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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
C-0091, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Henry E. Frye grew up in Ellerbe, North Carolina, during the 1930s and 1940s. His parents owned fifty acres of land there, and he describes growing up farming tobacco and cotton for his own family and for other farmers in a system called "half farming." Frye also discusses attending segregated schools during those years. He recalls that despite segregation, black and white children in the farming community played and worked together outside of school. In the late 1940s, Frye left Ellerbe to attend North Carolina A & T in Greensboro. While there, he became actively involved in various activities, including Air Force ROTC and student government. Following his graduation, Frye served briefly in the military and was stationed in Japan. When he returned, he enrolled in law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time, he was the only African American student. Frye graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in 1959 and opened his own law practice in Greensboro, where he and his wife had settled. In this portion of the interview, Frye describes some of his most memorable cases, most of which involved representing the under-represented. During the 1960s, Frye continued to practice law and became increasingly involved in community activities and politics. In 1969, he became the first African American elected to the North Carolina General Assembly. Serving in the House from 1969 to 1980 and in the Senate from 1981 to 1982, Frye worked to address racial issues in the state legislature. Notably, he introduced legislation to abolish literacy tests for voter registration. During the 1970s, Frye was a founding member of the Greensboro National Bank, which was established to offer African Americans a more discernible role in business. He served as the bank's president for its first ten years in existence. In 1983, Frye was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The next year, he was elected by North Carolina constituents to continue his service on the Court. He spends the final parts of this interview discussing his experiences as a Supreme Court Justice and his thoughts about the role of the legislature and the judiciary in state politics.
Henry Frye grew up in a segregated farming community in North Carolina during the 1930s and 1940s before becoming a lawyer. He went on to become the first African American elected to the North Carolina General Assembly and to serve on the state Supreme Court. In this interview, he describes race relations, his career as a lawyer, and his experiences in politics.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Amy Boening in the offices of Justice Henry Frye. I am conducting our first interview. It is 5:10 p.m. February 18, 1992.
Justice Frye, could you tell us about your background, growing up in Ellerbee, on the farm, being the 8th of 12 children.
Yes, I suppose I can. The question is where do I start? As you indicated,
I was the 8th of 12 children. Six boys and six girls, born to Walter A.
(for Atlas) and Pearl Motley Frye. Both of them moved to the Ellerbe
area prior to the time of my birth and I was born in a small, white
wood-painted house. I recall that because they told me about it and I
saw it sometime later. Ellerbe is a very small town and I was born I
suppose within the town limits, but as long as I can remember, we had
lived about a mile or so from town. It was a small farm, little less
than 50 acres and we farmed tobacco, cotton, and various other crops
— corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, and beans, you name it. But
the money crops were tobacco and cotton. In addition to that we farmed
other people's properties. There were several of us, so my
father kept us busy by farming a lot of other property in addition to
that we owned. They had in our area, as I'm sure in a lot of
other areas, what they call farming on halves. The person who owned the
land would furnish the land and would furnish the fertilizer and things
of that nature and the other person would farm the property, supply the
labor and so forth and then when the crops were sold, you would divide
the funds one-half to each side. So they called that farming on halves.
So we did a lot of that in addition to the farm which we owned. Also, my
father had a truck and so he hauled a lot of wood for people and at
times hauled what we call
I went to school there for the full length of my school term which was grades 1-12. I think I'm correct on this that at the time I started school you graduated with grade 11, but they changed it to 12 grades. While I was in the 7th grade, I stayed about 12 weeks if my remembrance is right and another student and myself were promoted to the 8th grade, so we really made the 7th and 8th grades in one year, so I still ended up with only 11 years of the secondary education. The schools at that time were separate — black and white. Ours was called Ellerbe Colored High School, even though it had grades 1-12; and the other school was just Ellerbe High School. However, I checked later to look at my diploma and my diploma has Ellerbe High School, so apparently they did not bother to make separate diplomas for the two schools. I thought that was quite interesting that all of the correspondence and everything in reference to the school was Ellerbe Colored High School and sometime they would put Ellerbe Negro High School and that type of thing. But the actual diploma just has Ellerbe High School on it.
At the time, what did you think of schools being segregated?
Well, at that time we sort of understood that that was the way it was. I
recall one thing in particular that with our basketball, we did not have
a gymnasium and the other school did. I always wondered about that. Why
we had to play outdoors on a dirt court while they could go inside.
