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                    <hi rend="bold">Oral History Interview with Laurie Pritchett, April 23, 1976.
                        Interview B-0027. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):</hi>
                    Electronic Edition. </title>
                <title type="descriptive">Former Albany, Georgia, Police Chief Reflects on His Role
                    in the Civil Rights Movement</title>
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                    <name id="pl" reg="Pritchett, Laurie" type="interviewee">Pritchett,
                    Laurie</name>, interviewee </author>
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                <funder>Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the
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                <date>2007.</date>
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                        <title type="recording">Oral History Interview with Laurie Pritchett, April
                            23, 1976. Interview B-0027. Southern Oral History Program Collection
                            (#4007)</title>
                        <title type="series">Series B. Individual Biographies. Southern Oral History
                            Program Collection (B-0027)</title>
                        <author>James Reston, Jr.</author>
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                        <publisher>Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
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                        <date>23 April 1976</date>
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                        <title type="transcript">Oral History Interview with Laurie Pritchett, April
                            23, 1976. Interview B-0027. Southern Oral History Program Collection
                            (#4007)</title>
                        <title type="series">Series B. Individual Biographies. Southern Oral History
                            Program Collection (B-0027)</title>
                        <author>Laurie Pritchett</author>
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                    <extent>28 p.</extent>
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                        <publisher>Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at
                            Chapel Hill</publisher>
                        <pubPlace>Chapel Hill, North Carolina</pubPlace>
                        <date>23 April 1976</date>
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                        <note anchored="no">Interview conducted on April 23, 1976, by James Reston,
                            Jr.; recorded in South Mount, North Carolina</note>
                        <note anchored="no"> Transcribed by Patricia Crowley.</note>
                        <note anchored="no"> Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection
                            (#4007): Series B. Individual Biographies, Manuscripts Department,
                            University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</note>
                        <note anchored="no">Original transcript on deposit at the Southern
                            Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina
                            at Chapel Hill.</note>
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        <front>
            <div1 type="about_interview">
                <head>Interview with Laurie Pritchett, April 23, 1976. Interview B-0027.</head>
                <byline>Conducted by James Reston, Jr.</byline>
                <note type="deposit" anchored="no">
                    <p>Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round
                        Wilson Library</p>
                </note>
                <note type="citation" anchored="no">
                    <p>Citation of this interview should be as follows: <lb/>“Interview
                        B-0027, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, <lb/>Southern
                        Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, <lb/>University of North Carolina
                        at Chapel Hill”</p>
                </note>
                <note type="copyright" anchored="no">Copyright © 2007 The University of
                    North Carolina</note>
            </div1>
            <div1 type="abstract">
                <head>Abstract</head>
                <p>Laurie Pritchett describes his involvement with the Albany, Georgia, civil rights
                    movement. In this interview, Pritchett attempts to alter his public image as a
                    racist police chief, expressing his profound compassion for blacks. He explains
                    his complicated friendship with Martin Luther King, Jr., and discusses his
                    efforts to place blacks on the police force in Albany in the mid-1960s. After he
                    left the Albany force, Pritchett helped African American causes as High Point,
                    North Carolina, police chief. Much of the interview, however, explores
                    Pritchett's use of King's non-violence strategy. His
                    innovative application of passive law enforcement allowed Albany to stand as a
                    site where the national civil rights movement failed. In December 1961,
                    Pritchett trained his police officers to resist civil rights demonstrators
                    non-violently. This training often frustrated King's passive
                    resistance tactics in Albany by preventing the negative publicity brought about
                    by brutal police reaction to marches in other towns in the Deep South. Refusing
                    to use the violent tactics of Alabama law enforcement officials such as Jim
                    Clark (Selma) and T. Eugene "Bull" Connor (Birmingham),
                    Pritchett discusses how his peaceful strategy effectively eliminated bargaining
                    abilities for King and other civil rights activists. Unlike Pritchett, Clark and
                    Connor frequently helped civil rights activists achieve their goals. Pritchett
                    explains that his problem with the protesters was not their interest in
                    integration, but with their massive public demonstrations. He remarks on the
                    incredible power his role as police chief afforded him. He believes sheriffs
                    should be politically elected, exposing tensions between sheriffs and police
                    chiefs.</p>
            </div1>
            <div1 type="short_abstract">
                <head>Short Abstract</head>
                <p>Laurie Pritchett, who served as a police chief in Albany, Georgia, for seven
                    years, describes his role in the civil rights movement in that city. He
                    encouraged a moderate response to large demonstrations in the 1960s, a tactic
                    that prevented the negative publicity brought about by brutal police reaction to
                    marches in other towns in the Deep South.</p>
            </div1>
        </front>
        <body>
            <div1 id="B-0027" type="sohp_interview">
                <head>Interview with Laurie Pritchett, April 23, 1976. <lb/>Interview B-0027.
                    Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007)</head>
                <list type="simple">
                    <head>Interview Participants</head>
                    <item>
                        <name id="spk1" key="lp" reg="Pritchett, Laurie" type="interviewee">LAURIE
                            PRITCHETT</name>, interviewee</item>
                    <item>
                        <name id="spk2" key="jr" reg="Reston, James" type="interviewer">JAMES
                            RESTON, JR.</name>, interviewer</item>
                </list>
                <div2 id="tape1-a" n="1-A" type="tape_side">
                    <pb id="p1" n="1"/>
                    <head>[TAPE 1, SIDE A]</head>
                    <note anchored="yes">
                        <p>[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]</p>
                    </note>
                    <milestone n="4301" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:00:00"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>What I'd like to do first is try to get your mind back on those events,
                            as I understand them. Now I just read an explanation of the Albany
                            thing, and I jotted down a list of events. And you tell me if this is
                            basically how you remember it: that in September of 1961 SNCC sent a
                            team to Albany to register black voters. On November 1, in response to
                            the freedom rides, the Interstate Commerce Commission has a ruling that
                            all train and bus facilities used for interstate commerce are to be
                            desegregated. Almost on that same day, I gather, the first test takes
                            place when two SNCC workers ride from Atlanta to Albany, and the police
                            (including you, I gather) are waiting at the station. And they avoid the
                            test at that time; somehow or another they slip away and run down a
                            street or something. You don't remember that at all?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>That didn't happen.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>It didn't?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>No. December 16, 1960 or '61 . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>'61, right.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Now, the Albany movement started prior to that, which was made up of Dr.
