Bryan Simpson : Transcribed Interview

Collection:: Civil Rights Library of St. Augustine
Title:: Bryan Simpson : Transcribed Interview
Creator:: Simpson, Bryan
Colburn, David
Contributor to Resource:: Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida
Date of Original:: 1977-05-24
Subject:: Civil rights--United States--Florida
People:: Simpson, John Milton Bryan, 1903-1987
Colburn, David R.
Kunstler, William A.
Hayling, Robert Bagner
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Young, Andrew, 1932-
Peabody, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth), 1891-1981
Mathis, Charles C., Jr.
Manucy, Albert C.
Manucy, Holsted, 1919-1995
Lance, Charles
Stuart, Virgil
Williams, Hosea, 1926-2000
Brock, James, 1922-2007
Plummer, James
Location:: United States, Florida, 28.75054, -82.5001
Medium:: transcripts
Type:: Text
Format:: application/pdf
Description:: Interview with Bryan Simpson, federal judge who presided over many St. Augustine civil rights court cases. Recounts his involvement in the civil righs movement. Focused on his protection of the protesters, and views of civil rights leaders. Also expands and shows the brutality of L.O. Davis and the KKK.
Civil Rights-St. Augustine 2A Interviewer: David Colburn Interviewee: Judge Bryan Simpson May 24, 1977 sjm S: There, there are two or three main sections which you may have gathered from reading Mr. Ku.!rl'stler's connnents, also from other sources. The, the first, the first things that happened down there, do you want me to start off with that? Or would you rather ask me questions? C: Well, I was just going to ask you, the first one I was just going to ask . S: you was, were you involved in any of the 1963 goings-on? That was before!/( Iv ,/, iv~ {"-f-;l· 1A,.,.., I Well, that was, that was when they took, they got h.a.ilillg and beati~ piv •. everything. C: Right. S: Well, that, that came out, they never brought any action in this, in the district court, United States court, with reference to that. C: I see. S: But it came out in the following spring, in 1964, in the suit against L.O. Davis, the sheriff, which was one of the main, the main pieces of litigation. That styled Andrew Young v. L. (), Davis ------ _____ §: C: Right, the ambassador- S: Ambassador to the United Nations. But he was, he was an assistant of Martin J~'$ Luther King~at that time. And he, he was, he was arrested and beat up on and all sorts of things, so they, they, one of the early suits was Young v. Davis, one of the main suits. The early suits were numerous arrests for, this was about Eastertime in 1964-- C: Uh huh. Right. 2A Page 2 sjm S: Early April, I guess, or late March, 1964. C: Late March. S: Attempts to integrate eating places and motels, to a limited extent, but more, more eating places than anything else. And that's when Mrs. Peabody, the, the mother of the then governor of Massachusetts, Endicott Peabody, she wa.s amcmg the ones arrested and she'd been wrfttf:'J.1 up in her, that week, about her reasons for going down there. They, there were, oh, I don't know, a couple hundred arrests, I would guess, I don't want it to come out and be sure about it on paper. And they sought, Kuifi.stler, William Kutfustler and s,·l)'l()n,..., Tobias f:i~a:tt"" from Miami, they were representing these plaintiffs, they sought, they filed petitions to remove all the cases involved in these aA::1rests·, wfti'Cli were, I· guess would oeen returnable to the county (court .Jof' the county judges court. I'm not certain which. Judge Mathis, John Mathis was the judge of that court. C: Right. S: And I had hearings for two or three days and determined that the cases weren't removable under the statutes which had been stood. Apparently, Kuenstler apparently looked to ·the fact that later they, I was reversed for the remainder of those cases. But that was because they, the court of appeals applied the '64 Civil Rights Act retroactively. C: Oh right. S: @ ~--~~~~~~~-- opinion on that appeal and I had, at the time, at that time, I, my recollection is, and it's filed, you'll have to ferret it @ I out. But my recollection is that I permitted a Sl1.f)"" 5££2 (?) bond whileFhe, ~ \ f I while the refusal to, while my dismissal of the case was in this court, was 2A Page 3 sjm pending and that, that held them up, you see. They didn't go back at that time. C: Right. S: And they, those cases now,they'd arrest them, they'd be, typically they'd be a mixed group, two or three white ladies and a couple of colored ladies. Now Mrs. Peabody, she had the, she had the wife of a black Episcopal bishop somewhere in New England. C: Yeah, Massachusetts. S: Massachusetts, I guess, with her, and one, I don't know, one or two other ladies, maybe another minister's wife. They, they were, they were arrested for trying to eat, for going in and sitting down in a restaurant to eat. C: Uh huh. S: I c&J> 0·17 And there were, that, that was more or less typical i-rt/those offenses and there was no special violence involved at that time. C: Did you handle many cases like that before the St. Augustine confrontation? S: I never had anybody try to remove a, try to remove one of those things. It C: was a new concept. I think in Kubstler' s chapter he says that I was1 At ,;vc/~.141. t!J) He spoke to me and came to my office to me before the hearing and I told' him I'd be interested to heatjvhat they had, see what they had to develop. That this was something new to me, that they could remove these, this type of case. And so, after hearing them a day or so, and hearing thei~ arguments- (What do you want, Ken? It'll keep, but thank you very much. Give the bank- ,..,-~·~ v.:_-< book and stuff to Mrs. -- • Thank you, Ken). Well, I've lost the thought, I'm sorry, but-aJ You were talking to Kuenstler about the- 2A Page 4 sjm I I ' /~.;,_·; _.,.. ,.. -;'',7'.VI, hIi /11 ~7- C', / ;f•.