[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

NELLE MORTON:

And anyway, from then on, I was very closely related to the Fellowship of T. L. . . . I went in as executive in '44.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You didn't work with it officially? I mean, weren't you an official secretary of it, or something? Prior to 44?

NELLE MORTON:

I was official secretary beginning in '44 through . . . 44 to 50, actually. And I left the Fellowship, primarily . . . I had been 13 years, no I hadn't been 13 years either, that's seven years, I guess, with the Presbyterians, traveling over the Southern states. The Fellowship was an area . . . it wasn't just local. And certainly I had to have these two operations, and one was malignant. It was a frightening kind of thing, because I realized. . . .if I had to stop work, you know, I had no community to reach down, so I just felt I had to do something, or get into something that was . . . or that I could, you know, live with, constantly.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure.

NELLE MORTON:

I mean, Chapel Hill is still a pretty transient . . . people coming . . . and my father had a farm, my mother was not living . . . so I went back there, and I began to be involved in community action, organizing community clubs, and the Bookmobile that went back from the library to some of the mountains and rural communities, and we got electricity and water out to the country . . . I lived ten miles out in the country and I was on the committee . . . the Democratic committee of the country and I got so involved there that when Drew asked me, I didn't even want to leave.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

But you did, anyway.

NELLE MORTON:

But I did, and I'm glad I did.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What was the significance of the Fellowship. What was it really trying to do?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I think, as I saw it . . . (and there's no theory in application here) it's [unclear] that I've ever known. That it . . . that was dynamic, in its theory and action, I mean, there was no separation there. But primarily, I think, it was trying to take the . . . its faith seriously, and it was one of the three groups that I mentioned earlier that finally was very much concerned to work through the churches, and pushed the churches to a more radical stand. And of course that was the time, that was before, that was when we had segregation . . . ah, by law.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes,

NELLE MORTON:

And the church, it seemed to most of us, was dragging its feet pretty much.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

At that time, in many of the churches, you were a radical liberal if you were for segregation instead of slavery.

NELLE MORTON:

I think there were . . . I think there were individual churches that were, and when I came into the Fellowship, a whole community seemed to be, you know, a part of it. We saw the major membership in terms of a community of people like Gene Smathers in Big Lick, Tennessee and Sam Franklin and Gene . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Gene Cox?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh yes, Gene was very active. That whole Delta ministry there. Well I think a great deal also centered in . . . ah . . . Bob Metcalf and a group around Pleasant Hill . . . he was, he was, and Marshall Young, who is now a doctor in Chatanooga, and he is the husband of Phemie Young, Euphemia [Gordon] Young, who was the first one to introduce me to the Fellowship. And they set up a cooperative medical service for the entire county in that area of Crossville, Tennessee.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Was Clarence Jordan . . . ?

NELLE MORTON:

Clarence was another one, I mean we just thought of all of Ameri . . . I mean all of Koinonia Farms as a part of . . . and that, you know, one . . . 099 dream of [unclear] and Howard and Cowan, was to have a seminary in the corn field, and I think the nearest we came to that was after I came in . . . Liston Pope who was Dean at Yale then, was very much interested in what the Fellowship was doing. He had already published his Millhands and Preachers, and we worked out with Liston Pope a service in action — training in action — for students that Liston gave credit for, and we placed a student in, . . . I know we did Big Lick one time, one summer, to work closely with Gene Smathers, to read the material in the area . . . ah, they had to do a lot of academic work, you know, as well as live in, and through, and a part of the community. We had one boy with Clarence in Americus, Georgia, one at Delta, well anyway there were several . . . There was one, and I've forgotten who he was with, in some, well, with some country minister in North Carolina (I've forgotten who that was) but that's the nearest that ever came to a seminary in the cornfield because this . . . the students . . . weren't just observing. I mean they

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were doing, in Big Lick for instance, really plowing and all sorts of things in the community.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Community activities, I suppose.

NELLE MORTON:

Ah, yup.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

As you look back on it, did the goals of the community change during its lifetime at all?

NELLE MORTON:

Did what?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Did the goals . . . of the Fellowship . . . change . . . in time . . . ?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, well I think they changed in the sense that ah . . . that we were sensitive to the changes in the . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes

NELLE MORTON:

In the social and political life of the whole area, and I think they did, a great deal.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

In what ways?

NELLE MORTON:

I think it was a different, . . . I see a different kind of direction during the time I was in, from the time Buck had it. Buck had it earlier . . . and I don't think I could possibly have done what I did without Buck . . . where that kind of thing that Buck did, but I'm not as sure that Buck was as aware of what happened during those years when he came back in the second time. I think already Buck began to try to pick up exactly the way he did earlier . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Where he left off earlier . . .

NELLE MORTON:

And I think that he was not . . . and this is when he just felt he couldn't understand it . . . he had a very hard time in understanding why people didn't stick by him.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What were the differences between that early period, and the period you had it?

NELLE MORTON:

You say, what were the differences?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I think when Buck had it, I think Buck and Scotty Cowan, and a few others . . . just a small little group that was making very clear the theological and social intermeshing . . . not application but intermeshing . . . and that was . . . what they did during that time is just the most thrilling thing in the world, if you really can spell that out . . . that I think when I came in, and I was already aware of this as a member, that there were a number of Buck Kesters in there, and they needed to have the opportunity to do the kind of thing in their community that this group had done . . . in other words, then, instead of my going in to a hot spot when some trouble began to arise, why I tried to get the Fellowship members in the area . . . or keep people in the area who became a part of the movement. I saw it turning into a genuine Fellowship in that period when . . . I mean you can get . . . when you talk to a person like Dave Burgess, I mean Dave was just . . . he was just one of the most valuable persons in that sort of thing.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Where was he then?

NELLE MORTON:

Dave was . . . at first was with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, and then he went with the CIO, and he was one of the persons who kept our feet to the fire on labor . . . Dave and John Ramsey . . . who was with the national CIO there . . . and both of them brought in as real supports, Victor, . . . Victor Reuther and . . . what is his brother's name . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Walter.

NELLE MORTON:

Walter Reuther. Walter and Victor Reuther. And also I think they were responsible for the kind of cooperation we had with Willard Uphaus, the Religion and Labor Foundation.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Then, when Kester came back, . . . what was it, 1950?

NELLE MORTON:

Kester . . . ah well now, between my leaving and Kester's coming, Charles Jones who continued as pastor of the church in Chapel Hill, was doing, as a member of the Board, . . . ah was carrying on. Charles never, never spent full with the Fellowship, as the rest of us did, but he was pulling it together . . . at least as a figurehead during that period. By the way, why did Charles decline to see you?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

His wife said he'd been sick for a year, and I'd talked with . . . who was it . . . Charles McCoy, on the phone the other day and he asked me the same questions, if I'd been able to get hold of Charles Jones . . . and he said that Charles had had an allergic reaction to some medication or something and apparently he doesn't know where he is.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, Charles has been getting his stories very crooked for a long time. I mean, I don't mean that the way it sounds, but he was having trouble you know, making connections, and I have the feeling there were two or three things in . . . what was his name . . . Warren Ashby's book on Dr. Frank Graham that were absolutely mistakes . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh, really?

NELLE MORTON:

That I, uh, . . . but it's hard for any of us to remember that long, that far back, and I hope that I'm going to give you checks because you just don't know what you could have imagined in the meantime.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure . . . history reconstructs itself.

NELLE MORTON:

That's right.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What kind of mistakes do you think there were?

NELLE MORTON:

I'm sorry?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What kind of mistakes were in Ashby's book?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, well I think one was . . . it wasn't really a great error . . . but one was the mistake in terms of . . . of course he was trying to play up Dr. Frank.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure.

NELLE MORTON:

Dr. Frank's relation to the coming in as a student of Kei Kenada is apt to be some error, a Japanese American who was . . . ah . . . it was right at the time when things were very tense, and I was one of the persons even before Candis (?) in Chapel Hill, . . . I was one of the persons who got Kei and her sister out of Relocation Center . . . one of them, . . . Grace . . . lived with me a year and Kei lived with Henry Mack who was teaching at the training school in Richmond, and then after I went to Chapel Hill they then began to bring Kei down there, and so finally all Kei needed to go to college and so you know the whole story of how Kei came to be, you know, in school there was just thrilling because the Junior Highs in the church had a lot to do with that . . . it was just a beautiful story, but in short, I went to Dr. Frank and he is a great . . . believer of going through the channels. He said just let her make application as any student and they will have to face this issue then . . . and so, they . . . she made application and they sent Dr. Frank a copy of their answer to Kei saying that if she had all the qualifications they would accept her but that there's no place for her to live, and this was kind of closing the issue, you know.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure.

NELLE MORTON:

And Dr. Frank came down and said . . . brought the letter down . . . to the church, . . . I had an office in the church then . . . brought the letter down to the church and said, "Will you tell those kids, the Jr. Highs in the church, if they will find a place for Kei to live, then evidently that will clear it up . . . the reason they're giving. Try that. So these kids found a home for Kei . . . it was just wonderful the way they met her and everything . . . prepared everything. But then the Admissions Committee, even though they had no comeback to that . . . well, evidently Warren had gotten the story that Dr. Frank had just bucked the whole shootin' match . . . and said that we'll have her. Well he didn't do that. And you see, it would have missed all the educational kind of thing . . . different things they say he said . . . and he had demonstrated it . . . the same kind of fair . . . in relation to when Dr. Maynard concerted with Chapel Hill . . . ah . . . Dorothy Maynor was married to Shelby Rooks, a Christian minister in New York, and at this time Dorothy was just at her tops in Metropolitan Opera, and Shelby Rooks was, at that year, Chairman of a committee in New York to raise money for the Fellowship, and some of us went up every year to talk with him . . . and so finally he told me, one day he said, "I'll give you Dorothy for a concert, if you'll give us Dr. Frank." So I said, well we'll see. And so we began to work on it. The Fellowship has never had anything, and never while I was there, and I'm sure it must

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have been segregated before . . . never had a meeting, never had anything anywhere that was segregated. And so the first place we tried was Charlotte and they were so thrilled to have Dorothy Maynor there, in I've forgotten what auditorium, but then when they found that it could not be segregated they said they couldn't do it, they said the same thing happened in Atlanta. And so finally, we went to Dr. Frank and asked him what about the Fellowship, if we had it there, and he said again, the same thing . . . it would be wonderful but we had to go through the channels and let them place this. Well, the Fellowship had refused all of . . . (oh and Richmond is another one) . . . all of these other places because they had to be segregated, and we weren't about to have a concert that was segregated in any way. Bill Poteat, who teaches now (you can check this with Bill), he teaches at Duke University, ah, Bill was teaching at Chapel Hill at the University of North Carolina there, he was on that committee . . . The Fellowship was having an all day executive committee meeting at Livingston College, and the Board was meeting in Chapel Hill, and we just kept breathless all day long to see as to how it would turn out. And finally, at 4:00 o'clock, when we were just ready to close, Bill called and said the Board has said, "Invite Dorothy Maynor. There will be no segregation."

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, I'll be . . . About what year was that?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh gracious . . . I could find out, or you could find out . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

It will be in the records.

NELLE MORTON:

Yes.

NELLE MORTON:

But, it was just a thrilling thing. People who disapproved of integration were more anxious to hear Dorothy Maynor than they were to hold out for segregation.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure.

. . . 344

NELLE MORTON:

It was just a beautiful experience, and of course that did a great deal to help the whole university. But this is the way Dr. Frank worked . . . and Warren has it that the Fellowship tried to compromise, and this is one thing they did not, and Dr. Frank knew it, and that's why he said let it go through the channels . . . and his method of working has done more to educate people to deal with an issue.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes, and put the monkey on someone else's back, too.

NELLE MORTON:

Yes, ah ha.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sure.

NELLE MORTON:

Now, I'll tell you another connection with the university that you as a sociologist would be particularly interested in, and I don't think Warren even mentioned this. It was from the first Freedom Ride . . . have you read about that?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I wanted to talk about what happened when they came down . . . the men . . . they came down and had to serve the prison sentence.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh yes.

NELLE MORTON:

Bayard Rustin, who is still there, and you can get in touch with Bayard. After I talked with Tony Dunbar I called and Bayard said he still has this report that he made to Dr. Odum and the sociologists at the

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University of North Carolina, and a number of other people he had gathered together in the university. Bayard Rustin kept a (being a sociologist himself) careful record of how the conditions were within the prison . . . and every angle, almost, he came out of that when they had finished the prison terms. Bayard came directly to Chapel Hill with his report . . . and called Dr. Odum who was head of the Sociology Department then, and he got all of the people together to hear Bayard's report. It was so well done, and so thrilling, and Bayard had made three recommendations: One was that the prisoners must not be put on the road again, that they must find another way of doing that; and the second was that every effort to rehabilitate prisoners should be made, and I forgot what the third was, but it was so beautifully done, so carefully done. Dr. Odum, in person, took this to the Governor of North Carolina. It was a number of years, and after I had left the Fellowship I had word that the last of these had been carried out. But it's that kind of careful thing that I think we were careful to go through channels, too, and Dr. Odum was very supportive of the Fellowship and so was Lee Brooks.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

In my reading of the account of that ride itself . . . when I read in the Fellowship Papers about the Freedom Ride, and what happened when they got to Chapel Hill, and how Charles Jones saved them from the mob and all, there was the indication that Charles had trouble in his church over this, was that true?

