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Grande Lum was Director of the Community Relations Service from 2012-2016. He is also co-author with Bertram Levine of America's Peacemakers: The Community Relations Service and Civil Rights.
There are 4 parts of this interview and a summary: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and The Summary. This is Part 2.
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https://youtu.be/NMIRTahF1Sg
Heidi Burgess (00:00:00):Recorder.
Grande Lum (00:00:01):Good.
Heidi Burgess (00:00:02):And I see that it's recording. So I want to say hello and introduce myself. I'm Heidi Burgess with beyond intractability. And I'm talking today with Grande Lum for the second of what will probably be three or four interviews about his experience as the director of the community relations service, which was a position he held from 2012 to 2016. And we've also talked a lot, quite a bit about what he did beforehand. And we'll probably at the end, talk a bit about what he did afterwards. But right now we're in the middle of our discussion of CRS. And I went back over our last discussion and saw that we were kind of all over the place. So I had a hard time figuring out what we covered and what we hadn't. But my note said that we should start talking about how you manage to maintain calm in or some semblance of control in very overheated public meetings. When there were lots of angry people there saying lots of angry things, we were talking a lot last time about Ferguson and about the meeting that you set up with Eric Holder, which I gather was more... in control than it might have been because maybe people were under better behavior because holder was there. But my notes did say that I should talk about ask you about how to deal with these really hot meetings.
Grande Lum (00:01:48):That's a terrific place to start Heidi in that meeting with, attorney general Holder people I think were very respectful, but they had a lot going on. I mean, there was a lot of pain, a lot of concern. I think what was terrific was that people felt listened to, you know, to have the attorney general listening to you, I think provided some comfort. And certainly I think I talked about it last time, overall, running those events, meeting with people and showing the presence of the federal government and all that CRS and other agencies, including the civil rights division, including the community oriented policing office, the cops office being there showed that the federal government was taking action and, and also listening in that regard. So I don't know there's so there was that meeting. I mean, I think it, and I can think of various meetings, whether it was me faciliting or other conciliators, it is quite often important to run these meetings here.
Grande Lum (00:03:14):I certainly can recall sessions in Baltimore... after Freddie Gray. And there were meetings... where I was either facilitating or involved in or others were running, you know. I certainly recall that...in Baltimore and being with the then mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake, being with a number of communion leaders. I remember being with a lot of black pastors, black faith leaders... who were also involved and were trying to bring peace... to a situation there. I do think it's important to really make sure, I think this is not my term, the forum fits the fuss, was that Frank Sanders? I think who said that.
Heidi Burgess (00:04:15):I can't remember who said that.
Grande Lum (00:04:16):I forget. I think... It was here and what is thinking through what the goal is here and therefore given the purpose of the meeting who should be at the meeting, right.
Grande Lum (00:04:34):Who... should be there? And what is the end goal? What is it that you want to have achieved, by the end of that meeting. What's the... deliverable or what's the tangible? Is it a list of ideas? Is it an agreement? Is it, you know, next steps, you know, I think all those things help in dealing with potentially highly volatile situations... here. If people want to vent, how do we create a situation where they can do it in a way that's constructive? Is it, I know and sometimes we will run groups where we will have several facilitators and you'll break them into small groups. And that has a way of not being the same as 200 people, right. One person versus breaking them into small groups of 10 and then...having a set set of questions.
Grande Lum (00:05:35):And I think that can work beautifully at times where people do feel hurt. There, you know, there certainly was a benefit to having a department of justice official there. We would have to very much explain the course and explain multiple times at the beginning, at the end, in the middle of times that at least for the community relations service, our job is not prosecution. Our job is not litigation. Our job is not investigation, that this is meant as a voluntary service to help people listen to each other, understand each other, facilitate problem solving and questions. So, and you have to be very careful. And I, you know, I can certainly remember situations. I... In Baltimore where a reporter might share with us, oh....a storekeeper says that you all have a plan, to prevent any further violence.
Grande Lum (00:06:44):And, you know, when that store gets broken into that person gets really upset. Well you, somebody at department of justice told me you had a plan... I think he misheard what the conciliator said. It's like, we would like to work with you to, you know, to help create a plan or something like that versus saying, we have a plan, and so that is...very important. I think, especially you're walking a line where you are a federal employee, where you are a department of justice official. So, we have to take that into account, which may be a little different from a... mediator, a community center mediator, or someone who's a private mediator. There is a way in which we have to be very careful about what we do, because everything will look will make the department of justice... will make them look bad
Grande Lum (00:07:41):If something doesn't go right, if there is shouting and anger or a fight breaks out. So... we have to keep that in account. We can have things like that as much as we can. In doing so, I would say the conciliators, they would just be very skilled. I think ... they really understood those sort of constraints... and they would often figure out ways of having, of course... you knowthese Heidi, of having ground rules of having skilled facilitators, for if it was that sort of conversation, a town hall type situation... that you would have there. So it takes, of course, just a lot of preparation... to figure this out... It is thinking through worst case scenarios, it is thinking through how do we prevent those issues.
Grande Lum (00:08:44):And sometimes I think that there sometimes has to be a decision to say, well, you know... If the risk outweighs the benefits or the possibility of something bad, you've gotta think through how do we either adjust for that or say, Hmm, maybe we should... It's a timing. I think for so much of the work of conciliators mediators, a lot of it is also thinking through the timing. Right? We think through... the goal of the work... and we think through like, who should be there? I think one thing I think, we in CRS... think very diligently about, is the timing of an intervention here and understanding, I think really the pitfalls or potential bad scenarios that, that could happen.
Heidi Burgess (00:09:40):Let's talk a little bit more about the timing issue in conflict resolution. We talk about rightness and a conflict will be right for negotiation or not. Do you think in terms of, do you have a checklist or something that's like that, but more informal where you figure out that this is appropriate time to bring people together, to try to develop a plan of how to move forward or it's too hot. Everybody's too angry. We just got to throw some water on the fire and then maybe in a week or a month, we can bring people together.
Grande Lum (00:10:24):Yeah... I think you capture a lot of what we asked the conciliators to do. Again, there's a level of management, the regional directors who provide a lot of guidance to the individual conciliators and you're certainly aware of that from your, the previous set of interviews when you did them a number of years ago here, that's absolutely the case, right? When... there's just a lot of anger and hostility and emotion, your goals are different and it may not be time for a town hall. It may be time to do the interviews and diagnostics, and spend time understanding and assessing the situation. And even that, of course has a benefit of really helping people with listening to people. Of even helping them reframe, it's similar to coaching. And again, I think many of our conciliators had relationships with these... community leaders, the civil rights leaders, the civic leaders, law enforcement, city officials as well.
