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Silke Hansen
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I can think of one example that just came to mind, and it just so happened that I had a trainee
with me that time. There was a conflict with an institution, but there was also a conflict among
members of the same minority community. We had sort of reached agreement about trying
mediation between the institution and the minority community. But there was one segment of the
minority community that had some connection with the institution, and the other was the more
grassroots component. I had arranged for a meeting between the two minority groups. We rented
a meeting room in a hotel and arranged for coffee, even cookies! It was a big expense here for
CRS to arrange for this meeting.
But the institutional group was a little apprehensive that they were going to be over-powered, if
you will. They thought that they would be "bullied" by the grass roots community. We get to the
meeting and there were six to ten people from the institutional group, and the grassroots segment
started off with approximately that many. But then a nationally-known leader from that
community arrived with his entourage. After some discussion of some of the issues, it became
apparent that there was actually a lot of agreement between those two factions they just hadn't
talked with each other. But the national leader then said, "Well, Silke, we really appreciate that
CRS brought this meeting together, and it's kind of you, too, because we couldn't do it ourselves.
So we thank you for doing that. But now that we're here, we really don't need you anymore. So
you can leave now." I said, "You know, national leader, I'm glad to hear you say that, and I was
certainly more than delighted to arrange for this meeting. But, I had made certain commitments
regarding things that I would do today, and what we would cover, and I feel a responsibility to
adhere to those commitments. Now once I have finished that, and done what I promised I would
do, I will leave. Then if you would like to use our room and use these facilities, you're more than
welcome to stay as long as you would like." There was no outrage; that worked.
At one point I had to be a bit forceful to keep control, and I actually interrupted his daughter.
That didn't go too well. I didn't realize that was his daughter. So he called me on that, but we got
passed that, and in fact reached some agreement, some consensus between those two groups. We
eventually got to the mediation table.
What was interesting is that years later I did a mediation training and made the point of the
importance of maintaining control, and I used this case as an example. I thought that I had
disguised it very well, but it happened that one of the trainees was a member of that same
institution-related minority community. She came up afterwards and said, "Silke, you were
absolutely on target. If you hadn't stayed, you would have lost all credibility with our group and
probably some of the others too, and nothing would have happened."
So you have to maintain a balance. That was challenging in this case, because this was such a
renowned figure. There was a temptation to concede to the wisdom and the importance of this
particular person. "Who am I to not give in to so renowned an individual?" But the reality is that
this person was just a member of one of the parties, and he should not be able to control the
meeting any more than an institutional head should. I was facilitating that particular meeting; it
was my meeting.
I might have had just a little bit of fear; I know that the adrenaline pumped a little bit more, in
that situation. But knowing what your objective is in a meeting, and living up to whatever
commitment you make is crucial. In some cases that means standing up to renowned leadership.
You have to do that to maintain your credibility.
It's also important because sometimes that's just testing. I don't think it was in that particular
case, I think he really wanted me to leave and I did eventually, but not just then. But sometimes
when you're confronted, it might just be a test. So you need to be aware of that. You need to be
sure of what your objective is, and what you can do and what you can't do.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
What I'm saying is,
"Every time you have to return to a repeated conflict, you're allowing the problem to escalate.
Somebody's going to get hurt or somebody's going to get killed and sometimes police are going
to walk in the middle of it, and they're going to be the target."
| Angel Alderete
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
we meant to ask you about a moratorium
march.
Answer:
Oh. The Chicano Moratorium March. That was an interesting one because that was my
baptism one. But it involved Gonzalo Carno, a good mediator, me, and another lady. She was
from Oregon, she had gone to MIT, she had all these degrees. She was really good, despite all
the training she had had. She could move right in. She wasn't a minority-type, either. She could
move right in with either the Latino or the African American groups. This time, though, it was
strictly Latino. She was really good.
We started from the very beginning when the people decided they
were going to fight against the Vietnam War. They were developing this march from the park,
Rubin Salazar Park, and it was going to end at East L.A. College. So what we had to begin to do
was start planning what was going to occur. That included the sheriff. The park is on Indiana
Street and on the west side is LAPD territory and on the east side is L.A. County Sheriff's. East
L.A. college is in the sheriff's territory and the route was going to take place on Purdue
Boulevard, all the way to Atlantic Boulevard, North on Atlantic Avenue to Brooklyn Avenue,
which is now Cesar Chavez Boulevard, and then west to East L.A. College. So the route had to
be developed. My boss, Ed, and Gonzalo were involved in that and Gonzalo and I were later
involved with the city. We were also involved with the college board to get the use of the
stadium so everybody could file in there and then have speeches and all that. Well in the end,
we weren't allowed that, so we had to meet at East L.A. Park, which has a large field. But the
problem was that it was right next to the sheriff's department substation. So that's how the thing
was. We weren't successful in getting East L.A. College. So then we had to meet with the
sheriff
and the sheriff gave us a battle about the crowd and about the people and "How in the hell can
the
Department of Justice get involved in something like this," "All you're doing is giving these
people permission..."
Also they were
upset with the Latinos because the Latinos were against the Vietnam war and they were against
the sheriff, and all his shenanigans against the Latino community. Rubin Salazar had written a
really devastating report against law enforcement. The chief of police of L.A. had gone to the
L.A.
