SCOPE Chapter 31

EARL COBLYN

0278Interviewsides 1 & 2Earl Coblyn

Orangeburg, S. C.

<&D%§: What we'd sort of like to discuss is just somethings about what, what has happened here in Orageburg,and how, how the SCOPE chapter came to be invited here.We'd like to get some idea of the movement here, but,but primarily what has happened in the field of voterregistration, and, and with, with this summer, with theSCOPE chapter.

A: Well.. I've been here about five years now, and Iunderstand that prior to my arrival here, Martin LutherKing made an attempt to come into South Carolina, butSouth Carolina has been traditionally, I guess, NAACPterritory, so to speak, so.. King wasn't successful ingetting into South Carolina.

Q: What, what... Why wasn't he successful? The localpeople didn't cooperate with him, or what?

A: Well, 1... the local people, they invited him here fora meeting... uh... I guess there were some local peoplewho were interested in his coming in. Otherwise he wouldn'thave received that invitation. But he wasn't t6o warmlyreceived... uh... when he did arrive. The enthusiasm, towhat ever extent it did, you know, exist for his cominghere sort of waned after he got here. Now, I don't knowwhether it was just through the efforts of some group orsome organization that, you know, caused this lesseningof enthusiasm for Martin Luther King or not, anyway, theupshot of it was, he didn't get into South Carolina.And specifically Orangeburg. Uh, after the movement here... which was under the auspices and direction of the NAACP,there seemed to be a void, which was - as far as politicalaction was concerned... Now, this void was filled by theSouthern Regional Council's voter education project, andthey.... put on a voter registration campaign in OrafeeburgCounty., and also in other states. I should say In thestate of South Carolina, including Orangeburg County, andother southern states. as a result of this a verydynamic voter registration Campaign got under way. Uh,Dr. Thomas here in Orangeburg was the South CarolinaCoordinator for the Southern Regional Council's VoterEducation Project. Then last year the voter educationproject for Southern Regional Council became defunct.

Q: What happened?

*

0278-2A: Well, I guess they just ran out of funds. They aban-doned the YEP project. Uh, Dr. Thomas recognized the factthat it was a bit of a shame that this dynamic campaign,very successful campaign, should ceme to an end. So heorganized the South Carolina YEP.'... for the purpose ofcontinuing the Southern Regional YEP.... which is verysuccessful, it's a well-organized organisation but theonly problem, I think, with that organization - close it -in my opinion, they're not too organized in the precinctlevel. Otherwise it's, otherwise it's very good. They'redoing a, a good job. Uh, Dick Miles, as., you've probablymet, he's the field director of the YEP..

Q: What's the probelm oh the reg-, precinct level?

A: Well, It's just difficult to organize the people on theprecinct level, and get them to functioning the way theyshould function. Uh, the South Carolina YEP largely hadto depend on their own, ingenuity, to getfinancing, but Dick Miles figured that if the precinctchairman... and the - I should say county chairmen - couldassess the people in his county, uh, I think it was a rateof fourteen cents per person, they could continue tooperate. But it was, it has been difficult to get thisfourteen cents per person collected by the County chairmen.

Q: Well, what hastbeen the strategy as far as, you know,how they go about registering voters? I mean, has thisbeen the primary function, just to get people down to theCourthouse to register, er have they been more interestedin, in education, or what?

A: Well, registration primarily at this stage, I wouldsay.

Q: Have they gone about it, say, in the same way as theSCOPE kids go about it, 0r....

A: Uh, they haven't had the personnel to go about in thesame way the SCOPE kids have gone about it. YEP, the officeshave had to rely upon the county chairmen.... to get thepeople in to register and, as I said before, in many in-stances the county chairmen just don't possess thenecessary skill, and organization ability to get thepeople en masse registered. Now, last year, OrangeburgCounty was lucky, in that we had the, uh, uh, voter regis-tration program which was sponsored by the American FriendsCommittee. And we had eighteen out-of-state students,college students working in Orangeburg County, and as aresult of their efforts, about a thousand people in

0278-3Orangeburg County were registered last year. But betweenthe time that they left, and the time that this Scope grouparrived, only thirty-seven people were registered withinthat span of one year, which further points up the lack ofability, in many cases, probably, the lack of interest, onthe part of the... of precinct workers and county chairmen.

Q: Why did AFSC come here to Orangeburg? Were theyinvited, or did they - what happened to bring them here?

A: Uh, they were in Orangeburg working on school desegre-gation at the time. So we had a relationship, so to speak,with AFSC, and uh ... Charles Davis mentioned the fact thatthey were going to be working on voter registration, andwe requested, and he a150.... requested that we have agroup here. It f s just one of those things that happened,and " " " " uh , " " "Q: How did they...?

