Timothy Johnson -- Part 2 of 3

Timothy Johnson was with CRS from ‘84 to 2010 and the positions he held were Reconciliation Specialist, Chief of Field Coordination, and then Senior Conciliation Specialist.

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

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNE5WSgidu4

0:00        Bill Froehlich:      Well, great it is April 27. A little before 10am and I’m here with Tim Johnson: to conduct part two of his interview. Tim was our pilot interview, our first interview for this oral, second round of the oral history process. The updated oral histories. And so it's been a while since we talked to him. We last spoke in July. So good morning, Tim. It's good to have you in this conversation and to see you again. We wanted to, I want to start this conversation off today by thinking about broad concepts, broad themes, about some of your cases. So, I wanted to think specifically about what a typical case might look like. Knowing that, of course, every case is different. There is no typical case at... CRS. And many of the questions are broad and I'm going to ask follow-up questions accordingly. But I wanted to start with roadblocks, specifically. What kinds of roadblocks, what themes of roadblocks would you encounter in your efforts to work with parties effectively and how did you overcome, or try to overcome, those roadblocks?

1:15        Tim Johnson:      Okay. Typical case would involve a complaint by a community group concerning some level of what they perceived as discriminatory practice. That might be a problem with the school system, a problem with the local government, a problem with the police department. So, the first roadblock, or obstacle, was making contact with the parties. Really, making contact with both parties, both the complainant and the complainers.

And one of my big problems was we would get the information by phone, and this was before Zoom. And then, when I showed up, people... say “wait a minute you white.” So, I had to overcome that. Or people would show up and people would say “well, you're with the Department of Justice, we don't trust you.” So, the... local school would want to talk to the local city attorney. The local police would want to talk to the general counsel. Just fear that the Federal Government was going to do something that might hinder them, or slow them down, or cost them money, or things like that.

The way I generally got over those objections was for the community people to say, “this is your opportunity to move further with your concerns, so that you can move towards some sort of resolution. I will cost you no money. I will provide you guaranteed confidentiality. And I will be neutral. I won’t be on your side, and I won't be on their side. Now, if... that's okay with you, what I'll do is I'll reach out to the other side and see if they would be interested. And during what Lyndon Johnson recommended that we do, and that is sit and reason together.

Now I can't guarantee what the other side's gonna say but, with your permission and your support, I will go and reach out to those people. So school, the police, the government, whoever, and explain to them what you've told me and give them the same offer. An opportunity to sit down with a neutral third party to see if we can't reason this out without courts, without publicity, without cost. If you want to go that way, I'm your guy.”

Now, if I were in a place where I..., I or CRS had been before, I could say “well, you know me. You know what I do. Let's do it again.” And that would reach out.

The obstacles had to do with fear, cost, and bad publicity. And I... can say that 99% of the time, I... was able to get over those. The times that I... wasn't able to get over it was when there was prearrangement. People already made up their minds that they're going to shut the city down or they're not going to deal with those people. You know, those kinds of things. And in which case I would say: “I'm a mediator. I have to have two sides willing to talk. I don't have that, you have to move on to another alternative. Some of those alternatives are fold up your tent, go home, and forget about it. Hire a lawyer, go to court. Or go to the US Attorney if you think that there's a federal law involved. But I'm not... your alternative. God bless you and have a nice day.”

6:07        Bill Froehlich:      Yeah, I recall you saying during the first part of the oral... history that, referencing the sit and reason together phrase. You also highlighting that this was the best opportunity for people to make their own choices and decisions. And so these are ways, as you state, to get over the fear, the cost, and the bad publicity. You talked about the community folks. Going to the community folks first. What about if... government policy and you went to the government folks first. Would they have similar concerns and how did you get over those?

6:45        Tim Johnson:      Same way. The beauty of CRS is its confidentiality, its neutrality, and the fact that we don't cost anything. That we are an opportunity. Much like, in policing a police officer can respond to a situation, and he can respond, or she can respond, hard or soft. A soft response was let's sit down and problem solve. Let's sit down and see if we can't resolve this so I won't have to come back. The hard response would be if you don't do what I tell you right now, you’re under arrest. Well, nobody wants to be under arrest, and nobody likes the hard way. So, I always would offer them the opportunity to fix it yourself. And like I say, 99% of the time that was good enough. They went to yes, yeah, we’ll give it a shot.

7:57        Bill Froehlich:      So, you also mentioned that... one of the other hurdles was that people said to you “you’re a white guy. How, you know, how are you gonna to help us in this scenario?” And I know in the prior conversation you mentioned some your colleagues, were black or... not white and you shared some illustrations about “who's this white guy?” Typically, parties referencing “who's this white guy in the room,” for this conversation. But what ways would you be able to gain entry into that conversation if you were working on your own, one party city, you will. “Why did DOJ send us this white guy to help us with this issue?”

8:43        Tim Johnson:       Right. I would again stress the agency's neutrality. I will also stress that I'm not going to do anything, you are. I'm not gonna tell you what to do. I'm not gonna tell you what to say. I'm not gonna tell them what to do, what to say. What I'm going to do is I'm going to offer you a table so that you can sit and reason together, right. That's all I do right. Now, if you want somebody to come in and be your advocate, you go to ACLU. That's not what we do. What we do is we offer an opportunity for you to solve your own problems with... the people that are here. And if you do that, then the solution is going to last. If I leave and the civil rights division comes in, and you know there's some sort of consent decree, that's not solving the problem. So, I agree that that I am white, and this is a situation of people of color alleging a white, influenced agency, school, police, whoever, treating them unfairly. But I wanted to sit down and talk with them. And get them to sit down and then the two of you can talk.

10:14     Bill Froehlich:      Did you have any specific strategies when parties, participants, said to you “look, we don't trust DOJ and you’re in DOJ.” You've talked about, you know, confidentiality. You know, there's a firewall between CRS and the rest of DOJ. Through the Statute just part of that... confidentiality. Were there other ways that you.... were able to build trust quickly with the parties?  When they said “look, we don't trust you, you’re from DOJ.”

