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Gayraud Wilmore interviewed by J. Oscar McCloud, 1982.
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- speakerI'm Oscar McCloud. Today is May 20th
- speaker1982.
- speakerI'm continuing the interview
- speakerwith Dr. Gayraud Wilmore.
- speakerGay, when we concluded our
- speakerearlier interview we were talking about some of the involvements of the United
- speakerPresbyterian Church specifically then the Board of Christian Education in the
- speakerwhole racial justice scene in the south.
- speakerCan you comment on what you recall as being the most specific
- speakerand maybe the most significant involvement in the southeast on the
- speakerpart of the Commission on Religion and Race back in the mid 1960s.
- speakerYes, I think the Hattiesburg ministers project was the most
- speakerspecific and perhaps the most meaningful thing the United Presbyterian
- speakerChurch did in relationship to the struggle in the south of that
- speakerperiod. It was done in Mississippi,
- speakerwas done in collaboration
- speakerwith the National Council of Churches Mississippi Summer which
- speakerBob Spike headed up. It happened in the period
- speaker1964-65
- speakerand I think probably was at its height in 1965.
- speakerEssentially it was a staging area,
- speakeras one might speak of it,
- speakerin the little town of Hattiesburg which provide dormitory
- speakerspace and office space for the United Presbyterian
- speakerministers who came into that city for the purpose
- speakerof being involved in COFO,
- speakerthe Council of Federated Organizations,
- speakerwhich was headed up by Bob Moses
- speakerand James Forman. That's when we first met Jim Forman.
- speakerCOFO combined SNCC,
- speakerthe Northern Student Movement, and two or three other movements including the SCLC in
- speakera voter registration drive
- speakerand Freedom Schools in the Hattiesburg area.
- speakerWhite Presbyterian ministers came from all over the country.
- speakerIt was a very difficult period because a number of the younger
- speakerministers were leaving their congregations without having gotten permissions
- speakerfrom their sessions to do so.
- speakerAnd I remember getting telephone calls from ministers' wives saying,
- speaker"My husband left with his suitcase two days ago,
- speakerwe haven't heard from him. He said he was going to Mississippi to join you.
- speakerWill you please get me some word about how he is?
- speakerWe're worried to death." Or a clerk of session would call
- speakerand say, "We voted for our minister not to go
- speakerbut he went anyway and people are very upset here in this little church somewhere in Pennsylvania
- speakeror Ohio. What's going on?" And
- speakerit was really a very very difficult period in terms of that kind
- speakerof excitement on the part of some of the younger white clergy.
- speakerWell they came. They stayed in a dormitory that we had arranged for
- speakerthem, we had rented on the main street in Hattiesburg about a block
- speakeraway from SNCC headquarters.
- speakerThey picketed the courthouse.
- speakerThey taught in Freedom Schools.
- speakerThey met in the black churches
- speakerwith ministers and lay people to talk about the possibility
- speakerof registering and voting.
- speakerI think some of them may have done a little instruction on how one should register
- speakerand vote because we got that kind of instruction ourselves from
- speakerSNCC workers.
- speakerAbout eight of them were arrested. Do you remember that?
- speakerAnd they went to trial.
- speakerThe case went to court, and I think was thrown out
- speakerabout two, three years later.
- speakerI remember the day they went to they were arrested.
- speakerI was supposed to stay out of jail that day in order to secure some legal
- speakerassistance. But I saw them taken away.
- speakerBob Stone figured very prominently in that whole
- speakerdevelopment because he helped to set up the project
- speakerand bring on a staff person who
- speakerlived in the field for almost a year.
- speakerThat's the man whose name we haven't been able to remember,
- speakerBob somebody.
- speakerIn any case, this white minister from I think Illinois
- speakercame down and I met him in New Orleans.
- speakerWe flew up together. I briefed him
- speakerand Stone did, and he
- speakerand his family moved into this property
- speakerthat we had rented and maintained the dormitory
- speakerand the program there on a daily basis for almost a year.
- speakerI cannot think of his name. That was significant because
- speakerI counted one time how many Presbyterian ministers came through there
- speakerand I think it was about 400. Really? Yeah.
- speakerFrom all over the country? From all over the country,
- speakerfor periods from a week to three weeks.