Times and stated to the publisher that, "This reporter, Rubin Salazar is out there agitating the
Mexicans and they're not ready for this kind of activity." It was like the former chief of Police
of L.A. saying, "The Mexicans are just that far from running around from tree to tree with their
tails." He was no longer the chief then. But the law enforcement types went up to him and said
the Mexicans weren't ready to receive this kind of information that Rubin Salazar was
expounding on. So then Salazar responded by writing this huge report about law enforcement
and actually chastising the L.A. Times for even being willing to listen to the cops about the
Mexicans'
readiness to get this kind of information.
So the stage was set in the sense that the Latinos were saying, "We're going to have this march,
no
matter what you say." And the cops were saying, "You'd better behave because we're going to be
out there in large numbers." So L.A. County and probably the CIA were involved. There was a
lot of paranoia about the CIA being involved and taking names down and taking pictures, and
I'm sure they were involved. Also the state law enforcement types and the sheriff's department
were involved too.
In order to get good information, they got all their Latino officers to
infiltrate the park area. I thought, "This is going to be funny." So the situation started and
everybody was really concerned because they knew that if they could just get out of the park,
everything would
be okay. And as they went down the street, they knew that if no one misbehaved himself,
including the law enforcement people, it was going to be okay.
So every time you heard a siren, you froze, because at the time they didn't have the wails, they
had the sirens. It just so happens that at the same time, a Latino kid tried to walk out with
something without paying and the shopkeeper called the cops. So that, to them, was the start of
the problem. But they came and everybody behaved themselves and nothing happened. So they
went to the park, but the tension was already really high.
One of your famous people there in Denver, Corky Gonzales, came here. He was doing his thing
on top of the truck bed. He was really going well. Then someone lit a firecracker, and so the
problem started. The police moved in and they started moving people and the Latinos refused to
move. The police also said before that, "You've got five minutes to clear," to make it official
and legal. But they wouldn't move and then the police started moving in.
Well, at that point, when it's declared illegal, you don't stop and talk
to an officer as he's trying to move you out, saying, "This is against my constitutional rights," and
this kind of thing, and so they started moving in. So the problems started and the violence began
and people were scampering all over the place and clubs were swinging. The funny part was,
here were all these undercover officers, on their knees waving their badges. And some of them
got zonked.
So the problem had already begun and they started marching down and the police tried to keep
things in some kind of order. Small scrimmages sprung up all over the place and it wasn't until
Atlantic Blvd., that a sergeant from the sheriff's department suspected that there was some illegal
activity
going on in the Silver Dollar Bar. So the damn fool shot a flair into the bar, and it hit Rubin
Salazar right in the head. Of course it imbedded itself into his head, obviously he died, and that
was it. When people heard that had happened, East L.A. went up in flames.
Most of them moved to East L.A. Park where to this day, we believe that there was a provocateur
from law enforcement that said, "This is what's happened down on Whittier Blvd, let's go after
him. The sheriff's killed Rubin! Let's go after them!"
So there's the sheriff's building there and they began to go there. Nothing really happened to the
department, it's just that people began getting beat. And so we were trying to break things up
and get people to move all over the place.
Also at that time, there was this group called the Brown Berets. They were involved and they
had their bus somewhere. So I was standing here and the leader came up very concerned that
although everybody's getting pushed around and bounced on, that they're going to really catch
hell. So he said, "Our bus is down...Can you guys help us get there?" So I said, "Sure."
So two other guys and I escorted them a mile and a half to their bus. We got them there, got
them in their bus, had them wait there. Then somebody on our staff went and picked up his car,
and I got in the front car and we said, "Let's go." We caravanned them out of East L.A. and
dropped them off on the freeway where we waved goodbye... So that was our contribution to
their safety.
I don't remember how many days that lasted, but it really lasted overnight and then the next day,
sporadic firing and that kind of thing. A lot of businesses went up in flames. And then came
time to start the thing all over again. So we sat down to see if we couldn't make friends and not
be
angry and love each other. But that was the moratorium. The thing was that law enforcement
wasn't that sophisticated about what they were supposed to do during these activities. In fact,
although we had experiences in the past, we had only experiences in the civil rights kind of thing
where you march with the group and you do it until the end and then if you're attacked, you're
part of being attacked. In this case, we were observing and we tried beforehand to work into
getting them to accept some things, so that it would move more smoothly, but none of us got
hurt. One worker got put in jail, he was arrested. But no one got hurt.
Edward Howden
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you ever bring in outside
resources who might act as informal mediators or people who helped groups work better
together, such as church people, for example?.
Answer:
There was a big case in Atlanta involving the Atlanta police department, the FOP (Fraternal
Order of Police) which included the white officers, and the African-American Patrolmen's
Association (AAPA). This was a three-way court referred case. The case was long-standing, it
had been a long stalemate and hassle that the Atlanta downtown community wanted to see
resolved.
Question:
What was the issue?
Answer:
There were complaints brought by the black officers about the whole hiring process and the
lack of adequate representation at various levels. It had been stalemated for a long time, without
any progress being made. An earlier court decision had actually frozen hiring, so the city was
hurting, it needed cops! Of whatever color. Our regional director down there in Atlanta, had
tried several times to get the city to vote for a try at mediation. The mayor apparently did not
want to bring it to mediation and let CRS try to help resolve it. Finally it was getting
to a zero hour, the court had a date set for resuming the trial, I think about a month away.