Interestly enough in the small towns and rural areas and that type of
thing, whites and blacks lived almost next to each other. In other
words, our farm was on one side of the road and then on both
sides—north and south of our home—were white
families. We farmed together and worked together in tobacco barns at
night. I guess you are probably not familiar with that. In those days,
the tobacco once you harvested it, it had to be placed on sticks and
placed in a barn. Then for several days and nights you would have a fire
How early did your mornings start back then?
My father described it as from "cain't to
cain't", and what he said was that you
can't see when you start in the morning and you
can't see when you stop at night. So the idea was to get up
and be ready to go as soon as it was enough light so you could see how
to do whatever had to be done. I recall on occasions going to the
sawmill to get lumber to take to the plant and I recall getting there
too early and having to wait until we got some light so that we could
see how to load the truck. Of course, we would load the truck and take
that and deliver it. I did that at times even during the school year. We
would take a load of wood before I would go to school in the morning. My
older brother, who at that time was beyond high school age, was driving,
so I would go with him and we would load the truck and everything, and I
would come back home and eat breakfast and go on to school. He, of
course, would haul lumber the rest of the day. We understood what work
was all about. Interestingly enough, in the small towns, most farmers
did not like to work on a Saturday afternoon. About 12:00 or 1:00 on
Saturday, most farmers quit work and they would go to town to buy
whatever you were going to buy or whatever you were going to do. If
there was
What was your father's view of education? Did he push you in that regard too?
Not really. My father probably, as I recall, had something like a 5th
grade or so education. I think he saw the importance of it and so he
always encouraged us to go to school. If things got pretty tight around
home, he did not mind keeping us out a day or so to help get some work
done. In those days, only a small percentage of people went to college
from that area. He did not encourage us to go, but then on the other
hand he tried to help if we really wanted to go. He was the kind that
sort of let you [do] whatever you wanted to do. In other words, he
didn't push you or anything of that nature except when it
came to work. He told me that I was awful slow and that I had better go
to school, otherwise I couldn't make a living on the farm.
What about your brothers and sisters? Did any of them continue on in education?
One of my sisters finished, got her Masters degree. I believe, we are the only ones who actually got a college education. A couple of my sisters had some college and a couple of my brothers had some technical training of that nature. Three of my brothers went into service — two involuntarily and the other voluntarily. That's about the education level.
Did you have a role model when you were in school who encouraged you to pursue higher education?
I had so many it's hard to name them all. I suppose I would
start with my Scout master, Mr. McIntyre. He was, incidentally, my 8th
grade teacher. He was very strict, but he
Very different from the principal who was, I thought, in earlier years
mean — but I found out later that he wasn't so
mean after all. It was just his idea that he was a strict disciplinarian
and the kind of person who just would not take no for an answer. I
recall that our—this is really unusual, you
couldn't do this today—incidentally, we were a
small school. There were 300 to 400 people in the entire school, so you
are talking about a small number of people in the classes. With our
choir, for some reason or other, none of the seniors were in the choir,
and he found out about this one day and he had a meeting with us. He
said, "Starting tomorrow, I want every senior in the
choir." We fussed and complained, but all of us joined the
choir. That was his way of doing things. If he decided that something
was to be done, you would do it. Some of us didn't sing very
well, but that's the way things went. But continuing with Mr.
Easterling, that's his name. He is well known throughout that
area incidentally. Mr. Easterling was the coach of the girls'
basketball team, and they had a great team. They were really good. He
worked them hard, but he trained them. They were really, really great.
We also started a band, and I wanted to play the saxophone. The band
instructor gave me instead a clarinet or trombone or something. Anyway,
whatever it was, I didn't like that. So after a few times, I
decided to quit, not play in the band. Mr. Easterling called me to the
office. Everybody was afraid to go the office. At any rate, I
Have you stayed in contact with any of your former mentors?
Yes, but most of them are dead now. Mr. Easterling is dead, Mrs.
