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Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1981.
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- speakerThis Oscar McCloud today is December 23rd
- speaker1981.
- speakerI'm about to interview Gayraud Wilmore
- speakeron his perspectives on the UPC racial justice involvement
- speakerduring the nineteen sixties.
- speakerThis interview is taking place at the Newark airport in Newark,
- speakerNew Jersey.
- speakerGay, I'd like to, at the beginning, express appreciation to you for your willingness
- speakerto have this interview on tape
- speakerfor the Historical Society.
- speakerI wonder if we might begin with your sharing a little bit
- speakerabout your early background when you were born,
- speakerwhere your family, etc.
- speakerAlright, Oscar,
- speakerI might say I'm a little impressed
- speakerand almost overwhelmed
- speakerwith the thought that these words may be listened to by
- speakersomebody at the Historical Society in 25-30 years from now.
- speakerSo it's a very valuable exercise that we are beginning now,
- speakerand I welcome the opportunity to cooperate
- speakerwith you in getting this into the archives.
- speakerWell, my name is Gayraud Wilmore,
- speakerGayraud Stephen Wilmore Jr.
- speakerI was born Philadelphia
- speakeron December the 20th 1921.
- speakerI attended
- speakergrammar school, high school, in Philadelphia,
- speakergraduating from Benjamin Franklin High School after having spent
- speakernearly three and a half years at Central High School,
- speakerwhich was the very fine
- speakersecondary school in the northeast probably comparable
- speakerto Boston Latin, that was one of the few high schools that
- speakerawarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in those days,
- speakerso I got a good education in Central High School.
- speakerAs matter of fact, it was at Central,
- speakerand some of the professors who remained at Ben Franklin rather than
- speakergo to Central after it moved,
- speakerthat I received tremendous inspiration
- speakerand motivation to write to speak
- speakerand I received that from white professors.
- speakerI often think back when it
- speakerwas a white English professor who
- speakermade me realize,
- speakeralthough I was a little black boy from the North Philadelphia ghetto,
- speakerthat I had great potential as a writer
- speakerand would someday perhaps write for a living
- speakerand this man encouraged me to
- speakerparticipate in an essay contest on what Benjamin
- speakerFranklin means to America,
- speakerhas meant to America, and what he means to us today.
- speakerAnd I won first prize in a citywide essay contest.
- speakerThe award was to be at the head of a big parade that
- speakerwent down in front of the art museum
- speakerin downtown Philadelphia
- speakerand from there to the Poor Richard Club which is Benjamin Franklin's own club organized
- speakerand early in the prerevolutionary period
- speakerand have lunch there
- speakerand then receive a full membership to the
- speakerFranklin Institute which was something coveted by
- speakerscientists, philosophers, intellectuals
- speakerin the Philadelphia area and also a four year membership to the planetarium
- speakeror free ticket to enter the planetarium at any time.
- speakerAnd I won all that and I remember my father taking me to the Poor Richard Club.
- speakerI was about a junior in high school
- speakerand they were surprised because they didn't realize that one of their winners was
- speakertheir main winner was a black boy
- speakerand there was little shuffle there a little uneasiness at the Poor Richard Club,
- speakerall these mainline Philadelphians,
- speakercity fathers,
- speakerwere somewhat taken aback.
- speakerWell, I only mention this, I don't want to dwell on it too long,
- speakerI only mention this to say that here
- speakerwas an opening to another world for me that would
- speakernot have occurred had it not been
- speakerencouraged
- speakerand suggested by this man.
- speakerWell, let me go on. I went to Lincoln University on a
- speakerscholarship that was granted by the
- speakerSenate of the state of Pennsylvania.
- speakerOne of the committeemen of the Democratic Party who lived on my block was
- speakerable to get me this political scholarship to Lincoln.
- speakerOtherwise, I would have gone into the Merchant Marine
- speakerand I was just about to leave to go to New York to go into the Merchant Marine.
- speakerWhen this scholarship came through,
- speakerI made a hard decision to go to Lincoln rather
- speakerthan with my friend Devereux Tomlinson who did go to the Merchant Marine
- speakerand whom I had seen since many,
- speakermany years afterward, having an adventure all of his life
- speakerand travelled to exotic ports all over the world,
- speakerbut I went to Lincoln.
