American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Gov. John Patterson, 2 of 4

[Interviewer] And outside of Anniston, there's another bus, Trailways bus. that's coming from Atlanta, too. Talk about what happened to that bus as it got to Birmingham. [Interviewer] Well, unbeknownst to any of us, the Birmingham police department headed up by Bull Connor, who was director of Public Safety of Birmingham, had made an agreement with the head of the Klan, the Klan people there in Birmingham, to to give them thirty minutes of free time, to beat up the freedom riders at the Trailways bus station. That was a Trailways bus station. And uh of course of course we didn't know anything about that. And [of] course, when the bus arrived, the Birmingham police were missing, they wern't there. And of course, [the] Birmingham police department had, at that time, more policeman, and better trained policeman to handle things of that kind,than the state of Alabama had troopers. So it was basically and fundametally the city Birmingham's responsibility at that point to maintain order. Nobody informed us that they wasn't going to do it. Nobody

informed us about the meeting either. And of course we know now that the FBI the FBI, the local FBI office there was fully aware of what was going on and had been asked by an informant that they had in the Klan, they'd been asked by him him what to do, and they said, "Go ahead and beat 'em up." Yeah, the FBI, yeah, imagine that. It's hard to believe it. And so when they arrived, sure enough there was...police were not there and they ?inaudible?, that Klan crown ?inaudible? into them and beat a bunch of 'em up real bad. [Interviewer]: I just want to get the FBI's story separately. Because I think it's really important, because, you know, in some ways, it's the FBI's resonsibility. So let me ask you... [Interviewee] Well it would at least be their responsibility to inform the governor and the director of public safety in the state. ?inaudible? had no reason not to trust me. I was not a Kalnsman, they knew damed well I wasn't wasn't a Klansman. I don't like the Klan, never did. [Interviewer]: But they didn't trust you - the FBI - well, they didn't tell you I don't know whether ?inaudible?

I don't know why they didn't trust me. I certanly...if I'd a known what knew then, I wouldn't have trusted them, that's for sure. [Chuckles] It's not a laughing matter; we laugh about about abortion eleven where it was or shares police were no question about it is so so [Interviewer] There was this plan that was for Bull Connor and the Klan members to...just beat up these people for fifteen minutes; they have free free rein. The FBI knew about it. [Interviewee] Yeah, for thirty minutes. Yes, the FBI knew about it. Yeah. [Interviewer] Just tell me the story again, like I don't know. Tell me that the FBI ?inaudible? [Interviewee] Yeah, the FBI had an informant in the Klan, Gary Thomas Rowe, who was a local Klansman. He was from Savannah and he was working as an undercover agent for the FBI and the Klan and keeping them informed about what the Klan was doing, and uh participating himself in roughin' folks up, to as I

understand now, to maintain his position in the Klan, ya know. He had to do these things to, so he'd be credible. Yeah, yeah, yeah This is the argument, ya know. Uh, but anyway, uh, Rowe uh, was undercover, he helped, he was there, he helped beat 'em up at the bus station, yeah. Uh, now, Rowe was not just an informant, he was not a just klan informant. He was an employee of the Justice Department, he drew a salary and expense account,and all these things. This was not an ordinary informant. They didn't tell us about it. If Floyd Mann and I had known that the Birmingham Police Department we're not going to do their duty, their you know responsibility, then we would have been fully justified in goin' in with state troopers and doin' it for him, ya know. But you have a sensitive, state, local relationship, yeah that uh, if, if I said, as Governor, "I don't like the way you folks in

Birmingham or running your policeman, I'm gonna send in my state troopers to take care of it for you." They would all go home and turn it, dump it all on the state and go home, ya know? There's a There's a delicate relationship that has to be, you know, it has to be thought about, ya' know you, can't just ignore that. And who would've ever believed the city of Birmingham would not have done done their duty? Now, I mean, at that time you would not have believed that. Yeah. But after that, now, we don't trust him anymore. Yeah. And so when that when the time came for the bus, and of course, they stayed there in Birmingham a while in jail, and then Connor took 'em out of jail and carried all up to the Missis- to the Tennessee line and turned 'em loose and they beat him back to Birmingham! [Laughs] [Interviewer]: I'm gonna ask you about that in a moment. Let me stay on that page, if I can. Um, that must have been um, not a very good day for you, as Governor, I mean, because both of these things happened in the space of a- in a couple hours, or, you know, that the bus gets burned

