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Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1981.
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- speaker(1963) was a very crucial year in so many ways
- speakerin the early part of the year. There had been an interreligious conference on race
- speakerin Chicago and that was the year of
- speakerGene Blake's arrest in Baltimore and the year of the March on Washington.
- speakerAnd finally unfortunately also the year of Kennedy's assassination.
- speakerThe commission came... And the bombing in Birmingham. And the bombing
- speakerand of 16th Street Church bombing in Birmingham.
- speakerThe commission came into existence in the midst of this.
- speakerHow did you figure out or decide where to begin
- speakerwith your coming on just a few months before the March
- speakeron Washington? In a way we didn't have to make any decisions about it.
- speakerWe were carried along by the momentum of the events itself.
- speakerWe start off running. First thing we had to do is catch up
- speakerwith Dr. King. That phrase was used several times I recall
- speakerthe United Presbyterian Church has to catch up
- speakerwith Dr. King which meant that we had to get people on the field
- speakerand meet him where he was and try to interlock our resources in
- speakerwith the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
- speakerWe had to do the same thing with respect to the National Council Commission on religion
- speakerand race which had
- speakerremoved Oscar Lee in favor of
- speakera young wayside radical United Church of Christ minister
- speakerBob Spike and Bob had started off running
- speakerwhere Oscar had been moving a little more cautiously
- speakerand slowly. And I think I rather favored Bob's leadership than Oscar's
- speakerduring that time although I commiserated hours
- speakerwith Oscar in 475 about how he was being
- speakereclipsed.
- speakerIn any case, we started off running in the sense that
- speakerthe call to Washington had been issued.
- speakerYou know we had to get on board and move to Washington
- speakerand take our people there.
- speakerThe NCC was beginning to develop the Mississippi summer program of
- speaker1964 which was launched
- speakerwith great success in 64
- speakerbut was conceived in 63.
- speakerSo a number of things that were happening
- speakerduring that time provided the agenda for,
- speakerexcuse me, the commission meetings and the staff meetings
- speakerso we didn't have to think about what shall we do now.
- speakerI mean what kinds of steps ought we to take our question
- speakerwas how shall we respond to this call.
- speakerBut even then there was already a march on Washington planned
- speakerand you had some money allocated
- speakerand obviously there were requests for support.
- speakerWhat kind of discussion do you recall taking place around allocation of funds
- speakereven for the support of the March on Washington?
- speakerA lot of that money as I recall was
- speakerwas conduited through the Commission on Religion
- speakeror Race to the Commission of the NCC.
- speakerI see.
- speakerWhich became the Coordinating
- speakerGroup.
- speakerFor all of the denominations that had created
- speakerin response to the NCC's call some kind of new agency
- speakerwith unprecedented powers presumably for involvement in the struggle
- speakerfor racial justice.
- speakerYou recalled after Bob Spike died I served as interim director for
- speakerthe NCC Commission on Religion and Race
- speakerand assumed that coordinating function for a short time.
- speakerSo I got to know the importance of the role the NCC was playing
- speakerduring that period. Let me say just one thing about that period because you've asked me how
- speakerdid we get involved and how did we make decisions about where we ought
- speakerto be.
- speakerI can not underestimate
- speakerI should not underestimate the role that Metz Rollins played in that early
- speakerperiod, see. It was Metz and Bob Stone and myself.
- speakerMetz had been on the firing line in Tallahassee
- speakerand in Nashville. He knew the leadership of SCLC.
- speakerHe knew the tactics of nonviolent direct action.
- speakerSo he was he brought to the table so to speak activist
- speakerorientation and strategies
- speakerand tactics which I didn't have
- speakerand would not have thought of except in imitation
- speakerof what was being reported in the newspapers
- speakerbut Metz had been there. He had his head beat in
- speakeror something in Nashville by that time.
- speakerSo he played a very important role I think in getting us from behind the desks
- speakerand out into the field. And he played an important role in introducing
- speakerme to some of the activists in the movement in the South.
- speakerAnd Bob Stone?
- speakerBob,
- speakerBob and I really had a little problem.
- speakerI never felt that Bob was totally loyal to me.
- speakerAnd I would not have selected Bob for
- speakerthat position but Edler forced Bob onto me.
- speakerBob owed, Edler owed Bob something I'm not sure of what it was it may,
- speakerwhen was Edler elected to Moderatorship for General Assembly.
