LEGL 4500/6500 - Employment Law

Dawn D. Bennett-Alexander, Esq.

Terry College of Business

A few years ago the First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery again had trouble with their preacher. A black man came and sat in the back of the church and the preacher welcomed him. After that the preacher and the choir director and the religious education director all left. I don’t know whether they left voluntarily or were asked to leave. In any case, the church leaders called Maxwell Air Force Base and said they needed a temporary preacher. The field commander didn’t have anybody to send but a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi and an Episcopal priest, so they took the Episcopalian. He arrived and he was as black as the ace of spades. It caused a great shock, but as I understand it, nobody got up and left. They sat through it. Ten years ago the whole church would have walked out en masse.

As bad as things got here in Montgomery during the civil rights movement, the worst time of all, to me, was 1961, the year of the Freedom Riders. Decca was visiting us and doing and article for Esquire Magazine on the you-alls and the non-you-alls. It was a take-off on her sister’s book in England about the yous and the non-yous – how to tell the upper class from the lower class. It was supposed to be a rather light piece. She’d been pursuing rather frivolous aspects of Southern life that whole week.

We decided we’d go up to Pea Level and have a pleasant, quiet weekend, without any interruptions. Cliff went up on Friday night because he wanted to put the place in order before Decca saw it. He was always so proud of it. He wanted it to look its best.

We had two cars at the time, an old Buick that Aubrey Williams had given us and an old Jeep we’d had for years. Cliff took the Buick up on Friday night and Decca and I got up on Saturday morning and got ready to go, but we decided to go by the office first and pick up the mail. As we got closer to the office, which was at 17 Moulton Street, we saw an enormous crowd of people. Of course, I knew immediately that the Freedom Riders had arrived. They had been expected all week. This was Saturday, May 20, 1961.

Decca, with her journalist’s instinct, hopped out of the car and said, "Oh, I want to get to the bus station." We were about a block from the station and you couldn’t park. Cars were parked in every direction. So I was left with the car, loaded with a lot of junk to take to Pea Level for the weekend. I drove around until I finally spied a used-car lot. I parked there, illegally, but there was no place else to park. Everything was just jammed.

I went up to our office through this great crowd. From the second floor, I had a box seat. I could see exactly what was going on at the bus station. The Freedom Riders had come in on the bus. They had been escorted to the city limits by the state troopers, who at that time were headed by Floyd Mann, in my opinion the best appointment Gov. John Patterson ever made. He is a remarkably brave, fine man and has my real admiration. When the Freedom Riders got to the borders of Montgomery, the city police were supposed to take over. But the city police hadn’t the slightest idea of stopping the Ku Kluxers of whoever did the beating up.

What I saw from our office window was a vast concourse of people. I saw the Negroes being frisked by the police. They made each Negro hold his hands up and then they’d take his shoes off – maybe to keep him from running away; I don’t know. And they would systematically proceed to frisk him. The crowd was yelling, "Go get the niggers! Go get the niggers! Go get the niggers! Go get the niggers!" It was the most horrible thing that I have ever seen.

Then I saw a white boy stagger up to a black cab. He was bleeding badly. At that time a black cab driver couldn’t take a white passenger, and a white cab driver couldn’t take a black passenger. I heard later that he asked the driver to take him to the hospital. The black cab driver said he couldn’t do it. He finally staggered over to a white cab driver, who did take him.

I felt absolute stark terror. I’d lived in Montgomery for ten years. We’d gone through the bus boycott and the Brown decision and all the things that had happened after the Brown decision. We’d gone through the Eastland hearing. What terrified me so was that the people who were shouting and holding up their babies to "see the niggers run" were just ordinary Montgomery people who had come downtown on Saturday as they usually do, to shop. And they had turned into a raving mob. It was a terrifying sight. It destroyed the confidence I’d been building up for ten years. I had been telling myself, "You can come home again. The South had good people, and Montgomery has a lot of fine people, and the people here are not terrible, brutal, racial bigots." I’d begun defending the South, and Montgomery in particular, because of the many kindnesses we had received. We had met with unkindnesses, too, but we had met with enough kindness that I was beginning to feel that Montgomery was my home. These were my people and all they needed was the right leadership. But all of a sudden I was terrified. These were the people I was living among and they were really crazy. They were full of hatred and they were full of bigotry and meanness.

