[TAPE 1, SIDE A]

WALTER WEARE:

You're talking about Richard Kluger's book, Simple Justice?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yeah. And if you'll hand me that… "William H. Hastie and the Vindication of Civil Rights." He had better records than I have. You'll find it in here.

WALTER WEARE:

Is that also by Kluger?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. That's by somebody at the Howard Law School Journal.

WALTER WEARE:

Jonathan Rush.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Put my name and address on it and you can take that with you.

WALTER WEARE:

Well, I can check this out of the library. I'll make a note of that. Well, I'll just read it and it'll be on tape here. It's the Howard Law Journal, Volume 21, #3, 1978, "William H. Hastie and the Vindication of Civil Rights", by Jonathan J. Rush.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He has better records than I have. I lost all of my records.

WALTER WEARE:

He was working mostly out of the NAACP files?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yeah.

WALTER WEARE:

Well, I'm interested, and they're interested in this oral history program in kind of the background—and maybe there are some things that people don't know, particularly about the community. Do you know how the case began? Who made the first move?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Well, I conceived of the idea when I was in Howard Law School.

WALTER WEARE:

And that would have been when?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

1932. I graduated in 1932, and I took the bar in December of '31, and passed it. So I was lawyer in law school. So I conceived of it, and came back to North Carolina and talked about it. I had an associate by the name of Cecil A. McCoy.

WALTER WEARE:

Where was he from?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He was from Durham, but I think he finished Brooklyn Law School. Somewhere in Long Island.

WALTER WEARE:

How long had he been here?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

This was his home.

WALTER WEARE:

But I mean, how long had he been in the law?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think he finished law school. I think he did enough to comply with the requirements of the North Carolina bar at that time.

WALTER WEARE:

But he was a practicing attorney in Durham when you got out of law school?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. And I discussed it with him, and he was for it. The next thing we had to do was find a plaintiff. And we went to the high schools and talked with the principals and tried to find out who the brilliant students were. And we went to all of their houses and they turned it down. They were afraid of reprisals. And Hocutt had worked in the drugstore for years. I don't know what his background was. I don't think he had anybody to help him or anything. And in the meantime he was going to school down here at the North Carolina College, at that time—it's North Carolina Central now. So he wanted to be a pharmacist. So we interested him in it, and we drew the complaint. 'Course a complaint drawn back in those days, lawyers would probably laugh at it now. The law has progressed so, since from that time. And we made a cardinal mistake because we should never have brought him [the case] in state court. Because the state court, judicially at that time, was committed to the status quo, and Jesus Christ couldn't have won the case if he had been the lawyer on the case. Well, it was radical in that no one had ever challenged the system of discriminating on the base of race in state institutions. And we found out from this law suit that you aren't going to win anything in the state courts. Because they could tie you up, and they could write a decision, and keep it balled up, and keep it from ever getting to the Supreme Court, you know. So we went back to the drawing board, and we came up with the idea of bringing all these cases under the Fourteenth Amendment in the federal courts.

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And, of course, the federal courts are all subject to review. In the district court, everything he does he has to put it in writing. In the state court, what the judge does on the local level is not in writing. He delivers his charge to the jury, which is in writing. Then the thing caught fire. It made the national press and it caught fire. And cases began to spring up all over the country. That was the start of the Civil Rights Movement and desegregating the state-controlled schools where Negroes had traditionally been barred.

WALTER WEARE:

Had you thought about other state institutions or public schools? What made you focus on Chapel Hill?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Well, I looked at, it was called Miche Statutes of North Carolina, and looked at the constitution. And there was nothing in the constitution that barred blacks from the University of North Carolina. It said that the legislature is hereby empowered to constitute one or more universities for the training of the youth of the land. It didn't say anything about race or anything. But traditionally no Negroes had ever applied. And that was the basis of it.

WALTER WEARE:

So, in effect, there was no Jim Crow law for the University.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

It was custom and usage.

WALTER WEARE:

Now, you had thought of this when you were in law school at Howard. And then when you came to Durham you got in touch with Cecil McCoy?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Cecil McCoy and I, we had adjoining offices. And we talked it over and he was for it. None of the other lawyers in town had ever thought about it or dreamed about it. After we started it, then they all wanted to get into it. And, of course, we wouldn't let them in. And it divided the town, because, you see, we were just emerging out of the Reconstruction period. And there had been riots in this state. The Wilmington Riot is well known. And the Red Shirt Movement was run by Josephus Daniels

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the elder and Governor Aycock. Now whether or not they intended it to go as far as it did, I really don't know. But anyway, they used that issue to get control of the Democratic Party—to get the Democratic Party in control. And the Negro citizenry, who were close to the Reconstruction period, figured it was going to end up in riots like they had in Wilmington. So they tried to prevail to let the matter drop.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think that fear was real on the part of someone like C.C. Spaulding? Do you think he was really frightened?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

What about Shepard?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Shepard capitalized on it. We talked with Shepard about it in confidence, and told him what we were going to do. And we pledged him to confidentiality and silence. And the next morning we woke up and the Greensboro Daily News had broke the story. And it was a fellow that worked for the Greensboro Daily News—I can't recall his name [Tom Bost]—but he worked for the Daily News back at that time. He was a special writer for the Greensboro Daily News. I think he was on Dr. Shepard's payroll—a P.R. man with him, dealing with the legislature. And after he broke it, then we went to the Morning Herald and told them if we were going to break the story, we would have told them about it. But Dr. Shepard had broken it without our knowledge. And the editor was enraged, not at the story being broke, but the fact that we were bringing the law suit. He said, "As far as I'm concerned" (as I recall, the editor said), "all of you can go back to Africa. It'd be better off for the country." He wrote an editorial: "Playing with Fire."

WALTER WEARE:

What was this man's name? Was this Council?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't know what his name was. He was the Morning Herald editor.

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I guess they've had a half-dozen editors, or a dozen editors since that time. I don't know who he was. I don't think it was the owners, the people who owned the Morning Herald. I think they had these other people working for them. And the case was filed.

