Rev. Robert Hughes

HANSON: Bob, give your full name and where you are now.

HUGHES: Robert Epperson Hughes and I live on Mercer Island. It's part of the suburbs of Seattle.

HANSON: And, at the time of this interview, you are now retired?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: But, prior to that, you were doing some interesting work in Seattle, just a brief statement before we get to the Alabama history.

HUGHES: Well, I was working with the Community Relations Service of the U. S. Department of Justice as a mediator. We were involved in the mediation of community based racial issues in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska. Much of my work was in Alaska.

HANSON: So you were trained as a minister, however, and ordained as a Methodist minister?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: Did you ever have a pulpit?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: Tell me about that, briefly.

HUGHES: Well, that was in Rockford, Alabama, my first assignment and it was for one year. It was intended to be a longer period, but it was from only 1953 to early '54. And, then, I began working in the area of race relations.

HANSON: And, you then came and founded the Alabama Council on Human Relations?

HUGHES: No. I didn't found it. This was pre-existing as the Alabama Division of the Southern Regional Council. It was a very small, bi-racial organization. They had been in existence for several years, I don't know just how many. But, it was, the Southern Regional Council was headquartered in Atlanta and had 12 state 00:02:00affiliates scattered across, one in each state. Typically, like the one in Alabama, it was an organization that met once a year. And in the case of Alabama, at Alabama State College, which was the only place that legally, they could meet without interference.

HANSON: "They" meaning Blacks and Whites?

HUGHES: Right. And, around 75 members would meet together once a year for the purpose of discussion, speakers that were regarded as authorities in the subject.

HANSON: The subject in this case meaning better race relations or desegregation, what was it?

HUGHES: Improvement of race relations would probably be the key term for this early period. Say, prior to 1953, in any case.

HANSON: When you came to Montgomery, you agreed to come and start the Alabama 00:03:00Council on Human Relations, is that correct?

HUGHES: Well, I came, yes. Well, I don't want to say that I started it because my services were requested by the president of that organization.

HANSON: Who was?

HUGHES: Who was a Methodist minister.

HANSON: I see.

HUGHES: Rev. Dan Whitset, pastor of First Methodist Church in Sylacauga. As president we had had contact over the years. I had visited the Alabama Division of the Southern Regional Council annual meeting with him, along with my wife, down in Montgomery. And, it was after such contacts as that, that he was instrumental in asking the Bishop of the Methodist church for the North Alabama Conference, of which I was a member, if he would be willing to appoint me to a 00:04:00special appointment outside the structure of the church, to work in this new area that was just being opened up at the Alabama Division of the Southern Regional Council.

HANSON: Was there any question within the Methodist church? I mean, because obviously, if this interview goes on, we'll talk about some of the conflict there. But, at that time, did the church have any question about you stepping out and going into race relations, because that was a difficult time for Whites and Blacks?

HUGHES: No. I think it would probably have been consistent with a certain attitude of tolerance that may have been prevalent in that particular period of the early 50s, that would have, did not result in overt opposition to it. For example, the Southern Baptist Convention state's senate, I believe it was, in 00:05:00Alabama, in about 1953, '54, went on the record, if you can believe it at that time, as favoring desegregation.

And, just a short time later, that would have been inconceivable. But, anyway the Methodist were far less conservative than the Southern Baptist on most of these issues. Anyway, there was not particular overt opposition to my being assigned to this work because two thirds of the conference, of the North Alabama Conference membership had to vote to approve my appointment, as well as two thirds of the cabinet, the Bishop's Cabinet, and the Bishop himself.

HANSON: So you came to Montgomery then, you took the job and you what, sought out people of like mind to, to form an organization? Tell me a little about that history, because it was there that you met King, Dr. Martin Luther King, and you 00:06:00began working together.

HUGHES: Yes, well, we were eventually able to get a small office in downtown Montgomery. This was not without problems, however. I will always be indebted to the man, who was in charge of the insurance office next to mine. I told him how I was faced with the dilemma, "Where on earth do I start in establishing a state-wide organization of Blacks and Whites in Alabama?" He said, "Well, the whole idea is to plan your work and work your plan," while slapping on my desk.

Shook me awake, but it was good advice, because I did just that. I sat down and began to plan how we would work out from Montgomery as a base, and a group of people meeting only once a year, who had hardly knew each other. And, moving out over the state and working through this plan, which eventually was approved at the annual meeting and so on.

HANSON: Now, you are in Montgomery and how did you get a nucleus to work with you in Montgomery, before you expanded? I mean, some of the names in the Civil Rights Movement obviously were part of that early Alabama Council on Human Relations. Just talk about that early formation for a moment.

HUGHES: Well, one of the first acts was to form what we called districts. That plan divided the state into districts, one of which was the Montgomery district. 00:08:00And, then, within that context, we were able to pull together, within Montgomery, I began to make contacts with everybody who I thought might be interested in this kind of an organization. And, I say "this kind" because it was very general. There was no strict set of objectives or goals or statement of purpose other than equal opportunity for all people in Alabama. That was the general umbrella under which this entire movement went forward. Movement, that's overstating it, but our efforts were under this general umbrella. Making contacts for myself, it would be a logical entry I had was with white clergy. 00:09:00And, also Black clergy were already, to a certain extent, involved in this kind of dialogue and, then, also Black and White college professors. That was sort of the nucleus of that Montgomery group.

And, it was in this connection that I met Martin Luther King, who also was just starting out his ministry. He had just been called to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. It was more or less to recruit him. Well, really to establish contact with a fellow minister first, and, then, that later evolved into asking him if he and Coretta would be interested in participating in this little organization. 00:10:00That we would be meeting at Alabama State College for a short period. They were immediately very responsive. That's along with Ralph Abernathy, Ed Nixon, NAACP President and an assortment of White persons, largely professional, a couple of state government employees and so on.