Easterling. Mr. McIntyre is still living and doing well as far as I
know. Several of the others, Mr. Forte is still living. I always go to
see him. He is still in Ellerbe and doing well as far as I know. But
getting back to people I looked up to, in addition to people around in
Ellerbe, I read about Walter White who was active with the NAACP. At
that time, Thurgood Marshall was — I did not really know him
at that time, I learned of him later and I was impressed with him at a
later time. What's the guy that, the famous lawyer with the
Scopes Trial. I remember reading that. The name escapes me. But at any
rate — Clarence Darrow, yes, yes, yes. I was very impressed
with him, but at that time really I had no idea or intention of being a
lawyer. The thought of being one barely crossed my mind in spite of the
fact that I enjoyed reading about lawyers and things of that nature. I
went through, I guess, a lot of different ideas as to what I wanted to
do. At one time I was going to be a pharmacist. I thought it would be a
great thing, you know, to hand out prescriptions and things of that
nature. Then after I went to A&T and took chemistry and took
some courses in biochemistry and I really enjoyed that. I think a lot of
it had to do with the teacher who was Dr. Isaac Miller, a very young
person who later became president of Bennett College,
Let me just tell you a little bit about those since we are talking.
Growing up in Ellerbe and with a lot of the things that I saw, I had a
very negative idea with regard to lawyers. I just got the wrong
impression I suppose that most of them were very terrible people whose
job it was, as a lot of folks said around there, was to lie people out
of trouble. So I did not have a very high opinion, generally, of
lawyers. But at any rate, the thing that really started me on the road
to changing my idea about lawyers was an experience I had while I was in
service. This lawyer spent his free time teaching prisoners. These were
military people who were in the stockade who couldn't read
and write. He spent his free time teaching them to read, teaching them
to write. This just sort of shocked me. Here this guy is, this was in
Japan and of course on the weekend, all the rest of us were going out
having fun, and this guy was spending his free time doing this. That
sort of changed my idea a little bit. After that, of course, I met other
lawyers and talked with others and I began to read more about them and
that was when I read about a lot of the things lawyers were doing and
the good things they were doing. I talked with, among others, Kenneth
Lee in Greensboro who had come from Hamlet which was a little town about
15 miles from Ellerbe, who had done a lot of things in the civil rights
area. He had done a lot of things to help people and had done some
economic things in terms of improving the lives
What made you decide to go to UNC for law school?
Several things. First all, by this time I was very conscious of the fact that we still had largely separate black and white institutions. In talking with other lawyers and people I found out first of all that a substantial number of the judges, legislators, and people who ran the state were graduates of Carolina Law School. So I said, "Well, maybe that's where I need to go." That, together with the fact that I could go there cheaper than I could to one of the private schools, of course. At that time, no black had started at Carolina and completed the three year course and graduated. All of the others had either started and not finished or had transferred from North Carolina Central which prior to that time had been the school for blacks— the law school for blacks in North Carolina. So I said, "Well, I'll try." I applied and was accepted and went on to law school.
What was it like? You were the only black in your law school class, weren't you?
Yes, yes. That was not a major problem for me. It would have been
probably if I had been single. But I was married and by this time my
interest really was solely in law and my
Did you live in Chapel Hill at that time or were you commuting from Greensboro?
I commuted completely the first year. There were two other persons from Greensboro, and the three of us generally rode back and forth every day. The second year I—I'm not sure, either the second or third year, I got a room in the dormitory down there and I would stay down a couple of nights a week or something of that nature. Near the end of my third year, my wife was pregnant; so we found an apartment in Chapel Hill and she moved down with me. For the last semester, I guess, I lived in Chapel Hill and she was there with me.
From what I have read, you were involved in the NAACP pretty early.
Well, yes, a little bit when I was in high school. We had a little NAACP
chapter and I sold memberships in the NAACP and things of that nature.
Incidentally, this is an interesting thing I observed at that time.
Contrary to the situation today, in the eyes of a lot of people the
NAACP was looked at a very radical organization. Black teachers who were
members, and only a few of them were members, kept that a secret. They
would not dare let the school board, for example, or people generally in
the community know that they were members of the NAACP because they were
afraid they would be fired for that reason. I recall incidentally my
English teacher again, Mrs. Easterling, who was elected an officer in
the NCTA which was the North Carolina Teachers' Association
and that was the black teachers. In other words, they had two separate
organizations then for teachers. You had the
North—I've forgotten the name of the white group,
but the white group had a teachers' association and the black
So you weren't active during law school?
No.
Let me back up if I might. I think this is of some significance. One of the questions that I was asked about when I was being considered for my character and so forth for the practice of law, that is really to get my license, one of the questions they asked about was my involvement with the NAACP, which I thought was a little unfair, frankly. I didn't think that had anything to do with it. But that was one of the questions along with some others that I thought were quite inappropriate. Our bar association thing, I understand now, is a lot better and you don't have the kind of problems that we had in those days.