10:46     Tim Johnson:       What I would say to them is again, you don't have to trust me. I'm not going to do anything. I have the best job in the world. I don't do anything. And what I can provide you is the opportunity for you to sit down. And you to make decisions. And you to make proposals. And you to follow through on them. I'm not... part of the deal. All I'm gonna do for you is provide the table and you guys are gonna have to work it out. Now I've done this 1000 times and one of the things that I found is that sometimes, if you have a neutral third party, outside third party, they can come up with questions you haven't thought of. They can come up with directions you haven't thought of. And they can present them, you can reject them. You can say no that's absolutely not. What we want to, do that's fine, that's fine. Because the bottom line is, at the end of this process, you either resolve this situation or you didn't. I didn't resolve it. You either resolved, or you didn’t, and that's up to you.

12:10     Bill Froehlich:      Great, So, are there any circumstances that you can recall where folks said “look we're not going to get.” And what about from outsiders? So perhaps there were folks protesting CRS, its involvement. Or the media was identifying or writing about concerns with CRS’s involvement. Did you ever encounter pushback from the party's themselves or from outsiders, with respect to your engagement as a CRS conciliator?

12:44     Tim Johnson:      Yeah. Very rarely. Rarely, because what I did was during the assessment process, try to underscore the importance of: this is not a political situation. This is a personal situation between two parties. And that, if the parties were going to make any headway any progress, they were going to have to agree to sit down and do the work. I had some occasions where one side or the other reached out to the media, and that just confused things. And the media would call me and... I would say, well, “I don't talk to the media, talk to our public relations people...” And the public relations people had a canned speech that they gave, you know, about our confidentiality and all that.

So, I very rarely had any problems with that.  I had some issues where I was misquoted or taken out of context. And then people at headquarters would say you know: “that's terrible don't ever do that,” and I would say, “but I didn't, but I didn't.” Well, “it looks like you did.” Those kinds of things.

14:14     Bill Froehlich:      Yeah. I can imagine getting, how you might get push back, from headquarters from being taken out of context. Can you say more about the roles that media... played? Perhaps there were some relationships that you had with media in particular circumstances where they had a positive influence, or positive role, in a particular process, or posed more challenges?

14:32     Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I made it a policy not to have any relationship with any media. If... I were faced with media... I was you know, in situations where there were protests and riots and things like that. And... my picture would get taken and they would want to know, you know “what's your name” and I would say “. . .  I'm with the United States Department of Justice community relations service” “If you have any questions, please call this number and asked for [inaudible]”, Who was at that time the media guy. It just, it never helped me to have media. And quite often it became an obstacle. So my policy was don't have anything to do with it.

15:40     Bill Froehlich:      So, was there a point early in your career as conciliator where you were engaging the media and you learned lessons from that? Are there any lessons that you can extract or was it always your policies?

15:51     Tim Johnson:      It was drilled into me when I first started in New York, which has you know the New York post to the daily news and other rags, to do as little as possible in contact with those folks. I did... have a community wide meeting of people in the Borough of Brooklyn. It involved probably 100 or some people. The borough president..., and that his/her staff. Her staff? His staff.  Police department, school people, civil rights organizations. And that was pretty heavily covered by local press. And the reporters you know wanted to know who, who was I and how did this meeting come about. Things like that. And they wrote a very positive article about the people in Brooklyn coming together to try and iron out some of their issues. That that's really the only time I can remember the media being a positive.

17:22     Bill Froehlich:      Thanks. So, I want to shift a little bit to success and goals. You have talked a little bit about how CRS itself measured success. We talked about closing cases and getting to a certain number of reports. Specifically mentioned conversations with your supervisor. “Okay, I've closed the 40 or 50 reports. Can I go home for the. next nine months?” And so, but I wanted to talk about your... goals and what success meant to you, Tim. What did success mean to you in a particular intervention where... you worked in a community in a... typical case?

18:11     Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I... One of the reasons people don't leave CRS, I believe, is the immense satisfaction that a conciliator gets when it works. I can remember going to a town or a city where there was just open animosity and hostility between the community groups and the local school, place, or whatever. And going through the whole process, getting them to sit down and start reasoning together, and then sitting back, really not doing anything. And at the end, having the parties agree. “Well I'm very specific plans. Very specific ideas about how to go forward together.” And at the end, you know, they would say to me “well, thank you, Mr. Johnson for... being here, but we really don't need you.” And I can remember, being in my little government car, driving home all by myself thinking to myself “yes! I did it! Yes!” You know, I was just so thrilled. You know that... it worked perfectly to plan.

And, and I still feel that way today. You don't.... The only thing you've done is provide a vehicle right. They drove the bus. And I you know... Wherever the bus went is because that's where they steered it. And you know granted, you provide the environment. You provide the table, you provide that... They say “well, I, The Department of Justice says we’ll sit down and talk.” You know, that kind of influence. But the bottom line is that... what you really provide is an opportunity for people to communicate with each other without defenses and shields and the animosity. When they say, “well, alright, as long as he's here, we'll talk.” But then five minutes later, I don't even need to be there.

So yeah that's, I’ve... had hundreds of times in my little government car just feeling, really, really good about what I did or about what they did, is a more accurate way of saying... Just, yes, yes! Because without that, there would be no resolution and it would just grow and grow and grow and grow and then we would have citywide violence or people not reaching their full potential. So, what a wonderful opportunity for people like me to have a job that pays them to do that.

21:30     Bill Froehlich:      I can feel your energy in this conversation about sitting back and saying “you can go” and you in your car I can feel that. Even... now.

I wonder when you go into this conversation... Into. When you intervene in a community was your goal typically to get to a settlement for a specific limited situation or did you try to secure larger systemic change?

22:12     Tim Johnson:      Ah what an excellent question. We had a regional director and you mentioned P. Diane Schneider – she worked directly for him – I worked with him before P. Diane came on board.  His name is Robert Lamb.

22:30     Bill Froehlich:      You mentioned him in the last conversation, specifically he may have coined the sacred trust term.

22:40     Tim Johnson:      Yes, yes. Mr. Lamb would always talk about capacity change. Did you change the capacity? And he would say “okay, if you're gonna go and resolve an excessive use of force case, you're gonna go and you're gonna get the people who complained about excessive use of force and you're gonna get the police department and they'll come to some sort of agreement. That's not good enough. What you gotta do is you gotta have the community and the police agree on policy change, practice change. What are they going to do next year? The year after?