We convened together. I was the convener actually of the meeting. And, trying to immediately get myself out of the position of convener, into the hands of local leadership. And, I was involved in trying to get a listing of officers to take 00:11:00over that leadership at a very early stage. And, among the persons that I called on to, on behalf of a nominating committee, I went to Martin Luther King and asked him that, "We needed a vice president of the organization and would you be interested?" And, we nominated him. After all, the community like this was new in town. It would be a way of becoming known in the civil rights area, and we think, you know, that this is a good opportunity for both of us. He graciously accepted the invitation and was elected vice chairman, I guess it was, not 00:12:00president, of the Montgomery Council on Human Relations when it was initially formed.

HANSON: Who was the president?

HUGHES: I'm not sure who the first president was.

HANSON: Was it a white or a Black?

HUGHES: It was a White person. Bob Gretz who was a White, Lutheran minister working in a Black Lutheran church on the west side, a missionary type from Ohio. He was, I believe, the second chairperson. I'm not certain who the first one was. It will come to me perhaps.

HANSON: So the nucleus of that were people that later went on, of course, and along with you made history in the Civil Rights Movement. But in the beginning 00:13:00it was amicable, the churches were sort of behind you. There was an effort, I'm assuming this, Bob, there was an effort to have a dialog between White and Black. It wasn't an action group, per se, was it?

HUGHES: Not necessarily, no. I think that statement of purpose was to achieve equal opportunity for all people of Alabama through education and study, which is a fairly low key, non activist statement.

HANSON: Still, you had as part, you said, of that early formation of the Montgomery group of the Alabama Council on Human Relations, you had people like Nixon and you had people, of course, like Abernathy and King, as well as several Whites, and the NAACP, which at this time was filing suit with the Supreme Court, was it not?

HUGHES: Well, yes. Well, Mrs. Rosa Parks was also a member of the Council, a 00:14:00very faithful member; came to all the meetings, bringing her elderly mother with her, just the two of them. But, this was before the arrest of Mrs. Parks and, of course, the bus boycott began. But, we had just formed, a short time before that historical event occurred.

HANSON: So, then, you had formed in '52 or '53?

HUGHES: No. September of 1954 was when I was brought there.

HANSON: So it was right on top of the Supreme Court decision practically.

HUGHES: The boycott, the bus protest as we called it in that time, to avoid, for legal purposes, that was a year long event that culminated in the final decision of the Supreme Court.

HANSON: Right. Yes. I guess what I was talking about was the Brown v. The Board of Education, which was...

HUGHES: That had occurred just prior to the bus boycott.

HANSON: And, I want to put this in context. Because here you were forming a group that is doing a dialogue between Blacks and Whites for the purpose of equal opportunity. Yet at that time, the Supreme Court decision desegregating schools had just come down. When did the hate begin? When did the fear begin, if you can put that in some kind of context for me? Fears for Whites, fears for Blacks, did it follow that Supreme Court decision? I'm talking now about Brown v. Board of Education.

HUGHES: The Supreme Court decision had occurred in 1953, the initial decision in May. I was still at Rockford, Alabama if you're interested in my own experiences at this point.

HANSON: I am. I want the context of how this happened.

HUGHES: I was assigned to Rockford, a small county seat town of 300 population, 00:16:00four point circuit in the Methodist church. Anyway, on the day that this occurred, the Supreme Court decision came down, I called the Baptist preacher in town. It was really just the two of us, we were the only religious leadership in this little town of Rockford. And said, "Meet me down at the little cafe on the main intersection. I'd like to talk to you about what might be coming down, and who knows what might happen in the wake of a Supreme Court decision like this." There would certainly be no challenge to the White position of segregation or anything like that in the town of Rockford.

But, it is a matter of, in the event, if anything should occur, maybe as the 00:17:00religious leadership, we have a responsibility, as vague as that. Anyway, he was willing to talk about it and from that very beginning, that night, that hot, spring evening, as I remember. He didn't know what to make of me asking him to meet for this kind of general kind of purpose. But, shortly after that I attended the district conference of the Methodist church, Sylacauga district, not the, the Alexander City district conference where ministers only meet once a month. And, at that meeting I brought up to this group of White Methodists ministers meeting at the Alexander City, in the Methodist church, there's a 00:18:00group, I would guess around 20-25 clergymen.

I was the youngest and newest being assigned in that district. And, I proposed to the group, I stood up and made my first statement to them, really, but, said, "With the Supreme Court decision, having come down, last week or last month perhaps, I don't recall, it would be timely if all of us began to think in terms of what kind of responsibility we as local clergyman had as we look at the changes that were going to be taking place. I think that the cities are going to be a lot of turmoil and maybe violence, we don't know. But, I would suggest that each one of us should take the responsibility of us identifying and contacting Black leadership in our communities and meet with them for the purpose of 00:19:00establishing communication with each other and try to work out understandings about how problems would be addressed, jointly." And, I sat down.

HANSON: What kind of response?

HUGHES: One by one. "Well, we all know Bobby Hughes, his father and his family are strong Methodists from up in Gadsden and he has a brother who's a minister in the conference and we think a lot of him and we are looking forward to good things from Bobby as the years go by. We appreciate his thoughts. Thank you Bobby. One after the other, virtually all the ministers in some fashion said substantially that.

HANSON: Sit down and be quiet, Bobby.

HUGHES: Sit down and be quiet and don't bother us. And, in effect, left with 00:20:00nothing. HANSON: In other words, don't shake the boat?

