At Issue; 51; Quiet Conflict, Brunswick, GA

The following program is from NET. It was on this spot in 1858 that the last slave ship from Africa touched the North American continent. A century later, the vestiges of this in humanity still remain, and our civilization continues to pay the price of emancipation. The fee has been paid over many times, but finally there is hope that the payments will decrease. The ancestors of these Negro slave singers had to swim the shore.

Last summer on this same beach, the Negro citizens of Brunswick went swimming. There were no demonstrations, no riots, no violence. Just up the coast in Savannah and to the south in Jacksonville there were painful incidents. In Brunswick, NAACP members testing the civil rights law found for the most part peaceful compliance. But racial progress does not come without pressure. And come the face of the year, I executive board and all of you will plan our agenda for the year, which will include jobs, which will include appointments on boards, better improvement in our city and appointments on boards and so forth. It will include everything that we are involved in in this city. Whatever our money is involved as taxpayers, this what our agenda will consist of. And we will work that agenda diligently to try to reason together with those who in power to come to some sensible agreement that will be satisfactory for the betterment and improvement of all the people in this our community. The National Educational Television Network presents, at issue, from Brunswick, Georgia, quiet conflict.

Brunswick, Georgia, is situated in a marshy coastal area just above Florida. Lying in the heart of the deep south's black belt, its problems have been similar to those of other cities where blacks and whites have been trying to find a new way of living together. What is different about Brunswick is that the conflict has been quiet so far. The gold water sweep that took the south in November passed through here too. And in a local election last month, Brunswick's NAACP leader, Julia Caesar Hope, lost to Reggie Holtsendorf, a restaurant owner backed by the citizens council. So the questions to be asked about Brunswick are twofold.

How was the quiet desegregation achieved and will it last? Brunswick's population is 23,200, a little less than half our Negro. This has given the Brunswick Negro considerable economic leverage. Beyond this there are two moderating economic factors, tourism and big industry. Vacationers from all parts of the country travel down Route 17, some bound for Florida, others for the nearby beaches of St. Simon's, Jekyll and Sea Islands out beyond the marshes of Glen. In this same area are the factories, like Dixie, paint and varnish, and farther out the new Thiocole rocket fuel plant. Racial problems discourage both tourists and business. Even before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, most businesses, hotels and lunch counters were serving Negroes.

Glen Academy was one of the first schools in the South to be desegregated without court action instigated by Negroes. This year nine Negro children attend classes here. Most of the credit for peace and progress must go to the willingness of moderate men to take part in government and to reason together. Brunswick has had a bi-racial committee for years. Working behind the scenes, its members have felt that the best way to do things is simply to do them quietly and without publicity. The man most responsible for keeping the racial lines of communication open is City Manager Bruce Lover. He talks with Robert Squire. Mr. Lover, Brunswick's had an unusually quiet history of race relations. You've had an active NAACP here, you've had an active citizens' council. You've been the City Manager for eight years during this period.

You're the man in the middle. How have you managed to get this kind of progress in calm in Brunswick? The City Manager is not entitled to the credit or responsibility for this progress. It rests with the people in the community who have established communications and maintain communications between the races. I think this pretty much sums up the ability of Brunswick to keep down racial problems. What specific role have you had? Certainly, City Manager, my role was confined to carrying out the policies of the commission or the communities established by the City Commission. Doing so, we participated in determining these policies. We made a special trip to Albany, Georgia to study their problems, the matter in which they'd handled their racial problems in Brunswick. It came back and told our people that there seems to be two roles that lead to the same end. It's a question which role do you rather choose? A communication between the races or break off of communications and fail to talk and suffer the results they're from? For our people, very wise, what we think chose the bargaining table which resolved their racial problems.

What do you think the problem was in Albany? Well, I think basically it's a problem of communication that just seemed to be a definite lack of communication between the races and the leadership and the community. They did have communications with a sword, but it was through the third parties, without directly across the table. Now, in this natural conflict between racial integration and the status quo, the police paid a very important part. What's been the role of your force in Brunswick? Well, first of all, we think we have a very fine police department. Our police department in Brunswick has maintained an attitude of enforcing laws that own the statute books without regard to race or color of the man's skin and treating every person as a human being. And I think this is really the secret of their success in Brunswick. People say that Brunswick is divided between the come hears and the bin hears, and being here takes a long time. Mrs. Georgia Gibbs has been here for 76 years. Her father was a stevedor, and she knew these docs when Brunswick was a thriving seaport.