And I always felt that headquarters cared more about the immediate, than the long range. Mr. Lamb would always. He and I would discuss cases and then you say “okay, what about five years from then?” You know, “did you... mention anything having to do with the training?” Then, “did you mention anything that might involve annual reviews?” “Did you mention,” you know, think of a1000 things. So yeah, I... would always try to look for long-term solutions.  Sometimes both parties would balk at that and say “no, we just want to solve this.” And it's their show so, it wasn't... my job to advocate.

24:37     Bill Froehlich:      So, you, you're always looking for space and opportunity to open the door to develop long term systemic change. But the parties have to walk with you. Yeah (Timothy Johnson). And take advantage of that opportunity. You’re not gonna force them to do it. Okay. That makes sense.

So, I wanted to talk about changes that you observed over the course of your career or post... your career. Specifically, how does the increase, how did, or does now, from your perspective that increased political polarization of the country impact, did it impact your work, how does it impact the work of CRS now? I note that you are taking the perspective when you're gaining entry to take this out of politics and say “look this isn't, I'm not here because of politics. I'm not here to address a political situation.” But I'm wondering if that becomes an interesting challenge? Or if you noticed a shift throughout your career at CRS and post your career at CRS?

25:56     Tim Johnson:      Yeah. I... retired 2012. And I don't think that the animosity between the left and the right was as deep then, as it is now. And social media is not, or was not, as prevalent then as it is now. So that the challenges are far greater. There's a woman, Mallory Mc something. I can't remember the last name. She's a state senator in Michigan. She recently was accused by the right wing of being a groomer. Encouraging pedophilia and things like that. And she responded to that really well I thought. By pushing back saying “I won't talk about that. I will tell you who I am.

I will tell you what I'm trying to do. I will tell you what programs I’m trying to just start.” As opposed to marginalizing anyone. And I did not run into that level of division. I ran into racism. I ran into you know, resistance to change. But not, I don't think to the degree of what it is today. We did not have QANON for example, when I was with CRS, you know. And if you told me, “well there's somebody who's gonna spread a rumor that the vaccination for COVID will eventually cause everybody who got the vaccination to have AIDS.” Which is something that was recently said by QANON, whoever. Now you're an educated man, you know how stupid that is. There are legions of people who just accept that. And we did not have that kind of challenge when I was active.

28:50     Bill Froehlich:      So, I’m hearing two separate types of polarization. One... is through fake news and the proliferation of it on social media, perhaps. The other is by targeting particular individuals and making allegations, whether they’re fake news or not. I don’t... perhaps they are fake news. Did you ever deal with circumstances where there was fake news or false stories about the work you were involved with and how did you go about addressing that in the context of the mediation or conciliation?

29:31     Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I dealt with people who would make assumptions and the assumptions would be well, those people are NAACP, you can't talk to them. Or those people are the school board, you can't talk to them. Or those people are police you can't talk to them. So people would make assumptions. They’d have stereotypes. They’d say every time I've dealt with any police officer in this police department has been negative, every, every time. Every time. And say okay, okay. I understand, sympathize, and I'm sorry that happened. However, if we are to make any progress, we need to sit down and talk about it. Now I can talk to you till the cows come home. Won’t make any difference. I’m gonna get paid anyway, you know. And you have a lovely city here, you know. And I'm enjoying my time here. So, you want me to come back and... you yell at me about whatever you want to yell at me about. Okay. But you're not gonna make any progress unless the other side sits down with us. And both sides agree to work towards a solution.

Now you say, well, “I could never trust this police department.” Okay.  Then there's no point, no talking. Either... you can sincerely commit to open communication, and they can sincerely commit to open communication, or I don't have two sides that are willing to talk. My magic is that you agree and they agree to at least sit down and begin talking and build, you build the resolution you want to see in your town. Might... be different from the resolution in you know Boston, or LA, or Newark, or Richmond. It's built for you, which it’s your town in your area, and you're here and now. So again, it's just a question of trying to get people to say “okay, let me suspend judgment long enough to sit down and actually listen to the other side.”

32:19     Bill Froehlich:      The connection to assumptions is interesting and I think valuable that fake news and misleading information as... I've described them, or as we think about them in our current context, are really just assumptions that have been compounded and distributed to the masses, that people believe. That bought into these assumptions, for one reason or another. Maybe assumptions is too kind of a word. But the folks who are believing these ideas are making assumptions about them that the source is trusted. That the information should be trusted for one reason or another. And so, the connection to assumptions, as is, really helpful from my perspective.

I did notice also that you raised social media. And I know social media had not proliferated by 2012 in the way that it has now. But you know people were tweeting about things, and certainly on Facebook, in 2008, 2012. And so I wonder, towards the tail end of your career did you see any benefits to social media? From a conciliator's perspective, did you see any hurdles to social media that posed challenges to your work?

33:48     Tim Johnson:      No. No, I did not involve myself with it. I didn't see any... point in it. I see both positive and negative impact. Positive side: the Black Lives Matter movement became possible and grew primarily from social media and allowed people in diverse communities from all over the country to reach out to one another and say “okay, what do we want to do about this and how do we want to go forward?” But at the same time, there were other forces at play that would say outlandish things, on both sides, both the left and the right, that were either partially true, or taken out of context, or not true at all, that would influence people.

As I understand it, the media in Russia has said that scenes of mass casualties, civilian casualties, that were shown on TV were staged. And so, if I'm you know, just a regular Joe in Russia and I'm watching the news, I go “well look at what those people did over there in Ukraine. They staged all of this just to make us look bad.” So who are you gonna believe? Are you gonna believe, you know, your Lester Holt or my Lester Holt? And..., so it becomes very, very confusing. And... I think that people take advantage of the confusion to further their own influence, or power, or make money.

So yeah, I did not thankfully face that challenge and... I think if... I was still in CRS, I would be aiming at local people, local issues, and local solutions. Let's not worry about, you know, what Biden said or what McCarthy said and who lied and who didn’t lie. Let's worry about Podunk Phil, right here. The people that live here and work here. Let's see what kind of progress we can make right here right now.

