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How did you identify leaders?
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Ernest
Jones
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The assessment that I did took place over probably 5 or 6 months. We made sure that we
had all the points of contact that were necessary. What separates this from a regular case is that
instead of going into Birmingham, AL and dealing with the mayor of Birmingham or the police
in Birmingham, here you've got the Olympics coming to the city of Atlanta and you've got
literally every level of law enforcement involved, every level of governmental entity. So there
was a massive group of people we needed to touch base with to be able to move around to be
able to get things done. Part of the assessment required an extensive amount of identifying who
the key leaders were in different areas and then making contact with them. That way they would
know who I was and vice versa. In the Olympics you've got all these people coming from all
over the world. You've got an extremely diverse cultural atmosphere and because of that you've
got the potential for all kinds of conflict particularly between law enforcement and people. The
police aren't running the show, but they are making sure that it flowed smoothly. The tension for
conflict between police, the majority of who would be white, and people from all kinds of parts
of the world was exceptionally high and so we were trying to identify how that would work and
where we would plug into this. The assessment and that leads me up to, the key factor in the
assessment process was to make sure that we knew where we fit and where we could best
provide the kind of service that we were supposed to.
Question: How did you know who to contact, who would be the key players that you needed to bring
into this process?
Answer: Well a lot of it was common sense and experience. Because you've done it before, you go
into a situation where there are certain people that you have to touch base with. There was a
bureaucracy created and an Olympic Committee and they are kind of running the show. That's
like the CEO's office. So you know you've got to go to them, you know that you've got to go to
the key law enforcement agencies that are going to be responding to this, not just security within
the Olympics. A lot of it was going to take place with the periphery and so you had to make sure
that you touched base with the city police, the county police, the state police, and the federal
police. And again that's kind of common sense. You just know that because that's what the job
entails. And you know based on the assessment you can get a sort of sense where you think the
problems are going to be so you invite other people that you might need to touch base with.
Social service agencies for example, you might touch base with them. So identifying the key
leadership, or who the people are that you need to get in touch with, you look first for the
position. You find out who the chief of police is and you talk to him. Being here in Atlanta we
had some advantage in that we knew some of the players already and so you talk to one and you
find out you also need to talk to a couple more and it just kind of grows out. Over a period of
several months, and not full time, I was dealing with other cases and everything else. We had a
luxury of time because we had a long advance period prior to our involvement. I did the
assessment and that gave me an idea of what we were going to do and it kind of created a picture
of here's what needs to be done and here's what we plug into this whole process. Then I had to
figure out how we were going to do that and how many people it would take and how you
organize that and make it run smoothly.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
How do we
know who to talk to? We have an idea since every town has a
mayor. We don't know any names, so we just call the operator and
say, "Hey, give me City Hall and the chief of police." Hispanic
minorities in Texas are associated mostly with the Catholic
church. But you cannot ask the operator to give you the number for the Catholic church.
You have to ask for a specific name. But there's always a First Baptist Church.
You can call that preacher and ask him for the name of the
Catholic church in that town and where the minorities go to church? I
would also ask about African American churches and their pastors,
and how I could reach them. Before we show up, we know a lot
about the town because the people tell us. Once I arrive, I look
around to see who's got the biggest business, who's got the
biggest house, are they racially mixed. Usually, I ask for the top three business people
and I ask those people who the top politician is. I also ask the mayor who
are the top business people, the top educators, the top community
organizations, the top law enforcement.
Question: Are you doing this after you get
there?
Answer: Usually, we try to do as much as
we can on the phone, but if it's an emergency we have to be there
quickly. Once I get
there, I ask them several things from their point of view. What
do they think is going on? Also, these people will tell me a lot
of things about each other. Sometimes people have things they
don't want you to know. So we just ask a lot of questions. Who's
the leadership, who's the top educator, who's the top
businessman, who speaks out front, who's in the back? Who calls the shots? They tell
us. Then we make sure we talk to those five key individuals.
Then we can pretty much be effective. The whole point of
being effective is to create some kind of
change or to help them progress, to solve their own problems.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
What I'm looking for is consistent
names. If four of these people tell me I ought to talk to John
Doe, I'll make sure I talk to John Doe. Now once I get to see them, what do I see
them for? Essentially, I want to know what they know about the
situation.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Do you
usually go to the city or county or whatever official first, like
the mayor?