HUGHES: I think I learned something...I began, for the first time, to learn some things about what to expect in terms of challenging or trying to solicit change.

HANSON: Address that. I was going to go back to your history. But address that, what did you learn at that incidence, about challenging change?

HUGHES: Well, in long term, there was no real challenge to them except an abstract idea that was inconceivable in their minds, that problems were going to arise in all of our communities over this issue. That was not conceivable at that time.

HANSON: But what did you learn personally, that you had to challenge the status quo?

HUGHES: Well, that was certainly part of it. But, there had, I think that we were so far from receiving a challenge. All of the desegregation efforts up to 00:21:00that time had been in other places, distance places and the locusts was more like Washington, D.C., where the Supreme Court was sitting making its pronouncements and so on.

HANSON: Were you disappointed? I hear you did a lot of this from a Christian perspective. Were you disappointed that you couldn't get these people to sit down, have dialogue? I mean, now we are preceding what happened to you in Montgomery?

HUGHES: Well, yes, I was deeply disappointed. But, as I look back on it, I don't know why I should have expected anything else. And, I went back to little Rockford, and began to make such contacts as best I could.

HANSON: Were you rejected? Was the beginnings of where people thought you were a little bit strange?

HUGHES: Perhaps. Yes. But I don't think it would have, at least questions might have been raised at that point.

HANSON: But everybody was too polite and say. Bob, certainly your history...

HUGHES: And, other things may have intervened to make me more acceptable otherwise. I was the first young minister that this church had had in many years. Elderly, retired ministers were the only pastors they had and they didn't know what to make of this young fellow with these new ideas and preaching sermons about race relations and a way that they had never heard.

HANSON: And they didn't leave the church because of it?

HUGHES: No. Not really.

HANSON: That's interesting. Let's go back to how your attitudes even arose and, then, we'll zip forward and talk more about what happened when you were here in Birmingham and your involvement in the Klan's opposition to you, and so forth. But the Hughes family founded Gadsden.

HUGHES: Well, my great-grandfather and his brother were credited as the founders, yes.

HANSON: Your great-grandfather was a slave holder?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: Fought in the civil war?

HUGHES: I think it was, I don't believe he fought in the civil war, but, Joseph, his son, did. And there were other kin folks on my dad's side. Well, both my father and mother's side.

HANSON: So it was a very aristocratic, southern background on the Hughes side. You were brought up with the memorabilia, you said, of the civil war. Deal with 00:24:00that a little bit.

HUGHES: Well, there were always stories about what, let's see, I guess it was my grandfather, would have been the one who ate rats during the siege of Vicksburg when they were virtually starved in submission there. Various little episodes like that. One of my uncles was injured and returned home and went back into battle. The story of Emma Sampson, this is all, I don't want to go in anymore detail. But, anyway, the heroine of Gadsden, historical heroine was a young woman in her late teens, Emma Sampson who jumped, when General Lee was chasing Straight through North Alabama, not General Lee, Forrest, of course. General 00:25:00Nathan Bedford Forrest was chasing General Straight through North Alabama and General Straight had had the bridge burned across Black Creek that divided Gadsden.

And, so Emma Sampson hopped up on the back of General Forrest' horse and said, "I can show you the way to the fiord." And, she took them off in another direction, across the river, the creek, which was swollen, up north of the bridge site, and bullets shot, her dress was ripped with bullets. And, Forrest then proceeded to chase General Straight on up to Rome and...

HANSON: And, that civil war battle is talked about to this day. Was Emma Sampson related...

HUGHES: There's a big statute in the middle of town now to her in Sampson.

HANSON: Is she any relation to you?

HUGHES: Oh, no.

HANSON: So you grew up with those stories in your family.

HUGHES: The civil war stories (inaudible)

HANSON: So you took a great pride in that sort of southernness as you were growing up? That sort of White...

HUGHES: That was a side, certainly how pride was developed, family pride.

HANSON: In this. But, that was the aristocratic Hughes side that went towards the development of Gadsden and you felt very strong. And, your father was a practicing physician in the town, correct?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: On your mother's side, she came from Ensley and hers was not the aristocratic background, but instead they were laborers. Tell me a little about that.

HUGHES: Well, my grandfather, Epperson, lived on, I believe, 19th Street in 00:27:00Ensley near Tuxedo Junction, as I recall. But, he was a brick mason who built, was involved in laying brick for the first blast furnace at TCI, Tennessee Coal and Iron. And his sons, or step-sons were all involved in laboring situations and, then, organized labor, a little bit later. I know one of them, Leslie Case, was a step-son, but Leslie was one of the officers of United Steel Workers of America.

HANSON: So, your mother was the first person you said, first woman to graduate from Ensley High School?

HUGHES: Yes. In the class that included women, as I understood it.

HANSON: And she went on and was Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Alabama?

HUGHES: Right. In the first class with women from the University of Alabama.

HANSON: That's fascinating. So, in your growing up, you had these two, if I could dare say this, two trains of thought, I guess, coming into helping forming what Bobby Hughes ended up being. Deal with that a little bit. I mean, here you were brought up with a sense of pride as a son of the Confederacy with a good heritage there, and yet, at the same time, there was this kind of humanism that you saw in your mother's side. Not to say the other wasn't necessarily human. Talk about those two. You said, your mother was a mitigating circumstance and helped you.

HUGHES: Well, I've said my father was a person very deeply oriented in service as a country physician. So there was that humanity, of course, his practice involved treatment of Blacks and Whites. But, the social values, let's say, of 00:29:00a; there's never any sense of challenging or questioning segregation or racial practices that I can remember in my early childhood. I think that I would say that the values that my mother represented, sensitivity to and a sense of equality among people, without specific application necessarily to race, just acceptance of people on an individual basis and a warmth there that I seemed to feel that that probably shaped my own outlook to applied it specifically, eventually.

