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carry his campaign into the North, where racial discrimination, he felt, was as deeply rooted as it was in the South. In that spring of 1965, Boston seemed the logical target for his first Northern venture.
    When King arrived at Logan Airport on the morning of April 22, he wasted no time in reminding Bostonians of the bonds which united him and their city. “I was educated here and it is one of the cities which I call home,” he told reporters at the airport. Then they were off, with Arnold Walker driving the borrowed Lincoln Continental, on a day-long tour of the city, including a call on Governor John Volpe, an address to a joint session of the state legislature, an inspection of slum housing and overcrowded schools in black Roxbury, a news conference, a fund-raising reception at a downtown hotel, and finally, a Passover service at Temple Israel.
    The next morning, when King arrived at Roxbury’s Carter Playground, the crowds were so thick that it took the marshals nearly an hour and a half toherd them into a procession headed toward the Boston Common. It began eight abreast, but soon thousands of spectators joined in, swelling the lines to twenty-five and thirty across. Arnold marched with Mike Haynes in the second rank, just behind King and Ralph Abernathy, and when he turned in Copley Square he saw an awesome stream of determined faces, mixed in nearly equal parts of black and white, some shouldering placards which read: “We Need Better Schools” or “All Men Are Created Equal” or simply “Love,” and one group from the Catholic Interracial Council making a particularly dramatic demonstration of their faith in integration, with the black women carrying white babies and the white women carrying black babies.
    On the flanks of Boston Common, fresh with new grass, the 22,000 marchers converged on the Parkman Bandstand. Gil Caldwell of Union Methodist got the Freedom Rally started with a mass sing-along, black welfare mothers and suburban stockholders, teenage dropouts and Wellesley college girls raising their voices together in the anthem which made each of them feel a bit stronger and more virtuous:
    We shall overcome, we shall overcome
,
    We shall overcome some day
.
    Oh, deep in my heart I do believe
    We shall overcome some day
.
    Then, after a spate of warm-up speeches, the man whom some that day had called “the Black Moses” advanced to the microphone. It had begun to rain, so Arnold unfurled a large black umbrella which he held over King’s head as the preacher exhorted his flock:
    “I come here not to condemn but to encourage. I would be dishonest to say Boston is Birmingham or that Massachusetts is Mississippi. But it would be irresponsible for me to deny the crippling poverty and the injustice that exist in some sections of this community. The vision of the New Boston must extend into the heart of Roxbury. Boston must become a testing ground for the ideals of freedom…. We must not become a nation of onlookers. This fight is not for the sake of the Negro alone, but rather for the aspirations of America itself. All Americans must take a stand against evil.”
    Standing there next to the prophet, holding the umbrella until his arm ached, Arnold looked out over the crowd, noting in particular the suburban white men in their alligator polo shirts and chino pants, their wives in Lily Pulitzer shifts and silk scarves. As King’s voice soared to a crescendo, the whites looked up at him with rapt faces. Sure, Arnold thought, they just love old Black Moses, just love all us
Neeegroes
because he’s our leader and he’s so non-violent and peaceful and all. But just let us push to get something of
theirs
, and you’ll see how they’ll act. Then there’ll be a different look on those well-fed faces. And these are the people King tells us we should treat like brothers and sisters.
    After his thirty-six hours with King, Arnold was more ambivalent than ever about the great man. He made mayors and governors