                            W. G. Anderson and local blacks. And they had started trying to deal
                            with the city council; they wouldn't talk with them at that time, you
                            know. So Dr. Anderson (well, he's a real close personal friend of mine),
                            the Tates and Manly Tates, Tennessee B. King, Slater King, his brother,
                            all of them started what they called (it was a loose-knit organization
                            at that time) the Albany Movement. Then Charles Sherrard and some others
                            (I forget), they was with SNCC; they came in. Bonnie
                            Bevonovich—her father was a well-known attorney in New York;
                            I think he handled the<pb id="p2" n="2"/> Cuban affair—and
                            some other students from Colorado, they came in and joined Sherrard and
                            Jones. And then December 16—they were pushing for fuller
                            restoration, that's what they were—1961 . . . And we had
                            prior knowledge to this, and we knew that they were going to make Albany
                            a vocal point for some reason. And we'd been training for it and getting
                            ready for whatever. On December 16 they came in on the train; and there
                            wasn't two, there was a group of them. And the population had found out
                            about it; they were all down at the train station.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes. Now he's got that listed, yes, as December 10, 1961: "eight
                            SNCC workers, black and white, took Central Georgia Railroad from
                            Atlanta to Albany."</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>It was somewhere around there. It might have been the trial that was on
                            December 16; but somewhere along there . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>"Sat together in a white car. Then several hundred Albany blacks
                            gathered at the Union Railway Terminal to meet them. They got off the
                            train, went to the white waiting station and sat down. Chief Pritchett
                            told them to get out. They did, and went to the waiting room."
                            Then he says this about you. He says, "As they were going into
                            the waiting room Chief Pritchett said, ‘I told you to get off
                            the streets. You are all under arrest.’"</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>No.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>And later he quotes your version to the press. "I told the
                            demon|straters to move away from the terminal three times. Then we
                            called the paddy wagon, and I gave the order to arrest them. We will not
                            stand for these trouble-makers coming into our city for the sole purpose
                            of disturbing the peace and quiet in the city of Albany."</p>
                    </sp>
                    <pb id="p3" n="3"/>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Now that is right. I made that statement. But the arrest resulted from
                            the fact that when they came in, as I say, there was a large group of
                            whites and a large group of blacks in there. And the people who were
                            coming in to pick up passengers and things of this nature couldn't get
                            to the terminal, because they just went into the streets, you know. And
                            we had asked them to disperse out of the streets and onto the sidewalks
                            and the parking lot so that the people could get into taxis and all this
                            business, to pick up passengers. And they refused to do it. And the
                            local blacks moved back; but these people refused to move, and they were
                            arrested. And that's basically what happened.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Now, when you say that you had tained for it, you knew that they were
                            going to make Albany a focal point, what kind of training do you
                            remember you had at that time?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, as you remember, we had information that Dr. King was coming into
                            the Albany Movement with the Southern Christian Leadership. And you know
                            his philosophy was non-violence. So we were going on the same philosophy
                            as that. My men would train on non-violence: not that we had police
                            dogs; they were deactivated. The men were instructed that if they were
                            spit upon, cussed, abused in any way of that nature, that they were not
                            to take their billyclubs out. And they would act in a non-violent
                            approach in that. And this is what they did; you know, there was no
                            bloodshed. It went on from '61 to '64, I think June or July of '64.
                            There was never any violence on the part of over-reaction of the police.
                            We arrested Dr. King twice, I think. We arrested some twenty-four
                            hundred people. There was never any violence on our part. In talking to
                            Dr. King (who was a close personal friend of mine) . . . Well, there was
                            Dwight T. Walker, who was with Dr. King at that time (he's a big
                            preacher in New York now),<pb id="p4" n="4"/> Andrew Young, who was a
                            legislator from Georgia; Dr. Abernathy; all those were there. And we
                            were real close friends; you know, we sat and talked a lot about it.
                            Even after he left there, I went to Montgomery and seen him. We
                            corresponded with each other for a long time; still get Christmas cards
                            from his wife. But anyway, he said many times that this is what turned
                            them around in Albany. His quote is that, as he stated to the <hi rend="i">New York Times</hi> and the <hi rend="i">Herald
                            Tribune</hi> and <hi rend="i">Newsweek</hi> and <hi rend="i">Time</hi>
                            Magazine (all of them that was there), it was non-violent, that there
                            wasn't any violence. The federal troops or marshals couldn't come in;
                            they couldn't have accomplished the goal.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes. OK, let me carry this on a minute here. "December 12: the
                            trial of the eleven." Now who would that have been, the eleven
                            people involved in the original arrests, the December 10 arrests?
                            "Over four hundred black students march downtown to protest.
                            Police guards with loud speakers order them to disperse." It
                            talks about a fifteen foot alley that ran alongside of City Hall, where
                            they were . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4301" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:08:47"/>
                    <milestone n="3826" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:08:48"/>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Let's get this into focus, now, because actually what happened: the mayor
                            at that time was Asa Kelly. He was a judge in Georgia now, and he was a
                            practicing attorney, Asa Kelly. And unknown to anybody, unknown to me or
                            I don't guess any other city council, he had given permission for these
                            blacks to parade in an orderly fashion in downtown. And they did. No one
                            bothered them. The police were there. There were always up in the
                            thousands of whites on one side of the street, and the police were in
                            the middle. And they marched. After they come up, you know, the mayor
                            said he had given permission, so they did. And he told them they had
                            permission to circle the block twice, and then after that they were to
                                go<pb id="p5" n="5"/> back. And they continued to circle. And then
                            they begin to move off the sidewalk; they were blocking pedestrians.
