Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1981.

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    This Oscar McCloud today is December 23rd
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    1981.
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    I'm about to interview Gayraud Wilmore
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    on his perspectives on the UPC racial justice involvement
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    during the nineteen sixties.
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    This interview is taking place at the Newark airport in Newark,
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    New Jersey.
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    Gay, I'd like to, at the beginning, express appreciation to you for your willingness
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    to have this interview on tape
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    for the Historical Society.
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    I wonder if we might begin with your sharing a little bit
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    about your early background when you were born,
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    where your family, etc.
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    Alright, Oscar,
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    I might say I'm a little impressed
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    and almost overwhelmed
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    with the thought that these words may be listened to by
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    somebody at the Historical Society in 25-30 years from now.
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    So it's a very valuable exercise that we are beginning now,
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    and I welcome the opportunity to cooperate
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    with you in getting this into the archives.
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    Well, my name is Gayraud Wilmore,
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    Gayraud Stephen Wilmore Jr.
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    I was born Philadelphia
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    on December the 20th 1921.
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    I attended
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    grammar school, high school, in Philadelphia,
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    graduating from Benjamin Franklin High School after having spent
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    nearly three and a half years at Central High School,
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    which was the very fine
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    secondary school in the northeast probably comparable
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    to Boston Latin, that was one of the few high schools that
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    awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in those days,
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    so I got a good education in Central High School.
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    As matter of fact, it was at Central,
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    and some of the professors who remained at Ben Franklin rather than
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    go to Central after it moved,
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    that I received tremendous inspiration
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    and motivation to write to speak
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    and I received that from white professors.
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    I often think back when it
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    was a white English professor who
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    made me realize,
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    although I was a little black boy from the North Philadelphia ghetto,
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    that I had great potential as a writer
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    and would someday perhaps write for a living
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    and this man encouraged me to
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    participate in an essay contest on what Benjamin
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    Franklin means to America,
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    has meant to America, and what he means to us today.
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    And I won first prize in a citywide essay contest.
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    The award was to be at the head of a big parade that
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    went down in front of the art museum
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    in downtown Philadelphia
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    and from there to the Poor Richard Club which is Benjamin Franklin's own club organized
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    and early in the prerevolutionary period
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    and have lunch there
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    and then receive a full membership to the
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    Franklin Institute which was something coveted by
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    scientists, philosophers, intellectuals
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    in the Philadelphia area and also a four year membership to the planetarium
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    or free ticket to enter the planetarium at any time.
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    And I won all that and I remember my father taking me to the Poor Richard Club.
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    I was about a junior in high school
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    and they were surprised because they didn't realize that one of their winners was
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    their main winner was a black boy
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    and there was little shuffle there a little uneasiness at the Poor Richard Club,
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    all these mainline Philadelphians,
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    city fathers,
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    were somewhat taken aback.
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    Well, I only mention this, I don't want to dwell on it too long,
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    I only mention this to say that here
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    was an opening to another world for me that would
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    not have occurred had it not been
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    encouraged
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    and suggested by this man.
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    Well, let me go on. I went to Lincoln University on a
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    scholarship that was granted by the
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    Senate of the state of Pennsylvania.
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    One of the committeemen of the Democratic Party who lived on my block was
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    able to get me this political scholarship to Lincoln.
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    Otherwise, I would have gone into the Merchant Marine
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    and I was just about to leave to go to New York to go into the Merchant Marine.
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    When this scholarship came through,
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    I made a hard decision to go to Lincoln rather
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    than with my friend Devereux Tomlinson who did go to the Merchant Marine
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    and whom I had seen since many,
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    many years afterward, having an adventure all of his life
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    and travelled to exotic ports all over the world,
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    but I went to Lincoln.
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    I graduated. Well,
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    while I was in Lincoln, I was called to the army.
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    I joined the enlisted reserve corps to stay out of the Second World War hopefully until
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    I graduated. But they called up the enlisted reserve corps
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    in March of nineteen forty three,
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    and I and young black college men
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    from Lincoln, from Howard, from Morgan, Cheney,
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    all the northeast schools were thrown together in Camp Wallace,
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    Texas and then after basic training
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    placed in the 90 Second Infantry Division which was one of the two black combat
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    divisions in the Second World War.
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    We went to Italy, and saw combat
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    with the Fifth Army in 1944-45.
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    So as a sophomore,
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    I was jerked out of college
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    and went to war.
