- Collection:
- Civil Rights Library of St. Augustine
- Title:
- Royal W. Puryear : Transcribed Interview
- Creator:
- Puryear, Royal W.
Colburn, David - Contributor to Resource:
- Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, University of Florida
- Date of Original:
- 1980-10-01
- Subject:
- Civil rights--United States--Florida
- People:
- Puryear, Royal W.
Colburn, David R.
Carrol, Frank
Wright, Thomas A.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Hayling, Robert Bagner
Johnson, Lyndon B. (Lyndon Baines), 1908-1973
Bryant, Farris, 1914-2002
Lee, Bernard Scott, -1991
Manucy, Holsted, 1919-1995
Wolfe, H.E.
Shelley, Joseph, 1915-2007
Young, Andrew, 1932- - Location:
- United States, Florida, 28.75054, -82.5001
- Medium:
- transcripts
- Type:
- Text
- Format:
- application/pdf
- Description:
- Interview with Royal W. Puryear, president of Florida Memorial College during the height of the St. Augustine racial crisis in 1964. He speaks of his youth and education. He gives the demographics of Florida Memorial and his time as the president of the college. He details the movement in the city and his students involvement in the protests with King. He also gives his opinion on the involvement of King and the SCLC.
. CRSTA l 2A . ·.. SUB: Dr. Royal W. Puryear P.age 1 INT: David Colburn Oct. 1, 1980 JF This is David Colburn, I am interviewing Dr. Royal W. Puryear August 1, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. . .. ''\ •·., Puryear, why don't we start a'Qt with your background. Tell me . . about where you, about where you were raised and family and your education. '• ' ,. .-. ' .. I. was born he.re in Winston-Salem,· North Carolina •. I am the eldest of se.ven' .children, four boys and three girls. All of us completed the public schools here. We are all college graduates. I attended Howard Univer.sity, in. W~sh-:. t' ington, D.~., I completed,gly mas~~rs at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana •. [rJDi d special ~tudies in college administration atthe University of Michigan. .· I did my preliminary .studies at Ltf'lrorJ .... The~logical Seminary, Col-umbia · University . . C: What uh, what did your father do, what was his occupation? P: My father was a building contractor {1 "dT> . o.fL 1 .cipSt>c.11.ffrl> lvl'T!\ t~ . . time I was at the YMCA)! have always been eto-se to-tile-Association _Church Wol'Zk:: I worked with St. John1s Baptist Church in DallasJ Texas}--became int~rested, in the ministry during that period church on the road ----~- -~~~~~~- y ----------------· When I left the '.W,i,re, I flew with the influence of the Chai nnan of the regional YMCA. He recommended me to C, !I~\ c... CRSTA 12A P_age 4 . p: (?' 1)A LLAq, f)ry1NT) Assoc1nn:i/\J·.-) at Butler College in J.E\Q-S,-Texas. I remained there for a period ending November of 1948. I went to .. fcoit1··0A Normal Indus.trial. College in St. Augustine; Florida in 1950, June. I remained there until August I. · of 1958. Then with my build and re 1 ocate a college 812 miles, the new 20 million ·dollar plant in Miami, Dade County. C: Why did you leave Butler? P: A new opportunity, larger opportunity. C: Florida Normal was a larger school, was it? P: .Yes, plus the fact that I thought I, was---------- intended _co~ing .· back towards home. C: I see. P: From Texas. C: Right, yea. I want to define that going to Florida was more away from home actually in.terms of being part of your mainstream of urban activity, because the line of activity runs from Washington to Atlanta, from Atlanta to Texas. And the Florida area was)at that time.Joff to the side. C: What ult\, what did you do in the early years UJl\. while you wer' e at Florida Normal? P: When I first went to Florida Memorial College in 1950 it was experiencing a period of change. It. had the 1 a rges t ~ d ot~J co l/ eCi c... le v c..