                            There were so many of them that people couldn't get in or out of the
                            stores on the street. And that's when we asked them to disperse. And I
                            don't think any was arrested that day. That alley they're talking about,
                            they called it Freedom Alley. It was just an alley between the police
                            headquarters and some other buildings, and they called it Freedom Alley,
                            because that's where most of them ended up. And we would book them,
                            fingerprint them, mug them, put them on buses and ship them out. We
                            never did what they intended to do. And King's philosophy, you know, was
                            on Gandhi's, the march to the sea where they just filled the jails to
                            capacity, and no place to put them, and then you've got to turn in to
                            it. Out plans had been made where we had the capability of 10,000
                            prisoners, and never put a one in our city jail. They were to be shipped
                            out to surrounding cities that were in a circle. And we had fifteen
                            miles, twenty-five miles, forty-five miles on up to about seventy miles
                            that we could ship prisoners to.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Now who worked out that plan?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>I did.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Of course it was your idea to do it that way.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes, because, like I say, I'd studied the thing. I'd read a lot about
                            King and used his . . . on Gandhi on overpower them by mass arrests. He
                            knew our jail facilities were limited, and he felt if he brought four
                            hundred people, with four hundred arrests we'd have no place to put
                            them. But they'd already bought part of the buses; they were out of
                            business, so the city buses brought the buses in. We'd fill them up,
                            send them to Camilla or surrounding cities around Albany, and they would
                            put them in<pb id="p6" n="6"/> their jails and we'd leave personnel
                            there to watch them. So we never had any in ours.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Well now, that had to be worked out with who, with the governor?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>No, it was worked out with the local people, and the sheriffs in the
                            surrounding cities, police chiefs in the surrounding cities, the
                            commissioners and local government. And they said, "Look,
                            you're fighting our battle. We know if Albany falls all of us fall, so
                            we're with you." And they didn't charge us for upkeep or
                            anything. We'd have been about sixty miles from Atlanta, the last place
                            we could have kept them. And like I say, we'd have twenty-four
                        hundred.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3826" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:12:43"/>
                    <milestone n="4302" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:12:44"/>

                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>At this time?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh, over a period of time. You know, we had mass marches in '61, from '61
                            continuously. We'd arrest seven or eight hundred people in marches every
                            march they made. I guess at one time we had about fifteen hundred in
                            jail at that time.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Did you ever have to get to the seventy-five perimeter?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>No, no. And then our bonds were set at two hundred dollars cash and no
                            security bonds; that's the only way they could get out. Then the
                            preachers came in: you know, seventy-five ministers from all over the
                            United States come in, and they were arrested. At one time they had, oh,
                            seven or eight hundred thousand dollars down there in escrow; I guess
                            it's still there.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>OK. Well then, the trial takes place on the twelfth, and you booked four
                            hundred people or so. On the thirteenth there was a prayer meeting with
                            Slayter King, whom he defines as from a distinguished black family in
                            Albany, arrested in a prayer meeting where, on the steps of City<pb id="p7" n="7"/> Hall?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>He was sentenced to five days for contempt of court.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>That's true.</p>
                    </sp>

                    <milestone n="4302" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:14:23"/>
                    <milestone n="3827" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:14:24"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>And you say to the press, or are quoted as saying you can't tolerate the
                            NAACP or SNCC or any other Negro organization to take over this town
                            with mass demonstrations.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Now that's what they said. They quoted me as saying that "We
                            would not tolerate the NAACP or SNCC or any other nigger
                            organization." And it was misquoted; I did not say
                            "nigger," and I didn't say anything about the NAACP. I
                            said that they should take the right of the NAACP and go to court and
                            not the street. And as a result of not going to the courts we would not
                            tolerate them taking over the city of Albany by force or any other
                            intimidation. We would not tolerate it: this is what I said, but they
                            took it out of context. That was not the national media; that was the
                                <hi rend="i">Atlanta General Constitution</hi> with McGill, you
                            know. You know he never did write us up right. The <hi rend="i">New York
                                Herald Tribune</hi>, the <hi rend="i">New York Times, Newsweek</hi>
                            and all this, they was right down the middle. But that's the only one
                            that quoted me as saying that we would not let this town be taken over
                            by a bunch of niggers.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Were you conscious at that time of press relations?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh yes.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Were you very careful about your language?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Sure. You know, the press had been to other places and been intimidated
                            (cameras broken, they were not able to walk the streets), and so we had
                            set up that every day, twice a day we'd have news conferences.<pb id="p8" n="8"/> They'd come to my room at the hotel. You know, we
                            were living in the two downtown hotels in Albany; we had commandeered
                            them. All my police officers were living in the hotels. We lived in the
                            hotels for months at a time. They'd come to my room at night and we'd
                            sit down and talk. But they could go anywhere they wanted to. We kept
                            them alerted as to what was going to happen, because we had sources of
                            information. We knew when they were going to march, where they were
                            going to march, what they were going to do. Some of the news reporters,
                            Fred Miller from the <hi rend="i">New York Herald Tribune</hi>, and one
                            other one (he's down in Raleigh now with the <hi rend="i">Raleigh
                                Observer</hi>) . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3827" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:17:05"/>
                    <milestone n="4303" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:17:06"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Claude Seaton?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes. He was with the <hi rend="i">New York Times</hi> at that time.
                            They'd come and call me. They'd come and say, "Look, chief,
                            they're going to do such-and-such." And we had a mutual
                            understanding. <milestone n="4303" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:17:17"/>
                    <milestone n="3828" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:17:18"/>I remember one night Dr. King came to my
                            office. It was about five o'clock, and my secretary come in with a
                            telegram. I opened it up, and it was from my wife. It was in July; it
                            was our anniversary. And I read it, and then Dr. King says,
                            "Did something disturb you, Chief Pritchett?" I said,
                            "Well yes, in a way. This telegram's from my wife. It's our
                            anniversary, and I haven't been home in two or three weeks."
                            Dr. King looked at me and he says, "All right. You go home
                            tonight, enjoy your anniversary, do anything you want to. There'll be
                            nothing happening in this town tonight." And he said,
                            "In the morning we'll take up where we left off." So I
                            said, "Do you mean this?" He said, "You have
                            my word." So I got in my truck and went home. We went out to
                            dinner. When we came back to my house after we left the Victory Club (a
                            steak house) there was a bunch of cars out in front, and I<pb id="p9" n="9"/> thought something had happened. And it was the news media.
                            This one you just mentioned from Raleigh was standing there, all of
                            them. They'd went and got my wife a gift certificate and brought it back
                            to the house to us. And we sat there and had a few drinks and talked.
                            And then the next morning we took up where we left off. But I had good
                            relations with the news media.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3828" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:18:38"/>
                    <milestone n="4304" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:18:39"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>OK. Then on December 15 Martin Luther King was invited to Albany by the
                            Albany Movement executive committee. "December 16, Saturday
                            evening, the climax, where Martin Luther King leads 250 hymn-singing men
                            and women down Jackson Street towards the county courthouse. Chief
                            Pritchett stopped them two blocks from City Hall . . . "</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>
                            <gap reason="unknown"/>
                        </p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4304" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:19:11"/>
                    <milestone n="3829" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:19:12"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>OK. " . . . asked King if he had a parade permit. Pritchett
                            orders arrests to be made for parading without a permit. Again, into the
                            alley. Negotiations begin. The settlement gives very few concessions to
                            the blacks, and the <hi rend="i">New York Herald Tribune</hi> calls it
                            ‘one of the most stunning defeats in the career of Martin
                            Luther King.’"</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, this is true. You know, the mayor and the city council never at any
                            time negotiated with Dr. King or any member of the Albany Movement. I
                            had the power to negotiate; I had executive power still in the books. I
                            had more power than the mayor had. I could open or close—you
                            know I closed the pools on my orders.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>The pool rooms, you mean?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>The pools, swimming pools. The city owns four city-owned pools. We closed
                            them.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>What was the purpose of that?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, they were jumping the fence, and it was a bad situation. It could
                            have developed into something really bad. And I<pb id="p10" n="10"/>
                            closed them, and they stayed closed. They were closed for about two and
                            a half years or three years. And they were sold to private interests.