- speakerI graduated. Well,
- speakerwhile I was in Lincoln, I was called to the army.
- speakerI joined the enlisted reserve corps to stay out of the Second World War hopefully until
- speakerI graduated. But they called up the enlisted reserve corps
- speakerin March of nineteen forty three,
- speakerand I and young black college men
- speakerfrom Lincoln, from Howard, from Morgan, Cheney,
- speakerall the northeast schools were thrown together in Camp Wallace,
- speakerTexas and then after basic training
- speakerplaced in the 90 Second Infantry Division which was one of the two black combat
- speakerdivisions in the Second World War.
- speakerWe went to Italy, and saw combat
- speakerwith the Fifth Army in 1944-45.
- speakerSo as a sophomore,
- speakerI was jerked out of college
- speakerand went to war.
- speakerIt was in the service,
- speakerin the foxholes actually, in the north Apennines in
- speakercentral Italy that I had what I construed to be an authentic
- speakerreligious experience which called me
- speakerto give my life to Christ as a minister.
- speakerIt was such a real experience to me,
- speakerI had no doubt
- speakerbut that I would keep the commitment I made to Christ
- speakeron that day, that if I should come through this war
- speakerand return home I would finish college,
- speakergo into seminary, and become a minister.
- speakerAnd of course at that time a minister of the Presbyterian Church because just prior
- speakerto my going to college I had become a Presbyterian,
- speakerand my father, Dr. John K.
- speakerRice, some of the other men of our community organized the McDowell
- speakerPresbyterian church and took over a vacant building owned by the Presbytery
- speakerof Philadelphia, 22nd and Columbia Avenue.
- speakerSo you returned to Lincoln after your military experience.
- speakerAfter the military experience I came back to Lincoln,
- speakerfinished college, and went into seminary.
- speakerI was to be when I first brought to Lincoln
- speakerin the class of nineteen forty four
- speakeractually graduated in 1947
- speakerand then finished seminary in 1950.
- speakerThe same commencement that my brother Jack was
- speakerthe first person in his class and the undergraduate class,
- speakerI was number one in the seminary class.
- speakerWe were both the main speakers, two Wilmore boys,
- speakerat the commencement of Lincoln in 1950.
- speakerWere both of your parents living? Yes, both of our parents were living and were there.
- speakerOf course,
- speakerI also had a wife
- speakerand child by that time because my son was born in 1945
- speakerwhile I was overseas. I had married Lee Wilson,
- speakera childhood friend
- speakerin the same year that I went into service.
- speakerAs a matter of fact,
- speakerwhen I was getting ready to go overseas,
- speakerI hoped that she would have a child by me because
- speakerI did not know that I was going to come back.
- speakerAnd I said to her that this way I'll always be
- speakerwith you, or at least will be with you through our child.
- speakerAnd so I we she deliberately became pregnant
- speakerwith some misgiving, I might say, in Tucson,
- speakerArizona as I left to go overseas.
- speakerI was able by secret message to get her to
- speakercome to Norfolk just before getting on the boat
- speakerand she came. We met secretly because nobody was supposed
- speakerto know that this troop ship was leaving.
- speakerNone of us were supposed to get in touch
- speakerwith family but I did. And she met me
- speakerand we had a few hours together,
- speakerI think three hours together in Norfolk and I remember getting on the bus,
- speakera segregated bus, in Norfolk going back to the base to get on the boat the next day that leaves for Italy.
- speakerI remember Lee standing at the back of that bus looking up at the window tears falling
- speakerfrom her eyes and saying say this is what you're going overseas to fight for.
- speakerShe was carrying our baby then.
- speakerThat was a very vivid moment for me,
- speakera picture that I kept in my mind throughout my experiences in the war.
- speakerThat was more vivid for you than the experience at the Little Richard's Club,
- speakerat the Poor Richard's Club.
- speakerI don't think I really understood what was going on at the Poor Richard's Club.
- speakerI knew what was going on when I got on that Greyhound bus.
- speakerThe Poor Richard's Club I was more overawed than anything else
- speakerits importance came as an afterthought as I thought back on that experience.