{ VOUHIJrH')L 1 'PA!tJ{rd& . program and occassionally--traded of any college in the United States_. Some 17 different offerings: sheet metal, carpentry. And it is pretty evident that th ead m .r n.1 strat1.o n ha s I\ 0~1rI- s(,', ,\-' n- o-r\- its major goal. Now the greater number of the students, over 800, were in the non-college programs. Between 1950 and 1953 it was my task disassemble and eliminate those p~i\-$cs 0 ~ ~p"-·C program~ and to bring the college back to its original purpose. We decided upon a period • C: What was its original purpose? Excuse me for interupting you. ., . ··, CRSTA 12A Page 5 P: Uh Liberal Arts college • It started as typically a church related college for the training of ministers organized by the Home Mission Society of Northern YY ) 11-Lhouse ·------- Florida Memorial a United Negro College Fund college. But because of monies, o:K because of the change and the times we decided .that Florida Memorial; we would devote all of our energies to training elementary school teachers. This is what we did, and for a period of almost ten years we devoted our attention to specializing and training of elementary school teachers. · And I do not hesitate · · · -fn A1N11.1z .· ·.· · to fee} that we tiWAed-some of the best elementary school teachers in the state .-. ; > ··< , ' of Florida. So much so until when the G "" , .,,. .r- ---------------- 19~4 decisions to integrafe public schools in the state of Florida. Our schools were ca 11 ed upon to be the first group of teachers to be assigned. f/o< o f3c4c . .l.. Florida was the first location for secondary school teachers and there were several -------------- elementary school teachers for. We decided after a ten year study..J based on a grant from the Florida Foundatio!) to /jHAJ move the college, Lib'eral Arts 0.Jil.<'.c..1·ww • We had various found-ations come in and survey our efforts and our interests. _C: When did the survey start? P: The survey started in the area of 1957, 156, 157, 158, and it was in 1958 when a foundation executive came to my office one day and said to me 11 Why do you keep this college----------------- St. Augustine" and I was baffled at this type ·of question because they didn't know the motive behind it. -------------- was that our foundation will not be able to give your college the kind of support that you need, because this conmunity is really not large enough ~u )'/vL this kind of support that you need. Although~ Sf f)~/Jc.~5T/_,.,;Q_ was, had just completed raising $34,000 which represented a very large sum of money, the largest sum of money to my knowledge for any project, even more than the amount of money raised from the United Fund for higher education. St. Augustine CRSTA 12A Page 6 P: was a one man power structure which llla;¥--be /YJn-lJc 11 11vro ft- tourist town .. Our college was unique in a city of that kind. In the early years we . ~,,1) had an integrated faculty while the town had some questions about it, as long as J 12cn(.. _\ .r/r.7rv .the faculty members 1 ived on campus there was Vet~.y t.,,117u!. _. · · of-·the- , · 'JH"'d !...<.. R~,S(bN_r./. ".:;o(<.Jt'l'\. why the pressures came in 19A4, and thi-s-hap~-eflad 1;e be-dewa:::::tt> my board as a member. C: When did he resign, you don't remember the year? l 6 · P: It was, itwI as , it was very around 1~4, shortly ~~~~~~~~~~~ thereafter. But this never affected the relationship between myself and Mr. Carrol, neither did it affect the relationship between the college and the bank. Even today, I bank with the St. Augustine National, the Barnett National Bank an.d~e St. Augustine F/oe-~in 14 • And the young man who was the courier and drove the president of the bank to our cht-..n..c .. i, meetings CRSTA 12A Page 7 P: is now president of the bank, Edward Cosgrove and if you haventt interviewed him he would be a marvelous person to interview. Have you interviewd Mr. Carrol? C: Yes. P: Mr. Ed Cosgrove would be a marvelous person to interview because he has, he is, he has come through the period just before the Supreme Court decision, has been a part, an active par~of seeing the change that has come to St. Augustine. Now I don It know whether Reverand Wright to 1 d you about n- () h..i ~" t' ) ··.but one of the interesting facets about the race relations in St. Augustine, ,especia.lly during the crisis of flt- v/51r · 0 f-. t Martin Luther 'King . · was. • • "'The fact that r·worked with the power structure to the point where >.they, we had come to the conclusion that there was no longer a sensitive thing .. Our students have SAT t N ' ,, " Wo"' LO l (>t.. I +"-'-n- ()*~ ?