As a young college graduate, she helped to found the Brunswick NAACP, and she is still its treasurer. She talks with Lois Shaw. Mrs. Gibbs, what was the feeling of white people toward Negroes when you were a girl? When I was a girl, I could serve the cleaning a very good one. If Negroes had nothing to do but work, domestic work, I mean women. And if you were employed in a white family, you had illness in your home, or any trouble they would come to your rescue, and you would see the jack, medicine, food, and a doctor. But in recent years, things grew different. How different? Well, it seems if strangers came into the community after a shipyard, and when was that? You mean the year?

Well, around what time was that? About 25 years ago. And, of course, it made a little difference. You think the care is much about each other, and they're welfare. I see. Have there been any other changes in the attitude as the years have gone by? Oh, yes. The changes have come. Of course, Negro had more money, and they could build better homes, and they got cars, and they had better schools, and so everything grew better. And do you think this has changed the attitude and created more respect for the Negro? Has or created more respect for the Negroes and a better attitude, and they are thought of in a better life? How do you see that in your daily life? Well, I see in their life because of the way the people are treated. Years ago, anybody would have thought it was a terrible thing to call a Negro Mr. Omizzis. Now you get your bills from the stores, and the city is Mr. Omizzis. Has that been a recent development?

I see. Now, in the very early days of the NAACP here in Brunswick, what was your part in that? I was a treasure. I liked the treasure when the organization was really founded. And could you tell us about that time? About the finding. Well, just like most places, people have heard of people in the cities that were a little prosperous, and so when the NAACP opened that first office in Atlanta, they came to Brunswick as to see if we could build an organization here. And one night we had a meeting at the St. Paul Methodist Church, which now still exists, but remodeled. And that night we had around about 300 people coming to know, coming to see what could be done for all the Negroes. And was there a speaker there, you mean that? There was a speaker there, I don't remember just who it was,

but it was a speaker there from Atlanta. Now, was that the very beginning, was the NAACP organization? For the time we've ever had a meeting in the beginning of it, it was in October. I don't remember the date, it was in October, 1929. What happened in the ensuing years? Everybody was going to get disintegrated. But six or seven of us kept at home, and we knew what I mean kept attending the meetings and things. And we knew if we didn't get somebody who could interested people, that it would probably go down, and we asked Reverend Hope to come down meeting and when he came because our president was a minister, and he had then called another church and another city. And after a little bit of facilitation, he said he would be the president, if a Navy, and I was called, I'll say I was Navy, and he said I lived here. And if I would go with him, he would go. With the influence of Mrs. Gibbs, the Reverend Julius Caesar Hope became the leader of the NAACP in 1960.

Having been active with Martin Luther King and the Montgomery bus boycott, he was well versed in the then new techniques of nonviolence. Although things had been quiet and Brunswick much needed doing, at his campaign headquarters near the center of town, the Reverend Hope talks with Andrew Stern. Reverend Hope, what were things like when you first came to this community more than five years ago? Well, I can say I believe that the whites took silence for satisfaction. And that's about the way it was, and nobody actually had moved out to try to act for those things that actually they deserved because of the taxes that they are involved within this town. I believe that we should have representation along with taxation. What was the Negro community like at that time? Or somewhat complacent, satisfied to a great extent. That's about what it was at that time.

So what did you do? Actually, in becoming the head of the NAACP, we tried to look around to see actually what the town needed. Not the Negroes, but the town needed. And one day, so happened, the dentists had a convention on Jekyll. And in going to Jekyll Hall of, right. And we decided we'd go play a little girl. Reverend Mr. Holmes, Dr. Wilkes, and a couple others from Savannah, and some other parts. So we went over to the golf course at that high noon. And as soon as we got in there, they closed it down and said that they were watering it. And at that point, we began running through my mind that we needed some type of organization. Some organization that would move forth, that when they said it was closed, we could remain there until it opened. Until they tell us either we could use it, or we couldn't use it. Now, they told us we couldn't use it, then we had a cool case.

But if they didn't tell us anything, we just had to work with it until actually, you know, we could get some breakthrough. What happened after that? After that, we started having mass meetings every Thursday night, and we've been having mass meetings ever since. We went into action. And actually, I began checking statistics from other areas that were involved in these demonstrations and the movement and what have you. And at that point, I tried to pick out the good and leave the bad. So we decided to use the procedure of writing letters to all areas of our government, whereas we thought we should have some advantage. Some progress. We wrote to the City Commission, county commissioners, much as association, Chamber of Commerce. The chain stores. We wrote to everybody that actually, where we thought we should get some consideration. And believe it or not, we received good response from city, county, merchants.

