The long road / Fred Wilkinson interviewed by Elsa Knight Thompson

If you're now thinking about having you come to our studio while you were in Berkeley the thing that occurred to me most deeply was to wonder if you would mind too much in talking to our audience telling us something about the process by which you arrived at the viewpoint which has led to the situation in which you now find yourself. I believe that anyone who is active politically must in looking back sometimes and particularly at a crucial time such as European be able in some way to review what the cross worlds work did you start out as a person who was active politically what is your some of your background. But my background is not very good in the field of civil liberties. In fact I haven't really believed in civil liberties until my own rights were

violated during the past eight or nine years. I was reared in the public schools of California. I went through grammar school and high school at the schools in Beverly Hills and Southern California and through the University of California in Los Angeles. Born in Shala boy Michigan my family very wonderful Methodist Republican family in Beverly Hills a very wonderful father was a medical doctor and was the president of our Protestant state men's Brotherhood Association for many years provided us with a marvelous home a very religious home. And I think this background is the important factor now

although it did not cause me to have good civil liberties until my own were violated. All the way through my high school and university work I was not interested or didn't know very much about social problems. I was very idealistic. I wanted to see a better world built. We would have said it that I was very anxious to see as we say so many many times in this nation every day a building of the kingdom of God on Earth. But I had no challenges with this. I was economically secure. I didn't know that there was a depression. And when I graduated from UCLA in 1936 not knowing whether I was going to go into the

ministry or into law my family thought it would be helpful for me if I could travel around the world for a couple of years. What I set out with a rather light hearted almost a flippant attitude to old Halliburton Halliburton. I've been reading some of those books. And I didn't want to go to work and I did not know what I wanted to do in the way of graduate work. And so with a nother fraternity brother in Sigma Alpha Epsilon who himself was a pretty divinity student. I set out to go around the world on a dollar a day see how the other half lived. I didn't have the slightest idea of what I was going to encounter. I had never seen for example poverty in Los Angeles. I'd never seen a slum up to the time that I was out of college. But I had attended.

A seminar at the Sylmar hub out to some of our the summer before I graduated. Where I met Muriel Lester the great subtle house worker from England. And she told us at this seminar of the work of Jane Adams at Hull House in Chicago. Who had died that summer. So I'm starting out on this trip to see how the other half lived. I hitchhiked for the first time in my life to Chicago and began trying to find where the whole house was. And I'll timidly found this place. Assuming that that is where I would find poor people. But mostly I came upon Maxwell Street in Chicago. Here in 1936 the seventh year of the Depression. That I saw for the first time in my life thousands literally thousands of hungry people. Who were bartering. All clothing

old household goods. Who were buying fruits and vegetables. And meats that I had never seen displayed in any. Store or encounter I had ever shopped. And I saw the slums and I saw the abject poverty of the children. This was such a shocking experience to me that it began almost instantly a change. After several days there. I went on to New York. And I moved into the Bowery. And I lived in a flop house in the Bowery for a month trying to simulate the life of an average American dialect at that time. And this too was a very shocking experience. The thing about it that was so shocking was that I had always believed in trying to make the world better. In this religious background that I had which

was so wonderful. But there had never been a challenge. I could crack preach what I talked about. Back to UCLA I was the chairman of the student board of the university religious conference. And I could pop this way but I had never been challenged. To find out what it meant to try to do something about it because I had never seen the problem. And once I saw the problem. And compared it against what I had been always taught to believe was right. Then. I was really faced with a dilemma as to what to do whether to really practice my ideals which I had from this rich religious background. Or whether to be a hypocrite about it because I feel. So much of our society has been guilty. And this was the way I face this trip through Europe and I travel for the next year

throughout all of Europe and the Near East. And Northern Africa studying the. Social problems of the lowest income groups in all these countries. And I was constantly. Overwhelmed. With this terrible poverty of the people in the world. Most of the people in the world seem to me. And again I had the sharpest of the challenges when I made a personal pilgrimage. Part of this trip to Palestine. I've always had a dream of wanting to be in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. On Christmas Eve. And my friend and I timed our trip across northern Africa so that we could be there and we arrived on Christmas Eve. I somehow rather assumed that there could be poverty everywhere else in the world. But it would not be true in in Bethlehem and certainly not true on unlikeliness seen on Christmas Eve I'm film of the. Nights