- speakerMost of them for a period of maybe two weeks they would come down
- speakerand we would give them a daily assignment they would go to this church
- speakeror go to that freedom school
- speakeror they would work with a cadre of young people from SNCC
- speakerand picketing the courthouse
- speakerand they entered. They were briefed when they first came you know
- speakerand then debriefed before they left.
- speakerI thought it was significant because it was an on the field experience
- speakerfor Presbyterian ministers who were talking about this
- speakerracial crisis from their pulpits without any personal experience of what it was
- speakerlike, and this gave them that kind of personal background
- speakerand experience. Many of them went on to become very
- speakerprominent in the struggle in their own communities.
- speakerSome others got into difficulty
- speakerwith their congregations and had to give up their pulpits.
- speakerJohn Coventry Smith- That story needs to be told,
- speakeryou know. We need do more research on who those people were
- speakerand what happened to them when they got back.
- speakerJohn Coventry Smith who is the general secretary of the Commission on Ecumenical Mission
- speakerRelations at that time, and writing in the manuscript that he's written about
- speakersome of his experiences talks about ten days
- speakeror two weeks in Hattiesburg. Would that have been in this project you think?
- speakerThat was in that project and you remind me of the fact that a number
- speakerof returning missionaries participated in the project.
- speakerMen and women who were, men who were on furlough were sent down
- speakerto Hattiesburg and one of the reasons John wanted to do that was
- speakerthat some of his people coming back for a furlough were already down there
- speakeror were being asked to go.
- speakerGay, this was this was not a march per se not
- speakerin the sense of the major marches we remember
- speakerbut it was certainly part of that whole scene in the south.
- speakerYou must have participated in a number of the marches.
- speakerDo you have any vivid memories about any of those marches that you participated
- speakerin in Mississippi or Alabama?
- speakerI recall participating in the Selma march,
- speakerI was in the march from Memphis to
- speakerJackson, Mississippi,
- speakerthe so-called Meredith March,
- speakerand some of the smaller marches that happened in Mississippi,
- speakerlike in McComb and Hattiesburg
- speakerand so forth.
- speakerPresbyterian ministers came to those marches.
- speakerThey registered with us when they got there.
- speakerWe knew that they were there.
- speakerWe maintained a fairly low profile as far as
- speakerthe marches were concerned.
- speakerI think Andy Young knew we were there
- speakerand was sort of our contact person
- speakerbut our people were never in the limelight so
- speakerto speak. We weren't at the head of the margins.
- speakerNor did we participate in the evening meetings.
- speakerI did on one or two occasions with Dr.
- speakerKing and the cadre of SCLC leaders that
- speakermet with him in the evening.
- speakerBut for the most part, Presbyterian ministers
- speakerand lay people, but mostly ministers, who participated in those marches were not
- speakerconspicuous by their presence.
- speakerI recall the Selma March,
- speakerAndrew Young coming to me, I reminded Andy of this since,
- speakerasking me to look out for his wife because he had to be up there
- speakerwith Dr. King. And I looked out for her.
- speakerWe walked together for quite a few miles
- speakerand I reminded him of that when
- speakerhe came to Rochester a few years ago.
- speakerI said, "You trusted me with your wife at all those marches." He said,
- speaker"Well I knew I could trust you, I couldn't trust some of those other people." Which was funny to me.
- speakerBut the marches were an
- speakerimportant part of that whole drive in the south
- speakerbecause it provided camaraderie
- speakerand a sense of community, people got to know one another.
- speakerI think it was a very important part of that whole experience.
- speakerYou mentioned the Memphis to Jackson March which,
- speakeras I remember,
- speakerwas the time in which black power was first
- speakerarticulated.
- speakerAnd soon thereafter it was to be,
- speakera year or so a couple years after,
- speakerit was to be the riots in the urban cities.
- speakerWe may have touched upon this before
- speakerbut did the riots in Newark
- speakerand Detroit and other places,
- speakerdid they come as a surprise to persons like yourself who were intimately involved
- speakerin racial justice work?
- speakerNo they didn't really come as a surprise to me.
- speakerI felt the tension mounting year after year after 1963,
- speaker64, 65, 66,
- speakerone could feel the tension mounting.
- speakerThe summers were periods of great tension
- speakerand desperation on the part of black people living in the ghetto.
- speakerIt was hot. When they talk about a long hot summer I think they're talking about climate as
- speakerwell as tempers.
