A Word on Words; 3218; Phil Noble

and on guns or you know once again welcome to world war i guess is phil noble well phil thank you it's really really reverend villa won iowa you're into law you're at that event all ha ha why katie valentine the fact that you are a reverend plays a major role and beyond the burning bus be on the burning bus is your story that film awards story is a story that isn't all about it's a story of a brave and visionary people and some cowardly races but i won begin by saying that i'm so glad that finally after all these years you have told the story of that role you played in anniston that made such a difference in the life of that community and beyond burning bus begins with a bomb claimed the reverend mama quaye talking among

other things about their very first meeting with him in the days when blacks and whites couldn't be seen together in public they came to your church to open a dialogue that later had great great great rewards talk about that very first appeared integrated me well now there were a number of significant small but larger german polish and this was one of them because at this damn i really didn't know the black ministers in the community though i've been there six years they didn't know me and they tried to go on was a baptism one was a method isn't they tried to go to the baptist and methodist ministers that wine is a white ministers and a winning been talk of sarin if iran are great if you came to me it came to me and now just laid out their

concerns and we talked about a little bit in anbar mclean says in the book repeated in the book that they were so surprised that i was receptive to and what surprised them all was one weekend when they finished job and he says lasted brothers lot of praise and we did pretty and i don't remember to the ticket but he says that all three of course in the emotional thing had tears in june when the fed and that was the beginning of our relationship that was the first meeting and the pilot lane says he had gone back to allison really determined that he was not out to make a difference and he meets his baptist colleague nimrod reverend dr animals and the two of them

want to make more make a difference out of that first meeting in west harlem that for a minute because you know many of our viewers are young don't remember just how siri at the south was toppled been about and now that we're in the south here and then ten may many whites and blacks had relationships that often partial relationship but that was our motion know relationships where the two were considered a look at asia the corps that's that's the pollen and everything that the blacks but two black people could dissipated in head segregation written all over it you know the drinking fountains that white and colored the restrooms and white and colored they had to be at the back of the bus if there was room

at the back of the bus you had absolutely no people who work in offices or in strollers the only jobs available to them were menial job they winnowed away educated unless they were going to be a doctor or a lawyer or minister or schoolteacher there were no jobs available to it was just almost total segregation and was so dehumanizing to the black race for that to be the case now when you talk about the title here beyond the burning bus i suppose it would be fair to our television audience to talk about the burning bus at anniston alabama on a sunday because the story the story really in a way has its genesis with that violence did it did on mother's day may the fourteenth nineteen sixty one the freedom riders left

washington gone all the way to new orleans hopefully get their own later seventeen which was another issue has been the full court case of education and then that little problem through virginia and north carolina and south carolina and georgia few incidents where one when those buses rolled and the first one the greyhound bus rolled an astronaut now they were met by the key q klux klan and a group of support and hooligans who attack the books and attack the people in the bus the free riders in the bush and when the bus drywall found they get out of the station and it started on a valley toward birmingham the tires had been sliced and so few miles out of anniston the cows or when i'm in the buffalo to the sad and they had been followed by the whole maudlin pickup trucks and a little thing and when the bus stop they started attacking the bush breaking the wind vision of potentially through a foul ball in

through a broken window and that's what so the people have evacuated and when they evacuated who started beaten with sticks and chains them so that was a hard book image of anniston and it was on the front page nearly every newspaper and then in america in an agreement many in the world and that was a game and events in which showed so clearly an instance capacity of ups and what was not know at that point that it had a capacity to settle problems without so it goes you're meeting with these two line mrs was not publicized the nationwide publicized you don't want bugs out there or you want was to let them know your heart was open correct and that you'd do anything you can do to

help corral a comedy of the community more amenable through racial acceptance letter where does that come from army i listen your actions i'm not you not sunday at presbyterian got a gun owner came into town alone when the first plane from new york only mean how is it that number of their own denomination members and baptists were wiped turn their backs on our musical wessel well i'm disappointed that you don't detection mechanism in my actual hour a deep in mississippi and i've been more mass all over the world within on corrupt tax incentives to mississippi accent but i grew up in the segregation i grew up on a farm where we had sharecroppers on the farm house thirty familiar with all of that in the position and

what happened was then i went to seminary learned about some friends in them in a field of people at that time in the ministry who had a different position and i looked at it christian ethic i couldn't justify the segregation chocolate now i didn't really go on a crusade to do anything about it i was aware of it and i dealt with it from ten to ten in sermons in the pulpit but but not really that aggressively but then when this came it was sort of like a call need to do something about this and i've said if any you think openness really came from exposure two similar education know i think as it's now that i had a good bit of awareness of the plight of my young black friends about polygamy