What other questions did you find problematic?
I don't want to try to repeat them because I don't
remember the exact questions. But I was interviewed at the Bar office
and the person who interviewed me is dead now, so I don't
want to get into all of that. A lot of lawyers who took the bar at that
time would understand because there weren't just blacks, even
though blacks I think had a harder time. There were some of the other
students who had a very difficult time with some of the
Prior to going to law school, you mentioned you were in the Air Force in Japan and Korea. Was there anything from that experience, other than what you mentioned about the lawyer you observed, that particularly stands out in your mind?
Well, I could go back. First of all at A&T, as I recall, all of
the able-bodied men had to be in the Army ROTC. They had to take the
basic Army ROTC. And then while I was there, they organized the first
Air Force ROTC chapter. I did not apply for the officers'
candidate portion. So later on all of my best friends were in the Air
Force ROTC, so I wanted to get in too. In order to do so, you had to
double up in terms of the courses in order to be able to graduate. To
make a long story short, I did that and I recall one thing in particular
— that the idea of taking the advanced ROTC was to get a
commission as an officer upon your graduation. In those days, 21 was
sort of the magic — in other words, you were not an adult in
North Carolina until you were 21 years of age. Well, I graduated at age
20 and the big question was whether I was going to be able to get my
commission or whether they were going to hold it back until I was 21. So
I got my commission at age 20 and I don't know —
to this day I have never asked any questions because I didn't
want to stir up anything about it, but it came through all right. I
think one of the things I know happened, during the summer while I was
at A&T and in ROTC, we went to camp. At the camps the black and
white were together, from the black schools, from the white schools,
everybody went to camp together. One of the questions I had in mind
because at that time I had gone to school only with blacks, both in high
school and at A&T because
We were talking about the Air Force.
Oh yeah, yeah. The same thing carried through when I went into service. I
got my commission and later on went into service. As a practical matter
again, let me tell you something else that might serve of interest to
students who graduate and have difficulty finding work. When I graduated
from A&T with highest honor and all kinds of various honors and
things of that nature, including the commission in the Air Force, I was
not called for active duty. So I had a period of time when I had nothing
to do, so I tried to get some work around Greensboro. I
couldn't find anything. There was nothing around Ellerbe of
any significance, so I went to New York looking for a job. And, it was
just like a broken record, when I would finish the interview,
"We don't have anything right now, but if we do we
will call you." And I must have heard that a hundred times
because I just applied for job after job after job. And the other thing
that I heard over and over again, "Well, we want someone with
two years' experience." And the question in my mind
always was, "How is anybody ever going to get any experience if
everybody requires two years of experience." So I ended up
taking a common laborer job at Armour and Company, which was called, the
company was called, the one in New York at this point where I was
working, was called New York Butchers. And that's where I
worked until I went into the service. Made good money and built up my
muscles very well. And learned a lot about people on the job. One of the
things that I found different on our working, growing up, for some
reason or other, maybe my experience was unusual, but we
What type of manual labor were you doing?
It involved several different things, but basically this was a plant where they killed the cows, pigs, and sheep as I recall. It was a slaughterhouse. And so I ended up handling those animals after they were killed, and putting them on racks and moving them from one place to the other and even doing some cutting and things of that nature. Got pretty good at it before I left.
What did you think of it, was this your first real living experience up north?
Yes, I had been to New York two or three times before, but this was the first job I had had away. And, well, it was an interesting experience.
I notice you didn't stay up north.
Well, I always said, at that time, if I could get a job making ?100,000 a
year, I might consider living in New York. I would change that now, it
would have to be ?300,000. But I did learn some things. I got to the
place I could ride the subway. I could get on the subway, the A train.
And late at night go to sleep, wake up just as I arrived at 125th Street
station. So I thought I had really learned. I also learned how to stand
up on the subway and read the newspaper while I was riding along. And
one other thing, incidentally, I did go back to New York, to Brooklyn
actually, after I came out of service, while I was waiting to go to law
school. And I lived in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn and I had
a 1951 Chevrolet
Times have changed.
So my opinion changed just a little bit. I was in a much better neighborhood at that time and it was not bad at all. We did not have the crime at that point that they have now.
Going back to your college experience at A & T. What kind of activities were you involved in?