- speakerAnd it was inevitable that it should explode.
- speakerPlus the fact that there were a number of radical organizations that were moving
- speakerin the black community at that time.
- speakerRAM, Revolutionary Action Movement,
- speakerthe Republic of New Africa,
- speakerUS from California under Ron Karenga,
- speakerMuslims of course were going strong.
- speakerSo there were various radical
- speakersectarian and cultic
- speakermovements going around in the ghetto that
- speakerkept the pot boiling so to speak
- speakerand were right for,
- speakermade things right for that kind of revolutionary action.
- speakerI might say, Oscar, that I think the Presbyterian Church played a
- speakerfairly important role in some of the
- speakercity riots in the sense that we were on the scene.
- speakerAnd helped in Detroit and at Watts
- speakerand in Newark to
- speakerdevelop the food distribution centers,
- speakermobilize some of our clergy, and got them tied into the
- speakerlocal clergy who were trying to do something about the food distribution
- speakerquestion more than anything else. That was really a critical matter.
- speakerSo I was on the scene in Newark,
- speakerducking some bullets in a
- speakertelephone booth outside of that housing project they were doing a lot of shooting in.
- speakerAnd I was at Watts when some of our lay people
- speakerand other denominational people put up a barricade
- speakeragainst the motorcycle, what was the name of that motorcycle gang in LA?
- speakerYeah, Hells Angels? Hells Angels, yeah,
- speakerwho were going to come into the community
- speakerand shoot it up.
- speakerSome of us got out and put up a barricade
- speakerand the women were bringing coffee all night.
- speakerI was right in that and being there was a kind of a symbol of the presence
- speakerof the United Presbyterian Church in that situation.
- speakerWe may have only had one or two ministers that we could call on to participate
- speakerbut the leadership knew that the National Presbyterian Church was concerned
- speakerand had its own person there who not only represented
- speakerthe denomination but also had some resources to make available,
- speakerto-
- speakerGay, in the midst, in the midst of the stuff in the urban centers
- speakerand in the south,
- speakerwere there, was there a particular time when you
- speakerwere more fearful for your own safety
- speakerand welfare than any other?
- speakerI think I was more fearful in the South than I was anywhere,
- speakerbecause I came out of the ghetto of the
- speakernorth and I knew how to operate
- speakerin those situations. I was not really familiar
- speakerwith Mississippi and Georgia
- speakerand Alabama. I felt a little uneasy there,
- speakerespecially when I discovered that
- speakerin Hattiesburg for example there was a determined effort
- speakeron the part of the whites to break up the ministers project.
- speakerAnd I remember having to get out of town,
- speakerchased, practically chased out of town by some whites in a pick up truck
- speakerwho were driving around our headquarters all the time
- speakerand just looking for opportunities to make trouble
- speakerwith some of the ministers who were coming in and out,
- speakergoing in and out of that project.
- speakerThat was a little frightening and I think my wife was more concerned about me at that time than at any other time.
- speakerBut in Watts and Detroit, I felt that I was on my own turf,
- speakerbeing a northerner, and I knew how to move and get around in
- speakerthose situations much better than in the rural areas of the South.
- speakerGay, let me a return to the work of the Commission
- speakerand subsequently the Council on Church
- speakerand Race. One of the important things that the
- speakerCommission and the Council did in the life of the United Presbyterian Church itself was
- speakera study it did in around 1967-68
- speakeron the employment practices of the United Presbyterian Church's agencies.
- speakerDo you have any memories about that study
- speakerand its impact on the denomination?
- speakerWhat's the name of the man from Detroit? Walter Green.
- speakerWalter Green.
- speakerThe thing that comes to my mind immediately about that study
- speakerwas the difficulty Walter Green had
- speakerin trying to superimpose upon
- speakera religious institution the norms
- speakerand standards that were applicable to secular institutions.
- speakerHe had high level expertise in
- speakerplanning for a non-discriminatory policy
- speakerand practices within secular institutions.
- speakerHe knew the language,
- speakerhe knew the history of that whole development,
- speakerhe knew the legal ramifications of it.
- speakerAnd he tried without too many adjustments,
- speakerwhich I thought were necessary,
- speakerto superimpose that upon the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerI had to go along with it and I went along
- speakerwith it, you know, enthusiastically,
- speakerbut with a sense of the
- speakerdifficulty we would have when it got right down to the bottom line
- speakerin meeting the expectations that Walter had.
