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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 F-0034, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Nelle Morton grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. In 1925, she graduated from Flora MacDonald College in North Carolina and became a teacher. A few years later, Morton completed graduate work at the General Assembly Training School in Virginia and at the Biblical Seminary in New York City. By 1944, she had become the general secretary of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. Prior to assuming leadership within the Fellowship, Morton had worked closely with its founders. In this interview, she spends considerable time discussing her perception of various leaders within the Fellowship, including Howard "Buck" Kester, Thomas "Scotty" Cowan, Charles Johnson, and Reinhold Niebuhr. According to Morton, the Fellowship was founded in order to promote more radical ideas about race relations and integrations among southern churches. In explaining the goals and strategies of the Fellowship, Morton focuses on aspects of religion in the South, the Fellowship's efforts to ensure integration within their own organization, and its stance on other issues related to labor and rural people. Throughout the interview, she emphasizes the communal spirit of the Fellowship and stresses their pioneering work in integration. Particularly interesting examples she offers include her description of an integrated summer camp for children at her family's farm in Kingsport and efforts of the Fellowship to integrate places like community pools. In addition to describing the strategies, successes, and limitations of the Fellowship, Morton describes how her work with the Fellowship made her cognizant of other inequalities related to gender. She describes the challenges of being a woman leader in the Fellowship; these included the discrimination she faced during her tenure as the general secretary from 1944 to 1950. Morton later became actively involved in the women's movement and suggests here that it was her work with issues of race and labor that enabled her to recognize discrimination against, and oppression of, women.
Nelle Morton served as the general secretary of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen from 1944 to 1950. In this interview, she describes her perception of the leaders of the Fellowship and the organization's aims and strategies in advocating for various social justice causes, including racial integration and labor rights. In addition, she describes her leadership of a male-dominated organization and how her work with the Fellowship raised her awareness of the need for women's liberation as well.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
And anyway, from then on, I was very closely related to the Fellowship of T. L. . . . I went in as executive in '44.
You didn't work with it officially? I mean, weren't you an official secretary of it, or something? Prior to 44?
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.
Sure.
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.
But you did, anyway.
But I did, and I'm glad I did.
What was the significance of the Fellowship. What was it really trying to do?
Well, I think, as I saw it . . . (and there's no theory in application
here) it's
Yes,
And the church, it seemed to most of us, was dragging its feet pretty much.
At that time, in many of the churches, you were a radical liberal if you were for segregation instead of slavery.
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 . . .
Gene Cox?
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.
Was Clarence Jordan . . . ?
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
Community activities, I suppose.
Ah, yup.
As you look back on it, did the goals of the community change during its lifetime at all?
Did what?
Did the goals . . . of the Fellowship . . . change . . . in time . . . ?
Oh, well I think they changed in the sense that ah . . . that we were sensitive to the changes in the . . .
Yes
In the social and political life of the whole area, and I think they did, a great deal.
In what ways?
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 . . .
Where he left off earlier . . .
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.
What were the differences between that early period, and the period you had it?
You say, what were the differences?
Yes.
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.
Where was he then?
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 . . .
Walter.
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.
Then, when Kester came back, . . . what was it, 1950?
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?
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.
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 . . .
Oh, really?
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.
Sure . . . history reconstructs itself.
That's right.
What kind of mistakes do you think there were?
I'm sorry?
What kind of mistakes were in Ashby's book?
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.
Sure.
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.
Sure.
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
Well, I'll be . . . About what year was that?
Oh gracious . . . I could find out, or you could find out . . .
It will be in the records.
Yes.
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.
Sure.
. . . 344
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.
Yes, and put the monkey on someone else's back, too.
Yes, ah ha.
Sure.
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?
Yes.
Well, I wanted to talk about what happened when they came down . . . the men . . . they came down and had to serve the prison sentence.
Oh yes.
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
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?
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.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
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
You would have had trouble getting things done . . .
