Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Thomas Gaither 20240712

University of North Carolina. Parents were my parents walther b gaither and fanny little gaither. Uh, great falls was my fathers home. My mother, fannie mae, was originally from anderson, South Carolina and my mom and dad met while they were students at friendship. College in rock hill, South Carolina. After they both graduated from friendship they moved permanently to great falls. Initially they were both schoolteachers. You could be a schoolteacher at that time with just a Junior College education. My dad did not stay in teaching because he discovered that what was listed on his contract as is per month payment for teaching was not the same as he this was thatand a time when the boards of education were all composed of white men. And so at the end of the year, my father approached the person who signed his voucher for, uh, payment and said, i noticed that there is a discrepancy here. Differenceve dollars between what he was supposed to be paid and what he was receiving. For questioning the five dollars differential, which the School Board Member was pocketing, my father was terminated as a teacher. My mother continued to be a teacher and in fact, my first seven years of formal education was in a oneroom school. At that time, oneroom schools, in that area of South Carolina , were actually owned by churches. The state paid the salary of the teacher, but various churches across the community had a school. So mine happened to be Pleasant Grove school. Pleasant grove was a nearby a. M. E. Zion church. So for the first seven years of my education that is where i learned to count, to read, to write, and all of those kind of things. The good thing about the oneroom school was that if you you were in third grade, you could hear the lessons for the fourth grade, the fifth grade, sixth, and so on up the line. So you were on stage at some point, but otherwise you were reviewing all the time if you wanted to be reviewing all the time. We had to take to the school a jar that we took a piece of adhesive tape and we put our name on that adhesive tape on the jar and we turned it upside down by the cooler, which was present at the back of the room. We, of course, had no fountains or anything of that sort. But right in the middle of the room we had this very large diameter drum that was the heater, and it was never possible to have heat in that room that was even. You would think that, ah, its going to work today, then all of a sudden the lid to the heater would start floating up and down and the whole place would be smoked up. Then we would have to open the windows. And that was, that was a little bit of a sample of the environment. We didnt have a library. There was a dictionary, but i think the dictionary was owned by my mother as the teacher. We didnt know very many of the white kids in the community, except by looking in the textbooks that were passed on to us. We could see the kids, the white kids would have used the books and rather than throw them away, i will say. [laughter] would ship them to us. My mother remained teaching until the consolidation of schools. That would have been in the early 1950s. The Supreme Court decision was 1954, before that there was some movement in teaching. In fact, it was rather amazing that as soon as the south found out that there might be this law banning discrimination or segregation in schools, suddenly these schools went up and thats sort of interesting because we were supposed to be separate but equal all of the time, but all of a sudden there is a new Black Elementary School here. Theres one there. Theres one there. Now it turns out that i lived right on the edge of two counties, Fairfield County and Chester County. The nearest school in Fairfield County is about 17 miles away at winnsboro, but the school in Chester County was just about 2. 5 miles away. So i actually went to Elementary School im sorry i went to high school in Chester County after the seven years in the oneroom school where my mother was the teacher. The center of the community for my parents was the church. We went to church every sunday. We went to sunday school. When there were special days, we participated in the programs. In fact, the first time i remember speaking before an audience of anyone other than my parents would have been at childrens day at the local church. Mr. Mosnier and your church was which . Gaither Pleasant Grove a. M. E. Zion church. The district that my church was in was the columbiacamden district and ministers served a variable period of time as the pastors of churches and there was a time very early in my life preaching only on alternate sundays. But at some point when there was a little bit more capital flowing it got to the point that we had church every sunday. Mr. Mosnier yeah. You mentioned your father left teaching. How old were you when that happened . Or was forced out of teaching, i should say. Dr. Gaither hmm, how old would i have been then . Mr. Mosnier approximately. I must have been eleven or twelve, some place in there. It was the trustee boards were all white men, but there was usually a figurehead trustee board of black men, and these black men were chosen by the white men and they were usually people who would not ask questions, who would not rock the boat. That is the way they were structured. After losing his job as a teacher, my father went to work at a cotton mill. Since he has a Junior College education, rather than taking the jobs that, or getting the jobs that were traditional for black men of that day now this was before the era of power lawnmowers. So there was a yard crew that was all black, and blacks also worked in some of the rooms where the cotton was rendered into cloth that were particularly dirty. The ones where youd get bissinosism from breathing cotton fibers. My dad worked as a fireman, another dirty job, but the fireman had two responsibilities. It was to keep the steam in the boiler plant up to a particular point where all the machines would operate, but he would do that by putting the coal in the furnace. And while that was heating up, youd have some ideas as to how much to put in because of the experience of having done the job before. They had to go around the mill and stick a key in a little box and turn the key. So they were night watchmen. So they did those kinds, two jobs together. Well, at some point, my father lost that job, too. I suspect, although im not sure, that it was because of his progressive posture on most things, including equal rights, the right to vote, the right to get a decent education, and so forth and so on. Early 1950 my father decided to go back to college with five kids and with only job that he could do i should say this about him. Doing ar was capable of variety of chores. He could wire. He could do brick work. He could do carpentry. He could do all of these things and he would get jobs from people in the community. So while he was doing these kind of jobs, handyman but beyond handyman, if he had to, he went back to college at Benedict College in columbia, South Carolina. And he completed the other two years of his college degree, uh, graduating with a bachelor of science degree in sociology. Well, in getting this degree, he had been told by a local white businessman who was on the board of trustees at the college that he might have a chance at becoming the principal of the local black high school. Well, that was just one member of the board. As it turned out later on, uh, there was one local baptist minister who considered himself to be the sort of highest echelon black in the community. This man did not have a baccalaureate degree. He was simply a minister who had been called by god. But he opposed my father getting the job as the principal of the school. By the way, it was one of the best things that ever happened to my dad because there was a lot of jealousy in the community and he would not have been able to be an effective principal because he would not have gotten any support from the White Community and many of the black people would have also been very jealous of the fact that he had suddenly been able to propel himself into a place of authority and respect that they could not hope that they would be able to. Being a person who was working and paying his way through school. In fact, he used to come home in the evening from school and he would say, lets get organized go organize. And lets get organized meant that we all got a lengthy car. Now we used the car as one would use a truck much to my mothers chagrin, but my father was too poor to buy a truck. So i remember one of the earliest cars was a 1939 buick , and he would load that 1939 buick with bricks and blocks and mortar and so forth so he could go do the job, so he could take care of his family and he could also find some money to pay the tuition to go to school. Well, at some point we were getting close to finishing high school and there was never any question that we were going to go to college. The question was where and how are we going to pay for going to college. So, i dad took one of the gifts he had in the construction trades industry, which was brick masonry, and he became a brick mason. And as a brick mason, he would travel to jobs all over that area or region of South Carolina columbia,rlotte, orangeburg, all that, anyplace you could drive to. Well, i was going to say anyplace you could drive to in a day. Actually i remember once we worked down in the parasailing marine base in beaufort, South Carolina, and in that case, we had to go and stay for five days then, and then come back home. Mason brickck masons earned a very nice wage and that is what enabled us to find the money to go to school. The problem, however, was that brick masonry was reliable only when the weather was good. If the weather was not good, you couldnt lay bricks. And in the south that meant there were at least two or three months there when it was too cold. But as things would have it, favoring my dad and my family, he got to the point of being in a typical instance among the masons employed on a particular job. He got to be sort of the master mason. So when all of the other masons had been dispatched from the job , because job was complete, my dad was the person who stayed around to put up a wall where they needed. So he would very often work through the entire winter and they had one laborer who worked with him and that is how we were able to get the funds to go to school. Now it turns out that i was the valedictorian of my class and my brother was the salutatorian of the class. And we jointly decided that we would go to Claflin College, now Claflin University in orangeburg, South Carolina. My scholarship was 75 per year. My brothers scholarship as salutatorian of the class was 50 per year. So that is what got us started in education, but education was always emphasized in my home. Even though we were too poor to have a library, anything that we could find we would