- speakerAnd I think I proved to be, that proved to be right.
- speakerThat he was never quite able to bring it off in the way he
- speakersaw it and envisioned it in his head.
- speakerIt never quite worked that way. Now after Francis came in
- speakerand we had an office,
- speakerI'm not, you know, I don't know what happened.
- speakerI don't know how much transfer there was,
- speakerdo you? Between that earlier experience
- speakerand with Francis.
- speakerI think there were significant connections in that they- What was the last name?
- speakerHollis. Hollis. The EEO policy of the denomination
- speakerreally had its beginning in that.
- speakerDo you remember the reaction of the general secretaries to
- speakerthe findings that resulted in that study?
- speakerHmm, that's an interesting question.
- speakerThe employment practices of these major agencies was
- speakernot a very positive thing, as I recall.
- speakerI really don't remember in any detail what their reactions were except
- speakerto say that all of them respected,
- speakerwhat was his name? Walter. Walter
- speakerand recognized the
- speakerlegitimacy of what he was trying to do
- speakerand recognized also the very nice package that he had
- speakerarranged. Everything made sense
- speakerand they sort of gave it lip service because of that.
- speakerBut there was no sign that they were willing to make any
- speakerkind of drastic changes in employment policy because of this. because
- speakerhe could never really get his hands on,
- speakeryou know, the problem and bring a solution to it.
- speakerIt meant that nobody was threatened by it,
- speakerit was just something that we had on paper,
- speakerthat looked good, that one acknowledged,
- speakerbut did not really have to worry about upsetting the status
- speakerquo. About the same time,
- speakerthe Council on Church and Race was also involved in work that resulted in
- speakerthe establishment of PEDCO. Do you remember,
- speakerdo you remember what was behind PEDCO's coming into existence?
- speakerI remember Brian George warning us,
- speakerand his warning I think was
- speakerappropriate, that things were changing
- speakerin the church and in the society
- speakerwith respect to the whole struggle for
- speakercivil rights and that we needed some kind of agency that was going to carry
- speakerover after CORAR
- speakeror COCAR, was it COCAR at that time?
- speakerCOCAR. After COCAR had gone out of existence,
- speakerand I think he was wise about that,
- speakerthat the economic development corporation seemed to be that kind
- speakerof agency that could pick up where we left off
- speakerand carry on in an area that was most strategic because
- speakerit had to do with economic development of black communities.
- speakerBrian did a lot of that work, he and Edler. By that time,
- speakerCOCAR had become a rather complex
- speakerinstitution and we were beginning to farm out
- speakerthings to various staff persons in the boards
- speakerand agencies who were sort of working for us
- speakeror along side of us or in conjunction
- speakerwith us without actually being under our direction.
- speakerAnd I think it may be stretching matters just a little bit to speak of PEDCO as
- speakera creature of COCAR. I think it was more a creature of the Board of National Missions.
- speakerI think it came out of discussions that originated in our outfit.
- speakerBut it was strongly supported
- speakerand implemented I think by Brian
- speakerand other people in the Board of National Missions.
- speakerIn that some of that same period,
- speakeras I recall, there was something called the
- speakerracial justice staff of the,
- speakerexpanded racial justice staff where there was an attempt to have people
- speakerfrom working
- speakerwith the core racial justice staff who came from all of these boards
- speakerand agencies. Do you recall what was
- speakerthe purpose of that, what were you attempting to accomplish by getting
- speakerthis larger group of staff people gathered as an expanded racial
- speakerjustice staff?
- speakerWell, you know, it was always said that concern for racial
- speakerjustice ought not to be lodged in a single
- speakeragency, that it was everybody's business.
- speakerCOCAR used to get the same kind of criticism that social education
- speakerand action used to get an earlier period.
- speakerThat by being a singular,
- speakerspecific kind of instrumentality for reaching certain goals
- speakerin a certain field,
- speakerit eliminated the possibility of other people feeling that they also
- speakerhad a commitment or at least some responsibility in this area.
- speakerSo we were always looking for opportunities to try
- speakerto open up our operations so that other people could take
- speakera share of it. And I think that expanded staff was one
- speakerstep in that direction, to say to the Board of National Missions staff,
- speakerthe Board of Christian Education,
- speakerthat all of us have a responsibility in this crisis in the nation,
- speakerwhich is really what it was,
- speakerto do some, to take on some staff work in response
- speakerto this crisis.
