Change Through Education

By Ray Marshall

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 1-6

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Change Through Education” was the theme of the 1988 Annual Meeting of the Southern Regional Council, held in November in Atlanta. The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. Ray Marshall, president of the Southern Labor Institute, vice president of the Southern Regional Council, chairman of the National Action Council for Minority Achievement, professor of economics and public affairs at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor. His edited remarks appear below.

QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL OF OUR people is the single most important problem that the country faces. We have great difficulty getting quality education, but if we don’t it is going to cause us a great deal of trouble, not only the trouble in individual lives which we are already having but also a lot of trouble for the country, a continuation of our decline. If I had to bet, I would bet that that is what we are going to do.

Quality education is especially critical today because fundamental shifts have occurred in the economy in which most U.S. workers earn their livings.

We are losing our competitiveness in the international arena. It is in the high techs as well as the smoke stacks. Our real wages were lower in 1988 than they were in 1973. Our income distribution is more unequal than at any time since we have been keeping numbers. That is a very serious matter.

One of the things that we did in this country and in other industrialized countries after the period of industrialization was to change the income distribution. Preindustrial income distribution was like a pyramid-a few people at the top, most people at the bottom. Industriali-

---

Page 2

zation and democracy made income distribution more like a diamond than a pyramid-most people in the middle.

That strengthens democracy.

The economic system that produced this change was able to use the abundant natural resources of this country within a mass production system that was based on one principle economies of scale. We were able to improve our standard of living easily because of economies of scale which made possible by a large internal American market using our abundant resources.

When the system broke down during the 1930s, we coupled it with Keynesian economics to keep it going. The big problem in the 1930s was that we knew how to produce a lot more stuff than we could sell. The basic idea behind the New Deal was to put some money in people’s pockets so that they could buy the output of all that industry, making possible a higher standard of living. Then we coupled that with unionization of the plants where you were getting this economy of scale and the right of people to organize and bargain collectively, causing the non-union industries to treat their people better than they would have otherwise. A lot of working people got middle-class living standards for the first time. Therefore we got this diamond-shaped income distribution.

During the 1970s and 1980s, income distribution is becoming more like an hourglass. We are polarizing, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That is not good for democracy.

Workers particularly are a lot worse off. All you have to do is isolate particular groups of workers to see the extent to which that is the case. I think you can make the case that the democratic system is strained by polarization of income distribution. I guess it was Franklin Roosevelt who said we would not have enduring prosperity in this country unless all of our people shared in it. I think that still is the case. Most people do not share in the benefits of the system. Eighty percent are worse off now than they were in 1973. In a nutshell, part of what has happened is political, the trend to make it hard for workers and low-income people to use the political system to maintain this diamond-shaped income distribution. That is what the conservative trend is about. Lower-income people with limited economic power historically have been able to use their political power to change the situation. In recent years the ability to use the political system to offset economic weaknesses has diminished a great deal, though there is more to it than just politics.

Fundamental changes are underway in the world’s economy that greatly alter the way we have to do business if we really want to change income distribution and we really want people to have relatively good incomes. Instead of economies of scale and the easy improvements in our standard of living which that made possible, we now have to be a lot more concerned about competitiveness and productivity and quality and adaptability and adjusting to change. In other words, the days of easy improvements in our standard of living are over. We have had easy improvements because we had all these natural resources. Natural resources are, now relatively unimportant. Technological changes have broken the connections between natural resources and output.

---

Page 3

Economies of scale depended heavily on a monopoly on the internal market. We had the American market all to ourselves which meant that we could produce lots of cars or whatever and could build up such output that we could improve our standard of living relatively easily. We have lost that. Internationalization means that we no longer even have the American market. Our ideological commitment to free trade means that we are no longer willing even to use that market to cause other people to open their markets. Therefore our competitors, like the Japanese, are able to have the second-largest market all to themselves and get economies of scale and hit our market, which we no longer have to ourselves. They have a strategy, in other words, and we do not. We have a passive policy, they have an active policy.

There is even more to it than that. New technology means that spreading output over large physical units-producing a million units with the same plant and therefore reducing the cost per unit-is no longer economically and technologically viable. We now have technology that makes possible flexible manufacturing and targeted markets. At a Ford plant I went through some months ago, they have different products coming down the line. That would have been impossible twenty years ago. Now they tell a computer to make some red ones and some green ones. They do not have to retool. They reprogram. That is a very different way to produce. That whole production system requires that we do things differently than in the past.

Another reason that previously we were able to get relatively easy improvements in our standard of living was what economists call interindustry shifts. Many of us probably improved our income by moving out of agriculture and into urban manufacturing. Personally, I was born in north Louisiana in an area that had very low productivity; I am one of the few people born in the twentieth century that also lived in the nineteenth, because it was very low income. The movement into manufacturing improved everybody’s standard of living. Now the movement is out of high value- added manufacturing and into services. In other words, the interindustry shifts are now against us.

So what is the way out? The only way we are likely to be able to maintain relatively high incomes is to have a high-quality work force. This production system requires people to be well-educated and well-trained and in very different ways. The essence of our problem is that we are having to adjust from a system that was very different into one where we do not know exactly what to do. We do not know how it works its way out. What we do know is that education will be a very important determinant of our ability to move out of that system.

Essentially the information technology has made mass amounts of information available to us. Unless we know what to do with it, it is not doing us any good. We have to learn to analyze information, to think, to solve problems, to deal with change, to learn, to communicate with great precision. We have to have people who can be innovative and creative in order to be able to deal with this system. That is the essence of our challenge.

THE OLD SYSTEM of education was a dual system. It was a two-track system. It did not cause us too much damage in the mass-production, goods-producing world. You had one system for the elite.

They had the elite schools, elite families, elite jobs, elite learning systems. Those people were taught to think and to be creative. They had good teachers and small classes and did traveling.

Then you had the system for most of us. In fact, the mass production system was imposed on the schools. The assumption was that you did not have to think to put bolt number thirty-five on the left rear wheel. You were taught to do routine things. You were taught by rote, not to deal with change. The basic idea behind the system was to get some low-paid teachers-and that is the reason we started using women-who would be blue-collar workers in the system, and then you would get some men to run the system like you do a factory. They would be the elites. The basic idea was to turn out a standardized product that could go to the fields and go into the factories.

Now, it is a false assumption that that you can continue to have one system for the elites and another system for the rest of us-that is the really important challenge we have to face. The only way to keep a world-class economic system–and to strengthen the democratic system–is to see that all

---

Page 4

of our people have quality education. Not just the elites.

That is the basic case.

WHEN YOU SAY that education is a requirement to be world-class, and that education has been important and improves people’s condition, some will immediately say, “Nonsense, we have always had people who have been well-educated.” When I was responsible for the Job Corps, 20 percent of the high school graduates coming in were still illiterate. Therefore how can you say they’re educated? The first thing you have to recognize is that there is a difference between schooling and education. Education is ideas, skills and knowledge, and not time that you spend in the school.

When we think about education, we must think about all of the learning systems that go with the school. One is the family. One of the reasons that family income is the greatest predictor of educational achievement is because some families can be efficient learning systems and some cannot. Poverty does not cause you to have an efficient learning system. Therefore the presence of poverty hurts learning, which is why interventions like the Women Infants and Children program and Headstart can compensate for the inefficiencies in poor learning systems, poor families.

One of the false distinctions we make is between health and education. Education improves health. People’s ability to think, to make decisions, to read, to appropriate health technology will make it possible to improve their condition. One of the greatest predictors of dropout is the birth weight of babies when they are born. We can assign a probability that it is going to cause higher dropouts. The education of the mother has a lot to do with the education of the children. All the early childhood work suggests that the kind of education and nurturing young children get will determine the ability of those children The main point of that is a lot of kids are behind because they come from poor families when they start to kindergarten. Therefore we have to think of overcoming that with interventions that improve health. Probably the best way to break the inter-generation of poverty is to concentrate on the education and the health care of the mothers, so that they can then do a better job of educating their children. A lot of your basic learning traits, I am told by the experts in this matter, are fixed by the time you are three to five years old. So if you have not had a good learning experience up until then, you’re likely to be in big trouble.

