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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 K-0202, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Edwin Caldwell Jr. describes a lifetime of civil rights activism and political involvement. A natural political organizer, Caldwell helped Howard Lee become the first black mayor of Chapel Hill. Despite losing a number of his own campaigns for office, Caldwell enjoyed a growing reputation as a political force in North Carolina. This reputation earned him a seat on the Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Board and various others positions of influence. Caldwell discusses the mechanics behind some of these positions and the influence of his race on his political life.
Edwin Caldwell recalls a lifetime of political organization and advocacy.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Mr. Caldwell, just like start off with a little brief background with your involvement in Chapel Hill?
My name is Edwin Caldwell Jr. I live at 107 Caldwell Street in Chapel Hill. Grew up in Chapel hill, went to school at Lincoln High School and Hampton Institute, now its Hampton University in Virginia. I have done some advanced studies but no degree. But that essentially small background.
I have participated in a number of organizations. The most one that most everybody would probably recognize would be the Chapel Hill Carrboro School Board. I served on that board for about thirteen years. Have been on the North Carolina School Board Association, served as treasure of that board for about six years, and have been on the national school board in different capacities, mostly committees and so forth. With the state I have served on several boards and advisory committees, one Title III, I also served on the Title IV board in the state as well as several other boards. As you can see I've had extensive background in education. However, I have been involved in just about every other thing that happens in Chapel Hill.
How did you start to get involved in all this, school board administration?
I came—after finishing college, I finished in February of '57. I went to
New York and worked for Columbia University. From there I was drafted
into the United States Army, went to Fort Hood in Texas and from there
went to Germany. Served the country for two years. When I got out I went
back to New York and back to my job at Columbia University. And worked
my way up to where I was supervisor of the
How I got involved in education, was there were not many potential black
leaders coming back. I was college educated, people always looked up,
that I would be a leader, I guess, because of my family. So I came back
and before I knew it I was put on every advisory committee and every
committee and so forth. A person by the name of Rebecca Clark and some
other key leaders thought I ought to run for the school board. At that
time Reverend Manley was on the school board and he was not going to run
again, so
I got involved in politics because that was the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The leaders of the Civil Rights Movement were already chosen. The Civil Rights Movement was moving at its own steam and I did not feel that there was a place for me in that. I did not agree with some of the tactics that they were proposing. Many of the leaders and so forth, there were some from Chapel Hill, but there were quite a few leaders from other places that were calling the shots. One specific thing that I disagreed with was they wanted to put some of the older people out front in a march. It was reported that people were coming up from Georgia. Mr. Maddox had sent some people up from Georgia with axe handles and so forth. So therefore it had the potential of being not good. I stood up and said the older people that you are asking to lead the march were parents of some my classmates, they were people I always looked up to. I don't agree with that. I voiced that. I guess the fact that I stood up—there were quite a few of the adults that said, "no since Ed said that, I don't think I want to go out there." I think the young people took the leadership role. I don't think anything happened, but the police were waiting, they had things under control.
So I began to look for places that I thought I would be effective. I
decided to get involved in voter registration, I felt that it would be
nice to break down barriers of segregation and public accommodation, but
I also thought that we needed a certain power. I didn't think we could
muster economic power, but we certainly could begin to
I had worked with a person by the name of Tony Mason. Tony Mason was a white student, I am not quite sure if he was in high school or in college, may have been his first second year of college. Tony wanted to be in the civil rights movement, his parents were a little afraid that he may get hurt so they tried to look for other places for Tony to work. Tony and I co-chaired a voter registration campaign and we registered a lot of people. I have a lot of respect for Tony because he did a super job. I learned a lot from him even though he was young. He was fearless. We did it right. We selected block captains, on every block that we used to find out who was registered or whatever. We used block captains very effectively. We printed a newsletter. We did a lot of surveys and found out who was registered and who wasn't registered. We worked with them to get them registered. The person didn't read very well we helped them go over what they had to read to get registered. In those days it wasn't easy to get registered. The registrars were a little hostile to anybody black coming into the courthouse. I remember the first time I registered I just didn't feel comfortable going in there. Just the hostility and how the questions they asked you and whatever, and I was college trained. I think I had to read the constitution of North Carolina or something. After I became registered we went around and we registered a lot of people. I think Tony must have gone back off to school. Therefore, I continued to work in voter registration. We were very successful in registering a lot of people.
