American Experience; Freedom Riders; Interview with Clayborne Carson, 3 of 4

?inaudible? [Carson]: Yeah, this is a situation where mob violence, once you have a mob focused on a target, you know you never know how that was going to turn out. Um And certainly King and Fred Shuttlesworth and the other leaders understood that this was this was something that might end very very badly, might end in a massacre, you have a number of situations where from their experience they know what mobs can do. You have the mob around Central High School in '57, you have the mob that attacked the Freedom Riders' bus, and all of these cases it gets-- it's remarkable that people weren't killed because certainly that was through no

sense of leniency on the part of the mob, they were people who wanted people to die. So this was one of those things that came very very close to a disastrous event that could have changed the course of a movement. [Interviewer] I want to go back inside the church just for a minute, I just want a second on that says "they're trapped there." I don't want you to let us out, but that they're trapped there for most of the night, we need to know that they're there for a long time, they're not there for-- [Carson] One of the things that is so evident about that situation is that it was not just a matter of the fear of the mob on the outside, but the fear of panic on the inside and you can imagine how any of us would feel trapped in a church with a--

the violence that is going on and the hatred that is being expressed by the mob on the outside and that uncertainty about whether you're ever going to get out of there and so part of the task of the leaders was to calm those fears and to convince the people that they would survive this and that they couldn't let their fear overcome the necessity of showing that they had the courage to stand up to a mob. So this was, this was a crucial test of the leadership of the movement. [Interviewer] Great, if you could just give me some-- we have these pictures, I'm trying to get-- we have this great set of pictures of people sitting there, sleeping, lying there, just to give an idea that these people were trapped there for most of the time. [Carson] I think what is striking

is the extent to which the leaders did succeed in calming those fears and were able to convince people that somehow this situation would be resolved without extensive violence. Perhaps because it was in a church that that sense of faith prevailed ultimately. You didn't have widespread panic among the people in the church and so I think that that was a demonstration of both the extent to which there was a sense of courage, a willingness to stand up to mob violence that was demonstrated in Montgomery. [Interviewer] Why is Bobby Kennedy so reluctant to, still, at this point, to send federal troops? [Carson] I think the Kennedy administration understood that sending federal troops into the south was a huge psychological barrier because of the legacy

of the Civil War and reconstruction. That's what the south had always saw as its low point, the white south, that the federal government has occupied it and it had to impose its rule on the south through military force. And the notion of doing that in the 1960s was still a major point of contention that the south had during the 1950s had pushed the notion of resisting federal control, states' rights versus federal power, as an emotional issue, as something that would rally southern white voters and so all southern politicians, practically all of them, had accepted the notion that the basic part of their politics was resisting federal

intervention in the south. So the Kennedy's understood that that's what they would be up against, they would run into the opposition of even those white democratic politicians who supported the Kennedy administration, and that was something that they didn't want to risk. [Interviewer] So the last thing the Kennedys wanted to do-- so RFK avoids sending in federal troops-- [Carson] Yeah, the only president who had kind of bit the bullet on that had been Eisenhower in sending the troops into Little Rock and of course that had made Governor Faubus enormously popular as the southern governor who was standing up to federal military intervention and so I think the Kennedy's understood that he would be creating, or at least abetting, the southern white politicians who would present themselves

as standing up to federal intervention and resisting it and that this would again divide the democratic party, it would make it impossible at the national level for the Kennedy's to get what they wanted through Congress, if they have this opposition from southern white politicians. [Interviewer] So even as the church is being surrounded and there's this siege on the church, the Kennedy's are still trying to go through this minefield. [Carson] They're trying to defuse the issue. [Interviewer] Start with "the Kennedy's." [Carson] The Kennedys' response was to try to find a middle course, try to defuse the issue, try to relieve the pressure by first of all the use of federal marshals who really weren't prepared for this kind of law enforcement duty, there were very few of them to begin with and

