ABSTRACT

It was nearly 2 o’clock in the morning when the train from Chicago pulled into Montgomery’s Union Station, several hours behind schedule. Cliff and Lulah waited on the platform in the hot August night. They had followed the nightly televised proceedings of the 1968 Democratic convention and were eager to hear Virginia’s first hand account of what went on there. After the train stopped, Cliff watched for his wife. As he saw her stepping down to the platform he said, “She still takes my breath away.” Lulah was shocked by this simple expression of passion from her 70-year-old father. It was, in its way, a striking testament to the attraction that held these two individuals together, a glimpse of the bond that sealed this remarkable partnership.1