Kenneth G. Neigh interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 1.

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    When did you go to the Board? [Board of National Missions]
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    September the first nine hundred fifty-
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    nine. [Bauer] In terms of
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    crises, I guess we were
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    past
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    the very much? And the
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    race thing was
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    just beginning to brew? [Lewis] Well, so far as
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    we were concerned, it was
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    the one before
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    that. It was the Cuban crisis.
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    Castro taking over, you know,
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    We are. Our church
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    is very strong in Cuba.
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    and
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    initially, there were a lot of our people
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    involved. Some of
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    them served in the
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    government. But, as it progressed
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    in the direction
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    became clear, the exodus began.
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    And so, our problem then is
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    to do something about
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    helping the flow of
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    refugees, and at the same
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    time maintain the integrity of the church inside of Cuba. so it was a.
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    It was not a worldwide church
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    crisis,
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    but so far as the mission was concerned,
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    it was big.
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    yes. The refugees
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    problems. It was more serious. I keep referring refugees every so many years.
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    Did the board [Board of National Missions, United Presbyterian Church in the USA]
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    have a. At
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    that point, did the Board have a unit or something that took care of refugees?
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    or was it done ecumenically or what? Well,
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    it was, it
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    was supposed to
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    have been done ecumenically. There was
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    a lot of ecumenical
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    ventures at that time. It depended. it depended on
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    the strength and
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    vitality and the fiscal power of the
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    denominational units.
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    We had, within the United Presbyterian Church
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    the
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    committee, which was made up of people from
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    COEMAR [Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.] and the Board of National Missions.
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    John Corbin [Corbin, John C.], I think, was the chairman of that group.
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    And, there was a philosophical conflict there.
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    for the people themselves who felt strongly
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    from people like Alfonso
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    Rodriguez and other
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    leaders. Should have stayed in tune. John
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    Mackay [President, Princeton Theological Seminary] was one of them.
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    He was very, very vocal about refugees
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    moving out. So it was. It was a
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    curious kind of
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    crisis
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    and within it, I think
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    that one of the. One of
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    the strange shadowy figures in
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    all of these things was Max
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    Browning. And, I don't think
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    that Max's role in some of them should be
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    under estimated. He had all of these contacts.
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    as you know. And
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    for . Well, I don't know
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    Well, on every plane that left Cuba,
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    we had two
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    seats that Max somehow had been able
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    to, to manipulate. [Bauer] Oh, gosh.
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    that sounds
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    like Max. [Neigh] And after the
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    United States government embargoed
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    money.
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    I think we were one of the first groups to learn how to
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    launder. We make contributions to
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    the World Council of Churches, and they sent it to, sent it to the
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    Cuban church. [Bauer] That is fantastic.
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    [Neigh] I remember I
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    think Dave was there and Bryant. We went to
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    Geneva one time with the Cuban church. Lesslie Newbigin was then working
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    with the World Council of Churches. And he sat there and
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    shook his head. He said, I was. I have always wanted to see some New York
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    bureaucrats in operation.
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    [Bauer] That wasn't very nice in
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    public
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    but the conflict was resolved
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    essentially by helping as many get out
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    as wanted to get out? [Neigh] Yep.
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    and helping those who wanted to stay to
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    stay. There was a
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    strong feeling in
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    parts of New
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    Jersey.
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    The Cuban church was a
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    presbytery as a part of the Synod of New
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    Jersey at the time. There
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    was a strong
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    conflict in the synod there.
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    There were those who wanted
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    to help the Cuban church become an
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    independent church. And, there were those who wanted
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    to keep the
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    church as a part of the Synod of New
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    Jersey. [Bauer] I remember at the Nairobi Assembly [Assembly of the World Council of Churches, November 23-December 10, 1975]
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    there. After the Assembly was over, there was a dinner with Thompson [Thompson, William Phelps, Stated Clerk, UPCUSA] sponsor of the people from the
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    UPC church. fear filled. Oh, yeah. oh, yeah. I. Two months
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    ago, I
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    got a telephone call from RaouI
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    Hernandez. Fernandez, who is
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    still
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    a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Havana, inquiring. He had heard that I had problems.
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    [Bauer] So that was the
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    first crisis after you got there. [Neigh] Um huh. [Bauer] Then
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    place
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    emerged the
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    race issue. [Neigh] um huh. [Bauer] Can you reflect on that
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    it but because the race
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    issue was so strong in the newspapers, the
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    question of how the church's attention was captured is almost moot. I mean, I mean it was. A lot of people said that
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    [Neigh] Well, yeah.