read it and we would try to discuss it and try to grow from it. So all the while this is going on, my mother was essentially, essentially taking care of the family. She was very strong in her insistence that we not get involved in things that took us off the path to going to college and to getting an education. Mr. Mosnier we are back after a short rake. I want to ask a couple of more things about your family. Obviously your father and through your father, her family had these direct and not so uncommon experiences obviously in terms of suffering for the slightest gesture of selfassertion. Would conversations about race and Race Relations have been, have been open in your household . Were those things around the dinner table . The brown decision or emmitt till, are those kinds of things that would have been engaged conversationally by your family . Dr. Gaither those were discussed around the dinner table and my parents shared liberally with what their thoughts on these kinds of things. I especially remember the, uh, utterance by my dad and absolute shame and horror of what had happened to this young man. In fact, i think it was conversations about till that lodged in my psyche as one of the motivating factors for participating in the Movement Later on. Till would have been 1955. Thats about the same time as the montgomery bus boycott. So there were these cumulative things happening out there that were being internalized. Among the other things that my dad was a part of, periodically at the cotton mills, there would be an effort to organize the workers, which meant that a Union Organizer would come in, and my dad was always the person who hosted the Union Organizer. So that was one of the other factors that would have caused him to lose his job. The Union Organizers often tried to keep a secret of where they stayed, but of course, somebody would know and somebody would go and tell the big boss man, and that would be to your detriment if you happened to be the person. Parents were also posting also openly supportive of the naacp. I remember when i was quite a youngster, probably less than ten years old. We used to go to meetings of the state conference of the naacp when my dad would stand as we were going into the auditorium and there would often be a whole bunch of adults in the lobby and he would hold me up for awhile so i could get some air and put me down and then take my brother and hold him up. But we were very supportive of the naacp. Now, it was also a negative if you were known to be an naacp member and supportive of the naacp. But despite that fact, my dad was still a supporter, and my mom. I remember at some point there was a suit by the South Carolina conference of the naacp to equalize teachers salaries and speaking of a family dynamic, my mom and dad were both in favor of the naacp suit to equalize teaching salaries, but i had two aunts who were also teachers who were not. They thought the naacp was stirring up something that was best left alone and so i remember the tugofwar arguments that went on between them. And at that time, teachers salaries in South Carolina for blacks were very, very poor, and you had to take the National Teachers exam. So if you took the National Teachers exam and you earned an a, in addition to your base salary, youd get a particular monthly supplement, a, b, c. Well, all of the School Districts with a tax base would hire off all of the a people and the b people. So it would mean that a little town like great falls, the best it could hope for would be to get the c people, which meant that our teachers were not the best, but they did their best by us with what they had been able to amass and accumulate as knowledge. I dont know whether thats the kind of response that you were looking for. Mr. Mosnier oh, no. Its very much, yeah, we have plenty of time. Dr. Gaither ok. Mr. Mosnier were your parents able to register to vote or no . Dr. Gaither my parents were registered voters. To register to vote and i should have the form that i filled, that i received when i became a qualified elector, a voter in South Carolina. You had to be eighteen years old, but i remember registering to vote. Yeah, my parents registered to vote and they typically voted in elections. I was so involved in making sure that i voted until the first time i was eligible to vote ater registering, i remember 300 mile trip, 150 miles one way back, and i miles have tried to point that out to my students that we shouldnt be casual about our input into the political process. I vote almost every election. Even when ive been on leave, i find how long you have to be in the state in order to vote and register. I remember voting in california a couple of times when i was on sabbatical leave. Yes. Both of my parents were qualified electors. The little thing i was talking about that, you have to present saying that you are a qualified elector, you had to read a section of the South Carolina constitution and interpret it to the satisfaction of the registrar. But on there is that, i do hereby swear that i am not a pauper supported at public expense. I have not been convicted of any of the following crimes. Stealing chickens, wife beating, you know, all the kinds of things that poor black people might have been involved in, public drunkenness and all of those kinds of things. And thats on the certificate that i have. It probably is not the case, at least i hope its not the case now, that winnsboro and fairfield counties moved beyond that. But there were all the disqualifiers, which is somewhat interesting because weve had this recent resurgence of requiring voter id cards and all of that kind of thing, paying poll tax, which is a throwback to the same thing. Its a way of disqualifying those whose input into the political process might be at odds with those who control the political process. Mr. Mosnier a whole halfcentury later. Dr. Gaither yes. So the greater distance we think we have come, the more we look around, were in the same place. Mr. Mosnier tell me about orangeburg when you arrived in 1956 and what you thought would be your course through college. Dr. Gaither well, i expected that with the high School Background that i had, that i would have to work hard. Because i would be competing with some people who had had, even though all the students at claflin at the time were black, people whod had better backgrounds, the people who are gone, for example to Johnson High School in columbia or some of the large, some of the high schools in the larger communities. There were some of those people at claflin. Haventelf as told you this yet, but since my mother was our early teacher and we did not have daycare, my me a yearght next to and a half or two two years younger than me, and i wind up being in the same graduating class. Thats how i was the valedictorian and he was the salutatorian because we couldnt find anybody to keep him. So my mother took him to school and it turned out he was very bright and you know, didnt miss a beat in terms of handling the academic information that was, that was put before him. I remember finding it an butstment to be at claflin, managing to stay above order, academically. Withduated from claflin honors with a bachelors degree in general science and a concentration in biology. The,osnier tell me about tell me about how race entered into your College Experience in, in orangeburg and i know, of course, that South Carolina state is there as well and the community will become a place that in large measure because of your efforts that would in 1960, in the spring of 1960, became very active. But there is a story before that. Dr. Gaither well, the only choice of going to a college at that time wouldve been a black college. The closest two black colleges would have been Allen University in columbia and Benedict College in columbia. Not too far away was morris college. Benedict and morris are baptist schools. Allen is an a. M. E. School. And we didnt, based on the reputation of those colleges, arrived gravitate towards them or choose them. Claflin was a choice that i agreed upon and my brother was, uh, pleased with. So we had no choice of colleges on a racial basis. Let me tell you this little story, because it jumps ahead. But it is apropos. I remember visiting my father in the 1970s and 1980s. Andy had this Clemson College logo around. And i said, what goes with, . Th Clemson College chosen to root for Clemson College because of an incident that occurred with me when i was at claflin. When i was at claflin my senior year i sent money to the Educational Testing Service in princeton, new jersey, to take the graduate record exam. So there were about a dozen black students from South Carolina state and claflin who were to take the graduate record exam at the university of South Carolina. Well, we were told to go to an auditorium on campus. When we arrived we were intercepted by a professor who said, we cannot permit you to take the gre on the campus of the university of South Carolina. You people will have to go off campus. So across the street i want to say it was bull street. Im not sure that was the name of the street at the time. There was a twostory building. The second story of the building was just an open room with some chairs and this is no exaggeration the temperature in that room must have been 85 490 degrees. And that is where we were forced to take the graduate record exam, an exam that determines all of your possibilities for the future and these were the conditions or the circumstances under which we were required to take the exam. Well, i had told my dad that when i came home to visit him. I went home to visit him after that event and he had stored thataway in his mind, that he would never root for the university of South Carolina, but he would root for clemson. Now, at the time clemson was not a university. Clemson started out as an agricultural experiment station. It later became a university, but it was the school in South Carolina that he could identify with because he refused to identify with the university of South Carolina. Mr. Mosnier you got drawn into College Leadership roles. Yes. Aither i was the president of the youth chapter of the Claflin College chapter of the naacp. Mr. Mosnier starting weight year of college . Dr. Gaither lets see, i was a junior. That is how i gravitated into the sitins because it was the natural position from which one might assume a role in leadership. About newr tell me [indiscernible] let me have you describe the youth chapter on the campus and how it connected you to the state naacp apparatus and how it then led you forward. Dr. Gaither okay. The first year i was president of the campus chapter, i would say maybe out of 200 students, we may have had 25 or 30 people were members. Mr. Mosnier how many . Dr. Gaither i think it was less than 200. It wasnt a very large university. If you were a student, you would know everyone on campus. You would know which year they were in and you would also know their hometowns