Well, yes, maybe so.
You mentioned several things that were on the Agenda at Fellowship, ah, Labor, Rural work, Race, . . . were there other . . .
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
Where did the Fellowship stand on Industrialization of the South?
Stand on what?
Industrialization of the South.
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.
How do you explain the Southern working person's resistance to unions?
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
Recent experiences have helped to interpret those long time ago experiences.
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.
Were there any internal dissensions within the Fellowship?
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
I know.
And it's just so beautiful to me to see that beginning to happen.
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.
I'm sorry, I'm not hearing.
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.
Exactly! Exactly!
Was there a real push in the Fellowship to try to get new members?
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
Well, how did you get your money?
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
The Doris Duke Foundation . . . wasn't that one that you used too? Or got money from sometimes?
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.
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?
Not able to raise money?
Yes. Is that when you left and didn't come back in . . . or . . . I . . .
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 . . .
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?
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 . . .
Sadie Hughley?
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.
Well, I'm going to see Ben Mays . . .
I know you are, but you ought to see Mel . . .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
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.
How did that increase the membership?
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
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 . . .
I'm sorry?
You say there was never any segregation in the Fellowship.
In any meeting we ever had.
Were the blacks in on the very organization of the Fellowship, or do you . . .
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.
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?
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.
Why did you move out of the church?
I think partly . . . well I think partly because of me. Because the church people just expected me to work full time.
Oh, for the church?
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.
That's true.
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.
What about the role of women? Were women active in the Fellowship?
Well, yes, it seemed to me that they were.
Did any woman ever serve on the Executive Committee?
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.
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.
Well, I, at that time, was not as much aware as I am now.
None of us were.
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.
Well, looking back on it, do you feel that there was discrimination against women in the Fellowship? Or not?
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
They weren't putting you down because you were a woman?
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.
When did Friends of the Soil get organized?
Sorry?
When did Friends of the Soil get organized?
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
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?
No I don't.
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.
Really?
I'll give you another list . . .
O.K., that's what I want.
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.
Thank you . . .
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.
That's all right.
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.
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
Oh, about that I did not know then.
You know, I mean, that the Fellowship was concerned with more than just race.
Yes.
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.
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
You know this reminds me of Cajun coffee.
You know my father was Cajun from Louisiana.
Oh, really, is that right?
Oh, yes.
Well now just tell me. What is a Cajun?
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.
I know they're mixed. But are they Spanish?
No they're primarily French.
French . . . French and . . .
They've got some Indian and some Black, in them as well.
and Black.
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.
Uh huh, uh huh.
South Louisiana. But I remember my grandfather died when I was a year and a half old, and I remember him speaking Cajun French.
Is that right? Well now that's different from the French in Canada.
Yes, yes.
What would make it different?
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?
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
Well, were there other groups that were organized like Friends of the Soil who were sort of on the edge of things?
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.
Did any other groups try to use the Fellowship? Like the Communists did early on in the organization period.
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.
She was too young?
She was very young, and I don't even remember her ever coming to anything that the Fellowship had.
Hmm.
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.
Going back to the membership. I noticed some interesting names on the membership list in 1957: James McBride Dabbs.
Well, now James McBride Dabbs . . . now explain your . . .
Well, I was struck by his name being there and I wondered what his relationship was to the Fellowship . . .
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 . . .
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B]
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 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.
What was Myles Horton's relationship with the Fellowship?
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
Buck apparently saved everything.
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.
Well, he must have been a very charismatic person, a dynamic personality.
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,
Someone has said, "Buck Kester killed the Fellowship."
Someone said what?
Buck Kester killed the Fellowship.
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?
Robert Martin being wrong?
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.
Well it started off with my saying that someone said Buck killed the Fellowship.
Yeah! I'll think of it in a minute.
What do you see as the difference between the Fellowship and the Committee of Southern Churchmen?
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 . . .
Before the Committee of Churchmen?