Fighting Racism in America: An Oral History From Reconstruction to Present Day

Molly Smith Howard Feinstein Mr. Haight February 11, 2016

Table of Contents

Interviewee Release...... 2

Interviewer Release Form...... 3

Statement of Purpose...... 4

Biography...... 5

Oral History Context Paper: From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement...... 7

Transcription...... 23

Analysis Paper...... 47

Appendix...... 52

Works Consulted...... 55

INTERVIEWER RELEASE FORM

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this project is to promote education on the racism that Africans have faced during the Civil Rights Movement and in American history, and the impacts that racism still has on racial tensions in this country today. The project aims to develop and support different opinions on certain historical topics or events, and to bring up important discrepancies in the history of this country’s racism. Through learning about the past and present of race relations in this country, it is hoped that an impact can be made to change racism in the future.

HOWARD L. FEINSTEIN

Biography

Howard L. Feinstein was born in New York City in 1947. He spent much of his childhood in the college town of Palo Alto, California, where he grew up with a father, mother, and older sister. As a child, he was exposed to many of the civil rights activities both his father and mother participated in. Mr. Feinstein received a thorough pre-collegiate education and went on to accept his undergraduate degree from the University of California in 1968. He graduated from George Washington University Law School in 1972. Shortly after, Mr. Feinstein was offered a position as a civil rights prosecutor working for the U.S. Department of Justice. He accepted, and spent the next few decades of his career working to bring justice to those targeted by the Ku Klux Klan and other racially motivated groups during the Civil Rights Movement.

Following his work as a lawyer, Mr. Feinstein wrote two books on women’s rights issues, published in 1999 and 2000 respectively. In 2014 his book Fire on the Bayou, an autobiography of his life and work with civil rights cases, was published. Mr. Feinstein has been an esteemed professor at George Washington University, the University of Maryland, and Hood College for many years succeeding his days as a prosecutor, teaching courses such as Civil Rights, Sex

Discrimination, and Criminal Law. He currently teaches government at Montgomery College and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, who works as a social worker in D.C. as well. They have three children.

Oral History Context Paper: From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights

Movement

“The murder of the Moores was one of the most sadistic and, until recently, mysterious

Klan assassinations of all time” (Wade 295). This excerpt from Wyn Craig Wade’s The Fiery

Cross, while only mentioning one terrible event, describes in perfect clarity the perpetrations and perversions of the terrorist organization the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the general feeling of brutality and terror that has plagued African Americans throughout history. During the time that this murder happened, the hatred and violence against African Americans was unchecked and vicious. The general discrimination, violence, and hatred of that time against African Americans created a gaping divide between whites and blacks. With groups of people dedicated to lynching and killing them, and laws that kept an entire race in an inferior position, African Americans confronted oppression for hundreds of years that is still present in some form today. To understand the injustice that was faced and the discrimination and prejudice that is still present in our society today, it is important to understand the history of African American Civil Rights, the origins of an unimaginable terrorist group, and the perspective of those who were there to experience some of the injustices committed.

In the turmoil following the Civil War, came the period known as Reconstruction. During this time, many laws were passed in efforts to reunify the North and South. With the two sections still divided on many issues, most prominently blacks’ rights, this would prove to be more difficult than first thought. Within this period as well, a strong platform of Radical Republicans developed in Congress determined on changing laws and bringing about equal rights for blacks

(Foner & Garraty, 918). As the country struggled to piece itself back together and with tensions still high between the North and South, however, it was not the best time to try and influence any

radical changes. Though laws were passed one after another, Southern states still in rebellion always found a way to push back or ignore the law altogether (Foner & Garraty, 918).

The two most radical and controversial laws passed were the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.1 Finding that the acts they were passing were not being followed and not making a difference, the Radical Republicans decided to make the new acts into amendments to the Constitution so that the uncooperative citizens in Southern states would have to follow them

(Foner & Garraty, 919). However, once the amendments were enacted this did not turn out to be the case. While the 14th and 15th Amendments essentially declared African Americans to be citizens and gave them the right to vote, Southern states continued to enact discriminatory requirements for voting. They enforced literacy tests and imposed a poll tax, both of which they knew African Americans would not be able to complete (Foner & Garraty, 919). Backhanded laws and prejudiced taxes were not the only measures Southerners were taking the keep blacks from voting; the period of Reconstruction also saw the beginning of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Ku Klux Klan was formed in Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 with six members. The six men had all served in the Confederate Army, and upon arriving home found themselves out of place, and with nothing to do. They decided to form and group together, and called it the Ku

Klux Klan. They agreed on Klan because they were all of Irish descent, and kuklos based off of the Greek word for circle, but instead changed it to kuklux so that “no one [would] know what it

[meant]” (Wade 33). It started out innocently enough; the men dressed up in white sheets and pillowcases and went through the town, pulling “pranks” at night. A notion became popular that

1 The 14th Amendment, ratified on July 9, 1868, stated that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States… are citizens of the United States,” (Foner & Garraty 1199), and expanded equal rights and protection of laws to those citizens. The 15th Amendment, ratified on February 3, 1870, essentially gave African Americans and other citizens the right to vote by declaring that the right of citizens to vote “shall not be denied or abridged… by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (Foner & Garraty 1200).

the Klansmen were “the ghosts of the Confederate dead, who had arisen from their graves in order to wreak havoc on an undesirable class of people” (Wade 35).

As time went on, however, the group became more of an organization “to oppose the

Republican state government,” and in 1867 “emerged as a terrorist group dedicated to… keeping blacks in ‘their place’ socially and economically” (Foner & Garraty 625). As it became more popular, more and more members joined the cause. It was mostly present in the South, with a majority of its members middle to upper class white men of the Democratic Party. Many of them were unopposed to violence, and their methods to keeping African Americans from voting or from other civil rights were cruel and unrestrained. They beat, lynched, and executed people who they believed deserved to be scared, or killed. Most of the attacks happened at night to terrorize the victim further, and to emphasize the large groups and white robes; the phantom terror their group had started out with. However, most of the victims “were not taken in by the Klan’s pretense as ghosts” (Wade 36). In fact, just knowing who the Klansmen were and what they could do was fear enough; the image of a ghost or demon was an unnecessary and ridiculing addition. (Wade 36).

The government and military essentially destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1870’s, but the group simply faded into the background for a few decades (Foner & Garraty, 625). In the meantime, the government was doing enough by itself to silence blacks and further reduce their rights. In 1890, a Louisiana law was passed segregating train cars into “equal” but “separate” compartments. In 1892, Homer Plessy’s refusal to sit in one such segregated car brought this case before the New Orleans Criminal Court. The court ruling in New Orleans was that the

“separate but equal” statute was a state law. However, the case was later brought before the

United States Supreme Court on the basis that it de-legitimized the rights stated in the 13th and

14th Amendments to the Constitution; arguments that these separate but equal laws were again creating a feeling of inferiority and hierarchy of blacks and whites. In this 1896 case, Plessy v.

Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a “separate but equal” law for whites and blacks was not against the constitution. The Court countered the argument that the Constitution required equal rights by saying that enforcing segregation laws did not necessarily make a race inferior, and if African Americans felt inferior because of these laws, it was “solely because the colored race [chose] to put that construction upon it” (Hofstadter & Hofstadter 56). Additionally, the

Court held that no constitutional or legitimate rights were being taken away. Because the

Constitution said nothing about segregation, these “separate but equal” laws remained in place.

Plessy v. Ferguson sparked a series of laws establishing segregation, referred to as Jim

Crow laws,, after a caricature in a minstrel show in the 1830’s who performed a song and dance,

“Jump, Jim Crow” (Lowery & Marszalek 280). These Jim Crow laws spread throughout the

South in a matter of years, and affected nearly every part of the life of African Americans in the

South. By the 1900’s, almost all blacks in the South were barred from voting. Jim Crow laws rejected blacks from certain jobs and positions, lowered the quality and amount of money going into African American education, and “consistently promoted the systematic segregation, subordination, and dehumanization of African Americans” (Lowery & Marszalek 281).

