Mary Karr Quotes
I don't think I look like the pope's favorite Catholic - at least not under close scrutiny.
Karr, Mary. Lit. Harper, 2009.
This quotation is important for two reasons. First, it shows how important the clergy of the nation were in calling for the passage of the bill. Second, it illustrates the total blind spot that Southern leaders had on the Segregation issue. It never occurred to Russell and many other Southerners that discrimination and denial of civil rights WAS a moral issue. They saw it purely as political.
Hoover was an inveterate racist and had an extreme hatred of King. A month later King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What was not known at the time was Hoover, although it had nothing to do with law enforcement, actually contacted New York Cardinal Spellman and illegally transmitted to him parts of FBI confidential and secret files on King for the purpose of persuading the Pope not to grant King an audience. Nonetheless, Hoover himself had a behind the scenes reputation of leaking for his personal purposes and that much of the contents of many FBI files were notes on unsubstantiated claims made by political enemies and often far from the truth. The Cardinal, the Pope and their staffs chose to ignore the Hoover materials.
Mary Karr is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. She is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.
