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Thomas Battles was a Conciliator and then Regional Director of the CRS Southeastern Regional Office from 1984-2019.
There are 2 parts of this interview: Part 1 and Part 2. This is Part 1.
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https://youtu.be/P40nk64riig
Heidi Burgess (00:00:02): Hi, this is Heidi Burgess and I am here today with Tom Battles, who is a former regional director of the Community Relations Service. And I'm talking to him as part of round two of the civil rights, mediation oral history project. . . . [T]his is a project that was started back in 1999 with myself and my husband and CRS conciliator Dick Salem. And at that time we interviewed about 20 former and current CRS mediators to find out what they did and how they did it. And we are updating our set of interviews now with people who've been with the agency more recently because a lot has changed since 1999. So I wanna thank you, Tom, for being with us and giving us your expertise. And I might ask you to start by telling us a little bit about your background before you came to CRS, your childhood, even if it was relevant, and then what you did professionally up before until CRS.
Thomas Battles (00:01:21): Thank you. And good morning, Heidi. And, thank you for this opportunity to share with you and to the audience. A little bit about my work at CRS and the contribution, the little contribution that I made to this great agency. I am a product of Florida. I was born and raised in Tampa, Florida, and I matriculated in Miami. I am the product of Miami Central High School, I was an athlete and played football at Miami Central. And it's ironic that, even in junior high school, graduate of Madison High School, even when there were problems in race relations in junior high school, I was always involved in as a leader, trying to quail racial problems, even in junior high school, and then going to high school. I went to, uh, Miami central high school. There were problems among the different ethnic groups and they would call football team and athletes and leaders to help quail differences.
Thomas Battles (00:02:32): I was recruited to play football. I went to an HBCU school in Florida, at Florida A&M University. I actually had a scholarship to go to Iowa state university, in Ames, Iowa. But I was a little bit too small to play big time football. But . . . my counselor felt that I needed to go to an HBCU. And so I chose that route and I went to a black college in Florida and my mother supported that. And so I went to Florida A&M University and I majored in social sciences. And so I got a degree and then I went on to get a master's degree in applied social science. And it's ironic that I wanted to be a correctional inspector. I felt that I could make a difference in that area.
Thomas Battles (00:03:38): And so I did an internship with the prison youth offender program, and one of my master's degree . . . professors and I'll never forget him, Jim VanMeter, he was a white guy, but he was an omega and omega. . . is one of the big divine nine fraternities. And he was an omega, but he was a white guy. And he called me one day when I was doing an internship. And he said to me, Tom, I'm about to finish my sabbatical over this work release center. And I was about to finish . . . my internship to finish my master's degree program. And he said, there's a vacancy at this work release center here in Tallahassee. And I think you'll be a good fit for it. I don't know if they're gonna allow the director to hire anybody, but I think you'll be a great fit.
Thomas Battles (00:04:41): And he said that because Tallahassee was a prime spot, people don't leave the positions in corrections. So I was doing my internship with youthful offenders and they said, Tom, he said, Tom, you wanna talk to him about, so they called me in for an interview. And so I interviewed with the director and he said, if they allow me to hire somebody, you got the job. So he called me back in a few days and he said, I think they allowed me to hire you. So I finished my internship on August the 30th and on September the 1st I started this job. Wow. Yeah. So . . . I was a counselor at this work release center. Inmates were getting ready to go back into society. They had served years in prison and they were getting ready to go back into society.
Thomas Battles (00:05:30): So I did that for about a year, maybe two years. And then, the state of Florida had begun to they had passed this human rights law the human rights act. And they wanted to hire some young, energetic, professionals to begin to enforce the Florida human rights act. And they were investigating employment discrimination. And the director just ironic they knew he knew my family and they recruited me and asked me to come to work with him, but I didn't want to leave corrections because my goal was to be a prison inspector. But the job was just so enticing because this new law was on the books in Florida to investigate discrimination and that was race relations. And I really thought that was the calling on me to do that as well, but I wanted to do was be a prison inspector, because I went to school to do that as well.
Thomas Battles (00:06:31): And so, but my passion was to help them deal with this race relation. But again, my criminal justice degree, I thought that that's where I was going to go. But the passion and the pulling on me was to go and help start this new law that Florida had just passed. So I left corrections and went over and started doing this work in race relations. And so once I started that I was on that road and I never looked or turned back. So I started working for the Florida commission on human relations with Dr. Jackson and that team. And then the law grew, we started doing employment discrimination, Eleanor Holmes Norton was at EEOC. We started the process investigating employment discrimination. Jim Clyburn was in South Carolina who was the director of South Carolina human rights and of course, he's Congressman Jim Clyburn.
Thomas Battles (00:07:26): Now the great Jim Clyburn, and so many others that mentored me along the way. I spent a lot of time with him and others learning that business, as I said Eleanor Holmes Norton was at EEOC and then we started getting housing discrimination that law passed and we started investigating housing discrimination and the rest was history. One of the agencies that I had to liaison with was CRS . . . as a federal agency. And that's how I ended up meeting the . . . CRS people because they were doing conflict resolution work in Florida. But we were doing investigations on employment and housing discrimination, CRS wasn't doing investigations, they were doing assessments on racial and ethnic tension. I was doing assessments of community relations conflict whenever there were racial tensions. But... we had investigation . . . responsibility. We actually had enforcement of investigations and discrimination and employment in-house. And so that's how I got in the business before I came to work for CRS. I started my work with the community, the Florida commission on human relations back in 1978. And I stayed with the commission from 1978 until 1984.
Heidi Burgess (00:08:52): Okay, and then did you transition directly into CRS at that point?
Thomas Battles (00:08:58): Yes. So I left, so CRS had a vacancy in 1973. And so the, , as again, I served in the liaison role between the state, the affairs and the locals CRS had contacted me in 1973 and said, we've got a vacancy that's coming up. And we'd like, like for you to consider if you want to come back home because I was in Tallahassee and they asked me if I was interested in coming back home. And I said, yes, I had done just about everything that I thought I could do for the state at that point in time. And . . . they had riots in Miami. I was working for the state, they had riots and they pulled me out of investigation and I became an analyst to serve in the liaison role. I was working with CRS at that point to deal with racial conflict.
Thomas Battles (00:09:51): In 1980, we had a major riot in Miami. I was working for the state then that was called the McDuffie Riots, but I was working for the state, but I had spent a lot of time working with CRS in the liaison role. We were just interacting with each other, trying to address racial conflict around the state, but the big riot in 1980, the McDuffie Riots, the major influx of Cubans, the refugee influx that the Cubans back then said that Castro had turned his back and they let the Mariel boatlift come to Miami. So we had all these Mariels under the bridges in Miami. And that became a big issue in Miami because we had all these refugees in Miami at that point in time, then the Haitians came, so we had all these issues, but I was a liaison while I was there.
Thomas Battles (00:10:38): So I knew CRS and its work. And they had a field office in Miami. They had two actual units. They had a Cuban Haitian program who did primary and secondary resettlement. And that group was called CHEP Cuban Haitian Entrant Program. And then they had the conflict resolution side, but they all were in the same office together. So they had a vacancy and they asked me if I wanted to come in and work. So I had to apply, and in 1973 I applied, but they actually didn't hire me until 19 . . . I mean, 1983, I applied, but they actually didn't hire me. And I didn't actually start working until 1984.
Heidi Burgess (00:11:15): Okay. And then how long did you stay there?
Thomas Battles (00:11:20): So from 1984 until 2004 and I actually moved to the field office. I mean, I moved to the regional office when I took over as a regional director.
Heidi Burgess (00:11:35): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:11:35): In that time, there were so many issues. I was promoted over those years. I moved up in the ranks. I started out as a GS-11 in Miami in 1984.
Heidi Burgess (00:11:51): And was your
Thomas Battles (00:11:52): I got promoted
Heidi Burgess (00:11:53): Conciliator then?
Thomas Battles (00:11:55): Yes. Yes. I was a conciliation specialist. Yes. And over the years I just got promoted. I kept my nose clean and I got promoted over the years. GS-11, GS-12, GS-14. And then of course, to the rank of regional director when I moved to the field office in Atlanta in 2003-2004. And in that time I've had so many experiences in cases that I'm sure we will discuss some of them during the course of this interview.
Heidi Burgess (00:12:31): Indeed. , and then just take me through the regional director time. How long did you stay in Atlanta as regional director?
Thomas Battles (00:12:41): Sure. From 2004 to 2019 when I retired.
Heidi Burgess (00:12:45): Okay. Very good. Yeah. So you went from [1985]
Thomas Battles (00:12:55): 1984
Heidi Burgess (00:12:55): To 2019
Thomas Battles (00:12:58): 2019.
Heidi Burgess (00:12:59): So yeah, my math isn't correct
Thomas Battles (00:13:01): I spent 35 years at CRS.
Heidi Burgess (00:13:04): That's very impressive. All right.
Thomas Battles (00:13:07): Yeah, I spent 35 years at CRS.
Heidi Burgess (00:13:09): So the way we like to start these interviews is to have you pick one particular case. And with 35 years history, there were obviously thousands, but one case that you think is particularly illustrative of the kind of work that you did at CRS. One of the main reasons we're doing these interviews is to help both young people at CRS learn the ropes and also people who are dealing with racial conflicts who are not in CRS, but who are doing similar work in other agencies and privately. So one case that you think is notable that has a lot of teachable issues that you think is worth talking about. Do you have any case in mind, should I give you a minute to think?
Thomas Battles (00:14:12): That's a challenge for me. And I say that because I was in a field office, I started my career in a field office and working in the field office, and the goal was in Miami when you work in the field office, if what you do in the field office can work, it has implications for application around the country if it could work. So I worked with a team that dealt with immigration issues as well, primary and secondary resettlement of Cubans and Haitians. So we had some experiences that other places didn't have. So for example, when Aristide was overthrown and they did primary and secondary resettlement of Cubans and Haitians. So that was an experience that a lot of people didn't have in the country at CRS. So, for example, so I'm sorry, go ahead.
