Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Thomas Gaither 20240712

2009. Conducted by Smithsonian National museum of africanAmerican History and culture. The American Folk Life Center at the library of congress and the Southern Oral History Program at the university of North Carolina chapel hill. My parents were walter b. Ghaiaither and fannie b. Little gaither. Gray fall 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 Junior College in rock hill, South Carolina. After they both graduated from friendship, they of course moved permanent ly to great falls. And initially, they were both school teachers. 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 listen on his contract as his per month payment for teaching was not the same as he was receiving. And this was at a time when the board of education were all composed of white men. So at the end of the year, my father approach ed the person wo signed his voucher for payment and said, i notice that there is a discrepancy here. 5 difference between what he was supposed to be paid, be paid, and what he was receiving. And for questioning the differential, which the school board 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 for the teacher but various places had a school, so mine happened to be Pleasant Grove school. Pleasant grove school was a zion church. For the first seven years of my education, where i learned to read, count, read, write, and all of those kinds of things. The good thing about the oneroom school was that the if you were in third grade, you could hear the lessons for the fourth grades, the fifth grades, sixth, 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 for the school, a jar that we took a piece of adhesive tape and put our name on that 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 think think, 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 wed have to open the windows. And that was, that was a little bit of a sample of the vi environment. We didnt have a library. There was a dictionary, but i think it was owned by my mother as a teacher. We didnt know have 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, they would send them, they want ship them to us. My mother remained in teaching until the consolidation of schools and that would have been in the early 1950s. Supreme Court Decision was 1954. Before that, there was some movement in teaching. In fact, 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 the time, but all of a sudden, theres 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 was about 17 miles away in wincebreaorrow, but the scho in Chester County was just about two and a half miles away. So actually, i went to Elementary School in, 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. Pleasant grove ame zion church. The district that my church was in was the columbia camden district. And ministers served a variable period of time as pastors of churches. There was a time very early in my life, where we had 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, we had church every sunday. You mentioned your father left yteaching. How old were you when that happened . I would have been, i must have been 11 or 12. Some place in there. What was the cause of his termination explained to you at the time at that anyone . No, i learned that later. It was, the trustee boards were all white men. But there was usually a trustee figure head board of black men and these were chosen by white men and they were usually people who would not ask questions. Who would not rock the boat. So, thats the way the boards were structured. So after losing his job as a teacher, my father went to work at a cotton mill. Since he had a Junior College edge raucatio education, rather than getting the jobs that were traditional for black men of that day, now, this was before the era of power lawn mowers, 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 sinosis from breathing cotton fibers and that sort of thing. 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 you 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 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, so forth and so on. So, in 19, early 1950, my father decided to go back to college. With five kids and with only jobs that he could do, i shouldnt say this about him. Hi my father was capable of doing a 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 kinds of jobs, handyman, but beyond handyman, if he had to, he went back to college at a Benedict College in columbia, South Carolina. And he completed the other two years of his college degree. Graduating with a batchelor of science degree in sociology. Well, in getting this degree, he had been told by a local white business man, 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, 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 back lor yet degree. He was simply a minister who had been called by god, but he opposed my father getting the job as principal at the school. By the way, it was one of the best things that had 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 been 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. So, he quit being a, a person who was working and paying his way through school. He used to come home in the evening from school and he would say lets get organized. Lets get organized. It meant we all got in the car. Now, we used a 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 39 buick with bricks and blocks and mortar and so forth so he could go do to job so he could take care of his family and 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 the college. The question was where and how are we going to pay for going to college. So, my dad took one of the gifts that he had in the construction trades industry, which was brick masonry and he became a brick mason. As a brick mason, he would travel to jobs all over that area or region of South Carolina. In the charlotte, columbia, orangeburg. Any place you could drive to. Well, any place you could drive to in a day. Actually, i remember once we worked down at the Paris Island Marine base in beaufort, South Carolina. And in that case, we had to go and stay for five days and then come back home. But being a brick mason, brick masons earned a very nice wage and thats 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. The weather was not good, you couldnt lay bricks and in the south, that meant that there were at least two or three months there when it was too cold. But as things would have it favoring my dad and family, he got to be the masons employed on a particular job, he got to be sart of a masort f a master mas. So when all of the other masons had been dispatched from the job because the 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 i was the valedictorian of the class and my brother was the salute torian and we jointly decided to go to Claflin College in orangeburg, South Carolina. My skoif was 75 per year. My brothers scholarship was 50 per year. So thats 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 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. Back after a short break. You were talking about your move towards claflin, but i want to ask a couple more things about your family coming up. Obviously, your father and through your father, your family had these direct and not so uncommon experiences, obviously, in terms of sufferinging for the slightest gesture of selfasserti selfassertion. Would those conversations have been open in your household . When you say the brown decision or those kind of things that would have been engaged conversation by your family . Those were discussed around the dinner table. And my parents shared liberally with what their thoughts were on these kinds of things. I remember the till cases by my dad and absolute shame and horror of what happened to this young man. In fact, i think it was con v conversations about till that launched in my psyche as one of the motivating fakctors for participating in the Movement Later on. Till would have been 1955. Thats about the same time as the montgomery bus boycott. So this were these cumulative things happening out there that were being internalized. At the cotton mills, there would be an effort to unionize the workers 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 organizers often tried to keep it a secret of where they stayed, but of course, somebody would know and would go and tell the big boss man and that would be to your detriment if you happened to be the person. My parents were also openly supportive of the naacp. I remember when i was quite a youngster, less than 10 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 a while so i could get some air and put me down 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 a supporter. Despite that fact, my dad was still a supporter and my mom, i remember that at some point, there was a suit by the South Carolina conference of the naacp to equal ize equalize the dynam. My mom and dad were both in favor, 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. 