Everything. The Lord and Green
Pastures, I don't know if you've heard of
that. But any rate, he taught at A & T for a while, so the
Richard B. Harrison players was named after him. I had the leading role.
I played Leo in The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman I
believe. I played in the Welsh boy in The Corn is
Green by Maynard, I believe he wrote that. And then I also
participated in some shorter plays over at Bennett College which was
across the street. And in one I recall in particular, I don't
even recall the name of it, I was supposed to smoke a cigar in this
play. And so for about three weeks before that, I practiced smoking a
cigar because the first one I smoked didn't go very well with
me. But any rate, I learned to smoke cigars during that particular time
and I thought did very well in the play. But addition to that, one of
the things that I enjoyed most was the Student Legislative Assembly. And
I came to Raleigh for the Student Legislative Assembly. At that time we
actually met in the House and Senate Chambers. And during the second
time that I came, I was elected Speaker Pro Tem of the House. And I was
presiding one day and there was a real rivalry between State and
Carolina, even then, among the students, in the student legislative
assembly. And, they got into, the two got into just a big argument about
something, and students then from everywhere started jumping up and
trying to get attention and one would say this one's out of
order and everything. I at first
Was it through the student assembly that you met your wife?
No, that's an interesting story. We had an organization known
as Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society which was primarily in black colleges
and universities. And I was the dean of pledges. We sent letters to
freshmen who had averages, academic averages above some certain level.
And so one of the persons that I sent one to was E. Shirley Taylor. And
I think that's the way I first met her. But in terms of
actually becoming boyfriend/girlfriend, that occurred later. I did not
have a steady girlfriend at that time. But there was a young lady that I
liked. And so I had invited her to come to something, some party that we
were having, a dance or something. And she kept putting me off. And
after about the third time, she said she hadn't decided
whether she was going home that weekend or something. And I said the
next decent lady I see walking past I'm going to ask her to
go to this dance with me. And the next one I saw was Shirley. And so I
asked her if she would go to the dance with me. She put me off. Any
rate, we were in the same class, incidentally, so she had figured she
would see me at the class, at the next class meeting, and she had
planned all of the time to go, but she wasn't going to give
me an immediate answer. Any rate, it turned out that I didn't
go to the class the next day. And so I think she got real upset because
she really wanted to go. But to make a long story short she finally, she
finally got word to me that she would go. And it's very
interesting, at that dance, just prior to that, I had gone to some
dances with some other ladies, who, for some reason or other, would not
leave
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
She wrote a letter every day. And she had some beautiful pink stationery and blue stationery. And I think it had a little scent to it. But I looked forward to, I could tell when the mail came, I could spot her letters among the mail anytime. I kind of liked that.
I hear you were quite a poet. Did you ever write her love letters and poems?
Not very much. I may have written one or two poems, or something of that
nature. Some of my letters may have been just a tiny bit romantic, but
not too much.
After you got out of law school, you started practicing in Greensboro, is that right?
Yes.
I have a picture of you when you started your law practice. It's from an article announcing the opening of your law office.
Oh, yes. Now where did you find that? This is a picture of me opening my law office in Greensboro for the general practice of law. Sworn in before Judge L. Richardson Preyer. At that time he was a Superior Court Judge. Later he became a federal judge and when I was appointed assistant United States Attorney, he was the person who administered the oath of office to me. And I felt real great about that, you know he was the same person who administered the oath to me as a lawyer to practice law, and then the same one who administered the oath for that purpose.
During your law practice, do any cases stand out in your memory?
Well, one of the more trying ones, was the time that I represented a
group of workers at UNC-G. What had happened was that the cafeteria
workers went on strike at the university and they wanted higher pay and
better working conditions and things of that nature. But they were not
employed by the university. It was a private concern that handled it.
