Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1981.

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    (1963) was a very crucial year in so many ways
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    in the early part of the year. There had been an interreligious conference on race
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    in Chicago and that was the year of
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    Gene Blake's arrest in Baltimore and the year of the March on Washington.
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    And finally unfortunately also the year of Kennedy's assassination.
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    The commission came... And the bombing in Birmingham. And the bombing
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    and of 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham.
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    The commission came into existence in the midst of this.
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    How did you figure out or decide where to begin
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    with your coming on just a few months before the March
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    on Washington? In a way we didn't have to make any decisions about it.
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    We were carried along by the momentum of the events itself.
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    We start off running. First thing we had to do is catch up
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    with Dr. King. That phrase was used several times I recall
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    the United Presbyterian Church has to catch up
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    with Dr. King which meant that we had to get people on the field
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    and meet him where he was and try to interlock our resources in
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    with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
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    We had to do the same thing with respect to the National Council Commission on religion
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    and race which had
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    removed Oscar Lee in favor of
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    a young wayside radical United Church of Christ minister
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    Bob Spike and Bob had started off running
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    where Oscar had been moving a little more cautiously
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    and slowly. And I think I rather favored Bob's leadership than Oscar's
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    during that time although I commiserated hours
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    with Oscar in 475 about how he was being
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    eclipsed.
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    In any case, we started off running in the sense that
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    the call to Washington had been issued.
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    You know we had to get on board and move to Washington
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    and take our people there.
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    The NCC was beginning to develop the Mississippi summer program of
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    1964 which was launched
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    with great success in 64
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    but was conceived in 63.
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    So a number of things that were happening
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    during that time provided the agenda for,
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    excuse me, the commission meetings and the staff meetings
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    so we didn't have to think about what shall we do now.
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    I mean what kinds of steps ought we to take our question
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    was how shall we respond to this call.
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    But even then there was already a march on Washington planned
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    and you had some money allocated
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    and obviously there were requests for support.
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    What kind of discussion do you recall taking place around allocation of funds
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    even for the support of the March on Washington?
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    A lot of that money as I recall was
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    was conduited through the Commission on Religion
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    or Race to the Commission of the NCC.
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    I see.
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    Which became the Coordinating
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    Group.
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    For all of the denominations that had created
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    in response to the NCC's call some kind of new agency
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    with unprecedented powers presumably for involvement in the struggle
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    for racial justice.
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    You recalled after Bob Spike died I served as interim director for
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    the NCC Commission on Religion and Race
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    and assumed that coordinating function for a short time.
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    So I got to know the importance of the role the NCC was playing
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    during that period. Let me say just one thing about that period because you've asked me how
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    did we get involved and how did we make decisions about where we ought
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    to be.
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    I can not underestimate
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    I should not underestimate the role that Metz Rollins played in that early
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    period, see. It was Metz and Bob Stone and myself.
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    Metz had been on the firing line in Tallahassee
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    and in Nashville. He knew the leadership of SCLC.
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    He knew the tactics of nonviolent direct action.
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    So he was he brought to the table so to speak activist
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    orientation and strategies
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    and tactics which I didn't have
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    and would not have thought of except in imitation
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    of what was being reported in the newspapers
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    but Metz had been there. He had his head beat in