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. While all the School Districts with a tax base would hire off all the a people and b people so it would mean that a time like ray could hope for would be to get the c people. Which meant 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 if thats the response youre looking for. Very much. Yeah. Were your parents able to renl center register sto vote or no . My parents were registered voters. So register to vote, and i should, i have the form that i filled, that i received when i became a qualified elector, a voter in South Carolina. You had to be 18 years old, but i remember registers. 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 after registering, i remember a 300 mile trip. 150 miles one way to vote. 150 miles back. And i have tried to tell that to my students. I vote almost every election. Even when i had 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. Couple of times, when i was on so b sabbatical leave. Yes, both my parents were qualified electors. The other thing i was talking about that you have to present saying that you are a qualified elector, you had the read a section of the South Carolina constitution and interpret it to the satisfaction of the registrar, but on there is i do here by swear that i am not a pauper or supported at public expense. I have not been convicted of any of the fol rowing 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. Thats on the certificate that i have. It probably is not the case. At least i hope its not case now in winceborrow and Fairfield County has moved beyond that, but there were all the disqualifiers, which is somewhat interesting because weve had this recent resurgence of requiring voter i. D. Cards, paying poll tax. Which is a throwback to the same thing. Its a way of disqualify iing those whose input into the political process might be at odds with those who control the political process. Yes. So we look around, were in the same place. Tell me about orangeburg, when you arrived in 56 and what you thought would be your course through college. Well, i expect ed with the high School Background i had that i would have to work hard. I would be competing with some people who had had even though all the students at claflin at the time were black, people who had had better backgrounds. The people who had gone, for example, to ca johnson in columbia or to some of the larger schools. There were some of these people at claflin. I found myself as the, my, i havent told you this yet. But since my mother was a early teacher, and we did not have day care, my brother, right next to me, about a year and a half to two years younger, and i, wound up being in the same graduating class. Thats how i was the valedictorian. He was the sa luta torian. We couldnt find anybody to keep him. So my mother took him to school. Turned out he was very bright and didnt miss a beat in terms of handling the academic information that was put before him. I remember finding an adjustment to be at claflin. But managing to stay aboard academical academically, i graduating from claflin with honors with a bs degree in general science with a concentration in biology. Tell me about the, tell me about how race entered into your College Experience in orangeburg and i know of course that South Carolina state is there as well and the community will become a place under in large measure, because of your efforts that would in 1960 become very active. Was there stories before that . The only choice of going to a college at that time would have been a black college. The closest would have been alan university in columbia and Benedict College in columbia. Not too far away was morris college. Benedict and morris are baptist. The other is an ame school. We didnt base the reputation of those colleges gravitate toward them, choose them. Claflin was a choice that i agreed upon and my brother was please d with, so thats, we ha no choice of colleges. On a racial basis. Let me tell you this little story. It jumps ahead, but its an ra poe. I remember visiting my father in the 70s and 80s and he had this Clemson College logo around and i said what goes with Clemson College . He had 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 exam at the university of South Carolina. We were told to go to an audi r 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. 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 or 90 degrees. And that is where we were forced to take the exam. These were the conditions or the circumstances under which we were required to take the exam. I went home to visit him after that event and he had stored that away 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. It 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. Yes, i was the president of the youth chapter of the Claflin College chapter of the naacp. Starting when . Lets see. As a junior. And thats how i got into the sit ins because it was the natural position from which one might assume a natural role in leadership. Tell me about. [ inaudible ] let me have you describe the youth chapter of the naacp in, on the campus then and how it connected you to the state naacp apparatus and how it then led you forward. 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 who were members. Once i think it was less than 200. We knew, 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. The it was a very small, closely knit school. After the sit in started, almost every one on campus joined the naacp chapter. There were a couple of young people or students there who were afraid the join because they thought that word of their joining as youth members of a college chapter, might get back to their communities and there would be reprisals against their parents. And i can remember a couple of those people comeing and apologizing to me that they could not be members of the youth chapter of the naacp. Now, as a youth chapter naacp president , i was permitted to attend regional meetings of the naacp. That is where i would have met first people like ruby hurley or amos brown or medger 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 who were parts of the alabama civil rights scene. When the sit ins started in South Carolina, the first ones in South Carolina were at rock hill 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 are here, so we got organized, too, and thats where we sort of expanded out from this naacp youth chapter to organizing and participating in the sit ins. Yeah. Tell me about the process to bripg the campus chamter into active. 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 gun violence. Or how to organize a sit in. So, we were fortunately visited by, someone sent a man named james t. Mccain, who was from sumter, South Carolina, and he worked for an Organization Called the congress of racial equality core. Core had a thing called core rules for action. It 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 with the sit ins. The orangeburg sit ins were actually organized by a group of students from South Carolina state and claflin and we met in the old jj seabrooks auditorium, or actually, gymnasium, on the campus of claflin. With these books, we started putting together soes owe dramas of situations that might be faced if we were doing a sit in or if we were picketing. Thats sort of how we got going. Now, the South Carolina state students to my knowledge, did not have a youth chapter of the n naacp, but they were right there with us so we started a local Student Movement association with one person from claflin, that was me, and one person from South Carolina state. Not sure, but the person from South Carolina state, may have been chuck mcdoo. He was there for early on. So what we did with a little bit more knowledge of what sit ins were about and what the philosophy was, was to train a dwroup of about a dozen or so sort of secondary student leaders. These would be the people to help motivate the philosophy for claflin, but would also do the same kind for state. I think 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 very early on. I think theres probably an important fact about the fact its private. That is, youre absolutely correct. I think there may have been for activities of a similar nation, some expulsions from South Carolina state because at the time, the persons who were chosen to be the administrators of predominant black state schools were often chosen because of their ability to se