there's this riot, you know; I don't know what else to call it, in Birmingham. It's on the news, it's everywhere you know. How did you feel when you learned that this bus has been burned, and there's this this beat down, in Birmingham? 'Course at that time, I didn't know that the FBI the FBI agent had made a deal with them; to give 'em ?inaudible? I didn't know know at that time, Bull Connor and the Birmingham police had given them thirty minutes of free time. I didn't know that. that. I didn't learn that 'till later. I was amazed that the city of birmingham didn't, didn't apparently try to police the bus station. We learned there that they at the bus bus, at the Birmingham bus station, that we couldn't trust the Birmingham people anymore. And we certainly didn't intend to trust the Montgomery people either. So when the bus bus finally left from Birmingham, going to Montgomery, we had it escorted, front and back, by many state troopers and

cars. "Heliocoptors" flying- protection overhead, and and then we had an assurance from the Montgomery police deployment that they would protect 'em at the Montgomery bus station. And that we didn't have to worry about it. Unbeknownst to us us, they had made a similar deal themselves, with the Klan, the local Klan in Montgomery, to give them a free hand at the bus station to beat up the freedom riders. By this time, Floyd Mann and I didn't trust 'em; didn't trust anybody anymore. But we had state troopers and right nearby and Floyd and his deputy Bill Jones, and a photographer Tommy Giles, state photographer, were there at the bus station, and and we had a couple hundred state troopers right nearby - waiting, if needed. Suddenly when the bus came in, there were no Montgomery policeman there. We weren't surprised by this time. And ?this? suddenly a mob appeared just out of nowhere and attacked the passengers as they got off the bus. And they got two or three of 'em down on the ground and was beatin' on 'em. Floyd Mann stepped

in, straddled one of the men on the ground, pulled his pistol, and and so did his assitant Bill Jones, and uh said, "If anybody else touches a man here, I'll kill him." And the crowd backed away, and got... and Floyd saved them. Really, saved them. It's interesting that uh, that was, that bus station was right in in the backyard of the federal courthouse, and Frank Johnson, the federal judge, who ?inaudible? later was going to handle these cases, was standing in his office ?wondering? looking down on it less than a hundred yards away watching the whole thing himself. Isn't it that interesting that would happen? [Interviewer]: ?inaudible? [Interviewee]: ...almost minute to minute basis, yeah. Yeah, I was in the governor's office and in touch with Floyd and I also had an aid assigned to to the case, too. ?inaudible? stayed right with them. Yeah, I was ?inaudible? almost instant, communication. [Interviewer]: What went through your mind? [Interviewee]: Oh, I was mad as hell; I was really mad. I was not only mad at the Birmingham Polive Department, butI was mad at the at the, uh, of course, already

coming over the news, was a public, uh, was a a press conferences held by Robert Kennedy. [Interviewer]: ?inaudible? Never mind. [Interviewee]: a real, real, a real little ?bastard?, you can put that on there. [Interviewer]: ?inaudible? So you said you're getting these reports and you're mad as hell, start there, you gettin' those reports. [Other voice]: Quiet, please in the back. [Interviewee]: We're getting these reports and uh, coming into my office ?there, and Floyd Mann's keeping me keeping me advised, just on a minute to minute basis what was goin' on. And I, and and the thing was getting out of hand, there's no question it. It was getting out of hand and and I was very disturbed about it, and uh, and also, had a feeling in the back of my mind that we'd we'd been double-crossed; that the justice department knew more about the thing than they will at the slow robert kennedy had begun to appear in his office and making statements about the thing in urging the

protection of the freedom riders and is quite obvious that he himself was uh, and his people were involved in pushing the activity. Yeah. This was not a segregation - integration, integration thing; It was a law enforcement matter, and a very serious law enforcement matt[er]. Somebody's going to get killed if something wasn't done about it. And this this is what we were confronted with. When the buses arrived [pause] in Montgomery [laughs] and when the bus arrived in Montgomery and the incident occured there there and the city police in Montgomery didn't show,uh, the director of public safety, L. B. Sullivan was who he was - he's deceased now - uh, but, but but he had himself agreed with the Kl-, to give the Klan some time to beat up the freedom riders at the bus station. and here we a-, here we were, that we had got suspicious by this time; that we didn't trust anybody and Floyd Mann had got his people his people drawn in very closely around that bus station. And sure enough, the city police didn't show. And by the time Floyd was able to get

get his men in there - of course he went in there first and straddled a man and pulled his gun and backed the crowd crowd off the fella and got the people out. By that time two or three of the people got injured. I don't thing they got seriously injured; I don't think they got seriously injured, but they got injured. And one of them was a, is now a congressman, uh from Georgia, uh what's his name? [Interviewer]: Lewis? [Interviewee]: Lewis. [Interviewer]: Let me stop here. I don't want to jump to Montgomery, cause that's a few days later. ?inaudible? Um, I want to go back to that, that first day of the burning bus in Birmingham, that that...Talk to me about what Bobby, Bobby Kennedy was doing, right? And what you thought about what he was doing; what you opinion of Bobby was at that point. [Interviewee]: Well, I had, he was calling me on a... [Interviewer]: You've got to say "Bobby" Yeah. Bobby Kennedy, who was the Attorney