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    or something in Nashville by that time.
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    So he played a very important role I think in getting us from behind the desks
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    and out into the field. And he played an important role in introducing
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    me to some of the activists in the movement in the South.
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    And Bob Stone?
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    Bob,
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    Bob and I really had a little problem.
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    I never felt that Bob was totally loyal to me.
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    And I would not have selected Bob for
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    that position but Edler forced Bob onto me.
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    Bob owed, Edler owed Bob something I'm not sure of what it was it may,
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    when was Edler elected to Moderatorship for General Assembly.
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    64. 64. Well it couldn't have been that
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    but something Bob. He ran in 63 the first time.
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    Well maybe Bob, yeah,
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    I guess Bob was very important in Edler's early campaign for Moderator
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    and Edler came to me. Said, "Gay,
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    I would like to see Bob Stone get that second staff position." I was
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    not for it because I hadn't met the man
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    and he impressed me
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    with a certain kind of aloofness
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    and supercilious attitude toward me.
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    He too came out of that National Missions urban church
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    coterie and I was not known among them
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    and therefore he didn't respect me as one who
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    had been through the fires with some of the men who had been involved in that
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    whole period.
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    I guess that was the Olinsky period, too.
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    A lot of them knew him, and Skin[?] had been trained by him.
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    I hadn't. But Bob,
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    Bob and I worked out fairly well although I had straightened him out two
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    or three times and I was not sorry when
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    he finally left. I don't recall the details of it
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    but I probably had something to do with getting rid of him.
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    Gene Blake got arrested
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    in Baltimore in July of
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    63. Do you have any
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    comments on that?
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    Did it serve a useful purpose insofar as the witness of the
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    UPC was concerned? Yes definitely.
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    I always had the feeling that Gene Blake,
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    and I would say this about some of our other officials,
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    had come to a decision in his own heart
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    and soul that if there ever
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    was a time when he had to stand forth like a Christian,
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    this was the time.
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    I think they were really willing to risk something
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    one could not help but admire Martin Luther King Jr. as a
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    kind of prototype of what contemporary Christian minister ought
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    to be and I think these men longed
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    themselves for that image of themselves
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    and were willing if necessary to make certain sacrifices
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    to see that happened.
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    They thought of themselves, therefore, in somewhat heroic terms Gene Blake particularly.
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    He had a sense of heroism,
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    a sense of almost martyrdom,
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    of making a sacrifice,
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    of shocking the nation into the realization that
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    Christians could still witness
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    and suffer for the truth if God
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    so willed it.
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    And so I think he went willingly into that situation
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    and perhaps happily knowing that it would have reverberations that would be
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    extremely important for other churches' witness.
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    Some, some people looking back might speculate that
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    since Gene Blake was later to make be a representative of Protestantism
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    at the March on Washington
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    and therefore to speech echoing the words "late we come
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    but we come." Yes. Something to that effect. Yeah.
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    How do you respond to suggestion that
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    the event in Baltimore may have been
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    calculated to relate to the later gathering at
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    the Washington Monument in Washington?
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    I don't know. It's an interesting idea. I do think that Blake needed something to authenticate
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    him to the top civil rights leadership to the civil rights
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    and labor leadership who had gathered around Bayard
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    Rustin, and A. Philip Randolph,
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    and Martin Luther King Jr.
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    and he needed some kind of authentication some kind of verification
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    of his right to claim titular leadership
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    of American Christendom or American Protestantism at least.