- speakerWow. You know it was me. I was there at the time I think I was more
- speakeroverawed and frightened by all of this attention
- speakerthat came to me as a result of having won that essay contest. Gay,
- speakerwhat did you do after finishing seminary?
- speakerMy last two years in seminary, I was
- speakergoing from Lincoln to York,
- speakerPennsylvania every week in a rickety old car
- speakergoing over there on Thursday night
- speakeror Friday morning and spending the weekend there.
- speakerSo I serve sort of as a student supplied pastor at the
- speakerFaith Presbyterian Church at York, in York, for two years hoping really that I might be
- speakercalled as pastor there.
- speakerBut by the time I was ready to graduate in June
- speakerof 1950 the Second Presbyterian Church of West Chester,
- speakerPennsylvania issued a call that was more
- speakerattractive to me than the one in York.
- speakerAnd I accepted that call, and reported almost immediately to West Chester as
- speakertheir new pastor. I was ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia
- speakerand installed as a pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in West Chester.
- speakerLet me just say one thing about the West Chester experience.
- speakerIt was the beginning of my radicalization in some ways because the
- speakerthing that impressed me most about West Chester when I got there
- speakerwas that my son would have to go to a segregated school.
- speakerWhen a perfectly good grammar school was practically
- speakeraround the corner from the manse.
- speakerBut all black children in West Chester went to kindergarten
- speakerand first grade at the Gay Street School.
- speakerThis was West Chester, Pennsylvania? Pennsylvannia in 1950.
- speakerAmazing. Segregated school system there
- speakerand I broke that school system, Steve
- speakerand I broke that school system's pattern of segregation because he was the first
- speakerblack student to be entered into the High Street School
- speakerand with a movement of parents,
- speakerchurch people, and others standing behind him.
- speakerAnd he caught hell from those white teachers
- speakerand white students, as small as they were,
- speakerin that first year.
- speakerWhich is to say that I immediately got involved in trying
- speakerand shaping my pastorate around doing something about the segregated school system
- speakerin West Chester.
- speakerAnd I think paid less attention to the church than I might have although the church
- speakerwas growing and I was enjoying my ministry
- speakerand doing some counseling. I was working on a Masters of Sacred Theology at the time
- speakerat Temple University School of Theology.
- speakerBut the major thrust of my ministry was a social action thrust
- speakerand the pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church were very
- speakerunhappy about it and said that I was a communist
- speakerand spread the word throughout West Chester throughout the Presbytery of Donegal,
- speakerof which I was a member at that time,
- speakerthat I was a troublemaker and a communist.
- speakerWhat had made you communist: West Chester
- speakeror your period of service in the military?
- speakerHe felt that I was a communist because I had dared
- speakerto take up cudgels against this deeply rooted,
- speakersegregated school system
- speakerand was radical enough to condemn the city
- speakerand city fathers and the churches for permitting it to exist.
- speakerSo it was during the time when it was easy to tag people
- speakerwith the label communist if they did anything unorthodox.
- speakerDid that have any negative impact upon your ministry there
- speakeror later?
- speakerIt had a positive impact more than anything else I think.
- speakerBut now that you mention the communist thing,
- speakerI don't know whether he did any digging around in my past because I had been a member
- speakerof the Young Communist League at Lincoln before going to the service.
- speakerAnd I think maybe after returning for those last two years
- speakerI was involved
- speakerwith Milton Henry and some others in the young communist league.
- speakerAs a matter of fact I represented Lincoln at some of the regional meetings in New York City
- speakerwhen the Communist Party was enticing
- speakeryoung black intellectuals by plying them
- speakerwith very good looking Jewish girls at parties at the
- speakerDaily World in Lower Manhattan.
- speakerAnd these college boys from Lincoln
- speakerand Howard and Cheney were introduced for the first time to interracial
- speakerdating in the context of the communist party
- speakerthereby opening their minds to the possibilities in an integrated
- speakersociety under Marxist domination.
- speakerBut he may have checked some of that out to tell you the truth.
- speakerBut he did and I cannot get it out of my mind.
- speakerHe did pass the word in West Chester
- speakerand in Donegal Presbytery that this new pastor at Second Church was
- speakera communist, a dangerous person,
- speakerand we ought to try to get him out of there. How long were you at West Chester?