Finally on the initiative of one of the black members of that city council, a very prominent guy,
a motion went through that the city would request CRS assistance in the case. That's what
brought us into it. And the Director of the Agency at that time, Gil Pompa, asked me to be the
primary mediator.
I didn't get but a dozen hours of get-ready time because everybody was so anxious to get rolling.
The Atlanta regional director had selected one of his key men to be on the mediation team as
associate mediator, and he was well acquainted with the case, which I was not. I flew in one
morning and the mediation was to be convened the following morning. So I had a busy day of
trying to get somewhat familiar with what this was all about, and to get squared around with my
great associate mediator.
We needed to have an understanding as to how to handle ourselves together at the head of the
table. Fortunately, the regional director had it all set up and arranged, being a very effective
operator. And the downtown community, being kind of interested, one of the great big
downtown banks had turned over its posh top floor board room for this mediation. It even
provided coffee and refreshments throughout the day.
When we went into the lobby that morning to go up, security was all over the place. It was
understood this was to be highly confidential. They all took it very seriously. You might say
there was a bit of an outside assist from an unusual source.
The whole thing took five weeks. Within a couple of days, two and a half days, we had an
agreement, it seemed. We went over the terms of the agreement, back and forth, not just
casually, but point-by-point-by-point. It was a matter of the respective attorneys doing final
draftsmanship and our convening either the next morning or two mornings later to sign. I think
it was the next morning we got into a session that was to be a signing session, but one faction
had serious second thoughts or a claimed difference of understanding about certain provisions,
so they said "no dice, no agreement."
This was the middle of the first week and had we thought we had an agreement. So we went
back to work. We worked our tails off day and night for all the rest of that week and part of the
weekend. It went on and on. Finally, I was very surprised and pleased that one of the white sides
wanted to caucus with my black associate. It was not the AAPA that asked to have that, but the
whites. They had a good session, and it finally worked out.
We had to ask the judge for a one week extension on that trial date and I remember he set it for
two p.m. on a Monday, and we worked right down to the wire. At one p.m. that day we got the
last signature.
Later on women officers in the department raised some serious questions. They had not been
part of the process and they had not been asked to be part of the process by the black officers, the
white officers, or the city. None of these folks, including the women officers themselves, had
raised the women's issues while this thing went on. But they did later. I don't know what
happened about that--whether the consent decree was finally amended, or not.
Edward Howden
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
There was another case involving the
Navajo folks and AIM this one between AIM and the city of Gallup. In this one there was a
Native American prisoner being held in Gallup, and AIM was bringing some of its national
leadership in to have a march. I won't try to go into any real account of it, except that it was a
classic case where we were asked to help with a demonstration. AIM wanted to march all the
way from Windowrock to Gallup along the main highway to the federal building. This march
would have covered many miles of highway, and they were worried about the police shooting
them up.
Question:
Did they want protection?
Answer:
They wanted us to help provide the lead, to work with the law enforcement agencies to
make
sure the march went on peacefully. We went in and discussed this, and after they had reflected
more fully on it, they decided that undertaking what would have been a two day march with an
overnight beside the highway, maybe that was a little much. They revised their plans to simply
have a march from a predominantly Indian community center in Gallup some blocks to the
federal building, where there was to be a rally and some speech making.
There was a lot of tension, certainly in official circles, the city council, and the police
department, as you can imagine, and we certainly had our concerns about what might happen
between police and marchers and so on. Several of us went on down we had three of us
working on different aspects of this one. One of the problems was that the AIM folks had not
applied for a permit in time, and the city council was not inclined to budge off that. We worked
around with different folks, including the mayor, and one of the local judges, and had a lot of
conversations with the AIM folks, of course, and we finally did work it out. It was agreed that
the police would be around and available, but would not have a heavy presence close to the
march. We came up with a general plan that was acceptable to everybody,
Question:
Did you come up with that plan with the help of the parties?
Answer:
We worked on every problem that offered itself. For example, the city council and the
mayor
backed down and didn't demand the advance permit, so that obstacle was removed. I don't
remember for sure, but we probably made the suggestions, how about this, all these kinds of
things--and eventually it came off ok. And of course we monitored the march and kept an eye
on how it was going, and nothing blew. The rally was held, and speeches were made on the
steps of the federal building, and nobody got hurt.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
But, the next
Saturday, Martin was to come back into Memphis, because he wanted to truly demonstrate that
he could lead a non-violent march in Memphis. So he came back to lead a non-violent march
and that's when he was killed. He came back and he had a series of meetings with the black
leadership in Memphis. He even met with the Invaders, trying to persuade them all that the
best possible way was the non-violent way. Martin was at first staying at a Holiday Inn down
on the river, the Holiday Inn Riverfront. Then he moved to the Lorraine because of the
complaints of the Invaders, that he was staying down there in this white hotel, you know the
story, they said he didn't have any business staying down there. He ought to move from down
there and move to the Lorraine hotel where black folk come. And he did. And when Martin
was shot, he was in 306 of the Lorraine Hotel and I was in 308. Well when Martin went to the
Lorraine we had to go there. Because I was staying in the Holiday Inn, too. No I wasn't, I was
staying in the Peabody. But we moved into the Lorraine. Now I kept my room in the
Peabody too, because that was the only way to get some rest. You couldn't get any rest down at
the Lorraine, although I would stay in the Lorraine until after the mass meeting, and then I
would go on to the Peabody because we couldn't get messages in the Lorraine Hotel. It might
be tomorrow when they give you messages-- there was somebody who called yesterday, but
there'd be nobody on the switchboard-- you know how those kinds of things go. So, since I
was with the Department of Justice, I really did have to be reachable. So I would always call
back to the Peabody and see if I had some messages and that's the way my staff in Washington
kept up with me.