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    And did he have that prior to his arrest in 63?
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    No I don't think so but I think he did afterward.
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    And I think he knew how to carry it off once he got into those councils.
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    As you know he was used to national leadership being in the spotlight.
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    And I think he impressed those others that he needed to be in on
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    the decisions having to do with the strategy preceding
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    and following the March on Washington.
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    After that time I think Gene Blake became
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    the real leader of the Christian forces
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    or shall we say the church troops
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    and the Civil Rights Movement.
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    I'm trying to think if Bob Stone was at the amusement park in Washington
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    he may have been. Bob had a way of always being at the right place at the right
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    time.
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    Bob was a manipulative, in the best sense of the word,
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    person and was on hand.
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    He may have been at that amusement park.
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    I think you would do well to interview Bob Stone.
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    You talked a bit
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    and made several references to the National Council's involvement,
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    I wonder if you would express further opinion on the quality
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    of its contribution during this period
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    and also if you'd say something about what other
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    mainline predominately white Protestant churches
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    were doing?
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    I had a lot of respect for Ed Espy.
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    I knew Ed, he was the excecutive secretary of the NCC during
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    that period. I knew him in the SCM because he came out
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    of the YMCA,
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    called the Student YMCA,
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    and therefore he was one of the persons that I had worked
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    with regionally when I was
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    with the Student Christian Movement.
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    I thought Ed had
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    a commitment to the NCC's involvement that
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    did not
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    field some of the restraints that the commitment
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    of denominational leaders had, those who were deeply entrenched as officials
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    of their own communions.
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    He, coming out of the YMCA
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    and being identified
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    with that non-sectarian non-denominational movement,
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    was willing to commit the church in ways that perhaps would not have been
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    so readily done by people who were
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    deeply rooted in denominational tradition.
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    And so he gave Bob Spike
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    and the staff of the NCC Commission on Religion
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    and Race a lot of room to move,
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    and make decisions, and to get involved,
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    to make public statements to the press,
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    and so forth. I appreciated the role the NCC played in that
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    time. I didn't do anything without checking
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    with them. There was good cooperation
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    and coordination among us.
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    I think in those days I was really impressed
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    with how that staff could gather my counterparts
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    and all the nominations together at a moment's notice
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    and we could make decisions in which we could I could commit twenty five thousand dollars
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    or ten thousand dollars. Somebody else from another denomination could
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    and we could we get launch something right then
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    and there.
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    Or we could make a public statement right then and there.
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    I don't think the church has ever been same.
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    I mean we've never had those days repeated since that time.
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    Among the other denominations, I had great respect for UCC.
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    I don't know whether Charles had taken over that early
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    period. I think back,
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    you know, whether he was with the Committee for Racial Justice Now,
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    matter of fact,
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    was what it was called.
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    I'm speaking of Charles Cobb
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    but I had great respect for his leadership.
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    Although I never felt that he was cooperating
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    with the rest of us quite as much as I thought he should.
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    He was very much devoted to
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    supporting his own churches in the south,
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    and that's how he got involved in North Carolina
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    and the Wilmington affair and launched his own field program
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    quite apart from decisions that were being made by the rest of us in
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    the NCC which decision had mostly to do