(; 7 r 1~1,v-~.:.!: S: And the hearing. And they, they have some, they got hassled around a little bit at that time, they got shoved around in the jail and first agreed to, they had a , as I recall a, a representative of a Miami r;;; ol::>nding company or some out of town bonding company -!At., .f,~Jl-r _,who said they·' d take them and then the next morning kicked that, released the people, rciv . @ and then the next morning they wouldn't even - fl.c.-v $for1r/ • 'U±d 5,fflaf'\ and Bill Ku~stler around in the office a little bit and so on. That, that's I think you've covered that once that I know about. That was covered pretty thoroughly in the testimony in that case. Then later they started, it would have oeen in late May, they, they started marching down there and marching at night. C: Right, right. S: C: S: C: S: And that, that is the basic, the~ march~ Hi 5'°'"c \,f\ [( d'wi:~, - then they were told by, told by the sheriff and the chief of police and so on that they couldn't march anymore. And they, then, we had this, had this suit involving, and that was, that was joL1':5 v. Davis- Right. and the, the incident fl,v/,rJq (\;i Robert~" I heard testimony for several days in that case about Dr. Cleaver ~{~1 not Cleaver- Jle-.r.,l.,.1@ Robert .HaJ..e#, yeah. q /ill~ Dr. Robert Ha:-1-ay_ being beaten up and when they were bod of(« f'..I(·,, ,.,uf,,,~, trying to spy on somebody aincl appare1tdy- he and one or two other blacks ·:·· were trying to spy on c, t l?t r< n1 cc J, 11n and they caught them and they rou~h 0 ' 1(1 } l\ LU '.'-) gave them a pretty/time. And if I recollect, 1 1it doesn't appear in this couri but perhaps in the St. Augustine local state or county court, they, 2A Page 5 sjm C: S: 1L.1 they wouldn't make any CC!)C' against {iJ., ll c 111 people .. ~made J-4 some --Ct1-SC'-) --against ~against the blacks- Right. ' •, J-/.1-'i /,.111 @ That was the, well, that's when, that's how, that's how the Hale~ thing came in, that incident came in. And there, there was a, there was another thj_ng that came out during that, during r: hi's story about h±s case, sJ~rised that that hearing and Kue1. one or two of K.lan the older agents in the FBI office that some ~eople from Jacksonville MAtlvc.~t were messed up in with Davis and.Mi.hu.se-and everything down here in St. Augustine and,,, )said that he had, he had Klansmen, their information was that Klansmen were his special deputies. And they said that they've imit-ported the Klan down there, they.· called ~something like the- C: Ancient City Hunting Club? S: Ancient City Hunting Club, or Gun Club or something or other, and that was what I was trying to get out of Davis and then I finally, finally 2A Page 6 sjm Davis come back the next day and bring me a list of deputies and that's /.,. M1 lvc..'-/ when Hoss M:i:riuseJ.s name came up, for example. I told him, "I want to know,.know about those deputies." And he didn't seem to know anything about them. He estimated he had twenty, or thirty or forty and I said, uMy information, you have over a hundred.·Get me a list." And he brought · .' a list, and it weighed like a hundred and forty or fifty, and he said those were the ones that he had deputized during the, during the Easter-time, that that wasn't all the special deputies. He didn't know how many special deputies he had, no idea. Well- C: How did one get to be a special deputy? S: Well, he, he, he testified in that proceeding that anybody that'd come in and volunteer, he'd make them a special deputy. He hadn't, he claimed not to have any list of questions. fhe. /,~.I . and so. on, and there was · ow:f' no, no control ~hem. Now remind me to talk about the, the deputy sheriff Lance matter after I get through, because that comes into this. Lance was one of those special deputies. Nothing, nothing very concrete came out of that. The1the, going back to the, well, this was in Andrew Young's proceeding that, that the special deputies matter came out. And it's very involved and I, there was another connection, there was a connection, ,J"c.c./::3.cJ'JllJ!f! .. @ or thought to be a connection between a bunch of Klansmen, the a.e.tual a r:. .:r rec id I; bunch of Klansmen that I tried in late June and up, r wonld sall it?2July the fourth of 1964. It was either Saturday or Sunday and we had the trial going(/NC/, ,,(or,t! and the jury said they wanted to stay and work on the fourth or on Sunday or both, whatever it was, and they came in with a , they couldn't agree and I had to declare a mistrial. These people were charged ·------- ------------------------------------ 2A Page 7 sjm with dynamiting the home of, out in Lackawanna of the first one, of the only little black child that had gone to Lackawanna school, gone to the, that had happened a year or two before, two or three years before mayfie. But under the integration order, one child put in the, put in the Lackawanna Primary School, the elementary school in the fall. He was a little first grader. They, they had the women parading out there f/,~f @l 4 ./(hrt~ -~ti /v !A·,;~ ru(lr1-t. //, and they had signs up, "Niggers '/ " / I?;\) , {./h·•'"S V:.W C:·~rhafl1/:,, Q1./(,{f/; •. .:J" "·.'1The little six year old kid couldn't read, you 0 /ii! know, but it must have been a fi 11s/e..;v !;_·;to him, what the sign said. So I finally this group, they got together and we tried these people for dynamiting that house and we had, we had, I can't think of his name, I 1 . {ttt l! 1.1 :7( ("(i.'