© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.
MP3 file derived from WAV preservation master, which was derived from original analog cassettes.
The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.
An audio file with the interview complements this electronic edition.
The text has been entered using double-keying and verified against the original.
The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 4 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.
Original grammar and spelling have been preserved.
All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.
All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as "
All em dashes are encoded as —
Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview G-0007, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Ella Baker was an instrumental figure in the formation of the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) during the late 1950s and in the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) during the early 1960s. Baker begins the interview
by describing how her work in the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) from the late 1930s into the early 1950s gave her a
strong background for understanding the conditions of racial segregation and
discrimination in the Jim Crow South. According to Baker, the Supreme Court
decision in Brown v. Board of Education, along with the
Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1954, generated strong momentum for direct, collective
action against segregation in the South. According to Baker, the SCLC was born
out of that momentum, primarily at the behest of southern clergy. Arguing that
the initial seeds of the SCLC were planted in a meeting she held with Bayard
Rustin and Stanley Levinson, Baker describes how an executive committee was
formed and how Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as the chosen spokesperson and
president of the organization. From there, Baker goes on to explain why
ministers were seen as appropriate leaders in the civil rights movement and how
they continued to serve as the primary leaders within the SCLC. Baker describes
SCLC as less ideological and more spontaneously oriented around philosophies of
Christianity and Ghandian nonviolence. Baker spends considerable time describing
her perception of the roles various leaders such as Rustin, Levinson, and King
played in the organization, as well as the influence she exerted in selecting
the SCLC's first executive director, Reverend John Tilly.
Additionally, Baker explains why she never was appointed to an official position
of leadership within the SCLC, despite the fact that she exercised a high level
of responsibility in organizing meetings and activities, citing her age, her
gender, and the fact that she was not a minister as the primary reasons for her
"behind-the-scenes" role. Baker also spends considerable time
in describing her role in the formation of SNCC and tensions between SNCC and
other organizations, including the SCLC and the NAACP. According to Baker, SNCC
found itself at odds with the more established organizations because of its
youthful membership and its adherence to direct action. Researchers will be
especially interested by Baker's insider perspective on the formation
of and interactions between these preeminent civil rights organizations, as well
as her candid portrait of civil rights leaders.
Ella Baker was an instrumental figure in the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In this interview, she offers a candid analysis of the formation of those organizations and an insider's perspective on the role of and interactions between various civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King Jr.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
I want to acknowledge first of all that in most of the literature I've
read, they've spoken rather highly of you. Some of them have gone so far
as to dedicate works to you: Howard Zinn and his SNCC: The
New Abolitionists and Pope and his work on the Mississippi
Freedom Summer. These men felt that you were one of the main cogs in
this wheel that these subsequent movements followed. So I'm honored to
talk with you this morning, and I'd like for you to share with me some
of your experiences and accounts of the role you played in SCLC and your
interpretations of roles other individuals played in the organization
that you might feel are necessary to give me more insight as to the
dynamics involved in the programs that SCLC ultimately initiated.
My first question to you, as I was saying earlier, is, can you point out to me other factors aside from the Montgomery movement and the 1954 Supreme Court decision which may have contributed to the founding of SCLC when it was founded in '57?
Well, I think what you have is a question of continuity of struggle. You
said that people had referred to me largely in terms of maybe being a
factor. That I think sprang from the fact that several years before
that, in the forties, late thirties and in the forties in particular, I
was working with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People, and a primary function of mine was to go into the areas—maybe
some of the areas that had not been visited in a long while. For
instance, I used to leave New York sometime in February and go into
Florida. I'd start at St. Pete[rsburg] and Tampa and that was because
the Association didn't have an active branch in
In addition to that, the '54 decision was frequently interpreted by
people as being the end of the struggle because the N.A.A.C.P. struggle
had been one of legal action to a large extent. The 1954 decision
culminated an effort on the part of the lawyers of the Association to
raise the question of the constitutionality of racial segregation. This
was the case on which that got verbalization. So that becomes an
historical monument and to some people it almost was interpreted as
being the end of the struggle. But as we have seen from the history of
racial segregation and discrimination, we've had court action that has
been nullified from time immemorial. You must go back to the
Reconstruction period and I'm not going into that, but you
You were about to speak to the "why" of S.C.L.C..
I think the basic "why" of S.C.L.C. has to do with what has taken place in the '54 decision and the unthought of Montgomery bus boycott. But before you can evaluate the bus boycott, you have to understand how it came about. And it didn't come out of a vacuum.
There were two people in Montgomery who had functioned with the
N.A.A.C.P. over the years and they were Mrs. Rosa Parks and E.D.Nixon.
Where did E. D. Nixon get his fire? He got his fire and his sense of
social action from being a member of the Brotherhood of Sleepingcar
Porters and the struggle that it had waged through the years. So when
the Montgomery bus boycott ended successfully here you had a social
phenomenon that had not taken place in the history of those of us who
were around at that time, where hundreds of people and even thousands of
people, ordinary people, had taken a position that put them in a very
uncomfortable—at least made life less comfortable for them—when they
decided to walk rather than to ride the buses.
At this time, you were working with the N.A.A.C.P.?
No, at '54?
No, in '57.
No, no, no. See, I left the N.A.A.C.P. nationally in '46,and I worked
with a local branch. I think I was the president somewhere in the
fifties. In 1957, at the time that S.C.L.C. was formally organized—I
think that's when it was formally organized—I was doing a program of
trying to educate or trying to stimulate action on the part of black and
Puerto Rican parents in respect to the school situation. See, New York
City had taken, had set up a
You mentioned the fact that E. D. Nixon probably got a lot of his fire
from his earlier affiliation with the
Sure. Well, in the first place, the first time Mrs. per se as such, but they would be
against the idea of going to battle for the town drunk who happened to
have been maybe brutalized when being arrested because, who was he? And
in some places like Buffalo, New York, for instance, most of the black
children were coming out of the high schools with just certificates
attesting to the fact that they had been in attendance. But I frequently
would have people ask me as I came up from the deep South, up to
Virginia and North Carolina,
This was in the fifties?
The fifties. The late forties, up to '46, was when I was travelling.
Now you said when you were working, you did some work in Florida, came up through Mobile and Tampa and all up through that. When was that?
That was in the forties.
The forties.
With the N.A.A.C.P. when I was serving as an assistant field secretary.
How was it that you moved into a position in the S.C.L.C.? What was the process involved there?
The process there was that after the '54 decision, after the Montgomery
boycott or simultaneous almost with it, the '54 decision precipitated
certain kinds of repressive action against people who attempted to
enroll their children in school. Two places in particular come to mind.
One was Clarendon County, South Carolina and I think there was Yazoo,
Mississippi where the black parents attempted to enroll, and certain
repressive actions were taken against them. People who were tenant
farmers for thirty or forty
Pardon me, but this is at the successful end of the Birmingham boycott?
Montgomery boycott.
Montgomery boycott.
Yes, it had come at that period. So the question in some of our minds is
that there was something there that should be continued, that you needed
a force in the South that was comparable to the N.A.A.C.P. in some
respects. Why? Because the N.A.A.C.P. in the minds of those of us who
were concerned at that stage, primarily dealt with legal action.
Although it had a program of branch action it had not organized mass
action that lent itself to demonstrations. So, if you think in terms of
something in the South for mass action you'd start with the group that
had been involved in something. So there was Montgomery and in
connection with Montgomery there were large numbers of black ministers,
or a number of black ministers throughout the area who had identified
with that struggle. For instance, C. K. Steele in Tallahassee,
Yes, Jameson was in New Orleans.
Jameson had had a boycott of his own in Baton Rouge, you see. So what you do then, is stimulate thought of an organization in the South that can spread.
At this point you may be able to help me clear up another question too. There's a question as to where the initial call for this conference came from. Reading a book like Louis, Miller, they suggest that the call came from C. K. Steele. Well, I went down and interviewed Rev. Steele and he assured me that the call didn't come from him. He responded to the call. He said some Jewish-talking, or some funny talking man called him—he's always thought it was Bayard Rustin —and asked him if he would go along with the conference in late '56, late December, '56. And he said, yeah, it was just his kind of a thing. He had just finished his Tallahassee thing and they were at the city council. So, I'm trying to pin down, if there's any way possible.
I don't know whether you can pin it down because I think Bayard may verify the fact that there were three of us who talked into the wee hours of the morning in terms of, how do you develop a course that can enlarge upon the gains or the impact of the Montgomery bus boycott.
Did the three represent you, Bayard and Levinson?
