Trouble in Alabama

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About ten minutes later, Montgomery cops sauntered up. Explained Police Commissioner L. (for Lester) B. Sullivan: "We have no intention of standing police guard for a bunch of troublemakers coming into our city." The state police came after an hour. Neither group was effective. At one point State Public Safety Director Floyd Mann saved a Negro only by pulling a pistol. A group of young whites poured an inflammable liquid on a Negro's clothes and set him on fire. One Montgomery woman held up her child so that he could reach out and beat on a Negro with his fists.

Only after the mob had grown to 3,000 did the state police finally decide to end the riot with tear gas. In Washington, Bobby Kennedy was white-lipped with anger when he heard the news. Moving swiftly, he deputized some 400 nonmilitary officials—largely deputy marshals and Treasury agents. He sent them by chartered flights into Alabama, under the personal command of Assistant Attorney General Byron ("Whizzer") White. Attorney General Kennedy also set in motion injunctions against the Ku Klux Klan and other prime segregationist groups to prevent them from interfering with peaceful interstate travel by bus.

This time, the Administration meant action. From the White House, President John Kennedy declared: "The situation which has developed in Alabama is a source of the deepest concern to me. I hope that state and local officials in Alabama will meet their responsibilities. The U.S. Government intends to meet its."