Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by R. W. Bauer, 1983, side 1.

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    [Wilmore speaking] I want to respond first of
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    all to the question
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    having to do with the beginning of our
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    church's witnessing
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    in the field of race
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    relations, particularly after 1963.
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    Of course, as you
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    know, the old Department of Social Education and Action
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    had responsibilities for race relations up to that period.
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    So that it was in the Board of Christian Education under
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    the leadership of Clifford Earle [Earle, Clifford John]
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    that the major
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    thrust of the church in the field of race
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    relations was planned executed.
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    [Bauer] How would you characterize that? [Wilmore] I think that
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    was fairly important
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    because it was around
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    the development and promulgation of pronouncements and
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    policy statements that we finally decided what our posture was in the field of race.
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    I mean it took a period of years, I would say, from the early
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    fifty's to
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    nineteen sixty three for the United Prtesbyterian
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    church to amass
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    sufficent policy in the
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    field of race to enable it to take that giant
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    step. [Bauer] OK [Wilmore] that came at the Denver Assembly [General Assembly of the UPCUSA]. Was that the Denver Center in 1963.
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    So, what happened under Clifford Earle's leadership,
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    and Jesse Belmont Barber, incidentally, was involved in
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    that in the earliest period. This was the period of the Institute of Race
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    Relations, which was our church's attempt to respond to the whole question
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    of prejudice. Not discrimination
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    at this point, but prejudice. How do we deal with
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    prejudice in the life of white
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    Presbyterians. And our
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    response to that was to set
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    up this race relations institute at Lincoln
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    University, which had the intention
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    of dealing with the whole problem of attitudinal
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    change within this predominately white middle
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    class church. How do we help white Presbyterians to get over their predudices.
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    [Bauer] Was Barber white or black?
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    [Wilmore] Barber was black. And, he was the dean of the of the theological seminary at Lincoln
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    University. He was brought in to
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    work in that field.Now there was another
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    man involved. It wasn't Clifford Earle at that time. I can't remember the other white
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    man's name.
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    I think Clifford Earle came
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    in after the race relations
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    institute had been established with this other person and Jesse Barber.
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    In any case, after Clifford came in,
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    we began to develop pretty
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    sharp church strong pronouncements in the area of race relations.
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    This was because, of course, of the Montgomery bus boycott of 55,
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    which began to force the
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    church to declare itself in relationship to the King [King, Martin Luther, Jr.] movement
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    where it stood in relationship to civil
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    disobedience and massive demonstrations
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    and
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    marches
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    against the problem of
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    segregation in the south. [Bauer] Can I go back to the Barber thing because no one else has
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    really talked
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    about that. Was? It was in a black
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    institution? [Wilmore] The Race Relations Institute?
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    [Bauer] Yes. [Wilmore] Summer institutes, I think they were. [Bauer] Did they bring white people in to talk
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    about it? [Wilmore] White and black sat down together to talk about
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    their prejudices. And, how we though about one another, and how we get rid of these prejudices. [Bauer] Were you
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    involved in that? [Wilmore] I was involved with some of it. [Bauer] Yes.
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    [Wilmore] But that was kind of the style of those days. They had conferences
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    and presbytery events brought blacks and whites together to deal
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    with the whole
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    problem of racial healing. [Bauer] Yes. [Wilmore] And, it was a time of
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    confession. It was a time in which the white church
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    confessed that it was prejudiced, that it was a racist church.
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    How now can we by putting this out on the table get rid
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    of it? That was the strategy in those early days. And I, I see
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    a clear division between the early strategy that had to do
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    attitudinal change and the later strategy which had to do with direct action. [Bauer] Yes, okay.
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    [Wilmore] I think King is the dividing line, so to speak,
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    between those two periods in the American Churches
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    generally.
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    The
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    Supreme Court decision of 1954, of course, was a
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    very important watershed.
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    And, it was the
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    Supreme Court decision of
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    Brown versus Board of Education decision of 1954
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    which forced the American churches, including our own,
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    to take a more progressive or radical
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    posture in respect to
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    segregation discrimination.
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    And, that whole
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    idea of a non-segregated church in non-segregated society
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    that was either the Federal Council, or the National
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    Council's [National Council of Churches] slogan
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    received great impetus from the Supreme Court.
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    Decision struck down legal segregation in the schools and by
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    implication in all aspects of American society.
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    So we're talking about a very
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    important time, Dick, a period of
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    the mid fifties-- Supreme Court decision, Montgomery bus boycott of 1955--
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    despite
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    the a
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    increasing
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    radical quality
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    of General Assembly pronouncements in the field of
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    race during that period going up to sixty-three,
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    which we spoke out on, housing discrimination
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    spoke out on FEPC, although that was a
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    little early. Spoke out on civil disobedience.