                            They were sold to James Gray, who was the editor of the <hi rend="i">Albany Herald.</hi> He later left the <gap reason="unknown"/> And
                            he bought one of the pools and opened it up on a private basis. But
                            there were never any negotiations. And when they say here that
                            negotiations failed at the result of any menial things, this is true.
                            There was nothing to negotiate, as I told Dr. King; we would never
                            negotiate under threat of violence or intimidation. If they went to
                            court and the courts ruled in their favor, we would abide by the court
                            ruling. But our laws at that time were constitutional, and we were going
                            to enforce them. And we would not be intimidated by street violence of
                            whatever sort; there would be no agreement as long as we were under
                            threat or intimidation. And that's the way it stood; we never did.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>But in point of fact, there never would have been any concessions made
                            anyway.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>No, there would never have been any concessions made as long as the
                            tension and the atmosphere were such, and under threat of
                        intimidation.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3829" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:21:45"/>
                    <milestone n="3830" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:21:46"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>But I'm saying, even if that element was not there, if there never had
                            been an Albany Movement there never would have been any real
                        changes.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh yes. There's not that many changes in there now, you know. It wasn't
                            the fact that I was a segregationist. As I stated, I considered myself a
                            professional law-enforcement administrator. We went by the law. When the
                            Public Accommodations Bill was passed in Fort<pb id="p11" n="11"/>
                            Lauderdale I went down there to see Dr. King, Andrew Young; they were
                            the movement in Fort . . . Saint Augustine. And I went down there, me
                            and a couple of city councilmen, and went specifically to see Dr. King.
                            And that's the day; on the way back the Public Accommodations Bill was
                            signed by President Johnson in 1964. You know, I'd been invited to
                            Robert Kennedy's office in Washington, and I was up there for a week
                            visiting with him as his guest. And he asked me, he said,
                            "Chief Pritchett, what will your people do when the Public
                            Accommodations Bill is passed?" I said, "Tell me.
                            You're asking me about my people. Now what people are you referring to?
                            If you're referring to my people in Albany, Georgia, we'll abide by it.
                            Everybody'll abide by that law if it's passed. Now if you're asking me
                            what the South will do, Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma and these other
                            places, I don't know what they're going to do." I came back
                            that day after the bill was signed. He signed it; Dr. King was up there.
                            We listened to it on the radio coming in. And we knew that night that
                            they were going to test out the places in Albany. I not only went to all
                            the businesses and met with them at the Chamber of Commerce, I said,
                            "If this bill is passed then it's all over. They're going to
                            come in, they're going to eat, they're going to sleep in the motels. The
                            law is the law, and I've been enforcing it because we had our laws. Now
                            if this is passed we're going to enforce that one. I'm going to force
                            you to open up, and it's going to be non-violent." And that
                            night they went in. They went— Slater, C.B.—and
                            some of them went to the Holiday Inn. They went right in, had their
                            dinner. Some of them raced it and went all over. You know, nothing
                            happened. And so this is what I say: when it became a law that the
                            people in the businesses and things of this nature <hi rend="i">had</hi>
                            to do<pb id="p12" n="12"/> it by law, they did it. You know, they
                            boycotted downtown. They said they wouldn't buy anything from white
                            merchants, and they did this for a long time. They went to Camilla, they
                            went everywhere, but they wouldn't buy a penny . . . The blacks wouldn't
                            spend a nickel in Albany, Georgia. And the merchants called a meeting
                            and invited me down. They said, "Look. We're losing money, but
                            we know what this is. And we're going to stand back; we're not going to
                            put any pressure. Just go ahead." And this is where the people
                            were. The Klan: I don't know whether it says anything in here, but you
                            know Shelton and all them came in from Alabama. We would not let them
                            come into Albany, Georgia. When Dr. King come in he had escorts; we
                            escorted him everywhere, police escorts. The American Nazis out of
                            Washington came in; we wouldn't let them parade. We packed them up in
                            their car and they went back. Shelton and all of the Ku Klux Klan, they
                            met on the outside of the city limits; we wouldn't let them come in.
                            They never did come in for parading or anything.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3830" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:25:21"/>
                    <milestone n="4305" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:25:22"/>

                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Was there any Klan in Albany, any local Klan? What did they do?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh yes. Nothing. They said, "As long as you enforce the law like
                            you're doing, against us, against the blacks, against anybody."
                            See, we arrested a great number of whites that were trying to intimidate
                            or interfere with some of these peaceful demonstrations. They had their
                            mass meetings. There was four or five thousands at these mass meetings.
                            Nobody ever hurt them. We'd go down and cordon off three or four blocks
                            where whites couldn't come through. You know, we wouldn't let anybody
                            come through there. And so they had their mass meetings. And this is
                            what Dr. King said; he thought they would come in here and there would
                            be police slinging clubs and all this business. But it didn't
                        happen.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <pb id="p13" n="13"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes, OK. Let me continue on. Then in January of 1962 there was an
                            incident of a black girl sitting down in the front seat of a bus. And
                            the driver leaves his seat and tells her where she is supposed to
                        sit.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>This was a privately-owned bus system; it wasn't owned by the city of
                            Albany.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes, OK. And her reply is, "I paid my damn twenty cents, and I
                            can sit where I want." And she is arrested. And you're quoted
                            as saying that the reason she was arrested was for the use of vulgar
                            language. She was found guilty in city court for using obscene
                        language.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>This was true, and it was based upon the testimony of the driver and
                            witnesses from the passengers which were on there. And she did. There
                            were some good people on that bus, and she did use vulgar language. What
                            she said here is nothing compared to what she used. And she was
                            convicted upon the testimony of the bus driver and two or three of the
                            passengers who heard it.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>But wasn't it, in fact, a situation where the obscene language was just a
                            charge that was made, but really the fact was that she was sitting in
                            the front of the bus? Wasn't that right?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>That didn't have anything to do with it; to me it didn't. It was a
                            privately-owned bus system; they could sit them where they wanted. It
                            was not owned by the city. The city had no responsibility. It was
                            privately-owned. It finally went out of business. They boycotted them,
                            and rather than do it they went out of business. But it was their right
                            as private enterprise.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>OK. In July of 1962 Abernathy and King are tried on the parade. And you
                            make a statement, according to this, that race was not an issue in<pb id="p14" n="14"/> the arrests at all, that it was that you were
                            merely there enforcing the statute that required a permit for
                        parades.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>True. There was never any prejudice involved in black and white as far as
                            I was concerned. Dr. King knew this. It was a matter that it was a
                        law.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes. But then you're on the stand and you're asked to define what a
                            parade is. And you answer that there was no definition. And Holloway, I
                            gather, . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>
                            <gap reason="unknown"/>
                        </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p> . . . is the prosecutor of defense, probably, or defense attorney. He
                            said, "Then it's anything that you want to make it?"