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    with the Mississippi summer in the program in Mississippi.
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    But he wanted to do something in North Carolina
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    and he did, and he stuck with it right straight through,
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    as you know, to the vindication of the Wilmington Ten.
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    The Episcopalians I don't recall we're doing that much at that point.
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    The special, the General Convention special program was launched
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    and, I think, was probably more impressive than the Presbyterians
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    in terms of the amount of money that was involved.
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    Three million dollars.
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    And oh no I think the Episcopalians probably spent about eight million dollars
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    throughout that whole civil rights period.
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    But much of that money went to obscure community organizations
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    and radical groups scattered around
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    the cities of the nation which never amounted to very much.
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    I think the decisions were made more on the basis of a sense of camaraderie
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    with grass roots blacks than any kind of logical
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    strategy about where money could best be used to
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    forward, advance, the whole movement.
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    Let's see, other denominations. United Methodist.
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    United Methodist... I was not aware that the United Methodists were very
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    much involved in that time, in that period.
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    I don't think there were any black staff at the helm,
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    a white staff.
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    I don't even remember their names.
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    Roman Catholics, yes. A project equality had already been
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    launched and was very promising
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    and Matt Allman[?] was the Roman Catholic layperson
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    who evinced tremendous expertise
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    and knowledge of the dynamics of the period
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    and gave good leadership.
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    But United Methodist came a little later I think in terms of really
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    distinguished leadership. We're gonna take a break.
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    I'd like to return back to return to the whole
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    United Presbyterian Church's involvement.
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    During this period we've been talking about the period of 64 to 65 was
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    the great movement into Mississippi
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    and Alabama. Do you remember your first venture south
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    or your first participation in a march in the south?
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    The Council on Church and Race's movement in the South began,
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    I believe, with our opening up the
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    Hattiesburg project in Mississippi at the invitation of
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    the Council on Church
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    and Race of the NCC
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    and I think my first venture into the South was in connection
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    with the establishment of that project.
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    I had already been south. You recall,
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    I was the executive of the Board of Christian Education
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    and social education and action. During that period,
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    I went south. I remember one Shelbyville
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    and Henderson, and a couple small Presbyterian churches in the south
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    trying to organize some interest among those ministers in
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    black employment in the new Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company that was
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    relocating in North Carolina.
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    So it wasn't that I was unfamiliar with the South
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    but I think our first real venture into the South
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    came in connection with the establishment of the Hattiesburg project
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    and that was quite an interesting thing because we rented a space.
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    We put a full time staff person there.
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    We brought 10,
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    15 ministers a week from all over the country
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    to Hattiesburg to stay there for ten days to two weeks
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    involved in picketing
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    and voter registration and other kinds of
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    support activities in relationship to the Council
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    of Federated Organizations, COFO,
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    which was headed up by that time by a brilliant young black activist by the name of
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    Bob Moses. I met James Forman for the first time in that
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    situation and there were other young blacks from
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    "snik" (SNCC) Stokely Carmichael
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    and Rap Brown and others who were associated
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    with that Hattiesburg project.
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    Now, I had all my strategy was from the beginning
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    to make the United Presbyterian Church as visible as possible where the action
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    was. I always wanted to look for opportunities
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    and got a lot of help from Metz on this where we could be visible,
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    where we could stand forth and say we are representing the United Presbyterian Church in