- speakerNot long, Oscar, because I recall that
- speakerI was making a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
- speakerBy that time, I had two children, I was living in the manse,
- speakerbut making such a small salary that I was not able to adequately take care
- speakerof my family.
- speakerSo I think I was only there three years.
- speakerMy third year I sold my car at an auction in Lancaster in order
- speakerto buy groceries for that week.
- speakerHitchhiked back from Lancaster Pennsylvania to West Chester
- speakerwith my auction money
- speakerand bought groceries. And on that day I decided the Lord
- speakerwanted me to work somewhere else
- speakerand he did because Frank Wilson called me out on that very day,
- speakerwhen I returned from Lancaster, and said, "Gay I don't think that you
- speakerhave a chance
- speakerbut I know about position that's open in the Middle Atlantic Student Christian
- speakermovement as regional secretary.
- speakerAnd I am a member of the personnel committee.
- speakerIf you would like me to put your name in I can,
- speakerbut I doubt very much whether you have a chance because I think they've already settled on somebody.
- speakerBut if you want to you can come down to Howard
- speakerand be interviewed by the student personnel committee,
- speakerpersonnel committee made up mainly of students." So yeah,
- speakerI went down there
- speakerand I got the job so
- speakerI asked the Presbytery to separate me from the church.
- speakerAnd they did and took up office at 34,
- speaker32, or four I forget that address.
- speaker36! 3600 Locust Street
- speakerat the University of Pennsylvania Christian Association building
- speakerwhich at that time housed the offices of the Mid-Atlantic Student Christian Movement.
- speakerAnd this was to bring you in direct contact
- speakerwith students in the mid 50s, then? Right, and that was a wonderful
- speakerexperience and really had a lot to do
- speakerwith shaping my theological acumen,
- speakergiving me some substance to my ministry because
- speakerin those days the World Student Christian Federation
- speakerwas a major intellectual
- speakergoad for young Christians.
- speakerIt prepared tremendously
- speakersignificant Bible studies, and theological documents had
- speakerimportant international conferences.
- speakerAnd the World Student Christian Federation's major affiliates in the United States
- speakerwere not the denominational student movements like Westminster Foundation
- speakeror the Wesley Foundation
- speakerbut the Mid-Atlantic SCM, the New York SCM,
- speakerand the New England SCM.
- speakerSo that I had close contact, then,
- speakerwith international people like Hans-Ruedi Weber.
- speakerOh, I can't think of all those who came to some of the people I've heard you mention.
- speakerOh, D.T. Niles, M.M. Thomas,
- speakerall those people came into my orbit through
- speakerthe regional conferences programmes
- speakerand through the literature that we use in the Mid-Atlantic SCM.
- speakerMy job was to travel among the colleges
- speakerand universities of five states and the District of Columbia organizing
- speakerstudent Christian associations and acting as a resource person to those associations.
- speakerAnd so I was at some of the finest colleges in the Mid-Atlantic region
- speakerand I had an opportunity there for to be challenged
- speakerby bright young people
- speakerand forced therefore to go back to my books to continue
- speakermy education in a way that has made a marvelous
- speakercontribution to my development. This was the beginning of your ecumenical involvement.
- speakerYes. How long were you to continue... And theological involvement.
- speakerHow long were you in this position?
- speakerWell let's see, yes I was I guess at least five years
- speakerbecause I went from there to the Board of Christian
- speakerEducation Department of Social Education
- speakerand Action
- speakerand if I had my old watch that Maggie Kuhn and Ben Sissel gave me,
- speakerI could tell you exactly because they had the date on the back when I started,
- speakerbut I don't have it anymore.
- speakerI can't remember I think I was with Mid-Atlantic SCM about five.
- speakerThat would have taken you through the period of the mid 50s
- speakerwhen a whole different thing was beginning to happen in this country.
- speakerThe Supreme Court's decision of 1954.
- speakerThe Montgomery Bus Boycott,
- speaker1955.
- speakerLittle Rock Arkansas, I think in 1957.
- speakerWhat, what kind of impact were these events to
- speakerhave upon your future involvement?
- speakerYou worked with students and from there to the Board of Christian education.
- speakerAbsolutely crucial, of course, for me.
