Another different denomination. But now we realize we better get together and walk down some common lines together and find ways to serve the Lord under one banner.

Okay. How come we'll come back to that topic here in a little bit? But when you look back over the line, you personally can't walk back over the 200 year history. Mm hmm. Well, that's practically good. Mm hmm. Would JOhn Gloucester recognize today's Black Presbyterians?

I don't think so. He came along when, you know, he was alone. A pioneer. And he. He lived with great limitations. He had very little to work with. He wasn't a very strong man physically. And I think he would rejoice in what he would see today. The advance we have made as a as Negroes in the Black and the white community. Because those days, you know, we were so, so much on the edge of everything. We weren't really a part of the real society. We weren't a part of the culture. We were unloved, unwanted, and all that went along with it. So he would not recognize the kind of things that happened the day he would just say, All right, look what's going on here. His people being able to do the kinds of things that are happening today. And he planted seeds, however, which he could say, well, that was some of the things I was trying to say, because he was a social activist. He did things for the community. He did the best he could in those days. And he would be surprised, I think, and rejoice in what he sees in church doing today. Yeah.

I read I can't remember who said this, but I was reading something about black Presbyterian ism and someone referred to it as a divinely placed irritant.

Yes. Well, we we we have you. Yeah, we have been that one in the long, you know, in in the system.

We but start that over again and say say the actual words demanded like in a full sentence so I can get that.

Yes. We were indeed a divinely placed irritant because we were there just by being there. We reminded the community, the church, the presbytery, that here we are. Look at us. We're here. And we said things which needed to be said generally in a Christian way. Sometimes not so Christian. Sometimes we had to move away from the structure and say, we're not going to be who come to your meetings anymore. That's happened in the Presbyterian Church. But we were there always an irritant. Divinely inspired, I believe, because we the things we said had to be said. And we're not there yet because there's so much in our world today. And our culture today is is very much still very much divided in the things you hear about the news today and all the troubles. We have a long way to go. But nonetheless, we continue to speak about those things even now as a divinely placed irritant to let the church know that we are part of this and we're part of the problem. And if we're part of the problem, we better get to the point where we're becoming part of the answer and the part of the success of the mission. Mm hmm.

All right. As far as your your career goes. Talk to me about what came after that. You told me summers off camera earlier, but talk to me about what came after First African church for you.

