Transcripts For CSPAN3 Oral Histories Thomas Gaither 20240712

Carolina. My mom and dad met while they were students at Friendship Junior College in iraq hill, South Carolina. After they both graduated from friendship, they moved permanently to great falls. 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 listed on his contract as his per month payment was not the same as he was receiving. This was at a time when the boards of education for all composed of waste men, and so at the end of the year my father approached a person who was a scientist voucher for a payment. He said i noticed that there is a discrepancy here. It was a five dollar difference between what he was supposed to be paid and what he was receiving. For questioning the five dollar differential, which the School Board Member was pocketing, my father was terminated as a teacher. My mother continued to be a teacher. In fact, my first seven years of formal education was in a one room school. At that time, one room schools in that area of South Carolina were actually owned by churches. The state paid the salary of a teacher, but various churches across the community had a school. So mine happened to be Pleasant Grove school. Pleasant grove i was a nearby zion church. For the first seven years, my education that is where i learned to count, read, to write. All of those kinds of things. The good thing about one room schools was that if you were in third grade, you can hear the lessons for the fourth, fifth, and sit grades. 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, ajar, and we took a piece of adhesive tape and put our name on that jar. We would turn it upside down by the cooler, which was present at the back of the room. We had no fountains or anything of that sort. Right in the middle of the room, we had this very large diameter drum that was a here heater. It was never possible to have heat in that room that was even. You would think that its going to work today and all of a sudden, the lid to the heater would start folding up and down, and the whole place would be smoked up. And we would have to open the windows. That was a little bit of the sample of the environment. We didnt have a library. There was a dictionary, but i think the dictionary was owned by my mother as a teacher. We didnt know very many of the white kids in the community except by looking in the textbooks that were passed on to as. We could see the kids. The way kids wouldve used the books, and rather than throw them away, i would say, they would send them and ship them to us. My mother remained in teaching until the consolidation of schools, and that wouldve been in the early 19 fifties. The Supreme Court decision was 1954. Before that there was a movement in teaching. In fact, its rather amazing that as soon as the south found out that there might be this law banning discrimination if segregation in schools, suddenly these schools went up, and that is sort of interesting, because we are supposed to be separate but equal all the time. All of a sudden there is a new Black Elementary School here. Theres one there. There is one there. It turns out that i lived right on the edge of two counties. Fair field county and Chester County. The nearest school in fair field county was about 17 miles away and wins burrow. But the school in Chester County was just about two and a half miles away so until entry school. Im sorry. I went to high school in Chester County after seven years in the one room 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. We are special days where we participated in programs. The first time i remember speaking before an audience would have been a childrens day at the local church. Pleasant grove zion church. The district that my church wasnt with the columbia candid district. Ministers served for a period of time as pastors and churches. There was a time very early in my life when we had bleaching only on sundays, but at some point when there was a little bit more capital flowing we got to the point where we had church every sunday. You mentioned your father loved teaching. Held ready when that happened . Left teaching. Must of been 11 or 12. I learned it later. The trustee boards were all white men, but there was usually a figurehead trustee board of black man. These black men were chosen by the white men. They were usually people who would not ask questions. It would not rock the boat. Thats the way the boards were structured. After losing his job as a teacher, my father went to work at a cotton hill. Since he had a Junior College education, rather than taking the jobs or getting the jobs that were traditional for black man of that day, this was before the era of power lawnmowers. There was a yard crew that was all black. Blacks also worked in some of the rooms where the contour cotton was rendered into cloth. That were particularly dirty. Cotton fibers and that sort of thing. My dad worked as a fireman, another dirty job. But the firemen had to responsibilities. Keep the steam in the boiler plant up to a particular point where all the machines would operate, but you do that by putting coal in the furnace. While that was heating up pm, because of the experience of having done the job before, they had to go around the mail and stick a key and a little box and turn the key so they were nightwatchman. Two jobs. Together. At some point, my father lost that job as well. I suspect, although i am not certain, 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. In early 1950, my father decided to go back to college. With five kids. With only jobs that he could do, but i could say this about him. My father was capable of doing a variety of chores. He could wire. He could do brick work. It could do carpentry. He can do all of these things, and he would get jobs for people in the community. While he was doing these kinds of jobs, handyman, but beyond handyman if he had to, he went back to college in columbia, South Carolina. He completed the other two years of his college degree. Graduated with a bachelor of science degree in sociology. Well, and getting this degree, he had been told by a local white businessman who was on the board of trustees that he might have a chance at becoming the principle of the local black high school. 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 bachelors degree. He was a minister that had been called by god. He opposed my father getting the job as the principle 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. He would not have been able to be an effective principle, because he would not have gotten any support from the white community, and many of the black people would have been 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. He quit being a person who was working and paying his way through school. He would come home from the evening from school. He would say lets get organized. We all got in the car. We used the cars one would use the truck. My father was too poor to buy a truck. I remember one of the earliest cars was a 1939 buick. He would load that 39 buick with bricks, blocks and mortar so he could go do the job. So he could take care of his family and find money to pay tuition to go to school. At some point, we were getting close to finishing high school and there was never any question that we the question was where and how are we going to pay for going to college. I my dad took one of the gifts that he had in the construction trades industry which was masonry. He became a break mason. As a break mason, he would travel to jobs all over that area region of South Carolina. Columbia, any place you could drive to. I wouldnt say any place you could drive two in one day. I remember once, we went to the Paris Island Marine base in view furred, South Carolina. We had to go and stay in for five days and then come back home. You need rick mason earned a very nice wage. That is what enabled us to find money to go to school. The problem however was that being a brick mason was reliable only when the weather was good. If the weather was not good you cannot lay breaks. In the south that meant that theyre worth two or three months there where 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 the master mason. When all of the other masons had been dispatched from the job, because the job was complete, my dad was a person who stayed around to put up a wall when they needed it. He would often work through the entire winter and they had one labor who worked with him and that is why we are wearable to go to school. It turns out i was the valedictorian of my class, and my brother was the saluted tory of my class. We jointly decided that we would go to class men college. My scholarship was 75 dollars per year. My brothers scholarship, as saluted tory im of the class was 50 dollars per year. That is what got us started in education. Education was always emphasized in my home, even though we were too poor to have a library, anything we could find we would read it. We would try to discuss it. We would try to grow from it 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 and things that took us off the path from going to college and getting an indication. We are back after a short break. You are talking about your move. A couple of things about your family. Your family had not so common experiences in terms of suffering at the slightest gesture of self assertion. Would conversations about race and Race Relations have been open at the dinner table . Could you talk about the brown decision or those kinds of things that would have been engaged in conversations . Those were discussed around the dinner table. My parents shared liberally with what their thoughts were on these kinds of things. I specially remember the uttering was by my dad and absolute shame of horrible harrowing what happened to the young man. I think it was conversations about till that large and my psyche is one of the motivating factors. About the same time as the montgomery busboy all these accumulative things happening out there that would be internalize. 