• Power structure has asked me, GO-¥Q~-waftt-to. t~ mai.ntain a separate but equal relationship. at the five and ten cent store . . .get-them-0f-f, and I told them the students ----------and I had as long as they were good students I acted in accordance with the rules and . regulations of the institutioc / I wouldn't o-..5k f\..t.1t" v.A'At +\'l.qn_ tr1lnAc.u..1<.fl.1c1.,..dH2.: activitie;iv;nd I felt ~,,Jc whJ..-- was doing was C-o,1va_c,<:.:1, c. In 19,~4, on the Supreme .. Court decision----------------- This community relative to all other communities. In this community it shouldn't be too difficult to do it because it was a tourist town. 'Once we got one man in that town, and you notice I'm not calling his nam~to decide that it was the proper thing to do. We set September of 19~4 or •ts, I do·~ not recall the exact date.) to open everythin·g, let the students of our cqllege open everything /w~ S1.J--1ws , since they had been the instigators of sitting with the-ei-t-y. We had a dentist there who was very young 1 who felt that that wasn't early enough. Having lived ytAt'l; to be 52 under the system of segregation, it didn't seem a long time to me to' wait two monthJs to do things, and frankly I, it hasn't affected me too much I anyway. • ... , CRSTA 12A P_age 8 C: This was Dr. Haling/ P: Dr. Haling, that used to be, have you talked with him? · C: Yes. P: Well I can imagine the type of reportthat you got from him. Did he tell you about his experience with the KKK? · C: Yes P: Well he came by to invite me to a .wedt:li:ng 6tJe- ;vtt,f..1-1 , and I told him I fl.~t,C/tJC.J.... fA._N hadn't even-Seen-the invitation ~~--~---~~~~~-~~-~~-- and if I did I doubt if I would attend. It was just that simple. C: Was he, does he, I don't kpow if yo~ know him, ibut there is a .su.ggestion that < he went out there and informed the ufuJacksonville television station that he ·. was going out there, and tried to get them to cover the event so that they'd get attention for their movement/,., 5/-. · /lv...&V-, 7 '"" "'- -"'--~~-~-~~-~~~~--~ P: I do not know anything about that. I do recall my having told him point blank that I didn't intend ~-~~~~-~~~~~-~~~~~~~~~-~ C: P: Uh, Bob .. C: P: he needed to be going to the _-'fr'--'f_1A._1-_\ IJA.,_:-r_k_l_w_AJ ___ meeting. C: Can I back up for a minute and just ask you a couple of questions about the faculty of the college. Where did your faculty come from and how large was it? P: The college at that time was rather small and our faculty was small. we had -h .. o-..~ J three white teachers, we had _::::.o::..u....:e..=-====__:- - ----__i.J _l_o_ _W_ Vi_· -"-"-N_c_"-_e_c..._k _ of a teacher, and all the_ rest were black. But we didn't have any white teachers ] who even 1 i ved in the community 1~ An.+ tin . ~ We did not have any problem at all with the community until I hired a Chinese man. Dr. Chao or Choa. He is at Patterson, New Jersey, a member of the faculty. He was a specialist in communication, that was the basis of my hiring' him, a PhD in communications. . . -, CRSTA 12A Page 9 P: And this was a~;~ area./b11J.~two lotdt .. S~~cl~versity of Florida, knew math, so he obviously knew something about the new math, that's where ff- Pe-90,~ \jOL., \-tvoW : I Um hum. P: And um our f2~c~l-l:=; wl'.\S Co&-4st-M.1Uy 701N9 ·r-v University of Florida, after the University of Florida also became JIVkcirLiqrt.!. I"' ,_e.6 rz """rto,.J _..eJ·, .~ pn'i'>';.'}Y'.LIL'f I End Side ,.,,. - CRSTA 12A Page 10 P: All of the white faculty had tfuaii"' PhD's and they were educated, some of them were foreigner's. Dr. fYltttJc\'\IA-k was the Administrator of - . . . . . ·. . h -k~rc ""e~. Economics' fu.,,,... C-z..c::c.l,asl11-11vr~~~' k~ 5 .,+ u--.;\- lrf-v~(. ~ ctJ .... Wlt.(,.JlS • Dr .. Choa ft> A""-Ll. / um he was quite good. My director of music, --+v=-=""'·~."'""'"".v,,..,__C/~.".-..- -=---'~--=""Jd~v--·-=--- pc.,-C.1> o_S . . i " ' while he did not hold a PhD was highly educated~ He acti vel-jl. Jle 4-tv{ ' ' for a while, though his speciality grew with the college choir. He traveled · . . . . ' ·f·· -.