Heidi Burgess (00:15:09): I was gonna say, let's talk about that because that is certainly something that's very relevant. Maybe not so much with CRS now, but I would think it is because there's so many issues about immigrants now that are causing problems all over the country, probably for CRS and for a lot of other people too. And I know for a fact that of all the interviews that we did back in the day and the ones I've done now, I haven't watched all of the interviews that Bill Froehlich done yet, but we haven't dealt with this issue. So I think this would be a great one to talk about.
Thomas Battles (00:15:50): Yeah. And . . . I wanted to spend a minute talking about that because we did some great work. A lot of the Haitians that you see in this country, we probably processed them through Miami. In 1991 when Aristide was overthrown, he came to the United States to thank the country for supporting him. And there was a coup in Haiti. And then the people came, started coming in boatloads. And we would always practice along with INS [Immigration and Naturalization Service] because it was still at that time INS and we would plan for this boat lift and this massive boat lift coming from Haiti. And we would also have this plan if Haiti and Cuba would be overthrown at the same time and if the boat lifts would come. So we would always practice that in Miami because Miami would always practice because of hurricanes and be on that coast.
Thomas Battles (00:16:57): So we'd always practice with INS and the emergency preparedness people with FEMA. So there was always a plan for that kind of operation. So as fate would have it, when Aristide was overthrown, we always had this influx plan, as fate would have it the Haitians started coming. So we had this plan and we were on this ship off the coast of Jamaica called the SS Comfort. And they were picking up Haitians by the boatloads and they were on the SS Comfort. So our team from Miami were detailed to the SS Comfort, the Cuban and Haitian group and so was I and we were trained on how to process Cubans and Haitians on the Comfort. My role was to work with the Marines on how to manage the Haitians on the Comfort to keep tension down. My partner was of course, Haitian. So he translated while we worked with the military to keep tension down, as fate would have it too many Haitians were coming at sea and they couldn't manage the numbers on the Comfort, so they opened up Guantanamo.
Heidi Burgess (00:18:07): Oh.
Thomas Battles (00:18:08): So . . . they opened up Guantanamo. That was the plan. So they opened up Guantanamo
Heidi Burgess (00:18:13): So this was the first time that Guantanamo existed as a U.S. Base?
Thomas Battles (00:18:19): Not as the first time, that's just the first time they opened it up for the . . . as refugee camp.
Heidi Burgess (00:18:26): Oh, okay.
Thomas Battles (00:18:27): Okay. So . . . they opened up Guantanamo. So there were unaccompanied minors, there were families, and then there were individuals. So because you had to separate them, you couldn't put them all together as just one group. So there were unaccompanied minors, there were families, so it was husband and wife with their kids, and then individuals. So they separated them that way. Our plan, our role, me as a conciliator was to work with the military to keep tension down in the camps. And at the same time, as INS would interview people to see if they had a well-founded fear of persecution. Why did you come? Why did you leave Haiti? And if INS felt that they had if they stated a well-founded fear of persecution, they would let them come forward, go to the United States. And, and there were VOLAGs voluntary agencies that would receive them and then would place them in what we call family reunification.
Thomas Battles (00:19:26): So then they would the VOLAgs, Church World Services, United States Catholic Services. The Catholics were the primary voluntary agencies that they were turned over to, to place them with families and would take if they were unaccompanied minors, the Catholics would take them and would take care of the kids. You wouldn't just turn the kids over to the community. My assignment was to go on a plane three days a week with them, with the manifest to read it to the media who was on that plane three days a week. So I would go with them three days a week on an assignment with them, with the manifest. And they would fly into Miami, the Homestead Air Force Base three days a week. That's what happened. The Catholics along with, and the Catholic services through the Catholic charities would be there every three days, , three days a week to do that.
Thomas Battles (00:20:23): And that happened. And then if they had family, the family would pick them up. Then they'd go into the community three days a week. Sometimes it would be tension in the community because a lot of people didn't want them in the community because they felt that they were being saturated with Haitians that came from Haiti. They felt that they had these diseases and illnesses. So over time, because there were so many coming that became a political issue in the community. So then they had to deal with that issue of why are you allowing so many to come. So then INS had to deal with that issue from the politics of why are you allowing so many Haitians to come so they had to turn the faucet off of screening in too many Haitians at one time on Guantanamo we had about 20,000 to 30,000 Haitians on the base.
Heidi Burgess (00:21:14): And what timeframe are we talking about now? Is this a few months...
Thomas Battles (00:21:17): After Aristide was . . . No, it took about a year to a year and a half for that process to occur. I stayed, we stayed on Guantanamo for about a year to a year and a half.
Heidi Burgess (00:21:28): Okay. And how
Thomas Battles (00:21:29): Over that period of time
Heidi Burgess (00:21:30): Doing how many, I don't know if you know these numbers, but as best as you can estimate how many people came and how many people were let in versus how many people were turned away?
Thomas Battles (00:21:42): It's hard to say that those numbers are, but quite a few, especially with the unaccompanied children, because the unaccompanied children, most of those kids . . . they gave to the Catholic charities and they kept them. The voluntary agencies . . . they didn't turn the kids back because they didn't have any place to go. We gave them [to the] Catholic charities, you know, Church World Services, U.S. Catholic Charities, and they kept them and they manage those kids and sometimes you keep those kids until they're 18, and then you get sponsors for them.
Heidi Burgess (00:22:21): Did you have the same situation then that we've had recently of some of these kids being really young?
Thomas Battles (00:22:29): Well, we're out of that business now. We're out of that business now, but back then, the Cuban Haitian program was . . . heavily into that. That's one of the reasons why I was so outdone when I saw during the previous administration with the Trump era when I saw what was happening to the Haitians and to the immigrants over in Texas, when they argued that they couldn't find their families and when they couldn't match them with their families that's just absolutely ridiculous. We found families and we matched kids with their parents easily. And in fact, I, along with my partner was assigned to go to Haiti when, when they sent some kids from Miami back to Haiti to find their documents, and the kids were lost in Miami. I, along with the Congressional delegation, in fact, Congresswoman Carrie Meek, at one point in time, along with Charlie Rangel and Cynthia McKinney, when she was in Congress, we went to Haiti on an assignment to find some kids that they sent back to Haiti. And my partner and I went to Haiti and we found some kids that they sent back to Haiti, and we brought them back to Miami. So I know it can be done.
Heidi Burgess (00:23:48): Wow.
Thomas Battles (00:23:48): Yeah. My partner and I found these kids that they sent us back to go find. You know, we found them, we got a taxi cab and went countryside and we found those kids.
Heidi Burgess (00:23:59): So you just
Thomas Battles (00:24:00): So
Heidi Burgess (00:24:02): Talked to people until you figured out where they were?
Thomas Battles (00:24:04): Yeah. Yeah. We just used our community relations skills.
Heidi Burgess (00:24:09): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (00:24:10): And . . . we found those kids.
Heidi Burgess (00:24:11): Good for you.
Thomas Battles (00:24:12): So I know, I know that it can be done. So, the tension, the tension occurred when, when you screened them in and then the, you know the concern was that too many were coming into the country . . . and the question was . . . the . . . social service system was being overburdened by . . . the Haitians coming into the country and who was going to take care of them. And that became an issue in the country at one point in time . . . and so they had to deal with that in south Florida and other places. And so they . . . were moved around to other places like New York, Boston, and other places where they had relatives.
Thomas Battles (00:25:05): And so everybody didn't stay in Miami, but of course, the large enclaves of Haitians in those places. But there are in other places, New York, Boston, . . . in other places where there are large populations of Haitians. And then at one point in time during that saga, Cubans did come. So we ended up opening up another camp in Panama because Guantanamo got oversaturated and we had to open up a camp in Panama during that time. So that was an interesting case that I did wanna bring to . . . your attention, because that's not one that we talk about much, and I know Grande Lum in doing his book, he talked a lot about Elián González. And that's why I didn't really mention that because that's widely written. And of course, in Trayvon Martin, which was another case that we worked a lot, and Elián was a case that I worked for actually a year, uh, over a year, two years, almost, that was only case that I ended up working that was during Ms.
Thomas Battles (00:26:12): Janet Reno's era . . . as an attorney general which . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:26:16): When was that?
Thomas Battles (00:26:16): During, during the Elián González case 2019, 2000 era and that was the Cuban boy who came from Cuba. And he and his family came and his mother, they died at sea.
Heidi Burgess (00:26:37): Oh.
Thomas Battles (00:26:37): And he was picked up. And . . . during that case, the saga between the Cuban community and his parents to get him back to his family in Cuba, and they didn't want him to go, the Cuban exile community didn't want him to go. And we had to negotiate with the family in Miami to give him back to his family and they didn't want him to go back. And then INS and the border patrol ended up taking him back and had generated a lot of tension in Miami with the exile community.
Thomas Battles (00:27:10): And in that case, I had to leave Miami for a while because they thought that I knew more than I knew. And so I ended up coming to Atlanta for a while, but that generated a lot of tension between Cuban community and African American community and . . . the government. , and so that was a case that we ended up deploying lot of CRSs resources from around the country to work because language was an issue in that case. And that's something that new conciliators need to understand when you're working . . . with cases where language becomes an issue. Uh, it's not about you, it's about the needs of the agency and the resources that you bring to bear to address a case, language is an issue. The language was an issue, for example, in the Haitian case, I didn't speak Creole, but I was the lead in terms of working the conflict resolution side of the house.
Thomas Battles (00:28:06): But I had a partner who spoke Creole, French Creole and Patois, and all of those different languages that you need when you work in a case, the question is, what do you need to bring about the success for the agency . . . on a case. And so, those are the kind of dynamics when you're looking. And the question also is when is it time to get out of a case . . . when you've done what you think you can do on a case. And so, . . . when there's danger, when are you in danger on a case? And when is the time to back off on a case?
