of Each. 52- 53.)

On August 26, 1963, the details concerning Tatum's admitted false testimony were brought before a Federal Grand Jury. Two days later, the Grand Jury returned an indictment, charging that Roosevelt Tatum

did, in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice of the United States of America, knowingly, willfully [sic], and unlawfully make a false statement to a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in that . . . the defendant stated that on the night of May 11, 1963, Birmingham Police Car Number 49, occupied by two police officers placed an explosive charge in front of the residence of A. D. W. King in Birmingham, Alabama; and that one of the police officers placed an explosive charge in front of said residence, when in truth and fact, as the defendant then and there well knew, the aforesaid statement was false. (6)

Tatum was charged with violating Section 1001, Title 18 of the U. S. Code.

September 23, 1963. Tatum's lawyer, Orzell Billingsley, filed a motion to quash the indictment.

September 25, 1963. Tatum entered a plea of not guilty to the charge against him.

November 18, 1963. Tatum's trial at the US District Court, at Birmingham, Alabama. Tatum changed his plea to guilty and was sentenced under Section 4208B, Title 18, US Code. Before sentencing him, the court placed Tatum in the custody of the Attorney General for a 90 day period of observation and study.

March 31, 1964. Roosevelt Tatum appeared for sentencing in US District Court, Birmingham, Alabama. His sentence: one year and one day imprisonment from the date of his original commitment, November 18, 1963.

It turns out that Roosevelt Tatum was charged with false testimony because US Attorney Macon L. Weaver was looking to charge someone with false testimony. A memo dated July 16, 1963, from FBI Special Agent In Charge (SAC) in Birmingham to the FBI Director, reveals that

U. S. Attorney Macon L. Weaver, at Birmingham, has evidenced considerable interest in receiving reports of any individuals in this Division who furnish false information to the Governmentand [sic] is, of course, very much interested in rendering prosecutive opinions in any case where there is a violation of Section 1001, Title 18, U. S. Code. He has specifically requested copies of any reports in connection with the bombing investigation which indicate that witnesses have furnished false information. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526.)

Either Weaver requested documents from the FBI because he was hoping to find someone to prosecute, or he knew about the Tatum story and wanted the evidence he needed to bring a case against him. The FBI complied with Weaver's request, but the Justice Dept. also took away his prosecutive authority in "cases of of this type involving a racial situation." In a July 26 memo from Special Agent In Charge, Birmingham to the FBI Director regarding Weaver's request for reports on individuals who furnished false information, the SAC reported that, despite the Department's prohibition, Weaver felt compelled to make known to them his view that Roosevelt Tatum should be prosecuted by the Department.

On August 19, 1963, Justice Clarence W. Allgood, of the US District Court, Northern District of Alabama, approved the Birmingham Board of Education's desegregation plan. The next day, on August 20, at 9:26 p.m., there was another bombing in Birmingham. This time the target was Arthur Shores, an African American civil rights attorney, who lived there. Diane McWhorter describes the scene after the bombing:

When the Reverend Nelson "Fireball" Smith arrived, A. D. King and Charles Billups were already on the top of a police car making pleas for peace. "If you are going to kill someone, kill me," A. D. King shouted at the crowd. "The police are mad; now y'all go on." Detective Maurice House said, "A. D., don't say we're mad, you'll get us all killed." Some officers, expecting as much, had been issued submachine guns. "They stand here with pistols and other magic power," King persisted. "We can't beat them tonight. We are going to win this town regardless of what they do. Stand if you must—stand in love, not violence." A barrage of rocks answered him. A policeman positioned between two parked cars was felled by a flying rock, and Smith's leg was hit. He and King went into Shores's house to attend to a chip fracture on Smith's shinbone, leaving the mob to its momentum. (Carry Me Home, 482)

The next day, on August 21, US Attorney Macon L. Weaver issued a press release:

THE EVENTS OF LAST EVENING, FOLLOWING THE BOMBING OF ATTORNEY ARTHUR SHORES HOME WHEREIN BIRMINGHAM POLICE OFFICERS WERE STONED BY NEGRO MEMBERS OF THE NEGRO COMMUNITY MAKE IT NECESSARY TO MAKE THIS UNPRECEDENTED STATEMENT CONCERNING A CASE UNDER INVESTIGATION.

ON JUNE TWENTYTWO, SIXTYTHREE [sic] A NEGRO MALE WHO RESIDES IN THE VICINITY OF REV. A. D. W. KING/S [SIC] RESIDENCE CONTACTED REV. KING AND JACK GREENBERG, ATTORNEY FOR THE SCLCU [sic], AND GAVE A STATEMENT IN WHICH HE ALLEGES THAT HE SAW TWO OFFICERS OF THE BIRMINGHAM POLICE DEPARTMENT IN A SPECIFIED NUMBERED CAR BOMB THE RESIDENCE OF A. D. W. KING. REV. KING CONTACTED THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND ON THE SAME DATE THIS SAME PERSON GAVE A STATEMENT TO THE FBI OF SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME FACTS. HE WAS LATER FLOWN TO WASHINGTON BY THE REV. KING WHERE HE WAS INTERVIEWED IN THE OFFICE OF A PROMINENT NEW YORK CONGRESSMAN. HE WAS INTERVIEWED AT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AND ALSO BY TWO TOP AGENTS OF THE FBI IN WASHINGTON. DURING ALL OF THESE INTERVIEWS HE GAVE SUBSTANTIALLY THE SAME STATEMENT THAT HE SAW TWO BIRMINGHAM POLICE OFFICERS BOMB THE RESIDENCE OF REV. KING. ON JULY THREE, SIXTYTHREE [sic], THE SUBJECT WAS GIVEN A POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION BY A SPECIALLY TRAINED AGENT OF THE FBI AT THE FBI OFFICE IN BIRMINGHAM, ALA., AND AT THE THIRD QUESTION BY THE POLYGRAPH EXAMINER THE SUBJECT ADMITTED THAT HE WAS LYING AND THAT THE ENTIRE STORY WAS SOMETHING THAT HE MADE UP, AND HE GAVE A WRITTEN STATEMENT TO THAT EFFECT. HE WAS ACCOMPANIED BY CLARENCE B. JONES, AN ATTORNEY FROM NEW YORK CITY, AT THE TIME HE TOOK THE POLYGRAPH EXAMINATION. THE STORY THAT WAS ORIGINALLY GIVEN BY THIS PERSON HAS BECOME WELL KNOWN IN THE NEGRO COMMUNITY, BUT THE STATEMENT THAT HE WAS LYING IS NOT KNOWN AT ALL, AND, FOR THAT REASON IT IS FELT THAT THESE FACTS SHOULD BE MADE KNOWN, AND I CALL UPON THE RESPONSIBLE NEGRO LEADERS OF THIS COMMUNITY TO HELP INFORM THE NEGRO CITIZENS THAT THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THE STORY AS ORIGINALLY GIVEN. I FEEL THAT THE ROCKING AND STONING OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT LAST NIGHT WAS A DIRECT RESULT OF THIS FALSEHOOD THAT IS BEING CIRCULATED IN THE NEGRO COMMUNITY.