and all of that. It was a very small, very closelyknit community. Now, after the sitins started, almost everyone on campus joined the naacp chapter. There were a couple of young people or students there who were afraid to join because they thought that word of their joining as youth members of a College Chapter of the naacp might get back to their communities and there would be reprisals against their parents. And i can remember a couple of those people actually coming and apologizing to me that they could not be members of the youth chapter of the naacp. Now as a youth chapter naacp tosident i was permitted attend regional meetings of the naacp. That is where i would have met first people like ruby early or , or amos brown or medgar evers. There were people there from South Carolina, tennessee, mississippi, not alabama. Alabama at the time, the naacp was illegal. So, we didnt have anybody slipping through. When the sit ins started in carolina, north february 1, 1960, the first sitins in South Carolina were at raquel. And as soon as we heard about that, we said, the same problems that are being addressed in North Carolina and north of here in rock hill are here, so weve got to organize too. And thats where we sort of expanded out from this naacp youth chapter to organizing and participating in the sitins. Mr. Mosnier tell me about the process you undertook to bring the campus chapter and the wider campus forward into active dr. Gaither well, it wasnt just the wider claflin campus. It was also the South Carolina state students that we would have to engage. Well, first of all, we didnt know the first thing about nonviolence or how to organize a sitin. So, we were fortunately visited manr someone had sent a named james t. Mccain, who was from sumter, South Carolina, and he worked for an Organization Called the congress of racial equality, or core. And core had a little thing that was called core rules for action. There was also a little booklet called cracking the color line by james peck and so those were the very first kinds of sources that we were privy to, to form the philosophical backlog for the organization of the sitins. The orangeburg sitins were actually organized by a group of students from South Carolina state and claflin and we met in j. J. C brooks s eabrooks auditorium or the gymnasium on campus. And so with these pamphlets and so forth with inspiration of dr. Kings book, stride toward freedom, we started putting together sociodramas of situations that might be faced if we were doing a sitin, or if we were picketing. So thats sort of how we got, got going. South carolina state students, to my knowledge, did not have a chapter of the naacp, but they were right there with us as we organize. So we actually started sort of a local Student Movement association with one person from me and that was one person from South Carolina state. Im not absolutely certain, but the person from South Carolina state may have been chuck mcdew. Chuck mcdew was there very early on. So what we did with a little bit more knowledge of what sitins were about and what the philosophy was, was to train a group of about a dozen or so secondary student leaders. These would be the people who would be involved in helping to organize and communicate the philosophy and the modus operandi for claflin but would also do the same kind for state. Now i think that one of the persons in that group may have been jim clyburn. The current house of representatives person from South Carolina. So clyburn was involved, uh, very early on. Mr. Mosnier i think there is probably an important point to be made about the fact that claflin is private. Dr. Gaither you are absolutely correct. Beennk there may have even , for activities of a similar nature, some expulsions from South Carolina state. Because at the time the persons who were chosen to be the administrators of predominately black state schools were often chosen because of their ability to suppress student uprisings, whatever their nature, if the nature was in opposition to the existing status of maintaining segregation and so forth and so on. So at claflin we could organize. We had the freedom to do so. There was, in the initial groups disproportionate representation , a of guys, because at the time, girls could be out of the dormitories only until 7 00 or 7 30. So we had to communicate what we had done to the girls because they couldnt be there sitting with us. Mr. Mosnier talk about, as much as you can recall it from this been a wide mustve range of emotions and a wide range of questions and a wide range of uncertainties that were, that you would have had at a time trying to launch into something as complex and prospectively difficult as organizing in orangeburg. Were idealists. We were, in many instances, quite enamored with the possibilities for using nonviolence as a strategy for promoting social change. We were, of course, fearful of our safety. We were fearful of the reprisals that might be levied at our parents, but we also realized that if we didnt move, we were going to stay in the same circumstance. So that was a motivating factor that the students have moved in North Carolina, theyve moved in rock hill, we have to move in orangeburg. So that, despite the potential pitfalls, was a compelling and a motivating force for us. Now i should say that this was done almost exclusively by students. Very was no there was a good local relationship with the adult naacp, but we really didnt go to the president of the orangeburg chapter of the naacp saying, we want to organize sitins, because the naacps approach to this whole problem was fundamentally different from the approach that we were interested in. We were interested in nonviolent direct action. We were not interested in having one student arrested and then having that person be a test case and getting a court ruling that at some point would say, well, you guys can go sit at the lunch counter. Counter. I happen to think that a large part of the strength and reserve of my generation at least, the passion for our involvement was the active participation and the suffering that we endured. Thats very different than if you file a suit and you sit and somebody says, well, you can go sit at the lunch counter tomorrow. This was the same question i was making, or the comment i was making about being compelled to go and vote or feeling an obligation to go and vote. Thats different and thats one of the positive attributes at the personal level for those who participated in the sitins. The day in orangeburg when we had a mass arrest, 350 people arrested. Of march. Countyy jail filled, the jail filled, openair stockade. The claflint of chapter of the naacp was in columbia and we had not even told him. Not that i think he wouldve objected one iota, but this was our movement, our time to move, and we did not want any tempering from anyone about, well do not do this, wait until tomorrow to do this, that kind of thing. We felt our elders had had their opportunity. [laughter] they had sat on it. We were not going to be similarly situated. We reasoned that if we move there is no choice. Peaceloving young people who have behaved in a nonviolent manner. They have been arrested. What are the adults going to do . They would be forced to be supportive of us. That was the reasoning. How did he feel by the end of the day . It was an interesting day. By the way, i was not arrested on that day for sitting in. Eventually they had students in the county courthouse, where they were arranging them or them, becauseing there were 70 people they had to deal with. , talkingnding outside to herbert right, the national naacp youth secretary. Herbert wright. The policeman came over and said, you have to move. You cannot stand here and talk. And i said, well, i started Walking Around the courthouse. It is in a square on the sidewalk is around the perimeter. After i went around one time, they took me out and arrested me anyway. [laughter] i was also charged with breaching the peace and disturbing the peace. Day, annd of that enormous number of people arrested and involved. Up at the we met back gymnasium on the campus of Claflin College and that was the first time i remember meeting matthew perry, who died recently. Was,ember how gracious he telling us that we would be defended. Would use its resources for our defense. In fact he was so gracious i thought maybe we won something here. It was the tone of his voice. Contributed to have that one little skirmish in an enormous sized battle for it will rights. Simply the right to sit at a lunch counter and eat a have a current indignity like any other american. Let me ask you about a couple of things in the runup to that day. When he first encountered the philosophy of nonviolence, direct action, it seems it resonated with you. [laughter] im curious about whether that did or did not in important ways connect to your personal faith through the church . Dr. Gaither it ultimately dead but it did not initially. The first time i heard someone talk about nonviolence it ultimately did, but it did not initially. The first time i hurts my talk about nonviolence was glenn smiley who worked for the fellowship of reconciliation. He gave a lecture at claflin talking about nonviolence. Ive never standing up and saying, that is what is wrong with black people. Not, webeen, we have have been to, we have been nonviolent to long. That was my knife tape. Naivete. As my sitting and accepting something is not demoralizing nonviolence, but that shows you where i was. [laughter] in terms of my comprehension of nonviolence. So i started to embrace the philosophy when i started to learn about its tactics and techniques from jim mccain appeared. One of the most important people in the civil rights struggle for that carolina especially, was his home state, a very lowkey man, a person whose primary commitment was to the cause, not to any kind of personal advancement that would bring him. Was tactically a nonviolent person. If you wanted to go into the real substance and philosophy of nonviolence, you would have to read homework jacks autobiography or gandhi by louis read andhich i later found to be remarkably instructive about how gandhi his, staged his battle against the british for Indian Independence using nonviolence. Tell me more about mccain . Maybe the nature of your evolving relationship. Considered jim mccain to have been my mentor in the Civil Rights Movement. He was interested in me as a who would also as one be a participant in the movement and in fact he was the person me who persuaded me to attend a claflin and this wouldve been held by core, the summer of 1960. In miami and Action Institute where the Upper Echelon of core and a large number of students from new theres especially, where are to learn about how to stage citizens and so forth how to and so forth. That was the second time i was arrested, sitting at a table in a Little Community called hollywood, florida. York, girl from new Dottie Miller. Wasie later for short time married to bob zellner. He may be that person who is better known in terms of participation in civil rights. We were playing this game where you say i am thinking of somebody and you have a bunch of clues and finally say to the person is. And the management of this restaurant decided they did not want us in their restaurant. Arrested, Dottie Miller and this whole group. 