- speaker64. 64. Well it couldn't have been that
- speakerbut something Bob. He ran in 63 the first time.
- speakerWell maybe Bob, yeah,
- speakerI guess Bob was very important in Edler's early campaign for Moderator
- speakerand Edler came to me. Said, "Gay,
- speakerI would like to see Bob Stone get that second staff position." I was
- speakernot for it because I hadn't met the man
- speakerand he impressed me
- speakerwith a certain kind of aloofness
- speakerand supercilious attitude toward me.
- speakerHe too came out of that National Missions urban church
- speakercoterie and I was not known among them
- speakerand therefore he didn't respect me as one who
- speakerhad been through the fires with some of the men who had been involved in that
- speakerwhole period.
- speakerI guess that was the Olinsky period, too.
- speakerA lot of them knew him, and Skin[?] had been trained by him.
- speakerI hadn't. But Bob,
- speakerBob and I worked out fairly well although I had straightened him out two
- speakeror three times and I was not sorry when
- speakerhe finally left. I don't recall the details of it
- speakerbut I probably had something to do with getting rid of him.
- speakerGene Blake got arrested
- speakerin Baltimore in July of
- speaker63. Do you have any
- speakercomments on that?
- speakerDid it serve a useful purpose insofar as the witness of the
- speakerUPC was concerned? Yes definitely.
- speakerI always had the feeling that Gene Blake,
- speakerand I would say this about some of our other officials,
- speakerhad come to a decision in his own heart
- speakerand soul that if there ever
- speakerwas a time when he had to stand forth like a Christian,
- speakerthis was the time.
- speakerI think they were really willing to risk something
- speakerone could not help but admire Martin Luther King Jr. as a
- speakerkind of prototype of what contemporary Christian minister ought
- speakerto be and I think these men longed
- speakerthemselves for that image of themselves
- speakerand were willing if necessary to make certain sacrifices
- speakerto see that happened.
- speakerThey thought of themselves, therefore, in somewhat heroic terms Gene Blake particularly.
- speakerHe had a sense of heroism,
- speakera sense of almost martyrdom,
- speakerof making a sacrifice,
- speakerof shocking the nation into the realization that
- speakerChristians could still witness
- speakerand suffer for the truth if God
- speakerso willed it.
- speakerAnd so I think he went willingly into that situation
- speakerand perhaps happily knowing that it would have reverberations that would be
- speakerextremely important for other churches' witness.
- speakerSome, some people looking back might speculate that
- speakersince Gene Blake was later to make be a representative of Protestantism
- speakerat the March on Washington
- speakerand therefore to speech echoing the words "late we come
- speakerbut we come." Yes. Something to that effect. Yeah.
- speakerHow do you respond to suggestion that
- speakerthe event in Baltimore may have been
- speakercalculated to relate to the later gathering at
- speakerthe Washington Monument in Washington?
- speakerI don't know. It's an interesting idea. I do think that Blake needed something to authenticate
- speakerhim to the top civil rights leadership to the civil rights
- speakerand labor leadership who had gathered around Bayard
- speakerRustin, and A. Philip Randolph,
- speakerand Martin Luther King Jr.
- speakerand he needed some kind of authentication some kind of verification
- speakerof his right to claim titular leadership
- speakerof American Christendom or American Protestantism at least.
- speakerAnd did he have that prior to his arrest in 63?
- speakerNo I don't think so but I think he did afterward.
- speakerAnd I think he knew how to carry it off once he got into those councils.
- speakerAs you know he was used to national leadership being in the spotlight.
- speakerAnd I think he impressed those others that he needed to be in on
- speakerthe decisions having to do with the strategy preceding
- speakerand following the March on Washington.
- speakerAfter that time I think Gene Blake became
- speakerthe real leader of the Christian forces
- speakeror shall we say the church troops
- speakerand the Civil Rights Movement.
- speakerI'm trying to think if Bob Stone was at the amusement park in Washington
- speakerhe may have been. Bob had a way of always being at the right place at the right
- speakertime.
- speakerBob was a manipulative, in the best sense of the word,
- speakerperson and was on hand.
- speakerHe may have been at that amusement park.
- speakerI think you would do well to interview Bob Stone.
- speakerYou talked a bit
- speakerand made several references to the National Council's involvement,
- speakerI wonder if you would express further opinion on the quality
- speakerof its contribution during this period
- speakerand also if you'd say something about what other
- speakermainline predominately white Protestant churches
- speakerwere doing?