They were enjoying the sight of these Negroes and these few white students being beat up. I didn’t face the mob, because I was on the second story of the building across the street. But it was pretty terrifying all the same.

I was also terrified for Decca because she was in the midst of this mob. With that English accent of hers, I thought if she opened her mouth, she’d be attacked. I didn’t know what would happen to her. But Decca is brave and takes terrific chances. She was after her story, and she wanted to be right in the middle of what was going on.

At that moment, some young ministerial students from Huntingdon College came into the office led by Bob Zellner, who had become a great friend of ours. The president of Huntingdon had threatened to expel Bob because of his civil rights activities. Cliff had taken the case and had persuaded the boys to wait until they graduated before they began doing civil rights work. In the meantime Bob had become a very dear friend, a member of the family almost.

One of the students who came into the office with Bob had become hysterical and was insisting that he was going over to the bus station to have a prayer session. They were all terribly upset by what they saw, but this one particular boy had gone past the bounds of reason and he was determined to go over to the bus station. If he got killed then he would have died for Jesus. We didn’t think he was going to do any good by trying to hold a prayer session and getting beaten up. We had to restrain him to keep him from going.

Bob has a very adventurous spirit himself, so I told him I was terrified that Decca was over there in the middle of the mob. He had never met her, but he said, "I’ll go and get her and bring her back to the office."" I gave him a good description of her, and he went and got her. And, oh, she was furious. She wanted to stay right where the action was.

Then she told us the things she had seen, like a Negro being beaten so badly and Floyd Mann coming and standing over him, putting his legs on either side of him to protect him. He either drew his gun or put his hand on his gun and said, "Anybody that touches this man, I’ll kill them" – defending the Negro. The young Gasches, whom Cliff defended later, had been arrested and put in jail for trying to defend some of them. John Siegenthaler, whom Robert Kennedy sent down to observe the whole thing, had been knocked unconscious and was lying in the middle of the street.

Then I saw Judge Walter B. Jones drive up in a great big black automobile with the attorney general of the state, MacDonald Gallion, one of the worst white supremacists and segregationists in the state. They got out and just stood there watching, just rubbing their hands – just enjoying it, apparently, and thinking this was exactly what these people deserved.

Finally, Police Commissioner Sullivan and the Montgomery police appeared on the scene. But they protected the people who had been doing the beating. After half an hour, the Freedom Riders had either been badly beaten and had taken to the hospital or they had run and hidden somewhere. There was nobody else to beat up. The stray Negroes whom they were picking up were not the Freedom Riders at all, the ones I saw. They were just any Negro who happened to pass by or be in the crowd.

Shortly after the Freedom Rider beatings, an amusing incident occurred. Judge Rives, who was going to hear these cases, was in the barber shop one day having his face shaved when two men came in. The men were bragging about the police chief, Sullivan. They said, "Sully kept his word. He said he’d give us half and hour to beat up those God-damned sons of bitches and he did." Well, the barber got in a perfect state, because he knew that they were talking in front of the federal judge. He began to gyrate around trying to tell them to hush. They didn’t recognize Judge Rives because he was all covered up with lather, so they gave themselves away. In any case, that’s exactly what happened. The city police had promised to give them time, and these Ku Kluxers or whoever they were had been waiting there all week for their opportunity.

I was terrified, the day of the Freedom Riders, that the white crowd would start up on a "nigger hunt," where any black man or woman was suspect and could be beaten up. But mostly I was scared for myself, if you want to know the honest-to-God truth. I just felt that I would live and die with people who could be absolute brutes, and how did I know they wouldn’t turn on me? It was a terrifying sight. I still have nightmares about it sometimes. It was like seeing a friend you know change. It was just an ordinary Saturday morning crowd of ordinary white Montgomery people all of a sudden changing into a mob.

The crowd finally dispersed, and Decca and I decided there was nothing to do but to go on up to Pea Level where Cliff was. We got into the old Jeep and drove up. Decca drove because I was having a nervous tremor, the shakes.