I was very happy with first African Church. They were the great days of the church. The things were booming and we had a wonderful congregation and we had a great choir and we rebuilt the place. We had put in new organs and everything. But at that point, I was asked to come to become a member of the staff of the Trinity. I was not really interested really in for a year, over a year. They continue to write to me and call and speak to me about the possibility. Why would I consider becoming a member of staff? And so finally I began to say to myself, Maybe this is a part of God's calling for me because I take the call very seriously. And I said, Perhaps this is God's telling me this. It's time for me to move. I've been there for 22 years. And so quite reluctantly, really. And I knew it wasn't going to go well with the congregation because, you know, they thought I was going to be there until till Jesus came back. But but anyhow, after a long time here, I kept saying, no, no, no. But after a long time, I decided I would go and became the first black, of course, on that staff and went in and got all kinds of assignments and traveled across the Synod. Speaking in churches everywhere, you know, are white churches, sometimes unwanted? I'm told that sometimes I would go to church and some first thing I would come would stay home. There were those who didn't want to hear that the black man come into our congregation. And so that happened to me. I didn't know it when I went. But the word came to me later. So I know that's still a part of the structure. And there are those today. So we don't have the drive yet. We're still traveling. But I was I was in exposure. I exposed the church in the synod just by being there, going to all these presbytery 17 presbyteries. And I went to all these places and met these groups. And there are some parts of Pennsylvania. There are no black Presbyterians. We have Presbyterians where there's not a black member in the presbytery, but as a member of the staff, they accepted me as I came to talk and lead and help and tried to discuss and open some doors and some of them ways. I like to think I was some help. I'm not sure of it because when I see things going on today, I say, Well, we haven't really made we we have a long way to go. But I was there for about eight years. Was there a part of when the Vietnamese were being relocated? I was in my portfolio. I went to Indiantown Gap and met the Vietnamese coming over. And I had assistant at that time who located these people across the Synod in different churches, in different communities. And so and of course all the black issues came to my desk. We started all kinds of scholarship programs for blacks and minorities. We had a I had a $100,000 a year, which isn't a lot of money when you think about it, but a lot of money indeed, to help black youngsters get into higher education and $100,000 for Appalachia, where we were trying to help poor whites also find their way in it. So the synod gave me a chance to see a broader vision and to become involved in ways which I would not normally be involved. And so those years were helpful. These are very rough years because, you know, end we were still passing through all kinds of problems. But nonetheless, I was a voice. I was a part of that irritant that was part of the irritant in those days because some of the Presbyterians and some of the churches could not have cared less about having a black person there. And there again, I was sent to Africa. I made several trips to Africa. There again, I went to Africa to go to our mission station in Cameroon. And. It was good for me, my own growth, to see these black African Presbyterians who had these great churches and who were doing marvelous things. And we as Presbyterians were there pushing it along, putting lots of money into it, lots of leadership. And it was a thrilling thing to see what can happen when the church puts its mind to it. The Cameroon church is still functioning, still thriving. I don't know how much is going on now, but I know that I was there when the time when there were great things happening there. And as a matter of fact, the dean of the seminary, David Gilder, now lives here. And David Meltzer took me all over that area and introduced me to all the people and gave me costume to bring back. I have a whole garb of an African garb, which the seminary gave me as a result of going there. The church was there in mission teaching teachers, helping a lot of medical missionary work being done there. Great hospitals, church. And I rejoice that I saw and have been a part of such an outreach in the name of the Lord. I make it sound very, very religious because that's what it is. We are part of the great mission of the House of God, the Lord's Church. Mm hmm.

Okay. All right. Well, then, after the sound of the Trinity you went to.

After the sin of the Trinity, I was here again. I was doing pretty well. Life of sin. I was working with all kinds of people, and they had all kinds of committees, and they had a large budget. And I was in my kitchen one evening and the telephone rings and I had a call from Washington, D.C., a man who knew me from Johnson C Smith, a man who had been the financial officer at the Smith campus, said he was elder in this church and watching there looking for a pastor and would I come down and meet them? I said, you know, I didn't I didn't seek that. But anyhow, I said, well, here again, maybe, maybe it's time. And so I went down to Washington and looked around and they said, Please come, because they had no church and large congregation. 800 members of that congregation, black and white, beautiful building. And so I went down there and began a whole new ministry. I was the first pastor of the church because these two congregations came together and I was the organizing pastor. And they said, Oh, this isn't going to work because I'm quite lovable, blah, blah. White folks left a lot of them when they church began to merge and blacks begin to come into it, A lot of the white members left. So I was left with a real strong, tough, Burgess said. We're going to stay here, be the Church of Christ. So we got a good mix elders and deacons and trustees in the whole business, and we the people were liberal. We'd raised a lot of money. It's a beautiful building and it's up there on the wall. And I had a wonderful time there. We had five, five acres and one of our education building 40, 40 classrooms and it was a great place. And I feel, again, the Lord sent me to go there. I feel a call. I'm very convinced of call. I never looked for any job. The job always came in and got me and for that I felt the hand of the Lord. I stayed there until I was 66. In 1985, I left there. I left there when I was going great guns because I didn't want to stand around there long enough for folks to say, Why doesn't this old broken down codger get out of here? So I left with everything was going great enough, and I left there in 1985. And then the interim work in the other churches that I mentioned. But I had a wonderful time. My wife loved Washington, D.C., Great place. Yeah.

And then so the positions that you held in Redding, Pennsylvania and Chester, Pennsylvania, those interim pastors.