NELLE MORTON:

Ah, well, the thing that happened was, ah, while Charles was doing that we had decided that was Charles' job, to bring them back to Chapel Hill, and we called a meeting.

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

NELLE MORTON:

So we finally, we picked up the pieces but finally, we did not cooperate, I mean we did not sponsor the ride itself, but we were the only ones I guess that had any contact with them after they were released. We followed that through to the very end as best we could, through Bayard's report, but I knew George then, called me over long distance and wanted the photographers there at Raleigh where the train came in with them . . . and even then, when they started serving their prison term, even then we saw the possibility of various churches over North Carolina, sending people, even though it might mean a prison term and here it would just be blocked, if, the people in the churches knew you, if it hit the headlines . . . and we didn't do that, and as a result, all kinds of people began sending things in for the prisoners, which involved many churches over North Carolina in supporting the prisoners who were serving just to put segregation itself . . . and in one case . . . well, I don't know how many cases . . . some of the fifty youth who walked alongside on the road then when they were working. You see, this couldn't have happened, and this is why I think the Fellowship has done more to create a climate for the Civil Rights than almost . . . we had the same thing happen . . . we had an interracial, intercollegiate, council organized in Greensboro. They had been integrating churches, been going into eating places, in doing riding, in just, just, . . . just getting people used to seeing blacks and whites together. And I'm sure that the sit-in in Greensboro would never have been able to be pulled off you know, if there hadn't been all of this groundwork done

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for months, and even years in Greensboro in organizing. And we felt very much that sort of thing was very important . . . the method of working . . . And we could have gotten all kinds of money and made a big splash.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You would have had trouble getting things done . . .

NELLE MORTON:

Well, yes, maybe so.

[Recorder is turned off and then back on.] There, that works fine.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You mentioned several things that were on the Agenda at Fellowship, ah, Labor, Rural work, Race, . . . were there other . . .

NELLE MORTON:

Well, every year, you see, at the Executive Committee, we examined itself and the whole situation . . . this is why constantly we were changing and dropping some things and pick . . . and this was the time when all over the South when small farmers were losing their . . . farms to loan sharks, also giving up their farms when these industries were coming in, to get people, and people were just leaving farms, and also that the Southern Tenant Farmer's Union . . . now I was not too closely associated with that . . . because that had already gone over the humps, so to speak . . . there were other issues and it was, and we supported labor, organizing, anywhere or that there was any problem, and that we tried to gather churches in areas where labor was trying to organize to interpret the whole meaning of labor organization. So the churches would support labor and this was the time when people like Hunt in Texas was giving big sums of money through industry to set up the offshoot evangelist tent meetings in areas where labor was organized, to preach anti-semitic, anti-labor, anti-race gospel. And I know the biggest one

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was Parson Jack Johnson who was an evangelist who was available for that sort of thing, and would move his tent to different places of the South, and of course a lot of Northern industries were coming in because of cheap labor, and they needed to be organized desperately.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Where did the Fellowship stand on Industrialization of the South?

NELLE MORTON:

Stand on what?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Industrialization of the South.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, as far as I remember, there wasn't any particular opposition to it; it was the way it was done and the way so many came in, because they thought they could come in without labor organizing, and you see I grew up in Kingsport [Tennessee], it was planned, it was planned from the beginning to bring in certain industries there. They had the resources examined chemically to see what industries would, and industries were invited in, and all of these were promised they could get by without organizing, and the one person who held out and just didn't pay any attention to J. Fred Johnson who was then president of the Improvement Company who was against labor organizing, was Palmer, ah, what was his name . . . E.W. Palmer, who headed the Kingsport Press. . .and he finally said he just couldn't possibly take the initiative to make decisions for so many people . . . the welfare of so many people.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

How do you explain the Southern working person's resistance to unions?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh! Lord have mercy! I think they have been so indoctrinated. When I grew up in Kingsport, before Eastman was there, George Eastman was brought to the public schools, he was brought to Sunday Schools, and introduced as a man, coming in there, to set up an industry to bring

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people down out of the mountains, to give them good wages for the first time, a decent place to live, and Johnson, who was head of the Improvement Company would take off his glasses, and tears would come into his eyes, you know, because all these wonderful people were coming there to build up our community, and there is a could all over Kingsport, you can't out loud, you know, say very much about this because it has been built into children all the way along. And when I went to Chapel Hill, even Odum and Brooks of the Sociology Department were pointing out this ideal city of industry that was building up by intention from the beginning. But I would have never known—I never would have gotten underneath this—I didn't understand what was happening, but I never would have gotten underneath this if I hadn't taught in the public schools there. And then in the case . . . you go back in some of these homes, and it was another shock to me to see how these good wages were nothing . . . how the homes a good place to live . . . it was just horrible . . . in so many of these all the houses were alike, the shrubbery planted in the same place, the houses painted just the same way, and it was just . . . it was a shock that I didn't understand until a long time afterwards. But now I think I'm beginning to realize how things way back are making sense, and building up with picture, a commitment to something . . . well, you come, your experience has made you what you are, is what I'm trying to say, has done an awful lot to . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Recent experiences have helped to interpret those long time ago experiences.

NELLE MORTON:

Well they begin to bring them up, you know, and things make sense now that happened a long time ago you didn't understand at all. My work with the Fellowship was the most . . . probably the most satisfying . . . I am in the church . . . I . . . I . . . the Fellowship kept me in the church, I would have left the church then if I hadn't, because I was having so many problems within the Presbyterian Church both, um, peace, and race, and labor particularly.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Were there any internal dissensions within the Fellowship?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I was not aware of them when I was there, and I was not aware of them when I was a member, ah, I don't know what . . . I know when Buck came in again, when we had bought this property at Swannanoa, and a beautiful thing that had happened was Dave McVoy, a brother-in-law of Dave Burgess, who was teaching architecture at the University of Florida in Gainesville . . . Dave was just so . . . well his whole family took Fellowship, family conferences met once a year, and he involved his whole group of students, architectural students, in an experiment at Swannonoa of building and contributing, which was a beautiful little . . . a wonderful thing that . . . and it was with the idea that others would be contributing you know, as it was build up for a Fellowship headquarters and home there, ah . . . it was built with students themselves got involved in Fellowship. I mean Dave had pulled . . . I mean it was not only a practical thing, it was a philosophical thing as well, and religious. As they got in, they began to see how as things were changing and a more modern building was called for, and they built it with a lot of glass in it. A lovely building. And I know Buck had a