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    We put ourselves squarely on the side of Dr King [King, Martin Luther, Jr.]
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    and his strategies, which were non-violent direct action strategies.
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    [Bauer] Now was that because of personal contacts with
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    King or just personal general sympathy?
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    [Wilmore] I think that was general sympathy plus increasing pressure
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    from our own black constituency.
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    [Bauer] OK [Wilmore] Just before
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    that time
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    or was it just after?
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    It was during that period that the old Council of the North and Wes, which was
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    black ... almost a black church within the white church, decided to
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    disband. The Council on the North and West. [Afro-American Presbyterian Council of the North and West] [Bauer] I don't know that one.
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    [Wilmore] It was an unoffical
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    black conference or
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    council bringing together all our black Presbyterian churches
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    and clergy in the North and in the West. That was in existence for
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    many years.
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    [Bauer] And, who was behind that?
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    [Wilmore] Well, all the clergy in the north and west were members of that. [Bauer] When you said West, did they really mean
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    far west? [Wilmore] Yes. I'm talking about
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    the far west. I'm talking about everything except the south.
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    [Bauer] Yeah, right. [Wilmore] Because you see, in the south, the black churches
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    were in segregated judicatories anyway. [Bauer] Right. [Wilmore] And were able to exercise
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    power by virtue of the fact that they were legal entities of the church. In the
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    North, blacks were scattered in predominately white judicatories with no power.
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    And so they pulled themselves together in the late nineteenth century into
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    a council. It used to be called the Afro-American Council now the Council of the North and
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    West, which
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    made, which had annual meetings, like a General Assembly.
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    It had a women's unit.
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    passed legislation
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    did things that were of concern
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    to black Presbyterians in all parts of the country
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    except the deep south.
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    They decided, after the Supreme Court decision,
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    that, because of the direction the church and the nation were taking, that they could
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    disband. And, they turned over the resources of the council [Afro-American Presbyterian Council of the North and West]
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    to the General Assembly and had their last
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    meeting
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    in Baltimore Maryland.I just don't remember the year. Clarence Cave [Cave, Clarence L., Philadelphia Fellowship Commission] and I were just talking about this
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    just the other day and I've forgotten the day and I don't want to give it to you
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    because
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    I can't remember exactly when it was,
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    but you can find that. The thing that brought C.O.C.A.R. [Council on Church and Race] into
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    existence
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    was pressure partly pressure from these black
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    clergy, mainly Edler Hawkins [Hawkins, Edler Garnett], Bryant George,
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    Robert Johnson,
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    Clarence Cave [Cave, Clarence L.] some others, but those are some of the
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    major ones. Pressure from [Bauer] Just a minute. Edler, Bryant, and then I've missed in the next ones. [Wilmore] Clarence.
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    Robert Johnson. [Bauer] Bob. Bob Johnson. [Wilmore]
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    Bob Johnson deceased, Clarence Cave.
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    [Bauer] And, you were involved in it?
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    Well, they came to me to ask me if I would
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    leave Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
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    and become the director of this Council on Church and Race which
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    had been voted at the Assembly by virtue of the kind
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    of
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    pressure they and white allies
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    put on the Assembly in that year.
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    I need to step back from that because I am a little ahead of the game. What I think really make the
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    difference was the Chicago Conference on
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    Religion and Race in January of 1963 when. It was
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    an interfaith conference when Jews Protestants and Catholics came
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    together in
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    Chicago and committed themselves to an unprecented movement
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    for racial justice in
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    support of King. [King, Martin Luther, Jr.]
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    And, it was at that meeting that the National Council of
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    Churches decided that it
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    would form a Commission on Religion and
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    Race
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    and would encourage all of the Protestant denominations
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    that were member churches to do the same. And, our
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    church was the first to respond.
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    We organized a
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    counterpart group in the Presbyertain Church Commission on Religion and Race
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    in response to
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    the calls from the N.C.C. [National Council of Churches],
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    which had set its up shortly after that
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    January conference in Chicago.
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    Ours was setup at the Assembly which came in May of that year.
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    And the point I guess I'm making
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    now is that that decision was a critical
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    decision made in a time of
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    crisis. The crisis was that King [King, Martin Luther, Jr.] was out there moving. And,
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    the American churches, the predominantly white churches, had not organized
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    themselves sufficiently up to that point to really be the kind of
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    support network that he needed, support group that he needed.
