Miguel Hernández -- Part 3 of 3

Miguel Hernández was a conciliator with CRS from 1971-1977 and then again from 1988-1995.

There are 3 parts of this interview and a summary: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 and The Summary This is Part 3.

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Bill Froehlich (00:00:01): Welcome back, Miguel. It's great to have you here this afternoon. It is May 19th, 2022. And this is the third part of your oral history, for the oral history project revisited. When we left, a couple ... a week or so ago, we were talking about folks that you learned from, in order to do your work at CRS. And you talked at length about captain Bob Lamb. And then you mentioned a few other names and I have some follow up questions for you, you talked a little bit about Wallace Warfield and that that's perfect. The other two were John Terronez and Jim Pettis.

Miguel Hernández (00:00:46): Mm-hmm

Bill Froehlich (00:00:46): And I'm wondering if you have any stories or memories from your work with them that you ... might share with us?

Miguel Hernández (00:00:56): Well, very quickly. I think I mentioned briefly that Wally and I opened up the office in St. Croix

Bill Froehlich (00:01:08): That's right at the insistence of Spiro Agnew, correct?

Miguel Hernández (00:01:13): Yes, exactly. At the insistence of Spiro Agnew. Of course we didn't know, you know, what was to be in the future with him, but anyway, we never actually got to talk to him, but, anyway, a very funny thing happened on the way to the Virgin Islands. We were told Wally and I, that this was supposed to be top secret I don't know exactly why it was supposed to be top secret, but what, as it turned out, what we were told was that if it was known that CRS particularly was going to go to the Virgin Islands to quote-on-quote investigate and, you know, the, well, first of all, as, you know, we don't investigate. But what we were told was that this would hurt tourism. If the issue of, um, you know, the racial turmoil that was brewing would become known, and we were there, this would hurt tourism. So we said, okay. And anyway, we're into the flight while he and I, when we get a call from ... the flight attendants to come forward to the first class section okay, we'll go there. And in the front class section was the governor of the Virgin Islands. I believe his last name was Evans. I don't recall his first name now, but Governor Evans told us that he was happy that we were coming down to help him and so forth. And he insisted that we sit with him in first class. So we got upgraded. Anyway, when we arrived at the Virgin Islands at St. Thomas he was met at the, at that time, they were engaged. You get off the plane and you, you walked on the field by his limousine which he insisted he would take us to the hotel. Now, his limousine didn't have, of course, a police escort. It had the Virgin Islands flag on one side and the U.S. Flag on the other, on the fender, you know, so it was a procession.

Miguel Hernández (00:03:58): So when Wally and I got off to the, off at the hotel where they left, you know, we were there no longer than five minutes in our rooms. When, when the phone rang from the local media, wanting to know why the Justice Department was in the Virgin Islands. So the whole, top secret thing got blown out of the water. Anyway, as I mentioned to you before with Wally, the thing that I most admired him was that he could keep his cool at all times he was very professional. And so ... I tried to, as much as I could to emulate that to be, tried to be detached when I was working with the clients, with the people that I had to do. So I have two personas and ... this was a very good lesson to be, to be with Wally. As I mentioned, Bob Lamb had this kind of command presence. He was a large man. He had been a World War II in the military. I believe he was an officer. I'm not sure about that, but anyway,

Bill Froehlich (00:05:28): You discussed that he was working south of the Mason Dixon line.

Miguel Hernández (00:05:31): That's right. I was told that that Atlantic City was below the Mason Dixon line. And I had been down in that area in Vineland New Jersey nearby before, because there had been a death of a Puerto Rican migrant worker. There's a basically tomato country down there, you know, and it was rumored that, some anti-immigrant people had, um, waylaid him and ... killed this guy. And so we were down there, but so that's how bad it was in Vineland New Jersey and in Southern New Jersey. It was kind of a dangerous assignment. I was told too that I had better watch myself so I kept my eyes on the, on the road and on the back of the car as well, you know? And when I got to the room, I ... got very paranoid and pushed a sofa up against the door at night but nothing happened, nothing happened.

Miguel Hernández (00:06:50): Anyway, I learned a lot from Bob and I'm sure other people will tell you that ... he had contact with, that had contact with him will tell you the same thing. He was very dedicated to the mission of CRS, and I'm not sure that he used the term sacred mission, but you got the impression from him that that's how he, he believed that he was doing something special. And I got to believe that too. And I think others too, we, we were not, I would say ordinary, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way. We were not ordinary government workers.