Anyway, Martin had spent that day meeting with everybody, including the Invaders. He really
had a rigorous day that day, but he was getting ready to go to dinner with a local minister just a
few minutes before 6 o'clock. About that time, I went and got both papers -- they have two
papers in Memphis, so I went and got both of those papers, went into my room and turned on
the TV. I kicked off my shoes and planned to get some rest between 6:00pm and 7:30pm, when
the mass meeting was to start. And of course it's been a tiring day for me as well.
So I got in there and just about the time I got my shoes off and turned the TV on and got
comfortable. I heard the shot ring out. I was not particularly upset by the shot because there
was a lot of shooting and fighting between the Invaders and the Police, so it was nothing
unusual. But then I heard people clapping down in the courtyard, which was gravel at the time,
so I could hear people running through the courtyard. I said, "let me get up here and see what
in the world is going on." So I got up and came out of my room onto the balcony there and I
thought what had occurred was down in the courtyard, because that's where the people were
running. But they were running to get up here where I was already. Just about that time I
peeked over the rail, they started to come up by the rail, up these steps, and then I realized
whatever had occurred had occurred up here. And then I looked around and about 3 or 4 paces
from me was Martin's body. He was slumped back against the wall. One of the first people to
get to him was my co-worker Jim Laue. Jim ran to get a towel to try to stop his bleeding and
by that time Jesse was there and I don't know who all was there, but a whole host of people. I
didn't go over because there's no purpose I could serve but to block off access for the
ambulance. The ambulance came fast and they picked him up and carried him to the hospital
and I got in my car and went to the hospital too.
I went directly to the night administrator and told them who I was. I identified myself and
showed my credentials and told him that I needed to find out how Dr. King was because I had
to report to my agency. I knew that other people in the Department of Justice and most
especially CRS were looking to hear from me. So he took me down to the emergency room
and he didn't carry me in there, but he took me to an outer room and asked a group of doctors if
somebody would come out and brief me as to Dr. King's condition. One doctor came out,
looked me straight in the eye and said, "He's dead, Mr. Sutton."
That was an awful night. I ran and jumped on the phone right quickly, because I knew the
lines were going to get tied up. But I was able to get through to Roger Wilkins, our director at
that time. I got through to Roger, and Roger quickly got the Attorney General, who was
Ramsey Clark at that time. So that's what occurred that night. The Martin Luther King
entourage acted just like the disciples did when Christ went to the cross. Andy and Jesse and
Jose and Russ David Abenar and I-- the whole gang-- they were just walking around in a daze,
not quite knowing what about to do, as if there was anything to do.
I went over to the hall in the Mason Temple, which is a big temple owned by the Sanctified
Church that would seat 12 or 15 thousand people. I went over there, even though that was not
my prerogative to do that. The hall was full. Everyone there knew that King had been shot,
and by now they just learned that he was dead. But they were just sitting there. Just sitting--
you could hear a pin fall with all them people just sitting there. I went to the microphone and
announced that I knew they knew that Dr. King had been shot and is now dead, but I advised
them to go straight home. "There's nothing you can do tonight, and I'm sure that your
leadership will be getting together tomorrow to decide whatever's to be done. And that will be
announced, so I would suggest that you go straight home. And they did. Who was I to go over
there and dismiss them? The King entourage was nowhere around, so they got up and filed out
just as quietly and got in their cars and went home.
That was an awful night.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I was in Memphis sitting on the 5th row in seat number 12 in
Mason Temple when he did the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech. The next morning at
breakfast some of us were sitting around the table in the Peabody, and my friend asked me,
"Ozell, didn't Martin seem very strange to you last night in his speech?" I said, "no, you know
Martin knows how to reach his audience." But my friend said, "I know, but his whole
language was different." I said, "come to think about it, that's the first time I ever heard him
chronicle this whole involvement in the civil rights movement," as if he wanted to make sure it
was on record. He developed it all the way from Montgomery to the time he got stabbed in
Chicago, you remember, and led all the way through Birmingham and up from Selma. He
chronicled all these things, but then he said, "but I'm not worried now." It was a resignation, it
was that strange. We concluded after that Martin had a premonition of his death. Well, he just
knew at some time or another he was going to be killed. They killed Aganda, they killed
Kennedy, and he had to know that they were going to kill him. He knew it, yet he had no
choice but to do what he was doing. I talk to young people about that. Martin used to say that
the man who has not found something for which he's willing to die is yet to find something
worth living for. So he was killed.