HANSON: You went to the University of Alabama and did undergraduate work, didn't you?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: Were you active in the Methodist student organization, these kind of 00:30:00things? You came from a very religious family. A practicing religious family and that colored your views, is that correct?

HUGHES: Yes. Again, my, I always heard the story of my great grand-father giving the land that the First Methodist Church in Gadsden is built on. As a founder of the city he had large tracts of land that he allocated for different purposes. So, anyway, yes, we were strongly involved in serving the Methodist church.

HANSON: And, then when you went to Alabama is that where you made the decision to go into the ministry?

HUGHES: No.

HANSON: Deal with that a little bit, Bob. Just to get some of that history.

HUGHES: Actually I went to the University of Alabama during the war. I entered in 1945 while the war in the Pacific was still going on, but throughout high school I was aiming at working at a military career, reflecting the spirit of 00:31:00those times. And, I actually had an alternate appointment to West Point and was looking to, preparing to go to West Point as a military officer. But, then, when I got into the University of Alabama and peace came, I began, and the United Nations began to form and so on, I made a change over toward international relations and international diplomacy was much more attractive than a military career. So I majored in political science and took, I think, a couple of quarters of graduate study in political science. I experienced some inner turmoil, some spiritual turmoil, and so...

HANSON: Explain that. Deal with that a little bit.

HUGHES: Well, I never felt that this, I mean there always seemed to be a 00:32:00question that grew over a period of time. By the time I was in graduate school, maybe some other things I needed to be doing, what they were, I didn't have any clear focus. Anyway, to make a long story short, on a retreat with Dr. E. Stanley Jones up in North Carolina I made the decision...

HANSON: Who, let's digress here, was a very famous Methodist missionary in Africa?

HUGHES: In India. Yes. And I read devotional books that were very popular in that time, abundant living, and so on. But, anyway, it was under, I guess, the precipitating influence or the culminating influence of Dr. E. Stanley Jones, I made this decision and decided to enter the ministry and Dr. Jones arranged for 00:33:00me, a month later, to enter seminary at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. There was a Methodist seminary there, or was for the next three years.

HANSON: After you graduated from Emory, you also then, I believe went on a ship, as I recall.

Was that right after you graduated from Emory?

HUGHES: Yes. Well, I was, I felt...

HANSON: This, it's an interesting story and this is why I think for the history, to know the Bob Hughes that took a, such an active role in all of the things that happened in those early days in Alabama's civil rights history. We need to know some of that that precipitated Bob. It's part of the profile of you, so if you don't mind, deal with that, working on a ship.

HUGHES: Well, when I finished seminary I was faced with, okay, now, it's time to 00:34:00enter the ministry, the pastorate and I felt like I needed laboring experience. I needed to broaden my horizons, and so on. So I just decided to take a year and dedicate it to doing, to achieving just that. And, it was a whole series of things, much more than a ship. But, I hitchhiked from Gadsden up to Chicago and spent a week or more on skid row, living in flop houses and so on. And, then, out to, hitchhiked to Hibbing, Minnesota and pulled cable in iron ore pits. And, from there, a week of harvest work in Alberta near Edmonton and, then, hitchhiked back to New York City and tried to get a job on a trans-steamer.

Would work-a-way, anywhere abroad. I was told that the work-a-ways went out with 00:35:00World War II. That's a thing of the past. They don't have that any more. But I decided that I'm the exception to that general rule and knocked on, living at the Sloan House YMCA in Manhattan. Over a course of six weeks or so, I guess, with over 90 shipping offices and ships tied up at anchor and at the docks in New York City and Brooklyn and so on, before I found that one exception and actually found a job where they'd pay me. It was a Greek owned trans-steamer under the Panamanian flag.

So, it was an old liberty ship, but was involved in trade down into the Caribbean area. We went to Bermuda and, then Trinidad. I was a messman. I washed 00:36:00dishes and served the crew of about 30 people. I found there was mixture of stateless persons, some, a couple from eastern Europe had been, they had no identification and Latin Americans and others. But anyway, working in that way, under horrible conditions, I thought and eventually back through the Caribbean back into Baton Rouge and, then to Baltimore and New York City.

HANSON: Did you try to organize the crews or how did that work?

HUGHES: Yes. When I got back to New York City I was so disgusted with the conditions on the ship, living conditions and working conditions and some of the men were virtually tied to the ship because they couldn't, they were not 00:37:00released from the ship. Anyway, I went to the Panamanian Seamans Union and offered my services and became an organizer for the Panamanian Seamans Union in New York Harbor. And, in that way, I went on all the Panamanian flag ships, as many as I could get to meet with the crewmen and to sign them up as members of the union. And, my eyes were really opened to the conditions. I didn't know how well off I was on the ship that I was on, but when I got on to this, the people, who were, it was literally a form of indentured servitude I guess you'd call it.

HANSON: Shades of slavery.

HUGHES: Yes. Seamen, say recruited in Greece or Italy or other places in Europe. 00:38:00The ship then would enter the American market, would sailing between American ports and say Latin American ports, for example. And, when they would sign on the captain would ask for the seaman's papers and their passport and put them in his safe for safekeeping. And, they would go back to Europe only maybe once a year, and he would return those papers and so on, only when he was ready to release the crew. And, if they jumped ship in Maricado or Venezuela or some place like this, they were stranded. In fact, there was a man on our ship did just that and immigration in Venezuela picked him up and flew him to Lygyra where they put him back on our ship. Anyway, these were the conditions that I 00:39:00was concerned about when I got back.