A few was kind of slow in assering, but in a few days, we were having conferences with city commission and county commission, but just association, Chamber of Commerce and so forth. And this is the way we actually moved. What did you do with the people who were a little bit slow in responding? They finally came in, so we didn't have to do anything, actually. Well, were there any pickets or demonstrations or any violence at all in this town? How do you account for the fact that in Jacksonville and in Savannah, there was a lot of action last summer, and there was practically nothing at all here? Well, I believe the whole situation depends on how you grow about it. You see, actually in our letters, we did not demand anything at that time. We were asking for a conference that we might come together and reason together to try to wake out these problems. And I believe in order to keep down friction, violence, or what have you, is that you must have a meeting of mind.

Maybe you do not go along with something all the way, but it's going to have to be some give and some take, in order for us to move on as peaceful as possible. I believe other towns had a whole lot of problems because they did not go through any channels. They didn't have no means of communication. Maybe they didn't even try to find it a means of communication. Maybe they just decided one night that they would go out the next day and sit in. But this is not the way to do it as far as I'm concerned. I believe that wherever you think that you should have some advantage, I think you should go to that prison and try to have a conference, try to talk with the people involved, and try to wake out something. Now, when you can't wake it out after a period of time, make sure you do all you can to wake it out. But if you find out you just can't wake it out, then you have to use the next best day. And it's so happen that we didn't have to come to that point until maybe about six months ago, eight months ago, something like this. We had been involved with some stores, predominantly in Negro areas.

Living off of Negroes had about 85% Negro patronage. We had talked to them about maybe two years. They wouldn't do anything. One high in a body. So one Friday we decided we'd have to use some picket signs. And we used it for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And on the next Thursday we got some action. So that was the first time we actually had to use it for picket signs. It was a piece for picketing. No trouble, no problems. And you haven't picketed that store again. No, we haven't had. We've had the cooperation. Well now, in the November election, this town went for Senator Goldwater. And in the recent election in which you ran for the town council, you were defeated by a very narrow margin. With all of this racial peace, how do you account for these votes? Is there an active element of the White Citizens Council? Is there really a backlash against what you've been doing?

No, I don't think it's a backlash. I think it's been the only time actually. And we must understand that the only things that we have gotten, they have not come easy. We had to push for them. They didn't just give them to us. And about this Goldwater situation here in this town, those people are here. I think that we have people here just like they are in Mississippi and everywhere is actually. But the better thinking people want a town to continue to move in the right direction. So at crucial times, they usually come through. But something substantial in order that we might keep the peace and harmony in the community. Reverend Hope's opponent in the election was Reggie Holtsendorf, owner of the Passport Club. When the Civil Rights Act was passed, Mr. Holtsendorf chose to defy the spirit of the law. What was formerly the salad bowl of public restaurant became this private club. Although Mr. Holtsendorf had originally agreed to participate in this program,

at the last minute he decided to go hunting instead. In an earlier interview, Mr. Holtsendorf said that what some people call racial progress is not progress at all. He felt that converting the salad bowl into a private club had not only given him the privilege of choosing his customers, but that the tone of exclusivity had attracted a better quality clientele. He was somewhat vague about his plans as a member of the City Commission, but he did say he'd like to see some improvement in the climbing industry. In his campaign, Mr. Holtsendorf had the unqualified endorsement of Brunswick's Citizens Council. Vice President of the Council and a close advisor to Mr. Holtsendorf is Bill Williams, who has the local franchise for easy living homes. Mr. Williams, you're the Vice President of the Glen County Citizens Council. What's the purpose of this organization? The same purpose that mankind has had since time began.

And I believe that I can best I'm stripped by giving you one of our application cards, and not from a facetious standpoint, but sincerely inviting you to consider becoming a member. I think it would be good for you and good for the place you came from. Would it be possible for you to capitalize for some of the things that the questions and answers on this card to give us an idea of your purposes and goals? Yes, sir. We don't agree. We do not agree in any manner at all that our federal government is today a federal government of the people, for the people, and by the people. And we think that's wrong. And our goal is simply to return government to the people. What's the relationship between the Council here in Brunswick and the other white citizens' councils around the South? Is there a relationship, are you part of a general movement, or is this an independent organization? To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a white citizens' council.