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    have
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    For some reason, it's obvious, but I know
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    Eisenhower [Eisenhower, Dwight David] had been able to put
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    down the McCarthy thing.
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    But, underneath all of
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    that
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    was a scabbing over of racial
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    issue. And, the church was
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    dealing with it
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    before it became the racial issue as
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    such in the efforts
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    to deal with the developing urban crisis. At that
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    time was not identified as a racial thing.
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    But everybody
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    knew that the urban crisis
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    was a black white crisis.
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    so
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    the church in that way was
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    dealing with that issue, before
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    it became the newspaper issue.
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    [Bauer] In local situations or nationally or both?
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    [Neigh] Both. Under Hermann, [Morse, Hermann N. General Secretary, Board of National Missions], they had an office called, what was it?
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    [Bauer] City and Industrial. Yeah. [Neigh] C and I. C and I
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    and
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    then there were people
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    spotted around that were part of the so-called national staff.
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    We mapped peace. That's how
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    Matt happened to come to Detroit , I think.
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    So as I say, we were dealing
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    with crisis or the roots of the crisis
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    or what was identified as such.
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    [Bauer] Was there?
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    was there a particular emphasis?
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    [Neigh] Later on, they got into community organization
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    I think, or was it more social service?.
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    Yeah, It
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    was
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    mainly was dealt with through
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    the Settlement House
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    community house, like Dodge. [Bauer] Like Dodge.
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    [Neigh] And, the ones in Chicago in particular.
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    [Bauer] I have a
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    picture framed in my home, an antique, that
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    came from the attic of Dodge House. When I came
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    to the site, one of the things that happened was that they had already decided to close Dodge.
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    So my first assignment on this
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    staff was to go down there and take care of the
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    committal issues. [Neigh] Yeah. [Bauer] And, in that process, I was
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    scrounging around in the attic and found this beautiful old picture.
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    frame.
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    and latched
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    onto it. [Neigh] Well, it probably came from one of the
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    Dodge family
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    [Bauer] That is interesting.
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    [Neigh] At that time,
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    Hermann [Morse, H. N. [Hermann Newton]]. Hermann had, had a
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    committee to sort
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    of map strategy. This was
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    in the mid fifties.
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    I don't recall the
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    people who were on it. I was.
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    Now, I think, Jim
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    Robinson [Robinson, James Herman] and there was the guy,
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    a black pastor, that was married to Dorothy Mingle , the singer.
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    He was on it.
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    So that there were those things going
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    on. [Bauer] Was that a national staff committee? [Neigh] No, it
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    wasn't national staff. It was a committee that had been appointed by
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    the Board of National Missions. It was made
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    up
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    headquarters national
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    staff. For some curious reason I always found myself on
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    those doggone things. Was on too many of them, I guess.
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    And then pastors
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    and laymen.
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    The usual mix. [Bauer] All right.
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    They monitored the strategy. You know, whe we started looking at
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    this crisis question,
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    the first one that anybody can
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    find that really the church responded to formally was back in the nineteen, nineteen three or something.
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    Steathily respond to the crisis in the cities.
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    At that time it was immigrant and labor. [Neigh] Oh,
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    really! I suppose that was when the settlement houses came into being.
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    [Bauer] That's right. Soon after that, they started up. in spite of that.
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    It is interesting that the Presbyterians,
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    although the Presbyterians were all hung up in
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    Fundamentalist- Modernist controversy. And didn't get involved in the
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    Social Gospel quite the way others did. It came around to formally responding.
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    We set up a staff and an office.
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    So that's what you inherited when you went there is that kind of thing.
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    Did you set about creating a different structure to deal with the city issue or?
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    [Neigh] Well. Well.
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    not consciously.
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    One of the first things I had to
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    do and I knew it, from looking at it from the outside
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    was that there had to be a complete restructure
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    of the board.
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    And it wasn't all that easy, but I had a number of
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    breaks. And that is that I
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    got a spate of retirements.
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    Okay.
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    Harold Baldwin [Baldwin, Harold H.]was the head of that division.
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    Came up for retirement, which
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    was a really good deal because he was a very, very conservative Republican type.
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    [Bauer] All right. [Neigh] And so that it was at that
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    time that we brought
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    about the reorganization.
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    and a
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    reordering of things.