                            And you reply yes, from your point of view.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>My definition that I gave up there as to what a parade is: it could
                            constitute one person, it could constitute many persons. As to what
                            might be a parade in my mind, it might not be a parade in other
                            people's. But as stated there in that court, I was quoting their
                            statements in the paper that they were going to parade. If that's what
                            they were doing . . . They said they were parading. But parades, you
                            know, you can have two people in a parade; you can have one. Those
                            federal judges ruled that, that it didn't constitute whether it was one
                            or many. And the federal judges ruled in our favor and upheld us in our
                            enforcement of this, because they said the sole discrepancy was in my
                            judgment. As I stated, when you've got 400 or 500 or whatever they got
                            here and you've got 70 or 80,000 people, then you've got to determine:
                            do you remove the 400 or keep the peace in <gap reason="unknown"/>, or
                            do you leave it out here and let this whole . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <p>
                        <note anchored="yes">
                            <p>[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]</p>
                        </note>
                    </p>
                </div2>
                <div2 id="tape1-b" n="1-B" type="tape_side">
                    <head>[TAPE 1, SIDE B]</head>
                    <note anchored="yes">
                        <p>[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]</p>
                    </note>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p> . . . close personal friend of mine. You know, all of those, George
                            Foreman, Dr. King. You never read anything in any of his books or his
                            wife's where they said that I made mistakes or mistreated anybody. So
                            it's the source that you were reading it from . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>OK. Now let me read you this. Now this is written by a liberal writer. He
                            says, "Police chief Pritchett was hailed in the newspapers all
                            over the country for preventing violence in Albany, and an <hi rend="i">Atlanta Constitution</hi> reporter did a piece on Pritchett in
                            which he did not conceal his admiration. A reporter from the <hi rend="i">New York Herald Tribune</hi> said Pritchett
                            ‘brought up to Albany a standard of professional achievement
                            that would be difficult to emulate in a situation so made-to-order for
                            violence.’" That's Miller.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>That's Miller. That's the <hi rend="i">New York Herald Tribune</hi>,
                            right?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes. Well, I just wish I was at home so I could give you all of this. You
                            could put the <hi rend="i">Atlanta Constitution</hi> in general over
                            here and see what their reporters reported. You could put the <hi rend="i">New York Herald Tribune</hi>, the <hi rend="i">New York
                                Times</hi> and all these others over here, and you wouldn't even
                            think it was the same situation. See what I'm doing?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Now he goes on to say, "Pritchett earned this praise by simply
                            putting into prison every man, woman and child who dared protest in any
                            way the infringement of rights guaranteed to them by the
                            Constitution."</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Right: whites, blacks, anybody.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>"His glorification in the press may indicate that Americans have
                            been led to a distorted view of the rights of citizens and the duties
                                of<pb id="p16" n="16"/> police officers in a democratic state. Is it
                            not the function of police officers to defend the rights of citizens
                            against anyone who would prevent them from exercising those rights? The
                            praise of Pritchett was a measure of the extent to which the purveyors
                            of violence in Montgomery"—well, that's too
                            complicated. "The pattern of arrests in Albany is quite clear.
                            The police kept peace, which had not been broken and with no signs that
                            it was about to be broken, by putting into prison over 700 men, women
                            and children who were exercising their basic American rights to assemble
                            peacefully and to petition the government." Well, we've really
                            gone over that. But he just goes on to talk about some of the pattern in
                            the first eight months of 1962 for arrests: students asking for library
                            cards questioned by the police, girl sitting in front of a bus arrested,
                            two young men in Trailways restaurant arrested, four men picketing in a
                            store downtown arrested, thirty young people trying to get service at
                            lunch counters arrested, and so forth and so on.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Right.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4305" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:33:21"/>
                    <milestone n="3831" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:33:22"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>He says—I'm just being a devil's advocate
                            here—"True, Chief Pritchett did not torture or
                            blackjack his prisoners. But is that enough to meet the standards of
                            American freedom? Pritchett arrested more than a thousand people for
                            praying, singing, marching or picketing. He did not make a single move
                            towards the arrest when Sheriff Campbell, just across the street,
                            bludgeoned C. B. King; and the attorney staggered, still bleeding, into
                            Pritchett's office.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>That's right. Where did he come to for help? He came to me. And you've
                            got to realize, you know: the chief of police's powers does not
                            supercede the powers of the sheriff. He is the chief law enforcement<pb id="p17" n="17"/> of the county. And you've got to remember, he was
                            an old, at that time probably senile, old man. He didn't believe in my
                            philosophy. He wouldn't let his deputies or anybody join us when we had
                            the troopers and we had all these other people down there, because he
                            didn't believe in it. Now Crowell Campbell (that's who it was), Sheriff
                            Crowell Campbell, he's a fine old man. And C. B. agitated him that day;
                            attorney C. B. King agitated him that day in his office until he took
                            his crooked walking cane and popped him in the head with it. C. B. ran
                            from there to my office, and he knew there that he'd be protected. He
                            was taken by my people to the local hospital; he was treated. C. B. King
                            never uttered a word against me. And this incident right here was one
                            that almost ignited Albany, Georgia, because all the whites (and we had
                            them in there with their lunches, you know, with shotguns in the back of
                            their cars and baseball bats; and they'd bring the kids with lunches and
                            just sit waiting for something so they could come out), they figured
                            that when the sheriff did this this would give them the right. And we
                            had to go out on public address systems and state that there would be no
                            violence. We would not tolerate it. And we cleared the whole town. I
                            closed the bars; I closed everything in that town. There wasn't anything
                            open. And we cordoned it off where nobody could come in. True. As I
                            stated before, Dag Holloway, the lawyer; Constant Motley, who is now
                            federal judge; the other NAACP . . . Glutenberg; they all came down.