THE IRRESPONSIBLE ACT OF A PERSON OR PERSONS UNKNOWN IN THE BOMBING OF ATTORNEY ARTHUR SHORES [SIC] HOME LAST EVENING CONSTITUTES AN UNPROVOKED ATTACK ON THE PEACE AND TRANQUILITY OF THIS COMMUNITY, AN ACT CALCULATED TO CAUSE FURTHER RACIAL UNREST.

THE FBI IS WORKING, AS ALWAYS, CLOSELY WITH THE LOCAL POLICE DEPARTMENT TO BRING TO THE BAR OF JUSTICE THE PERPETRATORS OF THIS CRIME AGAINST SOCIETY. OF MORE IMMEDIATE CONCERN HOWEVER IS THE ANIMOSITY THAT EXEMPLIFIED ITSELF LAST NIGHT WHEN POLICE OFFICERS WERE STONED AS THEY ARRIVED TO INVESTIGATE THE BOMBING. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526. Teletype from SAC, Birmingham to Director, FBI, August 28, 1963. All-caps in original.)

Weaver's audacity in this press release is appalling. Weaver chose to publicize investigative information for a case that was then currently under investigation. His information appears to be based on some of the same documents that I have, which are now declassified but were not then, in 1963. Seems his main information came from Tatum's own statements to the FBI, such as when Tatum referred to my father as a "white man named Greenberg" in his June 22 statement to the Birmingham FBI (see Part 3). Weaver mistook Paul Greenberg for Jack Greenberg, since Jack is the famous Greenberg in the Civil Rights Movement.

The biggest irony in Weaver's statement is that the rock and brick throwing by African-Americans that followed the August 20 bombing of Arthur Shores' home was mild in comparison to the rioting that followed the May 11 bombings of the A. G. Gaston Motel and A. D. and Naomi King's home:

The arrival of the white squad cars [at the Gaston Motel] sent the crowd into a rage. Now the former bystanders hurled bricks and bottles at the officers. Members of the mob shouted "Kill 'em! Kill 'em!" at the policemen, who, waiting for reinforcements, moved back. They did little for nearly an hour. Violent protesters ransacked the twenty-eight block area around the motel. Smashing the windows of patrol cars and fire trucks, the mob vented its pent-up frustration. Innocent travelers caught in the area attracted rocks thrown from the crowd and suffered most of the white injuries. One police officer received several stab wounds. Captain James Lay, a black civil defense worker, saved the life of a white cabbie, W. A. Bowman, who inadvertently drove into the riot and was knifed by black men. They torched his taxi after turning it over. The flickering orange and red flames of the gasoline brightly contrasted with the thick black clouds that billowed above the car. Several Italian-owned grocery stores went up in smoke as rioters attempted to burn all white-owned property in the neighborhood. But the sparks knew no race and quickly spread the fire to black-owned houses. Soon the hot night sky blazed with the intensity of a blast furnace. In addition to the exploitative ghetto groceries, the African Americans looted liquor stores and other businesses. At the height of the riot, some 2,500 black people participated in the violence. (Glenn T. Eskew, But for Birmingham: The Local and National Movements in the Civil Rights Struggle, 301)

The well-founded perception that members of the Birmingham Police were allied with with the Ku Klux Klan and were involved in terrorism against African-Americans was not a new idea propagated by Roosevelt Tatum. What was new was the violent response of African-Americans to a bombing in Birmingham. Since 1947, more than fifty racial bombings had occurred. Even without clear evidence of Klan involvement, the police corruption was clear: the first person ever convicted in connection with the Birmingham bombings was Roosevelt Tatum.

After the August 20 bombing of the Shores residence, when an African-American crowd once again turned out with bricks and stones to hurl at the police, the time was ripe for Macon Weaver to "render[ ] prosecutive opinions," as he was "very much interested" in doing. It was already old hat for racist whites to assert that African-Americans were the perpetrators of bombings against their own community members. It may be that the racists' aim of undermining the moral authority of non-violent resistance by provoking violence from the African American community may have unleashed something more than was intended. McWhorter quotes vice president of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR), Abraham Woods, who said in an oral history that

What I saw at Sixteenth Street, what I saw at the motel, was the forerunner of what happened . . . Later it was "burn, baby, burn." . . . That came later and I saw it coming. I saw it coming. (McWhorter, 437n)

Violent expressions of anger, long stifled by brutish, institutionalized intimidation and Jim Crow, may have made racists fearful in a new way—fearful of violent resistance and of possible outside perceptions that such violence was at worst an even response to what African-Americans had suffered. In a curious way, the national viewing of images of non-violent children and adults being attacked by dogs and blown down with fire hoses may have led to wider identification with the anger expressed in the rioting. Or at least Macon Weaver may have feared that this would be the case. Though the national media published virtually no photographs of the May, 1963 Birmingham riots (McWhorter, 437), Weaver may still have sought to deligitimate African American grievances in order to ease the city back into the status quo that had existed before the civil rights demonstrations.

Project C had come to an anti-climactic end. At the national level, the situation in Birmingham was central in leading John F. Kennedy to draft the civil rights bill which was passed in 1964. The perceived success of the SCLC's work with the ACMHR brought the SCLC new national prominence and prestige and an enormous spike in financial contributions. "Within a month of the ambiguous resolution [of the Birmingham campaign], the SCLC took in more money than it had seen in the previous calendar year" (Eskew, 314). At the local level, however,

[i]n the aftermath of the demonstrations, the police department attempted to return to the status quo of race relations. Police chief Jamie Moore responded to the civil disorders by purchasing "100 riot type (military) 12 gauge pump shotguns" . . . During June and July of 1963, officers reexerted their control over the black community. Yet the brutal response to the protest marches compromised the authority of the police. Through force, policemen kept the poor and desperate elements of the community in line. For black people in Birmingham this force often meant "justifiable homicide." On June 28, a policeman killed Blaine Gordon Jr., a seventeen-year-old black male. On July 6, a detective shot, but did not kill, thirty-three-year-old Johnny Patterson, also black. On August 4, an officer killed James Scott Jr., age thirty-five, another black male. The ease with which policemen shot and killed black men reflected a pathology within Birmingham's law enforcement that contributed to future racial crises. (313-14)

If you read much of Diane McWhorter's Carry Me Home, you see that the ongoing, deadly Police violence against African-Americans in Birmingham was something more than a pathological expression of racism. McWhorter depicts in great detail a sickening web of alliances among police, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Birmingham FBI. "Return to the status quo of race relations" meant a return to a shabby facade of civility that was maintained by the constant threat of violence. Tatum's original allegation, effectively that the Police and the KKK were one, was not the only of its kind. The FBI interviewed, but never investigated the testimony of, a witness who saw the Gaston Motel bombers receive police escort away from the scene of the crime. (McWhorter, 436) There was also another witness, in addition to Tatum, who implicated the police in the bombing of the King residence.