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    It was in the service,
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    in the foxholes actually, in the north Apennines in
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    central Italy that I had what I construed to be an authentic
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    religious experience which called me
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    to give my life to Christ as a minister.
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    It was such a real experience to me,
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    I had no doubt
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    but that I would keep the commitment I made to Christ
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    on that day, that if I should come through this war
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    and return home I would finish college,
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    go into seminary, and become a minister.
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    And of course at that time a minister of the Presbyterian Church because just prior
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    to my going to college I had become a Presbyterian,
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    and my father, Dr. John K.
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    Rice, some of the other men of our community organized the McDowell
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    Presbyterian church and took over a vacant building owned by the Presbytery
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    of Philadelphia, 22nd and Columbia Avenue.
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    So you returned to Lincoln after your military experience.
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    After the military experience I came back to Lincoln,
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    finished college, and went into seminary.
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    I was to be when I first brought to Lincoln
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    in the class of nineteen forty four
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    actually graduated in 1947
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    and then finished seminary in 1950.
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    The same commencement that my brother Jack was
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    the first person in his class and the undergraduate class,
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    I was number one in the seminary class.
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    We were both the main speakers, two Wilmore boys,
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    at the commencement of Lincoln in 1950.
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    Were both of your parents living? Yes, both of our parents were living and were there.
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    Of course,
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    I also had a wife
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    and child by that time because my son was born in 1945
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    while I was overseas. I had married Lee Wilson,
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    a childhood friend
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    in the same year that I went into service.
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    As a matter of fact,
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    when I was getting ready to go overseas,
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    I hoped that she would have a child by me because
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    I did not know that I was going to come back.
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    And I said to her that this way I'll always be
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    with you, or at least will be with you through our child.
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    And so I we she deliberately became pregnant
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    with some misgiving, I might say, in Tucson,
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    Arizona as I left to go overseas.
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    I was able by secret message to get her to
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    come to Norfolk just before getting on the boat
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    and she came. We met secretly because nobody was supposed
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    to know that this troop ship was leaving.
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    None of us were supposed to get in touch
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    with family but I did. And she met me
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    and we had a few hours together,
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    I think three hours together in Norfolk and I remember getting on the bus,
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    a segregated bus, in Norfolk going back to the base to get on the boat the next day that leaves for Italy.
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    I remember Lee standing at the back of that bus looking up at the window tears falling
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    from her eyes and saying say this is what you're going overseas to fight for.
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    She was carrying our baby then.
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    That was a very vivid moment for me,
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    a picture that I kept in my mind throughout my experiences in the war.
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    That was more vivid for you than the experience at the Little Richard's Club,
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    at the Poor Richard's Club.
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    I don't think I really understood what was going on at the Poor Richard's Club.
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    I knew what was going on when I got on that Greyhound bus.
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    The Poor Richard's Club I was more overawed than anything else
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    its importance came as an afterthought as I thought back on that experience.
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    Wow. You know it was me. I was there at the time I think I was more
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    overawed and frightened by all of this attention
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    that came to me as a result of having won that essay contest. Gay,
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    what did you do after finishing seminary?
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    My last two years in seminary, I was
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    going from Lincoln to York,
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    Pennsylvania every week in a rickety old car
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    going over there on Thursday night
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    or Friday morning and spending the weekend there.
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    So I serve sort of as a student supplied pastor at the
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    Faith Presbyterian Church at York, in York, for two years hoping really that I might be
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    called as pastor there.
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    But by the time I was ready to graduate in June
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    of 1950 the Second Presbyterian Church of West Chester,
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    Pennsylvania issued a call that was more
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    attractive to me than the one in York.
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    And I accepted that call, and reported almost immediately to West Chester as
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    their new pastor. I was ordained by the Presbytery of Philadelphia
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    and installed as a pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in West Chester.
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    Let me just say one thing about the West Chester experience.
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    It was the beginning of my radicalization in some ways because the
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    thing that impressed me most about West Chester when I got there
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    was that my son would have to go to a segregated school.
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    When a perfectly good grammar school was practically
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    around the corner from the manse.
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    But all black children in West Chester went to kindergarten
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    and first grade at the Gay Street School.
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    This was West Chester, Pennsylvania? Pennsylvannia in 1950.
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    Amazing. Segregated school system there
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    and I broke that school system, Steve
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    and I broke that school system's pattern of segregation because he was the first
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    black student to be entered into the High Street School
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    and with a movement of parents,
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    church people, and others standing behind him.