- speakerI remember the 1954 Supreme Court decision came out
- speakeron May 17,
- speaker1954 when I was commuting from Tanguy,
- speakeran interracial cooperative community,
- speakeran intentional community, near West Chester to Philadelphia,
- speakerevery morning. And I remember coming back on
- speakerthe train, the commuter train that I took
- speakerwith Bob James who was one of my colleagues on the staff.
- speakerI remember reading the headlines on the evening paper Supreme Court
- speakerdecision on Brown vs.
- speakerBoard of Education
- speakerand watching the faces of my fellow
- speakerpassengers who were shocked to realize that a whole
- speakernew era of race relations was being
- speakerushered in by this historic decision
- speakerand chuckling in myself, inside of myself,
- speakerwith glee to be, to have made,
- speakerto be a part of the witnessing such discomfort
- speakeron the part of the people I presumed to be racist.
- speakerYou know, in that Coach on our way back
- speakerto West Chester from Philadelphia.
- speakerWell this is to say that it made a tremendous impact on me
- speakerand upon everybody that I had anything
- speakerto do with during that period,
- speakerand I knew then that ministry would be greatly affected
- speakerby what was to happen
- speakerin the era, in the field of desegregation.
- speakerWhen I went to work for the Board of Christian Education I worked mainly in the field of industrial
- speakerrelations. Ben Sissel was supposed to be handling race relations.
- speakerHe was doing that before I came.
- speakerSo when I came in and there was some question about whether I was now going to take over race relations
- speakeror whether Ben Sissel was going to continue to do it.
- speakerAnd of course I think Ben was very, a little bit sensitive about that.
- speakerBut he handled it beautifully by our becoming fast friends.
- speakerHe initiated that friendship.
- speakerHe really became my best friend during that period.
- speakerI didn't know any friend who was as close as we were
- speakerduring that period. Since that time we've separated,
- speakerand I think some things happened to him, too.
- speakerI think he did a flip from a very strong liberal
- speakerposition to whatever his position is now.
- speakerBut in any case during that period I was not supposed to be dealing
- speakerwith race relations but with industrial relations,
- speakereconomics
- speakerand bandwidth handling rates.
- speakerBut of course, I did get involved in developing pronouncements
- speakerin the field of race relations leading study groups
- speakerand consultations dealing with
- speakerthe United Presbyterian position.
- speakerHow long were you to work for the Board of Christian Education in that function?
- speakerOscar, I get these years mixed up I would really have to go back.
- speakerYou can check the record on this. I think I worked for
- speakerthe Board of Christian Education for about four years in that capacity.
- speakerIn any case, you know Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
- speakerinvited me to come to teach social ethics
- speakerthere after giving me some time
- speakerto work on a doctorate.
- speakerThey assumed that I could complete my doctorate in one year because I had the SDM
- speakerand if I had manipulated it some way I perhaps could have.
- speakerBut they were wrong. They gave me full salary,
- speakerpartial salary and turned me loose
- speakerand I left the Board Christian of Education then in nineteen sixty.
- speakerAnd went to Drew Theological Seminary as a doctoral student
- speakerand I finished my languages there, my French
- speakerand German and most of my residence.
- speakerBut the next year I transferred my residence to Temple
- speakerand then completed residence for the doctorate
- speakerand began to write or did write Secular Relevance of the Church which I
- speakeralways believe was the reason I never did my dissertation because instead
- speakerof doing the dissertation I wrote Secular Relevance of the Church
- speakerand edited 12 books for Westminster Press on Christian perspectives
- speakeron social issues. In any case,
- speakerin 1961 I
- speakerreported,
- speakerin the fall of '61, I reported to Pittsburgh Seminary to teach
- speakerand then commuted back every week either by plane
- speakeror a Greyhound bus to Temple where I completed my residence
- speakerwhich is amazing when I stopped to think of it, but the school gave me,
- speakerdid the school give me money for that? I guess I was,
- speakerno I took that money out of my own pocket for it.
- speakerBut it was possible to do it.
- speakerBut that was a long commute because my mother lived in Philadelphia so I had a place to stay.
- speakerI got all my meals, so that helped.
- speakerWere you able to maintain your
- speakersocial concern involvements when you arrived
- speakerat Pittsburgh Seminary carrying this teaching
- speakerand graduate study?