General, was apparently, from my point of view at that time was orchestrating the thing from Washington. He was, appeared to be he kept demading that they be given free passage and he was obviously, uh clearly on the side of the freedom riders, and uh, and uh, making demands at, that that they be protected. Of course, he had every right to do that, after all he was Attorney General of the United States. But is also appeared that that he was not uh cooperating with the efforts to protect these people, uh So, in, our problem was to let the buses run on the highways and carry people and interstate commerce, but at the same time, safely; be able to travel safely. Uh, I, I, I ya know, ya looking back now, you you could, we could've taken over the whole thing and escorted everybody. But that wasn't what really we really wanted to do. We wanted people to travel on the buses and free of any interference, uh anywhere in Alabama. Uh, but we

wanted to be able to travel safely. And uh, we, we, we've, we learned as we went along, after the bus burning in, near Anniston, then the incident in Birmingham - all this taking place in a matter of hours, ya know. Then there was some delay in Birmingham, ya know when they put 'em in jail and escorted them up to the Tennessee line line and they beat 'em back, beat 'em back - all this was Bull Connor's work. And then finally uh, Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy, demanded that they be given a bus and sent on the was to Montgomery. Remember he said, "Get Mr. Greyhound on the telephone, I want to talk to Mr. Greyhound." This was his...he was deeply involved in the operation of the, of the freedom riders, and it, I personally resented that, I really did. And we had some words about that, we really did. But by the time they got them Montgomery... [Interviewer]: ?inaudible? ?inaudible? It's interesting and it's interesting that this what, I mean, I think was part of the story. Uh, tell me about your feelings about Bobby Kennedy.

[Interviewee]: Well, I met Bobby Kennedy during the campaign, during the presidential campaign. He was the floor leader for his his brother on the floor of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. He was the fellow we weren't directly with, with our delegation. delagation. I carried a delegation of people from Alabama to support Kennedy for president. It was a split delegation; split right down the middle. It was thirty uh, I think thirty-two votes, and it was half for Lyndon Johnson and half for Robert Kennedy, and I had a time keeping them together out there. Uh Robert, we worked with Robert, who was the floor leader. And uh, I had a lot of contact with him at that time and it wasn't, it was pleasant, and I didn't have no problem with Robert. Uh, my trouble with Robert Kennedy came with the freedom riders; that's when my trouble started with him. I felt like that they were not treating us right. They obviously were not telling us everything that was goin on. I could not

understand why, in fact I remember even saying uh, to Robert Kennedy, who call?ed? me every day. I remember telling him, I said,"Why don't you just go on the front steps of..." [Music playing] [Interviewer]: Oh no. I thought that thing was off. [interviewee]: My wife does that sometimes, ya know. Don't take it so hard. [Other voice]: Okay, is it off? [Interviewer]: Let's roll. You said something about that why didn't Bobby Kennedy just go out on the steps. [Interviewee]: Yeah and and to say look, "Why don't you folks stay home. If your job If your, if your intent is not to be a bonafide interstate passenger on a bus, and you're going for some purpose other than, than you know, just riding an interstate bus somewhere, why don't you stay home and mind your own business, and everything will be alright?" Of course, that was falling on deaf ears. they were down there to

test out, test the law. And, and in a way, test us. And they did a pretty good job of it, there's no question about that. And we, and we, we we, lookin' at it hindsight, ya know, we probably coulda done a better job if we'd had some, some idea of what was going to unfold but we we had nothin'; had no record to go on. We had no idea what was going to happen. We didn't know, uh, we didn't know that the Klan that was going to beat up these freedom riders had infiltrated the police department ?so? Montgomery and Birmingham, we didn't know that. Might be naive for not having known it. But, uh I, didn't really know it. It's hard to believe that; at that particular time it was hard to believe that. [Interviewer]: What, tell me you personal opinion of Bobby Kennedy. What do you think about Bobby Kennedy. Talk about the fact that as this thing go on, you, your relationship, whatever you had, starts to deteriorate. [Interviewee]: Uh, he was, he was

