<Begin Segment 6>

LH: In the department eventually, or the commission eventually evolved into a department, Phil was not assured of being the director when that happened. Because they would go through another process and go through the selection of a director. But at... unlike the first time when he was appointed director, this time, some of the Black members came to him and said, "Phil, we're behind you and we're going to request your appointment," which they did, and he was appointed then as director again at the department. With the department, there was increased budget. And we were able to do many things that were not possible before. And we established, or Phil established divisions of community relations, public relations, employment, contract, compliance, and so on. Because by that time, he had put forth a contract compliance ordinance, which would include minorities in the contracting activities done by the Board of Public Works of the City of Seattle. So he established a Contract Compliance Division to monitor the enforcement of that ordinance and to make sure that, that opportunities were being provided.

The first time that it was put to the test was actually, I... Phil was out of town, and staff came to me and asked me to represent them at the Board of Public Works. Because they wanted to turn down one of the bids by a white contractor, since they did not have adequate efforts demonstrated to include minorities. So I went before the board and made the case. And fortunately, the Board of Public Works agreed and turned down their bid and told them they would have to conform to the provisions of the ordinance if they wanted to do business with the city. So after that, we were pretty successful with the efforts of the Contract Compliance Division. Their community relations organization, or division rather, continued to organize neighborhood community relations councils to involve white people in the process of resolving problems. They also worked extensively with problems in the schools, public schools, even private schools, and were involved many times in tension situations that erupted at these places. Phil was often called to help with the tension situations at public schools such as Franklin High School, and others, where there was there were some racial tensions and difficulties. The Operations Division took care of the enforcement problems, and also looked toward promoting enforcement of the ordinances.

By that time, I had become the public information officer. And I dealt with the press, establishing some press conferences, as well as developing approaches to stimulate awareness of the public. One of the first efforts I made was to produce some brochures on the other minorities, because everything had been a black and white focus. And people had very little understanding of the other minorities. So I produced some brochures on the Asian experience in America, the Chicano experience in America, which was at that time, the focus of that movement, and the American Indian experience. We had no high tech equipment at that time, so I laid out the format and had the secretary work on the format that I was looking for. And I wrote the content and we published it. It was... I was very surprised, as we were all surprised, that the favorable reaction to these brochures. We got more than we ever expected of requests for copies of these brochures to be used in schools, all levels of schools and church organizations and community organizations and so on.

So, Phil set the direction and we tried to carry out what he was looking for. He was very good at seeing what needed to be done and pointing us in that direction. At the same time, he challenged us to be innovative and take some risks, but all always to stay within the regulations of the City of Seattle. So I think with his encouragement, he managed to have a good staff to carry out the responsibilities that he gave them.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2020 Seattle Chapter JACL. All Rights Reserved.