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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 2.
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https://youtu.be/OiNlhubZPwg
Heidi Burgess (00:00:00): All right. Hi, again, this is Heidi Burgess and I am here today with Tom Battles, who is a former regional director of the Southeast region of the Community Relations Service. I talked to Tom a few weeks ago and we're following up our conversation today with a lot more discussion about his work and the challenges that that entailed. Tom I'd like to go back and talk a little bit more and I was asking you when we got interrupted, if you think about the cases where you were the primary person with CRS, would you say that most of those were table oriented mediations or street oriented cases like dealing with protests or street violence or that kind of thing?
Thomas Battles (00:01:10): They were street on the spot mediations. I have done some table mediations, but most of those were on the spot mediations negotiating on the scene to address the situation.
Heidi Burgess (00:01:25): Okay let me go through some more detailed questions about that sort of thing that we didn't cover last time. One was, one is, with these sorts of situations, would you say that you can make a general statement about what your goals of this sort of activity were, or did it change from case to case?
Thomas Battles (00:01:54): The ... goal is to one to try to avoid violence and conflict and ... help the ... both parties accomplish what their original vision and goal was for the event. So if it was a, if it was a March or protest to get the parties from A to B to the conclusion and in the law enforcement perspective, to ensure that the organizers accomplish their mission without any interruptions and to ensure public safety.
Heidi Burgess (00:02:27): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:02:28): So our goal is to help facilitate to ensure that that takes place, and if we could mediate the ... between the parties to ensure that take place. So if there's disruption and the ... and their trouble makers that, you know, want to divert the parties to go in a different direction that wasn't planned, and the police is about to take some action because in their minds this disruption could affect commerce, disruption could affect traffic, disruption could affect the goals of what the organization who hosted this event plan, then it could lead to arrest. It could lead to perhaps rock and bottle throwing and something that wasn't a call for that the police would be ready for, but they didn't want to use in, you know, in the midst of that event.
Heidi Burgess (00:03:28): Okay. Did you get involved with the parties before the event took place to help them plan what they were gonna do and how they were gonna do it? Or did you not get involved until the actual event?
Thomas Battles (00:03:46): Sometimes. Oh, yes, absolutely. We try to have a pre-meeting long before the event takes place with the organizers and develop what we call contingency plans to understand what the event, the purpose and the goal. Sometimes we have self marshal training. In other words, if let's say if it was a march and the organizers had their own marshals, we did training on how do you manage your own event to ensure that they knew what their purpose was. And they would help manage their own event. And then also we would meet with the police department to say, look, this is what this organization, this meeting is, this event is about. It's not the, not an event where they expect any violence, but of course the police have also met with them and they've done an assessment of a threat assessment and the ... organizers wanna know, is there any dangers that we need to be concerned about with our event?
Thomas Battles (00:04:54): And of course, if there are some concerns, the police would make an assessment on, you know, how much information do they tell them about this event? Of course, it's First Amendment. You can't keep it from 'em, but they certainly need to let 'em know. Well, you know, there are some hate groups that, that oppose your kind of free speech. And so you, you need to be careful about this, for example, when I mentioned to you earlier about the Forsyth, the Cummings event, and David Duke got arrested at that event. And I mentioned to you, and I mentioned to you that the National Guard was there and David Duke got arrested at that event. So, you know, the threat level was higher at that event when hate groups were around. So sometimes the threat level is higher than other events and marches and protests. And so, the intelligence community would do a threat assessment to make, make a determination of what level of threat this march or in demonstration would ... pose to this particular event, whether it's NAACP or Urban League, or some other other group or union group that's having, having that event in a community.
Heidi Burgess (00:06:08): If you ...
Thomas Battles (00:06:08): So we would meet
Heidi Burgess (00:06:10): Go ahead.
Thomas Battles (00:06:11): So, so we would meet and ... we would let them know who we are. We would let meet with the law enforcement. We let them know who we are that we would be there, and that we were not with, let's say the organizer we were with, we are there to help facilitate them to ensure that we did marshal training, and we showed them our identification. We let 'em know how many people were there. And that we were there to help facilitate the situ the event. We did self marshal training, the IDs that the marshal would have, you know, what color their shirts were. For example, the people that had a different color shirt, those were marshals and their goal is to help move the crowd, manage the crowd source of information. If there were ... how many people will be in cars, how many cars they will have in the event, and who were the leaders and where were the leaders would be positioned in the event. You know, and if there were any celebrities that were there, we'd let 'em know who those celebrities were. If any of those celebrities had private security, if any of those private securities were armed, they would let 'em know who they were and if they had a license to carry a gun, all those kind of things, we would let let the law enforcement know, and the law enforcement would meet with those people in advance of the event.
Heidi Burgess (00:07:33): And did you have any say on whether folks did carry guns? I'm surprised to hear you say, bringing up the notion of guns, are people typically carrying guns in these events?
Thomas Battles (00:07:49): Oh, no. We don't have any say in that, but we, but in, during the course of ... our facilitating meetings with the, with the organizers, we would ask them, do you have any celebrities coming? Do they have armed security? And if they do, they need to let the law enforcement people know that you have celebrities and they have private securities with them. And then that, that's how that works.
Heidi Burgess (00:08:13): Okay. So let's say the march goes off fairly smoothly. What is the CRS role as the marches happening?
Thomas Battles (00:08:25): So then we do ...
Heidi Burgess (00:08:27): ... of what's going on ...
Thomas Battles (00:08:30): So we would meet with the police and then we'd do an after action. How did it go? So we would have a point of contact. They would assign someone to us to be as a be liaison. We would have radios and they would have a radio. And we would communicate with that person during the course of the march. So we would know from a standpoint, from a law enforcement perspective, they believe that the march is going well. And we would say to the organizers, and we would have a radio and point of contact with the march organizers. They believe that the march is going well, and we would be observing. And we would assign people at the front of the march, the middle of the march and at the back of the march. So we would know what's going on in the back of the march, the middle of the march and the front of the march.
Thomas Battles (00:09:14): Oftentimes I would be with the leaders because if I'm with the leaders, I can make a determination of what to do. If there's a problem, then I would relay that to the, I would relay that to, to everybody in the back about what's going on. And then I can also relay that to the police if there, if there were trouble makers that we see in the front that may be heckling. And I would relay that to the, to the back of the march and the middle of the march to my team. And I can also relay that to my liaison with law enforcement, that they're people that trying to get into the march that are not part of the organizers that's trying to get in to be troublemakers. And they can relay that. Because often time there are plain clothes police officers inside the march to as ... observers and to ensure that the march continues to go well and many of us don't know who they are. Sometimes we do, we go roll call and we know who they are, but we don't, you don't blow their cover.
Heidi Burgess (00:10:21): Right. Okay. Yeah. So if you get trouble makers in the march, or violence in the march, is that a police problem, or does CRS get involved actively in and try to calm things down and stop the violence?
Thomas Battles (00:10:40): The marshals, the marshals of the organization will say to the marchers, keep marching. The marshals themselves would try to intervene to keep the march moving and address the situation. If it look like it's a violent situation, they would isolate the trouble. The law enforcement people would handle it and the march would keep moving.
Heidi Burgess (00:11:05): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:11:06): Yeah. If it becomes a law enforcement action, the law enforcement people would handle it and then you keep moving.
Heidi Burgess (00:11:12): Okay. Do, if you know that hate groups like KKK or something are going to be on the outskirts, do you ever talk to them beforehand, deal with them beforehand, try to get an assessment of what they're planning or try to influence what they're planning.
Thomas Battles (00:11:32): It depends on who the case is. If it's one of my staff persons, we have had staff to meet with their leader to get an understanding who they, who they are and what their mission is. Let's say if they come to town in, in the center of ... city hall, and if they're planning on meeting, we may ... make a phone call to them and say, look, you come into city hall. What time are you coming, how many are you bringing with you, and what's your goal? And we've had those kind of conversations before. Yes. And sometimes, and ... sometimes then we'll meet with, let's say NAACP and community groups, church leaders, and say, look, they're coming in town. Sometimes the city leaders would say, look, we'd like for you not to come to counter-demonstrate, but if you come, uh, we'd like for it to be peaceful.
Thomas Battles (00:12:20): So the law enforcement then would, and of course in the intelligence unit would, would meet with them to determine how many they're bringing in and their discuss. What's the best plan for the city. So they'll barricade, 'em up in a, you know, in a place so that nobody can get to them and they'll stand on the ... city hall steps and with a microphone. And they'll, they'll spew their hate and say, whatever they're gonna say. And sometimes the community will come out and will and counter-demonstrate, counter their protests, but they'll barricade people in and, you know, interlocking, barricades and keep 'em from getting to each other. Most times they keep 'em from getting to each other. Then other times they let 'em stare each other straight in the face, but it's best to try to keep 'em from getting to each other.
Heidi Burgess (00:13:13): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (00:13:14): Yeah. So a situation like if I can say this, a situation like Charlottesville that happened a couple years, a few years ago,
Heidi Burgess (00:13:22): Right I was thinking about that as you were talking.
Thomas Battles (00:13:25): Was, was probably worse kind of planning.
Heidi Burgess (00:13:29): Do you know ...
Thomas Battles (00:13:30): Because they just got ...
Heidi Burgess (00:13:32): Did CRS get involved at all before that event? Do you know?
Thomas Battles (00:13:37): Yeah. But it was not a ... major role in it. And ... the chief had her hands full in that case, Chief Brackney. And that was a real tough case and so we didn't have a lot to do with that one in Charlottesville. And that went pretty bad. And the question, you know, someone got killed and they ran over this young lady in Charlottesville. But one of the things that ... I've been wanting to say, I don't know if I would put conciliators now in the streets with those hate kind of situations now, as I would ... as I was, and others were back in the day when I was with CRS, it's a different time now ... and the country is just in a different hate, violent kind of mode.
Thomas Battles (00:14:38): And I don't know if I would put conciliators in, in that kind of situation as I once was even in riots situation. And I'm, I'm one of the few that have been in, in serious riotous kinds of situations at CRS. I've been in a lot of riots over my time at CRS. I don't know if I would put conciliators in there. I mean, you just look at the young man that just got acquitted from shooting the people in ... I forgot his name. His name has skipped me know. He just, he just got acquitted. And ... he's walking the streets with his AR-15 and shot a couple of people.
Heidi Burgess (00:15:23): Oh, Kyle.
Thomas Battles (00:15:25): Yeah Kyle.
