American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with John Seigenthaler, 3 of 3

the piece be i am so there are particular there that you add on you know jeans are sharing you know and you know the sky's in a mentos were no o'rourke or slacks and i'm at my fact of workers sued to unite and i came down there was only the golan back and in atlanta the home back

in springfield the idea and i am mark and where they've been in iowa and i was warren assured of it with john doerr sure if i had bought a couple assurance in opening about me says they weren't wearing their to observe is that no i would've i was then and wrestling myself on the successes and in brian free riders to montgomery and eleanor holm by that though it omits raise your mother not you know and i mean i think the you know it's not a ball bow again again again is now more i only live many many times i mean i can i can remember on the door is still unhappy about a shared

there was that it was the air with them david to the very handsome supporter and he did i don't think and i've ever seen and i will resume but what he brings up again with my shirt but i i came with one suit clothes and so i i own and as a matter fact except to say hello to some of them but i recognized at the bus station from students in nashville i have not made any contact with the freedom riders that morning they showed up the bus station john ash john dorn i showed up the bus station

i spoke to move on or he ignored me as much of the good john lordan one made him a new one thought of and then and then they got on the bus was left and we had parked the car nearby and we rather end and our plan was to go down make sure they got there and it is you embarrassed if i had worn a tuxedo worn by and worn a suit jacket and tie exactly the same thing would've happened to me

those those people beat me you didn't know who i was in a mormon those two young girls knew what i would not ever telling myself alone wearing a badge or one can american flag say i'm from the federal government i was there because i wanted to make sure they we're safe and i believe that they would be safe and i had the government assurances that they would be safe i was i was traveling in reasonable comfort he had assured me they would be protected i have is worried that they would be protected and i'll say that little cone back on it i believe it was solomon who betrayed patterson i don't believe there was a conspiracy between governor paterson and commissioner sullivan there may have been but i've never said that i thought he actually in reasonably good faith

late in the afternoon i asked phil i haven't been heavily sedated and headed their way woke up late afternoon then we turn to joe calling if they thought well as up and been talking to me that he had been among visit with my wife and son that you assure them that i was or i did and we had a conversation which i told him that i really felt that failed let him down i express regret the new medicine us marshals in at that moment the hospital where i was was

surrounded by state troopers floyd man and play somewhere during the night they were replaced by federal marshals who came in just incidentally john lewis and jones were badly beaten almost kill will put in a public hospital and almost put out of it on the street because they heard a mob was common to that hospital but i wasn't i was in bartlett's clank and i was perfectly safe and i was guarded and at any rate and the end of the conversation he said facetiously how is my popularity down i had told him about his thought larry was with the governor and i said bob if you ever consider running for public office do not do it in alabama you would be a successful candidate and he let them it was about your damn i'll act in the hospital one of the things that the airports or the

inmate your being made our hair or exxon has been on an elite unit that they're a vigil in the edge of the year ever for over me his regular government austerity gatsby kind of raises some talk about what what you're eating good thinking robin wambach and our friends we had been close friends since nineteen fifty seven i had lived with during that time i helped edit the book he wrote called it an enemy within and live with a mentally creole for six

months i had to work with him every day during the kerry campaign from the convention and to leave no relation and we had been together every day in the office of the justice to form hours is administrative assistant unarmed julie closure and i think he was personally deeply concerned about what happened to me as a city drove to my home and talk with my wife and son and by the president determines your head you had talked about informal comes in difficulty

forces and goeman action gunman intervention far better to have us marshals troops they had discussed that end and of course it was better to send marshals to montgomery than troops and yes i think in light of the violence that day and then this was this was war on the greyhound bus terminal park and this was our salute war in which clubs and pipes i'm sure some guns john lewis was admitted with a crate and knocked unconscious i mean

this was war and was war in which the winning side had no weapons except nonviolence and but you know the point of the porno from kennedy's vision is marshall's will come well i've been there and i'm confident of that fellow action was absolutely record there was no warlord in montgomery alabama that day that completely broken down villagers all had no option but i but i do think he's frightened his administrative assistant a representative the protein interstates had been knocked unconscious left lying in the street for twenty five minutes of it made it more deeply personal for him

he was heard by then and i don't i think when i spoke to him and said well i really wish you would not henderson a lot of them he said you know what you should do and i think that that really express to build affection and was all alone i only ever hosting regret that he did what had to be done so in western or marshals come in to restore a lawn on a visa i never got a clear that this

is a car carrier with the president by this time is in europe the attorney general besides long or in montgomery alabama state capital have broken down and federal law enforcement must move in to restore or restore peace to protect afghan american from total breakdown and responsibility of state and local police and so there was no option but to send marshals n n n n n n n a real sense it was a slap in the face i'm john paterson the governor who had sent him a lot of common blood will flow in the streets marshals kamen alone and glenn already knew to stay in the streets of montgomery

from attorney joe for you i don't think from the moment he heard word out on those eight other resolution and it's notable that the next crisis two years later comes in mississippi at university when first marshals and then when a marshals become victims but only one is that the less so i think the image of little rock with fellow troops moving in and literally putting a town on the martial law from president pointed to turn his own pointed that had to be a

last resort to absolutely seize control of the state as for non howard had done with a force when farmers use the national guard ticking black kids out of central moscow and a president with lower than president now as the national guard frail hanson fellow troops in and i think the president turned joe and talk about it and we'll use the amount of force necessary and clearly they felt and not used us marshals and this case was actually and in their own minds and