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    And he caught hell from those white teachers
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    and white students, as small as they were,
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    in that first year.
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    Which is to say that I immediately got involved in trying
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    and shaping my pastorate around doing something about the segregated school system
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    in West Chester.
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    And I think paid less attention to the church than I might have although the church
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    was growing and I was enjoying my ministry
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    and doing some counseling. I was working on a Masters of Sacred Theology at the time
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    at Temple University School of Theology.
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    But the major thrust of my ministry was a social action thrust
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    and the pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church were very
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    unhappy about it and said that I was a communist
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    and spread the word throughout West Chester throughout the Presbytery of Donegal,
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    of which I was a member at that time,
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    that I was a troublemaker and a communist.
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    What had made you communist: West Chester
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    or your period of service in the military?
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    He felt that I was a communist because I had dared
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    to take up cudgels against this deeply rooted,
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    segregated school system
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    and was radical enough to condemn the city
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    and city fathers and the churches for permitting it to exist.
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    So it was during the time when it was easy to tag people
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    with the label communist if they did anything unorthodox.
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    Did that have any negative impact upon your ministry there
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    or later?
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    It had a positive impact more than anything else I think.
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    But now that you mention the communist thing,
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    I don't know whether he did any digging around in my past because I had been a member
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    of the Young Communist League at Lincoln before going to the service.
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    And I think maybe after returning for those last two years
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    I was involved
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    with Milton Henry and some others in the young communist league.
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    As a matter of fact I represented Lincoln at some of the regional meetings in New York City
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    when the Communist Party was enticing
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    young black intellectuals by plying them
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    with very good looking Jewish girls at parties at the
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    Daily World in Lower Manhattan.
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    And these college boys from Lincoln
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    and Howard and Cheney were introduced for the first time to interracial
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    dating in the context of the communist party
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    thereby opening their minds to the possibilities in an integrated
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    society under Marxist domination.
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    But he may have checked some of that out to tell you the truth.
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    But he did and I cannot get it out of my mind.
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    He did pass the word in West Chester
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    and in Donegal Presbytery that this new pastor at Second Church was
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    a communist, a dangerous person,
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    and we ought to try to get him out of there. How long were you at West Chester?
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    Not long, Oscar, because I recall that
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    I was making a salary of twelve hundred dollars a year.
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    By that time, I had two children, I was living in the manse,
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    but making such a small salary that I was not able to adequately take care
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    of my family.
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    So I think I was only there three years.
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    My third year I sold my car at an auction in Lancaster in order
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    to buy groceries for that week.
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    Hitchhiked back from Lancaster Pennsylvania to West Chester
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    with my auction money
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    and bought groceries. And on that day I decided the Lord
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    wanted me to work somewhere else
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    and he did because Frank Wilson called me out on that very day,
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    when I returned from Lancaster, and said, "Gay I don't think that you
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    have a chance
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    but I know about position that's open in the Middle Atlantic Student Christian
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    movement as regional secretary.
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    And I am a member of the personnel committee.
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    If you would like me to put your name in I can,
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    but I doubt very much whether you have a chance because I think they've already settled on somebody.
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    But if you want to you can come down to Howard
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    and be interviewed by the student personnel committee,
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    personnel committee made up mainly of students." So yeah,
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    I went down there
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    and I got the job so
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    I asked the Presbytery to separate me from the church.
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    And they did and took up office at 34,
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    32, or four I forget that address.
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    36! 3600 Locust Street
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    at the University of Pennsylvania Christian Association building
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    which at that time housed the offices of the Mid-Atlantic Student Christian Movement.
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    And this was to bring you in direct contact
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    with students in the mid 50s, then? Right, and that was a wonderful
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    experience and really had a lot to do
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    with shaping my theological acumen,
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    giving me some substance to my ministry because
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    in those days the World Student Christian Federation
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    was a major intellectual
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    goad for young Christians.
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    It prepared tremendously
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    significant Bible studies, and theological documents had
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    important international conferences.
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    And the World Student Christian Federation's major affiliates in the United States
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    were not the denominational student movements like Westminster Foundation
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    or the Wesley Foundation
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    but the Mid-Atlantic SCM, the New York SCM,
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    and the New England SCM.
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    So that I had close contact, then,
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    with international people like Hans-Ruedi Weber.