Heidi Burgess (00:15:26): Kyle Rittenhouse
Thomas Battles (00:15:30): Right. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if I would put CRS staff in those kind of riot situations. I don't know if I put staff in the same kind of situation in Portland, Oregon, this protracted protesting that's been going on for a couple of years now in Portland. And there's just, don't seem to be an end to it the only thing that's helping Portland right now is just the weather. Just keeping people off the streets in Portland. Thank God for the weather, but there there's just no end to it. You can't get people to come to the table in Portland with any sense of reason. And so I just don't know if I would put the conciliators in that kind of situation. Um, as I say, even in ...
Heidi Burgess (00:16:12): Let me ... are you saying that because you think it's just too dangerous for them or ...
Thomas Battles (00:16:18): That they, yeah. I just think it's too dangerous now and I don't think the voice of reason to come to the table to get to yes is a possibility.
Heidi Burgess (00:16:28): And do you think it was ...
Thomas Battles (00:16:30): In those kinds of situations. I mean, because ... you look at, you look at this kid Rittenhouse he came to that situation with an AR-15 in his hand, CRS comes to the table to bring people to the table. He didn't come to, to come to the table. He came in my mind looking for trouble.
Heidi Burgess (00:16:50): Right.
Thomas Battles (00:16:51): Even in ... Texas, when ... James Byrd was killed, we had time to bring people to the table and he and James Byrd got his head decapitated, you know, that's how we got to the Shepard Byrd Act. You know, and ... that lasted for, for over a year, trying to bring people to the table. And you had Klan, and you had the ... Muslims walking the streets in that town with guns walking the streets.
Thomas Battles (00:17:34): But the people of that town said, we are better than this. We don't want this folk our town. And they got him out of there. And those folk roll up their sleeves and say, we're sorry this happened, but we are better than this and we need to come to the table and they did. They did and they got recognized for their work of bringing their town together. But in this, in this age, in this day and time, we're in we have, we had people at the highest levels of government promoting hatred and, and it, and it's ... still there. I wouldn't put CRS people in that, that doesn't mean there isn't a role for CRS. I'm just not sure putting them in the streets so early in the aftermath of a shooting to try to calm people down is the right place for them. I think there's a role for them before and maybe after a situation and there ... there is a place for them, like even in the George Floyd, they were there in George Floyd. But after a certain period of time, then you, I would put 'em on the street, but, but we'd have to really calculate when and how effective can they be.
Heidi Burgess (00:18:54): So you said that CRS might have a role before, what would they do? I mean, people in Minneapolis didn't know that the George Floyd event was about to happen, but CRS might have had a sense that racial tensions were pretty high in that city. So do you think that there was something that CRS could have been doing before in that case? Or is that all an after situation?
Thomas Battles (00:19:28): Yeah, because, because there there's ... an assessment that CRS has done in the past and can continue to do. And that's what we call an assessment, an ... appraisal of racial tension and regional tension. So they can continue to do that and identify and assess hot spots. Just, just look at it. Now, another kid has been shot in Minneapolis, Amir. He just got shot. They did a no knock warrant, arrest attempted a no knock warrant a couple days ago in Minneapolis. And they shot this kid and killed him and he wasn't even on the warrant. Minneapolis is still a dangerous spot for African American kid, African American men. It's still a hot spot. That's sad to say that it's still a hot spot. They shoot first. And albeit he had a gun in his hand from what I'm told, but he had a license to carry that gun, but they shot and killed him.
Thomas Battles (00:20:37): He woke up out of his sleep with the loud noise of drop your gun, drop your gun. Well, if he had it in his hand, I mean, I'm not questioning him at this point, but if you had it again and you startle on me, I'm gonna turn around and I had it in my hand and first thing I'm gonna do, I'm gonna point it to where I'm I turned and that's all they needed to know. And they shot him. That's still a hot spot in this country. Minneapolis is a hot spot in this country. Phoenix is a hot spot in this country. Miami is a hotspot in this country. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to know where are some of the hotspots in this country, but CRS is trained to do appraisals of racial and regional tensions. So you can do those and say, look, here are some hotspots that you still need to continue to watch, and you don't need to be ... you don't necessarily need to ... cover marches to do that, but you can, but you don't necessarily need to put you conciliators in. North Carolina is still a hot spot.
Thomas Battles (00:21:39): You don't need to put conciliators in harm's way to do that.
Heidi Burgess (00:21:45): So ...
Thomas Battles (00:21:45): And you can give 'em the resources to do that with.
Heidi Burgess (00:21:49): So once you do an assessment and you determine that a place like Minneapolis is a hotspot, does CRS have any role in trying to cool it down?
Thomas Battles (00:22:01): Then you look at what resources you can help offer to that community, to as law enforcement and community to address those kind of situations that could lead to police officers shooting first and asking questions later, what training can you give those officers? What, what race based kinds of issues that could make those officers maybe just hesitate a little bit long before you take their step, but not put him in jeopardy to lose his life. This is a no knock warrant situation. What kind of public service conversations can you have that could reduce the potential for this, these shootings? I ... don't have all the answers there, but there has to be some more training that can be put on the table on both sides, law enforcement, as well as in the community, there has to be a way to have some conversation about these kind of things. And I think CRS can help facilitate some of those kind of conversations about, about this. I don't think just shooting these focuses in that he had a gun and he was justified in shooting me. I just don't think that's the answer to it.
Heidi Burgess (00:23:15): Does CRS ever get involved in police training itself?
Thomas Battles (00:23:21): Yes. We had program, we had a culture professionalism training. We had bias based training and so did COPS, which was a DOJ agency. And I don't even know if COPS still around, but there are some resources at ICP in that association, chief of police, as well as NOBLE that does training, NOBLE has program police and you what do you do when you're stopped by police NOBLE? You know ... and I was a member of another organization and I took that training around for young people, particularly college kids. What do you do when you're stopped by police? You wanna get home at night, just like these officers wanna get home at night, but we've gotta do something to help these young people when they're stopped by police officer get home at night, even if you didn't like that stop, do what they tell you to do. And then when you get home, talk to your parents, if you wanna sue call Crump and whomever else is other lawyers, and then sue them sue the heck out 'em but get home first. And that's the goal you wanna get home first.
Heidi Burgess (00:24:25): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:24:26): So that's the ... key, you know? And so, but CRS has a, has had some training that, that they ... had in these areas. I think they're gonna retool and offer some more trainings that that can help. But ... we started off this conversation about putting CRS in the streets, in this, in this volatile environment, in the midst of these conflict situations. I just don't know if, if I would do that, I would put CRS. And what they're doing now is hiring people closer to the community in these satellite position in offices. That, that's a good start because you can get two communities faster that way in the midst of this COVID and those kind of things, you can get a body into the community faster and to help address situations. But you gotta arm 'em with tools to help self marshaling.
Thomas Battles (00:25:29): When there are marches and protests, a DOJ official, and they gotta work cooperatively and in coordination with other federal agencies. And that's the other key with the U.S. Attorney's Office in coordination with the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney gotta rely on them to help them, bring them into the U.S. Attorney's Office and talk about what's the difference between a federal civil rights violation case and a state case, just like what we are looking at right now with George Floyd. I mean, the Ahmaud Arbery case, the Ahmaud Arbery case was they had a conviction at the state level. Now they're trying to figure out what to do at the federal level with the Ahmaud Arbery case. And it's a little controversy because the federal judge did not the plea bargain. Well, now we're gonna figure out what to do. Now you've gotta go to a federal case, you know, they're, they're not gonna get any lesser time. You know, they're get as much time if not more. So somebody's gonna be in jail for the rest of their life. The question is, do you do it in a federal prison, or you do it in a state prison? You know, those are the issues. And do you say, well, I, I took the shot because he had pigment skin.
Thomas Battles (00:26:43): So we'll see. But there is a role for CRS in the community before these situations and after these situations.
Heidi Burgess (00:26:52): So let's talk a little bit more about after the situations you say you won't put people on the street, as things are really hot, but after things have cooled down, what's CRSs role?
Thomas Battles (00:27:06): You do your assessment, then you offer you look at what do you have to offer that could help that community build capacity to ... manage these situations.
Heidi Burgess (00:27:16): Okay. So to avoid a repeat situation.
Thomas Battles (00:27:19): Yeah, yeah. You build, help build capacity. You help bring people to the table. Sometimes they don't wanna talk to each other, but they'll talk to you and then you figure out what ... can they, what can they do? And what can you do to help them to keep this kind of stuff from happening again, kept you facilitate the dialogue. Can you bring some federal resources in, you know, the civil rights, the civil rights community, can you help facilitate a dialogue between them and the civil rights agencies? Those kinds of things that traditionally, a lot of communities don't even know who their U.S Attorney is and what the U.S. Attorney's Office does and they're the highest law enforcement official in the country. They don't even know who that is. You just, you ... bring that to the table and you make it happen for that community.
Thomas Battles (00:28:16): And oftentimes the department needs to meet with leadership and ... sometimes the community don't have any confidence in the federal government they could have, but they'll have confidence in CRS because they know, build those relationships over time and make ... those relationships pay off when it, in the midst of conflict and confusion and tension. And, and so that ... that's really key in the midst of conflict and tension. You rely on CRS to help bring, reduce the tension in the midst of that, all of that conflict. So ... that's key for CRS, your credibility in the midst of tension.
Heidi Burgess (00:29:07): It sounds to like, what you're saying is that you build trust with communities before an event occurs, and then you're gonna be in a much stronger position to go in and be helpful if they know you already know you're a trustworthy person.
Thomas Battles (00:29:24): Absolutely. Absolutely. And you don't make any promises you that certainly that, you know, you can't keep, you know, if you can, if you can get a U.S. Attorney to come and meet an FBI to come and meet, you know, you're ... not looking for no snitch, but you're trying to get information that could lead to addressing this civil rights case. And if you can't prosecute this officer, you let him know we can't prosecute him because this is what it takes to get a prosecution of a officer in a shooting situation. And we don't know, he shot him because he was an African American or because he was gay. We ... know he shot him, but we don't know he did it because he was gay. So we need more information. We, we need some help to get to that point.
Thomas Battles (00:30:17): So, but CRS, you bring us, you brought 'em to the table, that's what we needed, and we're gonna address this situation. We're not gonna let it go until we, we know where we are. We know when I was at, when I was with Michael Brown's mom, you know, and we sat in that room with the FBI and he said, we cannot prosecute Wilson for shooting, your son, Michael Brown, she screamed and hollered and screamed and got on the floor and did all that. And they told her every place, he shot her son in that room and she said, well, who's going to pay for shooting, killing my son, just, and they just said, we can't prosecute him because we can't find the nexus where he violated the civil rights, but we can find the nexus that this city has violated the civil rights of African Americans in this town. And we're gonna get this department for that. We are going to get this department for violating civil rights of this community, but we can't get him for violating your son because he just didn't do it. Yeah. I mean, it was a hard pill to swallow for her, but they did get the city for that.