A: ... so between, as I sai£ before, between the time thAmerican Friends' group left last year and, uh, this year,only thirty-seven people were registered. Now, we had thisvoid, as far as political action was concerned, and, uh, oneof the... uh, SCLC field men came to Orangeburg, lookedup Dr. Thomas and myself, and, uh, introduced us to thisSCOPE project, and sort of promised us that if we desiredwe could have a SCOPE project in Orangeburg County. Andto me this represented more or less a panacea for ourpolitical probelm here, our registration problem here, andso I was one hundred per cent in accord with their coming.And Dr. Thomas was one hundred per cent in accord withtheir coming. I don't know how the other people feel aboutit, and frankly it really doesn't matter, as far as I'mconcerned, how they feel about it, because I think in thelong run the; - benefit will, great benefit will (unintel-ligible word) to the people of Orangeburg County, the massesof the people

Q: Well, did you..and Dr. Thomas issue the invitation,or did you go through some group, you know, people likethe local NAA chapter or something like this..?

A: No, as I said before, it's just something that happenedthe, the, uh, SCLC liaison came through here, he., had myname and Dr. Thomas' name, and, uh, he was soliciting aninvitation to come in, I guess. . .(laugh) I guess that'swhat it was - and, uh, anybody who's going to, you know,do good work, heck, """" should be invited!

0278-4Q: Well, did you feel that, that the reason that SCOPEwas effective here was, Has because they had the personnel,or because they were - it might be gogd for white peopleto come down here and work with the community, or whatwere your reasons for thinking , you know, that SCOPE wouldreally be an answer to some of your problems down here?

A: We11... as I said before, the AFSC group was here lastyear, about eighteen students, they did a tremendous job,uh, I was told that, that the SCOPE people would be collegestudents from out-of-state, and-^more or less compared themwith the efforts of the 4FSC group, and I, I sort of envis-ioned good work being done here. And it's turned out thatway.

Q: What would you say would be any differences betweenwhat happened last year and what's happening this year?

A: Well, I think that this year -we learned from lastyear, I might say.... I think that we weren't as wellorganized with the AFSC group last year asx we are thisyear with this group.

Q: I see.

A: I think it's not -we can't equate the two (telephonerings)... Uh, Jes', I'm supposed to have the affidavitdrawn up for that guy! Uh, ...Q: What, what were the - I mean were they, do you thinkthe students that were here last summer were different than

or was it just in the organization?

A: Well, the times were different. T think the people ofthe county were less politically sophisticated... uh....less politically oriented, I might say... uh... one year,today, you know, the times are so dynamic, that one yearmakes a tremendous difference. I think there's a betteratmosphere here. Uh, the people are a little more recep-tive. They, they're now more accustomed to seeing... whiteout-of=state students canvassing neighborhoods...

Q: Is this because of last summer.

A: It's because of last summer.

Q: ... or nine months of thinking about it..?

A: Well, because of, uh, the exposure to the AFSC grouplast summer, you might say the nine months of thinking

0278-5about it, the, the. uh, Johnson's election, with the...ythink, which, uh, Negro populace throughout the UnitedStates can, can... claim a part of his victory.... So Ithink the people now realize their vote, once they becomeregistered, will make a difference. Dl think now theyrealize that, that our... in spite of all the legislationwe've got... in the final analysis we've got to have thatvote. You see, uh, we have, we have enough Negroesregistered now so that the unregistered people can realizethat they're the ones that are really preventing us fromrealizing our voter potential.. I th-, there's just amuch better atmosphere now.

Q: Did Selma have anything to do with it, or not?

A: Selma probably did have something to do with it. Uh,I don't think there's any one thing, you know] that had -it's just collectively I think everything had something todo with it.

Q: Well, uh, what efforts are being made this year thatweren't being made, weren't made last year, to avoid, youknow, having a, sort of a - avoid a void - you know, to, tobuild up some local people who will carry through the voterregistration into fall?

A: Well, the way,you know, the way we're functioning now,we have uh.... this SCOPE group, the first thing they didwas to canvas the city and suburban wards. Then we had ourRegistration Day on the sixth* And as proof of theireffectiveness, uh, we had two hundred and, uh, lelss s-, twohundred and thirty people are registered. And all two hun-dred and thirty of those people - we have two hundred andthtrty-five registered - two hundred and thirty of thosepeople - approximatly two hundred and thirty - came fromthe areas that had been canvassed. k,You see - and only aboutfive or seven of the peSpJe^SSml ffSm the other areas,areas that had not been canvassed. So this is proSfpositive of the effectiveness of this, this SCOPE group here.Now they, we have broken down into three teams, and we arenow working the rural precincts...

Q: Were these worked last year by AFSC, or did AFSCconcentrate mainly in the city?

A: Well, They were worked by the AFC last year uh....maybe not as thoroughly as they're being worked this year,and I think we're working a little more thoroughly thisyear, because we're better organized. We are (telephonerings) - we are broken down into three teams, and each team

0278-6is concentrating on a small portion cf the county. I thinklast year what they tried to do, they tried to treat the wholecounty in it's entirety, and you just can't do that and be,you know, thorough. So what were we saying?

Q: About the relative efficiency of breaking the countyinto three groups as opposed to what AFC did last year.

