E-mail a friendClarence B. Jones
original airdate April 3, 2008
Clarence B. Jones' career spans several decades. A former counsel and speechwriter for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jones helped negotiate a settlement of the civil rights demonstrations in Birmingham, AL and coordinated legal defense of SCLC leaders. He has since founded several successful financial, corporate and media-related ventures and was the first African American to become a partner in a Wall Street firm. Jones finally breaks his silence as a movement insider in his book, What Would Martin Say.
Dr. King's former counsel and speechwriter discusses his legacy. Full interview. (12:40)
Dr. King's former counsel and speechwriter shares what he believes Dr. King would say about the man who killed him. (4:26)
Clarence B. Jones
Tavis: Clarence B. Jones was a personal counselor, adviser, and draft speechwriter for Dr. King who is now a scholar in residence at the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute up at Stanford. His new book is called "What Would Martin Say?" Clarence Jones, I am honored to have you here.
Clarence B. Jones: Brother, I'm honored to be here, particularly honored to be in the company of some of my companions and colleagues of many years. Of course, Harry Belafonte, of course, I guess he was here earlier.
Tavis: Earlier this week, absolutely.
Jones: Okay. And of course you couldn't talk about the civil rights movement without talking about Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Cotton and Edwin Smith and Dr. Wyatt T. Walker and so many, so many. James Lawson. The Reverend Billy Kyles. And Tavis, I think it is particular - and I thought about it coming over here - that you had the whatever - maybe that's the reason you're in the business - that you had the sense of coming to the National Civil Rights Museum and coming to Memphis, okay, because Memphis, 40 years after, Martin King, as I say so often, he was like a moral commanding general.
We were honored to be part of his army, and as I said, for those of our young people who are fascinated by artists and the power of celebrity, there is sitting who came to Memphis today someone who has always been my hero. Every time I see something about James Garner or Marlon Brando or Charlton Heston, I think you know how I met those people?
I met those through the Pied Piper. Why do I call him the Pied Piper? The March on Washington, 1963, only Harry Belafonte had the stature when he said, "Marlon, I need you to come, Sydney, I need you to come, James Garner, I need you to come," they came.
Tavis: You can imagine for me, then, what a delight it has been to be here this week and having this parade of not just icons but humanists, lovers of humanity, come through here, and I count you among that group. You asked me - I was honored when I got the letter from you to ask me to blurb the back of this book. I've never done this on TV, but I want to read this blurb that I wrote for your book, which I was honored, again, to do, because I want to ask a question about it.
I wrote on the back of this book "'What Would Martin Say,' about the pressing issues of our time, is a bold question to ask. To presume to know the answer is even bolder. Clarence Jones is one of the few who possess the moral authority necessary to even attempt such a task; one that he more than accomplishes with a compelling candor and an uncommon grace and dignity."
I said some nice things about you there at the end, but I meant what I said at the beginning. It's a bold question to ask, so I ask you, boldly, what do you make of even attempting to answer that question, "What would Martin say?" Some people find that sacrilegious.
Jones: Yes, I though they would. In fact, over a 40-year period since his death and even 45 years since the "I Have A Dream" speech and the "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," the two most persistent questions that have been addressed to me and I suspect to other people around him is that one, who today, if anyone, is most like Martin King? Secondly, what would he say about this or that person if he were alive today?
Well the first question is easy to answer, because I turn it into a rhetorical question. I say, "Who is like Michelangelo, who painted the Sistine Chapel? Who is like Shakespeare? Who is like Galileo? Beethoven?" I've made my point. Mozart, Copernicus? Martin Luther King Jr. - there's a good phrase in Latin called "sui generis - " one in a lifetime. Once in a generation.
There is no - and when I hear people, "Well, somebody gave a speech, and it made him like Martin King." I said, "Excuse me?" (Laughter) Hello? With all due respect to who gave a great speech, there was nobody like Martin Luther King. That's (unintelligible). Now, on the second question.
The second question, I thought - when judges make decisions, the judges make decisions based on reading opinions of cases and the Supreme Court looks at previous cases and opinions on how they're going to decide certain cases. And I thought to myself Martin King is not an unknown entity, all right? He left a body of work.
He left a body of work in his sermons, in his speeches, in his books, and in his articles. And also additionally he left a body of extended telephone conversations with me and Sandy Levinson and Harry Belafonte and others, Cleveland Robinson. And so when I was able to look through the FBI file - and I want you to understand what I'm going to say - when I looked through formerly top secret and secret declassified FBI files in which every telephone conversation from July 13th to the end - July 13, 1963 to the end of 1967, 24-seven, every single telephone conversation was wiretapped and transcribed.