HANSON: And, so, how long did you stay with that?

HUGHES: Oh, it was several months. I also went to the State Department of Shipping Board, the Coast Guard, International Labor Organization of the United Nations and also the newspapers trying to focus attention on what I had thought I had just stumbled across. But, you see, a lot of American money was involved in these runaway fleets as they were termed. I couldn't gain any interest.

HANSON: And you couldn't fight the establishment could you? It was too entrenched.

HUGHES: I did what I could but nobody seemed to be particularly interested.

HANSON: So you came back then from that? Came back to Alabama?

HUGHES: No. Well, after that I began working at the United Nations as a guard in 00:40:00the security section in one of the first early general assembly sessions. And, that was oh, for a couple of months. And, then, after that, I had another job on a work away to a Norwegian flag ship to North Morocco and to Italy and left the ship by prearrangement and hitchhiked up to Geneva, Switzerland for a World Council of Churches Ecumenical Student Conference or course in ecumenical theology. And then, after hitchhiking around Europe and England, I then got a work away on an American flag ship back to New York and hitchhiked back to Alabama and began, went to my first Methodist conference and joined the North 00:41:00Alabama Conference, at that point to receive my appointment to Rockford.

HANSON: It's a wonderful history because it says, if I can leap with this, because I want to take you back to Montgomery. It says that you came with a very broad background. More than what the average minister would have to bring to a parish. So that by the time you got to Montgomery and you were ready to form the Alabama Chapter of the Alabama Council of Human Relations with the board that you're setting up and the presidency, vice presidency and chairmen and so forth, you brought to it an understanding of human nature, maybe, can I assume that and a dedication to bring people together? Is that part of the motivation, do you think?

HUGHES: Well, the beginnings of understanding I guess. I had done some student organizing around social issues in seminary, racial issues in fact. So it didn't all come out of that one year.

HANSON: What turned the tide for Bob Hughes to see this injustice and want to go and take action? You said you even did it in the seminary. Is there one single event or was it just an ongoing?

HUGHES: It was a gradual evolution I would think.

HANSON: Let's go back to Montgomery, the...

HUGHES: Interspersed with opportunities that could have come to anybody.

HANSON: But not everybody did it in the same way. Not everybody would take advantage of it in the same way or learn from it in the same way. That's an editorial opinion that I'm not allowed to put on it. But, going back to Montgomery, you now have, a nucleus for the Montgomery Chapter, is that correct? And you consistently meet in Montgomery with your group in Montgomery, how often.

HUGHES: Well, it was usually once a month. But, at the same time though I was doing the same sort of thing in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Tri-Cities, Mobile, 00:43:00Tuskegee and Selma, Dothan. These were part of the districts that we set up and what I did in Montgomery first was, soon as we got started, got a group together, then I was working in these other districts as well to do something of the same.

HANSON: To work your plan, what was the statement again?

HUGHES: Plan your work and work your plan.

HANSON: You are working your plan. Your sequence here. What happened to the Alabama Chapter once the bus protest or boycott started? Did it disintegrate?

HUGHES: No, sir.

HANSON: Did it become stronger? Was it supportive? Talk a little bit about that.

HUGHES: Well...

HANSON: Did King stay active? Did Abernathy stay active? Nixon?

HUGHES: I know that Dr. King and Mrs. King remained active as they could. But Dr. King soon was so overwhelmed with leadership and travelling throughout the entire country with tremendous demand.

HANSON: During the boycott?

HUGHES: Yes, from that point forward. But, they maintained their membership as more than just regular members, they were sustaining members as I remember which was a generous level of membership. And, the council itself, I don't recall specifically people dropping out of it, because of White members. If anything, 00:45:00it grew somewhat in that initial period of the bus protest. I think many of us felt that something big is taking place here. This is Black and White. And we were looking for ways in which to assist and become, to contribute to the success of something that's very significant and important to start. I don't recall Whites questioning what was going on.

I think it was all very understandable. One of the things I try to do is to interpret what was going on through our newsletter throughout the state and news media that somehow got my name. And, I was under tremendous pressure of having to give interviews and so on at a time when I needed to be doing other things. 00:46:00But, there was an aspect of our work that involved trying to interpret and educate the larger community about the significance of what was going on, especially that which was not being published.

HANSON: For example, "that which was not being published"?

HUGHES: Well, during the boycott itself, that was pretty well publicized, but, you have to understand, we were talking earlier about how this kind of benign attitude toward race on the part of the White community seemed to permeate most of the state. But, by 1956, or '55 and with the beginning of the bus boycott closely followed by the Autherine Lucy riots at the University of Alabama and perhaps preceded a short time earlier by the Little Rock school crisis, all of 00:47:00these combined in Alabama to produce a state of racial tension. And many things were happening in places like Tuskegee, for example that weren't being publicized and this is one of the things that I was intent on getting out.

HANSON: Did the opposition to you personally start about that time? Or, am I being unfair in saying that? I mean, there was a turning point; the benignness that you spoke of, ceased to exist. And there seemed to be a coalescing of a lot of Whites within the church and outside the church against people who took an 00:48:00active point of view.

HUGHES: Well, the White Citizens Councils were formed, especially in Alabama. Senator Hugo Heart and so on were common in this. But this spread like wild fire throughout the lower two-thirds of the state. The northern third wasn't impacted nearly as much as the rest of the state. But from Birmingham and north, there was much less in the way of this kind of community-based organization of the White Citizens Council many of which later evolved into Ku Klux Klan revival. But, initially, it went through that kind of an evolution. I'm sorry, I may have lost your question.