We needed to be able to form some kind of political organization. At that
time I was working with—my father introduced me to Martha McKay and
Virginia Nicholson, they were the movers and the shakers of the
Democratic Party. They were very good. So I started working with them
and I just watched them to see how they organized things. How they got
the vote out, just how they did it. I was learning. I learned everything
I could from them. When it came time to begin, we started to get the
vote out. As a young idealistic black man I was surprised the first time
I was working trying to get the vote out. What I learned at the time was
whatever we planned, before we got out of the meeting, the white power
structure knew everything that we were doing what we were planning.
There were people planted in some of our meetings that just ran back and
told them everything that we were doing. That was the first surprise, I
think the second surprise that I had while I was out working in some of
the campaigns as well as some of the elections, was that leaders and
people that I respected were working for the opposition. They were being
paid, and they said they were being paid. I am out here working for the
cause. That bothered me because, one person was my cousin's father, I
had always looked up to him. After I got strong enough and began to have
a reputation I began to speak out against them. Told them if they want
to take the money take the money but you don't have to work, don't work
against us. After a period of time I was able to say that I began to get
a reputation throughout the Democratic Party and other places that I was
a leader. I had other persons, like Braxton Foushee and Hilla Cladwell
and Howard Lee, we formed a political party called PRAD, don't ask me
what PRAD stands for because I don't know right now. We named it PRAD it
had specific names. Howard Lee became the chairman and I was the vice
chairman. Hilla was the treasure. Braxton
Hawkins came to Chapel Hill and we had press conferences and TV cameras rolling, he got excited about this thing. He wanted to move his campaign office form Charlotte to here and they were consulting with us. We brought Ed Napter in, flew him in from Atlanta. We had a rally in Raleigh, the whole mall down there, we had people out there.
It was an exciting time, here we are participating in politics and we are
not thinking small we are thinking globally, nationally. After the
election with Hawkins we decided to keep this thing going, that's how we
formed PRAD. I had mentioned that Howard Lee was the president. Howard
always had political ambitions, Howard said, "I think I want to run for
mayor." The group that we were involved in, let me back up and say, by
that time we had taken over all the precincts we had just become that
organized. We plotted and schemed and when it came time to go in to have
the precincts meeting we had that place packed with our people. We took
them over because we had more people there. Therefore, we became a
force. We had taken over all the precincts. We replaced all the hostile
judges and put our own people in there. There were some very good whites
that were still in some of the precincts, and when we took them over. I
know I was chairman of the Northside precinct for years, I didn't really
want to be chairman but they elected me chairman, this one lady said she
was the registrar and she said, "I would be glad to continue to be
registrar and I will work with you." So we began to replace and
registration began to be a little easier. Wasn't as hostile. People
didn't feel as
So when Howard decided he wanted to run—the Liberal Coalition had already decided they were going to run their own candidate, who was Gordon Cleveland. Gordon Cleveland had been in politics in Orange County for a long time. He was on the County Commissioners but he was from Chapel Hill. They had gone around and asked him if he would run, and he reluctantly agreed that he would.