Grande Lum (00:11:38):And that was an important role and something, I think a number of our folks provide, is technical assistance. That's I think partly government speak for... providing advice... or consulting. And you'd have a lot of conciliators who had seen these situations before and who could then provide... a thoughtful strategy, some plans and some options... for folks to consider here. It was certainly true in places like Sanford, whether it was Thomas Battles or Mildred Duprey De Robles, doing it there. I can certainly, you know, I certainly think that's a part of it because you're right. If it's heated, all you're looking for is a little detente, all you're looking for is cooling down. And... so... there are tools. I think that CRS conciliators utilize a lot of, it was like, self marshaling, right.
Grande Lum (00:12:47):Because if there were being protests going on, I think the wonderful support that CRS conciliators provide. It was how do you help the protestors stay safe? How do you help prevent possibilities of violence happening? And how do you allow them and enable them to exercise their first amendment right. Of free speech. And then... there are other times where other tools made sense, like training, right? If, hate crimes training, let's help the community understand what is a hate crime. Which is not always so obvious and is frustrating to people If they don't see the department of justice prosecuting someone right away or something. And helping them understand the length of investigation and that the standard....at least in the time that I was at CRS was a very, fairly high standard to prosecute someone for a hate crime... For example
Grande Lum (00:13:47):So there's that sort of training that can be provided as well. And, you know, when was mediation appropriate? If there was the ability, when things were calmer, maybe that was a time where you could engage local residents and community with law enforcement, with city officials to look at police policies, to, to be able to create a, a, a community task force or some sort of maybe, or creating a police review board of some sort, for a community... In that type of situation here. If ... it was a hate crime issue, how to help residents feel safer, if that was the concern in a situation and what support mechanisms could a city provide, or a state entity or a federal entity might provide to help community members feel safer... as well.
Grande Lum (00:14:52):So... I think that's absolutely the case that the CRS conciliator really had to think about rightness quite a bit. And there are times... when are people willing to engage and whose willing to come to the meetings, right? And sometimes you don't, if something else over... If it's too long, you may not have the buy in or engagement that you have the attention of the mayor. You have the attention, and the buy in of certain key leaders, you've gotta figure out, oh yeah. You know, now's the time where we they'll come to the table. This is the time to have some sort of intervention here as well.
Heidi Burgess (00:15:48):Great. So the other thing that I had in my notes was that you pointed out that lots of the work that CRS does are not these high profile cases. They're more normal cases, whatever that means. And I'm wondering whether you ever went on the ground for those, or whether those were the things where you stayed back in Washington and let your conciliators and regional directors handle them.
Grande Lum (00:16:18):Yeah. You know, that's interesting. That's a good question for the most part, yeah. When I would go in on the ground was when it was often a bigger conflict where my presence was useful for whatever purpose that... there were times when bringing in a high level government official would be helpful to breaking a log jam and was often in the higher profile situations. That isn't to say, I think what I could do to support that type of work... the work where... there was less emotion, there was less adversarialism. I think really thinking through what training to provide, like we really want to emphasize more mediation work at a certain point where we were focused on whether it's working with a city on discrimination issues or on police violence or on hate crimes. What sort of programs could we create that the conciliators could then utilize in the situation?
Grande Lum (00:17:35):What training would they need to better mediate? So what professional development could, could we bring in? And how do we improve our processes to make it easier for them to do this work? So, I, I spent a lot of time focused on that... And we also said, ok, let's think, let's better codify how we do the assessment of a situation, how you, as conciliators, make the choice between providing facilitation of a of a conversation or dialogue, technical assistance, or consulting training. What type of trainings, what tools would you provide and what sort of, when would you do mediation? Right. And helping, you know, helping folks think more clearly and have more organized thinking about it and providing them with training and helping them try to make it as easy as possible, honestly for them to be able to capture this... In what they're doing, I think made a difference as well.
Grande Lum (00:18:52):And a lot of it is also, I think helping them relationship build, especially for newer conciliators the ability to do that kind of work especially... when it's a little calmer... It was true. I think it was true for some of the more junior conciliators you've got to... be able to engage comfortably and have credibility with some fairly high level people, with mayors, with civil rights leaders, with protest groups who may not want to give you the time of day, because they think of you as a fed. For example, civic leaders, and also certainly the people, and also figuring out who are people who have influence, that aren't so obvious, but are often within most communities. I think that was often something. Who had their ear to the ground? Who really knew the players in situation or people? Who could be, who should actually come to the table, or who should be talked to who could persuade a community here? or who could persuade... some of the leaders within stakeholders within any given community as well?
Grande Lum (00:20:21):So I think that was important as a way of supporting their ability to, to doing that, uh, as well. And also it was, especially, we referred to it last time about the fact that we had all these new jurisdictions, where not necessarily all our conciliators were well versed ...in all these... new labels. It was also bringing in experts to work with them... to train them, but also, they need to have those resources to provide to communities. Well, here's who you should talk to or here's why don't we bring in this expert who can help us think about gender identity issues... or the type of issues that that were involved. I think it also helped that we would work with different groups if it was around mental health issues, around religious issues, that if we had national relationships at the headquarter level, it would also help with them having relationships at the local or regional affiliate level with the ADLs. You know, of course with... the NAACP... You know, and all the different, you know, Alianza and all the different groups that you would work with in religious racial... gender based organizations, as well,
Heidi Burgess (00:21:51):I'm really struck listening to you. You're the only director that we've talked to. And I'm listening to you all about different ways that you tried to support the regional directors and the conciliators. And it really strikes me as interesting and different from some of the stories that we heard long ago, way before you were in your position of tensions between the director and the regional directors and the conciliators. And then I just talked two days ago with P Diane Schneider, who was talking a lot about the outreach that she liked to do very much similar to what you just said about trying to figure out who's the real knowledgeable people in the community. And I was asking her about entry and building trust and all that. And she said, well, you have to back up that you need to do all this groundwork before something happens.
Heidi Burgess (00:22:54):But then she said that on towards the end of her career, she wasn't supposed to do that kind of work anymore. Because that was considered by Washington to be a waste of time, which I found to be very, A: surprising, but B: consistent with what we heard before. When people would complain that Washington has all these rules and just all sorts of people telling us about all the ways that they work around, what they thought was a rule coming down from Washington. And I'm hearing you talking much more collaboratively. Do you have any sense that you were more collaborative with your regional directors and conciliators than was common at the agency?
