They were astounded to watch King
become his assailant’s protector. He
held him solicitously and, as the
audience began singing Movement
songs, told him that their cause was
just, that violence was self-
demeaning, that “we’re going to
win.” Then King introduced him to
the crowd, as though he were a
surprise guest. Roy James, a twenty-
four-year-old native New Yorker
who lived in an American Nazi Party
dormitory in Arlington, Virginia,
began to weep in King’s embrace.King was a moral absolutist who did not
stray from his principles even when