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She even persuaded a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan to renounce the white terror organization. While King's assassination only months later convulsed the nation, Clayton and her guests provided audiences with a model for racial harmony. Atlanta's CBS affiliate WAGA responded in 1967 by making her the first Black talk show host in the South. In an era when national news organizations - including the AP - covered civil rights with all-white staffs, her friend Ralph McGill, publisher of the Atlanta Constitution, had her speak to a television industry convention. You know, I’m not afraid to tackle an issue,” Clayton said. President Lyndon Baines Johnson had quietly encouraged such grassroots lobbying, and surprised her by insisting that hospitals nationwide had to desegregate before getting Medicare funding. She found a government ally who shared how much federal money was flowing to Atlanta’s segregated hospitals and took the doctors to Washington, scoring a White House visit. “So I organized the doctors and told them, ‘We can do something about this.’” “Wednesday was the day Black people would have their babies,” she recalled. In 1966, Clayton learned that Atlanta’s Black doctors were restricted to one facility, Grady Hospital, and to just one day a week. Soon, she was securing care for bloodied protesters and calling her friends Sidney (Poitier), Harry (Belafonte) and Bill (Cosby) for bail money. Michael Warren/AP Show More Show Lessīut the two women bonded as Clayton organized Ms. and Coretta Scott King who helped sustain the civil rights movement in the 1960s, is interviewed in her offices at the Trumpet Foundation in Atlanta, on June 3, 2022. Sharon Johnson/AP Show More Show Less 2 of2 Xernona Clayton, a key aide to Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King who helped sustain the civil rights movement in the 1960s, is interviewed in her offices at the Trumpet Foundation in Atlanta, on May 19, 2022. 1 of2 Xernona Clayton, a key aide to Martin Luther King Jr.