When we went into the meeting and they announced who their candidate was,
it was Gordon Cleveland. Gordon was a good man. We said, "you already
picked him but you didn't consult with us." I let them know, "don't send
nobody else back into the black community you always pick these people
and send them over for us to support. This time we have our own
candidate, Howard Lee." They said, "nah, we think its to soon for Howard
to run for mayor why don't he run for Board of Aldermen." I said,
"Howard you want to run for Board of Aldermen?" He said, "no I want to
run for mayor." We had this strategy meeting, we were outvoted in there
we had about five people in there from PRAD. I guess they must have had
about twenty-five thirty in there from the other organization. We just
said, "Look, you are going to need us, you need us. We may not have a
lot but we can turn out people at election." We said Howard was going to
run, you don't run then the business people get back in, because we
control the elections, we control a sizable number of votes. So we
played the trump card. And they said no- - I forgot a lot of the
persons' names, they no longer live here, but they were shakers and
movers. I just said, "Come on group. You go your way and we'll go ours,
but you are going to need these black votes, and we can guarantee all of
them." Gordon Cleveland
Well we were small-time, but Howard was organized. Howard came out with a platform. He came out with everything. He had coffee's he had things set up. He had press conferences. This was unheard of in Chapel Hill, but Howard was organized. Howard has his stuff together he was a good speaker. Rollen Giddes was selected by Sandy McClamrock and the business. Sandy McClamrock ran everything. He was the mayor at the time. Sandy owned the Chapel Hill WCHL. He was mayor. Sandy had plenty of money, he just controlled things. Rollin Giddes was handpicked by Sandy McClamrock, because Sandy wanted to step down. Rollen had been on the town board and Rollen had prepared himself, he had been toastmaster, he had done a lot of things. It was just a foregone conclusion that he would just automatically go in. It got kind of tight, Howard was running a good campaign, at first they just said, "this black man he just a protest." But then people started to get excited, we had these coffees, and people started giving money and people started working. It got to be very, very close. Rollin Giddes said, "I am in a rat race here." When it came down to that election it was close.
We had gone up, there was a fellow in Durham named Bill Davis, me and
Bill were working on elections. Bill had gone to Bennett College to talk
with the history professor up there, to give credit for anybody that
wanted to work in the campaign. That's what they did, we had all the
class come down and work in Chapel Hill. They worked in, they just did a
lot of things. Week in and week out that was their class project. We
also had people coming down from the North. They had heard about this
black man running. There were a lot of colleges and so forth with kids
that wanted to
I knew that I could turn out a sizable number of votes. I had my stuff
together. I had gotten The registrars to agree to allow us to have poll
watchers to come in. Well, this was our precinct we had picked the
judges so they agreed, "yeah, Ed you can have people here, [unclear]
When I got to the church, Howard had set up the Second Baptist Church, no
CME the Methodist Church on Rosemary Street, was where he was supposed
to give his acceptance speech. The man already thought that he was going
to win. I couldn't even [unclear]
I decided—after Howard ran for mayor, I decided I was going to run for school board again. I want to say to you its different when you are running for something and not controlling the elections. I couldn't very well run for the school board and call the shots and run the kind of political get out the vote. I couldn't get elected. I didn't have anybody else to step in and do that sort of thing. Everybody sort of expected me to turn the vote out. So I never got elected.
I ran for the county commissioners. That's difficult because we are
talking county wide, Chapel Hill was an oasis within the county. People
would say, "Chapel Hill Liberal you know." Jessie Helms has even said
"Chapel Hill liberal we need to build a fence around that University."
He thought that for years. When you start talking about running in the
county you are talking about a different ballgame. But, I put my name up
and I ran for County Commissioners. There were several other people that
ran; there was Jimmy Wallace, who later became mayor of Chapel Hill.
There was a guy named George Harris, George ran Glenwood Pharmacy. They
just sort of put their names up, they didn't think they could win, it
was just a good opportunity to get some exposure. I ran seriously, I
organized the county the same way I organized Chapel Hill. I made
contact with all the political leaders from the North that were black.
We organized and got people registered, we knew who was out there. We
were going to do the same thing for turning out the vote in Northern
Orange that we had done in Chapel Hill. I had worked with them and we
were able to do that, let me back up and say how I was able to do that.
Jimmy Wallace and George Harris were not know outside of Chapel Hill,
very popular in Chapel Hill, but they didn't know anybody in the county.
