Word: vernon
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...Vernon Jordan is shot down in Fort Wayne. The biggest question...
Only five hours after he delivered this warning-and affirmation of faith in his country-Vernon Jordan, 44, president of the National Urban League and one of the nation's foremost black leaders, drove back to the Marriott Inn where he was staying in Fort Wayne, Ind. As he stepped from the fire-engine red Pontiac Grand Prix, a burst of rifle shots shattered the muggy night. Jordan slumped against the trunk of the car, then collapsed on the pavement, his head resting near the left taillight. He was alive, but he had been grievously wounded by two bullets...
...that were tied to his motorcycle. Douglas insisted that he had paid a drinking buddy $100 for the rifles just that morning. After he was released from the county jail that afternoon, he returned home, where he told TIME Correspondent David S. Jackson: "I never even heard of Vernon Jordan before yesterday." The barrel of the .30-06 was dirty, and a local ballistics expert tentatively concluded that the rifle had not been fired recently. Further tests at the FBI laboratory in Washington confirmed that opinion...
Thus, besides shock, there was bewilderment among black and white leaders over why Jordan would be a killer's target. Said William Brown, executive director of the Urban League branch in Hartford, Conn.: "Vernon Jordan is the voice of reason, and if this voice is silenced, we are back in the early '60s." Exclaimed Gary Avery, chairman of the N.A.A.C.P.'s voter registration drive in Atlanta: "When people like him get shot, who's safe...
...government not to anticipate such disruption "would be like walking through a fire zone swinging a gasoline tank and expecting it not to explode," Vernon said...