Miguel Hernández (00:07:41): We weren't, we worked, whatever hours were necessary to do something. Sometimes there was not much to do so you could be free with your time. You took extra time for lunch, or, you know, whatever. But if there was a crisis, you worked at almost 24 hours, you went late night meetings. We would go to late night meetings, wherever it was. Sometimes we had to stay over ... at the, at the location. But sometimes we know you went there during the day, and then you were meeting there during the day, and then you stayed at night for community meetings. So you, you just work what you needed to work. And I think a lot of people did that and the agency then was relatively small still. And you knew everybody, you know, and you knew, you know about their families and you know, what they did for their hobbies and everything else.

Miguel Hernández (00:08:55): There was a very, I wouldn't say we didn't have disagreements among each other ourselves, but we respected ourselves, our colleagues. And there was, you know, Bob, I worked with him a couple of times in the team meeting, one was in Miami, Florida. And he had that concept of team building, you know, getting together and after work and talking about the cases and so forth. So he, he was a very, to me, a very inspiring individual. So that's what I, you know, and Terronez, he was a very funny guy. He, I went with him, we were in Miami once and after work, we wanted to see this nightclub called the ... in Miami, which was a Cuban run nightclub. And so we went there and we couldn't get in, it was so crowded or something.

Miguel Hernández (00:10:11): And out of the clear blue sky, John Terronez tells the bouncer or the person is at the front door, he says, why I'm Congressman Terronez from Chicago? I mean, he was kidding. He was kidding, but the guy took it seriously. So he said, oh, Congressman I'm so sorry. And he took us into the into this club and gave us our front row seats. And they had a show on the Cuban version of madama butterfly, you know, the opera, I'll never forget that. Anyway, it was a big laugh, but you if you were with John Terronez, he had a wonderful sense of humor, a friendly way about him. And ... his real expertise was with dealing with the American Indian movement. And he was, he was very well respected by them, and he basically was the one that got involved in the whole wounded knee thing and so forth.

Miguel Hernández (00:11:28): So you learned, if you, if you are gonna do anything with, with American Indians, I made sure that when I had cases in upstate New York, I would call John, you know, because he knew all of the characters all over the country, not only Russell Means and the people from AIM, you know, but all over the country. So he was good that way he could give you information and you know, tell you, and one thing I learned from John because of his sense of humor, he says, Miguel, one thing you really know, know, but the American Indians, he says generality. Okay. He said, but they're very funny guys too. So don't take it all that seriously, you know, joke around. That's fine. They ... like to kid around. So anyway, I learned that from John.

Bill Froehlich (00:12:22): Oh, that's great. And Jim Pettis as well

Miguel Hernández (00:12:26): Yes.

Bill Froehlich (00:12:27): Why, what made him someone to learn from as well?

Miguel Hernández (00:12:30): Well Jim, was out of Texas and I got called to go to San Angelo, Texas, with a Mexican desegregation case, everything else. And so it was my first real exposure to the Mexican American community, you know, so again, Jim was also ... you know, very knowledgeable because he lived that. And so I learned a lot from him, uh, whenever I was called to, because, you know, you think because you are one brand of Hispanic, all people think that then you know, every other group, you know, automatically, and lemme put it this way the Hispanic community is very diverse. They, they are in essence different tribes if I can use that word and each group where it's Mexicans, Guatemalans, or Cubans as an example, they, they have different histories. The Spanish language is the same, but they use, you know, different words there's different slang terms and different experiences. So I learned very quickly because my background is Puerto Rican and I have a certain affinity to that. But, I learned from working with the Mexican American community that they're not Puerto Ricans, they're different. Okay. And you, if you're gonna work with them, you need to, you need to understand that culture. You need to understand that culture a little bit better, then you normally would, and not, not make assumptions based on your own ethnicity

Bill Froehlich (00:14:41): And John or Jim helped you navigate that in particular

Miguel Hernández (00:14:45): Absolutely. Because he was a very universal kind of guy.

Bill Froehlich (00:14:53): So what if someone was, were entering CRS as a new conciliator, what would you advise someone entering this line of work to do or observe to become effective?

Miguel Hernández (00:15:10): Well, I, you know what ... I'm kind of reluctant to advise anybody because the world has changed, you know, I was there at a particular time. But now things have changed. So I would say I would be very reluctant to say, do this or do that, or you know, and so forth to anybody. I would like if they wanted my advice, if they said, well, this is the problem. Or I'd like to know how to approach this, or I might offer, offer advice, but I would be very even so I would be reluctant to do that. I would try to find out from them, you know, what the situation is and so forth, but I would always put it on the terms of, you know, I was there at a different time than you are now. I really don't know the people who are there now, I would assume particularly people coming on now, who they have been recruited, many of them, I think I've heard many of them or quite a few of them have been trained as mediators and have degrees in mediation. I've heard, I'm not absolutely certain about that, but I've heard that.