- speakerI had a lot of respect for Ed Espy.
- speakerI knew Ed, he was the excecutive secretary of the NCC during
- speakerthat period. I knew him in the SCM because he came out
- speakerof the YMCA,
- speakercalled the Student YMCA,
- speakerand therefore he was one of the persons that I had worked
- speakerwith regionally when I was
- speakerwith the Student Christian Movement.
- speakerI thought Ed had
- speakera commitment to the NCC's involvement that
- speakerdid not
- speakerfield some of the restraints that the commitment
- speakerof denominational leaders had, those who were deeply entrenched as officials
- speakerof their own communions.
- speakerHe, coming out of the YMCA
- speakerand being identified
- speakerwith that non-sectarian non-denominational movement,
- speakerwas willing to commit the church in ways that perhaps would not have been
- speakerso readily done by people who were
- speakerdeeply rooted in denominational tradition.
- speakerAnd so he gave Bob Spike
- speakerand the staff of the NCC Commission on Religion
- speakerand Race a lot of room to move,
- speakerand make decisions, and to get involved,
- speakerto make public statements to the press,
- speakerand so forth. I appreciated the role the NCC played in that
- speakertime. I didn't do anything without checking
- speakerwith them. There was good cooperation
- speakerand coordination among us.
- speakerI think in those days I was really impressed
- speakerwith how that staff could gather my counterparts
- speakerand all the nominations together at a moment's notice
- speakerand we could make decisions in which we could I could commit twenty five thousand dollars
- speakeror ten thousand dollars. Somebody else from another denomination could
- speakerand we could we get launch something right then
- speakerand there.
- speakerOr we could make a public statement right then and there.
- speakerI don't think the church has ever been same.
- speakerI mean we've never had those days repeated since that time.
- speakerAmong the other denominations, I had great respect for UCC.
- speakerI don't know whether Charles had taken over that early
- speakerperiod. I think back,
- speakeryou know, whether he was with the Committee for Racial Justice Now,
- speakermatter of fact,
- speakerwas what it was called.
- speakerI'm speaking of Charles Cobb
- speakerbut I had great respect for his leadership.
- speakerAlthough I never felt that he was cooperating
- speakerwith the rest of us quite as much as I thought he should.
- speakerHe was very much devoted to
- speakersupporting his own churches in the south,
- speakerand that's how he got involved in North Carolina
- speakerand the Wilmington affair and launched his own field program
- speakerquite apart from decisions that were being made by the rest of us in
- speakerthe NCC which decision had mostly to do
- speakerwith the Mississippi summer in the program in Mississippi.
- speakerBut he wanted to do something in North Carolina
- speakerand he did, and he stuck with it right straight through,
- speakeras you know, to the vindication of the Wilmington Ten.
- speakerThe Episcopalians I don't recall we're doing that much at that point.
- speakerThe special, the General Convention special program was launched
- speakerand, I think, was probably more impressive than the Presbyterians
- speakerin terms of the amount of money that was involved.
- speakerThree million dollars.
- speakerAnd oh no I think the Episcopalians probably spent about eight million dollars
- speakerthroughout that whole civil rights period.
- speakerBut much of that money went to obscure community organizations
- speakerand radical groups scattered around
- speakerthe cities of the nation which never amounted to very much.
- speakerI think the decisions were made more on the basis of a sense of camaraderie
- speakerwith grass roots blacks than any kind of logical
- speakerstrategy about where money could best be used to
- speakerforward, advance, the whole movement.
- speakerLet's see, other denominations. United Methodist.
- speakerUnited Methodist... I was not aware that the United Methodists were very
- speakermuch involved in that time, in that period.
- speakerI don't think there were any black staff at the helm,
- speakera white staff.
- speakerI don't even remember their names.
- speakerRoman Catholics, yes. A project equality had already been
- speakerlaunched and was very promising
- speakerand Matt Allman[?] was the Roman Catholic layperson
- speakerwho evinced tremendous expertise
- speakerand knowledge of the dynamics of the period
- speakerand gave good leadership.
- speakerBut United Methodist came a little later I think in terms of really
- speakerdistinguished leadership. We're gonna take a break.
- speakerI'd like to return back to return to the whole
- speakerUnited Presbyterian Church's involvement.