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 Union Organizer would come in. My dad was always the person who hosted the union organizing. That was one of the other factors that would have caused him to lose his job. Pierre the Union Organizers often tried to keep a secret of where they stayed, but of course somebody would know and go and tell the big boss man. That would be to your detriment if you happen to be the person. My parents were also openly supportive of the naacp. I remember when i was quite a youngster. Less than ten years old. We used to go to meetings of the state conference of the naacp when my dad with dad withstand he would hold me up for a while so i could get some air. Put me down. He would take my brother and hold him up. We were very supportive of the naacp. It was also a negative. If you were known to be an naacp member and supported it. But despite that fact, my dad was still a supporter. And my mom. At some point there was talk of equalizing teacher salaries at the naacp. Both my parents were in favor of the naacp suit to equalize teacher salaries. Others thought the naacp was stirring up something that was best left alone. They were teachers as well. I remember the tug of war arguments that went on between them. At that time, teacher salaries and South Carolina for blacks were very poor. We had to take the National Teachers exam. If you took the ad National Teachers exam and earned and a in additional to your base salary, you would get a supplement on a monthly basis. If you got a b it meant the teachers were not the best and they did the best buy us with what they were able to do. I dont know thats the response youre looking for. Of course. Or your parents ever registered voters . My parents were registered voters. To register to vote i have a form that i received when i became a qualified voter in South Carolina. 18 years old. I remember. My parents registered to vote. They typically voted in elections. I was so involved in making sure that i voted until first time i was eligible to vote at the registry law, i remember 150 miles one way to vote. 150 miles back. I had tried to point that out to my students that we should not be casual about our input into the political process. 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 a couple times when i was on sabbatical leaf. Both of my parents were qualified electors. The little thing about i was talking about you had to present saying you are a qualified elector. You had to read a section of the South Carolina constitution and interpreted to the satisfaction of the registrar. On there is that i do hereby swear that i am not a proper supported at public expense. I have not been convicted of any of the following crimes. Stealing chickens. Wife beating. All the kinds of things that poor black people might have been involved in public drunkenness. All of those kinds of things. On the certificate that i had its not the case i hope. There were all the disqualifiers which was interesting, because he had this recent resurgence of requiring voter i. D. Cards and all of that kind of thing. A throw back to the same thing. Its a way of disqualifying voters whose input into the political process might be at odds with those who control the political process. The greatest we think weve come, we look around and we realize were in the same place. I expected with the high School Background that i had i would be expected to work hard, because i would be competing with some people even all students were black, they had better backgrounds. Pierre people moved on to see eight johnson in columbia. Some of the high schools in the larger communities. There were some of those people. I found myself i have been told you this yet. Since my mother was early teacher and we did not have daycare, 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. That is how i was valedictorian. We could find my mother took him to school. It turned out he was very bright. He did not miss a beat in terms of handling the academic information that was put before him. I remember finding it an adjustment to be there. But managing to stay above board academically. I graduated from class flint with honors. With a bs degree in general science with the concentration biology. Tell me about how greece entered into your College Experience and i know that South Carolina state is there as well. It would become a place in large measure because of your efforts. There is a story before that. The only choice of going to college at that time would have been a black college pm. The closest two black colleges would have been those not too far away, benedict and mars. We didnt, based on the reputation of those colleges, gravitate toward them or choose them. Claffland was a choice that i agreed upon, and my brother was pleased with. We had no choice of colleges on a racial basis. Let me tell you this little story. It jumps ahead, but its apropos. I remember visiting my father in the seventies and eighties. He had this college logo. I said what goes with this . He had chosen to root for Clemson College because of an incident that had occurred with me when i was at claffland, my senior year, i send money to the Educational Testing Service and princeton, new jersey, to take the graduate record exam. There were about a dozen black students from South Carolina state in claffland who were to take the graduate record exam at the university of South Carolina. 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 South Carolina. You will have to go off campus. I want to say bull street. Im not sure if it was the name of the street at the time. It was a stew two story building. The second story of the building was just an open room with some chairs. This is no exaggeration. The temperature in that room must have been 85 or 90 degrees. That is where we were forced to take the graduate record exam. An exam that determines all of your possibilities for the future. These were the conditions and circumstances under which we were required to take these. I told my dad that when i came home to visit him. I went home to visit him after that event. He had stored that away in his mind, that he would never move to university of South Carolina carolina. He would go to clemson. Clemson started off as an agricultural experimental station. But it became a university. He could identify with it because he refused to identify with the university of South Carolina. Yes. I was the president of the youth chapter of the claffland College Chapter of the naacp. Starting . Lets see. As a junior. That is how i gravitated into the sedans. It was the natural position from which one might have assumed a rule and leadership. Let me have you describe the youth chapter of the naacp on the campus then and how connected you to the state and how it then lead 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 to 30 people who were members. Im sorry . I think it was less than 200. It was not a large university. If you were student you would know everyone on campus. You would know each year they were in. You would also know their hometowns and all of that. It was a very small, very closely knit community. After the sit in his started, almost everyone on campus joined the naacp chapter. There were a couple of young people are students there who were afraid to join, because they thought that word of their joining, as youth members of College Chapter of naacp might get back to their communities, and there would be reprisals against their parents. I could remember a couple of those people actually coming and apologizing to me that they could not be members of the youth chapters of the naacp. 