Miguel Hernández (00:16:44): So, so that they're coming from a different perspective. I don't know what their commitment is to CRS as itself. You know, I knew the people that I worked with, the vast majority had that feeling, that they were in a special group, you know, we often talked about not often, but from time to time about this whole concept of you know, so the, the legend is that when ... President Johnson signed the legislation, he said something along the line of come let us reason together. And that was kind of inspirational too, you know, that we were there to get people to, to sit down and talk and reason try to reason together. So I don't know what the training and background is the new people, but we have a new director who's not really new he was there before.

Miguel Hernández (00:17:55): And ... I tried, we've tried to work with him in the past when he was there and he was very receptive to our group. You know, we had a group called CRS remembered which is made up of mostly people who works at CRS or retired or works there for some time. So I'm hopeful that he might be open to the idea of having a, an advisory group of former employees not to tell them what to do on specific cases, but to talk once or twice a year, about general direction of the agency policy and practice, you know, that kind of thing. Obviously we don't want to interfere with, you know, with the day to day operations or to be supervisory people or anything like that, you know, but at least to think about having an advisory group, it could be as wide as possible.

Miguel Hernández (00:19:04): You know, when we went to agencies in the past, we ask mayors to create human rights organizations, you know, to create police review boards. And a lot of federal agencies do have advisory committees and there's a specific federal law that allows that, you know, so we're, I'm hoping at least that maybe somewhere down the line, we would have an advisory group of former employees and other experts to sit down with the director and the management, you know, once or twice a year, hopefully twice a year, at least. And talk about the direction of the agency, and you know, if they want us to participate in doing some training kinds of things, I'm sure several of us could do that. I don't know if it will happen, but, you know, that's the direction we're going. I'm trying to get to get to.

Bill Froehlich (00:20:19): Great. One last question before we get back to the to the, the street mediation questions. Yeah. Do you have any written accounts of what you did in a particular case or any other publications about your work? I know that most, you know, obviously you, weren't technically going to write about what you did.

Miguel Hernández (00:20:43): Yeah, no, I don't have anything, you know, that was published or anything like that. No.

Bill Froehlich (00:20:50): Yeah, yeah. But I appreciate you, you know, for the reader and the viewer of this oral history, I appreciate you mentioning, unsolicited, Bob Lamb's reference to the sacred mission and President Johnson's reference or quote come let us reason together. I think you may know that Timothy Johnson put together a short note using his personal ... personal paper, personal printer, personal time, personal ink and personal stamps, and sent to his colleagues at CRS at one point in time and you may or may not have been there a note about what the sacred trust means to him personally, and what the spirit of CRS is to come and let us reason together. And so it's really interesting to hear you say that without knowing of Timothy Johnson.

Miguel Hernández (00:21:49): No, I never read it. No.

Bill Froehlich (00:21:51): And I'll, as part of this project, it'll be incorporated not the original, but the text of it. So I just wanted to share that with you, so great. Miguel, so I wanted to turn now, you know, what we did in the first oral history is you gave me a few examples of cases, the Williamsburg case you talked about going, going down to Cuba, Central America, you talked about other cases, really, really great illustrations. And then I asked you generally to walk me through what you did at a table oriented mediation process, community mediation, some of the challenges you talked about, the challenges of quote-on-quote what you call community mediations, and particularly one day you might have one leader of an organization at the table and the next day leadership changes. And now you gotta deal with new people or challenges of setting ground rules, but I wanted to talk to you now about your work navigating, conciliating street or community oriented processes that's the framing that we have, what we mean by that is during a demonstration. Were you involved in conciliated during demonstrations? And can you talk a little bit about, about your role in that context?

Miguel Hernández (00:23:13): Yeah. Yeah, we, I was present a lot of demonstrations, a few of them involved Reverend Al Sharpton and know since we were in, you know, in New York City. And the one I remember most with him was the ... Hasidim black dispute in Crown Heights, which was really quite a large demonstration and a lot of violence resulted from that, it happened that a black child was accidentally killed in an automobile accident with a .. you know, young rabbinic student driving a car, as I recall. But anyway, so, a lot of demonstrations ensued and Reverend Sharpton and several others in the black community leadership people came down to east New York, Crown Heights, rather Crown Heights neighborhood, which was largely a at that time, was largely an African American neighborhood and a sect...

Bill Froehlich (00:25:02): Sorry, Miguel, for some reason you just went on mute there. So if you could just say Crown Heights was largely an African American neighborhood and a that's where you were

Miguel Hernández (00:25:15): Lubavitch which is another sect of the Hasidim community.

Bill Froehlich (00:25:21): Say it one more time.

Miguel Hernández (00:25:23): Lubavitch

Bill Froehlich (00:25:24): Okay. Thank you.