- speakerDuring this period we've been talking about the period of 64 to 65 was
- speakerthe great movement into Mississippi
- speakerand Alabama. Do you remember your first venture south
- speakeror your first participation in a march in the south?
- speakerThe Council on Church and Race's movement in the South began,
- speakerI believe, with our opening up the
- speakerHattiesburg project in Mississippi at the invitation of
- speakerthe Council on Church
- speakerand Race of the NCC
- speakerand I think my first venture into the South was in connection
- speakerwith the establishment of that project.
- speakerI had already been south. You recall,
- speakerI was the executive of the Board of Christian Education
- speakerand social education and action. During that period,
- speakerI went south. I remember one Shelbyville
- speakerand Henderson, and a couple small Presbyterian churches in the south
- speakertrying to organize some interest among those ministers in
- speakerblack employment in the new Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company that was
- speakerrelocating in North Carolina.
- speakerSo it wasn't that I was unfamiliar with the South
- speakerbut I think our first real venture into the South
- speakercame in connection with the establishment of the Hattiesburg project
- speakerand that was quite an interesting thing because we rented a space.
- speakerWe put a full time staff person there.
- speakerWe brought 10,
- speaker15 ministers a week from all over the country
- speakerto Hattiesburg to stay there for ten days to two weeks
- speakerinvolved in picketing
- speakerand voter registration and other kinds of
- speakersupport activities in relationship to the Council
- speakerof Federated Organizations, COFO,
- speakerwhich was headed up by that time by a brilliant young black activist by the name of
- speakerBob Moses. I met James Forman for the first time in that
- speakersituation and there were other young blacks from
- speaker"snik" (SNCC) Stokely Carmichael
- speakerand Rap Brown and others who were associated
- speakerwith that Hattiesburg project.
- speakerNow, I had all my strategy was from the beginning
- speakerto make the United Presbyterian Church as visible as possible where the action
- speakerwas. I always wanted to look for opportunities
- speakerand got a lot of help from Metz on this where we could be visible,
- speakerwhere we could stand forth and say we are representing the United Presbyterian Church in
- speakerthis situation. It seemed to me that the predominately white
- speakerchurches were not getting the kind of
- speakercredit that they deserved in terms of the kind
- speakerof massive policy commitment
- speakerand financial commitment that they had made to the movement
- speakerand we needed to get out from behind those desks
- speakerand get out there where we could rub shoulders
- speakerwith the leadership on the field
- speakerand participate in the activities going on there.
- speakerAnd I constantly sought for such opportunities so when the marches began
- speakerwe tried to participate
- speakerand I didn't participate in all of them.
- speakerI was not at Albany.
- speakerI was not in Tallahassee. I think Metz was involved in one
- speakeror both of those. I was at Selma
- speakerand stayed with that, the Selma march,
- speakerto I guess that was going into Montgomery from Selma
- speakerto Montgomery and I came back and forth a couple of times
- speakerbut walked with them a number of miles.
- speakerAnd Metz was in charge of the, Metz had a very strategic position at
- speakerthat march because Dr.
- speakerKing and the leadership invited him to be responsible
- speakerfor holding the "snik" (SNCC) group together in some kind of orderly
- speakerway in Selma because they were threatening to revolt.
- speakerAnd he had some credibility among them.
- speakerWas this as a result of his involvement working out of Nashville
- speakerand Tallahassee? Yes, yes they knew him
- speakerand he knew them and he was successful I think in maintaining
- speakersome discipline among them right straight through to the end.
- speakerAnd it was difficult because they were threatening to break out of Selma
- speakerand interrupt the march before it got into Jackson
- speakerwith a demand for more aggressive leadership than King was giving at the time.
- speakerYou meant before it got into Montgomery?
- speakerMontgomery, yes. What did I say? Jackson.
- speakerJackson, yes. I'm thinking about the other march which I also participated in in nineteen sixty
- speakerfive I guess, the march from Memphis to Jackson,
- speakerMississippi. But Presbyterian ministers
- speakerwere coming from all over the country to Hattiesburg.
- speakerThey were not telling their sessions that they were going.
- speakerI used to get telephone calls in the middle of the night from wives of
- speakerministers saying, "My husband has left,
- speakerand packed his bag and is down there
- speakerwith you. He didn't say good bye.
- speakerI don't know where he is. My children are worried about him.