I'm going there, as a matter of fact, next Sunday, the Redding church will be celebrating its 184th birthday. One of the sons of John Gloster was instrumental in the work of the Washington church in Redding. And I go up there, I went to that churches when I was in seminary. And so I'm going to tell them when I go up there, you know, I came here 64 years ago. I'm the only one sitting there not going like that. I went there and 64 years ago as a student at Lincoln and across the years I have kept maintained. They had me back every now and then just to say hello and have fun with a great church, wonderful people. So I was there for five years until they called a man to become their full time pastor. It's in Lehigh Presbytery and he's still there. Lenny Bent He's done a good job. After that, I was went back home and minding my own business, and the presbytery in Philadelphia grabbed me and said, You have to go down to Chester because they were without a pastor and they needed somebody. So I went down there, spent three years, had a wonderful time. I was glad when they called the minister. That was the last church I had. In the meantime, I've gone around new. I preached here and there and done what I wanted to do with a freedom, which is very liberating. You know, you do what you want to do and and you enjoy. And so these last years, I've been just kind of floating.

And as you told me off camera a little while ago, you and your wife never had children.

No, she was Rachel was on a staff of Presbytery of Philadelphia. She oversaw the work of our mission stations, community centers and so forth. She was there for 25 years, and our family was made up of. Well, my mother and father live with us. And maybe and these are young these nieces and nephews whose family mother died and so forth and so on. And so we raise they were us. They're my children. So we had a busy house, Busy house. Great time.

All right, Chief of staff.

Rolling and speed. We had two northern churches. One is called the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church. They were two branches of the Presbyterian Church. They had their own seminaries. And they were just different to different strains with some different attitudes about worship and such things as that, but nothing to keep them far apart. But in 1958, after much talk and conversation and so forth, the two churches finally merged. We merged in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We had a great meeting there. Syria mosque in Pittsburgh. We interesting thing happened. We were we met in two different churches, two presidents in churches, one up. And we then we had a parade and we marched down there to year mosque and met at sea mosque and then went into the church. It was raining and I was there. But these two churches that were symbolic of their coming from two different strains but coming together and going into Syria mosque and we became one church at that time. We became the United Presbyterian Church. Because that was a good way, a good way to put it together. We had before we merged, really, though we met for several years in different groups, little by little talking to one another because the Up church was a much smaller church numerically, and there were those who said they would come into the church and they would be swallowed, you know, that kind of a thing. But we very deliberately saw to it that we talked things through and that the people in the leadership of the Up church would feel very much at home in as we came together. And I must say that when when we came together, it was a beautiful thing because they had their board of foreign missions and we had our board of foreign missions. And then for a couple of years we met together when I voyage, when we meet together. And finally when when we did come together, we used their leadership and our leadership came together and we had one one great one great unit. As a matter of fact, the person who was the chairman of the board of their foreign missions lived next door to me. Don Black. Maybe you've heard of them, maybe you haven't. But Don Black was the general secretary of the Upchurch. My next door neighbor, Charlie Leiber, was the general secretary of the Presbyterian Church. But they worked it out in such a good way that there was no ill feeling. The native Upchurch felt that they were a part of the movement and everything was just so beautifully. And there was a marvelous kind of marriage. We didn't have many differences. We have few little things, you know, ceremonial maybe, But our theology and our approach was good. I think the Upchurch brought us some strength because they were they were they were really strong people. New features for a long time wouldn't only sing the songs, they only sang with him book songs. They later on they began to sing the general hymn Those. But for a long time they were real orthodox and they were good, strong people, wonderful, wonderful church people. But after we met and after we came together in 1958, things moved along well. We make all kinds of strides. The church grew because they were glorious days. We were putting up new buildings and some of the schools are so burgeoning we couldn't have enough rooms. So everything was going great and we had a marvelous time as we met together and we learned about one another. And the leadership, as I say, came. We draw from both sides. Saint Paul laughs. Maybe no Saint Paul lives. He was up, but they saw to it that you that they brought up a black up brought in. So the thing they felt that we weren't looking apart from away from them but drawing them right in. He became leaders, as you know, of the self-development of people movement in the in our church. I'm trying to think of the guy who became moderator of the presbytery. He was also you p young guy that came along at the same time. And anyhow, with all this was worked out very deliberately so we would see to it that everything the women's work brought together, everything brought together. Then there was a time when we were still talking, trying to talk to the southern church, but they were quite reluctant.