Answer: It depends on who I make connect with first. I try to reach
the NAACP, I try to reach the ministers, the church, and I try to
reach the mayor. It was the mayor who called me back first. But
within the first few hours you try to reach all parties and I let
them know who I'm meeting with, or ask them if they could
identify somebody from the community. If I'm talking to an
official, I ask who do they think I should be meeting with?
Who's the one that's been active? Who do I need to see? They'll
tell me. Then I call them up.
Manuel Salinas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How often is the vocal person the real leader? How often does it
turn out that there's somebody quiet that's a real leader?
Answer: Well it's hard to say. Most of the time the vocal person had been around long enough and in
the community long enough--probably born there--and is respected for that. So I would say
yes, that the vocal person is the person that is best to deal with. Most of the time it's
legitimate.
Question: How do you know when it is not?
Answer: If during a meeting, it begins to break down or something, or an agency person may tell
you that he's not the right person, really. "Maybe we ought to talk to someone else," or
something like that. You learn through the grapevine. You can't pass judgment, you're too
new.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Initially there are 20 people who are
sitting at the table, developing these trusting relationships, developing a mutual understanding.
But the goal is to eventually get the whole community to develop a more trusting relationship.
How do you transfer what's learned at the table to the rest of the community?
Answer: I think the critical element is who you have at the table. Most people follow values of
particular leaders. One of my techniques is to try to identify not only position leaders, but also
personal leaders in groups. There were always people who had personal power over and above
position power. If some of them won't sit at the table, you can still keep them in the loop if you
know who they are. As long as you can keep them involved in the process, it will spread because
most people are looking for someone to give them direction. In one instance, I went to a housing
authority meeting every month for four months before one woman finally stood up and said,
"You're not going to go away, are you?" I said, "No, not as long as I think I can be helpful." And
that's when they started working with me. So if I earn the trust for myself, then they can easily
transfer it into the community. We saw it over and over again. In Tulsa, we began to establish
trust groups. The police department had so much trouble and once the community began to
relate to the police department, the housing people began helping police rather than avoiding
them and/or not being helpful. It became safer for the police and it became safer for the
community. Once somebody who is a personal leader says, "We can trust the police," then the
group begins to cooperate. But when that person says, "They're not trustworthy," there's nothing
the police department, or me, or anybody else can do to convince that group. So the key is
finding those people. Who are the personal leaders? Position leaders are essential for
institutional change, but to get change in community, you've got to find the personal leaders, the
people who are really respected and honored.
Renaldo Rivera
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How did you identify the other groups that didn't contact that committee?
Answer: We had a long-term relationship with one of the inspectors in that police department. He
was aware of what was happening, because it was in the local papers on a daily basis. We said,
"Look what are we going to do? How can you help us because you've got your men tied up with
all the demonstrations that are taking place and they're not going to go away. It's one town, and
this is an opportunity for us to see what we can do together. You can have better relations
because you'll need to have better relations in this community." I just asked.
Question: So other people helped you identify the leaders?
Answer: All you do is ask the question from a responsive source, which is what CRS used to do in
the old days in the South. They'd go into a community cold and have to find who the people of
influence were. So you start asking the people closest by. You ask the clergy who has influence.
You ask the NAACP, to see if you were able to identify some of those people of influence even if
they weren't highly visible in the public providence. Then we went and talked with them and
expressed the concern and told them what was going on. They were also able to influence the
publisher of the paper because the United Way has this little corporate committee round circle.
They were able to talk to the publisher of the paper and that also influenced the nature of the
direction that they took with the case. So in identifying the people, you need to talk to a large
number of people and what begins to happen is that a smaller subset -- that's the other part of the
underlying question -- you need to talk with a wide range of people in the community. You ask,
"Who is it that can get things done. Who do you go to get things done in this community? Who
else do you go to when those people don't work?" What happens is that you talk to community
members, church members, members of municipal departments. And you talk with the private
giving community. What begins to emerge is a small cluster of individuals and those are the
ones you want to talk with or have other people talk to. That technique and that strategy goes
way back to the beginning of CRS. They may not always be lawyers and doctors. They may be
in some places where people have coffee, in the homes. Those people of influence exist in each
place. A lot of them are unheralded and unsung, but they're there in each community and getting
your way to them is through the process I just described.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Did the African-American students have an organization?