press student uprisings. Whatever their nature, if the nature was in opposition to the existing status of maintaining segregation. So at claflin, we could organize. We had the freedom to do so. There was in the initial groups, a disproportionate representation 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. Talk about, as much you can conjure it and recall it from this distance, it must have been a wide 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 perspectively difficult as organizing in orangeburg. We were idealists. We were in many instances, quite for using nonviolence as a strategy for promoting social change. We were fearful of the p prereprisals that might be led 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 had moved in North Carolina. They moved in rock hill. So despite the potential pitfalls was a come ppelling an motivating force for us. Now, i should say that this was done almost exclusively by students. There was no, there was a very good local relationship with the adult naacp, but we really didnt go to the president of orangeburg chapter of the naacp saying we want to organize sit ins because the naacps approach to this whole problem was fundamentally different on approach that we were interested in. We were interested in nonviolent direct action. Not in having one student arrested then having that person be a test case and getting a court ruling that at some point would say well, you guys can so sit at the lunch 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 said, well, you can go sit at the lunch counter tomorrow. That same question i was making, comment i was making about being compelled to go and vote. Or feeling an obligation to go and vote. T thats different. Thats, i think, one of the positive attributes. For those who participated in the sit ins. The day in orangeburg when we had a mass arrest, 350 people arrested. City jail filled. County jails filled. The chapter of the naacp was in columbia and we had not even told him. Not that i think he would have objected, but this was our movement. This was our time to move and we didnt want any tempering from anybody about well, dont do this. Wait until tomorrow to do this. That kind of thing. We felt that our elders had had our opportunity. They had sat on it. We were not going to be similar ly, if we moved, theres no choice. Youve got 350 peace loving people who had behaved in a nonviolent manner and had been arrested. What are they going to do . Theyd be forced to be supportive of us and that was the way we reasoned. It is interesting to say the least. I was not arrested on that day for sitting in. Eventually, they had students in the county courthouse where they were arraigning them or deciding, booking them im sure, because there were so many people, that they had to deal with. And i was standing outside talking to herbert wright. The national naacp youth secretary. And the policeman came over and said, you have to move. You cant stand here and talk. I started walking. The courthouse is in a scare and the sidewalk is around the perimeter. Well, after i went around one time, they took me out and arrested me any way. And i was also charged with breaching the peace and disturbing the peace. At the end of that day, just an enormous number of people arrested and involved, i remember that we met back up at the gymnasium on the campus of Claflin College and that was the first time that i remember meeting Matthew Perry. Who just died recently. I remember how gracious he was in telling us that we would be defended. The naacp would use its resources for our defense. In fact, he was so gracious and so i think maybe weve won something here. It was just the tone of his voice. But we felt good to have contributed that one little skirmish in an enormous sized battle for equal rights. Supply the right to sit at a lunch counter and eat a hamburger in dignity like any other american. Let me ask you about couple of things in the run up to that day. When you first encountered the flphilosophy of nonviolent dire action, it seems that it resonated with you, i take, and im curious for you to talk about that a little bit. If that did or did not, in important ways, connect to your personal faith through the church. It ultimately did. But it did not initially. The first time i heard someone talk about non violence was a man by the name of glenn smiley. Who worked for the fellowship of reconciliation. He gave a lecture at claflin, talking about non violence and i remember standing up and saying, that is what is wrong with black people. We have been, we have not, weve been non violent too long, but that was my naivety. Sitting and accepting something that is the meaning or demoralizing is not non violen e non violence, but that shows you where i was in my comprehension, so i actually started to embrace the philosophy when i started to hearn something about its tactics and techniques from this man, jim mccain. That was my next question. I want to have you describe him. One of the most important people in the civil rights struggle for South Carolina, especially, because that was his home, his home state. Very low key man. A person whose primary commitment was to the cause. Not through any kind of personal advancement that it would bring him. He was tactically a non violent person. If you wanted to go into the real substance and philosophy of non violence, youd have to read homer jacks autobiography or gandhi by louis fisher, which i later read. And which i found to be remarkably instructive about how gandhi connected his, how gandhi staged his battle against the british for indian independence, using non violence. Tell me more about mr. Mccain. The nature of your evolving relationship. Well, i would consider him to have been my mentor in the Civil Rights Movement. He was interested in me as a person. And also as one who would be a participant in the movement. And in fact, he was the person who persuaded me to attend a session held by core. This would have been in the summer, i believe, of 1960. Core held at miami what was called an Action Action institute. And at this Action Institute, all of the Upper Echelon of core and a large number of students from the new orleans area, especially, we were there to learn about how to stage sitins and so forth. That was the second time i was arrested because i was sitting at a table in a Little Community thats called haroollywood, california florida. Yes, florida. With a girl from new york named dotty miller. We were playing this game where youd say, im thinking of somebody and you have a whole bunch of clues and you say who the person is. And the management of this restaurant decided that they didnt want us in their restaurant. So we were arrested. Dotty miller and this whole group and we spent 10 or 12 days in the dade county jail. And we had the most interesting charge ive ever heard, the charge was ejection of undesirable guest. 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 ill put you on probation. And if youre on probation, then you could wind up back in jail again. Im not sure i understand what that charge means. I dont understand either. That was the charge. Ejection of undesirable guests. It wasnt trespassing, it was breaching the peace. That was the charge. You mentioned this is in miami and i think that miami meeting, if my dates are right, was august 1960. You would have graduated prior to may. Were you already on staff as a field secretary or had not that had not happened yet. Right after i graduated i worked in South Carolina with a man named Frank Robinson who was associated with core Frank Robinson was South Carolina and jim mccain. I was working with a group of about four or five people and we were doing Voter Registration in South Carolina. So we would go to churches in the evenings and we would talk about the importance of registering and voting and that kind of thing. Yeah, thats i went from there to the Action Institute and then i was hired on by core. Let me bring in some more threads here. There are many threads. Theres so many things here. On the nonviolence question, you told that very interesting story about your first on hearing this was skepticism. Sure. Did you see its merits first intact cal terms or did you go all that distance to internalizing it . No, i went to it in tactical terms. In fact, there were times this is jumping forward. There were times when we were on the road gang in rock hill, as the adult sort of in that group. My mind was clicking in, how would gandhi behave in this situation . And we often discussed the difference between tactical nonviolence and nonviolence as 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 be able to get my young colleagues to say, this is what we should do. There are