Macon Weaver wanted to use Roosevelt Tatum as an example of what would happen to anyone else who tried to speak truth about the deep corruption of the Birmingham Police. But the timing of Weaver's press release suggests further that he wanted to use the authority of the law to give an air of legitimacy to the most absurd of racist doublespeak. As McWhorter puts it:

The [FBI] was selectively pursuing a cipher who was only alleging a police-Klan conspiracy that its own star informant [Klansman Gary Thomas Rowe Jr.] had already uncovered, and for a crime that the FBI, if it had wanted to establish federal jurisdiction over the Klan, could have slapped on virtually every Klansman it had ever interviewed. (483)

It was a favorite racist assertion that violent crimes against African Americans, such as bombings, were perpetrated by African Americans themselves. Now Weaver was ramping such assertions up a notch by attempting to establish that the race riots were caused not by racist oppression but by lies and rumors spread by an unreliable African American.

Though Weaver could not prosecute the case himself, he got his wish, nonetheless, through his publicity tactics. On August 23, the FBI Director received a memo from SAC, Birmingham, stating that

Ausa [Assistant US Attorney] R. Macey Taylor advised that in view of the public interest in instant case, U. S. District Judge C. W. Allgood will probably present instant case early Monday, next. Federal Grand Jury is meeting in Birmingham on that date. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526.)

That same weekend, A. D. King and Roosevelt Tatum held a press conference to counter Weaver's statements. Page 1 of the August 24 edition of The Birmingham News reported that

Tatum said the FBI polygraph experts instructed him to say "no" to every question they asked him. He said they never asked him about what he saw the night of the bombing but only quizzed him concerning his children and unrelated matters.

"The said they were going to show me how the lie detector operated," Tatum said. "I had never seen one before."

The Negro said they asked if he had a baby named "Bronco."

"I started to say yes," the Negro said, "but they had told me to say no, so I did."

Tatum said the two agents questioned him at length, then told him he had lied and that they were going to prosecute him. He said that they told him he would be sentenced to five years in federal prison.

The Negro said he signed a statement admitting he had lied about police bombing King's home because of threats of the FBI.

Tatum said he now wants to take another lie detector test and welcomes a federal grand jury investigation into the matter.

King said there was another Negro named "Skeets" who also saw a police car near his (King's) home the night it was bombed. The Negro preacher said Attorney Clarence Jones of New York, who is now working on the march on Washington, will confer with Birmingham Negro leaders about what to do next within a few days.

On August 26, as stated above, the Federal Grand Jury convened and returned its charges against Roosevelt Tatum.

Roosevelt Tatum's trial was on November 18, 1963. Mark Lane writes

The record reveals that Tatum appeared in Judge Allgood's court [in] the morning . . . His lawyer was excused so that he could try another case that morning with the understanding that he would return to try the Tatum case at 2 o'clock that afternoon. Yet the afternoon session began with Billingsley entering the plea of guilty while Tatum stood silently by.

The lawyer was not present on the day of the sentence and Roosevelt Tatum, standing alone, was sentenced by Judge Allgood to a penitentiary for one year and one day. (Murder in Memphis, 40)

After Tatum made his mysterious change of plea from not guilty to guilty, Judge Allgood addressed him from the bench, saying Tatum's crime "could have resulted in the loss of life and may have . . . " (Birmingham Post Herald, November 19, 1963)

Allgood was probably referring to the death of John Coley on September 4, 1963, the night Arthur Shores' house was bombed a second time, sparking another riot.

Twenty-year-old John Coley, who had hopped a ride to the riot scene with his close friend Eddie Coleman, happened into a barrage of gunfire and collapsed facedown on the ground. Coleman called his friend's name. Coley raised his head and tried to say something but couldn't. . . .

Coley had . . . been hit in the head, though it was the #0 buckshot lodged in his liver that would account for his being dead on arrival at University Hospital. Several officers stationed in Coley's vicinity had been using that size pellet, and for the time being the police were so confident of their right to fire on the rioters that they told the [Birmingham] News's Tom Lankford that they shot Coley when he "burst from a house firing a gun," as if they had not been surrounded by hundreds of eyewitnesses who could contradict them. . . .

What the blacks who had gathered around Coley's corpse noticed was his dead-on resemblance, despite a twenty or so-year age difference, to Fred Shuttlesworth. They had no doubt that Coley was a victim of mistaken identity, that his murder had been another assassination attempt. The police would have to settle for merely kicking Shuttlesworth as he lost his footing and fell. (McWhorter, 499-500)

Towards the end of 1964 Roosevelt Tatum was released from prison. He left Birmingham, where he could not find a job, to look for work in New York City. Before leaving his friends and his family he said that he had told the truth about the bombing of A. D. King's house. His friends say that he insisted that he would keep on telling the truth, whatever the cost.

He died in 1970, at the age of 46. (Lane and Greggory, Murder in Memphis, 40-41)

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photo by Charles Moore

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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

It's Almost Passover

I've been trying to get to the writing for Part 4 of From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 1, 2, 3), but it's been difficult to make the time these last couple of weeks. Now I'm on the first leg of Passover travels with Ruth and Aaron. We're spending the first part of the holiday at my mother's house in Delmar, NY and some of the last days of the holiday at my in-laws' in Cleveland, Ohio. I brought my (ailing) laptop with me so that I could keep up on work and correspondence—and so I can get some more work done on my blog. I'm half hoping I'll finish Part 4 before I return to Boston a week from now.

In Part 4, I'll be working out the broader context of Roosevelt Tatum's conviction for false testimony. I'll be discussing the political purposes that were behind his prosecution and conviction. I believe the final installment in this series will be Part 5, in which I plan to do some close reading of Roosevelt Tatum's testimonies. Literary analysis of Tatum's statements highlights some of the points I'm making in other ways, while I try to piece together this history with the primary and secondary sources I have available to me.