Heidi Burgess (00:31:36): So what was the difference? Why were they able to get the city overall, but not that particular officer in that particular case?
Thomas Battles (00:31:44): The difference was in that they can't prove they didn't prove that he shot him because he was black. I mean, because they ... show, they, I guess they proved that he went for, Michael Brown went for his gun and they tussled a little bit. So he shot him. But they proved that the city of Ferguson made money. They benefited by over taxing African Americans at a higher rate than anybody else to meet their budget.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:20): Oh.
Thomas Battles (00:32:21): Yeah. To meet their budget. Yeah. And so they find African Americans at this high rate and they made their budget by doing that
Heidi Burgess (00:32:32): Uh-huh okay
Thomas Battles (00:32:32): And so ... that was pattern and practice. It showed pattern and practice.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:39): I see. Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:32:40): So they, they found discrimination in that.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:46): Makes sense. So I'm interested that you said that CRS is now putting in satellite offices so that people are closer to the scene. That sounds like a much higher level of staffing. Is staffing going up?
Thomas Battles (00:33:04): Yes. They're gonna actually hire more people. I don't know if going up, but they're gonna feel vacancies to get to the FTE that they have been missing for some time now. So that's a good thing. Yeah. And so that, that's a good thing.
Heidi Burgess (00:33:22): So when you were there, remind me again, the dates that you were there, it wasn't that long ago that you retired. Was it?
Thomas Battles (00:33:29): Yeah, so I was there from 1984 to 2019.
Heidi Burgess (00:33:34): Yeah. That was fairly recent. So, both in the early days and then recently were all of the staff at the regional office and then you'd go out to various places or was, was your staff scattered early on?
Thomas Battles (00:33:56): So, we had ... remember I started in the field office in Miami, so we had 10 regional offices and four field offices.
Heidi Burgess (00:34:04): Four field offices per region?
Thomas Battles (00:34:08): No, not per region, just four field offices, 10 regional offices. So each regional office didn't have one only four regions, only four field offices in the whole agency. So I had a regional office in Miami, one in Miami, Detroit, San Francisco ... and Houston.
Heidi Burgess (00:34:35): And then what, what are field offices?
Thomas Battles (00:34:38): Those are small offices where you put one person in and they report to the regional director in the regional office.
Heidi Burgess (00:34:46): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:34:46): And, yeah. And so they ... work by themselves, but they work, you know, in teams when they need to, but they're in a regional, the difference was in my case, when I started out, I worked in Miami and there, when I mentioned to you, they had, we had that Cuban Haitian program in Miami. So I had a, there was a team down there where we worked together on immigration issues and those kinds of things.
Heidi Burgess (00:35:15): So why did some areas get field offices and others not? Did you get one because that Cuban case just took so much time and effort that they figured they ought to?
Thomas Battles (00:35:30): No. I think when I came on board the Cuban Haitian program was already there when I got there. So Miami was likely place to put it because of the immigrant populations in south Florida ... was coming in. And the purpose of that office was to resettle, Cuban primary resettlement of Cuban and Haitians. So that office was a natural. The ... Dallas ... regional office created a satellite office, I think again, because of the immigrant population, Mexicans and the border that the Cuban Haitian program also needed. And, but they also had that satellite office before I got there. So that was, that was another one. I think they wanted to be more responsive to the Mexican population, Guatemalan population, and that population minority population and that part of the country, because of the size of that region. Detroit was another ... field office. I'm not really sure why that office was a field. And then of course, California being so large. Okay. They had a field office in, in San Francisco at that time.
Heidi Burgess (00:36:54): So now are you saying that there's gonna be a lot more field offices established?
Thomas Battles (00:37:01): Yes. There'll be a lot more field office, satellite offices ... in the field, that that's the plan as I understand it. But, they may change that once you get a director in and ... he may like it or may not like the model, it may bring him back in, uh, into the regional offices. As you know, the president has appointed, nominated a new director. And so he has to go through Senate confirmation. So let's hope that he gets confirmed. One of the things I wanted to also mention to you that we covered during my time, we covered a lot of marches and protests Selma, the Montgomery riots, and Miami, but one of the things that we did working with other federal agencies, I don't think I ... I wanted to certainly for ... this oral history, what was it like to work with other federal agencies, on cases, particularly on cases.
Thomas Battles (00:38:09): And the three agencies that came to mind was INS because back in the day, it was INS now Homeland Security, FEMA particularly during disasters and American Red Cross, they come to mind and the U.S. Attorney's Office. Are the ones that come to mind, particularly FEMA, uh, because they ran the show during disasters, whenever a hurricane came, they ... activate, the president declares a state of emergency and you activate the Stafford Act, which activates the resources that goes out to communities when a disaster comes. Sometimes CRS will get what you call a mission assignment to work with FEMA and for FEMA. So all of these agencies will come in to FEMA, just this one small agency, but when a disaster comes the organization . . . [inaudible] would just mushroom and mushroom and mushroom. These federal agencies come into the table, working under the umbrella of FEMA under these, under what you call these ESF, ESF stands, emergency support functions.
Thomas Battles (00:39:24): That's what ESF stands for. And so we were assigned to the equal rights unit ERU equal rights unit. And they were a problem solving unit. So whenever, so they would deal with racial issues and stuff like that. In the early days, we were assigned to what you call the community relationship and we helped them in the early years. When I say the early years, the 80s and the 90s, we ... helped them reorganize that. My experience with FEMA was dealing with hurricane Andrew, the Northridge, the hurricane Andrew was like in the early 90s, 1991-1993 that time, that timeframe, then the Northridge earthquake, which was in California, and hurricane Katrina. And then there was some in between that ... I ... hurricane Hugo, South Carolina and others. But I've had some pretty good experiences, working hurricanes and disasters with FEMA.
Thomas Battles (00:40:37): And I was mentored by Phil May, who was a regional administrator here. So, he's gone on to be with the Lord now, but he was one of my, he was my mentor at FEMA. So, I learned a lot from him and work with him here in Atlanta. FEMA brings in these disaster assistance specialists, they get paid to work these disasters, and so they would go out into the community, but they have a staff permanent staff year round that works here in region four. So you get to know them over the years and you work with them. And so ... they'll call you from time time and say, Tom, what kind of resources you have that we may need you and your staff to come and help us. So for example, they may have a disaster and they may need bilingual assistance and they don't have it.
Thomas Battles (00:41:33): They'll call us and say, do you have any bilingual assistance that ... you ... that you can let us use? Or do you have any native Americans that you, that you got that we can use? And so they give us a mission assignment and we give 'em our staff, and then they'll reimburse us for that, for those, those staff. And sometime you get paid, you get paid overtime and those kind of things, when you work in the disasters with them and those kinds of things. And then sometimes, you know, the work is tough because, you know, you are in a community sometimes where there's no lighting, you know, no bed, you sleep in a hotel and no lights and stuff. Sometimes there's really tough work. You like for the example and Katrina, I was in Mississippi and other part of our staff was in Louisiana.
Thomas Battles (00:42:17): And sometimes the politics of those kind of disasters is really shocking. You know, Katrina was a water disaster proportions in Louisiana, you know, and if you remember how bad things were for them over there, but it wasn't like that for us in Mississippi. We had a Republican, we had a Republican governor in Mississippi, so they got everything they needed in Mississippi. Wow. But in Louisiana they had a democratic governor and so things were a little different for them in Louisiana.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:48): Whoa. I never realized that.
Thomas Battles (00:42:50): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and the politics of what, what happened in Louisiana was totally dumb. You know, this is a young man, if you remember, he was in the water with a TV on top of his head. So they accused him of stealing a TV, ... and some other thing. And then, but in Mississippi, you know, we had a hotel.
Thomas Battles (00:43:13): We, you know, it, I don't get me wrong, it wasn't peaches and cream, but it was certainly not, not like in Louisiana. We did assessments for ... FEMA before the workers went out. For example, in Mississippi, there were KKK Klavern they call 'em Klavern out in the counties all across the state. So one of the mission assignments that gave CRS was to go out and do assessments if the clan was active before the ... community relations people go out to educate the community about the services of FEMA. So we would go out and meet with the sheriffs and leaders in the community say, hey, do you have any active Klans here? Because the FEMA people and the community people and the FEMA workers are kinda worried about coming out here, because they're worried that you got active Kan.
Thomas Battles (00:44:09): You know, they think about all these different movies, they say Mississippi burning and all these different movies and they worry about. And so we would meet with the sheriff and people would say, yeah, we got Klan but they're not active. Don't worry about that. So we would come back and report that to the ERU unit. And then they'll put that in what you call a sit rep, a situation report. And then in the report, they would say, CRS is met with the sheriff and this county, whatever the county was and said, there are no active Klans in this area. And so then they would go out and they would do their work based on the assessment that CRS did that day. And we do that all across the counties that we were assigned. And so those are some of the things how we worked with FEMA.
Thomas Battles (00:44:51): One of the cases, I remember some of the firefighters that came in from parts of the country and they had tension. And one of our employees who was a Native American, I'll never forget it, Blackfeet Native American and they had tension with each other. And Grace did ... some training with the Blackfeet on dealing with differences. And that was her, her assignment to deal with tension among the firefighters that came in to work during ... the hurricane. And they was really pleased with her work. In fact, they wanted her to stay, but she had to go back to Denver. She was from Denver, Colorado, but she was a Native American female. And so those that I remember that one vividly, working with American Red Cross was an interesting challenge because the American Red Cross traditionally was a very white male oriented organization that didn't have a lot of African Americans working for.
Thomas Battles (00:46:00): We changed that with them and encouraged for them to bring in an African-American. They have a lot of African-American working with them for American Red Cross now, but in the early years, that, that wasn't the case. That was not the case, but they've changed that a lot. Now I can, I can say American Red Cross has really changed now. I remember when, Elizabeth Dole worked for the ... was the secretary of American Red Cross and she was, became the chairman of American Red Cross. I was around working with them during disasters, and she ... changed that during these disasters. And so, working with those agencies, I can ... see the ... I can tell you a lot of the transitions and the changes that they made over the years. Race was a big issue and we put it on the table and talked to 'em about it. I mean, a lot of the FEMA workers used to come from Confederate communities where they would drive their Confederate flags in the towns when they came to work for FEMA. And we said, no, you, you can't do that. It was intimidating to the workers until the employees like us. And we made them stop that they had to stop. But that again, but that was in the early years of ... FEMA and Red Cross. It's just, it's a new day in those agencies and I commend them for turning that page.