1012 days in the date county jail. Bernard lafayette was among the other persons one when identifying with this group. We had the most interesting charge i have ever heard ejection of undesirable guests, ejection of undesirable guests. When it came before the judge, the judge said, no adjudication, but if you guys stay down here and if you are involved in similar activities, i reserve the right, i will put you on probation. If youre on probation and you could wind up back in jail again. I understande sure what that charge means. Dr. Gaither i do not understand either. It was not trespassing or breaching the peace. This was in miami and i think the miami meeting was august 1960. You wouldve graduated in may. Were you already on staff as a field secretary or had that not happened yet . Dr. Gaither that had not happened yet. Right after i graduated i worked in South Carolina, with a man wasd frank robinson, ociated with political ociated with communication core. Ated with we would go to churches in the evening and talk about the importance of registering and voting in that kind of thing. I went from there to the Action Institute. Then i was hired on by core. There are many threads here. I want to bring in another theme. On the nonviolence question again. You told the interesting story about your first hearing, skepticism and maybe contempt. Dr. Gaither sure. Merits firste its in tactical terms or did you go all that distance to internalizing it and being committed to it as a more encompassing philosophy . Dr. Gaither no, i went to it in tactical terms. I think it takes a lot of disciplined study to go to nonviolence and the philosophical sense of gandhi. And this ismes jumping forward, there were times when we were on the road gang and raquel in rock hill. As the adults in that group of mind was clicking in, how would gandhi behave in the situation . We often discussed the difference between tactical nonviolence, and nonviolence is a more involved personal philosophy of life. I knew how i thought gandhi would have handled the situation. Gandhi would volunteer to clean the toilets, and i was not likely to get my young colleagues to say, this is what we should do. There are practical limits, sometimes. We were loading tracks with sand. You can throw only so many shovels in. I think gandhi would have thrown shovels in until he collapsed. That editingalways between philosophy as a technique and as a way of life. It, theually grows into philosophy is a way of life. I do not think i have met a lot of people who have done that. There are some people whose knowledge of nonviolence is superior to mine, whom i respect for their ability to connect all of this together in a philosophy, rather than as a tactic or technique for acquiring human rights or promoting issues of justice. Way, through Spring Semester of 1960 and early summer, you start the Voter Registration work. What is the reaction of your family . Dr. Gaither my family was very supportive. Extremely supportive. Contact. My family was deeply religious. , and if youand dad are asking them about their concern for me, they would say, the lord will take care of him. And i put that in the hands of the lord. That would have been the response. That is truly the way they felt. I, even though what they knew was in danger, somehow they were optimistic that i would return and wouldf my senses not have been permanently impaired. I am not sure they realized how dangerous it was, but you have to realize they were in danger too, and a small community. They were nonviolent were not nonviolent. Let me tell you the story. When we were in jail and rock hill, some of the local peoples when known my dad forever, came to him and said, we will protect you while your son is 29 miles away on the road gang. And im not sure what my dad told them. I do not think he encouraged them. Because there was no one sitting in a car at the fence around my place to shoot someone who would come there. But while i was in jail in rock hill, a cross was burned on the parentshouse. I remember when my dad told me that. He said, if i had seen him, it would have been the last cross that he would have burned. It occurred to me that i would not think of shooting someone for burning a cross. That is where i had grown in nonviolence. My dad was a different generation. A whole different ethic about how you go about protecting your family. It is one of the primary things a man does, who has a family. Emergingbout your impressions of this Organization Called core. You met mccain in spring and he becomes a mentor and you go into this Voter Registration effort. Are you getting much of a sense of core at the National Level . Dr. Gaither yes, i was getting an impression of core at the National Level because i had occasion to visit the core office in new york. At the time, the core office, with the exception of jim mccain, most of the staff was white. Carey, and, gordon the executive secretary of core, when i first learned about core, was a very slightly built white of jamesn, by the name russell robinson, jim robinson, a very nice person, very committed to the cause. Its inception it 1942 at the university of chicago, have been primarily a organization composed of liberal people who believed that nonviolent direct action could be used to promote social change. To the i started going Core National office i started meeting other people and my impression of the possibilities for nonviolent direct action and my respect for the commitment of the people involved was ever increasing. I think your first trip up to the office was a consequence of the leadership role you had . Dr. Gaither ed is the first time i ever rode on an airplane it is the first time i ever rode on an airplane. Im ever going to the airport in columbia, and flying up to new york. The airport in columbia was very small. There may have been eight or 10 gates, rather unlike the airport there now. I remember meeting Jimmy Mcdonald and gordon carey and marvin rich, and being shown the big city. Never having been to a city like new york before, yeah. Through that summer and your Voter Registration work, what are the memories that emerge most vividly for you about that . Talkingher i am ever i remember talking we went individually and talked with people and often we chose to go to projects where there was a concentration of people, many of whom would have not been registered voters. We would actually try to engage people in conversations about the importance of voting. And it would always get down to this, especially with the little i will go and register and vote if my preacher says it is ok. It was almost always that the minister had to give his blessing or you are not going to get that. There were some people who after you told them white was important told you and would say i will go down and give it a try. But i remember almost without fail the people who were resistant, it was a matter of, if the minister, if my preacher says it is ok, i may go give it a try. I am not sure how any of those people we ever really got to register and vote. But we did have success. Again, we chose projects and places where you could go from one door to the next to the next. It was all most a oneonone kind of thing with our team. Through the summer of 1960, there is much active conversation and debate in the , inl Rights Community different parts in that moment about how to move forward. Withit ins often were met very vigorous and ongoing resistance, and yielded relatively little in terms of a direct result. So i wonder about your thoughts through that, because obviously this will connect to the emergence of another idea about how to move forward that you will play a very large part in advocate. Omulgate and dr. Gaither the early sentence sitins the early resulted in people sitting at lunch counters and being arrested and posting bond, and the bond was used perhaps by the state to continue the practice. Be moret there should of a commitment on our part, being willing to suffer for something we really wanted to have happen. Year after the first sentence sitins, we got involved in the jail, no bail policy with the friendship nine. That was deliberate. That protest was to occur one year after the first sitins. It was to take us to a different level of commitment meant commitment. That is the essence of the jail, no bail. There were quandaries about what had been happening previously with students in cash people in the student nonviolent core any committee. There were doubtless some naacp chapters that had jumped on board and were dealing with the jail, no bail would turn out to be an important commitment level we had not seen before which we would hope what appeal to people of goodwill now these College Students who are simply sitting at a lunch counter, they were arrested, and they are in jail now. R they are on a road gang now there is something wrong with me. Im talking about, if someone were really interested in social justice or addressing the problems we have in this country relative to race. Activeout doing anything at least the people in the other parts of the country could say, i am not going to patronize that store. Im going to insist in my own personal life that we find a way to treat those young people fairly. Suffering,gness to we had hoped that would appeal d sense ofd nature social justice that we hoped permeated enough people in the country for some positive change to occur. Again forreach back some of these threads bringing us forward here. In the spring of 1960, a group of students who are core m, theyed at florida a are arrested to serve 60 days and you wouldve known about that. Dr. Gaither yes. That would have served as a first instance. A first instance of jail, no bail. Dr. Gaither sometimes the important thing is not perhaps what you do, but the context that you do it in. Iotald never detract one from the significance of what happened to this core group in tallahassee, pat stevens, Priscilla Stevens and those people. Echelons,e of core im not sure how well that protest was known. Exactly. Dr. Gaither but i think we had hundreds of students arrested in the early 1960s, after the sitins movement started in greensboro. We had a context for the friendship nine. It was being in the strategic place at the strategic time. Merits aill significant note historically because there were other groups that could have done the same thing. Rs was the group that did the critical thing. Absolutely. 