Miguel Hernández (00:25:26): And Rabbi Schneerson was the principle, you know, rabbi then and revered ... by his community. And, I guess I could, you know, this is a bad analogy but I can't think of a better way to say it. He was like the cardinal okay of the Lubavitcher you know, that had that kind of leadership in the community. So anyway, it was a very tense time there was violence. And ... in one instance, there was a huge street fight between the young Lubavitch rabbinic student and the black community. I mean, bricks were flying two by fours were flying. So when violence breaks out like that, there's very little that you can do. Okay.

Miguel Hernández (00:26:45): But one of the things that I learned from that, I learned it actually from Tim Johnson about what you can do when violence breaks out and you are at a demonstration, and I saw Tim do this. I forget exactly what the situation was, but what he did was he called a kid over. That was riding just says, hey, come here I wanna talk to you. You know? And he went up and talked to the kid and established a one-on-one with him, and he kind of pulled them out of the situation. Okay. And then talked to another kid that way. And then more kids came over to see what the conversation was all about and got the kids engaging in sort of a dialogue. He didn't tell them, don't do this, or don't do that, you know, just talking, you know? So that was a very, I don't think, I don't think he remembers that I, you know ...

Bill Froehlich (00:27:51): I just wanna make sure I'm understanding this. So there is some violence with bricks and clubs and other things between these communities and Tim is calling people over one at a time.

Miguel Hernández (00:28:04): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:28:05): And then having a conversation about like their needs and interests or what? Do you know, what the conversations were about?

Miguel Hernández (00:28:14): Like, tell me what's happening. Why are you here? What, you know, just a very general conversation without making any demands on anybody said, you know, maybe you should get off the street or something like that, you know, which they're not gonna do, but, you know, so I ... kind of applied that, you know, I thought it was effective. It worked in a real situation, wasn't something that somebody said in a training, you know, class, you know? It was a real thing. You know, so that was, um,

Bill Froehlich (00:29:00): And you, and so others came over just to see what was happening.

Miguel Hernández (00:29:04): Yeah other kids came over. Yeah. Other kids came over

Bill Froehlich (00:29:06): And so that took some kids out of the violent parts of the demonstration.

Miguel Hernández (00:29:12): Yeah. And so that was one thing.

Bill Froehlich (00:29:20): Did you have other strategies at demonstrations?

Miguel Hernández (00:29:24): Well yes, other strategies that I used was, I always made sure that if there was a demonstration, I would find out who the top police officer was, you know, commander. And I made that I went over to the, to him or her, to the post where they were, and I introduced myself and I, you know, talked to him. I said, look, I'm gonna be in the area. I've been told to be here, as part of my job. And then if there was a, you know, while they all, they were briefing the other police officers, you know, I would try to go over there and introduce myself so that they would know I was in the area. Okay. I did that for my own safety basically, because I didn't want to get hurt, potentially hurt, you know? But I thought it was good. It was good politically, if I can put, you know, to get to know the cops, as well as the leadership of the community of the demonstrators, because I showed I was even handed, you know, and I was.

Bill Froehlich (00:30:51): Yeah. So how did you quickly build some trust with those police folks on the ground and with demonstrators?

Miguel Hernández (00:31:00): Well, you know, you ... knew there was gonna be a demonstration and you talked to the, to the group that was organizing it or leading it. And we tried to talk about self-appointed marshals, you know, that kind of thing. If you know, you wanted us to kind of get what's the route of the march and try to get an agreement between the police and the community about the route of the march, you know, where it was gonna go, how it was gonna go, who was gonna be there, that kind of stuff. So that was a, in a way, you know, mediation, if you will, but information sharing. So there would be no surprises as much as possible, so anything could happen, but you, you wanted the people you wanted, the police and .. the community leaders to know each other, you know, if something came up who they could go to complain, you know, to, or to, you know, voice whatever concerns they had and, you know, come into, you know, certain agreements about route of march and self-policing, you know, that kind of thing.

Bill Froehlich (00:32:21): So did you train demonstrators in self-marshaling or self-policing? And what did that look like?

Miguel Hernández (00:32:30): Well, training would be a strong word. What we did was suggest that they have self-policing, you know, and, you know, maybe you should have people with arm bands. I mean, but we didn't train each individual group, you know, on how to actually do it. But I mean, you know, it, it's very simple process, you know? And a lot of the times ... at demonstrations, there would be, law students, you know, and lawyers present who were there as observers, one to help people who were arrested, you know, when mass arrest or whatever it was. And to, you know, they would represent them not us, you know, they would represent them. So there was some coordination with those groups as well. That was also very important. In other words, you try to figure out who is who, what do they do, why are they here and so forth? And if it's possible, get them together or, you know, informally so that things would go as well as they possibly could.

Bill Froehlich (00:33:53): With those observers, it sounds like, you wanted to know why they were there or what they were doing. And so everyone was transparent ...