· .-~ . 7-: throughout the state with his wife and children. Now we had only one incident in our total travels and that was at Marianna, Florida where·.·· C: They have lots of ~ 1wblevv-.S in there, right? \ I u · tvA-~ ot ~.,,...\- -\-uVJtv ~ P: Marianna, not Marianna. w"'/1i..--'-~ "".....,_ .anet-her .town-=- · C: P: It was in West Florida this side of the.Juh)t would have to be _____ _ name of the town ~~~~~~~~-~- j'/'u~Ml'tL C: What about your students, now how many students did Florida Memoria:l have when ? you arrived? Ariprt 0 ")(.•tr."'Tis:v1 • C: Right, where did they come-from? Where did your students come from, where they from Florida and St. Augustine or ? P: Possibly when I arrived at Florida Memorial, Florida Normal Industrial as it was ca 11 e d at that ti me ...,0..1""'"- ""~, .....'-"----.;;:::::::::::::::------.-." ""'"-';;..... The students) 416 possibly 80 percent were from the state of Florida) and from other areas. We probably had more Methodists than we had Baptists. There were ----~----~----~ the more Baptists that we had. ~= Did you have many from St. Augustine? CRSTA 12A Page 11 P: We had a number of students from St. Augustine>but St. Augustine is typical of ~"''1 of'~ ~mv,:,,±, ___ _ ' C: Where the students from middle-class black backgrounds, would you say? · P: Oh yes, but we were very fortunate to receive families from the better homes . ~ . in the state of Florida, doctorsf~lawyers' children because we think that our teaching program, our program is especially '"" ff"', ~!'J.<.J-w11 f}netA- • - < then as we move into the different arts we received a grant from the Kellogg b\A.!>•"'t.SS . Foundation _._1w_._F_t-_A- _ ~11e to establ i stylin the state. And it wasn't two years before business administration had outgrown all the rest of the colleges. So when we went to Miami . C: What year was that, yotf· went to Miami? P: In August of 1968, the campus had been completed with the air condition4¥l1'. One, two dormitories had been completed, QJJ -ft, Aurn1NtSrn1?rtvt. parts of the gymnasium ---------~-----~---------~ doors opening out to a large sitting area ---------~------ ! had taken this \...<) ,..., a .~. ..,, < Science ~-------------~ ~ Center, first Science Center, and the teaching building, where all the doors opened to an out, o.utside on the second floor by the offices. Have you ever been on the campus? C: No I haven't. P: If you ever go on the campus you'·ll find the center where all the secretaries, sec re ta ri es C: Did the college move there, now you told me the study started well before the racial crisis but •.. P: We started in 1958 with the idea of a new location because of this question of foundation support and other support. C: Was it, was the, did the move uh gain momentum because of the problems arising in 1963 and '64? P: Not in my church/ . CRSTA l 2A 12 C: Not in your church. P: I would suspect that other people might do that, but I usually give four or five reasons for relocation. Number one was the fact that when I arrived in Florida, the center of black population was in Ocala. By 1965, 1 63- 1 65, the black population had moved to West Palm Beach county, Broward county and Dade county, and there was not a single institution in that area that was serving the special inter- We did a special study, and we had selected four areas.· This lot of the racial strife in 1963 you see. This was back / the .' 50 1 s. And Orlan do, where we owned 42 acres of 1 and, uh Duva 1 county had West Palm Beach, we were offerred over 200 acres .·. , . )"!.·' ,...,. .:"- . . ·by the ~m Banker, McArthur, but the cost of refilling it was so enormous the __·. ...:;;0-.,..!:o~f:.:;;li5-+-v:::.::. ::-.. ____ didn't even accept the offer. Then because of the straight line location of colleges across the middle part of Highway 4, Bethune Cookman, Ul/'- fl_ you had two colleges in Orlando, you had two collegesl\in Tampa, the University of Tampa, Florida'~University of South Florida. We decided that we were going ·in any direction it would have to be what would be referred to as a ------ Well there was our first location was at f-\.-J. ~_,.. -11 /?...SR 9~ and 27th Avenue. Well the government owned l60 acres of land, we actually had option on that piece of land. I cannot explain to you today politically what happened, except to know that if a county, a city, ~unicipalityJor a state1 or the United \5 . States desired a piece of property which :i.-t-already owne~even though a somebody had bought it, they would buy their interest or take it off of them. We lost · that I think basically because the expressway coming, going east and west from the Pv-. l ti--.t. t+o -Meadow to I 95 across to Miami Beach was between our co 11 ege and the devel opement of ft-Nt>!H(;tt ''1-S .C.Ype_-e~J- ~ -- CRSTA lt2 13 P; this actually happened. And uh this despite the fact that we had constituted or - organized a group of all the college presidentsr they had welcomed us to the · community. The welcome was of such a nature that we opened with over 700 students from 275. We went in with growing pains, growing pains to the point of we had budgeted $50,000 for relocation which included the moving of faculty. Incidentals of moving whatever .P\Avi.."',kil...e,.. that you were going to take ~~~~~~~~- ··and the library books which we would use. It cost us$803,000 to move over here .· . "~6 . to build special housk for our male students. ·And the enrollment community was of such that, so large, because they couldn't to the University of Miami, .there was no question .about that, . '"' -k.~-..s ~-e . and they didn't have, even though Florida was very li~eral at that time,.---tfle +~1 !:. f 1 fo ~~A t.1,..Y College -.: Admissions, it had not reached the point where, wh~d, ·had reached people beyond Chicano's, Cubans, anything else except blacks born in America, and that is an honest appraisal. Letrme, let me get us back to the racial crisis. The first incident that seems to occur as I read through the ~ !t.vd1.>p---rt-J\-s besides some of the early things that took place, was in 163 when President Johnson, or Vice-President Johnson, excuse me, was coming to St. Agustine, that ls th~ firs~ I gues) key developement that occurred. What uh, what involvement did you have in that? P: My wife and I were guests at the dinner, and he came over.to our table and our own governor was with him and he ignored us completely and passed on by. C: Bryant? . P: Bryant. C: Did uh, were you the only black b~ people at the ~~ .•. P: My wife and I were the only blacks in vited to the dinner. ~ C: Was, did Haling bring much pressure on you to try and discourage you from going or? P: He didn't know anything about it and didn't have anything to do with it. ·c: Yea, I know he wrote ... CRSTA 12A 14 r:• . ·, P: I am not sure that, I, I don't recall the time that Haling actually came, I'd have to . . . C: It was about 1960 he came to St. Augustine but he didn't become involved in .. ·any of the racial things i.e.\:~ ' P: See, when he came to St. Augustine, the man that was there before he was C: Dr. Gordon. · P: Dr. Gordon was a Panamanian1 and 99 to 95% ef-the-__._.'"-..._......__-=-_._.-_.___ was white. over. And I said to him more than a half a dozen times but Goddammit, to be extremely careful of'fhe bfg difference between being ai/egroe born in ' . . . .· . h£-h~! ~.America and a Panamanian, regardless of what his color was as long asJ\sJicked back hair. And this man had an access of wide open priveleges to the hospital, which Haling did not have. C: What kind of man was Haling? Why was he uh • . .. P: He was typical of that period, of the 160's. He went to school at a time when ·the characteristics, the teachings, the uprising the students was a normal thing. Now I don't know if anybody told you this or .not, but I'd 1 ike to share it with you. The h\V-.s\i'rl'-. movement had really taken over St. Augustine. Their leader, anybody tell you that? C: No. P: The Muslim movement, I'm talking about the violent group, that's why I call them Mooselims and not Muslims, and the leader of the cult was a student on my campus. I had a conference with her C: What was her name? P: I prefer to not give her name because the fact that all of those youngsters were able to get jobs despite the law in the state of Florida that anybody who was engaged in a, in a uprising or that sort of thing would not be eligible for employment or · ~Lr5 schools. I have found the, ~~~~~---,.:-.