- speakerAnd so that you had a number of people who were very enthusiastic
- speakerabout that because they were kind of bored
- speakerwith what they were doing anyway.
- speakerAnd this gave them an opportunity to be involved in something that they felt was really on the cutting edge
- speakerof what was going on in the world at the time.
- speakerI'd like to change the subject a little bit
- speakeror the direction and ask you,
- speakerwe've been talking about a period that was in the latter part of the 1960s.
- speakerMartin Luther King having been assassinated
- speakerand then a year later the churches
- speakerwere to be faced with a kind of a confrontation
- speakerby Jim Forman.
- speakerWhat do you remember about that encounter that happened both generally
- speakerwith Jim Forman and the churches, as well as specifically
- speakerwith the United Presbyterian Church? Yes.
- speakerA key agency in that whole development was IFCO,
- speakerand here again Brian George I think is a very key person to talk to.
- speakerIFCO was the Interreligious- Foundation for Community Organization
- speakerwhose director was Lucius Walker, a Baptist minister.
- speakerIFCO was dominated
- speakerin 1969 by
- speakerblack members of its board of directors.
- speakerIt started out, as you recall,
- speakeras an inter-agency board.
- speakerIt was interracial but it also represented a number
- speakerof the funding agencies.
- speakerBut more
- speakerand more it also began to represent the
- speakeragencies that were being funded.
- speakerAnd I think at a certain point
- speakerthe political balance of power rested
- speakerwith those who were being funded rather than those who were funding.
- speakerAnd at that point,
- speakerthe IFCO board began to be more radical in terms of its
- speakerexpectations.
- speakerAnd one of the things that it expected to do was to have a Black Economic Development
- speakerConference in Detroit at Wayne State University in April 1969
- speakerwhich Lucius Walker determined would be open ended enough
- speakerso that grassroots people,
- speakerthe kind of people who are increasingly being dominant in IFCO,
- speakerwould have an opportunity to decide the future of the organization,
- speakerof the whole movement.
- speakerThat is to say the movement of grass roots,
- speakerghetto organizations, self-determination organizations.
- speakerWell when we got to Wayne State University,
- speakerthe thing that I remember more than anything else was that Forman came to
- speakerme with the manifesto and talked to me about it
- speakerand said this is what he was going to do the next day.
- speakerI asked him if he had talked with other clergy
- speakerand he had but I don't remember who else he talked to.
- speakerI don't think I saw a document.
- speakerI just talked to him about it
- speakerand I was not aware of full implications of what he was talking
- speakerabout. I said, yeah, why don't you do it, you know, that kind of thing.
- speakerMy attitude was that
- speakerthis might be something that would be worth while.
- speakerI didn't realize that he was gonna steamroll this thing through IFCO
- speakerand that there would be a real confrontation
- speakerwith the people who were representing various organizations around
- speakerthe country. As you recall, there was a confrontation,
- speakerand in a sense,
- speakerJim Forman took over that meeting.
- speakerWere you there? He took over the meeting
- speakerand may have falsified the vote,
- speakerthere could have been some manipulation there of the vote.
- speakerIn any case, the manifesto
- speakerwas reluctantly adopted by the Black
- speakerEconomic Development Conference
- speakerand we came away from Detroit realizing that we
- speakerhad a whole new ball game on our hands.
- speakerIn a sense, from that point on we were carried
- speakeralong by the momentum of events rather than deciding
- speakerwhat the events would be ourselves.
- speakerWhen you left Detroit did you have any idea as to what was going to happen the next
- speakercouple, two or three months? No, I was not aware of what was
- speakergoing to happen in terms of the confrontation at Riverside Church which happened just a few days later.
- speakerAnd then the confrontation in Philadelphia,
- speakerremember that? And the liberating of the typewriter by
- speakerMuhammad Kenyatta and all of that kind of stuff.
- speakerNot to mention things that even happened overseas because in England,
- speakerthe World Council of Churches was confronted during that period.
- speakerSo from April to December all hell broke loose.
- speakerAnd I don't think any of us, I don't think Forman himself anticipated
- speakerhow that thing was to skyrocket
- speakercoming out of the April meeting of the Black Economic Development Conference.