Grande Lum (00:23:43):I feel like this a dangerous question for me to answer at some level. I really, you know, I can only honestly speak from my own experience here and... that isn't to say there are a lot of rules and policies that in Washington, the headquarters, my office was responsible for implementing and enforcing. I think, you know, there's a lot of HR rules. There are a lot of things that we used to measure success here because yes, we, at the headquarters office in Washington, DC, we were responsible to share internally with different department of justice groups. Whether it's the attorney general, you know, whether it's the associate attorney general deputy or to... the proof or evidence that we were doing something positive and constructive. And yes, I mean, we were clearly asking for measurement, how many mediations did you do, right?
Grande Lum (00:25:02):How many people attended your trainings? ... You know, what were the outcomes? And it was clear part of the job is asking them to document this. And, I can see how if I were in their shoes, sometimes it might feel like this is getting in the way of the work, especially we're introducing a new program by which you need to do this. And because we were trying to enhance the program, it was always... with the goal of trying to help them be more successful with the conciliators making it hopefully easier for them to do the paperwork, to do this, and also to demonstrate the great work that they were were doing. But.. I think, you know, again... these are career folks who have gone through probably many leadership changes, whether the political appointee like myself or other changes within the department, some of the changes might have been required by department of justice overall and not by the CRS director.
Grande Lum (00:26:13):And our job, in a large organization, is to implement whatever requirements, when you turn in your expenses, right? ... And how to get permission to go..d Do something or what's the policy about speaking to the media or how to engage in a situation. Those are things that, yeah, I mean, it was... and that was not always a fun thing to do from DC or from headquarters, but in order to be successful in order to not run a foul... And therefore make it more difficult to do the work... I'm sure we implemented policies that were not always popular, but my goal was always, what can we do? I mean, I think that should be the job of any person, as an administrator to, how do you make it easier for people to do the work, right?
Grande Lum (00:27:16):What... is the ultimate outcome we're trying to achieve here?... And what can you do to make it easier? What can you do to support them to doing it? And I think, you know, I'm appreciative of what I could do on that end, and try to just acknowledge that there are realities that.. we all have to fill out, take a lot of different trainings, required trainings, in order to be a federal employee. And there are a lot of forms to fill out when you transfer, when you start, when you want to get promoted, these are all things that were not, you know, certainly not unique to my time. And I... can empathize with other directors too, who had to... Do the similar things to what I had to do, but I certainly tried my best.
Grande Lum (00:28:04):And in terms of honoring them, because they're the ones doing the work, they're the ones who are out there ultimately for the most part, doing the important work and doing work that's often unrecognized, right? ... These are people who are behind the scenes, who often...don't get the credit that I think they richly deserve, which is, you know, why I'm glad that you did the oral history project. I'm glad that I wrote, a second addition to a book to further acknowledge and recognize the amazing work that many of these conciliators and regional directors did.
Heidi Burgess (00:28:44):And one of the things that I think I remember reading in the book, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember it is that either you or other director brought in regional directors and conciliators to make some of these national policies. So you weren't just acting from above and dictating to down below, but in consistent with the rest of what CRS does, it was a collaborative process, is that correct?
Grande Lum (00:29:18):Oh, yeah. And, as much as we could, I want to lean on the regional directors and conciliators for policies that they would be more comfortable with, in terms of professional development, in terms of how we did the work. I was very happy to have brought in a consolidator to become director of training, Kit Schulberg, who was very, you know, I think a very smart conciliator one who really saw the big picture and understood how important professional development was for the agency as a whole. And I think, he did tremendous work in terms of thinking about, well, what training is needed for our conciliators to be successful here? So, yeah, I think as much as I could, I tried to bring in the regional directors and conciliators to help form policies, to help form approaches, to help us create, you know, new products, or, and by products.
Grande Lum (00:30:38):I mean, you know, going, doing work on... we did work on transgender issues. I think I mentioned earlier, we did them on cognitive disability issues. We had a lot to do because the Matthew Shepard James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes prevention act was quite new. And I relied upon the folks and how to handle... And I remember how it was staff who said "oh, yeah, you've really got to give space to folks who are in the transgender groups" To first be prepared and to brainstorm... before bringing them together with police chiefs... and others, because that, you know, there are some concerns and trepidations that folks have, and thinking through the process just as a good mediator or good facilitator should to making sure people feel safe in any meeting.
Heidi Burgess (00:31:41):Right. Let me pause for just a minute. I'm going to run and go close the door, because the wind is getting too noisy and I'll be right back.
Grande Lum (00:31:48):Sounds good.
Heidi Burgess (00:32:01):So I'm interested in your talking about training, when we did our first round of interviews 25 years ago. And we were talking about people who were there talking with people who were with CRS right at the beginning, right near 64, 65. There wasn't any training. Everybody was talking about... Seat of the Pantheon. So CRS has been around a lot longer. Everybody has learned a lot more of the field brand new at the time. How much training do people get now?
Grande Lum (00:32:37):I don't know today. I mean... I do know I've been invited to a couple of sessions and they had some really good professional development there... They've brought in professors who are very knowledgeable about race relations issues. For... example... You know, they have certainly, in the annual all staff meetings, I think throughout my time. And I think certainly since then they'll spend time providing professional development and training for folks. You know, I think the challenge is consistency and sustainability. Because people change positions, people come and go, but they've brought in some wonderful training throughout. I mean, when, how I first learned about CRS was because my organization at the time, Conflict Management Inc, and conflict management group, two organizations started by Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton.
Grande Lum (00:33:46):We were engaged to provide training to CRS. So that was the first time I even had learned about CRS. And I didn't personally provide the training, but my colleagues did. So I was like, wow, this is an amazing organization. You know, Roger Fisher was invited, I think in the late sixties, over to talk with folks. I know Christopher Moore has been engaged and his organization has been engaged, as well by Kit Chalberg who I think... knew them well. So yeah, I think they've done a good job. Again, I think the challenges are budget. The challenges are succession planning, and I'm sure that, you know, it can always, how would I frame this? I think they've recognized the importance of it and have worked hard at it. I think a big difference, as opposed to times when you did the earlier interviews is a lot of folks come in now with conflict resolution training folks have gotten masters at George Mason at was then the school of conflict... and resolution... Yeah, conflict analysis and resolution.
Grande Lum (00:35:07):So there are people who actually have degrees, people who have gone to law school and have taken conflict resolution negotiation training, I... You know, have gone to went to your programs, at University of Colorado and gotten training... as well. So I think that's a big difference that more people have come into CRS, with some background... in civil rights, race relations, conflict management, mediation, conflict analysis. And I think that has helped quite a bit as well. And... people, have also come in with whatever backgrounds they have. And I think it has been very useful to have people who have had, civil rights... background and human relations commissions background, law enforcement, or military background and the training that comes with that. And of course, I think the benefit is often those... in that type of training more have received conflict negotiation type training as well. And I think you can see that in the ability, in the importance of listening, you know, in the importance of active listening, the importance of how to manage a difficult conversation... as well.