Before you get into that, can you explain to me some of the differences between the northern and the southern, whether it's, you know, a ceremonial feel in terms of theology or what theology?

Identical. We had no problem. No problem with theology. As I said, maybe sometimes about little things, about maybe had ceremonial things. Like there. Some of the folks might have thought we were a little bit too liberal with with our Hindi or something like that. But these are little trivial things. There was nothing fundamental that kept us apart. It was simply we had these traditions. And when you when you put them down and write them, you realize they aren't very much at all, you see. So we had no trouble getting together. And Don Black tells me every time I get it, he says, it was so wonderful how when they began to come together, how he was put right there on the level with everything of this body right into it and how nice he felt it all happen. We still talk about it because we were both there and. But theologically, no. Maybe a few little things here and there needs to be tweaked as far as administration would go, but nothing fundamental, nothing to because any strife. Not at all is a matter of fact. In the southern church, the main problem there was that back there when the time of the civil War, that's when the division came over slavery and it was a deep division. And these were strong Presbyterians. This Southern church is a strong church, but they were we were kept apart because of the north that they will continue to fight the civil war. And the conversation went on for a long time and long time. A long time. And then finally, they didn't come together until the time when I was pastoring in Washington, D.C. We voted on merging with the southern church. Oh, I see. In the 1980s, I'm trying to call the right way, but we did not do so. But it was a it was the 1883 then. That's right. That's right. So I was it. And we had big debates in our presbyteries about should we do this or should we not do it. And I remember when we voted there in Washington, I was in that presbytery meeting when the when the president said he voted to to do it with some folks saying no. There were those who were on both sides who felt that this wasn't the thing to do. But after the vote happened and we met there in Atlanta and we got, you know, began to talk to one another, we are working together quite well. But the thing that divided us was simply that social problem, the scandal of of slavery. And they went their own ways. And as you know, during slavery times, the southern preachers used the scripture to show why blacks should be slaves. And they thought they were being very scriptural and very orthodox in doing that. And so though the Northern church wasn't all that wonderful about our attitude, it we did not. However, there was slavery in Philadelphia, as you know, there there were slaves in Philadelphia. You know, one of the big rockets was we're having here now with their building of that person's home, George Washington's home here. And they had the slaves. They had the no, there were the slaves were kept. And the other big discussion here, big ruckus here. But make sure that that is a part of the tradition. They know that George Washington had slaves, so they were slaves and they were slaves in Philadelphia. That's why I say when we started the first African church, there was a free community of blacks. Other blacks were slaves, but there was a few. There was a free community of blacks where people who wanted to be Presbyterians and they came out be present. But the scandal of slavery was in the North, well and strong, but in the South it became such an institution, economic institution. Without the blacks, you know, things just wouldn't have made it at all. But anyhow, when that when we finally came together back in the 80s and decided to make come into the church, they would come back to the union. And there are some people who are still not too happy.

But were there special concerns among black Presbyterians about.

Oh, yes, there are some blacks. We felt this. We didn't want to do this because they felt that they these the blacks, the whites in the black church had not really been the reconstructed. They they still had their attitudes about us and they didn't want to be second class citizens in the church. And they felt that the church is that as they saw that some of the whites would see us as a second class citizen in the church. And that was one place where we felt that we were on some kind of a level, or at least the clerical way, you know. So no, many of the blacks were not in favor of it. However, as I go to the south now and see what's going on in the churches now, I think this thing, when the Lord, the spirit, Lord, gets into things, things can happen and move very well there. Of course, there are still some hard nosed people who are still feeling that this was not a smart thing to do. And we still have differences theologically. No, we we we went to the same schools with the same people, but was a cultural and simply racial and attitudinal. Apart from that, there's no reason for us not to be together.

