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Aaron Henry Interview (NAACP)

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Aaron Henry Interview (NAACP) Aaron Henry December 28, 196.5 JMz nr. Henry, my flret question would be1 what was the extent of 1our involvement ih Rev. Bel Lindsay's oampa1gn for the congressional pri­ mary of' 1962? AH t AI1Swer1ng yonr q_uestion precisely, I served as Rev. Llnd&aJ's campaign msnagel"J ~ would like to however go back to the r~sons that Lindsay became involved 1n the campaign, and maybe this Will help set the stAge f or tiM broad takeoi'f tl'lat lfe will pemaps be getting to as we go on. An intimate friend of miu Who l1v8id here, Rev. TheOdore Tramell, wis the commun1ty's first choice to make this particUlar race tor O'o~a. in 1962. It was here that we had the enooUJI!'Qgeaent or most or the groups who vere inTOlved in clvll 1'18htB' SNCO bad just begun to come into the area at .that t.lme, we bad the support of Dave Dennis or OORE, Bob ~loses of SNOO , and or oourse the NAACP group was very solid for Theodore Tremmel . Trellmel had been pretty lliUOh the leading m' niater in JIU.sslssippl in the ciVil rights struggle, and or course all of us were happy to support him. · Well, Merrill - uh, Theodore Tremmel had also been also been very active 1n the local soeneJ he' d had a eouple or experlenoos of heart attacks, he was a.rrested Dec811lber 7 1n ' '61 , on a restraint or trade violation, of whioh I was a part or the anested. Sl'OU;Pr Mr. , , and many of' the people from here. Well, true kind or arrest, and beins in jaU, and the harraBIIlllent and the wear and tear I guess or - on some of us is greater thAn 1t 1S on the other folkB, and Ted' s heart save out, and he died., While he WAJI atil.l a candidate ~or the campaign. And pioklng up the mantle of fellow Methodist minister Tremmel, vas a Methodist minister, Lindsay is a Methodist minister, and there was someWhat a feeling of ~ioklng up the toroh :1'ro1ll a f$llen brother that Lindsay became interested in this partloular campaign. or course ve were ver, fortunate to have a ~~~&n so capable, as oapable as 'l'rsmmel.l as Lindsa.;r really waa to ca.rry on from him. And b$oause of' Tr8111111al s interest ln the c8111.pelgn, I'm pretty sure that Lindsay found lt impos­ sible to say no when we went to h1m1 and asked him to become the can­ dld.ate for the campaign, of' cou.rse he took a somewhat f~~ooetlous polnt or view and sald, I 111 be the candidat e if' mr brother Will be the cam.. pa1gn 1118111lger, m.eanln' me., e.nd we aorta shook hands on 1 t 1 and - this is pretty muoh ~ow 1 t got to be. J M1 Do you CAre to ellsousa why 1 t was important that - here for the flret time since Re40nstructlon there waS a Negro running, in thla d.istrtct, for COngress • • • Alia Yea, certainly there was more the:n one gain, or .more tha.n one thlng 1nte¢ed by this particular ca.mpalgn. We knew that tho number of Ne~ ~otes were - were not sufficient to elect Lindsay, of couree Lindsay insisted, and I certainly agreed1 that we not l"'in the oampa1gn , AR - 2 to oater only to the Negro oo!lllllun1ty, but to the fa1r-D\1nded white 001ll­ munity as well. Lindsay retuaed to make a speech directed only at the Negro community, he was dete.mined that everything he dld and said, at least publicly, was an attempt to place the weltar~ of the second Ccn­ STSS&ional District above any raci al c~nnotations t~i might have come to mind. The involvement of Negroes in the pol1t1oal area, however, served - we t'elt it would serve as a ati !liUlus to the Negro sinsu];~rly and certainly st1ll1Uli to the Negro pllU'Illly, and that we would have many people who , lt they were not registered, knowing the kind of an i.n­ d1.vidual that Lindsay was , that they I!'OUl.d at least desire to vote tor him. And 1t' we came down to a poll tical campaign where a person who actuall7 wanted to vote for Lindsay and couldn't vote because he was not registered, we fe.lt that this would be a great propelli ng foJ"Oe to actually get registered to be ready the next time. Of course there was another reason here, and I th1nk