Heidi Burgess (00:36:37):So what I'm hearing is that the current cohort has a lot more academic, formal training in the field. Whereas in the beginning, everybody, including me, we kind of inventing it as we went along. Looking at all of the cases that you studied at when you were working on the book and what that you were involved when you were there, do you think that all of the academic background and the training has led to better results? Or do you think I given you another hot potato again?
Grande Lum (00:37:23):I...don't know. You know, I think the academic training will only work if they've had practical experience in combination with it.
Heidi Burgess (00:37:39):Totally agree
Grande Lum (00:37:42):Because of the type of work that CRS is involved with. And, those who were newer, I think, but had an academic training sometimes struggle. I think if... They were newer in their careers, I think for those who had a lot of experience on top of the more academic training were the ones who could then make the connections here, because I think you need to bring some sort, the hard part about CRS is I think you do need to bring some sort of skillset to the table and then grow from there, whether... you had, I think if you were in civil rights, you understood advocacy, you understood the community groups you had, you had that sort of experience of understanding advocacy. If you came from... the law enforcement side, you would have an understanding of...how law enforcement interacts with this.
Grande Lum (00:38:41):So... I would say that made a difference here, and, you know, I'd point to Sanford, in the Trayvon Martin situation where I think a significant number of players had a dispute resolution background combined with lots of experience. Which makes... a difference. Thomas battles, of course, being the prime example of someone who had some training while he was getting his degrees, but clearly learned from Ozell Sutton . . . And had a lot of experience. And... then, I would also then go to Andrew Thomas, who had run the Rochester community mediation center for years and years. Before then coming to Sanford. And... happened to work for Sanford, the city government, when this all comes down and utilizes all that skill and all that knowledge to help the community navigate, the protestors, the law enforcement and all of that.
Grande Lum (00:39:44):And...understand how do we create more consensus? How do we engage these protestors and bring a lifetime of experience? As a dispute resolution professional, with training, with some background to it, the fact that Norton Bonaparte was a city manager who had also received negotiation training and had experience working with CRS... in other places. And by the way, Andrew Thomas did too. He had that experience working with CRS when he was at Rochester, all those things I think help.
Heidi Burgess (00:40:21):All came together.
Grande (00:40:22):All those things come together to help bring whatever the skillset of conflict resolution, conflict management combine with lots of life experience and difficult conflicts, and who then all worked together in a situation from their different vantage points. And there are many more players.
Grande Lum (00:40:45):I mean, this is just a few of the players who did have conflict resolution background, who then play a significant role... in understanding how do we help use that energy toward problem solving. And many of these players have been involved in Sanford for 10 years, and they're still there. And then Norton Bonaparte is still the city manager. They've had a police chief who's been there for quite a bit of time. You know, Andrew Thomas has worked continually worked for Stanford throughout those years as well. So though you can see how, you know, it's important. And... haven't talked about the mayor at the time... Who's now passed. The mayor did not have this sort of conflict experience, but he was open to the use of it.
Grande Lum (00:41:39):And because he was open to it and saw the benefit of it. He was a big advocate of CRS, throughout, and he saw the benefit...of like Thomas had recommended... to the mayor, to the then mayor that, "oh, he should speak at one of these rallies here." Initially he gets booed, but because the Congresswoman says "no, this person is the person who brought in the civil rights department." He then gets cheered and then it really does change. You can see, compare that to other situations where the mayor becomes this sort of hated figure. And in this situation, the mayor is seen as part of the solution here. Right. Versus... And so I think there are numerous... examples within Sanford, of where the combination of, I think... of life experience, work experience combined with conflict resolution, background contributes tremendously.
Heidi Burgess (00:42:48):And what I'm also hearing in that story is that all these folks ... beforehand, had relationships with each other. So if you've got a relationship with somebody from before you trust them, you know, that they're well meaning capable people. That's going to give you a leg up too. Then if you're dealing with strangers where you almost always come in being distrusted,
Grande Lum (00:43:13):It goes to P Diane Snyder's, I think, point of building relationships to be prepared for the... conflict later. I would add to that. What was true here was, for Norton and for Andrew, they had worked with different CRS people in their previous experiences. So the organization, the fact that they had a positive experience with somebody at CRS in a different setting, allowed them to, I think, have trust in different CRS personnel when they were in this new city... as well.
Heidi Burgess (00:43:45):Great, well, certainly helps that CRS develops a known reputation and the fact that you're supposed to fly under the radar, as much as you do is problematic. And I can see where it's helpful. You said in our last interview, I think that you were one of the people who tried to raise the profile of it somewhat so that people trusted it more and you got funding for it, and that certainly has value.
Grande Lum (00:44:20):Absolutely. And, you know, since I've departed CRS, I am now not operating under some of those, you know, stricture, I'm no longer part of the federal government. I think the work of those who used to work at CRS, can then be good advocates for it as well... And I think it has made a difference, that a number of us and... I've worked with Grace Flores Hughes, who is a director earlier, who's Republican. And we, we wrote a joint article supporting CRS. And I think those things are important to do. And I was very appreciative of Grace for doing that.
Heidi Burgess (00:45:01):Where was that article published?
Grande Lum (00:45:04):It was on, I think we did it on the hill. It was a Washington DC newsletter and on medium.com. As well. So, and I've written one with a daughter of the first director Darby Collins, as well, Darby Collins, we wrote on articles together. So, and there are, you know... many others, I think have been very supportive, like Becky Monroe, who was an acting director, she wasn't an appointed director, but she's done quite a bit in support of CRS... in articles that she's written. She wrote a very good law review article about CRS and others, as well. So I think it, you know, yeah, though that makes a difference when people, have advocated on behalf of the agency.
Heidi Burgess (00:45:56):Interesting. I, of course, was aware of the book wasn't aware of the articles, but I hadn't thought about, I was so focused on research that I was thinking much more about how useful the book is for research. And wasn't thinking about it for publicity and fundraising, but yeah, that's obvious
Grande Lum (00:46:15):And... you've got to tell the story. Right. And, somehow, and for people to get it, I think ... in writing the book, I was just hoping to do right by these people who've been doing such amazing work. And I was trying to tell the story of Azekah Jennings and of you know Silke Hansen and all these, you know, all these wonderful folks who have worked at CRS over time here. And I think by putting it down and by capturing it... You know...any legislator can... read it and say, "oh, wow, they did make a huge difference in the Elian Gonzalez, you know, situation." They did make a differenc... in Skokie or in Ferguson, you know, in all these different places here. And I think that is important, yes, for a research purpose and for a recognition of those who actually serve. And also, I think to make sure those who are open to persuasion or those who may be skeptical and say, yeah, here's what the agency has accomplished. And wouldn't, we want more of that. Wouldn't we want this to be more funded at a higher level in order to be successful. And that's my understanding by the way... it's looking good for the next year that there's going to be a very significant increase... for CRS in the coming year. Knock on wood, on that one.