- speakerBut as I said,
- speakermany of us were caught up in the momentum of the thing at that point,
- speakerand we recognized that churches were guilty.
- speakerNo question about that.
- speakerWe might have made other kinds of choices
- speakerabout how the churches ought to be confronted
- speakerwith the demands of the manifesto.
- speakerThe preamble, which was a wild,
- speakerMarxist oriented document,
- speakerI think, helped,
- speakerer, hurt the situation more than helped.
- speakerIf I had had anything to do with it I would not have started it out that way,
- speakerto get to Chicago so to speak.
- speakerBut all in all I think its
- speakereffect was good. I think it made the church recognize
- speakerthe radical nature of the
- speakersituation in terms of black people,
- speakerhow they felt about discrimination,
- speakerracism in the church.
- speakerIt also helped the church to bypass a lot
- speakerof red tape that had constantly been in the way
- speakerof implementation of policies that had been decided
- speakerupon with good will
- speakerbut never really actualized because of all kinds of bureaucratic
- speakersnarls.
- speakerThe General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church's meeting that year in 1979
- speakerSan Antonio- 69.
- speaker69, I mean. And the general council spent a lot of time in debate around that,
- speakerand you were at some point brought into that.
- speakerWhy was it,
- speakerwhy was it so difficult for a church that,
- speakerwhose leadership previously had been out in the forefront,
- speakernow to find it so difficult to respond six years later?
- speakerWell, one of the reasons it had some difficulty responding was
- speakerthat while these discussions were going on the offices of the
- speakerUnited Presbyterian Church were being occupied back at 475 Riverside Drive.
- speakerAnd the National Council of Churches,
- speakerat that point, was debating whether to have an injunction
- speakeragainst the people who are occupying the offices
- speakerand so forth. In other words I think there was some,
- speakeryou know, there was a coersion,
- speakerthere was a, you know, back against the wall kind of a situation
- speakerthere that made it very difficult for people to
- speakerconcede anything without feeling that they were being,
- speakerthey were doing it at the point of a gun.
- speakerDid I ever tell you about
- speakerthe young guerrillas who occupied my hotel suite during that period?
- speakerI haven't said very much about that but I have an article that I sent to Black Scholar
- speakerthat has not yet been published in which I relate something
- speakerI don't think very many people know, but I thought you may have known about it,
- speakerOscar. Are these the ones who brought, who had the guns? Yeah.
- speakerThey brought them from Cuba or something? Yes, you knew about that then?
- speakerYeah, I'd heard about it. You told me about it. Did I? Yeah, when you said guerrillas,
- speakerthat's why, yeah.
- speakerUrban guerrillas.
- speakerAnd as I think about that now, you know I can go into a cold sweat because those
- speakerpeople were talking about going up into the balcony
- speakerand putting the guns,
- speakerturing the guns on the General Assembly.
- speakerAnd I had two or three long conversations
- speakerwith them over a period of about two
- speakeror three days in which I tried to
- speakertalk them out of doing anything preposterous,
- speakerridiculous in that situation. Now were,
- speakerbut I, one never got the feeling that that's where Jim Forman was,
- speakerthough. I mean, was, I mean- They were Forman's people,
- speakersome of them were Forman's people.
- speakerThey were brought to San Antonio by a communique
- speakerthat went out from James Forman.
- speakerThat he was going to be there, yeah. Yes, but many of them were not under his authority.
- speakerYeah. They belonged to other kinds of revolutionary groups at work.
- speakerNow I say that because I always got the impression that Jim Forman was
- speakervery much on the nonviolent,
- speakerin so many ways, was on the nonviolent side.
- speakerWell, not really. He said he would not back away
- speakerfrom violence if it became necessary,
- speakerbut he did not want it.
- speakerThat's almost a quote from the manifesto
- speakeritself. He would prefer not to have violence,
- speakerbut if pushed to the wall he would,
- speakerhe would not back away from it.
- speakerThat's what he said.
- speakerNo, I think these people belonged to a little offshoot
- speakeror radical offshoot of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
- speakerthat was being courted by Castro
- speakerand by the Cuban Revolution at the time.
- speakerWhere they got those guns, I don't know,
- speakerbut those guns were under my bed,
- speakerpacked down in creolin
- speakeror whatever they call that stuff you pack down new weapons in.
