“Bigger Than Montgomery” 167    the police an opportunity to assault him “behind closed doors,” he ap- plauded the decision to serve time rather than pay a fine, calling it “the most courageous stand in that direction since Bayard Rustin, serve time [sic] in Carolina. And because of your courage in face of known danger I want to commend you for your stand for the people of color all over the world, and especially the people in Montgomery.” King thanked Nixon for his letter a few days later, noting: “I am sorry that I have not seen you in a long, long time. I hope our paths will cross in the not-too-distant future.”34 Nixon’s letter to King demonstrates the competing agendas that added to the difficulties for the Montgomery struggle following the boy- cott. King had stressed that the struggle was “bigger than Montgomery,” and Reddick claimed that the local movement’s effectiveness was dem- onstrated primarily through its “positive national and international ef- fect, far more significant than any local effects.” In contrast, while Nixon acknowledged the global dimension of King’s willingness to go to jail to confront injustice, he was “especially” pleased that King had stood for “the people in Montgomery.” As King, Abernathy, and Reddick con- centrated on building a regional civil rights movement, Nixon’s heart remained first and foremost with the people of his city. Nixon longed for a return to a civil rights struggle defined by the plight of Montgomery’s African American citizens and fortified by the courageous action of local 35 people. King’s attention was elsewhere. In the summer of 1958, the few whites working for racial change in Montgomery continued to experience significant backlash for their sup- port of integration. Some simply decided to leave town. Robert Graetz, the only white clergyman in the MIA, accepted a call to pastor a Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio. Soon after, the interracial woman’s group called the Fellowship of the Concerned decided to hold a daylong meet- ing at the Father Purcell Unit of St. Jude’s Hospital. Someone got wind of the meeting and proceeded to go through the hospital parking lot writing down the license plate numbers of those in attendance. They used this information to get the phone numbers of those affiliated with the Fellowship of the Concerned. Threatening and harassing phone calls soon followed, and participants’ names appeared in a segregation- ist paper called the Montgomery Home News. Olive Andrews recalled: