Martin Luther King Jr. sat in a living room in Selma, Ala.,
surrounded by his advisers. The living room belonged to Amelia
Boynton, chairman of the Dallas County Voter's League. King was
organizing a voting rights protest. There were many times when
the civil rights movement's demands on Martin Luther King Jr.
and requests for his participation from different parts of the
South exhausted him, former King legal adviser Charles Jones
said. “You've probably heard about the pillow fights among the
staff. I witnessed one such in a hotel room in Atlanta,” Jones
said. “It was vigorous and went on and on. I was chilled by its
intensity but quickly realized such fights were necessary to
release tension.” It was the mid-1960s, and the advisers sat in
chairs arranged in a horseshoe shape. King listened carefully,
rarely interrupting his lieutenants. He had received hundreds of
death threats, and everyone assumed he'd eventually be
assassinated. The meeting was winding down. With King quietly
listening, Andy Young, King'