Ozell Sutton
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Later on, the Klan surrounded the hotel room, but that's another story. The Klan
surrounded the place, and we were in the room, and we moved in the room together. Fred said,
"What do we do now, Ozell?" I said, "Well, I don't know Fred, we gotta do something." He
said, "Well, we could call the police." I said, "Oh no, they're Klan too." You're just opening
the door to the Klan by calling the police. He says, "We could call the F.B.I." I says, "They're
Klan sympathizers down here, so they may not come and get us. The trouble is, anybody we
call we got to go through switchboard, and that gives us another problem." I came up with an
idea: I called the Department of Justice and I got our secretary. There were no high ranking
blacks in the Department of Justice at that time. I said, "Lady, what I need to talk about, I'm
not ready to talk about it to you. Furthermore, you can't help me. I want you to look outside
the window somewhere, and find a black janitor or a handyman somewhere, preferably
middle-aged. Don't ask me to explain all of this, just do it for me." And she did, she found a
janitor, he was forty or fifty years old. When he came and said, "Hello," I said, "Ooday ooyay
eekspay iglatinpay?" He answered me in pig-Latin! I told him in pig-Latin where I was. I
said, "I want you to leave this phone and get on a private phone. I want you to call Roger
Wilkins, and I want you to tell him what our situation is. Make sure that nobody hears you
when you make the call and just leave it there. He'll take care of it." So he did. He went and
he called Roger, and in about thirty minutes, U.S. Marshals came over and escorted us out of
the hotel. So don't tell me I don't speak a foreign language, I speak the ghetto language. I
want you to know I spoke some beautiful pig-Latin that day.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I've had amazing
experiences. Once, we
were up at Pine Ridge with Ralph Abernathe. We were in the guys house by the name of Frank
Foolscrow. Frank Foolscrow was one of the spiritual leaders for the Dakota tribe on the
reservation. That
was Abernathe's first time sitting in a house with a dirt floor. And he had been all through the
South, but
you know, poverty is a relative thing. He was talking about poverty and we sat down and we ate
and we
dared not refuse to eat, because they gave us bowls of potatoes and sweet corn. We looked
around for
the meat, but there wasn't any. They couldn't afford it. We finished that corn and we walked
outside. We
were the only two blacks around there. Everybody else was either Indians or white people.
And so we went outside and got together ourselves in the corner. Abernathe said, "Have you
seen such a thing? This is incredible poverty, Brother Reed." And I said, "Well, Doc, I'd like to
just talk
about the degrees of poverty in the country. You got the rural South and here I am up here in the
Dakotas, you know. It's all relative. It's all the same thing." He said, "It is. But I've never eaten
beans
and corn on a dirt floor. When I get back to Alabama, I'm going to have to talk about this."
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The two of us got in the
car and it
was pitch dark on the reservation about this time. They don't have light there in Pine Ridge. And
somebody started following us. We were driving to get off of the reservation and I was scared as
heck,
because I'd become lost. And I don't want Abernathe to know that I'm lost. I tried to come across
like I'm
an expert on this reservation. But I can't find my way off the darn thing. And yet, we come to
find out it
was the cops, it was the Bureau of Indian Affairs Police behind us and they didn't know it was
my car.
They weren't paying attention and I didn't know who they were behind me and plus I'm lost. And
I'm trying
to find that main road to take us back to Blue Sky, South Dakota. So after about an hour and a
half of
fumbling around there and I'm talking to
Reverend Abernathe and I'm saying, "Now you know, these are tricky roads here." Finally he
said, "Do
you know where the heck you're going?" I finally hit that dirt road and as I hit that dirt road, a
sigh of relief
came on me. But then I didn't even know if I was going north or south. So I turned left on a
hunch and I
was going back to Blue Sky. So about an hour or half hour later, I think about a half hour later, I
saw the
sign that said Hot Springs and I knew I was going in the right direction because you hit Hot
Springs, then
you go up to Blue Sky. It's such a desolate area and it still is today. Not much has changed up
there.
But I still find myself wanting to go back and just ride through town, just ride through the
reservation. As a matter of fact, one time I did go through there once, but hell, I was still
working then. A
lot of days I'd like to go back.
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So, we met with the tribes, and it
was really difficult just to get consensus among the tribes; there was a lot of distrust. We knew
that we had the basic common ground of reburial. I think that whenever I conduct mediation I'm
always asking myself, "Is there enough in common interest to balance it off the differences on the
issues?" Common ground was the sacredness of the remains, and the need for the ancestors to
return to Mother Earth. So we kind of leveraged that idea throughout the mediation process. "If
you guys don't come to consensus, then what's going to happen to the remains? They're going to
stay there. We need to figure out what you've got to do. Something's got to give here." We
constantly leveraged the common ground against the different tribal
interests.
| Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
The other thing that I need to convey to you about
negotiation in these kinds of cases is there is law behind mediations for historical sites and
Native American repatriation. The law says that when remains are found that they need to call
the Native American Heritage Commission and they need to call a coroner. The coroner then
makes the determination that these remains are Native American and calls the Native American
Heritage Commission to determine who the most likely descendants are. Then the most likely
descendants have the right and must be consulted with in remedying any process in the treatment
of remains. That's what the law says, but it's permissive law. Its not "shall," but "may."