Heidi Burgess (00:28:49): Lots of good questions. Let me back up for a second. You're leaving me with a whole bunch of questions. I wanna back up to the Haitian story way back to what you said that you were working on the ship, the Comfort, I believe it was?
Thomas Battles (00:29:06): Yes.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:06): And you were trying to diffuse tensions on the ship. What were the tensions over?
Thomas Battles (00:29:14): The Haitians were being interviewed on the ship, and many of them did not meet the criteria of a well-founded fear of persecution.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:27): Oh.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:27): So they were screened out and they were screened out. And so they were slated to go back to Haiti. So they . . . would rather not go back to Haiti. So some of them were . . . would rather lose their lives than to go back to Haiti.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:46): Wow. So what did you do about that?
Thomas Battles (00:29:50): So . . . we had to talk to them, counsel them, keep them calm, you know, they wanted to riot on the ship.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:58): Oh
Thomas Battles (00:29:59): Yeah. So they wanted to riot on the ship and create confusion on the ship. And so we had to try to quell that and keep them calm. You know, . . . they, . . . many of them stated that if we go back to Haiti, we're going die, you know, they would always talk about the tire in, in Haiti. They would always talk about the tire, the tire meaning that they would get tires put on them and be burned.
Heidi Burgess (00:30:23): Oh.
Heidi Burgess (00:30:24): And so that, that Coup by the coups and things. And so we would try to calm them and to negotiate calm and peace. And so they would all get an interview, but it was a matter of INS, you know, believing that they were in a position of danger. And so those are the kinds of issues that we had to be concerned about.
Heidi Burgess (00:30:52): Did you ever, did you ever try to change INS's mind and get some of these people accepted who were initially rejected?
Thomas Battles (00:31:04): Some of them were, some of them were, and our team, especially who had families and who had relationships with the government, those were the ones who in many cases were in danger. People who had families . . . associated with government officials, those were the ones that in many cases were in danger of persecution if they were sent back. So a lot of them were screened in a lot of them were screened in.
Heidi Burgess (00:31:40): And,
Thomas Battles (00:31:41): And they, and they moved forward to . . . and they came to Florida and they were allowed to come to Florida.
Heidi Burgess (00:31:47): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:31:49): One . . . and I'll never forget this, one lady had a baby on the Comfort and we named her Baby Comfort for some reason that baby was not screened in, I'm not sure why, and that everybody was so hurt by the fact that that baby was not screened in
Heidi Burgess (00:32:08): Wouldn't she have been . . .
Thomas Battles (00:32:11): The question, it was a question of . . . citizenship that was the issue of who was the baby a United States baby or was it a baby born in Jamaica? Because we were off the coast of Jamaica. It was a question of citizenship. That was the issue. We called her Baby Comfort, but she wasn't screened in. And, uh, yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:35): I would think that being on a U.S. boat that would've made her a U.S. citizen.
Thomas Battles (00:32:41): Yeah. That they named her Baby Comfort, but they didn't screen her in for some reason.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:46): And was that the final decision or was she eventually allowed to come in?
Thomas Battles (00:32:52): No, they sent her back.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:53): Wow. And her mother too, I assume.
Thomas Battles (00:32:56): Yeah, yeah. They sent the baby with her mom.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:58): So what did you do with the folks who they didn't ever accept and who were threatening to riot or . . .
Thomas Battles (00:33:07): They repatriated them back. They repatriated, the Coast Guard cutters were the vehicle that takes them back to the, to the port of Haiti. Coast Guard cutters took them back.
Heidi Burgess (00:33:19): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:33:20): But the Coast Guard cutters take them back and those who can they try again. They come back, they pick them up again. Once they get a shot, they try again, they take another raft to sea. They come out on rafts. They try again and they get picked up. But again, because the Comfort, because the Comfort would only hold so many, they shut down the Comfort and . . . then they end up going to Guantanamo.
Heidi Burgess (00:33:53): Okay. Yeah. So you say you did that for a couple of years?
Thomas Battles (00:34:00): We spent, we, we spent Guantanamo about two Guantanamo, about two years. I stayed about a year, but I had to go back to Miami because the operations just stayed open so long. I had to go back to Miami because I was, I ran the operation when the plane came in, I met the plane on every three days and I was given a script. So, the operation was approved by the national security council. So I had to, was cleared to do that. And so the manifest would, the plane would come in out of Homestead Air Force Base. I would meet it and they'd give me a manifest. And then I would go out to the gate and read what's on the plane. And they would be in the hanger getting screened by the public health service. They would get screened. They would get screened before they were released into the community.
Heidi Burgess (00:34:49): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:34:49): For many infectious diseases and that would happen. And that would ensure that they were healthy and they were okay. And then they would be turned over to the, they would be turned over then to the voluntary agents, the VOLAGs, Church World Services, and the United States Catholic Conference. And then that would happen every three days a week.
Heidi Burgess (00:35:15): And am I right in assuming that massively more numbers were coming in at this point than are being allowed in now?
Thomas Battles (00:35:25): Oh yeah, without question. Yeah. See, there's a threshold on numbers that you are allowed. That are allowed to come in from all countries by the state department. Back then there was a certain number of Haitians that they allowed to come in.
Heidi Burgess (00:35:42): And does that number, I mean, back in the day before we got really restrictive, did that number go up substantially? If there was a crisis in a particular place like Haiti?
Thomas Battles (00:35:54): Probably, but you know, if, and I don't know what that number is now because you know, they try to discourage them from coming . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:36:03): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:36:03): all the time. But if there was a crisis, you know, that they issue what you call a TPS a Temporary Protected Status and, you know, to protect them. But when a crisis comes, you know, they tell them not to come because of the danger at sea, but they don't listen to that.
Heidi Burgess (00:36:25): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:36:26): They, you know, if there's danger, you know, the last Haitian president was assassinated, you know, a couple years ago. I'm surprised a lot of them didn't come, they may have tried to come, but you know, and then they had the earthquake in Haiti. Yeah, you know, it's just bad. Haiti, Haiti just never can catch a break. It's just, they just never, can catch a break over there.
Thomas Battles (00:36:51): I was involved with an organization. You know we stopped sending clothes and money over to Haiti because it never got to the people that it needed to get to. So we partnered up with a church to build a hospital over there, and that seemed to be a better fit than trying to send money over there to them because it never really got to where it needed to go. And so when the church tried to build a hospital over there, we just partnered up with the church to build a hospital because at least people can get some help at the hospital.
Heidi Burgess (00:37:23): Right now, when you say we, who is the we, is it CRS?
Thomas Battles (00:37:27): One of my voluntary organizations that I'm a part of.
Heidi Burgess (00:37:30): Okay. I didn't think that sounds like something CRS would be doing.
Thomas Battles (00:37:31): Yeah. In my voluntary role, no in my voluntary role.
Heidi Burgess (00:37:36): Okay. Makes sense.
Thomas Battles (00:37:37): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:37:38): were you involved at all on the U.S. and the resettlement and any tensions around that or was that other folks?
Thomas Battles (00:37:48): That was the other side. That was the other side. So we, you know, we everybody's role is sort of separate, but we worked together. So the resettlement side told me what they're doing and they tell me where the tension is. And then I, we work together. So at the end of the night, we just compare notes. This is just like, with the Elián case, the Cuban kid, they had the role of the resettlement side. And if they were allowed to do their job with him, history would've recorded it differently, but they weren't allowed to do their job in that case. So they did, they did their resettlement work, and I did the conflict resolution side and we just compared our notes at the end of the day.
Heidi Burgess (00:38:28): Okay. So with Elián you said he eventually was sent back?
Thomas Battles (00:38:35): Yeah, he was, they ended up going into the house where he was in Miami. They picked him, you know, border patrol, went and got him in a . . . enforcement raid to take him out the house. And then they matched him up with his father and then flew back to Cuba, which is there.
Heidi Burgess (00:38:56): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:38:56): But that saga, that saga lasted a few years with, in the community, you know, and protests and demonstrations and marches. We brought in people, you know, I negotiated literally every day with community leaders to try to get the kid back. And Ms. Reno had her lawyers negotiate with the mayor who was the, I mean with the attorneys, for the family to try to get the kid, uh, but they didn't want . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:39:26): So who was taking what position and why?
Thomas Battles (00:39:31): So the exile community in the Elián case felt that sending a kid back would be sending him back to Fidel Castro and not his father. His father was there, and his two grandmothers, his mother's mother and his father's mother, and the exile community felt that you would be sending him back to Fidel and not his parents, his mother, and his father, and Ms. Reno and the immigration community said, regardless of that, he still has relatives and family who want him in Cuba. And so that was the issue. He has blood relatives in Cuba, and he has to go back to his relatives. And the exile community took a hard line and said, no, we are not giving him back. So that, that was the issue. And our position in the Cuban program, the Cuban Haitian program says we have to resettle him back with his relatives in Cuba and not in Miami, what they would've done initially, when they, when they picked him up, they would've done an assessment and said he has relatives in Miami, but he has blood relatives. His father is still alive. His grandmother and his two grandmothers are in Cuba. We can temporarily give him to his relatives in Miami, but we have to send him back to Cuba, to his father. That's what they would've done.
Thomas Battles (00:41:06): They that's what they would've done. But that didn't happen because what happened, he was picked up by fisherman at sea, and he was given to the relatives at the dock by the Coast Guard. That's not, what's supposed to have happened. What's supposed to have happened. They should have given him to the CRS people and the CRS people would've given him to the Catholic charities because he was unaccompanied. Remember I tell you, they take care of unaccompanied children. They would've taken him to the voluntary agencies. And then the voluntary agents would've done an assessment along with CRS. And then they would've made an agreement with the relatives we will give him to you temporarily. And then once we notify the family that we have him, then you come and get him and then we'll send him back to Cuba then you can come and get him. But that didn't happen.
