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to Montgomery and were intrigued by life in Alabama. Bernard’s quick immersion in the
McMillian case intensified his cultural adventure more than he could have ever imagined.
The community’s presence at the hearing got people talking about what we had presented
in court, and that encouraged more people to come forward with helpful information. All
sorts of people were contacting us with wide-ranging claims of corruption and misconduct.
Only a few things here and there were useful to us in our efforts to free Walter, but all of it
was interesting. Bernard and I continued to track leads and interview people who had insights
to share about life in Monroe County.
The threats we received made me worry about the hostility that Walter would face if he
was ever released. I wondered how safely he could live in the community if everyone was
persuaded that he was a dangerous murderer. We began discussing the idea of reaching out to
a few people who might help us publicly dramatize the injustice of Mr. McMillian’s wrongful
conviction as a way of setting the stage for his possible release. If the public could only know
what we knew, it might ease his re-entry into freedom. We wanted people to understand this
simple fact: Walter did not commit that murder. His freedom wouldn’t be based on some tricky
legal loophole or the exploitation of a technicality. It would be based on simple justice—he
was an innocent man.
On the other hand, I didn’t think media attention would help win the case now pending in
the Court of Criminal Appeals. In fact, the chief judge on the court, John Patterson, had
famously sued The New York Times over their coverage of the Civil Rights Movement when he
was Alabama’s governor. It was a common tactic used by Southern politicians during civil
rights protests: Sue national media outlets for defamation if they provide sympathetic
coverage of activists or if they characterize Southern politicians and law enforcement officers
unfavorably. Southern state court judges and all-white juries were all too willing to rule in
favor of “defamed” local officials, and state authorities had won millions of dollars in
judgments this way. More important, the defamation lawsuits chilled sympathetic coverage of
civil rights activism.
In 1960 , The New York Times printed an advertisement titled “Heed Their Rising Voices”
that attempted to raise money to defend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. against perjury charges in
Alabama. Southern officials responded by going on the offensive and suing the newspaper.
Public Safety Commissioner L. B. Sullivan and Governor Patterson claimed defamation. A
local jury awarded them half a million dollars, and the case was appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court.
In a landmark ruling, New York Times v. Sullivan changed the standard for defamation and
libel by requiring plaintiffs to prove malice—that is, evidence of actual knowledge on the part
of the publisher that a statement is false. The ruling marked a significant victory for freedom
of the press, and it liberated media outlets and publishers to talk more honestly about civil
rights protests and activism. But in the South it generated even more contempt for the
national press, and that animosity has lingered beyond the Civil Rights Era. I had no doubt
that national press coverage of Walter’s case would not help our cause at the Court of
Criminal Appeals.
But I did think getting a more informed view of Walter’s conviction and the murder would
make his life after release less dangerous—assuming we could ever get his conviction
overturned. We felt that we had to take our chances and get the story out. I was concerned