- speakerWhat are you doing to our father
- speakerand husband?" And I used to talk to those men about
- speakerthe motivation for coming
- speakerand there again I recognize in them the same kinds of sentiments,
- speakerfeelings that were going through the souls of
- speakerJohn Coventry Smith and Bill Morrison
- speakerand Ken Neigh a desire to
- speakerfor once stand forth as a white Christian
- speakerin a way that they could be proud of in terms of their commitment to
- speakerjustice. Do you think they came without talking to their sessions
- speakerbecause they felt as though if they had talked to their sessions,
- speakerthe sessions would have vetoed it?
- speakerYes I think many of them reported that they got no encouragement
- speakerfrom the leaders of their churches. And they said finally to some of them informally
- speakerI'm going and you can tell the rest of them I cannot stay here any longer.
- speakerI need there. Our church is there.
- speakerWe're trying to bear a witness to those people.
- speakerAnd I believe that's where the Lord wants me to be.
- speakerDid you become aware of many United Presbyterian pastors who got
- speakerinto difficulty with their congregations as a result of participation?
- speakerI did in those days know some that did.
- speakerI can't recall the names but everywhere I go now I will
- speakerrun into somebody on occasion not every trip
- speakerbut somebody will walk up to me say, "You don't remember me
- speakerbut I was in jail down in Hattiesburg,
- speakerMississippi as a result of joining you
- speakerand that project we had down there." Do they say that now almost 20 years later
- speakerwith a sense of bitterness or a degree of affirmation?
- speakerAffirmation I think for the most part.
- speakerI've never talked to anybody who was bitter about those days.
- speakerThat was a trying time because I think we had nine men under indictment
- speakerfor breaking city ordinance in a picket line.
- speakerI was in that line. I stepped outside of it in order to be the one
- speakerto negotiate.
- speakerAnd the men went to jail.
- speakerAnd it was a very unpleasant kind
- speakerof experience for the churches back home to realize that their
- speakerpastor was a jailbird.
- speakerAnd we got a lot of flak from that.
- speakerBut you know the church stood firmly on that.
- speakerI think COCAR could have gone down the drain right at that time
- speakerbut the church stood firmly. That is to say the boys
- speakerand agencies did. Was, Gay,
- speakerwas that the same basic period during the time
- speakerMrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed
- speakerand the three young men
- speakeror did that come after? Yes, Schwerner and Chaney
- speakerand Goodman, during that very period.
- speakerAnd Metz Rollins knew Viola Liuzzo.
- speakerWe were together in Mississippi at the time I saw her that
- speakernight that she was killed.
- speakerI had met her, Metz knew her much better than I.
- speakerIt was a very strange
- speakertime. Did COCAR assume any responsibility for briefing
- speakerthose United Presbyterians who came as to the possibility
- speakerthat really they might be...?
- speakerNo we didn't, that's interesting that we didn't.
- speakerWe did not. And we might well have as a matter of fact if I knew then what
- speakerI know now I would have gotten out some kind of waiver something
- speakerfor them to sign because, you know,
- speakerthe church could have been sued for thousands of dollars for things that
- speakeroccurred down there to those people.
- speakerNo we didn't brief them. I just I think we just assumed that
- speakerthis was the thing to do.
- speakerThese were adults, and if they wanted to join us,
- speakerthey were welcome to come.
- speakerAfter they got there, of course, with their bags from the airport,
- speakerwe would have meetings and talk about what the situation
- speakerwas like in Hattiesburg but not what they might expect from their churches
- speakeror whether they had separated from their families
- speakerand churches amicably
- speakeror had just walked away.
- speakerWere most of these white Presbyterian ministers persons who had had
- speakersome deep involvement in racial justice issues back in their...?
- speakerNo, and that's an interesting thing.
- speakerI think maybe a quarter of them,
- speakermaybe 20 maybe a third, had
- speakerbut two thirds had not.
- speakerAnd therein lies the source of their problem.
- speakerBecause many of them surprised their congregations
- speakerwith their aggressiveness after years of passivity on the race question
- speakerand all of a sudden, boom! They go through the ceiling
- speakerwith this desire to martyr themselves in the South.
- speakerI mentioned the disorderliness that this organization of the time was
- speakeron the verge of talking about that. I recall how wild
- speakerand woolly that whole
- speakeratmosphere and involvement was in the rallies
- speakerand marches in the south that is to say you had people footloose
- speakerand fancy free.