As usual, while I'm here at my mom's house, I'm sifting through the documents and objects that fill the house. This time I'm looking through some of the documents from Dad's work on Proportional Representation (PR) in New York City. In the late 1960s, there was a move, ultimately unsuccessful, to bring PR back as the method of electing the New York City Council members. PR was the method used for NYC Council elections from 1938 to 1949. In the early 1970s there was a successful campaign to change the New York City School Board Elections to PR. Both of these efforts were spearheaded by my father, who was Executive Director of the New York Proportional Representation Committee from 1969-1971 and Associate Director of the Special Unit for School Board Elections of the Board of Elections in the City of New York from 1970-1973. The work that he did around the NYC School Board elections was enormous. He used to refer to his 1973 testimony at the New York State Education Department Hearings on Community School Board Elections as his master's thesis. (For a description of the kind of PR that he worked to institute in NYC go here or here.) Before I can write fully about my dad's involvement in PR for NYC, there are many documents here in Delmar that I need to read and there's a lot more that I need to learn about this bit of NYC political history. Still I'm going to post a little from what I've been reading while I'm here on my Passover visit.

As I study my father's political life I've been interested in the diversity of his involvements and how they were related in his mind. In his resumé that I posted you can see that in the space of a few years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he moved from organized labor, to the disarmament movement, to the Civil Rights Movement. Then he was doing state legislative work for the Liberal Party in the mid to late 1960s. An then the PR campaigns in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

One document that I found among the papers relating to the campaign to use PR in the NY City Council elections is a fact sheet, dated 1969 and titled "Proportional Representation (P.R.): A Proposal For Complete Representation In The New York City Council." In this 6 page pamphlet, which I presume my father wrote, there's a section called "P.R. And Civil Rights:"

P. R. is of special importance and usefulness for the advancement of civil rights. In the present transition to full and equal citizenship, in fact as well as in law, it means a great deal to the whole community, as well as to the people directly concerned, for Blacks and Puerto Ricans to be able to use their voice in government. This they can usually do, in district elections, only when they stay hived in "ghettoes" like Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant. But the dispersal of ghettoes to secure the integration of the community has been a major objective of the civil rights movement.

P.R. will make it possible for a minority candidate to live anywhere and get votes from anywhere in his borough, and if his supporters poll a sufficient minority of the borough's votes - e.g. something approaching a tenth in a ten member borough - he will be elected. Furthermore, P. R. Gives every voter a preferential vote so that if it cannot help elect his first choice, it can be used at full value for his second choice, or if necessary, his third or fourth. Thus nearly ever Black or Puerto Rican voter can help to elect either a trusted Black or Puerto Rican leader or some other candidate who understands his special problems. The last Council election gave us only 2 Black Councilmen out of 37 and one Puerto Rican.

Of course most voters who do not have the special problems of the ethnic minorities will not vote on ethnic lines, other considerations being of more interest to them, and they can all get representation on whatever basis they think best.

The amounts of support given to candidates of different parties are not likely to be greatly changed - they were not when we had P.R. before - for most voters could elect within their own parties candidates who appealed to them on other grounds as well. But if the parties did not offer candidates with a real appeal to the ethnic minorities, those minorities could elect independent candidates of their own who did appeal to them. (3)

This passage captures three important elements of my father's political interests. First, he believed deeply in the value of political process. Second, in PR, as well as in the disarmament movement, we see him drawn to political work that has the potential for broad appeal across various ideological lines. Third, and this follows from the first two observations, my father's political work was always driven by an idealistic yearning for radical social transformation. This was true when he was briefly a member of the Communist Party, USA in the late 40s. But it was also true after he broke with Communism and threw off the mantle of the revolution. For my father, being a Democratic Socialist meant working within the inherently conservative structures of existing political institutions and systems to bring about Utopia.

Another huge topic which I am nowhere near ready to approach is how my father came to Judaism from his life as a radical, secular Jewish Socialist [link on "Jew" is because of this]. This journey of his began in earnest in the 1970s. By the time I was growing up here, in Delmar, my dad's sense of himself as a religious man was fully formed. In the 80s and 90s, he loved quoting from a book by Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution. The book demonstrates that the Exodus from Egypt as recorded in the Torah has been the model for the four modern revolutions, the French, English, American and Russian. Walzer refers to Egypt by its Hebrew name, Mitzrayim, a word which literally means narrow place. I can't find Dad's copy of the book in the house right now, so I don't know if the quotation is accurate, but the way he always said it was that at the end of the book Walzer asks, "so what does all this mean?. . . Wherever you are it's probably Mitzrayim and you dream of a promised land. . . . and how do you get there? Organize . . ."

From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 3)

My questions about how my dad ended up with Roosevelt Tatum's deposition were not all answered by the FBI file, but outlines of the story did emerge.

On May 11, 1963 at approximately 11:00 PM two bombs exploded on the property of A. D. and Naomi King. Following the explosions, Mr. and Mrs. King and their children fled the house without any injuries. The next day, on May 12, FBI agents made a routine neighborhood investigation. In their report Roosevelt Tatum stated that

he was seated on the porch at 820 12th Street, Ensley, and borrowed a match from EVA MAE MILLER. As he lighted the match to light a cigarette there was an explosion in front of the residence of Reverend KING about 150 feet from where he was seated. He ran toward the explosion after the passing of a few seconds and he had crossed the intersection of 12th Street and Avenue H and had almost reached the curb when a second explosion occurred. This explosion threw him back across the street and to the ground. En route from where he was seated to the intersection, a car passed very near him traveling east on 12th Street and he assumed it had passed in front of the KING residence at about the time of the first explosion. He noted that this car was a small American make car that he believed to be Corvair. He could not be sure of the color, but believed it was dark, possibly black. He did not notice anyone in the car or the number of persons that were in the car. He said he did not see the car after passing it while running toward the intersection. He did not recognize the car as one that he had seen previously.

He stated that he went into the KING house and got one of the small children. Mrs. KING was getting the other children out of the house at the time.

He stated that he was not aware of the cars that were parked in the vicinity and could not describe any of them. He did not observe any suspicious activities on the part of any persons prior to the time of the explosion. He stated that he did recall that Car #22 of the Birmingham Police Department was parked in front of Foster's Delicatessen, located at the corner of Avenue I and 12th Street. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526. Prosecutive Summary Report, Names And Addresses Of Witnesses And Testimony Of Each, 12)

About six weeks later, on June 22, 1963 at around 9:00 AM, Roosevelt Tatum appeared at A. D. and Naomi King's house. By Tatum's own account,

I was crying and I told Rev. King that I had something in my heart and I wanted to tell somebody. . . . I have had this thing on my conscience since the date it happened, and I wanted to tell somebody about it so I would feel better. (19)

