Notes to Pages 110–116 215    Fields claims King was in favor of dropping the demand for black bus drivers (Fields, Inside the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 79). King Jr., Stride toward Free- dom, 114; Hughes, interview by Holden, January 18, 1956. 50. Thornton, Dividing Lines, 73. 51. Whatley, interview by Holden; Hughes, interview by Holden, March 27, 1956; Parks, Pierce, and Graetz, “Montgomery Story.” 52. King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 134–35. 53. Miller, Voice of Deliverance, 138; Cone, Martin and Malcolm and America, 124; Warren, King Came Preaching, 40; Baldwin, There Is a Balm in Gilead, 189n87. 54. “‘Montgomery Dangerous’ Negro Warns after Weekend of Vio- lence,” New York Post, January 28, 1957. 55. Burns, ed., Daybreak of Freedom, 128–29; Donald T. Ferron, “Notes on MIA Executive Board Meeting,” January 30, 1956, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 109–12. 56. Willie Mae Lee, “Notes on MIA Mass Meeting at First Baptist Church,” January 30, 1956, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 113–14. 57. Joe Azbell, “Blast Rocks Residence of Bus Boycott Leader,” Mont- gomery Advertiser, January 31, 1956, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 3: 114–15. For other accounts of the bombing and King’s response, see Willie Mae Lee, “The Bombing Episode,” January 31, 1956, Valien Collection; and King Jr., Stride toward Freedom, 136–38. 58. Miller, Voice of Deliverance, 87. 59. Burns, Daybreak of Freedom, 76–77. Burns cites transcript of Browder v. Gayle federal court testimony, Montgomery, Ala., May 11, 1956, p. 23 (Burns, ed., Daybreak of Freedom, 266); Lewis and Ligon, interview by Lumpkin. 5. “Living under the Tension” 1. King Jr., “It’s Hard to Be a Christian,” February 5, 1956, in Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., 6: 251–52. 2. Thornton, Dividing Lines, 78. Thornton argues the primary focus of the boycott was not integrating the buses, but rather challenging white supremacy. He asserts that the protesters “sought not the right to sit with whites, but rather the right not to be unseated in favor of whites, as well as at least a degree of protection from public humiliation at the hands of white bus drivers.” While this may have been true for some in the boycott, Nixon and others in his camp always saw the legal side of the Parks case as the critical portion, with a trajectory that began four days before the decision was made