It was during the period of Jim Crow laws and the aftermath of World War I that the Ku

Klux Klan made its return. Encouraged by “the superpatriotism of World War I… its membership and geographic range expanded exponentially” (Foner & Garraty 626). This new

Klan was just as dedicated as it had been in the past, but now it was larger. There were also a few changes to its ranks; although the Klan was still situated primarily in Southern states, it now

“drew members and leaders… chiefly from lower-middle-class people” (Foner & Garraty 626), and was much more of an urban establishment that it had been in the past.

Turmoil and unease was spread throughout the country after the First World War, and the

Ku Klux Klan could not have picked a more easily manipulated time and place to reappear.

People were distressed over the number of immigrants now flooding into the United States and taking up jobs and homes in the cities, the economic and political upheaval with new Communist parties galvanized by recent revolutions in Russia and other countries, and the formation of labor unions demanding changes in the system. This new Ku Klux Klan was different in one more aspect: instead of violence, many of the members now took to marches or parades to promote their cause (Foner & Garraty 626).

With this new, non-violent change came a more realistic influence in society and in politics. As people (in the South, at least) began to see the Klan as more of a civic organization than the terrorist group they had been, their numbers grew exponentially. In the Southern states, even without government experience or knowledge, the Klan succeeded in securing many political victories with its immense following and loyal supporters. In Louisiana, the Klan succeeded in “[electing] the governor and both U.S. senators” (Wade 215). For the most part, the Ku Klux Klan stayed in the background pulling the strings over its faithful members, and only occasionally stepped forward for some sort of unifying spectacle (Wade 215).

The Klan faded after a few years, and was disbanded again in 1944 only to reappear in

1946. This time, it was awakened by whispers of a civil rights movement for African Americans.

In the post-World War II atmosphere of apprehension and paranoia, differences over race, class, and religion were more pronounced than ever (Foner & Garraty 626). The Klan became not only an activist group, but also the face for the opposition to every civil rights effort that was initiated.

The Klan was building up more and power, to reach a culmination of power and of membership in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

The resurgence of the Klan was fueled by the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which was one of the most influential moments of the Civil Rights Movement, and also where the present civil rights movement truly first began (Kosof 14). On May 17, 1954, in the case of

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the “separate but equal” laws that had been in effect in the United States since the Plessy v. Ferguson case of

1896. The case itself involved 13 Topeka, Kansas parents who filed a lawsuit against the city

Board of Education to desegregate the schools their children attended. The Supreme Court had combined the Brown case with four other similar cases to review them all together. The Court unanimously decided in each of the four cases to outlaw segregation (Lowery & Marszalek 73).

This decision, not only was seen as a step forward in civil rights for blacks and a considerable development for society in the way civil rights issues were viewed, but it was “the beginning of a true revolution” (Kosof 14).

Although the Brown decision essentially desegregated schools by law, it took a long time for segregation to be socially acceptable, or even followed. In fact, in 1955 the Supreme Court issued a second decision “declaring that state compliance with the desegregation could proceed

‘with all deliberate speed’” (Lowery & Marszalek 73). Although segregated schools were outlawed, many throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s still existed. Nevertheless, schools were only the first step for Civil Rights activists.

Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to move to a seat in the back of a still-segregated city bus on December 1, 1955. Parks was not in fact the first to protest segregation in this way;

16 year old Claudette Colvin was arrested nearly 9 months before her for similarly refusing to

give up her seat on a bus. However, as she was about to be tried by the federal court and receive a great deal of publicity, she became pregnant. The NAACP, not wanting their first test case to be tainted by an unmarried pregnancy, which was controversial at the time, decided to “look elsewhere for someone to serve as a test case… whose character was above reproach” (Kosof

31). Rosa Parks became that person. Parks’ arrest sparked outcries of protest from the black community, as well as supporters following suit with public transport and segregation protests.

One such supporter was Martin Luther King, Jr., an Alabama church pastor and civil rights proponent. Following Parks’ arrest, King was elected president of a newly founded

Montgomery Improvement Association (Foner & Garraty 618). Throughout the late 50’s, King was an influential civil rights protestor and leader as he spoke about black voting rights throughout the country and led people in church in his own hometown. Though he did not know it yet, King would soon come to be one of the most influential civil rights activists and leaders of his time.

In 1960, the decision of the Boynton v. Virginia case prohibited segregation for

“interstate travel” as well as “accommodations in terminals” (Lowery & Marszalek 63). A year later, a group of 13 people protested the prohibition in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. The

Freedom Riders, as they were called, protested railway and public transport lines throughout the summer of 1961 and for several months after. They faced violence, attacks, even the buses they were riding on being destroyed. By the end of the Freedom Riders’ demonstration, over 1,000 people had participated in the protests, and it was clear that with all the violence being faced, not enough was being changed (Lowery & Marszalek 204).

On June 19, 1963, President John F. Kennedy proposed a new civil rights bill to

Congress. The bill called for a voting rights provision and protection of African Americans who

wanted to vote. It was still unsafe for them to do so in some areas, even though voting for blacks was now legal everywhere in the country due to the 23rd amendment.2 In support of this proposition, a march was organized that would become one of the most recognized milestones of the Civil Rights movement since the Brown v Board of Education decision.

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom took place in Washington, D.C. on

August 27, 1963. The march was comprised mainly of different human rights organizations, black rights organizations, religious organizations, and labor organizations, and in all made up over 200,000 participants (Kosof 54). People of different races, religions, and political views came together to form one of the most powerful, and most memorable non-violent civil rights protest to date. The March on Washington was also where Martin Luther King, now an affluent and respected civil rights leader, delivered his renowned speech, “I Have a Dream,” calling for the recognition of civil rights and a future in which there would be no racism. It would still be a long time before his dream became reality. On November 22, 1963, only months after his civil rights proposition and the March on Washington, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated

(Kosof 58).

Leading off of Kennedy’s assassination and continuing on with his efforts, the Civil

Rights Act of 1964 was another milestone in the movement as a whole. Seen as one of the most

“landmark [pieces] of comprehensive legislation” (Lowery & Marszalek 107), this law effectively prohibited segregation in public places like restaurants, hotels, and libraries, as well as discriminatory practices in public schools or businesses as pertaining to literacy tests, unfair job applications, and segregation in both the workplace and school (Lowery & Marszalek 108).

2 The 23rd amendment, ratified on March 29, 1961, granted the right to vote to all citizens residing in the District of Columbia (Foner & Garraty 1202).

The Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted by President Lyndon Johnson, was the last highly influential piece of legislation passed during the period of 1954-1968. This act, motivated by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s recent voting rights campaign in Selma, outlawed discriminatory voting requirements made it easier for black people to register to vote (Lowery & Marszalek

558). Though new laws were promoting civil rights, they were also sparking more controversy than ever over the topic. Argument, violence, and tension were building between whites and blacks as civil rights activism seemed to be working and blacks seemed to receive more rights, though no one could expect what happened next.

In April of 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. travelled to speak at a workers strike in

Memphis, Tennessee. On April 4, he was assassinated by James Earl Ray, a racist and a civil rights opponent (Foner & Garraty 619). King’s death marked the end of the first period of the modern civil rights movement, though more was still to come. Throughout the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s, there would always be people who wanted to end the civil rights movement and everything civil rights activists stood for, no matter how much violence or bloodshed it took.

What is said to be one of the most vicious and inexplicable Ku Klux Klan attacks took place in Florida on Christmas Day of 1951. Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette lived in a house in Mims, Florida with their two daughters. Harry Moore was a dedicated civil rights activist, having formed a branch of the NAACP in his hometown and later going on to become the head of this branch statewide. Voting rights were a main concern and source of activism for him, and Moore spent much time travelling throughout the state and advocating for both black voting registration, and equality in teacher’s wages. He and his wife taught at the public (though segregated) schools in Brevard County where he lived (United States of America Department of

Justice 2).

