> On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, John Adams wrote:
>
>>> Martin Luther King was a great political strategist.
>>
>> Till he fucked up in Chicago, where he had a chance to move from
>> protest to power.
>
> Could you elaborate on that a bit, John? And are there any books or
> URLs which you like that make this case?
Yeah, Garrow says in _Bearing the Cross_ that when King came to Chicago, Daley (no fool) was ready to deal blacks into the game, just like he'd dealt in other ethnic minorities. However, King and the CFM anticipated a protracted campaign similar to the various southern struggles and didn't have a real negotiating position. At that point, Daley decided he was dealing with amateurs (which, considering the outcome, seems a fair judgment) and stepped away. Daley was trying to cut a deal rather than go through a fight, but when he didn't have a negotiating partner, he decided he'd risk the fight.
He won the gamble, too--the CFM was not particularly effective in the short term, and (per Yoshie's account) it took a long time for Chicagoans to realize the gains of the civil rights movement. It's particularly bitter to realize that the strategy of the civil rights movement worked--that the threat (greater than the execution, eh? But it was less a threat than a bluff, as it turned out) of massive civil disobedience brought the mayor of one of the most (perhaps the most) segregated racist cities in the north straight to negotiation. Then, by not being prepared for success, they lost at the negotiating table what they'd won in the streets of the south.
That's how Garrow tells the story--I'd be curious what Daley biographers and students of Chicago history have to say. (I screwed up my chance to meet Dick Simpson last time around--if I have another shot, I'll make a point of asking him.)
All the best,
John A
P. S. I silently fixed a typo in my original comment.