1960. To miami in august, earlier, in a recounting the arrested there, you made it seem, i want to be clear, the rest was intentional . Im kind of surprised us you dr. Gaither there was an Action Institute. In the Action Institute we would often have a white and black sitting at a lunch counter. And we would have observers that were white and black. We were trying to get the sentiment of the management, or the position of management. And if the white and black tour the test group were served, then that white or black who were observers would say i am not going to patronize this place anymore. You are letting a black person e down at the end of the counter. So you have no way when you going to do that, you have no way of knowing how the police are going to perceive it. They might just arrest both groups. Arrest in miami was sort of accidental. We were not planning to be arrested. But we realized we might be arrested. In fact, in some of the proceedings of the Action Institute, there were some people whose level of commitment to what we were doing, was not quite up to the level of being arrested. They wound up being arrested, and they actually were uh, somewhat sore about the fact that they were arrested. But you had to realized that if you are in this particular game, that was all a part of the territory. You spent time, you mentioned, in dade county jail. Dr. Gaither yes. Not a nice place to extend time at all. To spend time, at all. We were in a cellblock that may have had 35 men, including murderers. For the most part, the prisoners were very respectful to us. But to anybody else who came in the cellblock, there were certain expectations that were enforced by the cellblock person, who was at the top of the hierarchy. And by that, i mean the person was the strongest, and who wielded enough power to make other underlings carry out his orders. I am member one night, an elderly man was put into the cellblock. One of the underlings went over to him and said, pops, you have to take a shower. Said, who the hell do you think you are . I am not taking a shower. I just got arrested for being drunk on the streets, i am clean. Wente said, the underling back and told the guy who was the head of the cellblock. And he said, either he takes a shower now, or im going to beat the hell out of you. So this underling goes back and tells the man, you have to take a shower. And he gave him the same argument before. And within moments, this guys being beaten by this underling, and he is thrown into the shower. And he takes a shower. So it was that sort of environment. Not a good environment. [laughter] makeirst time i saw guys hot chocolate in the cellblock and there were these metal cups. They would take on mars candy bar or a milky way and they would put it right up next to the lamp or light. To attach find enough it and the chocolate will melt into the water, stir it around and that was hot chocolate. Next to the incandescent lamp or light. [laughter] when core invites you to become a field secretary, on the other the miami experience, what was your thought about that opportunity, and what you might be doing . Dr. Gaither i was delighted at the opportunity to be able to go work fulltime in the movement. My background had been in the do not agree with the philosophy of the naacp, in terms of how you go about promoting social change. But i was pleased that i had the contacts with the naacp. When i went to jackson, mississippi, to her, the only person i knew in jackson was medgar evers. I had met him at the regional meetings of the naacp when i was a student at claflin. So you went immediately to mississippi . Dr. Gaither no, i had a variety of assignments for court. For core. Ira member working in kentucky. I remember work i remember working in kentucky. I remember working in they would express an interest in addressing the problem of discrimination in their communities. Core would send out a person to train them, to advise them, so forth and so on. That is how i got to work in some of these other communities. I got the jackson assignment because i had been key in coming up with the idea of freedom ride in the first place, and because i made all of these contacts along the route, it was a natural kind of thing for me to be a scout for the ride. I have to slow you down again. Through the fall of 1960, one of the things you are heavily that will build up to january 31. Withaither the training the folks from rock hill was done at Claflin College. Jim mccain may have been in and out of their and the primary emphasis was on the sociodramas. Took a group of College Students who had no knowledge at nonviolence and we pulled off one of the most important protest events of the movement. I look back at that now. Be expect people to arrested. Go find some guys who have studied nonviolence and who have been involved in protests like we did for the freedom rides. Writers riders were not randomly chosen people. They were people, you had to submit an application. Everybody had to feel comfortable with everybody else in terms of their ability to but to behave in a nonviolent way or fashion. That is not what we had with the friendship nine, but we were able to pull it off. I am curious why why january 31 and not february 1 . Students were interested in being able to register for the next semester of classes and so our choice of the date that was not exactly opposite the starting date about a a february 1 was to accommodate that. So the guys could get registered so that if things went well and they spent their 30 days, they might be able to be in enough contact with their teachers to not lose a whole semester of schooling. The students had to register at haveollege so they could the possibility of not losing a whole semester. Much i am sure to say about the experience of being on the road again. I want to ask about it seems already, you are personally aware what this might mean in the moment to the wider movement. This could be something that we could really begin to exploit. Can you talk about that . Dr. Gaither looking at what had happened previously and looking at where there was a possibility of expanding to something as we knew more about the potential use of nonviolence, i think that is what wouldve led to the lets try this jail in strategy again kind of thing. I made the point about the jail in and this particular one being pivotal. To the naacping National Convention in 1960 and there was a lady there named luper from Oklahoma City and she spent all of her time talking about sit ins that had been done by the naacp youth chapter in tulsa . Oklahoma city. Dr. Gaither Oklahoma City. And i remember going away from saying from that saying, but no one knew about them other than clara and a couple of other people. That is the thing that in history sometimes, its when you do something, when you have a context, that accords significant rather than whether you have done it or not. I dont doubt that clara and her group had done citizens because she kept saying, the North Carolina people are, but we know about the North Carolina people. They had an impact. We know about the friendship nine. I think they had an impact. And historically, that is what we look for as we look at the social string pushes the string, that pushes that one, that pushes that when. Happened. Ings you are on the chain gang but you know that many of the things are happening. Dr. Gaither one of the things about being on the chain gang is that we were coping with the situation of adjusting and being able to fit in and do what we had to do to some bright to survive and to provide a witness on the chain gang. What we did not realize and could not possibly realize was the impact that was going on out there. On sundays, when there were a thousand people coming to see us, the only people we could see would be a line of perhaps a hundred people that were coming straight into the dormitories where we were housed. We could not see all of those other people, and we did not have acumen occasions network can occasions network that enabled us to know that Communications Network that enabled us to know that so that one of the things that has been tremendously gratifying to me is to read what was going on the outside. We did not have an information flow that told us. I thought you would have gotten it through those prison visits, but no. I dont recall anybody saying, im just one of about a thousand people out here. And it was deliberate on the part of the authorities to limit the number of the people that we saw so as not to break us, but certainly not to encourage us because one of the times we wound up in solitary confinement because they want us to erect a fence to corral the people who were coming to see us. If you are looking only at a straight line, i see 25 people, i dont know how many people are along the laterals there. I have to pull back a little bit. Probably im guessing just after the training was december 911 of 1960. You were on a bus with gordon cary. Take me back to that ride and its purpose and what you talked about. We were going from South Carolina after a Training Session back to new york. Gordon had a copy of louis fishers book about gandhi and we may have even talked about gandhis famous march to the sea sort of thing. I came up with the idea or broached the idea of a freedom ride and the freedom riders would copy some of the basic pattern of a 1947 journey that had been staged by the fellowship of reconciliation and core jointly. That is the ride George Houser was the scout on. At some point in the journey, just chitchatting about one thing or another, the idea of a freedom ride comes up. We said, what are we going to call this thing . And i dont know whether gordon said freedom ride or if i said freedom ride. It is not critical to me in terms of who said what at the time. We went on to suggest that how are we going to do this thing in terms of the mechanics of the project . We are going to have to have people who are very well trained in nonviolence and we are going to have to have somebody who will go down the route of the ride to send back very specific information about the town, the community, the bus schedules, the layout of the bus stations, the mass meetings, and all of that sort of thing. Eventually, i would become the person who would assume that particular function so that i could say that i was the scout for the freedom ride. Wasthe choice of places determined by the location of historically black colleges and universities going southward that we had relationships with where we could house the riders and where we could have meetings to inform the local community because we did not want to just take a trip through a Community Without making some connections with the local people who would follow up to make sure that whatever happened with us would be a springboard for them continuing to protest or taking advantage of any kinds of changes that had that would have occurred. You have just described some of the close particulars but pulling back one level, this is audacious. Pushing this notion of all the way through the deep south. The original ride had not gone into the deep south because of the danger