When we got to Pea Level, I was still having shaking fits, and we told Cliff what had happened. He and Decca thought I should have a glass of iced tea or lemonade and lie down. So they gave me a glass of lemonade which was practically pure gin. They knocked me out completely. I didn’t wake up till the next morning. Of course, when I woke up I didn’t feel very well, but I was calm again. I wasn’t shaking and I wasn’t terrified.

Decca was absolutely thrilled. She was having the time of her life. Our reactions were diametrically opposite. She was onto a great story. She’d seen it with her own eyes. We didn’t have a telephone at Pea Level at that time, so she couldn’t wait to get back to town." We finally persuaded her to wait till after lunch. She wanted to get in touch with the magazine and see if she couldn’t sell the story. A professional writer is very different from an amateur. Her first idea was to get a contract.

We finally drove back into town. We didn’t have a radio or a TV at Pea Level, but we had a radio in the Buick that Aubrey had given us. We heard that there was going to be a mass meeting that night, or late that afternoon, at the First Baptist church, where Ralph Abernathy was minister. Martin Luther King had come over from Atlanta. They had planned a great rally to show support for the Freedom Riders. Decca said, "Oh, I’ve just got to go to that." We tried to dissuade her because we also heard that a mob was gathering in front of the church.

When we got back home, Decca was still hell-bent on going to that meeting. She was going, hell or high water. A young fellow from Antioch who was working for Aubrey came by. He was dying to go to the mass meeting, too. Cliff and I had no desire to go at all. We knew exactly what it was going to be like and we thought it was dangerous. We pled with them not to go, but they paid no attention at all. Of course, we knew they had to take one of our automobiles, our old Jeep or the Buick. They decided to take the Buick because it was such a heavy car and we felt that it couldn’t be turned over. Decca kept saying, "Oh Virginia, this is absurd – to be so scared."

Decca put on her Southern costume – a lovely sort of fluffy green hat with chiffon on it and pearls around her neck and white gloves and a green chiffon dress. She said, "Nobody would think of attacking me. I look like a perfect Southern lady." I said, "That’s exactly why you might get attacked. What would a perfect Southern lady be doing going to this Freedom Rider meeting?" Well, she paid no attention whatever. The young boy from Antioch was in a great state of excitement, and they rode off together in the Buick.

We had urged Decca to park the car several blocks from the church. I tried to tell them how to get into the church through the back. The First Baptist Church has a big Negro housing project behind it. I told them to try to come up the back street and go in the back door.

We sat glued to the radio. People began to drop in. I don’t remember who. Everybody was in a tremendous state of tension and excitement. Then we heard how the federal marshals began to throw tear gas at the crowd to keep them from storming the church. The mob would take the tear-gas bombs and throw them into the open windows of the church. Decca said later that was the most terrible thing you could imagine because it was crowded and hot as hell. She was afraid the whole place would be set on fire.

King and Abernathy and other preachers were taking turns preaching and praying and getting people to sing. They finally closed all the windows, which of course made the place hotter than ever. Robert Kennedy told King over the telephone that he knew exactly what they were going through. He remembered that his grandfather had told him how mobs used to attack the nunneries in Boston. There had been a lot of anti-Catholic feeling in Boston and several nunneries were burned.

We heard that King and Kennedy were in conversation, and then we heard that the National Guard had been sent in. At that point, we felt great relief, but we heard that one of the marshal’s cars had been turned over and burned. I think John Patterson was the one who called out the National Guard, and I think he did it to cut off the federal agents, to get the situation back under his control. I also think he did the right thing. John is my cousin and I disagree with him politically, but I don’t think he is a brutal man. He’s just a typical Alabama politician who wants to get votes. In fact, he told me that once. He said, "You know, cousin Virginia, I never have had the slightest prejudice against negras. It’s just that you have to nigger to get elected. I’m a real liberal. I’m against the Alabama Power Company."

About two o’clock in the morning, Decca called form the basement of the church and said, "Virginia, I’m all right. It’s the most terrifying evening of my life, but I’m all right. The National Guard is here and they will bring us all home." They escorted everybody out of the church area.