Previous to the Ku Klux Klan attack that would occur on Christmas night of that year,

Moore had been involved in a case where a Lake County sheriff, Willis McCall, had been investigated for shooting and killing two black prisoners while transporting them to their trial.

Though McCall claimed he acted in self-defense and was not convicted of any charges, Moore was also “a persistent critic of the overlap between Klansmen and law enforcement personnel”

(Wade 295), and wanted a more thorough investigation into the case and the accusations of prisoner abuse against McCall. He went to the Governor with a request for McCall’s removal from office and further investigation. Though no links could be made at the time and still cannot be made with current investigations today, it is suspected that McCall was a part of the fatal attack that took place at the Moore home only 6 weeks later (PBS, The Legacy of Harry T.

Moore).

What is known is that there were 8 people complicit in the attack; a young marine, six members of the Ku Klux Klan, and a policeman. The marine was paid $2,000 to build a bomb and place it at the Moore’s home, and it was planned for one of the men to get Moore out of the house by “[asking] for [his] help in locating a relative” (Wade 295). Harriette Moore was already out of the house visiting family, as were the Moore’s two daughters. By the time the family had come back to the house on Christmas night, the bomb was already placed. Only a few minutes after the lights were out in the house that night, the bomb was detonated. Mr. and Mrs. Moore were rushed to the hospital after the bomb went off (PBS, The Legacy of Harry T. Moore). At that time, “Florida ambulances refused to carry blacks” (Wade 295) and both Moore and his wife were driven to the hospital by his brother-in-law. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital, but Harriette Moore survived another nine days after the bombing. Their daughters, one 21 and

one 23, both survived the bombing, but they were left with their grief and their questions, and no answers.

There were four successive investigations into the case of Harry and Harriette Moore’s deaths; one from 1951-1955, one in 1978, one in 1991, and one from 2004-2006 (United States of America Department of Justice 3). The first of those investigations immediately followed the bombing of the Moore home in late 1951. The 4-year-long FBI inquiry involved surveillance of suspected Ku Klux Klan members, interviews with witnesses from Florida to Georgia to South and North Carolina to California, and concrete evidence that was actually gathered at the crime scene. By the end of the investigation, however, “the dots were never connected” (Feinstein 192) and there was no solid case against any of the suspects the FBI had incriminated. Due to the lack of confirmation and federal authority over the case, the investigation was suspended.

The second investigation took place in 1978, prompted by an appeal from the NAACP to reopen the case. The investigation was led by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and the State

Attorney’s Office. The Captain of the Sheriff’s office, a principal player in the events that would follow, was approached by a Ku Klux Klan member who said that he knew who had planned and committed the bombing on the Moore’s home, and wanted a clear conscience. Edward Lee

Spivey, a Klan member who had fallen out of power and now had a fatal type of cancer, named a friend of his whom he said was also a Klan member and complicit in the bombing. Spivey said that this fellow Klan member, Joseph Cox, had been worried the FBI was going to trace the bombings back to him, and years ago after an inquiry with FBI agents had committed suicide.

Although Spivey’s story checked out and the case was built and presented, it went too long before being reviewed by a grand jury. It was eventually put aside and overlooked when a new

State’s Attorney was elected, and the case was closed (United States of America Department of

Justice 5).

The 1991 investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (“FDLE”) was prompted by new information about a possible witness. The wife of a former member of the Ku

Klux Klan claimed her husband, Frank Harrington, was present at the scene of the Moore’s deaths and witnessed their murders. Harrington conceded to having been a Ku Klux Klan member, but said he joined the organization in the late 1950’s, years after the Moores’ assassination was planned and carried out. After extensive questioning and examination of other evidence (invalidation of previous confessions, assortments of inconsistent rumors and speculation), the FDLE finally decided that they were unable to prove Frank Harrington’s association with the Moore case and, once again, there was not enough evidence to keep the investigation open (United States of America Department of Justice 5).

The most recent investigation into the case began in 2004, led by the Attorney General’s

Office of Civil Rights. As Howard Feinstein wrote in his book Fire on the Bayou, “[it] seemed like the last possible opportunity for justice” (193). This investigation was by far the most thorough and encompassing review that had yet been done of the Moore case. The previous case files were examined, old evidence was brought to light, and other civil rights cases from the time were compared with the Moore case to look for similarities or clues. However, it had been a long time since the events of the case, and along with the death of many of the previous witnesses, much of the evidence used in earlier investigations was unable to be examined or used “due to its loss or destruction” (United States of America Department of Justice 6). Even after the Attorney

General’s Office had compiled a list of the most likely suspects, four Ku Klux Klan members, they could not be tried. Two of the men had died closely following the bombing, one had

committed suicide, and one had died of cancer years later. Though the perpetrators would never be brought to justice, the Moore case shows the true story of the Civil Rights Movement. It is a story of the first to be martyrs in a movement that would be remembered throughout history. It is the story of a tragedy, which like many, would not be concluded for decades, and of the people who could truly commit such an act as this.

Different ideas over the Ku Klux Klan in the 1940’s and 1950’s were certainly controversial, but it could be agreed by many at that point that the group was “un-American,” and “a home-grown menace.” A news magazine article published in 1947 spoke of a man who went to set up a mock Ku Klux Klan group, but who asked that its officers be, “a Negro, a Jew, a

Japanese-American, a Roman Catholic, and an American Indian.” The news article said that the man was, of course, denied the right to set up the group, but that the sarcastic tone was justified.

The fact that the group called themselves a “Klan” was insulting to America and its citizens, and

“even a mock organization should not be allowed to use the name.” Other journalists did not find as much sardonic humor in the Klan’s activities. An article published in 1946 about the Ku Klux

Klan’s suspected next moves after World War II took on a distinctly paranoid tone. Just following WWII, the Klan experienced what the article called a “bold rebirth” with the act of setting ablaze a large cross on the top of a mountain in Georgia. This exploit, rather than something to mock or laugh at, was, according to the article, “a sinister postwar future.” Even making comparisons to “the Hitler Germany of 1933;” it was clear that the uprising of the Ku

Klux Klan was no joke to this journalist, and that something must be done immediately to stop

“the spread of fear and hatred.”

In a previous oral history project interview with Daryl Davis, Davis recalls growing up as an African American boy at the height of racism in the United States. His first discovery of the

Ku Klux Klan was when he was thirteen, and began asking his father questions about race. He remembers thinking a group like the Klan was “ridiculous, the notion that guys were running around with sheets on, hiding their faces doing all kinds of crazy stuff” (Arzt 27). Soon, however, he came to know the Ku Klux Klan as something very real. His first encounter with the

Klan was testifying against a Klan member in court over a client’s complaint. When asked why he thought someone might join the Klan, Davis went over some of his interviews with previous

Klan members. Many of them, he said, joined because of “ignorance… stupidity…” or maybe the fact that was “a family thing” (Arzt 32). Finally, when the question was posed about why he thought the Ku Klux Klan had survived for so long in this country, Davis replied that “we have not done what we need to do to eradicate it. We ignore it… Talking about race is like taboo…

There was a lot of stuff this country has done that we don't talk about” (Arzt 34). Continuing on,

Davis explained that the problem so far was that “You just can't treat [racism] on the surface.

You have to go to the core of it… We don't do that in this country. We don't want to talk about it.

We don't want to discuss it. We want to put the past in the past” (Arzt 36). Davis know, however, that especially today, no matter how much people push, history will not be suppressed, and nothing remains in the past.

