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GK: So did you have any background in the civil rights movement or anti-war movement or anything that helped you?

WH: Yeah, I had... I remember one city, they published a story in the Pacific Citizen talking and describing me as a civil rights activist. And I said, no, no, I was in one march in Jackson, Mississippi, the last leg of the march, which I just sort of fell into. The Methodist conference I just got through talking about had voted to send a couple of people to the march when the guy that was leading the March Against Fear, my name memory is very poor, but anyway, he got shot. He got shot at and hit, I think. James Meredith. James Meredith ran the March Against Fear. And it happened during the, while the conference, annual conference was in session, and so they voted to send two people. And then I was at a meeting of a committee that I was a member of, and they said, "Tomorrow's the last day of the march and we haven't sent anybody yet, so anybody want to go?" And it was Sunday, so the clergy, none of the clergy could go, and nobody raised their hand, so I says, "Well, I guess I can go." [Laughs] So I went down there myself and it was a tremendous experience. It was scary, you know, because I didn't know how to get to the place. I had to get to Tougaloo College from the airport. And they said, "Oh, there will probably be someone down there that'll meet you there." I got to the airport, there wasn't anybody there. So I got in a cab -- white driver -- and he said, "Where you going?" And I said, "I'm going Tougaloo College." And I said -- I had my camera with me -- and I said, "I'm going to take some pictures." Because well, I didn't want to tell him I was going to march. [Laughs] Because I don't know what's going to happen. So I got there... but that was a tremendous experience.

And from that, the second march I went on was much different, it was a Black Power march. The Black Power emerged in the Jackson, Mississippi, march, and it was real interesting. Just a few months later they had a march in... in Jackson, Mississippi the marshals were saying, "Cool it, don't say 'Black Power,' cool it, cool it. We don't want any Black Power." But it was a big issue, 'cause on the plane back, all the blacks were talking about what Black Power means and so forth. Nobody could quite figure it out. And I remember I reported on it and there was a lot of consternation about this new concept of Black Power, it was threatening and everything else. I didn't really understand it all. But then a few months later we went up to Milwaukee and the battle cry of that march was "Black Power." I still remember the chant. And it was run by the NAACP youth division. And all during the whole march we went into the white, the south side of Milwaukee. Tried to avoid, one of the tactics was to avoid any police escort. And the idea was to, for the young men to dare the whites to attack them. So they would stand in front of them. They'd go to a bar and they'd stand in front of it with their backs to the door, daring people to attack. They'd go in an alley and stand with their backs to the door. And it was scary. I tell you, I had my kids on the march, and my wife. [Laughs] And nothing happened, and it was a tremendous experience. So the marches were, they were something else. But I still wasn't an activist. I would consider myself a civil rights activist, but it was a great experience for me. I certainly learned a huge amount about... well, I'll tell you, though, when I marched in, Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi, they gave us each a little plastic flag to carry. And it was the first time in my life that I felt proud to be an American. You know, carrying this little plastic flag and marching with all these people. And it was blacks and whites, a couple of Asians, me, and I think a woman I spotted, but mainly blacks and whites. But it really was a great feeling, I'm going on a march with a little plastic flag.

TI: Can you explain that? Why did you feel proud to be an American at that point?

WH: Because I felt this is what "American" meant. You know, black and white together, marching for our rights and stuff like that. I thought it was just a great thing. And I didn't know. I mean, I had no idea that that's what I was going to do or how I was going to feel, it just happened, this marching. And it was just a great feeling. And there was a lot of threat, there's always threat in these marches. But you know, people will do it mainly just trying to scare you, but you never know. Guys going up and down, white guys going up and down on motorcycles and you know, anytime they could hit somebody. You just don't know. So we had to stay, the men had to stay on the outside and women stay inside the march. But the only thing about that march I remember that was so physically draining was the thirst. So my advice to people if they go on a march is always carry some water with you, because you're going to get thirsty, in Mississippi especially, it's so hot. So that was important.

And I did get pretty much involved in the anti-war movement through the church. Because I was on the, I was head of the World Order Division of the Committee on Social Concerns. And so I talked to about twenty churches about the war in Vietnam. And the thing that's interesting about the Methodist church is that it's very much a cross-section of America. And so in Illinois, the opinion on the war was about 50/50, equally divided, and same thing in the church. So we'd vote on these resolutions, and they'd have to do what they call a division of the house, they'd have to count the votes. Usually they could just raise their hands and the bishop can see right away, you know, who has... but when he can't determine they have to take a count, division of the house, or someone can ask for it, ask for a division, that's a motion. And they have to take a count. Every time we had one of these Vietnam resolutions we'd have to count. [Laughs] I remember once we lost by one vote, and somebody says, "Bishop, can we re-count that?" [Laughs] And he says, "No, come on," it was real late, getting past adjournment time and everything else. But I was very involved in the anti-war movement. So I certainly brought that to the redress movement. And the redress movement... I wasn't the only person who brought that, but it certainly flowed out of, I think, the civil rights and peace movement. That's my opinion, anyway, my observation, I should say.

GK: I noticed you used non-violent tactics, and also what you were saying about in the meetings, you just talked, let people say what they wanted. That's similar, I think, to the civil rights movement before the so-called militant period.

WH: Yeah, I'm not that familiar with the totality of the movement. You know, I can tell you what happened in our branch of the movement. But I know in other places, other... a friend of mine was trying to, he was trying to be part of a group, and they... he got in trouble with it because he wanted to talk, and they didn't have time for that. I think he may have gotten in trouble, too, because he was conservative, politically conservative. But we didn't try to be political one way or the other. I would say that our group was largely liberal, but we had a lot of conservatives. And this one fellow is a good friend of mine. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Harry Ueno. I saw him a couple of years ago, and he told me for the first time, he says he's voted Republican all his life. I looked at him and I said, "Harry you've voted Republican all your life?" He says, "Oh, yeah." And I just couldn't believe it because we'd become pretty good friends. And he says he's voted Republican all his life. And I knew he had a lot of, like he was anti-Cesar Chavez, 'cause he was a farmer, and some other things. But I just couldn't imagine that he was a Republican. But it never got in the way of our relationship. And we had other people who were conservative, that were very strong supporters for us. And that's why I tend to shy away from any kind of rhetoric about liberal, or left-wing, or stuff like that. Hey, we were a single issue organization, and we didn't want to get involved in anything else. We did get involved in other things, but that was sort of pretty much on a personal basis, not on an organizational basis.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.