Answer: Yes, there was a Black Student Union and there was the umbrella organization ALANA
(African Americans, Latinos, Asians and Native Americans). While there was the umbrella
organization, the leadership really came from the Black Student Union. They were the ones who
carried the protest. They had organized the protests and they were the ones directly affected by
the recent incident. The other groups joined in supporting them. We didn't say anything at that
meeting. When it was over, Larry and I went up and identified ourselves to some of the student
leaders and indicated that we would like to sit down and talk about these problems and determine
whether we could be of help to them.
Martin Walsh
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The first thing in meeting with the
community was to assure myself that they were the leaders dealing with the shooting issue. After
checking out the matter in a few phone calls, those identified in the media agreed to bring several
of the leaders together who were meeting about this issue. It seemed that they were some of the
people who were moving this matter.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Through a
list of people that Larry had provided we went down that list and worked with those families who
likely had relationships to the remains. Later, we met with leaders of those families, and
eventually brought the leaders of those families to one large gathering of the tribe.
Question: Over what period of time?
Answer: I would say that it took at least a two and one half months. We had at least 10 meetings.
You always have a lot of hits-and-misses - people don't show up for meetings, so you have to go
back... we were driving all the way out to these rural areas and meeting with people, only to find
that the right leaders weren't there. So we'd have to come back and meet again.
| Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
One of my favorite people on that council was a guy named Jim. Again, he wasn't really an activist, but he wasn't shy either. He had some involvement in his local church and he became one of the key leaders of that council. When Vice President Rockefeller sent somebody to Boston to get a feel for what was happening in the community, we wanted to make sure that he got some feedback from the white community that was trying to comply with the court order, not just from the "Louise Hicks" [uncooperative] types.
So Jim invited them over to his house, and had a number of his white friends including all of those who were on the biracial parent council and he started to talk to them. The council had been in effect for a while now, and he explained that some of his newest, but best friends couldn't be there, because, he couldn't assure their safety if they came to his house. He explained that there were black parents who were serving on the council, but if they walked down the street they probably would get killed. He said, "You know, I've heard so much about violent blacks and rioting blacks, and how destructive they are, and how you can't trust them. Well, I'm going to tell you something," he said, "I remember watching the march in Washington and thousands of people standing in the rain quietly praying. If those had been a bunch of Irishmen who had been treated the way black people have been treated in this country," he said, "they would've taken that damn Washington Monument and wrapped it around the Capitol! So don't ever, ever come to me talking about violent blacks, because that's a mistaken notion and I'm not going put up with it!" I was really impressed. This was not the speech that Rockefeller's envoy had expected to hear in South Boston. But people like that are the ones who sort of make this job worth it. He became a real leader in that community.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
No, we had them select their spokespeople. It's a mistake to
assume that the guy you're talking to is the leader. So we said, "Hey, go out there and choose
someone
yourself." Had we chosen the spokespeople, the inmates would have just laughed at us. So they
brought in some
people that they chose. You know, in an institution, you can know who the top
leaders are, but it's a lot harder to know who the lieutenants are.
Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So, the people that I contacted were the agencies that serviced that
area, which were very few, but they were Native American and African American. Latinos
didn't have any group that they could call upon to serve them, and the Asian community had a
religious group that served them, but they didn't get the sort of help from that group that the
African
Americans and the Native Americans got from their groups. It was mostly internal, and they
usually took care of
problems that arose within that Asian community and in effect, they took care of themselves.
Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
But you just can't go in and assume
that a given person is the leader. You have to find out who the real leader is. It may not
be the one up there talking, the one who has the microphone. Sometimes it's the person standing
there with a pair of coveralls on and his hands up into the bib area. So you have to do an
accurate assessment to find out who the leader is. Then you begin to talk with those persons.