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great deal of difficulty with that when he came in. He said that was in the mountains, they needed log buildings, and this sort of thing, and ah, and you could build log buildings, but it was the old-fashioned way of building too, and he was very much upset, and then I know he was not happy when he felt people were not going along with him. And I had the feeling that . . . now I was not intimate with the Fellowship at that time, but I did go to Swannanoa several times and Buck was doing so much . . . 199 of the work himself, which is something I, I mean I saw a lot of people working . . . rather than, . . . and I couldn't have done it anyway. And I'm not a person who has to be in front, who has to be the invincible leader because I'm committed increasingly to the masses of people being . . . to help to be made aware and I think that I have switched completely from . . . I was just committed to the old prophetic traditions and I think I am much more now committed to an apocalyptic time . . . I think we live in an apocalyptic time . . . I think we were beginning to then, and it's not when a great leader sees and can read the signs of the times and has followers, but it's when all the people are helped to make aware of and politicized so that people work as . . . I mean when I look at this solidarity in Poland, I just think the hope of the world is the common people—and think of the nuclear freeze today, who has been the out front leader? It's been the people themselves, and I think the only things that will keep us out of nuclear war is the common people. You know, just taking hold and rising up . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

I know.

NELLE MORTON:

And it's just so beautiful to me to see that beginning to happen.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes, it is a whole interesting new kind of methodology in a lot of ways and yet it's sort of like what happened in the Civil Rights movement.

NELLE MORTON:

I'm sorry, I'm not hearing.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

It's sort of like what happened in the Civil Rights movement, like in Greensboro the students just decided that they weren't going to put up with this anymore.

NELLE MORTON:

Exactly! Exactly!

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Was there a real push in the Fellowship to try to get new members?

NELLE MORTON:

As far as I know, there was never . . . I mean there was never any big membership drive, I mean, either when Buck was in or when I was in. If I remember correctly, there was never any.

. . . 049

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, how did you get your money?

NELLE MORTON:

Ah well, that's a good question. The Field Foundation was very supportive, of course, and every year the Anti-Defamation-Southern headquarters of the Anti-Defamation League, when Alexander Miller, who became the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, when he and George Harrison were in Atlanta they come to me and said, of all the groups in the South that we are in touch with, the Fellowship inadvertently in its work is doing more work on the anti-Semitic issue than any other. We would like to contribute $100 a month to that. Then another group, ah, Francis Drake, who was in Friends of the Soil, married a very wealthy woman and he gave $1,000 every year to that. And that is why I'm sure that Friends of the Soil always was on the ragged edge—the Friends of the Soil could have been a very dynamic and

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exciting thing but Francis was wealthy more than he was . . . well he was committed but he just wasn't on the level of the Soil. But I think that was held in there for as long partly because of Francis' support. And of course he, he and . . . I've forgotten what his last name is now, they used to come to the conferences and so forth. Then there were a lot of people who contributed individually.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

The Doris Duke Foundation . . . wasn't that one that you used too? Or got money from sometimes?

NELLE MORTON:

I don't believe it gave anything while I was there. It may have. And I'm not . . . I tell you I did not have the executive ability to raise money . . . I didn't have full responsibility for raising the money. And you see, Buck did, and . . . this can take the life out of you. This was one understanding that I had, that I would not have the responsibility of raising money, and I never did. And lots of times I wondered whether I was going to get my salary, but it never missed.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Never did! Hmm. That's interesting. Do you have any idea why they were not able to get money, say around 1956, 1957 when Buck finally left?

NELLE MORTON:

Not able to raise money?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes. Is that when you left and didn't come back in . . . or . . . I . . .

NELLE MORTON:

I'm not the one to answer that . . . ah . . . I don't think I know. I'll tell you one thing . . . that if we had been able to say that we wanted money for a certain project and spell that out, it's much easier to get money that way, than it is for an ongoing program that exists for dealing with issues as they arise. And I think that's one reason . . .

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that might be one reason, but I just don't know. I wish Charles were all right . . . Charles Jones . . . because I think Charles was . . . now Warren Ashby is another person who was Treasurer for a long time, and before him, Greg Ritchie. And Greg finally went to the Midwest, and I lost touch with him.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, I'm to see Warren Ashby . . . I will see him next month. So maybe he can help me there. Who were the major decision-makers in the Fellowship?

NELLE MORTON:

I think we took very seriously . . . now I'm just talking about back when I was in . . . I think we took very seriously the Executive Committee, and I think no major decisions were made without getting in touch with every single one of those. And, of course, there were some daily decisions, and Warren was then in Chapel Hill . . . well it depended on what they were that you go to different people to get their opinion of what . . . and Warren was in Chapel Hill, Charles Jones was in Chapel Hill, J.C. Herrin was in Chapel Hill, Bill Poteat was in Durham, and Bill was sort of on the ragged edge, but he was always available. Dr. Frank was not an open . . . you know I don't think he ever went to a conference but he was extremely supportive and was always available with what is best to do. He was always willing to give his opinion. Now I think those were people when we had to know something right away . . . but basic long-term decisions I think all the members of the Executive Committee were involved. Neal Hughley, who is not living now, . . . by the way, Sadie Hughley ought to be on your list . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Sadie Hughley?

NELLE MORTON:

Sadie Hughley . . . she . . . I think she's retired now, but they both taught and she was librarian at the . . . what is it . . . at North Carolina State . . . at North Carolina . . . no wait, it was the black college in North Carolina and Neil was a professor of sociology. Neil was just . . . he was just there all the time . . . he was remarkable, he had a brilliant mind, he had a sense of how to move, and how you could move, what was best to wait awhile, just remarkable. Sheldon Smith and Waldo Beech of Duke were there if, you know, if you wanted anything. There were just a lot of people . . . Benny Mays was another one who . . . and by the way, Melvin Watson ought to be on your list . . . he's been a professor at Morehouse, and there's another person, and I cannot think of his name, but he was very active in . . . from Morehouse . . . very active in Fellowship.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, I'm going to see Ben Mays . . .

NELLE MORTON:

I know you are, but you ought to see Mel . . .