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    Oh, I can't think of all those who came to some of the people I've heard you mention.
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    Oh, D.T. Niles, M.M. Thomas,
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    all those people came into my orbit through
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    the regional conferences programmes
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    and through the literature that we use in the Mid-Atlantic SCM.
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    My job was to travel among the colleges
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    and universities of five states and the District of Columbia organizing
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    student Christian associations and acting as a resource person to those associations.
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    And so I was at some of the finest colleges in the Mid-Atlantic region
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    and I had an opportunity there for to be challenged
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    by bright young people
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    and forced therefore to go back to my books to continue
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    my education in a way that has made a marvelous
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    contribution to my development. This was the beginning of your ecumenical involvement.
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    Yes. How long were you to continue... And theological involvement.
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    How long were you in this position?
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    Well let's see, yes I was I guess at least five years
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    because I went from there to the Board of Christian
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    Education Department of Social Education
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    and Action
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    and if I had my old watch that Maggie Kuhn and Ben Sissel gave me,
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    I could tell you exactly because they had the date on the back when I started,
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    but I don't have it anymore.
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    I can't remember I think I was with Mid-Atlantic SCM about five.
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    That would have taken you through the period of the mid 50s
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    when a whole different thing was beginning to happen in this country.
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    The Supreme Court's decision of 1954.
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    The Montgomery Bus Boycott,
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    1955.
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    Little Rock Arkansas, I think in 1957.
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    What, what kind of impact were these events to
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    have upon your future involvement?
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    You worked with students and from there to the Board of Christian education.
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    Absolutely crucial, of course, for me.
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    I remember the 1954 Supreme Court decision came out
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    on May 17,
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    1954 when I was commuting from Tanguy,
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    an interracial cooperative community,
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    an intentional community, near West Chester to Philadelphia,
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    every morning. And I remember coming back on
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    the train, the commuter train that I took
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    with Bob James who was one of my colleagues on the staff.
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    I remember reading the headlines on the evening paper Supreme Court
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    decision on Brown vs.
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    Board of Education
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    and watching the faces of my fellow
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    passengers who were shocked to realize that a whole
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    new era of race relations was being
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    ushered in by this historic decision
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    and chuckling in myself, inside of myself,
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    with glee to be, to have made,
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    to be a part of the witnessing such discomfort
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    on the part of the people I presumed to be racist.
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    You know, in that Coach on our way back
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    to West Chester from Philadelphia.
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    Well this is to say that it made a tremendous impact on me
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    and upon everybody that I had anything
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    to do with during that period,
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    and I knew then that ministry would be greatly affected
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    by what was to happen
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    in the era, in the field of desegregation.
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    When I went to work for the Board of Christian Education I worked mainly in the field of industrial
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    relations. Ben Sissel was supposed to be handling race relations.
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    He was doing that before I came.
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    So when I came in and there was some question about whether I was now going to take over race relations
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    or whether Ben Sissel was going to continue to do it.
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    And of course I think Ben was very, a little bit sensitive about that.
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    But he handled it beautifully by our becoming fast friends.
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    He initiated that friendship.
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    He really became my best friend during that period.
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    I didn't know any friend who was as close as we were
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    during that period. Since that time we've separated,
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    and I think some things happened to him, too.
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    I think he did a flip from a very strong liberal
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    position to whatever his position is now.
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    But in any case during that period I was not supposed to be dealing
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    with race relations but with industrial relations,
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    economics
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    and bandwidth handling rates.
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    But of course, I did get involved in developing pronouncements
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    in the field of race relations leading study groups
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    and consultations dealing with
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    the United Presbyterian position.
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    How long were you to work for the Board of Christian Education in that function?
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    Oscar, I get these years mixed up I would really have to go back.
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    You can check the record on this. I think I worked for
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    the Board of Christian Education for about four years in that capacity.
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    In any case, you know Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
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    invited me to come to teach social ethics
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    there after giving me some time
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    to work on a doctorate.
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    They assumed that I could complete my doctorate in one year because I had the SDM
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    and if I had manipulated it some way I perhaps could have.
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    But they were wrong. They gave me full salary,
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    partial salary and turned me loose
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    and I left the Board Christian of Education then in nineteen sixty.
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    And went to Drew Theological Seminary as a doctoral student
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    and I finished my languages there, my French
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    and German and most of my residence.