And then the most important thing is, don't you try to take credit. When I did this, you always
say, "Well, thank you." You give them the credit for what they're doing, and you will find out
that the result is very rewarding and productive.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I asked the mayor five or six times throughout the weeks and he just wouldn't do it, finally he
says,
"Let's do it." We went to his house and he called all these people and I said, "Give me the fifteen
people that run this town." So he had fifteen or twenty people
and we discussed what they thought of this.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Okay. Once you do the assessment
then you decide who gets to be the representatives?
Answer: No, the parties decide who their representatives and leaders are. I ask them who are the
players, and they'll tell me we need to have this person, we need to have that person.
Question: But you need to have one person out
of all the key players who's convening the meeting, or do you
convene the meeting?
Answer: I need to be in charge of the process, the participants provide the input. At the beginning I
convene the meeting or we do a co-convening. It depends on what's going to work. If it's bad
that I associate myself with somebody that has a lot of negatives
already, then I don't associate myself with that person too much,
although that person is critical. So I try to find the safest
person at the table, or the one that has the most positives and
work with that person to do what we need to do.
But in this other community last year, I chaired a committee
of leadership, only because there was no agreement on who else
would do it. Toward the latter part of the meeting I said, "This
is the last time I'm doing this. You'll have to select somebody
you all can agree with. This is your town, not my town. This is
your case, your issue. You should care enough about your town
that you're going to work together under some leadership here.
I'm taking the first stage out, I won't be around forever."
I was going to say also, out of these five or six people who
are obvious leaders, some may be in the background. In this
other town, we had police problems. It was a big town in Texas.
I met with people I thought would be relevant
parties in the community. Then I went to a county commissioner
who was not involved but who knows everybody. First of all I introduced myself and explained what
I'm doing. "Here's what we need to do, and am I dealing with the
right people here?" I mentioned about six or seven players, "Are
these the relevant people I need to meet with?" He says, "Yep, I
think you got them all." I went through the original process but
then I double checked myself. I'm going to spend time with these
players, I need to know there's going to be productive time. If
they're not the ones calling the shots, what am I wasting my time
for? Let me go to the ones that are really in charge.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Yes, I
called him. Let's say in that situation, since there was a black
victim involved, I wanted to see the concerns of the black
community so besides calling the mayor I tried to reach the
NAACP, and the ministers. I tried to reach the First Baptist
church, also. As I left town I called the F.B.I. to see what
had been happening. The F.B.I. district director special agent
in charge talked to me and said they held a press
conference at noon, and he was on his way back to Houston. He
just filled me in a little bit on what happened. I had also
tried to reach the mayor and the mayor finally called me back and
arranged to meet with him. We arranged to meet about 7:00 or
8:00 that evening, so on the way up there about thirty minutes
from Jasper, I called the mayor because I thought maybe I should
meet with other people and he could notify them. He said sure,
come on over we'll talk about that. He was going to see what he
could do.
Later I was up at his house and he had a whole lot of black men
there all dressed up in suits and all that. I thought it was a
monthly meeting of some group. I realized after a while that he
had called them to meet with me. There must have been about
fifteen, or twenty people, maybe more. They told me about what they felt
about the current situation, what they had been doing already,
and some historical issues involving race in the community.
We agreed I would help them, and we'd look into the
historical issues at a later date, but right now we would look at
what's happening currently, what was expected, and who was doing
what already. I found they had begun working very closely with
the white ministers.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: How did you identify which of the
grassroots
people to invite to the meeting?
Answer: You just sought out the leadership. The leadership comes to the surface. It may not be of
the same class as middle class blacks, but it shows itself.
Question: Again, how did you know that? How did you find those resources?
Answer: Well, I've been around for a thousand years. I used to be a community leader, myself. I was
with Central High 9 when they entered Center High School; I was a young NAACP worker in
those days. So I know it when I see it, because I used to be a part of that too. Some of the
greatest things I ever dealt with was grassroots community leadership. I could persuade
people. It's a culmination of a life of involvement in that. Every aspect you see, you've done
it-"been there, done that." And I tell whites now, and I tell blacks, don't try to squash
leadership, because it does not lead as you would lead as a middle-class black. Let it go, try to
direct it, but be proud of that fire that sends them forth.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Answer: Well it's no different from any other problem of that nature. When
you have a problem and you come from a powerless group, you start to ask people in the
powerful group to give leadership and status to it. So that was the NAACP and its leadership,
the Urban League and its leadership, and then there was the Black Ministers Alliance.