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    And Chicago conference [Chicago Conference on Religion and Race] helped to bring that about, not only within the Protestant family, but
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    with respect to Jews and Roman Catholics.
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    The N.C.C.'s immediate response to that, or the most direct
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    response of the N.C.C. was a Commission on Religion and Race. And, we followed very quickly
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    after that, as ecumenical as we have always been. [Bauer] Yes. [Wilmore] to do the same
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    thing and we went to the Denver
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    Assembly. That's where it was. I think it was Denver. And voted five hundred thousand
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    dollars to kick off this new
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    Commission on Religion and Race which was to
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    be headquartered in New York and
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    to have administrative relationship to the Board of Christian Education,
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    as I recall,
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    and waas to have a full time
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    staff. The black guys who were involved in
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    that decision, in the corridors and behind committee doors at the
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    Denver Assembly, were those that I
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    mentioned. They came to me and asked
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    me if I would come to New York and set it up, organize it.
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    I think that by virtue of the fact that I had been a staff
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    person in the Department of Social Education and Action, which
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    was carrying the major programatic
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    responsibility for race up to
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    that point, even
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    though Ben Sissel [Sissel, H. B. [Howard Benjamin], 1921-] was ostensibly the person who was carrying the major
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    formal responsibility. Staff responsibility for race. I was in
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    there and, of course, worked with him in developing
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    the pronouncements, the race pronouncements and steering
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    the standing Committee of
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    Church and Society, for Social Education and Action. [Bauer] Now, when were you
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    at S.E.A.?
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    [Wilmore] I was there
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    years ago. You lose track.
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    I was there from the mid fifties
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    I don't remember exactly what the date was.
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    I guess I came there. Maybe I came there in fifty four.
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    This watch was given to me by
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    the staff there.
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    I left there in nineteen
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    sixty
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    I must have been there about six years. Maggie Kuhn, Ben
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    Sissel, Howard. Howard Maxwell. [Bauer] Oh, yeah. [Wilmore] Do you remember that group?
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    [Bauer] Oh! I do. They had a great deal to do with the formation
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    of my thinking in the early days.
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    [Wilmore] Helen Lineweaver,
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    the Washington office. Clifford Earle. Helen Harlan.
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    All of those people were at the center of our church's development of
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    policy and program in the field of race during the fifties. And, I
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    was in part of that group. [Bauer] There was a conference on
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    behalf of emerging African nations at the UN and in Washington
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    and I wrote to the conference. I'm a young pastor
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    from Cincinnati and I am interested, but I ain't got no money. They wrote back and said we got money.
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    Come on. Tremendous impact on me. [Wilmore] They have great conferences
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    in Washington with great breakfasts with congressmen, senators and
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    then moving around the Capitol Hill lobbying for legislation
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    and talking to people. [Bauer] Who was the guy?
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    The pioneer of Black American history. He was at Howard University. His daughter [Hansberry, Lorraine, 1930-1965] wrote, was the playwright that wrote.
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    [Wilmore] Oh Hansberry. Oh Yeah. Leo Hansberry [Hansberry, William Leo].
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    [Bauer] We sat down with him the whole evening. He really blows my mind
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    [Wilmore] Especially. Lorraine's dad.
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    right with that. And Jim Robinson [Robinson, James Herman] too. Remember him, too?
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    He was, he was probably part of that
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    black group that had so much influence on the Assembly.
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    [Bauer] He spoke
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    to at the nineteen forty-
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    seven Grinnell Assembly. And, when I heard that speech, I walked around
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    town for a whole night, and I decided that the only thing I could was go into ministry. [Wilmore] Is that right? [Bauer] That's right. [Wilmore] He was one of
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    the people who helped you make that decision. [Bauer] He pushed me over
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    the. So I've always had a difficult time with my anti-black
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    brothers in the clergy.
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    [Wilmore] Jim Robinson. Marvelous preacher. Any way. At any rate, those were the people
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    who helped the Assembly come to that decision. I don't know what was going
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    on there because I wasn't there, but I understand a lot of politicking went
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    on. They pushed the
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    church into that position, five hundred thousand dollars. Whoo. Of course the help of people like
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    Sissel [Sissel, H. B. [Howard Benjamin] and Earle [Earle, Clifford John],
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    Kenny Neigh [Neigh, Kenneth Glenn, 1908-1998. Director, UPCUSA Program Agency] and Bill Morrison of the Board of Christian Education. The Board of
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    Christian Education was very much at the head of that movement. It couldn't have happened without. [Bauer] Without them.
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    Now you made a comment I want to go back to. I want to just ask you. You said that the Chicago
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    Conference [Chicago Conference on Religion and Race] in essence was in support of what King was doing. Was that? Is that a
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    retrospective comment or was that the way it was as it was happening?