element. But we were going to go through upsissippi, alabama, and end in louisiana and we knew that the resistance there would be considerable. In fact, i think my suggestion was that if we get through the state of alabama, we are going to have to have federal protection because alabama, along with mississippi, the most resistant places that i thought we would encounter. Remember, the naacp had been outlawed in alabama. That is how you got the southern christian Leadership Conference and dr. Kings organization and group going there because it was illegal to be a member of the dublin of the naacp. We also realized that there were places in South Carolina like rock hill, where the possibility was imminent and any of the small towns, any one of those states, you could encounter all kinds of difficulties. You could lose your life. So you andut cary communicate this idea to the folks at the Core National office when you arrive. Dr. Gaither this is about the time that james farmer became the executive secretary of core. Right in the late 1960, early 1961 when jimmy robinsons tenure is in question. There is uncertainty. Dr. Gaither jim farmer was looking for a project and this is one that had the potential to i dontsuccessful and think we estimated how big it would become because i think it ultimately was one of the signature protests of the entire Civil Rights Movement. I mean, it involved all kinds of people. There were all kinds of inputs and all kinds of positive things that were brought together to address an issue that got national attention. And i dont think we had that in mind. Evidence to the fact that we did not have it in mind is that we had a dozen or so very well to round very well trained nonviolent soldiers who were going to do this thing, and you know you are not going to get a dozen people, no matter how welltrained they are, through alabama, mississippi, and louisiana. So i dont think that we had estimated the potential, and i think its difficult to do that anyway. Did you think dr. King might join . Dr. Gaither it was not anticipating,s and its something that, given the magnitude of dr. Kings contributions, i do not hold one reserve in terms of my respect for dr. King that he did not become a freedom writer rider. He was on the National Advisory board for core. He had been perhaps the primary influence in fleshing out nonviolence as a strategy from promoting social change, and to me, that is enough of a contribution. The question is too obvious, but i dont know the answer. Why werent you a freedom writer rider . Uper setting the whole thing dr. Gaither after setting the whole thing up, i drew the assignment of being the person in jackson who would take care ders when the ri they were released. I had an assignment before that, though. My assignment right after the bus was burned in anniston was in montgomery, alabama. And in montgomery, i lived in the home of Ralph Abernathy. Montgomery was under martial law. Church wast in the thousands of whites, angry whites massing outside the rally at reverend abernathys church . The town is under martial law and the freedom writer started to trickle in. Riders start toe trickle in. Ridesrs know how many were coming in, but we would not know their names and we did not match names of people. Right outside of Ralph Abernathys house about half a block up, there was a jeep with the National Guardsmen driving and another National Guard man in the back seat with a rifle across. So this guys would give us an escort to the block of the bus station, trailways or greyhound. They would disappear. We have got to get from their past all of the rednecks to pick up the riders. We know there are five, but we do not know them. I would stand in an area near a telephone booth. I would know the gender of the people. As soon as i saw them dial Ralph Abernathys number, i would go over and say come on, come on. That works for a number of times and we would go back with those people past the mob incidentally. We would go back past the mob. We would get in our vehicle, the jeep would intercept us again, take us back to abernathys house. This is the protection we are getting. When we needed the National Guard, it was not there. We were on our own. We got back to a safe neighborhood, Ralph Abernathy lived in a black neighborhood. There was not a lot of chance someone was going to come in and do us harm their. Harm there. Thinking back as best you can, to watch this whole ride unfold, especially from rock hill forward, rock hill on down to atlanta and then across. Inching your vision unfold the spectacular fashion that it did and all of the tumult and violence and chaos, the federal governments involvement, you are a young man. You are in your early 20s. I am interested in response and your sense of what is happening. It was a sense of gratification. It was also a sense of responsibility for people who would be injured. Injuries carry those the rest of their lives. Thing to ask me to do that as a person. I also thought we were in this together. What happened to anyone of us could have happened to the others of us. And i would have been willing to do and i was gratified there were brothers and sisters, white, black, who were similarly minded. To the we had grown up point here of the level of sacrifice that might be expected, always hoping that would not be the case, but realizing it certainly could be the case. Obviously, the experience of violence by that point was not entirely new to the movement, but it was pretty ferocious. I am wondering about your reaction to that. Did that change any part of your perspective . Ideaaither i think the was that we cannot let violence intimidate us into doing any less than what we think we should be doing and that would be insisting that we be treated just like any other citizen. Perspective your about the federal government and the Kennedy Administration after what happened . Dr. Gaither the federal government was not our ally. They were sort of annoyed that there were all these Critical International issues and then you have got this bunch of blacks and whites that want to ride to the south challenging the culture of segregation. Id be particularly critical of the fbi because there was no community that i worked in where i could talk to an fbi agent. I did once think on a sort of intuitive cork that there was that thereuirk was an fbi guy that i could Say Something to. This was when i was working in jackson. About two months later, i wound up in federal court. The agent had hoped that he could implicate me in conspiracy. It turns out that i had been tactful enough that when i testified, it really did not help their case. The Justice Department presents with people like john doar was often welcomed and was sincere. Workdid a lot of very good i think in mississippi and the Voter Registration. The sincere involvement by the federal bureaucracy in protecting rights and so forth was grossly negligent. I think to the kennedys, this was all about politics. It was not about a moral commitment to protect citizens who were being disenfranchised by the local political culture. It must have been it mustve been interesting to watch everything turn toward an, and, toward parchmen you became a national event. We had people coming in from various parts of the country. We had various religious groups. I remember the episcopalians, the church of latterday saints. It was a good crosssection of america, and thats the situation where the freedom rides started out as a specific protest involving a very small group and they wound up being a national movement. I do not think we could have predicted that. Was your broad sense of the prospects of the movement as that summer of 1961 wound down and the civil Rights Community is looking for the best choices about how to move forward . What was your sense of what the freedom rides at that point meant and what opportunities seemed ahead of you . Dr. Gaither i saw nonviolent direct action as being a ot to promoting some of the kinds of changes that we wanted to promote. At the same time, i was aware of the impatience of people who had been tactically nonviolent who were starting to listen to what is a dominant cultural theme, which is violence. There was an innocence, a kind of moral focus in the early part of the movement, but to be a nonviolent movement, if you go back to gandhi, it requires a lot of discipline, a lot of training. To ask people in society that is predominantly violent through its core to continue to maintain that i think that is the sad thing about what happened with the death of dr. King. I mean, i think that dr. King star, by the time he was assassinated, had really started to wane because the violent elements wheresoever present until they were becoming considerable in terms of how we go about promoting the change that we want to promote. You would move from the the cofoide into experience. Lotgaither i did not do a fo experience. I was there when it was founded. It seemed to be a natural kind of thing to the segregationists and the culture of segregation in mississippi. There was no difference between sclc. Naacp, sncc, to the segregationists, they were all the same. I have always ascribed to the notion that there were some people who would be active in the aa cp the naacp, who would never be active in core, but we need their push as a thrust for this movement forward. I dont go back and belabor any negative points about the organizations that were involved because i think there were es for all of us to put our shoulders to the plow to move this wretched animal of segregation out of the way. Tell me about bob moses. Moses, aer bob brilliant guy. A visionary. On takingre focused care of freedom riders in jackson, which is when i first was involvedmoses in managing the campaigns of some of the local ministers who are running for congress. He was looking ahead to the status,l for political solidifying some of the gains that we were trying to get to happen or to occur. The algebra project. He and dave dennis work together. I have high respect for bob moses. One of the things i respect about bob moses, there were people involved in this opinion, who, in my were quite a bit centered around themselves and their significance. I think bob moses saw the larger picture and i think is very lowkey manner is to push the issues and the important things as opposed to pushing the individual. 