                            They took federal court action against me, sued me for ?850,000 for
                            violation of civil rights. We went into federal court. The five federal
                            judges ruled in my favor. So yes, Crowell Campbell hit C. B. King, but
                            it didn't have anything to do . . . There's an old saying that goes,
                            "Where did he run to?"</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3831" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:36:30"/>
                    <milestone n="4306" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:36:31"/>
                    <pb id="p18" n="18"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, listening to you talk about this period of history, it's almost as
                            if there's a certain feeling of affection for Dr. King and those
                        others.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh, there was.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>People that had gone through something as adversaries.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4306" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:36:51"/>
                    <milestone n="3832" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:36:52"/>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Back then we were in a situation. As I met with the city council and they
                            were telling me what they were going to do and what they wanted done, I
                            said, "Look. I'm going to enforce the law. Now, you make
                            policy. If you want to make policy, you make it and I have to carry it
                            out. If I don't want to carry it out, then you get you somebody else.
                            But I'm not going to be dictated by you or anybody else. You're not
                            going to tell me who to arrest, who not to arrest. We're going by the
                            law, and if the whites violate it they're going to be arrested just like
                            the blacks." There was an understanding. It wasn't that I had
                            any prejudice against the blacks. You know, at that time I was wanting
                            to hire blacks on the police force, and they wouldn't do it (the city
                            council). I had I think it was eight or ten already picked out and ready
                            to be hired, and they voted me down. All right, some time later I went
                            back and submitted their names to a split vote. One person had come over
                            to my side and given me a four to three vote, and I hired them. And one
                            of the councilmen went on radio and television saying he didn't know
                            whether they ought to call this King's men or Pritchett's guard. But I
                            hired them, and they worked out fine. That got blacks in there. And
                            before I left Albany, when I knew I was leaving . . . Because frankly,
                            at that time I guess I was politically the strongest person in the
                            state. Carl Sanders come down there; he was running for governor and
                            wanted me, as he said, to put my wagon on his star.<pb id="p19" n="19"/>
                            I said, "I won't put it on nobody's star. I don't follow
                            you." And it became embarrassing, and I'd accomplished
                            everything I could accomplish in Albany. But before I left I was meeting
                            with C. B. King and the others, planning to get the pools back open, to
                            set up recreation programs, all this which they'd never have done down
                            there without my doing it, you know. And when I left there everything
                            was fine. The blacks and the whites, there was no problem; hadn't been.
                                <milestone n="3832" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:39:07"/>
                                <milestone n="4307" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:39:08"/> I went through there about three years ago going fishing in Florida,
                            and the garbage collectors and all were marching. I went up to the
                            police headquarters to see some of my old friends. And C. B. saw me, and
                            said, "My god, what are you doing? Did they call you
                            back?" And I said, "No." And he said,
                            "I wish they had, because we could get this thing settled
                            out." Yes, I had compassion for them. But as I told Dr. King,
                            as he used to say, "You help me turn the corner and you can
                            have anything you want. You can be head marshall of the United States if
                            you help me turn the corner." I said, "Dr. King, you
                            know I'm not going to help you turn the corner. If the law is the law,
                            that's the way it's going to be." But there was a friendship, a
                            close friendship between Dr. King and me. You know, when he was
                            assassinated I was going to his funeral. You know, and then everywhere
                            we had potentials. See, in High Point we had potentials; they were
                            burning everywhere. And this is what I said in Albany: wherever this man
                            is killed, hell's going to break loose, because there's going to be
                            fires going to light this country up. And this is the reason in Albany,
                            as soon as he'd leave Atlanta he'd tell me approximately what time he'd
                            be coming into Americus, which was forty miles north of Albany. We'd
                            meet him. One of my men would get in the car, he'd get in our car, and
                            then they'd come in by two<pb id="p20" n="20"/> cars. And we took him
                            everywhere. There was a plot down there to kidnap him, and we found out
                            about this and got it stopped. But there was a close friendship, you
                            know.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4307" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:40:47"/>
                                <milestone n="3833" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:40:48"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>That's really an interesting thing to me. Somebody else wrote this. Now
                            this is from the opposing side. It says, "A tension of love and
                            hate for the whites existed. It was another sense of strength that the
                            movement fed upon, because when the name of a dread or evil
                            symbol"—now you have to understand where they're
                            coming from—"of white tyranny would be mentioned . .
                            . . " And then you're mentioned, along with Jim Clark and Bull
                            Conner and Brenner.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>There's no comparison between us three people.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>He says, " . . . a murmur would go up in the audience: in part
                            disdained loathing, but also in part a strange kind of laughter, almost
                            fond, something in it of a real appreciation, their ability to stand off
                            and chuckle over having shared so much with a person in
                            struggle."</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, you know, in court one day I referred to attorney King as C. B.,
                            and C. B. referred to me as Laurie. Well, the judge didn't say anything
                            when I referred to him as C. B., but when he referred to me as Laurie he
                            gravelled and gravelled and said, "You will refer to him as
                            Chief Pritchett." And I said, "Look, your honor, we're
                            friends. My friends can call me Laurie." And this is the way it
                            went. Everything was all right, but there was nothing said when I
                            referred to him as C.B. That was fine, you know; but when he referred to
                            me as Laurie, this was . . . well, it wasn't his position to do this
                            (you know, it was a black man to a white man). My compassion . . . you
                            know, when I came to High Point as chief of police in 1966, they had
                            blacks on the department. They had had<pb id="p21" n="21"/> a couple
                            that had been on it for years. But they dealt with nothing but blacks.
                            They couldn't make a white arrest. And I stated there in my opening
                            address for <hi rend="i">all</hi> the personnel that the day of blacks
                            riding the black section was over, that they would patrol the white
                            sections, that there would be no more of this going up to speak to the
                            banker as Mr. Banker when you get into the black section. You refer to
                            them as blacks or Negroes. But there'd be no more of this. I elevated
                            blacks into command positions. Well, I think High Point, North Carolina
                            during my tenure of office we had the best race relations in the
                            history. So I think this speaks that there was no prejudice so far as I
                            was concerned.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3833" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:43:49"/>
                    <milestone n="4308" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:43:50"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Before I came over I went to the Greensboro paper to look up some
                            clippings. I was interested in a speech that was reported. (Maybe I
                            haven't got it here.) Well, one of them was you talking in 1966 about
                            warning that any future demonstrators who resorted to illegal acts to
                            achieve their goals would be arrested. You say, "We the police
                            will protect the rights of all who assemble and petition
                            peacefully."</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>True.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>That's a little bit different from Albany; I mean, the King thing . . .