.I .(;.,/, ./ rw-μ.., an experienced man from Indiana or Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, somewhere right in that part that was a, he was an accomplished /(o'Sf.Cf'--4115 dynamiter. He, he pled guilty) {))'1\\io.u1 ~)fl1t".!I,;,"~· He pled guilty and ·-' he pled guilty, and testified in the first trial against these people. Now, after the mistrial, I tried my ·best to, I told the U.S. attorney, I said,"I'm going to try it again." And he wanted to try it in the fall. I said, well, I said,"Maybe this doesn't have anything to do with it, but you're a Democrat and that Lyndon Johnson's running here in this fall election." I said,"You try this thing a month before the election, it will bring a lot of, bring a lot of racial feeling, bring a lot to the surface that might react unfavorably on the President." And I said, " He's,he's a Democrat and that might interest him." And so they didn't try it until -{: 1ter, after the election. Finally~hef~ried it in November and the people fi;;, -....;:... .. -"" were acquitted. They had a , they had a ---------- dry run, and ----------------------------------------------- ···- 2A Page 8 sjm this government witness wouldn't, wouldn't testify and we, I let him use the, I let him use his prior, tes.timony at the prior trial and that was, that was one of the points on the appeal, whether, whether he could testify again or not. And then, then he brought, pushed con-viction proceedings which I decided against him and he claimed that the FBI had made him promise all kinds of things, you know to, to get his plea of guilty set aside. It turned out, he was the only one, only one that got it. These local Klan types, they, they got away, but there was there were indications that you couldn't, couldn~t ';t"eally put your finger on at that time and it'd oe impossible to put them down in very concise order now, wi:th the time passed and my memory being what it is, But that, these people were tied in with the Sl, A1Aci1,1S}i11'.e.- hb'c.h, and old Davis, and this, I'm not clear on this in my mind, but Davis arrested, v1ere. the Florida East Coast strike was going on and there w~ome rewards out for people that were connnitting acts of sabotage against the railroad, putting dynamite all over it and blowing up the trains and so on. They had big rewards. This William whatever his name was, Davis had him and he thought he had gotten himself a, and q 11M/t/t-1 I think Mi~use was in with him, I don't know, but they thought they had captured him. The East Coast saboteur. And it was all linked in together with this Klan trial that this fellow was a witness in here in Jacksonville and I'll get, get, they were, the FBI was monitoring the Jacksonville Klan thing and that's how they got up·enough.evidence to indict these people for the dynamiting of the house out there, the parents of, the mother of this little boy, and also they, they were getting some feedback in there about\ St. Augustine thing 2A Page 9 sjm from the same, same thing going on, see and it tied in with the, tied in with the dynamiter. Well, the, let's go back to Young, Young v. Davis. r;Q #7> fbtN 1.{) :I brought another, f I Now that went on for several days lf11d brought this suit and we had, we had a hearing and I told him that, I said,"I'll get this out as quickly as I can, but I'd like to ask for committment that you don't demonstrate during the time I have the case II on the advisement bench, it turned out to be about a week or ten days, nine or ten days, I forget, the order came out on the ninth of June. And they agreed, they went out to confer, and they agreed to that. Then " rf~'I -/-J E ir.f,,, ft_,.n,;e. '~~· I enjoined the marchers. I, I enjoined them-first with the marchers. Davis, and Dr. Shelley was lhe t»~ Voe= l\r'\c\ 1'-1\fC- .forcw.Jlcn )~.c d\ie\ o\ ~,.,l1c:,<'.'s r....,_;r,(' ~-'-'-"'----,11-..>t..J:;;;._-,~'---'----'.;..o..~ C: ~~~ S: Stuart Virgil, Stuart, yeah. And of course, one thing, we got hot to start bringing in these people march at night and the people in pickup '1:> trucks with bicycle chains and ax J:;l..(i&.J ·~nd ball bats and so on would assemble on the square and ,V, 0~ ,tln-11 @and fight them and they brought the Florida Highway Patrol down there. We had another, another bi.g hearing about that I recall . t:16Mf //1;;v t; 1tL. And I refused to t II ti to them ----------- @ C: There must have been a lot of.pressure on you then, because I think Ol I everybody was, well,Jithe whites were hoping you'd put a ban on the demon-strations. S: Yeah, yeah, right, well, then I, I got, I don't know where that file's 2A Page 10 sjm here or not, but I have stacks of you know, poisonous, poison pen mail, threats and everything else. I wonder with these people coming in and they would assemble from, they weren't all of them, they weren't all of them, many of them localj, A0,,_,d;•·' people. They'd get a couple of pickup trucks loads eorrJ> ,\,orv\ Oc?l b , Cr"'~''[.: ui 1 c. Pzd:'.1..