Heidi Burgess (00:47:48):You're right. Well, the D is certainly there. Yeah. Nobody has managed to notice that. Ok, so I'm just going through these questions. My sense is we've pretty much covered them, but I'm going to read 'em and see if you have anything to add. One is, how closely did you work with regional directors or individual conciliators and what was... the nature of your work with them?
Grande Lum (00:48:19):You know, you want to be respectful. I wanted to be respectful of the chain of command, right. I had a deputy director who was in charge of the field, who then had a regional director, and then you had the conciliators still relatively flat organization. I really enjoyed, I really valued talking with them, hearing about their experiences, engaging them, trying to ask good questions. I enjoyed being in the field, when I could, sometimes it was in a high profile situation, but sometimes it was just the visit. Right. Sometimes it was just, that's a great time to do it, right. Not.. Under stress here. So I think it was incredibly important to get a sense of what was happening... in their offices. Think it was important for me to listen versus yeah.
Grande Lum (00:49:21):Be in my desk in Washington, DC. Right. And not really listening directly to them. And yet, of course, I had to rely on my staff quite a bit and read reports to understand... what they were doing. But... You know, so I enjoyed when we had the opportunity to talk about cases, I enjoyed the opportunity to sometimes do work with them, you on an occasional basis, sometimes in the high profile cases, sometimes not sometimes... I do remember one occasion working with Charles Phillips and having the opportunity to work on a situation which involved a police chief and... a civil rights leader, where there had been some sort of allegation of abuse of a prisoner and how they would change policies and how they would deal with them.
Grande Lum (00:50:23):And it was, it was really insightful to help the parties and actually mediate between the two individuals and to help them listen to each other and help them deal with some of the [legal] issues evolve that are often involved in these situations, especially by people who've known each other for a bit of time and who take, who by definition of their roles. And with the context of the community they lived in often are at odds with each other, at least publicly. And that takes a toll on people. I think that does that. It's not easy, I think, to be in those jobs... and to see how both of these individuals cared a great deal. And both of these individuals wanted to do the right thing and that a third party can make a difference, you know, in... that situation's right.
Grande Lum (00:51:24):It's a little different from the rest. Some of the situations I talked about, it was a little quieter. It was... and here was one where there's a dynamic where there's something blocking the two of them that there's some anger, because one person felt the other blindsided them in a press conference. Right, right. So it's dealing with an ego issue. It's dealing with a personal conflict with what the person did, and then that can snowball in a negative way and ... a mediator can ... go into that kind of situation and help people, find, find the bridge between them to help them come, help them recover and help them get back to a place where they can have, not that they'll be friends. I don't think they were ever going to be friends, but how could they work with each other that was constructive versus letting that conflict drag them down.
Heidi Burgess (00:52:31):Yeah. I'm going to pause one more minute, be right back this topic. It's a Kleenex break. All right. So the next question again, we've touched on... Maybe we can do a little bit more, what sort of reporting was required of conciliators and did you, or other people read through all the reports that were submitted and do those all then get compiled into the annual report? Or does somebody condense it all and then it gets summarized in the annual report?
Grande Lum (00:53:16):Yeah, certainly. Yeah, I think.. that's great. I think that's a good question. I mean, you asked them to do so much. And I think it's absolutely important that folks that they are then utilized, to capture it. Well, yes, we absolutely required documentation. We certainly had, we had folks in the DC office read it. I read, I didn't read all of it, but I tried to read a sampling of it, for sure. I was certainly especially focused on the annual report and I have read every annual report at CRS. I may be. I'm not sure... If I'm the only person who's done that, but for the book, I did, and... I feel like incredibly fortunate that we have annual reports from every year because it captures the history too of the agency.
Heidi Burgess (00:54:17):Annual Reports
Grande Lum (00:54:17):What's that?
Heidi Burgess (00:54:18):Are these annual reports thin things, or are they? (hand gesture to seem big)
Grande Lum (00:54:22):They're... fairly thin; These are publicly available reports... that we required to provide to the attorney general that captures for the public, you know, here's what we're doing. It is a chance to say, "Hey, you know, we deserve, we did good work. We deserve, CRS, deserves more funding... as well." And of course, like in many situations you could not break confidentiality. So... we had to make sure... to only share what was either publicly available or to clean it so that there weren't identifiable details as to what the city or who the individual were or anything that was shared in confidence. Right. Share within the work.
Heidi Burgess (00:55:13):So were you not able to even say what we did in Ferguson was?
Grande Lum (00:55:19):We could at a high level, because it would be publicly available, what you couldn't share was what was information shared confidentially within that work. So you could share, yeah. You could share, you could share that. Incredibly important by the way, I think to do that, sometimes it's seen as, "oh, it's not that important because it's just PR piece or something" But to me, it was, it is a record of saying, putting ... on paper, putting it to available to the public and saying, this is what we did... And to me, it was interesting to see trending, and to... have read every single one of them to see what changed over time, what was emphasized over time, how certain issues just came back over and over again, like these shootings, I mean, that was of individuals in communities is something that would, you know, you would just see happen over time and the good work that was done, you know. Given the George Floyd moment that we had in this country, it's important to recognize, you know, of course these issues have been going on for a long time, and CRS has been working on them for a long time, often making an impact, you know, on these situations and bringing, and, you know, early on, in earlier years saying, Hey, this is a major issue we have to deal with.
Grande Lum (00:56:41):What do use of force policies have to do with this? You know, capturing, focusing... On those issues. So, yeah, it captures some of the amazing work. And of course there are some situations that aren't captured too, right. And, it's easier. And, you know, in the book to a certain extent, I focus more and Bertram Levine, the first author focused more on the well known ones. And often, sometimes the well known ones are lend themselves to writing because more time and energy and staff and budget, we're focused on these. And there's... more publicly available information on these... On those situations. And it does go to a point of also saying... there's a lot of work that that's been done over years that also, I think has done, may not be, may not have been ever written about. And some of that is lost. I think if it wasn't captured in the annual report here, but I think again, you know, that's, I think the wonderful thing about the oral history project is that you captured some of these cases that would not have been captured anywhere else, either.
Heidi Burgess (00:57:53):Great. So I've got three follow up questions to that. One of them is what are the other things besides police shootings, where you saw the more it changes, the more it stays the same that were the same things that we just don't seem to be getting over?