- speakerNo, I was so much involved in trying to get my coursework
- speakerat Temple completed, and
- speakerbreaking in as a new teacher that I did not get involved
- speakerin social action causes in the
- speakerPittsburgh area except the Homewood Brushton Redevelopment Authority which
- speakerLee and I got involved and Lee did more in that than I did which
- speakerwas really community organization.
- speakerAt the same time Leroy Patrick was involved in a number of things
- speakerin the Presbytery and we attended his church.
- speakerSo I was participating vicariously in
- speakerLeroy Patrick's ministry.
- speakerAlso I had known all of the people in the Presbytery from my social education
- speakerand action years. I knew the social activist there Marguerite,
- speakerMarguerite Kofer.
- speakerHofer? Hofer! Yes,
- speakerwas one of the people I knew very well
- speakerand so I was on the edge of things
- speakerbut I had to concentrate on my studies so I could not get
- speakerinvolved actively in anything during that period.
- speakerSo in the period of early 60s, up til '63,
- speakeryou were for the most part... a student?
- speakerA student and a teacher. Preparing to become a professor.
- speakerYes, I had put the social activism of the Board of Christian Education years
- speakeron the back shelf so to speak
- speakerand had really started out in the direction of a scholarly
- speakercareer. So one might say that you were Pittsburgh minding your own business
- speakerin 1963 when the United Presbyterian Church created something
- speakercalled the Commission on Religion Race.
- speakerMinding my own business, yes, but I do think that Edler
- speakerand Bryant and other northern black ministers in the Church knew...
- speakerThis is Edler Hawkins? Edler Hawkins.
- speakerAnd Bryant George? Bryant George.
- speakerBob Johnson.
- speakerLeroy Patrick.
- speakerThose men knew of my commitment to racial justice
- speakerand my commitment to them because I had attended meetings of the Presbyterian Council
- speakerof the North and West, and had already identified myself
- speakerwith the movement of unrest within the black
- speakerministry of the North that was on the verge of doing something
- speakerto open the church up to a stronger
- speakercommitment to racial justice.
- speakerSo when they came to me in the classroom as they
- speakerdid to ask me to come to New York they weren't coming to somebody they didn't
- speakerknow or somebody they thought was so much of an egghead
- speakerthat he probably wouldn't work out well,
- speakerthey were coming to somebody who
- speakerwith whom they had been acquainted previously. Who approached you initially about taking
- speakerthat position?
- speakerI think it was Edler.
- speakerI think it was Edler
- speakerand I'm trying to think whether he actually came to Pittsburgh
- speakeror whether it was by correspondence
- speakerand telephone calls. But I know that he challenged me
- speakerto leave the classroom.
- speakerI said, "Edler, I'm on the verge of writing a dissertation.
- speakerI'm getting ready to finish up my doctoral program." And he said,
- speaker"You can go back to all that.
- speakerWe need you now to organize this program which the Des Moines Assembly has authorized.
- speakerWe want you to come to New York and do it." You didn't,
- speakeryou didn't have much time to decide because the Assembly had made its decision in
- speakerMay and by August you were on the job.
- speakerI didn't have I think I must have made that decision in about 48 hours
- speakerand packed up and started.
- speakerI think I took Lee by surprise
- speakerand I don't think she was altogether ready for that move.
- speakerI think she thought it was too precipitous.
- speakerBut I was raring to go anyway because all hell had broken out,
- speakerseemed to me that world of scholarship was crumbling around my ears anyway
- speakerand the face of the earthquake that was going on
- speakerin American society over race.
- speakerSo I was ready to leave the classroom
- speakerbut had every anticipation of coming back
- speakerto it after two years.
- speakerThe president of the Seminary agreed to release me for two years only,
- speakerbut of course in two years, we were right in the midst of it
- speakerand I couldn't go, couldn't come back.
- speakerYou were not at the Des Moines assembly in 1963?
- speakerNo.
- speakerYou must've heard many times over this the different
- speakerversions as to how the Commission on Religion
- speakerand Race came into existence.
- speakerIs there one that you prefer over others?
- speakerTo tell you the truth, Oscar, I don't really know that I have ever understood
- speakercompletely how it came into existence.