Miguel Hernández (00:34:02): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:34:03): As to what their role was?

Miguel Hernández (00:34:05): Yeah. And, but we were not observers, you know, in the sense that we weren't subsequently going to testify about what happened and all that stuff. No.

Bill Froehlich (00:34:15): Yeah. I think there's a statute about that. Yeah. That would prohibit that, or I hope, I hope it would.

Miguel Hernández (00:34:22): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:34:24): So you found yourself, you actually used the word mediating, you found yourself mediating issues like the demonstration route. Were there other issues that you found yourself mediating between the demonstrators and the police or community officials?

Miguel Hernández (00:34:40): Yeah. This, you know, obviously the ... well one thing we would say to the police commander, look, they have ... marshals, you know, self marshals, and they're going to be wearing arm bands so that you know who they are, and they'll be at the, at the marching outside at the marches themselves, you know? So this is who they are. If there's a problem, you know, see this guy or that guy, I mean, depending on, you know, in New York City, you never had a problem with that, but because you have a very sophisticated police department, you can, you can complain about them, for sure. But, you know, they knew what the hell they were doing. And they had a whole police community relations units, I mean, large. Okay. They would send 20, 30, 40, 50 guys with blue jackets, light blue jackets that have community affairs on the back, you know, but I mentioned before, most police departments are 10 people, you know, you know, on average. But, so depending on the ... size of the police department, the situation you were in, you know, you had to figure that out.

Bill Froehlich (00:36:02): So when you were doing this, and I imagine there were lots of demonstrations in New York City that you were at, they sent out their community relations. You met, you knew who you were working with, but if you were in upstate New York or another rural or suburban community that didn't have those kind of resources. How did that make a difference? What did you do differently?

Miguel Hernández (00:36:23): Then you were, you, you were more intense in terms of talking to the, you could talk, you know, I couldn't in New York city, I couldn't .. don't think I ever talked to the police commissioner except one time. But anyway, yeah, so you could rarely talk to, you know, a higher level, but in a small community, you know, you could walk into the chief's office practically without an appointment, you know?

Bill Froehlich (00:36:54): Did you, I know you see your role as neutral or impartial generally. Did you feel that shifting or drifting away when you were working at a demonstration or did you feel that you remained neutral?

Miguel Hernández (00:37:11): No. No. We always, we always remained neutral, always. You know, that was sort of a drill thing. You gotta, there were instances where you couldn't talk to both sides, you know? Where was I? There was a ... huge demonstration. I think it was Gary Indiana where, the Ku Klux Klan was marching. Okay. And the mayor, they were protesting, I don't know what they were protesting, but, but anyway, the Ku Klux Klan was there and we had to, and the mayors said, nobody, they are not going to march in my city. Okay. These people are, so we don't want them they're violent and so forth. And so on. So we just speak to the mayor. I think it was Gary. Yeah. No, no, not Gary gosh. My memory's failing me, failing me, but anyway, it was like that kind of a city and Carol Illinois.

Bill Froehlich (00:38:36): Okay.

Miguel Hernández (00:38:37): And, so, you know, we said them, I forget who I was there with was maybe it was Terronez but yeah, I said we understand that, you know, we understand your feelings and so forth because they, there was a, they were protesting against the Jewish community. And, I said, yeah, we understand that but you know, you might have, you might have some runs into some problems with the, you know, if they go to court and claim First Amendment rights and so forth. And, you know ... I have a certain, I'm not a lawyer, but, you know, certainly knew about the First Amendment and what that meant. So what you might run into trouble. So anyway, ultimately he did see the, he did come around to that and he said, okay, we can, we can let them march as much as I hate them.

Miguel Hernández (00:39:31): And, you know, he went the whole thing. But then we worked with the local police. So, but we could never talk to the leadership of the ... Ku Klux Klan. They would, they, you know, they rebuffed every effort we ever made to talk to them. Then they would say we didn't talk, they didn't talk to us. They weren't neutral. They only talked to the Jews or they only talked to the black, they don't talk to us. You know, that was ... part of the of the thing that happened though. Anyway, that's

Bill Froehlich (00:40:03): Sounds like it was part of their strategy.

Miguel Hernández (00:40:05): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:40:06): Did you ever try to end or redirect violence at a demonstration?

Miguel Hernández (00:40:14): Well, the only one I could recall was in Boston, Massachusetts, where violence had broken out in the Puerto Rican community, Hispanic community, there had been a Puerto Rican festival and I don't know what happened. I recall, you know, what triggered it off. But anyway, so these kids were, were looting stores and they were looting in this particular that we observed was a sneaker store, you know, so they all went into the sneaker store and they started taking shoes, you know, so went into the sneaker store and talked to these kids and said, look, you know, I don't think you, I don't think this is really helping. Okay. Because what's gonna happen is the guy's gonna lose the store. You won't be able to get any sneakers anymore. Nobody will even buy from him. And besides that, the guy that owns it is Hispanic.

Miguel Hernández (00:41:22): So who, you know, I say, who are you hurting? What, how does this translate to the, you know, that kind of stuff. Anyway, we started talking to the kids, you know, on the one, one-by-one basis, sort of a group here and there. And ... they all ... walked out, you know? So they stopped looting. I was there with a guy named Ed Cabbel. I, I don't know whatever happened to Ed, but anyway, so, but as we are doing this and things happened, and we dispelled those kids from taking stuff at the store, the Boston tactical force comes running down the street, you know, in close order drill, you know, and they got the batons like this, you know?

Miguel Hernández (00:42:12): And so we went over, talked to them and said, oh, it's okay. Now everything, you know, is gone and everything else. Well, they got really, they said, well, who the hell are you? You know, but words to that effect, a little stronger And ... Ed Cabbel pulled out. His credential said, well, I'm Edward Cabbel United States Department of Justice and blah, blah, blah. So the police commander said, well, get your effing federal ass off the streets. So I said to Ed, come on, let's go, you know, but, um, anyway, they, the police officer pushed Ed, knocked Ed down onto ... and actually got hurt. He got hurt, you know? And, anyway, we, I don't know ... we left. But Ed had to go to the hospital, you know, and about a month later, I was in Miami, on another case and a federal agent came up to me, FBI, and we had to tell him what happened. Cause I, you know, went up the complaint, went up, we, you know, we called the director of CRS and he calls the Attorney General. I don't know. Anyways, it was a big thing.

Bill Froehlich (00:43:46): Yeah. So, okay.

Miguel Hernández (00:43:48): Yeah. Became a big deal, but yeah. So yeah, we ... took care of the riot at that sneaker store we intervened directly.

Bill Froehlich (00:44:03): Yeah. Right.

Miguel Hernández (00:44:04): But it didn't turn out so well for

Bill Froehlich (00:44:07): For you guys. Oh my, anything come of it from the FBI investigation?

Miguel Hernández (00:44:13): We never heard anything more. No, never heard it anymore.

Bill Froehlich (00:44:16): So did you ever train protestors or advocates to be more effective?

Miguel Hernández (00:44:22): Did I ever train for, what?

Bill Froehlich (00:44:23): Did you, did you ever train or your colleagues ever train protestors or advocates to be more effective at articulating their needs and interests?

Miguel Hernández (00:44:32): Yes, a little. I didn't. Okay. But ... yeah, that was a part of the training thing, how to ... train marshals and that kind of stuff. Yeah. But I, you know, I didn't do it, not because I didn't want to, but I just, I just had a different style. Okay. And, so no.

Bill Froehlich (00:45:02): So you've described some other parties, like, observers, legal observers attorneys who were helping, civils advocates after they got, after they're arrested.

Miguel Hernández (00:45:14): Mhmm <affirmative>.

Bill Froehlich (00:45:14): Were there other parties involved in your efforts and how did you work with them?

Miguel Hernández (00:45:20): Well, clergy. Okay. I mean, of all of all persuasions. So we make sure we ... touch base with the clergy work with clergy groups. We call 'em the God squad, you know, wherever they were. Oh, you gotta talk to the God squad. So, yeah. I think I mentioned before that chambers of commerce were very important to touch base with because they really had a stake in getting situation calmed down, you know, and because, you know, there was a general feeling between other people, that look, some people said, well, you are ... some people said, you are, you're betraying the community. That's protesting, you know, because this is the only way you're gonna get change by calming down, you know, people telling them not, not to, and I don't know how others felt, but I felt I don't wanna see anybody die.

Miguel Hernández (00:46:48): Okay. Or get hurt or get arrested. You know, I think that's more important because there's another way to try to resolve this or to try to resolve this. I wasn't exactly Martin Luther King, you know, but I did believe in nonviolence, you know, as a way of ultimately achieving civil rights and I still do, but, you know, that's ... that was me and I think a lot of people, but there was that general complaint against CRS. These guys are trying to stop the riot, you know?

Bill Froehlich (00:47:33): Yeah, yeah. That's a reframe that I have heard before, certainly. So you would articulate your goals, that you had your goals in mind for when you were doing this type of street reconciliation or mediation. Did you explain those goals to the folks you worked with, whether it were the police or the advocates or others. And did they usually share those goals or did they have others?

