Eyes on the Prize; Interview with Reverend Joseph Ellwanger

[camera roll 550] [sound roll 1522] [slate] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: YEAH, FLAGS AND-- CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: DON'T, DON'T GO AWAY FROM ME. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: OKAY, IT'S ALL YOURS. INTERVIEWER: OKAY. REV. ELLWANGER, HOW DID YOU FIRST HEAR ABOUT THE SELMA CAMPAIGN AND HOW DID YOU BECOME DIRECTLY INVOLVED? Ellwanger: Well, we got news releases in Birmingham about some of the things that were happening there and, and something that caught our attention that really got to our guts... INTERVIEWER: LET ME STOP YOU. IT'S HAPPENING WHERE? SEE I--THEY DON'T KNOW. Ellwanger: Mmmm, Selma. INTERVIEWER: [laughs] Ellwanger: All right, that's a good example, all right [laughs]. Oh. [Clears throat] INTERVIEWER: GO AHEAD. Ellwanger: Oh, I just keep on going. INTERVIEWER: RIGHT. Ellwanger: All right. We got news releases of things that were happening in Selma as people were being jailed because of the demonstrations in front of the courthouse and women and children and men were being put in barracks with no heat. This was February and it's not cold, cold in, in Alabama at that time but it's cold and we just could sense the kind of treatment that they were getting and that's, that's where we began to be concerned about what was happening in Selma. Of course, we were concerned fo--about more than just the treatment of the prisoners, we're concerned about the issue, but that's what brought it to our attention. INTERVIEWER: AND WHEN YOU SAID "WE," WERE THERE OTHER PEOPLE IN YOUR GROUP THAT WERE CONCERNED? Ellwanger: I'm thinking especially of the Birmingham Council on Human Relations which was the one integrated group in Birmingham, Alabama that met on a regular basis. And our whole reason for existence was to know about and to express concern and, and act on behalf of people who were being hurt and discriminated against and so even though this was a hundred miles away south of Birmingham, we sensed a, a closeness and a concern.

INTERVIEWER: NOW WHEN DID YOU ACTUALLY GET TO SELMA? Ellwanger: Hmmm. INTERVIEWER: WHAT DID YOU DO YOU KNOW, WHEN YOU FIRST GOT THERE? Ellwanger: Well, we, we planned this demonstration in Selma for Saturday March 6, which was a, a day that people could rather easily get away from their jobs and that's why we picked a Saturday. And we planned 3 or 4 weeks probably to pull this off and the, the purpose was to raise up before the eyes of the public in Alabama and throughout the country what was happening in Selma to the people who were being mistreated but more importantly the civil rights of the people themselves who could not even register to vote, much less vote. We saw this as an issue that was of real concern if the south was ever to change, to say nothing of the urban pockets in the north. INTERVIEWER: NOW THERE WERE SEVENTY-TWO WHITES THAT JOINED YOU THAT DAY ON MARCH 6TH. TELL ME A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THE COMPOSITION OF THAT GROUP, WOMEN, CLERGY, ALL CLERGY, YOUNG PEOPLE, OLD PEOPLE, YOU KNOW, WHAT, WHAT WAS THE MAKEUP OF THAT GROUP? Ellwanger: It was really a motley crew with a variety of people and probably about half and half men and women, probably a, a, a strong percentage of professional people, teachers, doctors, and a few ministers, maybe two or three, besides myself. But the rest were very ordinary people housewives, and ordinary people who were just deeply concerned about what was happening in Selma.

