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As a newcomer, Rutherford stood at the periphery of SCLC's most private drama. He saw the swirling, teasing flirtations of its inner circle, and he discouraged prurient speculation about the link between Coretta's regal suffering and King's pursuits elsewhere. Rutherford could only guess about what he called a "double life," marveling at burdens King must carry beyond the superhuman pressures and expectations of the movement. King's formidable armor wore down in midlife, draining assurance from his glib mantra as a young scholar that many great men of religion had been obsessed with sex--St. Augustine, St. Paul, Martin Luther, Kierkegaard, Tillich--and his self-reproach spilled over when Coretta underwent surgery for an abdominal tumor on Jan. 24. He disclosed to her the one mistress who meant most to him since 1963--with intensity almost like a second family even though she lived in Los Angeles--a married alumna of Fisk, of dignified bearing like Coretta, but different. The result was painful disaster. On hearing the news, Juanita Abernathy, SCLC co-founder Ralph Abernathy's wife, exploded with the fury of a trusted second that King had picked Coretta's most vulnerable moment, just as she recovered from her hysterectomy, to ambush her sanctuary of willful, silent discretion. If he was truly desperate to be honest, she said, King should purge himself privately to God or a psychiatrist. Ralph Abernathy grew so alarmed about King's confession that he canvassed the regular mistresses for hidden fits of jealousy or romantic blackmail, but he found no conventional clues to explain the rash new fatalism in King.
FEBRUARY
A FORESHADOWING OF MARTYRDOM
Assassination threats were constant, and King had always been haunted by premonitions of a premature death, but now they seemed to intensify
KING PREACHED "THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT" AT Ebenezer that Sunday, Feb. 4. He freely adapted a sermon published under that title during his seminary years by evangelist J. Wallace Hamilton, based on the biblical story of two disciples who beseech Jesus for the most prominent eternal seats in heaven. Their desire springs from a universal impulse for distinction, said King--"this quest for recognition ... this drum major instinct." An extreme drum major "ends by trying to push others down to push himself up," he warned, driving racism in culture and arrogance in nations. Yet Jesus in the Bible account does not rebuke James and John for their ambition itself, but teaches instead that true reward follows humble service. Here King's message turned. "And the great issue of life," he declared, "is to harness the drum major instinct." He sketched the biography of supreme Christian sacrifice with clear echoes of his own turmoil, noting that the "tide of public opinion turned" against Jesus when he was still young. "They said he was an agitator," said King. "He practiced civil disobedience. He broke injunctions." Jesus was betrayed by friends, cursed, killed and buried penniless in a borrowed tomb--but now after 19 centuries "stands as the most influential figure that ever entered human history." For all the worldly gloss about a "lord of lords," King found nothing royal about Jesus: "He just went around serving."