37:03     Bill Froehlich:      Yeah so, your Lester Holt and that Lester Holt and it seems that is the person who people might trust. Do you trust your Lester Holt? So... some of the social media, some of the news comes... really back to the core themes of trust. And I appreciate you sharing that perspective. Particularly given that you know, retiring in 2012, your experience with social media was... limited.

You mentioned Black Lives Matter. You mentioned some of the other forces on the right and the left and I want to ask you a few questions about those. Two sets, I'm going to separate them out. The other forces on the right and the left and Black Lives Matter. So, but let's start with Black Lives Matter and similar organizations. You... I think that the Black Lives Matter movement, if I'm recalling correctly, really started to emerge about 10 years ago after Trayvon Martin’s death and Ferguson. And that’s the time when you were really retiring. But I don't know if you have any observations that you want to share, about the emergence of Black Lives Matter, and similar movements, in demonstrations in connection with your experienced at CRS?

38:28     Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I welcome the existence of any social movement because it creates attention and it creates opportunities for dialogue. So, you know, people would argue Blue Lives Matter, meaning police. All lives matter. And people would feel bad because they didn't feel included. “Why is it just black lives? Why can't it be brown lives? Why can't it be Indian lives?” Right, you know, that kind of thing. So all that does for me is gives me an opportunity to get all people to sit down and talk about all the issues, no other concerns that they had about getting along with one another. About being treated fairly. About being respected. About having the same opportunities. And things like that. So yeah. Do I think Black Lives Matter? Absolutely. Let's sit down and talk about it. And somebody will say, well, “I feel excluded.” Then let's get you... come to the table. Let's talk about it.

39:57     Bill Froehlich:      So, you're using, you're saying the social movements, from a conciliators perspective, as an opportunity to bring people into conversation. Absolutely (Tim Johnson:). What about those who say look, “this is a demand for justice. And simply by me coming to the table with you at DOJ, with others who aren't supporting these demands for justice, and suddenly by coming to the table, I'm abandoning those demands. I have no interest in coming into that conversation and coming into that dialogue.” How do you approach your work as a conciliator with respect to the individuals taking that position?

40:47     Tim Johnson:      You might not care about a particular issue. You might not think that there's a need for change, adjustment, or fine-tuning policies and procedures within an institution. Other people have that feeling. Why not sit down and talk about it?

Now, recently there was a police killing of a African immigrant in... Grand Rapids, Michigan. And... talking with my police friends, they're adamant: absolutely justified. Absolutely justified. The guy took the officer’s taser and did not give it back. Absolutely justified. Whereas my non law enforcement friends say: “absolutely unjustified.” First of all, when the guy started running away, cops should have just let him go. They still had the guy's car. Right, so he just should have let him go. And gone to his house later on and say you know, “Joe you shouldn't have run away and that’s only compounded the problem and now we're going to have to talk about it.” So, if we can get people to start to consider other alternatives. Not black and white. Not either or. But other alternatives. What should a police officer do in a situation like that. Either ways the police officer can avoid that situation to begin with. When is it okay for a civilian to run away? Now I don't know what this... man's experience with policing was in Africa. And he may have been thinking “oh my god this guy's gonna kill me.” And the police officer of course had no intention. He was just doing his job.

So is there... room for people to sit down and start talking about the structure of law enforcement in America? Do we always have to end up with an arrest? You know, are there times when we can do something else? And that's been an ongoing battle. You know, do I think that, are there people in America who do not think that racism exists? And, of course, there are. There are millions of people who just don't see it. Okay. Alright. What do we do with that? Well one thing we can do is we can sit down and start talking about it. Well, you know, I grew up tough. I had two brothers and two sisters and we only had one bathroom. We didn’t have any money for anything. And I pulled myself up by the bootstraps.

44:22     Bill Froehlich:      You're referring to a common refrain that you’re hearing from folks. Not your personal experience just...

44:29     Tim Johnson:      Well, actually that is my personal experience. Okay (Bill Froehlich:). But I would also add that I had a loving mother and a loving father and a fabulous upbringing. And you know, when people start talking about how poor you were, I can only talk about how rich I was. How lucky I was. To have literacy, for example. We didn't have a TV when I was a kid so my mother would say “nothing better than curling up with a good book.” Well, I walked into school reading. My children walked into school reading. Our daughter, when she was in middle school, had already read the entire reading list of the high school. And I mean you just, you know, that was her environment. [inaudible]. Okay.

So, when people say pull yourself up by your bootstraps, what if you don't have any boots? Much less straps. You know and... you know what... can we do in terms of helping people to level the playing field just a little bit? Now there are folks who will say: “I did not get promoted because they promoted a black guy.” You know, affirmative action like that. Okay. Maybe.

What else didn’t you get? You know, overall you had everything else. Clearly, in America it's more advantageous to be white than it is to be black. At every level. So, convincing white people that racism exists is a continuous challenge.

46:44     Bill Froehlich:      I appreciate your raising Patrick Lyoya... it's L-y-o-y-a. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing his last name. And what you're hearing from colleagues in Grand Rapids in this... conversation about... white privilege and racism.

I want to shift a little bit away from, and I like, or... I’ll have to cut this part out, the stumbling. Sorry. I want to go back and just pick up on a theme that you... highlighted. If it creates attention, you were talking about Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, etc, all lives matter, then that's an opportunity for dialogue. Yes (Tim Johnson:). And so that's a byproduct of social movements. But that's a byproduct of community tensions that you were called into. Do you want to say more about... the value of tension and creating space for... conversation as a conciliator?

47:51     Tim Johnson:      Without it, nobody wants to talk. I would not have any cases as conciliation special unless there were tension. Unless there were somebody angry and somebody upset and somebody feeling like they were at their final straw. So, tension is good because it brings attention to situations that need to be discussed.