Stephen Thom
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Can we pause a moment. This guy runs an office of one of our
senators and I periodically brief him on what tensions are out here and what some of the
dynamics are so that they can anticipate. They wanted to know what legislation and what
learnings they could get out of the police shooting of Tiasha Miller. The patterns that we were
seeing were that we were just following the second generation of President Clinton's police
hiring and they were hiring faster than they could train. They are also facing a lot of early
retirements, so they had people who were in charge of training who only had five years
experience in police work. So you have the candle burning at both ends. If you look at some of
the recent shootings, officers with only 1 to 3 years of experience have been involved in these
shootings. You remember one officer was on probation and other officer who broke her car
window, I think was only a first year police officer. So, you have kids that are being thrown into
very tense situations with limited sophistication and experience to know how to handle them.
I've talked to the senator's office about what intervention things we can lend to the mix to try to
avoid these kinds of situations. There are always patterns to all of this and you've just got to
diagnose it and try to figure out what you need to do. These options can help. That's why CRS is planning to train police officers in mediation as a possible tool for
diffusing violence.
| Bob Ensley
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
No, you never write when you can call, you
never call when you can visit. on-site assessments are essential in this business.
Question:
You can look at them and they can look at you?
Answer:
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean you know coming from New York, the first two cases I ever
had, one in Dublin, GA, and one in Cairo, GA. The sheriff said to me, "You sound like one of
them Yankees. You don't know what a n****r problem is until you get down there and see some
of these n****rs." I said, "Well Sheriff, I just may do that." I flew into Tallahassee, rented a
car, drove across the state line, and I went into the sheriff's office, and the female deputy said,
"Can I help you?" I said, "Yes, I am here to see sheriff Lane Waldroff." She said, "Go out there
and have a seat around the corner where the rest of the black color people are." I said, "Thank
you." I saw him come out, walk around and everything, and that's when I said, "Darn, he
should've been here by now." I called the airport, that plane landed. So after a while, he came
and said, "Can I help you boy?" I said, "I'm Bob Ensley." He said, "Well I'll.....You're a
n****r!"
Edward Howden
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you
ever have to leave a particular case because the violence or the potential for violence was too
great, or you felt you were in danger by remaining with the case?
Answer:
No. Let's see, on the latter point, no. As to whether the general potential for violence was
too
great, I don't recall. I was out of the country when the Watts riot happened and I wasn't with
CRS. I was with the state FEPC, and some of my colleagues tried to do a few things, but
obviously, that's no mediation case. Now and then you'd go into a situation that was a little
dicey, where you didn't quite know what might happen.
One of those was a case I greatly enjoyed, again involving some of our Native American citizens
in a heavy situation where an encampment had been established on an important river. A timber
company and a private ranch also had land on this river. The Native Americans had established
this camp to try to make a big statement about Native American rights with respect to fishing
and other things, and had even been peeling off a few shots at commercial boats going up the
river. They apparently had even strung a cable across the river to impede the progress of tourist
boats. So it was a dicey scene. It was in the papers, of course, and there were reports about it.
I was able to make a few phone calls and find out more about it quite easily. One of the things
that was happening was that apparently some of the young super militants had gone over to this
nearby ranch and were sort of terrorizing the families that lived there roaring their way in their
cars into the ranch and also cutting their plastic waterlines.
The ranchers were folks whose ancestors had owned a large part of this timber land which was
now owned by a timber company. But they had this beautiful ranch sitting on a bluff
overlooking the river and they'd been there for two or three generations. So it was those folks--
one could hardly blame them who pulled out their firearms at a certain point in self-defense. It
was a little dicey.
The sheriff was trying to decide whether or how to deal with it. He was aware of the terrible
dangers to everybody of armed confrontations, and he feared that if he had his men move in on
this Native American camp, somebody was going to do some shooting. And of course he was
worried about this ranch. I met one morning up there at breakfast with the district attorney and
the attorney for the timber corporation and the sheriff to get their advice on what we could do. I
indicated that we were willing to go in and try to talk to folks, and they were all for it. They
gave us all their support.
I got my directions on how to get there. It was only few miles on a dirt road off the highway,
but there had been some blockage of that road by some of these guys. So it was not certain
whether my little rental car would be allowed to proceed.
Question:
Did you call before you left?
Answer:
There was nobody to call. This was a camp out on the banks of this major river under a few
trees that this company had left along the riverbank God you should see the clear cutting that
had been done-- it was just criminal. Nobody blocked the road and I found my way in and
parked near the river and I realized the camp was about 300, 400 yards away.
I walked in. Naturally somebody came out to meet me. We talked, and I asked if I could see
their head person. The person who met me wasn't sure. There was a tent or two and a fire pit
and some other stuff along the river. So we wound up having long, unhurried discussions about
everything, about the issues and the grievances and fishing and so on. The hours went by and I
was invited to lunch--the lunch was fresh smoked salmon over a pit--smoky and beautiful. It was
getting to be about 2 p.m. and I wanted to try to get some work done. But the head person hadn't
emerged from the tent. I wasn't getting very far, it seemed. A sister of the head person was
around, and there weren't very many people there. None of the young militants was there, no one
was being threatening. I tried to get out of them whether they would consider some mediation if
the folks at this nearby ranch agreed. I couldn't get any definite answer, so I said that I'd walk
over to the ranch and then I'd come back, which I did. I spent a fair amount of time with the
ranch people and came back at practically the end of the afternoon, and the camp people said
that they were willing to try some kind of conversation with the family at the ranch. But I never
could get to talk to the head person. Her sister said that she wasn't feeling well, and we were
never able to get anything nailed down to an agreement to convene. Fortunately, no fireworks
ever took place between the sheriff's people and these folks, so things were calmed down at least
a bit.