A: Well, uh, they, I think we, we probably have more per-sonnel this year. We have more transportation, uh, we havemore equipment generally. Uh, and I think we're a littlemore streamlined this year than we were last year. Uh, wejust, we know a little more this year. W£ have a little,we can draw on the experience from last year. This yearthe groups that are working in each of those three sectorsor the county have more volunteer help, uh, than they hadlast year. Last year the AFSC group, they relied upon thelocal help from the city of Orangeburg. Uh, we have localhelp from the city of Orangeburg, and in addition^oo^herl)we're supplementing that with help from people 6ut in therural precincts, youths and adults. Now, these youths andadults from the rural precincts, they will form the nucleusof this organiztion, this, county-wide political organiztionthat will prevent that void from occurring as occurred lastyear.

Q: Well, what do you think of, about the kinds of peoplewho, the local people whe- , the rural people and the citypeople that you have, do you think that they're, they'reinterested enough, and, and - well-eq uipped enough....?

A: The rural people are more interested than the citjppeople. On the othere hand, I think that naturally would,would probably be a little better equipped to do this typeof thing, so it very simply means that we're going to haveto , uh, take those rural people, and, and the best thatwe can find, both youth and adult, and give them thenecessary amount of leadership that wl&l compensate for theirlack of ability.

Q: Well, are there any local people who are beginning to.to come to the top as leaders? Or are, have there beenany in the past?

A: Yeah. See, in each precinct we do have, we have hadprecinct; leaders. Now, as I said before, many of them havenot been functioning to capacity. I think that when ourteams, our SCOPE teams, being out there, they should beable to advise us as to what changes we should make inpersonnel, precinct personnel.... based on their experience.And, uh we will make those changes, that they

0278-7recommend, and, and I think that in the final analysis wewill have a .... political organization down to the pre-cinct level. What I envision doing is breaking each pre-cinct into, uh, blocks or some comparable sub-division ofa precinct, so that within each precinct you would have aprecinct leader, and several block or sector leaders, sub-sector leaders, and - who would have no more than, eachsector leader having no more than, spy, forty people to beresponsible for, being responsible to see that all fortypeople are registered, and that all forty people get outand vote on voting days.

Q: You speak of that, you know, we will make changes.Who is the we you are talking....?

A: Well, """" Dr. Thomas, myself, along with the precinctleaders.

Q: ARe you all - you and Dr. Thomas and the precinctleaders, are you involved in any formal organization, oris it just kind of a """" personality.....?

A: Well, there will be a formal organization, yeah. Awell-organized, well-streamlined formal organization. Thisis the only way we're going to be able to realize ourfifty-one per cent voting.... strength.

Q: Do you expect this will be some kind of politicalorganization, or will it be a voter education kind ofthinfe?A: Well, -here's/what I think., it'll be sort of a two-fold thing. We will have an adult organization and ajunior chapter with youth. Now the adult chapter will bepolitically-oriented. Uh, the youth chapter will functionunder our direction and supervision, uh, they will notlimit themselves to political action, but... civic innature, to put it broadly., which, you know, can covermany things. And, uh... you see, we havenit had a...an organization in Orangeburg, to my knowledge, that reallyempathized with the people in the rural areas. Everyorganization I've seen here, including NAACP, has beenprimarily interested in theAity people. And let's face it,the masses of the people, the - are out there in the ruralprecincts - that's where we get our voting strength isfrom out there, and it's high-time that we had an organ-ization that included those people and...can exert what-ever influence we have as a result of this organizationto bring about the changes..

0278-8Q: You were taliing last night over at the SCOPE houseabout, sort of the relative merits of putting up a candi-date who could win, as opposed to putting up a candidatewho was more radical, and would, you know, just sort ofgive the people confidence in the fact, you know, that theyhad a candidate, while the person who could win would tendmore to be a conservative candidate so that he couldattract the white votes. What, uh, are the two kinds offeelings that you have on:;this, and why, why are you -I mean, is this - do you use different strategies fordifferent towns, or what?

A: Why, sure, I think that the strategy is a relativething. Uh, last night we were speaking of the cit^r ofOrangeburg. Now, the fourteenth of September there willbe a municipal election for ma#or, city council, and, uh,thus far there are n&ne candidates running for four council,seats. It was suggested to me that... some time age,suggested to me, by... one of the memebers of the whitepower structure who is a national democrat - he was one ofthe few people who openly campaigned here for, for PresidentJohnson. He suggested that -he concluded, rather, thatthere was an fit mospherenow for getting a Negro on the CityCouncil in lieu of having a Bi-racial Committee. It seemsas though they recognize that they need some sort of a forum,you know, but they don't want a bi-racial council.

Q: Why? Why...?

A: He, he didn't say. l, I would assume that, uh, I mean,a bi-racial committee- I would assume that a bi-racialcommittee, to them a bi-racial committee means having morethan two, two or more Negroes on it. And I guess that thething is that.... a bi-racial committee, the very term,bi-racial, might be a little repugnant to many white people.So he suggested that maybe it's time to put a Negro on theCity Council, and that he thinks that there are those whiteswho would support a Negro candidate for the City Council.And, uh, it might well be that, the business, don't forgetwe have alot of out-of-state business people coming in herenow, you see, we got these new plants... Uh, the fact thatthese new business people are coming in might mean that,that ...the ola power structure is being uprooted, andmaybe the business people, they've seen what has happenedin Selma, they saw what happened in Orangeburg a coupleof years ago. There's a re-, I guess there's a recognitionon their part that with the SCOPE workers here maybesomething like that could erupt again.