HANSON: No. No. It was a good delineation of the history of that time. Was there 00:49:00pressure against you personally at that time? I mean you were trying to inform through your newsletter of the things that were not in the general newspaper. You were giving interviews. What about the personal hate directed towards you? Did you have any pressure from the church?

HUGHES: Well, divide it up in this way. From '54 to '56, when we were in Montgomery, I don't think we were particularly involved much in the way of focusing on efforts against me personally. It was more directed towards the Montgomery Improvement Association, of course. That would be the harassing kind of phone call and that sort of thing. But, toward the end of '56 one of the things that I did first off when I went to Montgomery was, I wanted to be able 00:50:00to rent an office where there would be no question if I wanted a Black secretary, for example, it would be no problems. And, whenever I raised that and I didn't get any space. But, I did get one space. And, actually, we never got to the point of hiring a Black secretary, but, because of our general work, we were not able to renew our lease in the office space that we had in Montgomery. So, we faced the question.

Do we go to another location here in Montgomery, or elsewhere? And, my feeling was that Birmingham, which had begun to experience the dynamitings, the bombings, there was a whole series at that point, something like 23 unsolved 00:51:00bombings according to Emory Jackson of the Birmingham World, who catalogued all these. But, we felt that there were much more serious tension building and problems that were coming to the surface in the Birmingham area than in Montgomery. Montgomery was in good hands, but Birmingham was much more wide open.

And, therefore, we ought to put the office in Birmingham to be closer to this scene. So, in 1956, we did move the office up here. And, very soon after we got into establishing ourselves here in Birmingham that these troubles began to be felt. But there was still a couple of years even after that before it became intense.

HANSON: Let's talk about the early formation of the Birmingham group. You got an office here. Did you have the same difficulty getting an office? Could you get a Black secretary?

HUGHES: No. I don't recall asking that question again. There was no law that would be of any help to us and it just repeatedly had the doors slammed in our face. I got in the Comer Building, which at that time we could afford a very small space there. We were trying to get some kind of image of acceptability in the White community and buy a location that would lend some credibility or acceptability.

HANSON: Why was it so important to have the credibility with the White community?

HUGHES: Well, we were beginning to be looked upon as increasingly far to the left, communist, red, pinkos. These labels were beginning to evolve to be associated with any White who had shown any interest in the Civil Rights Movement.

HANSON: Then where did you get your nucleus of White support? You had the Black support.

HUGHES: Well, we really began with whatever membership we had in a given community in that initial role of the state organization. We established contact with them and convened a meeting of those. And, then, by word of mouth, so and 00:54:00so should be involved and it would evolve out from a word of mouth kind of growth until we had a meeting that we would convene of say, 30 or 40 people. And, after two or three such meetings, an election of officers.

HANSON: And, again, the goal was the same? To have education, to bring about a communication and justice and so forth, but not an activist group?

HUGHES: Well, I didn't mean to imply earlier that the lack of activism permeated the entire organization. For example, during the Montgomery bus boycott, the Alabama Council sponsored meetings for Blacks and Whites where role plays were 00:55:00conducted in churches, Black churches. But, where a set up of a simulation of a bus with seats and try to help prepare the community as a whole for the inevitable desegregation of the bus system.

The end of the boycott, return to the buses, how shall we return and so on. So, it was involved in that kind of educational process which is a little more activist oriented I would think than some of the other chapters which would like to have studied the problem to death.

HANSON: When you came to Birmingham, you had, if I can assume this, two primary purposes aside from its mission for education and race tolerance and so forth and desegregation, I'm assuming. But you had to get members and you had to get funds, is that correct?

HUGHES: Yes.

HANSON: And in getting members and in getting funds is where I'm going to lead you as you obviously know from the famous Harrison Salisbury release of the names and all of that history. Lead me to that, can you Bob, a little bit. Am I being vague in my question, here? In other words, you had to reach out and get a membership list, is that correct? In Birmingham?

HUGHES: Yes. We built a mailing list, I'd guess you'd say. A membership list. And, as the Birmingham Council on Human Relations evolved into existence, of which, the Hanson family was a part.

HANSON: And, as that came about, you also collected funds, did you not, and had meetings and so forth. When did you begin to contact and why did you begin to contact the national press corps? Talk a little bit about that and how you used 00:57:00them to put a window on this city a little bit.

HUGHES: I don't remember specifically how I happened to get in contact with, say, the New York Times. As best I remember contact was made by Harrison Salisbury directly to me, not the reverse. I did not initiate the contact, I don't think. But I'd been in touch with Peter Keyes of the New York Times during the Autherine Lucy riots. And, so, it wasn't so unusual for another reporter for the New York Times to seek me out. I had been in touch in various situations throughout the state with the outside media. So, anyway, he asked me for 00:58:00interviews, which I gave him and I gave him as much as I could. Especially some of the untold stories of atrocities that had been occurring in Birmingham. The national public opinion was completely unaware of this.

HANSON: And so you were quoted very often. Is that when they began to intensify their attacks against you? "They" meaning the Klan, "They," meaning the White Citizens Council, all of this. For example, the (inaudible) that's sitting now in the Institute, the cross that was burned on your lawn by the Klan. I mean, did that all fall in that period of time?

HUGHES: Well, that had occurred a little bit earlier and some of the other 00:59:00things that had occurred, say, in the community, where we lived in Cahaba Heights.

HANSON: Talk about that a little bit if you can?