- speakerI was not a party to the
- speakerpoliticking that went on within a small black group
- speakerthat brought it about so I
- speakerreally don't know. I do recall that our church
- speakerwas the first church to take seriously the challenge that had been
- speakerlaid down by the National Council of Churches
- speakerand the organization of its commission.
- speakerAs a matter of fact, we may have beat the NCC in getting a commission launched
- speakerwith full budget and staff.
- speakerI remember a lot of talk about the necessity of our getting on
- speakerthe field immediately. There was a great note of urgency of that.
- speakerBut what actually took place at the Assembly to lead to this, I'm not privy to.
- speakerYou must there must you must have walked into some of these politics though
- speakerwhen you came to the commission in the summer of 1963.
- speakerHere was a new entity with a unique
- speakermandate able to act on behalf of the
- speakerdenomination in this whole area, with
- speakera budget,
- speakersmall looking back now,
- speakerbut significant given the way in which it was created.
- speakerDo you remember some of the dynamics in those early days?
- speakerYes, I remember. I remember that you're absolutely right.
- speakerIt was a political question.
- speakerThere was tension between Ken Neigh and Bill Morrison over
- speakerthis entity which had been lodged in the Board of Christian Education
- speakerrather than the Board of National Missions.
- speakerAnd that was the crux of the problem for it was in the Board of National Missions
- speakerthat many people felt the whole race emphasis belonged
- speakerbecause it was assumed that no one was more expert
- speakerin the field of desegregation and race relations than the urban
- speakeroriented staff of the board of national missions both those
- speakerin headquarters and those on the field.
- speakerAnd here comes along these egg heads so to speak who write curriculum material
- speakerwho are Christian educators for the most part now claiming
- speakerthat an activist agency of the church belongs
- speakerwith them rather than with national missions.
- speakerSo I I remember that Bill
- speakerand Ken were across the table from one another
- speakerand all the meetings of the early board
- speakerthat governed our, like the commission itself,
- speakerCommission on Religion and Race.
- speakerWhere did Gene Blake and John Coventry Smith standing on all of that?
- speakerJohn was on the edge of that little debacle
- speakernever really intruding
- speakerbut looking on
- speakerwith great interests not supporting either side,
- speakerbut I thought, waiting for an opportunity to make
- speakerCOEMAR's contribution to it which he did in a very strategic way.
- speakerHe brought missionaries into a whole new thrust
- speakerof involvement on the field
- speakerand many of them, as you know,
- speakerwere involved with us in marches, rallies,
- speakerand so forth. And the Stated Clerk?
- speakerThe Stated Clerk...
- speakerI think Gene made
- speakerit clear to both the Board of National Missions
- speakerand the Board of Christian Education that this
- speakernew agency
- speakerwas related to the office of the General Assembly as well.
- speakerBy virtue of the fact that it was a commission of the General Assembly.
- speakerYes. Yes
- speakerand that he
- speakerneeded to be involved in decisions that were to be
- speakermade. I cannot exaggerate I guess
- speakerthe fact that all four of these men Smith,
- speakerMorrison, Neigh,
- speakerand Blake were involved in almost every
- speakerpolicy making meeting committee
- speakeror commission subgroup that
- speakerwas making a decision about the posture
- speakerand strategy of our church.
- speakerDo you interpret this that their involvement
- speakeras being because they took the issue serious
- speakeror were they nervous about what this new group may do
- speakeror were they also there to protect their own interests?
- speakerThat's very perceptive perceptive.
- speakerAll three of those.
- speakerI think first of all they were serious
- speakerand I think they were seriously committed to seeing the United Presbyterian Church
- speakervindicate itself as a major liberal American
- speakerdenomination that ought to be committed to racial justice.
- speakerBut they were also nervous about what this new
- speakerblack executive with this unusual power
- speakerand what those new black commission members whose names
- speakerthey did not know before,
- speakerhad no experience with, would do
- speakerwith this new agency with its five hundred thousand dollar commitment,
- speakerunprecedented for a social action agency of our church.
- speakerAnd so I had the feeling from time to time of a certain amount
- speakerof paternalistic oversight
- speakerI think they were also interested in protecting the interests of their own
- speakeragencies.