- speakerOne of the things I recall so vividly
- speakeris the spectacle of
- speakerhighly educated wealthy white girls from Vassar,
- speakerSmith, Welsley,
- speakerBryn Mawr, throwing themselves at
- speakerblack sons of sharecroppers
- speakerand tenant farmers who could barely speak English,
- speakerwho were dirty,
- speakerunkempt, ignorant,
- speakerwhile they would not even speak
- speakeror have anything to do with well-educated young black men
- speakerfrom their same schools or other schools in the north who were there trying
- speakerto do the same thing they wanted to do.
- speakerThere was that enticement to the savagery of
- speakerlower class blacks that had all the sexual overtones that
- speakerD.H. Lawrence puts into the gamekeeper in uh...
- speakerThere's something almost psychological about some of these people's involvement.
- speaker...in Lady Chatterley's Lover, you know.
- speakerThere was something almost psychological about some of these people's involvement.
- speakerYes. And not necessarily rational out of a sense of
- speakerright. Right.
- speakerI would never have admitted it in those days because there was a lot of criticism
- speakerof the Northern liberals reminiscent of the criticism
- speakerof the missionaries who went south during the Civil War
- speakerand followed the Union troops
- speakerand during the Radical Reconstruction, you know,
- speakerthe same kind of criticism. Let me ask you...
- speakerBut some of it was correct.
- speakerLet me ask you kind of a related question, Gay, looking back on this.
- speakerHas anybody written what you would consider a kind of comprehensive
- speakerhistorical analytical piece on what was happening in
- speakerthe mid 60s in Alabama,
- speakerMississippi, and the rest of the south or,
- speakerto put it in another way, Is it possible for anybody to write such piece?
- speakerI think it's possible, and I don't know all of the literature.
- speakerA book that Howard Zinn did on "snik" (SNCC),
- speakerThe New Abolitionists, I think, I think that's the title of it,
- speakerhas some of this.
- speakerThere may be one or two other things there are a number of articles that appeared
- speakerin books like Seven on Black
- speakerand Floyd Barber's two books on the on the period.
- speakerBut I haven't seen any really comprehensive solid
- speakerhigh quality work. Somebody needs to do it
- speakerand it's time to do it. And nobody has written that from the perspective
- speakerof the religious involvement?
- speakerNo.
- speakerNow you can do it. I mean you got the material,
- speakeryou will have the material to do it. And what it could be a kind,
- speakeralmost James Michener type thing, you know if somebody wanted to do it
- speakerwho had real narrative writing
- speakerability and wanted to combine fiction
- speakerwith fact.
- speakerYou're a writer, why haven't you written something like that? Yeah,
- speakeryou give me an idea, you know,
- speakernow it's possible, I could do it.
- speakerBut my involvement was strictly
- speakerwith the religious forces in the movement, and I think one would
- speakerhave to, in order to cover the entire waterfront,
- speakerone would have to have been
- speakerwith Dr. King in the way you were.
- speakerSo you were closer to Dr. King than I have ever been.
- speakerAnd I represented that part of the church's
- speakerinvolvement in the civil rights movement that was almost a silent partner of
- speakerDr. King.
- speakerWe never sat around the conference table I did get into one
- speakeror two staff meetings through Andrew Young.
- speakerYou mentioned the marches I remember his asking me,
- speakerI remember him asking me to look after his wife on one of those marches.
- speakerAnd I was very happy to do that.
- speakerI walked with her the whole way
- speakerand he came back and thanked me.
- speakerHe said to me later, "The only reason I asked you to do that,
- speakerGay, is because I couldn't trust anybody else." So I said,
- speaker"What made you think you could trust me?"
- speakerBut I never
- speakergot close enough to the leadership of
- speakerSCLC to say to them what I'm saying to you about the strategic
- speakeropportunity they had to recognize the white churches
- speakerand thereby employ their resources more rationally
- speakerand more forcefully to bring about some of the ends that Dr.
- speakerKing wanted to achieve.
- speakerDo you think the civil rights movement organizations including
- speakerSCLC viewed the churches
- speakersignificantly different than they viewed the labor unions
- speakerinsofar as seeking support
- speakerand involvement in the...? No I don't think so.
- speakerAnd the reason for it is that they were mainly black Baptist preachers
- speakerwho did not know the black constituency of the predominately
- speakerwhite churches. They had no idea about that.
