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1964 Community Relations Reports.Pdf AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE CoMMITTEE, Incorporated, 160 NoRTH 15TH STREET, PHILADELPHIA 2, PA. To: Jean Fairfax Date: May ll, 1964 From: Constance Curry REPORT NO. l Subject: REPORT ON TRIP TO NORTH CAROLINA, April 23 - 30, 1964 ~·~ .. ··· (Y Thursday, April 23 I arrived in the High Point Office of AFSC around 3:00 in the afternoon. Tartt Bell suggated that I sit in on the High School Committee Meeting, after which Tartt and I talked for a short time on plans for my week's stay in No. Car. The School Desegre­ gation Committee was having a supper meeting that evening, and I stayed for that to meet the members and to learn a little about the regional program on school desegre­ gation. I was interetPto hear Charles Davis and Bill Bagwell report on Greenville, South Carolina and say'that progress made in public accommodations and the general atmosphere made the city almost comparable to Greensboro, North Carolina. Dick Ramsay, who is in very close contact with the CORE group and the NAACP in Greensboro, had invited me to a planning meeting that night, so Charles Davis and I went over to Greensboro about 9:00 that night. There have been no demonstrations in Greensboro for about a year, and I understand that the Mayor's Human Relations Committee has not been very active since its creation during the crisis last spring. Bill Thomas, CORE Chairman, George Simkins, NAACP President, Tony Stanley, A. and T. Chaplain and the few others there all felt the time had come to resume activities aimed toward desegregating the remaining restaurant~nd toward equal employment in numerous businesses. The plan was to start a major campaign by having a small picket line at Wachovia Bank, directed toward equal employment, and to release a full state­ ment to the papers saying that this was just the beginning of an effort that would soon reach all the other "holdouts" in the city. They planned to contact all the Negro ministers and to spread the word generally that a mass meeting would be held on Sunday, May 3rd and that plans for mobilizing the Negro community would be made then. The Tuesday and Wednesday of the next week I saw the pickets at the Bank, but I'm not sure what the impact or support was, since all the newspaper reports indicated that this Bank does supposedly have fair employment practices and had been trying to find Negroes to hire. This question had been raised at the planning meet­ ing I attended and some people suggested that the pickets should go back to the Mayfair Cafeteria, the main "holdout" of the down town area. In any case, I don't know what the results of the picketing were or what transpired at the mass meeting on Sunday. Friday, April 24 Friday morning Tartt and I talked again about plans and we decided that our plans for a state-wide conference involving groups to work for compliance with the Civil Rights Bill should be discussed with these various groups - that we should sound them out and get their advice on ideas on such a conference or on other possible programs. We also decided that we should find out exactly how much support or interest we might exp·eot from Governor Sanford or forces in the state administration. We felt that the best way of carrying out the first plancwas to get a group together in Greensboro and in Raleigh, and Tartt called Reverend William Finlater in Raleigh, who Constance Curry- Report No. l -May ll, 1964 said he would organize a luncheon meeting for key individuals from that city for the following Thursday. Tartt also called Joel Fleischman and made an appointment for us to meet with him on the following Monday. Joel is the Legal Assistant to Governor Sanford and we knew he could give us the picture as far as what to expect from the state. We also drew up a list of names of people in Greensboro who should be contacted for a consultation on plans, and l spent Friday afternoon contacting these people and setting up a luncheon meeting in Greensboro for Wednesday of the following week. Saturday, April 25 The Executive Committee of the Southeast Region met at 12:30 for lunch and l met with them for a while in the afternoon. Tartt and l presented our ideas and the back­ ground on why I was in North Carolina. Several of the Committee members expressed the feeling that much education and interpretation of the Civil Rights Bill was needed in the state, and the Committee expressed approval of the very general plans that we had outlined. Monday, April 27 After a Staff meeting on Monday morning, at which an outline of our plans were pre­ sented, Tartt and I left for Raleigh for a 1:30 appointment with Joel Fleischman. We were received cordially and we outlined generally our concern for having North Carolina make a good showing in compliance with the Bill. We mentioned that this was part of a larger plan in the South to start preparing for a ready acceptance of the Bill, pointing out the dangers in allowing forces of resistance and defiance to rally after the passage of the bill. We presented the idea of a state-wide con­ ference bringing together all possible groups with large memberships or constituen­ cies to ask their help in creating an atmosphere of compliance within the state. Joel's reaction to our presentation was completely in terms of the gubernatorial campaign that is now underway in North Carolina. Dr. I. Beverly Lake is one candi­ date, who ran in the last election on a very strong segregationist platform and who made a good showing against Sanford. In a way, he is more dangerous in this campaign because he has changed his emphasis somewhat and is describing himself as the candi­ date for constitutional government- the candidate for good conservative government. The week before my visit he ran a full page ad in the Greensboro paper which really blasted the Civil Rights Bill on the basis of infringement of the rights of individuals the coming socialist dicatorship of the Federal Government, etc. ln just talking to people in Greensboro, l realized that he was rally~ng a lot of support with this line and from people who had previously been repelled by his strong racist and overt segregationist stand. Another candidate is Dan Moore, who is presenting himself as the "middle of the road" candidate, and who may get a lot of support, because so many North Carolinians love to think of themselves as moderates. The third important candidate is Judge Richardson Preyer, who is the most liberal and who will undoubtedly carry on most of the progressive programs that have been pushed under the Sanford administration. While all of the candidates have come out against the Bill, most of the liberals feel that Preyer is "right" on Civil Rights, and as Joel expressed it, the most im­ portant thing in the state right now is to see that Preyer becomes the next governor. He mentioned that one thing that would really hurt Preyer would be to have the Civil Rights issue become a major issue in the campaign and he was most worried that some of the efforts that we mentioned would lead to this. He said that these last few weeks remaining before the May 30th primary were crucial, and he reruly practically Constance Cu~ry -Report No. 1 - May 11, 1964 page three asked us to not raise the issue of the Bill or compliance with it until the primary is over. One of the most relevant things that he mentioned concerning our program was that the people we would be trying to contact to work with us would be the Preyer forces, and he felt sure that practically none of them would be willing to work publicly or privately on anything to do with Civil Rights at this time. He pointed out to us that he felt sure that North Carolina would comply with the Bill if Preyer is elected and he didn't seem too worried about " massive resistance" or organized opposition in the state at this point. He had made his position, and obviously the position of Sanford and the administration, very clear, and we told him that we would stay in touch. Tuesday, April 28 I attended a luncheon meeting of the Greensboro Community Fellowship, a rather informal, interracial group that meets once a month and has been carrying on various programs in the schools and other areas. At the meeting, I just talked briefly with a few women to get their thoughts on our plans in North Carolina, and this seemed to confirm some of the things that Joel had said. All of them were working in Preyer's campaign and they didn't really seem to have anything else on their minds. Tartt was attending a meeting of the North Carolina Good Neighbor Council at A and T College, so I joined him there after the luncheon. The main accomplishment here was to meet General Capus Waynick, the Governor's advisor on race relations, David Coltrane, the Chairman of the Good Neighbor Council, and several other people whom we thought might be helpful for future contacts in our program. Wednesday, April 29 This was the day of our luncheon meeting for consultation with some key individuals in the Greensboro community. The following were present at the meeting: Rev. Otis Hairston, Negro minister; Mr. John R.
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