Edward Howden
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
We'd like to go backwards now
and
fill in some gaps cover some material that we didn't cover yesterday. One thing I wanted to
explore further is the Navajo case that you discussed briefly yesterday that wasn't a clear cut
mediation process. Is that an example of what you do when mediation is not appropriate?
Answer:
This was a few months after the disengagement at Wounded Knee. One of the young men
who had been there remembered something about the role of the Community Relations Service
and obviously remembered me being there, so he called me again. As you may know, CRS had
gone into Wounded Knee. We had gone through the federal lines and consulted with the Native
Americans there. We did lots of different things as part of our effort to help bring about an
overall resolution of that standoff-- which went on for many weeks.
In the following early September, I received a call from Ft.
Defiance
in the Navajo Reservation saying there were some serious problems, and there had been a killing
in one of the border communities just outside the reservation, allegedly that a young Navajo man
killed of a deputy sheriff in the parking lot of a convenience store, and that the suspect was on
the run. People on the Navajo reservation were in considerable fear about the kind of reaction the
state police and others might bring to bear--it was a very tense scene. Also, the annual Navajo
nation fair was coming up within a week or so and that there were some serious tensions
surrounding that. There were some problems between members of AIM, the American Indian
Movement, and the Navajo tribal leadership who ran the fair. The fair is the biggest single
event, apparently, on the Navajo annual calendar.
AIM, as well as other Navajo folks, were concerned about this other matter and the possibility of
heavy police presence at the fair. Now, obviously CRS had no role with respect to the law
enforcement scene, or investigation, or anything like that. Our only role would be if there were
fears and tensions based on relations between the Navajo people and police. We were willing to
see if there was anything we could do minimize those tensions and get at some of the sources.
Anyhow I went on down to Window Rock, which is the Navajo capital, and 5 miles from
Window Rock is Fort Defiance which is where some of the AIM folks were headquartered.
It's a long story. There wasn't any major role to play, happily, with regard to the suspect who was
picked up soon without violence. So while that was a very aggravated scene, it was resolved
quickly and was not a problem that we needed particularly to address. However, we did have to address the conflict with AIM. AIM's main demand of the
Navajo people in charge of the big fair, was that they wanted an AIM element to be included in
the all important parade that kicked off the fair, and they wanted AIM to be included in the rest
of the fair as well.
Also, about a week or 10 days later, AIM was planning to hold a big powwow on a ranch within
the Navajo reservation which was owned by the grandmother of one of the young AIM men.
Hundreds of people from outside the reservation had been invited to this event.
The main issue with respect to the powwow was the FBI. Remember, this was only 3-4 months
after Wounded Knee, and AIM was very worried that the FBI would disrupt the powwow. Some
folks might have felt that this was a real paranoia, but this is how they felt.
We talked to the AIM leaders and offered to talk with the FBI. The Navajos have their own
substantial police department too, so we got with the Navajo superintendent of police as well.
He was a very cooperative guy, open to discussion. He didn't feel there was any substance to
AIM's accusations, and everybody else denied it, but the AIM folks were very, very fearful
about this. They insisted there had been some over flights and they thought they had seen people
hiding in the trees of a nearby mesa, so they thought they were being spied on. They thought
somebody was going to come down on their powwow either when it took place or before it took
place.
I noticed out back of the Navajo police headquarters a couple of helicopters and I got an idea. I
called the superintendent and asked what would he think if a couple of the AIM leaders and
maybe himself and I took an unannounced flight to check out the area. The superintendent of
police and the AIM guys agreed, so one late afternoon, the superintendent and my colleague
from CRS and I and at least two of the AIM guys piled into one of these helicopters with a BIA
pilot and took off. It didn't seem to me we took off very rapidly, but we got up and circled
around the mesa top. The trees were so widely spaced that had there been anybody or any cars
or pickups, or any group of people, they would have been clearly visible. But no one was there.
Mission accomplished, I thought. But just as we finished circling the mesa top, the
engine conked out on this helicopter. That's a whole other story, let's just say that happily, the
BIA pilot was fabulous, and he saved our lives. The copter's rotors were clipped off by some
trees during our descent, but we all got out without even a serious bruise.
Efrain Martinez
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I remember the owner of a
restaurant who said, "This is it, my business is down and it may
close." They were afraid that if they did something they might
experience retaliation. She said early at three or four in the
morning she heard a noise in the kitchen and she got up and it
was her five year old daughter hiding on the side of the
refrigerator, and she asked her what she was doing, and she said
that the Klan was coming and she was afraid. She said, "When my
child gets that afraid and can't even be safe in my house I'm not
going to be afraid, I'm going to go out there."
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So I was working all around there. I
ended up staying there for about six days and after this festival was over and nobody else got
beaten up, I
headed out. I was getting ready to go. And all the Native American leadership were
sitting in this tee-pee. And I went up to this lady, and I said, "Well it looks like my job's over."