Has it, in your opinion, when when in 83 or 82, when you voted on it? Mm hmm. Has reunification been what you thought it would be?

Yes. I can't. I have no problem with it. I think that we've tried pretty hard. I must tell you, I had some some questions about it. And during the debates there in Washington, D.C., when we come up for a vote, I and one of my best friends down there, he voted no. He's still down there now. He said he could not see himself voting for a union with the southern church. And I was more hopeful. I you know, I felt that we ought to be together. There's no need to have these these two great divisions here. And there were those who worked very diligently to try to bring it together. And they worked hard and they talked and they talked. When I was with I told you a little while ago that I was the chairman of the Division of Relations. Part of our relations was trying to work out relations with the southern church. That was went back when we were going in different ways, but we were trying to. Part of our relations talk was making dealings with the Southern church. So we brought we were trying to bring that part of the family back together. And after much trouble, many hard feelings and people getting mad, a lot of church people leaving the church. Finally, back in the 80s there in that meeting there in Atlanta and I was there, the church came together as the United Presbyterian Church and the USA. They were they were called the US church and moved the North. Now we're the United Presbyterian, now we're the Presbyterian Church USA, as we call ourselves, the Presbyterian Church USA. But yes, there that was a difficult time. And there were the meetings and the rancor and the ugliness and all families divided the whole thing. But finally, finally it came together where people met down there. And and we got together and we came up with a church with some with some differences, which to abide, probably. But nonetheless, we are we are one church. I was trying to call on him a little while ago. Clinton. Marsh. Clinton. Clinton. Marsh was up and 20. Marsh became very active in. He's a black man, became very active in the church and was one of the moderators of the Presbyterian Church some time ago. Mm hmm.

Okay. Anything else on that? I'm all right. We're good. All righty. I know you said earlier about that that the Presbyterian Church was a little late in coming and the civil rights movement. What role do you think that they eventually play that the church eventually played?

When I say the Presbyterian Church was late in coming, so were the Methodists over there. Everybody was late in coming. The church let unionism and everybody else come out in front of us in that big marks on here in Washington, the leaders of the Brotherhood of you know they were leading and the church come comes up an afterthought. But once once we came to recognize that this was where we ought to be as people of God, the church tried to pull itself together and become really a corps acquiring and making a clarion call for human rights and justice. And the same Eugene Carson Blake, you know, he went down there to Baltimore and he went to he went to some public park and broke the law by writing, doing something he shouldn't have done, made headlines because he was showing demonstrating that this is the way it's an open society. And people some people hated him for doing that kind of thing. But Jean Blake was ready to declare himself as this is how things ought to be. So once we got in line and we as a Presbyterian church organized the Commission on Religion and Race and went across the presbyteries and organized in each presbytery a commission to work in that community to make things better in this presbytery. I was cochairman of the Commission on the Commission on Religion and Race. Don Houston was my cochairman. We worked together and we began to do some things that the presbytery did some of the folks didn't like. As a commission, you see, you can act. So we were and we were acting like a commission. So the presbytery got together and decided to make us a committee because they didn't like some of the thrusts that we were coming through with. Because Don Houston was a great guy. He's a white guy and he didn't care what school kept or not, and he was out there and is pushing. I was right along with him, but he could be more vocal in many ways than I could because his before active he was white. But when the church got hold of it and Koko came along and gay, Margaret Miller was called in New York there to be the head of Coca-Cola and put a lot of money in the outreach when we caught on fire, whether or not it was adopted by the people, the rank and file, the church was speaking clearly. And gay Rod, to his credit, was was called to that job. And he was right out there in the front. And he and he got vilified a good bit because the things he said and did. But nonetheless, it was a voice that had to be heard. So once we once we came to realize this, not only the Presbyterians, but the Methodists, the Episcopalians became very, very active, very vocal. And we were part of the marches and all that kind of thing. It was a wonderful, scary time in some ways, Yeah.