Though most historians agree that the Civil Rights Movement was one of the most influential activism developments of our time, many disagree on where the period of the Civil

Rights Movement started, or even which events were the most important within the period. The

Brown v. Board of Education ruling, commonly thought to be a civil rights victory as well as the starting point of the movement itself, is one of the most contentious topics. In his book Silent

Covenants, Derrick Bell argues that the Brown decision did not in fact move the civil rights effort in a forward direction, but hampered work from the backlash it caused. He concludes that

the decision “helped maintain a stable society by moving it forward… far less than civil rights advocates had hoped,” and that the decision “in retrospect, was a serious disappointment, but if we can learn the lessons it did not intend to teach, it will not go down as a defeat.” Taking the opposing viewpoint, Richard Kluger assessed in his narrative, Simple Justice: The History of

Brown v. Board of Education and Black America's Struggle for Equality that the Brown decision was one of the most influential decisions of the Civil Rights Movement. He stated that “by almost every measurable standard, African Americans as a group were significantly better off in

2004 than they had been in 1954,” and the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education “marked the turning point in America’s willingness to face the consequences of centuries of racial discrimination.” While these two historians were in agreement about the importance of the Civil

Rights Movement as a whole, there will always be contentions about which events were the most influential, especially in context of how they pertain to our world today.

Though this comprehensive history of the Civil Rights Movement ended with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., there are many more years of oppression, struggle, accomplishments, and victories towards civil rights and towards black rights. Arguments can be made that a Civil Rights Movement is still going on today, and, with recent events like the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, the Ferguson, Missouri protests, and the 2015 Baltimore riots, those arguments would certainly have substantiation behind them. While there is still unnecessary violence by police towards African Americans, racial profiling in jobs, schools, and public facilities, there is still a civil rights movement going on. While there are still protests for equal rights, not in the law but in the eyes of society, protests for people who have been killed just because of the color of their skin, there is still a civil rights movement happening. The specific rights and privileges people are fighting for may have changed, but the goal is still the

same; equal rights and equal opportunities for people of every race. People are still fighting for their lives and their jobs, and through this movement a quote from Howard Feinstein’s Fire on the Bayou is shown to be true: “the past is never dead. It’s not even past” (193).

Transcription

Interviewee: Howard Feinstein Interviewer: Molly Smith Location: Molly Smith’s home Date: December 29, 2015

Molly Smith: To start out, could you tell me about your childhood? [3:44]

Howard Feinstein: Yes. You read the book, did you?

MS: Yes.

HF: Oh, okay. My childhood was pretty unexceptional. I grew up in California- and tell me if

I’m answering too short or too long, you want to get what you want to hear. You know, I’ve done a huge amount of interviewing, both for writing and for law, so, I know what it’s like.

MS: No, it’s alright.

HF: Well, I grew up in the suburbs in San Francisco, in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. Not very different from Bethesda; it was a sleepy college town then, Palo Alto. Now it’s very busy- Silicon Valley- but it was pretty unremarkable. There was a lot of emphasis on education; had a great high school. For the time, it was a quiet time. The economy was good, it was always known that I would go to college. I just had one sister. My father was a scientist. My mother, like most wives back in those days- over a half century ago- kind of stayed home, took care of the kids. She went

back to college and got a job later. So, you know, no great trauma or anything like that. I didn’t grow up in an orphanage, have to run away from home...

MS: Well, with that said, do you think that growing up in California influenced your beliefs later on, or your prejudices, later on in life?

HF: To some extent. San Francisco, which is the metropolitan area I grew up in, was and still is,

I would say, very progressive, and somewhat diverse. Although my town was not diverse; where

I grew up, if you were Jewish like me, or Catholic, you were considered pretty exotic. I’m serious. It’s not like it is in Washington. But San Francisco itself, you know, was an international port city, and there were a lot of Hispanic people, Asians, gay people- even though they weren’t called that then. And my parents were quite progressive, and my father was interested in civil rights at an early age. So, it was a good spot, I think, to be exposed… Also, being in a college town, I got to hear a lot of different speakers come in at Stanford, and even to our high school.

So, I think I got influenced by a lot of people that were interested in social change. And, also,

California- everybody would not agree with this, but- we had kind of an optimistic view of life.

It was kind of wide open, sunny, different than the east. And, back then there was a feeling that you could change things, that you could do what you wanted to do. And I always had an interest in that, and always had an interest in the rest of the world. I always felt like running around, seeing other parts of the country, which I did. And then it didn’t cost much, it wasn’t very difficult then.

MS: Do you think that racism played any sort of role in your childhood, growing up where you did?

HF: Well, prejudice did, because like I say, back then, even if you were Jewish or Catholic or a little bit different, the country in general, but particularly in what was then a small town, you definitely felt that. And that was before the civil rights laws, in the ‘50’s and the early ‘60’s, so there were places that used code words, like “restricted,” or “not welcome,” where Jewish families were not particularly welcome, or even if you were Italian, or something. But particularly I think at school, a lot of kids- and some of the teachers, who tended to be pretty ignorant- made a lot of remarks. You heard a lot of stuff, and when you’re young, you try to suppress it, but looking back on it I think it did hurt. And even when I went off to college, I heard some stuff, so, I think… I would never equate myself with a black person in Alabama being beaten trying to vote, or something, but it was always there. People had ways of letting you know that you were different. And certain things that you could not do, you had to kind of explain yourself, certain things like that. So, I think that helped me. I think it gave me a little bit of understanding of what it might be like to be treated as different.

MS: And do you think that played a role in your later work with civil rights, or decision to become a lawyer? [8:05]

HF: Oh, yes. Yes, like I say, when I went down South- and particularly prosecuting the Ku Klux

Klan and people like that- it turned out that those groups were, and still are, anti-Semitic, anti-

Jewish, anti-Catholic, not exactly big on women’s or gay rights, either. So, that was there, and I

heard anti-Semitic stuff that I had not heard in quite a while. Living in Bethesda, it’s not a big problem [laughs] but it kind of took me back to my childhood and those feelings kind of came back. And I think if anything, it probably motivated me more, like “I don’t have to take this crap.”

MS: So, you just talked about the Ku Klux Klan. When did you first hear about them?

HF: Oh, I’m sure I heard about them a lot as a kid because, again, this was the Civil Rights

Movement. There were a few things in the 50’s, but it really started getting rolling around 1960,

‘61, and by then I was a teenager, and I followed the news voraciously. And, I just… as I mentioned in the book, it’s hard to… go back and remember things clearly, but I know that I had things on my bulletin board, that I would cut out. Obviously there was no Internet or anything; there was no cable, so you had limited news coverage, and being in California then, it was like the other side of the earth. So, you would get magazines and I’d cut out articles about the Civil

Rights Movement, and read about the Klan killing people… burning things down. And it really kind of got to me, for some reason, and I would put them up on my wall and we would talk about it, and things like that. So, I was definitely aware of them- I mean, they weren’t in Palo Alto or

California, [laughs] but there were always racist groups everywhere. But not overtly there; nobody was burning any crosses, but there were hardly any black people in town anyway. It was something I was aware of, but didn’t live with until I went down South.

MS: What were your feelings about the Klan early on in your life?

HF: Well, I probably wasn’t that sophisticated early on, like when I was a kid, hearing about it, but I’m sure that I hated those people. Because I did know, and I’m sure my parents mentioned to me, that they were quite anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic as well. I just have always grown up with very, very strong views about discrimination of any kind. On a lot of issues, I’m actually kind of moderate, or conservative, but when it comes to anything like that, it gets my blood boiling. And

I think my parents were part of that. Having grown up somewhat poor in New York, they certainly encountered more prejudice than I did. And I’m sure that came through. And then, in the early days of the Civil Rights Movement, my father did some fundraising and stuff for some of the early groups, King’s groups and things like that. So, I don’t think it was a very sophisticated knowledge of the Klan particularly, but I certainly had strong feelings about that issue.

MS: What do you think motivated you to become a lawyer?

HF: That is a little bit unusual maybe. I have no family history of any kind with the law, or anything professional. Other than my father- I’ve looked into this- I’m the first person to get a college degree on either side of my family, including my wife’s family. So there’s nothing, I never probably even met a lawyer, or anything. But, when I went off to college and became very active in civil rights, anti-war, other things, I think I developed a feeling that, if anything, I felt more strongly about these things. And I thought that this was a way to change things, to make some progress, in civil rights and other things I believed in. So, I have no particular interest or understanding of the law itself, but I just thought it would be a good tool.