~~~~~~~ CRSTA 12A 15 P: convenient not to call any names. But um, I talked with her and personally called Martin Luther King myself, because I felt that had his organization, believing in non-violence, come to St. Augustine it would be more valuable. And · .. to have my young people associated with a group with that point of view, it . would be more important than to see the continuation of this group that was ""'4~'( ready to burn the town down. And I doubt ~T ti<"-"' ~en..1oc..HY if tRey manayecl-the-ma.na.ged-t.Re-wh-:f.tes v-P- ~ ivl,k"- 1~ ~ to~ ..,,,,..Nin flNo(,J MouJ ;.f. kR-ew-a-Bo~t-:i~. Had a meeting over in the Zion Baptist Church, and a Reverend .Lee, he was connected with the Martin Luther King movement came to the . . ·' ' . ' '. : . ·. community, and from that point o~ they led the activities of non-violent -~· { .~- . ~ effort in ·the city of St.' Augustine. And I remember distinctly when the uh confrontations came. I ca 11 , I have a special conference with Martin Luther w "'-' (,"' King at the First Baptist Church,~ at tM-s time one of the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan came. I want to know why nothing but niggers can speak on national television and I asked him if he wanted to be on national television and he said yes. And he came on television 1t1v12 I CPrw's ~l~~.~C: . ? ---~~~~~~~~~~~~- r\ l fl/\ e1>JQS r P: _ _._/)1____,r?'"""t-'-1_o_ _s _1_· ____, that's right, I'm responsible for fi1e1V0S; being on television, First Baptist Church. C: What sort of support did you get from the white leaders, like, like Wolf, like Frank Harrell when things got tough and people like __ fh_'._a_vu_s_,_· __ were P: I had an open door priveleges -----------------· And at no time did.;they show to me personally, but I knew what their attitudes were. I knew the attitude of the community, I knew thei}t Mayor's attitude. C: Um hum, Shelley. · P: That was Shelley. And they mayor's wife had made a very unfortunate mistake which I would rather not mention. I'd have somebody call And we did not have any relationship at all. The only distasteful experience that I had was the occasion when I asked the executive c_0 .,..,_""',}fec.. of ---------- ·, CRSTA l2A 16 P: my board of trustees to meet with some white leaders and there was an agreement not to have television or radio. And they knew what would happen if radio or . I J.,w 1+- tel evi si on showed up. Now ~ow it got to happenAKnow but when we sat down to have our meal in the .courthouse; television came in, the radio came in and then _tL-__ ' · toi¥.-Md-'\-·c.<-- ew& e&_ • One of the purposes of that meeting, the results of the purposes of that meeting would have led to some understandings which I think would have been an example for the whole state of Florida. · C: Who was there from the white community? . ' P: .· Th.e main people who . 1could speak. C: Was Shelley there? P: · .;! 1 ,.~J .- F I do not recall if he was there.·. C: · Wasn 1 t tie the real obstacle because of his- such a John Birch follower and uh even though Wolf and the others wanted to end the crisis , · P: I have never been able to understand why a man whose, more than 50 percent of .. his life as a black was as far to C: Right. ---to- '-; -·'- -- the left or P: Far to the right as he is , 1.1 rt-> , so much so until I never had a ny I '--"' contact with him. ·I remember when they burnt up the brand new car that my minister at the First Baptist Church had, they called up to notify me that they were going to·burn the two cars in my yard, my wifes car and mine, the car I used to drive. And I simply told them what would happen to them if they came on my private property. And there was an attempt to burn a cross on our campus, 01.<.il . .- but we had 47 private citizens in t..fl€ campus, well anned and with the action that night, there was never any attempt made to bother our schools <11 C(Jwtmu;v1Ty ho\.;. --------- as a matter of fact my college 1i brari an and three hundred dollars and ~-------------------~~------- C: Did your students participate actively with King in the demonstrations in 164? . 