Grande Lum (00:58:16):Yeah. Well... I'd certainly start with some of the hate crimes or hate incidents. Right. We have certainly seen an uptick of anti-Semitic incidents. We certainly, you know, with the synagogue in Pittsburgh being, you know, a prime prime example. We have certainly seen... an uptick, a significant uptick in anti-Asian violence, over these last three years here, which is as an Asian American really, really troubling. And really difficult. And so that's an example of something where you feel like, it keeps coming back and... you know... we can see what happened at Charlottesville as being an echo of what happened in Skokie many years ago, and the rise of white nationalism in, in this country. So... Those are, I think hard at times... to grapple with.
Grande Lum (00:59:35):I think part of it is... we're still struggling as a country, as a society, as a whole, with the changes in demographics that we're having and the changes in our politics and the conflicts that are as old as this country, in terms of what we're doing. And yeah, and that's what I would say comes first to mind... how we deal with those sort of issues. How do we, you know, what I think I think has changed in some of that, even though the incidents there may have increased a number over these recent years and in ways that are really unfortunate. And I certainly I'm concerned about violence going forward in election violence... here going forward. And as our democracy, how we think about our democracy... is being challenged.
Grande Lum (01:00:37):Some positive signs is you may not be able to control some of that. And I think... reporting, it makes a... difference. The penalties make a difference, how we, as a culture, see them can make a difference. And I think that one positive sign is when our leaders, our civic organizations also take a stand when it does happen, when there is a sense of ally ship that...the community being attacked, you know, whether it's the Asian American community, or the Jewish community, or the LGBTQ community that other groups and civic organizations and government organizations saying, no, this is not something, you know...that we want here. And so, and I think CRS has played a ... key role in some of this. And certainly I would go to, post 9/11, during the George Bush administration.
Grande Lum (01:01:43):CRS did take a lead role... in hate crime prevention, against individuals who were south Asian, Muslim, and Sikh and worked hard in working with leaders both locally and nationally on... how to help law enforcement and how to help communities better understand, people who were being targeted, post 9/11, and CRS worked very closely with Muslim and Sikh organizations on how to prevent violence... and how to deal with those issues that I think has served the agency well, ever since that time. And... I think, I'm not sure if we had, but thought about Oak Creek, which was... the sick temple, it was actually happened, you know, early on, but I think the good work throughout the years also allowed CRS to be ready to deal with incidents of that nature and... to work well with those communities, because of the long relationships and the collaboration with Sikh and Muslim and south Asian civil rights organizations.
Heidi Burgess (01:03:03):Ok. So let's go back to the statement that you made earlier about the annual reports and reading them all, and you said some things stayed the same, but then you also said you could see some things changing. So the next question is what has changed?
Grande Lum (01:03:23):Yeah, well, I think a lot has changed. I mean, you know, the CRS in its early days, you know, under Roger Wilkins ... and later on did a lot of work on media issues, and there were very, very few minorities in media and was seen as something that was extraordinarily important because whether you see yourself as you know, your communities represented in journalism and broadcast media and print media, there's been a huge shift... of more women, more minorities in the media. And, you know, CRS did a lot of work early on, on working with the networks working with print journalists. So that would be one sign. I think that there has been intermission. Now there's still more work to be done... of course, in terms of what the coverage is... and what the perspective is on.
Grande Lum (01:04:35):And... we are struggling with information and misinformation in ways we didn't struggle with then even maybe. And then the polarization within the media, and what's seen as a credible source, so there's a lot to be done. But in terms of representation, I think there's... been... a sea change... in terms... of that. That's one thing that I think has changed significantly. What else ...I would say has changed. I think how we...think about empowerment or working on these issues has changed... At its beginning, most of the conciliators were white. I mean of CRS and, and most were male. There were very few women early on, there were very few minorities early on that's changed entirely.
Grande Lum (01:05:35):I mean for CRS, CRS was in my time extraordinarily diverse with a significant number of black, of Latino, Asian American. We had folks who were Muslim and Sikh as, as well. The number of women increased dramatically. So I think how we think about who should be doing the work has actually changed dramatically as well at headquarters. I think it's a majority women now are super majority women. Now that has changed when as, you know, early on it was all men who are at the headquarters office too. And that has changed, that has changed for the good... Especially...when you're working with different communities, it is imperative that those delivering the services should also, I think, reflect those communities as well... And that's something that we certainly talked about a lot.
Grande Lum (01:06:40):I don't know if this is going off topic a a bit... it's a different kind of experience, right? But your credibility with different communities shows if you show up in a community... Of Native Americans, and if you're not, if you don't understand the culture, or if you do a full call, it becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly in these situations. So... You don't have to be, I don't think my personal opinion, you don't have to have every team reflect the community you're working in, but is important that the team have cultural competency or cultural professionalism there and I... think it shows and that's a skillset. I mean... It's a lot of the term, we use a lot today is code switching, but CRS conciliators are working with a lot of different communities, a lot of different stakeholders.
Grande Lum (01:07:47):So... it is being comfortable with the communities in need, its being comfortable with the power structure whoever's in that power structure, as well it's being comfortable with business leaders. It is being comfortable with black lives matter groups, or, you know, it is, and that's something that requires experience maturity and a willingness to challenge yourself... to constantly be aware of what your own biases are, or constantly being aware of where you need to learn more and where you need to develop... as well. And, you know, as people get older, your ability to engage with folks who are younger, I think gets challenged too. Right. So it... could be, it could happen in so many different ways. And I'm glad I have a chance to talk about that a little bit, because I think that's a key skill that I'm not sure everyone always talks about... with CRS or... any mediator or conciliator who works with people from a variety of backgrounds and experiences what they do.
Heidi Burgess (01:09:03):So that a little bit relates to the other question that I had going again back to the reporting, all these reports that the conciliators I assume, and I think Diane told me this, and maybe Thomas Battles too, that you did, what I would call, I don't know what you called it, an after action report. So after every engagement you did, you'd write a little summary of what you did. What went well and what didn't go so well, and all that stuff and that gets turned into the regional director and presumably it either all goes to Washington or the regional director consolidates it, and some of it goes to Washington. Does all that stuff have any utility? I mean, it clearly has utility, but was it used for trainings or any sort of research or data analysis independent of the annual report?
Grande Lum (01:10:10):Yes. I would say we would certainly use them to understand who we were working with fundamentally. Right... what communities we were working with...what types of folks... Were we working with the rotary club in that community? Were we working with the police department? Were we working with the youth groups? So.. And then we would also use it for what service did we provide there? I mean, that's important to know, like, well, what did we do? Did we do a lots of different things? Did we do a spirit? You know, that this program that we have, that's basically a brainstorming tool, that's used within the schools or within the city too, as a problem solving tool there. So that we would also use the reports for as, as well.
