Chapter 8, Shades of Politics, Summary and Analysis

King had a friend in Kennedy's campaign, Harris Wofford, who with Sergeant Shriver, was in charge of getting out the black vote. King knew Wofford through an old friend, Chester Bowles, and worked with the two of them drafting an ideal civil rights plank for the Democratic platform. Wofford was the one who also arranged for King and Kennedy to meet, as Belafonte had suggested, bringing them together over breakfast in New York. King felt that Kennedy lacked a depth of understanding of the issues, however.

Shortly afterward, while King was overseas for the Baptist World Alliance, he got word from a man in Congressman Adam Clayton Powell's office that, if he did not call of plans to picket the Democratic Convention, they would spread the word that King and Rustin were homosexual lovers. King...