WALTER WEARE:

Now, this was when it was filed as a federal case, you're talking about?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, filed in the state. And the judge said he would hear it, but he thought we were making a mistake, and that in his practice, he would rather have a case where a Negro was suing a white man because, you know the old Southern idea of an aristocrat looking after the well-being of a Negro. His name was Barnhill. And we wrote to the NAACP and asked them for help; and they sent Bill Hastie down. Bill Hastie had already graduated from Harvard in the first tenth of his class, and was considered very brilliant, a legal scholar. He'd gone back to Harvard to get his S.J.D., and he was working on his S.J.D., and NAACP sent him down. He was really a brilliant man, no question about it, a scholar. And he amazed… The courthouse was filled. And his performance just amazed the people; they hadn't ever seen anybody as brilliant as he was. And his colloquy with the judge and so forth, and how well-mannered he was, soft-spoken, no anger. He made quite an impression. And, in fact, it was the start of his career. He later became a solicitor in the Department of the Interior under Ickes. And I think he became an aide to someone during the war. And I think he went to the Virgin Islands as a district attorney, U.S. district attorney, and later became governor of the Virgin Islands. After that I don't know whether he became a district federal judge—I think he went directly to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Philadelphia and New York and so forth. And he had quite a career, made quite a reputation as a legal scholar.

WALTER WEARE:

Did he see this as a case that could be won, do you think?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I doubt it, because he didn't think that we should appeal it. He didn't think that we had laid the proper groundwork, and didn't think that the Supreme Court was ready to hear a case of that sort. It would have been interesting if the case had gone to the Supreme Court of the United States, to see what they would have done. Because they had Plessy v. Ferguson before them, which grew out of whether a man could be segregated on a boat. And they had said that he could. Then they went into the field of education. It would've been interesting, historically, to know just how they would have acted on it. But after we got into the federal courts, we began to get relief, and cases sprang up all over the country. No one had ever thought about challenging the state. Maryland had a dual system, and Delaware, Texas, Kansas, North and South Carolina, Virginia—all had dual systems. And there was no black university in the whole South. It isn't one [Negro university] to this day that is supported by the state. This doesn't speak well, does it, well of the separate but equal doctrine.

WALTER WEARE:

This did not get beyond, then, the state level?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. Now, the Hocutt Case, we didn't appeal it. We went back to the drawing board, and decided that all cases of this nature, we would bring to the federal court. And we began having some success in the federal court. Then some of the states started setting up separate law schools, to keep Negroes out of the white law schools. Texas set up one; North Carolina set up one; I don't think Virginia set up one. I think Texas set up an elaborate law school to keep Negroes out of the University of Texas.

WALTER WEARE:

This was what, Texas Southern?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I forget the name of that school now. I don't know whether it's in operation now. South Carolina set up one; Florida set up one. But I think they eventually closed the school in South Carolina and Florida.

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And I think the school in Texas has been closed. Then North Carolina Central. And there's another one called Southern, I think, in Louisiana that's still operating.

WALTER WEARE:

Did you think that the NAACP, in part, had this in mind as a short-run gain? That is, if you couldn't integrate an institution like the University of North Carolina that you might get separate professional schools?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That was probably the idea at that time; they wouldn't support that idea now.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think Hastie was aware of that?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He wouldn't have supported that idea. I don't think, in my judgment.

WALTER WEARE:

What about the NAACP in general, the office, Walter White?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think they would have either. At the same time, suits began to spring up on two issues. On the Plessy v. Ferguson, the separate-but-equal doctrine, they started bringing in law suits to force the state to equalize the schools. And that went along for a long time. And the next thing was the salary schedule. They paid white teachers in the public school system one salary, and Negro teachers a lower salary. And then Virginia brought a suit and the courts forced the state of Virginia to pay the same salary. And North Carolina did so without a law suit, because they knew that they couldn't win, so they went on and equalized the school teachers' salary.

WALTER WEARE:

You don't think that the NAACP might have used this threat to have integration when they didn't think, perhaps, it was possible to get these lesser demands, such as equal teacher salaries?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think it was part of that policy then. Do you remember Judge Waring in South Carolina, who ruled in favor of the NAACP on a case

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there in South Carolina? He was a federal district judge. I think he suggested to Thurgood Marshall that they should stop bringing these separate-but-equal equalization cases, and argue that discrimination is inherently wrong. And the NAACP changed its policy, and then they filed the suits, and that's where Brown was born. And this judge, when that case was brought in South Carolina—it was a three-judge court as I remember—and he voted that Plessy v. Ferguson should be overruled, and discrimination inherently was wrong. And you'd have to integrate the schools. I think it was two-to-one, or something like that. But he incurred the wrath of the people in South Carolina. And I think when he lost all of his friends he eventually, I think, left and went to New York to live. I think his name was Judge Waring.

WALTER WEARE:

This was what, in the forties? This was long after the…

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That was the forerunner of Brown.

WALTER WEARE:

There was a time, then, after the Hocutt case, when the NAACP was arguing for equal salaries and that sort of thing?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Now, see, first you had the Hocutt case. It awakened people to the idea that state schools should be open to everybody. And you had a slew of cases on that issue. Then you had Plessy v. Ferguson that said you can have separate schools, but they had to be equal. And you had a slew of law suits to equalize the schools. Then you had Brown to come along next. But that idea was generated, as I understand it, by Judge Waring, who was a United States district judge. He planted the idea in Thurgood Marshall's head. And the NAACP changed its policy.

WALTER WEARE:

What about the Gaines' case? Was there any relationship between Gaines and Hocutt?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Gaines grew out of the Hocutt case. Gaines came way after the Hocutt case.

WALTER WEARE:

Yes, that was what, 1938?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

Well now, to back up a moment, there's some interesting local history. We were talking about Dr. Shepard and his motivations. What do you think were his motivations?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He capitalized on it to get, I think, the state to pass a statute to allow him to have a school of pharmacy. And he also got a school of law out of it. He capitalized on it. He wasn't in sympathy with it at all. The weakness in the Hocutt case was, under the rules of the University of North Carolina—and I guess all the schools—is that when you apply, your record has to be sent up from the school that you last attended. Dr. Shepard wouldn't send his record over there. So we had Hocutt to go over to Dr. Shepard to get his record. And Hocutt sent it over there himself. But that didn't comply with the rules of the University, which left a hole in your law suit.

WALTER WEARE:

Is that the technicality that it was thrown out of court on?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That was one of the reasons. And the next was that the judge said that he didn't think Hocutt was qualified. Yet, all you needed at that time to attend the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina was be a high school graduate. [Phone ringing] [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]

WALTER WEARE:

So you're saying that Shepard had these motivations to capitalize on it, and you think that he got a law school and a pharmacy school.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

The pharmacy school never developed, but the law school did. And he got money for capitalization, new buildings and things of that sort. [Phone ringing] [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

unknown is get one from Durham.

WALTER WEARE:

That was the first report on the case, from the Greensboro Daily News?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Let's see if we can find out when the case was filed. [Recorder is turned off and then back on.]