Since I first obtained Tatum's FBI file, I've learned that there are, in fact, two published accounts of these events surrounding the bombing of the King residence in Birmingham. The first is in Murder in Memphis: The FBI and the Assassination of Martin Luther King by Mark Lane and Dick Gregory, originally published as Code name Zorro in 1977. Around the time I received Tatum's file in the mail, a new book came out by Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution. Both books provide valuable original research on these events, but neither book gives voice to Tatum himself. As far as I know the only available recorded accounts of these events that Tatum gave are in the four depositions he made—three to the FBI in Birmingham and in Washington and the additional one he made in Washington that I found among my father's papers. Given the previous unavailability of these statements, I will here reproduce the most fulsome account of what Roosevelt Tatum told A. D. King the morning of June 22—the statement he made to the FBI later the same day:

On the night of May 11, 1963, I was at a place called The Lounge on Avenue C between 17th and 18th Streets in Ensley from about 9:00 to 10:00 p.m. I left there about 10:00 p.m. and walked a short distance to get a Lee Cab. I did not recognize the driver of this cab. He drove me to the the Foster's Delicatessen which is on the corner of 12th Street and Avenue I, Ensley. The delicatessen faces Avenue I. I estimate I was at this place from 10:00 to 11:00 p.m. and was standing outside watching two men play checkers. One of the checker players was CHARLES HARPER. The other player is a young boy whose name I do not know, but I do know where he lives and I can point that out to Agents. There were several other men there with me watching the checker game. There must have been five or six of these men, and the only one I can name is a man named ARTHUR. I would estimate that about 11:05 p.m. Birmingham Police car No. 22 drove up in front of Foster's Delicatessen. There were two uniformed policemen in this car. I have seen these men almost every day but I can't call their names. I have been arrested several times and placed in Car 22 by the officers who work the shift from 3:00 to 11:00 p.m., but I do not recall that the officers who were in the car this night have ever arrested me. Car 22 is a four-door white Ford, but I do not know what year model. I would guess that it was a 1962 model.

As Car 22 drove up, I knew they would get me for being out after 11:00, so I left the place. I wish to state that I never did go inside the building which is the Foster's Delicatessen. I stayed out in front where they were playing checkers. After Car 22 arrived I left, walking toward 12th Street looking for a match. On 12th Street I turned toward Avenue H and walked over to the home of EVA MAE MILLER, who lives at 820 12th Street, Ensley. She was sitting on the front porch of her home, and I asked her for a match and sat down on her front porch and talked to her about two minutes. She started crying, saying that the next day was Mother's Day. The reason she was crying was because one of her youngsters had given her a handkerchief as a Mother's Day present and the rest of them had not given her anything. I know EVA MAE has at least three children. I left EVA MAE's porch and walked across 12th Street walking in the direction of Rev. A. D. KING's house. As I was approaching Avenue H, a police car came up Avenue H and turned left on 12th Street. As I saw this car approaching, I looked at the number on the car and it was Police Car No. 49. As I saw the car, I ducked behind a tree to keep from being arrested, as I knew they would pick me up after 11:00 p.m. As I stood behind the tree, I noticed that as the car stopped in front of Rev. KING's house on the far side of 12th Street, the driver of the police car tossed something out toward the house and that it landed near the sidewalk. It seemed to be something which was afire and looked like a firecracker sparkling. I then heard the driver of the car say, "The son of a bitch didn't hit the house." The other officer jumped out of the car on the other side and ran behind the police car toward Rev. KING's house. He crossed the sidewalk in front and passed the burning package that was first thrown out. He then got close to the house and tossed something else toward the house on the righthand [sic] side of the steps. He then ran back to the car, and as he got in the righthand [sic] side of the police car, they took off, and when they got about two houses away, the first bomb exploded.

At that point I left my place behind the tree and ran toward Rev. KING's house. I crossed Avenue H and when I was standing on the corner next to KING's residence, the second bomb went off, knocking me back across Avenue H in the same direction that I had come. I hit in the middle of the street of Avenue H. I did not lie there long but got up and ran toward the back of KING's residence to see if I could help anybody. I ran up to a fence which is back of the KING residence, and as I arrived there, Rev. and Mrs. KING both were coming out of the house with at least two children. Mrs. KING had one child in her arms, and she handed that child to me across the fence. Rev. KING had the other child with him. I do not recall whether he was walking the child or carrying the child. The first I remember after I took the child, I noticed that Rev. KING and his wife were crossing the fence and I helped Mrs. KING over the fence. I then went back across Avenue H on the opposide [sic] side of the street from KING's residence. About that time, which I would say would be between 5 and 10 minutes after the bombing, I noticed Car No. 49 returned to the scene. Both of the officers got out of Car 49 and went up to talk to Rev. KING. A few minutes later several police cars arrived and also motorcycle policemen and a paddy wagon. Some policeman who seemed to be in charge and was in uniform also came up to talk to Rev. KING. He may have been a Sergeant.

By this time, there was a large number of Negro people around and they were getting pretty angry. They wanted to fight the police or anybody they got their hands on. I stayed on Avenue H on the side of the street opposite Rev. KING's house until about 3:00 a.m. that morning. There were a number of Negroes throwing bricks and rocks. After people in the crowd started throwing rocks and bricks, I noticed a county sheriff's car and one of them got out. I saw him get hit on the side of the head with some object. He then got back in the car and all four men in the Sheriff's car left the scene.

I was still standing on the opposite side of the Avenue H at the time I heard another explosion. I ran over to my house at 1109 Avenue J to see if the church which is across the street from me might have been bombed. St. James Baptist Church is located across the street from my home. When I saw that no bomb had gone off, I returned to the scene of the KING residence. I learned the next day that the last explosion I heard was the one which occurred in downtown Birmingham at the Gaston Motel.

I would estimate that Car No. 49 stayed at the scene near the KING residence until about 4:00 a.m. In fact, several police cars remained there because their tires had been cut by Negroes.

After the second explosion and I landed in the street, as I was getting up I noticed that CHARLES HARPER who was playing checkers at Foster's Delicatessen a few minutes before. CHARLES HARPER was also knocked over by the blast as I saw him when I was getting up. I don't know what happened to CHARLES HARPER after I started toward the KING's [sic] to see if I could help anybody. As I saw CHARLES HARPER getting up, I also saw Police Car No. 22 turn right onto 12th Street off of Avenue I and head away from the scene of KING's residence. I did not see car No. 22 again that night and did not see them until about 6:00 a.m. on May 12, 1963. At that time they were patrolling in the vicinity of the KING house.

After I looked after the KING children, I went across to the home of CHARLES HARPER and would estimate this to be about 3:30 a.m. All of the brick throwing and commotion had quieted down by that time. I sat on CHARLES HARPER's front porch and talked to him, his mother, his sister and his brother-in-law. The brother-in-law of CHARLES HARPER is JIMMY WILLIS. We call CHARLES HARPER's mother by the name of "Bunch" and I call CHARLES' sister by the name of "Snook." I was at the CHARLES HARPER's house when they finally got the tires fixed on Car No. 49 and I believe it was driven from the scene about 4:00 a.m. I stated CHARLES' home until daybreak. CHARLES HARPER lives in the same block as EVA MAE MILLER and on the same side of 12th Street. I can point these places out to Agents.