- speakerAnd they opened it up and showed 'em to me.
- speakerIn San Antonio, Texas. I'm sure the FBI must know something about this.
- speakerI can't imagine that they were not aware of the fact that
- speakersome of these people were in San Antonio at the time
- speakerand that they had transported some guns there.
- speakerWell I have never been visited by the FBI about it.
- speakerI don't know anybody else who was.
- speakerLooking back on that period, how do you feel about the way in
- speakerwhich the United Presbyterian Church eventually
- speakerresponded to the initiatives of Forman?
- speakerI feel fairly positive about our Church's
- speakerresponse. I think a part of our response was
- speakerthe program for the self development of people,
- speakerwhich I think was a good program and made a fine contribution
- speakeroutside the country as well as within.
- speakerI think, probably, we muffed the ball.
- speakerI'm sure we did. And I've said this in my introduction to that period
- speakerand documented a history on black theology which I did
- speakerwith Cone. I think that the NCBC
- speakerand the caucuses are more responsible for the
- speakerfoul ups than the churches were.
- speakerWe had leadership reins in our hands,
- speakerto some extent. We could have delivered more
- speakerand we could have done it better,
- speakeryou know, if we had performed a little differently than we did.
- speakerSome mistakes were made.
- speakerBut I feel fairly positive, I think church did about as much as could be expected
- speakerunder the circumstances.
- speakerSince we were talking about one period which for many people in the church was a very disturbing
- speakerperiod, let's go on and talk about another one, a couple of years
- speakerlater: the uproar over the
- speakerCOCAR grant for the defense of Angela Davis.
- speakerThere, I feel, our performance was not nearly as
- speakercommendable as it may have been in 1969.
- speakerI think our church reacted hysterically to
- speakerthe situation having to do
- speakerwith Angela Davis.
- speakerI think there was enough evidence abroad that
- speakerthere was some question of whether she could get a fair trial that
- speakerintelligent people could make a contribution to her defense
- speakerwithout being apologetic about.
- speakerAnd I think our church overreacted.
- speakerAnd I think the black constituency of the church demonstrated
- speakerthat by raising the money
- speakerand and making it available to Angela
- speakerDavis, quite apart from the attitude that was
- speakerabroad in the church.
- speakerI was a little surprised and the reaction of the Stated Clerk
- speakerand the heads of the boards of that period,
- speakerthey seemed to be terribly upset about it.
- speakerI didn't think they were going to be as upset as they were.
- speakerI thought they would say well if that's what the blacks want to do,
- speakerlet them do it. But it really embarrassed them
- speakerand they felt that they had to
- speakersay something or do something that would absolve them from
- speakerthe implications of being just mossback
- speakerconservatives in this situation.
- speakerAnd they did, and I think Edler, as you recall,
- speakeraccepted that something of an, it wasn't an apology,
- speakerbut how did that happen now.
- speakerThere was a meeting, a press conference which seems to
- speakerme the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly clarify
- speakerthe position of the church with respect to the action of the black
- speakerPresbyterians.
- speakerI'm trying to think what that clarification was, do you remember anything about that?
- speakerWell it was one of those cases where,
- speakerobviously,
- speakerwe weren't at our best because the interpretation of that
- speakerwas quickly taken from blacks to interpret what they were doing
- speakerand began to be interpreted by whites.
- speakerAnd I think a part of the point of what I thought blacks was trying to say was-
- speakerIt was lost. It was lost, yeah. I recall that.
- speakerYeah. The whites took it and interpreted it to their benefit
- speakerand to the benefit of the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerRight.
- speakerWhat was it about the leadership in the church that
- speakercaused it to respond
- speakerless effectively
- speakerwith the grant to Angela Davis than the confrontation
- speakerwith Jim Forman? I think it was the fear of communism.
- speakerI think the communism issue was foremost in the Angela Davis case.
- speakerThere was an accusation of communism, or at least Marxism in the Forman thing too.
- speakerAnd then there was that drastic coercive action
- speakerof taking over services,
- speakerthat sort of thing, walking down the aisles of churches.
- speakerBut the Forman manifesto was a
- speakermore intellectual statement of
- speakerMarxist principles whereas Angela Davis,
- speakerthe Angela Davis affair had to do
- speakerwith a confessed, a professed,
- speakeractive member of the Communist Party who was strongly supported
- speakerby the American Communist Party. So that,
- speakerso that her organizational base was the Communist Party
- speakerand therefore the church I think recoiled from that
- speakerwith more alarm than it did even from the Forman manifesto.