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

…to do some research for them. And as a result of this research, some fella that died left his son a large amount of money. His son was kind of eccentric and he turned the money over to the NAACP. I think his name was Garland [unclear] . And they were using these funds to research the whole educational system, just to find out approaches to bring about change. And that's why Charlie Houston, who was the Dean at the Howard Law School—and Hastie was his cousin. They both went to Amherst, they both went to Harvard, and they both were brilliant people. And that's the way Hastie got involved. When the Hocutt case came into being, Charlie Houston was tied up. So Walter White sent Hastie down. That was the beginning of Hastie's career. But I'd be anxious to see if you get those articles from the Morning Herald and the Greensboro Daily News, I'd like to have a copy of it myself. You see, that would give whoever's going to write about it, the attitude of the status quo people. Because the newspapers would certainly reflect the opinion of the majority.

WALTER WEARE:

You feel satisfied that it was Dr. Shepard who broke it to the Greensboro Daily News?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, yes. He had an angle for doing it.

WALTER WEARE:

Is it possible that the case could've gone any further had he not sabotaged it?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

If Dr. Shepard hadn't sabotaged the case, we would have had a stronger case to carry to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court of the State of

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North Carolina—they could easily say, "Well, you've met all of the requirements except one. You didn't follow the rules of the University of North Carolina, so you're not entitled to any relief."

WALTER WEARE:

What was Hastie's advice on this?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That we not appeal. That we go ahead and start working out procedure to get these cases in federal court. Because you're not going to get any relief from the state court. It was like Brer Rabbit: don't throw him into the briar patch. They'd welcome all the cases into the state courts.

WALTER WEARE:

What was Hocutt's feeling about this?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Hocutt would have done anything that we suggested that he do.

WALTER WEARE:

You had actually selected him personally?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He was the only one we could get.

WALTER WEARE:

But you and McCoy had gone to Hocutt and actually interviewed him and said, "Would you do this?"

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. We had tried a whole lot of students besides Holcutt, but Holcutt's the only one who would agree to be a plaintiff. And Dr. Shepard brought James T. Taylor, who was on his faculty but was studying at Ohio State University. He brought him back. And A.E. Elder, who later became President after Dr. Shepard. And they did all they could to get Holcutt to withdraw. But Hocutt wouldn't withdraw.

WALTER WEARE:

Was Hocutt hopeful? Did he really think he might be admitted? Or did he see this as a kind of test?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think he wanted to be a pharmacist, and I guess he figured if we could get him in, that we could raise the money to pay for his schooling over there. But he ended up going to New York and he became some sort of supervisor in the subway. He died about a couple of years ago.

WALTER WEARE:

He never did go on to graduate school?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. He was very proud of his contribution. Everytime he'd come to North Carolina, he'd look me up. And he would come to the campus.

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I had a picture of him standing on the campus pointing to one of the buildings, meaning that his attempt to get into the University of North Carolina resulted in Dr. Shepard getting this building.

WALTER WEARE:

Did Kluger interview him, I wonder?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't know whether Kluger did or not. I doubt it.

WALTER WEARE:

What about Hocutt's family? Did you know anything about his background?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I don't; I really don't.

WALTER WEARE:

He had been an undergraduate major in science? He had a strong record, you said, and that should have got him admitted.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

If he was a high school graduate at that time, the University of North Carolina—as I remember reading the catalogue. Because we wrote for a catalogue. Of course, they didn't know me from Adam's house cat. So they sent the catalogue, and we looked at the catalogue. And the only requirement at that time was to be a high school graduate to enter the School of Pharmacy. Of course, that has changed now.

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

WALTER WEARE:

… degree there.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

In pharmacy. All you had to do was to be a high school graduate, and he was supposed to be admitted.

WALTER WEARE:

There's a story that Louis Austin used to tell about you and he actually carrying Hocutt over there.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

We carried him over.

WALTER WEARE:

Can you tell me that in as much detail as you remember?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

As I remember it now, Dr. J. N. Mills, who's now deceased, had an automobile, and we got in his car, Hocutt, Louis Austin, Cecil McCoy, myself, and

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Dr. Mills. And they were registering people on the campus. That was outside, people lined up going by the registar. So we got in line, and when Hocutt got to the registar he turned him down, and we told him that that's what we wanted him to do. Then we came back and filed a lawsuit.

WALTER WEARE:

Was there any response in the meantime? Did word get out that you had tried this? Did the people of Chapel Hill react?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. I do remember there was a law school professor there who was from Illinois. He went to school in Illinois with Negroes in his class and so forth. And he made a statement I never did forget. He said, "Of course you had a right to bring this case, and you had a right to bring it under mandamus, to make a state officer do what he is supposed to do." He said, "It's just like a child coming into the parlor and demanding his play toy to play before the guests." Then he said, "We kept our ears to the ground to see what the reaction would be, because we didn't want anything to happen to you." I forget that fellow's name. I think he was dean at one time. And the name of the attorney general at that time was Brummett. So they brought in Brummett, the person who was teaching constitutional law at the University, and Victor S. Bryant, a prominent lawyer here in town.

WALTER WEARE:

Mr. Bryant is still alive?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He's still alive. [Died 1980] And it was amusing. When we got to the courthouse to try the case, the hearing, the attorney general said he wanted to talk to us. So we would go into this room, and all the Negro citizens stand out in the hall. We went in there to talk, and the attorney general said, "Well, now, I'll tell you what I'll do. If you fellows drop this suit, I'll get the state to appropriate money to pay your tuition outside the state." We asked for assurances. He said, "Well, all I can say is that I would probably do it," and when we come back and tell

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the people what they said, they said, "Don't give in, don't give in." The whites said "Give in," and the Negroes said to say not give in. They were young people, see. Then, to our surprise, two lawyers came down, the late C. J. Gates and the late M. Hugh Thompson. They said they represented Mr. Spaulding and other people.

WALTER WEARE:

These were black lawyers from Durham.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. They felt that the suit should be dropped, and we should follow the state's proposal to furnish tuition to Negroes who wanted to go to state schools outside, to such jurisdictions that would admit them. We wouldn't agree to it unless we got a firm commitment. Well, the attorney general couldn't commit the legislature to do anything; all he could say was he'd try. So we wouldn't accept. Then later on a bill was introduced to that effect, but the legislature was mad; they wouldn't pass it. Later on they did pass such a bill, and you know who had control of it: Dr. Shepard. If you wanted to go to Chicago to study medicine or anything of that sort, why, you had to go to Dr. Shepard. If he okayed it, then you'd get your stipend. And several of the southern states then followed that.

WALTER WEARE:

Did Shepard have contacts in the legislature?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, yes, because he was a clever politician. If he'd been white, he would have been governor of this state.