Heidi Burgess (00:47:31): Did they know that they were being intimidating? Was that an intentional act or were they just clueless that anybody would find that offensive?
Thomas Battles (00:47:40): They were clueless. They, it was just a way of life.
Heidi Burgess (00:47:43): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (00:47:44): Yeah. They were clueless. That was just a way of life, you know, because they were volunteers like you, you know, like for example, you work for them, you know, you get a contract and you come in and you have to work it for X number of months. That that's how you work when you are a disaster census employee. And you come in, but you bring your, you bring who you are with you to ... to the job. And so for them, it was just a way of life, you know, well, got this black guy with me, black guy here, you know, they may use the N word, but it was a way of life for them who cares, you know, because they didn't see a lot of people of color working with them, you know? And this was like I said, this was the, you know, early nineties, late eighties, early nineties, when that was going on, you know, Eastern Airlines was still, was still up and up and running in Miami, you know, during hurricane ... Andrew, you know, so, you know, it was that era.
Thomas Battles (00:48:44): So, you know, it was no Lilly-white still and the community relations unit was still trying to make that, turn that corner, you know, and we were helping them turn that corner because we dealt with race. A lot of 'em saying, what are you talking about race? You know, they ... didn't that wasn't, that wasn't their thing, but we brought it to their attention and they, you know, it ... was tough for them to deal with, but they dealt with it, you know, and they may had to put it in. They had to put it on paper. They had to say it in meetings. And they, you know, they made jokes and made a lot of jokes about it, but they ... dealt with same thing with Coast Guard. Coast Guard was one of the racist units we had to deal with. They used to put nooses tease a lot of the Coast Guard, young men, they put nooses and ropes on the boat, on the Coast Guard boats.
Heidi Burgess (00:49:44): Whoa.
Thomas Battles (00:49:44): And they asked us to come in to help them deal with that Klan in that environment.
Heidi Burgess (00:49:50): What did you do?
Thomas Battles (00:49:52): We used to have meetings with the Coast Guard about ... the culture of Coast Guard and that they would need to take strong discipline of their offices ... and their shipmen about that. And we used to have these training sessions with the ... command staff over at NASA ... and they would come to NASA to DEMOI. DEMOI is the equal employment opportunity, defense equal employment opportunity office at NASA over near the cape. That's the training center for everybody in the military. That's an EEO. And we go there and have specialized training with the military officers that do EEO training. And we talk about this and Coast Guard would bring all of their EEO people from around the country to talk about that because the noose issue was a big issue. And that was my, one of my cases, the noose issue was a big issue in the Coast Guard over the years.
Heidi Burgess (00:50:53): Did they practice did back against your statements that they had to stop doing that was there?
Thomas Battles (00:51:00): Yeah. Yeah. The commands, the command staff was really committed to addressing that because they were in a ... rapid recruitment mode and they didn't wanna, they ... had gotten the command, they had gotten command orders to go out and recruit. The military, had gotten command orders to go out and start recruiting heavily people of color. And they really was behind in Coast Guard and so that, that was a big turnoff with the noose stuff. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:32): I bet.
Thomas Battles (00:51:33): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (00:51:34): Let me stop you for a minute. Um, your voice has been overloading on this interview a little bit, and it seems to be getting worse. Can you, can you tell how to turn down your volume a little bit? If you were to ask me that, I'd say I don't have a clue, but maybe you know how to do it.
Thomas Battles (00:51:58): Well, the, I know how to turn my volume off if I was on my computer, let me see, because before you came on, I tested my audio. Let me see, go to that. Nope. Let me see here audio.
Heidi Burgess (00:52:42): Now it looks like you've muted it. That's too quiet.
Thomas Battles (00:52:49): Yeah. I muted that, but let me see how about now?
Heidi Burgess (00:52:56): It's doing it about the same thing. Maybe just move away. What are you using? A tablet.
Thomas Battles (00:53:02): Oh, a computer. I can get off and call you right back and I can turn my computer down.
Heidi Burgess (00:53:10): Um, yeah. Why don't we do that?
Thomas Battles (00:53:14): Okay. All right. Call you right back. Testing one, two,
Heidi Burgess (00:54:06): That looks better
Thomas Battles (00:54:09): Testing one, two testing one, two.
Heidi Burgess (00:54:12): Okay, good.
Thomas Battles (00:54:14): Okay.
Heidi Burgess (00:54:16): All right. Let me go to the section of our question list where we're going more broadly now, looking across cases for patterns, where there certain kinds of roadblocks or difficulties that you often encountered. And if so, how did you surpass them?
Thomas Battles (00:54:47): Roadblocks
Heidi Burgess (00:54:48): Let me give you an example of things I'm thinking about. People not trusting you to be impartial would be one, uh, finding out about situations where you ought to be involved, but you don't find out about it until too late. Might be another just problems, typical problems that you might have. And I don't wanna put ideas in your head there. The two things I mentioned, weren't problems don't follow up, because I mentioned them. But were there anything that typically you found to be problematic?
Thomas Battles (00:55:30): Um,
Heidi Burgess (00:55:31): Frequently,
Thomas Battles (00:55:34): That's an interesting question. What roadblocks, you know, the biggest roadblock I can think of is the U.S. Attorney maybe not wanting us to get involved in the case.
Heidi Burgess (00:55:48): Okay.
Thomas Battles (00:55:49): Federal partners not wanting us to get involved in the case.
Heidi Burgess (00:55:53): And why would
Thomas Battles (00:55:54): They that we, that we might could, could impact. And they, they would not want us to get in the case because they may have an interest in it and or they don't wanna send the wrong message to the community that the feds are in it and the feds may not get in it. But what ... U.S. Attorneys failed to realize was that we are not an investigative arm, so we can get in involved in a case and not impact their ability to look at a case and still not get involved in it because there may be something we can offer that they ... would never offer because their work is investigated and criminal. Ours is not. So for example, we could do an assessment and offer training to a police department and never touch the criminality of what they're looking at.
Thomas Battles (00:57:04): You see? And so that ... that's one of the things that we could do in a case, we could bring the community and the police together and never say police department you're guilty. The goal is to relieve, improve police, community relations. That's our goal. That's our purpose. Our goal is to say, hey, look, you don't understand what being a transgender is. This transgender was killed by this police officer. Our goal is not to say he was guilty. And our goal is to have a training between the police and the committee on what transgender is, what being a transgender is. So we're gonna have a training on what, on ... the culture of being a transgender. So we can have, we can be a trans, you can be a, we can ... a public forum on being a transgender and not interfere with a civil rights violation case of a transgender. So, so that's 1 ... thought about a roadblock.
Heidi Burgess (00:58:36): Okay.
Heidi Burgess (00:58:37): What did you do in that case? Did you just explain to them, like you just explained to me and, and would they go along with it? Or?
Thomas Battles (00:58:46): Sometimes, yeah, but sometimes no, be because U.S. Attorneys are political people and most of the time they're thinking about their next appointment on opportunity to become a judge. So, so they, they are very careful about what ... they allow and they don't allow in their, in their district.
Heidi Burgess (00:59:09): Do they have the last word, or can you say, sorry, we're going in anyway.
Thomas Battles (00:59:15): Well, sometimes I push the button and I go anyway and wait and see what will happen. And here, here's the point. I had 21 federal districts in my, in my region. So that means that 21 U.S. Attorneys that I had to deal with 21, for example, Florida has three federal districts, Atlanta, Georgia has three federal districts. That means three U.S. Attorneys in Florida, three U.S. Attorneys in Georgia, federal the Southern middle and Southern district. Each one runs their districts differently. So does Alabama, you know, but on the other hand, Mississippi only had two. So, so I ... you deal with them differently.
Heidi Burgess (01:00:04): Do you try to meet with them earlier to build up that trust, to say what you do with communities?
Thomas Battles (01:00:10): Yeah. I try to meet with all my U.S. Attorneys to build relationships and rapport with them. Probably my best relationships I had with those in Florida, because they didn't feel intimidated and they didn't feel threatened by it by our work because race, you know, was the issue. And they had staff that ... worked with us. So they ... had they ... got advice from their staff in terms of working with us and, you know, and their staff worked with us. And so they sort of kept an eye on us if you will working with us and reported back to the U.S. Attorneys. And some of their staff were much older, like the LEC coordinator law enforcement coordinator. So they didn't beat the bushes and get in the trenches with us. So ... when the folk got killed, for example, in .... at the club in Orlando, ... the infamous gay club, right. And all those people got killed in Orlando, that was a big deal. It was a big case. We worked real closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office, the ATF and all those federal agencies, but we were right in the middle of that case with them.
Heidi Burgess (01:01:33): What was CRS role in that case?
Thomas Battles (01:01:36): We got with the community, we facilitated meetings with the community, with the gay community and educated them about the gay community and what their needs were and what their needs were going to be throughout that whole situation. I had a couple of friends that was in that club that night. And we had meetings with them. It was a ... there was really an educational experience for a lot of people. A mother was killed. A mother was killed in that club that night with her son celebrating a birthday, everybody in the club that night wasn't gay. And we had to educate the community about that. And so we had forums to say that to the community, everybody in that club, it was, it ... was a place ... destination place in Atlanta because Atlanta's a tourist spot. So everybody in the club wasn't gay, it was the place to go to the party to have fun. So everybody in the club wasn't gay. And so you had to explain that to people, educate them because I was in, it doesn't mean that I'm gay. I was there to have fun. I knew people in the club, I wasn't there, but I'm just saying, that's what we had to, it helped educate the community about, so we had these forums and meetings to educate. So we had forums in different places around the city of about that.
Heidi Burgess (01:03:17): So what were you trying to educate them about besides who was there?
Thomas Battles (01:03:22): That everybody, everybody who was attending the club wasn't gay. And, but if they weren't, it's okay that they were, and that it's not something to be frowned on because they were, and that you should honor and celebrate the lives of the people, not the fact that they were gay, but the fact that they were just human beings. A mother was, was with her son and she got killed with her child. Those are the kinds of things that we were, we were doing, educating the community about celebrating life, not the fact that they were gay, just celebrating life. And ... that the LGBTQ community are human beings and not just freaks or queers and those kind of things. And so it ... brought, it brought the reality of them being human beings.
Heidi Burgess (01:04:23): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:04:24): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:04:26): Um, what about your working with the media? Was the media helpful to you? A hinderence, not there too much.