I do believe that some years ago, Mr. Hargis Hargis, or this fellow from Tennessee, formed something called white citizens' council down around Miami. I don't believe they even exist anymore. And if they do, certain that we have no connection with anything other than the national organization. Headquarters in Jackson, Mississippi. How was this council formed, the one that he's here in Brunswick? I'd rather you'd ask why was it formed? The how simply gets to the mechanics out of it, and I think it goes a little deeper than that. The citizens' council came into being because of what we considered mistreatment by our governor of the honorable George C. Wallace of Alabama. That was sort of the trigger. Actually, the causes are much deeper than that, of course. That was only the surface cause, the excuse, you might say. The citizens' council in Glen County came about because of dissatisfaction

on the part of the majority of the population with a status quo. We simply don't agree that our government is conducting our affairs in the proper manner. Now, on the local level, some of the officials of this town have called what's been going on between the races here, a kind of progress in racial relations. How do you feel about this in the council? Do you feel it's good or bad, or, and if so, what are your reasons? Well, even Webster, you know, provides us with sentin' them, sentin' thems and an animes and this and that and the other. You can't place any interpretation you want on anything. No, I don't agree it is good and I don't believe it is could properly be called progress. I think it could more properly be called surrender or appeasement. I think it could more, even more properly be called evasion. I don't think they have squarely up to the issues. Now, you're a citizen either side. You're a citizen and a businessman in Brunswick.

Since you disagree with how things are going in terms of how they've run at the city level. And if you had your choice and could produce a kind of model pattern of racial relations in Brunswick, how would you organize it? What would you propose? Of course, you're speaking now of utopia. Such a thing will never exist. But the ideal for my standpoint could best be termed evolution. I'll leave things to the natural course of events. I don't believe in compulsion, Mr. Squires. I don't believe in compulsion on my part, your part or the third part is part. I don't think that we can live a compulsion. Human emotion is not something that you can grab and control and direct at your will. It's something that you live with, you adapt to. And you let it grow because of its surroundings. I don't believe that we have ever had any bad racial situation in Brunswick or in Ben County. The ultra-liberal press will grab on to any sort of incident and play it up out of all proportion

to make the entire area look like one great big hoodlum element. And this is simply not true. This is simply not true. Left to their own devices, I'm convinced that the colored people in Brunswick are the entire country for that matter. And the white people will work out a solution to their problems automatically, simply because they want to, simply because this is a nature of things. But when the federal government, or by the Kennedy, or any of his ilk, start to interfere and by compulsion, try to control human emotion. This is simply contrary to everything that nature has decreed. And I don't think we can afford to try to live that way. It's one thing to have an automated society from a standpoint of manufacturing goods and masses of goods, but you don't run the human mind in that manner, much less the human heart.

Now, finally, you're a supporter of Mr. Holsendorf in the recent election for the City Council. How do you think this, the election of Mr. Holsendorf by a 600 vote majority, will affect matters involving relations between the races here, especially these matters as they come now before the City Council? Mr. Squires, I could talk all night and never get through telling you how I feel about that election. Certainly I was and I'm a supporter of Mr. Holsendorf. And some people professed surprise at the outcome of this election. Mr. Squires, it came as no surprise to me at all, it was planned that way. The election result was exactly what it should have been and it was caused, it just didn't happen. Now, the result will be that for the first time in a number of years, anybody, not just a colored person, but anybody approached in the City Council meeting with a complaint or request or petition or what happened, will be able to receive a clear cut straight on an action where it's not necessary.

No more evasion, Mr. Squires. No more beating around the bush. No more promises and broken promises. Now, we get honest, personal integrity in every walk of our government, and it will sit at level. You mentioned that the election was planned this way, that it wasn't an accident. This leads me to ask you, how has this done? What are the mechanics for the plan? The organization, a hard work by dedicated people who believe as we do. A break in Brunswick's racial peace would be felt most severely by the many businessmen who rely on tourism. Al Promutter reports from Jekyll Island. Tourism is vital to Brunswick. For years, the nearby beaches of St. Simon's, Jekyll and the Sea Islands have brought vacationers and money. They have served as a playground for the rich and have grown as a resort and tourist attraction. In the past, restaurants and hotels here have served only whites and in some places only white Gentiles, but there have been changes.