Yes, Bayard and Levinson; largely at Stanley's house. He was the man with some money, and Bayard and I would go over there. He's not living where he use to. Why me? Because I knew the South—comparatively, in terms of their knowledge of it. They had not had as wide knowledge as I had. Plus the fact that I had been associated with the N.A.A.C.P. So, we talked into the wee hours and the concep of trying to develop out of the Montgomery bus boycott leadership a force. And when they approached no doubt Martin and whoever else, their response was largely in terms of ministers. That's why you get the ministerial thing. You couldn't think in terms of a leadership around the bus boycott without also thinking of C. K. Steele's efforts and Jameson's efforts.
McCullough of South Carolina.
Well, McCullough came a little bit after that. Then you go into the whole question, which was the pattern in the South, who were the leaders? The ministers—which may or may not be justifiable, but that's how it started. Then, let's say that the call came from Martin.
Yes, well that's the way it was basically reported.
Yes. Historically he gets credit for it, but
Right. Now I can see a great deal of precipitating happenings leading to the founding of S.C.L.C. The next question in my mind is, after this was realized there was a need for an instrument to try and spread this movement that was in Montgomery with the hope of bringing about greater social change, what was the notion of the kind of organization you would have? I know you said you had a great deal of ministers, but would it be one with just a president and a lot of lieutenants, a president and an executive secretary with a great deal of power, or was it a democratic organization in conception, or a strong dictatorial organization? What was the thinking about the nature of the organization at this time?
Well, the thinking about the nature of the organization would vary with
the people who were doing the thinking. Those of us who preferred an
organization that was democratic and where the decision making was left
with the people would think in one vein and the organizing of active,
let's call it, chapters or units of people. But when you reckon with the
fact that a majority of the people who were called together were
ministers and the decision as
But there's another problem here…
So I think the nature of the organization became to a large extent a ministerial thing. Out of the one hundred plus (I forgot how many) that were present at the initial meeting where the formal organizing of the organization took place, I think Whitney Young and a guy from Mississippi… who I worked with for a number of years, I can't think of his name…
Dr. Henry?
No, no, no… Anthon Moore in Cleaveland, Mississippi, were among the maybe
two or three non-ministers present. I was the only woman. I think maybe
there was another person who came and sat in
Do you think the reason for that was because most of the ministers at that time had the power to…
Well, not only…
… the power to bring people together?
No, not only the power. When you haven't
There's one other question of particular importance to me, namely, the question involving Dr. King's first two years as president of the S.C.L.C. At the same time, he was still president of the M.I.A. I'm wondering if that ever caused any friction?
Friction, where?
On the part of the people in Montgomery—M.I.A. people who were trying to get funds and the S.C.L.C. people who were trying to get funds. It seems to me that Dr. King would have been the main instrument for both organizations for bringing funds in to operate. Was there any problem in that regard?
I think your best person for focusing on that problem, if there were one,
would be such as Nixon because he was the treasurer, and he resigned,
and he resigned for certain reasons. But it wasn't so much the problem
of (let's call it) the dual function of King. Unfortunately,
Well, Rev. Tilly was the first executive director of S.C.L.C..
That's right.
One of the persons contending for executive director, according to the sources I've looked at, was Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr. It was a constant thing of his. In each one of the few minutes I saw—I haven't been able to see all of them—he would tell them, don't forget we've got to get an executive director. You know, you always try to look for little nuances of things that will give you some kind of a hint. I got the impression there that he was hoping that they would hurry up and get somebody to take some of the pressure and heat off of his son. What's your thinking in that regard?
Well, it could well be because I don't think at the stage even of the
Montgomery bus boycott Martin
How do you explain that in the middle of 1959 they reduced the executive staff to one, namely you?
I was in the office. I set up the office of S.C.L.C. That's a story I'll tell some other time. I'll not go into detail now. I went there primarily to do their first program which was to have twenty-odd meetings in different cities simultaneously on the same night which was February twelfth.
Citizenship Committee.
Yes, for the vote. I had anticipated being there for about six weeks.
Gave myself four weeks to get the thing going and two weeks to clean it
up. But they had no one. How did they get Rev. Tilly? They wanted a
minister.
Let me review something with you. I had occasion to look at the criteria for selection that was suggested by Dr. King and a couple of people to the selection committee?
When was the criteria suggested though?
Well, in '58.
Well, that's a difference.
It was '58, prior to the time. And Dr. King emphasized that they shouldn't just confine their consideration just to ministers. I thought it was kind of strange that he made that point but I think it was made advisedly in that he wanted to encourage bringing in people with a few more administrative skills than he believed ministers had. Anyway, they wound up getting Dr. Tilly. As soon as Dr. Tilly resigned, you stepped in and became executive director and from sources I've seen I also see where you conceived this idea of the Citizenship Crusade and you spelled out in detail some of things you felt should be done. Did you encounter any difficulty in trying to get this problem over, or was S.C.L.C. glad to get it over?
In the first place, Rev. Tilly became the executive largely because I
knew Tilly. I knew they wanted a minister. Bayard was scheduled to go
down even at the
Kelly Smith?
Kelly Mill Smith, yes, a very perceptive young man at the time. When they
hadn't found anybody or at least they hadn't decided on any… they
thought in terms of Dr. Pitts, a young man now dead who became president
of Birmingham College. Pitts was a teacher in Georgia and I had know him
in my N.A.A.C.P. days. I went to him and talked with him; he asked me to
talk with him. They had made some slight overtures to him and then he
decided that he couldn't do that. They had waited, gone around; nothing
was happening. What was happening was nothing except what I was doing in
the office. So I suggested that they had to have a minister. I had heard
that Tilly had been responsible for a voter registration drive in
Baltimore which may or may not be quite accurate because that was no
doubt masterminded by the president of the Baltimore branch of the
N.A.A.C.P.— Mrs. Jackson and her
These first three years of S.C.L.C. operation, '57 to '60, you were, if not an intimate participant, right there where you could see most of what was going on. My question to you is just what was the roll of the executive director of the S.C.L.C. in contrast to the roll of president of S.C.L.C., Dr. King?
Different from the roll of director of such organizations as N.A.A.C.P.,
C.O.R.E. and so forth. The executive director was more or less nominally
under direction. The personality that had to be played up was Dr. King.
The other organizations (if you know this), the executive director was
the spokesman. But they couldn't tolerate having an old lady, even a
lady, and an old lady at that. It was too much for the masculine and
ministerial ego to have permitted that.
You show great insight in this period I've been looking over. You may call it hindsight but it seems to me that you knew what was going on. You made some recommendations to S.C.L.C. over some long range things you felt they should do. Two things you felt they should do in particular, namely: trying to create a program where they could get more women involved in the program and try to come up with some program to try and get more of the youth involved in the movement. This was before the Greensboro thing. I regard this as being of a great deal of insight. What was it you had seen which made you realize at that point in time that women and youth would eventually be playing vital rolls or they should be included at that point in time in trying to bring about whatever social change was taking place?
I guess my own experience but basically in terms of the church. All of
the churches depended in terms of things taking place on women, not men.
Men didn't do the things that had to be done and you had a large number
of women who were involved in the bus boycott. They were the people who
kept the spirit going and the young people. I knew that the young people
were the hope of any movement. It was just a normal thing to me. The
average Baptist minister didn't really know organization.
They weren't creative at all.
All he did was to change the person who was in charge. It wasn't creative.
Was there anything that happened in the latter '59, '60, which triggered the S.C.L.C. to start moving having used that stage '57 to '60 for organizing?
What triggered it was the formation—triggered it more than anything else
to get into a broad program of action—of the existence of S.N.C.C. The
sit-ins became S.N.C.C. and S.N.C.C. was an action group, an activist
group. Have you read The Making of a Black
Revolutionary by James Foreman?
Yes.
Everybody gives you credit for bringing about two almost profound
compromises in terms of S.N.C.C. and S.N.C.C.'s relationship to S.C.L.C.
The first one—and I'd like for you to help
What they really were fighting over was a question of dominance. Those
who came out of the nonviolent
During that time what was N.A.A.C.P. and C.O.R.E.'s reaction to the S.C.L.C.?
Outwardly it was friendly, let's put it that way. Maybe subterraneously there were concerns about the extent to which S.C.L.C. might pre-empt their roll in certain places, but you didn't have any outward conflict.
The organization pulled an awful lot of people from the N.A.A.C.P.
No, I don't think so.
That was because you didn't accept individual membership.
That was one of the basics.
That was one of the basic rules of S.C.L.C. in all of the time—placate organizations like N.A.A.C.P.
That was a basic projection from the beginning when those of us who
thought in terms of organizing an S.C.L.C. or some force in the
South—was to avoid individual memberships which would not place you in
competition
Miss Baker, your idea of Crusade for Citizenship did create somewhat of a
furor. I'm mindful of the fact that you tried to get an advisory
committee together for this thing and you sent names out to all of the
big people just so they would lend their name to it; you weren't asking
them to really give money but just to lend their name to it. You sent to
the Rappaports; you even sent to Roy Wilkins and Mr. Wilkins
subsequently declined but he recommended somebody from his group. Mr.