Miguel Hernández (00:48:01): Well, it was, there were different responses. Okay. If you had a rapport with people and or you, you knew them from a previous situation or, you know, or you got ... to them from somebody who knew you, then you could have an effect. If you came in cold, you know, you parachuted, you know, you came into a situation, you didn't know anybody, everything. And because as I mentioned, a lot of people were suspicious of CRS. You know, you're part of the Justice Department, you're part of the police, you're FBI or whatever. So in those cases, you couldn't make much headway until you developed an area of trust, but if you develop trust and people would acknowledge it later on, they wouldn't acknowledge it right then that, you know, they were gonna, that you helped. And this is also very critical. I always felt, always taught to believe that the resolution was not your resolution, you, that you did something, but that the people who involved closely and had to take it, they were the ones who got the credit for it, you know, whatever. Okay. And sometimes you had to be the fall guy. Okay. You just, it would just, you know, the way it was.

Bill Froehlich (00:49:42): So how did they acknowledge your work in these environments?

Miguel Hernández (00:49:47): Well, sometimes the most obvious way that it, we would get a letter, you know, so, and sent to the Attorney General, President or somebody, and, you know, it works down to you.

Bill Froehlich (00:50:02): A few years later, probably.

Miguel Hernández (00:50:05): When Yusef Hawkins was killed, he was a young black man who went with some of his friends to Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. Saw that movie with John Travolta, you know, where he's in this Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn, Italian American neighborhood Bensonhurst. But anyway, he went there to buy a car and ran into some young Italian kids, Italian-American kids, largely. And they said something to the effect of what, what the hell are you doing in this neighborhood? And ... somehow or another, they beat him up. Then he died. It was a big, big, big mess, you know, with demonstrations people in the ... so anyway, I was, my job for nothing was to reach out to the Italian American community.

Miguel Hernández (00:51:10): So I started with the local church there, and I worked with the Italian American committee and, you know, all these different civic, Italian civic organizations, you know, because tempers were really very high and, you know, Reverend Sharpton was there and they would, you know, demonstrations every weekend, you know? So anyway, I worked with them and I don't know a year later, whatever it was, you know, I got this glowing letter thanking me for talking to them and being with them and, you know, and I didn't do anything, you know, special. I never got to the point where I had a meeting with Reverend Sharpton and the people in the Italian American community. No, we never got actually to that point. In fact, Reverend Sharpton was stabbed by somebody and he had to go to the hospital. He ... you know, he could have died really that's how bad it was. So anyway, but no, we never got to that point, but, you know, they were, they were thankful for whatever. And I didn't really do very much, you know, I just was there talk to them, I guess they felt that somebody from the government came to see what cared about them and wants them to see what they, what they wanted do. And that was, that was sufficient.

Bill Froehlich (00:52:51): Yeah. That's something, that's something.

Miguel Hernández (00:52:53): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:52:54): So I wanna go back also to trust real quick. You talked about rapport that in these environments and street mediations, demonstrations, sometimes you were able to develop rapport quickly. If you had worked with someone previously, they understood what CRS was, or if you had someone get you entry, help you gain entry into that environment. But what were other techniques that you had to build rapport, gain entry, build trust quickly when you're engaged in street mediation?

Miguel Hernández (00:53:34): Gosh, that's a, you just, you just had to go sometimes you didn't have a, you know, a chance to build a rapport or, you know, any previous contact. So you had to go and, you know, and do your best to, to explain your role, what you were doing, you know, and so forth and hope that was, that was enough. So there was no, there was no trick to getting over it. You just, you had to, you had to be diplomatic and I think that's, that's very key to use neutral language, try not to, if somebody, you know, says something that you, you know, personally offensive or not to take umbrage, you know, very hard not to do that. But not to take umbrage, you know, at something that was said, not to try to correct people. Okay. And people would say to me said, they said, you know, one thing, Miguel, I don't like about you. I said, no, what's that? He says, you talk too low, you know, you would talk you know, oh, I said, oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I was trying to speak louder. But what I was trying to do was, you know, keep the dialogue straight. Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:55:04): Good. What, when, when did you decide it was time to end your engagement in a street conciliation? Obviously in Boston when your colleague was knocked over and sent to the hospital, that seems like an end point, but generally what's an end point look like? Does the heat get too high or is it lowered or what happens?

Miguel Hernández (00:55:28): Well, sometimes, you know, sometimes there, there really is no end that you could point to that says, okay, this is, this is success. And you can get out. Now, a lot of times there's a lot of tension at the beginning and then little by little, in very undramatic ways it starts to peter out things start to peter out. And, you know, there's really no point in at that point in going back, because there's nothing, nothing is going, nothing is going to happen, you know? And so, you know, you close the case, you know, you'd say, look, this is it. You know, we've done that. We've done what we can do. There is really is no point in going back now at this point to, you know, keep on going. But sometimes you gotta, you gotta stay there. But the thing is, there's always something else happening, you know, that was more urgent at the time.