WALTER WEARE:

Tell me a little bit more about him. He was a Republican, wasn't he?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

That didn't make any difference?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, no, because Shepard was a very, very clever… He was a highly educated man. He was clever. He finished in pharmacy.

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He started to study law, but his mother didn't want him to study law. It was a very strong family connection. He held some office, I think the Collector of Revenue, during Reconstruction, as a young man. And he never gave up his Republican ties. But he knew how to handle the legislature. He had a fellow working for him by the name of Charlie Amey, who was a graduate of A & T College. And Charlie Amey would go around every year and meet every legislator and every senator as Dr. Shepard's emissary. And every year Dr. Shepard would send everybody in the legislature—the Senate and the House—a Christmas present. And whatever Dr. Shepard wanted, he got. I was talking to a man about five or six years ago who was running for governor, by the name of Taylor, and something came up about Dr. Shepard. And he said, "Yes, Dr. Shepard used to send my father a Christmas present every year." His daddy was a big man in the legislature.

WALTER WEARE:

Was Bryant in the legislature at this time?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. He had been in the legislature, but he wasn't a member at that time.

WALTER WEARE:

You said that Bryant was one of the people who was trying to control this. Were Bryant and Shepard together on this?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I don't think so. I think Shepard's lawyer was Bob Gant, Sr., who was a member of the legislature at that time. He's now deceased. Bob Gant, Sr. was a lawyer and a politician. Dr. Shepard was working through him.

WALTER WEARE:

Was there a clear division then in the black community over the Hocutt case, would you say, with the black citizens being on one side, and then the feeling that Shepard and a handful of others [were] on the other side?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. The people who were closely related to the Reconstruction problems naturally were cautious, for fear that there might

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be repercussions like they had in Wilmington and different places in the state, where people were shot down at the polls and told to run, be out of town and so forth. And then you had the younger generation, who were far removed, who knew what the issue was, who saw the issue clearly. And they didn't care about any repercussions. And that was the division in the Negro community.

WALTER WEARE:

Was there any division at all among the whites?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I had letters from people from all over the state who supported. I can't remember receiving a letter from anyone that was derogatory, who didn't support it.

WALTER WEARE:

What about in Durham? Any white citizens who were supportive?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I don't remember anybody.

WALTER WEARE:

Was there any division at all? Was there anybody who stood out as the chief opponent, and then people who were more moderate?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. Brummett was the attorney general. I guess the people of the status quo figured that you wasn't going to get anywhere with it anyway. It was their ballpark, and you couldn't win on the home court. That was their home court. They didn't think you could win anyway. I don't think they were disturbed at all.

WALTER WEARE:

So among whites who might have had some voice, there was nobody in Durham who spoke up in favor, who supported it?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, not as I can recall it.

WALTER WEARE:

Any younger white citizens who would …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No.

WALTER WEARE:

Now this division between the citizens on the one hand and those, you say, who remembered Reconstruction on the other. Shepard had this extra motivation, you're saying, of perhaps getting a law school or something. Now Spaulding's motivation was pretty much fear,

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you think?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I wouldn't call it fear. He was afraid that the repercussions might cause the same conditions that you had in the Wilmington riots.

WALTER WEARE:

Did he ever talk to you about this?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't recall ever having a conversation, but I know what he was doing at that time. I knew he was opposed to it. He'd think that we ought to go ahead and compromise in the matter. And I can understand his feelings about it, because he had seen racial discord. As we spoke about earlier, in the Red Shirt Movement in the state, when Negroes were shot down at the polls and the race riot in Wilmington. That's the way Aycock and Josephus Daniels—the elder, were leading it. And after they got it under control, the legislature passed a law that would prohibit Negroes from participating in politics again, "to read and write the Constitution in the English language to the satisfaction of the registrar." Well, that last line there, "to the satisfaction of the registrar," he could be a fourth-grade student, and you could stand before him as a Ph.D., and all he had to do was say, "You don't satisfy me." I went all over the state collecting affidavits and sent them to the FBI in Washington to be investigated. They came down and investigated, and that'd be all you'd get. The federal government was in sympathy with it at that time.

WALTER WEARE:

There was a story about Spaulding actually trying to call maybe it was you, perhaps Louis Austin, kind of on the carpet up at the Mutual Building about this.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I remember we did have a meeting up there, and they were trying to get us to withdraw it. At that time, the Mutual had a kind of forum where all the employees would come in. We had a meeting up there,

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and they tried to get us to withdraw, and we wouldn't. And Ed Merrick, who is dead now, I said something to him about being a "handkerchief head," and he said something about throwing me out a window. Of course, I wasn't afraid of him throwing me out any window, but it was very hot. Mr. Spaulding was a very kindly disposed man. He thought he was doing the right thing at that time. That was quite a meeting up there.

WALTER WEARE:

I've looked into the NAACP records, just looking up something else, and there is a letter in there from Spaulding to the NAACP in which Spaulding says that "Some of our lawyers"—and he mentions you and McCoy—"are interested in a case that would do much good," or he says something like that. And he seemed to be actually inviting the NAACP. Do you ever remember him at the first being supportive, and then getting frightened? Do you ever remember going to him initially and asking …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

The only person we consulted, talked with first, was Dr. Shepard. Of course, Dr. Shepard could control Mr. Spaulding. If Mr. Spaulding listened to Dr. Shepard, Dr. Shepard would have controlled him. We were talking about Dr. Shepard a few minutes ago. If he had been born white, he'd have been governor of the state. He had come up through that rough-and-tumble politics during Reconstruction. He knew his way around. When he built and started this school, the National Religious Training School, if you started a school and Booker T. Washington didn't okay it, you couldn't get any money from the northern philanthropists. And he never gave Dr. Shepard approval. Dr. Shepard went directly to people in Boston and raised money. He kept raising money and going almost bankrupt and raising money, and finally he got the state to take the school over.

WALTER WEARE:

To get back to Spaulding, if he hadn't been worried about the impact—that is, the possibility of race riots—do you think he would

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have offered support? That is, what was his general philosophical-political outlook?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I would say Mr. Spaulding was a very cautious man. I don't think Mr. Spaulding had education beyond that of a high school graduate, but you never would have been able to tell it. By talking to him and so forth, you wouldn't have been able to tell it. He was a kind man, a gentle man, and he was really interested in advancing his race.