Since the signing of the Civil Rights Bill in July, most rooms and restaurants have been open to all. Not everyone has seen fit to make use of these facilities, but when a Negro does register or enter a restaurant, there is no incident. The businessmen here on Jekyll Island are proud of their progress, but are reluctant to talk about it. Privately, they admit that the Civil Rights Law for them has been a mixed blessing. Some whites who resent desegregation stay away, but new businesses developing in the catering of conventions and parties for Negro organizations. In the background, there is talk that at some hotels a middle ground will be reached, with some rooms set aside just for the whites and others assigned only for Negro use. It is here in the islands that the progress and conflict is most quiet. The businessmen feel their progress should continue without the stimulus of publicity.

The job of making sure that tourism and all other business continue to flourish in Brunswick falls on the mayor, Dr. Joe Mercer. Having served on the city commission for a year, just before his election last January, mayor Mercer well knows the importance of racial peace to the well-being of the community. And now, with the memory of the bitter hopes and dwarf campaign still freshen people's minds, the job is even more delicate. Dr. Mercer, how has this campaign major job more delicate? Well, primarily, by bringing out a lot of submerged issues, things that have been left unsaid for a long time and that were better left unsaid, this has gelled a lot of opinion, a lot of people who have been middle of the road now have gone either to the right of the left. You might say that in my middle of the road position, I have a few more people to the right and the left and a few less with me in the middle of the road.

I'd also like to comment on the fact about the bitterness of the campaign. I think, basically, the city of Brunswick, the majority of the people in the city of Brunswick felt a good bit of concern for this campaign because they would have much preferred not to have had these candidates in the race. However, all efforts to keep from having these candidates in the race failed and when it boiled down to having these two men to choose from, no other choice to be made, then feeling was brought out that might never have been brought out had it not developed in this manner. But isn't it possibly better for the long run future of Brunswick to know exactly what these elements are and exactly what they believe? No, I wouldn't say that because, in my opinion, most of these people are people who sincerely and genuinely searching for a solution to the problems that we're faced with.

Many of them really didn't know how they felt. They were searching for the right rather than to be joined and joining into one group or another. They didn't care to be considered to the right of the left. They wanted to be middle of the road and had they not had such an issue placed before them, they might have stayed. I'll say this, I still feel that a good percentage of these people will come back to the middle of the road, especially now that the campaign is over. I think that a lot of people are ready and willing to see what Mr. Holtzendorf will do, what Coliseal take. I think then this, his activity on City Commission will be what will decide the future. Well, how do you think that the races will get along after this campaign? You've had a good history of racial peace. There are still a few problems ahead of you, for instance, the closing of the swimming pool. What's going to happen on this issue?

Well, our attitude on the swimming pools has been that as each thing developed, the officials, but not only officials, the leadership of Brunswick, tried to do everything, take it in stride according to what they felt to be right. It only follows that sooner or later something will come up that cannot be solved so easily. Our attitude has been, and as I have put it on many occasions with God's big Atlantic swimming pool out there, we've opened the beaches, there's no segregation on the beaches, that rather than to run into, set the stage where people could not be easily controlled. The swimming pools were closed, and in my opinion, I probably will stay closed until such time that it appears that they could be safely opened that would not jeopardize other far more important areas where human relations must be considered.

I might say that, so far as I'm concerned, the swimming pools, whether they are segregated or integrated, is the least of our worries, and I'd much rather have them closed and have to worry about the potential. What is your personal philosophy towards integration? You've asked me a question that's hard to state. I was born in Middle Georgia. I grew up, was educated, totally within the state of Georgia, and I'm a solano and proud of it. I believe that I have the philosophy of the vast majority of solanos. My philosophy is that there have been many wrongs that have been done that must be corrected. At the same time, we don't have to bow our heads in shame or have a sense of guilt at this.

Instead we should bend our energies toward correcting these things. At the same time, I am antagonistic to those forces who would say that we must do everything immediately. I've had people say to me, why, look now, the Supreme Court ruling has been ten years and nothing's been done. My answer to that is, Jesus Christ lived 1965 years ago, and we're still searching for the brotherhood of man. I think this is an area that we need to be working in. So my philosophy is that we need to do things on the so far as government is concerned, treating all people alike, but because something is right doesn't mean that it can be done overnight. It must be done in an atmosphere that the majority of people will accept, and if you do it in any other way, any push is going to wind up creating problems, more problems than it saw.

