My money would be on the guy who bailed on the fatal car ride at the last moment. But if history is any guide, it could be that most of them are on the payroll.
The Klan was deeply infiltrated by the FBI and quite a few FBI informants were planted around Martin Luther King back in the 1960’s.
MLK picked out some trusted people and went to a secluded place to plan the protests at Birmingham in 1963.
The Birmingham protest was utterly successful in moving the cause of racial equality forward.
Those protests were a pivotal moment in history that shook the nation to its core and got the Kennedy Administration into gear using the FBI to directly spy on Martin Luther King’s phone calls and hotel rooms.
Outrage over Bull Connor’s backlash on the protests unfortunately did lead to a cycle of violence and bitterness which has lingered on for decades, but I won’t blame that on MLK, it wasn’t his intention.