If I say that the school system is unfair. That the school system is unconsciously racist. And then I go and then I talk to the kids. And the kids agree without my saying: “you know, is there racism in the school?” And the kids will say: “well, mostly white kids are in the advanced placement. Teachers call mostly on white kids. Kids of color are mostly disciplined harsher than white kids.” And these are students telling me this, right. Then I have to assume well, they're probably right. So, but if I go to the faculty, and I say well “faculty you racist bunch of bigots,” they're not going to respond to that. But if I go to the faculty, and I say, “this perception that the kids have, what can we do about it? What do you want to do about it? How can things be changed to make things more, to appear more, equal for everybody? What... can you do?” And I've done this in several schools and there are groups of teachers who are dyed in the wool and won’t change and say “no I’m... here to teach math and if the kid can't learn math then I'm not going to play with them. I'm not going to do anything.” There are other teachers who will say “I come in early. I come in at seven o'clock. And offer tutoring to any kid who's behind in my class. And I do that on my own time and I get paid for that.”

And all I can do when I meet somebody like that is just kind of be in awe of: that’s a professional. That's, you know, a real profession. I know that there are police officers who will stay on their beats extra time just to meet people. Right, they don't get paid for that. Not part of their…. That's professional law enforcement. So, in talking with groups of police officers or teachers or government employees or citizens, I ask for examples, show me the guy who stays late or comes in early and is that... a direction that you would like to see more people going?

51:47     Bill Froehlich:      That's a great example what... it recalls me and our last conversation and I just want to pick up on and connect a thread real quick. Because you said look right now CRS is staffing at 30 or however many conciliators they... have, it's not more than a few dozen right? They can only respond to major events. The Selmas, the Fergusons, the summer of 2020. Good golly they had a lot of work on their plate, right? But what they should really be doing, this is, from your... our prior... conversation, what they should really be doing is going after the small points of tension before they become these big points of tension. And I think what you're describing with the school district tension is a small point of tension in a community before it engulfs a community. But that, CRS perhaps to play that role, to address small points of tension, to bring people into conversations, in a way that you just described, is that a vision that you would have for CRS with unlimited resources?

52:59     Tim Johnson:      Yes. I would envision CRS to have more time, more people, more money, to get people to come together to talk. To get people to come together proactively, as opposed to reactively. Proactive, for example, by saying to a community in a police department: what makes a great police department? What makes it great? What makes great police community relations? Who should be involved in that? What can police do to improve? What can community members do to improve? How often should... dialogues take place? What should the schools be teaching?” And..., looking at in terms of internal problems, where people might feel disrespected. People might feel discounted. What can we do about that? How can we keep more people connected?

I had a session yesterday. One of the things I do here is a thing called restarted reflections where juveniles from the state’s attorney's office are referred to... me and another mediator to sit down and talk about what they did. What they were thinking at the time, what they're thinking now. These are all restorative justice questions. And I asked this kid who's 16, I said: “what school you go to?” He says “I’m not going to school.” Which I said “oh, you dropped out?” He said “I just stopped going.” And I thought to myself, you know, I would want to sit down with the school board, the school system, the school administration, and the PTA, and say “how can that happen? How can a kid just stop going? And this kid just stopped going. Now granted, he was not intellectually very bright. And he was 16 years old going into ninth grade. That's what he told me. He said, well I said “are you gonna go to school.” He said “yeah, I may go next year.” “What grade will you be?” “Ninth.” At 16. So you know . . . there are huge cracks. And those are the kinds of things that I would... say CRS could cope with dialogue.

56:08     Bill Froehlich:      So Tim..., you're talking about proactive work and identifying cracks and I want to know, the opportunity that you've described to bring people to the table revolves around tension.

So how do you get people to the table, the right people to the table, the busy decision makers to the table, or their surrogates, when the tensions not there, or they're not hearing the tension in this proactive manner? How do you get them to the table? How do you get them to buy in? How do you get them to make decisions and plan?

56:49     Tim Johnson:      Yep. Huge challenge. Huge challenge in terms of finding the time, finding a place, and making it convenient enough for  everybody. I used to say, “if you feed them, they will come.” And..., my approach would be to go to... Well first to sit down and figure out, who are the players? Who do I want at the table in a given situation? And then go to the leadership of those players and say: “we can wait until there's violence. That's fine. Or if you'd like, you can be a little more aggressive than that. You can put the fire out before... you can step on the fire and put it out. Or you can wait until it’s a raging inferno and still be able to put it out, but you’ll lose a little bit more property, a little bit more value, a little bit more community wide peace. So we can do this for you.”

What I would envision CRS saying: “We have a meeting room at the Holiday Inn. Please come at seven o'clock and represent your city, your school, your police department, your church, your civic organization, whatever it is, and let's just talk.” Now... you say what should we talk about? I'm gonna ask you. What should we talk about? So, let's write an agenda that you want about community peace. About racial tension. About discriminatory practices. Well, you know, you tell me and we’ll write that down, and that's what we'll talk about. If people say, well, “I just don't have time for that. You know. I've got a full-time job, and you know I gotta go home. You know and, I got kids. I know I don't have time.” Then..., you don't have time and we don’t have a dialogue.

59:25     Bill Froehlich:      What... do you have any examples of where a process like that has worked from your time at CRS if you were able to engage in?

59:33     Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I think that CRS has had experiences with community wide dialogue. And I think there has been several of them. I mentioned earlier the one in the Borough of Brooklyn. You know that took some doing and took a lot of scampering around talking to different people. But I find you know, it probably took three, four weeks making contact with various leadership people. But that that was a little easier than it would be to just spring it on some small town somewhere that doesn't have a feeling of need or problem. Brooklyn at the time definitely had problems and they definitely knew about  it. So, it was a little easier.

But community wide opportunities for dialogue would be, I think, would go a long way towards early identification of issues, earlier solutions to those issues, and more cooperation between desperate people or groups. But, not with the current CRS because the current CRS doesn’t have the staff, the money, and like I said, and you mentioned earlier, they’re in a response mode and not in a proactive mode.

1:01:17  Bill Froehlich:      When you were at CRS did you ever partner with other organizations to stretch your services? Other state organizations or federal or local organizations?

1:01:30  Tim Johnson:      Yes. Yes. In a... We had a program called SPIRIT: school problem identification resolution of issues together. And that required people from the community to go into a school and non-teachers and people who didn't have any kids in that school, community members to go into the school and facilitate groups of kids talking about whatever the problems were.