New York
Amsterdam News and one or two other papers that Wilkins was a
little peeved at this kind of thing. They didn't state specifically what
he said but they got the implication that he was peeved. Obviously Dr.
King felt the same way because on a memo that he wrote to the executive
board that he was going to try once more to try and get co-operation
between his organization and the N.A.A.C.P. Can you shed any light on
that situation for
I think what you're faced with is a normal situation in the period, in
the context of the period. Here was an organization, the N.A.A.C.P.,
which in 1950 was at least forty-one years old. I think it came into
being in 1909. They had carried on certain kinds of programs. And here
was an individual who had not had any real connection, hadn't grown up
in the struggle. Martin had not, historically, been any part of the
struggle. He was the son of a well-to-do minister and he was in search
of a higher status in terms of education. I don't think there's any
record of his being involved in any movement of any kind prior to that.
So what do you have? Somebody could say, there's an upstart. And I guess
these are the human factors. I'm sure there were strains. For instance,
Roy would have to be sort of convinced, let's say to put it politely, to
participate in such as the March on Washington, the famous march, and
prior to that there were the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage and there were a
couple of marches involving students in terms of the question of school
segregation. The mass action type thing like that, the N.A.A.C.P. at
that stage had not been involved with. Naturally there was this sense of
priority of right (let's call it). Who was the bridge between that? That
was Philip Randolph.
The March on Washington.
The March on Washington in the '40's. And Mrs. Roosevelt and Mayor LaGuardia—you know our good angels of the liberal angels—talked him out of it. But N.A.A.C.P. could not afford, Roy could not afford to absolutely turn thumbs down over the situation because they could have been left out in the cold, number one. Number two—their deep respect for Phil Randolph.
He was certainly a monument in that whole scenario…
Certainly he was, yes.
… because when you look at it he initiated the idea to go and talk to the
president and he wanted to have a call-up meeting but he wanted a forum.
Roy turned thumbs down on that idea; they didn't go along with him on
that. Martin Luther was whole-heartedly in favor of it—having other
leaders aside from themselves coming in to talk with the president. The
Urban League and N.A.A.C.P. didn't think that would be the wisest
You see, they couldn't trust C.O.R.E.
There are four other names that were frequent in this whole episode and
I'd like to mention them to you and get you to give whatever response
you can to them. I'll mention them and give you my impresion of what
they were doing. You had Stanley Levinson from the time of his
involvement in writing the books Strived Toward
Freedom clean on up until Beyond the Year of '62.
The man was King's constant advisor; he just revered the man. He just
regarded King as being some super special and he didn't charge him a
penny for all of the legal work he did. Not a penny. He told him that he
did not want him to pay him anything. He was doing this because he
wanted to participate in the movement and this was one way that he could
try and look out for him. And every important decision that I think he
made, he either consulted with Levinson or he got some
Where did you find this?
In the papers in Boston, Boston University.
King's papers?
King's papers.
I see.
He put all of them down there. King's papers. That man wrote him on everything—on his book, on his taxes, on his dealing with Fred Gray down in Alabama when Gray wanted to rip him off for so much money for representing him, on meeting out of Chicago. The whole emphasis of this man was giving King advice and King seemed to have regarded his advice highly. What was your impression of Stanley Levinson, number one?
Another individual was Bayard Ruskin. Ruskin gave him a great deal of
advice and there's something that's puzzling me in David Louis' book.
You mentioned about the middle of 1959
And one other person that I want you to speak to is Smiley, Glen Smiley. Now Mr. William Noah, who worked with F.O.R. along with Smiley, wrote King around the middle of 1959. This was when all of this was coming to a head. He suggested to him that there was some friction between Smiley and Ruskin and that both of them were trying to get his attention. And King replied to him by saying, yeah, he had been observing it for a number of months but he was at a loss to know exactly what to do about it. But there's no question about Smiley's committment to non-violent principles and the fact that he was willing to give his all to S.C.L.C. and the cause of non-violence.
These individuals, in addition to yourself, keep coming up.
He was giving all not to the S.C.L.C. but that
Was he permanent in S.C.L.C.?
Not that I know of.
Okay, very good.
No. So what is your major question?
My major question is: How did you perceive, being close to the whole movement, the roll of these gentlemen? Was it similar to the one I portrayed or do you see it differently?
No… Stanley, number one, comes out of the American-Jewish Congress. He
had some prior knowledge of the value of social action because the
Congress was not just an organization of top-heavy individuals alone.
The Jewish people did a lot of demonstrating. And he was party to the
initial discussions thinking, how do you keep alive what had come out of
what has been demonstrated in the Montgomery bus boycott. You're raising
the question of his dedication. He didn't have to charge because he had
income; he had business. He was knowledgeable about fundraising.
Whatever his personal motivations for doing it, you would have to find
out from him. The fact that he was involved before in social action… You
see, I met Stanley when I was president of the local
It rather does. It goes a long way in explaining it because Levinson was a contact in the circles around New York and other places on the east coast whereby he could get money. And money was a vital ingredient for this whole thing. He also knew people who were specialists in certain areas, especially when it came to the income tax thing. He could recommend certain people.
Yes, he was a real estate man, lawyer.
Yes. Is he still in New York?
As far as I know. I haven't seem him; yes he's still in New York. Stanley's still here. I don't know exactly where he's living. It just happened that when I thought I had a heart condition I happened to be recommended to the same doctor as his.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
We'll be talking about some of Miss Baker's experiences and perceptions of the S.C.L.C. Miss Baker, I'd like to begin the questions this morning by asking you if you could discern to me the role you played in setting up the office of S.C.L.C. in Atlanta, Georgia.
Well, the office of the S.C.L.C. was set up I think at the end of 1958,
the beginning of 1958. I was asked to come down in order to facilitate a
program that they anticipated having on the twelfth of February, which
was to have twelve, at least several—they wanted at least twenty
different southern cities to have meetings simultaneously on the twelfth
of February. And in order to do that, there had to be somebody to pull
together the program and to make contact with these cities and the like.
So, when I came in, there was no office. For the first couple of days,
whatever functioning there was I had to function out of a telephone
booth and my pocketbook—keep my notes in the pocketbook. Through the
help largely of the Reverend Williams, Samuel Williams who was professor
of philosophy at Morehouse at the time, we did get an office set up.
Without him I don't know how I would have
The S.C.L.C. didn't move its headquarters to Atlanta until late
No, a year after.
But in the meantime you operated out of whereever you could find some space in Atlanta to try and coordinate this simultaneous meeting you had planned for these cities in the South.
Well, yes, you see as I had said when I came there there was no space. Nobody had made any provisions for space, hadn't even thought about it—apparently had not. I had assumed that certainly we might have been able to function with some degree of sustained effort out of the church office of Ebenezer Baptist Church since the Rev. Dr. King, Sr. was the father of the Re. Dr. King, Jr., but this was not provided for in the full sense. Well, I had to accomodate myself to whatever time the manager of that office felt that the mimeograph machine and other facilitites could be available usually after office hours. And so, as I indicated, Re. Samuel Williams, we talked and we pointed out of course that it was obvious you couldn't function effectively that way. So he succeeded in getting space in the orginal office—I've forgotten the name, the address now of S.C.L.C. on Auburn Avenue.
Was Rev. Williams acting in the capacity of con-
Well, he was part of the S.C.L.C. and I think we'd have to credit him with both factors. He was an official and he was knowledgeable enough to be, to realize that you couldn't function without some space.
Very good. Then, S.C.L.C. as an organization, didn't seeem to regard this as a serious problem—the fact that you didn't have office space in Atlanta? Otherwise they would have made some concessions, wouldn't they?
Well, I would think so. You see, S.C.L.C. had not, I suppose, grown to the point of understanding themselves or understanding organization sufficiently to be aware of the loss of momentum that could come from just coming in and trying to create out of air, you see.
Do you have any knowledge at all about who may have recommended you for that position?
Well, I think I know who recommended me—I don't think it was a recommendation. At that point, I was drafted. I was drafted without my own consent.
Explain that to me please.
I think I had indicated to you some time earlier that there had been a
series of conversations and
You might be interested to know that I have a number of those work papers that were prepared. I don't know who prepared them but I do know that work papers were prepared at the first meeting in January and the one in February in New Orleans.
Well, the work papers in the first meeting in January were prepared, the content, largely by Bayard and the format I did because I like to set things out in a form that you can see esily, you see. So I was sent there by this method. The three of us were to meet and Bayard and Stanley had gone out to the airport to talk with Martin as he passed through New York going where, I don't know. They came back and told me that I had been drafted to go to Atlanta to set up the program for the Crusade for Citizenship for these twenty-odd meetings. Prior to that it had been assumed that Bayard would go down, but he was not available, let's say. I was very provoked because I had never in my life.