practical limits sometimes. We were loading trucks with sand. You can throw only so many shovels in. But i happened to think that gandhi would probably have thrown shovels until he collapsed. There was always that sort of editing between the philosophy as a technique and the philosophy as a way of a way of life. I think one gradually grows into it, the philosophy as a way of life. And i dont think ive met a lot of people who have done that. Theres some people whose knowledge of nonviolence is far superior to mine whom i respect for their ability to connect all of this together in a lifeencompassing philosophy rather than a tactic or technique for acquiring human rights or promoting issues of justice. Along the way, say, coming through the Spring Semester of 1960 and into the early summer you start this Voter Registration work. Whats the reaction of your family . My family was very supportive, extremely supportive. I kept in contact but my family was deeply religious, both my mom and my dad. And if you were asking them about their concerns for me, they would probably say the lord will take care of him. And i just put that in the hands of the lord. That would have been their response and thats truly the way they felt. So even though they knew i was in danger, somehow they were optimistic that i would return with all of my senses and would not have been permanently impaired in any way. Im not sure that they realized how dangerous it was. But you have to also realize they were in danger too. In a small community. And they were not nonviolent, let me tell you this story. When we were in jail in rock hill, some of the local people who had 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. But i dont 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 burnt on the lawn of my parents house. And i remember when my dad told me that, he said and if i had seen him, he said it would have been the last cross that he burned. It occurred to me that i wouldnt think of shooting someone for burning a cross. Thats where i had grown in nonviolence. But my dad was a different generation, a whole different ethic about how you go about protecting your family. Its one of the primary things that a man does who has a family. Talk a little bit about your emerging impressions of this Organization Called core. Youve obviously met mr. Mccain through the spring. You go into this Voter Registration effort. Are you getting much of a sense of core at the National Level . How does your sense of that emerge . Yes, i was getting an impression of core at the National Level because i had occasion to visit the core office in new york and at the time the core office with exception of jim mccain, most of the staff was white. Marvin rich, gordon kari, and the executive secretary of core when i first learned about core was very slightly built white man by the name of jim robinson, James Russell robinson. Very nice person. Very committed to the cause. And core had actually, since its inception in 1942 at the university of chicago, had been primarily a northern organization comprised of liberal people who believed that nonviolent direct action could be used to promote social change. So once i started going to the 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 would was ever increasing. Tell me about i think its the case that your first trip up to the office was as a consequence of the leadership role you had on the claflin no question about it. Tell me about our trip. It was the first time i had ever road on an airplane. I remember going to the airport in columbia and flying up to new york. Airport in columbia was very small then. There may have been eight or ten gates or so. Rather unlikely the airport that is there now. Yeah, and i remember meeting Jimmy Mcdonald and gordon kari and marvin rich and so forth and being sort of shown a little bit of the big city, never having been to a city like new york before, yeah. Through that summer, what are the memories that emerges as most vividly for you. I remember talking what we did, 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. And 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 old ladies, i will go and register and vote if my preacher says its okay. It was almost always that the minister had to give his blessings or you were not going to get them to now, there was some people who after you told them why it was important will say, well, ill go down and give it a try. But i remember almost without fail the people who were resistant, it was a matter of, if my preacher says its okay, i may give it a try. Im not sure how many of those people we got to register to vote and we did have some success. We chose projects and places where we could go from one door to the next to the door. It was almost a oneonone kind of thing with our team. Through that summer of 1960, theres much, much active conversation and debate, even, in the Civil Rights Community such as it was structured in its pieces and different parts in that moment about how to move forward because obviously the sitins were met most oftentimes were met with very, very rigorous and ongoing resistance and had very little direct result. This is going to connect to the emergence of another idea about how to move forward that you will sort of play a very large part in helping to start. They were in restaurants, getting arrested and posting bond and the bond was used by the state to perhaps continue the practice. And so i felt that there should be more, perhaps, of a commitment on your part, being willing to suffer for something that we really wanted to have happened. So thats why a year, welcome to the date, after the first sitins, we got in the jail, no bail policy with the friendship nine. That was deliberate. And that protest was really to occur one year after the first sitins and it was to take us to a different level of commitment and thats the essence of the jail no bail. Now there were quandaries about what had been happening previously in the people who were with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, there were doubtlessly symptom naacp chapters who had jumped on board and were dealing with the same thing. Jail no bail would turn out to be an important commitment level that we had not seen before which we would hope would appeal to people of goodwill. These College Students who were simply sitting at a launch counter, they were arrested and they are in jail now, or theyre on a road gang now. Theres something wrong with me. And im talking about if someone were really interested in social justice or addressing the problems that we have in this country relative to race. So without doing anything active, at least the people in the other parts of the country could say, well, were not going to patronize that store. Im going to insist in my own person life that we find a way to treat those young people fairly. So that willingness to suffering, we had hoped that that would appeal to the goodnatured sense of social justice that we hoped permeated enough people in the country for some positive change to occur. Let me reach back again for some of these threads. Through i think in the spring of 60, in fact, a group of students who are core affiliated at florida a m are arrested. You would have known about that. Yes, yes. That is generally emerging generally cited in the literature as sort of a first instance of a kind of jail, no bail. Uhhuh. May i interrupt a moment . Please. Sometimes i think the important thing is not perhaps what you do, but the context that you do it in. And i would never detract one iota from the significance of what happened to this core group in tallahassee, pat stevens, Priscilla Stevens and those people. But outside of core echelons, im not sure how well that particular protest was known. But i think we had had hundreds of students arrested in the early in the early 1960s, after the sitin movement started up in greensboro. And we had a context for the friendship nine. And i think it was being in the strategic place at the strategic time. And it still merits a significant note historically. Im trying to trace how you kind of because you go to miami in august of 60 and earlier in recounting that arrest there, you made it seem and i want to make sure im clear on this. The arrest there was intentional or kind of surprised you in well, this was an Action Institute. And in the Action Institute, we would very often have for example, we would have a white and a black sitting at a lunch counter and we would have observers that were white and black. And we were trying to sense the sentiment of or the position of the management. If the white and black who were the test group were served, then the white or the black who were the observers would say, well, im