Little kids come into this world as expert learners. They are little scientists. They are busily stating hypotheses and checking them and getting the data and learning is fun. They are very efficient at it. Something happens when we get them into first grade that tends to make it un-fun. It makes it hard and no longer challenging.

Another important learning system is communities-the reinforcing that kids get. Some kids come into the world being told by their families that they are smart, that they can learn, that they are programmed for success. Poor kids come into this world programmed for failure. They will tell you you cannot learn. They will track you when you get into first grade if you are the wrong color. They will call you things like, “educable mentally retarded.” Therefore you communicate to the kid that you cannot learn and therefore

---

Page 5

we will keep you here, we will give you schooling, but we will not give you education. Then you get the reinforcement of that from the community structure, whereas the elites get reinforcing that they can make it, they are smart, they are destined for the elite work.

One of the most important learning systems that tends also to perpetuate the elitist system is the corporate classroom. There are eight million students in American corporations. Corporations spend $220 billion on them. About eighteen companies will now give you a degree. The main people who get those learning chances in those corporations are white males. The least chances go to black males and the middle chances go to women, black, white or brown. Tony Carnivales the director of the American Society of Training and Development says that eighty-five percent of what we need to know in order to improve our incomes during our lives comes from work.

Therefore we need to think of all these learning systems.

IN SPITE OF THE FACT that we have had a two-tier system, education has always been an important cause of improvements in income and standard of living. But it is becoming even more important. In this new kind of world that we are in, it will no longer be possible for a person with relatively little education to make a good living. We will no longer get economies of scale. People will no longer be able to go to work in the big factory or get a highly-unionized job that will pay a middle-class income even if they only have six years of schooling. In this kind of world education becomes much more important than ever before. Why? Part of it is the internationalization of the economy which puts a premium on productivity and quality and ability to adapt to change. Part of it is the competitiveness of the international economy.

What does competitiveness mean? It means to me, unlike most economists, how we operate in such a way that will make it possible for us to maintain and improve our incomes. To most economists maintaining income is not important. It is how do you clear your markets that is important. We have cleared our markets since the early 1970s by cutting our income. We have put everything on sale and have lowered real standards of living as a result of that. We have delayed the cut during the 1980s with heavy debt. Since 1980 the debt per worker in the United States has gone up from about $6,500 to $18,000. In 1985 the average worker was owed $1,000 dollars by foreigners. Today we owe foreigners about $5,000 per worker. And the amount we owe is rising rapidly.

In a different context that means that since 1980 we have improved our consumption per worker in this country by $3,500 to $4,000. We have improved our production per worker just over $1,000. Where did we get the rest? We borrowed it and we used up our capital. We are eating our seed corn. We have delayed the reductions in our standard of living which will come unless you can figure out some way of never having to pay your debts. When we start paying, we are going to take the rest of the cut that we need in order to maintain our standard of living.

There is only one way to avoid it. You either cut your standard of living or you improve your productivity, improve your quality, improve your ability to adapt to change and to innovate.

It comes down to being able to develop and use the leading edge technology. Why? Technology is in two categories. One is standardized. Technology really means ideas, skills and knowledge embodied in equipment. The equipment is unimportant. We destroyed Germany’s equipment but they came back because the thing that was really important was ideas, skills and knowledge. Once we perfected the manufacture of the automobile that standardized technology will seek out low wages. It will not be done in a relatively high-wage country. It becomes a commodity it can be exported. Therefore what we have to do in order to improve our income and maintain it is to constantly be innovating which means to have people who can develop and use the leading edge technology. We also have to have supportive public policies. How are we doing with respect to all of that? Not very well. We have probably the best top half of the work force of any major industrial country and the worst bottom half of the work force of any major country. It is the bottom half that we have to concentrate on that will cause us trouble.

Why do we have the best top half? We have the elite schools. Our colleges and universities are still world-class though we can lose that if we aren’t vigilant. We still have a technological lead and since you learn by using the technology we have been able to benefit from that. We have benefited from the immigration of well-trained, well-educated people into the United States when we were the highest standard of living country in the world. We are now about fifteenth in our real wages. We have a much lower standard of living than Sweden, Switzerland and Germany therefore we cannot expect to enrich our pool by pulling on people from those countries.

The bottom half is the way it is because most of our schools are mass production schools. Racism and elitism perpetuate this system. We have undemocratic public policies and the most challenging of these things besides trying to root out racism and discrimination is that we probably have the poorest school-to-work transition system of any industrialized country. That is where most minorities are located. Since minorities are a rising proportion of our total work force it is a very serious problem for the country. Half of our youth is not college-bound. Twenty million young people. We spend about $5,000 on each one of our college students and almost nothing on the people who are not college-bound.

What we need to do of course is to reform the system. School reform is very important and since that is well understood I will not say a lot about it except that the key to reform is to get good teachers, give them status and pay, give them the freedom to teach, and give them the resources to figure out what needs to be done. Just like we need to reform our factories and management systems in order for them to be more competitive.

THEN WHY DON’T we? A lot of myths keep us from doing it.

An important myth is that we can make it with a two-tier education system, that we do not have to give quality education to all of our people because we never have and we have done all right in the

---

Page 6

past, so why should we do it now.

The bottom line is this. In this economy people will either be assets or liabilities. Uneducated, untrained, unhealthy people will be a liability. Trained, educated, healthy, motivated people will be an unlimited asset. We cannot afford poor education; it is no longer a moral question.

Another reason you cannot make it with two-tier systems is that this technology is unique. The information technology is ubiquitous. It will be everywhere. You will not escape it. The idea that somehow you can go into services and you will not need it does not realize that the information technology will be used in the services as well as in any other place. I think we have a lot of work to do to convince people that we need quality education for all of our people.

The second myth that we have to deal with is equally pervasive in this country and has deep roots. It is that educational achievement is mainly due to innate ability and some kids cannot learn. Therefore, why try? We have had polls where people really believe that. All of the scientific evidence is that anybody can learn. It is mainly hard work that causes educational achievement not innate ability. I think the evidence of that is so overwhelming that we ought not to have to spend a lot of time on it.

The third myth that will cause a lot of trouble is from a lot of my colleagues in higher education who will make the following argument: They will say, “In a highly competitive world we cannot sacrifice excellence for equity. In order to maintain our position of excellence we cannot have quality education for everybody.”

That is a very serious error and very dangerous for a variety of reasons. One, everybody can learn so the whole idea that excellence is incompatible with equity is a false dichotomy. The only way you can argue that is to argue that some people cannot learn. There is no evidence for that. Second, a failure to provide quality education will cost the elites dearly. It will also cost the country dearly. They diminish their own quality of life by failing to deliver quality education for everybody. Educated people themselves will actually not be very well educated if they are elitist. A person who is a racist has a serious literacy problem and is not well educated. Therefore we owe it to those people to help educate them. A multicultural, multiracial society has tremendous advantages. It also has serious problems. The advantages are higher quality of life, greater prosperity, stability, creativity which is one our strong suits. The downside is racial and ethnic conflict, prisons, using up a lot of our resources in order to try and preserve the peace and therefore to greatly diminish the quality I think it is also terribly important for everybody to see that we are in this together in this country. Regardless of whether you accept my moral values you have to accept of making the proposition of making a virtue of necessity. We are a multicultural, multiracial society. We are not going to change that. Therefore we had better do everything we can to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives of that. We are like a team. If some members of our team cannot play then we are going to be in trouble. Therefore I conclude that we will not have educational excellence without educational equity.