Heidi Burgess (00:41:56): If it had happened, would it have prevented the conflict? Do you think?
Thomas Battles (00:42:01): It would've prevented the conflict. Yes. Because they would've made an agreement and an understanding that he's going back to his father, but the exile community got involved in it. And it became a political issue between the exile community and for them.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:13): Right. And I guess what I'm not understanding is why the exile community wouldn't have felt the same way. Even if the proper procedure had been followed
Thomas Battles (00:42:25): Because exile community got involved in it from the beginning.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:28): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:42:29): And not, they got involved because what happened when, when he got picked up the Coast Guard gave him directly to the family. And then that took everybody else out the picture.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:44): I see.
Thomas Battles (00:42:45): It took everybody else. Nobody got involved in it at that point, CRS didn't get involved in it. The Catholics didn't get involved in it . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:42:54): Although . . .
Thomas Battles(00:42:54): INS didn't get involved in it.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:56): Am I right in understanding that you did get involved in the negotiations about where he was gonna go?
Thomas Battles (00:43:04): We got involved in it after the fact, only after the fact when the Coast Guard said, we have this kid and we gave him to his family right away because the family was expecting the mother to come. So they had been looking for the family in the boat, but the boat capsized and everybody died, except Elián, and so the fisherman just happened to be fishing and they see this kid on a raft. So everybody died, but him. So they picked him up and took him to the Coast Guard station, Coast Guard station. And the family just happened to be there because they'd been, they were looking for their relative. I see. Okay. So they turned him and it was Thanksgiving. And so they just turned him over to the family at that point. And then at that point he belonged to the family. And then when CRS found out about him, they said, you gotta give him up, but they didn't give him up. CRS never got control of the kid. Neither, neither the voluntary agents ever got control of the kid. And then once CRS and INS said, you gotta give him to us, the family said we going to the exile community and the exile community said, no, you ain't, you won't get this kid.
Heidi Burgess (00:44:26): Okay. I see.
Thomas Battles (00:44:28): So, yeah. So they went Bishop Augustine Roman, who's the big Catholic diocese head and all of the heads of the Catholic leadership. I mean the exile leadership. And they said, no, we're gonna fight to keep this kid. And at that point it became a war, literally to keep this kid.
Heidi Burgess (00:44:54): So then what role did you play?
Thomas Battles (00:44:58): So I then met with the community activists, the Cuban community activists, and said look, you all gotta give this kid up, or it is going to be a battle to get this kid back. So they dug in their heels and the government dug in their heels. And so the CRS Cuban program met with the state department. And then they asked me to identify Cuban leaders that we can start negotiating with. So I put a list of Cuban activist leaders and power brokers that the government started calling to say, look, what is it going take to end this and get this kid back? This is the, these are the rules. So I put together an activist community list for people. So people started coming from Washington to meet with leaders, and we put that together. And then the Cuban Haitian program started putting together their work with voluntary agencies on procedures on what should have happened in this and why didn't it happen? Where was the breakdown in that? Well we know it happened, they didn't call CRS, Coast Guard gave the kid over from the beginning. So that's how the procedures broke down from the beginning. And so they came up with the work-sharing agreement with me during the day I worked with the Cuban program and at night I alone during the conflict resolution side.
Heidi Burgess (00:46:24): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:46:24): So that's how it had to be. Because even though we worked in the same office during the day I worked with them and night I worked alone during the community relations conflict resolution side.
Heidi Burgess (00:46:34): So you're working 16-hour days?
Thomas Battles (00:46:37): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:46:38): Great.
Thomas Battles (00:46:38): So at nighttime, at night, I worked with the Cuban activist community, trying to get this kid and figure out what is it going take to get this kid? Because at some point in time, there's gonna be an explosion in this town.
Thomas Battles (00:46:52): And then, so in the meantime, the community in Miami was having these big discussions about this issue and this kid, how it's dividing this community. So the black community is saying, this is not our issue. Okay. The Cuban community is saying, hey, where are our friends in the black community. Okay. So that's, so this tension is brewing. Now the drums are beating the black community through the black pastors are saying, we don't have to be over here with you to support you. This is not our issue. And here's their issue through the black pastors, the black pastors were saying this in our community we have a lot of mothers who are unwed with children. In your case, you have a father who wants his kid and you don't want to give him to him. We have a lot of mothers who are taking care of kids and the father is not there. So we say, give him to his daddy. On the other hand, the exile community is saying yes, but he's not going to his daddy. He's going to Fidel. Then the black pastor saying, well, we don't understand that issue, we see a daddy who's saying give me my son.
Thomas Battles (00:48:13): Okay. And then the exile said but he ain't going to his daddy. He's not going to his daddy, he's going to Fidel. The black pastors saying we don't understand that, we see a father saying I want my son and the father saying everybody doesn't hate for them. I work for the government. Everybody doesn't hate for that. I want my son. So that became the issue because every night around 5:30-6 o'clock they prayed outside the house in front of the house where Elián was staying. They formed this big circle, and it was all of these Cuban pastors and leaders. They formed this big circle and there were no black pastors and black leaders there. So that's why the exile community said, where are our black friends? So that's why the tension began to mount because they said, where are our black friends? And the black community said, we can stand with you but we don't have to be over here praying with you.
Heidi Burgess (00:49:10): It doesn't even sound like they were supporting them. However, sounds like they were the other side.
Thomas Battles (00:49:15): Right. And their position was . . . this is not our issue.
Heidi Burgess (00:49:19): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:49:20): Yeah. And that was their position. It's not our issue. So at the point, so INS at some point in time, they came to go get the kid. Ms. Reno called me and said, back off stop negotiating, I did. And then the next morning they came and they got the kid. And so during the course of once they got the kid, come in, did all kind of stuff in Miami, me, you know, they got the cement trucks, they took cement and blocked the tow plazas with cement
Heidi Burgess (00:49:54): So not just with the trucks, they dumped it out.
Thomas Battles (00:49:57): They dumped the cement. Yeah. They dumped the cement and tow plaza. So people couldn't go through the tow plaza. So they got upset. So then the police they tear-gassed because . . . they took elderly Cuban mothers and grandmothers. And you know, in Miami, they have the port of Miami where you have cruise ships . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:50:17): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:50:17): Cruise ships. So they took the elderly mother, 60, 70, 80, 90 years old. And they made them lay down. They put on white dresses, they had them, they call them the mothers in white. And they laid down to the interest of the interest to go the ports of Miami and they laid down in the street, the mothers. So they just blocked the streets.
Heidi Burgess (00:50:38): They know how to make an economic impact.
Thomas Battles (00:50:41): Yeah. So that was what they tried to do to make economic impact. They did . . . I mean, they were serious about one of the things about it they, one of the things about it they, you know, they're very religious people. And one of the things that the religious community told Fidel was that the person that takes over Cuba was going to be a male child that comes by sea. So this myth was that Elián was the kid that was going to take over Cuba one day because he came by sea.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:17): Well, then they would want him to go back.
Thomas Battles (00:51:21): Yeah. Well, they wanted Elián to come back to Cuba.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:26): Yeah. But I thought you were saying that it was the expats who were
Thomas Battles (00:51:31): The exile community didn't want him to come back.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:34): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:51:34): The Cubans in Cuba wanted him to come back home.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:37): Right. So who was saying that the next leader of Cuba was gonna . . .
Thomas Battles (00:51:42): The Cuban religious groups in Cuba
Heidi Burgess (00:51:47): Oh, gotcha.
Thomas Battles (00:51:48): Was telling Fidel that. So they wanted him to come back to Cuba.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:53): So again . . .
Thomas Battles (00:51:53): They wanted him back.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:54): I've got two questions backing up one you sort of answered, I think, but I'm not sure what struck me as interesting is this was set up as a classic zero-sum, win, lose, gain the arguments over, go back or stay here. And there's no way to do it halfway. So, how do you negotiate that?
Thomas Battles (00:52:17): It's difficult because questions who wins in a case like this, the community was really divided on. In fact, there was an edict, "stop talking about this kid in Miami", because it even at work sites, because people took people, took size on this. Even husband and wives had divided in homes on this issue, what to do. But this kid, Ms. Reno and I was there, the grandmothers came to Miami. The two grandmothers came to Miami. The father didn't come to see the, the two grandmothers came to Miami. I was in the house with them. When they came, they met at Sister Jeanne house, which was, she was the president of Barry University and they came to visit Elián on Miami beach. They came to see Elián, they wouldn't allow the father to come because if the father came in, he could have declared that he wanted to be exiled and they could have, then everything would've been solved.
Thomas Battles (00:53:11): So because they offered him a asylum. The two mothers came, they met with Elián at Sister Jeanne's house. She's the president of Barry university, Ms. Reno's best friend. After, in, during that meeting, the exile community was outside protesting and demonstrating during the meeting, it was on Miami beach. At the end of that meeting, the next day Sister Jeanne made an announcement that she felt that Elián should stay in Miami that blew Ms. Reno away. She thought, at least Sister Jeanne would be neutral and not take a side. So that blew Ms. Reno away on that one.
Heidi Burgess (00:54:00): That does seem surprising.
Thomas Battles (00:54:02): Yeah. But, and I guess she took that position because she was the president of university. She needed to think about funds and raising money for her university. I don't know. But she took that position. And Ms. Reno, during my negotiations with the exile, with the community and the activists they said, Tom, we are not going to help you take the kid. We're just not gonna stop you from taking the kid if you come. So Ms. Reno and I was this close, going over to the house to try to get the kid one day. But, but her political handlers and the law enforcement people said no, because they may try to hold you hostage. So we didn't do it. Because remember Ms. Reno was from Miami.
Heidi Burgess (00:54:47): Oh, I didn't know that.