- speakerThere are people still around the United Presbyterian Church,
- speakerand some of them in strange places,
- speakerwho would periodically refer to to Angela
- speakerDavis.
- speakerWhy, 11 years later,
- speakerdoes anyone have tje need to refer to,
- speakerin terms of the life and mission and ministry of this church,
- speakerwhy does anyone have the need to refer to Angela Davis?
- speakerWell I think you know as well as I do there is a group of
- speakerPresbyterians who have always believed that
- speakersome of the black leadership of the church was in the
- speakercommunist movement.
- speakerThey followed Edler Hawkins around, they attacked Edler on that basis,
- speakerand they felt that
- speakerthe position that we took on the Angela Davis questioning
- speakerconfirmed their suspicions about us.
- speakerSo I think we were part of a witch hunt that was going on in that period,
- speakerand the people who wanted to get
- speakerrid of that whole church and race crowd, and those radicals
- speakerwho were leading the church down the wrong
- speakerpath from 1964 to
- speaker71, the people who wanted to get us really came all
- speakerout on the Angela Davis affair to do that.
- speakerAnd I guess in some ways they succeeded,
- speakerin a way they broke up the Council on Church
- speakerand Race.
- speakerIn the period 1971-72,
- speakeralthough I did not leave my job for fear of them.
- speakerWell, I wanted to ask you this, I mean I wanted to ask you whether you really believe that that
- speakerwas more of a factor in terms of the diminishing
- speakerimpact of the council
- speakeror was it really more of what was happening in the society?
- speakerWhat? Whether the reaction of United Presbyterians
- speakerwas the primary factor in terms of the diminishing impact
- speakerof the council,
- speakeror was it the climate
- speakeror what was happening in the society?
- speakerWell I think they were, I don't know if you can separate them.
- speakerI think United Presbyterians were acting in response to what was going on.
- speakerI guess it's a question of which reflects the other.
- speakerYes. The church is more reflective of society,
- speakerI guess I'm saying, than them an influencer of society.
- speakerI think reactionary forces within the church
- speakertook the initiative in that situation.
- speakerIn other words, I don't think the headlines in the newspaper
- speakeror what was going on in the society in general was as
- speakerimportant in that particular period than
- speakerwas the renewal of conservative
- speakerand reactionary forces within the church itself who were now feeling triumphant
- speakerafter many years of being eclipsed by Edler
- speakerand all of us who were working in the race front now felt that this was an opportunity
- speakerto get this crowd, and to really rid
- speakerthe church once and for all of this kind of [influence?].
- speakerAnd I think they came down hard on Angela Davis, period.
- speakerI think that period 1972,
- speaker73, 74 which you know more about than I do was a period in which they reigned
- speakersupreme in our church.
- speakerAnd I cannot imagine that some of the restructuring
- speakerand so forth that happened was not a result of their
- speakerinfluence in the judicatories at the grassroots level.
- speakerThat whole business about calling the church back to the grassroots
- speakerand giving the lay people more of an influence at the presbytery level
- speakerand so forth. I'm sure had something to do
- speakerwith the action.
- speakerWe had something to do with the church and race program during that period.
- speakerThat was a question that I was going to ask you was
- speakerwhat, what impact did you feel the racial justice
- speakerthrust of the early and mid 60s had on
- speakerthe reorganization of the United Presbyterian Church.
- speakerI feel that way because, and I recall talking to some staff people who were my peers,
- speakeror maybe some who were a little below me in terms of staff
- speakerposition and getting expressions
- speakerof fear that we might be going too fast,
- speakeror now it was time to retrench,
- speakerwithdraw back. We were getting too far ahead of the church
- speakerand the church was you know really unhappy
- speakerand lost because of the radical activity of its staff.
- speakerSo that when white peers
- speakerand white colleagues begin to talk that way,
- speakerwho have formerly been, you know,
- speakerright alongside of you and wanting to push forward,
- speakerthen you know that they are probably
- speakerreflecting something general that's going on in the church.
- speakerGay, you've spoke of your, of your leaving
- speakerand so forth.
- speakerYou had been in theological education before-