And the student government at UNC-G got interested in it and wanted to
help the cafeteria workers. And they tried to get, I don't
know how many lawyers they tried to get, and they couldn't
get a lawyer to handle it, of course they didn't have very
much money for one thing. And it was a very sensitive type of thing,
too, because you would be representing people who were trying to form a
union and that type of thing. But, any rate, to make a long story short,
I recall that the president of the student government of UNC-G, and
somebody else came to my office and practically begged me to take the
case. They said, "All we have is ?500." They said,
"But we'll pay that and we wish you would do it, and
they said something like, "You're our last
hope." I am sort of sensitive to things like that, at least I
used to be, I'm trying to get away from it. So any rate, I
said I'd see what I can do. But the most interesting thing
about it was, they had a negotiating committee that would meet with the
lawyer and someone from the company that handled the food service. And
so every time the lawyer for the company would make a suggestion he
could look at the faces of the members of the negotiating committee and
tell whether they agreed or disagreed with it. And so I found that my
being there wasn't much help one way or the other because it
was just a poor negotiating situation and so I finally told them, it
doesn't make sense, let's find something else, and
I won't go into all the details, but we settled it because
the persons from the university got involved. When we first started, the
people at the university said they had nothing to do with it. It was a
private matter between the cafeteria workers and the company, but we
finally convinced them that the university was involved. And once the
university got involved we worked it out.
Without going into a lot of details, another thing that I got a lot of satisfaction out of, down at Salisbury, North Carolina, a redevelopment project was being conducted down there. That involved condemning a lot of homes and then removing them and making, eventually, an improved area from the standpoint of buildings and things of that nature. And this particular woman owned her own home and she decided she wasn't going to move. And they sent the people out there from the Highway Department or something and she got a shotgun and ordered them off the property. Any rate, to make a long story short again, her minister called me and asked me if I would represent her. She was not satisfied with the representation she was getting down there. And I went down and decided to represent her and we eventually got something worked out on it. As a result of that, I ended up representing a lot of people whose land, whose houses, were being taken, frankly without getting fair compensation for their property, that's really what it amounted to. And we were able to get a better deal for all of them, so I was well satisfied with that.
I could go on and on. Let me give you one more, then I'll
quit. There was a federal program which allowed non-profit organizations
to form a corporation and build housing for low and moderate income
people. And so I worked, first of all, with one of the churches there in
Greensboro who was trying to get some land for that purpose. And the
people who were handling it for the government who owned the land at
that particular point really gave them bad advice. After I checked out
the law, we found a way to get the property and then eventually form the
corporation and get the money and then build that housing and then later
on working with the Low Income Housing Development Corporation out of
Durham. I worked with a lot of other organizations. Mostly churches,
incidentally, who would form these corporations and
From that story and from some other things you have mentioned, do you see as part of a lawyer's role going beyond just the legal aspects of his client's case?
Well, yes. I think, and this is a little oldfashioned, I suppose, but I
think of a lawyer as being a person who is performing a service and that
your primary interest ought to be in performing a service for someone,
realizing that you need to paid for your work, but that
you're working not just for the pay, you're
working because you want to perform a service.
Incidentally, that was another enjoyable part of my practice — advising people concerning their estates and regarding planning for the future and doing wills and estate planning and things of that nature. I had several people who sort of came to me on a regular basis I think not so much for legal advice, but for practical advice. Elderly people whose children or grandchildren were not doing as they thought they should, and they were trying to decide whether to name them in their will, or whether to give the money to charity or something, and what they could do to work with them and to help them and that type of thing. I probably spent more time than I should dealing with things of that nature. I almost got out of doing regular domestic legal work because I found out that I was not very good at that because people would come to me for advice and then I would give them the advice and they would go and do exactly the opposite of what I told them to do. And then blame me because it didn't work. I found that a bit…disillusioning, I guess would be a good word. So I tried to get away from a lot of the domestic law and let somebody else handle that.
Well, that's kind of common in family law matters sometimes. What made you decide to go into politics?
Well, we in Greensboro we had run a black candidate on a couple of
occasions for the House and been unable to get a
Who were some of your supporters back then who encouraged you to run?
I could name a hundred. I remember one fellow, a dentist there, Dr. B.W.
Barnes, who said well, if you run I'll raise the money for
you. And he did. Then I had other people who said they would be glad to
do work for me and things of that nature and they did. And I remember
after I lost, there were several people who came to me and said,
"We want you to run again and we're going to help
you win the next time." Very interesting thing. Dave Morehead,
who was the executive director of the YMCA and friend of a lot of people
in Greensboro, including a lot of the so-called power structure of
Greensboro, talked with, and I think this is all right to tell, with a
fellow named Ed Zane, who was the treasurer as I recall, of Burlington
Industries. Very fine gentleman and very active in the community and
everything. And he said, "Get a complete resume and get it to
me. And I'm going to make copies of it and distribute them
among a group of my friends." And I got a detailed list, that
was my first
Did your campaign encourage bloc voting among the black population? Or did the black voters take it upon themselves?