To do that I would go to local churches, NAACP, Chamber of Commerce, other organizations, and ask for volunteers to come and help me. In Pennsylvania they developed the State Human Rights Commission. Developed a cadre of people to help with SPIRIT program so we had an ongoing relationship. So we would say: “we got a situation in, you know, Podunkville Pennsylvania high school. Can you get us 10, you know, members of your SPIRIT cadre?” And they would say yeah. Turn up, they’d show up. So yeah... in that sense we definitely did coordinate and collaborate.

1:03:11  Bill Froehlich:      Great. Thanks for sharing that example. Concurrently did you ever get any pressure from other agencies or elected officials saying something like “hey look you stay in your lane, don't come in this community.” Yes (Tim Johnson:). Can you share some of those examples? If you're comfortable.

1:03:33  Tim Johnson:      Yeah. I went to a town that had major complaints about the city government. Spoke to them. Went to the city government and said “here's what the people have said and here's what I offer. I offer you the opportunity to sit down, neutral setting, and see if you don't want to talk about this.” Their response was to call their Senator, US Senator, to complain that I was causing problems in their city. The State or the Federal Senator then contacted the US Attorney’s Office. Not the US Attorney. What was her name, Reno?

1:04:33  Bill Froehlich:      Oh, Attorney General Janet Reno.

1:04:38  Tim Johnson:      They contacted the Attorney General, who contacted CRS, who told me never go to that town again. So yeah, sometimes there’d be a problem. But in terms of a school system telling me that or a police department telling me that, no. Because that was my lane.

1:05:04  Bill Froehlich:      It's coming from an elected official, to a senator, to DOJ. That's... a long process. Excellent. So... I wonder...

1:05:24  Tim Johnson:      I would have preferred by the way, I would have preferred the CRS director to turn around and say: “that’s our job.” Sure (Bill Froehlich:). Politically speaking, that was not the smartest thing that that particular director could have done.

1:05:30  Bill Froehlich:      Sure, if they were confirmed by the Senate. If they were confirmed by the Senate maybe that's a little different but if they were an interim that's... a problem.

1:05:44  Tim Johnson:      Well it should explain my meteor rise to the top in civil service.

1:05:53  Bill Froehlich:      Fair enough. So, let's talk about that meteoric rise. You’ve – in the prior oral history – described your move to CRS at one point in time, you know, you were at a different federal agency and they said: “hey look, we're gonna downgrade you to do crossword puzzles and you know, come to work but not do the substantive stuff anymore.” And so you leapt over to CRS. And so I wonder, from your experience at CRS there were a number of transitions between administrations, whether it was perhaps Bush to Clinton, Clinton to Bush two, Bush to Obama... How do changes in federal administrations affect your work? Do you have any specific examples of... how they affected your work at CRS?

1:06:52  Tim Johnson:      Different administrations had different priorities. Under the democrats, they were more open to accepting CRS as an entity and encouraging us to go out and do our job. Under... let’s see I was there for Reagan, Bush one, Bush two, I think that’s it. Under those administrations we were encouraged to not be aggressive. To not be proactive. And to be, to... wait until the right it happened, and then go in. And... the system would change, you know. They would say “okay, but in this administration, if you... go out and do a training, we're gonna count that as... a case.” Under the next administration they would say “no, that doesn't count as case. Don't do that. Just...don't do that.” So again...

1:08:32  Bill Froehlich:      Just don’t do the training or don’t count it as a case?

                Tim Johnson:      Both.

So, you...felt more restrained under certain administrations than you did under others. Did you... (Bill Froehlich:). Sorry... (Bill Froehlich). That's... just a function of federal employment. I'm sure that's true. Well, when I first started with the Federal Government, I worked for the law enforcement assistance administration, which was a grant program. And you know, one administration would get out and fund as much progressive stuff as possible. The next administration would get out and fund as many weapons as possible. So, it just becomes a question of who's... in charge, the left or the right?

1:09:33  Bill Froehlich:      Okay. That makes sense. Thank... you. So, I'm talking about some other changes, more changes, broad changes that may have affected your work. Specifically, were there any changes during your career at CRS with respect to policing that impacted your work? Either on a global level or if there are any specific changes in communities that impacted your work that you can recall?

1:10:06  Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I think that there were changes in the policing business.

In the 60s police-community relations was put on the table. And in the 70s and the 80s it became part of the vernacular. So, there was a gradual movement from strict law enforcement to a more open, and certainly more educated, police staffing. In the early 60s you needed a high school diploma to become a New York City police officer. I live in Howard County, Maryland now. And you need at least an associate's degree to be considered to become a police officer in Howard County. And there are other police departments that require a four-year degree. just to become a patrol officer. So the educational level has shot up considerably. Part of that is a result of a federal program called LEEP: law enforcement education program. In which people could go to college and get the government to pay for it if they became involved in the law enforcement business. I went to graduate school on LEEP money, which was wonderful by the way, thank you very much. And I worked in prisons at the time. So it's been this gradual movement to expand the horizons for what policing is and what police officers do.

When we look at situations like Grand Rapids or the other prime examples. Breonna Taylor with the no knock warrant. That's going backwards, that's the bad old days. And so yeah. I think that has been changes, gradual changes in law enforcement that are very encouraging. If you look at the International Association of Chiefs of Police, almost all of the leaders at that level have advanced degrees. They’re lawyers. They’re PhDs. And if... you know... Gone are the days when you know... somebody with a high school diploma worked their way up to become the Chief. You don't become the Chief unless in addition to getting the high school diploma you get a college degree along the way. That you go to the FBI Academy along the way. And there are several other, you know, benchmarks that show a difference between what was and what is. So yeah, I think that we've made wonderful progress and we have leagues to go.

1:14:00  Bill Froehlich:      So same question but with respect to the justice system itself.

Or actually let me... take a step back. So there's, you've seen the progress. There are leagues to go with respect... to policing. There's been progress in community policing, the understanding of it, as well as the education of our police and law enforcement force. How did that impact your work as a conciliator? How did that that slow transition impact your work?