Miguel Hernández (00:56:37): So it ended undramatically. And you hoped that that was it. But even if you got to an agreement or whatever it was, you know, you had a so-called self-enforcing mechanism, you know, there was agreement and so forth. I don't know if you talked to Pat Glenn but she mediated that, a dispute in Minnesota and had a big agreement of everything else. And basically the, it was almost an identical to, you know, situation now. And, you know, there was an agreement that was all saying, and then boom, happens 20 years later, whatever it was.

Bill Froehlich (00:57:33): We hope to talk next week.

Miguel Hernández (00:57:36): Yeah history, history repeats itself.

Bill Froehlich (00:57:39): Right. She raised that in her first conversation. And we, and I anticipate talking more about it. I'm not sure how much more but more about it. We talk next week, so

Miguel Hernández (00:57:51): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (00:57:52): Good. Yeah. I will follow up with that. Anything else you wanna tell me about street mediation or conciliation?

Miguel Hernández (00:58:02): No, except that, what happened over and over again is that whatever sparked the demonstration, you know, wasn't, the dispute went far deeper than what happened that particular day things that happened 30 years ago. And you had to, you had to know, or you had to at least give people the opportunity to talk about what happened in previous years. And those were long conversations. But you know, that's one thing I learned that you gotta, you know, you gotta dig, try to get to the root cause of the problem. As I mentioned before, try to get to the root cause, try to get people to understand what the real cause of the problem is. It wasn't that, you know, somebody got shot today or whatever happened today, you know, what's really causing this obviously racism. We haven't been able to erase it, but certainly that happened or you wanna call it insensitivity. Okay. But it's racism, but you had to get people to understand where the problems happened, particularly in terms of the white community that you were dealing with as well.

Bill Froehlich (00:59:27): So did any of ...

Miguel Hernández (00:59:27): I'm not a racist, you know I never did anything to any, you know, yeah but...

Bill Froehlich (00:59:37): Did any of your street reconciliations transition from, you know, working with protestors and demonstrators and police to a more formal community mediation process? So for example, you mentioned Pat Glenn

Miguel Hernández (00:59:57): Yeah

Bill Froehlich (00:59:57): And she was there, I assume she was there doing some of the street style conciliation. And then she helped them develop a long agreement. That, she's not doing that during in the demonstration I don't think

Miguel Hernández (01:00:13): No, no.

Bill Froehlich (01:00:15): Did any of yours transition in a similar way?

Miguel Hernández (01:00:19): No, because for the most part, I was at the crisis response unit, you know, so my job was to get in on, you know, when things were happening, so to speak and then, this what went on or, you know, then I got out of it, you know, I went on to the next thing. So I can't think of what, you know, one particular one that I got into, you know, meetings like that. No, I was called in. Let me try to think of. I can't think of it at a moment.

Bill Froehlich (01:00:54): No, that's fine. I appreciate that. Did other conciliators take on some of that work who, because you were doing

Miguel Hernández (01:01:03): Yeah. Okay.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:03): Yeah. So you might, it might have been transitioned to one of your colleagues.

Miguel Hernández (01:01:08): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:09): Good. So I have only have one more question for you. And that is, is there anything else you'd like to tell me about your work with CRS?

Miguel Hernández (01:01:24): Well, I think, I mentioned that you that was interesting to me was you know, my foreign appointment. I think, I think those were pretty unique. I don't know who anybody else that, you know ... went to ... Cuba. I mean, a few of us went to Cuban and so forth.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:47): Cuba, Panama

Miguel Hernández (01:01:48): I went to Ireland. I went to Ireland and Romania.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:53): Yeah. The Roma community. Yeah. Yep.

Miguel Hernández (01:01:56): Yeah.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:57): Those are fascinating experiences and I'm so appreciative of your sharing them, Miguel. So I'm gonna pause.

Miguel Hernández (01:02:06): Yes.

Bill Froehlich (01:02:09): So Miguel, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to sit down with you for three sessions in about five hours to record. Your ... some oral history, with your experience as a civil rights mediator. And so I'm so grateful and appreciative, and thank, thank you for your time with me and for all your work you've done on behalf of CRS and for communities across the country, you've truly made a difference.

Miguel Hernández (01:02:38): Good. Well, I wanna thank you for this opportunity. And, because I think allowing all of my colleagues, people that I work with also talk ... it does two things once it, they need to talk about their experience to somebody else. It's very important. And, and I think hopefully some of it will be a learning experience for people who come into the future, but hopefully it will somehow help to keep CRS alive and working. It's important for particularly now in our country where we're we need CRS more than ever. I don't say that because, because I work because I worked there because I do really think that, that we need to have dialogue in the community with all that's going on in the separation. That's, you know, it's, it's more intense than it ever was in the sixties. And I mean, but certainly I think this will help. So thank you.