MS: What was the most memorable, or the most important civil rights case you’ve prosecuted?

HF: Well, some of the cases I worked on, even kind of tangentially, like I wasn’t in charge of, were nationally known cases. But I think the one most satisfying for me was not one that was well known, but has come to be kind of typical, and that was a racially motivated police brutality case. I did a lot of investigations and trials of police, basically for killing, abusing, etcetera black citizens. And that was a long time ago, and now all of a sudden, of course, it’s very hot; you can’t watch the news without seeing something like that, like Freddie Gray here in Baltimore. So

I had one in Louisiana, which I was told was the first time, but a white police officer– and by the way, they were all white then, there were no black officers; white juries, white everything. The

South was quite different. But, that was a case in which a white officer, basically for no reason at all, just kind of picked on and beat up, a black guy who was looking for a home. And everybody said, “You’ll never win this, people don’t convict cops,” and “They’re never going to convict a white cop with a black victim.” And, the victim was not exactly a pillar of the community, either; he had some problems. But we insisted on going ahead with it, and convicted him. That was one of the chapters in the book, you probably remember. So, I felt vindicated, I felt good about that.

Because my bosses backed me up, but everyone else said, “You’ll never do this, you got to do a plea agreement,” or stuff, but we just didn’t want him to get away with it. So that was good, that felt really good.

MS: Through reading your book, I understand you were involved in the Harry T. Moore case.

When did you first hear of the case? [14:19]

HF: Well, that was interesting. A couple of years ago– time flies, doesn’t it? It’s probably several years now. My wife told me that a close colleague of hers, this woman, Mrs. Moore at her church was very, very intent on getting the murder of her parents by the Ku Klux Klan in

1951 in Florida solved. She lives up here now, in Prince George’s County. She just died, I don’t know if you know that, Mrs. Moore.

MS: No, I don’t think I did.

HF: Yes, it’s sad, but of course she lived well into her 80’s. So, my wife had told her colleague that I was involved in civil rights, and had done a lot of work and stuff in the South. So, she wondered if I might be interested, and I said, “Yeah, send me the stuff.” She had documented everything, and it was quite an amazing story, as you know from the book. And, being a lawyer, you’re kind of skeptical because a lot of people have stories and complaints, but they turn out to be not true or exaggerated. Like, if a cop beat me up for no reason, and it turns out I already shot three people and was aiming at the cop, or something like that. But, I checked it all out, and sure enough, it was true, and it was just an amazing, horrifying case. So, I said, “Yeah, I’ll help you out.” The case was solved, although everybody involved is already passed away- Klansmen, again. And, I kind of helped her out. We did some speaking together and things like that, and she helped me. It was very strange, because it was like going back in time again. But, she’s an example of somebody that has that fire. When you see an injustice like that, it’s tempting to say,

“Well it was many years ago, let’s just move on.” She was never really able to move on from that, understandably. And that was a big part of my life, I mean, here I am, 68 years old, and it’s still an important part of me. I just got asked to be the Keynote Speaker at Prince George’s

County Black History Month- next month, February- partly because Mrs. Moore lived there. It’s kind of interesting to see all these years later, it’s just something that never goes away. It’s just a big part of my life.

MS: Definitely, I would say that’s pretty big. What do you think was the most interesting aspect of the case; maybe what made you get involved?

HF: The Moore case?

MS: Yes.

HF: Well, one is that I had had civil rights cases all over Florida. A lot of school desegregation cases, housing, criminal, other investigations, and I could not believe that I had never heard anything about this. A bombing, a fatal bombing of a civil rights leader and his wife, I mean, how could I not know about this? That’s why I was skeptical in the beginning, but what Mrs.

Moore said: that Florida’s a little different, and they still are, because they depend somewhat on tourism. I don’t know if you’ve ever gone down there, but like for Disney World, and Fort

Lauderdale and all that, Florida needs that tourism money. So, what they did was they kind of covered this up; they did a joke of an investigation, even the FBI, way back when- which was pretty racist- and they didn’t want this stuff to get out, because bombings and violence are not good for business. And if you think about it, it makes sense. I was just down there playing music with a band, and there are mobs of people from New York staying in these hotels and going down there, and if they think somebody’s going to blow up the hotel, they’re not going to go.

That was the interesting part about it: it was such a fight to get it uncovered, because when people want to sit on something and keep something quiet, they can do it for a while.

MS: I understand you were able to contact Juanita Moore, and hear her speak. What kind of experience was that for you?

HF: I got her to go to our congregation. It’s Beth Chai- it’s Jewish, but it’s very heavily interfaith- and she spoke there. I heard her speak a couple of other times… very powerful. The woman is in her 80’s, but very passionate. And of course I went to her house and interviewed her a couple of times, we talked about maybe doing a film about her and things. And I needed to interview her just like you’re interviewing me, for the book, so I got to hear quite a bit. For somebody who had undergone that horror, which she never got over, really, very dignified. I can’t say she wasn’t bitter, but she had a strong faith that helped her through- a strong religious faith. And, I just kind of learned a lot from her. How to stay graceful, under such things, and she’s just a beautiful speaker. She was well educated. She went to college, worked here in

Washington for a long time.

MS: Did you ever have another experience where you were able to talk to someone like that, someone that you were really interested in? [19:20]

HF: Oh, yes. Well, on your cases, when you’re doing the cases- particularly the criminal cases- you have to get to know the victims- assuming the victims weren’t killed- you have to get to know them very well. You have to know everything about the case, but also you have to establish a rapport, because they’re not necessarily going to trust you. I’m coming down,

Howard Feinstein from Bethesda, coming from east- god knows what, Arkansas or something; it’s like I came off a spaceship. And I don’t know if you’ve ever been down in the rural South?

Mississippi, Alabama, stuff like that?

MS: No, I haven’t.

HF: Well, it’s changed, but it hasn’t changed all that much. So, it’s very different. I learned to kind of slow down, not be hard charging, and get to know people very well. You go to their homes, you take them out a little bit. And I learned a lot about the personal touch. I got to know some of the victims extremely well. And then, I got to know some major people on the Civil

Rights Movement, eventually, too. Rosa Parks- you probably know who she is...

MS: [laughs] Yes, I do.

HF: And James Foreman, some of the other people, just because it was that time. And you realize that they’re just people like us. They’re just flesh and blood, but they’ve had to make– at some point, they’ve all kind of had to take a stand. And, you do what you can to support them. I always knew I could go back here to Bethesda; I had the return ticket. You do the job, and it’s very emotional, but your life isn’t really on the line. I mean, I got threatened a lot, had things thrown at me and all that stuff, got knocked down, but obviously, nothing ever serious like they had to deal with.

MS: What kind of backlash or violence did you face?

HF: Well, there were a couple of occasions, but they weren’t civil rights related, exactly. Once I was working in the Legal Services for poor people here in D.C., [laughs] and I got mugged and knocked down. And then later, I did some white-collar crime- I’m probably scaring you out of ever being down there- but I got beat up. But, no, in general… I got threatened a lot, I don’t know if you read some of the quotes in the book, that I probably don’t want to repeat right now.

And then I was on something called the Klan Hit List. A lot of threats, a lot of yelling, throwing things at me, and stuff like that. But I was a federal official most of that time, too. I was a Justice

Department prosecutor, so I think I was probably a little bit safer than your average person.

MS: During that time, did you ever have any doubts about what you were doing, or how your work was going?

HF: No, no doubts. I mean, there wasn’t anything else I was particularly qualified to do… Play music, [laughs] which I still do, but I put that aside for many years. That doesn’t go too well with raising a family and practicing law. You can’t exactly tell a judge, “Well, your Honor, I have a gig tonight in Adams Morgan so I want a recess...” I mean, it wasn’t always easy. I was away a lot. We didn’t have regional offices, we were always staying in some hideous motel in Alabama somewhere, I didn’t like that. But, I always thought that I was doing what I should be doing.