1:14:34  Tim Johnson:      Yeah, I think it made it easier because I could talk to line police officers and not have to you know kind of dumb down. Young police officers were eager to expand their knowledge of alternatives to force, the escalation of things like that. And they... got more, and improved, training. In the old days you would train: this is your gun, these are the bullets, you know, write a report if you use the gun. Well, there's a lot more to it today than there was then. Doesn’t mean that every officer is super cop and super trained and super wonderful. We still have police who make mistakes and police who shouldn't be police.

1:15:47  Bill Froehlich:      Yeah. Thank you. So same set of questions with respect to the justice system. Have you noticed changes with respect to the justice system, your career, and how if they impacted your work as conciliator?

1:16:06  Tim Johnson:      Interesting question. We... didn't have as many consent decrees between the Department of Justice and... local police departments in the 60s that we had in the 70s, and the 80s, and 90s, and 2000s. I just read of one, I can't remember where it was, it just had a consent decree. And so in that respect, that's a great thing.

The... level and number of federal prosecutions and trials of local police I think are, and again this has to do with administration. Under the Trump administration they were very low. Under Biden they're growing higher. So that for me... that's a good thing. It's a pendulum kind of thing. Depending on who's you know, which administration is in charge. But even... then, the pendulum used to swim from way over here to way over here. Now it just swings from here to here. Because certain things are now well understood and accepted.

1:17:46  Bill Froehlich:      And with respect to consent decrees how's that evolution changed the role of the conciliator?

1:17:59  Tim Johnson:      I don't think it's changed a lot of conciliators. I think that some police departments might require a little more convincing because they're afraid of the consent decrees. And yeah, I don't think that it changes really much what we do, or how we do it, or how... it's done.

1:18:28  Bill Froehlich:      Can you say a little bit, a little bit for us about whether as a conciliator you were involved in helping develop a consent decree, or if CRS was asked to play a role in the formal consent decree itself post once the decree was issued? Is that, are those roles CRS might play?

1:18:44  Tim Johnson:      I personally was not. And I am aware that CRS has provided an alternative to a consent decree where they came in and helped communities come together and make an agreement absent a consent decree. So, we... provided a more locally controlled response to change than having the federal government come in and from above say “you must do this, this, this, and this.” And I know that Pat Glenn has been involved in a couple of really big cases that way. So, are you gonna talk to her?

1:19:51  Bill Froehlich:      We spoke once and we are speaking again in a few weeks I believe.

1:19:53  Tim Johnson:      You might... ask her about that. She... did some really powerful work in that particular area. Very complicated. Very involved.

1:20:03  Bill Froehlich:      Appreciate... your sharing that. We’ll be sure to ask her about this question as well.

1:20:09  Tim Johnson:      To tell her I said so.

1:20:17  Bill Froehlich:      Okay I will Tim.

Wonderful. So same set of questions. Have there been changes in the education system that have had an impact on your work at CRS?

1:20:34  Tim Johnson:      Well, I know that the Department of Education has an Office of Civil Rights and very often people would confuse us. You know, are you responding to education? Are you accusing us of bias? So, I think that having an Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education allowed the issue of civil rights to get a little more attention so when we showed up, they understood what we were talking about. But sometimes we had to explain that you know, we're not the Office of Civil Rights, or the Department of Education, or for the Department of Justice. We are community relations and this is your chance to solve the problem yourself rather than wait for the feds.

1:21:41  Bill Froehlich:      So, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights may have helped folks who you were working with better understand the work you were doing. But also maybe complicated the point of entry, which was probably easily overcome. Yeah (Tim Johnson:). What... Anything else? Any other changes in education? What I want to go to... Sorry, go ahead.

1:22:11  Tim Johnson:      Just a general level of awareness. And I think that, I guess it depends on where you're at. I live in Columbia Maryland. Which is in Howard County. Which is one of the richest counties in America. Why are we here? And as a function of that they attract highly qualified, highly educated teachers. And they attract them because they get paid pretty good. So, with that faculty, you're going to be, they're going to be a whole lot more aware than the faculty in Mississippi who might not require a four-year degree to be a teacher. Maybe they require a two-year degree, or maybe you know their... standards are different than might be in Columbia, Maryland.

So, from that perspective, here, and for most of the people that I dealt with, they were a little more aware of civil rights. A little more aware of their role then they might be in another town.

1:23:44  Bill Froehlich:      Similar to law enforcement example about education and there's also geographical variances etc. But, the point generally is that... education is more professionalized and highly paid, or can be, is, has become more professionalized and highly paid, and there are... geographic variations.

One more question about changes. This one's different though. Then I'm going to loop back to something I neglected to cover earlier. How did the passage of the Shepherd Byrd Act in 2009 impact the scope of your work? Obviously, we know that the statute, the scope of the statutory mandate expanded. Beyond that, the expansion of the scope of the statutory mandate, how did your work as a conciliator change in your last few years at CRS due to the passage of Shepherd Byrd?

1:24:49  Tim Johnson:      Honestly, it didn't. There was confusion on the part of the CRS administration as to what exactly we could do. Or should be doing with respect to these other... groups that we could attend to. We... basically attended to race color, and national origin.  And now they want to talk about sexual orientation. Physical and mental disabilities. And we looked at []  kinds of things. You know, memorandum of understanding between CRS and some national gay group, mental health group, or whatever. But in terms of individual cases, not so much. And I think part of that is because it was ingrained in CRS that we didn't do individual cases. We did cases that... impacted the whole community. So, if there were a case about a school district not responding to their mentally challenged correctly enough, it was just one guy. You know, it wasn't a whole group of people. So, I never got involved in any of those cases. Never got involved in a case involving anything other than race, color, or national origin. And that might be my fault. I should have been more aggressive about it. But we... were not provided training or opportunities to recognize cases that might involve those kinds of... groups.

Today, I think, would be a little bit different because today there are more middle school and high school clubs that cater to gay kids. Although, I suppose, that’s [] But there are..., if there were complaints about discrimination towards gay students, there would be more than one student. And you know, we might get involved with an organization like pride. And sit down with them and sit down with the school and see what might come. But by 2000, well actually 2011, because I retired January 1, 2012. I just was not involved in them.

1:28:09  Bill Froehlich:      The act had just been passed in 2009 and so I do imagine it takes time to develop new training, new protocols at CRS, which as a small agency, I understand, can move somewhat swiftly for government. But it still takes time.