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    But the next year I transferred my residence to Temple
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    and then completed residence for the doctorate
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    and began to write or did write Secular Relevance of the Church which I
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    always believe was the reason I never did my dissertation because instead
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    of doing the dissertation I wrote Secular Relevance of the Church
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    and edited 12 books for Westminster Press on Christian perspectives
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    on social issues. In any case,
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    in 1961 I
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    reported,
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    in the fall of '61, I reported to Pittsburgh Seminary to teach
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    and then commuted back every week either by plane
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    or a Greyhound bus to Temple where I completed my residence
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    which is amazing when I stopped to think of it, but the school gave me,
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    did the school give me money for that? I guess I was,
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    no I took that money out of my own pocket for it.
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    But it was possible to do it.
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    But that was a long commute because my mother lived in Philadelphia so I had a place to stay.
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    I got all my meals, so that helped.
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    Were you able to maintain your
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    social concern involvements when you arrived
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    at Pittsburgh Seminary carrying this teaching
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    and graduate study?
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    No, I was so much involved in trying to get my coursework
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    at Temple completed, and
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    breaking in as a new teacher that I did not get involved
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    in social action causes in the
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    Pittsburgh area except the Homewood Brushton Redevelopment Authority which
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    Lee and I got involved and Lee did more in that than I did which
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    was really community organization.
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    At the same time Leroy Patrick was involved in a number of things
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    in the Presbytery and we attended his church.
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    So I was participating vicariously in
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    Leroy Patrick's ministry.
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    Also I had known all of the people in the Presbytery from my social education
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    and action years. I knew the social activist there Marguerite,
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    Marguerite Kofer.
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    Hofer? Hofer! Yes,
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    was one of the people I knew very well
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    and so I was on the edge of things
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    but I had to concentrate on my studies so I could not get
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    involved actively in anything during that period.
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    So in the period of early 60s, up til '63,
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    you were for the most part... a student?
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    A student and a teacher. Preparing to become a professor.
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    Yes, I had put the social activism of the Board of Christian Education years
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    on the back shelf so to speak
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    and had really started out in the direction of a scholarly
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    career. So one might say that you were Pittsburgh minding your own business
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    in 1963 when the United Presbyterian Church created something
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    called the Commission on Religion Race.
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    Minding my own business, yes, but I do think that Edler
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    and Bryant and other northern black ministers in the Church knew...
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    This is Edler Hawkins? Edler Hawkins.
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    And Bryant George? Bryant George.
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    Bob Johnson.
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    Leroy Patrick.
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    Those men knew of my commitment to racial justice
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    and my commitment to them because I had attended meetings of the Presbyterian Council
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    of the North and West, and had already identified myself
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    with the movement of unrest within the black
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    ministry of the North that was on the verge of doing something
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    to open the church up to a stronger
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    commitment to racial justice.
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    So when they came to me in the classroom as they
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    did to ask me to come to New York they weren't coming to somebody they didn't
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    know or somebody they thought was so much of an egghead
  • speaker
    that he probably wouldn't work out well,
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    they were coming to somebody who
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    with whom they had been acquainted previously. Who approached you initially about taking
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    that position?
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    I think it was Edler.
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    I think it was Edler
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    and I'm trying to think whether he actually came to Pittsburgh
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    or whether it was by correspondence
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    and telephone calls. But I know that he challenged me
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    to leave the classroom.
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    I said, "Edler, I'm on the verge of writing a dissertation.
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    I'm getting ready to finish up my doctoral program." And he said,
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    "You can go back to all that.
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    We need you now to organize this program which the Des Moines Assembly has authorized.
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    We want you to come to New York and do it." You didn't,
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    you didn't have much time to decide because the Assembly had made its decision in
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    May and by August you were on the job.
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    I didn't have I think I must have made that decision in about 48 hours
  • speaker
    and packed up and started.
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    I think I took Lee by surprise
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    and I don't think she was altogether ready for that move.
  • speaker
    I think she thought it was too precipitous.
  • speaker
    But I was raring to go anyway because all hell had broken out,
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    seemed to me that world of scholarship was crumbling around my ears anyway
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    and the face of the earthquake that was going on
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    in American society over race.
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    So I was ready to leave the classroom
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    but had every anticipation of coming back
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    to it after two years.
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    The president of the Seminary agreed to release me for two years only,
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    but of course in two years, we were right in the midst of it
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    and I couldn't go, couldn't come back.
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    You were not at the Des Moines assembly in 1963?
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    No.