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

NELLE MORTON:

I know you are, but you ought to see Mel . . . he could be called on to give, you know, his opinion about anything, but he was there and was very busy and very much involved in his own and we were involved with him in this . . . you see he did the suit against the Pullman Company . . . segregation against the Pullman Company and we were very supportive of that in working through . . . in breaking the segregation, I mean any of us, if a mixed group would travel we would, you know, just purposely try to test this. And get by with this, . . . it's just amazing how if you just keep on, and keep on, you wear down a lot of these things. But if we had blazoned over the overhead lines what we had done and had photographs, I mean we would have been closed up long ago. And I think this is the kind of thing that made . . . that increased the membership.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

How did that increase the membership?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I think that people who would see that, or maybe be a part of that, and as one woman who went to the . . . oh she was just very adamant about the breaking segregation for Dorothy Maynor but suddenly she wanted to hear Dorothy Maynor sing, and she went there and she said she was just the most wonderful thing in the world, she said, there were some black people who sat behind me who had traveled all over the world, and I haven't. And so and so around . . . and it ought to be like that

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all the time . . . that kind of thing is when you begin to see the positive aspects of this and the sensible thing, and the only just thing . . . that other people want to be a part of it.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

How was it that . . . there's something else I want to ask first since you brought up the subject. Let me skip to another point. You say it was integrated from the start . . . there was never any segregation . . .

NELLE MORTON:

I'm sorry?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You say there was never any segregation in the Fellowship.

NELLE MORTON:

In any meeting we ever had.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Were the blacks in on the very organization of the Fellowship, or do you . . .

NELLE MORTON:

Now, that I do not know. But they were certainly in when I went in. You know I never thought about that question and that's a very important one. I'm pretty sure that Benny Mays was in that meeting at Monteagle that first meeting, of the organizing meeting when the . . . Reinhold Niebuhr came down and they sat up all night hammering out . . . yes, I'm sure, and Herb King I'm sure was in that. Herb was . . . oh he was working with the National YMCA, and he went later to teach at . . . oh what is that Presbyterian school up near Chicago [McCormick Seminary] . . . but he's not living now . . . but he was black.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well the group seemed to be, when I look at the Executive Committee through the years, it seemed to be dominated by whites . . . would you say that's true or did blacks have a real strong active role?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, I think there's no question about that. I don't think there's any question about that. Now Neal Hughley was on the Executive Committee all the time. I think the blacks were supportive of this because it was the one group they felt utterly confident in. And I don't think it was ever a . . . and we had when we set up in Chapel Hill when we had a public office building, we had a black secretary and a white secretary, and going to the same bathroom. I mean it was the first time they'd ever had that. We had as many black people come in to that office as white.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Why did you move out of the church?

NELLE MORTON:

I think partly . . . well I think partly because of me. Because the church people just expected me to work full time.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh, for the church?

NELLE MORTON:

For the church. You see, I started there as the Fellowship didn't have enough money to pay me, so I worked part time on the church, and part time the Fellowship paid me . . . just part . . . I've forgotten just how much it was, but it was a very low salary at that, and then the church provided an office space and . . . but constantly people were coming in all the time just demanding . . . you cannot work just part time in the local church.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

That's true.

NELLE MORTON:

Unless you got up and walked out. But when my office was there . . . the Fellowship office . . . I was there, and so I think that is one of the reasons . . . and then, more money was coming in that time, and I simply felt it was very important to be in . . . you know to make this public witness . . . in a public office building.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What about the role of women? Were women active in the Fellowship?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, yes, it seemed to me that they were.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Did any woman ever serve on the Executive Committee?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh yes, there were a number of women on the Executive Committee. Ah, my goodness, who were they? Uh, well I know Flemmie Kittrell was one at one time . . . she was a professor at Howard, Sadie Hughley was another, Oh Phemie Young was another.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, what I'm getting at is . . . I had a feeling . . . I never knew Buck Kester at all, but I had a feeling he was very traditional in the way he viewed females. And women's roles, and that sort of thing.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I, at that time, was not as much aware as I am now.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

None of us were.

NELLE MORTON:

Yes. But I am very much into the Woman's Movement now. And I began . . . an interesting thing about . . . several people have asked me why . . . how a nice, Southern, quaint woman like me ever got so deeply involved in race and labor, and so forth. Benjamin Mays, I remember, asked me that twice. He said, I can tell you why . . . she's a woman. And I did not know what he meant then. And I think I know now much more what he meant than he does. But I just remember that so well. I wonder what does he mean? Because she's a woman. and I just . . . I've been aware, I think all my life of being discriminated against, but, you see, women were never quite sure whether the discrimination was because you're really not quite good enough or whether you are discriminated against. And so, therefore, we have been so indoctrinated not to fight for ourselves because it might turn up we were worse than we think we are. [Laughter]

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And I think this . . . I think women have been part of bringing on the discrimination, just for this reason. And I never was quite sure, until now, how committed I was to the methodology that I used in the Fellowship, and that I taught at Drew. At the time, it was in the Fellowship, I didn't know whether . . . quite whether . . . I just don't like to be, you know, the one always up front and that I'm afraid to be, but now I see it was such a deep commitment that, uh, uh, well I think it's run our way through my life.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, looking back on it, do you feel that there was discrimination against women in the Fellowship? Or not?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I know Scotty Cowan used to say, he used to say, "Girl," and I would be so mad now, I didn't see he meant anything by it . . . he'd say, "Girl, I tell you, I never had a woman boss before, and I don't like the idea," he said, "I just have to admit, it really is working out." He said that to me a dozen times, and I've always felt, yeah, you are . . . I think I felt he was discriminating, but he was trying to own it. I think in one way, you know . . . sometimes there's a backward discrimination, if you know what I mean, there's some people in the race issue who are in a kind of reverse prejudice . . . they overdo the thing, and black can sense that right away. Well, I think I have always had the feelings that the Executive Committee was very careful about me, protecting me to do the thing that I could do. And I just have a sneaking suspicion that there were times when they made up the money themselves for salary. Because I didn't see how, and it was worrying me

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. . . 166 because I was helping to take care of my father then. And for ah . . . as I say, I never missed while I was with them, I never missed a salary. And I'm sure that there was some discrimination . . . I think they felt that anybody who would take a job like that just needed all the support they could get. And I had that feeling. I never had the feeling that there was . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

They weren't putting you down because you were a woman?

NELLE MORTON:

I, I, it may be the only place I've ever been . . . and I'm not sure they would offer a man the kind of salary they offered me. But I took it. And that may have been discrimination. And I'm sure there was, because there was . . . I think I was . . . I guess I was so much concerned about discrimination in economic areas of so many people in race, you know, that I wasn't as aware, but I'm sure it was there.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

When did Friends of the Soil get organized?

NELLE MORTON:

Sorry?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

When did Friends of the Soil get organized?