Mayor Mercer's modern gradualism has helped to keep the racial peace, but the power structure of Brunswick remains white. Efforts by the Negroes to enter this structure have failed as evidence by the Reverend Hope's recent defeat for a seat on the City Commission. But the Negroes are beginning to use their greatest weapon, economic leverage. This is the wedge which may force entry. A.M. Harris, Jr., is president of the First National Bank. He feels the pulse of Brunswick. Mr. Harris, the population of Brunswick is 40% Negro. How important is the purchasing power of this Negro community? I would think it is extremely important to the overall economy of our community. Has this economic power been used? Not in any major way. We've only really had one incidence of picking a boycott, and this was resolved on an amicable basis by negotiation with the parties involved. So that while it certainly is important, I don't think that either the Negro nor the White want to see it used to any degree which might cause disruption of relationships otherwise.

Could you tell us how that incident developed? There was a disagreement between an independent grocer and members of the NAACP wherein he, the grocer, was requested to employ a Negro for a specific classification of job which the White merchant didn't feel he really needed. And this was solved as I say through negotiation and the merchant himself was his own operator of his own cash register and wanted to continue to be. This incident of this kind which is isolated of course can bring on some disagreement among the races but so far all these matters have been settled on an amicable basis. Why do you think the Negro community has not used its economic power as more? I don't believe they really want to. I think that the vast majority of the Negroes in this community want to have peaceful and amicable relationships with their White neighbors. As a result of the Civil Rights Act, have you seen any changes in the structure of this community?

No, none that are noticeable. No effort has been made to a strong effort has been made to make use of facilities that the doors just naturally open to the Negroes. I think this community itself is a little bit unusual and I believe it's a law-abiding community which will comply with the terms of the Civil Rights Bill whether all features of it are tasteful or not. Is it easy for a Negro to get a good job in Brunswick? It depends primarily upon the training of the Negro. The problem has not been one of lack of willingness to hire as much as a lack of training and a lack of ability to perform a given job. I think that with education and with training more and more doors will open to Negroes and that they will have better and better jobs. Well, in regard to education, you are a member of the Brunswick Board of Education. Yes. What steps do you think can be taken to better prepare Negro students for good job opportunities after their graduation?

Well, at the present time, the same curriculum is taught in both schools, both the White schools and in the Negro schools, more and more about Negro children arguing on to college. In addition to this, probably the thing that would best help would be the establishment of a vocational school which is being planned at this time. Land has been acquired and certainly we hope within a year and a half we can't have such a school in construction here. This I think will help them more than any other one thing. What plans does Brunswick have for integration of the schools and how are they going? Well, first of all, we voluntarily integrated our schools. We integrated two years ago, the 11th and 12th grades in the Senior White High School. An effort was made by a group of white people to stop the integration. The federal courts ruled that the Board of Education had done properly in integrating the schools. And we are now operating under a voluntary plan, although with court direction and the plan is to integrate two additional grades each year until the school system is fully integrated.

The professional world of both Mr. Harris and Mayor Mercer frequently touched the world of Dr. and Mrs. JC Wilkes. A native of Pennsylvania, he brought his family here 10 years ago and will soon be moving into this new home on Jackal Island. Dr. Wilkes is the only Negro dentist in Brunswick. Dr. Wilkes, could you have built this home here 10 years ago? Mr. Stern, I want to say yes right off the bat, but I believe that in lieu of the circumstances as they exist today and as I feel about it today I'm forced to say no because of many, many factors that have transpired. Aside from the financial picture, possibly the relationship as it existed at that time, I would say no. Because the island at that time was undeveloped to say the least of Negroes residing on the island, although a section at portion of the island had been allocated for Negro development.

Well, but here again thanks to that everything has turned out as it is and this has been our dream to build on the island on beautiful Jackal Island and I think that at this point that we're both pleased about it. I think that the community is pleased about it, not from the aspect of my living on this so-called Negro in but just perhaps a reputable person living on the island who happens to be a Negro. What changed the atmosphere that made it possible for you to move here? I wish that I could say here again Mr. Stern that the influence was directly one of congeniality but I feel as though it was not. My wife of course was the prime factor but aside from that I think that during our professional training we all put little pieces together on statistics that we gather on chambers of commerce and here and there, schools, churches. And to say the least of the income medium of the community as it exists but aside from that there's also the factor of environment in terms of climate.

And it just so happens that I liked this climate and I think that as the white man says in any number of instances he likes or he chooses to look out because of the climate why shouldn't I? Have you ever thought of moving somewhere else? I'm sure you've had offers to go back North. Yes Mr. Stern this has entered my mind early in my practice here in Brunswick. I was dissolutioned perhaps I was upset frustrated almost to the point. I can recall that I was all set to pack my family up and move thank goodness that I did not. But since then my philosophy has changed. Since I've got to know the people in the community and I think that the people in the community have learned to know me things have turned out to be very, very nice and I wouldn't want to leave now for anything. You're an administrator of the federal and city housing projects and also a very active member of the Brunswick Human Relations Council.