The black governing bodies play a role in helping to determine the policy toward the civil rights movement.

The black governing bodies. You mean by that?

That's what they're told. The recall called.

You mean. You mean like in the South? Yes, I. I can't speak very much for that, Kathy. I really don't know because I've always been a part of the northern governing bodies. I imagine. I would imagine that they were right out there in the front because that was the area that Martin Luther King came from. And I would imagine that they were. Doing all they could.

Did you take place personally in a lot of protests?

Tell me about some. I did some minor march. I was not I was not really in the vanguard of the thing. As I as I look back as I should have been, perhaps. But I was a part everybody knew what I did. I look back and say, if I could do it again, I would have been because I was people like people like there were those in the church who that it was their job. Their job was to do this. I was the pastor and I had all these different people I was listening to who had different feelings about everything. And I feel that perhaps I was a little too retiring about some things that I might have done, even though I was a part of a cougar thing and so forth and so on. I look back and say, if I had only had the courage enough to do this. And so but. Black Presbyterians are pretty conservative, too, you know, they, uh, a lot of them were wondering about all of this kind of stuff and what's going on and so forth and so on. But when we. I marched you. I was in the marches of March. But I think there are things that I could have done, perhaps would have been more effective, but I wasn't very good at it.

Can you name some powerful black church professionals during the civil rights era?

I guess. I guess. Adler. Adler. Hawkins. You mean our church president? Adler. Hawkins would have been a strong voice in in civil rights. Gay Rod The Wilmore was a strong voice. Clarence gave us a strong voice. They were all in that field, was their jobs to be. I would say Oscar McQuire was a very effective voice because of his position. He was there in New York where he got a chance to be a very effective and the rest of us were, you know, we were in other positions with not the clout nor the voice, nor the platform to be as effective as as, say, a gay would be. But yeah, those guys can think of some other people. Some of them did. But they would be the ones I would think of. Especially. Adler and Jim Robinson, who is at the Church of the Master, James Long, been dead. But he was he was on the cutting edge of things. And a few more. My my mind just if I had a chance to put some notes down, I would have better notes. But anyhow, there were there were those who were out there on the cutting edge and the rest of us were were out there on the edge, but maybe not as incisive as we could have been because we we had other things we, you know, holding the congregation together and so forth. But when you had people who were called deliberately to do the job, like Clarence Crouse, my buddy, kind of gave my buddy, I don't know him or not, but he worked along with gay rock. And the era was put there to be the vanguard of those kind of thing.

You know, everyone Gordon yesterday was saying that not everyone could be up front. That's right. And she said that she and her husband did a lot of the work behind, you know, getting the frank people out of jail. So those are equal. Is Yeah.

Well, we did. We did all of it. Frank Gordon died just a little while ago. Everyone's husband and he was very effective in the presbytery. But quite, you know, he was a quietly you do most of your effective work really in the committee structures of our presbytery, where little by little, you move along because you can drag people along with you. Sometimes if you go out there and beat on the table, you turn people off. But Frank was one of those who was able to move along that. Of course, Evelyn's always been there doing same thing. Move right along. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Do you have memories you'd like to share with us about the day that Martin Luther King was assassinated?

Oh, boy, that was a that was a bad time. Let me see where it was. I. I was. I forget where I was.

But your last. Your pastor.

First Africa. Yeah. April 68.