NELLE MORTON:

It was already organized when I went in. And at first I think everybody was excited about it . . . and it did have a lot . . . the . . . way the Holy Year was spelled out . . . it was just beautiful, and I remember doing a student program to be published for the Presbyterians even before I went in to work with the Board, that I used so much of the Friends of the Soil material. It was such a wonderful concept, but I think it never quite got off the ground. I think that some of the things that they were saying in the Friends of the Soil . . . and I haven't thought about that before . . . are some of the things women are saying now about the

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earth . . . about Mother Earth and the discrimination . . . how the discrimination against women has been the discrimination against the soil and the devastation of our environment. And it may be . . . you know I just inadvertently was caught up then, you know that would be an interesting thing to work on some time. small talk . . . coffee, time. . . . . . 220

NELLE MORTON:

Well, the kind of thing Bayard Rustin did, you know, and what it seemed to be, happened in Greensboro, and it never did bother me that somebody else got credit for that, that SNCC you know, came in and was able to do that. I don't think it would have been possible, if it hadn't been for that group that had been working for a long time—it was called a student group but a lot of the professors were involved too. And Howard Wilkinson is another person. Do you know him?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

No I don't.

NELLE MORTON:

He teaches . . . I guess he teaches sociology at Greensboro College now, and he was very active in Fellowship at one time. You know there are a lot of people on your list that I never heard of.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Really?

NELLE MORTON:

I'll give you another list . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

O.K., that's what I want.

NELLE MORTON:

What I decided to do, I have a long letter here written to Martin and then a follow-up letter after he sent me his paper, a follow-up letter to him commenting on his paper and making some criticisms on it, and also a long letter to Tony, and I had some copies made of those yesterday.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Thank you . . .

NELLE MORTON:

I'm a terrible typist, and I corrected the first . . . these are carbons, I corrected the first one, but I didn't correct the rest of them.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

That's all right.

NELLE MORTON:

But it gives a lot of people's names in that and also repeats a lot of stuff that I may have said here now.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

One of the things that does concern me about the death of the Fellowship was that the scene was stolen by the issue of race and the economic issues fell into the background.

. . . 259

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, about that I did not know then.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You know, I mean, that the Fellowship was concerned with more than just race.

NELLE MORTON:

Yes.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

And the Civil Rights movement came so strong to the fore in this country, ah, that the whole idea of reorganizing our economic life just seems to have been forgotten by a lot of people, although there are still a lot of movements out there today. The Fellowship did intertwine all of that together, in a unique way.

NELLE MORTON:

Well I think this rural was a very important part . . . when I was in it . . . well I think we re-examined every year, you know, the issues and these were the three issues that were . . . seemed to us . . . to be the most pertinent issues. Anti-semitism was added because, especially when we began to get this money, and uh, Alexander Miller and George Harrison came to all of our conferences too. They were very much concerned the

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way the Fellowship was already proving itself. When the black militants, and many of them came right out of the Fellowship . . . and when the SCLC began to organize, the Fellowship . . . the Fellowship members who had worked alongside these people . . . white Fellowship members . . . began to see that another . . . it was time for the blacks to really assert themselves, and became supporters of the blacks rather than trying to compete in any way with leadership, and that was not true in many other movements . . . or in many other organizations in many other parts of the country. Then whites just kept wanting to be the center . . . (coffee time)

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You know this reminds me of Cajun coffee.

NELLE MORTON:

[Laughter]

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You know my father was Cajun from Louisiana.

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, really, is that right?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh, yes.

NELLE MORTON:

Well now just tell me. What is a Cajun?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What is a Cajun? A good question. It's something cultural first of all. From my father's statements, he used to deny being a Cajun. Even though he was born in New Iberia, La., he maintained, (and a lot of my relatives are still there) . . . we came from St. Louis, we were not Cajuns . . . And I think it's because Cajuns are mixed blood. Well they've got some Indian and some black.

NELLE MORTON:

I know they're mixed. But are they Spanish?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

No they're primarily French.

NELLE MORTON:

French . . . French and . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

They've got some Indian and some Black, in them as well.

NELLE MORTON:

and Black.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

But they wouldn't like to admit that—the black part. And I think that's why my father made it such an issue that he was not Cajun. But they're primarily people of French heritage and French culture.

NELLE MORTON:

Uh huh, uh huh.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

South Louisiana. But I remember my grandfather died when I was a year and a half old, and I remember him speaking Cajun French.

NELLE MORTON:

Is that right? Well now that's different from the French in Canada.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes, yes.

NELLE MORTON:

What would make it different?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

They were just isolated for so long that it became different. Originally they were from Canada, they were put out by the British and settled in Louisiana. But back to the Fellowship, if I may. Friends of the Soil. I have the feeling Friends of the Soil was a problem, or that the Fellowship had problems with Friends of the Soil. Did they?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I don't know that it was a problem . . . a lot of people felt . . . and Charles Stalls I think is one . . . who felt that the Friends of the Soil was carried mainly because of Francis Drake, and not because basically it was not an authentic group . . . and a very important group. It would have been marvelous if it could have been developed. But I don't think anything ever happened in that . . . I think that when we talk about rural reconstruction, in that whole farming, it was really not . . . and Francis worked alongside it more than allowing that to come

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into . . . Now that's as how I remember it, and my memory is getting bad, too. [Laughter]

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, were there other groups that were organized like Friends of the Soil who were sort of on the edge of things?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, now let's see. What was this . . . there was another person . . . What was that . . . there were two or three other groups that kept corresponding with us . . . and not in relation to Fellowship but . . . but . . . gracious . . . and I was so long . . . and one of them came . . . and when I was in Montreat came up and spoke with me . . . what was his name . . . Yes, there were at least two other groups that were trying to . . . at . . . least opening the way for some kind of cooperation there and I just don't I'm not clear about what that was.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Did any other groups try to use the Fellowship? Like the Communists did early on in the organization period.

NELLE MORTON:

Well now, I think Buck felt that very strongly. I don't think that was true when I was in the Fellowship. Ah, Buck had some kind of very bad experience with Communist groups or Communists . . . Nancy Neale may know something about that. I don't know. That would be the best person to answer a lot of these questions from Buck's personal stance and feelings. I don't think Nancy ever knew very much about the Fellowship itself.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

She was too young?

NELLE MORTON:

She was very young, and I don't even remember her ever coming to anything that the Fellowship had.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Hmm.

NELLE MORTON:

Even while Buck was in . . . earlier . . . You have to get Buck, and I tell you, another person who might . . . might, give you some idea here is Dave Burgess, and I'm glad you're going to see him. Dave was just a terrific person in the Fellowship. He was one . . . I would say he was one of the decision-makers . . . he was very active . . . he took his membership seriously. Of course, there were a lot of people like that.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Going back to the membership. I noticed some interesting names on the membership list in 1957: James McBride Dabbs.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, now James McBride Dabbs . . . now explain your . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, I was struck by his name being there and I wondered what his relationship was to the Fellowship . . .