1:28:27  Tim Johnson:      I will point out that... my hero Bob Lamb was adamantly opposed to expanding the mandate. Adamantly opposed. And I said well Bob, “why are you opposed?” He says “we're not handling what we got.”

1:28:48  Bill Froehlich:      Ahh ok. So he was adamantly opposed because of... CRS’s staffing levels. Is that right? I wonder how, the way I read the original mandate, it does not include religious issues. Correct (Tim Johnson:). And I understand CRS worked on number of religious issues prior to the expansion. Now Shepherd Byrd includes religious. But how did you engage in a community wide issue connected to religious tension under the original mandate? Or did you? Did you say “look, we don’t have jurisdiction here.”

1:29:28  Tim Johnson:      Right. Race, color, or national origin. And what... I think the administration did was they bent national origin to include people from Israel or people who adhere to the religion or to the politics of... that. So, that allowed us to respond to Nazi signs on synagogue walls and things like that.

1:30:13  Bill Froehlich:      Sure. Or 9/11, when there were a lot of concerns in the Muslim and Arab communities. Right (Tim Johnson:). That, , right. Okay. And that makes sense. It's easier when religion is specifically articulated to do that work and say look “jurisdiction, religion, here it is instead of national origin.” So bending the language. I hear you there.

Okay one question I forgot to, or I identified and then we just got on to other... topics. But I wanted to loop back to something you raised earlier. I specifically remember I said. You were... actually talking about social media and said look it allowed movements, Black Lives Matter, and similar movements . . . .  But then you also said there are some other forces on the left and the right to do outlandish things that are housed essentially a lot of that, what is known publicly about them is on social media. And so I wonder, can you talk about how those other, in your words..., outlandish movements, on the right and the left. Not talking about BLM. I'm not talking about Blue Lives Matter. But the other outlandish movements impacted your work as a conciliator. That can be white supremacists, or you know, ANTIFA might be put in that group, or parts of ANTIFA. I'm not sure. But... what's your perspective there?

1:31:47  Tim Johnson:      Those groups are extremist groups. And extremist groups generally don't want to sit down and talk. They want to win. They want to crush the opponent. The Nazis wanted to crush everybody. And the clan wants to throw out all people of color. That you know, it's just where they come from. In order for me to do my job, I have to have two sides agree to sit down and communicate with one another to work towards resolution. And with the extremist groups... I don't get that. So I can't do the job. I can't. There's no point in my getting these two groups to come together and spit at each other. There’s just no point to it. If I can... convince them that it would be in both their interest to do that, then I got a shot. But for the extremist groups that just never works.

1:33:05  Bill Froehlich:      Were, so there were no examples you could cite where you say, for example, you in your role are at a, are playing some role with respect to demonstrations around the white supremacist event, called the square. So what I'm hearing is you wouldn't be able to gain entry, they wouldn’t want to engage with you. And so you didn’t.

1:33:32  Tim Johnson:      The best... we could do, I’ll give you a couple of examples. The clan went to a town and asked permission to hold a meeting in a meeting room in the public library. And the public library said sure... that's available. So, the anti-clan people found out about it and they decided that they would pack the room with anti-clan people.

1:34:07  Bill Froehlich:      They would... I'm sorry say that again. They would pack the room?

1:34:12  Tim Johnson:      Pack the room. They would go to the library fill it full of anti-clan people. And when we got there the clan people had already filled up the room. So now, the anti-clan people are outside the library yelling and screaming and you know, all terrible things. And the main speaker for the clan group had not arrived. So when he did arrive, in full regalia, the anti-clan people went crazy. And we said to the... clan guy: “I'm sorry the room is already filled and you can't go in.” There he said “well I'm... the head cluxer??, you know, I’m the reason they're here.” “Well I'm sorry, the room is filled. You can't go in.” “Well we’ve got to do something.” And I said “well, I'll tell you what. Why don't you go in there and get 10 people in that room out of the room and then you and your party can go in the room.” And they did do that. He went in and sputtered whatever foolishness they do.

But we didn't resolve any hate. We didn't resolve any animosity between the clan and the anti-clan. All we did was move things along a little bit.

There was another incident. Clan versus and anti-clan. And on the day of the incident, what we tried to do was keep the anti-clan and the clan separated so that if they got too close, they might hit each other or worse. So, our job was to just keep them separated. And we did that, not through mediation, we did that just by talking. Just by saying “come over here and talk to me for a minute.”

1:36:31  Bill Froehlich:      Were there physical barriers? Did they respect decisions about space?

1:36:37  Tim Johnson:      Some did, some did not. In one instance, there was a march and the anti-marchers were behind the barrier and every once in a while they would pop out. You know, saying: “I'll show you, I'll show you.” And so, our job at that point was to go to that “I'll show you” guy and say “oh, wait a minute. Talk to me for a minute over here.” You know, two minutes later the people he was pointing at had already gone two blocks away. So he had nothing to... shout about.

Those instances though, that's crowd control. That's... not mediation. That's not resolution. That is simply, let's get it, let's let them keep going. And there were philosophical differences within CRS about whether that was our role or not. I felt ...that it was out role to contribute to a peaceful demonstration. Meaning one that, where people didn’t get hurt and property didn’t get damaged. Yet there were others who said “well that's, I’m a mediator so I don't do that.” Okay. A guy we had, we had... one guy former police officer who said “when we responded to these kinds of situations, we shouldn't even show it publicly. We just go to a hotel and wait for violence to happen and then go.”

1:38:24  Bill Froehlich:      Interesting. There was some tension there within CRS internally and other responders.

1:38:30  Tim Johnson:      And I think the tension, from my... former colleagues' point of view, and he was a police officer, he’s saying “that's police work. You shouldn't be involved.” And from my point of view is I'm not arresting anybody, I'm just keeping people separate and that's what, you know, peacemakers do. You know, and maybe save room a week later, a month later, a year later by actually sitting down together and coming to some resolution. But allowing the violence is gonna help. And then you know, according to the administration, whoever was in charge, and whoever was you know.

Keep in mind that I served under John Mitchell. A convicted felon. So, there's a whole range of approaches that people who [inaudible] made and like I said I aired on the let's keep peace side.