going to not patronize this place anymore, youre letting a black person eat at the end of the counter. You had no way when you go in today that, you have no way of knowing how the police are going to perceive it. And so the arrest in miami, it was really sort of accidental. We were not planning to be arrested. But we realized that we might be arrested. And 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 somewhat sore about the fact that they were arrested. But you had to realize that if you were in this particular game, that was all a part of the territory. You spent time in the dade county jail. Yes. That would have been your first extended stay. Yes. Not a nice place to spend time at all. We were in a cell block that may have had 35 men or so, including murders. For the most part, the prisoners were very respectful to us but to anybody else who came in the cell block, there were certain expectations that were enforced by the cell block person who was at the top of the hierarchy. And by that, i mean the person who was the strongest and who wielded enough power to make other underlings carry out his orders. One night, an elderly man was put into the cell block. And one of the underlings went over to him and said, pops, you have to take a shower. And this man said, who the hell do you think you are . Im not taking a shower. I just got arrested for being drunk on the streets. Im clean. And the underlings says, either he takes a shower now, or im going to beat the hell out of you. He told him he had to take a shower and he gave him the same argument before. And within a matter of moments this guy is being beaten by this underlings and hes thrown into the shower and takes a shower. It was that sort of environment. Not a Good Environment at all. The first time i saw guys make hot chocolate in a cell block and there were these metal cups. And they would take a mars candy bar or milky way and put it up to the lamp or light. They could find enough to attach it there and the chocolate would melt into the water and stir it around and that was hot chocolate. When core invites you to become a field secretary kind of on the other side of the miami experience, what was your thought about that opportunity and what you might be doing . I was delighted at the opportunity to be able to go and work full time in the movement. My background had been in the naacp, of course, but i did 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. So when i went to jackson, mississippi, to work, the only person that i really knew in jackson was medga evers and i had met her at these meetings at the naacp when i was a student at claflin. You went immediately to mississippi in 60 . No, i had a variety of assignments for core. I remember working in kentucky. I remember working in california. I remember working in arizona. Wherever there were people would write core and they would express an interest in addressing a problem of discrimination in their communities where nonviolent direct action could be used. And core would then send out a person to train them to advise them, so forth and so on. Thats 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 a freedom ride in the first place. And because i had made all of these contacts along the route, that made it sort of a natural kind of thing for me to be the scout for the ride. Its amazing to me as we go through this conversation, so much of this history that every time i theres just more and more and more. I have to slow you down again. Because we certainly will come on the freedom rides here pretty soon. But through the fall of 1960, one of the things that youre very heavily involved with is beginning to do the training with the folks from rock hill. Can you describe that . Because thats going to build up to january 31. The training with the folks at rock hill was done at Claflin College. And i think that gordon kerry was there and jim mccain may have been in and out of there. And the primary emphasis was on the sociodramas. The amazing thing about the friendship nine was that we took essentially a group of College Students who had no knowledge at all of tactical nonviolence and we pulled off one of the most important protests events of the movement. I look back at that now. Normally to do this kind of thing, if you expect people to be arrested and to spend 30 days on a road gang, you go find some guys who have studied nonviolence and who have been involved in protests like we did for the freedom rides. The first 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 behave in a nonviolent way or fashion. Thats not what we had with the friendship nine. But we were able to pull it off. Great [ laughter ] those are really a great bunch of guys, yeah. One question im curious about, why january 31 and not february 1 . Why didnt you wait one more day . The students were interested in being able to register for the next semester of classes. And so our choice of the date that wasnt exactly opposite the starting date of february 1st, 191, was 1961, was to accommodate that. If 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. Thats the reason for that. Im missing the point. The one day difference mattered because of a date you had the students had to register at the college so they could stand the possibility of not losing a whole semester. Got it, right. Theres much, im sure, to say about the experience of being on the road gang. Yes. And you wrote about that, detailing your experience there. So just for sake of time, obviously, i would be very interested if you wanted to share thoughts on that, but i wanted to ask about it seems that already you are you personally are extremely alert to what this might mean in the moment to the wider movement. You say this could be something that we could begin to exploit. Can you talk about that . Well, i guess i just looking at what had happened previously and looking at what where there was the possibility of expanding it to something, as we knew more about the potential use of nonviolence, i think that thats what would have led to the lets try this jailin strategy again kind of thing. I made the point about the jailin and this particular one being pivotal. I remember going to the Naacp National convention in 1960, and there was a lady there named claire luper from oklahoma city. And she spent all of her time talking about sitins that had been done by the naacp youth chapter in tulsa oklahoma city. In oklahoma city. And i remember going away from that saying, yes. But no one knew about them other claire luper and a couple of other people. That thing in history sometimes its when you do something, when you have a context, that accords significance rather than whether youve done it or not. I dont doubt that claire and her group had done sitins because she kept saying, the North Carolina people. 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, thats what we look for as we look at the social string that pushes this string, that pushes that one, that pushes that one. Thats the key point. I think i see it the way you do. That because you were able to set in motion very quickly sort of a turning of attention to rock hill and many things happened, can you describe that youre on the chain gang. But you know that many of these things are happening the 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 survive and to provide a witness on the chain gang. What we didnt realize and couldnt possibly realize was the impact that was going on out there. On sundays when there were 1,000 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 couldnt see all of those other people. And we did not have Communications Network that enabled us to have beknow that. One of the things that was gratifying to me what was to read on what was going on the outside. You didnt have an information flow . No, we didnt have an information flow. If somebody told you i dont recall anybody saying, im just one of about 1,000 people who are out here. And it was deliberate on the part of the authorities to limit the number of people that we saw so as to not break us, but certainly not to encourage us. One of the times we wound up in solitary confinement was because they wanted us to erect a fence to sort of corral the people who were coming to see us. If youre looking only in a straight line, i see 25 people, i dont know how many people are along the laterals there. Okay. Were back after a short break. Let me ask again, i have to pull back just a bit. In december, probably, im guessing, just after the training at claflin was the 9th through the 11th in december 1960. Very close on those dates. You were on a bus with gordon kerry. Did you and he do some thinking and planning that will have a very tremendous impact. Take me back to the