                        </p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>A whole lot of difference. You know, in Albany you had different
                            circumstances. Up here you had more of a liberal council, and I could do
                            things that I wanted. Well, I could initiate programs, where down there
                            (just like hiring the blacks) I couldn't. But I met with the blacks when
                            I first came to High Point. They thought I was some kind of devil, you
                            know. I hadn't been here a year until the black business or professional
                            men's club had passed a resolution praising me and giving full support.
                            Now you can go in the black section, and some of my most<pb id="p22" n="22"/> loyal supporters are blacks, even through all this
                            rigamarole that I've gone through here (which was political). Well, in
                            Albany I had the political strength; people didn't resent that. Here, I
                            became strong here and some of the politicians resented this because
                            they couldn't tell me what to do—particularly one, Paul
                            Clapp. So he set out on this investigation. It all turned out that it
                            wasn't nothing. As I stated to you, after spending twenty-eight years in
                            law enforcement, recognized all over the United States for my ability
                            and honesty and integrity, they come up here and say that because I own
                            a lake house that I'm corrupt. All it was was political. And it's a hell
                            of a way to end up a career. You know, I was recognized all over the
                            United States. I was offered a police chief job in Seattle, Washington;
                            I turned it down to stay here. And then, after twenty-eight years
                            because of political differences to end up having to go through the
                            kangaroo court that I went through, and it ended up breaking my health
                            and all so that I had to retire, that's a hell of a price to pay.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, when I read this thing here in which this writer did put you
                            together with Bull Conner and Jim Clark, where do you see the
                            difference?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Who was it that wrote it?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>That's Howard Zinn. He wrote something for the Southern Regional
                        Council.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4308" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:47:24"/>
                    <milestone n="3834" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:47:25"/>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>You know, he wrote a thing that it was . . . All those others looked at
                            it and just shook their heads in amazement. Zinn, as far as I know, was
                            never in Albany, Georgia. It was all after it was over. And putting me
                            in the same category with a Bull Conner . . . After King left Albany,
                            Georgia he was at his lowest peak. He was defeated.<pb id="p23" n="23"/>
                            Moneywise, he had had to spend all that money in Albany for nothing. He
                            went back. He had to make a start. He went to Birmingham. All right.
                            Bull Conners, who was public safety director or something over there,
                            while all this was going on in Albany he had sent Moye, who was chief of
                            police in Birmingham, down. He stayed two or three weeks there observing
                            and staying with me. All right, when they started there, Conners sent
                            for me. He said, "I want you to come over here. We'll pay
                            you." It was an outrageous price they was paying me. The city
                            council said, "Go ahead and do it." So I went across.
                            I met with him. And Moye was a close personal friend of mine for years.
                            All right, I met with them. I told them things. The night they blew up
                            King's motel I was there. And that resulted into just a terrible
                            situation down there, you know. And I told them, I said, "You
                            ought to put a guard. Now the Klan has said they're going to use
                            violence on this man. They was meeting thirty miles over there in
                            Bessemer, saying what they were going to do. "I don't give a
                            damn if they blow him up; whatever happens, I'm not going to protect
                            him." So I said, "OK, Mr. Conners. Tomorrow I'll catch
                            the next plane out, because you're wasting my time." Well, they
                            blew him up that night, and they tore up every police car they had the
                            next day. And I left; I didn't have anything in common with Bull
                            Conners. Now I went to Montgomery to see Dr. King. And the rumor was
                            out, somebody had wrote (I think it was in the <hi rend="i">Atlanta
                                General Constitution</hi>) that King was going to return to Albany.
                            So I went to see Dr. King in Montgomery; went over to the FBI post, the
                            intelligence post where they'd send in all this stuff to Hoover, you
                            know. And I asked them where he was. They told me where he was, at some
                            old <gap reason="unknown"/> hotel. And I went up there,<pb id="p24" n="24"/> and I looked at the place. I told one of my men,
                            Superintendent Mannley, who was with me, I said, "Dr. King
                            wouldn't be caught in that place. Let's go over to the
                            college." So we went over and got over there, and I guess we
                            were about the only whites around. And I was trying to see somebody that
                            I knew, and about that time Andrew Young saw me. And he hollered, and
                            took me up to this house. And he said, "Dr. King is not here.
                            He's out in the country. I'll take you out to him." So I went
                            out and talked to Dr. King for about an hour and a half. He told me, he
                            said, "Don't you listen to nobody. I don't have anything to
                            come back to Albany for. I don't even like to hear of Albany. I'm not
                            coming back there. You go ahead and tend to your business. You won't
                            ever be bothered with me again." So I got in the car and went
                            back. And that night before I left they had a march. And that's when the
                            first deputies in Montgomery come out with those horses and whips and
                            stuff. And the Montgomery police were trying to do what was right, but
                            the sheriff come in with them mounted posse and went up on porches
                            bullwhipping people, and horses kicking people.</p>
                        <p>Now this Clark, I knew the chief of police in Selma; his name was
                            Mulligan. They had some other fellow over there, a great big fellow; I
                            forget his name. But Clark, there was nothing in common with me and
                            Clark. You know, Clark's in North Carolina now, down around or some
                            place selling real estate. But there was nothing in common with me and
                            him. As I stated to the national press, Bull Conners and Jamie
                            Moore—not Jamie Moore, Clark—did more to pass the
                            Public Accommodations bill than Martin Luther King or Roy Wilkins or any
                            others, because they are the ones that put national focus on violence
                            and mistreatment of blacks and got their sympathy. And that bill passed,
                            and they are responsible for it.<pb id="p25" n="25"/> It's a good bill.
                            I was glad to see it. But they're the ones that did it. There's no
                            comparison between me and Bull Conners or Jimmy Clark.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3834" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="00:52:15"/>
                    <milestone n="4309" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="00:52:16"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Did you ever talk to Jim Clark?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes, I talked to him on the phone a number of times. And we had nothing
                            in common. They invited me over there; the mayor of Selma and chief
                            Mullins wanted me to come over there. I said, "I have nothing .