1962, you reach the point where because of relations reasons related to your deferment status, certain choices are very stark in front of you. Can you talk about what they were . I. Gaither after college, received a number of deferments and i got to the point of in classified, i think it was one a. 1 i received a notice that i had to report to fort jackson for induction into the army. Negligent now i had been negligent to make the make the argument that i would object to military service on the basis of conscience because that philosophy of nonviolence had convinced me that i was, would not be a very, very good soldier, but i would be willing to serve my country in an alternate capacity. Get to fort a co, i jackson. We take all of these, preliminary tests the first day. The sergeant says, looks good. The next day, he says well, i see you have an arrest record here. I said, indeed i do. Well, youre not morally fit to serve in the military, except we will think about this. And when he said that, he said, we are going to let you go for a few days. And i went very quickly to, resurrect the interest that i had shown in a couple of graduate schools. One was Atlanta University in atlanta, georgia. The other one that id been admitted to was, the university of washington on the west coast, and the university of illinois, champaign urbana. I checked to see when sessions were starting and so the sessions were starting for Summer School at Atlanta University. So i found myself in graduate school rather quickly. And that, of course, staved off the business of having to, to try to resurrect Conscientious Objector status. And, and you would spend a final summer of 63, i think. Dr. Gaither yes, in mississippi. One year of work on my masters degree. Thats another interesting story to this, by the way. Right after the bus had been burned in anniston and i had been doing some short assignments, i went to the university of wisconsin at madison to work for core, and they were asking questions about the freedom rides, so forth and so on. So this was a field secretary assignment. Dr. Gaither field secretary assignment. So i met a professor whose last name was rice. He said you have not taken the Law School Aptitude Test. He said, im going to recommend you to law school. Now after claflin and being involved in the movement, i had actually thought of how i could get into a profession that would enable me to continue to contribute to the movement, and i had decided that law would be that rather than biology. But one year after i had worked on my masters degree in biology, i went home to great falls and im thumbing through this mail and i come across this letter admitting me to law school at the university of wisconsin. So he said, you are admitted. You will have to take the Law School Aptitude Test as a matter of record. So thats how i wound up going into biology or continuing to work to biology. And i was successful in biology. So i actually wound up getting a couple of graduate teaching assistantships and i chose the at the one university of iowa. So you didnt go to law school. Dr. Gaither no, i didnt go to law school. I was already halfway through a masters degree in biology and id always liked biology. So rather than changing to something that was entirely different, even though it was closer to the movement, i decided to keep going in biology. Well, as you had mentioned, you had earlier met Ernest Finney and matthew perry. Dr. Gaither yeah, lawyers. Bill kunstler, carl rachlin. I met a variety of lawyers who were favorable influences. Tell me about dr. Gaither let me tell you that my couple of lawyers are not very well known. When the riders were, freedom riders, were being tried in jackson, mississippi, there were perhaps five or six lawyers in jackson, mississippi, black lawyers. Was Sidney Thorpe was the only lawyer who had been trained, well, hed been trained in a big ten university, i think. But he would not take freedom rider cases. There was jack young, who started out as a postal clerk and had taken law as a correspondence, who was our chief legal contact. There was r. Jess brown, who used to be a social studies teacher at one of the high schools, who had graduated from texas southern. And there was another man named carsie hall, who was also a mail clerk. And so those were our core lawyers, r. Jess brown, jack young, and carsie hall. And, if it was a federal case, we would get people like derrick bell and Constance Baker motley or bill kunstler or carl rachlin. Some othert reinforcements. But it was always a nucleus of local guys that sort of coordinated things and tried most of the freedom rider, cases. Tell me about the summer of 1963 going into mississippi. You did a final threemonth . Dr. Gaither oh, yes. The final three months, i worked with aaron henry in clarksdale, mississippi. And aaron henry and the, clarksdale naacp were involved selective buying program, actually a boycott of downtown, clarksdale. And so, being there for just three months, i was just fitting into and augmenting an existing program, having to do with, issues of police brutality, issues of discriminating against black people in the downtown area in the stores, so forth and so on. But the other thing i did there was to be the, focus of a freedom school, that was just a block or so away from aaron henrys drugstore and we would have coming into the center, id say, twenty, 25 young people every day and we taught freedom songs, history of blacks in america, so forth and so on. It was there when the march on washington was to take place and so my choice was to stay in clarksdale or to go to the march on washington. And i opted to stay in, clarksdale. I remember as i told you there helping to put together the sign, march on washington for jobs and freedom, and then with sclc, sncc, core, naacp, and cofo, which was the council of federated organizations, sort of pulling them all together on that sign, which the young people from clarksdale took to the march on washington. Then you went back, i guess, to atlanta for a second year at Atlanta University. Dr. Gaither and then, to the university of iowa. For the ph. D. Let me propose that we pause here and take a break. Just a few things. John thought it would be good, a simpleay recap in way, the number of organizations inside cofo and say once more what that was . Dr. Gaither ok. Cofo was the council of federated organizations and, the representative organizations were sncc, or the student nonviolent coordinating committee, the sclc, the southern christian Leadership Conference, the National Association for the advancement of colored people, or the naacp, and core, the congress of racial equality. Those together constituted cofo. And you had earlier talked about how from the perspective of the average white mississippi segregationist, they would have all been one broad mix. All one. Thats right. That is true. Im very interested in, we cant do it justice because well just here have time for a summary, but talk about first your experience in graduate school, particularly say in iowa, and then moved to the broader question of your work as a scientist. Iowa,ither first year at i was of course the only africanamerican student in the department. There were a couple of asian, indian students, in the department. I did well academically. A graduatened to be teaching assistant in a very large course. It was called life science. It was actually the introductory level, biology course. And we had two responsibilities for the sections that we were assigned. We had the students for, laboratory, for a couple of hours a week, and we had them for an hour or so in a Discussion Group. The Discussion Group we could informationints of that students had questions about based on the lecture. Because of the very large number of people in the class, the lecturers were just given the time to present the information. To embellish or clarify something, that was up to the ta. Only africanamerican student, there had been previously an africanamerican student from louisiana who had graduated and indeed, my mentor or one of the persons that was influential in sending me to iowa actually compared me to his previous student that had been there and that was sort of an automatic niche for me to be in. There were, of course, the usual crosssection of, people, some of whom became close friends, until today, but there were also the people who just sort of tolerated you because you were there and to them, they would have been just as happy if you werent there. Professors were across the spectrum, too. Some very conservative ones were particularly standoffish, but i found, enough favor in professors and they respected me enough as a student. And so i didnt have any major problems, with, with graduate work at iowa. I had decided to go to iowa because i felt that if not a neutral place to go, it might be at least a place where i could, find some direction to do something that was a potential but potential passion for me. The leader in the field at the time had left iowa and gone to austin, texas, and even though austin, texas, has a reputation of being a bit more enlightened than some other cities in texas, i didnt, coming out of a movement where i was fighting discrimination in its most blatant form day in and day out, want to take that same mantle to do graduate work at texas, even though the preeminent scholar in the field was at texas. So that was sort of one of the things that compelled me to go out to go to iowa. Now id mentioned that i could have gone to washington, seattle, or champagne or banner. Champagnebana or bana did not have the fit program that i was primarily interested in and i wasnt quite sure i wanted to go way out on the west coast. So i wound up going to iowa. Tell me about the things that have been most important to you, as a scholar and a researcher over the years. Dr. Gaither ok. As a researcher, eventually i got into an area of biology thats called electron microscopy, and my specific interest in electron microscopy was to start with the very small structures that are inside of a living system and to see what happens when some of those structures transform into entities that are important for the reproduction of the organism. So there was, something thats called capillitium, or from latin, capillus, meaning a thread. I actually studied how these threads came to be and in the mature reproductive structure of the organisms that i studied, the threads have a function because they prevent the organism from putting all of its reproductive structures out at once. So theyre out over a longer time period, increasing the possibility that some of those reproductive structures will then propagate the organism. The other interest that i had was using the electron microscope to answer certain questions that you couldnt answer given the limitations of a regular microscopic microscope. So you can see things with a regular microscope that are only so close to each other. With an electron microscope, you can see them much closer. Thats something we call resolution paired so with we call resolution. So with improved resolution, a question that might be subjective with a light microscope suddenly becomes objective with an electron microscope because you can see more clearly what is there. So that was my interest in using the electron microscope to answer those kinds of questions, which were then involved in defining how one species of organism was different from another species that was closely related. So it was speciation or using electron microscopy to resolve the questions. Melet me turn forgive because