Gradualism. His philosophy at that time was one of gradualism. That you
cannot force the change upon an unwilling people. That it must be by
enlightenment and education, that you gradually get a change and any
change that comes gradually rather than quickly or dramatically is the
change that is lasting. That has been his position. I have not always
agreed with him on the philosophy of gradualism. I think there comes a
time when some dramatic change must be made. And my own experiences
have
Page 35 illustrated that. For example, I tried to
get during the war, when I was with OCD, [the community] to open a child
care center, to get it set up in Chapel Hill to take care of the
children of working mothers, and, of course, those would be the black
children. And was bitterly blocked by a woman leader in Chapel Hill and
everytime I set up a little conference calling for national . . . (You
know, we would get national funds for this and I got one of the national
leaders in from Washington from the State Department of Public
Instruction and the head of Education Department here and the social
workers here and we had this little meeting just to explore it, and) oh,
she was violent in her opposition. And the OPA Board was meeting in the
Town Hall, when the sirens, the fire siren, sounded and we ran to the
window to look out, because we saw that it was toward Potter's Field,
which is in the black community, and we saw the flames leaping up, and
we scurried around trying to find out what the trouble was and where the
fire was, and Mr. Moody Durham, who was chairman of the OPA came back,
and his face was very grave and he said, "I'm sorry to tell you, three
little Negro children have been burned to death in that fire." I said,
"Find out more about it." And I found out that the mother had been
working in a prominent home and had not been able to get anyone to take
care of her children that day and she had locked the children in the
house, with the seven year old, and there were two younger children, and
that the seven year old had apparently gotten hungry, and it was cold,
and she had tried to start a fire with kerosene and had apparently
thrown the kersone on to the coals and had had an explosion and the
house burned down and the children couldn't get out because the door was
locked. And the mother had been detained by her employers because they
were having a big party. So, I came home and wrote a story that night
and called the news bureau. Bob Maddry was head of the news bureau and
was also mayor of the town, and I said, "Bob, we are going to have that
child care center. This makes it—the fact that three little children
were burned to death because there was
Page 36 no one to
take care of them-makes it possible." He said, "O.K., give me your story
and I'll get it out." And he got it out on the wire, saying that because
of this, (he told the story of the children burning and said that
because of) the death of these three children, Chapel Hill had
spontaneously risen up demanding that a child care program be started.
And so, as soon as the story hit the paper, I had a telephone call from
this woman who was very angrily denouncing me, "You have no right! you
have no authority!" And I said, "You have no authority to stop me." And
she said, "What do you mean, exceeding your authority?" And I said, "You
are not the person whom I knew many years ago. You have had a serious
personality deterioration." And she said, "Well, good-by, good-by." And
as she was saying good-by, I said, "
You will not oppose
me." And we got the program started.