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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview B-0027, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Laurie Pritchett describes his involvement with the civil rights movement in Albany, Georgia. 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 police chief in High Point, North Carolina. Much of the interview, however, explores Pritchett's use of King's strategy of nonviolence. 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 nonviolently. 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 in Selma and T. Eugene "Bull" Connor in 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.
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.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
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?
That didn't happen.
It didn't?
No. December 16, 1960 or '61 . . .
'61, right.
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
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."
It was somewhere around there. It might have been the trial that was on December 16; but somewhere along there . . .
"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.’"
No.
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."
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.
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?
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),New York Times and the Herald
Tribune and Newsweek and Time
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.
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 . . .
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
Now who worked out that plan?
I did.
Of course it was your idea to do it that way.
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
Well now, that had to be worked out with who, with the governor?
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.
At this time?
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.
Did you ever have to get to the seventy-five perimeter?
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.
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
Yes.
He was sentenced to five days for contempt of court.
That's true.
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.
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 Atlanta General Constitution with McGill, you
know. You know he never did write us up right. The New York
Herald Tribune, the New York Times, Newsweek
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.
Were you conscious at that time of press relations?
Oh yes.
Were you very careful about your language?
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.New York Herald Tribune, and one
other one (he's down in Raleigh now with the Raleigh
Observer) . . .
Claude Seaton?
Yes. He was with the New York Times 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.
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
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 . . . "
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 New York Herald Tribune calls it ‘one
of the most stunning defeats in the career of Martin Luther King.’"
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.
The pool rooms, you mean?
The pools, swimming pools. The city owns four city-owned pools. We closed them.
What was the purpose of that?
Well, they were jumping the fence, and it was a bad situation. It could
have developed into something really bad. And IAlbany Herald. He later left the
But in point of fact, there never would have been any concessions made anyway.
No, there would never have been any concessions made as long as the tension and the atmosphere were such, and under threat of intimidation.
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.
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 Forthad to do
Was there any Klan in Albany, any local Klan? What did they do?
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.
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.
This was a privately-owned bus system; it wasn't owned by the city of Albany.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
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.
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, . . .
. . . 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.
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
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
. . . 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 . . .
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 Atlanta
Constitution reporter did a piece on Pritchett in which he did
not conceal his admiration. A reporter from the New York
Herald Tribune 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.
That's Miller. That's the New York Herald Tribune,
right?
Yes.
Yes. Well, I just wish I was at home so I could give you all of this. You
could put the Atlanta Constitution in general over
here and see what their reporters reported. You could put the New York Herald Tribune, the New York
Times and all these others over here, and you wouldn't even
think it was the same situation. See what I'm doing?
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."
Right: whites, blacks, anybody.
"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
Right.
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.
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
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.
Oh, there was.
People that had gone through something as adversaries.
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.
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
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.
There's no comparison between us three people.
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."
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 hadall 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.
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."
True.
That's a little bit different from Albany; I mean, the King thing . . .
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
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?
Who was it that wrote it?
That's Howard Zinn. He wrote something for the Southern Regional Council.
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.Atlanta General Constitution) 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
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.
Did you ever talk to Jim Clark?
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
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
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.
Do you think that your views in 1961 are essentially what they are
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.
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?
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.
This is my wife Betty.
How do you do. Jim Reston.
Mrs. Pritchett: Hello, how do you do.
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.
Did it bother you, I don't know, to see a Dodge ad about a Dodge car with the . . . ?
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 . . .
END OF INTERVIEW