the symbolism of a fellow troops taking or in effect the government's new government now living in prison ever want to do a thing for travel from probably continue for president obama and she and i am i know that both the president's original fell just that way clearly unusual marshals didn't give the impression of him of people are going to go what is that then it seems like there's some flu viruses that was that there's always thought this was a

fine and to get the federal government involved in the letter the one thing that a lot of overlap three months my son so to have been that of obama's not know the other side of that of course when john patterson speaks other pro them unattended zone and demeaning terms he's really reflecting what white society in the south feels about and jack and bobby kennedy is promoting as paterson said these rather out of these troublemakers these

hill raises to want to be big beaton who want to cause trouble clearly when diana says to me we know someone will we be we expect someone to die but we can't let violence overcome non violent clearly they understood prime ministers that angelenos that could not under those circumstances could not take action and it would indeed force action alone and dead if you look around the united states and you were contained in april united states they'll respond when you have to respond with adequate un but not excessive force and that's what the mentality

of administration was you know they were reading editorials from white southern newspapers blasting them in exactly the same way john paulsen did they were despised in most southern communities at that time by most white people and handed in yes i think we're idealistic but military and they were both pragmatic politicians and and so they responded with adequate force and not excessive force or you know what was in them was what they meant there about what today's welcome back on think about whether the freedom was

achieved a great deal or or a little first thing the free rides and she used was engaging the federal government in a meaningful and direct way in the struggle over phil royce in the silence that it sent a message to the southern states that the fogelman will that september ber or so and i went to three southern cities that were going to de segregate this groove that year we want to know and through into memphis and went to dallas and we met with mayors and the governors of those states and cities we said we need help from the fillmore <unk> although know they'd seen what happened in montgomery and it's interesting to note that all three of those cities be segregated

that year with no violence no lack of support by local law enforcement ice thank me and the message that that the administration sent to the sun goes and some officials is if there's trouble will act the last thing looking back on a john patterson wanted was to have his city demeaned you know think of what he is going through now how the industry and how we're going to get them in the director's represent different respects mixes them all the law enforcement establishment and alabama obama took a terrible blow as a result of the freedom riders and the freedom riders the freedom riders were responsible for their irresponsible for bringing about federal intervention federal law enforcement federal action but also responsible for helping the leadership of those southern states wake up to the fact

maybe we're on the losing side of this trial maybe we're not going to be able to provide in a position which was the legal term they used as a device to try to block the force of civil rights i think montgomery the volunteers in on the freedom riders begin to change the dynamic i think you suddenly public opinion nationally and self preservation recently in the south began to take hold and so i i think it was a seminal moment in the mood by difficult i was there just goes i got knocked unconscious for the first time in a very real way people across the south began to think twice government officials across the south began to think twice about

where this was going to go and what was gonna happen if problems can now many problems came as time passed but as our city and think back on it what happened at at them and only triggered triggered a national tran you know determined who sits on the white house today as the government that were in the senate is an owl look i'm a solo the segregated south i was raised in a city and every city in the south was just like it we

were as segregated by race as in this city in south africa the height of apartheid in view after american a way you need to go on in the hospital moto moto restaurant public park the local as a state statute and federal policy plessy versus ferguson separate but equal and they bargain from going i grew up in the south john good and decent parents a live by car can believe that the injustice that was our only they made an impact on we had we had women who work and i also sometimes surrogate

mothers i remember their names me the great bird in a while in navajo when we treat with respect outside their house so they were treated as rosa parks history and i think i am a ten bestseller public bus as a child and young adult and watched and rosa parks counterparts in my city struggle on those buses struggle in the back of the bus i'm sitting there and i never see it i notice and writes about the invisible man they were invisible women to me i can't believe i couldn't sleep and i don't know where my head apart was unaware much perez heads and arthur i'm a teacher i never heard it once from the pulpit on a sunday from any priest it and i look back on that and in wonder and in a real sense issue in a real sense it's with shame

and for the most part well planned to the reality of racism and afraid i guess of change and and you know i can i can look back only thank god that somewhere along the line through reading and finally opening my eyes but i came to feel a sense of guilt that i think some more is my age now in her eighties still only show harold burton and they get stolen little the burden of guilt the truth alone is a normal childhood i look across a kid my age

deprived childhood and you know those there's something there's something wrong with that picture in and just one anecdote i remember i was in the moment of the control tower and i can remember the day i look down on that feelin and i by that time i was getting a grasp of my own inadequate understanding and i look down on that fear of wind blows six o'clock in the morning and one was if the new initiative but ruffalo once employed only of both court in separate missiles before president truman the cities the military and i look at them and above them in the distance there's an american flag and what's wrong with this picture i mean we already died in this fore to protect defend sign competition signed country i think by that time it and began to dawn on me this just plain wrong this is just

this is not what this country supposed to be about that's not bad moment didn't change my mind you know it comes over a long period of knowing the road to damascus conversion alone knocked off course by a lightning bolt you know but i do look back on and thank god that i have a son finally condoms than what injustice was living there he is asked this question a lot and it just didn't occur and you think about as you think about well as i look back on it i just had i was blinded to the indignity the injustice that with his thin

on people got i mean it's not explainable it's not i can't say in a way that makes anybody understand that i was there and didn't see it out there and didn't understand i was there and didn't feel it for them you know less than a prudent and national mourning kings of something he said for those of you white and would like the opposite i'm paraphrasing but it's almost a direct quote but can help us because of political concerns a family concerns are job concerns let me say we will liberate you and i think by the time a new life and world and as the jail is our reporting that block but what he said to a bandaid to some

whites along with friction i mean he liberated us annual at level american and eight to know how far he in the free month brought in africa