                            . . I just don't want to be over there." I told you, I was
                            invited by Robert Kennedy to Washington. He wanted me; I didn't know
                            what he wanted. I'd been there two or three days before it finally come
                            around he wanted me to go to work with the Justice Department as a
                            trouble-shooter. He said, "The southerners respect you. You can
                            go into Jackson, Mississippi; you can go into these places and they'll
                            do what you say." And I said, "I'm telling you, I
                            cannot go to work with you. They respect me because I've enforced the
                            law equally. Now if I walk in there and say ‘I'm with the
                            Justice Department,’ they're going to term me as a turncoat
                            and they'll run me out of town <note type="comment"> [laughter]. </note>
                            So I can't do that." And I had no political ambitions. You
                            know, they encouraged me to run for Congress for the second district
                            there. And I'd have probably gotten it, you know. But I wasn't qualified
                            for it, and had no ambitions in politics. They always taught me,
                            "Better to know a politician than to be one." And I
                            have never had any intentions of using this as a political game. I don't
                            like political people; I just don't like political people.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Now when you say, "The law is the law, and the law has to be
                            enforced," that's true. But there has to be belief behind that.
                            I mean, you had to have a set of beliefs back in 1961 that not only what
                            you were doing as a law enforcement officer was right, but that the
                            nature of<pb id="p26" n="26"/> Albany and the way it was set up was
                            right. You had to believe in that.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Yes, I didn't believe in the system as the way that Albany should be
                            segregated. I never believed that Albany should be segregated. But I was
                            a firm believer, and I still am today, that laws on the book (there was
                            no federal laws governing back at that time), no federal law superceded
                            our local laws. Our state laws, nothing superceded them. It wasn't the
                            fact that I wanted the status quo to remain in Albany, Georgia. But it
                            was a fact that it was a law. At the time, if I had enforced that law
                            there would have been bloodshed on both sides, a lot of bloodshed. In
                            talking with Dr. King, Roy Wilkins and all of them, we didn't differ in
                            what they wanted. I wanted it too, but I differed in the means they
                            took, especially Dr. King. Not Roy Wilkins, because Wilkins went to the
                            courts. He never went to the streets. Dr. King said it cost too much
                            money and was too time-consuming. So I said, "All right, now
                            you are drawing lines, Doctor. Now you are telling me that you're going
                            to take to the streets in defiance of the law. Now if you do this I'm
                            going to have to arrest you, you, whites or anybody. But now I'm telling
                            you to go to the courts. You go into the court. All you've got to do is
                            give an injunction to stop us from enforcing our illegal law. If it's
                            illegal, then the court is going to decide. And it won't take long,
                            because once you take an injunction we have to fight it one way or the
                            other. If it's not a good law it'll be overruled; then you're on your
                            way." But he said, "I'm not going into the
                            court." And I said, "In other words you're going into
                            the streets." He said, "That's true." I said,
                            "Then we're going to meet in the streets." And that's
                            the way it was.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Do you think that your views in 1961 are essentially what they are<pb id="p27" n="27"/> now in 1976, or has there been any evolution at
                            all?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh yes. No. My views now, as I stated before: I've always had compassion
                            for people, underprivileged or deprived people. I've always had this
                            compassion for them, to want to help them. This is the reason I say, you
                            can go to Albany, you can talk to C. B. King—Slater's dead
                            now; he was killed in an automobile wreck—you can talk to
                            Charles Surard. They have nothing but respect for me, because I
                            understood them and they understood me. It was just the fact that they
                            wanted to do something that just couldn't be done at that time. I've
                            been criticized for my compassion; just in this stuff that's happened to
                            me here in High Point, it stemmed from my compassion for the blacks.
                            They said I was moving too fast and doing too much. Politically, of
                            course, they hung it to me.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="4309" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="00:57:55"/>
                    <milestone n="3835" unit="excerpt" type="start" timestamp="00:57:56"/>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>You talked about this for a minute, but let me broaden the question a
                            bit. There is an image in the United States of the southern sheriffs.
                            You can see it in the movies; you can see it on the Dodge ads and all of
                            that. How do you suppose that got fixed?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Well, it's plain to me, you know, that the sheriffs are elected
                            politically. They're not trained law enforcement. You've got people that
                            are elected sheriffs that never had a bit of training in their whole
                            life: insurance salesmen, farmers.</p>
                        <p>This is my wife Betty.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>How do you do. Jim Reston.</p>
                        <p>Mrs. Pritchett: Hello, how do you do.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>They're political appointments. And this is the reason I say that I don't
                            have any love for politicians. A sheriff gets out here.<pb id="p28" n="28"/> He runs on the platform to get the votes. And when he gets
                            elected there's a group over here that supported him; he's not going to
                            enforce the laws against them. And it is a corn pone situation, the way
                            I look at it. It's a disrespect for the law enforcement profession. I
                            think that anybody who is sheriff, he is the chief law enforcement of
                            his given county. And we've got so many, I'd say ninety-five percent of
                            the sheriffs in this . . . I don't know but one in this whole country
                            (that's Jim Pintras out in Los Angeles County), I can't name on my hand
                            five qualified sheriffs rather than Jim Pintras, just openly speaking,
                            in the United States. And this is the reason that I think that it ought
                            to be done away with. Any time you get elected you get elected by people
                            who expect something from you. And this is the reason I have no love for
                            politicians; and I never could be one because of that fact.</p>
                    </sp>
                    <milestone n="3835" unit="excerpt" type="stop" timestamp="01:00:02"/>
                    <milestone n="4310" unit="empty" type="start" timestamp="01:00:03"/>

                    <sp who="spk2">
                        <speaker n="2">JAMES RESTON, Jr.:</speaker>
                        <p>Did it bother you, I don't know, to see a Dodge ad about a Dodge car with
                            the . . . ?</p>
                    </sp>
                    <sp who="spk1">
                        <speaker n="1">LAURIE PRITCHETT:</speaker>
                        <p>Oh yes. Well, this is always depressing to me, to see this. It was not
                            professional, and I always looked upon law enforcement as the
                            best-trained . . . And then you look at something out here with some
                            sheriff walking around . . . </p>
                    </sp>
                    <p>
                        <note anchored="yes">
                            <p>END OF INTERVIEW</p>
                        </note>
                    </p>
                    <milestone n="4310" unit="empty" type="stop" timestamp="01:00:35"/>
                </div2>
            </div1>
        </body>
    </text>
</TEI.2>