i know that is just the barest summary. But for our work today, i want to turn back to civil rights and the struggle, and maybe to a few retrospective kinds of questions. I know weve just passed the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides. And there are many different ways that people approach that memory and so im interested in your question of different interpretations of the ride and its impact and, and how you see the significance of, of the freedom rides from this distance. Dr. Gaither well, i see them as being one of the most important, the most inclusive, the most integrative protests as a part of the total civil rights structure. We were talking about attribution of who did this and who did that. There is no question that the rides were conceived by and executed primarily by the congress of racial equality. After the bus was burned in anniston, when the riders were no longer capable of continuing, we received a very nice contribution from the students in nashville and the nashville movement. Now that contribution is to be given a great deal of credit, but its credit should not extend to the suggestion that core was incapable of continuing. In any kind of movement, there are strategic times that you move and obviously, you cant move if youre physically incapable at that moment. That does not mean that youre not in charge of the sequence of events that is part of an ongoing process. So my disappointment was those who would rewrite the history as if the congress of racial equality, the people who originated and for the most part sponsored the rides, that these were sort of like rookies who didnt know what they were doing. We appreciate the contribution of the nashville people, but it was simply a contribution that was a part of an ongoing process, not a contribution that should consume the origin of the process and the propagation of the events that we label with of the term freedom ride. Sure. After you departed for iowa and then had the long run of your career as an academic here in, in pennsylvania, did you ever live again in the south . Dr. Gaither no. With the exception of going back for visits. No question, the south has changed tremendously, but the fundamental infrastructure of racism and segregation that called the shots in the still in 1960 are still in place. They have slightly different labels, they accomplish their goals by slightly different means, but there has been no real fundamental shift in who really calls the signals. We can have black public officials, but sometimes the strength of what those people can do is actually called by shots from the same people who were calling the shots 50 years ago. So there has been change. A lot of its surface, change and theres still an awful lot of work to do. And in this recent thing of a society that is color blind, much of the legal weight for making some meaningful changes is continually eroded, and if youre talking about making changes in the southern context, ultimately, that has to come down to the administrators of federal programs and so forth. And very often these are very obviously discriminatory. Katrina, witness g. I. Bill availability and so forth. We go back to the 1960s and we still havent pushed the bad guy out of the way yet. From the nearer distance in terms of time, when you were, say, in iowa and beginning your work as an academic, did you ever, did you ever have occasion to im sure the question came to your mind did you ever have occasion to doubt her nonviolence as a tactical means . Did you ever think that it wont work here in the american context . Dr. Gaither no, ive always said that fate ive always had faith that it would work. I think there is a residual, moral conscious in, a significant number of americans that makes it possible for nonviolent tactics to work. They must, however, be waged within a context of people who are welltrained and who can, articulate, what it is that they are doing and why are they doing it. One is heartened by some of the, nonviolenttype things that have occurred in the middle east. I think that there, you know, there is still the possibility for nonviolent direct action being a positive social, positively, promoting a change, process. In having to hold the view for all of the many reasons that support it, that things have not changed so much, does it, has it what havet of been the implications for your sense of the american project over the longerterm . Do you think that this is a place that might find its way one day to a more just social order . Dr. Gaither i hope so. If one looks out, for example, the recent election of barack obama, i think what we had happening there, and by the way, i was immensely surprised that barack obama was elected because my mind was clicking back to what i know the situation to have been in the 50s, 60s and 70s. It was the young people who went out and rallied for the first time for change. The unfortunate thing is that many of those young people have not persisted with insisting that the change was there. Thehat we see now in inability of barack obama to govern is the kinds of factors that, if they had been dominant, would not have permitted him to be elected in the first place. Because everything he decides to do, the idea is to obstruct him and to prevent positive change from occurring or taking place. If the young people were just as involved in making sure that we are sending to people, people to congress who are going to cooperate and who are going to be collegial and who are going to be bipartisan, they are hope. And i have to think that the young people hold that hope. Movementg back, the was your passion and your work and youve struggled in very difficult contexts for, for years there at the opening of the decade of the are there ways 60s. In which, as you think about that, are there costs that were born by you in an ongoing fashion . Was there a legacy of cost or complication in any way for you personally . Dr. Gaither this is an interesting question. Because when i think back to the time, the energy, and the passion that i put into a movement to be, accepted as a citizen, as a human being, there are times when i wonder what could i have done with that time to do Something Else that is automatically forthcoming if you happen to be born in this country and your skin happens to be white instead of brown. That, that galls me on occasion because i think we have lost as a nation a lot of potential and we still lose, that potential when all you have to do is be born white. You have all these privileges, but if you are black, youre going to have to fight for them. We need all of us on the same page playing the same tune in order to be competitive internationally at this point. Ill ask one final question and then invite any further comments you might want to make. What would great falls, South Carolina, look like if you went back today . Dr. Gaither oh, great falls, South Carolina. A fundamental disconnect with the mainstream of American Society in terms of almost every aspect of life. When i drive through great falls, i see a number of men my age, sitting out under a tree just biding the time away and but for the grace of god, there go i sitting, there. These are people without hope, for whom the current century has passed and quite honestly, i dont know what will happen to them. But the tragedy is that they have been lost, but the tragedy thats even worse is that their children, in many instances, have been lost too. And thats downright depressing. I can think of any reason why an industry would go to great falls. You dont have a welltrained labor force, you dont have the kinds of amenities that are necessary to run a business ethically for profit, so forth and so on. So i really dont know. Its one of those questions my parents would say, ill leave it to god. Because i really dont have a solution for great falls. Meept to say that it hurts that there is not hope for a future that is bright for great falls. And what im saying might be interpreted to be from a black perspective. Im a black man. Effort toouth in its keep black people down has also cheated white people, especially poor white people because they are in the same boat. The white people should get together with the black people and move the monkey off the back, but many of them are holding onto the fact that, well, at least im white. Are there things we havent talked about that youd like to spend some time on, themes we havent touched on, other issues, episodes . Dr. Gaither i would mention one other thing. I think that scholars are frequently misunderstood. Especiallyy are misunderstood in the Africanamerican Community because weve had so few models idea as to generate an to their importance or to their significance so that when i tell people i have a phd in botany, they could identify if i have a phd in agriculture or something that they have a Life Experience that they can connect to it. But to them, my whole contribution to the total of my being and the being of my nation, my country, and my race is not cumbrian supple at all. Not comprehendible at all. And couple that with the fact that even my parents, i couldnt explain to them exactly what it is thats my passion i do. In the majority society, usually there is at least some way of making a connection that rings clear, but thats a sort of lonely feeling being out there. But i see my contribution as being more than to black people, but being to the nation as a whole. Thank you for welcoming us here to prospect today. Dr. Gaither my pleasure. End into your home. Its just been a real honor and privilege to talk with you. Dr. Gaither thank you. Thank you so much. Dr. Gaither thank you. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] announcer this is American History tv on cspan3 where each weekend, we feature 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. Announcer up next on reel america, the concluding 45 minutes of a 1963 nbc news podcast on the spanish on the Civil Rights Movement. The segments explores the effects of the Civil Rights Movement from struggles over school and business integration in new orleans, oklahoma, mississippi and alabama, to the august 1963 march on washington. The report ends with president kennedys june 11, 1963 appeal for civil rights legislation and statements by several u. S. Senators arguing for and against it. A, world war ii report covering several stories including the summer of 1945 meeting of president truman, joseph stalin, and winston churchill. At 5 10 p. M. Eastern, descendents of president s ford, johnson, and Theodore Roosevelt gather to share family stories. We have seen the revolution began in many ways. And the course of this following has many areas. Now we are concerned with its effects which we said are not uniform. One of the difficult fights but one in which the need grow has scored impressive gains is in shattering what reverend king has fault the appalling apathy of the good people. Birmingham shut helped. Hatter that apathy sometime