Q: What kind of pressure - are you aware of any pressure,

0278-9or any, anything that these new businessmen have donet0. " . .?

A: Well, yaah you know, last month we integrated the, theBel Aire restaurant. There were about twelve Negro collegestudents who integrated that place, uh, that was a threeday event. It almost got aut of hand. I guess it was, tomany of the people, reminiscent of the demonstrations twoyears ago, uh, maybe this is the thing that reminded themof the fact that something had better be done. I don't knowjust what it was.

Q: Are there any white people, you know, who are supportinguh, your efforts to register Negroes?

A: Local white people open- openly, I don't- I don't know ofany local white people who are openly supporting our, youknow, directly .^supporting our efforts to register Negroes.I ; don't kn<*r of any.

Q: Well, doesn't it seem that that would be the first thingthat, uh, any change in attitude would bring about- recogni-tion that Negroes should be included in the political process?

A: No, I don't know of any white people.. It would seemthat way, ;yah.

Q: What about the fellow who approached you about havinga Negro on the city council—was he just doing this- did-did he talk to you any about what it (?) if you did have aNegro on the city council?

A: W»ll, as I said before, he's a national democrat, uh, theRepublican party has gron tremendously in the last few yearsheme in in South Carolina, uh, the citizens of Orangeburghere are on the record democrats, but they're all votingRepublican now. So, maybe it's because he recognizes thefact that that there is a uh, battle between the, uh, Repub-lican party and the Democratic party, uh, maybe he feels thathaving a Negro on the city council will invite Negroes toregister, and this way he can maintain the strength, the votingstrength of the Democratic side.

Q: Well, how necessary is it for the candidate to win, enthe Negro candidate, if you put one up?

A: Well, you know, there's -he can either go to win, andby winning

Q: the necessity of winning- you say he can either go towin- the Negro candidate for the city council?

0278-10

A: Yah, seewe had - I'm just wondering whether or not puttingup a candidate that has less chance of winning isn't going tohave a very adverse affect on the minds of many of the peoplewho recently became registered and qualified to vote, uh,there is the feeling that right now, in many of the minds ofin the minds of many of those people that their vote isn'tgoing to make too much difference. And if we put up a Negrocandidate well knowing he's going to lose, uh, this willco/nfirm in their minds the fact that my vote doesn't makeany difference and, uh, I think it might frustrate ourefforts to make the people politically conscious. On theother hand- the other side of lthe coin is that if we put upa radical Negro candidate he can raise a lot of issues uh, &and by raising a lot of issues, uh, possibly inspire thepeople to really become interested and involved in thisbusiness of voting, uh, and it may not have an adverseeffect, it may have a favorable effect, but, it's just twosides of a coin.

Q: Well, what, I know that last night you were talkingabout the possibility of a union man running, what -why a

A: Well, a union man because the - we do have some unionshere in Orangeburg, now the unions have been able to the unionat the High grade paant (what?) the union at the Highgrade meat plant here, I guess they were one of the firstunions in Orangeburg. They have been operate on a segregatedbasis. They had two sections- Section A, the white unionmembers and Section B, the Negro union members. Here oflate they have broken that barrier down and and they havemore or less amalgamated into the one union that they weresupposed to have been all the time. So you do have whiteNegroes- white people - white workers and Negro peopleworking together, see, toward a common good. The fact thatthey work together, they vote together, uh, and they benefitfrom this union, see, uh, this collectiveness, uh, givesthis possible Negro union/i candidate a better chance,of drawing white votes from his white fellow workers, uh,he's - he has some experience and some skill in uh, uh,maintaining himself at meetings, uh, he has some respect fororganization, and probably some respect for the (telephonerings; he110...) what were you saying?

Q: about the Negro candidate from thfc union, and the thingshe's had experience with- in meetings and/..A: yah, well, you know, it's just a matter of- we reallydon't have too much choice in candidates, uh, we just have,we almost, almost, we almost have to put - pick any personwho is willing to run and sort of justify it by rationalizingthat he will be a good candidate.

0278-11

Q: Do you have a specific person in mind from the union?

A: No.

Q: You talk about a 'he.

$li Ido have one person In mind, uh, I haven't talked tohim. He has a good appearance, he's fairly articulate, uh,I haven't approached him on it. But, uh, without thinkingabout it too much, I think he, I think that he would makeone of the better candidates from that group of people.

$: Will, is the, is the High grade plant the only place thathas integrated unions, or are there others around here?

A; No, there's there's a Utica Hay, Utica Hay's tool plantwhich is a-it's a division of Calcic Hays, it's Utica tooland die plant, uh, just outside of town, they're from, it'sa plant that moved in here just a couple of years ago# fromUtica New York, and, uh, they're unionized now.

Q: Well, are the new companies that are moving in, are theyunionized too?

A; Not all of them, no. not all of them.