perhaps the major reason, because with a oand1date in the field with tbe philosophy that had as its concern the total people, we were able to build a platto~ and 11tand trom the podium ourselves and expose and express our View­ points on the real issues that we fllil.t must be resolved before M1ssis6 sip'Pi cOUld take her rightfUl place in the state of nations. And back in l62 we were talking about such t hings as the Negro's destiny and that or the ~oor wh1 te beill@i ultimately tied tosether, and that the wh1 te man ot influence and &fflu~noe was usins both the Negro and the poor white as a pawn against ltach other, and b7 so doing 1\e k ept the Negro and the peer white apart and wa.s able to use each to the di sadwntage of th~ other. We were tsJk1ng in 1962 about the median wage i ncome or poor people. We were tal.ll;1:ng about the educational stend.ards and the si tuat.1ons or academic atta.1Jiment. We were speaking about the right to voter in fact, we coined t.he phrase, • 0ne MAn1 One Vote• that this particular nation has now adopt ed as its poll t10&J. axiom in de­ tel'lll1n1ng how the "t'otea in the '\'a:rious leg1.s1atures would be hAndledJ and we were ver.r much concerned, baok in f62, and before, bUt definitely in ' 6~ because here we were able to express our views from the pod1umtl of the area, from the television stations, f:JI'Om the street corners, from the oourthousea, the question of 1njwttice 1n the cour*s and pollee b.l'U.tall t,-. 'l'l'l.ese were iSsues that the '1'8d• and- f1le pol1tic1ans were not even mentioning, much less discussing. And we felt that these par­ ticular problems - and we s~111 feel that these are the problems that must be resolved before Miss1ss1ppl can proudly stand tall and be counted as a t~e and quaJ.1fied atate 1n this nation. But here in 1962 with L~ay as a oand.id,ate, trutse issues wer e eXposed and a t least a beg1n­ n1hg '••pt thought was given to the possibility of resolVing these problems once the;r were exposed, and th1s was the fil'St time that the problems that we are now ex.pressi%18 have had the shield of secrecy pulled awa.y from them, and exposed 1n thetr nakedness to the ~tire com­ munity, and I'm sure that whites and Negroes too who had never thougbt about th&se issues as such, nre beginning to think more closely about them and - begun to work toward resolV1ng ·them. I think this is the most important si.ngl.e thing about the Clam};!Q1gn of 1 62. All - J JM1 was lt felt at t:hls time that even though Rev , Li ndsay didn' t have a chance to l'lin, that this \I1UI gol ng to be an ongoi ng pro£S:ram that enough SUpPOrt OQ.U.ld be engendered 1'rb t his ei'f ort tll'ld ettorts s1)a11ar to this, to elect a Congreaslll$n who was a Negro and wb.o di d rep~sent in aotual 1ty h1s consti tuency? Alta Yes, tgome el,eoting o~ a Ne~ mtght be .a total purpos e , a OOllllllf.t­ JII.ent w1tnout ~eservat1on , To some othere of us , and I Blll a 111.ember ot this grQUp, we are reaily l<>Qk1na tor candidat es, be they bl$.ck or whl te who truly and unself1shl.T represent the news of the oonst 1 tuenc,­ and wlll t17 bonestllr to resolve the probl ema tha1l beset t he oonst1tu­ enoy, whether they are black or Wh1 te. In the gulf' that noW' exists b•­ tween pol1t1o1an.a of tl\e l'th1 te community and polit1o1ans of the Negro cOlJI.IllUn1 t:r, 1s so wtdoll that 1 t i s reasonable to asl!1lllle t hat onl~ a Nesro person wl\o has been expofled to the dialogue~ about Lindsay, who has been expos~ to the poverty w1 th whi ch we are involved, and who have been exposed to the brutaUt'f of t he white OOlllllllln1 w, who have been ex­ ~ostd to the se!P:'Elgations and disor1m1M.t ions 1n the mo1a1 bias, t hat ( ) can rea.l.l:r and t:ruly em.pa.t}l1r;e with the Negro. It' s a good preJiumption that few if any whites oan really epathi ze w! th tb.e NegrQ 1n actuallY b.aving - actually feeling w1 th him some of the duress and the stress and the s.tra1ns t b.at the Negro commm\ ty has had to go up aaa1nst. It might be that there !l.nt no :Whl te persons that can reaJ.ly feel thls rol e .
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