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    [Wilmore] Well I wasn't there, but as I read the record, the
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    history of that period, it's my impression
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    that
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    the leaders of churches and synagogues in
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    America decided that
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    it was high time to come together and close ranks in order
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    to put the religious community on the side of the civil rights movement. That
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    was a national Conference, probably the most inportant conference, they had up to that time.
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    For the purpose, I think
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    at that of supporting Dr. King. [Bauer] Who at that point was there
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    [Wilmore] I guess he attended, made a speech there but I'm sure about that
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    [Bauer] So you packed your bags and went to New York.
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    I was teaching at Pittsburgh seminary,
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    doing, graduate work on my doctorate the same time.
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    I left all of that and
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    came to New York and Metzler
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    Holland
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    and Bob Davidson. Bob was white. I was black.
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    set up the office and began to
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    design a program for
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    the new Council on
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    Church and Race. Religion and Race at that time. Later, it changed its name
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    to Church and Race.
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    Some of the characteristics of that
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    crisis were therefore the pressure
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    from the civil
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    rights movement under the leadership of Dr. King.
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    1963
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    was a very important year here because that
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    was the year of the bombing of
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    the churches of the church, the Baptist
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    church [16th Street Baptist, September 15, 1963] in Birmingham which killed the three girls.
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    That was the year of the March on Washington.
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    That was the year of the Chicago Conference and the Assembly [Des Moines, Iowa] at which
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    we created the Council on Church and Race.
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    So Dr. King's movement had a tremendous
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    effect on the American religious establishment,
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    if we could use that term, in that particular year.
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    That is part of the crisis.
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    So I'm assuming that this
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    crisis initiated outside of the church, pressed
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    the church to do something.
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    The second characteristic of that crisis was
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    the rising new consciousness of the Black
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    consistency
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    of the United Presbyterian Church which had so recently decided to disband
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    its caucus. Now realize that it was a
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    mistake and is beginning to pull itself together again under a new name
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    called Concerned Presbyterians, which was founded in nineteen
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    sixty eight
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    or sixty seven. Became Black Presbyterians United.
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    This group
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    of black clergy, under the leadership then of
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    Edler Hawkins, Robert Pierre Johnson, Bryant George
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    pressed the
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    church at that point with the help of course
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    of white allies like
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    Bill Morrison [Morrison, William A.], others like Kenneth Neigh and others. John Coventry Smith [Gen. Secretary, COEMAR] was there at the start.
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    That was one of the characteristics of that period that there
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    was strong cooperation and agreement
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    about this being the direction the church ought to go to,
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    between Neigh, Morrison and Smith. And, Eugene Carson Blake [Stated Clerk, PCUSA] for that matter.
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    [Bauer] Was Blake in the middle of this or on the side of it?
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    [Wilmore] I think Blake was in the
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    middle of it. As you recall,
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    he was a spokesman for the churches at
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    the March on Washington [March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom [1963: Washington, D.C.]. Presbyterian Church took
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    a giant step, was out in
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    front, and made a strong commitment through that
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    a five hundred thousand
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    dollar
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    allocation and the establishment of
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    COCAR it was called at that time
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    I guess a third
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    factor that was characteristic of that
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    particular crisis and maybe at that
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    particular time was a strong leadership of the National Council
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    of Churches.
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    At that time a United Church of Christ Minister
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    Bob Spike [Spike, Robert W. [Robert Warren]]. [Bauer] Spike, yeah.
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    [Waldron] was in the leadership of the NCC
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    He had taken over from Dr. Austin Lee
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    a black staff person
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    and was giving a strong and
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    more
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    radical leadership to the N.C.C.
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    in the field of race
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    at that particular time. So
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    Bob Spike, I think, was a very key person in these developments.
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    [Bauer] You arrived then
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    on the scene how quickly after
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    the General Assembly? Do you remember? I think it was the summer of nineteen sixty three
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    I was there about July.
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    We had moved from Pittsburgh and settled in
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    Princeton and began our work
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    at 475 Riverside drive.
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    Immediately the United Presbyterian Church moved into the
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    South. By the end of that year we were preparing to set
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    up the Hattiesburg Ministers Project in Hattiesburg, Mississippi [Voter Registration--Mississippi] [Civil rights-Religious aspects]
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    Bob Davidson had a lot to do with that project
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    Not Bob Davidson. What was his name?
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    I' m getting confused. [Bauer] You said Bob Davidson.
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    [Wilmore] Is that who I said the first time?
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    [Bauer] Ya right
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    It wasn't Bob Johnson?
