American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Gov. John Patterson, 1 of 4

[Interviewer]: Yes, Steve. Ok Governor Patterson, talk to me a little bit about your support for JFK in the 1960s. [Gov. Patterson]: I was a attorney general, uh, uh, earlier on and got to know a little bit about, uh, about about the Kene.... Kennedys and I was particularly attracted to Senator Kennedy because he'd done some work in the, uh, against the some of the mobs in the country, and I was interested in doing something about a mob that was operating out of Alabama at that time. So we had a common interest in, uh, in doing something about the illegal activity in the state and i was interested in meeting him, and seeing him, uh, and i was also at the same time running for Governor from the Attorney General's Office. The head of the the, uh, state municipal league told me at their annual meeting he said, "We have we have three banquets, and you can sit at the head table with the speaker at one of those banquets and I'll give you first choice. One of them is going to be Senator Kennedy and I said that's the one I want to sit next to at the head table. And that's where I met him, uh, at that,

at that time. He knew a little bit about me, and he invited me to come and see him when I was coming to Washington. And I was in Washington a good bit in those days. We had a lot of cases before the United States Supreme Court, and I was frequently up there and I took advantage of that and visited him in his office in the Senate office building and also at his home over in Georgetown. [Interviewer]: and so you guys became friends That's right he asked me Said come by to my office when you're in the city in Washington and, and uh, started, uh, taking his, taking him up on his invitation to, uh, come up them or have breakfast with unusually georgetown i met jackie there and i met Robert, his brother, and some of the other people, and uh, we became uh, you know, you know you know, fairly good and good friends, and I liked him, and he was

He was very personable; he was a nice fellow to be around. He was entertaining. He loved to to tell jokes and everything. He used too many four letter words, I thought, in his conversations. But I later on found out that he did it for emphasis, you know. [LAUGHTER] [INTERVIEWER]: How about the importance of your support and the South's support to Kennedy's election? I mean, a lot of times we forget, you know, because Kennedy's become such an icon, how close that election was and the importance of your and the South's support. [JOHN PATTERSON]: Yeah. It was not thought at the time that Kennedy could carry the South. The South would be his real problem because Lyndon Johnson and then some other people in the South. I was the first governor in the South that publicly endorsed him for president. I found out real quick that that was not not a, that was probably, not a proper thing to do. [Laughter]. I called him a hell of a [inaudible] I really did. I never thought that people would uh

would not want a Catholic for president. As naïve as I was, you know, I never had any problem with Catholics, you know. But I found out real quick that my endorsement of Kennedy in Alabama was not an easy thing to do. And even though we carried the state for the Democratic ticket and in November when he ran for president, uh, we still had a split vote on the electors: uh, six to five went for Harry Byrd of Virginia. The Dixiecrats showed showed their displeasure by voting against my candidate. [INTERVIEWER]: What did you expect from your support of Kennedy? Were there expectations? In general terms? [JOHN PATTERSON]: Oh, he never promised me anything. I liked him. I felt like if you had a friend in the White House, that you would have access to the White House, and that's the way it turned out. If you had any problems,

you could go there and he'd hear you, and this is what I wanted. Not that, uh, he never promised me anything. Ya know, he, he, uh, I of course I knew that you couldn't run for president on a segregation ticket, you know. I knew that. But I felt like that if we ever got in a situation where we needed some understanding and some help from the federal government in regard to our problems that here, that I'd get a good- I'd get an audience. And this was my reason for doing it. No, no other reason. Yeah, I got nothing personal out of it. Never asked for anything personal. [Interviewer]: Um hm. Um, it was thought that, ya know, uh, it's funny cause the kind of history changes and things ?inaudible? because when Kennedy was elected back in the sixties it was thought that you know his strength in what he was interested in was was foreign policy; that he wasn't that concerned over domestic policy. So, can you tell me a little bit about that how it was seen for you as a Democratic Party? Basically

if Kennedy's concerns were really foreign, foreign policy, basically. [Interviewee]: I think I think that's true. I, I, the, the economic situation in the country at that time was not particularly bad and it was alright, pretty good in Alabama, too. And we were not suffering economically at that time; doing pretty pretty good, and this was true all across the South. Georgia, for instance was far, far more liberal on these racial issues and things like that than Alabama was. Alabama and Mississippi and South Carolina, and Louisiana were all, you can lump them all together, and it was still joel porter culture georgia and gotten worse course you know states. But for instance, here in Georgia, although Jimmy Carter ran for governor of Georgia on a segregation ticket -- on maintaining segregation in public schools -- very quickly after he was elected he made moves to integrate the schools of Georgia. But in Alabama it was a different

proposition. And of course my support of Kennedy -- being a liberal -- was not viewed by some people in Alabama as being a good thing, particularly the so-called Dixiecrats at that time. The states' righters are Dixiecrats. They were not supporters of mine. [INTERVIEWER]: So, um, Ya know because again history ya know comes down a lot of times differently the way it was at the time. But when Kennedy was was running for president he wasn't known to be especially progressive on the race issue, was he? [JOHN PATTERSON]: Well he certainly wasn't a segregationist. [LAUGHTER] Oh no, he was very- I thought very liberal on that question. Everybody understood where he was, where he stood on the question. And, of course, he was- well, he was openly courting the black vote

and saying things that, of course, wouldn't make a segregationist happy at all. I mean, I wasn't concerned with that myself. But I supported him because I liked him and I thought that he would make- I thought he was going to win, too. I was thinking about him at that time like I thought about Obama -- the time had come for a change, and the change was going to be John F. Kennedy. And I wanted to be in the Kennedy camp. [INTERVIEWER]: Even though he was liberal on race issue. [JOHN PATTERSON]: Yes, yes it didn't make any difference to me, really. You know, anybody who lived in- lived at that time in this country and understood the law knew where we were heading, and knew that we could never ultimately win that fight, legally. Yeah. [INTERVIEWER]: Really? [JOHN PATTERSON]: Yes. I mean, early on in my administration, we had a meeting in Birmingham at a lawyer's, a constitutional lawyer's office in Birmingham -- a very hush-hush meeting. Griffin Bell of Georgia represented the governor of Georgia at that meeting.

And the discussion was held around the table -- it was on a Saturday morning in downtown Birmingham. It was very quiet down there, uh, as to what was going to be be what was going to happen? Where were going with the this thing? And the consensus there, in fact every person person at the table said "we can't win this battle. ya know, constitutionally it's already lost." The consensus was that we ought to file a legal delay in action to give people time to adjust to change, so that we could change without without violence. This was the policy set at that time. [Interviewer]: Really? [Interviewee]: Yeah. [Interviewer]: So the thought among... [Interviewer] The lawyer's and the people who knew where it, what was goin' on. No, we knew that wasn't, we never were going to wind the legal battle; it was already over. Brown versus Board of Education ended that. [Interviewer]: But you ?inaudible? but explain a little more so that you thought that the way to go was try to slow it, so that people had a chance to adjust. Explain that. [Interviewer]:

Well the concern, concern in states like Alabama was if you suddenly implemented the federal order, federal court order to integrate public schools, that there would be violence. People indicated that that's what would happen. and i think they believe that that would be what would happen so the idea was to get to delay, and of course you could legally delay because the Brown versus Board of Education had a provision in there that, that applied to the states and had legal segregation in thirteen, I believe, thirteen southern states. states, segregation was required by law in the public schools by law. So you had to change the law to do anything about it. There was no sentiment to change the the law at that time. And the feeling was under this provision and Brown versus Board of Education those states that have legal segregation should end...end legal segration in the public schools, uh with all deliberate speed and is what it said.

Well now, what did "all deliberate speed" mean? Well, it was interpreted, it was was interpreted and that didn't mean instantly, otherwise they'd said that. So they give you time and so time, so everybody delayed; uh, buying time time. And they delayed for ten years, for ten years, and finally ten years the Justice Department and the administration in Washington said "Well, this is enough" and and they stepped in and started filing cases and forcing the integration of public schools in the South. And then I was already, already out of office by that time. [Interviewer]: I read a quote... [Interviewee] Does that make sense to you. [Interviewer]: Yeah Yeah, yah I know, really fascinating. Um, I read a quote the other day day that said, something like "the question from the South was was not if you believed in integration or not...[correcting self] in segregation. The The question in the South, in the Deep South was, ya know, Alabama, Mississippi, was not not if you believed in segregation, but how far you were willing to go to support it.

Ya know, I mean, was that, was that ?inaudible? [Interviewee]: I guess so, yeah As it turned out, uh, in Alabama, uh when the final court order came and George Wallace, uh, really with his his actions, brought this thing to a head very quicky, when he became governor, by getting involved, uh, in in the school issues, Judge Frank Johnson, a federal judge in Montgomery, siezed upon that opportunity with Wallace as getting himself involved in shutting down the high school in Tuskegee, to avoid integration. Well, the governor must run the whole school system, in this regard. So, he he integrates all the schools in Alabama, Frank Johnson does, with one stroke of the pen because of the action of Governor, of Governor Wallace. Now, uh, this is what brought it to a head pretty quickly, and when they started started integrating the public schools in Alabama by court orders, by court orders, Frank Johnson did this, uh when the day came that a man had to

fellow had to make a decision whether to send his child down to the school, integrated school or not or find a private education, what did he do? Well, by and large he went ahead and sent his child on down there to school, and he cussed the federal judge for his order. It's interesting that the federal, federal judge Johnson was the valve that made it possible to bring about political change without violence in the state of Alabama. Yeah. [Interviewer] I want to go back a little bit in time, to uh, and I don't want to spend a lot of time on this, but your election? ?inaudible? Race was a big issue. issue [inaudible] So, talk about how race was... [Interviewee]: I didn't realize this until, I ran on basically the law enforcement. I'd been the crime buster and I was riding that wave of popularity of fighting crime and all that. And that's how I rode into the campaign. We hadn't been in that campaign two weeks before it was obvious that all people wanted to talk about was race

racial issues in the schools. That's all they wanted to talk about. They weren't intersted in nuthin' else. There was thirteen of us running. All democrats at that time. Alabama was a one-party state. There was uh, thirteen of us running, and all all thirteen trying to outdo the other and stating his position the strongest on segregation of public schools and public facilities, yeah. All thirteen of us. At that time, there nothing integrated in Alabama. There wasn't a single school integrated in Alabama, not a college or anything. And it was, and it was legally required that they be be segregated. So, that's what you were faced with. No, nobody in the legislature was for changing it, either. either, so this is what ?inaudible? If anybody running for governor had indicated in any manner that he was weak on that question uh, or that he was not for maintaining segregation in the public school, uh, he he had no chance of winning; he might as well just fold up and go on home and forget it. So, he had a

had a choice: you state that you were for maintaining segregation in the public schools, or, you wouldn't win. [Interviewer]: What was your choice? [Interviewee] Oh I took the, I took the ch...I said I support the segregation of public schools, uh, in Alabama, and if I'm elected governor, I'll do do everything I can to maintain it. Of course, I meant meant...I meant do it legally, you understand. I didn't I never advocated anything illegal. I'm a great believer in enforcing the the law. Whatever the law is, I'm ?inaudible? [Interviewer]: It seems that that's one of the things that's kind of, in some ways, misunderstood is that ya know, know when you're an elected public official, I think that you owe something to constituencies that elects you. [Interviewee]: Right Right. [Interviewer]: And so what did owe to the constituency that elected you governor? [Interviewee]: To do To do what I could to maintain segregation. [Interviewer]: I'm sorry, I just need for you to ?inaudible? Let me ask that question again; because my question's not going to be there ?inaudible" for you to kind of put yourself ?inaudible? So, what did you owe your constituency? Well, I ran on a, ran on a platform of

many other issues that I, things that I wanted to do: law enforcement issues and things like that. But also, one of my issues was to, if I'm elected governor, I will do everything that I can to maintain the segregation of the public school in the public schools, in the public schools of Alabama. And that was uh, one of my key positions. And, if I hadn't said, hadn't said said that, done that, been for that, then I could not have won, and we wouldn't even be having this interview today. [Laughs] And and, and uh, but, but what I, I, if, I didn't misleading anybody. I said legally, legally maintain it, you understand. I don't believe the vigilantes stuff. Yeah. No, sir. And of course, I paid dearly for that, I, uh. Later on, when I supported Kennedy for president they really went after me and of course, when, when, we carried Alabama for the democratic ticket for Kennedy. So when the, when the nine electors met in December, at the Secretary of State's office,

to cast their votes after Kennedy had won, had won the state, five of 'em them voted for Harry Byrd, of Virginia, and four of 'em voted for John F. Kennedy. And here Kennedy kidded me about that. He said, ya know, "Why in hell couldn't you carry Alabama?" Ya know, I did everything I could to carry Alabama, but I but I couldn't beat those Dixiecrats. They had the last laugh on me. [Interviewer]: ?inaudible? ask you that question. having so what it about, what were the people like in Alabama? what were they trying to protect? What was it? [Interviewee]: Well I think the people of Alabama, generally, are good people and and the white population of Alabama that strongly supported segregation in the public facilities and public schools, most of them are good good law abiding people, and uh, but they were very adament and adamant about wanting to maintain segregation in the schools particularly, and they didn't want to give that up

and of course they maintain people in the legislature that wouldn't change that, and it was, would be be very difficult for say anybody to come in and get elected governor to support change in that regard. regard, you couldn't do it. Now, uh Lincoln's emancipation proclamation of course, uh, was supposed to end all that, but it didn't do it. There was a a resurgence of...later on when the states began to get their power back from the federal government and occupation ended down there and they wrote into their constitutions prohibition against you ?inaudible? [granting?] full citizenship to the blacks citizens of the state. Now the main thing I thought was the right to vote. If you get the right to vote everything else comes along with with a right to vote. But in the 1901 Alabama Constitution, which we live it was written for the privilege but the black citizens, they wrote that thing in such a way that each county would have a Board of Registrars -- a three person Board of Registrars, appointed by the

governor, to register voters. And they required that you had to you had to sign a- you had to be able to read and write any section of the United States Constitution and give a reasonable interpretation thereof. And you had three people in a county, like say down in in Macon County, places like that, who couldn't interpret the Constitution themselves - probably couldn't even read it - passing on whether or not a Ph.D. from Columbia, teaching on the faculty at Tuskegee Institute, could read and write and interpret the Constitution, any section of the Constitution of the United States. And they would listen to it and say, "No, we don't- you don't pass, you can't do it." It was a device, a planned device to disenfranchise the black citizen and keep him from voting. And this was particularly true in what we called the Black Belt of Alabama, which is about 11, 12 counties across the center of the state, and they control the state legislature. Politically, they controlled it. [Interviewer] I want to get back to the freedom riders and get into that. I guess one of the things that I was

getting at there in terms of freedom rides. Ya know, you read, you read all about it, watched the footage, talked talked to people. But then, on another level, right, it was all about where you sit on a bus. [Interviewee] Now, before we leave that building thing. It didn't end, it didn't end until the the Selma Bridge incident. Uh, when the when the...Wallace and the state troopers - he was, Wallace was governor then - when they blocked those people from marching on the Selma Bridge and ran over those people with horses, and so forth, on national television, everybody saw it. And Johnson had become president. This so enraged and incensed people that they were determined that, ya know, something be done about that thing. thing. So, very quickly the Voting Rights Act of 1964 was passed.

which guaranteed the right of everybody to vote and sent, and provided for the sending of registrars, federal registrars into those black belt counties down there and registering people to vote. irrespective of what the local board might say, or think about and just almost overnight the blacks were enfranchised in Alabama, and this started the major change in the whole thing. This ?inaudible? you give the right to vote and then everything else comes along along come along with it. [Interviewer]: Okay, I want to go directly to the freedom riders. Do you you remember when you first heard that there was these freedom rides and they were coming, ya know gonna come to the South? Do remember what, when, what you first heard about freedom rides? [Interviewee] Yeah, it was in the news;

it got on national news. It was a group of people coming down from the Washington area, riding buses, that were going to test the segregation policies in the bus stations, public bus stations, public cafeterias, and things of that kind. and if they were coming down South to test those policies. There had been some recent changes are the icc interstate commerce commission to most recent changes oh ordering a segregation of those type of facilities an interstate commerce and those were involved in interstate commerce those type of things and so where they left Washington and people began to follow them in the news, and the first trouble trouble ahead was in North Carolina, they uh, I believe it was Rock Hill, North Carolina, they had a little had a little a demonstration of some kind there in Rock Hill, South Carolina, and it made the national news and they were proceeding goin' on south yourself on the bus coming to Atlanta. Floyd Mann was my director

of public safety, and I remember, Floyd coming to me and saying, "Ya know, this this is -- might create some problems in Alabama." We were thinking in terms of maintaining the safety of passengers on intersate buses buses, you know. We weren't talkin', thinking about segregating matters, we were thinking about about law inforcement matters, that's what we were thinking about. And he said, "we better keep an eye on this thing, because it's gonna come to Alabama, and if it does, you now, there might be trouble." Because we had a lot of crazies in Alabama, you know, that, uh, we still had some active Klan people in Alabama that were capable of doing almost anything. and uh, some of them were along that route, that that bus bus would come into Alabama. And so, as the bus approached and got to Atlanta, Floyd Floyd Mann, my director of public safety, sent an undercover, a plainclothes officer officer, over here to Atlanta and caught the bus with the freedom riders, got on the bus here with the freedom riders, nobody knew who he was. His name was

E. L. Cowling, he was a state trooper from Alabama and a very fine fella. And he was armed, and of course, nobody knew it, and he was on that bus. No he, uh, the bus got to Anniston, Alabama where it was attacked at the station. And so, they decided, the driver decided to pull out out and go on toward Birmingham. So he pulled out. But just outside of Birmingham, a group of people following in cars, local Klans type is what they were. were. I know who they were; know now. they stopped the bus - threw a. Somebody threw a molotov cocktail in the back of bus; set it on fire. And the bus was burning with all those people on it. And Mr. Cowling stepped to the front door of the bus. Opened the door and drew his pistol and backed the crowd away from the bus and got all the people safely off the bus. Of course, if it hadn't been for Mr. Cowling, somebody there might've been killed. Now, we never got any

public press about that. For some reason, the press wouldn't report that. And uh, nobody nobody ever heard of a Mr. Cowling again, until recent years, when his name has begun to surface in the books. So they... then they loaded back up, eventually, in another bus, and went on to Birmingham. [Interviewer] Let me cut. Cause I want to tell this all ?inaudible? So, umm you heard that the freedom riders were on their way; you thought there might be trouble. Tell me again about Cowling. So you sent Cowling to get on the bus. I just want to highlight that he was undercover. So Cowling gets on the bus. Tell me ?inaudible? why in fact... [Interviewee] My director of public safety, Floyd Floyd Mann, was following this very closely. Floyd was a fine fellow. He told me that we ought keep a close eye on that thing.

And he discussed with me, sending an undecover officer to Atlanta, to catch the bus and be on the bus with the freedom riders. And Mr. E L. Cowling went over there and caught that bus. He was in plain clothes, but he was armed. had a shoulder holster and he was armed. And he road the bus to the bus bus station in Anniston. And in Anniston, the crowd attacked the bus in the station. And they started ?inaudible? puncture, trying to puncture the tires and everything. So the bus driver - all his passengers were going to Birmingham anyway - so the bus driver driver just pulls out and takes off out of town. And this crowd chases him in cars, and these are Klansmen. They... was headed up by a local group of on is a Klansman there was headed up by local group of Klansmen, headed by two brothers named Adams, who ran a filling station there with the local Klan people there at that time. They caught up with that bus just outside of Anniston - blocked its passage. The bus driver pulled over. Somebody threw an incendiary device in the back window of the bus

bus - I think it was a bottle with gasoline in it - and set the bus on fire. And then the mob wouldn't let people off the bus. Mr. Cowling stepped to the front of the bus, pulled his gun, backed the people away from the bus, and got the people safely off the bus. He was a state trooper.