+l:c·, ._:1(,rl2 or ::::::,;,: u.)\crt<: o vc& Jk{,\ 'c( t6Y1\J.. Q·Y~Cl ~t·~t\_\:d f) ('1.-/t:t,,. (fl"C(; .,..,, '";'t'! ·~"',f':.1~l't•·'" .C: I was wondering what you, you hear ~lot of St. Augustinian people say that there really wasn't a St. Augustine protest, it was people from outside. Did you have that feeling too? S: Well, it was people, it was people from outside. King, King went in there, King started it and King was, King was tickled to death to get out of there with a dog bone, really. I couldn't, all I was trying to do, the main thing I was trying to do was to get a biracial committee formed down there and let them deal with these blacks. And you couldn't get anybody that would agree. They wanted to have a secret committee they wouldn'·t, wouldn't let-1-)n/y Ari"'' f;:, f;j And, well, Pope the senator, he came over and talked to me rcnJF-one night about what to do, and I said,"~, you can take the lead in this thing." No, he couldn't do that. You'd have to have some, if you're going to lead you have to have somebody to follow you and so on, see. Well, finally, a banker there, can't remember his nameC: I'm, I'm not sure which one it was-Frank Har"old? S: Frank Hatold was one, and then the other man, the other banker who's- C: Wolfe, was it Wolfe? S: Wolfe, yeah. And they finally got some sort of conunittee, they got some sort of a, at least a front of a committee together. And what, what saved the situation, I, I, what, you see the first thing, the first thing that people like, people like King would want, would be to make, they're making 2A Page 11 sjm a, they're making a protest and they're making a non-violent protest, I I 1srn£J b~~~i~~' the marchers. I thought that there had to be -- Mvo'fl/(fr we1Jlten days ahead lo slow n'''~F @on a certain date, why, it should be held in contempt. I thought maybe things would settle down a little then. Couldn't have a , you know people say,government ignores +de.,"{ 14-ttle court orders and.so on like that. Vot.. eol /o -le.Irr. 5:'01»F ~ u ~ /JJF//ft'.~D· ON ffi.;;_,~,c, n.l. t/ir.t, Or yoiA. i~lS 1 /c.co .... Q'" a ~ql;:.I' !~;?'" re4/ f41 cf,jCYJkN0t;1, C: Are you and Bryan~ weren't you and Bryant-fairly good friends at that time, or is that? S: We had been friends, yeah, he pad, he practiced law in.Ocala and I, when T came on the district bench in 1950, I used to go twice a year, and hold court down in Ocala for two or three weeks, whatever it is. They have a courtroom, courtroom down there and we had an Ocala docket and I'd go down and meet all those Ocala lawyers pretty well,and Bryant was a Rotarian~a ~ itlfWluo\ Rotary Club down there, Ci11d J'd 5U'Orn121fKdN~, we, we LA)Crc -fr1cn~l(,.I· (pi; ~.~~~~~- __,, He, he had one of his close friends here in Jacksonville during that week or ten days we're talking about call me and ask me could he, he and I talk unofficially, and I said, "Come on over, I'll meet you at 'Your friend's house." And we had a meeting one night about two hours, trying to figure out where, where we were going, where we were getting to. We, we were not, we thought differently, but we were not unfriendly, in a personal sense •• , C: Uh huh, sure. 2A Page 13 sjm S: ••• at all, see, and I was trying to help them, I was trying to help them figure them, figure things out. One way is to, to get passed off with the-well, the thing they were, the thing they were protesting about getting into, getting into motels and restaurants and everything was covered by the Civil Rights Act. So now the next, the next thing was, they started trying .to integrate those motels and restaurants with the force of law oehind them with Title Two of the Civil Rights Act to back them up. And so we had a bunch of those cases. C: I wonder if I could back up just a second. S: Yeah, yeah. C: Do you think what King was concerned, do you think it,· he was trying to use St. Augustine to get the Civil Rights Act passed? Did you sense arty of that with Young? S: I don't- C: Was trying to pressure S: I, I don't know that King thought that way. C: Uh huh. S: King was, King was a, he was a terrific inspirational leader, you know, and he, I can hear him now. "I have a, I have a dream," you know, there, when /?:/1 the, at the Washington Monument -~1{.