… given your consent not as a contributor.
No, I had not planned to go. To be drafted in the sens of having it be said that I would go when I hadn't been consulted… my ego isn't very pronounced. But I suppose in that aspect of it, my ego is easily touched; not to ask me what to do but to designate me to do something without even consulting me, but I went.
Well, let me ask you this. This is the first major civil rights undertaking in the history of this country whereby a woman has been granted a seemingly, ostensibly significant policy-making kind of position. Now, were you taken by that? Was that gratifying to you?
So, when you first moved into S.C.L.C., your actual work designation was
never really specified. You were just called here to assist them in a
project that they
Yes. Getting together the meetings and preparing material for it. In fact, they spelled out nothing because there was nobody to spell cut anything.
They were searching for projects?
Well, they had in mind… the idea was conceived of as having dramatic, let's call it far-reaching, impact. Of having twenty meetings, or twenty-two meetings, simultaneously on February the twelfth—which I think is the official date of Douglass' birthday, Frederick Douglass' birthday.
And some white president, what's his name—Lincoln.
Lincoln, no. Yes, his is near that period. I think there's a difference of a day in the dates of the two births. But as I remember it, in my thinking, my obeisance was paid to the fact that it was near Mr. Douglas' birthday.
I have read where others gave credit to the fact that it was the white president's.
Right, right, I can understand that.
So, certainly by no stretch of the imagination can it be considered a conscious effort on the part of the officialdom of S.C.L.C. to provide input from a female, as such. If anything, it would be to the contrary.
Okay. Now, how long was it that you were working on your project before they hired an executive secretary…
… an executive director.
An executive director, yes.
You see, this project which I had given in my thinking, let's call it two months, I had said it would take me a certain number of weeks to set it up. I think I went there the earlier part of January, and this was to come off on February the twelfth. I planned to stay six weeks—the month to do it and two weeks to clean it up.
But it didn't work out that way. Then they began talking about having an executive director and naturally they wanted a minister.
Who brought up this idea about an executive director, do you recall?
Oh, I don't know that I can recall anybody in particular. I think it came out of what might be considered what was over ther an executive group, the board, the executive committee. I don't think they had even constituted too clearly, prior to the February twelfth meeting, the delineations of different groupings within it. They had an executive committee, and then they began to see… There were pressures. There were pressures for a format and a mechanism to implement whatever they had been talking about doing, providing an organization.
Who was the
I think the ministers, many of the ministers, who had been initially a part of the formation of S.C.L.C. You see, the meetings prior to this—you referred to the initial meeting in January and then there was a meeting in New Orleans…
… in February…
… which I gather was largely a matter of let's call it a board meeting
and big mass meeting—but the continuance
Reverence Bill Smith of Nashville?
Smith of Nashville. I would also think of — what's the man that was, not in New Orleans, but…
Simpkins?
Simpkins, yes.
Jameson?
I like Jameson especially. See, they would be pressing for something concrete. Some others no doubt. I imagine Reed. I'm not sure whether Reed was in that early; Reed of Norfolk. I don't think he was.
What about
Well, I imagine he would be concerned but he didn't want to maybe violate his relationships with Martin. There was a certain defferential consideration that they had, maybe sometimes too defferential in terms of trying to force something through.
I want to ask you about that later on because
Well, I'll answer the last question first. I recommended him, largely because of two things. One, they had talked in terms of "finding" an executive director. I knew, number one, that they were biased towards a minister. I felt that it ought to also be somebody who had certain kinds of experience. And prior to reaching Dr. Tilly, I had interviewed (or at least talked with) a person in Atlanta who they had… whose name had come up occassionally was also a minister…
Dr. Pitts?
Yes, Dr. Pitts. And I knew Dr. Pitts from my early N.A.A.C.P. days. There had been overtures made to him. I don't know; I think he called me. At least we talked to each other and he suggested I come by and talk with him. I think he wanted to ask some questions. I know he wanted to.
Did you encourage him to take the position?
No, I didn't. I neither encouraged nor discouraged because I felt he had a sufficient amount of knowledge and background and experience to be able to evaluate whether he should or should not. He did not have a great enthusiasm for making that shift. And I think he had reasons for it because I don't think he would have felt quite as free. He didn't feel that there was an atmosphere (now I shouldn't put this in) but there would be an atmosphere of freedom of operation. He didn't feel that there was a clarity of organizational proceedure that would suit him at that point.
That seems to be a pretty accurate observation at that time.
Yes. So then the next move—I guess there may have been others they may have approached, I don't recall—but I suggested Tilly because I knew Dr. John Tilly. He was a theological senior student at school at Shaw when I was a student there. I knew him as a person and I had read of the credentials that were attributed to him in terms of having conducted a very successful voter registration drive in Baltimore. So, I suggested him and it took a little while before anyone saw him. In fact, nobody saw him until I further suggested to Stanley that we talk to him. And so Stanley underwrote the…
Let me get this now. You first suggested to some members of S.C.L.C.?
Yes, I forget the name.
And there was slow response.
Yes.
And, subsequent to that, you talked to Stanley?
Yes. It may have been almost simultaneous to let Stanley know about that thing.
Yes.
But there's still the question of where the initial move officially should come, from which it should come. And so, this information let's say is turned over to Dr. King.
Okay.
And no motion.
Okay.
And we further suggested, let's have a conference with Mr. Tilly to feel
him out. So he came to New York and we met at an ice cream parlor
Okay. And the inititiative came from this meeting that you and Mr. Levinson had with him in New York.
Yes. In New York.
Do you know how long Rev. Tilly served as executive secretary?
I can't recall the exact date, but it seems to me it was less than a year. He was not full-time. He had made provisions to continue his pastorate of a given church in Baltimore. So he would commute, at times for several weeks. Seems to me that the initial meeting he attended was the one we had in Mississippi.
Clarksdale.
Clarksdale, Mississippi.
That was labelled as the greatest meeting yet.
I think I did that labelling, I'm afraid.
Now the question is was that propaganda or was that…?
No. I don't know how it was labelled. Where did you get the label?
I found it in some of my notes. Now, we were talking about Rev. Tilly, his being appointed executive director. You were trying to recall the first meeting he attended. Was this at that Clarksdale meeting?
Yes. It was there. It was at Clarksdale.
What kind of a speaker was Rev. Tilly? Was he as dynamic a speaker as, say, a person like Rev. King or Walker? What kind of a delivery did he have?
He had very good delivery. It was not as forcefull in terms of what might be called dramatics as Martin's voice. Wasn't as resonant but he had a clear voice and good thinking. He had very good thoughts. Of course, he had been speaking a long time.
Can you recall any frustrations he might have experienced which caused him not to stay on at S.C.L.C. for more than a year? Do you have any idea as to the reasons why he left S.C.L.C.—that's the point I'm trying to make.
I don't think he spelled out —certainly to me and I'm not even sure he
speeled out to the board—any specific, let's call it, gripes about
S.C.L.C. per se. But I think the rationale that was
provided was that he found it necessary to give more time to his church
work. He didn't find it quite viable to continue to have to commute to
During the time of Rev. Tilly's tenure he was given the title of executive director. After Rev. Tilly departed, you became acting executive director. Number one, how did you feel about his leaving and what did you think of the position of acting executive director?
What did I think about? How did I feel?
How did you feel about it?
I had no ambition to be (let's call it) executive director. If I had had
any, I knew it was not to be. And why do I say that? Two reasons. One, I
was a female. The other, I guess, a combination of female and
non-minister, plus the kind of personality differences that existed
between me and the Rev. Dr. King. I was not a person to be enamoured of
anyone. My philosophy was not one of non-violence per
se and I knew enough about organization (at least I thought I knew
enough about organization) to be critical about some of the lack of
proceedures that obtained in S.C.L.C. Within the inner councils,
whenever there was discussion, I did not try to force myself upon them
recognizing the sensitivities that existed. Now, I did not hesitate to
voice my opinion and sometimes it was the voicing of that opinion it was
obvious that it was not
Was any of these sensitivities regarding a female being in a power position in the organization ever explicitly expressed or was it just a feeling, a presumption that you had in this regard.
Well, when you say explicitly expressed I think the nearest to it would
be the fact that: number one, when brought down, although I had full
responsibilities for doing whatever was being done I was never offered a
position, an official position, by way of title. And when there was the
bringing in of an executive director, I think there was a willingness on
the part of the officialdom to permit me to stay on without even title.