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 hurly or a miss brown and others. There were people there from South Carolina, tennessee, mississippi. Not alabama. Alabama at the time of the naacp was illegal. We did not have anybody slipping through lower parts of the alabama civil rights scene. When the sit ins started in greensboro in North Carolina february 1st 1960, the first sitin of South Carolina where at rock hill. 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 we have to organize to. That is how we expended out from this naacp youth chapter to organizing and participating in the sedans. Maybe thats tell us about the process. Bring the campus chapter forward it was not just the campus. It was also the South Carolina state students that we would have to engage. First of all, we did not know the first thing about how to organize a sitin, so we were visited by james mccain who was from South Carolina. We were fortunate. He worked for congress of racial equality core. Core had a little thing that was called for rules for action. There was also little booklet call cracking the color line by james peck. Those were the very first kinds of sources that we were privy to to form a philosophical backlog for the organization of the cities. The sitins were actually organized from groups of students from South Carolina and claffland, and we met in the old jj seabrooks on the campus of claffland. So with these pamphlets and so forth and the inspiration of books striving towards freedom, we started putting together dramas of social situations that we might face if we were doing a sitin or if we were picketing. That is sort of how we got that going. The South Carolina state students, to my knowledge, did not have a youth chapter at the naacp, but they were right there with us as we organized. We actually started a local Student Movement association with one person from claffland, and that was me. And one person from South Carolina state. That person may have been chuck. Chuck mick do. He was there from very early on. What we did with a little bit more knowledge of what sitins were about and with the philosophy was, was to train a group of about a dozen or so sort of secondary student leaders. These would be the people who would be involved in helping to organize and communicate the philosophy and modus operandi for claffland but would also do the same kind for state. One of the persons in that movement may have been jim clyburn. The current house of in South Carolina. Clyburn was involved very early on. There is an important point to be made about claffland that it is private you are absolutely correct. I think there may have even been, 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 predominantly black state schools were often chosen because their ability to suppress student uprisings, whatever their nature, if the nature was in opposition to the existing status of maintaining segregation, so forth and so on. At claffland, we could organize. We had 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. They couldnt be there sitting with us. Lets talk about that. It must have been a wide range of a motion and a wide range of questions, and a wide range of uncertainties that you would have had at a time trying to launch into something as complex and perspectively difficult as organizing this. We were idealists. We were in many instances, quite enamored with the possibilities for using non violence. As a strategy for promoting social change. We were of course fearful for our safety. We were fearful of the reprisals that would fall upon our parents, but we also realized if we did not move we were going to stay in the same circumstance. That was a motivating factor that the students had moved and North Carolina. They had moved in rock hill. We have to move in orange bird. That, despite the potential pitfalls, was a compelling and motivating force for us. I should say that this was done almost exclusively by students. There was a very good local relationship with the adult naacp. We really did not go to the president of the fierce chapter of the naacp and say we want to organize citizens. The approach was fundamentally different from the naacp than what we were interested in. We were interested and nonviolent actions. We were not interested in having one student arrested and then having that person getting a court ruling that at some point would say you guys could go 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 is the active participation and the suffering that we endured. That is very different than if you file a suit and somebody says you could go sit at the lunch counter tomorrow. Its that same question out, quick comment i was making about being compelled to go and vote. A feeling of obligation to go and vote. That is different. That is i think one of the most positive attributes. First on a personal level for veterans who participated in citizens. The day at orangeburg where we were arrested. 15th of march. County jail failed. The president of the chapter at the naacp was a colombian. We had not even told him. Not that i think he would have a objected one iota but this was our move. It was our time. We did not want any tampering from anybody from dont do this. Wait till tomorrow. We felt that our elders had an opportunity. They sat on it. We were not going to be similarly situated. We reasoned that if we moved, there was no choice. Youve got 350 peaceloving, young people who have behaved in a nonviolent manner. What are they gonna do . They would be forced to be supportive of us. That was the way we reach them. It was an interesting day, 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 a reigning them or booking them, because there was so many people that they had to deal with. I was standing outside talking to herbert white, you national naacp youth secretary. The policeman came over and said you have to move. You cannot stand here and talk. I said well, i started Walking Around the court hearts. The court houses in a square. The sidewalk goes around the perimeter. I went around one time. It took me out and arrested me anyway. 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 we met back up at the gymnasium on the campus of claffland college, and it was the first time i remember meeting Matthew Perry which is dyed recently. I remember how gracious he was and telling us that we would be defended. The naacp would use its resources for our defense. He was so gracious i thought maybe weve won something here. It was just the tone of his voice. We felt good to have contributed that one little skirmish in an enormous sized battle for equal rights. To simply have a right to eat at a lynch counter and have a hamburger like any other american. When you first encountered the philosophy of nonviolence direct action, it seems it resonated with you. Im curious about if that connect to your personal faith in church . It ultimately did. But not initially. The first time i heard someone talk about nonviolence was a man by the name of glen smiley who worked for the fellowship of reconciliation. He gave a lecture at claffland, talking about non violence. I remember standing up and saying that is what is wrong with black people. We have been nonviolent for too long. That was my naivete. Sitting and accepting something that is demeaning already moralizing is not nonviolence, but that shows you where i with in terms of my comprehension of non violence. I actually started to embrace the philosophy when i started to learn something about its tactics and techniques from this man, jim vacate. How would you describe one of the most important people in the civil rights struggle for South Carolina, especially, that was his home state. Very lowkey man. A person whose primary commitment was to the cause, not to a personal advancement that would bring him he was tactic tactically a nonviolent person. If you wanted to go into the real philosophy of nonviolence we would i read the biography of louis fischer. I found it to be remarkably instructive about how gandhi connected how he staged his battle against the british for Indian Independence using non violence. Tell me more about mccain. The nature of your involvement relationship. I consider james 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 he was the person who persuaded me to attend a session held by core. This would have been in the summer of 1960. It was called inAction Institute. This Action Institute was the Upper Echelon of court in 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 Rural Community called hollywood, california. , hollywood, florida. Exactly. It was a girl from new york named dotty miller. Red she knew bobs elder. He was known for participating in the movement. Diane how the management of this restaurant decided that