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    You must've heard many times over this the different
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    versions as to how the Commission on Religion
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    and Race came into existence.
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    Is there one that you prefer over others?
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    To tell you the truth, Oscar, I don't really know that I have ever understood
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    completely how it came into existence.
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    I was not a party to the
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    politicking that went on within a small black group
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    that brought it about so I
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    really don't know. I do recall that our church
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    was the first church to take seriously the challenge that had been
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    laid down by the National Council of Churches
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    and the organization of its commission.
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    As a matter of fact, we may have beat the NCC in getting a commission launched
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    with full budget and staff.
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    I remember a lot of talk about the necessity of our getting on
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    the field immediately. There was a great note of urgency of that.
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    But what actually took place at the Assembly to lead to this, I'm not privy to.
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    You must there must you must have walked into some of these politics though
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    when you came to the commission in the summer of 1963.
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    Here was a new entity with a unique
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    mandate able to act on behalf of the
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    denomination in this whole area, with
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    a budget,
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    small looking back now,
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    but significant given the way in which it was created.
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    Do you remember some of the dynamics in those early days?
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    Yes, I remember. I remember that you're absolutely right.
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    It was a political question.
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    There was tension between Ken Neigh and Bill Morrison over
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    this entity which had been lodged in the Board of Christian Education
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    rather than the Board of National Missions.
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    And that was the crux of the problem for it was in the Board of National Missions
  • speaker
    that many people felt the whole race emphasis belonged
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    because it was assumed that no one was more expert
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    in the field of desegregation and race relations than the urban
  • speaker
    oriented staff of the board of national missions both those
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    in headquarters and those on the field.
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    And here comes along these egg heads so to speak who write curriculum material
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    who are Christian educators for the most part now claiming
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    that an activist agency of the church belongs
  • speaker
    with them rather than with national missions.
  • speaker
    So I I remember that Bill
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    and Ken were across the table from one another
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    and all the meetings of the early board
  • speaker
    that governed our, like the commission itself,
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    Commission on Religion and Race.
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    Where did Gene Blake and John Coventry Smith standing on all of that?
  • speaker
    John was on the edge of that little debacle
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    never really intruding
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    but looking on
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    with great interests not supporting either side,
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    but I thought, waiting for an opportunity to make
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    COEMAR's contribution to it which he did in a very strategic way.
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    He brought missionaries into a whole new thrust
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    of involvement on the field
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    and many of them, as you know,
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    were involved with us in marches, rallies,
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    and so forth. And the Stated Clerk?
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    The Stated Clerk...
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    I think Gene made
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    it clear to both the Board of National Missions
  • speaker
    and the Board of Christian Education that this
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    new agency
  • speaker
    was related to the office of the General Assembly as well.
  • speaker
    By virtue of the fact that it was a commission of the General Assembly.
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    Yes. Yes
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    and that he
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    needed to be involved in decisions that were to be
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    made. I cannot exaggerate I guess
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    the fact that all four of these men Smith,
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    Morrison, Neigh,
  • speaker
    and Blake were involved in almost every
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    policy making meeting committee
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    or commission subgroup that
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    was making a decision about the posture
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    and strategy of our church.
  • speaker
    Do you interpret this that their involvement
  • speaker
    as being because they took the issue serious
  • speaker
    or were they nervous about what this new group may do
  • speaker
    or were they also there to protect their own interests?
  • speaker
    That's very perceptive perceptive.
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    All three of those.
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    I think first of all they were serious
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    and I think they were seriously committed to seeing the United Presbyterian Church
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    vindicate itself as a major liberal American
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    denomination that ought to be committed to racial justice.
  • speaker
    But they were also nervous about what this new
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    black executive with this unusual power
  • speaker
    and what those new black commission members whose names
  • speaker
    they did not know before,
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    had no experience with, would do
  • speaker
    with this new agency with its five hundred thousand dollar commitment,
  • speaker
    unprecedented for a social action agency of our church.
  • speaker
    And so I had the feeling from time to time of a certain amount
  • speaker
    of paternalistic oversight
  • speaker
    I think they were also interested in protecting the interests of their own
  • speaker
    agencies.
  • speaker
    I've mentioned the tension between national issues in Christian education
  • speaker
    and that school.