and i realized they would a noble head of the opportunities and how they and i had some summer about that in my very young days so i think that sort of thing a couple with learned more about the christian faith the christian gospel had its effect is really hard to figure out now in a society as racist as that was one preacher says the two preachers <unk> and you can tell from real though words in from above bab amr point he was astounded by your willingness to me well well they have met they had met rejection our own and furthermore mayer's for instance are with the south had said we were in their work on the bowery for human relations council could use their

words with total like to do is to send out to the neighbors if they would say and that whole environment was what obama plane and nimrod reynolds were both facing and there hadn't been any good clear indications to them that there were white people who would do something differently i think they were surprised when that no doubt about not now the un two three the next first the flute and the next quote first day of quote is really about a step from the three of you to a meeting two ministerial association sort of joining the white and black men susan the community those associations that a black man still associate in white ministers of it that never met together so far as i know and all we started doing it to begin with was just made into galen trying to develop some awareness of what the problems were that we needed

and and that that was a big hit but the next big step out whether you're ready to go to the next big step in dollars a year for delivered allow all know you know i know an analog thinks of i don't know what would bob thinks about it but you wind up chairman joint ministerial association paddy you get that i'm sure even politics for more i certainly didn't quality of life but i you know i'd just been active in our white minister association and matt had indicated some our awareness of the black situation and the need to do it so it was probably like that were within about ailes had been in the wind association and head move in that direction so when the two did unite they wanted when womble saturday with a resistance among whiteness is the doctrine but let's get the other one not really except when we started meeting together as tam when home

the number of white ministers just didn't come in to dissipate a few of the black ones didn't either because they had some things to lose in all this it was going on but we ended up with a smaller corps of black and white ministers of women to try to addiction really interesting things in the book of facial picture that shows up and there is a picture of where that first meeting occurred just happens to be a black church wide well as i say in the book when he called me and said can say well i was to get after our first initiative sailor was good gal he said when cumming made in my church and i said that one just a happenstance he knew the white folks could come to his church he also knew the black folks couldn't get freely come to the whitest so he says we come there from all have officially now eleven extent well then the next step is really itchy the ministers and into associations

open communication but the key the large key of what happened after that in anniston was that there was a male and a city can see the commissioner when a city commission of three who oh wise enough and courageous enough to appoint a bi racial immigration let's talk about that about their commission madonna known about that is just doesn't know a bit about what beer the mayor yes i did not know about the other team and without permission but i did learn from your book that one of them not all that enthusiastic about biracial commission well i have probably a pretty good run they it was the jack was loads of that i found the police commissioner really really opposed to it never voted for the first place and he was in favor of any other than results it would come but

he deserves some credit because unlike bull connor he said we are not going to have violence in the city whether it comes from an actual from whites and the fact that he was willing to take that can understand and use some support though is one of the things that they would have to go on all day let's talk then about all those other conditions were worded they were had come from where they haven't called beer bring himself is merely a relatively small bug verrett as it turns out a very progressive community but that done its image is not that progressive where's for deer get one the vision to the courage to go follow the idea of human relations commission that the burning bus influence his village i'm sure it did to some extent plus i'm also show that

he saw what was happening in the city of birmingham and selma and economically another was it was not only good for the city but i think the railroad motivated rail saying that influence clouthier to do it was that local member of the commission are most pro roosevelt most proud of was a finance commissioner and no alarm about church presbyterian church and in our really good friends he had a commonplace than in south jordan he used to take me down the hunted quail on earth and we talk and talk and talk and talk about the race thing to talk about the need for human relations council he was convinced that that was the way to go and what needed to be done that when he first told the twelve b a crowd said it would be political suicide to do that no one adage that in the political thing he wanted to do what was best for the community economically and he had some religious spiritual motivation also end when i

pocatello do it won them afterwards he said to may he said most pro is the smartest person i've ever know melissa brown had a lot of influence in coaching him to do that you recite her a conversation most pro had with george wallace ft george wallace was defeated for governor first time there and sprawl of salt through exactly what the problem with wallace wallace had a mello went on a trip that california some political credit with the joint wireless and an md some friends and said that miller in the backside of a man sort of thought he might run for governor at some point and i'm it may have been out of that kind of interest that he enjoyed what if one of them on and what mullah said that he was he was

just differ about race talked about it in their success but almost without race and said you will now tell you and that woman do anything politics in alabama an issue out made everybody for those of you just turning in we're talking with the local about his book beyond burning buses great that you'd talk about this time in our history when racial violence was too often in the south the rule so the commission has four interestingly enough you get the spoilers paper heroin is i'm not in favor of biracial commission and that helps abdomen take it you know impaired but the and was a counsel not a commission enlisted help out what the editor of the newspaper then we'll forget our worth the onslaught of their family but he was the editor of a newspaper