- speakerI've mentioned the tension between national issues in Christian education
- speakerand that school.
- speakerInterestingly enough the tension got played out
- speakerin terms of staff people between Clifford Earle,
- speakerMaggie Kuhn, Ben Sissel,
- speakerthe social education and action bureaucracy of Christian education,
- speakerand Bryant George, David Ramage,
- speakerand George Todd, the urban church bureaucracy of the Board
- speakerNational Missions,
- speakerso that there was among those people that
- speakerthere was jockeying for influence on this nuke.
- speakerThis commission has the potential to upset a lot of
- speakerthe previous applecarts in terms of the urban ministries
- speakerpiece from the National Missions and the social education
- speakerand action piece from the Board of Christian Education because this is the first time now
- speakerthat there was an entity
- speakerwith a clearly stated mandate of the Assembly to be the focal point of racial
- speakerjustice concerns. Right, and that's, yeah, that was the that was the phrase,
- speaker"focal point." Do you remember
- speakerany points at which this tension between National Missions
- speakerand Christian education got in the way of the commission doing its work?
- speakerNo, I don't really think so because for one good reason because
- speakerthe blacks on that commission under the leadership of Edler Hawkins
- speakerwere always able to develop a
- speakerleadership role which transcended the bureaucratic
- speakerinterests of the boards
- speakerand agencies that were involved.
- speakerIn other words we made our decisions on other grounds not what
- speakerwas good for national missions or Christian education
- speakeror even for the United Presbyterian Church,
- speakerbut what we thought ought to be done for black folks
- speakerand what our church ought to be doing for black folks.
- speakerAnd because of that I was never aware of any
- speakerreal obstacles to the exercise of power.
- speakerWhatever we wanted to do, Edler worked it out so it could be done.
- speakerAnd somehow or another got the approbation of the people who
- speakercould have stopped it if they wanted to.
- speakerYou haven't mentioned another name
- speakeror person,
- speakerMarshall Scott who was your first chairman of the commission.
- speakerWhat what kind of role did he play in those early years?
- speakerHe leaned to the national issues group of course because he had been one
- speakerof their people.
- speakerHis institute was funded by the Board of National
- speakerMissions, I believe.
- speakerSo that he tried to steer the commission in
- speakerthe direction of a kind of adjunct mechanism
- speakerto what the Board of National Missions already had on the urban scene.
- speakerBut he never could quite bring that off because I was not an urban
- speakerspecialist. I didn't come out of that mold,
- speakerI came out of the more shall I say
- speakerconceptually oriented Christian education mold,
- speakerof pronouncement,
- speakerdevelopment, the development of strategies within
- speakerthe judicatory structures rather than on the edge of them as the urban churchmen
- speakertended to work so that
- speakerhe could not although we were close friends
- speakerand worked very well together I felt that Marshall never
- speakersort of never thought of me as one of his boys so to speak.
- speakerHe had a lot of boys around the church.
- speakerI was not a McCormick graduate.
- speakerI had gone to the, his institute
- speakerin Lower Manhattan for one summer,
- speakerso I had come through that. What did they call that?
- speakerLabor Temple? Labor industrial relations.
- speakerYeah I was a graduate of that.
- speakerThe fact that you had had this contact and service
- speakerwith the Board of Christian Education,
- speakerdid that get in the way of your relationships
- speakeror relating to the National Missions (unintelligible)? Yes.
- speakerBecause I think they all felt that I was loyal
- speakerto the Board of Christian Education staff that I was Bill Morrison's boy rather than Ken Neigh's
- speakerboy so to speak.
- speakerAnd they always held me a little bit at arm's
- speakerlength because of that.
- speakerBut the pressure of the times the urgency of the
- speakermandated seemed I must say to
- speakertake precedence over
- speakerpicayune political controversies.
- speakerThere is a sense in which the whole,
- speakerthe external, the societal activity
- speakerand pressure that occasioned
- speakerthe very establishment of that commission also became your primary
- speakerprodder once you were organized.
- speakerWe were carried along by the wave of the events themselves.
- speakerEvery newspaper headline was almost
- speakera factor for making a new decision
- speakeror a new movement or action within the structure of the commission.
- speakerThis 1963 was a rather crucial year
- speakerand so