The fourth of these arguments is that it costs too much to provide educational equity. Well I can demonstrate to you and anybody that wants to debate is that it costs you too much not to. It costs us like $30,000 to $35,000 to keep somebody in the Texas state prison system. Ninety percent of our inmates are illiterate. We could make them literate for a lot less than $30,000 a head. I figure I could make them literate for less than a thousand. Therefore it is just bad business not to do that.

We have to overcome the mentality that sees the price of everything but the value of nothing. We have to cause people to see that this is an investment, not a cost. Therefore we will make money on the deal. We have made money on the deal investing in our education.

The fifth of these arguments is, “All right you’ve convinced me,” some people will say. “Therefore let’s make some marginal changes in the school system and that will solve the problem.” You will not do it. Marginal changes by definition will be neutralized. We have got to make radical changes in the system, not marginal changes. The system we have got is geared to the plantation and the large mass-producing industry. It’s as obsolete as those are. Therefore we need to change it. Finally, some people will say, and this is one of the hardest to overcome politically these days, they will say, “All right maybe you have convinced me but we do not really have any choices. We have got to live with the system. You cannot change the system. It is too deeply entrenched. Therefore nothing works. You cannot get an intervention that is really going to have any effect on anything.” Then you will have people tell me what I believe to be the truth. We hear all of these exemplary programs. We also hear all about the exemplary schools. I have yet to see an exemplary school system anywhere in the country. Therefore our challenge is how do we translate these exemplary interventions into systemic changes that will really make a difference.

I think we could do that. I also believe that it is not true that none of these interventions work. We can cite all kinds of interventions. I have mentioned the WIC, Headstart, Job Corps, Creative Rapid Learning System, the G.I. Bill of Rights which got me educated. Some people say, “See what happened when we did that.” It was one of the best investments we ever made in this country and our people. We are running into all kinds of exemplary interventions. Things do work. You can change the system. Therefore we ought to go about it.

Flag Waving Down South. How Long?: Battling an ‘Inappropriate Display’

By Earl T. Shinhoster

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 12-13

[Editor’s Note:]On February 2, 1988, fourteen black legislators were arrested in Alabama as they symbolically attempted to scale a fence to remove from the dome of the state capitol the Confederate flag which flies there. The resulting misdemeanor convictions are being appealed, but the incident brought into focus renewed efforts to remove symbols of slavery and segregation from public places. In the essays below, various Southerners speak their minds about the meaning and significance of this controversial symbol.

The Confederacy lives in the hearts and minds of the people of the Southland and the United States of America. Symbols are hard to die and harder still to demystify. In March 1987, the delegates to the Southeast Region NAACP Leadership Conference, meeting in Greenville, S.C., passed a resolution calling for the removal of the Confederate battle flags that fly atop state capitol buildings in Alabama and South Carolina and the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the official state flags in Mississippi and Georgia. The NAACP views the continued present display and misuse of the Confederate battle flag as an act of defiance and resistance of a defeated cause and vanquished philosophy. This symbol, the captured Confederate battle flag, is said to be the symbol of a people who fought against tyranny and for independence. That it represents the heritage and culture of the Southland and flies today as a tribute and memorial to those who sacrificed their lives for a cause. Indeed, the War of Rebellion–the Civil War between 1861-1865, was nothing short of America’s own holocaust. Over 600,000 men in gray and blue gave their lives. One of every four Southern white males between the ages of 18 and 40 died.

Historians disagree over the causes of secession and the war. Some suggest that the war was fought over the issue of Southern independence from a tyrannical majority, while others suggest that the issue was preservation of the Union. Regardless, the question of African slavery and the economic advantages and disadvantages created by the “peculiar institution” is interwoven into any full discussion of the war’s causes. In fact, the course of the war was greatly affected by the presence and role of the African slaves and free Africans in the South and North.

The Civil War has been over for 125 years, yet the spirit of the Confederacy lives in the hearts and minds of many–fueled by the constant reminder of Confederate flags that fly as expressions of public policy and that are waved as symbols by racists and white supremacists. This is an inappropriate display and misuse of the “captured

---

Page 13

battle flag” of the Civil War. The legislative history dealing with the return of the captured battle flags of the Confederacy and Union, dating back to the administrations of Grover Cleveland in 1888 and Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, envisioned the resumed Confederate battle flags to be placed in historical societies or state museums–places appropriate for memorialization–not incorporated into official state flags, run up flagpoles or to enrich trinket makers. The current use of the Confederate battle flags is more in line with the ideology of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest who, ignoring General Robert E. Lee’s request at Appomattox to furl and surrender the battle flag, unfurled [it as a part of the] organization of the Ku Klux Klan.

This odious symbol of a bygone era [was revived] as an act of defiance and resistance against the United States Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the resultant movement toward equality of rights and opportunities for African-Americans and actualization of constitutional guarantees of freedom and justice for all Americans. When public policy is aligned and embedded with the philosophy and symbols of defiance, then all institutional policies and actions are tainted by the perversion of the lost cause.

Governors, political leaders, white and, yes, some black and many honest and sincere citizens, view our campaign to remove Confederate flags from official state flags and those which fly over state capitols as divisive and exacerbating racial tensions. Moreover, it is suggested that other priorities focusing on human needs and concerns are more compelling today. There is no question but that the NAACP is vigorously pursuing an agenda which encompasses more than this single issue. Daily, our branches struggle with survival issues and advancement concerns. Yet, we are convinced that in the area of human relations, no single act could have a more profound effect in establishing a lasting climate of mutual trust and respect among people than removing from the public policy arena, and placing in a state museum or other appropriate place of display, the Confederate battle flag.

Yes, unfortunately, the Confederate flag would continue to live in the hearts and minds of many. People would continue to wave the Confederate battle flag and flag makers would no doubt increase their business. However, the state governments would have made a strong statement for reconciliation and racial harmony.

The NAACP urges the state legislatures in Georgia and Mississippi to move boldly and courageously to change their present state flags–remove the Confederate flags and adopt a symbol that truly represents all of the people of the states. Further, the states of Alabama and South Carolina should, by act of the legislature, or otherwise, furl the battle flag and let it rest in a place more appropriate to historical remembrance.

Earl T. Shinhoster is the Southeastern regional director for the NAACP.

Flag Waving Down South. How Long?: Symbol, Substance, and Confederate Flag

By Lawrence J. Hanks

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 13, 16

[Editor’s Note:]On February 2, 1988, fourteen black legislators were arrested in Alabama as they symbolically attempted to scale a fence to remove from the dome of the state capitol the Confederate flag which flies there. The resulting misdemeanor convictions are being appealed, but the incident brought into focus renewed efforts to remove symbols of slavery and segregation from public places. In the essays below, various Southerners speak their minds about the meaning and significance of this controversial symbol.

When the Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, it was the end of one long struggle and the beginning of an even longer one. The Voting Rights Act removed the last legal barrier to black voter participation, however, the real goal had not been reached; access to the ballot was only a means to an end–the socio-economic advancement of black Americans.

It had long been theorized that once blacks gained access to the ballot, they would elect other blacks to political office. These newly elected black officials would enact public policies favorable to the black community, and the socioeconomic status of the black community would rise. With the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the theorists of black political empowerment were no longer hindered from being practitioners. With the Southern Black Belt and the predominantly black urban centers as their focus, and proportional representation as their goal, the black political empowerment theorists were ready to move to a new stage in the development of black political power.

After almost a quarter-century of black political participation without legal racial barriers, there is a consensus amongst those who keep abreast of developments within the black community: Black political empowerment, even at its optimal level, cannot bring blacks to socio-economic parity with whites–it is hard to believe that so many people thought that it would. Despite the fact that black elected officials have almost doubled in the last twelve years, black Americans continue to lag behind whites on all socio-economic indices. Although there are more blacks in Congress than at any other time in history, blacks face deteriorating conditions in comparison to other groups: Half of all black children born in America are born out of wedlock; the black dropout rate is between 30 percent and 50 percent in several metropolitan areas; black infant mortality and the black unemployment rate is double that of whites; the black poverty rate is triple; and blacks account for over 40 percent of the inmates in federal and state prisons. Thus, it appears that something more than black elected officials is necessary for black socio-economic advancement on a large scale.