ride and its purpose and what did you talk about . Okay, we were going from South Carolina after a Training Session back to new york. I think gordon had a copy of louie fishers book about gandhi and we may have even talked about gandhis famous march to the sea sort of thing. And i came up with the idea, i broached the idea of a freedom ride. And the freedom riders would copy some of the basic pattern of a journey that had been staged by the fellowship of reconciliation and core jointly. Thats the ride that George Houser was the scout on. So at some point in the journey, just chitchatting about one thing or another, the idea of a freedom ride comes up and says what are we going to call this thing . I dont know whether gordon said freedom ride or i said freedom ride. Its not critical to me as to who said what at the time. We went onto suggest that, well, how are we going to deal with this thing in terms of the mechanics of the project. Were going to have to have people who are well trained in nonviolence and were 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 and so eventually i would become the person who would assume that particular function so that i could say i was the scout for the freedom ride. And the choice of places was determined by the location of historically black colleges and universities going southward that we had relationships with where we could house the rioters. And also where we could have meetings to inform the local community. Because we didnt 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 would have occurred. This was youve just described some of the close particulars. Pulling back, this is audacious. Youre going to take you have this motion of pushing all the way through the deep south through the deep south. The original ride had not gone through the deep south because of the danger element. But we were going to go through mississippi we were going through alabama, mississippi, and end up 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, were going to have to have federal protection. Alabama was along with mississippi, the most resistant places that i thought we would encounter. Remember, the naacp had been outlawed in alabama. So thats how you got the southern christian Leadership Conference and dr. Kings Organization Group going there because it was illegal to be a member of the naacp. So those three states, we realized were going to be toughies. We also realized that there were places in South Carolina, like rock hill, where the possibility was imminent in any one of the small towns in any one of those states you could lose your life. Tell me about the so you and kerry communicate this idea to the folks at the Core National office when you arrive . This is about the time that james farmer because the executive secretary of core. Thats exactly right. Let me add one more thing to contextualize the setup. This is when jimmy robinsons tenure is in question. Hes white, not black. And so and so jim farmer was looking for a project. And this is one that had the potential to be very successful and i dont think that we estimated how big it would become. Because i think it ultimately was one of the signature protests of the entire Civil Rights Movement. 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 that we had that in mind. And efvidence to the fact we didnt have it in mind, we had just a dozen or so, very well trained, nonviolent soldiers who were going to do this thing. You know youre not going to get a dozen people, no matter how well trained 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 . Was that something you were it was not something that i was anticipating. 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 didnt become a freedom rider. He was on the advisory board, National Advisory board for core. He had been, perhaps, the primary influence in flushing out nonviolence as a strategy for promoting social change and to me that was thats enough of a contribution. I dont care that he did not become a freedom rider. Maybe the question is too obvious, but i dont know the answer. Why werent you a freedom rider . Why wasnt i a freedom rider. I did all the scouting. And after setting the whole thing up, i drew the assignment of being the person in jackson who would take care of all of the riders when they were released. I had an assignment before that, though. My assignment right after the bus was burned was in montgomery, alabama. In montgomery i lived in the home of ralph abennathy. The event in the church was thousands of angry whites outside the church. Okay. So the town wasf the backseat with a rifle across. So these guys would give us an escort to within a block of the bus station, trailways or greyhound. They would disappear. We got to get with a local guy who was my driver, we got to get from there past all of the rednecks to pick up the riders. This is what i would do, 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 ralphs number, come on, come on. And that worked for a number of times. And wed go back with those people past the mob incidentally. We would go past the mob. We would get in our vehicle, the jeep would intercept us again, take us back south. This was the projection that we were getting when we needed the national guard, it wasnt there. We were on our own when we got back to a safe neighborhood, ralph lived in a black neighborhood. There was not a lot of chance that there was going to be somebody who was going to come in and do us harm there. And its from there that i was assigned to jackson. Thinking back, as best you can, to watch this whole ride unfold, maybe especially from rock hill forward, rock hill on down, across, really watching your vision unfold in the spectacular really fashion that it did, in all of the tumult and violence. Youre not a youre a young man. Youre in your early ten20s. Thats right. Im interested in your response and whats happening. It was a sense of gratification. It was also a sense of responsibility for people who would be injured, who might carry those injuries the rest of their rest of their lives. Its one thing to ask me to do that as a person. Its another thing but i also thought that we were in this together and what happened to any one of us could have happened to any others of us. And i would have been willing to do and i was gratified that there were brothers and sisters, white, black, who were similarly minded. So i think we had grown up to the point here of the level of sacrifice that might be expected. Always hoping that that would not be the case, but realizing that 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. And i wonder about your reaction to that. Did that change any part of your perspective in any way . No. Because i think that the idea was that we cant 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 citizens. How about your perspective of the federal government and in particular the kennedy administration. Well, the federal government was not our ally. I think that they were annoyed that there were all of these Critical International issues and you have this bunch of blacks and whites who want to ride through the south, challenging the culture of segregation. I would 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 quirk that there was an fbi guy that i could Say Something to. And this was when i was working in jackson. About two months later, i wound up in federal court. The agent had hope that he could implicate me on a conspiracy. It turns out, i had been tactful enough that when i testified, it really didnt help their case. So the Justice Department presence with people like john doar was often welcomed and was sincere. John doar did a lot of very good work, i think, in mississippi and Voter Registration protections and so forth. But the sincere involvement in the by the federal bureaucracy in protecting rights and so forth was grossly negligent. To the kennedys, this was all about politics. It was about protecting citizens who were being disenfranchised by the moral, political culture. It must have been it must have been you, yourself, will get on a bus, of course, larts in t later in the course of this. And it must have been interesting to watch everything turn towards jackson and it became a national event. It did, yes. It did. We had people coming in from various parts of the country. We had various religious groups. I remember the e mipiscopalens. It was a good crosssection of america. And thats the situation where the freedom ride started out as a specific protest involving a very small group and they wound up being a national movement, essentially. And i dont think we could have predicted that. How did you who was your broad sense of the prospects of the movement, say, as that summer of 61 wound