that we used to go out of the group in our Hollywood Methodist Church to sing to the sick and the shut ins Silent night holy night old Little Town of Bethlehem. And I came there and I found that I could not even get into that church with love. Literally wading through. Scores of poverty stricken. Diseased. Hungry. Cold. People that were no longer the deformed it was outside all the churches in that part of the world and thus this was oh it was a one of the most difficult experiences in my life. I did a lot of deep soul searching at that time and I determined as best as I could that from that day forward that I would either practice. The ideals of which I had been

taught. Or I would frankly admit that I didn't believe in them. And would frankly take a cynical attitude. Did that lead you to take an overt action outside yourself. How did you start to translate this was this an individual thing like did it lead you to go to an alignment with other groups of people or like I returned home after those year and a half trip. I went back to my home church in Hollywood to talk about this and the. Need that we all must do something and do it quickly to try to change the world and to correct these reforms. That I was tragically disappointed by the. By the response that I received from these only lifelong neighbors in my own church. I was almost to the person they patted me on the back in a kind

of paternal way turned to my family and told them Don't worry about Frank he will be all right. And at this point. Quite by accident I was introduced to the Right Reverend Munn Sr. Thomas J O Dwyer. Who was the director of our Catholic hospitals and charities in Los Angeles and here at that point along with Neil Haggerty the state FML CIO. And a couple of architects. Were trying to form a citizen's Housing Council. To make Los Angeles the first city in America free of slums. And he took me in his car after he had talked with me in his office. He said very simply you didn't need to go so far to get so excited. It was all right here in your own backyard. And Father of wire took me on my first long tour of Los Angeles

and showed me conditions that equaled anything the Allies saw. In Chicago or Portugal. Or Palestine. And then I went to work as the secretary. Of this new committee that he formed of the Citizens Housing Council. And we worked for four years together with this group doing educational work to establish our housing authority and to get the first program started. And then I went in and became a manager of the first low rent. Slum clearance projects integrated projects as well as low rent for families who were living in the slums. And after three years about the executive director of the Housing Authority invited me onto his personal staff. In the administration of the housing program and I worked there in the housing authority as one of the assistants to the director. For the next 10 years. Working

as hard as I knew how. To try and win. Public support for the total eradication of slums. In our community. We were actually on the verge of winning this. In 1952. One of my jobs have been that of selecting the sites for the entire new housing program in Los Angeles. We had 100 million dollars worth of this. Housing Program breaded to us by the federal government. And I had to have the job with the representatives of other government agencies to make the proper selection of sites. And we picked the sites according to where people should live. And not according to where certain interests in our community wanted to have certain people live. Our projects were to be fully integrated. There was to be no racial or religious discrimination. And they were to be located in decent

housing neighborhoods not. As some would like to have them. Relocated in the old ghettos or racial barriers. Good nor adjacent to manufacture or the. Blighted areas of the community. And the opposition to our program was enormous just just enormous and finally in the course of this very sharp sides were taken our mayor. Took a magnificent stand in support of the program but one by one members of the city council dropped away. And every possible thing was thrown at us trying to defeat the program. But we held on until. This basic. Civil liberties violation in my own life developed. And this was it. Well this was in the Chavez Ravine site which had been selected for public housing not for a Dodger ballpark.

And in the course of a condemnation proceedings where the eminent domain rules of the courts were being applied I was representing the housing authority as the expert witness on the necessity of taking that particular site. I've been testifying regarding the incidence of Crime and Delinquency communicable disease. In the midst of this one of the lawyers for the real estate interests that owned one of the major slum areas in Chavez Ravine having failed to stop us on any of the legitimate areas of inquiry because our facts were clear. He suddenly pulled from his file what later we came. To know was a dossier which had been prepared against me by our chief of police in Los Angeles. Who was at this point a supporter of the bill a statement against the housing movement and was opposing the mayor. Then the whole public housing program. And with this in front of him

the lawyer said. Now Mr Wilkinson will you please tell us. Of all organisations political or otherwise which you have belonged to since you were a junior at UCLA some 17 years before. And. Ordinarily as any lawyer could tell you this kind of question was totally irrelevant and immaterial. But we were already at this time deep in the heart of the McCarthy period. And the lawyers for the Housing Authority refused to make the objection or failed to make the objection that should have been made. And when I tried to make the objection. I was unsuccessful as a witness on the stand at the time. And I finally refused to answer the question. For many grounds. First of all. Even at that point I was beginning to develop some civil liberties principles.

I was beginning to feel that the whole McCarthy atmosphere was a dangerous thing and that somewhere along the line people had to stop and storing this kind of question. But one of them but. I personally had. And the housing authority had then many public officials in Los Angeles have. Contact with members of the Communist Party. And in the atmosphere that existed in Los Angeles at that time. To answer any questions in this area. Would have done tremendous damage to the lives of. Many people in our city. And so I refused to answer the question. Both. Out of principle and also out of the necessity of self protection of myself. And the housing authority. The result was.