Grande Lum (01:11:10):And certainly I think for the regional director who then has to provide a performance review for their conciliators, that's what they would look at to say, "ok, here's the number of cases you did, here are the outcomes, you know, here's where your successes were, here's what we need to do for that." And then you do it for within... that office, that regional office, like they knew would roll up to that. It's like, ok, here's what all the conciliators did within this office. How does that look? How many education clients ... cases did we work that year? How many community based cases? That would give you a sense of, I think that would also be used for that purpose for the portfolio of, what type of cases were we actually doing, as well within a community.
Grande Lum (01:12:02):I'm sure it could be utilized better. And I know depending upon the administration, how they're used... could change. I know other directors, who they spent a lot of time going through individual cases on a weekly basis, or they had, you know, an associate director... do that as well. And I can see some of the benefit there, I know Gilbert Pompa, Gil Pompa, he, as a director who was, I think one of the very few who was a conciliator before becoming a CRS Director really emphasized the ability to think through and audit the cases and really get a sense of doing that for example as well. So yeah, I think they're important to utilize if you're asking people to do it, you really do have to utilize it.. or else it is purely paperwork that doesn't contribute to the organization's success.
Heidi Burgess (01:13:12):Yes. Although I think it's helpful when I was mediating cases, I found it helpful to write things down afterwards. To learn from it myself, and then go back to later and say, oh yeah, that didn't work so well that time I've learned from that, we won't do that again. Yeah.
Grande Lum (01:13:34):No question. I mean yeah, the best after action reports are ones where you can do real learning. Right. There's a real loop of, and I've done that for myself throughout my career. Not for turning it in, but I journaled it. I would say, here's what I, or I would have a team do it, like let's together talk about what worked well, what would we do differently? ..It's not that hard a conversation. And I think that was important.
Heidi (01:14:07):It's Powerful
Grande (01:14:07):It's very powerful. I mean... In so many situations if you can have that honest, reflective conversation with yourself and then within the team... then you can continue to learn. I don't... hesitate to say know, that's true for CRS work. It's true for life.
Grande Lum (01:14:25):Right. Can we continue to be learning individuals? It's easy not to learn, you know, the older you get the easier, I think it is not to learn because you can rely on the way you've been doing things. And... But yeah, I learned that early on. I mean, to the extent that you can do that assessment with and put your ego aside, right. I think that's the hard part to not be defensive about what... you about what you just did... And then to be able to do that. Yeah. So ...I agree. And to the extent that they did that, I think that benefited them. And I think for sure, the regional directors who were more learning focused that that would happen. And that was certainly the goal. Whenever we tweaked the systems, right.
Grande Lum (01:15:14):Is, how does this actually help give you the opportunity to improve right. Continuous improvement ...You can go to, you know, Demming's ideas on that in terms of quality. But I think, however, you did it, and whenever we tweaked the systems, I was trying to encourage that, as much as... We could. And, you can certainly see, for the conciliators... who would get better over time it's because they had that mindset for sure. On an individual basis and certainly for the regions, who did that the best... You could see how the offices improved as well.
Heidi Burgess (01:16:01):Ok. How closely did you work with the rest of DOJ? You've talked about walking this fine line between assessment and investigation. I guess it was Diane actually, who was talking more about that. Yeah. but there's the problem of people expecting CRS to investigate or to prosecute you and you don't, but to elaborate at all civil rights division or other parts of justice?
Grande Lum (01:16:39):Sure. And it could have been... there might have been roles, for example... when we were... working on hate crimes reporting after the Old Creek situation where we were trying to adjust hate crimes reporting where, you know, police report, where for what reason an incident took place, and after the shooting in Oak Creek, there was... an outcry for improving the system by adding the Sikh category so that we would know, like ... who was the perpetrator and what was... the hate motivation there? So we would then work with the civil rights division, FBI, the different offices within the department of justice, to move that forward, to facilitate conversation, to doing so because for the Matthew Shepherd James Byrd Jr hate crimes prevention act our job was to prevent and to respond to these situations.
Grande Lum (01:17:57):So, there are always a lot of meetings in the department of justice... and it's communication is incredibly important, right? The more that I and others were able to share about what CRS is doing to other agencies, the more that they could understand what we're doing and introduce us if it was appropriate to situations. At the same time, the point that you shared is absolutely true. We had to maintain confidentiality of our work. We could not share, what we learned... and anything that we found out could not be used for prosecution or for litigation or for investigation. So we would be very careful about that. I would... actually tell people that often the beginning of meetings, or at the end of meetings, or say, here's what I cannot share... in that regard.
Grande Lum (01:18:59):But, you know, there were so many things happening, for example, on the prevention of hate crimes, where we would participate in white house meetings on it, we would meet with the civil rights groups. We would meet with police chiefs. I was a member of the human civil rights committee of the international association of chiefs of police. So I... would on a regular basis, meet with them, be on panels with them, talk about ways, policies and how we could work more closely with each other. Certainly meant a lot with civil rights groups as well, work closely with the civil rights division and the cops office and the office of justice programs, all many, many different acronyms that would exist with the department of justice to help on the issues that matter to how do we help increase the resolution of community conflicts.
Grande Lum (01:19:52):Right? The department of justice is a very powerful organization and the more we can inform them about CRS, the more we could say, here's what we're working on and how can we create more positive community outcomes? How can, can we engage community... in different situations? I think... you know, made a difference. There were, often in the high profile situations, there would be meetings of all the different department of justice entities that were involved. So that way we wouldn't, because if you went into a community and say, you're department of justice, they might, there could be four or five agencies from department of justice in the community. So the more coordinated we were the better. And so we wouldn't step on each other's foot. We wouldn't do all that, when there was an incident and we say in the Boston marathon shooting, where there's fear about, you know, backlash violence, there'd be a call organized, which would include FBI, U.S. Attorneys, civil rights division, CRS, where we were collaborating to help the communities.
Grande Lum (01:21:01):Like... If there's concern about attacks on houses of worship, so you would...give advice to people how... to work with your local police department and there's concerns about it. How can you keep your house of worship safe, to have a liaison, to have a plan, a security plan, you know, how to make sure you have... video cameras and all these sort of things. So and we were very small. CRS was a very small agency. So... the ability to amplify the message, the goals of responding and preventing hate crimes, the goals of helping people resolve their own conflicts or helping communities sell their own conflicts. It was important to partner, to use the platform, to use that time. You know, I know people from community mediation centers talk about how the creation of CRS in 1964 civil rights act is the first federal recognition of community conflict resolution.