So I think it may have been some of my friends who raised the question
with me and so I maybe raised the question to at least I should keep
some record as to where I'd been. There were a number of occassions on
which I differed very sharply when a discussion came up and I never was
one to just agree on the basis of the position of the other fellow. When
I say position, the international and national prominence of the
individual had nothing to do, in my opinion, with the opinion that was
expressed with the opinion that I did not concur. The prominence of the
individual was not a
And you are almost certain that your name never figured prominently in the search for an executive director?
Well, I know that. After the first meetings and I think it was maybe after the Clarksdale meeting—I'm not too sure, I think it was Clarksdale—and there were some subsequent meetings, I had a special meeting with ministers in Mississippi and nobody was there but me, nobody from the organization. I think I did bring one of the persons from Nashville… I can't recall who came. There was a Methodist bishop—I'm not sure that he was a bishop, but I believe he was (I ought to check the record)—who voiced openly, he was so enthusiastic you know of my "demonstration of capacity to get something out of nothing", Because I had to create materials. I not only created but had to break it down so they could use it. Occasionally I had opportunities to raise questions in council. So some people he recommended openly, immediately, that I become the executive, you see.
How was that handled?
How was it dealt with?
That's right.
This is the dilemma that I see in this whole episode and I'd like to hear
your reaction to what I'm about to suggest. As I can see it, they had a
fantastic respect on the one hand for your ability but an equal amount
of fear for your potential of independence on the other hand because
they never did make you an official, a bonafide
Well, I don't think it's too difficult to digest if you look at it from the perspective that here was a young leadership that came out of a background that had little or no prior experience of working with an effectively trained black (certainly it didn't have to be black or white) an effectively trained and experienced organizational promoter who had had the kind of experience that I had had. And who was not loathe to raise questions. I did not just subscribe to a theory just because it came out of the mouth of the leader. So, it was too difficult; it was much too difficult. I was too old…
… to be intimidated by the presence of…
Well, not only that. From their perspective I was too old to create any
interest on a man-female, man-woman, basis. I wasn't a fashionplate; I
make no bones about not being a fashionplate.
We were talking about their respect for their abilitites on the one hand
and a fear of your independence
Yes.
You didn't have that kind of relationship with them.
No, and I wasn't a showplate. The average attititude toward the southern Baptist ministers at that stage, and maybe still, was as far as their own women were concerned were that they were nice to talk to about such things as how well they cooked, how beautiful they looked, and how well they carried out a program that the minister had delegated them to carry out but not a person with independence and creative ideas of his own, but on whom they had to rely. They could not tolerate, and I can understand that they couldn't, and especially from a person like me because I was not the kind of person that made special effort to be ingratiating. I didn't try to insult but I did not hesitate to be positive about the things with which I agreed or disagreed. I might be quiet but if there was discussion and I was suppose to be able to participate, I participated at the level of my thinking.
Very good. This brings us to another aspect
Well, I think it would vary from time to time.
Can you recall any outstanding personalities here—the ones who seemed to dominate the discussions or the ones who seemed to persuade others to their point of view. This is what I'm talking about—the whole decision-making process and the identification of those individuals who seemed to have had the greatest influence.
I'm not sure that I can specify with any degree of accuracy other than to
indicate that persons who had been, let's say, number one, closely
related to the Montgomery movement—had a certain, brought with them
certain credentials as a result of that. A person like
Jameson?
No, Jameson was Baton Rouge. The one who had a very big church in New
Orleans. You see, all of
Certainly. It touches upon the point but I can understand the difficulty
involved in specifying certain individuals. The categories you mentioned
are certainly useful—mainly that based on the Baptist hierarchy, the
minister with the largest congregation, and with standing in his
community certainly had a definate influence on the outcome of certain
things. But in the final analysis it was left up to Martin as to what
would be done. Let me
No, I think at that stage, let's see, this was the prevading atmosphere: one of, we have something great; we have a great person and we must try to make use of this and not be divisive. I think this was a consideration on the part of the people who were there. Plus the fact, the lack of prior experience on the part of many ministers with dealing with organizations of this type. This was different from a church organization and it was out in "competition" with other national organizations and it was a movement. So neither their time nor general inclination motivated them to give undivided attention to this organization. And they were willing to—as is not uncommon in organization—leave it up to somebody else. Now this however, was one of the reasons that a so-called executive committee was formed. And that committee was supposedly the committee in which great decisions were made and where the differences would be fought out.
Do you remember who had the power to appoint the executive committee? Was
it chosen in the general assembly
I think initially, it was left up to the president with, let's call it, the concurrence of the general assembly. The meeting at which the name of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was fought out—that was an interesting meeting. That was held in Montgomery. There was a great deal of discussion as to how to name it and one of the factors that apparently was persuasive in terms of choosing the Southern "Christian" Leadership Conference was that if it were designated as a Christian organization, it would provide some degree of protective mechanism against the charge of being communist.
We've talked about the officially designated people in S.C.L.C.—namely,
the executive board and the executive committee—can you recall the roll
that the unofficial, influential people played in S.C.L.C.; like Mr.
Samuel Evanson. He was never designated an officer of S.C.L.C. but it's
quite apparent through looking at literature that he played a kind of
significant roll. As a matter of fact, two of you and Mr. Levinson met
with Rev. Tilly in New York, recommended Rev. Tilly's name; subsequently
Rev. Tilly was named executive director. I'd like you to try and recall
as best you can, how was this
I don't think that there was wide knowledge of Mr. Levinson per se as an "official" or unofficial constant advisor and
consultant to Dr. King. I think it was more of a personal relationship,
it might have been regarded by others. They didn't know about it.
So rather than use the term official—like I've been doing—or constant advisor, you think the best designation to refer to Mr. Levinson and his contribution would be a constant friend of Martin Luther King's?
I think you would certainly have to make the combination of friend and
advisor because he was not designated as an official advisor by the
organization. He was not openly known. I won't suggest that it was a
covert action, but it was not considered necessary for all the
constituency even of the executive committee to know of all the
individuals with whom the president "consulted." And since out of
Montgomery situation there had developed a national and international
bases for Dr. King's relationships, it was presumed and accepted that if
he found it advised, advantageous or necessary to consult with or to
He was definately and informed unofficial member of the advisory group of the S.C.L.C..
Yes.
And I was trying to solicate from you the best designation I could give him and you've suggested that I'd have to acknowledge his friendship and advisory…
… and the advisory relationship. If anyone wished to be venal you could almost say this could be interpreted as having some implications beyond that. There's a venal
That's what I was trying to think about, just what all of this meant. Just what effect did this have on the direction of the organization? You know, the different kind of advice that Dr. King was getting and different kind of advice that he shunned. There were certain people that I don't believe he would listen to too much and he might have been one of those people. I'm just trying to get the direction. I think you can tell a lot about an organization if you can find out where the greates t input is coming from.
Well, I think one of the yardsticks that might be used is the fact that I
don't think that persons without —I'll put it his way, I'll put it
positive: persons who were in a position to provide both financial aid
and public relations assistance to the furtherance of the organization
or the furtherance of the career of the president would be certainly
high on the list of acceptable advisors. Stanley was in position; I
think he ran the money-making campaigns in New York. He comes out of the
Jewish tradition. He was part of the American Jewish Congress, I
believe; as you know, that's a highly organized money-raising
organization. They have a format. He was able to provide that
It says a whole lot and these are the kinds of things that I'm trying to see. I know that there were certain groups of individuals that he would have a natural almost affinity to, especially the ones that had sustained what he regarded as being his efforts and at the same time bringing in added money, needed money. But let me jump back and try to see if we can come up with some notions of the character of the organization. This is an elusive kind of a thing because in the beginning they just were joined together to try and lend direction or co-ordination to the various activities throughout the South.
Beyond the initial idea of the organization, what kind of character do you see the organization as having in its earlier stage? Can you lend any kind of character to it, other than the fact that it was composed of ministers who really didn't know anything about organization? What kind of a character did it have, or is that too broad or ambivalent a question?
Well, I don't know whether it's ambivalent but I think in the nature of the time, the character of the organization can best be defined as something to meet the need of or capitalizing upon—this was their design—the mass impact that the Montgomery boycott had. Here you have a situation historically unthought of and unpredicted, where thousands of individuals, just black ordinary people, subjected themselves to inconveniences that were certainly beyond the thinking of most folk. Where they would walk: old women and maids who ran the risk of losing their little income would walk, if they got there, rather than ride the buses. Now this meant that you had a momentum that had not been seen even in the work of the N.A.A.C.P. And it was something that suggested a higher potential for wide-spread action through the South. So I think this has to be considered in any evaluation of S.C.L.C. (I may have lost my point.)
We were talking about the character of it. You're describing the spontaneity of it and the exceptional capacity that the people had to sacrifice.