Well, a lot of the people who were active in my campaign did it. I
didn't go out and say that. But I didn't go out
and preach against it either, because at that time that was the only way
to get elected. What had to happen was that I had to get enough votes in
the black precincts to offset the fact that I lost in so many of the
others. And so you put those
Did you see that as a major goal — to elect black people in North Carolina?
Yes. Very definitely. You see because up until a few years before then, you had very few blacks in any elected office. Town councils and everything else. You would have occasionally one and in many cases, none at all, and so you had to take drastic methods to try to get that done.
So as the first black elected to the state legislature, what was your main priority?
Well, my first thing was to get through that amendment to abolish the
literacy test as a requirement for voting and I got that through. I
found myself, though, spending a great deal of time going through bills
for what I considered bad things in bills that came up in the legislator
and a lot of those were local bills. I also found myself talking with
blacks from all over the state of North Carolina. They would come from
all over the state to Raleigh to see me to try to get me to either put
in a bill for them, or try to get me to stop a bill, and so I spent a
great deal of my time trying to convince them that what they should do
is deal with their own legislators. But there was no dialogue between a
lot of blacks then and their representatives in the legislature.
Sometimes I would take it to the delegation. Somebody would come up and
I would take them and go to that legislator and take them with me and
say that this was so and so
Playing liaison once again.
Yes, yes. But I found that to be very effective and it wasn't long before a lot of them began to have that dialogue with their representatives, which is what they should have had all of the time.
Do you remember any confrontations occurring early in your years with the legislature regarding any racial issues that came to the floor?
Well, when I was presenting my bill to abolish the literacy test, in
talking about it and giving the history and so forth, one of the
legislators asked for the floor and he said that this amendment had
nothing to do with race — nothing whatsoever to do with race.
When he finished, I explained on the floor of the House very clearly
that it did have a whole lot to do with race, that that really was the
primary reason for it being there in the first place and gave my own
personal example to prove it. That, incidentially, helped to get the
bill passed. Another thing that happened that was —
I'm not sure it was racial — but it was when I was
elected to the Senate. Offices are assigned based on seniority and at
that time the rules of the Senate required that seniority be based on
service in the General Assembly, which meant that a person who had 10
years in the House and 2 years in the Senate had 12 years'
seniority and offices were assigned on that basis. So based on my
seniority, I was something like — let's just say,
7th in seniority in the General Assembly, so I should have gotten 7th
pick on the offices. But the person in charged just ignored me and
didn't make an assignment, which meant that that left me with
just a regular office like people with no seniority. When I complained
about it, two or three members came to me and said all you are going to
do is stir up problems and all like that and so forth. And I said that I
understand that, but I just want to be sure that we
Were there other instances where you confronted the "don't rock the boat" mentality when bringing racial issues to the forefront?
Yes, this had to do with the Appropriations Committee. At that time the
money that was appropriated by the legislature to the various child
caring institutions depended not on any formula or anything of that
nature but just whatever, I guess whoever had the most influence would
get that amount for that particular institution. It included
institutions which discriminated on the basis of race. I asked a lot of
questions. That was one of the things that I did in the legislature. I
asked more questions I guess than anybody else because a lot of things I
really didn't know. I was always asking questions and
probing. I found out a lot of things by doing that. At any rate, I was
made chairman of a subcommittee to look into the way those funds were
handled. My subcommittee visited several of the institutions and then we
came back and developed a formula really based on need. Based on that
some of them at least that had not been getting very much money began to
get a little bit more. We had to be very careful with that because one
of the most needy
During the sit-ins, what were you up to?
I was practicing law at the time the sit-ins started. Then shortly after
that, I went into the U.S. Attorney's office. Let me back up
— during the sit-ins, I was not involved in it, though some
of my friends declared I started it; but really — it really
caught me as a surprise. One of the persons who was in law school with
me said that I had said that's what ought to be done back
then, you know. As I said, I had nothing really to do with it. I was
supportive, but I was not directly involved. Then later in the U.S.
Attorney's office when we had another group of sit-ins, it
got very tense because, here again, I was the only black in the office.
We made it through all right. I ended up marching one night. What
happened was that there was an article in the paper, in The
Greensboro Daily News in effect saying that the so-called
responsible black citizens of the community were not behind this thing.
These were nothing but the students and the radicals and that type of
thing. So a group of responsible citizens, including me, got on the
phone and we called and got a bunch of people. We got school teachers,
principals, professors from A&T, doctors in the community, and
I understand. You also taught at N.C. Central. What classes did you teach there?