I knew quite a few people in the county. Let me back up and say that my
uncle was Albert Leon Stanback.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
So I was still trying to run an independent campaign. They were
determined that we were going to run as a coalition, and my campaign
started to come apart because I started to lose votes that I had been
able to count on from the white community. All kinds of stories began to
come out that I had called for what they call a bullet vote or single
shot vote. Which I didn't. I just said I was running my own campaign. I
had my own literature my own organization. I had people working for me.
They were supposed to be doing the same thing and I didn't need to them
on the brink come in and question how I was running my campaign. I
didn't need that. I didn't need to bring other people in because I all
ready had my campaign people that had worked with me. People like Billy
Barnes, his wife Ann Barnes, Ann was in the [unclear] [unclear]
Next time it came around they asked me if I was going to run. There was I
guy named Richard Whittet. Next thing I know—he's black and he was all
ready in the election. So I didn't get a chance to run for County
Commissioner again. I don't know if I really wanted to at that time. I
had gotten the reputation. If you run for things and you can't win, I
think I had run three times and lost. Even though I had lost by small
numbers you get the reputation of you can't win. I was soon getting that
reputation. I could help other people get elected but I couldn't get
myself elected. I was appointed to the school board, somebody resigned,
I can't remember who it was. I need to go back and do research. I think
they were looking for a replacement on the school board. They wanted a
black on the school board because we didn't have a black on the school
board after Reverend Manley decided not to run we just couldn't elect
anybody. It was know that when whoever resigned, I think he went
somewhere else, that they were going to select a black. The selection
committee pretty much said that we think that we need black
My years on school board were very good. We had some very, very good
school board members. People like Mary Scroggs they just named a school
after her. I considered Mary my mentor. Mary got me on just about all
these other North Carolina School Board Association, she was president
of North Carolina School Board. When they got ready to select somebody,
I got selected, because all these people wanted black representation.
Through Mary I got selected to a lot of boards. There were people like,
Phillips, what was his name he was State Superintendent, Craig Phillips,
Craig had come out of Chapel Hill. Phillips Junior High School was named
after his father. Craig was quite an educational family. He ran the
Department of Public Instruction. He knew me. Therefore, I got put on a
lot of boards and things at the State. There was Norman
One of the things being on school board it's very time consuming. They
send you out a packet of materials and you have to read all this stuff
and get prepared for all the meetings. I have a full time job, and then
I am on all these other committees throughout
When Mary stepped down, Norman Wellerly became chairman of the school board. Norman was a good chairman to, Norman was not on all the committees and positions that Mary was on at the State, but Norman was an excellent chairman, fair, ran a good meeting. I just had the utmost respect for Norman. All persons like this, when we went to the national meetings, they had workshops, clinics that they called them. When we went off to a national meeting, they ran the clinics, you selected areas that you wanted to learn something about. They had over a hundred some clinics that you could go to and you picked the areas you wanted to know about become better informed. Well Norman ran several of those clinics. They had me running clinics. I guess that's the kind of thing where they begin to see how you think and respect you.
I was quite a leader in the national school board. I worked with the black caucasus stuff. I was trying to get more blacks elected throughout the nation. I was on quite a few things.
I was in the Church of Reconciliation as one of the first blacks in the
Church. Church of Reconciliation is on Elliot Road. When it split off
from the Presbyterian Church downtown they wanted to start an integrated
church. The only way to do that was to start it from the beginning. They
asked me if I would be involved in that, so I was involved in the
Presbyterian Church. Well if you are black then you get up on all the
committees of the Orange Presbyterian. I was on the Presbyterian State
Senate attended all those meetings. I was a national leader in the
Presbyterian Church. Presbyterian Church was the southern part of the
Presbyterian Church, after the Civil War they split off so you don't
find many blacks sitting in the Presbyterian Church. They sent me away,
where did we go? Louisiana, Alabama somewhere. Mobile Alabama. We had a
national meeting. Generally you don't get to go to these national
meetings, you almost have to be dead. You have to have proven yourself.