down and the Civil Rights Community looking for the best choices about how to move forward . What was your sense of the freedom rides at that point meant and what opportunities seemed ahead of you . I saw a nonviolent direct action as being a possible route to promoting some of the kinds of changes that we wanted to promote. But 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. And so there was a kind of innocence, there was a kind of moral focus to 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. And to ask people in a society that is predominantly violent through its core to continue to maintain that, i think that that is the sad thing about what happened with the death of dr. King. I think that dr. Kings star by the time he was assassinated had really started to wane because the violent elements were so ever 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 freedom ride into the experience in mississippi. Yes. I didnt do a lot with the cofo experience. I was there when cofo was founded. Exactly. Can you it seemed to be a natural kind of thing. To the segregationists and the culture of segregation in mississippi, there would be no difference between core, naacp, sclc. To the segregationists, those were all the same. And we had different strengths in terms of what organizations could contribute to the struggle. So i have always ascribed to the motion that there were some people who would be active in the naacp, who would never be active in core, who would never be active in sclc, but we need their push as a thrust for this movement forward. And so i dont go back and belabor any negative points about the organizations that were involved because i think there were enough niches for all of us to put our shoulders to the plow to move this wretched animal of segregation out of the way. Exactly. Yeah. Tell me about bob moses. Bob moses, brilliant guy. A visionary. When we were focused on taking care of freedom riders in jackson, which is when i first met bob moses, bob moses was involved in managing the campaigns of some of the local ministers who were running for congress. He was looking ahead to the potential for political status, solidifying some of the gains that we were trying to get to happen or to occur. His book is on that the algebra project. He and dave dennis worked together. I have high respect for bob moses. One of the things i respect about bob moses is that there were people involved in this movement who, in my opinion, were quite a bit centered around themselves and their significance. I think bob moses saw the larger picture. And i think his very lowkey manner is to push the issues and the important things as opposed to pushing the individual. In 62, you reach the point because of reasons related to your deferment status, you will certain choices, very stark in front of you. Can you talk about what they were and how you okay. After college i had received a number of deferments and i had gotten to the point as being classified of 1a. I received when i was still right in the midst of working in jackson, i received a notice that i had to report to ft. Jackson for induction into the army. Now, i had been negligent to make the argument that i would objected to military service on the basis of conscious because that philosophy of nonviolence had convinced me that i would not be a very good soldier. But it would be willing to serve my country in an alternate capacity. So not being a co, i get to ft. 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. Youre not morally fit to serve in the military except well think about this. When he said that, were 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 i had been admitted to was university of washington on the west coast. And university of illinois, champagne urbana. But 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 try to resurrect objective status. And you spent the final summer of 63 in mississippi. Yes. In mississippi, one year of work on my masters degree thats another interesting story too, by the way. Right after the bus had been burned in aniston and i was 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 this was a field secretary assignment. Field secretary assignment. I met a professor whose last name i think was rice. And he said, you havent taken the Law School Aptitude Test. He said, but im going to recommend you to law school. Now, after claflin and being involved in the movement, i had actually thought 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 grape falls and im thumbing through this mail and i come across this letter admitting me to law school at the university of wisconsin. You were admitted, you will have to take the Law School Aptitude Test as a matter of record. So thats how i 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 one at the university of iowa. Tell me about the so you didnt go to law school . No, i didnt go to law school. I was already halfway through a masters degree in biology and i 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. As you mentioned you had met Matthew Perry theyre lawyers. Carl rackman. I met a whole variety of lawyers who were favorable influences. Tell me about let me tell you about my couple of lawyers that 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. There was Sidney Thorpe was the only lawyer he had been trained at a big ten university, 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 mr. Brown who used to be a social study teacher at one of the high schools who had graduated from texas southern, and there was another man named carcy hall who was also a mail clerk. So those were our core lawyers, brown, young, and hall. And if it was a federal case, we would get people like derrick bell and con stance baker motley, carl racklynn. But it was always a nucleus of local guys who coordinated most of things. Tell me about the summer of 63 going to mississippi . You did a final threemonth yes, final three months. I worked with aaron henry in clar clarksdale, mississippi. And they were involved in a 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 inspect downtown area in the stores, so forth and so on. 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 i would say 20, 25 young people every day and we talked freedom songs, history of blacks in america, so forth and so on. And it was there when the march on washington was to take place and so my choice was clarksdale, or to go to the march on washington, and i opted to stay in clarksdale, and i remember, as i told you there, helping to put together the sign march on washington for jobs and freedom, and then with sclc, snic, korcorps, naacp and cofo, putting them all together on that sign, which the young people from clarksdale took to the march on washington. And you went back i guess to atlanta for a second year at Atlanta University . And to the university of iowa for the ph. D. Let me propose that we pause here and take a break. Let me here and take a break. Just a few things, let me start just for the tape record, john thought it would be good, can you just say recap just and simple descriptive way the number of organizations inside cofo, say once more what that was. Cofa was the council of federated organizations, ando w federated organizations, and the representations organizations were the snic, the student nonvile lent coordinated economic and the National Association for the advancement of colored people or the naacp and congress of racial equality, c. O. R. Those stuted cofo. You talked about how perspective of the average white mississippi segregationist they would have been a broad mix . All one, thats right. That is true. Let me have, im very interested in, we cant do it justice because well just have time for a summary, but talk about first your experience in graduate school particularly in iowa and then move to the broader question of your work as a scientist. First year at iowa, i was, of course the only africanamerican student in the department. There were a couple of asian, Indian Students in the department. Did well academically. I was assigned to be a graduate teaching assistant in a very large course it was called life science in the we ductory level biology course and we had two responsibilities for the sections that we were assigned. We had the students for laboratory for a couple hours a week and we had them for an hour or so in a Discussion Group. The Discussion Group we could deal with points of information that students had questions about based on the lecture. In order to clarify something, that was up to the t. A. As the only africanamerican student, there had been previously an africanamerican student from louisiana, who had graduated, and indeed my mentor, one of the persons influential in sending me to