Question: So you went to the ministers first?
Answer: I 'm not sure, but they all were done. It all depends on who's available to see me first. I
made contact, because I already knew most of them. You can't go too many places in this
region that I don't know somebody.
Question: Did you let them know beforehand that you were coming?
Answer: No.
Question: You just showed up.
Answer: I just showed up on their doorstep. You have a powerful group, AME United Methodist
Preachers as well as the Church of God and Christ. That was Bishop Gengel, for the Church of
God and Christ, the bishop was big in our area; his son was Patterson, that was his name. His
son was a member of the city council, so the bishop had influence in the area. You had a
couple of AME preachers, you had three or four big Baptist preachers or bishops, in the sense
that they all made decisions in that church; you didn't have to wait for anybody. You have
three or four outstanding Baptist ministers. They're some strong ministers in Memphis, as it is
in all places, and it was this group that was giving primary articulation to the leadership.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
You get to meet all these people.
What's also key in a case like this, in a situation like this, is that you must not only identify
administration leadership or white leadership, but you must also identify Indian leadership, and
that's very
hard. You go into the Indian community and you might hear a lot of talk that so-and-so is the
leader or the
boss. You hear all of this stuff, you write that name down, you call, you get him or her lined up,
and then
you learn that this person isn't the leader after all. In some
communities, you won't know who the leader may be, especially in minority communities. It's a
culture
thing; you have to learn something about the culture. You don't barge in there, not having taken
those
things into consideration.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I started working between the President's office, the black
student's
association, the athletes, the football players, basketball players and what have you. All these
entities
were there, plus the police chief, police department on-campus, police department off-campus,
because
they all had a hand in this problem.
I began to shift back and forth between all of the parties
to get their reaction to what happened. First, I wanted to come up with
just basic
information about what happened. Then after that, who perceives what? Does the white
students'
association perceive it to be this way? Do the black athletes perceive it to be that way, and so
forth.
So that took a total of about eight weeks, being on and off the
campus and sliding in to see the athletes, going up and consulting with the President, and
listening to the
white students' association. Before you can put pieces together and come to the table you
sometimes have to use shuttle diplomacy.
After a certain discussion with the President, I decided not to bring
them
together. The reason was because no matter how well it was intended ,and how good it sounded,
and
how much people wanted to get to the bottom of this, I also knew that
certain people
held grudges that would prevent it from working. You never knew who held the grudge against
who. And
after all the handshakes and everything else, sometimes it just wasn't good. And I knew in this
situation,
the poor athletes being on scholarship and everything else, weren't in the position to stand on
equal
ground. At least I didn't think so. So we never were going to sit down in the President's office.
If there
was anybody sitting down in the President's office, it was going to be me. In these types of cases
I
handled the conflict through on-going shuttle diplomacy.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So, you try to pick a way in, getting your
representatives to help you along, getting allies from your side.
It is important to try to figure out who the movers and the shakers are -- who's going to get
things
going. So you try to identify who that person may be within the establishment's office, the
President's
office, or within the street, or the student body office. You've got to understand, a title doesn't
necessarily
make a person a key spokesperson. A mouthpiece is important and the same mouthpiece is even
more
important when you've got those people on hand, you need to identify them. Just so happens,
you're
going to find the same mouthpiece in the chancellor's office, or the President's office. Who? It
may be
the attorney.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The greatest leadership qualities came out in some of these cellblocks.
Young men encouraging their fellow inmates to participate, "This is your chance to have a word,
a say on how this place in run,” they implored. We found that the prison
residents wanted more then anything else, to get out of the box, and this election would give
them the chance to get out of their cells.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: All the people in the culture group, or those elected to represent the
group?
Answer: That's right. Elected or designated because of power plays. But whoever ended up in the
group wrote its agenda. The white inmates were making great progress with their agenda.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Typically it starts on the phone and at a certain
point it continues on-site if the case warrants it. After talking to the person or people involved in
the matter and making some preliminary judgements, you might give them some initial advice.