Can you tell me how this council works and what contributions it's made to racial peace? Yes I think the Glen Council on human relations has contributed greatly toward the desegregation of the school, the lunch counters, recreation facilities in Glen County. At first we were criticized for just being a tea and coffee sift group with cookies but I think this was necessary in the very beginning to overcome the social barriers between the Negro and White in the community. The Negro and White I think was afforded an opportunity to sit down and talk. This our organization the Glen Council on Human Relations is the first completely integrated council in Glen County. There are two other biracial committees, one of the biracial committees set up by the local branch and also the biracial committee of the ministerial alliance but they composed of men but the council on human relations are composed of both men and women, Negro and White.

So we are very proud to have a completely integrated group in Glen County. Now what kinds of things has this council done? Well as I said we have assisted the in the desegregation of the recreation facilities in schools and library here. And as I said we have also integrated socially, well maybe that might be a bad word socially but we have been invited to the homes of White members of our council and we have invited to our homes. We have entertained them at dinners and we have been invited by them to be entertained at their homes. Has this caused any kind of a commotion in the town of Brunswick?

None that I have heard of. Has it ever happened that you've invited some White people to your home and they refuse to come? No they have never refused. However it was one incident when one of our members was very apologetic in that she was not able to invite us to her home because of her neighbors but I told her to have no fear that she was always invited to our home. Well now as part of your work in the housing administration you have been involved in the new urban renewal project. And is there any possibility that this project will in the end cause more segregation and integration? Yes I am very much concerned about the relocation of Negro families. The Negro families and the White families are moving out of the urban renewal areas. The White families are moving into White subdivisions and Negroes are moving into all Negro subdivisions. Now one thing if something could be done about it and that both the Negroes and White would be relocated in a community in the urban renewal area.

If something isn't done about this soon I'm afraid we will definitely have separate communities all Negroes and all White. Is this going to interfere with a lot of the good work that's been done here the last four or five years? Well I think it definitely will because in Glen County we have been very thankful that Negroes and White have been living side by side. Consequently I think that has contributed to the good relations as I said of the Negroes and White and Glen County. Now this would also create a further problem in the world of education where I think you have some very personal relations. Very definitely they are building a new Negro junior high school and well I shouldn't say Negro junior high school it is a junior high school. However it will be in a Negro neighborhood and I'm afraid it will to be an all Negro high school junior high school. Now in the field of education we are we feel a different definite kindred spirit to this educational movement here because our son was one of the students that integrated the Glen Academy high school.

Of course this was an adjustment on our part and his part because we have now a different perspective on this integration movement because we are immediately involved. However we do believe that the adjustment that our son has made in the school has made him a better boy and more adjusted which I think will help him. It's a long way from the Wilkes's new home on Jekyll Island to the 1880 home of Mrs. Anne Morris in the center of Old Brunswick. Her ancestors in this part of the country go back to the early 1700s everything that was and is the south was seen by this family including the very real changes of recent years. Mrs. Morris is an active member of the Brunswick Human Relations Council and last month became the godmother to the Wilkes's new baby. How did you happen to become the godmother of the Wilkes baby?

Well they just asked me and I accepted with pleasure. The Wilkes and I have become quite good friends since we have both been members of the Human Relations Council and so that's how it happened. Does the Human Relations Council have a real value here do you feel? Yes I think it does not perceptibly really but the main thing is in establishing lines of communication between the races and there has never been anything like that before not on an equal level between the white people and the Negro people. I think it's been why it's a small a very small membership but it has been valuable. Do you feel that it's changed your views at all or have your views changed during your life here?

Well I think the first time that I was conscious of this was when I went up to my daughter's graduation from Vassa in 1946 I believe it was. She was living in a cooperative house where the girls helped with the various chores around and when I went up for the commencement she wound me ahead of time and said now this Negro girl is a good friend of mine I want you to be treated just the same as the other girls so I was careful to do that. When we were introduced there and had a few little pleasantries and then she wandered off and went into the drawing room and was strumming on the piano. I went in and watched her and tried to make a little conversation with her but she was very uncommunicative and seemed like she didn't want to have anything to say to me at all and I had the feeling that she thought I was patronizing her which I didn't mean to at all. But I think one can in trying white people trying I think they can be too nice really.