- speakerYou know, I was the director of the Council on Church
- speakerand Race of the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerThat couldn't mean a thing to them. I mean, "Who's he?" you know.
- speakerThey had no sense of what the potential
- speakerof having a liaison relationship to somebody in that position.
- speakerDr. King later began to understand that
- speakerand we met and talked about it at Montreat when we had our first
- speakerencounter with one another personally
- speakerbut most of that time they overlooked
- speakerthe participation of people like myself.
- speakerAnd we strove as best we could to be visible to them
- speakerand to offer ourselves to them but they didn't know how to use us.
- speakerIs this because those Blacks were still assuming that the people
- speakerto write to in these predominately white denominations were,
- speakerquote, "The White Leadership" which had always been there?
- speakerYes, they related to Eugene Carson Blake,
- speakerexcuse me, and they related to Bob Spike before his
- speakertragic death,
- speakerbut they did not relate to Oscar Lee
- speakerand Gayraud Wilmore. And Charlie Cobb. And Charlie Cobb.
- speakerCharlie forced himself upon a certain grass roots leadership
- speakerof North Carolina but never upon the top elite leadership
- speakerof the movement, of core SCLC
- speakerUrban League NAACP.
- speakerI want to go back to this thing about Presbyterian involvement in the marches.
- speakerWhat kind of support do you recall getting from black Presbyterian
- speakerconstituency?
- speakerWell I wouldn't say that they were entirely out of it.
- speakerI was aware of support
- speakerand the prayers
- speakerand genuine concern and goodwill of black Presbyterian
- speakerministers. Even though we did not see them in the field
- speakeras frequently as we did whites.
- speakerSome of them did get to Mississippi,
- speakerto the Hattiesburg project, stayed for a short time
- speakerand left.
- speakerSome of them I saw at marches.
- speakerWe'd greet one another, walk together for a while.
- speakerAfter NCBC was organized they would show up there.
- speakerBlack Presbyterian Churches never
- speakerwere involved,
- speakerI suppose I could say,
- speakerwith the kind
- speakerof money and official representation in the movement
- speakerthat I suppose some white churches were able to bring
- speakerbecause of their size and because of their financial ability to
- speakersend their minister if he indeed he was sent
- speakeror to make a contribution of several hundred dollars by check
- speakerto something that we were doing. Or if they were involved they're more likely to be involved in
- speakerthe community where they were. Some place like Orangeburg,
- speakerSouth Carolina and J. Herbert Nelson. Oh yes,
- speakeryes. Or Rocky Mount,
- speakerNorth Carolina and Jim Costner[?].
- speakerYes, or Reggie Hawkins in Charlotte, North Carolina.
- speakerI was very much aware of the participation of black Presbyterians in the south
- speakerand the struggle at precisely the points that you mentioned.
- speakerI was not as much aware of black Presbyterian participation in the north.
- speakerFor example, in Detroit and Newark,
- speakerNew Jersey, and Watts
- speakerand so forth. That was, of course,
- speakerthat was the same period, a little later I guess.
- speakerThe riots were from about '64 to '67
- speakerand there we looked to black Presbyterian churches
- speakersupport and food distribution,
- speakerstrategizing, getting Presbyterian lay men involved
- speakerand leadership cadres that were trying to bring some kind of order
- speakerout of the disorder of the rebellions themselves.
- speakerAnd I was on the street at Newark
- speakerand then,
- speakeruh, Watts and in the Detroit riot trying to get Presbyterian churches
- speakerin those areas to participate.
- speakerThat's another whole angle the northern aspect of our work during that period.
- speakerI know that the assassination of President Kennedy
- speakerprobably will not be viewed in history as a civil rights event certainly
- speakerby most historians. But what impact do you think that had on
- speakerthe civil rights movement in the succeeding years?
- speakerThe assassination of President Kennedy.
- speakerThat assassination was what year?
- speaker1963. '63.
- speakerI really don't recall anything outstanding.
- speakerWell it did, it put a southerner in the White House as President.
- speakerYes,
- speakerin terms of the impact of the assassination itself I don't recall anything
- speakernoteworthy that expressed itself within
- speakerthe movement except that it became clear I think to all
- speakerof us that violence was endemic in the movement.
- speakerThe assassination of King meant a great deal more in terms of the movement itself.