they didnt want us and their restaurant. So we were arrested. Dotty miller and this whole group. We spent ten or 12 days at the dade county jail. Or lafayette was among the other persons one would identify with who were parts of this group. We had the most interesting charge i had ever heard. The charge was ejection of undesirable guests. Rejection 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 to put you on probation. If youre on probation and you can wind up back engines again. What did that charge me . I dont understand it either. Rejection of undesirable guests. It wasnt trespassing. It wasnt breaching the peace. That was the charge. This is in miami, and i think that miami meeting was august 1960 if my dates are right. Were you already on staff as the secretary . No, that had not happened yet. Right after i graduated, i worked and South Carolina with a man named Frank Robinson who is associated with core. I was working with a group of about four or five people. We were doing Voter Registration in South Carolina. We would go to churches in the evenings and talk about the importance of registering and voting and that kind of thing. Yeah. I went from there and then i was hired by core. There were many threats theres so many things here. Initially you told that story skepticism, even contempt may i dare say. Did you see its merits first in tactical terms or did you go all about distance to sort of internalizing it no. I went to it in tactical terms. It takes a lot of disciplined study to go to non violence in the philosophical sense of gandhi. In fact, there were times, and this is jumping forward, there were times when we were on the road getting in rock hill as the adult, sort of, in that group. My mind was clicking in how would gandhi behave in this situation . We often discussed the difference between tactical non violence and non violence as a more involved personal philosophy of life. I knew how i felt gandhi would have handled the situation. Gandhi would volunteer to clean the toilets. 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 could throw only so many shovels in. Id like to think that gandhi would have probably thrown shovels until he collapsed. So there was always that kind of line between the philosophy is a technique and the philosophy as a way of life. I think when gradually grows into the philosophy as a way of life. I dont think i have meant a lot of people who would have done that. There are some people whose knowledge of non violence is far superior to mind who my respect for their ability to connect all of this together in a life and composing philosophy rather than as a tactic or a technique for acquiring human rights or promoting issues of justice. Along the way this brings master and into the early summer for registration work, what is 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 dad. If you were asking them about their concern for me, they would probably say the lord would take care of him. I just put that in the hands of the lord. That would have been their response. That is truly the way that they felt. Even though they knew that i was in danger, somehow they are 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 realize they were in danger to. And it was a small community. And they were not nonviolent. Let me tell you a 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. And im not sure what my dad told them, but i dont think hed encourage them because there is 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 burning on the lawn of my parents house. And i remember when my dad told me that. And he said, if i had seen them, it wouldve been the last cross that he would have burned. And it occurred to me that i wouldnt think of shooting someone for burning across, thats where i had grown in on violence. But my dad was a different generation. A whole different ethic about how you go about protecting your family. One of the primary things that amandas who has a family. Talk a bit about your emerging impressions of this Organization Called core. You obviously 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 . 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. Marvin rich, gordon kerry and the executive secretary of core. When i first learned about core, he was a very slightly built white man by the name of jim robinson. James russell robinson. A 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 and northern organization composed of liberal people who believed that non violence direct action could be used to promote social change. Once i start going to the office i started meeting the other people and my impression of the possibilities for nonviolence direct action and my respect for the commitment of the people involved was ever increasing. I think its the case that your first trip up to the office was the consequence of a leadership role you had . Yes, no question about it. It was the first time i had ever road on an airplane we are going to the airport in columbia. And flying up to new york. They airport in columbia was very small. There may have been eight or ten gates or so, rather unlike the airport there now. I remember meeting Jimmy Macdonald and gordon kerry and marvin rich and being shown the big city. Never having been to a city like new york before, yes. Through that summer in your Voter Registration work, what emerges most vividly for you about that . I remember talking, what we did is we went individually and talked with people and often we chose to go to projects where there was a concentration, many of whom would not have 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 old ladies. If my preacher says its okay. It was almost always that the minister had to give his blessing there were some people who after you told him why was important which day i will go down and i will give it a try. I remember almost without fail the people who are resistant if the minister said its okay. Im not sure how many of those people would never really have gotten to register and vote. We had some success. We chose places where you could go from one to the next to the next. It was almost a oneonone kind of thing with our team. Arent through that summer of 1960 there is much much active conversation in the Civil Rights Community such as it was structured different parts in that moment about coming forward has often time civilians were met with ongoing resistance. In terms of a direct result. What are you thoughts through that period. This is going to connect to the emergence of another idea on how to move forward it will play a large part in helping to promulgated and advocate well, the early sit in essentially resulted in people sitting at counters and being arrested. Posting bond. The bond was used by the state should to perhaps continue the practice, and so i felt there should be more perhaps of a commitment on our part, being willing to suffer for something that we really wanted to have happened. Law that is why a year almost to the date after the first citizens, we got involved in the policy barnett was delivered. That protest was really to occur when youre after the first sedans. It was to take us to a different level of commitment, and that is the sheer essence of chill no bail. There were quandarys about what had been happening previously and the people who were with the student coordinating committee. They were doubtlessly some naacp chapters that had jumped on board and so forth in dealing with the same thing. Jail no bail will turn out to be an important cause commitment level that we had not seen before, which we would hope would appeal to people of goodwill. These were College Students who were simply sitting at a lunch counter. They were arrested and are in jail now. They were on a road game. There was something wrong with me now. Im talking about if someone were really interested in social justice or addressing the problems that we had relative to race. Without doing anything active, at least the people in the other parts of the country, because they said we wont patronize that store. Im going to insist in my own personal life that we find a way to treat those young people fairly. That willingness shot we had hoped that that would appeal to the good nature sense of social justice that we hoped permeated enough people for some positive change. Saw some of these threats i think in the spring of 60 in fact, a group of students in florida yeah. You would have known about that. Law generally as sort of the first instance as kind of jail no bail. Can i interrupt . So sometimes i think the important thing is not perhaps what you do, but the context that you do it in. I would never detract one iota from the significance of what happened to this poor group in tallahassee. Pat stevens, Priscilla Stevens and those people. But outside of court echelons, im not