Georgia Government Documentation Project Series D: Politics and the Media Interview with Bill Ship April 22, 1987 Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library DISCLAIMER: Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well- informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. RIGHTS: Unless otherwise noted, all property and copyrights, including the right to publish or quote, are held by Georgia State University (a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia). 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Politics and the Media, Georgia Government Documentation Project, Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library, Atlanta. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library GGDP, Bill Shipp, Date: 4/22/1987 GEORGIA GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTATION PROJECT GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY SERIES D: POLITICS AND THE MEDIA NARRATOR: BILL SHIPP INTERVIEWER: CLIFFORD KUHN DATE: APRIL 22, 1987 [Tape 1, Side A] KUHN: So, why don't we just start really by asking what is your political background and your journalistic background? How did you manage to get into journalism, and what kind of political influences did you have growing up in your own family? SHIPP: Well, I grew up in Georgia, and I am a native of Marietta. I was the editor of my high school newspaper, The Pitchfork, at Marietta High School. I guess the first political assignment I ever had was covering a youth assembly, sponsored by the YMCA. I guess I got interested in that. And I went to the University of Georgia, after spending a couple of years at Emory. I went to the journalism school there and became the managing editor of the Red and Black. During that time, Horace Ward--this was in 1953-- KUHN: Right. SHIPP: Horace Ward, a black man, attempted to enroll in the law school at the University of Georgia. And just as it appeared that he was about to win all his court cases, he Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library suddenly and mysteriously lost all his deferments and was drafted into the Army. KUHN: Right. 1 GGDP, Bill Shipp, Date: 4/22/1987 SHIPP: The student editor--we decided that would be a great campaign to launch; and so we launched the campaign and attacked the governor of the state, the--Roy Harris, who was his political mentor had been Speaker of the House, and was chairman of the Board of Regents. This cost me my job on the Red and Black. I was to become editor the following quarter. I was kicked off the paper, and it was suggested by a professor it might be a good thing if I left the University. I did leave the University and join the Army. Horace Ward came out of the Army and went to Northwestern Law School-- KUHN: Right. SHIPP: --and is now a federal district judge in Atlanta. KUHN: Right. SHIPP: So, that's how I got into politics. KUHN: Well, what had caused you or others at the Red and Black to take that particular stand in 1954? SHIPP: It was 1953. This was even before the '54 school desegregation--This seemed to be the right thing to do. I grew up, and until I was about twelve years old, I grew up in a neighborhood near a black neighborhood; and we played with the black kids, and I didn't particularly see anything wrong with that, nor did my family, as far as I know. But, of course, I went to a segregated public school and never thought much about it until I got to the University; and suddenly this man wanted the same opportunity that I had, which was to enroll in the state university. And it just struck me there was something unjust about Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library this great hullabaloo about denying this man the right to do what every other citizen, every white citizen certainly, had the right to do. In retrospect, I was a little naive, but-- 2 GGDP, Bill Shipp, Date: 4/22/1987 KUHN: Meaning what? SHIPP: The right--What? KUHN: Meaning what? SHIPP: I mean I did not fully realize all the political ramifications, and how thoroughly ingrained race was in the political structure of the state, and how race was used as a subterfuge and a dodge so that politicians would not have to promise what they really should have been talking about, which was improved education, improved public health for all the state's citizens. Instead, they talked about preserving our way of life. Well, as it turned out, if you look back, our way of life down South in the Depression was the pits. Anybody who stood around and listened to a politician promise to preserve our way of life--in retrospect, they should have been throwing rocks at the son-of-a-bitch. I mean, who wanted to preserve that kind of life? I remember coming up in the Depression, my father worked for Southern Bell Telephone Company. He was always one step away from being laid off; and he would tell stories of people trying to pay their telephone bills with eggs and produce, and having to go to their houses and take their telephones out because they couldn't pay their bills. People, the Talmadges and people of that ilk, who promised to preserve our way of life--that was just total bullshit. KUHN: What was your family's political background, vis-a-vis, say, the Talmadges or the New Deal? SHIPP: My father believed, as did his father, my grandfather, believed that Roosevelt was Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library the great savior. They liked Roosevelt very much. My mother also liked Roosevelt and liked Ed Rivers, a governor of the state who came in with what was known as the "Little 3 GGDP, Bill Shipp, Date: 4/22/1987 New Deal," and later turned out to be something of a crook, but that's another story; and I was so small I don't remember a lot of that. KUHN: In the late thirties, yeah. SHIPP: Right. And she also later became an ardent Talmadge supporter. And I'm wondering, in looking back now, a little pop psychology, if some of my efforts in the other direction were not something of adolescent rebellion, late adolescent rebellion, maybe. KUHN: Um-hm-- SHIPP: Maybe. I don't know. KUHN: Do you remember discussions in, let's say, the forties or early fifties, political discussions around the house? SHIPP: On, in the early fifties, I remember some loud arguments about this Horace Ward matter. I also remember that, while I was involved in this and this became a national cause-- KUHN: Yeah. SHIPP: It was in Time, and Ralph McGill wrote about it--it really attracted me to the Constitution. He was the only voice who defended these students at the University of Georgia in what they were--And my mother started getting--at that time, my mother and father were divorced--And my mother started getting hate telephone calls. Someone threw garbage all over her porch one night. Copyright Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library KUHN: Right. I remember seeing a column-- SHIPP: Right. You've looked all this up, eh? 4 GGDP, Bill Shipp, Date: 4/22/1987 KUHN: I've done some work. SHIPP: We had an artist, who is now a very famous local artist, named John Collick, who was our cartoonist. And I wanted him to draw a cartoon depicting the tyranny of the State against the free student press at the University of Georgia, and he drew it. He drew a very fine cartoon, but he made us put under the cartoon an agate line saying that this was assigned and commissioned by the editors of the Red and Black, which seemed to relieve him of any responsibility. When I see him, I still kid him about that. KUHN: Who else were the editors at that time, and were you all of one opinion? SHIPP: No, we were not. I was the--I was the--not only the managing editor, but I was the staff radical. Walter Lundy was the editor. He did share my opinion but kept a very low profile. He is now with the State Department. I believe he is the charge in Seoul, Korea now.