HUGHES: I'm trying to pick up a year. But, it was like '58 or '59, somewhere in that period. But, we began to feel, well, the Methodists ministers in the layman's association which was a White Citizens Council movement, masked under Methodist logo, you might say. But, that movement seemed among other things, took over the control of the lay structure of the United Methodist Church in both the North Alabama Conference and the Alabama Conference. And they took it 01:00:00upon themselves to target myself and my appointment by the North Alabama Conference to this work. In their publications, I believe it was called Truth, I could be wrong. But it seems like that was the name. That was the name of one of the associated publications or maybe that was theirs, I forget. But, they called for my removal from the appointment and, secondly demanded that no pension rights would be, that the church would not pay any pension rights for Robert Hughes. But the main thing was to get rid of him.

HANSON: So in other words they were building up pressure both financially and 01:01:00emotionally against you at this time?

HUGHES: Yes. And, reflected in our community by one Sunday morning, Dottie and I, my wife, when I came out of the Methodist church, I had been asked to preach there on a number of occasions and there was no problem there. But, I guess others on the fringe of the church, or in the community in any case, began to be aware of what we were doing and the kind of work that we were involved in and/or being concerned about it. But, I came out of church one Sunday morning and upon a member looking out from the steps of the church over the parking lot on every windshield of each car was a sheet of paper and I said, "I know exactly what this is." And, it was the, I think it was a Klan piece of literature saying that 01:02:00Robert Hughes working day and night for integration has got to be chased off, or something like this (inaudible) or something like this. That was the introduction, I think, to really intensifying opposition to me on a personal basis in the local community.

HANSON: So from that hate kind of literature, larger things grew?

HUGHES: Threatening phone calls associated with that. And, then, this is in a period when the Klan was very active, especially in the Birmingham area. But it was throughout most, two- thirds of the state, in any case, from Gadsden south. Every Saturday night the Klan would ride. They would go to places in addition to 01:03:00assaults on Black families and these more clandestine kinds of operations, they had a more public face in which they would ride in a calvacade and burn a cross and draw attention to someone. Anyway, they had been doing this every Saturday night in the Birmingham area for a long, extended period of time, for the past six months or more, I guess.

But, Dottie and I were in the kitchen getting the children down to bed on one Saturday night and heard the horns blowing out in front of the house. We went to the front door, or I went to the window and looked out the front window, and there was a line of cars sitting with their headlights on led by a pick-up truck 01:04:00that had stopped in front of the house. In the back of the truck was a lighted, a cross that was lit with neon lights. And, the cars just went out of sight over the hill. There were so many of them that when I looked out the window, I took in this scene, and at that point, there was various figures in white robes were congregated, coming into the yard and sitting up.

I remember clearly hearing this man through the window, "Put it there," pointing to the ground about three feet in from the curb. And, they set up a large cross and I gather with burlap wrap. Anyway, I called back to Dottie, "The Klan is here." And, maybe the children had just been put to bed, I believe that was the 01:05:00case. But anyway I called back to Dottie and we both went to the front door. And, one of the purposes of course, is to instill fear; attract attention and instill fear on the parts of anybody that they may be targeting. And, I was intent that, you know, they would not be seen to succeed in that case with us. And as we came to the door, the lead truck, the man had got back into the pick-up truck and began to drive off and the cavalcade began to proceed by, with robed figures inside. Two and three people per car.

HANSON: Did they wear hoods?

HUGHES: Some were hooded, some were not. Some were older, some were children with their own little Klan outfits. And, as they came on by, they began to blow 01:06:00their horns and so on and I went out and connected the hose up and I figured, well, if I put the fire out, the rest of the Klan, these other people who are coming won't know where it is. Where the target is. And, they'll just keep on going. They won't know where I was. So I started spraying water on the hose thing there at the side of the street, and, then, I realized, and Dottie came out and she's standing there with me, and we glaring at this cross and we were spraying water on the (inaudible). And I suddenly realized if we put the fire out, they won't realize that we're defying them so I sprayed some water on it and, then, sprayed it over on the cars as they came by. I was alternating like this. It was fun.

HANSON: Fun, were you never afraid? Didn't you really fear for your life? I 01:07:00mean, what is the difference between them, let's say, and the militia today that wouldn't take a gun and shoot you? I mean did that never cross your mind?HUGHES: I didn't do this every Saturday night, you understand. Next time, if the cars would have come back appropriately armed. I'm sure they were armed that night, but I surprised them that night.

HANSON: Did you try to notify the press of what had happened to you?

HUGHES: I called the sheriff's office that night.

HANSON: And what was the response of the sheriff's office? Who was sheriff at that time, do you remember?

HUGHES: Holt McDowell's name comes to mind. I don't know if that was earlier or that was the same time. I think the next day the sheriff came out. Nobody came that night. But, just to tie up that evening though, the cars went on out. And, 01:08:00then, one by one neighbors who had been summoned out with horns and everything that was going on, began to come out of the houses and come up there and see what this was all about. It was kind of a circus. They were basically, I'd say, sympathetic. You know, our friends who had been victimized by those Klan types, it would be that kind of a personal relationship that I think gave them courage to come up to check on things. And, one of the little neighborhood boys came up with his parents from a couple of houses down the street. As we were all standing there around the big, black, smoking cross, lying on the ground, steaming, still steaming, fire out of course, this little boy, four years old or 01:09:00something like that was holding on to his momma's skirts, said, "Is Jesus on that cross?"

HANSON: What a statement.

HUGHES: And I told him, "In a way, he was." But anyway that was the evening. I called Clark Stallworth at the Post Herald and he was the only, really sympathetic print journalist that I knew. I told Clark that you might be interested in this type of cross burning that was conducting out here tonight by a large group of Klan. Well, I had estimated like 100 or more at least, because I counted over 50 cars and, then stopped. And they each had 2 to 3 or 4 people 01:10:00in them. Anyway, I told Clark what had happened and I told him a little bit about my wife's background, which you haven't asked me about.

