TPC interview with Drue Lackey on Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King

What follows is a transcript of a TPC radio interview conducted by talk radio host James Edwards and former co-host Bill Rolen with Drue Lackey before his death in 2016 at the age of 90. Lackey served as the former Chief of Police of Montgomery, Alabama, and is featured in the iconic photograph fingerprinting Rosa Parks after her arrest.

Chief Lackey’s book, Another View of the Civil Rights Movement, recounts his time as a police officer in Montgomery in the 1950s and ‘60s and his personal interactions with Parks, Martin Luther King, and others. This historically significant interview has never before appeared in print online. We revisit it now in light of this week’s federal holiday.

* * *

Drue Lackey: Well, my view was that this so-called Civil Rights Movement, headed by Martin Luther King, was really a farce. He was using the civil rights issue to raise money and further his personal cause to have parties and do his womanizing throughout the country. And, in my opinion, he was more interested in tearing America down than he was in the plight of his own people.

Lackey: He was an elderly man and very feeble, and he couldn’t stand too well and really needed to sit down.

Lackey: That’s correct. That’s right.

Lackey: Well, to my knowledge we didn’t have any problems. Prior to Rosa Parks’ arrest, we had two other women who were arrested for the same violation. One was arrested in March of 1955, and then the other one was in October of ‘55, and then Rosa was in December of ‘55. Of course, we all know that she was hand-picked. She was the secretary of the NAACP here in Montgomery. She had lunch with her attorney, Fred Grey, the day that she was arrested, and she attended the Communist school in Tennessee, where Martin Luther King attended, and Ralph Abernathy and others. So, it was a hand-picked deal from the word go.

Lackey: She was one of the people indicted for violating the boycott law and interfering with public transportation. The deputy sheriff of Montgomery County called me and asked me if I would be willing to help him the next day, because they had these 90 people coming in, and I agreed to go up and help him. And that’s where and when they took that picture.

Lackey: Well, they were helping back this movement. And you’re correct, they had a direct line to Bobby Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and President Kennedy. During the Freedom Rider episode that happened in Montgomery, I picked up John Seigenthaler out of the street and took him to the hospital about two blocks away, possibly saving his life. And he immediately called Bobby Kennedy at Hyannisport and he had a list in his pocket of all the Freedom Riders that were on that bus. So, Bobby Kennedy and others in the administration were behind it, helped sponsor it, and saw that it was followed up.

Lackey: It was a lot different than what you saw on television. I mean, the Civil Rights Movement attracted every kind of criminal that you can think of — revolutionaries and every thug that you could come in contact with. And they would curse the police, spit on the police, and do everything they could to try to incite a riot. Martin Luther King used what I called a big lie technique. He’d go around saying he was preaching non-violence, but violence followed him everywhere he went. You never heard of King ever chastising any of those rioters and looters. It happened all over this country, and I can’t find anywhere in the Constitution that gives people the right to burn, loot, and do things that they did and be protected under the so-called civil rights banner.

Lackey: That was their intention. To come in and burn the town down. I believe if we hadn’t taken the action that we did, this would have happened. But we took an oath to protect the lives and property of this city and use that force necessary. And it was unfortunate that we killed a couple of arsonists that were teenagers. But we had no way of knowing their age. One of them was 16, one was 17. After that happened, we got a lot of calls that they were going to come in by the busload and burn the town down, and of course, I let them know that we were going to use the force necessary to protect our city. And they could leave like those other two in a box.

Lackey: They were very belligerent, and it was apparent that they were looking to have some kind of conflict with the police or with other people. Their mannerisms and their speech and everything indicated that they wanted to stir up a conflict. This is one of King’s tactics. I think he trained his people to have these conflicts with the police and then when it was all over, he would blame us for causing the riots.