As disastrous nearly as if I had answered the question. Possibly although with me it was the beginning of the establishment of what I consider to be the principle in this question today. We lost 70 million dollars worth of public housing. Mayor Bowen finally was removed from office. On charges that. He had befriended had protected had been associated with persons who refused to answer questions before Un-American Activities types of committees. But that was not a committee. Why is it when all those happen to be those happen to be a. Limited obeying proceeding in the Supreme Court later the State Committee on Un-American Activities entered the picture and asked the same questions which I had refused to answer in the eminent domain proceeding. So what happened here at the end of this was at the end of approximately

14 years that I have been working. In the field of slum clearance and public housing and at the time when we were on the verge of eliminating every slum in our city and providing a decent home for every family regardless of their income. At this kind of question came up and my refusal. Tended to destroy the entire program. And. It was a it was a terrible loss. We we have slums in L.A. today. We have families living in slums the Dodgers taking this as a ballpark. Because of the fact that the people are still living in the slums the families that were supposed to live there never got the houses and. This was really my introduction to civil liberties.

You have been active in any way politically per se as apart from the from from the work that you were doing. I mean you said Naturally you would have been in contact with many outside elements and forces and organizations in the work you were doing but had you yourself taken a prominent political position or part or were you particularly interested in politics as such at that time. My my interests were almost exclusively those in furthering the public housing and slum clearance program. I. Had associations with every. Thread of political thought in the community I was lives on with. All of the front groups of our city was little song with all of the church groups. I was a little song with many public officials and public agencies. This was my main work. But. I had had. Both privately and

oficial for the Housing Authority association with communists. The Communist Party during the period. When we were working to get this program started were one of the groups that support of the public housing program and we worked with and supported everybody that would go along in the job of getting our city's slums cleared. As to. Whether or not I personally was a communist or was a member of any political party. Of a radical nature. I have consistently since this particular incident that. Destroyed what I have been fighting for as my own civil liberties believes have developed have refused to answer this question not only when I call before the Un-American Activities Committee. But even in private conversations

because I feel that until such time as the First Amendment. Has been restored to full bigger. But. I cannot see myself. Answering questions of a nature which I consider In normal times to be proper. But at this time when we are trying to rid ourselves of the best Ijaz of McCarthyism I feel that they're highly improper and dangerous and tend to perpetuate the problem we're trying to overcome. When the First Amendment rights are guaranteed to all Americans and the marketplace of ideas are free and open so that all can speak that all can be heard and all can be argued against. And the open the open marketplace when the time comes that I too will answer as to exactly what my

politics are. But until that time I have refused to answer and I refuse to answer on what I consider to be. A matter of both personal conscience and principle the responsibility of which we all hold to defend our country against all enemies. And I think it's the very answering of this kind of question. Which has become one of the main factors in destroying or abusing. Taking the by telly out of the protections guaranteed our country under the Bill of Rights and particularly under the First Amendment. Did the hearing at that time and the result of it. Was that the end of the public housing thing. Did you destroy that program and where you then connect it with with other activities as a result of that going I'm not clear about.

Well the housing authority continued and continues today to exist. Seventy million dollars worth of the program was turned back. And the housing authorities program was severely emasculated and. Has Failed been unable to do the job that it is supposed to do namely to get rid of the slums of Los Angeles. I failed to answer the identical question when asked by the State Committee on Un-American Activities. I went myself them for a year. Almost totally unplayable. Because in that atmosphere in 53 if you refuse to answer the question whether or not you are a communist. You were. To. Go all practical. Measures destroyed. I could not

secure employment. I think it was a four year after this happened. At a very wonderful Quaker family in Pasadena. Who owned a store a large store. Provided me with my first first job in a years time and that was a night time janitor at sweeping out this large. Store there in Pasadena. That was the way I got my. First opportunity to earn my livelihood again. That about this time it was in the summer of 1953. I was approached by the Reverend AA Heist who had been the director of our American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles 1945 to 1952. And who on retirement had formed a new committee. To work exclusively for the abolition of the Un-American Activities Committee. This is the Los Angeles Citizens Committee to Preserve American freedoms

and Robert heist. Knowing of my background. Asked me if I would become the full time secretary of this Civil Liberties Committee. And I accepted this job. And began to put up at that point all of the energies which I had previously. Been putting into the slum clearance and public housing program into an equally strong effort. To try to restore the First Amendment. By seeing to it that the Un-American Activities Committee. Whether in the House of Representatives or the state of California or its counterparts in the various states. Or of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee the so-called Eastland Committee. All of these committees were abolished. The simple basis that they are unconstitutional by their very mandates they violate the First