NELLE MORTON:

Well, I think he saw the Fellowship as . . . I think he was on the ragged edge of it . . . and . . . but I don't think . . . I know that after I left the Fellowship I was invited to Atlanta to a meeting of the . . . of some of the . . . now I don't know what it was but it included the executive committee. Martin Luther King was there, James McBride Dabbs was there, Benjamin Mays, Charles Jones, ah, it must have been when Charles . . . that interim period, and I've forgotten what the meeting was about . . . particularly . . . but anyway, Dabbs said this . . . the one thing that bothered me about the militant black movement . . . it had already started . . .

[TAPE 2, SIDE B]

NELLE MORTON:

and then what is his name . . . Gordon Harland who taught church history at Drew, was responsible for getting James McBride Dabbs to Drew to speak and he could not understand, he never did understand why I was not enthusiastic about it. About his coming. That he was this wonderful white person from South Carolina who could write all these wonderful things about race and the South . . . The reason I went to Drew . . . it isn't the reason I went, but Barney Anderson who was Dean of the Theological School at Drew . . . is the one who kept calling me, and calling me to come. He was a professor of the Bible at The University of North Carolina when I was there and I knew him very well and he was very much involved with the Fellowship, very much interested in what was going on and it was with this kind of undergirding that was going on . . . it wasn't just technique and it wasn't just action . . . it was something that motivated him. Well anyway, that is one of the reasons I went there, and I had turned it down, turned it down several times because I did not want to teach in the Seminary. I wasn't interested at that time in teaching religious education. And Barney said, "But you can do something in religious education that nobody else can do." Then I remembered I asked Alexander Miller one time, I said, "Tell me why you . . . we . . . don't do enough overtly on anti-semitism it seems to me in the Fellowship towards your gift of this money." And he said, "but oh, you know what I think. That the key to every southern community is the minister, the rabbi, and the priest." And you see we had Catholic

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members also and it was open to Jewish people also, there were a number of Jewish people who came and who participated in the Fellowship, and he said, "This is where I feel I have my fingers on the pulse of the South because you're clearer on issues than any other group I know." You asked a little while ago about using. I don't think . . . I don't think . . . when Jim Dombrowski was with the Southern Conference of Human Welfare, he and Buck had some kind of falling out, and I do not know what that was. And I have a sneaking idea it was over the Marxist issue. I don't think Fellowship ever, ever . . . I think the Fellowship was very much interested in Marxist analysis of an economic system but I think Fellowship was very clear about any Marxist ideology, and this is where the faith came in, that this was constantly being spelled out. I think that probably was the reason that he and Jim did not get along. I know when I came in, it bothered me a little bit when I went to meetings of the Southern Conference that Jim was so intent on letting everybody see that I was there. And that bothered me a lot because it almost gave a, a . . . that I was a part of it . . . and I did, I supported the Conference . . . but why should I be more than anybody else? It bothered me a little bit anytime that I think I might be used because of my position. But that was never, I guess never, to any extent that it became overt . . . it may have been just in my head, and it may have been something picked up earlier from . . . from Buck's relationship with Jim.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What was Myles Horton's relationship with the Fellowship?

NELLE MORTON:

Well I think . . . this is what I think, John Bennett can give the early history of these three men because he knew all three of them very well. But I think in the end of course Niebuhr is the one who supported the Fellowship and Bennett was a great supporter of the Fellowship. Ah, Myles, I think did every kind of thing, he did labor education. And the Fellowship did some of that, and some organizing, and some working through local churches to get them cooperating with and find out what the issues were in labor, in, ah, labor organizing in a certain community. But we never did do the day-to-day kind of school thing that Myles Horton did. As far as I am concerned, I always felt supported by Myles and Jim Dombrowski both. And I'm trying to think. We worked . . . and we started doing it on our own, but finally some other group, and I don't know whether it was a church, or whether it was a council of churches, or whether it was the Southern Educational Fund which the Southern Conference turned into . . . we set up at one time in New Orleans, a training workshop over quite a period of time, with policemen when things were so tense. And it's very hazy to me, and I don't know who, I don't know who . . . I don't know who the contacts in that area were, I just don't remember the details of it, but it was a very exciting thing and of course the idea that a religious group was involved in this made the police much more open, and it was when things were getting so tense, when police were getting so frightened . . . but I wish I knew more about that . . . I'll have to go through a lot of correspondence to find that out. Another thing, if I knew, when I was with the Fellowship, what I know now, I would have been much more

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careful with correspondence and with saving things. We did file things, but we were much more concerned with what was going on then. It never once occurred to me, you know, that anyone would want to do a history of this, . . . or that it was that . . . it saved me, it saved my life . . . and we thought it was just the most wonderful thing in the world, but it never occurred to me that it would have any future historical value. That bothers me a lot now, because I think that's part of what Buck was more concerned with, about saving.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Buck apparently saved everything.

NELLE MORTON:

Everything. Because maybe Buck knew that he was breaking fresh ground. And, as I said before, Buck was a loner. Buck worked through things and thought through things that never really came into . . . beyond him . . . they got beyond him . . . and I think that has got to be recognized.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, he must have been a very charismatic person, a dynamic personality.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, he was a, he was a, . . . he looked like an Indian and he was a . . . his eyes were just penetrating, and he never seemed to get excited. And when he'd get up to talk you felt that a prophet was standing before you. Maybe he'd wait a long time, and then he would say something, and then he would stop, and then he would say something else. He was a most remarkable person. I just really . . . I think Buck died a lonely person and that bothers me a lot because I felt he really did something in starting this but I think the Fellowship had moved into another way and Buck didn't know how to gear in, and I think he did not have the support . . . he didn't feel he had the support. And that was just very sad . . . and I think Dave Burgess feels this. Very strongly. I mean,

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Buck meant an awful lot to some of us. If it hadn't been for Buck's vision, the Fellowship would never have gotten off the ground.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Someone has said, "Buck Kester killed the Fellowship."

NELLE MORTON:

Someone said what?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Buck Kester killed the Fellowship.