WALTER WEARE:

You mentioned Merrick reacting to being called a "handkerchief-head." Would anybody have ever called Spaulding or Shepard that?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Probably somebody would have called Mr. Spaulding that, but they wouldn't call Shepard. Because Shepard went down there to the Capitol to see somebody, and they told him to get on the freight elevator. He refused. He was going down to see about getting money, and he refused. He told me of an incident. It was customary that if a white man came to your office, he wore his hat, wouldn't take his hat off. He said this white fellow came to his office to see him about something. He kept his hat on. So Dr. Shepard said, "Well, now, let's go outdoors and talk, because I don't want to embarrass you and ask you to take your hat off, and I think you'll be more comfortable on the outside."

WALTER WEARE:

Did the fellow take his hat off?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. And I think they went on outside to talk, but the fellow got the hint. He got the hint. And that's the reason why the North Carolina Mutual made its growth for us, that the insurance man come to your house keep his hat on in your house, and they capitalized on it. And that helped their insurance company grow.

WALTER WEARE:

In looking at Spaulding, you see him as a different kind of person altogether than Shepard? Is it mostly a matter of education?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Shepard had a better education and a far better mind, but I think Mr. Spaulding was a kind, gentle man who had a deep concern for his fellow man.

WALTER WEARE:

How do you think the black community saw the two people? Did they see Shepard or Spaulding as the leader, or both working together?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Shepard never left his office to attend any meetings or anything, yet he controlled everything through other people. He was a politician. You don't see no politician out there carrying nobody to the polls; he's sitting up in his office pushing buttons. That's the type of fellow Dr. Shepard was.

WALTER WEARE:

So you might see Spaulding more out front, but Shepard was behind pulling the strings.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That's right, pulling the strings.

WALTER WEARE:

To get to the other side of the community, that was offering the support in the Hocutt case, were the black workers in the tobacco factories organized this early?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No.

WALTER WEARE:

Was there any kind of sentiment coming out of the workers?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think that they were concerned, other than the sensational part about it. I don't think that anywhere in the country people had thought about it. And when they hit the national media, then that started people to thinking. Because everybody had the same problems. If you went to Maryland, Delaware, and come south, everybody knew about the problems, and some of the midwestern states like Kansas, Oklahoma; they had those problems. So that's when people started thinking about it.

WALTER WEARE:

Did the word go out after the Hocutt case was dropped that it

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was Shepard and Spaulding who had stood in opposition and perhaps kept it from going on?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I don't think… The only time I ever heard it discussed was, we were invited to Howard University Law School to lecture to the students about the case. When we were introduced—not introduced, because the fellows there knew us; I was just out a year ahead of them—Charlie Houston told them one of the weaknesses in the case was Dr. Shepard, his attitude toward it and what he did. Charlie Houston's words were very bitter toward Dr. Shepard. And Dr. Shepard's son-in-law who had married Dr. Shepard's daughter, by the name of Smith, was going to law school at that time. He was sitting right in there.

WALTER WEARE:

But I detect from you no sense of bitterness at all towards Shepard.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, Shepard and my uncle were very good friends for years, and I admired Dr. Shepard. He did more good than he did harm.

WALTER WEARE:

Did you and he ever discuss this Hocutt case after it was dismissed?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

The only time it came up was, they had a meeting over at the University in Chapel Hill, held under some kind of auspices of the Human Relations.

WALTER WEARE:

The Commission on Interracial Cooperation?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That's right. I was invited. I don't know why, because Austin and myself were never invited to any of the meetings like that. I went over there, and the president of Johnson C. Smith was presiding. And there was a white fellow—I forget his name [Newbold]—who was in charge of… He was on some kind of a foundation to advise the state about Negro education. It irked me that he came in and handed the president of Johnson C. Smith, who was the chairman, a piece of paper. That was the

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nomination for a committee. It made me angry. So when he announced the committee members, I got up and made a motion that the recommendation be rejected, and the committee be elected from the floor. And to my surprise, one of the professors from the University of North Carolina seconded the motion. [Laughter] Dr. Shepard was there, and Dr. Shepard and this white fellow didn't get along at all. I can't think of his name now, but if you wanted to succeed in Negro education, you had to come by him [Newbold].

WALTER WEARE:

He was from North Carolina or where?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He was in Raleigh, but he was on a foundation. The Ford people or somebody sent him down here to help Negroes out in the field of education. You can find out what his name was; most anybody can tell you. [Laughter] And Dr. Shepard told me afterward, "Listen, I want you to stick with me, because if we get this law school or we get this school of pharmacy, you don't want it to go to A & T, do you? You'd rather see it in Durham, wouldn't you?" I said, "Of course, I would rather see it in Durham." He said, "Well, you stick with me on this." But the funny thing was that [Laughter] they were so surprised that I made a motion to put A.E. Elder on the committee. They were so surprised that anybody would have the nerve to challenge them, and I challenged them. It was funny to me [Laughter] how they had everything worked out. He hands over to the chairman the list of names to go on the committee, and then I move that it be rejected. unknown and elect them from the floor, and they did. [Laughter]

WALTER WEARE:

And then nominated a black man, too. [Laughter] Did you and Spaulding ever talk about the Hocutt case afterwards?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I don't think I did. I don't think it ever came up. Mr. Spaulding and I got along nicely together. I drew his will, and his daughter and I went to school together. And we never had any ill feeling.

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And whenever I needed a favor or anything, I would go to Mr. Spaulding. He'd do anything he could for me. I remember when he died. I got on the bus one day going to town, and the bus driver, who was white, said to me, "You know, that was a good man." I said, "Mr. Spaulding was well thought of." He said, "You know, my bus broke down one day, one winter when the snow was on the ground, in front of his house. And I knocked on the door and asked him if I could use the telephone, and he told me yes. So I called in and asked for relief, and I started out, and Mr. Spaulding said, ‘It's cold. Don't go out there and sit in the cold. Sit down here by the fire and stay warm."’ And this fellow was reciting this to me, because he was so human. He didn't let the man go back and stand out there in the cold when his bus was broken down. Spaulding was a good man. He wasn't clever and crafty like Dr. Shepard was.

WALTER WEARE:

Would the white community see Spaulding as having quite a lot of power in the black community?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He got a good press. I think Mr. Spaulding was practically, due to the mass media, known all over the world. He got a better press than Dr. Shepard.

WALTER WEARE:

I mentioned a while ago that some people might have seen both Spaulding and Shepard as "handkerchief-heads" because of the Hocutt case. But apparently the black community was not so divided that it turned out that way over the Hocutt case?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No. They soon forgot it. Shepard practically dominated the city of Durham in the white and black communities, because he just knew how. And Mr. Spaulding was liked because he never clashed with them. And secondly, it was to the [advantage of the] status quo people to have a C. C. Spaulding, because they could say, "Notwithstanding the handicaps, here's a man that succeeded." And they publicized him all over the world.