sure how will that particular protest was known. I think we had had hundreds of students arrested day in the early 19 sixties after the sitin movements started back in we had a context for the friendship not. I think it was being in a strategic place at the strategic time. Its still merits the significant no historically, because there were certainly other groups that could have done the same thing, but ours was the group that did the critical thing. Im trying to trace because you go to miami already and earlier, counting that arrest there, you made it seem and i want to make sure im clear on this, that arrest there was intentional or kind of well, this was an Action Institute. In the Action Institute we would very often have for example a black and a white sitting at a lunch counter. We would have observers that were white and black. We were trying to sense the sentiment or the position of the management. So if the white and black were served in the test group, and the white or black observers would say i will not patronize this place anymore. You are letting a black person eat at the end of the counter. When you going to do that, you have no way of knowing how the police will perceive. It might just come in and arrest both of the groups. So the arrest in miami was really a sort of accidental. We were not planning to be arrested. But we realized that we might be arrested. In fact, and some of the proceeding in 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 wanted being rested 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 the part of the territory. You spend time at the date county jail. I was a first extended stay. Not a nice place to spend time at all. We were in a cell block that may have had 35 men or so, including murderers. 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 cellblock person who is at the top of the hierarchy. By that i mean the person who is the strongest and who wielded enough power to make other underlings carry out these orders. I remember when night 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 do you think you are . Im not taking shower. I just got arrested for being drunk on the streets, i am clean. And he said, the underlying went back and told the guy who is the head of the cell block. And he said, either he takes a shower dow 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. Within a matter of moments, this guy is being beaten by this underlying and he is thrown into the shower. And he 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 solid block, and there were these metal cups and they would take a mars candy bar or milky way and put it next to the light and they could fide enough to attach it there. The chocolate would melt into the water, stirred around and that was hot chocolate. Wind core invite you to become a field secretary, on the other side of the miami experience, what was your thought about that opportunity and what you might be i was delighted at the opportunity to be able to go and work fulltime in the movement. My background had been in the naacp core, but i do not agree with the philosophy in terms of how you go about promoting social change. But i was pleased that i had the contacts with that and doubly cpp. When i went to jackson but disappear to work, the only person i really knew in jackson, and i had met him at these regional meetings of the p gro upproductionsoustitreurspour p roductions stvocalenglishpoliti cscspan when i was the student. No, i had a variety of assignments, i remember working in kentucky and i remember working in california i remember working in arizona, wherever there were right core. They would expressed 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 for them so on. That is how i got to work in some of these other communities. No, i got the jackson assignment because i had been key in coming up with the idea of freedom ride in the first place. Because i made all of these contexts along the route, that made it sort of a natural kind of thing for me to be the scout for the ride. It is just amazing to me, you are so thick in so much of this, every time i hear more and more and more. We certainly will come up with the free bounce. Very soon. But through the fall of 1960, one of the things that you are heavily involved with is beginning to do the training. Can you describe that . That goes up to january 31. The training with the folks from iraq hill was done at cleveland college. I think that Gordon Carrie was there and jim mccain may have been in and out of there. The primary emphasis was on the social dramas. We took an amazing thing, we took a essentially a group of College Students who had no knowledge at all of tactical non violence 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, you would expect people to be arrested and they spend 30 days on the road. You go find some guys who have studied nonviolent 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 non white violent way or fashion. That is not what we had with the friendship nine, but we were able to pull it off. Great. Those are really a great bunch of guys. One question im curious about, why january 31 and not february one . The 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 gate of february 1st, 1960, 1961, was to accommodate that. So the guys could get registered. If things went well and they spent their 30 days, they might be able to be enough contact with their teachers to not lose a whole semester of schooling. That is the reason for that. The one day difference matters because of the date of registration . They had to register at the college so they could stand the possibility of not losing a whole semester. There is much im sure to say about the experience of being on a road game. Really detailing your experience there. So, just for the sake of time. I just wanted to be very interested if he wanted to share your thoughts or perspective on that. I wanted also to ask about, it seems that already you personally are extremely alert to what this might mean in the moment. To the fortunes, the prospect of the wider movement. This could be something that we could really begin to exploits. Could you talk about that . Just looking at what had happened previously, looking at where there was the possibility of expanding it to something as we knew more about the potential use of non violence, i think that is what would have led to the, lets try this jail in strategy again kind of thing. I made the point of the jail in, this particular one being pivotal. I remember be going to the Naacp National convention in 1960. And there was a lady there named clare from, i want to say oklahoma city, and she spent all of her time talking about citizens that have been done by the naacp youth chapter in tulsa. Well call home a city. I remember going away from that and saying, yes. But no one knew about them other than claire and a couple of other people. This is that thing that in history sometimes its when you do something. Its when you have a context that accord significance rather than whether you have done it or not. I dont doubt that claire had done since. Because she kept saying, the North Carolina people we know about the North Carolina people. They had an impact. We know about the friendship nine, they had an impact. Historically, that is what we look for as we look at the social strain pushes the string that pushes that one that is the key point, because you are able to set in motion very quickly a turn of attention. Many things happened. Can you describe it . You are on the chain again. But you know, one of the things about being on the chain game 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 did not realize, and couldnt possibly have realized, is the impact that was going on out there. On sundays, when there are 1000 people coming to see us, the only people that we could see would be a line of 100 people that were coming straight in to the dormitories, where we were housed. We couldnt see all those other people. We did not have 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 on the outside. You didnt have that information flow . We did not have that information flow that told us. What about visits . If somebody told you, but i dont recall anybody saying, im just one of about 1000 people who are 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. One of the times we wound up insult airy confinement was because they wanted us to direct offense to sort of corral the people who were coming to see us. If you are looking at a Straight Line and i see 25 people, i dont know how many are on the laterals there. Let me ask, again i have to pull back just a little bit. In december, probably im guessing, just after the training at claflin was the night to the 11th of 1960 in december. And then you are on a bus with gordon kerry. Yes. Were you doing some thinking and planning for what had a tremendous impact . Take me back to the ride and its purse purse and what you talked about. We were going from South Carolina after a Training Session back to new york. Gordon had a copy of fishers book about gandhi. And we may have even talked about gone these famous march to the see sort of thing. And i came up with the idea, broached the idea, of the freedom ride. The freedom riders would essentially 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 that George Houser was the scout on. That some point in the journey, chatting about one thing or another, and i dont really know whether he said freedom ride or i did. It is not critical to me in terms of who said what at the time. But we went on to suggest how will we go ahead and do this things in terms of the mechanics of the project. We are going to have to have people who are very well trained in non violence and we are going to have to have somebody who will go down the route of the ride descend back very specific information about the town, the community, the bus schedules, the layout of the bus stations, the mess beatings, and all of that sort of thing. And 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. 