abrasive, uh he was dictatorial. He talked to state officials like they were like they were government employees. He didn't understand the federal state relationship and how delicate it is. It is, there isn't such a thing as a federal/state relationship. Uh, he didn't understand that. that. He looked upon us as his employees. He dictated to us just like like, you know, like we were workin' in his office. Uh, he didn't understand our political problems and we had some too. Everything he did was to further the political agenda of him, of him and his brother. And uh, I don't want to fault him for being loyal to his brother and all of that, but he was a very abrasive and hard fella to deal with. And, and, and I I didn't trust him; I grew not to trust him. And uh, and we had real, real problems. And later on one night I told him, I said, "Quit..."

[Coughs] See I would talk to him on the telephone and then I would read about what I said in the newspaper. He'd immeditaltely hold a press conference in Washington, and tell the press what I said. And I would read about what I was sayin' the paper. Well, that's really not not a good way to deal in situations like that. You really need to deal in confidence, ya know, because you're dealing with with law enforcement matters that are very serious. And I had some real difficulties with him. Uh, one, one, one night night he called me at the Governor's Mansion and I was in bed. It was two-o'clock in the morning, he called me and told me that we didn't have enough policemen on a certain corner in downtown Montgomery, yeah. This was after we had declared martial law. Ya know, but uh, uh and I told him, I said, "Don't, dont...quit calling me. That's not my job to look after what's on, down, downtown Montgomery. Send a man down here. Send somebody down here to stay and live with me,

me, that reports directly to you, to be a liaison man, so you'll know what's going on directly from your own source." So what'd he do? He sent John Seigenthaler down ther. Now, I like John Siegenthaler. He was in the Kennedy administration and he was from the Nashville Banner, was where he was from. Uh, he and he comes down there, and John Siegenthaler comes down there, and he's got a fella with him named John Doar, who's head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department. Now they come to my office, and uh, check in and then they go and check into a motel, right near the capitol, and uh, Siegenthaler uh, gets up the next morning when the bus coming into the bus station in Montgomery. Uh, he gets up - him and Doar - they put on some old work work clothes, leave their identity at the motel, rent a Montgomery County Alabama "u-drive-it" automobile with an Alabama tag on it, and they go down down to the bus station and get involved in the riot. They, they

pull it at the curb and then there was a girl her girls along the bush there was so women chasing this girl and beating her with their purses and say in tehran reached out and grabbed her ostensibly to save her and tried to pull her into his car. Well, [Wll] nobody knew who he was . And it was a Montgomery Alabama car. Somebody hit him in the head and left him and the gutter beside the car. The representative of the President of the United States. Yeah. And they - Floyd's people picked him up and sent him out to the hospital. And when he got out to the the hospital, the hospital people wouldn't treat him without a waiver, a signed waiver. And he wouldn't sign it and wouldn't identify himself; and didn't have any identificatin on him.So he So he asked to use the telephone. So they got him a

telephone and he called the White House and got the President of the United States on the telephone, to tell him abut what what had happened to him. How do we know that? The people at the switchboard - they had switchboards in those days - the people at the switchboard in ?a? hospital listened in on his calls. Ya see? It was a comic opera in a way. Yeah. And I couldn't believe that he would send me a man down there like that. Now Siegenthaler and I have had some contact in recent years and... He's not a bad guy; he's a nice fella. And he takes it, ya know, he sympathizes with us us a little bit about the freedom of the wohlers is [Interviewer]: was wrong? [Interviewee]: Well, he was sent down there for the purpose of bein' a liason man for the President and for the Kenn- for Bobby Kennedy; to stay with me and live with me and watch and see everything I did and report back directly to them. This is why he was s'posed to come there. To, to, to, to go down to the bus station

with old work clothes - disguise, really - with a Montgomery County, Alabama license plate on his car, and gets involved in the, in the riot down there - he's crazy to do that. Yeah, just crazy. I, I, uh, we are friendly now. But we were not friendly then. [Laughs] I told- I said "I asked them to send me a man down there sent me a fool down there." [Laughs] But anyway, uh, doesn't that make you believe that they really didn't want to have anybody with me? I had all kinds of suspicions about that. Now, he never did come back and stay with me. Never did. Of course, if I had it to do over again, I'd do it completely different. But you never get a second chance. [Laughs]

Interviewer]: ?At? anything. [Interviewee]: Yeah, if we'd a se- we'd a, We had several uh, highway patrol cars there, - bus burning was at a, near Anniston. What we shoulda done was sacked up all of 'em right ?there? ?there? sacked 'em all up and arrested 'em ?anyway? we'd a got the undercover guy. Yeah, we'd a got the undercover guy. [Interviewer]: So...after the riot in Birmingham, finally, after a long series of things, the grou- that group of ?riders? agrees to kind of fly; they kinda give it up. [Interviewee]: They were replaced, yeah. [Interviewer]: they could fly out. [Interviewee]: Correct. [Interviewer]:. At that point, the way I understand it is, at that point there was not this- they weren't going to be replaced. They just kind of said, "Okay, we can't make it," they we're too beat up." [Interviewee]: Yeah. [Interviewer]: And, and, and Kennedy, and I guess you, ya know, thought it was kind of

over, for, for a minute. My question is, what did you think, um... First question is, what did you think as this first group of riders agrees to kind of quit, and to get on planes, and to go to New Orleans; it seems like it's over what did you think? [Interviewer]: Well, I remember very well. I was glad it was over. And uh, but uh, but uh, it turns out it wasn't. [Interviewee]: Let me ask you that again. I don't you to kind of go forward. At that moment you're glad it's over. It's when you talk about being glad it's over. You know what I mean? Okay, talk about that. What did you think as these riders were getting on the plane and leaving, and it's ove- over. [Interviewee]: When I heard that and found out that to be true, I felt like it was over and I was very relieved that we were, that the thing was over and nobody had really been killed. And uh, i was glad of it. Unfortunately though, yeah, it wasn't over. [Interviewer]: Um,

when you heard the rides would resume, what did you think? [Interviewee]: I remember I was disappointed about it, but uh, Floyd and I had a meeting. and uh we decided that we would use all the state's forces and wouldn't trust anybody. we would use all the state's forces to enforce and to protect these people until they got out of Alabama. And that's when we decided to do it. It's too bad Floyd's not living; he's gone, he's dead. [Interviewer]: Yeah, I would have loved to have talk to him; sounds like an amazing guy. [Interviewee]: Yeah. Bill Jones. Bill Jones, his assistant is also also deceased. Tommy Giles is living; the photographer that was there that day is presently the state photographer. [Interviewer]: Okay. so, so, the second group of riders comes. um. Were you involved at all with Bull Connor, when he decided to to take them back to the Tennessee border? [Interviewee]: No, we had nothing to do with that at all

all; nothing, We were not conferred about it and had nothing to do with it; did not try to ?inject ourselved ? ourselves into it either. [Interviewer]: Okay. Tell me that story, I wanna as-, I just wanna...can you tell me what happened? So the second group of riders gets to Birmingham. What did Bull Connor do? [Interviewee]: He arrested 'em as I remember. Arrested 'em and put them in the county jail - city jail. And then later loaded them all up and carried them up to the Mississip- to the Tennessee line. Where they all beat 'em back to Mont- beat 'em back to Birmingham. I believe that's what happened. Yeah. [interviewer]: And you're the governor and you didn't know anything about this. ?Bull Connor? acting on his own. Well, he's the police commissioner of the city of Birmingham. The governor has nothing [to] do with it, with the daily operations of the police department of the city of Birmingham. There is a, not only is there a federal-state relation, that's very sensitive, but there's a there's a state-municipal relation also that's involved here. If you don't respect that and don't understand that, uh, you can't have good law enforcement - anywhere. So you know he had a he had the authority to do what he did

are so many years that didn't have as my permission to answer the answer to the people of birmingham and yet he never did anything from a comedian our not forget i never liked the man he never supported me for governor he was for George Wallace. He wasn't for me. I didn't like him. Fact, I was a little bit afraid of ?him.? Yeah. He was so unpredictable. [Interviewer]: Yeah, Bull Connor seems like a one-of-a-kind kind of guy. Well, there was, a - riots in Birmingham, in which he sicked the dog- police dogs on children, and turned the fire hoses on children, there. I'm not sayin' it's right for them to send the children downtown to do the demonstratin', but they should never sicked the dogs and turned the...on 'em. And all that on national television. Now he, believe you me, we didn't come off lookin' good in that thing at all. And

that's one of th- that's another one of the things that created such an atmosphere across this country; that the voting rights act of sixty-four was passed an' enforced. And there was no question it was [Laughs] It It was a not very well ?inaudible?, there's no question about that and we did not reflect very good in national television. ad