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a great businessman, because he succeeded notwithstanding the handicaps, and if other Negroes were smart like Mr. Spaulding they also could succeed.

WALTER WEARE:

Was he clever enough to use this image, though? That is, did the fact that he had this image and good press enable him to go to the white community and get certain things, perhaps?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think that he ever entered that area. I know we tried to get him on the City Council once, and they turned him down. Then they wanted to put him on the Board of Education, and some of the people went to him and told him they didn't think he should serve, because they figured he was going to be used. And he turned them [the Board] down, said on the advice of his physician; his health wouldn't allow him.

WALTER WEARE:

You mean he rejected it because he thought they were seeing him as …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

The fellows went to him and told him that they thought that they were trying to use him.

WALTER WEARE:

And so Spaulding resented the whites seeing him so conservative that they thought they could use him?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, and we convinced him that it was the best interests for him not to accept it, and he didn't accept it.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think they could have used him, had he been on?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

You know, you can use a person knowingly and unknowingly. Without his knowledge, he could have been used.

WALTER WEARE:

It wasn't too long after the Hocutt case that the Durham community became more and more active politically with the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs. I think that was formed in about 1935.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

The way that started was this way. I was working with the

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WPA, and James D. Taylor, whom I mentioned before, was in the Youth Administration on a leave from the North Carolina College. And we met an Episcopal minister over there in Raleigh named Bob[?] Fisher, and he was complaining about how few Negro people had set the policy in the Negro community, without any input from other people. He was talking about Mr. Spaulding and Dr. Shepard, and that you could duplicate it in every town; you had an undertaker or a physician and so forth. And so to offset it, he had organized some kind of community group. So we came back with the same idea, and we talked about it with the late R. L. MacDougald, who was a liberal-thinking Negro businessman, and he thought it was a good idea. And he sold it to Mr. Spaulding. So we called a meeting, organized a committee, and made Mr. Spaulding the first chairman. It was organized by James D. Taylor and myself, and it's been in existence ever since.

WALTER WEARE:

Was it your thinking at the time that Spaulding would make a good chairman because of his image, or what?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think that was done to get it started, because there was a lot of people from the North Carolina Mutual in it. And if Spaulding hadn't given his okay …

[TAPE 2, SIDE A]

WALTER WEARE:

I'm interested in him and trying to get some sense of what power he had in the community and to what extent he was used and to what extent he used his image to perhaps use others. You're suggesting that he wasn't nearly as clever as Shepard, but I'm wondering if he was clever enough, though, to sort of play off of his conservative image and then get some things done. There's some evidence that he worked with Louis

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Austin, for example, Austin appearing very radical and Spaulding more conservative.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He would do Austin a favor and do me a favor. When Louis needed some money, he would loan it. He wasn't a man to carry any ill feeling. He was just a man who had succeeded with a country background. He'd been on a farm down in the eastern part of the state, Columbus County, and he was brought here by some of his kinsmen. And he started working with the North Carolina Mutual when it first got started, as their field representative. He eventually worked himself up the ladder; as others died out, he became president. And by the time he became president, he was a man in his middle age with flowing gray hair. He looked the part. When you said "President of the North Carolina Mutual," he just looked the part.

WALTER WEARE:

Did that help him, too, in the political circles?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He never was interested in politics. He had a great deal of influence in town.

WALTER WEARE:

In the black community.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

And white.

WALTER WEARE:

I guess that's what I mean by "politics," at that kind of informal level.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

But you see him more as a figurehead in the DCNA, though, the Durham Committee.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, yes, they made him president because that was the only way they could get it started. Of course, Dr. Shepard didn't care, because he figured he was going to control it anyway.

WALTER WEARE:

But it would indicate, though, that he had some power, if people

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figured that he had to be …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, Mr. Spaulding had influence in both the white and black communities.

WALTER WEARE:

So he was not one of these classic Uncle Tom figures who was just a white man's Negro.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I wouldn't picture him that type of a person.

WALTER WEARE:

Was the community divided one more level, where there were people like that who would in fact be so under the control of white people that they had no voice of their own, no room to maneuver at all?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Durham is a peculiar town. You see, the Dukes started the tobacco thing, and started the American Tobacco thing. Then you had the Erwin Cotton Mill, which is now the Burlington Industries. So they had a mortal lock on common cheap labor, and it was to their advantage to keep peace in the community. So Durham never had the traumatic racial explosions you had in other counties. It was to the [advantage of the] Dukes and the American Tobacco Company people and the Burlington Mills to keep peace in the community. Never had any trouble racially in Durham.

WALTER WEARE:

Were black leaders like Spaulding and Shepard sophisticated enough to understand that all they wanted was peace, and that if they could keep that racial peace they could ask for other things?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think it ever crossed Dr. Shepard's mind.

WALTER WEARE:

What would have been his stand, for example, on a tobacco workers' union, Shepard or Spaulding?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think both would have been against it, because when the North Carolina Mutual was being organized in Philadelphia, the Mutual opposed it bitterly. Dr. Shepard had no sympathy for labor organizations

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and things of that sort. He was ultra-conservative.

WALTER WEARE:

Were you interested in the tobacco workers' movement?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I made speeches for them when they were trying to organize.

WALTER WEARE:

So Shepard would support you up to a point, or Spaulding would support you up to a point, but …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Spaulding had nothing to do with it. He wasn't interested.

WALTER WEARE:

I mean he wouldn't support you on the tobacco workers, but he would support you on other things, apparently.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, yes, I remember a boy got into difficulty down here. What happened was this. We had what we called the county home, and if you were drunk, they'd give you thirty days and send you to the county home rather than send you to work on the road. And there was a fellow out there named Turner who'd been made a trustie, and somebody slipped off and went to town and bought a gallon of whiskey, and all of them got drunk. And the "captain"—the man that had charge of the prisoners out there—found out who did it, and he was punishing the people who brought the whiskey in. And they figured that Turner had told the captain who brought the whiskey in, so they sent word to him they were going to get him. And they were killing hogs at that time, and the captain told him, "If they bother you, you defend yourself." So Turner had a butcher knife in his waist. When he came out of the gate where they'd been to eat, a white fellow from Burlington, who was in there for being drunk and was serving thirty days, and some other fellows jumped Turner, and Turner disemboweled this fellow from Burlington. And he was charged with first degree murder. And Mr. Spaulding put up some money for me to go out there and investigate the case and so forth. And they brought the case to trial, and I raised the issue of the exclusion of Negroes from the jury(s). And the judge called me after he heard part of the testimony. He said, "This is not a first

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degree murder case. If anything, it'd be [unclear] manslaughter." He said, "If you'll tender a plea to manslaughter, I'll see what I can do, but it's not any first degree murder thing." So I went back and told Turner what he'd said. He said, "Go ahead." So we tendered a plea of guilty of manslaughter, and the judge gave him two to four years. And he was out in about eighteen months. Mr. Spaulding paid me to represent him.