INTERVIEWER: AS YOU PREPARED TO GO, WERE YOU FRIGHTENED THAT ANY OF THIS GROUP HAD TO BE CONVINCED THAT THIS DEMONSTRATION WAS THE BEST WAY TO RAISE UP THE ISSUE? Ellwanger: Obviously the question of, of white folks in Alabama demonstrating publicly in a place like Selma was very controversial and it was not easy to convince white Alabamians that this was the thing to do. Shouldn't we play a quieter more low profile role in all of this? So it, it was a struggle. It was something that went against the grain of all of us in the group, with the exception of maybe one or two of us. The rest had never participated in a public demonstration of this type. And so it, it took a lot of convincing, a lot of talking and so most of the group came from Birmingham although we had people from Tuscaloosa and outlying areas it was the Birmingham group that had the opportunity to talk this through and to reinforce each other and encourage each other. INTERVIEWER: OK NOW I'M GOING TO SKIP OVER THE PRELIMINARIES OF, YOU KNOW, WALKING THROUGH THE TOWN OR WHATEVER. YOU'RE AT THE, THE COURTHOUSE STEPS NOW. GO BACK TO THAT MOMENT AND TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED. Ellwanger: Well, when we--I was at the lead of the column and, as we came to the steps of the courthouse, we were met by a phalanx of sheriffs and the one sheriff stood right in front of me and I didn't know what he was going to do, whether he was going to arrest me or, or what but he pulled out a piece of paper and began reading from it, and he said, "I have a telegram from your superior, a Reverend Homrighausen," and I thought, well, this is interesting, so he read the telegram which in effect, said that President Homrighausen, who was president of our Southern district of the Lutheran church that I was a part of, said that I did not represent the church, and in effect he was distancing himself and the church from me in as polite a way as possible. So after he read the telegram, he said, "Now what do you say to that?" And as, as far as I can re--recollect, I said something to the effect that, well, Dr. Homrighausen is entitled to his opinion, but we are here to demonstrate. And I was intent, I was determined that we were going to finish what we came to do. And so, he did step aside and we went on up to the steps and completed our demonstration.

INTERVIEWER: NOW, I'M, I'M TOLD THAT SOMETHING FUNNY HAPPENED ON THE STEPS THERE AT, AFTER YOU GOT UP AND YOU GOT PAST THE DEPUTY. GO BACK AND GIVE ME A LITTLE OF, OF THAT COLORFUL SCENE THERE. Ellwanger: That was a colorful scene because on the one side of the street were at least fifty or sixty whites and what we would call rednecks, many of them from the country. And representing White Citizens' Council types and Ku Klux Klan types, they had their cars revved up with limburger cheese on the manifold so that there was a lot of smoke that was being blown into our eyes and across the street was a group probably of a hundred, hundred and fifty Blacks and they were rather quiet as we demonstrated but before we knew it after we sang, _America_ and read our statement of concern, the, the redneck group began singing _Dixie_ and the Blacks across the street began singing _We Shall Overcome_ and we had an interesting moment but for us, we barely heard _Dixie_ all that we heard was _We Shall Overcome_ and it was really a moment of support for us because we were in the middle of this, and we felt we had somebody backing us up there if, if it came to that kind of a confrontation.

INTERVIEWER: NOW IT DIDN'T COME TO THAT. Ellwanger: No. INTERVIEWER: YOU WERE ABLE TO LEAVE PEACEFULLY? Ellwanger: Yes, as a matter of fact, in spite of the jostling that we got as we passed the, the group of the WCC types, we, we were never--no one was knocked down and we were sug-- asked by the Safety Director in Selma, Wilson Baker, to leave via a different route and so we did follow his directions. And we got back without any serious incident.

INTERVIEWER: TELL ME HOW YOU FELT AFTER HAVING ACCOMPLISHED THAT AND HOW IF YOU CAN REFLECT WHAT SOME OF THE OTHER MEMBERS OF THE GROUP FELT, PARTICULARLY THOSE WHO AT FIRST MIGHT NOT HAVE WANTED TO PARTICIPATE. Ellwanger: I think that there was a sense on the part of everybody that we are glad that we did what we did. We had no understanding at that point of what kind of publicity we might get because we were really concerned that this message get across the country and reach the, even the white house as the Voting Rights Act was being considered. So we had no idea how significant it would be but as far as having taken our stand, our personal stand, and identified with the blacks of Selma who were trying to, simply register to vote, we felt very, very good about having done what we did and almost to the last person, there was a sense of tremendous accomplishment even though we didn't know what the, the long range ultimate results would be. INTERVIEWER: NOW, YOU MENTIONED WASHINGTON, WERE YOU AWARE, BY THE TIME YOU DID THIS MARCH, IT WAS MARCH AND THE SELMA CAMPAIGN HAD BEEN ON-GOING FOR SOME TIME. WERE YOU AWARE OF THE GOING ONS IN WASHINGTON THAT THERE WAS ANOTHER STORY OF CONGRESSMEN AND EVEN PERHAPS PRESIDENT JOHNSON CHANGING HIS MIND AS TIME WENT PAST ABOUT THE VOTING RIGHTS BILL? Ellwanger: Well, we know that the voting rights bill was in the hopper, that Congress-- people were really discussing this seriously and that Lyndon Johnson was reportedly considering it but was very unpredictable at this point, and that's why we hoped that our voice, that we were trying to say that white Alabamians support voting rights for blacks, and for all people not just blacks asking for their rights.

INTERVIEWER: JOHN WOULD YOU STOP A MINUTE? CAMERA CREW MEMBER: SURE. [cut] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: AND MARK. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: GREAT. OK. INTERVIEWER: YOU SAID THAT YOUR GROUP WANTED TO PARTICIPATE AND YOU YOURSELF WANTED TO PARTICIPATE BECAUSE YOU WANTED TO EFFECT SOME CHANGE. BUT AS A CLERGYMAN, I'M WONDERING HOW MUCH OF THIS HAD TO DO WITH YOUR FEELING THAT THIS WAS MORALLY RIGHT. AND DID MARTIN LUTHER KING HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH CHANGING YOUR PERSPECTIVE OR WAS YOUR PERSPECTIVE ALWAYS THAT WAY? Ellwanger: Well, I think in terms of my own personal commitment, to doing justice which is a phrase right out of the Old Testament, I always had that kind of concern. But there's no question, but what Martin Luther King, who had been in Birmingham two years previous to this, and whose movement throughout the South, I had followed very closely personally had an effect on me and raised this concern for justice- [cut] [wild audio] Ellewanger:-from a level of what we might- INTERVIEWER: I JUST HEARD IT GO OFF- CAMERA CREW MEMBER: JUST RAN OUT. [cut] [slate] [change to camera roll 551] CAMERA CREW MEMBER: I HAVE FLAGS. AND MARK. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER: THANK YOU. IT'S ALL YOURS.

INTERVIEWER: OK, I WANT YOU TO PICK UP WHERE YOU WERE. YOU WERE TELLING ME THAT MARTIN LUTHER KING HAD CHANGED, HAD AN EFFECT ON YOU. Ellwanger: Yeah. Even though I had this commitment to justice I think the role that Martin Luther King played in my life and I--and he did this for many many others is that he helped raise that commitment to justice from a kind of intellectual level to an, an action level. And it--he freed, he helped to free many people to recognize that a concern for something as big as justice must be more than just an intellectual commitment. 00:11:46:00 INTERVIEWER: NOW, YOU WERE A PART OF THE, THE CLERGY THAT WENT TO, TO SELMA AND IN FACT, OTHER FOLK WHO WENT TO SELMA FOR WHAT IS NOW CALLED TURN-AROUND-TUESDAY, WHICH WAS MARCH 9TH, RIGHT AFTER BLOODY SUNDAY. WHERE WERE THE, THE WHITE SOUTHERN CLERGY MEMBERS AND, AND WHY DIDN'T THEY FEEL THE PULL TO COME? WE HEAR ABOUT THE NORTHERN CLERGYMEN COMING IN. Ellwanger: Well white southern clergy people were, in a very vulnerable position. The one white clergy person that I recall being in our demonstration on Saturday, and I think he came back on that following Tuesday received so many personal threats when he returned to his parish, that he fin--he left within a matter of weeks from the parish. He simply couldn't take it and his, and his family couldn't take it psychologically. So there were, there was that kind of intimidation and that's what almost every white person in the South felt if they were to really go public. They might talk in, small conversation in favor of change, but taking action publicly was just almost unthinkable on the part of most whites. INTERVIEWER: SO MOST OF THE CLERGY AT, ON MARCH 9TH WAS REALLY FROM OUT OF TOWN? FROM NORTHERNERS? Ellwanger: Very definitely. I, I don't recall any whites besides this one white Methodist minister. There may have been one or two, but they were a distinct minority.