Thomas Battles (00:54:50): Yeah, we both. And they knew her. Remember she was the state attorney in Miami, so she had good credibility in the city. And so did I, but we . . . they decided not to do it. So she's told me stop, stop negotiating. And the next morning they went and got the kid and they picked the kid up, took him to the base Air Force base and then flew him out and matched him up with his dad. There was so much tension in Miami about this husband and wives, were at odds about this thing, some people felt that he should stay, some people felt he should go. Work site enforcement they had to have counseling the United Way offered counseling in work sites to people because there was so much anger and tension about what should happen about this kid. People were crying on sites once he left a lot of protests and demonstrations about this situation. There . . . was just a bad . . . situation in Miami for a while.
Heidi Burgess (00:55:55): So was CRS involved in the protests after the kid left?
Thomas Battles (00:56:00): Yeah, we had, we had demonstration. So because of a lot of Cuban protests, we brought in staff from around the country who spoke the language. Again, that's what I'm saying to this new staff it's the resources you need based on the case, I didn't speak Cuban. I didn't speak Spanish. So we had to bring in the staff from around country who did speak the language . . .
Heidi Burgess (00:56:24): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:56:25): To work with me. In fact, on one occasion, some of the staff got mugged, we were driving through an area and in the area over town and somebody reached in the car and tried to take the keys and we beat him up. Beat him in the road while we were trying to drive. We were just driving through somebody, tried to turn the keys out, a guy put his head through the car. We punched him in the head.
Heidi Burgess (00:56:50): Wow.
Thomas Battles (00:56:50): To get through the area, you know, and we made it through and everybody made it through safe, but that's just, you know, so you gotta be careful where you are in a situation. We made it through that particular day. That was the only situation that I remember where we had that kind of situation while we were on a case.
Heidi Burgess (00:57:17): Do you think that was just a random attack or did that relate to the protest that were going on?
Thomas Battles (00:57:24): No, it was just a random attack. That was just a random attack and we were going through an area driving through actually, we were on our way back to the hotel after our detail.
Heidi Burgess (00:57:33): Wow.
Heidi Burgess (00:57:35): Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:57:37): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:57:37): Yeah, it wasn't related. It wasn't related to the case. It was just, we were on our way back to the hotel after the detail. Again it's a matter of the case. It's a matter of the case. And what resources you need for the case. On Elián we needed a bilingual team . . . in the Cuban Haitian case, we needed a bilingual team. We needed Cubans and Haitians in that case because in the Cuban Haitian case, we eventually picked up a lot of Cubans that came to the sea.
Heidi Burgess (00:58:22): Did you have Cuban and Haitian conciliators?
Thomas Battles (00:58:28): No, but we had some staff that spoke Spanish.
Heidi Burgess (00:58:31): Okay. I would imagine in that region, you need quite a few staff who speak Spanish.
Thomas Battles (00:58:39): Yeah. We actually, actually one of the, one of the Cuban Haitian staff members was Cuban. In fact, she was a political prisoner.
Heidi Burgess (00:58:49): Oh, okay
Thomas Battles (00:58:51): Yeah
Heidi Burgess (00:58:52): That would make it interesting to stay neutral.
Thomas Battles (00:58:55): Absolutely and she was good, she was real good in her work. She was real good in her work.
Heidi Burgess (00:59:05): Going back to the Elián case, how, how did you . . . two questions that may be the same, I'm not sure. How did you end your involvement and how did the protest finally die down?
Thomas Battles (00:59:24): I think that the exile community overplayed their hand, they never thought that they would . . . that the government would come and get the kid. And I kept telling them that eventually they were going have to give the kid up. I negotiated with the family. I was close to I think to an agreement, but every, at every turn there was a new condition. I mean, even the father was offered asylum but they wanted something else. The exile community offered him something and they didn't want do it. It just became a battle of wills at some point in time. When I met with Marisleysis, who was the, the young lady who she felt that she was the new mother to Elián, she just became the new mother to him and she just wasn't going to give him up.
Thomas Battles (01:00:28): You know, when you get attached to a child, a kid, it's hard to say goodbye to them. And that became the issue. And so at that point, I think anything you could do, it was, it was a mood issue, right? Once they got attached. And once you took this kid to Disney world and expose him to that, you can forget it. You can just forget. They took this kid to Disney. Once you expose the kid to that kind of stuff in here in the United States, you forget about it. And I kept saying to them, eventually they going to come and get this kid. In the exile community, I think and they had some powerful Cubans in Miami. Once they kept saying, no, we are not going to give this kid up. And Ms. Reno said you gotta give the kid up.
Thomas Battles (01:01:13): They went to the appellate courts here in Atlanta, and the courts said that the kid had relatives. You gotta give this kid up. There was nothing else anybody could do. And when Ms. Reno told me to back off, stop negotiating with the family. I did. I knew at some point in time, they didn't tell me when they were gonna do it. I knew they were gonna do it. And so Aaron Podhurst was the other lead negotiated attorney. And he called me and said, did you get the call to stop? I said, yes. So he said, then stop. Then that next morning, about four or five o'clock in the morning, they went and got the kid. Not one shot was fired. Not one person had a broken arm or a busted lip. They went and got that kid. Nobody was hurt except their feelings.
Heidi Burgess (01:02:09): Well, what about the protest afterwards with the . . .
Thomas Battles (01:02:12): They kept protesting. They were in the streets protesting. I didn't go in the streets because my life was danger.
Heidi Burgess (01:02:19): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:02:19): They had to move me, they moved me to Miami. Then they moved me to Atlanta because one of the exile leaders got on TV and said, Tom Battles, you're going to your grave.
Heidi Burgess (01:02:31): Whoa. Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:02:33): So they moved me up here to Atlanta. Then the FBI went to him the one who said, Tom, you're going to your grave. And they met with him and said, hey, he's not the law enforcement here. You can't say that to him. And so they apologized to me and we met and they said, Tom, we know you're not the muscle. We know that you didn't have anything to do with going to get the kid we're sorry. And so they sent a word out to the leaders and say, hey, you know, Tom's not the heavy hand on this. He didn't have anything to do with him going to get the kid, leave him alone. And they said, look, it may not be the guy that was on TV doing it, but somebody else may wanna be a martyr to come to Tom, send a message out there, everybody that he's not to be bothered with on this issue.
Thomas Battles (01:03:19): And so they had a meeting and we had a meeting with leaders and I met with the mayor who was the guy who was the lead negotiated for Elián who eventually became the mayor of Miami, who I went to high school with. We were close friends. They didn't know that everybody was being neutral, but he and I were in high school together. Manny Diaz and we were good friends. And they all said, you know, leave him alone. And so they saw me with him and they said, leave him alone. And so we all, you know, smiled about this, you know, went to dinner, you know, and went to some of the Cuban hot spots together. And they, they all said, hey, this guy's okay. And so that, that's how that, that ended that way.
Heidi Burgess (01:04:06): How long were you in Atlanta before you went back?
Thomas Battles (01:04:10): About a month, month and a half, but then while I was back, they put a GSA guard around me for a while I was in the office. Wow. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:04:24): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:04:25): So, yeah, so that was, that's how that worked out for me, but it was . . . that was an interesting case. I wanna talk about a couple other ones though, if you wanna stay on that one, we good.
Heidi Burgess (01:04:39): Let's go to another one.
Thomas Battles (01:04:42): Because we gonna talk about some roadblocks and working with other agencies, the . . . Elián case was the case where you worked with a lot of, with other federal agencies and you didn't have any control, for example, screening Cubans and screening Haitians in. That was all on the state department and INS.
Heidi Burgess (01:05:06): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:05:06): State department controlled who came in and who didn't come in. And sometimes you didn't really like the idea of who didn't come in. Like, for example, like on the ship with the baby. You really wanted that baby. You were pulling for that baby to come forward, but the baby didn't make it. And that was just the politics of that situation. So that was the state department's decision and the state department's decision alone. So you worked with the state department, border patrol, INS. So there three agencies . . . in that case, you worked with the state department, border patrol, INS, Coast Guard, FEMA, military, all of those, the marines, the army. For two years, you worked there and the flag was flown from the various departments because the first general in Guantanamo because the flag that flies is the general that commands the base. So the first flag that flew was a Marine. The second flag that flew was an Air Force general. It's always a general that, that commands the base. And so the first flag that flew was a Marine. The second one was an Air Force general. And that's how it works. And he always parachutes in.
Heidi Burgess (01:06:31): Gotta put on a show.
Thomas Battles (01:06:33): Yeah. That's how, that's, how it works. So working with other federal agencies is interesting . . . in those cases.
Heidi Burgess (01:06:43): Say more.
Thomas Battles (01:06:44): Yeah. Another case that was interesting I think that I talk about with my early years of CRS was in 1987. My first case that I worked against the Ku Klux Klan.
Heidi Burgess (01:06:55): Ah, okay.
Thomas Battles (01:06:57): In 1987, Hosea Williams called the March in Forsyth Cummings Georgia and over 20,000 people marched in a city where no African Americans lived. I remember now I was in Miami, but I was on, I came to Atlanta to work with our team in Miami and Atlanta, African Americans could work in, in Forsyth Cummings, but they couldn't live there. And Hosea Williams, great civil rights leader called attention to that. So he called for the civil rights community to come and march. My boss was Ozell Sutton. A great mentor. You asked me who, who influenced my work. It was Ozell Sutton.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:41): Okay. We interviewed Ozell years ago.
Thomas Battles (01:07:44): Yeah. He was my mentor.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:46): Okay, cool.
Thomas Battles (01:07:48): Ozell met with the governor and said, we need the national guard to be deployed on this case. He said, and the governor said why? He said, because thousands are gonna come to this march. And the Klan is going come to counter-protest . . . and the governor said, why do you think the Klan? And he said, because thousands are gonna come to this small town, about 20,000 people came from around the country. David Duke got arrested in this particular march at this particular event. What was so interesting about this was the Klan came in big numbers, David Duke called for counter-demonstration. What was so interesting in this for me was that I had seen the Klan before. But what was, what was interesting in this case for me was an eye-opener for me. And I knew that I was really working for CRS at the time.