Q; What about the£r hiring practices, are they, do you knowanything about them at all? Have there been complaints about

A: yah, there have been complaints on some of them, uh,there was a complaint on this Smith-Corona plant that is abouta couple of miles outside of the city limits, uh, a hiringcomplaint, which we took before the board, but we did notprvail on, uh, because I just don't think that the Negroemployees Mjiit claim was meritorious. I think he lostlegitimately, I don't know of any others. Now, I was talkingto one of the employees out at the Utica toolplant, and he'sa union member, as a matter of fact, he's a shop steward.And he was telling me that when he was elected as shopsteward, or rather, designated as shop steward by the union,uh, he was the first Negro shop steward to be in that plant,and some threats were made against him, but# uh, he had thesupport of management, and management dealt with those peoplewho had made the threats and disposed- and the situation wasresolved quickly, because management showed enough courage,you know, to come to grips with the problem. But right nowhe's a shop steward and he represents uh, Negro employees aswell as white employees and handles their grievances.

Q: Well, what's the relative, urn, strangeh, in numbers, ofthe, uh...end of tape side.

0278-12Qj Well, how many people are there in the unions, asopposed to, say, white collar workers?

A: How many peeple that work in the unions?

Q: Yeah, that are blue collar workers?

A: In these plants—"..." let uh me see now. It wouldhave to be better than fifty per-cent of the staff thatare blue collar workers. I doA't know what that figurewould be.

Q: But it would be enough—would it—it would be enoughto swing an election, though?

A: Well, then again there's another consideration theretoo. You would have to be able to find our. how many ofthose people live within the city limits, you see. All of#the people who work out there do not live within the citylimits. That's one of our problems. We would have tofind a good Negro candidate who lives within the city limits.You know, there are other people who might make goodcaddidates for the city council, but they don't happen tolive in the city limits. So that makes a problem It'sfairly difficult to find someone within the city limitswho is articulate and fairly well versed in city politics —city administration. It would be a hard candidate Co find.

Q: Well, yesterday, you know, (inaudible) and severalconversations with people, you know, the kids were talkingabout persuading people to run out of the counties, out ofSt. Matthews. Are the people who decide to run —are theygoing to be able to act effectively after the SCOPE kidsleave, you know, support the Negro community? Or are theygoing to have to run on the support of the white workers?

A: I think that maybe in Calhoun County this might happen.Now in Calhoun they have had a fellow there, and they hopeWilliams, who had been doing quite a bit of work until—wellunder the sponsorship of EEP just getting the people to voteand registered. I don't know just how close kn6t his org-anization is in Calhoun County. I would rather say that unlessthe SCOPE workers in Calholn County can convince those people,the Negro pe/^ople, that during the time that they're there—while the SCOPE workers are there that they get the foundationfor some sort of a good county organization that you mighthave some semblance of a board after the SCOPE workers leave.I"m hoping that in Orangebufcg County that that won't happen.That we won't have that sort of a void. I'm hoping thatwe're laying some sort of a ground work that would obviatethe possibility of that happening. So if we do find a goodNegro candidate here, I'm hoping that the county organization,even though he is on the city council, the county organizationcould keep him informed on the needs of the city and the

0278-15administration functions so that he could do a fairly goodjob as a city councilman.

Q: Well, what are the decisions, what are the complaintsof the Negroes here in Or^angebutg City against the whitecommunity —there are certain things —I mean in each townthere are hiring practices and so forth that—or problemswith schools? But in some places the problems are moreacute than others.

A: We have a definite problem as far as hiring practicesis concerned. We have a problem with the welfare, uh. Wehave problems with school de-segregation. Now, the schoolde-segregation—we came to grips with that when we had ourschool de-segregation campaign on. Now this de-segregationcampaign was done under the auspices of the NAACP. Theeducation committee of the NAACP. And Dr. Thomas is thechairman of that committee. He is co-chairman. And we puton this school de-segregation campaign. We canvassed theentire populace of school district five, trying to informthe people, the parents, of their right to have theirchildren transferred from a segregated, from a former Negroschool, so-to-speak, to what we used to call the whiteschools. And as a result of this drive, we got about ahundred and fifty applications to be Submitted—about ahundred and fifty students that is. I think 78 of thoseapplications was approved. Now those—the differencebetween the 78 of those and the 150—you might say thatdifference represents aggrieved parents who wanted the^irchildren transferred, but whose whildren will not betransferred. So as far as de-segregation is concerned, onlythose parents would be the ones that are aggrieved. So,we do have a school segregation problem that we expectbecause of the failure of the other children to be transferredcan only indicate, perhaps, a disinterest on the part of theparents to send their children to anything other than aHegro school. Of course, it might go deeper than that.I know that it goes deeper than that. But on the surfaceanyway that conclusion can be reached.

Q: What —I understand that there was some problem thenlast week betwee^n Dr. Thomas and the NAA, and you know theeducation committee....

A: Yeah, well. Sure. As I said before the NAACp has neverattempted to identify with the people in rural areas. They'vebeen primarily concerned with the people within the city.They have an executive committee that— well, they're prettysecure financially and I'm not sure that there isn't afeeling among the members of that committee that to upsetthe status quo might place their status in a l^ittle jeap-ardy. But without regard to the rural people in those areas.