INTERVIEWER: NOW, WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN THE, THE LINE TURNED AROUND? EVERYBODY WAS NOT PRIVY TO THAT DECISION AND DID YOU THINK THAT MARTIN LUTHER KING HAD TO TURN AROUND THEN? Ellwanger: That's a big question. Now, none of us in the march were aware of the fact that apparently this agreement had already been made and King and the leaders knew that once they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge they were going to stop and call it a victory for the day and come back. So the rest of us were really surprised. Of course we didn't know exactly what was going to happen because we knew we couldn't march to Montgomery, that was 50 miles, on that day. We didn't really know how far we were going to go. We were completely on the mercy of the people who were leading us. So, when the leaders did stop and finally the word trickled back that we were turning around, we felt let down because we wanted to get beyond the point where the people had gotten on Bloody Sunday just as a, a moral victory and a symbolic victory but that didn't happen and as we think back on it historically, you know, you can argue back and forth, whether this was the right decision. Ultimately, what did happen certainly was for the good, and that is that Lyndon Johnson did give permission for troopers to come and protect the marchers from Selma to Montgomery and the Selma to Montgomery March did take place. I think one of the concerns that King had was for the safety of the marchers, because if anybody's driven the road from Selma to Montgomery, that Highway 80 is a very, very lonely highway and there all kinds of stretches of the highway where people could be in ambush as we found out a couple of days, or the day after the day of the march that was completed and then when Viola Liuzzo was shot. INTERVIEWER: SKIPPING FURTHER ALONG HOW DID YOU HEAR ABOUT LYNDON JOHNSON'S SAYING "WE SHALL OVERCOME" AND THE, AND EXPRESSING A NEED FOR THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT? Ellwanger: Well of course, he came on after Bloody Sunday and made this rather impassioned plea for support for the voting rights cause and, and then quoting the song _We Shall Overcome_ that was a nationally televised speech speech of his, of course and anybody who was watching television would see this and hear this but many of us who were very committed to the cause wondered whether this was lip service and especially for somebody like Lyndon Johnson to quote "We Shall Overcome" when he had not taken a whole lot of leadership up to this point. We had a sinking feeling in our stomachs that this may have been just a, a cosmetic thing that he was trying to show that he was sympathetic but until he was going to, until he came through with support for the Voting Rights Act we were not going to accept this as any kind of a victory.

INTERVIEWER: BUT WHEN HE FINALLY DID SIGN THE BILL? Ellwanger: When he did sign the bill, then I think a lot of us were really surprised and when he openly supported it because he was a Southerner from Texas and everyone questioned whether he would risk his own relationships with a lot of politicians in Texas and elsewhere to finally come out in favor of the Voting Rights Act, and we were pleasantly pleased and therefore hopeful that it would be enforced, and that was our next concern because you can pass a Voting Rights Act and unless it is clearly and actively enforced it's worth nothing but the paper it's written on. INTERVIEWER: OK STOP A MINUTE JOHN. CAMERA CREW MEMBER: SURE. [cut]

CAMERA CREW MEMBER: AND MARK. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER: GREAT. INTERVIEWER: GIVE ME A LITTLE, A, A BRIEF WORD PICTURE OF WHAT BIRMINGHAM WAS LIKE THAT, YOU KNOW, APRIL 1963, OR IN THE SIXTIES IN GENERAL AND AROUND THAT TIME IN TERMS OF RACE RELATIONS AND BE AS SPECIFIC AS YOU CAN, SOME CONCRETE DETAILS. Ellwanger: Now Birmingham in 1963 was about as segregated a city in the South as you could find. There were still signs over water fountains. There were no black clerks in downtown stores. There were no blacks in the police or the fire department. And there were a lot of open threats on the part of the police commissioner, Bull Connor, against any attempts to, to gain some of these rights. So that it--so there was not even a single forum where Blacks and whites regularly came together except for the Birmingham Council on Human Relations which was suspect as some kind of Communist organization by virtue of the very fact that Blacks and whites came together. And that group numbered about forty or fifty on paper and when we actually met we were like maybe fifteen to twenty-five. INTERVIEWER: WHAT WAS YOUR FEELING DURING THIS TIME? HOW DID YOU GET TO THE POINT OF BEING AWAKENED AND ENLIGHTENED, ALL OF THAT? Ellwanger: Well, you wonder whether any really radical change is ever going to take place, or whether it's going to be this slow metamorphosis over long periods of time. And I guess this is why the possibility of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the demonstrations led by King opened up a great deal of hope to people who otherwise felt that there's just never going to be any change made here for the next generation or two. It's just going to be a very very slow process.