This assessment does not diminish the contribution of black elected officials. In areas where blacks have gained political power, progress has been made. In many rural Black Belt areas, black elected officials have provided a variety of symbolic and material benefits. These benefits include group pride, a lessening of police brutality, improved access to public officials, more job training, street lights, paved streets, and increased services from the county and the city. Urban areas, in addition to the aforementioned benefits, have

---

Page 16

been generally successful with strong affirmative action programs for hiring and contracts. In all areas, one can safely say that while blacks have been relatively successful in bringing about public sector benefits, there has been relatively little success at winning benefits from the private sector. Moreover, the theorized transformation of political power into socio-economic power has not been realized.

Now, black Americans are looking for substantive solutions to ubiquitous concrete problems. While blacks who first gained elective offices soon after the passage of the Voting Rights Act represented great symbolic victories, the symbolic euphoria of the late 196OB and early 197OB has given way to the demands for substantive public policy in the late ’70B and ’80B. It is not enough to have black people in office–these blacks must develop public policies which will make a difference in the lives of black Americans. Given the constraints on black elected officials, and the nature of the capitalist system, it can be reasonably argued that political power is not enough–black socio-economic advancement on a large level will require a concerted effort from the economic and social sectors of our society.

Thus, after over a century of touting political power as the major tool of socio-economic advancement, the theory of black political empowerment has been found wanting. It is within this context that one can understand the challenge facing the NAACP as it attempts to have the flag removed from atop the various state houses.

The flag removal effort is coming at a time when America’s black community is looking for concrete answers to concrete problems. The flag removal effort is viewed by most observers, black and white, as a symbolic campaign; in other words, even if the campaign was successful and the flags were removed, blacks as a group would continue to face the same problems. Thus, the use of scarce resources for this campaign is viewed by a large portion of the black community as a less than optimal use of resources.

The NAACP led the legal battles which helped to create a climate for implementing the theory of black political empowerment. Now, black Americans are seeking other ways to reach socioeconomic parity. Although a strong case can be made for the removal of the flag based on symbolism, the NAACP cannot expect to garner widespread black support until a connection can be made between socioeconomic well-being and the flying of the flag.

Black and white Americans waged a vigorous battle to gain the right to vote for black Americans. However, the scarce resources of the enfranchisement movement were not mobilized for the sake of simply voting. Voting was a means to an end–the socio-economic parity of black Americans. Symbolism is not enough in this day of scarce resources. If there is a negative connection between the official governmental display of the Confederate battle flag and the wellbeing of black Americans, it would be in the best interest of the removal effort, and of black people, for the NAACP to explicate this connection. Until this is done, the removal of the Confederate battle flag will simply be another just cause which lacks the public support necessary for a favorable resolution.

Dr. Lawrence J. Hanks chairs the political science department at Tuskegee University.

Flag Waving Down South: Searching History for Solutions

By Michael L. Thurmond

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 14-15

In the controversy surrounding proposals to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the Georgia state flag, one impression stands above all else: Most of the arguments on both sides are based on historical myths.

On one side are those who adamantly assert that the flag’s change in 1956 was simply an attempt to honor the Confederacy, although legislative history clearly shows that other, less honorable motives were at least as persuasive. On the other side are those who embrace the readoption of the pre-1956 state flag, not realizing that its design also is based on a Confederate flag.

To make a rational decision about what flag should fly over Georgia, we must first acknowledge the history in which the present situation is grounded.

On the morning of Jan. 11, 1956, a crowded gallery looked down upon a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate as Gov. Marvin Griffin presented the annual State of the State Address. He responded defiantly to recent Supreme Court decisions outlawing racial segregation: “We must not desert future generations of Georgians. We must never surrender.”

Griffin outlined his legislative package of eight “no surrender” bills whose purpose was to maintain segregation in Georgia. In addition, a bill was introduced to place a St. Andrew’s cross on the Georgia flag. Despite opposition from various organizations, including the Georgia United Daughters of the Confederacy, floor leaders pushed the bill through the General Assembly. This bill established the present state flag: a St. Andrew’s cross (the old Confederate battle flag) covered two-thirds of the flag, and the remaining one-third displaying the state’s coat of arms.

The wording of the 1956 act is revealing. The act stated that the new flag would consist of “the flag of Confederate States…approved May 1,1863.” Legislative records show that the flag adopted by the Confederate Congress on that date was not the Stars and Bars or the battle flag, but another Confederate flag known as the “Whiteman’s Flag.”

The first official flag of the Confederacy, the Stars and Bars, was carried into battle only once, on July 1,1861, at the first battle of Manassas, where Confederate soldiers routed the Union forces. Because of similarities between the Stars and Bars and the United States’ Stars and Stripes, some Confederate soldiers mistakenly fired on their own troops on the battlefield. Two months later, the battle flag replaced the Stars and Bars in the field for the remainder of the war. However, the battle flag was never officially adopted as the flag of the Confederacy.

On May 1, 1863, the Confederate Congress adopted a second official flag that consisted of a battle flag in the upper left-hand corner on a field of white. Designed by William T. Thompson, editor of the Savannah Morning News, the flag was designated “Whiteman’s Flag.”

Thompson wrote, “As a people, we are fighting to maintain the Heaven-ordained supremacy of the Whiteman over the inferior or colored race; a white flag would thus be emblematic of our cause…Such a flag would take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations and be hailed by the civilized world as the ‘Whiteman’s Flag.'” The flag was later sold and catalogued under that name. It was eventually redesigned with a band of red on the end–a necessary change because it otherwise gave the appearance of a flag of truce when drooped around its staff.

Thus our present state flag is a partial adaptation of a flag that celebrated the notion of white supremacy, less a monument to the Confederacy than a memorial to the segregationist politicians and policies of the mid-1950s.

Several black legislators have supported a proposal to restore the Georgia flag to its pre-1956 design. But this effort overlooks the fact that the pre-1956 design also incorporates a Confederate motif. Like the Stars and Bars,

---

Page 15

the pre-1956 flag is divided into three horizontal bands, one white band separating two scarlet ones.

The current effort to change the present flag to its pre1956 design is not the first. During the 1969 legislative session, Rep. Janet Merritt of Americus, one of two white females serving in the General Assembly, introduced a bill to strike the battle flag from the state flag. The former schoolteacher stated that the Georgia flag with the battle cross was adopted “in the emotional period of the decisions on civil rights. The time has come to settle down and realize that a Confederate battle flag has no place occurring in the flag of forward-moving Georgia.”

On Feb. 26,1970, the House Judiciary Committee recommended passage of Ms. Merritt’s bill. Three days later it received a third reading, but, for unexplained reasons, further action on the bill was indefinitely postponed.

Recent history suggests that the Georgia flag controversy has either simmered or boiled for three decades. It is an issue that refuses to fade away.

The founders of our state did not fail to provide advice that might be helpful in resolving this and other problems. This advice has appeared on the Georgia flag from the earliest days of statehood. Emblazoned on the seal of Georgia, it consists of three words: wisdom, justice and moderation.

As we ponder the pros and cons of Georgia’s present flag, we should remember that if we are wise in our reasoning; just in our deliberations and moderate in our actions, then Georgia will continue to fulfill its promise of greatness.

Georgia State Rep. Michael Thurmond is a lawyer and the author of A Story Untold: Black Men and Women in Athens History.

Flag Waving Down South: Respecting the Past Without Offending

By Jack Perry

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 15-16

What does the Confederate flag mean?

In asking the question, I have in mind that some black representatives are objecting to the flying of the Confederate flag over certain state capitols. I have in mind that in the recent turmoil over racial hazing at The Citadel, some voices have called for the Confederate banner to be furled and for “Dixie” to go unplayed.