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    this situation. It seemed to me that the predominately white
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    churches were not getting the kind of
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    credit that they deserved in terms of the kind
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    of massive policy commitment
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    and financial commitment that they had made to the movement
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    and we needed to get out from behind those desks
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    and get out there where we could rub shoulders
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    with the leadership on the field
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    and participate in the activities going on there.
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    And I constantly sought for such opportunities so when the marches began
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    we tried to participate
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    and I didn't participate in all of them.
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    I was not at Albany.
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    I was not in Tallahassee. I think Metz was involved in one
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    or both of those. I was at Selma
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    and stayed with that, the Selma march,
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    to I guess that was going into Montgomery from Selma
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    to Montgomery and I came back and forth a couple of times
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    but walked with them a number of miles.
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    And Metz was in charge of the, Metz had a very strategic position at
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    that march because Dr.
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    King and the leadership invited him to be responsible
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    for holding the "snik" (SNCC) group together in some kind of orderly
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    way in Selma because they were threatening to revolt.
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    And he had some credibility among them.
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    Was this as a result of his involvement working out of Nashville
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    and Tallahassee? Yes, yes they knew him
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    and he knew them and he was successful I think in maintaining
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    some discipline among them right straight through to the end.
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    And it was difficult because they were threatening to break out of Selma
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    and interrupt the march before it got into Jackson
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    with a demand for more aggressive leadership than King was giving at the time.
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    You meant before it got into Montgomery?
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    Montgomery, yes. What did I say? Jackson.
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    Jackson, yes. I'm thinking about the other march which I also participated in in nineteen sixty
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    five I guess, the march from Memphis to Jackson,
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    Mississippi. But Presbyterian ministers
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    were coming from all over the country to Hattiesburg.
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    They were not telling their sessions that they were going.
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    I used to get telephone calls in the middle of the night from wives of
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    ministers saying, "My husband has left,
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    and packed his bag and is down there
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    with you. He didn't say good bye.
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    I don't know where he is. My children are worried about him.
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    What are you doing to our father
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    and husband?" And I used to talk to those men about
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    the motivation for coming
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    and there again I recognize in them the same kinds of sentiments,
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    feelings that were going through the souls of
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    John Coventry Smith and Bill Morrison
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    and Ken Neigh a desire to
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    for once stand forth as a white Christian
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    in a way that they could be proud of in terms of their commitment to
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    justice. Do you think they came without talking to their sessions
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    because they felt as though if they had talked to their sessions,
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    the sessions would have vetoed it?
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    Yes I think many of them reported that they got no encouragement
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    from the leaders of their churches. And they said finally to some of them informally
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    I'm going and you can tell the rest of them I cannot stay here any longer.
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    I need there. Our church is there.
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    We're trying to bear a witness to those people.
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    And I believe that's where the Lord wants me to be.
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    Did you become aware of many United Presbyterian pastors who got
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    into difficulty with their congregations as a result of participation?
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    I did in those days know some that did.
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    I can't recall the names but everywhere I go now I will
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    run into somebody on occasion not every trip
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    but somebody will walk up to me say, "You don't remember me
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    but I was in jail down in Hattiesburg,
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    Mississippi as a result of joining you
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    and that project we had down there." Do they say that now almost 20 years later
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    with a sense of bitterness or a degree of affirmation?
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    Affirmation I think for the most part.
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    I've never talked to anybody who was bitter about those days.
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    That was a trying time because I think we had nine men under indictment