Thomas Battles (01:04:36): I've had the media to really, in many cases, help us to highlight good work of CRS. And then I've had media to, to try to put a slant that we, for example, during the Trayvon Martin case, some of the Republicans tried to put a slant, that we paid protestors to march in those kinds of things. Yeah. So ... the Republicans slant, if you will, but because you know, our policy is not to speak to the media, not to give interviews so we never could give any. So when, when you're on location, you may say who you are and that's it, but you don't give an interview and you say you're not authorized to speak to the media. So we would refer who refer the media to someone in Washington to actually talk about the work of CRS. So we didn't spend a lot of time talking to the media about the work of CRS. Perhaps that's so, so others community could, but we couldn't, and ... sometimes the community would ... be positive about the work of CRS.
Heidi Burgess (01:06:11): Did the media ever inflame situations so that they got harder for you to control?
Thomas Battles (01:06:21): No. No. I've had situations where I've had friends in the media and they tried to slant the story to say, this is a good agency. You ought to, you ought to support them in a way that to give them the kind of resources they need to help this country do what it can do in the area of race relations. Yeah. And then I've had, and then I've had people to be critical of ... our work, particularly my work and question our neutrality, my neutrality that I have, I've been very disappointed in them for doing that, but it comes with the territory.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:06): And you can't talk to them to defend yourself. I gather?
Thomas Battles (01:07:10): Right? The more you do that, the more you do that, the worse that it ... becomes.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:16): Because they don't believe it?
Thomas Battles (01:07:20): Well, because you can't control, you can't control what they write in the, with the pen.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:27): Right. Are you allowed to talk to them before an event in the same way you talk to U.S Attorneys just to try to build trust and let them know who you are and what you're doing?
Thomas Battles (01:07:43): The media.
Heidi Burgess (01:07:44): Yeah. Or do you just never talk to 'em?
Thomas Battles (01:07:47): No, you never talk to 'em the organizers of an event. Let's just say the NAACP is getting ready to have a march or a commemorative event, or let's just say we going to Memphis to do a commemorative event, or we getting ready to go to Selma, to do march the ... organizers can speak. And let's just say they got, we have CRS here as our resources to help us with this event. Or we going to Myrtle beach for bike week or Daytona for black college weekend or Miami beach. And they say, we have CRS here as a resource to help us manage this event. And we looked at them to tell us what we doing right or wrong. I couldn't, I couldn't speak. And they say, oh, CRS, well, how are we doing? Are we doing okay? Uh, I say, well, you know, you gotta speak to the organizers, see how they feel about what they're doing this weekend. I'm not authorized to speak.
Heidi Burgess (01:08:45): Makes sense. Okay. Do you, do any assessments after these events about what went right and what went wrong and whether you saw your intervention as successful or not?
Thomas Battles (01:09:06): Yeah. Sometimes we do what you call an after action report. So we did one for Trayvon Martin, Ferguson, places like that. When there's a national deployment, we do them. And then smaller cases when we have what you call an interregional deployment, interregional means we bring in some other people to help us with the case. So I'm sure they did one for George Floyd and other places where we bring in large staffs to help. And then we do after action report is, how did it go? What did we do? Right. What did we do wrong? What could we have done differently to help? And what did we leave behind that ... can help somebody else?
Heidi Burgess (01:09:48): Ah, that's an interesting question.
Thomas Battles (01:09:50): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:09:51): So that's one of the goals is to leave something behind so that you have a long-term impact, not just a short-term impact?
Thomas Battles (01:10:02): Yeah. Capacity building. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:10:04): Okay. Are you always trying to do that or just some of the time?
Thomas Battles (01:10:08): We try to do it all the time, but sometimes you can't, sometimes you get in just do a march and it's over and you're done. Yeah. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:10:18): So what determines whether you try to make it something longer-term or not?
Thomas Battles (01:10:25): The case, and is it a case that you can, so for example, you may try to establish some kind of institutionalized group, let's say that you create a human rights commission, civilian review board, citizens advisory group, or some sort like that ... a self marshaling group, a ... some other group that each year you bring 'em out to help you with an event like we now in Miami with that goodwill ambassadors. So in a few weeks, during the Memorial day, weekend and big college spring breaks, we'll bring out the goodwill ambassadors that we've had for several years now to help Miami beach police manage the large crowds on Miami beach. And so Goodwill ambassador is, you know, we've been around now for a while that's field capacity.
Heidi Burgess (01:11:44): And are the, the goodwill ambassadors are local people. They're not CRS people.
Thomas Battles (01:11:49): Now they're local people that we've help them establish volunteers that come out. County employees, city employees, that volunteer to work, crowd management and help to educate people on where to go and what to do, what not to do.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:08): Was any long term training like that done in Minneapolis after Trayvon? Uh, was it Trayvon Martin?
Thomas Battles (01:12:15): George, George Floyd, yeah. Yeah. They, they did self marshal training to help with the marches and protests. So we do marshal training for like Myrtle beach weekend or ... the events in Selma or the events in ... Memphis with the commemorative events with Dr. King. So we're doing for those kinds of events.
Heidi Burgess (01:12:52): Okay. I think you've pretty much addressed the next question I have, but I'll ask it again. In case you have something more to say about it, uh, we're asking how the changing nature of the civil rights movement and protest activity affects your work beyond the fact that you wouldn't put conciliators on the ground in Portland right now. Are there other other ways in which you think it's affecting what CRS is able to do?
Thomas Battles (01:13:23): Well, you know what women have taken a lot of lead roles now in leading protests, marches, NAACP, and those kind of groups they're not marching as much anymore as they've had in the past, they call it direct action. The leaders march when they ... come to the table, I think, I think COVID has had a lot to do with that.
Heidi Burgess (01:13:53): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (01:13:55): People are not as prone to get out in the streets like they once did that doesn't mean they want, they just haven't haven't, the civil rights old guard has, you know, the talking they're on zoom. Like we are now, Jesse Jackson, God bless him has, has been shut down a lot with his illnesses and others. But then there are new emerging, civil rights leaders that are emerging now. And ... like I said, a lot of African American females, a lot of females that are taking center stage in ... the civil rights movement. And I think you'll see that continuing over the next few years now, the black lives matters I think you'll see that movement continuing. I think CRS will help to find creative ways to continue to make a presence. The, the truth in reconciliation movement, I think is is emerging.
Thomas Battles (01:15:03): Reparation is emerging, Shelia Jackson Lee has introduced bill in that arena. I think we'll just have to wait and see what the midterm and the new election will take place and how, what tension surrounds that take place in this country. Police community tension will still continue to be high. Race will continue to still be an issue. And what form of cultural conflict will still take place in this country and where education goes and what conflicts in the area of education ... will take place and where, where CRS sees itself in terms of responding to all of these issues I think is ... important. I ... think Sarah's gonna have to find a creative place among all of these and with ... strong new leadership. I think that that's important.
Thomas Battles (01:16:11): They're gonna need strong, bold, new leadership to create and establish itself organizations like the divided community project, I think can help them some, but they're gonna have to find that place in ... demand a spot at the table to offer themselves as a, as a change agent, I think they can. And I think we'll be in a position to help 'em out. The justice system, I think, is still ... will have to continue to transition itself. Police community still needs to come to the table to talk from the dialogue, because officers will go, still do what they do because their training is still what it is. And they're not that transition I don't see happening anytime soon with that, you know, they'll ... still shoot when they've gotta shoot. And we just have to see what, what happens in the courts when they shoot.
Heidi Burgess (01:17:16): Is, is working with black lives matter different than working with the older civil rights agencies like NAACP. It seems to me from what I could tell that there's less top down organization with black lives matter. So it might be harder to get them all on the same page in terms of who's doing what or what's going on.
Thomas Battles (01:17:45): Yeah. They, they're a little different because, you know, they don't necessarily like to come to the table and when they do, they come in their own terms. NAACP didn't necessarily have terms, they just come to the table. Fact that matter will come to the table on their own terms and that that's a difference. And so ... sometimes when you think you're negotiating with one person, you're not necessarily negotiate with the whole group. So that, that's another piece that you have to consider when you dealing with, you know, with, you know, with these groups like that. And so I, you know, that's the other thing about recruiting, you've gotta recruit to the needs of what's happening in the country. We've gotta recruit younger people. You've gotta recruit people who understand the culture. You know, you know, you gotta understand race, this cross cultural race theory and stuff.
Thomas Battles (01:18:47): You gotta recruit people that understand that and when it's time to have that kind of conversation, you need people in CRS who understand that too also, and be able to have that kind of conversation in the intelligence that's out there when it's time to have that kind of conversation, you can't figure out, well, I need to think about it. You've gotta be able to bring that to the table CRS and have that kind of conversation. And ... I don't know, who's in CRS having that conversation yet on critical race theory and the other conversation in education that, that we need to have to be on the cutting edge of that topic and other topics that on the minds of ... African Americans and Asian, I mean, just look at the violence that's perpetrating against Asians right now. We need to be in a position to be able to offer something to the Asian community, you know, in ... the country, you know, we don't have one, I don't know, we got one, maybe one Asian or half Asian on staff.
Heidi Burgess (01:20:01): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:20:03): If, if that one, so you gotta be able to respond to some of these. I don't know if you have any, I don't know if you have any Jewish people on staff, and look Whoopi Goldberg just got kicked off of her show for two weeks. And that's a big issue in this country. And I've been saying that for a long time, you need to hire some young Jewish staff at CRS. That issue is never going, never, never, never gonna go away. CRS need at least two or three Jewish staff, people on staff to be able to respond to those kinds of things. We reach out to the ADL all the time on issues, but no, we don't have any Jewish staff on ... the payroll. If they do, I don't know who they are. You need to be able to respond to these issues to be able to have those kind of conversations. And it it's, it's just not there. You've gotta be able to respond to these issues now.
Heidi Burgess (01:21:01): Is anybody at CRS looking at this? Do you know?
Thomas Battles (01:21:04): I don't know. And that's, that's the kind of conversation we need to have to be able to respond. You know, God bless you. You know, and whenever the, you know, when you're hired, you gotta, you gotta be responsive to the, the veteran's issue. I get that, but you've gotta be able to respond to these issues. The Jewish issue is never going to go away. That issue is never going to go away. I mean, that's biblical. It's never gonna go away till we die. That's never gonna go away. The issue with the Asian community is never gonna go away. The emerging issue with ... race, culture and reparation and ... TRCs, that's the new emerging issues right now. Police community relations is never gonna go away. We got five or six issues right now and ... we've gotta be able to respond to those kind of things at CRS. We gotta be on the cutting edge of those things and be able to respond to them. We need to be looking five years, 10 years ahead right now, and what's going on in this country, but you got a couple issues that are not gonna go away. The issue with the Jewish community is never gonna go away. I don't care if we can be dead another hundred years, that issue will still be on the table. Right. It's biblical. It'll never go away.
Heidi Burgess (01:22:33): So the need for CRS is never gonna go away.