I have in mind that different people see the Confederate flag quite differently–although their quarrel is not really over a flag from the past, it is over the uses of that past in the present.

Does the Confederate flag stand for honor and States’ Rights and The Lost Cause? Or does it stand for the defense of slavery yesterday and the offense of racism today?

May I tell you what the Confederate flag means to me?

It means a great deal. I am proud of being a Southerner, proud that my great-grandfathers marched off from north Georgia under the Stars and Bars. The portrait of one, Gabriel Wilhite Grimes, my mother’s grandfather, is on my office wall, holding his rifle and his bayonet, wearing the Gray. Also on my wall are portraits of a number of Confederate generals–three of Lee, my hero–and a print of the Battle of Lookout Mountain. I call myself a Southern patriot. Patriotism, to me, means not nationalism in the sense of jingoism but rather profound love for one’s native place. I feel deep in me the love of the South.

The South I love, nevertheless, has a past that gives me pain. A past that includes slavery, yes, but also that encompasses the Ku Klux Klan, lynch law, the Jim Crow system of segregation under which I grew up in Atlanta, the block-the-door reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court school decision, the resistance to the civil rights movement in the ’60s. It pains me that the Georgia legislature changed the state flag I grew up under–this was during the resistance to the civil rights movement–to install a Confederate battle flag that stood, I fear, more for 20th-century racism than for The Lost Cause. And if that Southern past gives me pain, so do lingering evidences of racism in the present.

Despite that pain, I love the South. I take comfort in the faith that since Emancipation there has been, underlying all injustice and racial division, common ground of civility and friendliness and humor and Southernness and-yes–love, between blacks and whites in the South. I think that the ending of Jim Crow and the acceptance of racial equality in a spirit of tolerance is one of the great accomplishments of any nation in this century. Blemishes and irritants there are, but I see racial harmony in the South as a real thing, one that shines.

“Ah,” you may say, “then you are a very idealistic man about the South.” Yes, Ma’am, I am. But I try not to be a fool, and I recognize that the Confederate flag is flown over some attitudes that ought to shame us.

How would I feel about the South if I were black?

Well, undoubtedly I would feel with ferocious conviction that slavery was a great evil–an evil that was ended not by Southern good will but by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and by the military defeat of the Confederacy.

I would regard Reconstruction not so much as an occupation by alien forces as a setting of crooked things straight. I would look on the rise of Jim Crow, long after the war was over, as a resurgence of the racist evil that was at the heart of slavery. I would consider the hostile resistance to the civil rights movement in the ’50s and ’60s a sign that racial enmity dies hard.

I would, I believe, look with pride on the accomplishment of legal equality by that movement, an on the gains in status and in political power by blacks since then; and I would, I hope, be proud of the friendships that bind so many blacks and whites in today’s South. But I would surely remain aware of painful economic constraints for too many blacks, and I fear I would be more than a little worried about the persistence of racism in a host of direct and subtle ways.

Feeling that way, if I were black, I would look with a hard and cold eye on what often passes for Southern patriotism today. The Klan rallies carrying the battle flag. The pickup truck with the battle flag on the front tag and the rifle in the back window. The flying of the battle flag over state capi-

---

Page 16

tols. The politics behind the flag.

If I were black, in short, I could not afford to be so idealistic about the South as this white boy can be.

Proud as I am of being a Southerner, I would be foolish to shut my eyes to the racism in Southern history and to its persistence in some Southern attitudes today. We are capable of gentility and concord among blacks and whites, and therein lies one of the glories of the South. We are also capable of hatred and injustice, and the grave cries out against us if we forget it.

The Confederate banner I cherish is of many colors.

Hear what St. Paul saith: “Take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours becomes a stumbling-block to them that are weak.” If flying the battle flag of the Confederacy gives offense to our brothers and sisters, and if goads those who enjoy hatred into offensive acts, should we not furl the flag in public, and find other ways to show our respect for the Southern past? If the flag is in the heart, we need not fly it from our capitol flagstaffs to prove our patriotism. If Southerners of good will and good taste–and I dare to hope that there are at least a meaningful minority–cease to use symbols of the past to send intolerant messages into the future, I remain idealist enough to hope that the South as a whole will finally live up to our ideal of it.

For of course flags are merely symbols. What we are talking about here ultimately is politics, political deeds, positions and laws and policies that affect how we live.

I would love–wouldn’t you?–to see a message of good will between the races, in the South and beyond. Flying battle flags, and using race in politics, can be dispensed with. If we do not close our eyes to the dark side of our past, and of our present, the chances for wise choices will increase. And I say all that with a Southern accent.

Ambassador Jack Perry, a retired diplomat, is director of the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies at Davidson College. His comments are excerpted from remarks previously appearing in the Charlotte Observer.

The Leadership of Leroy Collins. “I Kept Hammering:” Leroy Collins

By John Griffin

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 17-21, 23

EDITOR’S NOTE: At the 1988 Annual Meeting, held in Atlanta in November, Leroy Collins of Florida and Margaret Walker Alexander of Mississippi were honored as Life Fellows of the Southern Regional Council. Mrs. Walker was unable to attend the awards dinner, but former Governor Collins was present, and was introduced by his long-time friend and now fellow life member, John Griffin of Atlanta. Following the awards presentation, Griffin “interviewed. Collins about his life and work. Bill Steverson edited the following excerpts from their remarks.

JOHN GRIFFIN: Let me just briefly give a word or two about Governor Collins. He was Governor of Florida from 1955 to 1961. In this period and later he became a regional and a national leader. He was seen as a spokesman for the new South. During the Civil Rights struggle he was a moderate, speaking against the organized resistance that was mounting throughout the South, and calling on the people of Florida to change their views on racial matters and to acknowledge the justice of the black claims. When the sit-in movement hit Tallahassee, Governor Collins made a remarkable statewide TV appearance in which he appealed for law and order and for the acceptance of change by fellow Floridians. The speech was given widespread attention, for it was so very different from what was going on in other capital cities of the South with other governors under similar circumstances.

After the passage of the Civil Rights bill of 1964 Governor Collins was asked by President Johnson if he would head the Community Relations Service, the agency that was set up as a troubleshooting agency with civil rights problems. Governor Collins brought that agency into being, directed it and got it in good speed before he moved over to become Undersecretary of Commerce.

At Selma he accomplished a remarkable compromise to avoid a second confrontation on the [Edmund Pettus] bridge when he persuaded the Alabama state police to accept a plan whereby Dr. King and his followers would march just over the bridge and instead of moving on would stop and have a prayer service and then turn back. He managed to sell this idea both to Dr. King and to Sheriff Clark and the others in the state force, but he didn’t know whether it was going to work or not. He put himself in the middle of that situation, physically standing in the middle of the highway, knowing that if by any reason any movement was made toward Dr. King that he would personally make an effort to intercede. There was much else about the CRS history in this period that we owe Governor Collins a vote of thanks for establishing this important agency.

After the Community Relations Service, Governor Collins for one year was Undersecretary of Commerce and then he returned to Florida. One of the saddest things was that his role in civil rights in my judgment was the factor that kept him out of the United States Senate, for in 1968 pictures that had been made of Governor Collins talking with Andy Young and Dr. King and others were used as a device to keep him out of the Senate by his opponent in the general election.

LEROY COLLINS: I think maybe I ought to tell you of an experience I had when I started practicing law when I was a young man of twenty-one in 1931. I had grown up there in the community working in stores and keeping pretty busy around town but nobody ever thought I was going to become

---

Page 18

a lawyer. But I made it. And I came back and I started practicing law. I wasn’t offered a job with any other lawyer so I just rented a little office for twenty dollars a month and I got a girl–a young woman–who wanted to be a sort of apprentice and learn secretarial work for a lawyer and so she started out as my secretary with even less pay than I was paying rent.