Amendment. By their efforts to investigate into areas. Where the government cannot pass laws the obvious logic being that if you cannot pass a law the First Amendment proscribes in law that abridges free speech. You have no right to investigate for the passage of a law that you can't pass in the first instance. And this is why I have been brought into the field of civil liberties and I've been working both in Los Angeles for the first four years and then during the past three years I have been working nationally. Both for the Los Angeles committee and for the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee in New York. And presently I am the field representative of the National Committee. To abolish the Un-American Activities Committee. Which is chaired by Aubrey Williams. Of Montgomery Alabama. The connection in this kind of work brought me into my.

Own test of the constitutionality of the. Un-American Activities Committee because I was subpoenaed. Not just in Atlanta Georgia. That was in 1958. Yes I was going to ask you that wasn't the first time you have been subpoenaed. No I was called before the committee in 19. In. 1956. Underwriting your initial funding here in California Los Angeles under conditions quite similar. To those in Georgia. And both cases I was actively working. Developing opposition to the committee. And the Un-American Activities Committee had issued subpoenas to a number of people in Los Angeles. And we were busy I'm organizing a public meeting to protest these hearings. We were attempting to gain the

legal protections and knowledge to guide those people subpoenaed so they'd know what their rights were when called before the committee. We were placing full page ads in the Los Angeles papers in opposition the committee and in the midst of this I received a subpoena from the Un-American Activities Committee in the background on my own decision to test this matter. I think it was interesting possibly. Our American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles have for a number of years. I've. Been interested in making a test of the constitutionality of the committee. They felt that other tests that have been made in previous years were. Not of the kind that would bring before the Supreme Court clearly the issue. That either the First Amendment would be upheld in the committee would be abolished or that the person making

the test would have to. Of necessity pay years year. Sentence in prison. And with each group of subpoenas subpoenaed people that came to Los Angeles from 1953 to 1956 we visited with each of these groups pointed out to them. The desirability This is the legal desirability from the American Civil Liberties Union standpoint of making a test. And that we were unable to find anyone that was able at that particular moment to make the challenge to take the risk that was involved. Most attorneys have very little to have their clients do that for the simple reason that they're. Objective is to protect their client and the taking of the fans as that is that not true. Well I don't want to answer that too too briefly but I think that.

Essentially the legal advice has been to. Use the Fifth Amendment as not only honorable. Decision to take and. Certainly no admission of guilt from the standpoint of what the Un-American Activities Committee is talking about. But it is also all the safe. Position to take legally after the M spec and women and Bart decision of 1954. The Fifth Amendment was established by the Supreme Court at that time as an appropriate defense against this kind of invasion. But the American Civil Liberties Union lawyers. Eason Monroe the director and ale were on the attorney. I felt that it was desirable that a test be made. And so when I myself was subpoenaed. It was not a matter

of looking for anyone else to do it I. Was more than willing to make the test. I would like to emphasize that from the American Civil Liberties Union standpoint this was what might be legally described as a tactic. From my own standpoint I have insisted at all times that I do not and have not taken the stand out of some tactical. Consideration. To me it is a matter of principle. It's a matter of my right it's a matter of my conscience and my personal responsibility to take. The rights guaranteed us under the First Amendment and to use them in any way that I saw fit. The test was made in 1956. I would like to say what happened that nothing nothing happened then.

Well. We're not sure just why. The committee had the identical test made it that I was cited for in Georgia two years later. The identical test was made in Los Angeles in 1956. And you didn't take the Fifth at all. Joe I use the identical First Amendment test that was made in Georgia. And no content no photos I Haitian. The committee has argued or has stated that they were unable to cite me because Congress was not in session. This is not necessarily true because the speaker of the House of Representatives is fully able to take action inciting persons for contempt in the absence of the seating of the full House of Representatives. There's one other point about all of this which I particularly would like to express. And particularly here in Berkeley northern California. I and one of many