he was appointed as one of the original man members of the committee and i'm sure he had a lot of problems in terms of free press and what he needed to do for the community and respect and now a need for some who do and some things not made great book but yet that had it that had a good effect and the fact that all nine of the members were longtime local people and respected in their community for the most part that's that's what gave it some success and then the committee has there been a functioning and it's got some support in the community but you never know how well a committee will be able to perform until there is trouble and i was troubled to talk about that well we had done some little things like get unsanctioned move to know like it you know and so we were appointed by the city so we said let's do silly things

before we try to do in the private sector so what <unk> been boarded already been talking about maybe the syndicated and so we decided to go in that direction so i carefully planned they have a human relations council the library board and with the approval of that two members of the city commission we said at them and two of them and this is that you've been talking about bar mclean and them ron reynolds on the council volunteer they were glad to be the first to go into the lumber we mistakenly plan that on a sunday afternoon we thought everybody would be with their families and allen to be acquired them what we didn't realize is a hutu all four and they head sunday afternoon for that kind of entertainment so that's exactly what happened and when these two ministers on this sunday afternoon went to the lumber

in and we thought it was basically see cricket it wouldn't plant weren't known here fifty seventy five an obama plan than ron said look like a thousand of you know all it wants all came to them in with clothes and james and nine and their libyan beat one of them back to that well milan was particularly very very bad of the men and bomb a plane was just twenty four years old young and more athletic unknown and so he he help mcclane fight to get his feet in this capabilities that have branch because they went to the co founded jammed in they couldn't get it out that damn couple shots went through the wonder in the call logs in the barely missed bombing blank that image and landed in the seat back of the gravest a while they jump that because i couldn't move the car and then somewhat a motorist picked them up and took him to the hospital and custard wouldn't keep them or treated them but when people move full freight on a mob would

go what about your own sense of safety and security is head of a commission that's making all those prior to me you know all this violence in the community and not just two minutes of beaten there's shootings and the houses there's a killing what about your own sense of security a selfie wife your children well now from an id you need to probably and i was not i i just wallace assume it would be ok but i was concerned for instance in maine impression on my son that nearly every morning before taking this gloom that raises hood of the car to see if there was a bomb there and that sort of thing i knew it was potentially they'll all the clam matter fact the mail when we first reported this council said not meet at the same place they go to different places and going out to get them in

that way you reduce the chances of be in bomb so i knew all that we knew all day but again as i say in the book my wife grew up in a strong christian family where if something was right you get it a little and you didn't do it a problem that we've been able to stick to this quite like they may have bought anyway we knew this was right they join you betty jo was in the briars always eighty eight and she now we're back and that code we knew it was the right thing to do so no one it was a right thing to do if we go on what would you say it seems to me is our e book that it it seems to me the role in beginning violence violence in caves around this in the book the gut racial harmony i think you're right but again one of the differences in and it turns out to be one of the differences in anniston and birmingham and selma

meant something is that they recognize that this issue was going to be dealt with and it was was it to try to deal with it in negotiation rather than otherwise so when when the two ministers were beaten going to the lab or our community wouldn't be given a gracious bow long way they would say you know we do not need this kind of law and then when the violent when the violence erupted now the port and the young black we're going home from one of the factors when the milk was shot just at random he hadn't been to spain and civil rights and a weapon and often showed itself different and i like to think maybe longer that sensitivities and late in nineteen sixty five that the council had been at work several years and probably said some tone for a different approach to it and so and with willie brewster was shot the

community got together that that night they raised twenty thousand dollars as a reward the next sunday though appeared in the anniston star the newspaper a list of three hundred of the leading citizens in anniston saying we are not going to tolerate this kind of activity that violence in our community i don't know that that they're kind of reaction came for most of the season but he did well known and a half left and i'd like to just get a sense from you how it feels like a book and have a community and react to it as your community and the anniston have brought you back have brought people in from all over the country from from dublin winner of mississippi to a guest about mclean and they all came together to talk about the events in this book because i'm like a field in the minute we have

humble and grateful i am very grateful that after forty years they would be willing to do some recognition to what happened they didn't do a parody of obvious reasons you didn't you didn't publicly approved stuff that went on that lip integration and go what now they look back and i think with some pride that aniston did it differently and there is a sudden good faith in that you may have had some small pool in heaven and you know it means so much to young people didn't live through it would need to know about you know we run our time we've run out of time and phil thank you for being with us today was like our audience for joining us to talk about beyond the burning bus might even joining us forward own words and john single powerhouse

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