WALTER WEARE:

Were there other things like that you can remember, where he worked behind …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He didn't do anything publicly; it was all private.

WALTER WEARE:

Can you remember other private things like that?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That's the only one I can remember.

WALTER WEARE:

But this was the way he saw himself working.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, Mr. Spaulding was a decent sort of a fellow. But due to his rural background, his thinking was not as progressive or contemporary on issues as mine was during those times.

WALTER WEARE:

What about your uncle? Where would he appear in this lineup of community leaders?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He and Dr. Shepard were just like twin brothers. He and Dr. Shepard were great friends. My uncle was well-to-do at one time and considered wealthy. If Shepard got into trouble financially, he'd let him have the money to keep his school going and so forth. They were just close, very close.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think there's much to the notion that Shepard, Spaulding, W. G. Pearson …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

They pretty well ran the town.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you think these were meaningful connections they had with the Dukes?

Oh, yes. I don't think that Shepard was connected with the

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Dukes. But my uncle had connections with the Dukes through St. Joseph's AME Church. It's a beautiful structure. I know the time that whenever they wanted anything, they would send Warren, Merrick, and W. E. Pearson to New York to see the Dukes. And the Dukes would ask them what they wanted and give it to them. I can remember the Dukes coming to St. Joseph's Church with their families, sitting on the front seat. And after they'd take up the collection, he'd call John Merrick over and ask him how much they took up, and he'd double what they got. The Dukes were very generous to St. Joseph's Church. And the peculiar thing about it was that the Dukes, I think they had a home in Charlotte, and old man Duke was getting ready to make his will where he was going to endow Duke. He asked his gardener, of all people, what he should do about the Negro schools. And the gardener was a Presbyterian, and he asked him to look after Johnson C. Smith. And Johnson C. Smith was endowed by the Duke Foundation. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time, because if he'd consulted my uncle or Mr. John Merrick—I don't know whether John Merrick was living at that time or not—or any of the others who had contact, they would have said, of course, it would have been Kittrell College. He did give Kittrell College something, and I think when they tore down Trinity College to create Duke, some of the lumber was taken to Kittrell and some was used in the buildings. He did leave Kittrell some stock, but it ended up with the bishop stealing all of it.

WALTER WEARE:

Can you remember if you and McCoy and Austin were aware or conscious at the time of these whimsical relationships between the rich whites and, say, Shepard or Spaulding or your uncle, and that you wanted to change that relationship, or was that an issue at all?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That wasn't the issue.

WALTER WEARE:

That that part could stay intact, but you wanted other things to change.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Well, you see, it never occurred to us about—these are my afterthoughts—why there was so much peace and tranquility in Durham County when you had the opposite in other counties. I drew that conclusion myself, that since they had this cheap labor, it was to their benefit to keep things cool and quiet and peaceful.

WALTER WEARE:

How would they do this, for the most part?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

You never had any racial explosion. Racial explosions always come from the white side, not from the Negro side.

WALTER WEARE:

But how would they control the whites?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Well, if you're a multi-millionaire, you don't have to control any people. [Laughter] He controlled the police. I mean suppose that Duke called the sheriff, chief of police. It would be done. And, of course, they had their surrogates. Carmichael over at Carolina, his daddy was the superintendent of the public schools at the time my uncle was a principal. The Dukes carried old man Carmichael to New York with them when they moved their offices to New York, and Carmichael's daddy became a millionaire. And then Carmichael, Jr., who died, who was vice-president over here, came back to the university. He became a millionaire through his daddy, and he always used to tease me that I could get more votes in North Carolina than he could, because he was a Roman Catholic.

WALTER WEARE:

[Laughter] In the black community, how do you see the Dukes and the white power structure controlling the black community, keeping that racial peace?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I don't think it was obvious, like somebody was telling me

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it was in Winston-Salem, where the Reynolds was always giving the pastors, putting roofings on the different churches. Anytime they wanted anything they'd go to the Reynolds's, and the Reynolds's would give it to them. And consequently, when the labor union went in there trying to organize, they didn't have any success; I think they were successful one time, and then the next time they were voted out. I would think it was just indirect influence, not any overt acts on their part. And I think it was just the recognition of the power that they had.

WALTER WEARE:

Would it be through, then, Spaulding and Shepard that they had this indirect influence, perhaps?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

On whom?

WALTER WEARE:

On the black community. That is, are Shepard and Spaulding kind of intermediaries here in keeping peace in the black community?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, I think so, yes.

WALTER WEARE:

So this would mean that if Shepard and Spaulding are going to have any credibility in the black community, they in turn have to be getting something from that white power structure. What could they deliver?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Well, let me tell you, Dr. Shepard became the Worshipful Master of the Masons statewide. And every year he made a speech, like the President makes every year, the state of the nation. And in this speech he'd always praise the State of North Carolina, and he would name different personalities, white and so forth. Then when he ended his speech, he would make demands from the Negro community. And he used to say that the price of prejudice comes high. And consequently, he was just looked upon as a statewide leader. He had all these Masonic lodges in every large city and every county in the state, so he just

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had the power, and he was recognized as having that power. The Dukes were not here; the Dukes were in New York at that time. And I don't know who owns the American Tobacco Company. But anyway, the two big employers in the Negro community were what they called "the Duke factory" and "the Bull factory." "Bull" is the American Tobacco Company, and the Dukes is the Liggett Group now. See, Trinity College was just a little college. Julian S. Carr and somebody else brought Trinity College here to Durham.

WALTER WEARE:

I want to ask you about Carr in a minute. But in trying to figure out how Spaulding, for example, through this Durham Committee, might have some influence because of his influence in the white community. Could he go to the white power structure and ask for certain things and get them?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, he wasn't that type. He was put in there to get the thing started, and after he came out then the younger group started putting people in the position to make demands. If he hadn't been there in the beginning, they never would have gotten the committee started. So during the time he was president, no demands were made, no political advances, except that Negroes started to register. Drives through the Citizens' Committee to register. Of course, there's nothing radical about that.

WALTER WEARE:

So his function was to get it off the ground.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

That's right. He was being used, but he didn't know it.