What didn't I teach!
Did you feel any pressure to be a role model for your students?
That didn't bother me. What I tried to do was, in addition to
trying to get them to not use "canned briefs" and to
actually brief the cases and to actually talk about them and be able to
deal with them and be able to write and things of that
Did your students consider you to be a stickler?
Well, they said I was. I thought I was fairly lenient. I tried to get people to say exactly what they mean. A lot of times, all of us don't say exactly what we mean. In that sense, I am a stickler.
In 1971, you organized the Greensboro National Bank. Could you tell us a little bit about this business venture?
Oh, yes. Well, let me give you my experience again. Again, growing up in
Ellerbe and then going to Greensboro and
So I said, we have got to do something about that. So my first thought
was a savings and loan association because I thought that would be
cheaper. When I say cheaper, I mean, easier to organize. But Kenneth Lee
beat me to that and he organized American Federal Savings and Loan
Association. Then I said the next thing is a bank, so let's
try a bank. To give you some idea how much nerve I guess I had
— first of all, I didn't have any money and
everybody told me that if you're going to organize a bank
you've got to have some money. I said, "Well,
we'll get some money." So I started talking to
people and trying to get some interest in it. The
controller's office is in Washington, DC, but the one for the
region for North Carolina is in Richmond, Virginia. So any rate, once I
got a group of people, a small group who were interested enough to agree
to put up a little money, I went to Richmond. I caught the bus, went up
there, transacted my business; I had to spend one night up there and
then caught the bus and came on back. At any rate, they told us we
needed ?300,000 capital minimum in order to start. The next time I went
back, it was ?500,000. The third time, it was
Things that had occurred at your bank?
No, at his bank. I don't know exactly what they was, but it wasn't too long after that that they made him president of that bank. Okay. So we had to start all over again. We had to tear up those offering circulars, had to find somebody else.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Where were we?
You were just saying that at that point you were determined to get a black person to run the bank.
Yes, any rate, so when I found somebody who was really qualified to do
it, he said, "Well, do you have the money to open the
bank?" And of course I said no. We can't get the
money until we know who is going to run the bank, because people are not
going to subscribe to stock if they don't know who is going
to be handling it. Again, to make another long story short, I talked
with Tom Stores, who at that time was heading NCNB, which is now
NationsBank. He told me that there was a retired person from his bank
who would, he thought, would be happy to work with
So it was ?700,000 that we had to have in order to open the bank, that is
in the amount of stock actually paid in. So the organizers came up with
a little over ?100,000 and then we got the rest of it from other people
who subscribed. Among the people — in addition to
individuals, three or four of the corporations in Greensboro actually
bought some stock, really to help us out. I thought that it was a good
thing that they were willing to do that because it was not, it really
was not much of an investment from the standpoint of really making
money. I think when they found out the number of people who had bought
?100 worth, ?1,000 worth, ?500 worth and that type of thing, that it did
have some broad support in the black community primarily, that others
went along with it and bought some stock. So we opened it and I served
as president for 10 years. Each year the income of the bank went up just
a little bit, not much — very
Do you feel it is very important to have black figures in control of corporations, in control of businesses?
I think it is very important. Incidentally, we got jobs for a lot of black folk at other banks. I would talk to a black person who was at another bank and it wasn't long before that person got an increase, got a new salary — if not a salary increase, got a new position, and others began to hire more blacks. I'm not saying that was the only reason, but that helped a lot of others from that standpoint. But it's really only a trickle, I guess that's the sad part about it, that it has an impact, but it is not a big impact. Sometimes I wonder if I should have really just gave up the practice of law and run the bank just to see how well we could have done in terms of expansion and including so many things and so many people and everything like that. But you can't do everything, so you have to settle for what you have.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
Justice Frye, I'd like to talk a little bit about your role as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and that will probably be most of the focus of today's interview.
All right.
Can you tell me a little bit about your appointment in 1983? Were you surprised at all?
I was surprised when I received the call and also the fact that the Governor called me one night and discussed the possible appointment with me and told me that he knew that I would have to talk it over with my wife and give it some thought and so forth, but to please call him back before breakfast the next morning, because he didn't want the press to get word of it before he actually made the announcement. That didn't give me a lot of time to think about it. Luckily it was the type of thing that I ha