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    [Bauer] And was that when
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    Ramage [Ramage, David, Jr.] was brought in? [Neigh] No. Ramage came much later. No, Bryant was there and Art
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    Stevenson. [Bauer] Oh, that's right.
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    So that that didn't. In that reorganization
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    made it
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    made it easier for people
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    like that
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    [Bauer] Do you recall what the
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    title of the unit became then?
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    It was Strategy and Development, but that was a long time later.
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    Neigh] Uh. No, I think that was the name of the unit from the beginning.
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    Meryl. Meryl Luaos was the, you know, first
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    chairman
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    [Bauer] And Meryl, of course, was a research type.
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    Bryant was an activist. [Neigh] And Bryant was
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    an activist. That's right. And Art was the, how was it? the
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    greaser of bureacratic skids? [Neigh] Yeah, but,
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    and I forgot
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    Art. Art didn't stay all
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    that long.
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    It was an ideological conflict
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    Art was not as
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    much of an activist as his father was.
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    So as we as we moved along, we moved
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    we moved Art out of the office.
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    and into Max's
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    office then.
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    [Bauer] so
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    Bryant was very early on? [Neigh] Yeah. Finders keepers.
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    [Bauer] And did he bring with him all those
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    contacts with? Well, he had all the
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    contacts with Johnson C. Smith?
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    [Neigh] Well I am
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    too, for a very curious kind of reason.
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    I had been on the Council on Theological
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    Education, ever since I went back to McCormick for my activity
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    and
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    so I knew the presidents of Johnson C. Smith, knew Bryant's
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    father before I knew Bryant.
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    So, so that we had
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    all these
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    contacts in the South. and I had been
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    on, of course, on the national staff
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    and had known a lot of the black
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    pastors in the south because of their being on the national staff
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    as chairmen of the National Missions committees.
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    [Bauer] What is
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    the first thing that you would describe as kind of a
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    crisis situation? Could you, in terms of urban race, however you want to split?
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    [Neigh] The first one that I recall. Well, this
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    is in nineteen forty-two, the race riots in Detroit.
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    I
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    was in the middle of that one.
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    [Bauer] That is something that
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    nobody has ever talked about. Even though they worked in Detroit, they never talked about that.
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    That's right! [Neigh] Well, I was, I never will forget.
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    I used to go down, go down to the office
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    almost every, every Monday. I said I was going to the office, but what I really
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    went down for was to go to the Fox Theatre.
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    Any
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    way I was walking across Grand Circus
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    Park on Monday. And, all of a sudden, this
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    mob was, swept by me, and
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    they had collared a black guy
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    They had him down on his knees
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    with his head between them together
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    going like that
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    And a
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    Jew came out of one of those clothing stores beside Fife's there. [Bauer] Oh, yeah?
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    [Neigh] and got him up himself
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    but managed to disperse the
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    disperse the mob. And, I watched them turn
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    over street cars
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    and automobiles in Paradise Valley.
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    sealed off. Bill Molbon [Molbon, William H., pastor St. John's Presbyterian Church], who was a pastor then
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    Some of us organized
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    car, car pools
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    to pick themup so they could get out of Paradise Valley. So that was.
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    [Bauer] So that was. In a sense the church locally at that point was in the middle of it again.
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    [Neigh] Oh yes and that was. That was a Claude Williams era too. [Williams, Claude C.]
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    with
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    Claude had been brought in to
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    deal with the urban industrial
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    crisis, worked on it with the presbytery [Presbytery of Detroit].
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    This is way, way back, as I say, in forty-two.
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    to
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    Do you know anything about Claude? Oh, he is one of the most colorful characters
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    that I ever met. He was a sharecropper and
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    office
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    and he had gotten saved.
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    Then got some education
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    and was brought
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    to Detroit
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    by Kenneth Miller, who was the executive of the presbytery at that time.
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    Later on became the head of the New York City
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    Mission Society. But I was
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    on Claude's committee, when
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    Claude would go out and make his speeches and he wasn't very careful. And, I remember one meeting
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    Herb Hudnut [Hudnut, Herbert B., pastor, Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church] was giving Claude hell about something,which I don't know,
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    And Claude said
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    Well. A spade is
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    God damn
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    spade to me. And Herb said, but a spade isn't a goddam spade
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    because Claude said, a spade is a goddam spade to me.
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    later on
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    we. There was a big, big stink,
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    and Claude got separated from the
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    church, and the presbytery unfrocked him.
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    [Bauer] Really? [Neigh] Uh-huh.