WALTER WEARE:

You say it wasn't particularly radical to get people registered to vote.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Not in Durham County.

WALTER WEARE:

Were they registering and voting, though, before 1935?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, a small number. See, the people who would go down and register would be educated people, and they wouldn't have no trouble.

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But the trouble came when you started registering the masses of people. And we were successful in breaking that down.

WALTER WEARE:

Were Spaulding and Shepard in favor of registering the masses to vote?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, yes, they were in favor of that, but they didn't take no lead in it.

WALTER WEARE:

Can you remember those who were taking the lead before?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think the late R. L. MacDougald was the main factor behind it. He was Vice President of the North Carolina Mutual and Vice President of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank.

WALTER WEARE:

Were there any other attorneys before you who were active in town?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think they all could see the value of having people register; none of them opposed that.

WALTER WEARE:

You mentioned Winston-Salem a moment ago, that the black community had more trouble there getting organized than it did in Durham.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I was speaking about the labor union. Winston-Salem had a black bus company—they got a franchise out there—and I think it's still going. I'm not sure.

WALTER WEARE:

Safety Bus Company.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. That grew out of the fact that you didn't want whites and blacks on the same busses for fear you might have difficulty, and the Negroes capitalized on it, and I think it's still going.

WALTER WEARE:

I think it might have grown out of a boycott earlier.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

But now Winston, with about the same-sized black population, I

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think, working in tobacco factories, but without something like the North Carolina Mutual and North Carolina College, wasn't able to get people registered to vote or to organize the community, were they, in the same way that Durham was?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think Durham was far more progressive in all lines, because you had Winston-Salem Teachers' College there. I don't know whether they had a bank over there that failed or not. But the Reynolds Tobacco Company was very progressive, because here in Durham they didn't allow Negroes to work in the cigarette side of the factories. And I went to Winston-Salem once and went through the Reynolds Tobacco Company. They made cigarettes in the whole building; they had one floor that was controlled by Negroes, who were making the cigarettes. And when you went through there, they gave you a package of cigarettes. Anytime you had a convention or a church convention there, you'd go through there and see it. It was good publicity for them. But they didn't have that in Durham. All the cigarette-making was done by whites.

WALTER WEARE:

Did unionization begin to change that?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, after they got unionized.

WALTER WEARE:

Were the Winston workers unionized before the Durham workers?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

No, I think Durham was organized before Winston-Salem. They didn't have any success there, I don't think, until after the War. And then that didn't last but about a year, and then they voted them out.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you remember any overt conflict between the tobacco workers in Durham on the one hand trying to get organized, and the Negro leadership on the other hand, represented by Spaulding and Shepard?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Oh, they didn't have anything to do with the labor movement.

WALTER WEARE:

Now in this Durham Committee, that did begin to get into the labor

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union movement.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, they supported the labor movement.

WALTER WEARE:

Who in the Durham Committee would have been active in supporting the labor movement?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I think the Committee as a whole supported it, no particular personality.

WALTER WEARE:

Is there anybody that stands out in your memory as the most active of the organizers? Were they outsiders or people in town? Did the International send in people from the outside?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes. One fellow started it, who was a local, and he left here. Then later on they did get a union started here. Then the International came here and hired several of the tobacco workers and sent them all over the country where they had these factories to organize.

WALTER WEARE:

You don't remember that figure who started it here.

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I can't remember the fellow's name. It was years ago.

WALTER WEARE:

Was he a tobacco worker?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes, he started a private labor organization. And he started trying to get them organized, and they were meeting at the Wonderland Theater, and I spoke down there for them, white and black sitting in there. And the press was opposed to it. And eventually they did get organized. I imagine it was done through the International Workers. They tell me they had one man who was president, secretary, and treasurer of the International Tobacco Workers' Association back at that time. I don't know how true that was. But after they got the tobacco workers organized into separate locals, they came in and hired several people to go all over the country where they had tobacco unions, in Kentucky in the eastern part of the state, where they had what they called seasonal

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work when they'd bring the tobacco in and they'd call people in, in the season, to take the stems out and put it in the hogshead and so forth. They'd work three or four months out of the year, and they were organizing them, and they were in Kentucky where they have a lot of barley and tobacco, and probably in Maryland. Somewhere in Connecticut, I think, they raised tobacco for the cigars, under cloth.

WALTER WEARE:

When does John Wheeler get active in this? Was he active this early?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

He was in it when it first started, but he didn't have any position in it. Neither did I. I later became chairman of the political division. And then when J. S. Stewart, who was chairman, was elected to the City Council, that's when John Wheeler came in.

WALTER WEARE:

Do you remember a man named Dan Martin?

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

Yes.

WALTER WEARE:

Was he the political …

CONRAD ODELL PEARSON:

I was his assistant, and then he died and I was supposed to succeed him. But the Negro power structure knew that they couldn't control me, so, instead of me succeeding Dan Martin, they said that they'd have to have an election. So they had an election, and I won the election. [Laughter] And I broadened the scope of the Political Division to bring in everybody, to let everybody have an input into it. And, of course, they didn't like that; they wanted a little structure that they could control. And they couldn't control me, and as soon as Wheeler got in, he had me put out of my position, because he knew he couldn't control me. And he stayed in there until his death. And the way he did it, he just wouldn't call no election meetings. You're supposed to meet in December and elect officers. But he didn't call any meetings, because at that time, you know, in the sixties, you had Ben Ruffin and

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Howard Fuller. They could have taken the Citizens' Committee over, because technically everybody who was a Negro was a member automatically. And they could have walked in there with their following and just voted everybody out of office. Well, they were scared of that. And Wheeler continued not to call meetings and so forth, for fear that Ben Ruffin would outvote him and become Chairman of the Committee. Wheeler turned around then, and they put Ben on the Board of Directors of the bank, and then he started using Ben. After Ben got the job in Raleigh as an aide to the Governor, that gave John Wheeler a pipeline right into the Governor's office. I was just thinking the other night, [Laughter] sometimes the radicals of today become the conservatives of tomorrow. Thinking of Ben Ruffin, they had to use all kinds of restraints to keep him in line—I mean, not doing anything rash that was irrational—and now his job is to go in a community where anything happens to keep the Negro community in line. [Laughter] I don't know whether he was involved or not, but there was a group of them who went out to the Duke Forest; they were going to burn up the Duke Forest. And it happened that a white man passed along in his automobile and saw them and came back and reported it to the sheriff, and the sheriff got there in time to prevent them from burning up the Duke Forest, which was entirely stupid. That forest is worth $3 or $4 million or more, and it wouldn't have served any good purpose to burn it up.