That's right. That's right. Thank you. When? When he was assassinated, the synod, I was at that time, I was. I was a moderator of the Synod of the Trinity. And Bill Rush at that time, who was executive that synod said, you want to go to the funeral? So Frank Stroup, who was an executive of and I. He's a white guy. Of course, we traveled together from here by train to Atlanta. And it's something you'll never, never forget. The crowds of people and the marching to the Morehouse campus where they had a service with no first day of service in the church. There I was standing on the sidewalk in the building, but standing on the sidewalk. And they brought the casket out and put it on this very crude wagon. And some mules were dragging it across the sound to Morehouse campus, where on that campus they had a great big service for Martin Luther King. It was. Kind of otherworldly. You know, you were there, but it was such an aura. So something terrible that happened. And we all felt diminished by the fact that this great leader had been taken away so abruptly and all of us were there marching and the leadership of our denomination, they were all down there marching. We all marched behind the casket to Morehouse, and we knew that something dreadful had happened to us and we did not know where we were. We felt that we had lost a shepherd and we had but we recovered enough to be in do some other things and not as well, perhaps. But nonetheless, he had pointed out the way and in pointing out the way, there were those who were really ready to pick it up and carry on. Nobody with the charisma and with the strength and the power. He was uniquely called God placed him there for that special thing. Yes, I do remember we went down there on the train and all the way down the aisle and turmoil and noise and we didn't know what was going to happen. There were people there who thought it was going to be a bad time in Atlanta. You know, at the time of this, nothing happened. Everything's very quiet. Everybody participated in the memorial service and so forth and so on. But who was this guy who was such a rabble rouser? He is leader. SNCC Stokely Stokely Carmichael was on the train with us. Same train with those on the train. So we had things we didn't know what was going to be happening. But he was on our train as we were going down to Atlanta. So there was some question about what what's Stoke going to do. And it's kind of crazy kind of a thing. But anyhow, we have never been the same, thank God, because what Martin Luther King did was enable us to begin to see where we ought to go and to articulate so clearly, as he did with such dynamism, the way that the church and the world and the community ought to go. We've all been changed. I was changed. I was changed suddenly and didn't realize how great he was until he died. You know, I knew that he was a great voice. And I was you know, I was in marches and all those kind of things with him. But I didn't realize until he was suddenly taken that, as the Bible says, do you not know the stay of the king is fallen, the ruler and the mighty man's fall. And we knew at that day that he had for you. Yeah. He touched the entire community. Yeah. But in the courts across across the country, the big riots on the way down, on the way down as we went through Washington, the soldiers were all over the place because there had to be a riot there in Washington as a train went through Washington, D.C., You could see all around the military trying to keep trying to keep peace. And as what happened in Washington happened in so many other places, that things just blew up because there was a great response.

But talk to me about how the climate did change after his death.

Well, after died, after his death. And we kind of recovered and get ourselves back together again, we realized we had lost our leader. And though others were trying to take the place, we we knew we had to regroup and maintain the thrust because of the very easy just to kind of fall back and forget where we had been and why we had come. So it was necessary to maintain the leadership and keep the flame alive. And there have been others who have come along and have been very effective in their own way. And I think he as well, that we celebrate his his birthday and so forth, because it reminds us because we are so prone to forget. But I think that the impact has been made. I think it's there. And however, every now and then you have these relapses about all these nooses hanging around on trees and everything. You know, it makes you wonder how far we come, how far back and we've got going to fall. So the end is not yet. So we have to be vigilant all the time, vigilant to know where we're going, remembering where we've come from. And there's still a long distance to go.

Yeah. You've done a lot in your life. Is there any one particular thing that you look back on and it sure makes you particularly proud?

I guess really, if you put me to it, I'd say the great building days we had as first African when we were building the church and putting up new and the first, you know, putting up a new unit and the building fund drives and Sunday school of 300, 300 kids every, you know, that big everything was going so great. And I look back and those are the golden days of my ministry. But we had a great I had a great church in Washington, but that Philadelphia thing was one that stands out in my mind was a time when we were really making progress and happy rejoicing in the Lord and struggling with all kinds of problems constantly. But nonetheless, as a pastor, I found satisfaction in what we were trying to do. And I've always remembered my job as my role as a pastor of the people of God and being available to my congregations and had that love and joy in doing it. I would call it my happiest time. Mm hmm.

You know, at some point, we all have to move on. Yeah. 89 years old. Yeah. How would you want us to remember you? How would you want to be remembered?