Yes, for what they considered to be a point of liberation. This was
supposedly designed to escalate that throughout the South. If you recall
the first organization meeting in Atlanta
Yes, you're definately speaking to what I was talking about. You have to
go to the inception and the motivation behind it being founded to really
get at it. If we were to look at the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, you
know that their movement was routed very deeply in ideological kinds of
considerations. such an ideology in this movement but it's so ellusive
that I'm going to have to conclude I believe that there was no basic
ideology involved in the founding of S.C.L.C. Not really the
N.A.A.C.P.—unless you're going to call the Declaration of Indepence and
the Constitution of the United States an ideology because they don't
really put out pamphlets, write conceptual frameworks, which is found in
ideology dealing with the system per se. They come up
with tactics and programs to deal with problems dealing with race
relations.
Yes.
And I'm trying to really examine it. I thought I'd clear my mind, as you can see, but these are the kinds of things that I am trying to look at.
No, I don't think there was an ideology that certainly was comparable to the Marxist-Leninist concept of a changed society. The nearest to an ideology would be, let's call it, the Christian philosophy and that tied in with the philosophy of Ghandian non-violence, non-violent mass action. That was the nearest to it. But this is itself becomes an ellusive sort of a thing when, let's call it, the impact of the need to grow enters in and maybe the influence from individual leadership as to what shall we do next. And the "what shall we do next" frequently comes from sources other than the organization—like the identification with the anti-war movement. This did not develop out of the organization. It's out of discussion within the organization. It no doubt came as a suggestion to the president and the invitation to the president to come and speak at anti-war rallies. And I know something about somebody saying, "There is a time now for Martin to speak on anti-war. Do you think that this is the time for it?" And somebody would say, "Yes, it is." Somebody would talk to him; somebody that he felt duty-bound, let's call it, to listen to.
Okay. So the character then—and I'm just trying to theorize here and just give off kinds of responses and I want your reaction to them. The character here then, as I said, would be more and more of an action kind of a movement than one which would lend itself to a long-term plan or an ideology based on bringing about permanent social changes in the system, as such. And this action oriented movement lent itself more spontaneity than it did to the development of a structure which would require a kind of rigid format down through the years. So, this I think more than anything else would reflect the ultimate character that was inherent in what S.C.L.C. was doing. Or would you differ with that?
No, I wouldn't differ. I think you're quite correct there because the
personnell who provided the leadership for S.C.L.C. had never come to
grips with a philosophical concept other than the general concept of
nonviolent mass action. I don't think there was much—I'll be gratious
and say—either time or other bases for in-depth thinking about how far
non-violent mass action can go and to what extent can you really involve
people. You se, you may talk about it but when you respond—as the
organization did—to situations—their major efforts were in response to
situations—and when you exhaust yourself in situations like
Like St. Aug?
St. Aug. and Albany—what do you have? And you see all of this is being done within the time period of two or three years. Let's call it the overthrow of the Czar. It was not a two year thing. And maybe the general format, not only the format but the pattern of communication and training and action, the development of an anti-czarist movement was much more stimulated, I suppose, by the rather harsh physical conditions. And here you have black people living in "conditions" that were great affluence, the president becoming an international figure. These harsh conditions were not…
… were never really touched.
Never really, yes.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Miss Baker, we'd like to move away from S.C.L.C. per se
right now and look at the role that you played in bringing about a
compromise between certain factions of S.N.C.C., namely the non-violence
group and the voters registration group. I would like to ask you some
specific questions about how you were able to bring this compromise
about. The first question I would like to ask you is: Can you recall
some of the specific individuals you talked to in either one of the
factions, and the nature of your conversations with them? I'm trying to
get specific information as to how this compromise came about.
To sight who was for non-violence and who were for voter registration, proponents of these two points, might have some bearing. The people who had come out of Nashville were more strongly oriented to the philosophy of non-violence than any other because of Lawson.
Rev. Lawson.
Rev. Lawson. He had gone to India as a young missionary, I believe, during the days of Ghandi and he believed in it. So you had Diane Nash, Marion Barry—who is now running for mayor, I believe, of Washington.
Marion Barry?
I think he's one of the candidates for mayor— and John Lewis and maybe a couple of other people from Nashville. On the other hand you had persons who had had some conferences with Robert Kennedy which would include Charlie Jones of Charlotte and Chuck…
Excuse me, was Charlie Jones a white
No, he was black.
Did you ever hear of a Charlie Jones in Chapel Hill?
In Chapel Hill? I know him; a minister?
Right.
Yes, I know him. No, no relation at least not
The issue was whether to maintain it, have it just as a non-violent movement. The voter registration group wanted a voter registration program. So the basic difference was whether you could have a mass non-violent movement in voter registration. Whether or not you would have the confrontation that the non-violent advocates were accustomed to and were looking for. I certainly felt that number one, historically we had had much too much of dividing forces on the basis of concepts that did not necessarily serve purposes in the long run. I also perhaps felt and maybe realized beyond the realization of the young, that you could not possibly conduct a voter registration program in certain areas without confrontation. That I think was persuasive arguement. At that stage the black belt counters of Georgia were in the control of the state of Georgia, as far as that proportion…
No, I was thinking of southwest Georgia and other areas around Albany. In
terms of the Georgia Assembly, they were much stronger than the
population would
The county unit system?
Yes, the county unit system. That's what I was trying to think of. The
county unit system gave them much more strength than their population
warranted. So that kind of information was information that young people
may not have had—that 's number one. Number two: the persuasive
arguement, I think, was that once you mounted a voter registration
campaign involving mass registration you would have the resistance that
you were looking for and you could utilize, if you felt it necessary,
the non-violent approach. But the most far-reaching concept was that too
much of division had taken place in struggle and this was not necessary
at this stage. I felt that the young people were in better position to
show that they could function and deal with these differing points of
view without having to split up
They're impressive docuements. I have a copy of them.
Well, you see I had certain input that nobody else had. I had gone
through the N.A.A.C.P. period. In fact I've lived a long time and I had
related to things. So they had seen that I was not ripping them off. Up
to that point they had been able to rely on me to do
what they could not do or were in the position to do at the moment, in
terms of the nitty-gritty work that had to be done. So they were willing
to listen.
How did they actually antagonize—I'm talking about S.N.C.C. now—S.C.L.C.
and the N.A.A.C.P.? I'm mindful of the memo that went from Roy Wilkins'
office to Wyatt T. Walker while he was executive secretary of S.C.L.C.
So I'm asking you if you can recall any instances whereby S.N.C.C. was actually irritating, threatening (which is I think too strong a word) S.C.L.C. or the N.A.A.C.P.?
I think the basic reason for the reactions of N.A.A.C.P. and S.C.L.C. to
S.N.C.C. is the fact that they elected to be independent and they
exercised the independence that only young people or unattached people,
those who are not caught in a framework of thought, can exercise. They
were open to ideas that would not have been certainly cherished, or in
some instances certainly, tolerated by either the N.A.A.C.P. or S.C.L.C.
As a chief example, the moving into Mississippi. When they decided, they
called it "Move On Mississippi" and they called it "MOM". I think a
delegation went to talk to Thurgood Marshall, who was then the chief
counsel of the N.A.A.C.P. regarding
… had been called by you
… had been called by me…
… you would deliver.
Yes, we're talking about how to use them.
Yes, and this was completely intolerable to me.
But they eventually experienced a rude awakening in trying to deal with these young people. The young people just weren't listening to them.
Well, that was their first experience recognizing that the young people were going to make their own decisions. At that time, they found that they just weren't able to control the voting.
At this meeting in Raleigh, Dr. King and Rev. Lawson were two people who gave keynote addresses. They both were really outstanding. From reading about accounts of that meeting one gets the impressions that the students were much more impressed with the speech by Rev. Lawson than they were with the speech by Dr. King.
They had to be.
Was Lawson that more knowledgeable and persuasive in his presentations
than Dr. King? How do you
I think Dr. King in a measure (from there and even in some other
instances from my way of thinking) was a victim of his own background;
namely, that of being a preacher who had relied to a large extent on the
impact of eloquence. Lawson had not only the eloquence enough to be
heard but he had the persuasiveness of argument. He also had the
credentials, as far as the young were concerned, of having been a part
of that student effort in Nashville. The Nashville group at their
initial meeting in Raleigh, was regarded as the group
because they came with a great deal of indoctrination. They had
indoctrination but they also had provided action and they had suffered.
So they had their credentials there and these credentials were
recognized by the young. As far as Dr. King was concerned, (I don't
remember his speech) his speech could not possibly have had the same
relevance that Lawson's did because he had not been engaged in what the
students had been doing with the same degree of membership (let's call
it). He was still outside.