Because I am black I get to go as a young man, because they wanted to
show me off. If you really wanted to know, they wanted to show me off. I
always remember, there must have been seven eight hundred people in this
convention I wasn't going to say anything. I remember them saying all
these derogatory things about Reverend King. These were church people
and they were calling him communist and saying he is doing this and
doing that. They are going to pass these resolutions against Dr. King. I
hadn't planned to say anything but, I marched up the pulpit. They had
microphones strategically located at different places. I didn't go to no
microphone I went in the pulpit. I told them people, "You are church
people, I can't believe the kinds of things about somebody that I
think—you all are talking like I am not even here. I am a black man and
you are saying all these things and you are supposed to be church
people. I don't have any business being in this church." You could hear
pin
Let me tell you one other thing that they asked me to do, because there
were so few blacks maybe three or four of us in that whole thing. The
guy from the pulpit learned my name he said, "We are going to ask Ed
Caldwell to lead us in a word of prayer." And he closed his eyes, I was
going like "No, I am not going to stand up there." It was silent in
there for a while and I think he opened his eyes, he opened one eye and
I am going like this so he started to pray. I have had quite a few
experiences, both in the Presbyterian Church as well as School Board. I
really like Presbyterian Church, I got to be a leader in there. I just
got to be a leader, people began to look up to me. I got to travel all
over the Southeast for the Presbyterian Church. I got to travel because
they were wondering why more blacks wouldn't join the Presbyterian
Church, for a long time I was one of the few. That remained, people
would come and then they would leave. I hung in there with them, because
what they were trying to do I thought was good. I said, "Well if you
want blacks to join us then you have to have something in here that they
can identify with. We are going to have a black minister." They agreed.
We went all over the nation trying to recruit a black minister. One of
the things about blacks they would let us have it. "That church up there
you all are not serious about bringing on a black minister." We invited
them to come up and preach, a couple of them we offered them the job. We
said, "We offer you the job. If you want the job, you got it." They had
to do some soul searching. A lot of them just couldn't pull it off being
a black minister in a predominately white church. We had some assistant
ministers that were black. We were very serious about
One of the things that the people up at, there is a religious school up
in Richmond, one time they asked me to come up and go to school up
there. I forgot the name of the school, because they wanted me to be the
minister of the Church of Reconciliation. I couldn't go. I have kids. I
have work. I couldn't do that. I have had a lot of opportunities. I
could have had a fellowship to go to the University of Michigan State.
You write your own program in education. Once you finish that program
you would be a superintendent. It was a great deal, but I had kids, I
had family here. I couldn't pick up my family and move. They also had
one job like that in North Carolina, I had turned
I have all kinds of things. You are just so interesting. I was wondering when we were speaking what about his idea of being the token black. Being appointed to all these things just because they wanted them to be integrated—
Well but see when I've gone in—One thing you have to understand is I am
not—If they elect me to something then I am going to tell them what we
need to be doing. Everything that I have been in I have sort of been the
conscious. To give you an example of what I am saying is with the School
Board Association. I was on every committee there. I was one of the
executive committee because I was treasure of that. The guy that we had,
the executive director, he wasn't doing what he was supposed to. I went
in and told him, "You are not doing what you are supposed to be doing,
here is what you are supposed to be doing." I had that kind of presence.
They knew that. The executive director died, he had a heart attack and
died. The organization was talking about falling apart. "What are you
all talking about falling apart? Get yourself together. We have to run
this thing. We will appoint the assistant until such time that we go out
for a search. While we are doing that lets look at where we want this
organization to go in the next five years, ten years, fifteen twenty
years. What are our goals? We are going to set a new direction. Now we
know that the executive director that we had had taken this [unclear]
They put me on Title IV, Title III. Title III was a program that had federal monies and different schools could write grants for different innovative type programs that they wanted in the schools that they thought may be able to benefit. They had to do that. Being on that thing they had a woman. They didn't want to support her, all these good ole boys from the state. You have to understand, they had a lot of power. You had the treasure on there. You had a lot of positions on there that were appointed by the Governor on that committee. State board chairman was on there. I had some strong political people on there. The budget offices were on there, the treasure was on there, the state school board chairman was on there. You are talking about some power. Hey, they got in their pants just like I got in mine. When they started going after her I let them have it. Nah, she's good. She was the best person. She had her stuff together. She was excellent. Just because she was a woman they didn't want her. She eventually went off to Minnesota. Minnesota's gain was our loss. I let them know, "I don't like what you all do. You let this woman go because she is a woman. She had her program together."