And nobody
said anything. So I said it again, "I'm going." I tapped her on the shoulder. "I'm leaving." I
looked around.
Not being that familiar that much with the culture during those years, I continued to say I'm
leaving and
nobody responded. I thought this must be a cultural thing and I'm missing it. And so I said it
again. This
woman looked up and me and said, "God dammit! We heard you the first time. Why is it that
other
groups of people come around us and figure they got to tell us something fifty times before we
understand
you?" So my eyes got as big as saucers, I thought they were getting ready to attack me. It scared
the hell
out of me. She said, "We heard you, dammit. Get the hell out of here." There was nothing about
thanks
or anything. I was expecting a little of that, too. Just "Get the hell out of here. We heard you the
first
time, dammit." So I got in my car and drove back to Oklahoma City and got a hotel room and
stayed until
eleven o'clock the next morning and went back to Denver.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
I was down in Taos, New Mexico and I got this look. All of the
Mexicans were
hanging around and they're getting ready to have a big party. Burritos everywhere and all the
music and
the whole bit. And I hoped that I'd get an invitation because I was hungry as heck. I was hoping
I'd get an
invitation to this event that they were giving, celebrating the sanitation workers' victory over the
city
council. At that time, I let them yell and scream and do everything and finally they got what they
wanted to
a degree, but it was something that they were satisfied with. Because what they wanted were
medical
benefits. That was the main thing they were looking at. All of that other stuff was superficial.
And I was
proud of myself. I pulled that off in the second day.
Will Reed
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
So when it was official
they decided
to have a fiesta. And I said, "I'm so hungry. That nasty restaurant where I've been eating around
the
corner, I don't want to go over there. I'm going to go down here where this fiesta is going to be.
And I
could see these big tacos and fajitas and all that kind of good stuff. And I thought I was going to
get
invited in to get some. Heck, they looked at me like I had two damn heads. And they said, "Bye.
We'll
see you." I thought they were going to say, "Come on. Have some. Join in." But they never did.
So, I learned right then and there on that score it is over when it's over and get the heck out of
there and keep going.
| Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Can you think
of anything else that you've done that was especially interesting or important that we haven't
discussed? Another category of issues perhaps?
Answer:
Personally, I really value being able to create models and forms. They gave me the time to
do that. The lending thing -- at first blush, it doesn't sound very exciting. But it was really
exciting for me to get into that and see the law has changed. But when I got into that, I realized
the Community Reinvestment Act allowed the banks to be the monitors. The only way the bank
got involved was if there was a complaint from the community. I said, "Okay, how does the
community complain?" "Well, the banks have to let them know how to complain." "So the bank
is supposed to tell the community how to complain against the bank? I don't think so." And that
was interesting. It was interesting to discover that little glitch. The next Community
Reinvestment Act legislation became more pro-active. Now the banks have to show results,
because before all they had to do was show intent. Now they had to show results, and they didn't
have to show results before. Those kinds of things were kinds of things that I really enjoyed
getting into and being a part of for people.
| Julian Klugman
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
One of my last cases was a case here in a run down hotel. It had 60
residents, among whom were recovering drug addicts. They're living in this really run down
housing which happened to be owned and managed by one of the national firms. I got an
agreement in two hours, a very specific agreement. Why? Because they were violating laws all
over the place. This place was a fire trap. There were two people in that building who had
organized the meeting, who were political. I wouldn't deal with that, I'm not into dealing with
the political thing. I would not let them take over the meeting. But I got everybody at the
meeting to talk. I mean people were drifting in and out, but I had the whole building there.
Halfway through the meeting, here's this little black gentleman who probably hadn't bathed in
three weeks and he went and he took a bath and put on his best clothes and came down. I really
respected that guy. It meant something that he was sober, he had dressed up and I got him to
talk. He had some good ideas and that's what it's all about.
Julian Klugman
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
There are two things that are dangerous with cops. One is
family disputes because a lot of cops get hurt when the husband and wife start fighting. The
other thing is you get these young people who are drunk or on drugs and just out of control. And
that's dangerous for cops. That's why they're very wary when they go into those situations.
When I realized that, we started talking about that. They didn't want to arrest young drunk men,
but what are the alternatives? Well there are alternatives. This is one of the things we came up
with in the agreement. We came up with an alcohol control officer. So when a cop is at a tavern
and there's a young drunken Indian there, (it would go for Anglos and blacks too), but I mean
with Indians they're perceived differently, that's where the prejudice comes in. You don't call the
police, you call the alcohol control officer. Who's the alcohol control officer? He's an Indian
guy who's about seven feet tall, weighs about four hundred pounds, and he's Indian. And he
goes in and he has a talk with the guy at the bar who's ready to hurt people, and says you got a
choice. Either we can go to the detox center, or we can go to jail. There wasn't a facility that
they could go to at the time, so out of the agreement, we set up a detox center. So this guy
would have a talk with him and say, "Friend, we got a choice. Either we can call the cops and
they'll throw you into jail or we can go over there and there's a nice bed and so on. No more
booze, and you can sleep it off." That's something that came from this guy who came from the
state. And money came from the state to set this up.
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