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    [Bauer] Now was his salary
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    paid for by
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    the, by the Board of National Missions? [Neigh] Paid by the Presbytery of Detroit.
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    [Bauer] And, hired by the Presbytery of Detroit. [Neigh] But, I suspect Hermann's
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    [Morse, H. N. [Herman Nelson], Administrative Secretary, Board of National Missions] hand was in it some place
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    He wasn't General
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    Secretary of the Board of National Missions in name. He was de facto.
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    I suspect
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    his hand was in it. [Bauer] So the race. Or course, the war did some things about race relations that I think might not have been done otherwise
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    After you got to New
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    York in, let's see, fifty-nine
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    And that is a long time later. That is seventeen years later. Is there anything in Detroit that you recall after the war? In particular, race?
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    That period was.
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    The crisis at that time
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    was of course, McCarthy [McCarthy, Joseph] [McCarthyism]
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    and I was before
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    the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. There was a Congressman Kit, Kit Clardy [Clardy, Kit Francis] from
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    Lansing, who was on that Committee. He was. He was going to get me. And the chairman,
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    the staff person for that Committee was a card-carrying
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    Presbyterian lawyer from Philadelphia. And, one time
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    I was down there, and he showed me
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    the file of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee had on me. He didn't show me the file
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    but he showed me the thickness of it. [Bauer] Three inches thick. [Neigh] Um. And, under the Freedom of
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    Information Act, I got some of my
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    F.B.I. and
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    CIA stuff, but they are all blacked out and you can't read them.
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    And you have to, to get the originals, you have to
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    sue. And, this was before Reagan. [Bauer] Good lord.
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    So you really did try to see them? [Neigh] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
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    Well the House Un-American
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    Activities file is
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    not under the Freedom of Information Act.
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    When the Committee
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    disbanded, the
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    files were sealed, I think, for
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    fifty years, or something like that. I'm not sure. Anyway
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    Millicent Fenwick [Fenwick, Millicent Hammond, Congresswoman from New Jersey] tried to get them for me and couldn't.
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    sent
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    [Bauer] So you got caledl up before the Committee. Did you had any
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    role in what turned to be
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    the famous letter to the Presbyterians. [Neigh] No.
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    that I was when I was back
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    in Detroit.
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    [Bauer] What was your? What was the activity
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    that they were
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    trying to pressure on? Just concerned about minorities and stuff or was it something else?
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    [Neigh] No.
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    they
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    to were inquiring into
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    my associations. Claude
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    Williams [Williams, Claude C.] , for example., was branded by them as a Communist. And, one
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    Oh, I had been to
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    Russia. And a guy. Did you ever know Joe Novack?
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    He was the head of Dodge House at one time. [Bauer] The name is familiar.
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    [Neigh] Well, he. [Bauer] His name came up when I was doing the research
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    [Neigh] Well,
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    he had been at one
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    time and for a brief period, a member of a communist cell in Chicago. And a poor, loose. One of the most unattractive physical
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    that I've ever known. And,
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    so they had him. And they tried to sweat him.
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    And did sweat him. Mainly I was down there to
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    try to defend him.
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    and these F.B.I. and C.I.A. files are
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    not related to that. They are related to
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    activities after I went to the Board of National Missions and the friendship that I had with a professor of English literature at the University of Moscow.
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    So that's. Those files are not
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    related to that period. [Bauer] Right. Okay, so
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    after you got to New
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    York, if we can jump. What was the first crisis
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    kind of thing in terms of urban or
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    race that you recall about that?
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    [Neigh] I don't. It was the kind of thing that the church
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    slid into, you know. It was a
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    growing thing that wasn't related
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    to one or
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    two
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    crises in the church. I had. I had known
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    Martin Luther King. He had come to Detroit. Now, we
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    used to have those Lenten kinds of central Lenten services,
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    So King came every year to that. So, I invited him in Detroit
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    and, I suppose
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    that there are
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    things at that period and at that
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    time that did
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    add steam to what we were doing, but I can't recall of any crisis thing until
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    later
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    on [Bauer] Okay. [Neigh] We had these schools
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    down Wilcox County in Alabama
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    And, there had been old U.P.N.A. churches [United Presbyterian Church of North America]
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    and there had
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    been. The Klu Klux Klan had
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    tried to storm one of the schools down there and
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    this kind of propaganda
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    that they always put out. People co-habitating with wildlife crap and
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    so.

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