Americans who is. Deeply indebted to. The outstanding citizen of our country. My opinion who lives here in Berkeley I'm referring to. Professor Alexander Michael Shaw. I had not known Dr Michael John at the time that I received my subpoena but I had had the good fortune just a day or two before receiving the subpoena of having written. Having read one of his beautiful statements on the First Amendment namely his testimony before the Senate. Constitutional Rights Committee that he had made in 1955. And after I got through reading Dr. Michael Johns writings on the First Amendment. I felt that all of the searching that I have been doing since the time I left the housing authority all of this. Insecurity of

philosophical insecurity about what is right and wrong. All the questions I had in my mind were answered by the straight man's writings and I determined them that I never received a subpoena before the. From the House Committee on Un-American Activities Committee. I would stand on the First Amendment and give this committee the frontal test that they deserve. And the strange coincidence was that I read Dr. Michael Johns works. On an evening just two days before I received the subpoena or combination of the philosophical guidance and security that I received from this great American and the desire on the part of the American Civil Liberties Union from a legal technical standpoint to have someone make the test. Brought the two of us together into making the test. That when the test failed in Los Angeles and then in Georgia

this time where I had been invited into the south to. Assist Aubrey Williams the great integration leader of Montgomery and Dr. Dombrowski both the president and the director of the Southern Conference Educational Fund. The committee the Un-American Activities Committee who had come to the south to attempt to smear the white integration us in the south. And then asked me to come to Atlanta to give assistance in opposing the committee to help. Secure information for those subpoenaed as to their legal rights and to help develop opposition. And there was tremendous opposition in the south particularly from some 200. Of the outstanding Negro leaders of all the Southern states to send a petition at that time. To the House of Representatives to keep the Un-American Activities Committee out of the South. Because the difficulty

there is not just a matter of integration and carrying out the Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. Board of Education the integration of the schools. Before they can even get close to integration and many of these other states it's the problem of communication between Negro and white. And by the Un-American Activities Committee coming in there and subpoenaing a number of the white integration has this added to the pall of fear and the separation between Negro and white that was so essential if. The integration of the schools was to be secured. At this time when I was subpoenaed again I contacted. This time the National Office of the American Civil Liberties Union. Again that was their desire that the test be made and their desire that a test be made again coincided with my own convictions of exactly how I wanted to. Challenge this committee person is my own

responsibility. And so I was represented and have been represented all the way here through the Supreme Court by the American Civil Liberties Union national office by Roland Watts the National Council of the ACLU. And missed none of them bits. I was a Volunteer Counsel for the New York ACLU. And incidentally. It happens to be the niece of Justice Brandeis. And I'm very grateful to the American Civil Liberties Union nationally for the legal representation that they have given me in helping to present this test. And by helping to present it in such a way such a principled way that the issue has been drawn sharply and justices Douglass and black. And Brennan and Chief Justice Warren have been able to render these magnificent dissenting opinions. Which will become the

majority opinion in due time. I urge every. Set us on every person to read these dissenting opinions to read the. Words of Justice Black in particular. And pointing up the basic First Amendment issue that is involved here. In permitting this committee to continue its. BI elevation of the free speech and association and rights of petition that this committee continues to carry on. But which in time it shall be stopped and shall be abolished as public knowledge grows. And the concern that was expressed so passionately. By Justice Black and Douglas in the Supreme Court just three weeks ago. Will reach the conscience of the majority of the Americans and Congress itself will be able to do the

political act and responsibility. Supporting. Our California congressman Roosevelt New York's William Fitts Ryann in carrying out the job the responsibility the fundamental job that Congress must do to get rid of this committee to wipe it off in the face of the record as far as the proper constitutional functions of the Congress should be. After that Frank Wilkinson I don't think there's any need to ask you why there are not now that you are facing years imprisonment. You feel any regrets about the long road that Ted started out in that plea. I should. Say I I feel. I guess the word is. Pride.

I have been one of the many Americans who have added to this with this fight against the committee. I stated in the Supreme Court on the day this decision came down. I have very firm conviction that we will not same free speech. You know if we're not prepared to go to jail in its defense and I am prepared to pay that price. It will not be easy. I have a family. I have three children. And a year's separation will be very very difficult for me. But I believe. That it is. And was it the right thing to do. And another thing I feel. Is the growing national campaign to abolish this committee gives us such

hope that each effort each sacrifice. Each hour that any of us puts him to the work to rid the country of this committee. Will result in successful elimination and abolition of the committee. I am serenely confident that for every voice which asks for the abolition of the Un-American Activities Committee and is silenced in jail. That a thousand new voices will be raised and most significantly from what I have seen all across this nation in the past year. And particularly here in the Bay Area that many of these new voices will be this magnificent new generation of American students who I think in the long run. Together with the great great people like Dr.

Michael Shara and Justice Black it will be the combination of the medical Johns and the students of America. That ultimately are responsible for the restoration of the First Amendment to fall bigger. In our country. Thank you very much.