After generations of paternalism most white southerners still must learn to deal with the Negro as an equal. So too the southern Negro must learn his rights and the uses of power. Every Thursday night the Reverend Hope conducts a mass meeting in his church. After the election we saw men crying ladies boys and girls crying our hearts broken very sad. You had a right to be sad for your father good fight. You know it is always hard to lose something which you want so badly and when you lose it it just you know I don't have no been as smiling when I lose. Just like the next day I was downtown and one of the white gentleman acts said to me the Reverend says if I was you last night says I would have told the newsman or the radio man the announcer to wait until tomorrow morning before I would make a statement because I could tell myself that she was a little upset and I turned to him and says you right I was upset. These same people actually which we as Negro spin our money and cause them the right and calculate cause and fly in airplanes and have wall of all coffees and televisions in every room.

But these same people whom we are keeping alive and have been keeping alive for all these years spinning our mothers with them. These same people could not find the time to show good faith by voting for a Negro not a Negro but a qualified Negro who was trying to represent all the people. So actually that's the reason I was a little upset day to two just because of that I was a little upset but this showed us one thing you showed us one thing you know the gentleman told the story of the Nate says there was a frozen snake on the ground. A frozen snake on the ground with frozen almost a day and this man walked by and he picked him up and he had compassion on him and he put him in his bosom and the snake began to warm up. And after a while after he had warmed and thought up and got himself together and moved around within the bosom of the man we found that the snake ripped the man.

Did he stuck his head out of the man's shirt and his cloak and looked up at him and licked his tongue out at him and the man says oh snake says you know I was very kind until you was freezing to death and I saved your life. Why did you treat me so mean and the snake replied in so many words using your imagination now he says that amen the snake replied to him says now you knew I was a snake all the time. Now we have some good whites in this community but you see the majority of them here and everywhere else we know what they've been doing all these years. So while food I said the only thing that we are going to have to do and the only thing that we can do to win an election here in this day is that we must put more negroes on the books than white folk.

But we're not we're not trying to scare anyone but from now on what we are going to do while we are building up this voter registration what we are going to do we are going to determine who go in city hall and who come out of city hall. So once you all know just because we lost the election my heart wasn't broken I've been losing and winning all my life you see I've been up and I've been down all of my life you see there's no big thing for me to have dark days for see my history and the history of my four parents and your four parents are days of darkness of days when we wait for the white men all day for just a little pot liquor you see what I'm saying. And we wait for a whole lot of other nothing living in shacks we're drained in the house and all this kind of thing and we've been done this all of our days and tear truth to logic said we're still in slavery because in a whole lot of places even around here we have some negroes making 75s in an hour you see that just like pot liquor just like pot liquor.

So we don't need to feel bad and sad see we used to this kind of thing we used to being mistreated but this is what we must understand just because we are mistreated and misused and just because we are booted and scorn we ourselves cannot move in that same category see what just because a man hate you and you begin hating that man then if you begin hating the man you become just like the man. So what I'm trying to say evil evil or guess evil cannot correct evil but you must have evil over against love and once you have evil over against love love will always win out. You heard you're saying somebody says that truth crush to the ground will rise again. You can't keep that which is good down you can't keep love down to save your life.

You can't keep right down to save your life and I want to tell you this one thing one day and won't be long we will have a city commissioner on the city commission here in Brunswick, Georgia. It will probably be some time before the Reverend Hope or any other Negro is elected to the city commission but the people of Brunswick, Georgia are slowly resolving their quiet conflict. Their progress toward integration while not spectacular has been achieved with a rare degree of dignity and dignity and racial matters has been rather scarce in the South during the last decade. Men like city manager Bruce Lovern or Mayor Joe Mercer may not like integration but their commitment to reason has prevailed thus far. Men like Bill Williams or Reggie Holtsendorf have a commitment to the past the last bitter efforts of such men could still touch off acts of violence. But the fact that Reggie Holtsendorf defeated the Reverend Hope for a seat on the city commission does not mean that Brunswick citizens want the citizens council.

Many Brunswick politicians felt that a white moderate would have won the election without trouble. The white moderates will no doubt continue to make the major decisions they have faced a real conflict and acted with wisdom if not passion. Robert Penn Warren has written if the South is really able to face up to itself and its situation it may achieve identity moral identity. Then in a country where moral identity is hard to come by the South because it has had to deal concretely with a moral problem may offer some moral leadership. Brunswick, Georgia is headed in the right direction. Brunswick, Georgia is headed in the right direction.

This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.