I read projects. Each person on Title IV had to read grants, read the
proposals that came in, we had to rank them, we had to decidedwho would
get them, based on some criteria, not just giving folks stuff. I made
them put in the criteria. Schools that did not have professional grant
writers on their staff. We would look at small schools that we thought
could benefit. That would carry a lot of weight. I made sure that went
in, because the rich were always getting richer and the poor were not
getting the grants. We changed things. Then one of the things as a
member of the Title III board was to go out
I went to Roanoke Rapids. Roanoke Rapids is down East near Weldon North Carolina. They didn't expect me to come in there. When I went in there to evaluate their grant they were surprised because they had decided to invite us to one of the persons' homes for dinner and whatever. That gave them problems because he hadn't planned for me to be there. He was going to wine and dine white counterparts. He had that planned. I had to go in there. This guys name was Clarey, had a lot of problems with me.
A guy over here in Durham, Superintendent over in Durham, not one with
the city was the county. I went in there to evaluate one of his
projects. Jean Lucar who is now a senator form Durham was the project
director. She knew her stuff. She knew how the project was going. It was
running good. They invited him in, he didn't know what was going on. He
came in there and was going to make some changes. Jean was saying, what
ever his name was, "You can't do that." "Well, I'm superintendent and I
do whatever." I
People began to know that I meant business. You are not going to take this money and do like you want to. You had to account for the money. I'm going to look to see where the money is being spent. You are not spending this money somewhere else. You are going to spend this money the way you said you were going to spend it. You are going to run the project the way it is supposed to be run. And we are going to get some good information out of you. Because how do we know if you are going to have innovative techniques that you found out that we can implement in other places? This is what that money is for.
I have never been a token. I had a reputation, whether I was with the Church of Reconciliation, or the Presbyterian Church, the school system. We had teachers who were up for suspension. One of them happened to black. He wasn't doing what he was supposed to be doing. He wasn't doing his job. I read that. He thought that I was going to support him. I told him, "He has to go. He is hurting children." That guy doesn't speak to me today. He is up in Orange County I see him every once in a while. He thought I was going to support him because he is black. You are gone. You are foolish if you think I am going to do that. You know you haven't been doing what you are supposed to do. You were not even showing up. He was a traveling band director and he was supposed to go to this school and he was supposed to go to that one. He is off somewhere not doing what he is supposed to do. Got to go. It is things like that. I am for right. The teacher organizations respected me, both black and white.
I was vice chairman of the school board for about six years. Now the system was set up where when the chairman left after a period of time the vice chairman moved up to be the chairman. When it came to be my time they pulled a coup. A fellow out here named Jim Riddle. He was minister of the community church. He wanted to do politics. I said, "No politics on this board. If you want to have politics you go over to the town board. No politics on the school board. We are in the business of children, no politics. We make the best decisions we can make. If we make one that politically may not be the right decision, because of other factors timing or whatever. We will make the best decision that we can make. That is what I expect you all to do." Jim pulled a coup. Norman Wellery was the chairman, very good chairman, very good chairman. Jim called me up and said, "I go the votes, we are going to replace Norman and we are going to put in Sodwell." Sodwell it was her first year on the board. She was good, but this is her first year. He had talked her to get her to run. He had the votes, but he wanted my support. He said, "Ed I'll offer you this, if you come with me." I said, "Let me tell you one thing Jim, you don't have my support. I will never give you support against Norman, when he is the best person for the job. Have you talked with Norman?" Norman didn't even know. When he came in there he had the votes. He got up and—
END OF INTERVIEW