I'd suggest you talk to the assistant principal and call me back. If he is unaware that this is
happening in the classroom and this teacher is doing this to your child, here are some things you
might do to move this forward. Here are some people locally you might call, someone we know
we'd refer them to. Or depending on the state of the matter I might call the assistant principal, or
the school superintendent.
Very often when talking to establishment officials I would start at
the top with my Justice Department credentials to get their attention and worry them a bit. They
seldom want the Justice Department to come into their school, police department or community.
Many people with grievances do, but no public official wants anyone from the Justice
Department coming in. So we don't say this is a Community Relations Service mediator
governed by a confidentially clause. We say, "this is the Justice Department.”
So, we would have to be careful in determining who to call first and let them know we
are coming in. We wouldn't start with the assistant principal. We might call the
principal or the superintendent of schools and say we've heard there is a problem at the George
Washington School, and there have been some protests, we're wondering if we can be of any
help. We offer our services and ask if we can be of assistance and try to get some information.
I guess everybody would approach it differently, but we try to create some rapport so this
person will be willing to talk to you. You begin to build your
information base, your assessment about what’s happening. Also during this time, you try to
build some trust and get some indication whether they would be receptive to your coming in. Or
you might just say, "we’re coming in.” You might say, "we’re coming in for this matter," or
you might say, "I’m going to be in the area anyway, I’d like to drop by and chat with you about
it when I’m in your city."
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: You talked off and
on about bringing in resources that CRS knew about and also community resources. How did
you identify resources that you weren’t previously aware of? Community resources for
instance.
Answer: Well during the course of the assessment you would identify the power points in a
community, who they were and how to reach them. I remember when we were in Indianapolis,
working on school desegregation, there was a banker who was also a big figure in the
Indianapolis 500 race, and headed the Indiana Bank in Indianapolis. He was known to be active
socially and so we gravitated toward him once we learned of him and his interest and clout in the
community. You know that the Eli Lilly Foundation is down in Indianapolis so you try to find
out what the interest is there. You learn from people in the community as part of your
assessment what resources are there. When you do your assessment, one of the questions you are
asking is, what’s the history of this conflict, who are the parties, who else has been involved,
and sometimes it will surface that way. People have set up committees to work on a problem and
may have some people to do that. Former public officials, leading business people, you ask
around and you move in those directions.
Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: You talked off and
on about bringing in resources that CRS knew about and also community resources. How did
you identify resources that you weren’t previously aware of? Community resources for
instance.
Answer: Well during the course of the assessment you would identify the power points in a
community, who they were and how to reach them. I remember when we were in Indianapolis,
working on school desegregation, there was a banker who was also a big figure in the
Indianapolis 500 race, and headed the Indiana Bank in Indianapolis. He was known to be active
socially and so we gravitated toward him once we learned of him and his interest and clout in the
community. You know that the Eli Lilly Foundation is down in Indianapolis so you try to find
out what the interest is there. You learn from people in the community as part of your
assessment what resources are there. When you do your assessment, one of the questions you are
asking is, what’s the history of this conflict, who are the parties, who else has been involved,
and sometimes it will surface that way. People have set up committees to work on a problem and
may have some people to do that. Former public officials, leading business people, you ask
around and you move in those directions.
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question: Did the Asians ever get involved?
Answer: They got involved in the meetings. They attended the meetings, but they just
listened. These representatives, although they were "leaders," they couldn't make decisions there.
They had to go back to their groups, discuss the situation and get some kind of consensus,
and then come back and talk about what might be done. They were always willing to attend
conferences and this kind of thing, but we were never invited to attend the meetings at their
place.
Leo Cardenas
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
First of all, by trying to bring equity to the table in
terms of numbers -- numbers of the organizations. And one of the things that happened here and
it happened in other cities, is bringing back to the table individuals who did not currently have a
title with the organization, but had held a title before and were highly respected. We asked them
to
come to the table and be sort of senior, elder spokespeople and bring unity, and that
worked very well.
Bob Hughes
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
It would've been the time
prior to that first meeting when I would've pointed out to the home owners, "There needs to be
some kind of entity that the tribe can deal with, who do you want to be? Can we identify you as
a particular group?" As I recall, the minister was chosen. They chose their own people,
although I had probably been responsible for identifying those who were interested and
urging.
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