Page 174 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

The police were caught unawares: they were concentrated around Kelly Ingram Park, half a mile away, and the demonstrators had blindsided them. But George felt sure that this air of good-natured protest could last only as long as Bull Connor remained off balance.

As morning turned into afternoon he returned to the Gaston. He found Verena looking worried. "This is great, but it's out of control," she said. "Our people are trained in nonviolent protest, but thousands of others are just joining in, and they have no discipline."

"It's increasing the pressure on the Big Mules," George said.

"But we don't want the governor to declare martial law." The governor of Alabama was George Wallace, an unyielding segregationist.

"Martial law means federal control," George pointed out. "Then the president would have to order at least partial integration."

"If it's forced on the Big Mules from the outside they'll find ways to undermine it. Better that it's their decision."

Verena was a subtle political thinker, George could tell. No doubt she had learned a lot from King. But he was not sure whether she was right on this point.

He ate a ham sandwich and went out again. The atmosphere around Kelly Ingram Park was now more tense. There were hundreds of police in the park, swinging their nightsticks and restraining their eager dogs. The fire brigade hosed anyone headed downtown. The Negroes, resenting the hoses, began to throw stones and Coke bottles at the police. Verena and others of King's team moved through the crowd, begging people to stay calm and refrain from violence, but they had little effect. A strange white vehicle that people called the Tank drove up and down Sixteenth Street, with Bull Connor bellowing through a loudspeaker: "Disperse! Get off the streets!" It was not a tank, George had been told, but an army surplus armored car Connor had bought.

George saw Fred Shuttlesworth, King's rival as leader of the campaign. At forty-one he was a wiry, tough-looking man, smartly dressed with a trim mustache. He had survived two bombings, and his wife had been stabbed by a Ku Klux Klansman, but he seemed to have no fear, and refused to leave town. "I wasn't saved to run," he liked to say. Although a fighter by nature, he was now trying to marshal some of the youngsters. "You mustn't taunt the police," he was saying. "Don't act like you intend to strike them." It was good advice, George figured.

Kids gathered around Shuttlesworth and he led them, like the Pied Piper, back toward his church, waving a white handkerchief in the air in an attempt to show the police his peaceful intent.

It almost worked.

Shuttlesworth led the kids past the fire trucks outside the church to the basement entrance, which was at street level, and ushered them inside and down the stairs. When they were all in, he turned to follow. At that moment George heard a voice say: "Let's put some water on the reverend."

Shuttlesworth turned, frowning, to look back. A jet from a water cannon hit him squarely in the chest. He staggered and fell backward down the stairs with a clatter and a roar.

Someone yelled: "Oh, my God, Shuttlesworth is struck!"

George rushed in. Shuttlesworth lay at the foot of the stairs, gasping. "Are you okay?" George yelled, but Shuttlesworth could not answer. "Get an ambulance, somebody, fast!" George shouted.

George was astonished that the authorities had been so stupid. Shuttlesworth was a hugely popular figure. Did they actually want to provoke a riot?

Ambulances were near at hand, and it was only a minute or two later that two men came in with a stretcher and carried Shuttlesworth out.

George followed them up to the sidewalk. Black bystanders and white police were milling around dangerously. Reporters had gathered and press photographers clicked as the stretcher was eased into the ambulance. They all watched it drive away.

A moment later, Bull Connor appeared. "I waited a week to see Shuttlesworth hit by a hose," he said jovially. "I'm sorry I missed it."

George was furious. He hoped one of the bystanders would punch Connor's fat face.

A white newspaper reporter said: "He left in an ambulance."

"I wish it was a hearse," said Connor.

George had to turn away to control his fury. He was saved by Dennis Wilson, who appeared from nowhere and grabbe

d his arm. "Good news!" he said. "The Big Mules caved!"

George spun around. "What do you mean, they caved?"

"They formed a committee to negotiate with the campaigners."

That was good news. Something had changed them: the demonstrations, or the phone calls from the president, or the threat of martial law. Whatever the reason, they were now desperate enough to sit down with black people and discuss a truce. Perhaps it could be agreed before the rioting turned seriously nasty.

"But they need someplace to meet," Dennis added.

"Verena will know. Let's go find her." George turned to leave, then paused and looked back at Bull Connor. He was becoming irrelevant, George now saw. Connor was on the streets, jeering at civil rights campaigners, but at the chamber of commerce the city's most powerful men had changed course--and they had done so without consulting Connor. Maybe the time was coming when fat white bullies would no longer rule the South.

And then again, maybe not.

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