  • speaker
    Interestingly enough the tension got played out
  • speaker
    in terms of staff people between Clifford Earle,
  • speaker
    Maggie Kuhn, Ben Sissel,
  • speaker
    the social education and action bureaucracy of Christian education,
  • speaker
    and Bryant George, David Ramage,
  • speaker
    and George Todd, the urban church bureaucracy of the Board
  • speaker
    National Missions,
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    so that there was among those people that
  • speaker
    there was jockeying for influence on this nuke.
  • speaker
    This commission has the potential to upset a lot of
  • speaker
    the previous applecarts in terms of the urban ministries
  • speaker
    piece from the National Missions and the social education
  • speaker
    and action piece from the Board of Christian Education because this is the first time now
  • speaker
    that there was an entity
  • speaker
    with a clearly stated mandate of the Assembly to be the focal point of racial
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    justice concerns. Right, and that's, yeah, that was the that was the phrase,
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    "focal point." Do you remember
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    any points at which this tension between National Missions
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    and Christian education got in the way of the commission doing its work?
  • speaker
    No, I don't really think so because for one good reason because
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    the blacks on that commission under the leadership of Edler Hawkins
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    were always able to develop a
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    leadership role which transcended the bureaucratic
  • speaker
    interests of the boards
  • speaker
    and agencies that were involved.
  • speaker
    In other words we made our decisions on other grounds not what
  • speaker
    was good for national missions or Christian education
  • speaker
    or even for the United Presbyterian Church,
  • speaker
    but what we thought ought to be done for black folks
  • speaker
    and what our church ought to be doing for black folks.
  • speaker
    And because of that I was never aware of any
  • speaker
    real obstacles to the exercise of power.
  • speaker
    Whatever we wanted to do, Edler worked it out so it could be done.
  • speaker
    And somehow or another got the approbation of the people who
  • speaker
    could have stopped it if they wanted to.
  • speaker
    You haven't mentioned another name
  • speaker
    or person,
  • speaker
    Marshall Scott who was your first chairman of the commission.
  • speaker
    What what kind of role did he play in those early years?
  • speaker
    He leaned to the national issues group of course because he had been one
  • speaker
    of their people.
  • speaker
    His institute was funded by the Board of National
  • speaker
    Missions, I believe.
  • speaker
    So that he tried to steer the commission in
  • speaker
    the direction of a kind of adjunct mechanism
  • speaker
    to what the Board of National Missions already had on the urban scene.
  • speaker
    But he never could quite bring that off because I was not an urban
  • speaker
    specialist. I didn't come out of that mold,
  • speaker
    I came out of the more shall I say
  • speaker
    conceptually oriented Christian education mold,
  • speaker
    of pronouncement,
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    development, the development of strategies within
  • speaker
    the judicatory structures rather than on the edge of them as the urban churchmen
  • speaker
    tended to work so that
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    he could not although we were close friends
  • speaker
    and worked very well together I felt that Marshall never
  • speaker
    sort of never thought of me as one of his boys so to speak.
  • speaker
    He had a lot of boys around the church.
  • speaker
    I was not a McCormick graduate.
  • speaker
    I had gone to the, his institute
  • speaker
    in Lower Manhattan for one summer,
  • speaker
    so I had come through that. What did they call that?
  • speaker
    Labor Temple? Labor industrial relations.
  • speaker
    Yeah I was a graduate of that.
  • speaker
    The fact that you had had this contact and service
  • speaker
    with the Board of Christian Education,
  • speaker
    did that get in the way of your relationships
  • speaker
    or relating to the National Missions (unintelligible)? Yes.
  • speaker
    Because I think they all felt that I was loyal
  • speaker
    to the Board of Christian Education staff that I was Bill Morrison's boy rather than Ken Neigh's
  • speaker
    boy so to speak.
  • speaker
    And they always held me a little bit at arm's
  • speaker
    length because of that.
  • speaker
    But the pressure of the times the urgency of the
  • speaker
    mandated seemed I must say to
  • speaker
    take precedence over
  • speaker
    picayune political controversies.
  • speaker
    There is a sense in which the whole,
  • speaker
    the external, the societal activity
  • speaker
    and pressure that occasioned
  • speaker
    the very establishment of that commission also became your primary
  • speaker
    prodder once you were organized.
  • speaker
    We were carried along by the wave of the events themselves.
  • speaker
    Every newspaper headline was almost
  • speaker
    a factor for making a new decision
  • speaker
    or a new movement or action within the structure of the commission.
  • speaker
    This 1963 was a rather crucial year
  • speaker
    and so

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