At about daybreak I went to my own home to eat. I never did go to the scene of the Gaston Motel bombing. After I ate, I went back in the vicinity of KING's residence an stayed there most of Sunday. I was interviewed by FBI Agents about noon on Sunday at the home of ROSIE JOHNSON, 824 12th Street, Ensley. I did not tell these Agents about seeing Car No. 49 because I was afraid that policemen would beat me up or probably kill me. I did tell the other Agents that I recalled seeing Car No. 22 parked in front of Foster's Delicatessen at the corner of Avenue I and 12th Street. At the time I was interviewed by FBI Agents, I told them that a car passed very near to me traveling east on 12th Street toward Avenue F, and I assumed that that car had passed in front of the KING residence. There were several people who said something about this car and described it as a Corvair car. I described this car to Agents as a dark American-make compact car, believed to be a dark Corvair, possibly black.

On this date, June 22, 1963, I went to Rev. KING's house at about 9:00 a.m. I was crying and told Rev. KING that I had something in my heart and I wanted to tell somebody. I did tell Rev. KING that the car that did the bombing was Birmingham Police Car No. 49. He told me he would prefer to have me talk to the FBI, and he then called the FBI Office. I don't know what time Rev. KING actually called the FBI Office, but I did wait around his house until the FBI agents arrived. I then went to the FBI Office where I was interviewed by Agents GRAYBILL and MC FALL, and I then dictated this statement to a stenographer in the FBI Office. I have had this thing on my conscience since the date it happened, and I wanted to tell somebody about it so I would feel better.

I cannot describe the officers I saw in Car No. 49, but it is possible I may be able to recognize them if I see them again.

No one has told me to say the things that are in this statement. It is the absolute truth and I would swear it on the Bible. While I was at Rev. KING's home, he did not tell me what to say or talk to me about this thing. There was a white man there named GREENBERG, but he did not talk to me to tell me what to say. I repeat that no one has told me to tell the FBI the things I have said in this statement. I feel sure the officers in Car No. 49 did not see me on that night. (14-19. All-caps in original.)

Three days later, on June 25, 1963, Roosevelt Tatum was in Washington DC, flown there by A. D. King and my father. In Washington, Tatum was interviewed in the office of King's County, NY Congressman Emanuel Celler, a liberal Democrat who played a key role in passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Later the same day, Tatum was interviewed by Assistant Attorney General Burke Marshall and by Special Agents assigned to the Civil Rights Section of the General Investigative Division of the FBI.

My father was involved in the leadership of the Liberal Party of New York from around 1955 through the late 1980s. One of his friends from the Liberal Party whom I interviewed a few years ago asserted that the audience with Congressman Celler would have been obtained because of my father's Liberal Party connections. In any event, Celler's office must have been where Tatum gave the deposition I found among my father's papers. For reasons that may already be apparent, I'm speculating that my father and A. D. King brought Roosevelt Tatum to Congressman Celler's office to make an official record of Tatum's allegations outside of the local and federal halls of the Department of Justice. In Part 2 of this series, A. D. King and my father had wanted to avoid having Tatum testify to the FBI behind closed doors. It seems they continued to be concerned that interviews with FBI agents, presumably also behind closed doors, would not be the best conditions for Tatum to testify under. (Look here for an example of why Civil Rights activists may have distrusted the FBI.) I suspect the idea may have been for my father to hold on to the deposition in case it were needed to countermand another version of the story. And herein ends the record of his involvement in this case. What follows is sad and disturbing.

Stay tuned for Part 4.

The Following Description Was Obtained From Personal Observation and Interrogation

Name: ROOSEVELT TATUM
Race: Negro
Sex: Male
Address: 1109 Avenue J, Ensley, Birmingham, Alabama
Date of Birth: February 18, 1924
Place of Birth: Docena, Alabama
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 155 pounds
Hair: Black, curly
Eyes: Brown
Education: Graduate of Westfield High School, Birmingham, Alabama, and attended Miles College for three years studying sociology.
Military Service: U. S. Navy, April 28, 1943, until March, 1946, as Steward's Mate 3/C, Navy Service # unrecalled
Arrest Record: Several arrests for drunk but has served no penitentiary time.
Scars and Marks: Index finger of right hand amputated; First joint of little finger, right hand, amputated.
Parents: Deceased
Brothers: JESSE E. TATUM, address unknown, New York City, New York, NATHANIEL BOWLES, resides in Edgewater section, Birmingham Alabama
Common Law Wife: LILLIE MAE COOPER (Claims LILLIE MAE COOPER abandoned him in November, 1962. Current interview with her indicates this is not true.)
Children: JAMES BERNARD COOPER, age 6, SHELIA QUISELLA COOPER, age 4, ROOSEVELT TATUM, JR., age 1
Occupation: Roller, Choctaw Incoporated, 35 34ths Street, Ensley, Birmingham, Alabama
(Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526, 20)

From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 2)

Late in 2000 I had many FOIPA requests out to the FBI. I was getting some documents back as well as many replies that no documents were found. When I did get documents, it sometimes seemed like there should be more information than was declassified for my request, and always there were many deletions. Now it was time to learn about appeal letters. I was consulting with Peter, my parents' lawyer, who has professional experience with FOIPA requests, but at a certain point he thought I might want to contact a lawyer and journalist named Michael Ravnitzky about some of my questions.

When I googled Michael Ravnitzky I found Secret No More, a long index of FBI files that Ravnitzky has declassified through thousands of FOIA requests. Once a requester gets documents released, others can obtain the same documents without going through the same process of search requests. You can simply request the declassified documents by file number, and they arrive in the mail in as few as three or four months—this compared to the year's wait, or considerably longer, that is typical when one makes a new request for previously unreleased documents. Secret No More explains that the website list is "drawn from information Ravnitzky has developed about 'exceptional' files—historic, notable, high-profile, or otherwise interesting cases."

Immediately I combed through the index, letter by letter. All sorts of interesting files were there—David Dubinsky, Billie Holiday, March On Washington, Committee for a sane nuclear policy (SANE), and many more that might be worth requesting. Near the top of the T's, a name I wouldn't have thought to look for: Tatum, Roosevelt. File number HQ-0460048526. How many Roosevelt Tatums could there be?