In 1931 those were very dark economic times as you have read or knew. It was very very tough. I had great difficulty getting any business at all. I hadn’t been practicing long before a farmer came in to me and he said he had had a cow run over by the railroad train. He wanted me to sue the railroad for damages. Well, I just thought that was manna from heaven. He said this cow was an unusual cow. While most of his cattle were old sorry range cows this particular cow happened to be a fine pure-bred registered heifer–there used to be a saying that the way to produce a fine pure-bred registered heifer was to take an old broken-down range cow and cross her with a Seaboard Coastline locomotive.

The railroad company wanted to make a test case out of it and take it on to the state Supreme Court to get some issue of law settled. They brought down to Tallahassee a whole battery of lawyers, one from New York and two from Norfolk, Va. Then they had their local staff. We were in the court room and this great battery of lawyers was sitting around one table. The old farmer and I were sitting at the other table all by ourselves.

It was kind of discouraging but I put on my evidence and I thought I made out a pretty good case. Then I made the opening argument to the jury, after all the evidence was in. I thought I reached heights of eloquence and oratory in that presentation that had never been achieved–in our community at least.

Then one after another these railroad lawyers started arguing their case. I mean, they were fine lawyers. After about the third one spoke, my client leaned over to me and says, “Say, son have you got another chance to argue to that jury?” And I said, “Oh, yes. When they get all through I’m going to make the closing argument.” He said, “Why, that’s good. You tell them that the railroad company is a great big rich corporation and had plenty of money and could get plenty of lawyers and I was just a poor old farmer and couldn’t get much.”

Well, I told them just what he said tell them. They brought in a verdict of $500 for that cow.

GRIFFIN: I think an appropriate starting point would be to ask you to talk a little bit about leadership and political leadership and statesmanship.

COLLINS: Not so long ago I was talking to a group of youngsters down in Tallahassee about leadership. I told them they had to start off with a basic bedrock of character to expect to be good leaders. They had to have character and values and they had to tell the truth. They had to walk a good straight line. Over and beyond that I told them that I had been surprised at how many youngsters their age were completely unmindful of the obligations of leadership of I people in public life. Several of them told me that they wanted to become governor someday. I asked why and they said, “Well, you’ve got this great big house you can live in. You’ve got that limousine. You’ve got these highway patrolmen. You go into these parades.” They were thinking entirely in terms of the show and the ostentatious part of being a governor. They weren’t thinking at all in terms of what they were going to do as governor. I said if you are going to be a leader you need to determine what you want to do so that you can establish some goals.

In my own situation, when I was about that age representing that farmer, I was thinking very deeply about how I could help on some problems that were in that community. I wasn’t thinking about being in public life, actually. I had represented the school board and so I saw what a horrible situation we had in schools in Florida. We had our counties divided up in districts. Each district had a school and they were dependent on tax revenues produced in that district to support that school.

So the poor districts had poor schools that were little or nothing. The in-town districts were pretty strong with a tax base and they had pretty good schools.

I thought that if I could get into the legislature that I could have an opportunity to make laws and to set up programs. I found that I could when the people elected me to the legislature.

When I got into the legislature, well, it was the greatest thrill of my lifetime that I could find some people who were thinking deeply about what we came to call a Minimum Foundation Law that would put the state for the first time in the business of guaranteeing every child in Florida a decent education in public schools.

So I got involved with that. Two people came up with a plan. It was an excellent plan. It wee immediately repudiated by legislators, by the then-governor and by the people because it wee very complex. We organized a plan to go all over the state and tell people what it meant and what it would mean in terms of developing citizens of the future and developing educational opportunity for all of our children. We got the PTAs to listen to us and we got other organizations to listen to us. We got enough public sentiment. In a short time, the next session of the legislature, we passed that in Florida. It’s been a stalwart of supporting educational progress over the time since. The same basic idea has been utilized in many states since. I always had the satisfaction that I had found something that was of great use to the people that I could accomplish and help accomplish in public service.

So that’s one thing that I would insist upon them. I would insist an element of leadership is the ability to see and to find useful goals and not be just thinking in terms of people holding positions and holding office.

There is the Thomas Jefferson memorial in Virginia. You all are aware of this, but Thomas Jefferson insisted and

---

Page 19

made provision requiring all the details of his [tombstone]. He specified that there would be three things carved into that monument. These three things were: Author of the Declaration of Independence, Author of the Virginia Article of Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.

I think that’s very interesting. Jefferson has always been one of my great heroes. Here he was thinking exactly in the terms of what was important in contributions that he was able to make in his lifetime. You know he didn’t mention a single office he held. There was a man who was in the legislative service of the state of Virginia, he became Governor of Virginia, he was in the Congress, made laws there, he became Vice President of the United States, he became President of the United States, he became Ambassador to France. Yet not one word did he want put on that monument in respect to his service except those three things. Why? Because these three things embraced basic ideas for human progress that would be limitless in their application for all the years ahead. He was thinking in terms of the use of power and not in terms of holding power.

I couldn’t help but think and I hope that I won’t be accused here of trying to prolong a campaign that’s over, but I couldn’t help but think of the recitation of all of these offices held that we’ve heard about President (Bush): United Nations, China, and we just heard them over and over and over. What was said about what he did at the United Nations? Nothing. What did he do when he was in China? Nothing. Or if he did nobody’s telling about it and they’re missing the most important thing. Because that would have been the real basis of judging the quality of his service to mankind and to his country.

GRIFFIN: Do you think a leader ought to deal with goals he’s not sure he can achieve? Should he leave those off the agenda or not?

COLLINS: Yea sir, if it’s a worthy goal he ought to stand for it whether he feels it’s attainable or not. In the first place he’s not going to attain it if he doesn’t try. I’ve got a little piece on the wall in my office written by a German philosopher who said, “Sometimes it is more important to make a beginning than to produce the finished article.” It is important that beginnings be made.

I heard a governor and a man that I respected very highly say one time when he wee talking to his primary supporters and the people on his team that he wanted to go for things that they could be assured would be attainable. He said, “I don’t want to waste our energies and waste our time and all fooling with things that we can’t accomplish.”

Well, I just disagree with that philosophy. I believe that if there is a cause that needs sponsorship and you believe in it that you ought to do what you can to achieve it. For a number of reasons. Even if you don’t achieve it you’ve built a step. You’ve started toward that goal and you’ve made it easier for somebody else coming along to push it further. Maybe after a process of sponsorship like that the ultimate goal will be accomplished very easily because as that progression goes, why, popular opinion is developed and then it’s easy to do.

GRIFFIN: Were there things in your administration aa governor that you didn’t get accomplished?

COLLINS: I was determined when I ran for governor to do something about Florida’s apportionment of its legislature. We had one of the most malapportioned legislatures in the country. I made this an issue in my campaign for governor. All the little counties were just benefiting tremendously because of their benefit from malapportionment. We had less than 17 percent of the people scattered around in these smaller counties, but they were exerting a majority power in the legislature.

I was determined to get something done about that. I didn’t know how but I was determined to do it and I told the people very frankly, and as a consequence I didn’t carry any of the little counties. The big ones elected me. I went into the legislature determined to get that done. Well, we were frankly face-to-face with an almost impossible task, because the Supreme Court of the United States had held that at the state level apportionment would be controlled by the legislature. Local rule, home rule. The equal protection of the laws guarantee did not apply. Our state Supreme Court, following that, had held that whatever the legislature said that apportionment would be it would have to be.

Well, I just hammered away. Sometimes it looked like I could get some little bit done but then I’d fall back. I kept hammering. I put that legislature in three or four special sessions to get legislative apportionment because the constitution obligated the legislature to do it on a fair basis every ten years.

I failed to do that. But I want to tell you the rest of this story. Soon after I finished my sex years as governor, the United States Supreme Court reversed that old decision and with the petitions that Florida and Tennessee and Hawaii had filed, they said that under those showings in those states that this was a violation of equal protection of the laws and that that legislature had to be apportioned on the basis of population. The legislature still wouldn’t do it so the court ordered a professor of political science at the University of Florida to figure out what would be fair and the court approved that. So we got it reapportioned.