Now, kind of in a macro way, as opposed to micro. I can’t say that it was a barrel of laughs every day, but in the larger sense, I don’t have any regrets. I’m glad I did it.

MS: How do you think the Civil Rights Movement and the existence of the KKK and white supremacists still affects race relations today, like in Baltimore, or Ferguson? [23:14]

HF: Yes, the Klan is still here, but it’s nowhere near as powerful. The issues are very different.

And in the last chapter in my book, I wrote about- and not everybody agrees with this- that time marches on, and the cause is still very important, but this is not the 1960’s anymore, and you have to do new tactics. When I did those cases in the book, it was a different country. The Klan was not only in groups like that, and individuals… They were not only powerful, but they were very closely associated with government leaders, political leaders, church people. Now, that’s not true. Political leaders, even conservative, would be embarrassed by the Klan. Although, watching this Republican primary, [laughs] sometimes I wonder if we’re going backwards. I hear some of the things- I’ll assume you tend to agree with that, because I saw the Van Hollen bumper sticker out there- but it’s pretty shocking, some of the things that have been going on now. But, we won’t get into that. But, it’s different. And, while there are Klan-type incidents, and there are horrible things, like that kid that killed the nine people in Charleston, South

Carolina– you know which one I mean, this was earlier this year.

MS: Yes.

HF: The young kid, I don’t remember his name; he was your typical young, white, loner, meth- head type kid- nobody who would be going to St. Andrews. He dropped out, and he went in and killed nine people in that church. I used to do cases like that. That isn’t anybody that’s going to have any power, or political standing. A lot of my cases, not just Mrs. Moore’s case, but– they

were hushed up, or made difficult, because people would cooperate, because they were closely associated. One of the most famous cases- Klan murders- was of those three civil rights workers in Mississippi; Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. You know about that?

MS: Yes, I think so.

HF: A black civil rights worker in ’64 in Mississippi, James Chaney, and two guys from up

North, Jewish like me. And they were killed; there was a conspiracy involving the Klan, and the local government, and the police, and the Sheriff. The police were infested with Klansmen. Now, that isn’t going to be true anymore, in general. So, the issues are different. The issues are different. You still do have the police problem, which is a big problem. But again, it’s a different time, and I have strong views- that not everybody agrees with- that we need to be emphasizing different things.

MS: Sort of leading off of that, in a previous-

HF: And tell me if I’m going on too long, or not long enough, or anything like that.

MS: Okay. No, you’re fine-

HF: You sure?

MS: Yes, definitely, I’m getting a lot of good stuff, and this is really interesting. I think that you’re giving good answers. So, in a previous oral history at my school, an interviewee Daryl

Davis-

HF: Oh! Good friend of mine.

MS: Really?

HF: Oh, absolutely.

MS: Oh, that’s so interesting!

HF: You know, I could tell you a million stories about Daryl. But, not only are we both civil rights people- from different viewpoints- but we also both play keyboard, and we play the same time of music. So, we’re often playing on the same show, and we trade; like if somebody wants piano lessons, I’ll give them to Daryl because I don’t teach anymore. And, we both wrote books.

I used to have him as a guest speaker, both at Beth Chai and at my colleges, and vice versa, so we’re very close friends. In fact, I just emailed him some article this morning, I think…

MS: That’s really funny. So, in this interview he said he believed the KKK was still in existence and had been for so long because “we have not done what we need to do to eradicate it. We ignore it. There’s a lot of stuff this country has done that we don’t talk about.” Do you agree with that?

HF: Yes, I think I would generally agree. You can’t really eradicate it, because… the 1st

Amendment, do you know what I’m saying? You can’t really prosecute or put people in jail for expressing their views. We have a very strong 1st Amendment here, so as long as the Klan marches with a permit, says what they do, print the things we do. And now, of course, with the

Internet, they say horrible things, and more people read it. You can’t shut that down; you can’t eradicate it, because the 1st Amendment, the Supreme Court, has made it very clear that you can’t punish people for what they say. We used to get all sorts of letters about this at the Justice

Department, “Now the Klan is marching,” but you can’t do anything about it. But then when they threaten individuals, or shoot up somebody, or burn a cross on somebody’s property, then you can do that. But, no, I don’t think they’ll ever be eradicated. I think there’ll always be anti-

Semitism, I think there’ll always be anti-gay, and misogynist, you’re never going to get rid of this completely.

MS: Do you think we’ve moved forward in terms of race relations or prejudice as a country?

[28:17]

HF: Well, that’s a complicated question. I guess the short answer would be yes, but we have a lot of work to do. But of course, being white, other people’s views might be more valuable on that. I think a lot of minorities, particularly African Americans, even though obviously they don’t face the legal discrimination that they did, I think there is still- I think I mentioned this in the book- there is often a fairly strong alienation. They don’t feel like they’re being made a part of the country. Every time that you see one of these black citizens shot fatally by a policeman…

Some of them are not outright murderous; a lot of the times, like I say, the most spectacular cases, they’re really just not prosecutable. But, every time those things happen, you see black people and others will say, “Black people’s lives are nothing,” “They just hunt us down like we’re dogs.” So, on a personal level, it’s a lot better. But I think we do have a long way to go.

There was a feeling among some people that when President Obama became president, that we’d have kumbaya, and everybody would love each other, Washington would change. And I remember warning people, particularly some black people in the South, because I was down there once in Florida, right after he got elected. It was the memorial, for Harry Moore; they do it every year. And I warned people, “Well, we’re very happy that he got elected, but this is not like

Jesus coming back to earth, trust me. Washington is going to be the same, and there’s still a lot of problems.” I think there were a lot of false expectations there; people expected Obama to be like Moses or Jesus or something. So, no, it’s still there.

MS: Do you feel that you’ve made a difference with the work you’ve done, as a prosecutor or as an author?

HF: Well, I hope so, on a smaller scale. All I can do– I don’t think I can change the whole world, but I never stop. Like I say, I still do some speaking appearances, I’m working on another book. I teach… I’ve always taught around here- well not always, but periodically- Maryland,

George Washington. I used to teach at Hood College, which was all women then, and what I try to do is use those as opportunities to educate people and discuss these issues. They’re delicate; a lot of people would rather not talk about it. But Montgomery County’s changing, too. I mean, teaching at MC now- I don’t know if you’ve ever been over there, you’ll probably run into

people that go there, but… my god, it’s like, over half are immigrants or people new to the country. And they face issues; it’s not just whites and African Americans. And when they hear people like Trump and Cruz and others talking about Muslims and Mexicans being rapists and all this crap on television, that’s got to hurt. Those people have got to feel that. So, I try to educate people on that, on what their rights are and what they can do. I don’t know whether I’ve made much of a difference, but I don’t… It’s never going to be enough; I’m never going to stop– unless I start losing my mind and not making sense. But fortunately, I’m still in pretty good shape. So, yes, I think if you add up the totally of myself, and thousands and thousands of people that did a lot more than me, there’s been a difference. I’m a big believer that change comes from the people, from the bottom. I don’t think, like I say, Obama changing the world? Well, he tried, and I think he’s a good man, but a lot of these things have to come case by case, person by person. The way Daryl Davis does it is very different than me, but together, each of our ways…

One way is just not being intolerant, like people speaking up when they hear some kind of prejudice or something like that. Because, it does hurt, and you have to let people know that they’re not alone. So, in terms of what I’ve done- yes, I’ve helped some people, but I still try to do as much education as I can… Same with Daryl.

MS: With everything that’s been going on recently; police brutality and just violence against

African Americans in general, do you think that there could be a future where there’s no racism, or at least none of the ideas of racism?

HF: No, I’m not looking for that to happen anytime soon. I mean, it’s not just the U.S. There’s a lot of prejudice in other countries, always has been, and it exercises itself differently in different

cultures. And people are always going to look at certain kinds of people as “the other.” I think the best thing we can do is educate, and be sure the laws are enforced to protect people who might be victims. But I’m not a big believer that one day everybody is going to love everybody.

