The Exchanges

Q FBI was spying on you, you had, you had all, you had all sorts of this, like, really, you know, kind of tough time going on. What, what, what was that like living through that? Was it scary? Was it like you were in a battle together? Would you wake up kind of worried about something, but you keep fighting anyway? Like, how did it feel being in the middle?

A Well, there came a point, and I know we shared about Andy Young. Andy Young was saying the same thing, you know. Andy Young does it very humorously. You know, the way we, the way we dealt with the stress, we had to humorize it. And Martin King had a, uh, a kind of a strange, Sense of humor. He would say, now Andy, if something happens to you, don't worry. I'm gonna preach A sermon that you've never heard. And he says, now, Andy, I think I can preach him into heaven. Now, Clarence, I don't know about you, but I will do my best. If something happens to you, I will give, I will preach. I'll say, Lord, let him in. Let him in, Lord, let him in. So we used to, he used to, we used to externalize.

AI assessment note: “the way we dealt with the stress, we had to humorize it.”

Q Do you spoke to your heart as well?

A No, I, I was, he was speaking to me. Now, he was speaking to the whole conservation, but I never heard anyone, black, I never heard anyone, ok? And then he got to a point in his sermon when he said, there's a young man sitting in this church today. My friends in New York and other places tell this, this young man, a young lawyer, They tell me that his brains have been touched by Jesus. They tell me that when this young man goes into the law library and does legal research on any problem, he goes all the way back to the time of 1066, the Magna Carta and William the Conqueror. So the first thing I'm thinking, how does this Baptist preacher know anything about the history of British constitutional law? How does he know that? And they tell me that this young lawyer, when he writes down what he finds on the pages, the words are just so compelling, they just jump off the page. So I began to think, when this service, when this service is over, I'm going to find out who he's talking about, because I don't think he's talking to me. I'm going to find out who Dr. King is so impressed with in this congregation, because I need to know who this murderer is, ok? And then he paused for a moment, but he has forgotten from which he came. And then he went on to talk about my mother being a maid and a cook. And then he did something very unfair at the time, but then I knew how powerful what he did…

AI assessment note: “he was speaking to me. Now, he was speaking to the whole conservation”

Q and he came out, and it sounds like you were, you were too busy to deal with him. At first, you didn't know who he was. You said, I don't, you know, you have some tax problem, whatever. Then you listen to him speak, and you, and you decided you wanted to, you want to help this, this man. How did you realize this was somebody you wanted to help?

A Well, I didn't want to help him. Actually, his lawyer handling his defense in the tax case. Had tried to persuade me, and I said, I don't have time to deal with no, no Negro minister, Peter, and so forth. In the event, um, make a long story short, one day in the second week of February, Martin Luther King, Jr., and someone who traveled with, uh, Bernard Lee, they showed up at my door at 27 51 Highview Avenue, an altitude of California. He walks in. And, ah, Dr. King said to me, ah, you know, Judge Huber Delaney told me so many nice things about you, so I figured I'd just come down and talk to you, you know. Now he walks into my house. He says, Attorney Jones, you know, we have lots of, ah, lots of white lawyers from, ah, New York and Chicago and, ah, the Northeast who help us. And he gets close to me, he says, but what we need, we need Negro A lawyer like you to help us in the cause. So I said, well, Dr. King, I, I admire what you're doing, you know, and I wish you well, but, you know, I'm here in California, you know, and there's not much I can do except I'd like to Help Judge Delaney in any way I can. So, um, he asked me some questions about my family. I told them I was, my parents were domestic household servants. At the age of six, they put me in a, in a boarding school, and Kathleen, from the age of six to 14, I was in a boarding school for so-called colored boys. The way …

AI assessment note: “Well, I didn't want to help him. Actually, his lawyer handling his defense”

Q I want to drill in on this, because I'm, you know, as a Jew, I'm very proud of the role some Jews played in the Civil Rights Movement, at least I understand they did. And you worked alongside many of them. Were there a lot involved with you directly that were helpful?

A Helpful. That's the understatement. I always like to, I always like to put the, see, one of the things, I have a responsibility as a, uh, ninety-three-year-old survivor, I have a responsibility to not speak to you or speak to other people about the role of Jewish people in the civil rights movement. I have a responsibility to speak to you, not about what somebody told me, not about what somebody, what I heard, but what I saw, and what I heard, ok? Ironically, I would challenge Dr. King, I'd say, you know, you're bad, you know, I mean, I think you, you are unbelievable, but let's just face it, Martin, there's no way that 12% of the population, we Negroes, are gonna get 88% of the population, white people, to do something they don't want to do. It's not going to happen. Now, I don't mean to, I don't mean to denigrate you, because you're the best, I've never seen anybody speak the spoken word so magnificently to you, but the fact of the matter is we're only 12% of the population. He says, well, Clarence, that's, we have to try to raise the consciousness and so forth. So, I, I'm, I'm a very, very outspoken person, you know, I mean, I mean, I'm not an introvert, I'm an extrovert.

AI assessment note: “Helpful. That's the understatement.”