After I went to Washington I went to one of these beautiful Georgetown dinner parties and Justice Hugo Black was there. He said, “Governor tell us about some of your successes as Governor.” So I just ticked off quite a few, you know, schools, and all these various things that I’d been

---

Page 20

working very actively in. And he said, “Now what was your greatest failure?” I said, “My failure was that I could not get our legislature reapportioned in spite of my commitment to the people to do it. I failed.” He said, “Governor that wasn’t a failure. Well, you know our court passed upon this case? You know how we saw the light? We knew what you were doing down there in Florida. We knew what they were doing in Hawaii. We knew what they were doing in Tennessee. This court came to understand that we had to in all logic and soundness decide that it was a breakdown in equal protection of the laws. That wasn’t any failure.” I said, “Judge you don’t know how good that makes me feel. Even so, I didn’t get it done my way.” But he said, “You got it done our way.”

Now, this is the point I wanted to make. This is where we started. If I had recognized that it was unattainable like other governors had over and over again, they would not have gotten that message from Florida. They would not have gotten that message from those people in Tennessee and those people in Hawaii. They learned that. So you never can tell. If you’ve got a good cause, if you know you’re right, do the best you can with it. That’s my philosophy of a leader.

GRIFFIN: When I was at Florida State University I remember so well the sit-in strikes developing in Tallahassee and the magnificent response you made by taking a Sunday afternoon time to a network of TV stations and without notes and without a script, making a speech calling on the people of Florida to change and to be aware of the necessity of change. Talk about that, if you will.

COLLINS: It was a very critical time. It was about Easter time and I had just been to church. We’d gone over that story about the crucifixion, about Pontius Pilate. We were having these stupid, silly rows in the street in Tallahassee and in one or two other places around over the state in response to the sit-in at the lunch counters. It was growing and growing and I just went down and had that (TV) hookup. I sat down there and I just talked to the people of Florida about that whole problem. I said that so far as I understood that the (State) Court had recently ruled in Florida that a person who has a store that has different departments can offer service to everybody in some and can discriminate and eliminate by virtue of the racial background and color of black people from others. I said, “To me even if it’s legally right, it’s morally wrong. How can you justify and say it’s right in your heart and mind for a store owner to invite people to come in there and take his money for business at one counter and not let him trade at another counter if he wants to trade there?” I said, “I just can’t equate that with a decent attitude toward fellow people and our fellow man.”

I told them about the crucifixion. I said, “Now what’s happening here reminds me of this Easter story and the crucifixion. When Pilate was judging the guilt and innocence of Christ, why, he found him innocent. And yet the mob outside, the mob became so raucous and so demanding that this strong Pilate, who was supposed to be a strong, able person, wilted and withered and lost his sense of obligation to do right and say the right thing. He just told, the crowd to take it and do what you please. Do what you want to about it.” I said, “We simply as citizens of this state cannot turn Florida over to a mob. Because there is a small number of people out there howling in the streets, we’ve got to have the strength to stand up for right and justice and follow that course. I’m doing something that I don’t know whether it’s been done in other states or not. But we are going to have us some bi-racial committees, black and white on them.

“I’ve appointed one at the state level that’s being headed up by at my request by Cody Fowler, who was then president of the American Bar Association, a very distinguished and a fine and a just person. We picked other people to serve with him, black people and white people. They are going to start sitting down and we are going to find ways that we can begin adjusting our attitudes and feelings and standing against turning this state over to any mobs or any people running around with an ax.”

There was a tremendous reaction from the people of Florida. I just got thousands and thousands of letters, most of them supporting me.

GRIFFIN: Governor Collins, another time when you were in a very difficult leadership situation was when you were made permanent president of the Democratic Convention in 1980, the convention where Mr. Kennedy was nominated. Some things existed in that situation which under slightly different circumstances might have put you on that ticket.

COLLINS: The convention was run completely differently than they are run now. In those days it was really more of a parliamentary function. I mean, the chairman was in charge. He had motions made from the floor and there were all kinds of maneuverings around that he was involved in You don’t even see now or know who the permanent chairman is. It’s just a TV show now, really.

There was a very favorable press to my service in that respect. There was some talk and some reference in the newspapers to the possibility of me being a vice-presidential nominee. I did not encourage it because I was determined to get that job (chairman of the convention) over and I didn’t want to be in the position of being any candidate or anything like that. I just wanted to follow it through as I had told them I would on a completely impartial basis.

Kennedy actually made the choice of Lyndon Johnson and I suppose it was a very wise choice because Johnson was able to carry Texas and it was by the margin of Texas that Kennedy won.

GRIFFIN: There was wide applause for the way you handled that very raucous convention. I remember one comment that was made by a woman from New’ Jersey who said, “If the Democrats had nominated LeRoy Collins for president every woman in the United States regardless of party affiliation or age

---

Page 21

would have voted for him.”

COLLINS: What a doll she was!

My biggest problem in keeping order there in the convention was the commotion that the group on the floor created when Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt came. She came about three times and she wouldn’t tell us when she was coming, so we couldn’t be prepared for it. She would just turn that convention into just complete disorder. I could bang on that gavel and it wouldn’t make any difference at all. It was tough.

Adlai Stevenson was another who wanted to be a dark horse at that time. He had run before and failed. But he really wanted, I think, to be drafted and there was not that sentiment but there still was a strong favorable sentiment for Stevenson so he caused some commotion there.

That’s the reason I got some sympathy from around over the country because the convention was so unruly.

GRIFFIN: Soon after that you were asked by the National Association of Broadcasters to become their president and you moved to Washington as president.

COLLINS: Yes. That was an interesting experience. They wanted me to come as soon as I finished up the governorship in Florida and to be president of the National Association of Broadcasters. I was rather interested in that. In the first place I had gotten badly in debt as governor and I needed to pay off some debts and they offered me a very fine salary, particularly for that time. They offered to provide me a home in Washington. They offered to provide me an automobile. They were just very generous to me.

I wanted to make it clear and I tried to make it clear that what appealed to me about it was the close relationship between broadcasting and the public interest. I had become oriented in government to the public interest. They said that they wanted me to appear before the congressional committees for them and advocate the cause of broadcasting. I told them at the time that I thought I could do an effective job as long as we kept our standards in place and put them in place so that broadcasting would be responsive to the public interest. That’s the basis upon which they gave me the job.

As time went on we started to get some division in the ranks of the broadcasters. The majority of them always supported me. But there were some who felt, they were extreme conservatives I guess you’d call them, that everybody in private business should be on their own to make what they could by doing what they wanted to do. It came to a climax when the Surgeon General ruled that cigarettes smoking was a direct cause of cancer. I looked at my television one day right after that and here was Roger Maris, a baseball hero for every young boy–and girls, too–in the country, and he was down in the dugout surrounded by all these Yankee baseball players and he was puffing on this cigarette talking about how wonderful it was to be smoking one of these cigarettes.

I told the broadcasters that I thought they should take steps to deny broadcast advertising that would promote the use of cigarettes by young people. That was a first step. Then the whole subject should be studied carefully looking toward the possibilities of getting completely out of it.

The [broadcasters] who wanted to be left alone to do what they wanted to, they really got furious about that. Figured that they were going to lose $10 billion a year in revenue from cigarette advertising. So we had a couple of meetings of our board that they were really taking me to task. I reminded them of the basis upon which I was engaged and I said, “This is the way I want to do it. If you want me to do it my way, well, I’d like to stay with you. If you don’t want me to do it my way, well, I don’t went to do it your way. Let’s find some way to terminate this relationship.”

That got a little sticky. They took two or three votes. In all the votes I got more than a majority of support and I could have stayed on there, but that was just about the time of the [1963] march on Washington.

