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CN: Yeah. So I remember reading in the document that he was like, the only minority appointed by the mayor on the committee, and I was wondering how that, like, what were those times like for him being like the only minority appointed and how did that make... did that like, disenfranchise him, I guess, since he was like the only one, or did that just make him want to work harder?

LH: He was always a very hard worker, so I don't know if that's what prompted it. But the people that he worked with were, many of them were supportive. Many of them were not, many of them were antagonistic, but he reached out to everyone, all the same. And one of the areas that was a problem in those days, as it is today, was police-community relations. There was an effort by Phil, to find out what the situation was with the police and the community. When he was first hired, he rode in patrol cars at night with the police officers to observe the kind of situations they encountered, and how they handled them, especially with minorities, to get a feel of what might be the problems. He worked with the police department and presented human relations training to some police academy, to the police academy. And later, there was a shooting in Seattle of a Black man by off duty police officers. The police officers were absolved of wrongdoing. And as a result, the commission and Phil looked over the transcript, studied it carefully, and tried to find out what kind of recommendations they could make to perhaps improve the situation. They made a recommendation for a community relations unit within the police department, who would meet regularly with Phil and to also have some human relations training, improvement within the department. Those things were accomplished. They didn't solve the problem, but they did help. And after a time, there were community meetings held with, especially with members of the Black community, to air their grievances and to hear from the police how they viewed their role and how they handled their mission.

The gatherings seemed to help a lot. The antagonism that was very deep in the beginning lessened somewhat, and they began to be more civil, and more able to talk about their concerns and their disagreements. So that all helped. Although there were instances along the way. And this is not just in order of things that happened, but there were instances where there were police activities that did impact many minorities. For example, the construction work at the University of Washington where the United Construction Workers were calling for inclusion of minorities on the construction work. Phil was there, and many Asians and other minorities came to give support to that effort. They observed times when the police seemed to be out of line in how they handle things, and that there was sometimes excessive use of force. I can get into that later. But it did result in on an Asian organization going to the mayor and making some recommendations, and also Phil made recommendations to the city council, some of which were incorporated into the practices of the police department.

But there's always been this tension and this pull with the Seattle Police Department. It's always been -- or any law enforcement -- it's always been a very tenuous situation. When there were many uprisings in the city of Seattle by the minority community, Phil went to the, to the sites where this was occurring and observed what was happening, and again, whether there were instances of undue force by the police. And also to try to calm the people involved in the demonstrations and the riots that took place. So these were some of the beginnings of the commission. We were involved in so many activities along the line, and it's hard to put it all into one short space.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.