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 riders and also where we could have meetings to inform the local community. We did not want to just take a trip through 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. You have just described some of the close particulars, but pulling back one level, this is audacious. You have this notion of pushing 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 mississippi, alabama and then and up in louisiana. 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. Alabama, along with mississippi, they were the most resistant places that i thought we would encounter. And remember the naacp had been outlawed in alabama. That is how you got the southern christian Leadership Conference and doctor Kings Organization and group going there, because it was illegal to be a member of the naacp. Those three states we realize were going to be tough. We also realize that there are places in South Carolina, like rock hill, where the possibility was eminent 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 communicate this idea to the folks at the core. This is about the time that james farmer became the executive secretary of core. Thats exactly where i was headed. One more thing to contextualize the setup, this is the late 1960s when jims tenure is in question. There is uncertainty. And so, jim farmer was looking for a project. This is one that had the potential to be very successful and i dont think we estimated how big it would become. 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 positives things that were brought together to address an issue that got national attention. And i dont think that we had that in mind. And evidence to the fact that we did not have it in mind is that we had a dozen or so very well trained non violent soldiers that were going to do this thing. And, you know, you are 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. I think its difficult to do that anyway. Did you think dr. King might join . Is that something that you were it is 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 did not become a freedom writer. He was on the National Advisory board for core. He had been perhaps the primary influence in flushing out non violence as a strategy for promoting social change. To me, that is 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. You did all the scouting. I did all the scouting. And then after setting the whole thing up i drew the assignment of being the person in jackson who would take care of all the riders when they were released. I had an assignment before that. My assignment, right after the bus was burned in anniston was in montgomery alabama. And in montgomery, alabama, i lived in the home of ralph i have a bernanke. This was when, after the event in the church, montgomery was under martial law. And there were thousands of rights . They had a signs outside of the rally. So, the town was under martial law. And freedom rider start to trickle in. I was training riders there. I had to go to the trail ways, the greyhound station, to pick up writers. We would know how many were coming in, we would know their names, but we didnt match names with people. The question was, how are you going to get down there . First of all, right outside of his house, about a half a block up, there was a jeep with a National Guard driving and another National Guard in the backseat. These guys woods give us an escort to it a block of the bus station. The trail weighs or greyhound. They disappeared. We had to gets with a local guy who was my driver. We had to get from their, past all of the red next to pick up the riders. We know there are five. But we do not know them. 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 Ralph Abernathy number, i would go over and say, come on, come on. That worked for a number of times. And we would go back with those people pass the mob, pass the mob, we would get in our vehicle, did she put intercept us and take us back to abu dhabi. This is the projection we are getting. We were on our own. When we got back to the safe neighborhoods, Ralph Abernathy lived in a black neighborhood. There is not a lot of chance that there is going to be someone who is going to do us harm their. And it is from there that i was assigned to jackson. Thinking back, as best as you can, to watch this whole ride unfold, especially from rock hill forward, brockville on down to atlanta and then across. Watching your vision unfold in the spectacular fashion that it did, and all of the tumult and violence and chaos, the federal governments involvement. You are not a young man. You are in your early twenties. That is right. Im interested in your 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. Who might carry those injuries the rest of their lives. It was one thing to ask me to do that as a person. It is 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. I would have been willing to do and i was gratified that there were brothers and sisters, white, black who are similarly minded. So, i think we have grown up to the point here of the level of sacrifice that might be expected. Always hoping, that wouldnt 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 . No, i think the idea 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 retreated just like any other citizen. How about your perspective about the federal government . Particularly after what happened. The federal government was not our ally, i think that they were annoyed that there were all 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. Id be particularly critical of the fbi, 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 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 did not help their case. The Justice Department presents with people like john door, often was welcomed and was sincere. John did a lot of very good work i think in this disappear and the Voter Registration protections. But 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 are being disenfranchised by the local political culture. It must have been, you yourself will get on about this later on, he must have been very interesting to watch everything turn toward jackson, toward parchment, and it became a national event. It did. We had people coming in from various parts of the country. We had various religious groups. I remember the episcopalians, the church of latter day saints groups. It was a good Cross Section of america, and thats the situation where the freedom rides started out as a specific protest involving a very small group, they wound up being a national movement. Essentially. I do not think we couldve predicted that. How did you what was your broad sense of the prospects of the movement as that summer of 1961 wound down, and the rights communities looking for the best choices about how to move forward . What was your sense of what the freedom rides meant at that and what opportunities seat ahead of you . I saw 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 have been tactically non violent who were starting to listen to what is a dominant cultural theme, which is violence. There was a kind of 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 a society that is predominantly violence through to its core, to continue to maintain that, i think that is the sad thing about what happened with the death of dr. King. I think that dr. King, by the time he was assassinated, had really started to wane because the violent elements were so present intel 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 rider, to a different experience. I did not do a lot with the cofo experience. I was there when cofo was founded. It seemed to be a natural kind of thing to the segregationless and the culture of segregation in mississippi. There was no difference between core, naacp, as sea llc. To the segregationist they were all the same. And we had always had different strengths in terms of what organizations would contribute to the struggle. I have always described the notion that there are some people who would be active in the naacp, who would never be active in core. Who would never be active in other ones. But we need their push as a thrust for this movement forward. So, i dont go back and be labor any negative points about the organizations that were involved. 