INTERVIEWER: WHAT WERE WHITES AFRAID OF IN TERMS OF, OF INTEGRATION? WHAT, WHAT WAS THERE TO FEAR? Ellwanger: Well, when it comes to like a lot of our fears, when it comes down to what the basis, the real basis, of the fear is, there was practically nothing of course, but in terms of what they thought were things that, to be afraid of there was just the, the fear of the unknown. What is it going to be like if our kids go to school with black kids? What is it going to be like if we associate in open and openly and freely. It was literally the fear of the unknown. INTERVIEWER: WE TALK ABOUT THE LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM JAIL BEING WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO AN AD? CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: CAN I INTERUPT FOR JUST ONE SECOND? INTERVIEWER: YES, OF COURSE. CAMERA CREW MEMBER: I WONDER, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY, THERE IS NO REFRENCE IN THAT ANSWER. INTERVIEWER: DO YOU WANT TO STOP FOR A SECOND [laughing]. CAMERA CREW MEMBER: IF YOU DON'T... INTERVIEWER: YEAH [LAUGHS]. [cut]

CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: FLAGS. CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: FLAGS. MARK. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: ONE SECOND, LET ME GET SETTLED HERE. OKAY CALLIE IT'S ALL YOURS. INTERVIEWER: OK, WHY DON'T YOU BEGIN THE, THE ANSWER? Ellwanger: As we, we think about what people were, white people were afraid of in terms of the possibility of an integrated society part of it was simply the fear of the unknown. I think, perhaps even deeper, was the fear of the Ku Klux Klan and the, the threats becoming a reality. In Birmingham, we had had something like 40 bombings in the previous ten years, and so it was not an idle threat. And so there was literally the fear for their lives and just the kind of convulsions that they expected in society if this were attempted. There just would be open warfare in the streets. And even Governor Wallace I think, in the back of his mind thought that we're going to have complete mayhem if we attempt to have an integrated society. INTERVIEWER: NOW WHEN THE BIRMINGHAM DEMONSTRATIONS BEGAN, WHAT, YOU WERE INVOLVED WITH IT, WHAT WAS YOUR ROLE? WHAT WERE YOU DOING? Ellwanger: My role in the Birmingham demonstrations was basically a role of being a part of the committee of twenty that met to do the planning. We met in the A.G. Gaston Motel and I can still remember those sessions with Dr. King and Ra--Ralph Abernathy and Andrew Young and it was an amazing experience of an openness toward everybody's idea. There was no one who was not given the opportunity to help participate in the planning. The, the demonstrations themselves went so quickly that it was a surprise to all of us that the, the results came as quickly as they did.

CAMERA CREW MEMBER: I THINK WE BETTER RELOAD-- INTERVIEWER: OKAY. CAMERA CREW MEMBER: --BECAUSE WE ARE ABOUT TO ROLL OUT. INTERVIEWER: OKAY. I THINK WE HAVE TWO MORE QUESTIONS. [cut] [slate] [change to camera roll 552] INTERVIEWER: HERE I'M JUST GOING TO LET YOU HOP UP AND MAKE ONE. CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: I HAVE FLAGS. CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: MARKER. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: OKAY. INTERVIEWER: OK, REVEREND, GO AHEAD. Ellwanger: Ok. And I think something that we've, we forget thirty years later is that there was not only the belief in the white community that Blacks were inferior but their--that was a belief that was clearly articulated and was assumed as the basis for the segregation that had existed all these years. And to break down the barriers of segregation is to permit in that way of thinking, an inferior race to mix with a superior race and the inevitable result would be, of course, and this was a phrase that was even used in public, a mongrelization of and a pulling down of that white superior race. And that underlay that, both the fears and the wild threats and the commitment that the KKK had to enforcing its viewpoints. Many of the KKK had that as almost a religious belief in their heart that we've got to maintain that kind of purity of the race and otherwise we are dooming ourselves and our future generations.