they did what they could but the idea of sending federal troops in, I think they much preferred to have Alabama National Guardsmen sent in because at least that would be the state troops. That would be Alabama's own troops coming to the scene and I think that that was the middle course that they would have-- they certainly preferred. [Interviewer] Let's cut for a minute. [Carson] If you can get over this notion, I think Bobby Kennedy understands that his task is to get the governor of Alabama to do-- [Interviewer] Okay, let's start over, I'm sorry. [Carson] Bobby Kennedy understands that his task is to get the governor of Alabama to do what he is supposed to do and that is to enforce law in order in the state of Alabama. Trying to do that though, was very

difficult because the governor didn't want to really intervene anyway, but I think that ultimately, I think both of them decided that it would be much better if there has to be an intervention, the governor really had a choice, he could stand aside and let federal troops be brought in and then criticize the Kennedy's for doing that or he could do it himself and at least have the benefit of avoiding federal-- direct federal intervention, and he chose the latter one because I think that there was still a sense at that point that these southern white politicians were still somehow hoping that they could work with the Kennedy administration, that the civil rights issue would not be such a divisive issue that it would totally break apart the democratic alliance. [Interviewer] Alright. I'm going to need a, just for safety, kind of a short version of that, because at this time we're hearing about the tension, and just

something about-- because King is on the phone, King pushes RFK and RFK then persuades Patterson that he's got to act. [Carson] Well King is trying to get federal intervention, he would like to get some kind of protection, I'm not sure if he would have trusted Alabama protection but I think Bobby Kennedy wants to find another way of dealing with this. He would rather work out a compromise with Governor Patterson so that Patterson would be using state troops to do this and then the Kennedy administration would not be vulnerable to the charge of federal military occupation of the south. [Interviewer] Okay, let's cut. [Carson] I think ultimately in the end Bobby Kennedy

comes to convince Patterson that "either you act or I'm going to act, and it's better for both of us if you act." [Interviewer] Just a little more, one more time. [Carson] I think that Bobby Kennedy ultimately understands that he has to convince Governor Patterson that either the governor's going to act or the federal government is going to intervene, and it's better for both of us if you act and you use your own troops to resolve the situation in Montgomery. [Interviewer] Okay, great, thank you so much. -- you have all these different strands of the movement come together. [Carson] Well I think it's one of the times when you have the different generations, the different perspectives all coming together in Alabama during that time. I think that what happens is that you begin to

see the different perspectives and how they have a different response to what has happened in Alabama. The young people want to go in one direction, Martin Luther King wants to go in another direction, Fred Shuttlesworth is sympathetic to the young people, so all of this shows the tensions and the-- at this point they're not really divisions, but you can see differences of perspective. [Interviewer] Many people there want King to go on the ride, talk about them asking King to go on the ride and what happened. [Carson] I think the young people had always wanted King to join their movement. King had inspired all of the students who were participants in the sit-ins. The students in Atlanta had wanted King to join them on a sit-in and finally got them, got him to join them in a sit-in

so of course the students wanted King to join on the Freedom Rides, he was the person who because they had all admired they saw that if King would join that would legitimate their entire movement, that would bring attention to it from the press, but it was not to be. [Interviewer] Why? [Carson] King-- this is something that I think is difficult for many people to understand because of King's reputation as being the leader of the movement, but he was a very cautious leader. He understood what the difficulty was for him to participate in civil disobedience. He understood what was at stake for his own reputation, for his own organization, if he got involved in a movement that he didn't control. I think King in his heart probably wanted to join the Freedom Rides

but I think in his mind he understood all the drawbacks of becoming involved. The fact that he would not only go to jail, but if he went to jail he might go to jail for a long time, and he couldn't be doing other things while he was in jail and maybe from the point of view of the students that's what he should have done because by going to jail he would draw national attention to the movement, but I think he saw it very differently. [Interviewer] Someone says that for the students, they all were on probation too, or many were on probation too, so doubly they didn't understand-- [Carson] No, they weren't sympathetic with his explanations for why he didn't want to join them. They had they had prohibitions that they were facing, they understood that they might be going for longer terms and in fact many of the students had already committed themselves to the idea of "jail, no bail." So they believed that

it was the job of someone who truly believed in Gandhi and nonviolence to go to jail and stay in jail, serve out their sentences. For King, he had already demonstrated that after he was arrested and Reidsville and Atlanta, he had a horrific experience going to jail, he thought that he was going to die, he didn't know exactly where they were taking him, he did not want to repeat that experience. So as much as he felt philosophically sympathetic to the students, I think that this was a case where his mind was overcoming his heart. [Interviewer] John Lewis told us, and it was a little surprising, that at that point some people started referring to him as "the Lord," talk about that. [Carson] Well I think that that was partly because of