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. Tell me about bob moses bob moses, a brilliant guy, i feel sorry. When we were focused on when we were focused on taking care freedom riders in jackson, he bob moses was involved in managing the campaigns of some of the local ministers who are 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 the algebra project. He and Dave Guinness work together. I have high respect for bob moses. One of the things i respect about him, there were people involved in this movement to in my opinion, they were quite a bit centered around themselves and their significance. I think that bob moses saw the larger picture. I think his very low key manner is to push the issues and the important things as opposed to pushing the individual. In 1962, you reached a point, where because of reasons were latest to your fellow and status, you will have very stark choices in front of you. Can you talk about what they were . After college, i had received a number of deferments and i got to the point ive been classified, i think it was one a, i had actually received when i was still right in the midst of working in jackson, i had received a notice that i had to report to fort jackson for induction into the army. I had been negligent to 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 not a very good soldier. But i would be willing to serve my country in an alternate capacity. So not being a ceo, i get to for 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. That well, you are not morally fit to serve the military. We will think about this. 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 and i have been admitted to was the university of washington on the west coast, and the university of illinois, champagne or banner. I checked to see when sessions were starting. And so, the sessions were starting for Summer School at Atlanta University. I found myself in graduate school rather quickly. That of course steeped off the business of having to try and resurrect conscience as objective states. And in the final summer of 63, i think. Yes, in mississippi. One year of work on my masters degree. Thats another interesting story to this. Right after the bus had been burned, and i have been doing some short assignments, i went to the university of wisconsin in madison. I went to work for core. They were asking questions about the freedom rides, so forth and so on. This was a field secretary assignment. So i met a professor whose last name was rice. And he said, you have not taken the Law School Aptitude Test. He said, but i recommend you to law school. After that being involved in the movement, i had actually thought about how i could get into a profession that would enable me to can tribute to the movement. Ive had decided that law would be that rather than biology. But when youre after i had worked on my masters degree in biology, i went home to great falls, i am thumbing through this male, and i come across this letter admitted me to law school at the university of wisconsin. She said, you are admitted, you have to take the Law School Aptitude Test as a matter of record. So thats how i wound up going into biology, continuing to work towards biology. I was successful in biology, so i ended up getting a couple of graduate teaching assistant. I chose the one at the university of iowa. So you didnt go to law school . I didnt go to law school. I was already halfway through my masters degree in biology unit i was like 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. Superb role models. Yeah, lawyers, bill kunstler, carl rachlin. Let me tell you about a couple of lawyers that are not very well known. When the riders were being tried in jackson, mississippi, there were perhaps five or six lawyers in jackson, mississippi, black lawyers. There was only, the lawyer who had been trained in the Big Ten University sidney thorpe, but he would not take freedom rider cases. There was jack young, who started out as a postal clerk and had taken laws correspondents who is our chief legal contact. There was 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 kersey hall, who was also a male clerk. And so those were our Court Lawyers and, if it was a federal case, we would get people like derek bell and constitutes baker motley or karl rock when. We will get some other reinforcements. It was always a nucleus of local guys that coordinated thinks and tried most of the freedom rider cases. Tell me about the summer of 63, going into mississippi. You did a final three month . Oh, yes. The final three months. I worked with aaron henry in clarke still, mississippi. And he and the clark stale naacp were involved in a selective buying program, a boycott of downtown. And so being there for just three months i was just fitting into and augmenting and 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 erin henris drugstore, and we would have coming into the center, id say 20 or 25 people every day. We taught freedom songs, history of blacks in america, so forth and so on. It was their win the march on washington was to take place. So my choice was to stay in clarksdale or go to the march on washington. I opted to stay in clarksdale. I remember as i told you theyre helping to put together the sign of war on washington for jobs of 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. And then to the university of iowa for the ph. D. Let me propose that we take a pause and take a break. Just for the tape record, john thought it would be good if you can say, recap in a simple way, the number of organizations inside cofo and say once more what that was. Okay. Cofo was the council of federally did organizations and their representative organizations the scl sea, 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. We talked about from the perspective of segregation of all wanting one thing. That is right. That is true. Let me have you, im very interested in, we cant do it justice because will just have time for summary. But talk about first year experiencing graduate school, particularly in iowa. And then move to the broader question of your work as a scientist. First year at iowa i was the only African American student in the department. There were a couple of asian, indian students, in the department. I did well academically. I was assigned to be a graduate 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 hours a week, and we had them for an hour or so in a Discussion Group. The Discussion Group we could deal with plates of information that students had questions about based on the lecture. Because of the very large number of people in the class, the lectures were just given the time to present the information. To embellish or clarify something, that was up to the tear. As the only African American student, there had been previously an African American student from louisiana who had graduated and indeed, my mentor are one of the persons that was influential and sending me to iowa, compared to his previous students that have been there and that was sort of an automatic niche for me to be in. There where of course the usual Cross Section of people, some of who became Close Friends until today. But there is also the people who just sort of tolerated you because you are there. And they wouldve been just as happy if you are not there. But the professors were across the spectrum also. Some were very conservative, particularly standoffish, but i found enough favor in professors, and they respected me enough as a student. I didnt have any major problems with graduate work at iowa. I had decided to go to iowa because i felt that if not id neutral place to go, it might be a place at least that i could find some direction to do something that was a potential passion for me. The leader in the field at the time had left iowa and gone to austin, texas, and even though austin 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 in texas. Even though the preeminent scholar in the field was in texas. So that was sort of one of those things that compelled me to go to iowa. I mentioned that i couldve gone to washington, seattle, or champagne, or banner. They did not have the fifth program that i was primarily interested in. I wasnt quite sure i want to go way out on the west coast. So i wound up going to iowa. Tell me about the things that are most important to you as a scholar and researcher over the years. As a researcher, eventually i got into an area of biology thats called electron microscopy, my specific interest 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 things that are important for the reproduction of the organism. So there is something that was calleds capitalism, meaning a thread. I studied how these threads came to be. In the mature reproductive structure of organisms that i studied, the threats have a functioning 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 then propagate the organism. The other interest that i had was using electron microscope to answer certain questions that you couldnt answer given the limitations of a regular microscope. So you can see things with regular microscope that are only so close to each other. With electron microscope you can see the much closer. That is something we call resolution. With improved resolution, a question that might be subjective with a light microscope, suddenly it becomes objective with an electron microscope because you can see more clearly what is their. 