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    for breaking city ordinance in a picket line.
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    I was in that line. I stepped outside of it in order to be the one
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    to negotiate.
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    And the men went to jail.
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    And it was a very unpleasant kind
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    of experience for the churches back home to realize that their
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    pastor was a jailbird.
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    And we got a lot of flak from that.
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    But you know the church stood firmly on that.
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    I think COCAR could have gone down the drain right at that time
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    but the church stood firmly. That is to say the boys
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    and agencies did. Was, Gay,
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    was that the same basic period during the time
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    Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed
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    and the three young men
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    or did that come after? Yes, Schwerner and Chaney
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    and Goodman, during that very period.
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    And Metz Rollins knew Viola Liuzzo.
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    We were together in Mississippi at the time I saw her that
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    night that she was killed.
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    I had met her, Metz knew her much better than I.
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    It was a very strange
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    time. Did COCAR assume any responsibility for briefing
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    those United Presbyterians who came as to the possibility
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    that really they might be...?
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    No we didn't, that's interesting that we didn't.
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    We did not. And we might well have as a matter of fact if I knew then what
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    I know now I would have gotten out some kind of waiver something
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    for them to sign because, you know,
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    the church could have been sued for thousands of dollars for things that
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    occurred down there to those people.
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    No we didn't brief them. I just I think we just assumed that
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    this was the thing to do.
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    These were adults, and if they wanted to join us,
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    they were welcome to come.
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    After they got there, of course, with their bags from the airport,
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    we would have meetings and talk about what the situation
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    was like in Hattiesburg but not what they might expect from their churches
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    or whether they had separated from their families
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    and churches amicably
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    or had just walked away.
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    Were most of these white Presbyterian ministers persons who had had
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    some deep involvement in racial justice issues back in their...?
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    No, and that's an interesting thing.
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    I think maybe a quarter of them,
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    maybe 20 maybe a third, had
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    but two thirds had not.
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    And therein lies the source of their problem.
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    Because many of them surprised their congregations
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    with their aggressiveness after years of passivity on the race question
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    and all of a sudden, boom! They go through the ceiling
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    with this desire to martyr themselves in the South.
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    I mentioned the disorderliness that this organization of the time was
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    on the verge of talking about that. I recall how wild
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    and woolly that whole
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    atmosphere and involvement was in the rallies
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    and marches in the south that is to say you had people footloose
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    and fancy free.
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    One of the things I recall so vividly
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    is the spectacle of
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    highly educated wealthy white girls from Vassar,
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    Smith, Welsley,
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    Bryn Mawr, throwing themselves at
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    black sons of sharecroppers
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    and tenant farmers who could barely speak English,
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    who were dirty,
  • speaker
    unkempt, ignorant,
  • speaker
    while they would not even speak
  • speaker
    or have anything to do with well-educated young black men
  • speaker
    from their same schools or other schools in the north who were there trying
  • speaker
    to do the same thing they wanted to do.
  • speaker
    There was that enticement to the savagery of
  • speaker
    lower class blacks that had all the sexual overtones that
  • speaker
    D.H. Lawrence puts into the gamekeeper in uh...
  • speaker
    There's something almost psychological about some of these people's involvement.
  • speaker
    ...in Lady Chatterley's Lover, you know.
  • speaker
    There was something almost psychological about some of these people's involvement.
  • speaker
    Yes. And not necessarily rational out of a sense of
  • speaker
    right. Right.
  • speaker
    I would never have admitted it in those days because there was a lot of criticism
  • speaker
    of the Northern liberals reminiscent of the criticism
  • speaker
    of the missionaries who went south during the Civil War
  • speaker
    and followed the Union troops
  • speaker
    and during the Radical Reconstruction, you know,
  • speaker
    the same kind of criticism. Let me ask you...
  • speaker
    But some of it was correct.
  • speaker
    Let me ask you kind of a related question, Gay, looking back on this.
  • speaker
    Has anybody written what you would consider a kind of comprehensive
  • speaker
    historical analytical piece on what was happening in