Martin Luther King, when he was explaining why he wouldn't go on the Freedom Rides, kind of compared himself to Jesus in the sense of seeing him, felt as a person facing crucifixion, and that he wanted to choose the time of his ultimate sacrifice and he didn't want students presuming to make that choice for him. So I think that when he tried to explain why he wouldn't go, I think he lost a certain amount of stature among some of the students, I think that from that point on they didn't quite admire him as much as they had before and that was something that did not-- that that sense of disappointment was never overcome and I think it fed into some of the splits that would come.

[Interviewer] Can you give us a little of that again and just use that phrase, "the Lord," because John Lewis says it and I just want to get some clarification on what did they mean by "the Lord," and say that, "what they meant by 'the Lord' was.." [Carson] Well I think in King's explanation for why didn't go, he came across as kind of speaking as if he were Jesus, that he was talking about his own sacrifice, his own personal sacrifice, as opposed to understanding that they were sacrificing just as much and so I think after this there was that tendency to see him as "the Lord," someone who was kind of pretentious in that respect, someone who thought that his

sacrifice was somehow greater than the sacrifice of others. [Interviewer] Great, thank you. Finally, there's an arrangement made to get the riders out, finally out of Alabama, we don't need a lot, we just need to get them out, something that says that. That finally-- and I don't know that much about it, I never heard anyone talk about it-- [Carson] Which one, the one where they were taken to the border? [Interviewer] No, where they're finally taken out. They're finally are taken out and turned over to Mississippi, that finally there's an arrangement and you have this massive guard and they will be turned-- they will be out, so talk about the arrangement that finally gets made to get them out of Alabama. [Carson] Well I think that at a certain point every-- all the white officials, the Kennedy administration, the state officials, make a decision that this is a crisis that's got to end, and the way we end it is basically by getting the Freedom

Riders out of the state. And they want to get them to the border of Alabama, hand them over to Mississippi, there's already some arrangements there, but this is the way they see this issue being diffused so it goes away from the headlines. And to a large degree it does. [Interviewer] Okay, let's cut, I'm going to ask you that one more time, we've got a bird. Okay, I want you to talk a little bit about the arrangement that's finally made to get the riders out of Alabama. [Carson] Yeah finally they decide that the Freedom Rides in Alabama have to come to an end, this is too much of a crisis-- [Interviewer] I'm sorry, we need for you to say who, because we don't know if it's the federal government or the Freedom Riders, or Patterson, so start again. [Carson] At a certain point the Kennedy administration and the state of Alabama make a decision that this crisis has to end and the Freedom Riders have to be taken out of the state.

And so I think at that point everyone makes a decision that it's going to move to the next stage and so there's protection to the Alabama border, they're handed off to the Mississippi police, state police-- Let me ask you to start over, I don't want them to get to Mississippi, I just want you to get them out of Alabama. And then we'll go from there. [Carson] I think that at a certain point the Kennedy administration and the state officials in Alabama make a decision that the crisis has to come to an end and they do what they could have done at an earlier stage, that is they provide the maximum protection so that they will get the Freedom Riders out of Birmingham to the border between Alabama and Mississippi and

that's what they do. [Interviewer] Okay, sorry. I got to ask you one more time. [Carson] Okay. [Interviewer] Because they're in Montgomery, not Birmingham. [laughs] [Carson] At a certain point the Kennedy administration and the state officials in Alabama make a decision that this is a crisis that has to end and that they need to defuse it and what they do is they decide to do what they could have done in the first place and that is provide the protection necessary to make sure that the Freedom Riders get from Montgomery to the border of Alabama and Mississippi safely. [Interviewer] Beautiful, thank you. --and how --a movement and what he thought that would do, and then I'll ask you, get you to talk about what it did do, because it did not do that.