This is a little derivative but it's not too far out of line with what we're talking about. This brings to mind a man by the name of Vincent Hardying.
Yes, I love Vincent.
The reason that I'm bringing up his name right now is that I've been informed somewhere in my interviewing that Dr. King somewhat feared, or was a little bit reluctant to deal with, in a very open and comprehensive way personalities such as Vincent Harding and Rev. James Lawson. Did you get an impression like that? Did you ever get the impression that King regarded these men as somewhat of a threat to his position with their knowledge and power of persuasiveness?
I could say that I got the impression, specifically, that he was loathe
to do this. I think I could make a generalization that Martin suffered
from selfprotectiveness that frequently goes with one who has been
accorded high place in the public image. He was not sufficiently secure,
I think, to feel that he could exist and they could exist without
feeling that they were competetive or threats. He may not have been
conscious of that, I don't know
His Ph.D. in philosophy and ethics couldn't possibly prepare him for this?
No. I don't care how much reading you do, if you haven't had the interchange of dialogue and confrontation with others you can be frightened by someone who comes and is in a position to confront you.
Especially if they confront you with an air of security and independence.
Yes, and if they come with their own credentials. There was an insecurity, I think. I don't know whether he was ever aware of it. It was a natural insecurity coming out of that Baptist tradition. Baptist ministers have never been strong on dialogue; it was dictum.
Now we turn back again to S.C.L.C. Can you recall any ministers in that
organization that impress you as being individuals who sought practical
ways of dealing with problems and the institutionalization of a policy
making apparatus in S.C.L.C.? Was anybody putting pressure? We mentioned
Shuttlesworth and people like Jameson out of Louisiana, but can you
think of any other people who were trying to apply constant pressure to
the creation of a kind of a structure, a tactical and flexible situation
for dealing
I would think Kelly Nola Smith would certainly be a person in that context. He was in the national situation too but he wasn't too happy, maybe, with the manner in which that structure was being developed—the mechanism for decision making was being developed. You mentioned Chuttlesworth. I think they questioned inside but there is also this business of closing rank after the question.
Explain that for me.
That means, we're all on the same board. If we are inside behind closed doors we can differ but when you have "the great leader" you close ranks in public. That in itself sometimes decimates the effectiveness of dialogue, especially when the leader is open to advice and receptive to advice from others who weren't even at the meeting.
That's very good, informative and enlightening because you had explained
earlier this closing rank kind of thing. It has an almost escalating
effort, especially on a strong personality when behind closed doors you
could pour it all out but you never can enjoin the whole forum to try
and influence people to your way of thinking. This is something I'm
going to try and examine and see
In all probability, but I think Kelly was perhaps feeling more secure being in Nashville and having played a roll there. He may have even reached a point of wanting to retire from a certain kind of roll, I don't know. What am I predicating that upon? The fact that I don't think that—since the students of Nashville were in the confrontation—he had been instrumental in developing any kind of program that precipitated confrontation. That's number one. A person like Fred—he had his own machinery that was continuing in Birmingham up until the time of the Birmingham "movement" that Martin identified with. He knew he was able to keep going.
Let me ask you again about this man, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker. He assumed the executive directorship right after your acting directorship.
Whatever you call it.
Wyatt had a movement or had been involved in a movement in Petersburg. I think at the stage that he came into contact with Martin, he came as president of Petersburg whatever it was. He had also been identified with C.O.R.E. in Virginia and had worked with N.A.A.C.P. in Virginia. His child, I believe it was his daughter, was the guinea pig in the school situation in Petersburg after the '54 decision.
That's what happened to my son in Thomasonville.
Is that so?
He was used as a guinea pig. I would never do that again. I would never advise someone to send their kinds to one of them all-white schools. I couldn't do that in good conscience.
Not any more.
Never. Never be a pioneer again.
Well, Wyatt had had that experience plus he had been to several of the
meetings. I don't think he was
We have them all. I haven't missed any.
Yes, I did that one too. That's where I met him. I didn't know him; I
knew of him. I think he'd been coming to two meetings. Who first spoke
to him about becoming executive, I'm not sure but I'm the one. I think I
am. He and his wife were visiting New York and a mutual good friend, the
Rev. George Lawrence. I had known George in his escalation up the
ladder. I invited them to come to the house. I even cooked the lamb. We
had dinner and I raised the question with Wyatt of being the executive
director. He may have had inclinations, aspirations before and he may
have been approached by somebody, I don't know. I do know that. I'm not
too sure, but I may have voiced this around in circles with Martin and
the like. I don't know because I hadn't left completely then, I don't
think. That's the first step that I know of. Wyatt being the personable
individual he is and a contemporary age-wise and style-wise of Martin,
that was not too difficult a bridge to cross and they had had very
little or no success in finding a minister to be executive director.
Certainly it had to be a minister. It had to
Tell me about the criteria for selection. Martin wrote that down; it's in his papers. The point that he was trying to make was another thing I don't know: "but we certainly must admit that we ought to consider persons who may not necessarily be ministers." The implication was that executive skills should take priority over his religious affiliation. Reddick and all these other people made similar kinds of suggestions but nobody stipulated that he can't… yeah, one man, Rev. Lowry, suggested that it should be a minister. Maybe his suggestion took precedence over everybody else's.
I'd be interested in the date on that.
It was before the selection of Rev. Tilly. It was prior to your suggestion for them to consider in getting a person like Rev. Tilly.
I think maybe Martin's verbalization regarding that it did not necessarily have to be a minister could have come as a result of his consultation with persons like Stanley and Bayard and maybe my own presence there at the time, and the fact that they had made approaches to other ministers of a certain standing like Pitts and had not gotten a favorable response. And it may have been more political to have made that kind of statement.
Right and
Yes.
And they can't get around it.
And they only have had ministers even Andy Young.
Can you think of any laymen that played prominent rolls or were elceted to any official position? I don't have any record of it but maybe you can recall something I haven't got written out. Can you think of any layman that was elected to a position—other than a lawyer? I have Augustine.
Yes.
He's the only one that I have seen who was not a minister and listed in some prominent position.
The only non-minister that I recall was on the executive board was Dr.….
Simpkins?
Simpkins.
Yes, he's an M.D. not a Ph.D.
No, he's a dentist, a D.D.S., I think. But you see, he had a good movement.
That's right.
So there you are.
This brings me to questions about other people whose names I've seen frequently in the earlier days of S.C.L.C.; for example, Dr. Reddick who was formerly at Alabama State was designated official historian of the organization. He figured prominently in a number of executive committee meetings—his name. You never see what they said because I don't have records of the minutes and I haven't been able to find them. Can you recall what you perceived his roll to be in the organization—Dr. Lawrence Rettick?
Rettick was in Montgomery, I believe, at the time of the boycott. He was teaching there. Certainly he was there at the time of "Stride Towards Freedom" and I think to a large extent may have been the actual writer, and if not the actual writer then the guiding head for the development of that.
Without a question.
Yes. There was a certain amount of rapport that had been established between him and Martin. Then Martin of course being male, a Ph.D., would have some respect for one who had these credentials. So he was part of the executive committee but I'm not sure that he had any over-riding influence at all. Then he left Montgomery, I believe.
Yes, and went to
Yes,
Yes, that's where he's from. I was in touch with him a while ago.
Yes. I don't know… you haven't had a chance to…
No, he told me he would talk with me and he would try and see what he could contribute to my study. He was, and still is, the official historian. An historian to me is a person who should have all the records and things.
He has none?
Well, that's the impression I got in talking with him.
Not sizable. He's written the thing about The Family
No.
And I'm intruding on his territory.
Well, he had capacity for input in the area you first had mentioned when you raised the question of the Bolshevik LRevolution. He had the knowledge about these things. He also had some association with that.
He's got to
Well, perhaps he could not, you see. In the first place, when you are faced with a complete embankment of ministers who feel they've been called by God for leadership—why, that's enough—and who had not had the discipline of thinking and real dialogue, especially dialogue that differed with them.
You had one assignment that I think kept you frustrated a great deal.
This is the impression I get from looking at the Strive
Toward Freedom, and the assignment of certain numbers of books
to people throughout the country. Was that as frustrating an experience
as I perceived in looking at your responses and your tallies of the
number of books that you had given to various ministers, the amount of
money that they had turned in; some of them trying to make the case that
they didn't get X-number of books and things of that sort? Was this a
really frustrating experience or did you really take it in stride?
I hope that I took it in stride but it wasn't part of what I had
conceived of as my role.
To get
Of course, no preparation had been made. I had forgotten about that.
I have it here, all of it: the number of books, the amount of money you collected. You got rid of all of them except three books. All the books were accounted for except them.
Yes, and I remember doing that.
That's right; all of that is here. This was supposed to be a source of revenue for the S.C.L.C. Did it really bring in?