·t hat peri. od. He, he was, he was a .terrific inspirational leader, but I don't think he was much of a thinker and a, and a planner and I, I would question whether he, but that may have, that's certainly ~ possiblity. Now I wouldn't like to think that he was simply going all over and trying to stir up as much interest and concern for the plight of the blacks as he could. I, I, maybe they, course he was, ------------ --- ' --- 2A Page 14 sjm course I'm sure he examined the passage of the Civil Rights Act. I, I don't know, he probably testified up there. I don't know that, I don't think they would call him in, but you know there was a good deal of testifying, testi-mony about people say, this, talking about Title Two testimony, people say well, the department of black, Department of Justice lawyer- -Break- C: Yeah, I was going to ask you , one of the other questions I was going to ask you. You, were sharply critical of Davis for the conditions in his jai1.. Now I wonder if you might, how, how did you know that conditions were that bad then? S: There was a suit, when that was, I tell you, there was a suit, and I'll try to think of the name of it. It's one of these cases, when, after the first of July, when, when they, when they started making these steps to integrate the various restaurants, and getting, those people getting arrested, again, you see, they1 f/.rsr NrRE , these were locals. I suppose they were being di-rected from outside, but going in and try to, go and sit down and-I'll tell (:"">, I . / . ~ ,.1. ,,Mf rvcN. · you one of those instances - _/,·r1r. ,/ or /iJc/rr/ .;... -r/.t hr'J-11:·;<·1 :And, as I recall, there was also some marching and demonstrating about this same time, and when this, these, these problems brought on a , they brought on a lot of, a number of arrests and they, I'm not sure which and I couldn't tell from the testimony whef~ff~e£:~-af@, the jail set bonds or whether he had a direction from Matthews the judge to set bond, whereas the people that were, outside people that were demonstrating and trying to, trying to integrate, trying to integrate restaurants and motels- C: Uh huh, right. 2A Page@ sjm S: We were setting bond a hundred and fifty, two hundred, three hundred C: S: C: S: C: S: dollars then. That was a cinch for them. Now these local people, they get done arresting them in, in July there, so they were setting bonds at three thousand, thirty-five hundred. Good heavens. Out of sight f.or these people. Well- They brought a suit that, that they claimed that the excessive bail; t1NOke Iii£ (DJ . //mrr:c/r .. wt- wif/..excessive 'Dail, and also cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment by the way they were treated in the jail. And that's when I criticized· the jail conditions in the, in tlie order in that, in that case, in which r~ Were they that bad, just out of curio;sity? They were pretty bad. They, they had a, everybody was, blacks and whites, males 01.M,idt They'd keep themVthere in the ball and say that was {f)_ They sent them he had a, he had a compound where [Ji and females - '1-.rl,./la./fi.ad to stay. chain in July all day, and they'd to court so they'd let them have exercise, they'd stay out there if it was hot, they'd stay out there if a thunderstorm crune or whatever. And then you had them packed in like sar-dines in some places at night and that sort of thing. C: I see. S: That was the, that w~ the basis a{ {~(i-..@I, let me, I think •••• •- -'-___I f .1111 <;/1;:' 1P J ,,.,,~,..' . J'l~1•1L "f b-'· +h.f f"~.pf~.,.,t:r /\Brock. Now Brock was the, Brock was the - C: Here's, here's a reference to it-o S: Brock was the man that ran the M,tl.nson Motor Lodge. 2A Page 16 sjm C: Right. S: And he was the one that was pictured throwing acid in the pool colored people jumpi11g·in the pool and him running around to throw acid in it, and so forth. I, now this may be, ~in4v. Matthews may be the, the- -V-C: It says here in, in Freedman's book, that you, that there were two cases two suits referred to you and it said that in the, in the second opinion, you described the, the high bail:requirements and then you also described the conditions in the jail. S: Yeah, well now, does that, does that have a footnote citation or anything to- C: It doesn't have any,. I don't see any reference- S: Any reference to the name of the case, well, it's one of these. C: Reference to the case. Somehow the Plummer case rings a bell, but I wouldn't swear to that one. S: Plummer, it might be Plummer. She was a, she was one of the local protesters, and it may have been, that may have beenfoven brought in her name. Well I think it may have been, I know that Vance, the sheriff- Here's, here the, the 11/l contempt scene against Vance came up\/the Plummer case,'cause here's, here's Q~/@ 18 the, here that material is, the .f.e1H; findings and the addition -In /;M fact. That went on, that went Supreme Court somewhere, about my right to turn, turn in his badge fv,,. 0,,/at,7 & C: Uh huh. That's where Strom Thurmond denounced what you did on the floor of the Senate. S: Yeah,I think, yeah it was in- C: 'Cause the court upheld you, didn't it? 2A Page 17 sjm S: Well, yeah. My, my court upheld me, the fifth scdor upheld me, and then the, then the, the Supreme Court and I'm, I'm not certain whether they heard it on the merits and upheld me, or, or whether they denied a petition for certain, and that's the way it- but anyway my good friend, Justice Black -.hi<,~ rY . -kI' \..j.· p....rd one of these vdt,.01ker ci.i.evltS He wo11 ld.a.!..V°~d that's all in that stuff there. -K-im-b-al-l -- was one of f.eli7 ef thri.ocal (nurse or she worked the people, I think, one of in some /rl4Ybt- ~ or in some I clerical capacity, I don't know, she ••• This Plummer, Plummer against Brock was the suit where they compla\i.ed about the, the refusal to serve, see. C: Uh huh. S: A number of places, we took testimony about him and- C: Right. S: They, the testimony all was that, we _-_. ___ __,f.