Decca came in about three o’clock with this young boy from Antioch. Of course they were quite stirred up. The first thing she said when she came in was, "Oh, Virginia, they burned your car. I’m so sorry." Instead of parking three or four blocks from the church, as we had advised them to do, they drove the car right in front of the church. When the mob saw this very handsome, well-dressed white woman get out and go into the church with this young white boy, they immediately grabbed hold of the car and turned it over. They put a match in the gas tank and it just burned up. There was nothing left but the frame. I saw it afterward, and it was absolutely burned down to the frame.

Decca was very upset. She had insurance. She gave us, I think, three hundred dollars for the car. We didn’t collect anything from our insurance company, and after that we couldn’t get insurance on any car we owned. We had to get insurance in Birmingham because the insurance people in Montgomery blamed us for letting our car be burned.

Decca’s mind was gripped by the stories she had heard during World War II, stories of the Nazis locking people in churches and barns and burning them. Decca had been terrified. The church was all closed up. She was afraid they would start a fire. Of course, Dr. King must have been afraid of that, too, or he wouldn’t have had the conversation with Robert Kennedy about the convents and nunneries being set afire in Boston.

Decca got up bright and early on Monday morning and began to call publishers. She got a contract with Life magazine to write the article. Then she pounded on the typewriter continuously until the article was finished. But it was never published because at the time the chaplain of Yale, William Sloane Coffin, came down and he also wrote an article that appeared in Life.

The only repercussions we felt from the incident came when the newspaper reported that our car was burned. Some people sympathized with us, but mostly we got a lot of heavy breathing telephone calls. The phone would ring all night long and all we would hear was heavy breathing.

Decca finally left. The original article she’d planned about the South finally came out in Esquire, but it was not as good as it would have been if she hadn’t had the Freedom Rider experience. All the funny ways she can write were muted because she was so upset and disturbed by the riot. The article was rather good, but it was not terribly funny.

Then the trials began in the circuit court. The chaplain of Yale had come to Montgomery with a distinguished group of white professors and preachers, and they tried to drink coffee at the bus station with Abernathy and a group of blacks. They were all arrested, about thirteen of them. I remember going to their trial. Coffin was represented by Lou Pollak, who was dean of the Yale Law School and had been a friend of ours. Lucy and Sheldon Hackney, our daughter and son-in-law, were at Yale for four years while Sheldon was getting his Ph.D. under C. Vann Woodward, and we had renewed our acquaintance with Pollak.

Young Peter Taft was Judge Rives’s law clerk at the time, and he introduced us to all the defendants. Peter’s father was mayor of Cincinnati, and his uncle was Robert Taft. Peter was the handsomest young boy I’ve ever seen, and when he arrived in Montgomery, all the women and girls in town ran after him, trying to invite him to parties. The same thing happened to young Bobby Kennedy, Fr., when he came to Montgomery a few summers ago. And he did exactly what young Kennedy did when he first got here – he took refuge with us, because we were no threat to him. We had no young girls that we were trying to marry off. Judge Rives was a friend of ours, so we saw a great deal of Peter and became extremely fond of him.

Peter introduced us to Coffin and the other defendants. Pollak remembered us, so we invited him and Coffin to have a drink with Peter Taft, the three of them. Peter had gone to Yale Law School. Lou Pollak consented, but Reverend Coffin said, "Mrs. Durr, I am very sorry. I cannot come unless you invite all the other defendants, all thirteen of them." Most of them were black, and this was when the town was like a bomb. Just the slightest match might have blown it sky-high. We lived on the corner of Felder and Court, one of the prominent corners in town. I just couldn’t do it. I felt I just could not at five o’clock in the afternoon have thirteen defendants, black and white, to my house for a drink. I explained it to Reverend Coffin and he was very sweet about it, but made me feel that I was one of the Southern segregationists. He wouldn’t even stay in a hotel. He stayed with Mrs. West, who was one of the leaders in the black community. He also had his meals brought to him from a black restaurant. He refused in any way to consent to segregation, and I was having a segregated party so he wouldn’t attend. It made me rather angry. Cliff and I had been on the front line for about ten years, and this man was making us feel that we were just sorry Southern segregationists because we refused to have the black defendants to our house for a drink. We ran into that quite a bit with some of our Northern sympathizers, but they always got on the airplane to go back home, where they were perfectly safe. They thought we should do everything they were doing, and if we didn’t we were pretty sorry folks.
 
 
 
 

Copyright 1985, University of Alabama Press

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