0278-14We recognize the fadt that—Dr. Thmmas and myself that is—recognize the fact that much has to be done here in Orange-burg County. That we have to draw in the people from therural areas. One: if we're going to realize our votingpotential, we'll have to draw them into the organizations.They're not now members of the local NAACP chapter. Andtwo: such things as the community action program wouldmeet some of their needs and the rural re-developmentprogram would meet some of the needs in the rural areas.The people—they just need leadership to implement thosethings and I think that the NAACP just isn't meeting thatneed.

Q: Is there— do you see a future conflict between theirorganization eventually, you know, be involved in the NAAor will the NAA come around and get involved with you—withyour organization?

A: I don't think there's a conflict because we're notcompeting with them for the people out in the rural areasbecause they have never really indicated a desire to empa-thize with those people. So as far as the people in therural areas, there is no conflict there.

Q: But the conflict will be....

A: Within the city. Within the city, yeah. In the citythere are indications of this sure. But I think that oncewe do put on d dynamic campaign and we do organize the peoplein the rural areas, I think necessarily the people from thecity in Orangeburg, in spite of the NAACP local chapter, inspite of that, will join with those masses.

Q: Well, will this/£ be because of economic pressure 0r...?

A: Well, right n0w....

Q: Do they have bad feeling—that much bad feeling thatbecause of economic pressure that it could be brought againstthem as well as the white community?

A: Oh sure. Oh sure, yeah. They youth—the youth chapterof the NAACP spoke in terms at one time of boycotting theNegro businessmen—some being on the executive committeeof the NAACP. The NAACP, for example, difl not want to—strike that. It wasn't as a result of their efforts thatone of the last bastions of the segregated restaurantswas not defeated through their efforts. It was tharoughDr. Thomases efforts, our efforts, and the youth.

Q: There is then a conflict between the NAA and the youthand the youth....

A: Yeah. The youth.. .yaah. It's just that the older

0278-15members are not going to give them the leadership and theencouragement along whe lines that they would like to seeit given.

Q: What is—do you see a present and perhaps a continuingnecessity for direct action. For instance, your (inaudible)plans?

A: Yeah, sure. In isolated instances, yeah. Well organ-ized, well directed, and well-planned. Not just spontaneousthings, but well planned things designed to accomplish aspecific thing. Not just demonstrations and direct actionper se. But well designed, well organized, and well directeddirect action is in many instances, I think, might be needed.

Q: Well, it seems here that there are kind of lots of diffe-rent stages of progress in the movement. What would you sayyou know —the first stage seems to be the mass, just massdemonstrations, you know. Then it moves more to the kind ofthink that you're doing now,usually.

A: Right.

Q: What would you say is the next step in action?

A: The next immediate step that I see is the organizing ofthis political organization. In conjunction with the youthorganization simultaneously with the implementation of thefederal programs—the re-development program, the communityaction program. Uh, then again I might say simultaneously—this is going to be burdensome—but definitely title seven—equal employment and the voting registration.

Q: Well, how do you see the implementation of the federalprograms? Will this require excessive court action 0r...?

A: I don't think it will require excessive court action.Now, see, in South Carolina the governor said, in essence,that we could have poverty programs here in South Carolina.But in order to have one, you'll have to get the countydelegation to pass an enabling act —to introduce an enablingact to legislation. Now the county delegation, which hereis four members of the House of Representatives and oneSenator, they were approached back in December, the 7th ofDecember and their regular scheduled meeting and it wassuggested to them that we implement the community actionprogram in Orangebul?g Coutny. But at that time, they saidthat they didn't want to have anything to do with it—witha community action program. They said that they felt thatthis was just a political gimmick on the part of PresidentJohnson to gain votes. He gained those votes. He is inoffice. And now he's not interested in the p^overty program.This was their thinking. And a couple of weeks thereafter

0278-16they were approached again and they reiterated the samediversion. Uh, Dr. Thomas and I went over—we were quiteconcerned about it. And so Dr. Thomas spoke to one of theAg agents, one of the Negro Ag agents and he said that oneof his superiors—one of his white superiors said to him"Why don't you do something about ehe community actionprogram in Orangeburg County and so Dr. Thomas said "Yeah,why don't you do something about it?" And he said "Ithink I will." So we gave him a month to act, in whichhe didn't. So I called Washington and told them about oursituation down here and asked them if they had any suggestionshow we could overcome this injtfertia on the part of theCounty delegation; And the fella that I talked to saidthat he couldn't think of any and then asked if I couldsuggest any and I told #him "Yeah." I was thinking thatif one reads the community as a whole of the povertyprogram and they can really get the spirit of the act,they would conclude that the act was designed to benefitindividuals who were poverty striken. And we do have thoseindividuals here in Orangeburg County. This year thefederal government will contribute 90$ of the funds forany program that is started and the organization only hasto contribute 10$. The 10$ can be in money, property, orlabor. It can be in cattle, in other words. It doesn'thave to be in money. So we suggested that maybe if weadvertised in the newspaper for several consecutive daysand say that we are going to have a meeting in the Courthouseand invite people to attend the meeting and state the purposeof the meeting to start a community action program and startthe organizing maybe of a committee and then those peoplewho show up at that meeting will be enrolled. And then thosepeople who showed up at that meeting and in a following addsubsequent meeting foote on a committee and then have this^committee certified to draw up programs in community actionin Orangeburg County. And then he said—the fella that Iwas talking to in Washington—he said that he was going tobring it up in one of his staff meeting*" Lastwweek thechurch council had a meeting in Columbia with the Governorand his staff. And the purpose of that meeting was todiscuss poverty and the plight of poor people in SouthCarolina and the community action programs were discussed.And Mr. Bithett from across the street went up. He toldthem that he was going up and that toe was going to raisethis problem of the community action program in OrangeburgCounty and he did. And he said that there was a whitewoman from Orangeburg at this meeting and she expressed aninterest in the community action program in Orangeburg andshe promised that she was going to do something to get acommunity action program here. Now this was—happened lastweek and this suggests that maybe we should give someoneelse—someone else a reasonable period of time to do something.Then again, I think that we should not. I have the address