4(!. P: They werelibiggest main source. CRSTA l2A 17 C: And they cooperated with King on this? P: They were bright students. It wasn't a question of cooperation. I stayed alone I was the president of the /;.1 sti ~\-, v...J · The student, I did that even at political activities, the student council, even in Miami and in 5.l-. 4v._r,l.f-.S hc"'c... . Any politicia~ who was possibly one of the greatest senators in the state of Florid~uh would come to our campus, he would come atthe invitation of the students. I would go to meet him, and I would want to attend. And men would know my position, but I never ------ I was like any other college presi·dent who ever was elected president or ·. . . .\....../' ·. . . .• . . I felt the need to visit him and congratulate him and ln-v tAIJOfJ ,,,.. _ F fettsn~ 11 '- . '®r ~? him the importance of hisA.contribution to the welfare 0~ ~> iu5 /,·t"'-l-io#J C: Now uh i...\.cl-l P: A.nd I had the good fortune as evidenced by the fact that I feel that..:Hl governor~::· Askew named me the first black to the Judicial Qualifications Commission:in the state of Florida, and I remained there until it was necessary for me to leave. -£!d J;..'hl)"l.CS Nt/W 7 who was the chairman of the board of · " '" _;,- ,, 5 of which I am a member J r;;. A- member of that commission. Now 15 ~I! !.CH>-,..,tSSlf,,_j that commission nee'Gs-the__par.JDJ..5.$..:i..O-f.l-ef IN [.,i l.., ,J.-.~..J- 1 ft._ state of Florida. And that to me was the icing on my experience in the state of Florida. C: Did you ever meet with King or with Andrew Young? P: All of them, all of them. · C: What was the nature of the conversations that you have had with them? P: Never what their duty and responsibility was. It was always at the level of a +v . < professional. I invited Andrew Young to speak the students, I invited King to speak to the students, I invited King to preach to the students. C: I see, so it wasn't to discuss developements in St. Augustine? P: . Never, I never had anything, I never participated except I went to the public meetings. I don't remember, recall missing any public assembly which was called CRSTA 12A 18 P: by the SCLC. Because I felt that the non violent approach basically was more important, and the only time that I differred with Dr. King was when I had to tell . him that I felt that anytime a movement leads to confrontation~it's time for the organizer to sit down and find out points at which this is responsible, what causes it and let's eliminate that. Now that's as far as I went and I spoke only · · to him. · C: Now you did testify though before the Florida Civil Rights Commission came to ; . ' .· •' ·, . . .., ' '. ....,, .' St. Augustine. I remember that, I've got records of the testimony before that, ,:,and you were very critical of conditions in St. Augustine when you testified at ' ·.·' 't ', that time. · P: I would suspect that uff i would ·be critical at that time because when I employed a Chinese dean, the anti-American activities _c._"_"""_·_M_;_J.-f_c_<-_._·_· ·_' · _____ _ wanted my fingerprints, and I went to my attorney to find out why that was necessary, for an anti-American Activies Commission wanted to have my fingerprints because I hired a dean. I had asked the FBI, !~""s'Jo..u ght all the sources of infor-mation including CIA intelligence and FBI. Neither one of them would give me any information on this man, so I had every perfect right to move on my, on whatever I was able to work on. Now, I don 1 t re~a 11 any of the leaders of the St. Augustine community like the Mayor or Mr. Harrell I don't remember giving any negative remarks. I had the ------------~ on my board, the Executive Secretary Treasurer of the Florida ---------~ Baptist Convention, Dr. John McGuire. I don't remember him being, giving any negative attitude towards the ' s(,,lc,c,~-,~ .... c;~ '1oLJ -(~I C: What uh, why did, did you think when Dr. King left, that he left St. Augustine in bad shape? .": P: Well, C: Was it worse after he left than before? · P: Yes, it was worse, it