So if I had some doubt about, well, I remember Harry Belafonte was up in Canada, but I can't remember when that was, I kept reading through the files and there I see - I see an actual telephone transcription of Harry's conversation with me or with his secretary Gloria Cantor (sp). It's amazing. So what I'm trying to say is that I looked, it was all of this authentic evidence from the FBI files, and my - and I spent a great deal of time rereading virtually everything that my beloved brother wrote.
I reread his sermons, read his speeches, read his articles, many of which I conflicted to in some ways, but I read it to refresh myself.
Tavis: So that knowing what he would say, then, is just a matter of excavating what he did say.
Jones: Right. And I say I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to say that he would say this, but on the basis of my extensive review of the person and the person I came to know, this is what I believe he would likely say about certain things.
Tavis: And speaking of those certain things, let me run through them right quick, tell you what they are, because you'll want to get this book. And then there are two I want to ask you about in particular in the three minutes I have left here. These were the questions: What did Martin say about me, Clarence Jones, and you have to read how Clarence Jones met Dr. King, that's a story unto itself.
He told Dr. King no. How dare somebody tell Dr. King no, I don't want to serve with you. It's a funny story; you've got to read it. What did Dr. King say about me, what would Martin say about today's Black leadership - you told the truth in that chapter. You're going to get some trouble for that, but you told the truth about it. (Laughs)
What would Martin say about affirmative action, what would Martin say about illegal immigration, what would Martin say about anti-Semitism, what would martin say about Islamic terrorism and the war in Iraq, and finally chapter seven, what would Martin say about who killed him, and that's where I want to go, given where we are. What would Martin say about who killed him?
Jones: Martin would say - in fact it's the chapter about James Earl Ray that was the most difficult to write because candidly, that talking about James Earl Ray was one of the things that held me from writing it some time. And I did that because I had a loving difference with Coretta Scott King and the boys and family that I loved.
I felt that we let the assassination and James Earl Ray too easily off the hook. There is no question in my - I accept the commission's findings that James Earl Ray shot Martin King, but I do not accept this theatrical fairy tale, and that fairy tale consists of one day this highly grammar-school-educated man, James Earl Ray, woke up this morning and said, "Today, April 4, 1968, is the day I'm going to kill that King nigger," okay? Hello?
The assassination of Martin King by James Earl Ray was calculated, premeditated, conspiratorial murder. You hear me? It probably won't happen in my lifetime, but as sure as I'm sitting here, the truth will out. There is no way that this - and the reason I talk about that chapter is that let me tell you something. You mean to tell me that the FBI, hm? That knew everything we were doing 24-seven, tapped my phone, had photographic surveillance, could know whether there were spies, could infiltrate the Mafia, could do all this; they had no knowledge of anything about James Earl Ray?
Tavis: I want to ask you this right quick - is your argument - because I hear you and I agree with you. Is the argument culpability on the part of the government or complicity on the part of the government? Those are two different things. Are they culpable? Did they do it? Or are they complicit in it because they saw what was going on and didn't stop it is what I'm asking.
Jones: Listen to me very carefully.
Tavis: I'm listening very carefully, go ahead. I'm listening very carefully.
Jones: They were culpable -
Tavis: And complicit.
Jones: And they were complicit.
Tavis: I knew you were going to say that.
Jones: Now hear me. Hear me. It's documented in the records. I saw instance after instance in the declassified top secret FBI files where there were credible, known threats to kill Martin, and Hoover took it on himself not to even tell the attorney general. And then in those instances when either the attorney general or some party in the Justice Department would say, "Don't you think we should let the King people know?" You know what Hoover said? "No, we're not babysitting; we're not going to protect them."
He was so consumed with the hatred for this man. Now that's getting off the point. The point is I'm simply saying that we have to start truth-talking time. It's truth-telling time. I'm blessed to have longevity. I feel a sense of responsibility. I may pass away tomorrow, but I wanted to go on record. And if I have offended somebody in the King family, I'm sorry if I offended somebody.
But I am telling you I loved this man and I know he was murdered, and it was not like some person just got up. And the government - let me be very specific: the investigative agencies of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they had a responsibility to protect this man, and I believe, since they bragged about all of their investigative abilities, that they had some instance that he was going to be killed. That's me speaking.
Tavis: The reason why -
Jones: You can take me off to the crazy house or not.
Tavis: No, we're not going to do that. The reason why I told you all the questions that he addresses in this book is I knew that if I got to that one, I wouldn't get to the other six. But that's a good reason for you to go out and pick up the new book by the man who snuck the paper who snuck the paper and the pen into the Birmingham jail so he could write that now-famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," snuck it out and got it published.
The book is called "What Would Martin Say?" If anybody can answer that question, Clarence Jones can, and he does. Honored to have you on the program.
Jones: Thank you, brother. I'm sorry you asked me that question and got me off, but that's the way I feel.
Tavis: No, (laughter) I'm glad I asked it, and I'm glad you answered it.
Jones: I'm sorry, but that's the deal.
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