Thomas Battles (01:08:46): I knew I was really in this for the long haul. There was a five or six-year-old kid that was holding a sign as the marchers came, and the sign said, James Earl Ray American hero. And of course, now that was the man that alleged to shot Dr. King. Now, I, I know this kid probably never knew who James Earl Ray was.
Heidi Burgess (01:09:11): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:09:11): But for this kid to be holding this sign, that had to be taught somewhere and be given to him by somebody, whether his parents or somebody else, but for five-year-old. And he was dressed in a Klan uniform with a hood on, and that was striking to me. And that's that said to me, you in this for the long haul Thomas because for a five-year-old kid to be having a Klan uniform on with the hoodie and wearing the sign James Earl Ray American hero, that's teaching hate at an early age.
Thomas Battles (01:09:47): And that really struck a nerve with me because he's hating at an early age. If he's five years old, I don't, I don't know where this kid is today, if he's still alive, but that's teaching him at an early age to hate by the time the front of the line got to the city hall in Forsyth, people were still getting off buses in Cumming, Georgia. They were making a serious statement about African Americas, not being able to live in Georgia. Now that was in 1987. It's a, literally an all African American town now.
Heidi Burgess (01:10:24): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:10:26): So, so you see a change has come to America in a big way. That . . . was a case that I wanted to wanted to point out.
Heidi Burgess (01:10:38): Well, tell me about CRS's role. Did you do anything to try to prevent violence between the Klan and the marchers?
Thomas Battles (01:10:49): Well, the national guard did because they had the Klan had long rifles. And again, this is, it was not my case. It was my case would be a support to the lead conciliator. What happens is when you have marches, you are assigned cases and you're assigned assignments. Bob Ensley was the lead conciliator. When you, when you have a lead conciliator, you do what they tell you to do.
Heidi Burgess (01:11:14): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:11:14): So I was positioned in a local, a location with the radio to be an observer. Okay. And that's how I saw this kid. And that's what struck me so much on this particular case to be an observer, to what I saw to report back. And that's how I knew that where as people were getting off, people were still getting on, as people were, were getting off. And as the front of the line was at city hall, people were still getting off buses. The . . .crowd saturated this small town. And that's how I saw this kid with this sign, James Earl Ray American hero. So sometimes you have a major role as team lead. Sometimes you don't, you'll observe. And you, you report back what you see in the national guard. That's how that's how David Duke got arrested in this case for inciting people and to riot.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:13): And were there riots, or was it . . .
Thomas Battles (01:12:16): There was some violence . . . because they were trying to intimidate, you know, calling people the N word and those kind of stuff, things, and trying to encourage people to, uh, you know, as people were marching and walking by, you know, white hecklers over there on the side and they were getting . . . people were a little afraid of them, uh, rock and bottle throwing. And that's about we were wrestling.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:46): Did the blacks maintain a non-violent approach the way . . .
Thomas Battles (01:12:51): Yes.
Thomas Battles (01:12:53): Yes.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:55): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:12:56): Yes. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:57): So did anything come of that march? Were any policy changes made?
Thomas Battles (01:13:03): Yes. Yeah. Yes. As I said, the city council eventually voted to allow African Americans to live in the city. You know, they they can work there. They can even eat in the restaurant, but they just couldn't live there.
Heidi Burgess (01:13:20): Huh.
Thomas Battles (01:13:21): And so they, that, that was changed. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:13:27): Okay. So you, I think said that there was another one you wanted to talk about.
Thomas Battles (01:13:36): So, there was another case that was another high profile case. Mandela came to Miami. That generated lot of tension in Miami.
Heidi Burgess (01:13:50): Why?
Thomas Battles (01:13:51): Well the labor union brought Mandela to Miami . . .
Heidi Burgess (01:14:01): I would think everybody would welcome him with open arms.
Thomas Battles (01:14:06): Yeah. You would think that, you would think that.
Heidi Burgess (01:14:13): But
Thomas Battles (01:14:14): But the labor union brought Mandela to Miami on his . . . he was doing a tour of the country to thank people for supporting him in apartheid and the African Americans on the city council on the county commission, passed the resolution to thank him. The . . . county commission voted to support it, but Mandela made a statement to thank Castro for throwing him a life raft when he was struggling.
Heidi Burgess (01:14:57): Oh.
Thomas Battles (01:14:57): Though Cubans on the county commission withdrew the resolution.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:04): Oh, okay.
Thomas Battles (01:15:08): And that generated all kinds of tension in Miami.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:13): I bet.
Thomas Battles (01:15:14): Yeah. So because of that, the Cuban community would not give and support giving Mandela the resolution that led to an economic boycott in Miami.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:29): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:15:32): Now, here it is Nelson Mandela
Heidi Burgess (01:15:34): Who is boycotting whom?
Thomas Battles (01:15:37): The Cuban boycott, the African American boycotted Mandela.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:43): The African-Americans did?
Thomas Battles (01:15:45): African-American boycotted in Dade County.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:49): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:15:50): Blacks boycotted in Miami and they called for a national boycott out of Miami, a national boycott of Miami.
Heidi Burgess (01:15:58): Because the Cubans wouldn't support Mandela?
Thomas Battles (01:16:01): Because Cubans won't support Mandela and give the resolution to welcome him to Miami.
Heidi Burgess (01:16:05): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:16:07): That boycott lasted over a year.
Thomas Battles (01:16:08): Wow. And that, that impacted the economy. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:16:17): But after Mandela came, there was nothing that they could do to change that
Thomas Battles (01:16:23): They wouldn't . . . withdraw the . . . resolution. I mean, they wouldn't give the resolution until Mandela came.
Heidi Burgess (01:16:30): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:16:30): But they still wouldn't welcome him. So he came anyway. So here's the other issue, because the labor union had their conference on Miami beach, they didn't have enough tickets to give to the black leaders. So they made this statement. We'll let you, we'll let you come to the convention, but we won't let you be in the audience. We'll let you see him on the screen somewhere.
Heidi Burgess (01:17:03): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:17:04): So black community got mad and the leaders got mad about that. They said it's like inviting us to the kitchen, but not letting us eat. So they said, hey, no, we are not gonna do that. So I ended up negotiating along with my boss Ozell because it was with Bill Lucy, Bill Lucy was the leader of all of this.
Thomas Battles (01:17:24): Bill Lucy is a prominent head of the labor movement. And Bill said, why didn't you tell I was negotiating by myself. And I was a little young whipper snapper, if you will. But Ozell was a, you know, my boss Ozell knows everybody. And . . . they were very good friends. Bill Lucy and Ozell and they were very involved with, they were very involved with NAACP. Now I was a member of the NAACP, but I wasn't a national member of the NAACP board like Ozell was, and Bill was, but I brought Ozell to the negotiation and Bill once he saw Ozell, they hugged and said, why didn't you tell me you worked for Ozell. And I said, you didn't ask me. And then Ozell said, Bill, we gotta fix this. He said yes sir. Ozell. He said, now, what is this about, man?
Thomas Battles (01:18:20): You won't let these people see Mandela. He said, what do you want me to do? Ozell? We need to let these people see Mandela. He said, all right. Wow. He said, why didn't you tell me you work for Ozell? So that's all it took.
Heidi Burgess (01:18:34): That's funny.
Thomas Battles (01:18:35): So he . . . gave the black leaders a seat at the convention and he invited them to the reception that he had for Mandela. So that was fixed, but boycott continued. So the economic boycott lasted, and let me tell you what eventually happened. The black community got a hotel out of this boycott on Miami beach. It was the first hotel owned by African American in the history of Miami beach. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:19:07): And how did that come to pass?
Thomas Battles (01:19:10): Well, they negotiated and they got a hotel on my, the Royal Palm hotel was on Miami beach. Yep. Yep.
Heidi Burgess (01:19:21): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:19:22): So they build a hotel by an African American and he owned it and people, it was a success story. We negotiated that and that ended up happening. And the good thing about it over the span of this boycott, the white power structure tried to break the boycott by singing out. So, so if I'm a white power, I would talk to Heidi Burgess and say Heidi, now you know we need to end this boycott it's affecting the economy. Heidi would say, hey, I'm not the leader. You know, we try to separate Heidi and try to talk to Heidi to get Heidi, to shut it down. But Heidi said, hey, I'm not the leader. Don't talk to me. And then they would go to somebody else, maybe talk to one of the leading preachers and say, hey, look, Tom, you know, you need to talk to the guys and see if you can get this over with, you know, what do you want? What do you want Tom to end the boycott? Heidi? What do you want the end the boycott Heidi would say I'm not the leader.
Heidi Burgess (01:20:27): Was there a leader?
Thomas Battles (01:20:30): Yes. But everybody had made a commitment. Together we stand and divided we fall.
Heidi Burgess (01:20:35): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:20:37): And HT Smith and the group, they said, we, we hell no we won't go. We are gonna do this until they get it. Right.
Heidi Burgess (01:20:50): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:20:51): So they apologized to Mandela, they got the hotel, they got some scholarship for some kids to go to college and hotel and restaurant management, they got several things. They put some money on the table for the community to do some economic development stuff. They did a lot of stuff related to that.
Heidi Burgess (01:21:13): And that's what finally ended the boycott.
Thomas Battles (01:21:17): Yes.
Heidi Burgess (01:21:17): Okay. So it was done by negotiation. It wasn't just that folks tired out.
Thomas Battles (01:21:22): Yeah, it was done by negotiations.
Heidi Burgess (01:21:23): Okay, great. Were you involved with those negotiations?
Thomas Battles (01:21:29): I was there I was involved with some of the protesting related to it. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:21:35): All right. That's interesting. One of the distinctions that a lot of the folks made that we interviewed early on Bob Ensley and Ozell Sutton being two of them, is they made a distinction between street processes and table oriented processes.