was worse because the Ku Klux Klan was ac"1ff J{, ijfiJC..rw t CRSTA 12A C: Now this, it wasn't worse because Qf what Dr. King had done? P: No But rather because the white leaders refused to leave and let the Klan (talking together) is directly after · . . f"ltwo.sr ·I see. spoke over the television. It, it upset the total community. And even thos~:people who had 19 St. Augustine conmunity to .retire~ T don't remember any of those people uh ·losing interest in the college. "ilhey came to vespers on Sundays just 1 i ke they · had been coming all the time ... Because we without question .had the best, the .best speakers, the most int~liectual 'cultured activities in the local ~ommunity. ·And .· '' ~~ ' ' ' we invited all of the people thtrtwe thought would come. I recall one experience that I had, I thought I knew a wh~te minister well enough to _. _____ Dr. ' ' Channing Bias 1 who was head of .the Colored Work Committee YMCA.»by his residence to meet him, and I went through~the !ervice committee C: This was under Seymour wasn't it? ----~--- C: Wasn't his name ? -------~- P: I, I 1 d have to hear it in order tr, remember it. \ .,.., Co""""''"'" ' C: Did, were you asked to be on that biracial/\ that Governor Bryant tried to form? P: No. C: Now that thing failed, it never e~en was created. P: NO, I was not asked to be on it. C: Um hum, what uh, what did you thi1k of Dr. H~lings role at the end, as ~ou look back on the . • • 3' P: As I look back on it I'll tell yo1 what I told him. I told him, I told him sitting on the political chair, l said I can understand y' our point of view ----------------but I think on account of· the legal trip, ---------------------------------------------' . ~i CRSTA 12A 20 P: I said you're not a Martin Luther King. I said you do more work dealing with people sitting right here in this chair if you keep your mouth shut. And they know the type of work that you can do -----------------He went from there to Cocoa, went crazy as far as I know. Right, he's still there, yes. What uh, what were race relations like after the· fall of 1964 till when you left and went to college down in Miami? Did things .ever improve again?. Were they better after the. ~ If they did, ·they didn't affect us at the school because it was between that time ',• -- . . ihat they built a sidewalk all the way from the middle of town.all the way out ;,- - .. , . - •' ' . to the camp.us·, they put lights a 11 the way out to the campus, and they paved the . ' -~!:'.'•· -~ . ":. ~-- ; . . street all the way ouf.to the campus, and I think there was some attempt to rear ·a creative atmosphere in the black community that was wholesome. Now I think if ' . - . . you talk to some of the old citizens of the community fun ~~rie like J. A. Webster who was responsible for that. He lives right there on Kings Road. Or Murray who is a retired principal who lives there. Now these are people with whom I worked. We worked together, to the end of resolving the racial strife in the community. I wasn't on the side at ever, the distance. C: Did you work with the Community Relations Service when they came in there? P: You'd have to call some names because I . C: ~harles Grigg was one in Tallahassee. P: If I did I don't recall what happened except that he migh·t have been to my office. I doubt if he had very much from me. · C: Why didn't, why didn't the Catholic Church cooperate, do you have any understanding or knowledge of why they failed to say take an active role and help in the crisis because they were, certainly the most influential church ? C: Well I think it's possible at that time, and oddly enough ('{'Ape~~;;..._ -----...:...·N'M.~ ~J.t""u.-I End of tape '/
Florida Memorial College -- Ku Klux Klan -- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) -- Florida Memorial College -- Ocala, Fl. -- Zion Baptist Church -- First Baptist Church -- Civil Rights Act of 1964 -- Visit of Lyndon B. Johnson -- Picketing - Metadata URL:
- http://civilrights.flagler.edu/cdm/ref/collection/p15415coll1/id/1053
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- Proctor Library
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