I went to that march, that great congregation of people down there on the mall. I was tremendously impressed with it. I went by myself and I just went in the crowd. I wasn’t a guest of anybody’s or anything like that. That moving, mass of people who were so deeply intent on their goal and what they were hoping to achieve. There wasn’t any disorder anywhere. There wasn’t anybody screaming, wasn’t any rowdiness or demonstrations like happened in Chicago and a lot of other places. It was just a quiet mass of humanity. There were black people, brown people, white people–everybody was there. I was right in the crowd.

I heard Dr. King’s speech there. This made a profound impact on me. I thought, this is history. This is really history being made. This is America moving to a better society in a big way. It wasn’t three or four days after that that President Johnson called me and said that the Congress was about to pass this Civil Rights Act of 1964 and that in it was a Title X which created a Community Relations Service. He needed to get a director for it. He said, “I know what you’re making in that broadcasting job. I’ve found out all about that. I’m not offering you anything like that. The salary is going to be $20,000 a year. That’s some reduction from whet you’re making now.” But then he said, “I’m not asking you to do this as a political matter. I’ve talked to Congressmen, I’ve talked to other people all over this country and they feel and I feel that you can do this job for your country at a critical time in its history better than anybody else in the United States.”

I agreed to try it. It was one of the greatest experiences I ever had in my life.

GRIFFIN: You put some of that same pressure on some of your friends.

COLLINS: I had John Griffin, and Max Secrest and just hundreds, just a lot of them. We had about half white and half black. That’s the first time I’d been in any environment like that. We hadn’t progressed with desegregation in Florida. You see, I was Governor down there before the Civil Rights Act was passed. That was the time this nation really committed itself, under that Civil Rights Act of 1964. Before we were just talking about school desegregation. But once that federal law was passed why, people realized that something was happening.

I was proud of our work. I won’t try to tell you all that we did but we did a great deal. Under the law we were required

---

Page 23

to keep all of our doings secret. So unless the newspaper people saw us in action, why they didn’t get any stories because we didn’t hold any press conferences and tell them what we were doing. We were just getting that job done, working in these big cities all over the country.

Selma was a tremendous stress for us. I went down there and there was a proceeding before the court. Judge [Frank M.] Johnson was one of the best federal judges we had in the country and one of the most understanding and helpful ones in racial matters. He had a petition before him to enjoin Dr. King. See, they’d had an attempted march just five days before and it had broken down. These troops [George Wallace’s Alabama state troopers] met them and brutally beat these people and had a number of them in the hospitals. Dr. King then called on the nation and called on preachers especially, from all the denominations, to come to Selma within four or five days after that. And he was determined to make that march. Yet there was a court order by a good judge preventing him from making the march. So I was trying to find some kind of compromise.

I tried to get help from the Attorney General [Robert Kennedy]. He said he couldn’t do it because the Attorney General had to comply with the court mandate enjoining them doing anything. So this little CRS Service was all by ourselves. We tried to feel where we might make some kind of way to avoid another massacre on that bridge. We worked out that plan that while ultimately they were going to Montgomery, so far as this time was concerned they would go across the bridge and stop there across the bridge and pray and talk a little, for 20 minutes, and sing, and then Dr. King would ask them to go back, with the understanding that they would go on to Montgomery at a later time.

Dr. King–we were up with him the night before. At two or three o’clock in the morning–he was staying with a dentist there in Selma–and he said, “I can’t agree to this because I don’t think these people are going to stop. If they go and go across that bridge they’re going to want to go right on to [Montgomery]. Troops or no troops.” I said, “Well, can you ask them to stop? And plead with them to stop? They are going to get to Montgomery, but we’ve just got to have a lit le time here. Let’s see what this order of the court is going to be.”

He agreed with me that he would try to do it if I could get the others to do it. So then we spent the rest of the night talking to Governor Wallace’s people and the county people and the city people, all of whom were out there beyond the bridge barricaded across the road.

GRIFFIN: And you were right in the middle of it.

COLLINS: And then the next morning I told Dr. King, I said, “I tell you, I’m going to be, when you come across that bridge now I’m going to be standing right there with those troops. It’s not that I’m on their side but I want to be there so that if one of them moves into you I’ll grab him. I’ll sure personally grab him. I don’t know what I’ll do with him after I get him, but I’ll sure try. Ill stop him for a while.”

It was a momentous occasion and very terrifying to think of what might happen but the troops finally got word from Governor Wallace and the city people agreed end the county people agreed that if they’d come they would allow just what I had proposed that they do. If they would go back and then wait for the court order. So they came and they went back and then in a while, in just a few days, Judge Johnson ruled that they were no longer under an injunction.

Then I had the problem, our service had the problem, of going with the march. We went ahead of them to find out what roads they should go through to get around a certain town, the route they should take. We were working in liaison with the municipal authorities and the county authorities and all, and the marchers. I was not actually a part of the march but for a good deal of that time I was walking along with Dr. King telling him what they were going to do down the road and working out things, you know, so that we’d understand everything.

We got to Montgomery and I was able to try to see my way home. It was about midnight. That day these pictures had come out all over my hometown newspapers with me right there talking away with Dr. King at the march. I got my wife on the telephone and she said, “What on earth are you up to out there?” I said, “Well, we were just doing our job.” She said, “Well, these papers have got all these pictures in them and the people are calling me. ‘What’s Roy up to? What’s Roy doing, running the march?'” I said, “Well, I’m ready to come home. I’ve got a private jet here the government owns. Well be in there about twelve-thirty to one o’clock. I want you to be sure to come out there and get me ’cause there won’t be any taxis or anything like that I can catch at that time of the morning.” She says, “I can’t come.” I say, “Why can’t you come?” She said, “I’ve got grandchildren in the house here. I can’t go off and leave them. They’re spending the night here with me. I just can’t get them up out of bed and come out there.” I said, “Well, how on earth am I going to home?” She said, “March!”

The Cold Hard Truth

By J.L. Chestnut, Jr.

Vol. 11, No. 1, 1989, pp. 24

My wife looked sternly across the dinner table one night recently and quietly reminded me of the flak I received 12 years ago from certain blacks and whites concerning the lawsuit that brought forth the election of three black county commissioners in Dallas County, Alabama, in January. Vivian has a long memory.

I simply nodded but wisely did not explain who paid for the litigation during the long interim the government “cooled its heels.” Initially, even the Carter Administration opposed that litigation and remained uninvolved for more than a year.

I did not file the lawsuit out of hatred or a jaded desire for revenge, though there was ample ground for both. But, I understood then and now that many white leaders have been reared in an atmosphere that is almost racially poisonous. That atmosphere has polluted and tainted generation after generation.

I have never known Dallas County to be without a double standard–one for blacks and another for whites. This has been the case 80 long that whites often don’t realize the extent of their insensitivity.

Respectable conservative whites have organized charitable projects to welcome Vietnamese orphans from this nation’s recent international disaster in Vietnam. But, you will not live long enough to see African refugees from the ravages of colonialism welcomed in America.

After the recent special election, a newspaper in Selma naively called for a “responsible” county commission to avoid a battle or “race war” over the chairmanship of that group. Meanwhile, some were meeting secretly trying to insure white control of a predominantly black commission.

Such actions are not regarded as racist because of the double standard in Dallas County. Black efforts, however, to counter these efforts are viewed as racist. In similar vein, I was told 12 years ago that the all-white make-up of the commission was not racist, but my efforts to add blacks was racist.

Naturally, certain low-profile, officious and undistinguished blacks agreed with that double standard and denounced me. One of those black critics has a large and beautiful pencil sketch of Martin Luther King hanging over her lovely fireplace. The picture cost more than some houses.

When Martin wee risking his life in the streets of Selma, this critic called him everything except a child of God and publicly invited him to go home to Atlanta. Now, after Martin is dead and buried, she hangs his picture in her home.

This black critic is also a member of the little group who secretly tells the white editor of the Selma newspaper how much they disapprove of my weekly column.

Peace.

J. L. Chestnut is an Alabama trial lawyer and writer.