  • speaker
    the mid 60s in Alabama,
  • speaker
    Mississippi, and the rest of the south or,
  • speaker
    to put it in another way, Is it possible for anybody to write such piece?
  • speaker
    I think it's possible, and I don't know all of the literature.
  • speaker
    A book that Howard Zinn did on "snik" (SNCC),
  • speaker
    The New Abolitionists, I think, I think that's the title of it,
  • speaker
    has some of this.
  • speaker
    There may be one or two other things there are a number of articles that appeared
  • speaker
    in books like Seven on Black
  • speaker
    and Floyd Barber's two books on the on the period.
  • speaker
    But I haven't seen any really comprehensive solid
  • speaker
    high quality work. Somebody needs to do it
  • speaker
    and it's time to do it. And nobody has written that from the perspective
  • speaker
    of the religious involvement?
  • speaker
    No.
  • speaker
    Now you can do it. I mean you got the material,
  • speaker
    you will have the material to do it. And what it could be a kind,
  • speaker
    almost James Michener type thing, you know if somebody wanted to do it
  • speaker
    who had real narrative writing
  • speaker
    ability and wanted to combine fiction
  • speaker
    with fact.
  • speaker
    You're a writer, why haven't you written something like that? Yeah,
  • speaker
    you give me an idea, you know,
  • speaker
    now it's possible, I could do it.
  • speaker
    But my involvement was strictly
  • speaker
    with the religious forces in the movement, and I think one would
  • speaker
    have to, in order to cover the entire waterfront,
  • speaker
    one would have to have been
  • speaker
    with Dr. King in the way you were.
  • speaker
    So you were closer to Dr. King than I have ever been.
  • speaker
    And I represented that part of the church's
  • speaker
    involvement in the civil rights movement that was almost a silent partner of
  • speaker
    Dr. King.
  • speaker
    We never sat around the conference table I did get into one
  • speaker
    or two staff meetings through Andrew Young.
  • speaker
    You mentioned the marches I remember his asking me,
  • speaker
    I remember him asking me to look after his wife on one of those marches.
  • speaker
    And I was very happy to do that.
  • speaker
    I walked with her the whole way
  • speaker
    and he came back and thanked me.
  • speaker
    He said to me later, "The only reason I asked you to do that,
  • speaker
    Gay, is because I couldn't trust anybody else." So I said,
  • speaker
    "What made you think you could trust me?"
  • speaker
    But I never
  • speaker
    got close enough to the leadership of
  • speaker
    SCLC to say to them what I'm saying to you about the strategic
  • speaker
    opportunity they had to recognize the white churches
  • speaker
    and thereby employ their resources more rationally
  • speaker
    and more forcefully to bring about some of the ends that Dr.
  • speaker
    King wanted to achieve.
  • speaker
    Do you think the civil rights movement organizations including
  • speaker
    SCLC viewed the churches
  • speaker
    significantly different than they viewed the labor unions
  • speaker
    insofar as seeking support
  • speaker
    and involvement in the...? No I don't think so.
  • speaker
    And the reason for it is that they were mainly black Baptist preachers
  • speaker
    who did not know the black constituency of the predominately
  • speaker
    white churches. They had no idea about that.
  • speaker
    You know, I was the director of the Council on Church
  • speaker
    and Race of the United Presbyterian Church.
  • speaker
    That couldn't mean a thing to them. I mean, "Who's he?" you know.
  • speaker
    They had no sense of what the potential
  • speaker
    of having a liaison relationship to somebody in that position.
  • speaker
    Dr. King later began to understand that
  • speaker
    and we met and talked about it at Montreat when we had our first
  • speaker
    encounter with one another personally
  • speaker
    but most of that time they overlooked
  • speaker
    the participation of people like myself.
  • speaker
    And we strove as best we could to be visible to them
  • speaker
    and to offer ourselves to them but they didn't know how to use us.
  • speaker
    Is this because those Blacks were still assuming that the people
  • speaker
    to write to in these predominately white denominations were,
  • speaker
    quote, "The White Leadership" which had always been there?
  • speaker
    Yes, they related to Eugene Carson Blake,
  • speaker
    excuse me, and they related to Bob Spike before his
  • speaker
    tragic death,
  • speaker
    but they did not relate to Oscar Lee
  • speaker
    and Gayraud Wilmore. And Charlie Cobb. And Charlie Cobb.
  • speaker
    Charlie forced himself upon a certain grass roots leadership
  • speaker
    of North Carolina but never upon the top elite leadership
  • speaker
    of the movement, of core SCLC
  • speaker
    Urban League NAACP.
  • speaker
    I want to go back to this thing about Presbyterian involvement in the marches.
  • speaker
    What kind of support do you recall getting from black Presbyterian
  • speaker
    constituency?
  • speaker
    Well I wouldn't say that they were entirely out of it.
  • speaker
    I was aware of support
  • speaker
    and the prayers
  • speaker
    and genuine concern and goodwill of black Presbyterian
  • speaker
    ministers. Even though we did not see them in the field
  • speaker
    as frequently as we did whites.
  • speaker
    Some of them did get to Mississippi,
  • speaker
    to the Hattiesburg project, stayed for a short time
  • speaker
    and left.
  • speaker
    Some of them I saw at marches.
  • speaker
    We'd greet one another, walk together for a while.
  • speaker
    After NCBC was organized they would show up there.
  • speaker
    Black Presbyterian Churches never
  • speaker
    were involved,
  • speaker
    I suppose I could say,
  • speaker
    with the kind
  • speaker
    of money and official representation in the movement
  • speaker
    that I suppose some white churches were able to bring
  • speaker
    because of their size and because of their financial ability to
  • speaker
    send their minister if he indeed he was sent
  • speaker
    or to make a contribution of several hundred dollars by check
  • speaker
    to something that we were doing. Or if they were involved they're more likely to be involved in
  • speaker
    the community where they were. Some place like Orangeburg,
  • speaker
    South Carolina and J. Herbert Nelson. Oh yes,
  • speaker
    yes. Or Rocky Mount,
  • speaker
    North Carolina and Jim Costner[?].
  • speaker
    Yes, or Reggie Hawkins in Charlotte, North Carolina.
  • speaker
    I was very much aware of the participation of black Presbyterians in the south
  • speaker
    and the struggle at precisely the points that you mentioned.
  • speaker
    I was not as much aware of black Presbyterian participation in the north.
  • speaker
    For example, in Detroit and Newark,
  • speaker
    New Jersey, and Watts
  • speaker
    and so forth. That was, of course,
  • speaker
    that was the same period, a little later I guess.
  • speaker
    The riots were from about '64 to '67
  • speaker
    and there we looked to black Presbyterian churches
  • speaker
    support and food distribution,
  • speaker
    strategizing, getting Presbyterian lay men involved
  • speaker
    and leadership cadres that were trying to bring some kind of order
  • speaker
    out of the disorder of the rebellions themselves.
  • speaker
    And I was on the street at Newark
  • speaker
    and then,
  • speaker
    uh, Watts and in the Detroit riot trying to get Presbyterian churches
  • speaker
    in those areas to participate.
  • speaker
    That's another whole angle the northern aspect of our work during that period.
  • speaker
    I know that the assassination of President Kennedy
