especially interested in the Hammermill paper company of Erie, Pennsylvania,
which proposed a $30 million plant with 250 employees. To bring in this
new business, Smitherman needed to keep sheriff Clark from escalating civil
rights demonstrations into riots. The mayor established a new city position- director of public safety – for a soft-spoken former police captain named
Wilson Baker who also disliked Clark’s methods. Baker offered the Justice
department a tantalizing deal: if Robert Kennedy could keep Martin Luther
King out of Selma for a year, local authorities would refrain from excessive
force and liberalize voting procedures so that blacks could vote. Such a deal
was impossible, but the attorney general told Baker that ‘if you’re smart
enough, you can beat him at his own game.’ When King’s plans became
public knowledge, Baker followed Albany police chief Laurie Pritchett’s suc-
cessful formula of arresting the demonstrators quickly and quietly, blunting
nonviolence with nonviolence.
To provoke violence, King and SNCC’s John Lewis led a march to the
courthouse on 18 January 1965. Along the way, the marchers confronted
George Lincoln Rockwell, the fuehrerof the American Nazi party, and Jimmy
George Robinson of the National States’ Rights party. Sheriff Clark acted out
of character, peacefully herding the demonstrators into an alley away from
the media, where they stood in the cold for the registrar. The registrar called
whites forward but ignored blacks. After the courthouse closed, King and his
staff registered at the all-white Hotel Albert, where Robinson punched King
in the head and kicked him in the groin. Chief Baker wrestled Robinson away
and arrested him. Because this attack occurred off-camera, SCLC worried
that the campaign would fall flat if demonstrations did not soon produce
media attention. Baker learned of King’s possible departure by blackmailing
a young, gay civil rights worker.
Egged on by militant possemen, Clark could not keep his cool. The sher-
iff swore he would arrest ‘every goddam one’ of the demonstrators who came
to the courthouse. He expected that the demonstrations would so anger
white Alabamians that he would win the governorship. The next day, fifty
demonstrators went to the registrar’s office, refusing to stay in the back alley
behind the courthouse. When Amelia Boynton did not get back in line fast
enough for the sheriff, an enraged Clark shoved her down the street to a
squad car. As she reeled, Boynton told Clark that she hoped reporters saw
her being manhandled. The sheriff replied, ‘Dammit, I hope they do.’ The
sheriff got his ill-advised wish as Boynton’s photograph appeared in the New
York Times. Clark’s misstep was the publicity break for which King had been
waiting.
A week after the demonstrations began, the belligerent sheriff lost his cool
completely. A tall, sturdy 53-year-old woman named Annie Lee Cooper con-
fronted Clark after he elbowed her roughly back in line. Cooper told Clark
114 THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT