Eavesdropping along the Mason-Dixon line

I want to start with a disclaimer. OK start with a disclaimer. Because I really feel very strange that to that I think you know I might want to have a discussion but that position you're putting me on of having great words of wisdom to deliver to people in Berkeley California where the best movement that exists in the country exists is carrying coals to Newcastle. While I don't think so and I say why because one of the big difficulties that we've had in this area and this goes for both adults and for you is to find some way of getting in communication with the black community on many of the issues which is plain to all of us and what struck me in your conversation yesterday was that leaving aside the fact that the South is an original part of the country you had evidently found ways and means of getting some form of parallel unity on some of these things and the way you want about it I think is the thing that impressed me the most the difficult situation in which you worked out for 30 years it should be something there that are those who are maybe you know only been working for three years. We should should know

about. Because I think you also said in your remarks that the US certainly could operate throughout the rest of the country given the special situations there. And one of the things was the in the peace movement at least the way your organizers confronted the most hostile environments and changed them and received support for the for the peace message. All right Will Ripley should we start. Well stabbed Joanne they are let me out let me ask you and let me ask Terry this Terry. What is your estimate of the lack of coordination or communication between the black and white student movements in this part of the country. We go said San Francisco State go after flu a few hours ago and what apparently is a very nasty situation. You know also I don't like to throw things back to him that I would be interested in finding out when you know you

see as the prerequisites for cooperation between blacks and whites in the piece or any more in any movement you know right for anybody because. We have found no line. My feeling is that what you don't see is that the pre-work prerequisite for black cooperation with whites is a certain degree of militancy or risk or commitment on the part of the whites. You're in the position where black organizations do not want to form coalitions with white organizations when those. When they are the basis for that is not clear. Partly because of the fear of being used by by white waiters Asians partly because of the feeling that white organizations use black organizations to ensure the militancy or to take the risks or to confront the cops missive. Example before stop the

draft week the feeling of pouring in like Norton's was that whites would chicken out when confronted with the police. And if blacks were brought in without that knowledge being worked out of how whites were going to act then the whites will run away and leave the blacks fighting the cops. Same thing have now come out that state today where the Black Student Union people hung back waiting to see what the whites would do it wasn't till the whites smashed down the front door broke the windows broke it in a situation building and the blast came along. We saw much the same kind of response after stuff. The draft week where people who lived in the community started to dig what was happening and saw that whites were really serious about that. You see I saw I see a certain degree of militancy committed on whites being prerequisite for that kind of cooperation. Also I would say the abandoning of the nonviolent discipline as a prerequisite for

Black and White Book variation. Yeah well I think I think that it's it may be a little hard to draw exact parallels with the kind of situation we have in the South because you have Such as much more highly developed movement here among white people. You see that in terms of organizations and things that are going on and have been going on for the last several years and we're just not at that stage in the south so I think that your specific problems are far different from ours. You know I don't know whether it's higher development here over politicization which is another. See there's another thing a level which is the Berkeley campus is so highly politicized in a certain sense that it becomes almost impenetrable from the outside. And it's also unwilling to make those connections with the outside world. You know in the world beyond say the

good that creates problems problems. Well the way let me tell you a little bit about the way things look to us in the south right now and then maybe we can find the connecting points because I. You know you sort of have to hoe you know where you are. And I'm and I'm I guess pretty absorbed in what we're trying to do in the south. Well I think we can get a lot of inspiration from other parts of the country and I was sort of thing that's important but. You see we have the have the job for people like us have the job it seems to me at this point in the south in building a movement that can involve white people in great enough numbers to even have a basis for black white coalitions. And this hasn't existed in the past and this is what we're trying to do but we're in very beginning stages of it. And this is something that we saw in Congress Education Fund that I work with has always worked at but with very

limited effect I would say because there's been very few. I think you know we've worked pretty hard but very few other people really interested in reaching the white south until just the last two years really. And this year we're making a differentiation I expect between the northern invasion of whites as it were was during the during the special demonstrations like Selma and you know Mississippi summers and so on you're talking now about about white Southerners. Yeah right. Yeah and you see the thing I think that there are several things that. Seem to us to make it that this to create a situation where this is really the opportune moment to to really organize among Southern white people. One is a very practical thing that just now more people are interested in doing it you know and I think we have Snape to thank for this you see when Snape told the white people to go organize the white community. This is what some of us had been saying all along you know I hate that told you

so but it's kind of good to have the few people coming along and agreeing but then then a lot of people began to listen when snex it so that you do have. A growing cold war. Young white people some young white southerners and some from other parts of the country who've had experience in the black movements in the south in the past who are now ready to dedicate their time in some cases their lives to trying to reach white southerners and as you point out in the past when white people the white people who came south worked almost entirely in the black communities and you know you could get into discussion about whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. You know like you know how you saw that as of late organizing like you know the fact that this whole mass immigration white kids were going down and then moving into the black community organizing. Black objectives on the white get this far.

Yes because he mother helped or who is in the white community and not the effect in the black male in front of my wife. Oh I think probably that's positive. If you take the position it is positive and use it that way you see what we're funding. For. For example Bob Zellner you may know Bob I'm getting is a white Southerner. You know native Alabaman and was well and was one of the. Young people who got involved in the movement of the early 60s first really in the south and came into Snake originally with to work on a project that was supposed to be region white Southern students. And I thought it was a skift project that we were finance interest in it but never really worked on white canvas as much you know because it was just hard to go visit white students at their campuses when there was so much going on the black community so bob like a lot of other people. Spent most of his time in the early

sixties in the movement in the south in the black communities. And he's one of the people he was away from the south for a couple of years now he's come back and and with that he has as he sees he's got to organize is his folksy city and is making a long term commitment to move back for life. You know he and his wife Dottie. The thing that he's doing he's been traveling for the last few months through Alabama Mississippi and some in Texas just looking for the people in the white communities especially poor white communities where there's a potential of building an organization and and working with them. And what the way he's approaching people is that when he approaches a stranger for example in a union strike situation and union where he's trying to work with the white. Leadership of the Union to get them to take the steps that are

necessary to to form a united front with the black workers in the black community. But the way he approaches a perfect stranger is that he says Bob Zellner work for Senate here in Mississippi for a long time. I now work with skiffs and people in this country not know what to give is but they do and this is it because East 1000 now. And if you don't want to talk to me OK. But I want you know who I am and invariably when he's taken that approach he's gotten a very positive response we don't care who you are what what do you got to say we can help us. You see because he's the thing that that and this is the only way to approach white people. We think if you're if you come from. From the Civil Rights Movement. And if your objective is to build black white coalitions now so you can go often and do what it's fashionably call now white organizing and I don't even like the phrase frankly. Because it implies that

that there can be any sort of an effective organization ultimately of just white people that doesn't find some way to link up with black people you know. Now I think you have to have a special separate approach maybe to white people. But if we don't if I'm convinced that if people like us don't have it in our minds from the very beginning that. At the earliest possible moment what we've got to do is to get those white people to. Take the steps they have to take to make approaches to the black community about coalitions or some sort of joint action that we're just spinning our wheels and as a matter of fact we've done or said that we may be forming what could become racist groups and it's very easy when we've had some a little experience with this of people. To work in a white community you know and you begin organizing around issues in that community whether And there are always issues and you can get so wrapped up in those issues

that I would you know you could work for a year or two and think you were doing something without ever mentioning the word black to people. I mean this would be possible you know. And this isn't what we want to happen. You see so I think that from that point of view the only way that people that want to organize in the white community. For the purpose of building black white coalitions in the south is to tell people who they are and what their purpose is from the very beginning. Then when you knock on somebody's door and say I'm here to get you to gether with some black people you know you talk to people about what they're interested in. But you have it in your mind that this is a prerequisite to any sort of effective action. Now the other thing is the other just many things is that the reason you see that I think this is effective and people shouldn't be afraid of this is that. There's been I think a myth among some people

of thinking you can't take this sort of open approach because then that's going to close the door right away and I think this is what you were wondering about when they've given us that question. And it seems to me that if we if we have confidence in our own position and we handle it right it works the other way because what we believe is and we've got. The beginnings of some evidence to bear this out that it's true that the strength of the organization that's developed in the black communities in the south is gives us the greatest weapon we have against white racism gives us a way to get to white people where we couldn't before because for the first time in history you have a situation where if it's pointed out correctly that that white people can see that to solve their problems they need to find a way to link up with the strength of the black community. Well this is why people for example in Mississippi

these white people and in the leadership of the Union are willing to talk to Bob even though he should be an activist music snake and all that sort of thing. But because they can look at what's that that the black community and it what's. Happening there and they know they're going to lose their union they're going to lose a strike unless they can find a way to link up with that strike. One of the things that many Negro people from the south have interviewed black people have said to me when I asked the question Are there no white who are concerned about this who who really disapprove of that type of thing that you're saying and it almost without exception and I one man I remember particularly A-Z from Bogle do so. I said Yes I know a number of whites who really disapprove of what's going on but they're isolated they're afraid. Now the kind of organization all of the

white community that you're talking about isn't just the fact that people are coming together in some kind of grouping going to increase their courage their their ability to. And I'm going to add to their own numbers but the people who are privately sitting back being shocked by many of the things that happen are going to have a way to come together and as a group make the approach to the black community that you're talking about have you had any experience that would point to that. Well I think that's always true when you you know you've had some. But I think that the. In that event obviously people can gain courage and strength if there are enough people that they see around them who are ready to move to and see things the same way. But I think that the. That that the approach that you have to make to the white white people if you and what we're trying to do now

if you really want to get enough people involved to make a difference isn't just to the to their sense of justice about what the wrong in the black community. I mean we've been doing that for a long time. But you've also got to it's got to be an approach around their own problems white people's problems. And that number one that to solve these problems they can learn from what's been what's happened in the black community where black people have organized around their problems and in some cases begun to get something done anyway. And also that. That often these are the same problems and that they see that they can as I said forward their strength if they can find a way to link up with the black people. A small I was a small example of it that I was I think I mentioned to Lou yesterday is that. Situation that we have in Louisville Kentucky where I live which is in the Deep South but it is I can tell you from my own experiences

might be Southern enough and deep enough for me. And this is a small thing but it's a I think it is an indication of what I mean we have there's just within the last couple of years there has developed a pretty strong organization of public housing tenants tenant Union our tenants organization they call now the public housing projects and lawyers are still basically segregated. They're not supposed to be in there's a little bit of hope and desegregation but not much of the black ones and the white ones and they've never had an organization until the last few years and now they do. And it's been able to get some things done and get the conditions and the projects there were really pretty good they were rat infested and they didn't pick up the garbage and you know all the things that happen when people are organized and they've been able to make some impact on getting a few things improved. But the interesting thing in the connection what we're talking about here is that this organization. Was initiated as you might imagine by the people in the block

housing project. And that and then it was the then the people and some of the White House projects came to the black people and said We'd like to be a part of this too because they had the same rights the same garbage. And it's something that seems so natural you know that. It's easy to it's it's obvious why something like this starts in the black community because they're the people who organize this originally were people who'd had some experience in the civil rights movement the black people and knew how to organize and they knew what to do and they know how to go raise hell at city hall they know you don't leave when they won't talk to you you stay in this and this is something that white people really don't know. They don't know how to organize and at least the the the privileged few white people in the south know how to get things done because they could pick up a telephone call right people. But the average person has has none of this experience of organizing then and getting something done that to them that black people have a question and know this kind of

thing where they've been specific instances of cooperation between black people and white people where they really had say the same very much the same problems as that housing project was the embassy from the white the white community there well we see by the black people who are better organized who are working on the problem. Do they feel that that they're glad to have these people come in. And ask you what kind of there is in that particular case. They were so far as I know. I don't think this would always be true. For example I've mentioned earlier where where Bob Zelnick has been working with the leadership of the Union and white leadership of a union in this city. And there he's made real headway on convention the white guys that they've got to own to seek the cooperation of the black people. But at this point a strong likelihood that the black people

just are not going to be interested no matter what they do because they've been pushed around too long by this union and you know they've supported the union in the past and then. Never got anything out of it and they still have the various jobs in this sort of thing. And you have to. It's a matter that I think that at least some of those white guys can are understanding now that the job they have to do in trying to convince the black workers that if they support the union that they are going to have complete equality and get something out of it too. But and that they have to take the first step. You see this is what. What the person like Bob's been telling them that you that that that they're not going to come to you you have to go to the black people because black people aren't going to be knocking on white doors anymore. But you know it's you can't say at this point and I'm sure this is true in other situations. Where the no matter what they do. They will.

Convince the black people that they're sincere which gets back to some of the things you're talking about I guess but that. But you see I think that our approach as white people. Has to be that whether the black people welcome the approach or not you keep going back. And saying this is what I tell people then that black people have been knocking on white doors a long time in this country and they're not going to anymore now it's our turn. Expect some of the doors to be slammed in your face and you just keep going back. Man this is Dennis Sweeney who I think Genesis meant a couple you know Dennis. Well I don't know whether it was probs when you were in the south I'm a couple years with snake once you're in you have anything to add to the to what Ann is saying from a northern viewpoint that I was one of those invaders who worked in a black community solely but only isolated experience that might be relevant is it. McComb I know that over the year and a half I was there there were several times that white families sent word to us through mostly

through black people that they were glad that we were in town and they were they approved of what we were doing that they understood that the only way that their economic and social situation was going to better was if black people. Knew that they would have to be done in coordination with black people in any betterment of black person's position the South would mean that they would YOU know it would be better to so that and that was very surprising to me because you know that the image you have these people are kind of cracker violence and and probably 90 percent of cases that's true. That there were isolated incidents where white families did say that. You know of course they were organized they were in any position to make it all open you just that was more of the impression that I got from what I was talking about earlier that even where white people realize that what was going on was dreadful that they had no channel

available in many towns or in many situations that they knew about where they could sort of feel that somebody else was working with them and they were just going to put themselves out only where the Ku Klux Klan would include them on THE NEXT LIST. My only the only time I really talked with any certain whites result in getting chased first and coming out of Germany. Yes well that's the that's the type of it we're going to use the word in a different context but I think we should put it in the in the discussion now. What's the reaction and among southerners both black and white to things like Watts Detroit and all of the many uprisings that have been in the north. What what is the root. How do they take it what do they say about it. Well it's hard to generalize about something like that because different people say different things I think the reaction in the south that I've been the most concerned about to. What's

happened in Detroit in various places is that it's made the police more obnoxious everywhere. And this is a real problem it seems to me there's a new sort of a wave of repression in the South that I don't I think that people are going to be able to fight back I don't want to be pessimistic but I think that this is the thing that that has been. The sort of dominant factor in the situation from where we look at it because the police are so petty and everywhere that you hear and I haven't no I don't I haven't done ANY been able do any you know widespread survey I don't mean by it has to really document this as a southward thing but just from. Little things that we keep hearing I'm sure it's more widespread than we're hearing that the. That the police are are so tense everywhere that they're arresting people on the streets for no reason at all and in places where they had begun to get a little better a few years ago and this sort of thing and even in breaking into people's houses if they know that they're active in some sort

of organization then and for. And where there's a party or something like that going on the rest and people and just generally being repressive. So that's the main effect right now that you know well this you know that this is one of the questions which keeps plaguing me in my thinking is that given this situation then maybe Terry can can speak on this. What is the perspective for the very thing which you said at the beginning of the discussion namely that when the whites show that they can tangle with the cops there are the blacks who are willing to listen to them. Is this and is this not going to create more problems than it solves as far as the movement is concerned. I'm in favor of the cops but any good it's not just standing looking arms and that's it that's what the point that you know I gotta get that off the drug bad ways and ways today but yeah I also think it's guidance and I want to get out and about what we know I don't want to start that

discussion but what it comes down to is that if there isn't a program which has to be implemented no matter what the cops say you give the impression at least that tangling with the cops is a good thing and you know let's have more of it. Well I don't know well every summer since I brought that up let me clarify and then you get that because I don't I wouldn't want you to infer from what I said that that I'm saying yall quit tagging of the cops up here because that's making it harder for us in the South Pacific because they have the offenders in this situation as I see it are the Southern cops that's what we have to do something about now there's no excuse just because of this something happened in Detroit for the cops to be arresting people for no reason and Nashville or Birmingham or Louisville and generally acting out noxious and that's our problem. In other words I think it's I think it's the whole it's really it is related I think to the whole general question that if you're white in America today you face you see that our job is to do something about what's wrong

in the white world. Whoa whoa whoa. Whoa. Whoa whoa whoa.

Who put them in jail under $20000 bond each $20000 bond each. And that was a let last part of July. And it turned out to be impossible apparently to raise the bond they set in jail until the end of September when they finally came to trial. At which time three of them were quitting. Two were convicted and I think they were frightened. But the other three that just with absolutely no evidence and they had spent two months in jail. And the lawyers were trying to get the bond reduced and all that now it was in federal court the day that the lawyers

that go into federal court to try to get this bond reduced and the judge. Refused and said that well he refused to reduce the bond on the grounds he didn't have jurisdiction but just gratuitously he throws in the comment that that he didn't think the ban was excessive in view of the situation we find ourselves in today. Now in other words you know what they were doing were what was holding these guys hostage really. Figured that would scare everybody else so that nothing would happen you know. I mean this is the atrocious sort of thing. Now. And the really I think the community and loyal and the people who should have done something about this really failed I mean this should have been. Hundreds of people just raising holy hell about those guys being in jail which enforcement there was and that's another story as to why you see but here to get back to my original point that I think that this happened to those five guys they had to spend two months in jail because the power structure and lawyer was nervous for fear there was going to be some sort of an outbreak.

So you know you could somebody could say well now that made those guys suffer because what people in Detroit did but that wasn't what they really suffered because obviously because the power structure was of noxious but also because people who should have been doing something about it and Leuthold and raise enough hell to get them out of jail. Well still again and again and again to get back to this black white situation. One gets told these days is that the white people should work in the white community and the black people should work in the black community and that the adults should work in the adult community whatever that is. Depends on your definition of adult. And the kids have to talk to the kids. Now. I give myself I'm all for some form of rapprochement before we know all those various groups. But isn't that a question of

accent isn't it. Isn't it true that that that there is a big job to be done by a white among whites in the south even though your ultimate objective is to is to make the bridge into the black community because there is great resentment there's no there's no question about that. And I think that resentment is increasing in the black community about having white people who because sometimes of more. Economic educational all kinds of other advantages. Even if they go into a mutual situation it tends to be. And by being the white people who are in charge of it and at least in this part of the world now I don't know how that works in the in in the South but I should think the same might be the same.

I mean for that for security you know you know where you have a genuine attempt on the part of the two races to work together that it's still one reason why people like Stokely and various other people want the black community to function by itself and as itself is because of this tendency of the white people to somehow take over when when they get involved in an organization even with goodwill. Right now I don't think there's any doubt about that and that's true in the south as well as I think that's the truth. This is the same everywhere. I mean I think it depends on the conditions of the work of organizing. It's very practically what you're organizing for determines who you organize and how you organize. I get doing sound practical things about organizing and so on and on in terms of interracial organizing for example one of the most successful examples of

interracial organizing in California now is the former workers organizing committee into Leno which began as a as a Mexican operation. It was Mexican-Americans organizing Mexican Americans. There's a great deal of the cultural aspect you know in other words the people that were projected the Mexican Americans a lot of the rhetoric was taken from the second revolution. Oh you know people like some part of the show were pushed through the union newspaper. There's a great deal of that. So they're to it so that in the early stages the union was identified as a Mexican Union. This is a shot as the leaders are all Mexican. This created certain problems of the beginnings of what was then their fill CIO Group which is basically Filipino and you had you know racial or ethnic

breakdowns in terms of that now. Now in Bakersfield the organizing is going on there is interracial and includes mostly Mexican-Americans. The next biggest group is black farm workers and the next should be basically southern whites. Now the reason that there is seems to me that they're able to organize successfully is that they're organizing a traditional union structure base and they're organizing around common bread and butter domain items and that the very interracial most of the organizing has been bought at the expense of wiping out a lot of the cultural stuff. Now wait a minute. We have another for more on this about this one I got to get into and it's Alexander Hartman who was the attorney for the farm workers for the first nine months of the strike. It's even what I think it's even more complicated than Terry put it because in the first place to sum up there was

this been a lot of history of Mexican negro antagonism and there was a lot of anti negro racism among the rights that come from workers which didn't break down until they started working together. The Bakersfield the head of the Bakersfield locals they all have been local They are going to join you a local is Negro although I think the majority of the membership is Mexican-American and Anglo you still have the problem of antagonism toward Anglos but it's more volunteers than towards Anglo workers which is another problem that is the old snake problem of young kids. I don't see the point I'm trying to make is that if you're organizing around certain limited economic demands it's much easier to organize in a racially. It would seem to me that where you start to run into those problems are when you start to stress culture Mexican-American culture black culture white culture. And when you begin to organize around political demands soon as you begin to organize

politically rather than economically or culturally then you run into all those all those problems because then one person's culture is by its very nature of threat. To the other it's a black culture in the United States is beginning to bring itself together and. And that has to exclude ones so that there is really doesn't exclude the possibility of a coalition around a particular issue. That's right. And eventually hopefully it won't exclude some kind of cooperation but it seems to me that you have to take those I don't like to take them separately because they shouldn't be in the long run they won't be. But right now it seems to me that there's a difference if you're organizing the South Sea among workers who do not belong to unions or Europe or with workers who do belong to unions and you want to talk about cooperation between white union members and black union members. Just me that's much easier. Also in a way it's different say in the south there are rural areas and it is in the cities because in the city in the in the rural areas you don't have that

strong molten motion for a definition of black culture. You can as you do ultimately where that but I'm not sure I follow you where you say that you think that the coalitions would be harder around political issues and I don't it. You know I'm with you on the economic thing. You can see there's a community a joint interest I mean it's very obvious if you give people enough people will see it. OK so you got it. And this is the kind of thing that removes the problem really that you're talking about also the people. Well it doesn't entirely remove it but it makes it I think easier to cope with what's been the problem in the past I think where you've tried to have interracial organize and is where it was entirely around the needs of the black people it almost just inherently had to be paternalistic. Well not only that but I really felt that way where they thought they were paternalistic or not that this was you know it was bound to look that way and partly to be that way.

Not only that but for the first years that I sat at this microphone every black person I interviewed talked to me in what I would come only. Designated as a religious term in other words it was all about love and brotherhood and sitting in buses. But as a group it took we would think and then I had a movement that I used I used to sit at this my back all night and do everything I could to get one of them at even one of them to say look I HATE YOUR GUTS and this is why. And in the last years. That's all for the good they did. The difference in attitude and the difference in those in the topics that they want to discuss is absolutely enormous and it is specifically because they're talking about economic and political you know specific issues the poverty program they're good at it which seems to me to have made an

enormous difference in the whole attitude of the of the moment. But are you getting back to what Terry was and I think even given that you're organizing around economic issues I think it's not quite that rosy because there's there's still tension. You know I mean that you know I just it was easier but it's easier you know and the people can commit themselves to sort of a limited coalition of the black people limited coalition without you know I think but I think where the tension comes in is that even in that situation even where you're organizing around common economic interests. That seems to be in most situations and I'm sure it's going to be this way a long time that the black people would be pretty wary because they figure that first opportunity the white people are going to take over and run things you know and that their economic interests are going to get pushed up. But but to get back to politics as well and to get what you're thinking on that because. Why don't you vote why do you think those who break down politics are because we don't have any

real experiences yet to prove this. But I would say for example. We're doing a lot of work in the mountain areas of the south where the people are mostly white but there are some black people there and where there are black and white people live in counties where black people live from the very beginning and we're trying to get organizations where black and white people are both there but in some places a question there it's all white. I mean you know black people live there now. And our objective there is to help people are going to a. How I think but I think where the tension comes in is that even in that situation even where you're organizing around common economic interests that it seems to me in most situations and I'm sure it's going to be this way a long time that the black

black people would be pretty wary because they figure that first talk to the white people are going to take over and run things you know and that their economic interests are going to get pushed up. But but to get back to politics as well and to get what you're thinking on that because. Why don't you why do you think those who break politics are because we don't have any real experiences yet to prove this. But I would say for example. We're doing a lot of work in the mountain areas of the south where the people are mostly white but there are some black people there and wear their black and white people live in counties where black people live from the very beginning and we're trying to get organizations where black and white people are both. But in some places a question there it's all white. I mean you know black people live there now. And our objective there is to help people organize for political action basically to take over those counties with their own political

machinery. You know now. What you would hope that you can get to at some point is if you have these strong political organizations taking shape in some of the mountain counties you know that they would link up with political movements in other parts of the state where their movements would be predominantly black. For example in Kentucky in the cities like Louisville and Lexington and so forth. And this would we haven't done that yet but it's certainly an objective and it doesn't it seems to me that there would be a certainly a common certain common interest that would could bring those two groups together politically and even more so I would think in some other states where you have a real black belt areas which we don't have in Kentucky. But where you have you know people forget this but one. One third of the people in the south live in the mountain and hill country. It's not all plantation country. The whole Appalachian chain down through the Southwest has a different sort of background and history

culture. And it's politically significant. It seems to me that in every in every state. In every Southern state except Mississippi and Louisiana where you have a black belt area you also have a mountain area for Hillary that includes Alabama Georgia both Carolinas Virginia Tennessee and of course Kentucky in the mountains but not really a BlackBerry. But it would seem it would seem to me that this is the you know the natural possible political effects of this are fairly obvious. Well I under you pardon me. You know I got to say something before Terry talks because I don't disagree with him on at all on anything but I especially the business of the importance of the cultural basis. I'm getting back to do I know just as an example it was obvious that the Mexican cultural basis was

imperative down there and remains imperative down there which didn't stop the fact that the theme song of the strike was we shall overcome in Spanish nostalgia events are a must. And it's still being used now. It must be pointed out that the wording in Spanish was slightly more militant than English because it was not Sunday it was. Which means today. But. All told in Mexican community isn't as militant yet at least there as the as the black community is getting elsewhere. It also doesn't stop the fact that it is being used by the Filipinos and the Anglos. It doesn't change the fact that at the Detroit you're organizing which was the first time when we really faced a lot of whites. The Mexican leadership was scared to death and while the fact is that and a lot of Anglo organizers were brought in.

But in fact it was the Mexican-American organizers who are most effective even with the Anglos rather than the professional Anglo AFLCIO organize and say where Browning's line the Mexican the next the local Mexican organizers who were local workers were more effective with the Anglo workers then were they professional ever availed CIO Anglo organizers who were brought in from outside and who were felt needed because we would for the first time dealing with a large group of mainly Southern originated Anglo workers. So I. You know this doesn't answer anything I suppose but the fact is the cultural base is important and I don't know what's happening among the Negro workers in Bakersfield because that's happened since I came but still the fact that the head of the local is black and he sure is the head of the local you know there's no question about that.

The main person working with him is the ex Snick white Marshall guy and this and that the bulk of the membership is Mexican-American. Seems to indicate that there is a possibility of working together and I see that having this economic base and having the union organized and that's part of CS's strategy of organizing namely he's a very slow organizer that the union is clearly going to get more political now that it's on its feet and some of the anti-GM isms between the Vaal and the politicized Anglo VOLUNTEER AS. And. The local people came about because the politicized volunteers couldn't wait. And I don't know who's right. You know I mean I'm not taking sides in some of the disputes that took place

and I don't think they're important anymore. But the fact is that having the economic base and having the structure is obvious that the union is going to get in our political now and it's going to get more political on the come on the cultural bases that's going to include all three of them. Yes I think that we have sort of exhausted this so far because there's another major subject which I think is of more immediate and personal concern to everyone around the table and that is the peace movement. But I have something on that because. Find and report on their organizers the Skaf organizers in the south in the face of hostile communities I think is important and the fact that in San Francisco in October when I talk to Dickie Harris who was black and Dave Harris who was white organizers of the resistance who turned in the draft cards that they took it very rough at

first and then calm down when I tried to question them about differences between black and white attitudes and they both came right out flat footed and said on this question of peace there is no black and white difference and we are all in this together and I think that this would be an aspect of the local situation as I compare notes we have on our own we ask am about the southern one first because I wonder if you know I mean I think that you know months ago I interviewed her husband. And one of the things he said was I ask him about the attitude toward peace in the south. And he said hey you could run a yellow dog through the south as candidate for president ever liked him on a peace ticket not because this southern Injun negroes not because the southern negroes are so interested in peace as your so organized for peace as such but because they are aware of the fact that billions of dollars which are not going into the poverty program and

into improving their conditions in the south are in fact going to Vietnam. I had much the same reaction from a group of Negro Women from Detroit when I attended the National Conference of Women for Peace a while back when a group of Detroit women told us that if they had to continue to live in Detroit as they were living that the subject of whether or not we had a war was of secondary importance to them. So I'd like to know what you have to say about that and then I'd like you to ask some questions Dennis. You're going to be organizing in this country. So you know. I don't know whether as I say my husband's a perpetual optimist and whether I would quite make that statement he made about the war and he threw this out. I do think that the that would have been a yellow sign up but.

I do think it's much more widespread than a lot of people in that organ to host peace movement and I'm talking about the South. Realize of the feeling you were talking about of people. Understanding why they're not getting the programs that they need in their communities and why they can't why even the little things that have been done under the poverty program which I don't think amount to much or makes that much difference but it has sometimes helped some people and give them temporary jobs and things and they see the money being cut off when that's cut back and people know why that's happening and we hear a lot of it. But I think the. Well I don't think I think that the this. It seems to me that the subject of the peace movement is quite related to the subject we've been discussing the black white coalition because not that I think automatically that action for peace is going to bring about black white coalitions but it's

certainly a place where the door can be opened and we found this in several places. For example in Nashville Tennessee where there's a very militant black student movement there that's been entirely separate from anything going on on the white campuses or front end from the white community and a sort of a and but but a separate. P.S. is developing in the white community an especially among white students and where last year when Johnson came there they both of these groups planned demonstration and all got arrested and all got their heads beat in. And this on the same occasion and since then there's been a continuance of cooperation between these two groups. Ome the on the on the peace issue generally we think that this is one of

the most encouraging things that's happened in the south in the last two years that there's been a development of a peace movement all you see which just wasn't there at all. Well as recently as two years ago you know there were a few little maybe chapters of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom around and some of the a couple of the larger cities and that was it. And there's never been a peace movement inside out. In fact it's the probably has the strongest militarist lot of tradition I guess of any part of the country. You know people tend to go to military schools and the white community in the south this is always the there's a little military school. Along some along the road wherever you go. And I think it's a reflection of the whole closed society of the South back a few years ago that you just didn't have movements on any sort of controversial issues and a lot of that's been shaken loose just generally the whole upsurge of the black movement in the freedom movement in South in the early 60s. It's impossible to estimate how it shook that most fair loose so that people can meet and

talk and then organize around controversial things and I think this is this is one main reason why we have seen a peace movement develop there. Aside from the fact that there is the growing revulsion against the war everywhere but I'm not sure even with the revulsion against the war that we have had it if we hadn't had the freedom movement first in the South as a matter of fact I would say I'm not sure we'd have it in the country if we hadn't had the black movement first. Really. Now the thing that Lou and I were talking about yesterday. The No. We've been very encouraged by the responses that some of the organizers that are trying to stir up Peace Action and draft resistance are found in some of the most out of the way places in the south especially. And this is in the white community mainly. And mainly on college campuses. We have a young woman who works on our staff just on our peace program and she's been traveling

with two young people from the southern student organizing committee Salk which is I guess you're familiar with her. I know you are is an organization that was started as the response of Southern white students to Snick and the black student movement when some of them decided it was time for them to do something too. And reaches our works mainly on the predominantly white campuses most of these places are somewhat token integrated now. And so they've they're young people from SOC and our peace worker have sort of formed a team and they've been taking what they call peace tours. And just taking one state at a time they were all through Florida first. This day and they didn't go to the big centers where there was already something going on but mostly the small colleges and where they hadn't been very much happening. Then they were from a summer tour in Arkansas and just finished up one in North Carolina another in Virginia. And they have been going to college as a man ever heard. And the

ease with which small colleges where that was fair tends to be very conservative and and and pretty much cut off from the world in the past you know in the typical Southern prevention ism. But even they are. They've been able to make breakthroughs and they've had some bad experiences which have turned into good experiences in the end because like one. One small college they went to a North Carolina. And they had arranged in advance the states and they were new some students there. And had they set up literature tables on the campus and they were to speak it classes in a meeting that night. And this mob of students attacked them and tore up their literature and then turned over the tables and attacked them physically too. And the administration persuaded him to leave the campus temporarily because it was a really mob scene. And so they and they said they couldn't have any rational discussion at that point so they did leave and then they decided they couldn't do that they had to go back. So they divided up and two of them.

Went and talked spent the whole afternoon talking with faculty members. And about what had happened in the other one or maybe it's vice versa two and one but the others and then went and looked up all the students they couldn't just one by one. So a few of the students got a meeting together that night of people who said they wanted to hear what they wanted to talk about. And they had a tremendous meeting that night where the people some of the people who'd been in the mob that morning stayed there till midnight to listen to them talk and when some hecklers came and tried to break it up well it was some of the students who'd been in the mob in the morning and don't want to shut up were talking to me. And then with the faculty It was the same thing because I got about 13 or 14 faculty people together each one of whom had told him in the afternoon that he was the only enlightened person on the campus and they were all delighted to find each other. And then that got the newspaper so from then on wherever they went in North Carolina there was a some sort of a to do. And the next place was also a small college and

where I guess they'd had no really controversial speakers in. Recent memory. And. There was such tension on the campus before they got there that they canceled their plans or their arrangements for him to speak in classes. But one of the students there insisted on having at least an hour in the gym that night. And they said well they couldn't present their presentation in the hour and they but they would come and each one take about 15 minutes to say what he would have said if they had been allowed to have the whole program and let the students decide on whether they wanted to have the whole thing. So they said they walked into the gym that night it was packed with about four or five hundred students and they said they'd never been in such a jeering booing crowd of people. It was just as loud booing as they walked in. But they were the student conducting was able to quiet it down and they each spoke for 10 or 15 minutes like they planned to say and what they would have talked about if they'd been allowed to have a program there. And after after each one I misspoke they got this round of applause.