0278-17of this fella, Mr. William Harris. He's the districtcoordinator of the community action programs. He's inAtlanta. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago and hesaid that he would come down here and talk about thecommunity action program. But I want him to come downafter our teams have worked in the county to get somesemblance of a county organization so that when we invitethis Mr.' Harris down, we can have some of the SCOPE membersthere. We can have those rural people who could be there.They youth—the youth who would be in this organization.Have them there.' Have the sector leaders at the meeting.Save the precinct chairman at the meeting. Have it sothat there can be very informal questions and answers andmaybe out of that meeting, we can get some idea of what hecan do to implement our community action program, or ourrural re-development program. What I would like to seedone here, is to have community centers built under thisprogram so that we could have a head start—operate rightout of this community or precinct center. We could havea clinic operate periodically out of this community center.And where we could hava a tutorial program offered thatwould operate year-round out of this community center.And this tutorial program would be staffed by—(mumbling) —State college has a work study program under a communityaction program. You see? And they don't haee a jobspecific that Includes, let's say, sending the Juniors andSeniors who are taking education courses out to these ruralareas to do tutorial work. I think that if we had a com-munity action program what would—make provisions for atutorial program in the afternoons for emementary kidsand high school. Keep them off the streets and /£keep themoff the farms. All these things dovetail. Keep them offthe farms and put them in the tutorial school in the after-noon and help them to overcome some of their deficiencies —their academic deficiencies. At the same time the Juniorsand Seniors at State College would have this job experience.It would be a job specification for them and in the eveningthey could work with the adult education program. Now thiswill make jobs for the Negro teachers who might be displacedas a result of the integration of the schools. You see, theycan have an adult education program in the evening.

Q: And these could be all the people from the farms?

A: Yeah. This could all operate out of this communitycenter. Now this community center could be built by Negroeswho are unemployed, who are under-employed, who have theseskills—building skills, masonry skills, carpenter skills,painting skills and all. fend there are many of them around.Because as tradition this has been their type of work. Andin the middle of the week, we could have a general culturalenrichment through some lectures and through movies. You

0278-18know you can get a movie on anything today. Uh, I justthink that it would be a wonderful thing and this woulddraw the people together in the community and keep themin the precinct and this will give them a unity. You know,this will give them a new sense of pride.

Q: How much would this— say, if you got the people whoare presently under employed—some of the masons and thecarpenters—what would this do on a very short term?

A: It would be short term, sure. But it's going totake awhile to implement title seven, even given theopportunity, you see. This would fill the gap betweenthe implementation of that, you see. It would fill thegap because it's going to be a very long time, I think,before title seven will be implemented.

Q: Well, are there enough jobs in Orangeburg Countyto aake care of the Negroes who are unemployed?

A: Uh,....

Q: Or is there a possibility in the future of theirbeing— say if more industry is coming in?

A: You see, it is coming in at a very rapid rate.

Q: WJiy? Do you think that it's. ..the voter registration?

A: I guess it's you know the climate. Back in the Northyou have to worry about losing work days because of thesnow days and that sort of thing and taxes. Theress a lackof—there are tax benefits that they get when they come inhere.' And labor.

Q: If the industry in Orangeburg—if it doesn't come intoOrangeburg, what will happen to the under-employed Negroes?I mean will it be possible to —or necessary to involve themoutside of the County or will it be possible to keep creatingjobs like the community centers? Will it be possible?

A: It will, I guess—temporarily. But you can't escape it.I think that if jobs are fairly and equitably assigned topeople that this would cut down on the number of unemployedNegroes. I donft have any specific figure on that, but Ithink it Is a good question and I think it should be able to.And it's something that we have to know in order to justifythis program.

Q: Well, I have a number of questions basically about theschool conflict....

A: Well, uh, I have this too. Another thing under the

0278-19poverty bill, each home-owner will—can borrow up to $2500for home improvement, you see. Now this will keep thosepeople busy for awhile. What I would like to see done isto form a pool of those people with building skills whowould do the work for those individuals who do borrow#2500 under a long-term loan from the federal government.This will keep them busy.

Q: Build the community too.

