To Harry H. Wachtel
Author: King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Date: November 7, 1961
Location: Atlanta, Ga.?
Genre: Letter
Topic: Voter registration
Details
King enumerates ways Wachtel’s legal background could assist SCLC.1 Wachtel replied on 5 December 1961, informing King that he was interested in contributing in the “not too distant future.”2
Harry Wachtel, Esq.
Attorney at Law
Wachtel and Michaelson
711 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Wachtel:
Clarence B. Jones has informed me of his conference with you and John Powell, Esq. of your office.3 I was particularly delighted to learn of your interest and offer to assist the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the conduct of its legal work.
Undoubtedly the material left with you by Clarence and his remarks gave you a partial picture of our program and problems. However, I would like to take this occasion to outline to you in broad terms how lawyers like you can be most helpful.
Broadly speaking, the problems confronted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in its efforts to achieve full equality for Negro citizens in the South in particular and in our nation as a whole have been of two types:
- The acquisition of a continuing reservoir of legal services, and
- Financial.
The need for maximum legal assistance has been imposed upon our Conference as a result of the institution in May of 1960 of a series of libel suits by various state officials of the State of Alabama against four members of our Executive Board and The New York Times.4 I will not go into the details and legal background of that litigation. I believe the enclosed material prepared by our Northern office sufficiently accomplishes this.5
Instead, I would like to call your attention to the Conference of Lawyers held at the Lotus Club last Spring and the Lawyers Advisory Committee which arose therefrom.6 The actions and public statements of that Committee, under the leadership of Theodore W. Kheel, Esq. was the first major significant public support given to our Conference in the libel actions since these suits were filed against four of our Executive Board members and The New York Times.7 It is our objective, with the assistance of Mr. Jones, to again enlist the support of outstanding counsel from the City of New York. We would like to involve you not only as part of that assistance rendered to us around the libel cases but we also would like your help in the preparation of a memorandum of law in support of the historic Executive Order which was the subject of my recent conference with the President of the United States.8 The objective of such an order is the elimination of all segregation laws from the statute books of respective states of the Union.
The preparation of a memorandum, to be submitted oto the Attorney General and President of the United States, is one of the most important components of our program for the coming year. Obviously, the issuance of such an Executive Order on or about the Centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation would be a tremendous step forward in the area of race relations as well as give great moral prestige and standing to our country at home and abroad. A brief outline of this memorandum and the method of its preparation will be the subject of a conference planned by our Northern office. Mr. Jones has informed me that all relevant material around this Proposed Executive Order is being forwarded to you.
Another and equally important part of our civil rights program for the coming year which will inevitably require legal assistance is our campaign to double the registration of Negroes in the South. You may have already been informed of this drive by articles in The New York Times.9 The areas of concentration will be Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi. We anticipate that as our registration program unfolds we will be required to take certain steps legally to protect and advance the participants in this program.
Thus, from the standpoint of legal problems, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference requires assistance on three levels:
- The continued defense and preparation of the Alabama libel actions.
- The research and writing of a thoroughly documented memorandum supporting our request for an Executive Order declaring null and void all segregation laws on the statute books of the respective States of the Union.
- The maintenance of a reservoir of legal services to aid our registration campaign.
The activities of our Conference on all three levels will involve the necessity of using facilities and personnel from as many lawyers as we can call upon. It will also involve, in certain instances, the enlistment of financial support to sustain the activities of our Conference on the three levels outlined.
Financial support can obviously take two forms—that which is indirect and that which is direct. The donation of the use of personnel and/or facilities of your firm from time to time would be a most welcomed form of financial assistance. Naturally, we, of course, are also receptive to any other form of financial assistance which enables us to carry on our legal program. I would deeply appreciate it if you would extend to Mr. Jones on a regular basis from time to time whatever assistance, both in personnel and facilities, he would need to carry on the coordination and research preparation of our legal work.
I am looking forward to the opportunity, on one of my trips to New York, to meet and talk with you and Mr. Powell.
Very truly yours,
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Km
encls
1. Clarence B. Jones wrote a draft of this letter, which Levison sent to King (see Levison to King, 1 November 1961, pp. 318–319 in this volume; Jones, Draft, King to Wachtel, 1 November 1961). Harry H. Wachtel (1917–1997) was born in New York and received his B.S. from New York City College (1938) and his LL.B. from Columbia (1940). Following his admission to the New York Bar that same year, Wachtel served as legal counsel for several chain store corporations and established his own practice. In 1962 Wachtel was introduced to King, and later advised King on legal matters and provided him with access to business and other legal contacts. With King’s endorsement, he co-founded the Gandhi Society for Human Rights, a tax-exempt charitable organization that raised funds for the civil rights movement. In 1964, Wachtel and his wife accompanied King to Norway to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Wachtel later served as Coretta Scott King’s lawyer and offered legal counsel to the King Center from 1969–1982.
2. King and Wachtel continued this discussion in an early February 1962 meeting in New York (see King to Wachtel, 12 February 1962, pp. 397–398 in this volume).
3. John H. Powell, Jr. (1931–1994), a lawyer in Wachtel’s law firm, provided legal assistance to protesters in Edenton, North Carolina.
4. King refers to the Alabama libel cases against SCLC pastors Ralph Abernathy, Joseph E. Lowery, S. S. Seay, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth.
5. See “Background, The Alabama Libel Suits,” 8 May 1961.
6. A handwritten comment on Jones’s draft of the letter noted that material regarding the conference and committee were left with Wachtel and Powell. The Lawyers Advisory Committee was a group of eighteen lawyers formed to support those accused in the Alabama libel suits (see King, Statement at Lawyers Advisory Committee Meeting, 8 May 1961, pp. 218–221 in this volume).
7. Kheel served as president of the National Urban League from 1956–1960 and was a New York lawyer who specialized in mediating labor disputes.
8. King met with President Kennedy on 16 October to discuss, among other things, an executive order declaring all segregated facilities unconstitutional (King, Press Conference after Meeting with John F. Kennedy, 16 October 1961, pp. 308–311 in this volume).
9. The Times ran two articles in late September on SCLC’s voter registration drive (Wilma Dykeman and James Stokely, “‘The Big Cure for Segregation,’” 24 September 1961; “Southern Negroes Map a Voter Drive,” 30 September 1961).
Source: MLKP-MBU, Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers, 1954–1968, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University, Boston, Mass.