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Collaboration between CRS workers
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Dick Salem
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
How many people did you have working out of your office?
Answer:
When I arrived in 1968 there were seven of us. One was stationed in St. Louis, one in Gary,
one in Cincinnati and the rest were in Chicago. We expanded to Cleveland, and Milwaukee,
Kansas City, Louisville, and then the regions were reconfigured. But at one point I had about
thirty people in the hiring chain when they cut us back. In the Nixon years they turned on us and
cut us way back, so it went back down to smaller numbers I found when I first arrived.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
Did you ever call up somebody who was
a specialist in a particular area?
Answer:
Sometimes, but sometimes the ego thing didn't let it happen. It didn't happen as much as it
probably should have.
Nancy Ferrell
[Full Interview] [Topic Top]
Question:
You mentioned
yesterday that you spent a year on the church-burning task force. Tell me about that.
Answer:
When the public outcry over the church burnings hit its peak, toward the end of 1995, the
administration had to do something. There had to be a public response. The group obviously
most competent in that field was CRS. However, the staff had just diminished down to forty-five
people across the whole country, so they didn't have the resources. So they started calling some
of us back on contract if we were willing. If they called me back today and said they had a
situation they needed me to help them with, I'd go in a minute. I think most of us have that
commitment to the task, regardless of any of the problems we talk about. There is a commitment
to the task. I would help in a minute. So I was glad to do that.
They put together teams, and I was working out of Birmingham. What we did was go to
communities where fires had occurred. Our role was to coordinate with the other federal
agencies, the F.B.I., the ATF, the local law enforcement, the U.S. Attorney's office. We all
became a part of a team, and it was one of the most effective cooperative efforts I've been a part
of. So that became a good model for some future things they might do.
Green County, Alabama was where several fires were, so we spent a lot of time there.
We did the same kinds of intervention that we would've done in any circumstance. We found out
where the tensions were, where the perceptions between the races were, and if it was causing
additional tension. Was it likely to erupt into any other violence? In many instances, many
communities just did what they needed to do. They didn't need our intervention.
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