Lackey: Yeah, that was his favorite — police brutality. And if you go back to Fidel Castro, he started using the same technique when the Communists were taking over Cuba. And, of course, Martin Luther King was knee-deep in with the Communist Party. They came to Montgomery. We knew who they were when they came in, and we usually would put a tail on them, to follow them. We did have some luck with the black leadership talking to them about getting these people out of Montgomery. They weren’t really there to help them, you know.

Lackey: That is correct. The news media didn’t give us any coverage on that, and we had to make some arrests of Klansmen, too, you know. Our job was to keep law and order, and we couldn’t pick and choose. But we got very little coverage regarding that.

Lackey: Yes, I had a meeting with him and even booked him once in 1956. But in the later meeting, I discussed with King some things that we needed to do, and that he needed to do. At first, he turned down any security but changed his mind before I left. And I told him we would like to give him security. We couldn’t guarantee a hundred percent, but we could cut down the odds on it. He admitted that he could not control his people, and he had some people in there who were going to get out of line and so forth, and he said, “I just can’t control all my people.”

Lackey: Yeah, he tried to get a permit for a pistol, and he was turned down. His so-called peaceful movement was not what it was cracked up to be. The way that he got sympathizers and the money coming into his organization was by having conflict. When they would be marching on the streets and sidewalks, some of the males in his group would break off and go and urinate or defecate on a white person’s lawn. I mean, that’s trying to have a conflict. If it was my house, I’d be coming out of there with a shotgun.

Lackey: After I retired from the police force, to read and hear these people talking about how great King was and not have any balance whatsoever, I decided it’s time to unveil.

Lackey: That is right. It’s correct. And don’t forget that Coretta King had those FBI files and the tapes sealed until 2027.

Lackey: I don’t think they will. I tried to get in there and get them released, but I didn’t have any luck on that, and I don’t think they will be released. If we could have gotten them released, you would have seen a lot of politicians running for cover.

Lackey: The liberal politicians and the liberal news media flocked to him. And he had them eating out of his hand. It was sickening when you saw it happen, that these politicians would run over each other to try to get to him. And then later, every year when they have that march over Edmund Pettus Bridge, you still see them lined up, arm-in-arm to get in on the act.

Lackey: I never had one of them come to me and say that.

Lackey: This particular day that I recall, Abernathy had organized a group, and they were meeting at King’s church. King wasn’t there, but they were going to march from his church to the capitol and they’d already put this out to the news media and everybody else.

When I arrived, the white people were all over the lawns up there at the capitol. It was at least, I’d say ten or twelve thousand, in the neighborhood of the capitol complex buildings. I sent some plainclothes officers to check it out. It was a kind of a cool day, and they had on overcoats and the majority of them had shotguns, pistols, you name it. I mean, it was an arsenal there on the grounds.

I called Abernathy out of the church to talk to him personally and showed him what he was up against, and what we were up against. And I said, “There ain’t no way that we can give you protection with all these people, and them armed like they are. And I’m gonna ask you to call off the march.” And he said, “No, we had this planned and we’re going to stick with it.”

Of course, the national news media was there to cover this thing because they announced it several days prior to. So, they came out of the church and started across the street there, Decatur Street, toward the capitol. And when they did, all these white people started rushing down. So, I called my men to put them back in the church and we made Abernathy and all these groups get back in church. And then I told him I would let them leave there, maybe six to eight at a time, and give them the streets they were to walk down so we could furnish protection. But that was a close call there because we could have had a blood bath very easily. Montgomery was a powder keg. For some time, the least little spark could have set it off. We had to really stay on our toes trying to keep the lid on it.

Lackey: No. They started dispersing.

Lackey: No, we didn’t have any of that. It was the other side who would do that.

Lackey: Yeah.

Lackey: Oh, no. No, they didn’t ever express any appreciation for anything we did. You know it’s good though.

Lackey: It was an honor.

Rosa Parks getting fingerprinted by Drue Lackey after her arrest in 1956

Martin Luther King being booked by Drue Lackey.