~h'-'""~~-r~1 because the, the Ancient City Hunting Club and Gun Club when the M~sy people were running around threatening ..vl...t vr:, $(..(.,, • I think what it amounted to, ·the result was an injunction enjoining them to serve and enjoining these other people from interfering with- C: Right. S: People who wanted to be served. C: That was after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, wasn't it? S: That's, that's right, that's right, that's right and that's what the Plununer case basically was. 2A Page 18 sjm C: Uh huh. S: And then Vance, there was some, some white person, some white man from outside and I don't know what his, whether he was a preacher, lawyer, r;,_,,,, otfr1.~t'f:. K somebody came in down there and this colored man named ~-bm:k; I know they call him Thunderbird- C: Uh huh. S: The colored people, they'd call him Thunderbird, I found out his name. He met the man and·he drove him to this eating place, the Chews, run by same people called the Chews. C: Chews, right, Chew' s Restaurant. S: Well, they had a different name then, I believe. But anyhow, he, he followed them and chased them all around, all up and down back streets, and finally, he, he said something to him while he was there, and then when he left, he followed them. Well, it wasn't any, there wasn't any reason for this volunteer deputy to be doing that for any reason except ~r~ to intimidate Thunderb~ and that was the basis for telling him that he'd have to turn in his badge 1and he probably violated a Civil Rights That's Plummer, that's, there's got to be, King v. Mathis, maybe this is the one. I'm trying to find the one where what you asked about, where they, where the jail con-ditions- C: Right. S: Things get away from me. I thought I never would forget any of this. It C>V\ wentAfor the,the ••• this was not setting bond, I guess. King v. Mathis. C: That wasn' t, wasn' t the Young v. Davis, was it? 2A Page 19 sjm S: Young v. Davis, the original Young v. Davis was the, and here's that "I! I file, was the, was the J-,-w_1_n_1·_r._e._.',c.._.c_c_.( -~--o-"-{:-·o:..._.-;:,_;: :_·' -'"'_c_I~ ··,_n,.,tt_-__ (j C: Right. S: Now, it may have, I don't think, I think they would have filed another Crn.rrJ e. II suit. Here's one hotel, Williams 0-5011ic a I flio•e- Cflf(J- >on?r:1 .. 1'ii.'N!:, - hnu: s-omcwhutr .@ vf:Rj fa'j • • • f haf s ,'w ,,-rfo-r-rv c- _... somewhsx:.e. C: You know, it really seems in looking at the events that went on, that,J.1\f\1 you really kept the lid on events there that if, if they, if it hadn't been- S: Well, somebody else, I, I don't know, another judge might, might have just said, well this is, all this mess, and swept it under the rug. I, I didn't feel; my conscience wouldn't let me do that. But ~ou kno'.A), h1;,.,\fo- ::(.O,;~cl 1;,!(S u.ou Cid c1 La•r L.1J:,c h•\ you don't want, you wish you never picked i:-t' up, but ') © you.can't let go. This was a~======:___ C: Davis had no restraint on h:im from, 'cause Shelley was pretty much agreed with what he was, mayor- S: Yeah, well, Shelley was the mayor and, and Davis was of course a different chain of command, but they were all working together. C: Right. 1/rr<.<;)i I S: Grego~y Stewart was the- 2A Page 20 sjm C: Was the police chief, yeah. S: Was the police chief, but, we had, there was a lot of dealing with, two or three hearings on, where the highway patrol people had come in: and they had them in there. They had a bunch of them, the governor did, ~f1/~11:J1"d~i,.ror-clrJf!iJa"'{they~~~:_r{.n' t maintain the, couldn't maintain ® order, 1-/rU'J fo · ' "·"' · · · an injunction against banning marches after tlli's, J:'~ t!F.clar:, , I just can't, can '·t put my finger on what I'm looking for. I know that it's· here. C: That was, when they came up to, and questioned you atrout thei'l'.' aO-i;I.ityto control events the'l:'e, wasn't that when you saitl tlla,t tll'ey ouglit to start arresting some of those other people instead of..,.. .and the two most, the one aoout the marching and the other one and this one about the, the economic violations by the~ C: Yeah, here's the reference to the 90 degree temperatures and . the storm and the fact that he kept them in the compound during these times. S: - /le, hE/j h1rrr /-,;r • I don't remember whether it was a man or a woman 11 1 I .;hf 1 CqVfJ,'I; fir Jzer/ ·ll; .• j') ilV e:• ,,p/uu: tJif.FJAsit down. They had one cripple in there, too. ii C: One polio victim, right, on crutches. S: Was that a woman or a man? C: Yeah, it was a woman. And then you have the reference to the sweatboxCS. 2A Page 21 sjm S: Well, that, that's the one there5' that's al()1tf f/ie, El~Jdh cu'>1rf'J0"1{JV/.rtfJ C: Right. S: thing of sort. You know, you get mad as the dickens when you come along the street and somebody's run the windows up and left, left a little old dog in the hot sun- C: Right. S: . 'And then you think about human ·beings and I think I said in there . .(/,~.( ./6, ·s i&l{,.,c, ~.A lvrt1t•a CttVr! V11.:sf;.,? /.-r. 6 s I v v f.; 'but these weren't, these weren't {orc(11U: rs or even people from other states, they were -------- ------ hometown. 11\i•J\~, H_f CY\_(. And there was then, they'd be_ lV\ Jk~ fuff\',Cd\('I 0-::pl;.,\S\.-, -T':lw::.;., f:,rccl IS 1.PhC1c .\:.{ ·~~vtv'c.