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, speakeasy a shown using electron microscopy to resolve the questions. Let me turn forgive me because i know that is just the bearer summary. But for our work today, i want to turn back to civil rights and then the struggle. And maybe to a few retrospective kind of questions. I know that in weve just past the 50th anniversary of the freedom rides. And there are many different ways of people approaching that memory. I am interested in your question of different interpretations of the ride and its impact and how you see the significance of the freedom rides from this distance. 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. And there is no question that the rights were conceived by and executed primarily by the congress of racial equality. After the bus was burned, 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 the core was incapable of continuing. In any kind of movement, there are strategic times that you move and obviously, you cant move if you are physically incapable at that moment. That does not mean that you are not in charge of the sequence of events that are 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 sponsor the rights, that these were sort of rookies that 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 rider. Did you, after you departed for iowa, and for the long run of your career as an academic in pennsylvania, did you ever live in the south again . No. With the exception of going back for visits. No question that the south has changed tremendously. But the fundamental infrastructure of racism and segregation that call the shots in the south in 1960, they 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 shots. 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 is surface. And there is still an awful lot of work to do. We and in this recent thing of a society that is color blind, much of the legal wait for making some meaningful changes is continually eroded. If you are talking about making changes in the southern context, ultimately that has to come down to the administrators of federal programs and so forth. Very often these are very obviously discriminatory. We look at katrina, the gi bill availability and so forth. We go back to the 1960s and we still havent pushed the bad guy out of the way. From the near distance in terms of time, when you were in iowa and beginning to work as an academic, did you ever have occasion im sure the question came to mind did you ever have occasion to doubt non violence as a tactical means . Did you ever think that it wont work here in the american context . No, i 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 non violent tactics to work. They must however, they must be waged within the context of people who are well trained and who can articulate what it is they are doing and why they are doing it. One is heartened by some of the nonviolent type things that have occurred in the middle east. I think that there, you know, theres still the possibility for nine violent wrecked action being positive social positive promoting a change process. And having to hold the view for all the many reasons that support it, that things have not changed so much. Does it have the effect would have been the implications for your sense of the american project over the longer term . Do you think that this is a place that might find its way one day to a more just social order . I hope so. If one looks at for the recent election of barack obama, i think what we have had happening there, and by the way, i was immensely surprised that he was elected. In my mind it was clicking back to what i know the situation to have been in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. 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 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 occurring or taking place. If the young people were justice involved in making sure that 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, they are hope. And 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 different context for years there at the beginning of the decade, are there ways in which you think of all that, are there costs that were born by eu in an ongoing fashion . Was there a legacy of costs or complication in any way for you personally . That is an interesting question. 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 ive 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 calls me on occasion. I think we have lost as a nation a lot of potential and we still lose that potential, win all you have to do is be born white. You have all these privileges, but if youre black you have to fight for it. We need all of us on the same page playing the same tune, wed order to be competitive internationally at this point. Us 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 . 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. But for the grace of god, there go i sitting there. These are people without hope we. 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 also. And thats downright depressing. I cannot think of any reason why industry would go to great falls. You dont have a well trained labor force, you dont have the kind of amenities that are necessary to run a business ethically for profit, so forth and so on. I really dont know. Its one of those questions my parents would say, all leave it to god. Because i really dont have a solution for great falls. Maybe except to say that it hurts me that there is not hope for a future that is bright for great falls. And what i am saying might be interpreted as coming from a black perspective. Im a black man. The south in its effort to 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 on to the fact that, at least and wait. Are there things that we have not talked about that you would like to talk . I would mention one other thing. I think that scholars are frequently misunderstood. And i think they are, especially misunderstood in the African American community because weve had so few models on which to generate an idea as to their importance or to their significance, so that when i tell people i have a ph. D. In botany, they could identify if i have a pigeon agriculture or something that they have a Life Experience that they can connect to. But to them, my whole contribution to the total of my being and the bullying of my nation, my country, my race, is not comprehensible at all. Even my parents, i could not explain to them exactly what it is thats my passion that i do. In the majority society, usually there is at least some way of making connections that rings clear, but thats a sort of lonely feeling being out there. But i see my contribution as being more than two black people, but being to the nation as a whole. Thank you for welcoming us here, this is been an honor. My pleasure. Very good. Up next, an oral history with james oscar jones. He talks about being raised in arkansas and his parents support for civil rights. His work as a director for the arkansas product project for the Students Coordinating Committee and 1963 to 1966. It is part of an oral history project on the Civil Rights Movement initiated by congress in 2009 connected by the Smithsonian Museum of African American history and culture. The library of congress and the Southern Oral History Program at the university of North Carolina chapel hill. My parents we were raised on a farm. My father was raised on a farm. That is what he left to do. Im a member of a family of ten children. Six boys and four gir