Herman Cain "almost" refused order to go to the back of the bus..."but ultimately complied."

[Amerigo Vespucci]

By DOUGLAS A. BLACKMON And NEIL KING JR.



Herman Cain at Morehouse in 1966.

When Herman Cain entered Atlanta's Morehouse College in the fall of 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. had just delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. During his first semester, four black girls were killed in a Birmingham, Ala., church bombing. Young African-Americans flocked to Dr. King's call for nonviolent action or its more radical offshoots.

Mr. Cain steered clear of the strife boiling around him. The son of a chauffeur to the former chairman of Coca-Cola Co., Mr. Cain pursued his own self-advancement with steady focus.

"I wasn't determined to make social change," Mr. Cain said in an interview. "I wanted to earn some change…I wanted to make some money."

Mr. Cain's closest brush with the turmoil of that era, based on his own recollection, was when he and a group of high-school friends almost refused an order to go the back of a bus, but ultimately complied.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204517204577042934126919646.html