Thomas Battles (01:22:36): That's right. Not if you tackle that issue, but a dialogue. And I said this long time ago, one of the things why I would never let my staff get involved with the ... dialogue about the Confederate flag.
Heidi Burgess (01:22:50): Really, why?
Thomas Battles (01:22:51): And I said that because I never thought we could win it. I never thought that you could get people to the table to say yes, because it is such an explosive issue. And as fate would have it, those people lost their in South Carolina. And, but for those people losing their lives, that flag wouldn't have never come down Heidi. That's why they had somebody had to die before that flag came down, somebody had to die. That's the only way that flag was gonna come down. And that's why I wouldn't let my people have that conversation because it was too explosive of an issue trying to get people to the table on that issue was just too explosive. And I wasn't gonna put 'em in harm's way on it, whether it was in South Carolina or whether it was in Mississippi or whether it was in Georgia.
Thomas Battles (01:23:47): I just told 'em, I don't want you having a conversation about it. And they thought that they got mad with me, but I said, don't touch it. It's too explosive. And they thought they could, they could have a legitimate conversation about it, but I wouldn't let 'em do it because white people on that issue, even the Dixie song and Ole Miss people still mad about them changing that song to this day at Ole miss when they changed that song, donors stop giving money to that major college. Because they changed that song. And I, it is just that explosion and that's the state flag that Confederate flag.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:37): So you saw that as more dangerous than any of the protests after the police shootings.
Thomas Battles (01:24:45): Yes.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:45): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:24:45): Yes. Yes. Even when you hear these, these white elderly guys and my great, great, great, great granddaddy fought in the civil war over that flag. He probably never don't even know what his name is, but it's, it's a real issue for him or her. And I was not gonna allow my staff to get caught up in a conversation with a but yes, yes but it's offensive to these African Americans over here. Don't you understand that? No, they don't care his great, great, great, great granddaddy fought in the war about that flag. And it don't mean anything to him that, that African American is offended by that flag for him it meant everything. It was about slavery. It was about, it was about that way of life. And so that's why I said, don't have a conversation about it. And my staff got upset about that, but people lost their lives over that flag.
Thomas Battles (01:25:58): And, but for that, but for those people losing their lives in South Carolina, by Dylann Roof, that flag wouldn't have never come down in South Carolina, as much as those people fought over the years to bring that flag down in the legislature .... in the halls of legislature, in South Carolina and all those protestors and all those marches and the boycott, remember how they had a boycott to bring that flag down, they didn't care about the boycott. They told people don't come to South Carolina. They said, screw y'all and the boycott it ain't coming down. They had to kill those nine people at a church at that in a church while they were praying. So it is hatred runs that deep Heidi. So that, that's why, that's why I wouldn't let my people conversation about that flag because it was that deep. Oh. And it would've never come down, had they not died.
Heidi Burgess (01:27:05): Wow. I didn't realize that it came down after that.
Thomas Battles (01:27:08): But yes. And it came down after they died and, and, and the governor says, and the governor said it has to come down if ... you have to kill somebody, you hate that much, it has to come down. And this that's when she took it down. And that's when the legislature said it's coming down after they died. That's the only way it was gonna come down. I knew that. And I wasn't let my people get in that, but yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:27:48): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:27:48): So ... and then when our last president took office and the kind of conversation he had around the country, it just created such a dangerous spirit and tone in the country. His politics played into it. We're, we're still in a bad, in a dangerous place in my mind. That's why I wouldn't let my, that's why I don't want CRS staff in the streets. People, people walk the streets with guns in the streets now, you know, that kid shot two, three people and he walked right past the police before they, they didn't even arrest him the night he shot those people.
Heidi Burgess (01:28:36): Who are we talking about now?
Thomas Battles (01:28:38): Kyle Rittenhouse when he shot those people, he walked right past police, put his hands up. They didn't even shoot him. They didn't even arrest him. And he walked right past him. You know why they walked right past him because his skin was not black. His skin was not black.
Heidi Burgess (01:28:57): Right.
Thomas Battles (01:28:58): He walked right past the police and he had just shot three people. So I wouldn't put CRS people out there in that kind of harm. We had to talk about the situations, it'll be on a case by case basis and who the person is and their level of experience before I put 'em in the streets in dangerous situations now. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:29:24): So what do you do when you're working? And you're working with folks who aren't interested in negotiating with the other side, you said, sometimes folks won't even meet with the other side because they want justice. They don't want to negotiate anything short of that. I found, I was thinking when you were saying that, you're different from the civil rights arm because you can't investigate, you can't prosecute. You're the, just there to help train. I could imagine that people will say I'm not interested in training, I want him convicted. If people aren't interested in improving relations, can you do anything or do you just back away and say, okay, take it your way?
Thomas Battles (01:30:24): We, we do as much as we can do. And then when we can't, we make a determination. When's the time to back off we offer the services that we have in our bag of tools. And then when we, when we have exhausted all our resources, we back off, we keep our relationships because we may have to come back.
Heidi Burgess (01:30:45): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:30:47): And come, let me tell you what come back means when the U.S. Attorney has made a decision, what he or she is going to do, they make an announcement and it's public, and they'll call CRS and say, CRS, Tom, we ready to make our announcement when, what time? And when should we do it? And they won't even tell us what the announcement is gonna be. Sometime they'll tell us, gonna make our announcement. Should we do it on a Friday? Should we do it on Wednesday? Should we do it on a Monday? And ... should we do it in midday? Should we do it on five o'clock? You know, especially if it's a police shooting, because we don't wanna have a bad verdict, a bad decision, and kids are in school and, you know, and a riot can take place. We wanna make sure it's in a situation where people are home and people are safe. So we talk all those things out and ... look at the best time to make a decision by the U.S Attorney and sometimes I might be with them, like, like that when we got the decision with Michael Brown, I was with the U.S. Attorney and met with the family first. And once they met with the family and told their decision right after that, then there was a public announcement of that decision, but the family knew first.
Heidi Burgess (01:32:20): Ah.
Thomas Battles (01:32:20): Yeah. And, and then everybody else was positioned. The law enforcement was positioned for the reaction. Same thing with Trayvon Martin. I was with Trayvon Martin family along with the U.S. Attorney and the FBI, you know, at a undisclosed location. And we met with them, told 'em what the decision was going to be. And with ... Ben Crump the attorneys told me that decisions going be and why we couldn't couldn't indict Zimmerman. And then immediately following that the public announcement was made by the media about the decision and police were ready for what their reactions gonna be, was gonna be a riot or not that kind of stuff. But I hit the streets immediately because I left them to go to the streets, to, and I positioned to ensure what we thought it was gonna be a riot where we had where we thought the riot would be.
Thomas Battles (01:33:10): But fortunately, and we had positioned some community people in that area. So fortunately the riot say in Trayvon's case. So when kids came out to the street, they saw leaders and they, there were no rocks and bottles and the same thing with Michael Brown and then her mother and his mom came on and said ... you know, she was crying, you know, but I don't want any riots, you know, but in that case, we also told her, we're gonna get this, you know, the justice department, not weak, the justice department said, but we are going to indict this police department. So this is not over yet. We think we can indict this police department. So in CRS case, it's a matter of knowing when we can, when we stop, what we can do. And then when do we get out, because it's not much more we can do in that case.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:15): Okay. Have you seen changes in the nature of policing from the eighties when you started till, uh, when you retired or even now?
Thomas Battles (01:34:31): Yeah, I saw, I've seen a lot of changes, but I, as much as I've seen changes, I've seen a lot. For example, there are a whole lot more law women police chiefs than there was when I, when I started, in fact, many of the police departments around the country wouldn't even meet with a woman conciliator that was on my team.
Heidi Burgess (01:34:55): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:34:56): Wouldn't even meet with, let alone hire a police, a woman as a police chief. So NOBLE, for example, National Organization for Black Law Enforcement executive, you know, they do a lot to promote and identify and market women as police chief, the person in Charlottesville, when that took place was a woman chief for police, Chief Brackney, she was a female chief when that took place. Many of the tactics and strategies that we see in managing crowds have changed over the years from the 1980s, with the field force to different strategies in terms of managing crowds, whether they just, you know, in the eighties and nineties, just go and sweep and move out the entire crowd to now you surgically identify the problem, go get it and take it out and allow the group to handle their event and manage their event now, instead of trying to mar the entire group.
Thomas Battles (01:36:00): So, so there are a lot of changes. A lot of police departments have specialized units have units now with these community affairs community relations units, civilian review boards, citizens investigative panels, are ... in place. Many unions have opposed them, but have taken a shot at looking at 'em to see what if ... they can live with them, will they work? We work to try to identify some of those and where they are, not that this one works better than this one, this one worked better, but here are some, you take a look at 'em and see if it's something that you can live with kind of offerings that CRS may have in a community. Those are some of the things that we have tried to do over the years with those kind of ... systems.
Heidi Burgess (01:37:07): Do you think they've had an impact on the number of police shootings?
Thomas Battles (01:37:14): Yes and no. Mental health issues have hurt that a lot. You know, there's, you know ... the use of body cams have been a big help to ... change law enforcement because ... you look at the case of North Carolina with ... the Scott Case, when that young man was shot running away and the officer said he was going for his gun, but the officer didn't know that there was another camera on him all the time and he got convicted of lying and he shot young man in the back several times.
Thomas Battles (01:38:00): And ... for the video camera caught that, that shooting and the community didn't really go up in arms, but the FBI called me and said, Tom, just be, keep this community calm just a little while longer. We think we got something here that will break this case wide open. And I did ... I kept the community calm. I said, y'all just hold off just a little bit longer. The FBI think they have something here that might ... calm your nerves. And they did. They had another video and they, this guy was shot in the back several times by this police officer and then indicted that officer within 48 hours and ... convicted him. And so that... was the turning, I think body cameras has done a lot to make police officers think twice about some of the, the tactics and the thing that, that they're doing.
Thomas Battles (01:39:03): I think that's a big, big change, but some of 'em turn their cameras off and that that's a no, no. So they, they have to get discipline for turning their cameras off because ... and that's supposed to happen. They're supposed to get discipline when their camera goes off. And some of 'em say in malfunctions, and then you have to question if it really malfunctions or not. Yeah. So that's a, that's a big, big deal. Walter Scott is the case I was thinking about in North Carolina where the officer shot and killed the young man in North Carolina Walter Scott. So, yeah, body cameras is a big, big, big thing. Now, you know, the Breonna Taylor's of the world is, you know, sad, sad case, where they go in and shoot this young lady in her house multiple times.