On November 14, 2000 I made a new FOIA request to the FBI, this time for 18 of the declassified files listed on Secret No More, including the one regarding Roosevelt Tatum. On March 26, 2001 I received the Tatum file in the mail. In my correspondence with the FBI, I always ask that all mail from them be directed to Peter, which he then forwards to me. Tearing open the big envelope from his law practice, I saw the familiar, generic FBI cover letter. 189 preprocessed pages. Peter had tagged a half a dozen of them with yellow post-its, marked "Reference to Paul Greenberg." I turned to one of the flagged pages and read:

ROOSEVELT TATUM, 1100 Avenue J, Ensley, Birmingham, was interviewed May 12, 1963, by Agents and stated that he was in the vicinity of the KING residence at the time the explosions took place at the KING residence on May 11, 1963. He advised he was unaware of cars that were parked in the vicinity and could not describe any of them. He, likewise, stated he did not observe any suspicious activities on the part of any persons prior to the time of the explosion.

Subsequently, on June 22, 1963, Reverend A. D. W. King telephonically contacted the FBI Office in Birmingham, stating that he had at his home at that time a man who had seen the bombers the night of May 11, 1963. Special Agents GERALD O. GRAYBILL and BYRON E. McFALL went to the KING residence, where they found Reverend A. D. W. KING, a white man by the name of PAUL GREENBERG, and Reverend KING's secretary. In addition, there were six or eight unidentified people in and around the house. Reverend A. D. W. KING stated that ROOSEVELT TATUM, who was in the home at the time, had indicated that he saw two Birmingham Policemen in car 49 bomb his residence. TATUM confirmed this. At that point PAUL GREENBERG, who said he was connected with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked how soon publicity could be released. He was told that the FBI was strictly a fact-finding agency, that the Agents were present solely for the purpose of obtaining the facts; and it was indicated to him that any premature publicity might only tend to jeopardize the investigation.

At that point Reverend KING, Mrs. KING, and GREENBERG stated they assumed TATUM would be interviewed in their presence. Special Agent McFALL, who was assigned this matter, immediately sized up the situation and noted that this constituted an obvious attempt on the part of Reverend A. D. W. KING and his associates to have the FBI conduct an official interview in a press conference atmosphere, so that the results would be immediately publicized, and that in addition to this, it would not be possible to intelligently conduct an interview under those circumstances. Special Agent McFALL thereupon made an immediate decision and tactfully, but most firmly, informed the Reverend A. D. W. KING that it would not be possible to conduct the interview with others present at that place, but that in order to properly obtain the facts it would be necessary to request Mr. TATUM to accompany Agents to the office, where the interview could be conducted in a quiet atmosphere with more privacy. TATUM readily agreed to this, and he was then taken to the FBI Office, where he was interviewed on that date and furnished Agents with a signed statement. Special Agent GRAYBILL, a first office Agent, was with McFALL essentially to act as a witness. (Roosevelt Tatum. FBI HQ-0460048526. SAC, Birmingham to Director, FBI. "ROOSEVELT TATUM, FRAUD AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, RECOMMENDATION FOR COMMENDATIONS," 1-2. All-caps in original, boldface added.)

Definitely looks like the same Roosevelt Tatum, and there was Dad right in the middle of things. I'd always known he did Civil Rights work for the SCLC in Birmingham, but the only concrete thing I'd ever heard about was the benefit concert he helped organize at Miles College (more on that later). I'm pretty sure Dad was the first person I ever heard call the city Bombingham, but he never said anything about his involvement in the investigation of one of the bombings there—not to me and not to my mother.

What was this case actually all about? How did Roosevelt Tatum end up making a deposition about all of this in Washington, DC? What exactly was my father's role in all of this? I also had to wonder what my father was doing at A. D. King's house before Roosevelt Tatum showed up that day in June, 1963? Had he been involved in Project C earlier that spring?

The particular document I quote from, above, is dated November 21, 1963; it calls the matter a case concerning fraud against the government. Tatum's allegations regarding the Birmingham Police are being recounted here in the course of recommending commendations for the agents involved in the Tatum case. At the end of the narrative, one commendation is recommended for the agent (name blacked out) who conducted the neighborhood investigation following the bombing of the Kings' home. The unnamed Special Agent gets praise for "facilitating subsequent inquiries which were necessary to prove the falsity of statements made by one Roosevelt Tatum to Special Agents of the FBI" (4). Special Agent McFall also gets recommended for a letter of commendation

for the excellent judgment displayed in making an immediate decision to tactfully interview Roosevelt Tatum under conditions which were most favorable to the Bureau on June 22, 1963, the detailed and exceptionally methodical fashion in which he developed witnesses under adverse conditions to show that Tatum made a false statement to FBI Agents, and his generally over-all performance on the case [sic], which resulted in the successful conclusion and confession of the defendant. (4)

What happened with all of this? Was Tatum really lying? Some of the turns of phrase in this recommendation for commendation made me wonder a little. Why, in the narrative, does it say that "Tatum readily agreed" to be interviewed without the presence of the Kings and my father? The language seems a little over-interested in showing Tatum's cooperation was not coerced in any way. I also wonder why, in the praise of Special Agent McFall, he "developed" rather than simply "found" witnesses. Perhaps developing a witness is part of the professional jargon in the investigative professions. Nonetheless, I wonder.

FOIA / FOIPA Clarification

A friend of mine pointed out that in my Innaugural post, my link to the National Security Archive for information about the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts (FOIPA) opens a page titled How to Make a FOIA Request. I added some confusion to the discrepancy by calling FOIPA the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act. There are two acts, the Freedom of Information Act and the Privacy Act. When one uses the FOIPA acronym, one is referring to the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts (in the plural). (This error in my original post will have been corrected by the time you read this.) The Freedom of Information Act allows any person to request any agency record, barring certain exemptions. The Privacy Act allows an individual request only his own record, barring certain exemptions and within certain parameters. (Follow the link for each act to learn about the the exemptions and parameters governing requests under either act.) The two acts overlap, and the procedures for requesting information under these two acts are basically the same. When my mother requested my father's FBI file, it was actually under the Privacy Act, given her status as his widow. Usually when I make requests for documents, I say I am doing so under the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, thereby covering all the bases. At some point, I will post some information on the ins and outs of making FOIPA requests. Right now I'm working on follow up posts to Part 1 of From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama. It looks like there will be at least two more parts to the story.

Many thanks to everyone who has given me feedback, including proofreading and link checking! (The dead links in my blog list should all work now.)

Resume

[This is one of my father's resumes from around 1974.]

Paul Greenberg
Born Brooklyn, New York December 22, 1927
Married, three children
New York City Public Schools
Columbia University School of General Studies 1953-6
United States Army honorable discharge June, 1952

1952-1956 Public Affairs Editor Keystone Publications. Wrote, edited and selected material on government affairs.

1957-1960 Assistant President United Furniture Workers of America AFL-CIO. Research and Publications Director, Legislative Representative, Director of Committee on Political Education.