Thomas Battles (01:21:59): Mm-hmm
Heidi Burgess (01:22:00): And you sort of seem to be blending the two together. Like they happen at the same time over the same issue. Was that commonly the case that you were, that there would be protests in the street and negotiations going on at the same time?
Thomas Battles (01:22:19): Yes. It, For example, if you agreed to something beforehand and you may have to alter it while it's going on to ensure that everything goes well. So if you decide that this, you gotta go down a main street, but a handful of you decide they wanna turn down another street to make a statement, but it's not going to really hurt the protest. And you said, if they turn down this street, we're going to arrest them and I'm gonna talk to the Lieutenant, say, look, now they turned on this street, how much damage is it gonna do if they turned on this street, can we put a special unit ahead of, and let them do it, and then put a bike unit down ahead of them and turn them back and reconnect with the main group? How much damage is that gonna do? Let's do it and make sure that we can get them back and keep this going and make sure as long as they end this march by five o'clock we good before the rush hour comes.
Heidi Burgess (01:23:39): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:23:40): That's the kind of thing we, we're talking about because we've already met with, with them and say, look long as you done by five. And then they may decide to sit down in the middle of the street by five. And you said, now I anticipate this group may try to sit down traffic at five o'clock and you've already got an alternate route for the traffic at five o'clock because you've already figured they're gonna do that to try to impact the economy and set down traffic. So you've already got an alternate route for the five o'clock traffic because you figure that's what they going do.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:14): Yeah. So how often were you doing that sort of mid-protest negotiation? Is that common?
Thomas Battles (01:24:26): That happens a lot.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:26): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:24:28): Yeah, that happens a lot.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:30): So what, when, when you were dealing with these protests, the Cuban protests, the black protests, what were the major problems that you had to deal with?
Thomas Battles (01:24:44): Sometimes language sometimes people not wanting to, sometimes people want to get arrested and sometimes you wanna . . . you negotiate with them to up to as much as you can. And then sometimes they wanna get arrested. You know, sometimes they preposition themselves to get arrested and there's nothing you can do about that. You just say, okay, this is on you. There are protests when that's already been established and they got their lawyers. But if you can avoid it, like, for example, during the Trayvon Martin case, Dream Defenders tried to get arrested. And we made a clear agreement with the police department do not arrest these kids. The worst thing we think you can do is arrest these kids because you didn't arrest Zimmerman. If you arrest these kids, you've shown that you could have arrested Zimmerman and you didn't do it.
Thomas Battles (01:25:52): That's the worst thing you could do was arrest these kids, you proved their point by arresting them and the mayor and the city manager made it clear, do not arrest these kids. They tried to shut down the police department during . . . the protest. They blocked the entrance of the police department during the march and protest during the Trayvon Martin. And we negotiated with them. They shut down the police department. We negotiated with them and what they tried to do is get arrested and . . .
Heidi Burgess (01:26:24): Wait a second, you were negotiating with the protestors or with the police?
Thomas Battles (01:26:28): With the protesters.
Heidi Burgess (01:26:30): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:26:31): Because they had shut down the police department one day and we negotiated, they eventually got up and we went inside and started negotiating a nine point plan with them and they eventually got up and . . . from the front of the door and we went inside, they wanted to get arrested. And the city manager and I made it made a clear agreement that these police, that these kids would not get arrested that day because they wanted to prove that if they got arrested, they could have arrested George Zimmerman that that's what they wanted to do.
Heidi Burgess (01:27:11): Okay. So you said they went inside and then you mentioned a nine point plan. What was that about?
Thomas Battles (01:27:17): So we sat down and we said, okay, what what's on your mind? What do you want? And so we started negotiating what they want and they told us what they wanted. And we talked it through, they were recording what they wanted. In fact, that day they, they, Instagram what they wanted all over the country that day, we thought it was a private meeting and they were Instagraming what they wanted all over the country. Yeah. We thought it was a confidential conversation and they were texting it all over the country, what they wanted.
Heidi Burgess (01:27:56): Wow. So what did they want?
Thomas Battles (01:28:00): They wanted the legislature to repeal stand-your-ground because that was part of the issue related to what they thought was, was the shooting justification for Zimmerman to shoot Trayvon Martin. Stand-your-ground law. They wanted a police officer once he shoots somebody, not to be able to go to another police department, once he get convicted. Once he shoots somebody, they want his license to be not to be eligible, but to get his license, to go to another police department. They wanted a meeting with the Florida department of law enforcement. They wanted a meeting with the legislature, the criminal justice committee. They wanted CRS to facilitate a meeting with the legislature for them they wanted several other things that just don't, I don't don't remember all nine of the issues right now, but it was about nine issues that they wanted.
Heidi Burgess (01:29:13): Now. Some of them, obviously they couldn't get right away, like changing the laws, if that was gonna happen, it was gonna be a slow process. How . . .
Thomas Battles (01:29:22): But we did get that meeting . . . we did get that meeting with the legislature and . . . the panel from the Florida department of law enforcement did meet with them. We did have the meeting, they wanted the governor to call a special session of the legislature. They eventually held a sit-in, in the governor's office for several days, almost a week because they wanted to governor to hold a special session of the legislature as part of this saga. And we ended up going up there, I along with one of my colleagues to help end the sit-in. The sit-in lasted two, almost two, three weeks. People were bringing them food because they had a sit-in and they were bringing them food in because they sat in the governor's office and they wouldn't give up the governor's office.
Heidi Burgess (01:30:26): And how did that eventually get resolved?
Thomas Battles (01:30:29): I negotiated with them along with my colleagues. We agreed, the governor agreed to have a meeting. The legislature agreed to meet with them on the stand-your-ground issue. They didn't make any promises to them, but they agreed to have a meeting about it.
Heidi Burgess (01:30:49): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:30:50): So we set the meeting up and several key legislators agreed to sponsors amendments to the stand-your-ground law, but they didn't make any promises that it would be changed.
Heidi Burgess (01:31:03): I vaguely remember it was changed. Am I wrong?
Thomas Battles (01:31:08): Yeah. Some, some changes were made to it, but I don't know for all the changes that they wanted in it, but some were changed in it.
Heidi Burgess (01:31:18): And remind me when this was? My image is it was about 10 years ago.
Thomas Battles (01:31:23): Yeah. This was the Trayvon Martin case. You know, Trayvon was shot in [2012]. So during that period of time [2012-2013].
Heidi Burgess (01:31:37): My memory is, it was the first high . . . I mean there was Rodney King years ago, but it was the first high-profile, wasn't a police shooting, it was a citizen shooting, but it was the first high-profile shooting of a black by a white. And then we got all of the ones since that. I mean, there's been tons where probably some yesterday that I don't know about, but we had the one in May of 2020. I'm forgetting the guy's name now. It's terrible. George Floyd. But it seems like there was just an escalating series of shootings and protests and tensions and then somehow, or other with George Floyd it just exploded in an order of magnitude, much greater than had happened before.
Thomas Battles (01:32:45): Yeah. Well, you know, you had Breonna Taylor, right? George Floyd. Yeah. Nobody
Heidi Burgess (01:32:51): Really paid that much attention to Taylor. I don't think until George Floyd and then people started all of a sudden paying attention. And one of the things I've been really curious about is what was it about that incident that motivated people all over the whole world to protest where these earlier ones didn't. My hypothesis was while we had social media, at that point, we had cell phones and social media and everybody saw it, but everybody saw Rodney King too. Maybe not.
Thomas Battles (01:33:30): Right.
Heidi Burgess (01:33:30): We didn't have cell phones.
Thomas Battles (01:33:30): Right.
Heidi Burgess (01:33:31): We didn't have cell phones in the era of Rodney King, but that was filmed and you got to see it. So I'm kind of curious about what it was that suddenly, I mean, black lives lives matter had been in existence for what five or 10 years but suddenly with George Floyd, it, the dam broke. And I find that interesting.
Thomas Battles (01:34:05): Well, I remember you had Michael Brown, which was Ferguson. Yeah. Ferguson, right? Ferguson. That was in 2014. Yeah. That was in 2014 after Trayvon, but they had hands up don't shoot.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:19): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:34:20): You know, but that all really started with, um, Trayvon in 2013-2014.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:29): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:34:30): But, you know, Trayvon was the hoodie and black lives matters, all of that really started Trayvon and then Michael Brown and it picked up with Michael Brown.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:40): So did black lives matter start with Trayvon?
Thomas Battles (01:34:46): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:47): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:34:49): And it all started during that era and it . . . all started and keep in mind when Trayvon was killed, he was killed and nobody really knew for weeks before. I mean, his parents knew he was dead, but the media didn't pick it up until some weeks later really because he was from Miami, but he was killed in Sanford. He was killed in Sanford, but he was sent to Sanford because he was suspended at school and he was sent to Sanford to be with his dad.
Heidi Burgess (01:35:33): Now where is Sanford in comparison to Miami?
Thomas Battles (01:35:35): Right outside of Orlando, just right outside of Orlando.
Thomas Battles (01:35:40): Yeah. And so that, and so when we were doing our work, we were looking at multiple cities and that's another, another point for a conciliator it's not necessary just when you're looking to deal with high profile cases is not just the main city you're looking at. You're looking at multiple cities in this case that could explode on a high profile case. Let's say like Trayvon Martin, we had multiple cities that we were dealing with. So when you have high profile cases like that you have to communicate with your colleagues around the country to keep them abreast of what's going on because the other cities are just as important as the primary city. So we were dealing with Sanford, but we were also engaged in Miami because that's where Trayvon was from. And Miami could explode in any minute over an issue.
