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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 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