1960-1962 Executive Director Greater New York Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. Program development, community organization and legislative work on state and national levels.

1962-1963 Special Assistant to the President Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Directed voter registration programs, legislative activity on state and national levels.

1964-1968 Assistant to Executive Director and Legislative Representative Liberal Party of New York State. Local organization, legislative representation on local, state and national levels.

1967 Executive Staff New York State Constitutional Convention.

1968 Research Associate Joint Legislative Committee on Consumer Protection.

1969-1971 Executive Director Proportional Representation Committee. Public education and political action. Legislative activity on local and state levels.

1970 On leave form [sic] Proportional Representation Committee to become Associate Director of Special Unit for School Board Elections of the Board of Elections in the City of New York.

1972-1974 Special Assistant for Legislation and Government Relations New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. Represented corporation at local, state and national legislatures, developed legislative program and represented corporation at government agencies.

1973 On leave from corporation to become Director of Special Unit For School Board Elections of the Board of Elections in the City of New York.

Present Full time cunsultant [sic] to the New York State Charter Revision Commission for New York City.

References on request.

From the Delmar Archive to Bombingham, Alabama (Part 1)

Sometimes I call my mother's house in Delmar, NY The Delmar Archive. This is the same house we moved to in the summer of 1975, the house where I lived from age 6 until I went to college. For the first five or six years after my father died it seemed like every time I went to Delmar for a visit there would be some new discovery—a photograph, a group of papers, a rolodex—that was yet another unimagined window into his past. The most amazing occasion of such findings was early on, probably in the first year after Dad died. Mom was concerned that we needed to start getting Dad's papers in order. She was particularly concerned about the file boxes in the basement. I went down into the basement and hauled up two cardboard file drawers that were bursting apart with their contents. I pulled them open or apart and in no particular order were early 1960s fliers for Civil Rights Movement rallies; a late 1950s photograph of Dad in a dressing room with Louis Armstrong (yes! Louis Armstrong) and Ethel Newton, Frankie's widow; Liberal Party of New York political platforms from assorted years (probably written by him); fliers for disarmament rallies; documents from the early 1970s campaign, led by Dad and George Hallet, to change the NYC School Board elections to a system of proportional representation; materials from havurah movement retreats from the late 70s and early 80s; a NYC white pages from 1974; autobiographical writings, and on and on and on. The items were not filed but stuffed into the file boxes, their importance to Dad or to history acknowledged and their existence largely forgotten.

At one time that photo of Dad with Louis and Ethel must have been a prized possession. After all, Paul Greenberg was the guy who almost never bragged about specific things he had done for the political movements he was so dedicated to, but who never missed an opportunity to tell you about which jazz musicians he'd known. A highlight of his trip to Israel with my mother in 1981 was that he walked into the lobby of one of the hotels they were staying in on their tour of the country and there was Diz, who looked up in Dad's direction and said, "Paul?" It had been decades since they'd crossed paths. There was the story of Jerry Newman's after hours recording of Frank and Art Tatum and how Dad came to work for Jerry and got his own copy of the recording. There were stories about Pee Wee Russell. Why hadn't I ever heard the one about how Dad met Louis Armstrong? Why Dad hadn't framed that photo or at least bragged that he'd once had it is an odd mystery to me.

The contents of those cardboard file drawers will be the basis for many blog entries, but so far the most remarkable story is about a six page typescript that I found in a thin manilla folder marked Civil Rights, six pages of legal size typing paper, watermarked "Executive Onion Skin" in large italics and "Rag Content" in smaller roman caps. The typescript was some kind of official deposition signed by Roosevelt Tatum on June 27, 1963 and notarized by a notary public in the District of Columbia.

Running down along the double red line that makes the left margin are alternating Q's and A's. On page 1, after some questions establishing Roosevelt Tatum's full name and age and place of residence and place of work:

Q. Do you go to church?

A. Yes, different churches.

Q. Are you a member of A. D. King's Church?

A. No. I am not a Baptist

A. D. King was MLK's brother, also a reverend. He lived in Birmingham and was active in the Civil Rights Movement there. When A. D. King and his wife Naomi came to NYC, probably later that summer of 1963, my father and my mother took them sight seeing around New York and its environs. Their rounds included a trip to Coney Island. King wanted to ride the Cyclone so the two couples got in line and boarded the famous ride. When it was all over, my mother and King both looked quite ill. Standing together back on the tarmac, King looked at my mother queasily and said, "that ride turned you black and me white."

On page 2 the questions and answers got more interesting:

Q. Sometime during the month of May did something happen to you that was unusual —never happened before?

A. The most unusual thing was being in the bombing.

I started reading more quickly. On page 3:

Q. How many people were in the car?

A. Two. They were wearing police uniforms —Light blue shirts an dark pants.

Q. Did you see anyone of these people do any thing?

A. The one on the right got out the car, walked behind the car, up to King's front porch, stooped over and lit a package on the right hand corner in some bushes. The one who laid the package ran back to the car. As they pulled off the driver threw another package across the sidewalk on the lawn and it went off. I got from behind the tree and ran toward the front porch. As I reached the lawn, the second bomb went off and knocked me back across the street, then I jumped up and ran to the back of the house. When I reached the back fence, Rev. King and his wife and three children were at the back fence trying to get over. I grabbed one of the children and helped Mrs. King across the fence and I went across the street. Police car #49 returned to the scene.

In the rest of Tatum's statement, he tells how on Sunday morning, May 12, 1963, the next day after the bombing, some members of the local FBI took a statement from him when they were looking house to house for witnesses. At that time, Tatum told the Federal agents that he was the first one on the scene and that he saw a black Corvette with two occupants driving away when he got there. He did not claim to have seen the occupants of the Corvette throw anything onto the Kings' property. Tatum then tells that on Saturday, June 22, he returned to A. D. and Naomi King's house to divulge what he actually saw on Saturday night, May 11. After telling this to King, Tatum made a second statement to the FBI, recanting his former testimony in favor of what he claimed he really saw. It is not clear to whom he is making the statement regarding the Birmingham policemen in the deposition. The questioner is not identified. (Roosevelt Tatum, Deposition. June 27, 1963. Estate of Paul Greenberg.)

What on earth was this document doing among my father's papers? My mother knew nothing about it. Peter, my parents' lawyer, didn't know anything about it either. That this was information about a bombing in which the Birmingham Police were implicated made me a little frantic. I wondered if Peter should hold onto the deposition, but in the end he didn't think it was necessary. We filed Tatum's deposition with the other Civil Rights Movement documents we were finding. I continued to wonder about the events I'd read about. I tried some internet research and some library research but could not find much more about Roosevelt Tatum. Soon my many FOIPA requests were underway. The notarized typescript from June 27, 1963 drifted out of mind.