Thomas Battles (01:39:59): And that shouldn't have happened at a no knock warrant, you know, and that's what happened to this young man in Minneapolis, this Amir [Locke] a few days ago. And he was not even, even on the warrant that they were looking for. I think they were looking for his cousin or somebody else. So and you could see the video and that ... you know, that's been another change. Another case I wanted to mention to you that that was interesting that I worked, I was fortunate enough to lead the operation that the Republican National Convention and the Democrat National Convention. So those cases are cases of national significance. This era of CRS, this group didn't get a chance to work that closely with the, at RNC and the DNC under the Trump administration.
Thomas Battles (01:40:59): But I did, Ron and I, and I worked in Tampa with the Republican Convention and in Charlotte, the Democratic convention. And ... then I worked the Olympics in Atlanta where the bomb took place in Atlanta when the Olympics were here. And that those cases are national significance where you work with the secret service, who controls the entire security issues around that. And so we, our role was to work the marches and the protests, those that were of jurisdiction. So we worked with the local police to cover the marches and protests. And, uh, we had great experiences working the various jurisdictional, LGBTQ issues, civil rights issues, issues related to housing and all those that, and they very high-profile type marches and protests. They give you a time to march and you march those issues, then you go in the First Amendment zone and then they turn the mic on and you march for a protest for a period of time.
Thomas Battles (01:42:08): And then they turn the mic off when your time is up. And sometimes when you do a march, a roving march, when you walking somewhere, a lot of times the anarchists or the people who march and wanna change the route on the spot. And that's when we do on the site, mediation, they may wanna go, the march is scheduled to go turn, make a left turn, and then the anarchists or the protestors wanna turn right. And ... turning right could impede traffic because they re-directed the traffic, right to keep it from interfering with the march and the protestors wanna go, right. So they wanna go and impede traffic and wanna sit down in front of the traffic. And so that happened to us in Tampa, right at 4:30 when traffic started getting heavy downtown, the marchers decide they wanna sit down and the police was getting ready to make major arrests.
Thomas Battles (01:43:01): So I got on the floor on the ground with the marches and say, hey, look, you do know you're getting ready to get arrested. And I said, if you get up and not do this, you have a chance to march later on in the week, because it was the early part of the week of the RNC in Tampa. I said, but if you ... and it was like Tuesday in the RNC later than the week, like Friday, Saturday, I said, if you, if you don't get up, now you get arrested today. You won't be back the entire week. And so you destroyed the purpose for being here. So they thought about it for a minute and said, yeah, you're right, we better get up. So they got up and I told the police, give me a minute, let me negotiate with 'em. And so they did, they let me negotiate with 'em, but I had to sit down on the ground with 'em. And so all these cameras watching me sit down on the ground at five o'clock negotiating with these anarchists on the five o'clock news in Tampa. So that was interesting. So that was one of those on the site, mediation kinds of things.
Thomas Battles (01:44:03): So that ... happened in Tampa. And so that was a ... there was another situation in Tampa where they went to a cement plant and they interlocked themselves with those and they put cement on their hands and locked themselves up and got on top of a truck and wouldn't leave and we had to negotiate. They actually had to saw them off from each other with the I forgot the name of those as a there's a name for those kinds of ... locks when they locked themselves up with cement and you can't get out of them.
Thomas Battles (01:44:40): Yeah and they got on top of a truck on the top of a 18 Wheeler and wouldn't get off. And the fire department had to come and ... get the jaws of life with the saw to un-saw them. So those are some of the experiences I had with the Republican National Convention in Charlotte and in Tampa. So we had a team in the command center and teams out on the streets and we had official IDs and credentials and all those things. And we actually had a seat at the table and working with the secret service. And so when they ate, we ate in a big command center and a big cafeteria with all the other law enforcement and all those kinds. And we actually had a role and we were actually in the operations plan and what our role was at the RNC and DNC.
Heidi Burgess (01:45:33): So this was this you retired in 2019. So this couldn't have been 2020, 2016?
Heidi Burgess (01:45:41): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:45:42): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:45:43): Yeah at the RNC and DNC.
Heidi Burgess (01:45:45): Before Trump was elected?
Thomas Battles (01:45:46): Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:45:47): Okay. Um, what about the justice system? Have you seen changes in the justice system over the period of time that you've been active?
Heidi Burgess (01:46:00): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (01:46:05): The justice system, I tell you there's been a lot of work to deal with unfair incarceration in that sense. The justice department has worked a lot and I've talked to the many of those in the justice department who work prison reform, and those that are incarcerated in prisons who conditions are bad. I know some people who work those kind of cases, and we've talked a lot about prisons in Georgia and Florida and Alabama, where conditions are bad that they are working ... and to try trying to improve those conditions and to charge officers and ... prison guards with violating civil rights of inmates. I've ... if that's what you're talking about ... I'm aware of those kinds of reforms that have taken place. But I do know organizations like NAACP and others who have been still fighting that issue. That's still high on their list of issues to continue to fight as well as restoration of rights of those who have been incarcerated for years unjustly. But those are issues for the most part that CRS has not really engaged or got involved in.
Heidi Burgess (01:47:42): Okay. That was my question.
Thomas Battles (01:47:45): Yeah. So I know about those issues because I just travel some of the circles of those people. And I just talk to DOJ officials that I do know that are engaged in those issues, because those issues are important to me. And so I talk to those in DOJ that work some of those kinds of cases, as well as I know those are issues on the NAACP's plate.
Heidi Burgess (01:48:11): What about changes in the education system?
Thomas Battles (01:48:16): Well, you know, some of the priorities of CRS is in education, education, DOJ, and general community relations. So we, we try to stay involved in educational issues where race is an issue, not necessarily segregation conflict. And then in the early years of CRS, we did get involved in some cases where the judge maintained jurisdiction over some desegregation cases that that CRS was involved in the early years of our existence ... where tension was still high. And they had desegregation as an issue in it and our part was just deal with the community reaction and community relations implications of, but ... we deal now in education with trying to deal with conflict in schools. And so we, we had this spirit program that we've had for years dealing with differences in schools. And so I assume we still have that program and it's, it's worked a lot to help kids deal with differences.
Thomas Battles (01:49:31): You know, kids traditionally are mean to each other when they have issues, but, you know, in short order, they hook back up with each other and they have fun, but, you know, they'll go to each other's house and they'll forget about the fight, they'll play with each other, but nowadays it's ... a different kind of situation with a lot of these kids. So we, you know, we talk 'em up to 'em about hate, you know, we, at one time we used to do a program with the ADL and deal with a world of difference, you know, in Miami, I worked with them on this program called the world difference to talk about differences. We partner in the Dade County School System, which is a huge school system in the country. Race is something that lot of schools deny that they have problems in that area.
Thomas Battles (01:50:34): But now I think they're coming to the reality. That is something that it's not something that they need to hide, but ... this code race theory issue is, I mean, I don't know. I don't know how they run away from and why they're running away from it. But, you know, we have a lot of kids in schools, for example, our LGBT that don't know how to come out to their parents, but they come out in school. They don't come out in, we have programs that we work with schools and to, to talk about that issue and how to deal with that with the GLSEN and other groups that help parents deal with their children that wanna come out and don't know how to do it. So those are some of the ways we focus on education and deal with education in schools in terms of how to deal with it in conflict.
Thomas Battles (01:51:33): You know, I think we should partner more with the Department of Education on some of these issues, as a natural partner in, in terms of education, accessing schools and accessing children to deal with some of these tough issues. You have a lot of kids that are in denial, a lot of kids and bullying. A lot of parents don't want to have these conversations because they're fearful that their kids will get retaliated on because they talked about these issues and said something, you know, but it's a ... reality that we need to focus in on ... in schools.
Heidi Burgess (01:52:13): What about the advent of social media? Social media didn't exist when you started, it did when you ended. And it certainly seems to be a way of quickly inflaming situations and spreading hate. Is this something that CRS ever tried to tackle directly or avoid, or did it impact your work at all?
Thomas Battles (01:52:40): Social media is here to stay and CRS need to develop a social media platform that tells its story and helps shape its story in the media. However, we can do that within the, the limitations of being in the media... and market itself and who we are. I think that's, that's the key. How do you market in this ... new age of social media and stay relevant? I think we gotta figure out how to do that.
Heidi Burgess (01:53:24): Is that something that CRS is doing now?
Thomas Battles (01:53:28): Yeah, it is. Yeah. I think it has a platform to do that now, and I think they have authority to do it and the green light to do it. So I'm, I'm happy for them in that area. And so ...
Heidi Burgess (01:53:41): That's interesting to me because when we did all of our interviews 20 years ago, people stressed that CRS really tried to take a low profile and didn't market itself. And I remember some of the folks we talked to said that they saw that as a problem, because it meant that when it came up to time to refund them in Congress, Congress never heard of them. It didn't know what they were doing because they took such a little profile. So I'm interested to hear that maybe that's changing now.
Thomas Battles (01:54:14): Yeah. I think people need to know what they're doing and help them do what they're doing, help them do what they're doing better. Yeah.
Heidi Burgess (01:54:25): Okay.
Thomas Battles (01:54:26): You need to help them do what they're doing.
Thomas Battles (01:54:29): Get them the resources and, you know, they ... got some funding to deal with cold cases, Emmett Till cases, you know, a lot of those cold, those cases are old, but they, new cases emerging, you know, have some forms on forms on, you know, Emmett Till cases on what that means and ... how to address these cold cases and ... how to access the community when it's time to host forums on cold cases.
Heidi Burgess (01:55:06): Hmm. Okay. Did CRS bureaucracy ever turn into a problem for you?
Thomas Battles (01:55:19): Did CRS bureaucracy ever turn into a problem for me? Yeah. One time I got accused of saying something that I didn't say, and then wanted my head on the chopping block and it took my secretary to say, he didn't say it. That's not his voice on this recording. And as much work as I've done for this agency, they were gonna make me the sacrificial lamb for something that I didn't say. And my secretary heard the tape and she said, that's not Mr. Battles. It's a kid that's with another group here in Florida. It's not Mr. Battles, the Dream Defenders. That was the name of that group. It was the Dream Defenders. And she said, that's not him. He doesn't speak like that. That's not his phraseology. And they said, okay, finally, we, now we understand who it was, but he would getting ready to hang me out to dry.
Heidi Burgess (01:56:21): Wow.
Thomas Battles (01:56:24): But, but you know, in DC, you know, you know, it's that who did what and where, and when, you know,
Heidi Burgess (01:56:35): I guess so. Did you have any mentors at CRS that kind of guided you in the early stages of your career?