- speakerDid you,
- speakerdid you have, did you suspect at the time you were making those trips into Mississippi
- speakerand Alabama that there were any truth in the rumors which were
- speakerbrought in the civil rights movement of the
- speakerinvolvement of the FBI
- speakerand U.S. Marshals in conspiracy
- speakeragainst the movement? Yes there was a great deal of talk about it on the field
- speakerat COFO headquarters in Hattiesburg
- speakerand other Mississippi towns because we were,
- speakerdidn't look calm, and one
- speakeror two other places.
- speakerIt was known that the FBI agents in the area
- speakerwere walking on both sides of the street
- speakerand that they had close friends within the Citizens'
- speakerCouncil and the Klu Klux Klan.
- speakerOf course one assumed that they had to be in touch
- speakerwith both sides but we all feared that in a showdown they would stand
- speakerwith the whites. I remember talking
- speakerwith "snik" leadership they would often point out the fact that the FBI
- speakerman who was in town was having dinner
- speakerand drinks, and being real buddy buddy
- speakerwith the sheriff and had neglected to establish the same
- speakerkind of cordial relationship
- speakerwith the with the black movement.
- speakerTalking about that reminds me of one,
- speakertwo really hairy incidents down in Mississippi.
- speakerOne time I got ran out of, out of one of those towns
- speakerand I forget which one. We had to run ahead of the pursuing
- speakergroup that knew that we were in town
- speakerand was trying to cut us off from getting out of town
- speakerand they were in a pickup truck
- speakerand we were in a rented car. We rented a lot of cars in those days.
- speakerI think Avis and Hertz made a lot of money
- speakeroff of New York staff in those days.
- speakerBut I was aware of phones being
- speakertapped. My wife knew that our phone at home was tapped
- speakerand pointed it out to me on one or two occasions,
- speakerstrange things that had happened.
- speakerI always assumed that the public phone nearest to the headquarters of the movement
- speakerwas tapped and once or twice I got on the phone
- speakerand heard somebody talking to someone
- speakerelse about something that made it quite clear to me
- speakerthat this phone was either in very bad need of repair
- speakeror had a tap on.
- speakerSo yes I don't think we were aware of the
- speakerextent to which the federal government would go to pull the
- speakerrug out from under a radical movement,
- speakerthat came later.
- speakerThe period of black power when a deliberate attempt was
- speakermade to smash the radical phalanx of
- speakerthe black power movement by creating incidents
- speakerthrough agents provocateurs
- speakerand other kinds of intrusions into the inner circle of the movement.
- speakerBut we had no confidence in that
- speakerperiod that the federal government was could be completely
- speakerdepended upon in a showdown
- speakerwith the racists of the South.
- speakerWas the Commission on Religion, Commission on Religion
- speakerand Race involved at all in the Freedom Rides.
- speakerNo, I don't believe so, well the freedom rides came
- speakerand went 60...
- speakerEarly 60s. Early 60s.
- speakerNo, no, we weren't involved in them.
- speakerThe early 60s United Presbyterian Church
- speakerwas much more involved ing
- speakerpronouncement making
- speakerand legislative efforts for the Supreme,
- speakerfor the Civil Rights Bill of 1957. 1954.
- speakerNo, the Supreme,
- speakernot the Supreme Court decision.
- speakerThe first civil rights bill since the
- speakerReconstruction was voted,
- speakerwas passed by Eisenhower,
- speakerduring Eisenhower's administration. '57?
- speaker'57, '58.
- speakerWe were much involved with, with that,
- speakerI remember the Washington office was going full steam was rendering good
- speakerservice in terms of legislative lobbying activity.
- speakerYou recall the whole controversy around civil disobedience.
- speakerAnd our church took a very courageous stand on civil disobedience
- speakerand stood out on that issue.
- speakerSo that I think of those days as a period of developing a
- speakerpolicy base within the church that would enable a council
- speakeron church and race later to come to operate
- speakerwith some freedom. Let me ask you about something that the Board of Christian Education
- speakerdid as a forerunner of the commission.
- speakerIt had something called the ministry
- speakerand areas of racial tension. Yes. Metz Rollins
- speakerand Jack Marion,
- speakerwhich predated the commission.
- speakerCan you comment on what...?
- speakerIt wasn't very successful as I recall.
- speakerI remember Jack Marion very strongly committed to it
- speakerbut I also remember his expression of frustration
- speakerand some disillusionment
- speakerwith what they were trying to do
- speakerand it sort of petered out at the end.
- speakerI'd have to look at some...