HANSON: No. I think we'll do that too, in a minute.

HUGHES: But, anyway, the next day, on the front page of the Post Herald was about a 2 or 3 paragraph articles, small on the front page, stating that a cross had been burned at the home of Rev. Robert Hughes of Cahaba Heights last night by a large group of Klansman. In the next paragraph, Mrs. Hughes, the wife of Rev. Hughes, happens to be the great- great grandniece of General Nathan Bedford Forrest who founded the Klu Klux Klan.

HANSON: And they put that in the story?

HUGHES: Clark put it on the front page of the Post Herald.

HANSON: Did that generate any national requests for anyone? Did the Klan come back again after that? You had several other harassments, of course? But, I mean, of that magnitude?

HUGHES: No. The cross burning, there was only one cross burning. And that same group had earlier gone up and burned a cross in front of the Methodist church which was about three blocks away from where we lived. There was nobody at the church at that hour. And they came on to our place.

HANSON: But it was an act of intimidation always. I mean...

HUGHES: Oh, yes. Cross burnings, yes.

HANSON: But there was other intimidation though. I mean...

HUGHES: There were periods in which the phone would ring, almost constantly, at all hours of the night. We had to turn the phone off. Of course, that cut off 01:12:00communication with others. And we had to turn it back on at some times, but there would be, obviously, I think there was a night watchman at some place here in Birmingham that, in the middle of the night, he would sit up and ring our number. And as soon as I turn the phone off saying, "Sorry, I can't talk to you tonight." I would turn it off and the next morning turn it back on at 7:00 or so, and he'd still be there.

HANSON: What was the response of the Bishop and the hierarchy of the Methodist church? And the reason I'm getting to this, Bob, is because this is going to lead us back to the Salisbury articles and what happened to you when you were put in jail in Bessemer. What was the response of the bishopry at that time?

HUGHES: Nothing. Well, let me put it this way. The bishop that made the initial 01:13:00appointment to the Alabama Council had retired in about '55 or '56, maybe, at the latest, Bishop Purcell. And he was succeeded, I guess, by Bishop Hodge. And Bishop Hodge was my bishop from about 1955 or '56 on. He went along with what had been done earlier. That is, in making the appointment by around '58 when the Citizens Councils, which I said, had infiltrated the Methodist lay structure and was exerting strong influence through that structure statewide, questions were raised about whether or not this work should continue. By 1958 they said, well, 01:14:00you shouldn't be doing this kind of work. We shouldn't be sponsoring this. You ought to be in the pastorate.

There was a great need for more pastors in the conference, and so on. And, that went on for, I guess to about 1958, but I refused. I just said, "I'm sorry, I disagree. I have to continue this work." In '59 it came back again. The church it self was going through a lot of turmoil over the existence of the central jurisdiction. Efforts to abolish the central jurisdiction, which was the segregated arm of the Methodist church in the south, and many of us were concerned that this needed to be abolished in the southern Methodist church. The Methodist church in the south was trying to oppose any change in the structure 01:15:00in the Methodist church. They rarely ever gave it a racial tilt. So that helped to inflame some feeling against myself.

HANSON: Let's stop right there. It culminated obviously in what happened later on, can I assume that? But let's go back to Harrison Salisbury. Now, you have been in contact with the national press because you have given interviews and so forth. Salsberry came to town and the famous New York Times article, I believe it was in the fall of '59 was the famous line...

HUGHES: (inaudible)

HANSON: Yes. Fear stalks the streets of Birmingham. He called it America's most segregated city, more segregated than Johannesburg. I mean it was quite an article, an inflammatory article. And underneath all of this, Bob Hughes was suspected of supplying Harrison Salisbury with a lot of the information. Is that 01:16:00true, number one? And, number two, how did you end up in jail in Bessemer through all of that?

HUGHES: Well, the articles were published. I was interviewed extensively and the articles were published for two days running, I believe it was. One article on Birmingham and one article on the state as a whole, I believe. And, they were published in the New York Times, and the Birmingham News to its credit, decided that the people of Alabama needed to be told, informed about what they, the impersonal north, are saying about us. And so they published the same articles in their entirety, I believe, in the Birmingham News. And, the reaction was, 01:17:00from the White community, it was of course, immediately outraged and defensive. Defensive is the understatement of the year. Outraged and who told them? What are his sources? It's a lie. Who did he get all this from?

Such things as the assault on the Miles College students and Kelly Ingram Park holding a prayer vigil on their knees, arrested, prayer vigil broken up. And, the mother and the names published. And, one mother was assaulted by a Klan group in her home in Fairfield or Bessemer, I forget. Leg or legs broken or, severely injured. She was beaten with pipes. So, any way, that kind of story had 01:18:00never been published locally and the people in Birmingham were, for the first time, some of them were aroused by this. But, most seemed to be, most of the articulated responses were of outrage. And, the Bessemer cut-off, grand division, I guess.

HANSON: Grand jury, now.

HUGHES: Well, the grand jury of Bessemer county, for Jefferson County in the Bessemer cut-off was directed by the judge to investigate the articles, the source of the articles. And, among other things that were done by the grand jury or the investigators was to subpoena the records of the Tutwiler Hotel where 01:19:00Harrison Salisbury had stayed. And, at that time, you know they kept a list of all telephone calls made from the room, and they found my office number and my home number scattered throughout his records. And, as a result, the grand jury issued a subpoena and the next thing I knew, a deputy sheriff had come by my office there in the Comer Building and, handed me a subpoena.

HANSON: Stop a minute here. Can we stop here?