That's a good question, Kathy. Nobody's ever asked me before. I'd like to be remembered. That's a good point. I'd like to remember this as a pastor, and I celebrated the role of pastor. I was on the job 24 hours a day. People knew I was always available. And it fills me that. Two by three weeks ago, I was called back to First African. You know, shortly before you leave the pack, I go. I was called back the first African to celebrate the organization of a group called the C Aids Christian Aids, a group of women that I brought together back there years ago, I think, when they were celebrating their 64th anniversary or something. So I had a good time talking to them. But to look back and see that kind of maintenance of people who were brought into the church and who today older, troubled, broken up, hardly can walk some blind. Some came here. But nonetheless, they're still in the road, you know, still ministering. And I call that a part of pastoring that will endure. Other things kind of fail away, you know. But the fact that you make that impact upon lives is most satisfying to me. And the hard times and the good times and the bad times. You're there and the people love you as a pastor. They'll tell you anything because they know they love you and you love them and they're confident with you. There's nothing quite so satisfying as the role of the dedicated pastor. If I should get in touch. No, no, Listen to this.

That really strikes.

I tell you. I'm in meetings today. I'm called upon today in meetings all place. We've are called. We're getting a new call, new workers here and so forth. This is a Presbyterian place, you know. And though, though, we though, I guess we have an awful lot of Jewish residents here and all denominations are here. But I tell them when they call people to work here, that they always ought to bring to bear a sense of calling to what they're doing, because this is a place of park Place. But this is a special place. This is one of God's houses. And I think we all comport ourselves as people who love the Lord. And this should be a different kind of place. And I never let them forget that I was on the board and this place was started 50 years ago when they started these homes. I was there and I remember how those folks talked about this work and what they're going to do and so forth and so on. And I don't want to forget it because we're so prone to forget our moorings, you know? But. We have we have a we have a ministry. That's why I named my book. We have this ministry. Yeah, it's all ministry.

Yeah. Do you have anything?

I got a quick follow up. I know that must have been one of the really difficult times to know what to say, but I don't know how you would have, you know. Do you have any memories of that experience after you returned from that trip and how that did that make a difference and how you spoke to your people about what had happened, the fact that you had gone there, Make sure and remember to look at capital.

Yeah, it could have been. You know, things happen so rapidly in those and that one of the things like I come upon you and I, I going back to my people, I'm not sure what I did. I though I know the whole thing permeated all this. All we talked about in the black community, it permeated everything. Every church, every community, every club, everything you did. Martin is gone. And I'm sure that my messages for the next month or two were all tempered and led by what happened to us, what we come through. And only as we talked about it could we climb out of it and continue to go. You can't forget it. You have to talk about it. It's like there was death in the family and you had to deal with that and reckon with that. So you're able to pick yourself up and go on from there. And I think I did that. I think I try to be a comforter to my congregation, as all of us did, I suppose because most of them had been heads, most of them have had some kind of a contact with Dr. King over his in humans, or he'd been in Philadelphia. We took busloads down to Washington for the March on Washington. We marched around Girard College. We when we changed the road college from an all white boys school to a school is now open to the community. And so my people did all of that. So we we had marks on us and and none of us were ever the same. And I'm sure in my messages and in my demeanor. They could recognize that I had been hurt in a way and that we had to pick ourselves up and keep on going because he was gone. But the job wasn't. And you could see today got a long way to go. Yeah.

Do you remember any specific message that you gave?

No, I don't. I don't really remember any specific one, Kathy, but I'm sure that I had some pointed ones because in those days following that, everybody knew I went down there and the presbytery sent me down the similar one, me to go down there. So I was down there as an emissary. So I felt the weight of that. And so I'm sure I came back with the self filled I, I remember standing on the sidewalk there. While they have the service inside the church because we couldn't get in the building and kind of being very weepy, you know, because it was we knew something terrible that happened. And the question is, where do we go? Where do we go from here? There are tears for all folks around and kind of very emotional about the whole thing. So, yes, I don't know. I I'd have a hard time. Putting where I was at that time and how I came through it all. How and I do know all of us are profoundly moved and touched by the terror of it. Yeah. Yeah. Never be the same. Know I like to.