iowa compared me to his previous student who had been there, an automatic niche for me to be in. There were of course the usually 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, but the 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 until i didnt have any major problems with graduate work at iowa. I had styed to go to iowa because i felt that if not a neutral place to go,ded to go t i felt that if not a neutral place to go,ed to go to iowa bee i felt that if not a neutral place to go,ced to go to iowa because i felt that if not a neutral place to go,ided to go 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 of 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 did not did it 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 mant toll do graduate work at texas, even though the preeminent scholar in the field was at texas. That was one of the things that compelled me to go to iowa. I had mentioned that i could have gone to washington, seattle or champaign or urbana. Champaign or urbana did not have the fit program 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 researcher over the years. Okay, 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 the structur structures transformed into entities that are important for the reproduction of the organism, so there was something thats called capalicium in latin meaning a thread. I 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 they are out over a longer time period, increasing the possibility that some of those reproductive structures will 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 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. 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 using electron my coscopy to resolve the questions. Let me turn, i know that is the bare summary but for our work today i want to turn back to civil rights and the struggle. Maybe to a few retrospective kinds of questions. I know that in, weve just passed the 50th anniversary obviously of the freedom riots and there are many different ways that people approach that memory, and so so im interested in your question of different interpretations of the riots impact and how you see the significance of of the freedom riots from this distance. Well, i see them as being one of the most important, the most inclusive, the most integrative protest 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 riots were conceived by and executed primarily by the congress of racial equality. After the bus was burned in a s aniston, when the rioters were capable no longer of continuing, we received a very nice contribution from the students 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 the c. O. R. E. Was incapable of continuing. In any kind of movement there are strategic times thaw 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 the term freedom ride. Did you, after you departed for iowa, and then had your, the long run of your career as an academic here in pennsylvania, did you ever live again in the south . 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 south 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 are calling the shots 50 years ago. So there has been change, a lot of it 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, witness katrina, witness g. I. Availability and so forth, we go back to the 60s and still havent pushed the bad guy out of the way yet. From the near distance in terms of time, when you were, say, in iowa and beginning your work as an academic, did you ever have occasion to im sure that the question came to your mind, did you have occasion to doubt the nonviolence as a tactical means . Did you ever think that it wont work in the american context . No, 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 the context of people who are well trained, and who can articulate what it is that they are doing, and why are they doing it. One is heartened by some of the nonviolent type things that occurred, so i theres still the possibility for nonviolent direct action being a positive social positively promoting change process. If 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 had the effect of what have been the implications for your sense of the american project over the longer term . Do you think this is a place that might find its way one day to a more just social order . I hope so, and if one looks at, 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, so what we see now in the 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 taking place. If we are sure we are sending people to congress who are going to cooperate and who are going to be collegial and who are going to be bipartisan, there would be hope. I have to think that the young people hold that hope. Looking back, the movement was your passion and your work, and youve struggled in very difficult contexts for years there at the opening of the decade of the 60s. Are there ways in which as you think about that, are there costs that were borne by you in an ongoing fashion . Was there a legacy of cost or complication in any way for you personally . 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 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. If youre black, you 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 any further comments you want to make. What would great falls, South Carolina, look back if you went today . 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, 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 thechb lost, but the tragedy that is even worse is that theyre children in many instances have been lost, too. Thats downright depressing. I cant 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 forprofit, so forth and so on, so i really dont know. Its one of those questions my parent would say ill leave it to god, because i dont really have a solution for great falls, except to say that it hurts me 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, but the south, in its effort to keep black people down also cheated white people especially poor white people because theyre 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 on to the fact well, at least im white. Are there things we havent talked about that youd like to spend some time on, things we havent touched on, other issues, episodes . I would mention one other thing. I think that scholars are frequently misunderstood, and i think they are especially misunderstood in the Africanamerican Community because weve had so few models on which to generate an idea as to their importance or to their significance. When i tell people i have a ph. D. In botany, they could identify if i had a ph. D. 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 comprehendible at all. Couple that with the fact even my parents, i couldnt explain to them exactly what it is thats my passion, i do. In the majority society, usually there is some way of making a connection that rings clear but thats a lonely feeling. Being out there. 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. My pleasure, sir. Its been an honor and privilege. Very good, thank you. Thank you so much. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of whats available every weekend on cspan3. Tonight, a look at the Civil Rights Movement. On september 2nd, 1963 nbc news broadcast a threehour program on the status of the Civil Rights Movement called the American Revolution of 63. Reporting from 75 locations throughout the United States it includes appearances by wellknown activists, scenes from historic civil rights events, and comments from integration opponents. Watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern. Enjoy American History tv this week and every weekend on cspan3. Youre watching American History tv, every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past, cspan3, created by americas Cable Television company as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Up next an oral history interview with james oscar jones, talks about growing up in rural arkansas, the influence of his parents support for civil rights and work as the director of the arkansas project for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee from 1963 to 1966. This interview is part of an oral history Civil Rights Movement conducted by the Smithsonian National museum of africanAmerican History and culture, the American Folk Life Center at the library of congress and the Southern Oral History Program at the university of North Carolina chapel hill. My parents, ernest jones and mom purdis jones. Dad, my father, born and raised on the farm, that was his life. Thats what he loved to do. Im a member of a family of ten children, six boys and four girls, and the first five children was born as rowden, because their dad was rowden