\iun L»o-:. "' ,, .rd. -::L cd,.cl l.C•v\CC -ror Z1. V\c\ - C: Right. S: And had a hearing on, on that, because, he wasn't, of course he wasn't -r .... f//e. ''1rt/c · tfli ~ + C: S: 1 -/h £17F on this, he wasn t defendable and waen II I' t?d .1. M"'·"'' nNV rff;lM'ttr/e- or er, - vo re.sine... f T , • tlv ro.v1ElJ-r· '.// t ·ll)rrc people, but he was, I said he was in, acting as-e-OURSelor.\hne f,,;:::,,., ;, I t(_J} cf. I. ·.,ow .,,,.l'<.~ ' f ({1 • ~ .. ,,, t:t"' "5..v£ /,;..., 6 ~ ·That was one of the points in the appeal, whether or not he was, whether or not you could punish him for contempt when he, when he was & I. 1i1>1ci'>J,.,.e ,.rf _.,,... (.;.11,, ,_ '1 think JJr.r 1~ .. ~·~~- c Ci f~ (Alf"J{l 5li /.1. ~he opinion of/:,r;11:r:d /Hr. Lance and as I say, I c.01,,td ~oo\c I{ can't, I can't recall when the_, when the, whether J~.__.c_ S:up.-c.\")'1..£. ~~ the> t;; on-ftrtl'J or ,),r/lu1 I crt<'l" i! . fAt:t of:,,w black filed the strongest sentences in (J:•r e...t"rc11tl I Yeah, I've read it, I can't remember either, to be honest with you. J A I .(,/ C:r·n Tlr i\ procedure ;n;. \f ··1 f , r11 '-' l _ 2A Page 22 sjm C: S: Right. And it's some of these things, somewhere. ,w• -/r'a c·tI 1~Y J -- // (:,· or after Arno, after Arno was on there or when maybe it W&S MIJE: brrrJ Ir::->; IJ1iar/r&,,/ ,~ & I just don't ·remember. "'iThey had an appeal ·:fa.AF or0urd hEtff i·t was with . . . , - . '• ' 0 ' ..... ' .... ~ . I a panel of 011" co~rt. -1/)fi Co.,{ cff{1'l1'''>by then ~~lrthe Court of: Appeals. They· had ...:._ _ .::::=::::=::::==========-@-= -------5/i:/ir;-. s:tt 'he-Pe in Jacksonville in . ~~;:01 this Gainesville case __-_ -.::.::_-.::.::_-_- "_~ This i'S something I couldn' t imagine Bill Kuenstler doing in the time that I had all these contacts with him over that five or six months. He had, here again, the FBI came and told me they didn't know who to, who to tell. I wasn't going to sit on the 2A Page 25 sjm panel, but I was a li'~t 1.<.1'f resident ~ judge and there was three judges @ coming in from outside and so -------- told me. They hadn't had somebody for a little meeting that they had in Gainesville with these these appellants, the people who appealed the case. They'd been, whatever, whatever rights they were trying to enforce fA~//iifYThey'd been turned J-down by the district judge and they were appealing and they told me that Ku~stler had, had appeared at the meeting two days befo~e of the group in Gainesville. I can't rememoer what it was all about now. And he told them, he said, "I want you to come to J·acksonvi'lle · -111~1/ ·a 5t;u// ' I ti v,,~ ttrtI '''/lt»' , ru ' JI J· / (1P ON{ I t•'r // - H.e sa1"·d' 1.~Mak· e S"v "me no 1··se. II v Well, the iuea of an ethical_lawyer wanting to try to intimidate or influence a court that way, that, that was shocking to me/.Jr1/fI) JJttf§r ./Jr I(.,,,/,."/ /; /'./Olv ../--'1t; //flcmv{'y Griffin Bell was on the panel and I told Griffin about it, and I said, "Griffin, I'll tell the marshal to have some extra men in the hallway and I'll tell the FBI to have some extra people, we'll have a few people in the courtroom and tell the marshal when, when the seats in the, it's a real small courtroom q,r ;r ,,,._,1,-e r.f.;.,t ~ when the seats are in there filled, not to let anybody else in _..::::::::==:=:=:=:=:::::::~re;J.,=~ny other sug-gestions, let me know. But the information is that they're going t~come //'I _•t .I ./ U>· I ii l. CC!••, rO •..., ~'-" in and try to raise a disturbance and rrrc.{,• "' ,·/ i /~,/:Mr around the court- ® house and so ----,,- ---- said, "No, ,So, , ~' 'If you I don't think anything e!"::e. hear anything~ why call else ----- me,"·and this was Thursday or Friday before they were to start the session on Monday and Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday of the following week (I;;:/ they did. They (,iJ came in (t!lf;t1 !/....,, There was I.Jo! and it was one other 2A Page 26 sjm regular judge, it was old judge Phillips, R.A. Phillips who was former chief judge of the tenth circuit. He was up in his eighties, he lived down at Lakeland and retired, you know, and he'd sit about, would have court about once a year, cl @) -------~-·-~ :f C1: Jv (•Nr.dc/ CCWPf' t11) I u Jcafso1>uil/c _, ' :E-i>r a year or two before he died. And he was there, · :r Yt!'l·~1Efn6ra G,-,·({.r, J 0! ,1~q·: . .. ; lh t"~{ (f_,"i) fra .... 3 f'.[ ato, . ../ (u',l.i pi,;IJ.-,1.1 <'"''i - Ari ervrr J1l,1 ' 'What, what re you, what' re u , ; you going to do , ,r( 1,;f,r·f ,,irl" J 1 'v !':'~; ~'c, · """ ./ /)/I , h //,;.~ & 6 ~ --"-~,,~{~~~~-===========~under control, see~------~~~~~~~· But that, that to me is a, that to me is a-· C: Yeah. S: Is an indication of a, of a change in a man~ ov.f/ook · · , and he, he, he got so, he was no longer, he, he was no longer disinterested attorney re-presenting a client, but he was part of the movement h:im,self and acted, acted like he maybe wished he was black or something, you know, so he could protest and all that. He, he'd take on a coloration of Rap Brown or Stokely Carmichael or somebody- C: Uh huh, right. S: Rather than be, hold himself aloof from it. And he showed some of that in the, in that- C: Chicago Trial. S: Chicago Trial, yeah. C: Did, did this fellow Earl Johnson come before your court in any of these cases at St. Augustine? S: Peripherally, peripherally and I, I'm sure, I was a witness in one or two of them, and we had, we had some matters involving an instance of, they I I L 2A Page 27 sjm C: S: J,,h · ~ c,or.i1.J"" they would, this .fr/:~~ •. /;lci/l:,,, l' 'kind-bf judge, he'd. try to hassle these > out-of-state, out-of,state lawyers. You know, he'd make a practice of:-1';..J Florida, t wru/./ /,_s-lr1 i /o yr1.1,)rr And they, they would __.A...