It would be nice, but, no, I think we’re always going to have to work on this. I don’t think prejudice– it’s kind of like wherever you go, around the country or in other places in the world, people seem to have to have somebody that they can use as a scapegoat. I mean, look at this campaign, you would think listening to some of these people, the stuff about how non-whites are taking over… People from Mexico and Central America- which is where a lot of people are from around here- are taking over, that Muslims are… Well, come on. If you were to go down to K

Street or Connecticut Avenue, and look at all the law offices, the banks, the lobbying, the businesses, are you going to see a lot of Salvadorans and Afghans running things? No, of course not, they’re doing the crap jobs that none of us would want to do, that’s how they start out. And if you look at it historically, the same thing was said, like when my folk, the Jewish people came over here; the Irish had terrible prejudice against them, and the Italians. We were the unwashed, the people from Eastern Europe, and we were going to pollute society and stuff like that. So, now it’s a little bit different with African Americans, because they didn’t want to come here, and there’s still terrible heritage from slavery. But, no, I don’t think that prejudice will ever completely go away. The great thing about the Civil Rights Movement to me, is it showed other people that they didn’t have to take this. I grew up when women basically had almost no legal rights at all. When I– I taught women’s rights at Maryland, and I wrote a textbook on it. On the first day, I would say, “You all take a lot of things for granted which is great, but it’s a little different for me. When my mother was born, she didn’t have the right to vote.” And everybody goes, [gasps]. And I mention that my wife, Karen, she’s a better athlete than me- she grew up in

California too; we met in college. She was from a small town, too, but she never got to play sports because there were no women’s sports teams. Well, how did that happen? People organized and fought and got Congress to pass Title Nine. I remember when- and this wasn’t that long ago- when if you looked at the help wanted ads for jobs, it said, “help wanted male,” “help wanted female.” And think about gay rights, I mean, nobody would have ever even thought about that. These things take a long time, they’re long efforts. But I don’t think anything is going to be ever 100 percent, completely won.

MS: Okay, so sort of going back to turning points, historian Richard Kluger said that-

HF: Oh, I know Richard Kluger, I’ve read his book…

MS: Oh?

HF: Yes, about… Brown v. Board of Education.

MS: Right. So, he said that the Brown v. Board of Education decision “marked the turning point in America’s willingness to face the consequences of centuries of racial discrimination.” What do you think about that? [36:34]

HF: I don’t know that there was one turning point. I’m fairly familiar with that case, because that case was decided when I was just a little kid. So, I didn’t probably have very good consciousness of it. And, of course, again, where I went to school, there were almost no

minorities. I was probably considered a person of color, being Jewish, or if you were Catholic…

So, it didn’t affect me. I don’t know if that changed the public consciousness that much, but it showed people that the government, no longer legally or constitutionally, would we allow segregation. And then, the first civil rights cases I did when I joined Justice, before these criminal prosecutions, were mostly school desegregation cases. So, I spent a good number of years enforcing Brown v. Board of Education, and I saw the resistance to that. We had to do a lot of trials, very bitter, and appeals and things. I don’t think it completely changed the public consciousness. There were some other things around then, too. The next year was the

Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was successful. There was the assassination of Emmett Till in

Mississippi, and the Delta riot did a lot. In fact, I’m raising funds for them now, recently, because they just got tornados down there. So, it was part of a group of events that– it might have been the legal turning point, but not public consciousness, necessarily.

MS: You talked about the government, or police, covering cases up. Do you think that that still happens?

HF: Not as much. Well, for one thing, when I was down there, blacks– the Voting Rights Act passed in 1965, but it was not yet enforced. Almost no black people voted. So, therefore, there were very few black public officials. That’s all changed. I mean, even in the South, you’re going to find that a lot of cities have had black mayors, almost all the big cities up here have. I mean, look at Baltimore, Washington, New York, we’ve all had black police chiefs and things like that.

So, it’s not like some Klansmen’s going to be putting people in jail just because of their race. It’s not like that anymore. What I think needs to change- and this is just my view, but I’m pretty

familiar with it- is the culture of police. And that’s just not a race. I’ve had a lot of experience working with law enforcement, and I’ve done ride-ons. There’s police in my family, and I think there’s still too much of a view that policemen are an occupying force in most communities. We have a good police department in Montgomery County, but that’s not typical. You’re not likely to be harassed and thrown up against a wall and beaten by some cop when you’re coming home from St. Andrews, but there are places where that will happen, still. And police here, compared to a lot of countries… Well, it’s not completely their fault, because we have a lot of guns, we have a lot of social problems, and a lot of violence. But, police tend to be very defensive. They stick up to each other; they’re trained to kill, and to control things. They have a view kind of like their military. And in some respects, if I was a cop maybe I’d feel that way, too. But, when police are trained– I just did a ride-along- which anybody can do- with a woman cop, who was originally from the Soviet Union, in Montgomery County. And we had a few traffic stops, pull over somebody for speeding, and she said they’re trained to think that there’s no such thing as a routine traffic stop, that every one could end up– you lose your life. Now, that’s not true in most other Western countries. So, you see, it’s kind of an “us against them” thing. And I think that has to change, but I think one good thing about this horrible spate of police killings is that there is a new look at that, now. So, I’m guardedly hopeful that’s going to take a long time.

MS: What do you think was the most important thing that you learned from your work with civil rights? [40:53]

HF: Kind of that. That change takes a long view. Major social change is a long, long, struggle.

It’s bit by bit, case by case, person by person. You would win a case, like when we convicted

that cop in Louisiana, and you’d have a victory party and have a few drinks and stuff, but really, you didn’t necessarily change that community, or change people’s lives. It’s just over and over and over again, things like that have to keep happening. I don’t know what’s going to happen in this Freddie Grey case. I’m not particularly optimistic; I wish to god that they weren’t having six trials up there. I hope that city is still standing after these trials. I wouldn’t be hanging around the

Baltimore courthouse in the next few months if I were you [laughs]. Not that you’re planning on doing that. But, these things take a long time, and all you can do is your part. There’s different things that everybody can do. Not everybody’s a lawyer. You can be a writer, you can incorporate it into your art, you can stand up when you hear intolerance. So, I’d say that’s it.

Patience. Although, I’m not a particularly patient person, it can be frustrating.

MS: Have you ever faced any negativity, or on the other hand, faced something that was really uplifting from your work as an author?

HF: Well, the books have only been out for a year and half or so. I wrote a textbook before that, on women’s rights in Maryland, when I was teaching at Maryland because there wasn’t any good book for the students, so I wrote that. But that was just an academic book that the students bought. This one, last year, I took it and I kind of toured around the country. And it was kind of good for my ego. I got a lot of congratulations, and thanks, particularly down South. I was asked to participate in a couple of civil rights commemoration events in Mississippi, because last year was the 50th anniversary of the ’64 Civil Rights Act, the big one. So, that was kind of nice, it made me feel like part of history. Particularly when I went back to Mississippi, where I’d been arrested and jailed, doing civil rights work. So, that was kind of nice, that made me feel good.

You have to be careful of that, though. It’s just like, you know– I’m just really playing locally now, but I used to tour with bands all over the place, and be on television, and run around. And it can get to your ego, when people clap or compliment you too much. That’s not good; I’m not real good with a lot of praise or with criticism, I’m not very good. Law, even though it was civil rights law, often people I worked with were not particularly pleasant and gave you a lot of crap and criticism, and I did not like that. And sometimes I’ll feel comfortable if people say, “Oh, this is brilliant,” or something like that, or “You’re a great hero,” because I know I’m not. So, I try not to let that stuff affect me too much. I say, to me now, at my age, it’s kind of a long game.

You just keep doing what you can.

MS: Alright, well those are all questions that I have, so if you have anything else that you think is really interesting, to wrap up?