Thomas Battles (01:56:48): Yeah. When I came to CRS in 1984 for Gil Pompa was the national director. Wallace Warfield was still there. Gail Padgett was the general counsel. Ozell Sutton hired me. I was in the field office Rob was my partner. But Gil Pompa told me something. He says, I know, you know, a lot of people in Florida and he said, I need you to continue to know people and learn more people. He said, no matter how many people, you know, it doesn't mean a thing to me, unless you can get them when I need you to get them for CRS. He said it doesn't mean a thing to me, unless you can get them when I need you to get them for CRS. So keep growing and keep learning and keep getting people and facilitate that dialogue. So when I need them for CRS, you can get 'em. And so all of my CRS life I've been growing and learning people. And when they need them, when he needed them for CRS, I was getting them for CRS. And, and, and so that's how I worked my role, a that for CRS and ... I always kept that. And Ozell Sutton was my kappa daddy if you will my mentor you know and he said, as long as you enroll in the struggle, you could never retire.
Thomas Battles (01:58:28): And so ... you know, he said, don't ever think about that. You just, just keep working. And I did, and just keep working. And he ... and there was a passage in the Bible that he always, it was Micah. He loved Micah. And he just said he had ... has shown you what is required of you man, to do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. And that's what we did do justly love mercy. And the walk humbly with your God. And so we just walk, worked hard. We, we never saw CRSs work. We just saw it as a ministry. So we just worked. It you know, we didn't care how long they always were. We didn't, it wasn't an 8-5 for us. It was just hard work. It was just work. We just saw it as helping people who needed help. I mean, race was an issue ... and here's the other thing about that Heidi, race is a tough issue for people to talk about it and deal with. And we assess this among police officers all the time to talk about and white people, race was a tough issue for people to talk about, but for us, race was, comes out of our mouth like it's water.
Heidi Burgess (01:59:53): Right?
Thomas Battles (01:59:54): So it was easy for us to talk about race. And so when we talked about race, people would get red in the face. But for us, we earn our living, talking about race. So we tried to make, 'em feel comfortable with it and say, look, it's okay to have these racial differences and feelings. You just gotta know how to, where to place them. Now, it's not gonna always be like this. So you gotta learn how to change where you are now, you this way now it's not gonna always be like this. You've gotta figure out where to place this energy you have of hatred. And we used to have those kind of conversations with police and people in communities and at city hall sometimes because if change is gonna come and had to start with the person we were talking with, you said, now you gotta go home and have this conversation at home, and you gotta come back because your running this city and you gotta be a city leader for everybody in this community, not just for white folk. You gotta be a city leader for black folk back under these woods, too. And so we, you know, race, you know, you say the police department, your police department doesn't have to be a bad police department. You just gotta figure out how to manage your officers. So they can be an officer for everybody in this department. So that, that's how my mentorship grew and how I grew and working and developing my rolodex and learning people and how to access them when I needed them.
Heidi Burgess (02:01:34): And for somebody coming in for the young folks who might be coming in to CRS today, would you recommend that they do the set, basically the same thing?
Thomas Battles (02:01:44): Absolutely develop your rolodex, develop people, learn them, stay in touch with 'em, respect, who they are, and be true to who you are as a conciliator don't make promises that you can't keep and know what you can do and what you can do. And I think that's key, know what you can do and what you can not do.
Heidi Burgess (02:02:09): Okay.
Thomas Battles (02:02:10): Absolutely.
Heidi Burgess (02:02:12): I realize we're over two hours, I just have two more minutes. One is, do you have any written accounts or any publications about your work?
Thomas Battles (02:02:26): About my work? I may, I have to just dig it up and look because most of that belongs to CRS, I would guess, but I would look to see yeah.
Heidi Burgess (02:02:36): If you have any, we be interested in seeing them. Okay. And the last question is, can you think of any questions that I haven't asked that I should have, or any other thing that you're thinking? Gee, I wish I would've told them about that.
Thomas Battles (02:02:54): I always love going to Selma. When I went to Selma, I really got a connection with civil rights and it ... was always a tearful experience to go to Selma. My first Selma was in 85, 86, and I almost got killed in Selma.
Heidi Burgess (02:03:21): Wow.
Thomas Battles (02:03:21): Because, because we, they had a pipe bomb, they found a pipe bomb on the road, on the march, because what happens is after the commemorative celebration activities at the church, they would then march from Selma to Montgomery, they would actually march from Selma to Montgomery, which was a 45 ... almost 50 mile march. And they would do it over few days. And we would march with them. The threat assessment showed that there was some concern for the marchers. So they would march about 10 miles, 8 to 10 miles a day, and stop, go back to the hotels and then come back the next day and pick up where they left off the next day. So the second day they would do a bomb sweep with the dogs, and then somebody planted a pipe bomb that they didn't see.
Heidi Burgess (02:04:29): Oh.
Thomas Battles (02:04:30): And we kicked it over with a paper bag and there it was, and it didn't go off. Yeah, day two of the march. And that was really scary. Bob, it was Bob Ensley's case. Bob Ensley he was the senior man in the region. Bob was the old timer. And so took about four days to get that march. So you go 10, I could 5-10 miles. Then you stop. Then along the way, there are markers Viola Liuzzo, a memorial, which was a white woman who was killed doing, taking voter to register. She was killed. And then you go to elementary school and reverend lower. And some of the people would come and teach classes and they would bring kids from the school to the school and other people. And he would have a class on the civil rights march and stuff.
Thomas Battles (02:05:33): Then you'd march a little bit further and then you'd stop on the side of the road and then they'd sing civil rights songs and stuff and then you'd march a little further and then at the end of the day, you'd go back to the hotel and then come back the next day and pick up where you left off the next day. And then you'd get ... at the end of the week, then you'd go to the capital and then they have a big speech. And then that would be, it I'd take about four days to get there. That's how it worked. So I would always, Selma was ... one of the highlights of ... my work there. I'd always go like going to Selma that that would be in March to commemorate the first weekend in March and then was around my birthday, the Bloody Sunday and March 5th. And so ...
Heidi Burgess (02:06:25): Multiple years.
Thomas Battles (02:06:27): Huh?
Heidi Burgess (02:06:29): Was this multiple years?
Thomas Battles (02:06:30): Yeah, yeah, yeah. They would do that every year, but I would always loved going to Selma to do that. And then, you know, over the years and they would have the biggest, biggest celebrations, the 25th, you know, the 45th 50th. I would love going to those ... the commemorative events over in ... at the Lorraine Motel also, they would march to commemorate Dr. King's assassination at the Lorraine Motel. And I would go there. The thing about the Lorraine Motel that was emotional also because my mentor Ozell Sutton was there on assignment when Dr. King was killed. And he was in one of the rooms during that, that tragic situation and CRS had a display at the hotel a oral history display. We had set up in ... for several years at the motel, they've changed out now. It's not there anymore, but it had a oral history of CRS and our work. Oh. And ... I was on that ... reel and Ozell was on that reel Fred Crawford and others about CRS and who we were
Heidi Burgess (02:07:52): Do you have any idea of what happened to that?
Thomas Battles (02:07:54): I think it's, it's in the archive somewhere at the museum or they gave it back to CRS. I'm not sure we need to talk to Antoinette and see, did they ever give it back to us because we went to Lorraine to get it because they changed the exhibits. So I don't know if it's still there, but we that's a good question to ask. Did we ever get it back? I'll talk to Antoinette and see if it's still there or did we get it?
Heidi Burgess (02:08:17): It would certainly be interesting if that were still available.
Thomas Battles (02:08:21): Yeah. Okay. I'll ask her, did we ever get that reel back ... from the Lorraine motel
Heidi Burgess (02:08:29): And if it's at CRS now, I kind of doubt they let us have at it, but it would certainly be something interesting to see or conceivably even to post if, if we could get permission to do that.
Thomas Battles (02:08:43): Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can see if we can get it. I mean, it it's in our property. We, we loaned it to them to show, uh, I think that's it. Those are two things I wanted to make sure. I mentioned to you the marches .. the riots in Miami, I think ... we covered a little bit about that ... and we talked about Mandela.
Heidi Burgess (02:09:10): Yeah.
Thomas Battles (02:09:13): Elian, Trayvon, Forsyth, Aristide, I think that's it.
Heidi Burgess (02:09:17): All right. Well, I really appreciate your taking the time to do this and I'm sorry that we had the technical issues that we did, but I'm glad we made it.
Thomas Battles (02:09:28): Uh, we good.
Heidi Burgess (02:09:29): And, we, I will share these videos with you shortly.
Thomas Battles (02:09:36): Okay.
Heidi Burgess (02:09:37): And then we'll keep you up to date on what next steps are. I'm not even really sure we gotta get together with Bill and find out where we go from here, but I know we still, we're hoping to do about 20 of these interviews and I've done two, I think he's done three. So we have quite a few left to do.
Thomas Battles (02:09:56): Are there any other employees that you need to find or that you wanna find?
Heidi Burgess (02:10:00): That I don't know, Bill and Grande Lum are kind of in charge of recruiting people. And I will mention to Bill that you're available to help if we need help finding people.
Thomas Battles (02:10:19): All right. Because the general counsel, first general counsel, I know where she is. Gail Padgett. She's in Bradenton, Florida and she's still alive.
Heidi Burgess (02:10:28): She was general counsel for CRS?
Thomas Battles (02:10:31): Yeah. When I was, uh, when I first was hired at CRS.
Heidi Burgess (02:10:34): Oh, that might be, we hadn't even talked about talking to somebody in that role, but that might be really interesting.
Heidi Burgess (02:10:45): Her name is Gail Padgett.
Heidi Burgess (02:10:50): Gail Padgett.
Thomas Battles (02:10:52): She knew Wallace Warfield, and Gil Pompa, Pompa all of that family ... what's his name? Who wrote the book?
Heidi Burgess (02:11:04): Oh yeah. I know who you're talking about.
Thomas Battles (02:11:11): Bert Levine. She knew Bert and all of them.
Heidi Burgess (02:11:13): Yeah, that's right. Okay. All right. Well, she might be a really interesting person to talk to. So ... do you, happen to have her contact information.
Thomas Battles (02:11:29): Do you, no, I just have to text her and ... let me see. I have to, I don't know if I got her number, but I ... know how to reach her.
Heidi Burgess (02:11:36): Okay. Well, we might ask you to do an introduction for us a lot, the same way that, uh, bill did the introduction of me to you. Okay. So let me get back to him and grand, he and grand, as I say, are kind of calling the shots about who we talked to, but I'll, I'll suggest this and let you know.
Thomas Battles (02:11:58): All right.
Heidi Burgess (02:11:59): All right. Well, thanks much. I hope you have a good rest of your day.
Thomas Battles (02:12:03): All right. You take care.
Heidi Burgess (02:12:05): All right. You too. Bye-bye.