NELLE MORTON:

I think that could be, because I think Buck by that time . . . by the time he came back in again, I don't think Buck was aware of how the churches had moved. You know. And I think he was still a loner, and there was just no place for loners any more, and that is just very sad. And this is the one criticism I have with Martin's article . . . uh, I tried to get Howard Hopkins here who lives here on the place to have lunch with us today, but he's out of town today. But he's the one who did this definitive book on the social gospel movement, and he was the one who gave the essay to me from the church history journal. Now I startea to say something about what?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Robert Martin being wrong?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh, what was I saying before that about Buck being a loner. Isn't that funny it will come to me just in a matter of . . . now I've forgotten, but I was so disappointed that Hopkins was not going to be here. Isn't that strange.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well it started off with my saying that someone said Buck killed the Fellowship.

NELLE MORTON:

Yeah! I'll think of it in a minute.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What do you see as the difference between the Fellowship and the Committee of Southern Churchmen?

NELLE MORTON:

Uh, uh, I'm speaking out of ignorance now . . . I don't see much direction. Let me ask you a question . . . this is not related . . . Is Will Campbell the one who used to be the Will Campbell at . . . oh goodness what was that YW Center right outside of Montreat . . . Ridgecrest . . . no not Ridgecrest . . . what did Will Campbell do before he got into . . .

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Before the Committee of Churchmen?

NELLE MORTON:

Yes.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

He was with the National Council of Churches—the Commission on Race.

NELLE MORTON:

Was he the Will Campbell who was with . . . what is this famous . . . it's right near Asheville, you know, that big YW summer . . . it isn't Ridgecrest.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

I don't know. He was a Baptist minister to students at Oxford, Mississippi. At the university.

NELLE MORTON:

He's not the Will Campbell, because I think this other one was more of a sociologist.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

No, that's not Will.

NELLE MORTON:

What I know about this Will Campbell intrigues me no end; I think he's fascinating. I've read those books that were just very moving, ah, but, l've never seen any relationship with . . . and that Katallagete . . . is that the way you pronounce it?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Katallagete.

NELLE MORTON:

Oh no . . . say it again.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Katallagete.

NELLE MORTON:

Katallagete.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, you know, every once in a while it has a good essay in it, but it's awfully chauvinist. I just never have felt . . . I had the feeling that . . . Will . . . let's see . . . Tony . . . Tony married Will's daughter . . . Tony Dunbar.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh, did he? I didn't know that.

NELLE MORTON:

Yes, and, and, that Tony Dunbar is Les Dunbar's son. Les Dunbar, when I was with the Fellowship, was head of the Southern Regional Council.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh yes.

NELLE MORTON:

In Atlanta. He is now with the Field Foundation. And the Field Foundation supported the Fellowship, and I think that money was available, and Will was the . . . it was supported . . . I don't know whether he's on the . . . it's supported by them now, but for a long time he was supporting it by the Field Foundation.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

I understand that he has not been paid since September.

NELLE MORTON:

This past September?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Yes, it was the last paycheck Will got.

NELLE MORTON:

Is that right? And it's the last one?

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

But they've applied to a lot of foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Field Foundation . . . I'm not that familiar with them.

NELLE MORTON:

Well I think Will has been . . . I wouldn't question what he's been doing but I just don't think it is . . . I don't think it's continuation of the Fellowship.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

In what way do you see it as chauvinist?

NELLE MORTON:

Oh well, I don't know whether I still have that issue or not, but it's had several articles in it. One was on the feminist issue, that I think was just off-beat, completely.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Do you know anything about how Will got to take over the Fellowship?

NELLE MORTON:

That's what I want to know. I have no earthly idea. And this is why I kind of had the feeling that it came from the Field Foundation. There is a connection there, and it's possible.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

That's the sort of thing I want to find out.

NELLE MORTON:

I've got to watch the time . . . because we have to go to the Dining Room at 12:30. Oh my, it's twenty to twelve.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Do you need to rest or something before lunch?

NELLE MORTON:

No, but I won't be any good if I can't have a little time after lunch. If you want to, I can give you these things to read. And you can raise any question.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

That would be good.

NELLE MORTON:

That would be an interesting thing, an interesting point to prove the connection there. And how Will happened to be, probably happened to be available.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

I think, but I don't know . . . I've heard indications that Will wanted to leave the National Council and then knew the Committee was just sitting there, I mean the Fellowship was just sitting there . . . and took it over and used it, you know, to get a salary base. But that I don't know. I've heard indications of that.

NELLE MORTON:

Well, Tony said that he thought that the property in Swannanoa is in the hands of the Southern Regional Council now.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Oh it is?

NELLE MORTON:

I don't know that. Dave Burgess has been trying to find out about that.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Well, I'll see what I can find out about that. I'm wondering what did happen to the property. Is it being used?

NELLE MORTON:

Well I know that after Buck came in again that was . . . the only other time I was up there, when the World Council of Churches had their workday there.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

What do you regard as the most significant single things the Fellowship did?

NELLE MORTON:

Well, they saved me . . . [Laughter] I just couldn't believe that there were that many people who felt about things like I did. It was just . . . and you automatically (this is very personal), but if a person is a member of the Fellowship, you automatically, you know, just assumed all kinds of things about them, and you were rarely wrong in it.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

You assumed what?

NELLE MORTON:

Now this is connected with what I think I tried to say a while ago. That Martin was wrong . . . at one point he said that I had reported to him that I and the Hughleys and I think he included Benny Mays, and the Charles Joneses, ah, no matter when . . . where we were, or if we were in the area of one another, that we were welcome into one another's homes to stay, you know. I did not mention those people in connection with that. The one thing to me that I experienced in Fellowship, as far as I know, there was no member of the Fellowship that wasn't open . . . didn't have an open house . . . no matter where you were—both blacks and whites. And that what had begun to happen is as the public meetings were always

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integrated that automatically somehow the homes began to be, and we would have more correspondence asking, "I'm going to be in Georgia at a certain place, is there a Fellowship member, or are there Fellowship members in the area?" And then reports that came back on what happened to children in relation to that, and that was the first time the children had been in a completely integrated situation and how wonderful it was. And then, three summers, I was thinking, I just had the camp on our farm, . . . my father was living on our farm alone . . . I was thinking, I had a camp for children there for two summers, I noticed in one of the notes that it mentioned three summers that I had children . . . of the Fellowship . . . an integrated group, on the farm, my mother was not living, the house was large, we shared in all the work and all of the activities in the area, and my father was simply marveled in connection with it, and every one of those persons as far as I can remember has turned out to be such a different person because of that camping . . . that kind of experience.

DALLAS A. BLANCHARD:

Did you have trouble in the local community?

NELLE MORTON:

No, and a part of that I would assume . . . my father was still living then, and this house we had on the farm, and we thought it had been in our family forever, and so we had this long connection in the county and related to so many people there. I know when I first had the children there, I asked my father, who hadn't even finished high sc