HF: No, I just– like I say, my main point is that it’s a long struggle. It’s very different than it was in the 1960’s. I think now, education is very important. People forget that in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, the economy was pretty good; you could get jobs. Now, that’s not true anymore. Education is tremendously important; that’s one reason I teach, because I try to help these kids. Although, I’m not necessarily a great teacher, but I try to kind of inspire them. And I think a lot of the issue in struggling communities now is not just discrimination, but it’s education. Getting people as much education as they can. And it depends on where you are. Around here, in Bethesda, if you just have a- not to scare you, but you know- if you just have a Bachelor’s Degree, that’s like you have a GED or something. But it’s very important, so I try to work on that, too. We take a lot for granted, I think, living in Bethesda.

MS: Yes, we do. [45:26]

Analysis Paper

“People are always going to look at certain kinds of people as ‘the other.’ I think the best thing we can do is educate, and be sure the laws are enforced to protect people who might be victims. But I’m not a big believer that one day everybody is going to love everybody” (Smith

40). These words were spoken by Howard Feinstein, a prosecutor for justice during the Civil

Rights Movement. Recalling his past work, Mr. Feinstein was able to give opinions on present- day topics and relate many current issues to his work in the Civil Rights Movement. Both connections and discrepancies as compared to other views were found in Mr. Feinstein’s remembrance of past events. However, these different points of view are essential to the understanding of events as they occurred in actuality, and history as a whole. History, by definition, is the study of past events. Its goal is to educate people on what happened in the past, how it happened, when it happened, who was involved; essentially, the who, what, where, when of historical times. Oral history, then, offers a unique examination into personal accounts of historical events, individual opinions that may counter or support the whole, and overviews of an observer’s testimony that is invaluable as a primary recollection source. Oral historian

Alessandro Portelli states that “oral history . . . refers [to] what the source and the historian do together at the moment of their encounter in the interview” (Portelli 3). Rather than receiving information from a book or website, students and researchers are using people, personal experiences and primary sources, as their information. Trying to recall events from many years ago may call into account the unreliability of memory, but even so, receiving personal opinions and viewpoints from genuine witnesses to historic events is invaluable.

The interview began with Mr. Feinstein talking about his childhood, growing in

California. He spoke of the prejudice he had faced in his small town being Jewish, and how that

would influence his later work in civil rights, with people who faced discrimination daily. Mr.

Feinstein recalled, however, that there was an optimistic view of life growing up where he did, that “there was a feeling that you could change things” (Smith 24). He also counted this as another reason for his later work with civil rights. In college, he became active in civil rights and anti-war activities. Pertaining to his work as a prosecutor, Mr. Feinstein admitted that he had had no connection with law in his family or background, but that he became active in such work with a feeling that “this was a way to change things, to make some progress” (Smith 27) in the issues that mattered to him. The Harry T. Moore Case was a case that Mr. Feinstein had not been personally involved in during his time as a civil rights prosecutor, but that nonetheless remained

“a big part of [his] life” (Smith 29). He had heard of the case from the daughter of Mr. Moore, who attended his wife’s church, and the two were able to assemble evidence and work to bring together a full story of the case. It was solved a few years later, but Mr. Feinstein emphasized that he and Ms. Moore remained in touch until her death in 2014. He recalled that they did many speaking appearances together, and through the process “[he] kind of helped her out… and she helped [him]” (Smith 29). When asked about the most compelling aspect of the case, Mr.

Feinstein said that it was that fact that, with all his work in civil rights, “[he] could not believe that [he] had never heard anything about this” (Smith 30). He spoke about many cases during the

Civil Rights Movement which were covered up and not fully investigated, the Moore case being one of them. Tying this aspect of government evasion into the present, Mr. Feinstein stated that he thought that cases would not be covered up today as they were years ago. He felt strongly that it was police brutality and training that is a problem today in this country, and that police culture is certainly “an ‘us against them’ thing… and that has to change” (Smith 43). Mr. Feinstein concluded with the reiteration that everyone has a part to play in ending racism, no matter how

big or small that part may be, and that “getting people as much education as they can” (Smith 45) and teaching them about their rights and freedoms is one of the most important steps to making this country safer, and less prejudiced.

The Ku Klux Klan was one of the most formidable and feared terrorist groups of the last two centuries, dedicated to the torment and death of minority groups, most specifically African

Americans. The organization has faded over time, although it cannot be said its cause is completely without supporters, or that its loyalty is wholly dissolved. There is still controversy over whether or not the Ku Klux Klan still exists in the United States, and whether or not the citizens of this country have taken due action to eliminate the group. Daryl Davis, an author and interviewer of Klan members, stated that he believed the Klan was still in existence and had been for so long because “we have not done what we need to do to eradicate it. We ignore it” (Arzt

34). This is a view that is commonly shared by many who oppose the Ku Klux Klan; that there is something more people in this country could have done to push the group further out of existence a long time ago. Others, however, feel that there is not much more that could have been done to destroy the group. Author and former civil rights prosecutor Howard Feinstein asserted that while he agreed with Mr. Davis, “you can’t shut that down; you can’t eradicate it, because the 1st

Amendment, the Supreme Court, has made it very clear that you can’t punish people for what they say” (Smith 37). Mr. Feinstein emphasized that while the Klan and its supporters were simply printing or marching or speaking, there was nothing legally that could be done, and therefore he didn’t think that we would ever be rid of the Klan completely. Although the two agreed on some points, the main point that something could be done to stop the Ku Klux Klan was in discrepancy. The fact that there was a difference between the two points of view, and furthermore that the two people quoted had personal knowledge of the Ku Klux Klan, reveals

that even in such instances as the discussion of infamous groups or issues, historical facts can provide ambiguity and inconsistency pertaining to opinions, or even to what may happen in the future.

May 17, 1954, the date of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, has long been held by many historians and scholars as the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. The decision was a monumental step forward in Civil Rights, as it led to the desegregation of schools nationwide. However, under which circumstances the decision came to be the beginning of the movement, or a turning point as such, is still a widely argued subject. Historian Richard Kluger asserted that the Brown v. Board of Education decision “marked the turning point in America’s willingness to face the consequences of centuries of racial discrimination” (Kluger 2). This concurs with the widely held opinion that the Brown decision was one of the most important events in the Civil Rights Movement, and, in fact, what began the shift towards fighting for equality after so many years of oppression. Not everyone shares this opinion, however. OHP interviewee Howard Feinstein stated that, as pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement, he didn’t

“know that there was one turning point… [he didn’t] know if [the Brown v. Board decision] changed the public consciousness that much, but it showed people that the government, no longer legally or constitutionally, would we allow segregation” (Smith 42). The considerable divergence between these two points of view presents the fact that there are many opinions to be seen as connected to history. The level of knowledge about the topic, as well as the factor of individual experience or witness could account for these differing opinions. However, it is clear that especially in cases surrounding specific historic events, no one claim can be made that is agreed upon by all who relate to it.

Through the process of conducting this interview and making connections with other interviewees’ and historiographers’ points of view, I have learned that though history is often thought of as only one true sequence of events, in fact there are many different memories, experiences, and opinions that go into the process of establishing the true facts of historical events. I also learned that past events play a big part in present issues, and even thinking about the future in a certain context. The fact that “the past is never dead” is very clear throughout Mr.

Feinstein’s answers, and his reflections on what the present could hold in terms of race relations and prejudice. The past also teaches and informs us of mistakes, and through doing this project I believe that the past is the most useful tool we can use to make sure we do not make the same mistakes twice. The connections that can be made from the Civil Rights Movement, to the protests today that continue against police brutality and racial profiling, are intriguing and thought provoking. One of the many things that Mr. Feinstein maintained throughout the interview was that he believed racism would never truly be over, but if every person could do a small part to educate and inform people about prejudice and preconceptions, the world might change to become a much safer place. We might not have been ready to take this step decades ago during the fight for civil rights, but Mr. Feinstein believes– certainly the most important thing I learned from the interview– that we must take a step forward today, and we may be ready to begin educating people and changing views.

Appendix A

Rosa Parks fingerprinted two months after refusing to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama.

Appendix B

Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington on August 23, 1963.

Appendix C

Members of the Ku Klux Klan march in Washington D.C., August 9, 1925.

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