I don't think it's ever been a big source of revenue. I don't think it amounted to anything, the money—certainly the part that came in while I was there could not be considered (in my opinion) a big source.
A lot of time and energy and personnel was
Certainly, directly it did not—as far as I could perceive of it, expecially going to the conventions. I don't recall what the total came to be.
It's listed there. Another perceptual kind of question: Did they ever attempt to define in any specific way the roll of the executive director and the roll of the associate director? Give you a job description like you attempted to do?
You didn't get it before hand; perhaps after we'd been pushing for certain things. In my last days, I was not only pushing for job descriptions but certain other bases of considerations.
Certainly,
This was predicated upon the fact that people came without the same kind of experience and training as (let's say) the person who was there with me, and were getting more. Oh, yes; but this was personal. This I, of course, objected to. Thank goodnes the young lady who came—I think I told you, she came from…
From South Atlanta?
Yes.
She was one of Wyatt T. Walker's secretary's?
No, she may have stayed there a while after he came.
She did. She resigned to go to Lockheed. She wrote him a letter and made her resignation.
Yes, because there was nobody else there. I think Rev. King brought in one of his former church secretaries as bookkeeper after. Then there was this great division of responsibility. There was not the necessary rapport that sould have existed. I'm sure Mrs. Brown—
That was her name, Mrs. Brown—a tall, dark lady…
—had so much capacity. Thank goodness we were helpful in getting her to release herself from the syndrome.
Well, she did. I give her a hand for that when she resigned. We've been talking on the periphery; now I'm going to ask you directly and you can treat it any way you see fit.
Can you describe your relationship with Dr. King for me? What kind of a
relationship did you have while you were working as the person in charge
of the citizenship project, as one who served as associate director
At the initial stages, practically no relationship. He was not relating to the situation too well (let's put it that way). They were still living in Montgomery; he would come to Atlanta and I would never see him.
He was the president of the organization.
Yes, he was.
Who did you relate to?
Who was helpful?
Right. And who suggested to you what your roll should be in the organization?
No one. No one had suggested to me because the background for conceptualizing it was not there in terms of the top leadership. They had this idea of having these meetings; that's where it stopped. Then, what does it take to get those meetings? I think to a large extent Martin was depending on Bayard. The last couple of days before the meeting took place, Bayard came down. But you see he didn't need to come down then. He was supposed to be the top strategist.
As a matter of fact, you and Bayard are designated as co-directors of the Citizenship Crusade, on the letterheads of all the papers.
Yes. That's the way it goes. From the standpoint
Here's the thing that bothers me and I'm at a loss to understand it. There was a question about press releases. Martin and Bayard I guess suggested to each other that no press releases would go out of the office unless they first read it and approved it. They must have told you that or something like that because I got the impression from a memo you sent back to Martin that the next press release you would let him read before it was relesed. Did you ever have any difficulty at all with them on press releases?
I don't recall too much of a difficulty, maybe because I didn't recognize it.
This was a little note kind of a thing.
You don't know when?
It was late '59; it may have been early sixties.
I was on my way out then. I had indicated in December of '59 or early
sixties, that I would be leaving.
I was trying to detect in that little memo whether or not they were trying to put a stranglehold.
I'm sure. I don't know any press release that they had any basis for objecting to, but I had had to write letters and sign Martin's name to them. There were occasions, for instance; the mayor of Birmingham or something. He brought the situation up and send him information but nothing came. We eventually did send a letter out. When the meeting was held in Columbia, South Carolina, the letters that were signed nominally by him—who wrote them? You see? You had to get them out.
I was going to ask you about that. I can't recall the exact date.
If you happen to dig up that memo, I'd like to see it.
I'll send you a copy of it.
Yes, I'd be glad and I'll help the best I can.
When did you let them know that you wouldn't be back? Did they give you any indication that they would be happy for you to leave or they didn't want you to stay around? Or you just decided that it was best to get on out of the thing?
There was every indication from the beginning
Yes.
I went the six weeks; that's all I had planned. After that, they were still without anybody so I stayed on. Then when the sit-ins broke, I suggested that there needed to be a meeting of sit-in leaders for the purpose of communication if not co-ordination. That's how I had the April of 1960 meeting in Charlotte out of which S.N.C.C. and the viable organizations got its roots.
I was curious to ask you about that because it disturbed me—that kind of memo.
There were lots of consultations and discussions around my roll and around me that did not come to my light, I'm confident.
Can you recall any confrontation that you and Martin had that was a little volatile, an arguement or anything of that sort? Or you were just, as you suggested, tolerating each other?
I would raise questions about things that were intolerable, not towards
me as such but policy-wise. I like the question of the differential in
salary for a young person who was capable, had come under difficult
I have one copy of a newsletter; one copy where you indicated all the meetings they had had, but there was no content as to what had transpired at these meetings. But I do have this and I'll try to go back and get newspaper accounts of meetings in these cities. Did they ever report on these meetings that took place? You had a non-violence conference in Durham; you had one in Shrievesport; had one in Montgomery. At the same time during the year in '57 to '58, there were about six meetings.
They were largely mass meetings.
These were largely large, mass meetings. Did they ever report on these meetings in the newspapers?
They would hope to have the press there. This
Would the local newspapers report on them?
I don't know…
You never did check into newspaper acounts?
No. They probably had some. I didn't keep any record of it.
I'm going to try to get to that. First I'm going to get the local newspapers of the cities that you mentioned. I have all of them listed here.
Wherever Martin went at that time, some news coverage took place.
I have all the meetings listed, the dates and the places where they took place. I'm going to try to see these newspapers to get some temper of the times.
For instance, the initial meeting that was held in Montgomery at which the name S.C.L.C. was determined—I was there.
That meeting took place in New Orleans, didn't it? That was the second meeting, in February of '57.
What do you have there for a meeting in Montgomery?
… that's number one, because he had a respect for me. He had a respect going way back. Even as a student I was in position to elicit respect and I had respect for him. I don't recall our having too many actual conferences about what was to be done. He had a great deal of sensitivity to carrying out (let's call it) the wishes of the president. Let's put it that way.
Very good.
That may even have been a frustration even for him although he was not a
very aggressive person in the sense of wanting to dominate the scene—or
at least showing the desire to want to dominate the scene.
This was a thing that gave the impression that he was the busiest man in the country. In order to get Dr. King to speak at a particular place, you'd have to contact him about a year and a half in advance unless it involved a person who had the potential for giving money or one of his favorite friends, or one of his favorite institutions. He could always find time to go to Harvard.
Yeah, it makes a difference.
It makes a difference. They had a schedule there. A person who wanted him
to speak at Harvard or Yale
Yeah, I remember her.
… had to work for two years.
How much money did she finally give him?
She gave him one time better than a thousand dollars to come out there and speak to her graduating class at that business school.
Yes.
This lady is a fantastic lady
At the July 22 through 24th, 1959 Institute on Non-Violent Resistance to Segregation meeting which represented, according to the memo, the first silent line effort to evaluate non-violence resistance as an instrument for social change, you suggested in your memo that Rev. Wyatt T. Walker was preparing the recommendations and findings of that meeting. Did he ever submit this to anybody?
Not to me.
We were talking about the question of Harry Belafonte's involvement in the movement. You had indicated to me that he had come out of a tradition of movement somewhat to the left, too. Could you recall that for me?
Frankly, I am not truely aware of the specifica. He came on as a young man struggling in the area of entertainment at the time when in the New York area you had an atmosphere in which the so-called ultra-Left—such liberals as Mrs. Roosevelt and others—were seeking those same platforms. He was not unaware of the Leftist movement. I don't know personally of his involvement but I do know at the time of the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage, the N.A.A.C.P. had gotten him involved in the prayer pilgrimage. And they had a press conference at the N.A.A.C.P. headquarters. I was told that he was there and they banned him. Now I wasn't there but I wouldn't doubt it.
Do you think he might have been classified as one of those Young Turks in the N.A.A.C.P.?
No. I think if anything, they must have banned him because of his prior
affiliations. They may have thought of him as "Red." I think it was an
anticommunist reaction on the part of the N.A.A.C.P. Whether he was ever
one or not I don't know and it doesn't matter. He would be in the
liberal tradition in his philosophical thinking I would think. Since
then he has been
That's fine. I want to get a basic consideration that's something I can step off from. I know you might not be able tp speak precisely about his involvement in the left movement. I can look back probably at a book by Harold Cruz—I don't remember seeing his name mentioned in Cruz' book.
Cruz is an embittered soul too, isn't he?
It's so evident when you look into his book. Oh, he's embittered; he's exceptionally candid in saying whatever he wants to say about anybody. He attacks everybody…
…but himself.
Yeah, but himself
END OF INTERVIEW