May 12, 1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King flew to Birmingham, Ala., from Atlanta and announced that Negroes planned no protest demonstrations over last night’s bombings of a Negro motel and the home of Rev. A.D. King (pictured right in his bomb-damaged home), Dr. King’s younger brother. He said he had talked with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy concerning the President’s statement on sending troops to Alabama. “It does seem that the Government is concerned and is willing to take forthright action,” he said. “I must make it clear that I have not requested Federal troops in Alabama or Birmingham.” Dr. King indicated that Negroes would not renounce the desegregation agreement, which was worked out under prodding from Burke Marshall, chief of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Mr. Marshall returned to Birmingham tonight. “I do not feel the events of last night nullified the agreement at all,” Dr. King said. “I do not think the bombings were perpetrated or even sanctioned by the majority of the white people in Birmingham.”
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