INTERVIEWER: OK. I'M GOING TO ASK YOU ABOUT THE LETTER FROM THE BIRMINGHAM JAILS WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO AN AD BY A NUMBER OF CLERGY IN TOWN CRITICAL OF THE DEMONSTRATIONS. WHAT WAS THE SENSE AFTER HE WROTE HIS LETTER BACK ANSWERING THEM? WHAT WAS THE COMMUNITY SENSE THAT YOU CAN REMEMBER? THE RESPONSE TO THAT? Ellwanger: Unfortunately King's letter from the Birmingham jail did not get nearly the press in the local papers that the ad did of course in the, the issue before. But there was no question but what most of the people, from what I can recall, the leaders' response to King's letter was simply well, we, we beg to disagree with you. You're just defending your position because you can't do otherwise. But it's, it's interesting because what seemed to turn the corner for movement there and turned it so quickly was the fact that the demonstrations mounted so quickly in size, there were literally hundreds of people, and, and kids especially, children and youth going through the downtown streets, and the business community then became fearful of what would happen to their businesses and they called the religious leaders and the movement leaders together and said let's talk and that's what really made the difference.

INTERVIEWER: NOW WHEN WE THINK OF THE CHURCHES THERE, WE, we THINK AGAIN ABOUT JUST THE BLACK CHURCHES AND THEIR ACTIVITY, BUT THERE WERE MORE THAN 700 CHURCHES IN BIRMINGHAM. WHAT WERE, OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT SOME OF THE LEADERS WERE WRITING ADS [LAUGHS], WHAT WERE THE REST OF THE CHURCHES DOING DURING THE CRISIS? Ellwanger: Well, the unfortunate thing is that most of the white churches in Birmingham were going on, from day to day and week to week almost with business as usual. I would sa--I'm, I'm only guessing from what I could tell but I think that most of the, the churches and most of the preachers did not even make any reference to the events that were happening in their sermons. They, they preached sermons that could have been preached in the year 1910, or 1810, and that's very unfortunate, because what the religious community is called to do is relate the word of God to the events of the day. And that is a distinct weakness on the part of many religious communities who do not relate the Word to the, the events of the day.

INTERVIEWER: OK, THAT'S IT. CAMERA CREW MEMBER 1: CUT. [cut] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: THIS IS THE MARK. [sync tone] CAMERA CREW MEMBER 2: IT'S ALL YOURS.

INTERVIEWER: OK. Ellwanger: Ok. Yeah, this was a very real question with-- INTERVIEWER: WHAT WAS VERY? Ellwanger: --Albert Boutwell having just been elected as mayor of the city of Birmingham, he was supposed to be a more liberal, more progressive mayor and so both leaders in the Black community and the white community were saying please give Boutwell a chance to make the changes and he'll do it. Why are you pressing the issue with these proposed demonstrations coming right after he was elected? And that was a real struggle because Boutwell had made some promises about fairer government and--but they were all generalities, and most thinking people who were ready to, who really wanted change recognized that unless Albert Boutwell had some real help in making those changes, he would meet with the same resistance toward change that has been, had been shown down through the years. And as we decided to, to, to go ahead with the demonstration, it was with the awareness that we were not an enemy of Boutwell, but we saw ourselves as really helping him to make change and to bring about the ferment without which Boutwell would have had far, far more difficulty. In fact, he wasn't the one who really ultimately made the changes, it was the merchants and the business community who recognized we've gotta make some changes or there's going to be more and more trouble, more and more difficulty in our, in our system. INTERVIEWER: THAT'S IT. CAMERA CREW MEMBER: GOOD. [cut] [end of interview] (c) Copyright Washington University Libraries 2016