A: Yeah. Yeah. This is the sort of thing that thepoverty program was intended to accomplish. This is some-thing you see. These homes out here are just deplorable.I think that the city under the poverty program—I thinkthe city could build new roads in these rural areas. Thiswould provide work that those people need for a long time.And with a healthy climate like that, I think that this, too,would invite business to come into the area—a healthyarea—a growing area—an area, a city, acounty that isdoing something to solve the problems j&iere in its orien-tation. So, I think that this would be the first thing—organizing this community organization with the youthchapter to provide perpetuity to it so there won't be thisv^oid. And these federal programs. The implementationof these federal programs. Now another thing: StateCollege is an industial school. They have a well-equippedcarpentry shop. They have a well-ewuipped auto shop. Theyhave a well-ewuipped machine shop. And very few students.Really, not enough students to justify their existence.Yes. Yes they have the equipment and the instructors.They have the teachers. They don't have an adult educationprogram. And when an industry wants to come in—the indus-try has the problem with finding citizens of the county—of the particular county—who have the skills that the StateCollege could provide them with, if they had an adult educa-tion program .' And I think that the State College is receivingfederal funds that some influence could be brought to bearto see that they do open up such a program.

Q: You mentioned that you had gained a lot of experiencefrom last year from the AFSC project in terms of organizingthis year's project. How would you go about passing—urn, Iguess it would be a carry-over of you and Dr. Thomas fromlast year. How would you go about getting decisions made—getting your experience and their inexperience and the factthat they are supposed to be making the decisions instedd—of SCOPE'S.

A: Who? SCOPE. Of SCOPE. Well, I think that you couldsee that we have a good relationship. I think that I saiddefore that Dr. Thomas is the education chairman and co-chairman.1 And we have two immediate problems. One: theSCOPE group coming in and two: the tutorial thing. So, we

0278-20agreed that Dr. Thomas would take the tutorial and I'dtake the SCOPE this summer. This is the way that we havebeen functioning this summer. And I think that I've beenable to strike up a good enough relationship with theSCOPE group that we can work together. We have been workingtogether well. I think we're fairly compatible. We getalong together and we get to the problems. They relied veryheavily on me when they first came here, but they gainedexperience, you know. And it's to the point now where theycan make thiir own decisions and In a sense, you know, theydon't need me any more.* Which is a healthy situation.I don't know if that is what you referred to.

Q: Yeah. I was wondering how you got over that—thatdependence on your experience.

A: Yeah; Yeah, it just worked out beautifully. Theywere here long enough and they do work in the city wards—in the city and the suburban wards. They made—we havemeeting where we brought in the precinct chairman and theygot introduced to the SCOPE workers and then they discussedsome of the problems and some of the rural problems. Andthe n on a few occassions they went out to some of the ruralprecincts and got the lay of the land and they became fairlyknowledgeable to the point now where they're almost completelyindependent. I think they don't need me. I feel unwantednow. (laughter) They don;t need me.

Q: What kind of mistakes do they make when they makemistakes?

A: Oh, make mistakes of judgment. Reasonable mistakes,distakes that anybody can make. I think that—I know ofno serious glaring mistakes that I could make a point of.If anything has happened, it's not largely due to a gravemistake that they made, but more or less just that one ofthem may have unnecessarily exposed themselves to a badsituation that was there. I'm thinking of when Mr. Schraderhad a little difficulty down in Branchville. There was rflittle that he could have done and could have preventedthat from happening. He was followed around by the Chiefof Police everywhere that he went. And the Chief of Policeand the Deputy Sheriff did that last year to the AFSCpeople.* And when Mickey went down there this year, theydid that to him. But I think that that has come to an endnow.

Q: Well, how did you go about solving this problem?

A: Well, we of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division,which is directly responsible to the Governor. And theGovernor doesn't want any bad publicity for the state andI think that the Governor, through the Law Enforcement

0278-21division Is excercising a little more control on theofficials out in the rural areas. So when I calledChief Brown and told them about it, I think he did exerthis influence and did something about it. The same thinghappened in St.' Matthews. The police were doing the samething;' They had embarked upon this harrassment campaignand Chief Brown brought that to an end, too.; And when Icalled him some time later and talked to him, he asked mehow I liked the good job that he did down there. So, Iimagine that he did. So, we do have their support. Wedo have the support of the South Carolina Law EnforcementDivision. As a matter of fact, he said that his bestclients are Matthew Perry and myself.

Q: Have any of the people from the SCOPE project saidanything about any of their reactions to living in theNegro community—the totally different culture Bihat theyhave moved into?

A: I rather believe that they're injoying it. It's—they expected it. They were looking forward to it so thatthey didn't have any illusions as to how it would be. So,that's just what they wanted and that's what they expected.And I haven't heard any of them complain about it exceptmaybe Edith. And I think that maybe Edith would haveprobably some complaints if she lived in the Statler Hilton.Or any one of them. Certainly, where they're living isnot the essence of culture. When they first arrived inOrangeburg, they had to live in the old house and the oldhouse was just a shambles. You didn't hear any cmmmlaints.Any complaints were that they couldn't rough it. And oneof the complaints about moving into the big white house isthat it was a little bit too comfortable for them.

End of tape.