[Carson] Well once they get into Mississippi then they are faced with the reality of coming to the-- Once they get into Mississippi they're faced with the reality of facing segregation at its strongest point. I think they always recognized that if you could crack Mississippi you could crack the deep south. And Ross Barnett is prepared for them and wants to teach them a lesson, "don't come to my state again," and the lesson is "I'm going to send you to a real prison, to Parchman Penitentiary so you're going to do hard time in Mississippi, this is not going to be a city jail," this is going to be like the reputation of the old south, where people did work gangs, the reputation of Parchman was pretty horrific. So I think that the Freedom Riders knew that they were facing something really

strong but by that time they had faced up to the reality of mob violence, the weren't going to be deterred by going to a prison. Talk a little bit about-- but I think that that contrast, don't lose the energy, that contrary to what Barnett thinks and Mississippi thinks, that we're going to break your back, that Parchman becomes something else, Parchman becomes this place where they start teaching you-- it becomes this it's even more than that, it becomes kind of this unifying thing, so talk about what Parchman in contrast to what Ross Barnett wanted, what Parchman becomes. [Carson] Ross Barnett thought that Parchman would break the Freedom Riders. I think what it really did was to provide a confirmation of everything that they had been through. They had faced down mobs, they had gone through all the violence in

Alabama so when they get to Mississippi, the notion of going to a prison, even a prison as harsh as Parchman, is not something that's going to deter them, instead it's something that becomes a source of unity because now in Parchman Penitentiary you have the best of the best of all the protest movements in the south, these are the ones who have had the experience from the sit-ins, these are the ones who have been through the Freedom Ride experience in Alabama and and mob violence that they faced there, so now they get into Mississippi they have a chance to in prison-- yes I think that for the Freedom Riders Parchman became a school I suppose as jail does for many revolutionaries throughout the world, they saw this as a challenge that they were prepared to meet because they had been through the experiences of mob

violence and they had overcome that and now they were in this Parchman Penitentiary which was a tough place to be but they saw this as a way of coming together as these are the people who had proved themselves in their local movements now they were making contact with each other so that John Lewis would meet a Stokely Carmichael and all these people from different parts of the south were finding out that there were students just like them in other regions and I think after that they understood that this was going to be a long struggle but they had this cadre of people who had proven themselves and had dedicated their lives to bringing about change. [Interviewer] Good, okay let's cut for a second. [Carson] Well

I think at the end it becomes kind of an anti-climax because when you think about the Kennedy administration thinking that they can resolve the issue by saying "well we're going to go to the Interstate Commerce Commission and really get a ruling in forcing desegregation of interstate commerce," well they could have done that from the very beginning and in fact they could've done that from the 1940s on because they had the legal authority to do that. The ICC on its own could have done that. But it took this crisis, it took the Freedom Rides in order to force the hand of the federal government and I think that's the lesson that the young people learned is that the federal government, it's one thing to have the supreme court, it's one thing to have all of these legal challenges, but ultimately you need to have the power of a protest movement to force the federal government to act. [Interviewer] Let's change tapes. So it's not anti-climactic-- [Carson] Well I mean anti-climactic

retrospectively, this is something that could have happened much earlier. This should be a rule, all the ICC could do would be to send out a ruling which it did, to all the people involved in interstate commerce saying-- [Interviewer] We're not rolling. I just want to talk about Bobby Kennedy and the ICC. [Carson] I think at this point Bobby Kennedy understood that he needed to take some action to get the Freedom Rides to end, and the action that he took was one that he could've taken earlier but he decided to do it now and that is to go to the Interstate Commerce Commission and get them to issue a ruling that basically said that riders had-- no, that's not very good. [Interviewer] Let's cut.