Thomas Battles (01:36:48): So we were dealing with leaders in Miami, keeping them abreast of what was going on. So like for example, when the trial took place, we brought in leaders from Miami to Sanford to help communicate with the pastors and leaders in Sanford about what was going on in the trial to help them deal with the tension that was going on, both in Sanford and in Miami, as we prepared for the trial before and after the trial to keep tension down. We were dealing with our colleagues. We were dealing, talking to the leaders in New York. We were talking to leaders in California. We were talking leaders in Chicago. We were talking leaders in Jacksonville, in tension points where, where we thought flash points we thought were rioting could potentially take place. So we were interacting with all of those different locations. Uh, yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:37:44): When you say we, do you mean your office or was it CRS people in LA who were working with leaders in LA?
Thomas Battles (01:37:55): Yes. CRS and . . . we were interacting with each other.
Heidi Burgess (01:37:59): Okay. So remind me, I don't was George Zimmerman finally, um, convicted or not?
Thomas Battles (01:38:09): No, he was acquitted.
Heidi Burgess (01:38:10): Oh, okay. So that's why . . .
Thomas Battles (01:38:12): And that's why we, that's why we were interacting with each other, uh, in preparation for a not guilty verdict. Yeah. You know, we were looking at both scenarios. What if he was acquitted and what was he convicted if he was convicted? And so he was found not guilty. And so we were worried about street reactions and in Sanford not one rock was thrown.
Heidi Burgess (01:38:36): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:38:38): We had three major marches and protests before the trial and you know, and then of course, as I told you to sit-in and the protests and those kind of things.
Heidi Burgess (01:38:49): So how did you avoid violence afterwards? It seems like that would've been very likely.
Thomas Battles (01:38:55): That's a good question. We met with, we met with kids and young people that we thought that might go to the streets and we said, look, no matter what, you know, you can't react that way because they will go to jail in this case. That's not, that's not what we want you to do in this case. We need you to show, show some restraint . . . in this case. And you know, we had pastors and leaders and people who'd been working with these young people all throughout this trial. And that's one of the reasons why we had pastors and leaders in the courtroom. We had pastors in the courtroom to go back and tell the community what was happening in the courtroom. When there were emotional testimonies, we had pastors that comfort the families. We had pastors, that comfort, Trayvon's mom and his daddy, when they show pictures of Trayvon on the ground, even with Zimmerman's family, we had pastors to comfort them during emotional testimony. So we were trying to be neutral. We weren't taking sides. We had that kind of . . . testimony we had that kind of work that we were doing throughout the entire trial.
Heidi Burgess (01:40:11): Did you find it hard to be neutral? I mean, it seems in that case, so black and white to me that Zimmerman should have been convicted. Now. I don't know about the stand my ground law in Florida. Obviously that law probably was the problem there. And he was probably, I mean, the jury was probably correct that he was within the letter of the law, but, uh, ignoring that just general gut, it seems very unjust. And I wonder if that's something when, when you're dealing with something that really seems pretty black and white, maybe different case, is it hard to maintain the neutrality or that's just yours the way you do it?
Thomas Battles (01:41:01): It is, it is. But you have to, you have to, um, I was accused in Trayvon Martin of not being neutral. Someone said that I made a statement that I didn't and you know how Washington and sometime they will throw you under the bus in a minute for making a statement and that I didn't make. It took my secretary to hear a recording one time and said that's not Mr. Battles. It was actually one of the dream defenders who made the statement. But my secretary said that's not Mr. Battles voice. He doesn't use terms like that because somebody in Washington accused me of making a statement. It was a statement that wasn't a neutral statement, but it, and it wasn't me. But yeah, it's hard, but yet it's not because as a veteran and as a regional director, I know the parameters by which we can do what we do.
Thomas Battles (01:42:00): And I've been out here long enough to know the lane that we live in as an agency. And I know what we can and can't do, and you just have to live within that lane. And, you know, and . . . that's just the work that we do. And Ozell has taught me long enough to know that this little old agency is an important agency and we've been around long enough offering the services that we offer to people. And we just have to live in that lane and that's it. And we can be effective. We just have to live in the lane that we were created to live in.
Heidi Burgess (01:42:40): All right, good.
Thomas Battles (01:42:41): And he, and he taught me that well, and I'm comfortable there. They give us more power and authority. Then we live in that lane. But until they do, we just have to be who we are.
Heidi Burgess (01:42:53): Um, would you want more power and authority? It seems to me like part of the authority that CRS has is that you are not an enforcement agency. So you don't pose the threat that, say the civil justice arm of the justice department poses.
Thomas Battles (01:43:18): I don't know because I never had it. So I don't know if I can miss what I never had.
Heidi Burgess (01:43:22): Okay. Good point.
Thomas Battles (01:43:24): Yeah. I don't know.
Heidi Burgess (01:43:26): This runs up against the notion of trust, which is one of the things that we've talked a lot about. I might jump there and talk a little bit about that, and then we can call it for today, but how do you build trust with the people you're working with?
Thomas Battles (01:43:46): Be consistent with them and be consistent them and don't leave them and communicate with them. Tell them what you can do and tell them what you can't do. And . . . again, live in that lane and who you are. I communicate with people and, and I don't make promises that I can't keep, if I tell them I will call them, I call them and I, and I don't offer promises. We have the bully pulpit of being a member department of justice and I try to build relationships and building relationship goes a long way. And if we can do something for a community, we do it. And if we can't, we tell them we can't. One of the, one of the beauties of CRS is that we do have partners that we can go to in the community of federal agencies. I think that's a good thing that we, that, that we have there and that's what I like. One of the problems we have is that there are a lot of our federal partners. It's been my experience. They're afraid to go into communities, to interact with communities.
Thomas Battles (01:45:18): And I think that's changing, but I have seen US attorneys that don't like to go out in the community or don't want community to come to them because sometimes they, so we can't make a promise. I'm not asking you to make a promise. Sometimes people don't even know who, what a, US attorney's office is. And say, well, you know, you have a US attorney office here. What is that? You don't even know what a US attorney, but for CRS, introducing a us attorney to a community, they don't even know what that is.
Heidi Burgess (01:45:50): I have to admit I'm not sure I know what it is, tell me what it is.
Thomas Battles (01:45:54): The US attorney is the highest-ranking law enforcement agency, federal law enforcement agency in the country.
Thomas Battles (01:46:00): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:46:00): In a community. Are you there?
Heidi Burgess (01:46:03): So yeah, I'm here.
Thomas Battles (01:46:08): Are you there?
Heidi Burgess (01:46:09): Yeah. You can't hear me?
Thomas Battles (01:46:10): Yeah. So they prosecute they . . .
Heidi Burgess (01:46:13): So the attorney general . . .
Thomas Battles (01:46:14): They are your . . . federal law enforcement agency that prosecute you for violating federal law.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:20): Okay. So the attorney general is the top of . . .
Thomas Battles (01:46:24): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:24): Okay
Thomas Battles (01:46:26): Yeah. The us attorney, the, the attorney federal attorney general.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:29): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:46:30): So I mentioned when I mentioned Janet Renos.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:31): Right, right.
Thomas Battles (01:46:32): She was the attorney general. Yeah. So . . . in each state, so in, in Georgia, we have three districts, federal districts. So we have three federal US attorneys in the state of Georgia.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:48): Got okay. And they work under the attorney general?
Thomas Battles (01:46:52): They work under the attorney general, right. Und the US attorney general and then they got . . . they prosecute you for violating federal law.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:01): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:47:02): So if somebody violates you federal civil rights, they'll prosecute you. So they're the ones who prosecuted Ahmaud Arbery. They're the ones who prosecuted George Floyd.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:17): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:47:18): Okay. All right. But they're not the ones who prosecuted George Zimmerman. The state prosecuted George Zimmerman for shooting Trayvon Martin.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:32): And what's the distinction there? Why was one state and one federal?
Thomas Battles (01:47:38): One is state. One is federal. That's the difference.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:40): Yeah. But why?
Thomas Battles (01:47:41): So, so because one can, one can prosecute you for violating your federal civil rights and one can prosecute for violating state law.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:49): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:47:51): Okay. Okay. So, so one can violate prosecute for your, for your state, your, your hate crimes, and the one can violate you for state state law. So, um, in Ahmaud Arbery that was a state violation. Okay. Now you can also charge with a federal law, like they may do and, and get them for state and federal violations. So they can get it for both. Okay.
Heidi Burgess (01:48:23): I was thinking about asking what determines whether it's state or whether it's federal and realizing that's way out your realm of decision.
Thomas Battles (01:48:31): No, that depends. They can get for both. And you can get them for violating for federal civil rights and state. Okay. Like for example, Dylann Roof and the people in South Carolina, sometimes you may not have a federal statute okay. That you can prosecute him on, like for the guy Dylann Roof who killed the people at Mother Emmanuel's church in South Carolina. So there's a federal, there's a state statute that they can get him on for murder.
Heidi Burgess (01:48:57): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:48:58): There's not a state, there's not a federal statute for hate crime in South Carolina. So they convicted him on state statute and he can get a death penalty sentence. Okay. Not a, not a hate crime statute, unless they one. So, but in, but in Georgia, they just passed a hate crimes statute. So now you can get convicted on the states on, on the federal statues, also in Georgia now.
Heidi Burgess (01:49:24): All right.
Thomas Battles (01:49:26): That's the difference.
Heidi Burgess (01:49:28): Well, I think maybe this is a good stopping point.
Thomas Battles (01:49:33): okay.
Heidi Burgess (01:49:34): We'll hope that we can meet again, because I still have a bunch of questions to ask, but I don't wanna get you too tired out.
Thomas Battles (01:49:44): All right. We'll pick it up when you're ready to
Heidi Burgess (01:49:45): It again. All right. Well thank you very for taking the time. This has really been fascinating and okay. I, uh, hope things go well for you and we will talk soon.
Thomas Battles (01:49:58): Okay. Thank
Heidi Burgess (01:49:59): You Heidi. Alrighty, thanks.
Thomas Battles (01:50:01): Have a, have a good day
Heidi Burgess (01:50:02): You too. Bye. Bye.
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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