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    The white Bob Johnson. [Wilmore] No. What was his name?
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    It wasn't Bob Davidson. [Bauer] OK.
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    I wondered about that.
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    What's he doing now?
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    Do you know?
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    We'll check on that one. [Wilmore] I know it as well
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    it
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    isn't
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    In any case,
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    He was Edler's [Hawkins, Edler Garnett] friend. Edler was the one who
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    delivered it
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    understand
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    What were we talking about? [Bauer] Hattiesburg. The Hattiesburg Ministers Project.
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    [Wilmore] The Hattiesburg Ministers Project this project which
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    trained and deployed, I think, close to four
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    hundred white Presbyterian ministers and black and many white, of course,
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    in
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    Hattiesburg.
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    Bringing them there for periods from a few days to
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    several
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    weeks. Assign them
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    to walk picket
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    lines and encourage blacks to
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    vote by visiting them in their homes, taking them to the polls,
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    and teaching in the freedom schools. We were working
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    with COFO, Council of Federated Organizations, in
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    Mississippi, which included the
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    N.C.C., SNIC, SCLC, and CORE.
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    We were. We set up our headquarters in a storefront right across the street from their headquarters and worked very close
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    collaboration with these young
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    civil rights people
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    under the leadership
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    in those days of Bob Moses [Moses, Robert Parrish]. I think James Forman was down there during
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    the time, but mainly it was Bob Moses.
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    And, that was really an important
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    program. It was
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    a part of the N.C.C.'s effort in what was called the Mississippi summer.
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    The N.C.C.
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    was supporting these youth organizations. These young civil rights workers
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    and trying to get something moving in Mississippi.
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    And the Hattiesburg Ministers Project project [Voter Registration--Mississippi]
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    was a kind of Presbyterian contribution
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    to that overall effort.
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    And
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    they were doing many other things
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    during that period because
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    the entire staff of the Board of Christian Education
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    Board of National Missions made themselves
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    available to the Council
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    on Church, on Religion and Race [COCAR] during that early period. So
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    that many things were going on that were being
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    coordinated by either the Commission on Religion and Race or by some
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    other agency of the church in consultation with the Commission on Religion and Race.
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    We had was a fairly integrated program in other words
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    during nineteen sixty-three, sixty-four and sixty-five.
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    Well I think that takes care of your first question pretty well. That is more than you wanted to know.
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    [Bauer] No. Oh, no! Not at all,
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    Because in a sense you put out the anatomy
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    of how the thing, how the response came about. How the establishment of CORAR
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    and how it fit with what was going on in the society.
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    Later on this thing was transferred to, became account. It
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    was transferred to the Board of National Missions. What was involved in
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    that?
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    [Wilmore] By George
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    By George and David Ramy thats who it was they were the ones involved in that
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    I think. they Probably the
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    right decision because the Board of National
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    Missions had this network of urban
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    specialists, as you recall, and that made it made no
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    sense for the whole program of church and race not to
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    be connected with what the Board of National Missions was trying to do
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    in the cities through its urban specialists, George Todd [Todd, George E.] and that whole crowd,
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    you know. You were part of all of that.
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    So it made sense for
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    COCAR to be shifted
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    from its administrative relationship
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    to Bill Morrison [Morrison, William A.] on the Board of Christian Education
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    to Kenneth Neigh [Neigh, Kenneth Glenn] and the Board of National Missions. This meant
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    that David Ramage [Ramage, David, Jr.] and Bryant George began to play a very
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    strong role in the work of the
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    Council on Church and Race. And, we began to integrate many of the things that
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    were being done by the Board of National Missions in the
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    urban area with the work of the staff of
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    Church and Race. I guess it was about that time that we decided to change the name
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    from Commission on Religion and Race to the
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    Council on
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    Church and Race.
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    [Bauer] Was there any? Well, there must have been some substantial
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    reason for that?
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    [Wilmore] It was more programatic than anything else.
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    It also suggested philosophically that we were not so
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    much concerned.
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    Well let's put it more this way that we were more concerned about the church as an
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    institution than we were concerned about religion as such
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    in terms of
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    mobilizing Christian resources for dealing with the problem
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    of racism. Religion and Race seem to suggest a more
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    philosophical approach. Church and Race suggest that we were
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    really trying to tie in the power
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    of the institutional church
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    to the movement that Dr. King was leading.
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    [Bauer] You talked about the Hattiesburg project, and. Well.
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    Let me ask you, how long were you in
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    that role then? How long were you? [Wilmore] Nineteen sixty-three
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    to nineteen seventy-
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    two although it's a
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    real.

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