And then they took a. The guy presiding said they'd take a vote on whether they wanted him to come back the next night and present their whole program and they voted by this resigning acclimation to have him come back which they did invest in a lot of classes and then they didn't let him go and wanted to keep him another day. So this is I think is it shows a couple of things one that. What can be done if you're sort of willing to take the bull by the horns and go into even the most unlikely spots on the war. You know the thing cause it shows the how deep I think the potential feeling about the war is. And the other thing that that is encouraging in the south that just with I think within the last six months that I've really been aware of it. One. Is the growing draft resistance movement. Well the growing draft resistance the thing that we've you know you're finding is that people that have been in touch with any organization or anything are just refusing to go in the army. And and that.

You know efforts are being made to get some of these people together but there's also an organized effort now on the part of a number of young people to encourage this. We're having in Kentucky early after the beginning of 1968 and either January or February they hadn't said a draft resistance conference where. But the students from about six colleges in Kentucky are planning now. And. This is entirely new really within the last six months. Yes I think this is the time for you to enter this conversation with similar comments and questions because that's where my own one of my own personal reasons for. Like starting any resistance and sending back my own draft currents was that. That I wanted to make some kind of statement to to both black people and poor white people who are being drafted in America and it didn't feel right. You know from the position of having any kind of deferment in from the from the position of being in a Selective Service System that it really puts

people in the categories on the basis of class race and educational background understanding of the category that I was put in was not going to be asked to fight that my service is what they call service at a uniform which they say is just as important to service in uniform that they make that differentiation. You know I felt it necessary to return my cards and to refuse to cooperate in any way with the Selective Service System and that was the only way that I could make. A very strong statement of the people who are being drafted to you know to not go there for those people in this country the question is really you have two choices they can either go in the army or they can go to jail and all of the other alternatives like the dozen different alternatives that are open to me. If I get drafted you know freaking out for a psychiatrist or getting CEO classification or any number of things which you can do aren't open to them it's a very sickness pretty clear cut choice between those two things I think at least until we get to the point where

we can begin to talk about that. And under Graham that your people you know avoiding jail and still not going and we're not at that point yet I don't think that. That was very much in my mind I mean the question of how I was going to speak to people who are being drafted understanding that that really because of my background I was cut off from those people because of the way I fit in to dislike the Sirius system. I couldn't couldn't say just you know we won't go I can just sign an ad Koch newspaper which said that I wouldn't go if I were called because that's an irrelevant statement to make since they're not asking any of us to go policeman at this point. In general. I mean I'm very encouraged about the possibilities for black white cooperation now. I went through my own experience in the south working for Snick and left the south just the time that that black power was you know

becoming the main focus of their organization and I really left that partly at their request and I think that one of the things that's happened one of the things that the war has meant for white white students white radicals in this country is that it's. And it's it's the basis now for our for our action against the government it's the basis for our decision to you know dedicate our lives to changing this country. Whereas before it was always you know very fundamentally a kind of altruism to position that since the war has exposed so many things about the kind of garrison state that we live in and about the whole the nature of America across the board not only its military that that gives people like myself and other white students you know our own kind of gut issue with which to fight and that is with us for a commitment.

Robert Young what you really had to make to this Rights Movement that I think they see out of the creation of an organization like the resistance that there's now a basis where where I can you know I can I'm one kind of firm footing myself where I can speak to black people I talk about cooperate with black people. When I was I went to Czechoslovakia last September at a meeting with the I left with Tom Gardner and some other people from South America both Snick people there and I was really I was really encouraged that as that as like the week went on and brought us live a John Wilson and John Tillman both you know became more and more opened and it became easy and easy to talk with these two black guys who at the beginning of the conference you know were very very strange to me. And as they understood what I was trying to do and as I understood what they were trying to do we really began to finally in Paris John Wilson and I were sitting in a room together and and discussing how there couldn't be any any affected or any relevant draft resistance in this movement in this country without without there being no cooperation between blacks and whites and that that

what that means is that people have to you know attack that Selective Service System at the level where they're asked to comply. You know at the point where they're asked to give it Allegiance and I in Chicago I just might mention one other thing I think it's that's very hopeful. You know this summer around the convention in Chicago there's going to be a lot of a lot of activity human activity all the way from very liberal. Assigning you know radical liberal types to delegates to you know talk of you know obstructing O'Hare Airport and things like that. And it is my understanding from talking with Gray Davis who's just out here that that black people in Chicago and white people are you know cooperating very very closely on what's going to take place around the convention and what kind of you know protests to be made there but they will go on it that and the reason that that can be done now is if there are separate organizations many white people have their own organizations for

the first time. White people don't have to be in these black organizations to you know to be a part of that. The thing in Chicago really comes from a joint project. And you know there's a lot there's a resistance movement now to drafting the right people Terry Scott to stop the draft we think we have really our own organization our own base that we can work with and that means that we don't have to you know we're always always in a position of having to work out very very touchy questions with black people because we can work in our own organizations and cooperate on the level of kind of tactics. And you know coordination around around goals in Chicago for example.