  • speaker
    probably will not be viewed in history as a civil rights event certainly
  • speaker
    by most historians. But what impact do you think that had on
  • speaker
    the civil rights movement in the succeeding years?
  • speaker
    The assassination of President Kennedy.
  • speaker
    That assassination was what year?
  • speaker
    1963. '63.
  • speaker
    I really don't recall anything outstanding.
  • speaker
    Well it did, it put a southerner in the White House as President.
  • speaker
    Yes,
  • speaker
    in terms of the impact of the assassination itself I don't recall anything
  • speaker
    noteworthy that expressed itself within
  • speaker
    the movement except that it became clear I think to all
  • speaker
    of us that violence was endemic in the movement.
  • speaker
    The assassination of King meant a great deal more in terms of the movement itself.
  • speaker
    Did you,
  • speaker
    did you have, did you suspect at the time you were making those trips into Mississippi
  • speaker
    and Alabama that there were any truth in the rumors which were
  • speaker
    brought in the civil rights movement of the
  • speaker
    involvement of the FBI
  • speaker
    and U.S. Marshals in conspiracy
  • speaker
    against the movement? Yes there was a great deal of talk about it on the field
  • speaker
    at COFO headquarters in Hattiesburg
  • speaker
    and other Mississippi towns because we were,
  • speaker
    didn't look calm, and one
  • speaker
    or two other places.
  • speaker
    It was known that the FBI agents in the area
  • speaker
    were walking on both sides of the street
  • speaker
    and that they had close friends within the Citizens'
  • speaker
    Council and the Klu Klux Klan.
  • speaker
    Of course one assumed that they had to be in touch
  • speaker
    with both sides but we all feared that in a showdown they would stand
  • speaker
    with the whites. I remember talking
  • speaker
    with "snik" leadership they would often point out the fact that the FBI
  • speaker
    man who was in town was having dinner
  • speaker
    and drinks, and being real buddy buddy
  • speaker
    with the sheriff and had neglected to establish the same
  • speaker
    kind of cordial relationship
  • speaker
    with the with the black movement.
  • speaker
    Talking about that reminds me of one,
  • speaker
    two really hairy incidents down in Mississippi.
  • speaker
    One time I got ran out of, out of one of those towns
  • speaker
    and I forget which one. We had to run ahead of the pursuing
  • speaker
    group that knew that we were in town
  • speaker
    and was trying to cut us off from getting out of town
  • speaker
    and they were in a pickup truck
  • speaker
    and we were in a rented car. We rented a lot of cars in those days.
  • speaker
    I think Avis and Hertz made a lot of money
  • speaker
    off of New York staff in those days.
  • speaker
    But I was aware of phones being
  • speaker
    tapped. My wife knew that our phone at home was tapped
  • speaker
    and pointed it out to me on one or two occasions,
  • speaker
    strange things that had happened.
  • speaker
    I always assumed that the public phone nearest to the headquarters of the movement
  • speaker
    was tapped and once or twice I got on the phone
  • speaker
    and heard somebody talking to someone
  • speaker
    else about something that made it quite clear to me
  • speaker
    that this phone was either in very bad need of repair
  • speaker
    or had a tap on.
  • speaker
    So yes I don't think we were aware of the
  • speaker
    extent to which the federal government would go to pull the
  • speaker
    rug out from under a radical movement,
  • speaker
    that came later.
  • speaker
    The period of black power when a deliberate attempt was
  • speaker
    made to smash the radical phalanx of
  • speaker
    the black power movement by creating incidents
  • speaker
    through agents provocateurs
  • speaker
    and other kinds of intrusions into the inner circle of the movement.
  • speaker
    But we had no confidence in that
  • speaker
    period that the federal government was could be completely
  • speaker
    depended upon in a showdown
  • speaker
    with the racists of the South.
  • speaker
    Was the Commission on Religion, Commission on Religion
  • speaker
    and Race involved at all in the Freedom Rides.
  • speaker
    No, I don't believe so, well the freedom rides came
  • speaker
    and went 60...
  • speaker
    Early 60s. Early 60s.
  • speaker
    No, no, we weren't involved in them.
  • speaker
    The early 60s United Presbyterian Church
  • speaker
    was much more involved ing
  • speaker
    pronouncement making
  • speaker
    and legislative efforts for the Supreme,
  • speaker
    for the Civil Rights Bill of 1957. 1954.
  • speaker
    No, the Supreme,
  • speaker
    not the Supreme Court decision.
  • speaker
    The first civil rights bill since the
  • speaker
    Reconstruction was voted,
  • speaker
    was passed by Eisenhower,
  • speaker
    during Eisenhower's administration. '57?
  • speaker
    '57, '58.
  • speaker
    We were much involved with, with that,
  • speaker
    I remember the Washington office was going full steam was rendering good
  • speaker
    service in terms of legislative lobbying activity.
  • speaker
    You recall the whole controversy around civil disobedience.
  • speaker
    And our church took a very courageous stand on civil disobedience
  • speaker
    and stood out on that issue.
  • speaker
    So that I think of those days as a period of developing a
  • speaker
    policy base within the church that would enable a council
  • speaker
    on church and race later to come to operate
  • speaker
    with some freedom. Let me ask you about something that the Board of Christian Education
  • speaker
    did as a forerunner of the commission.
  • speaker
    It had something called the ministry
  • speaker
    and areas of racial tension. Yes. Metz Rollins
  • speaker
    and Jack Marion,
  • speaker
    which predated the commission.
  • speaker
    Can you comment on what...?
  • speaker
    It wasn't very successful as I recall.
  • speaker
    I remember Jack Marion very strongly committed to it
  • speaker
    but I also remember his expression of frustration
  • speaker
    and some disillusionment
  • speaker
    with what they were trying to do
  • speaker
    and it sort of petered out at the end.
  • speaker
    I'd have to look at some...
Details
Title

Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1981.

Description

Oral history recorded December 23, 1981 in Newark, N.J.

Creator

Wilmore, Gayraud S. (interviewee)
McCloud, J. Oscar (James Oscar), 1936- (interviewer)

Date

1981
December 23, 1981

Type of resource

sound recording-nonmusical

Genre

oral histories
interviews
sound recordings

Form

audiocassettes

Extent

audiocassettes (90 min.) : 1 7/8 ips, mono

Language

English

Subject names

United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Religion and Race.
Student Christian Movement.
Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.).

Topics

African Americans--Civil rights.
Race relations--Religious aspects--Christianity.
African American clergy.
Segregation in education--United States.

Geographic subjects

United States
North and Central America--United States--New Jersey--Essex--Newark
United States.

Rights status

Contact repository for more information

Rights status

IN COPYRIGHT; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Note

Recorded December 23, 1981 in Newark, N.J.

Physical location

CASSETTE 857; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA

Related item

[Interview with] Gayraud S. Wilmore, Jr. [sound recording] / [J. Oscar McCloud].--https://catalog.history.pcusa.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumb...

Identifier (local)

cassette857_side2

PID (Persistent Identifier)

islandora:133226

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