As part of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project, Bill Froehlich interviewed Patricia Glenn on January 12, 2022. Prior to joining the Community Relations Service, Patricia was involved with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in Chicago, Illinois. After a period of working part-time and finishing her education at Ohio State, she taught English composition and ethnic studies before moving back to Chicago. Patricia worked as a conciliator in the Chicago office of CRS from the early 1970s until 1989. She then became the regional director in New York for 10 years until 1999 before returning to the Chicago office.

Patricia highlights one specific mediation case she was involved in at Kane University, which centered around a controversy regarding a book on the Holocaust brought by a bookseller to campus. This created tension between the Jewish and Black communities on campus. The mediation process involved facilitating dialogue between the Jewish and black faculty members at the university, addressing issues related to tenure, and fostering better understanding between the parties.

During the interview, Patricia emphasized the importance of doing sufficient research before getting involved with a mediation. She also talks about the assessment part of the process and the importance of the choice of participants at the mediation. Patricia discusses her goals relating to mediation and states that the ultimate goal is bringing people to the table to facilitate discussions that lead to agreements. Patricia also mentions the importance of building trust between herself and the parties. Ground rules for mediation are also discussed which often include rules like no name-calling or profanity. The interview then moved to the topic of transparency and neutrality. As a mediator she had to remain neutral and ensure that she did not steer the discussion in a particular direction.

The first part of the interview with Patricia ends with a discussion of reframing issues in mediation. Patricia explains that while she doesn't publicly reframe issues from her perspective, she does internally recognize the intractability of certain issues. She states that she approaches these situations by helping the parties explore all the potential solutions and what steps they can take to reach a resolution.

On May 23rd, 2022, the second part of the interview with Patricia Glenn was conducted building upon the previous interview conducted in January of 2022 for the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project.

In the interview, Patricia discussed her role at CRS and stated that she was a conciliator who worked in advance of demonstrations. As a conciliator she focused on the planning and ensuring the safety of those involved in demonstrations. One example Patricia provided was working with Reverend Sharpton to help ensure safety and assist in planning before a demonstration that was in New York. During the interview, Patricia stressed the importance of maintaining neutrality or impartiality. She highlighted the importance of creating a lasting impact in communities by leaving behind tools that would be useful after CRS had left.

One case that Patricia discussed was her experience of meeting with the Ku Klux Klan to help them plan a demonstration. She emphasized the need to approach her work with an open mind and a commitment to serving the entire community, even in challenging situations. There were no community protesters at that event, and the focus was on planning and safety for the Klan's demonstration.

Additionally, the interview discussed issues related to leadership identification, distrust, and new leadership. Patricia emphasizes the importance of building trust and conducting pre-meetings to understand community dynamics. Patricia also talked about working with individuals who demand justice and may be reluctant to negotiate and how she handled those situations. In the interview, Patricia also mentioned some of the difficulties she faced while working for CRS. One of the challenges occasionally faced was gaining entry. Another difficulty faced was navigating the bureaucracy within CRS. Patricia stated that it was important to follow the processes CRS had in place.

The interview concluded with Patricia expressing her gratitude for the experiences she had at CRS and stating how much she enjoyed her career and the learning opportunities it provided.

Patricia Glenn worked with CRS until the late 2000s, serving as a period for regional director in New York as CRS’ only African American female regional director. Before working with CRS, she was involved with the civil rights movement and taught at East High in Columbus, Ohio. She did not get a clear definition of what CRS was before starting her work there, but she was interested in the organization’s mission and decided to take a risk and get involved anyway.

During her time with CRS, Glenn primarily worked on the preparation of demonstrations, ensuring events were safe, rather than on-the-ground street mediation. She also had some unique experiences during her time with CRS—she mediated discussions between death row inmates and prison leadership and taught mediation in Russia.

Glenn touches on a memorable case from a university in which an organization of Black professors unknowingly invited a Holocaust denier to present his work at a conference. The university’s Jewish professors were very upset, and Glenn was called in to mediate the discussions between the two groups. Because she is Black, Glenn had her neutrality questioned by the Jewish professors, who assumed she would favor the group of Black professors. The Black professors also questioned Glenn, claiming that they did not trust her because she worked for the DOJ, which, in their view, never treated African Americans or people of color in general correctly. Eventually, though, Glenn was able to build trust with both sides independently by assuaging their concerns and brought them to the table to reach an agreement.

Glenn emphasizes the importance of “doing your homework” before beginning a mediation. She says that it is important to consider the racial/ethnic composition of the town, university, or place where the mediation is taking place, whether the community has previously dealt with similar situations, and who the leaders are in the community. She stresses that the true leaders are not always the ones who are the loudest or in front of the camera—leadership is about who is making the main decisions for the community.

Neutrality is Glenn’s most important value in her work—it is crucial that she gets parties to the table to talk about what they want but to not encourage them in any direction or reframe their issues in different ways. According to Glenn, “once you begin to help frame [the issues], then those are your issues, [and] they’re not their issues anymore.” She never spoke for communities and always wanted them to speak for themselves.

Glenn sees herself as an “agent of reality” during a mediation session, reminding parties what is actually possible as they try to accomplish their goals and reach a compromise. She also tried to humanize both sides of a mediation in her work, oftentimes bearing the tension within the mediation or acting as a scapegoat for tension while calming both sides down.

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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2
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