·. 1~0-1~1.r:_._r~::~·c~I_@ I I see. some of my friends who were in a l'J1rr /;MJ - Florida Bar at that time, v that if, if, the day that c·/ J.,{r(r. /flt,;,1rj2~ . -GatyJ. t/zr '//;fh Or I .;.)..' "'O'-..J_J,..___--_-_-:_-:_-::.==--~..,... ""'o'--i"""'~"--.(1-_._fV"'"..o. .m "'----®-r_Jacksonville . to Tampa· t-,u11lcl volunteer their services, come in and help the people that needed help in the court h.. JF.1p~1r: :., .dac: c110~1~ •• with things that these out.,..of..-state lawyers ~ ,_ I· was· ;;f~,:f.b'ij ~ enforcing the:i;r rules about, you know-, any· i;rules about you can't appeal because you're not a member of, member ·of the Florida Bar or some .... thing. But I said, " (),.,/,, if you don't, 1 111 have, I'm going let, I) let them in the cases, __ e There, there was a, that summer of '64 and maybe the next year, too, they had,they had two or three organi-zations,_ __l_ a_wy_._e_r_s __ for constitutional, something LC, I don't know, they had initials, and, and there was a fellow named Arnstein that was here for two or three weeks and ~g.rnstein ended up the permanent man tlf/C"I? llV ) · ( (PVJ). • • • f~ h h d f LC 11 otusi'uNC\ """ 'M1ss1ss1pp1 or t e same, ea o , 111t: Lawyer' s Con-stitutional, now I don't know what the rest of it was, and then there was another organizationaA/11/r/;,~,;n«'rc/ Melvin Wolf, if I recall Ji)..O-l·fi (,Jty//:· from New Jersey or Manhattan and New York and Washington -----------·- They, they would come.in relays, they, see this, this, these guys would give their vacation time, they'd take their 2A Page 28 sjm vacation time and come down here and, and pay their own expenses and try to handle these cases for these, these people that were protesting and acting out their protest by trying to integrate +Ji,·;.&( ·' 4tvrlt:o .And they, well, - C: I'm just, I'm just curious as to why, I mean there was, there were a S: lot of judges hearing cases in the South at this particular time, but why, what was it about your background or your education or whatever, that made you render the decision that you did, that, that, that pro-tected the rights of the demonstrators, whereas so many other judges were finding against them. I, I don 1 t know, I canr t answer, except to say that, th· atT·c.4~£ ·tz c, 1,o ctl Io '•'8 tt.l:t,. .I Ji my concept of,I mean the first case with any racial overtones that I C"'r.l Y'fh1r.1,iI, riJ b~t :i1~\' nteres t e d , I was __,C_1...:..r ""'C~1.A.. ..1. _I. _"r'--.-.u..."r "''' --"I· .......'. .. _ and thi. s was· pre- Brown, it was back at the time of the Virginia case where they said they had to let blacks ride on the I .,t •' But they had, they made a police case on the black .f..-wfrc? ~l''"the railroad s ta tio n he re in Jacksonville --'-r-'-·i-'_,.1.1~·.,,.f""~' ~~~_../ <..:..' __;•::..;.~·-'-, ,_{_-"4,._1;....;1·{ ,'--'./ ,""", --"'.,J~/,..:..,: /;..;·, -..._. _.lj....._.). . ,""'''"'"1' .._r.._.tJ'--------~- 1 \ And I don' t know if ;./- cv~r appealed T?tre./tn d . ../:'. ~h a. tever O· r/t/ __-- .L./1 I1 f I/ f'"{",l f'''' . ,.-;.I · L1·1/r 1,· , ".·· ··. ,• /•, ( t7-/,;.1 ,J1u 11. ,1. c; • v p @'' fnrl J;/,Nfat or another black lawyer, at that time ;~; r /.C Per. : II l/r~i { o/~•,r;;•f from the police court from the municipal court throug1},the /.-"':,_/ to the circuit court. And ---====:::..-~~'--JIU~~/.6.~~€~.___:===:=::=::::::::::::::=::=:=:==:=:::__~ 7 / I think they fined, fined the man or fined the two of them fifty apiece for fining someBody a hundred dollars. And they had paid it and then tried to take it to court. ( And t/tEJ ON I-hr /l/fl,'i!J I suggested 2A Page 29 sjm C: S: to the - tJ! -1-Af/v,J/ o/y ,,zmv#7 had A I , / //lfilkd 0/11£ of #r k.:.-vct1s,J:hought about this, but it seems to me that, I've r T\ got a grave question about whether I can hear, hear this, because it seems to me that they're attempting to ~?+$¥1~,~~·'H.__L~~~~ -I.fir: y wF/lE 5ftJ~FiJfcfur or five hundred dollars, they /'mJt? £1EC<',/,Ar. '?< well ---"--------------------~h~'~r'.~hw'fp·---1(;.;~J.acksonville,. John would say to me, §' ______ __,--....,--··--- he said, he said he didn't mind people -----'-----------------------------~ /,.,]1 so /1.·u;v fqe-IJm~1 ..f..'t)n V/ running to meet him. C: Well, thank you. I appreciate it
Ku Klux Klan -- Ancient City Hunting Club -- Ancient City Gun Club -- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) -- St. Augustine City Jail -- Monson Motor Lodge -- Andrew Young vs. L.O. Davis, et al. -- Arrest of Mary Peabody -- Integration of Monson Pool -- Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- Klan Rally -- Florida Spring Project of the SCM and SCLC
Metadata URL:: http://civilrights.flagler.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15415coll1/id/1039
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Extent:: 30 pages
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