Grande Lum (01:22:03):And it stands for that proposition, Linda Baines Johnson, advocates for it, and believed in the importance. And... I believe fully in it as well. People need to be involved in the resolution of their own conflicts. Community members need to be involved in and not have it imposed upon them. Right. America has... a very arguably has an excellent legal system... you could challenge that idea. But it's meant to handle things at scale. And it's meant to handle things at volume. It ... can leave out the voices of the individuals themselves at times, because the court system bureaucracy, you know, it starts to manifest where the lawyers have to be talking to each other, and you have all these filings and regulations and civil procedure. The benefit of community conflict resolution, the benefit of CRS is the idea that there's a third party, but the resolution of that conflict, of that disagreement, of that discord is still based upon the idea of sometimes marginalized communities who maybe they don't speak, maybe they're newcomers to this country.
Grande Lum (01:23:19):Maybe they're afraid for their lives. And maybe they're concerned about going to law enforcement... The CRS job is... and I think community conflict resolution as a whole, is to help provide that voice or help them be prepared to come to the table so that they can advocate for themselves. And I think that's a really unique thing, and that's not what the most of the department of justice is about. And I think that that voice is important. There is an office of dispute resolution that was created during Janet Reno's time. That was also partner. I would often talk to the head of that, and we would often do events and we would often try to amplify that message about the importance of how ... to help individuals and communities resolve their differences, utilizing their... own abilities, their own communication, their own gifts.
Heidi Burgess (01:24:15):Did you also do the same sort of thing with other federal agencies? Like I could think of Homeland security or education or transportation conceivably.
Grande Lum (01:24:30):Yeah, as much as we could. It... could be, it could happen for a number of reasons because there... is some sort of problem within some community where FEMA, you know, was there. And there was a partner with them, like during hurricane Katrina, where we sent a significant number of CRS conciliators there and working closely with FEMA on and marginalized communities, not being able to get access and working with those communities to work closely with FEMA. So, it could be the SBA. You know, when Silke Hansen was working... after what happened with Rodney king and the police that incident. And the Korean American community was in turmoil because of what was going on in their communities and the attacks... on their stores and destruction and looting that happened, where, how do we help folks get SBA, small business loans and...connecting people to resources.
Grande Lum (01:25:38):So a lot of it, and, you know, at the regional, that's the benefit. And I don't know if I talked enough about this earlier of having offices. It's not just at DC though It's good to have that connection. And I had worked at the SBA, which I think helped, you know, in partnering, for example, with the small business administration. But it helps to have a CRS person within each of the 10 regions who then knows the regional offices for all those different for FEMA, for SBA, for all of that, you know. DHS was a little bit different because there was concerns. What...was department of Homeland Security doing? They were often trying to root out terrorism. And so.. we had to take more care in interacting with them because their stance, or some of the suspicion of DHS was they were trying to partner because they were trying to find out... who they were.
Grande Lum (01:26:34):So you have to be a little careful at times, I think... in situations like that here, but if you use the model of CRS as a social worker, and you're there to... provide support, a lot of it is trying to connect a community to resources. So the better network and connected a conciliator and a regional director are, the more quickly and the more efficiently and the more knowledgeably you can connect them to the resources they need or collaborate in a certain way. With that we would certainly provide, we would certainly speak together... to communities, minority communities, about these issues. I think it helped a lot that for, as an appointee, right, has a political appointee. I think it's important to recognize, I had a network of political appointee.
Grande Lum (01:27:29):So, you know, Roger Wilkins talks about that, when his ability to get things done, because he... knew all the other African American political appointees, which never not that many, during the LBJ, but... they were part of his network to get things done here. And it was true for me, the fact that I knew many appointees for different reasons, including being, you know, Asian American appointees, that that would help, you know, there are some as well. But having, you know, I think what's important is having a high degree of trust with the people you work with... Creating working relationships of high integrity matter, because you want it to be known as a person of trust and high integrity. And the way you do that is... by acting that way, by acting with integrity and acting with trust. And so I think that was important, for all, for everyone from every conciliator regional director, all and including me as a director. But yes, I think the ability to make an impact, is, especially when you're a small agency of CRS, is the ability to partner with other federal agencies effectively quickly. And... So that right ... oftentimes is can you get what they you're dealing with communities that are often duress. So the more quickly you can provide some solutions or resources the better,
Heidi Burgess (01:29:09):Did you ever have conflicts between different agencies? The one that I immediately thought of when you were talking about DHS was customs and border control and ICE, I would think that you could have real problems there.
Grande Lum (01:29:27):Sure. And I think, you would have tensions, you would have differences with individuals or with agencies. I think it's what would I, you know, what would I say... in those situations and you would, I think it's important that you had to maintain your relationships with the stakeholders in that given community. And you're always walking the fine line anyway, right? Because you're interacting with groups that are often at odds of each other, maybe it's ... customs and border patrol. You know, maybe... there's a U.S Attorney's office who's investigating... in that community being perceived and acting as an honest broker, I think makes a difference because, this was true in a number of the cases, that I was involved in, certainly a number of the cases in the book where you want to be known, you want to be able to move, and be able to talk to all the different parties.
Grande Lum (01:30:46):You don't want someone not talking to you. If you're there as a facilitator, if you are there as a convener, if you're there as a person to try to maintain channels a communication, right. That's what you're often there for. I certainly remember cases where there were protestors in a certain agency they weren't talking to a law enforcement agency, wasn't talking to each other. And if they're protesting and they're not talking to each other, bad things can happen. You know, and I can think of a situation in a large city where there was going to be some arrest being made ... and by clearly communicating two parties, you could help prevent any violence from happening just by making sure messages were not being lost... in those situations.
Grande Lum (01:31:56):So yeah. So I think even those situations where you're talking about federal agencies and being careful... you're there to be the communications hub often. And, I think you can often smooth over conflicts between some of the agencies or... the individuals within those agencies to be more accurate here. So, yeah, I think that's a role that CRS conciliators can... and should play. I mean... Their assets are their credibility, the trust... and the person who can see, hopefully see the bigger picture,, here as well. And your job is, yeah... How do you help people, how do you help communities achieve success? How do you help them stay safe? How do you help them, you know, deal with the problem of potential violence in a situation where they're not getting a resource that they need in order for the lights to be turned on, if it's a hurricane or to get water or whatever it might be,
Heidi Burgess (01:33:10):I'm going to go far afield, because something you said just made me think of this. And I'm curious, what does CRS do in instances where one party isn't interested in preventing violence, they want to foment it.
Grande Lum (01:33:26):Um,
Grande Lum (01:33:33):I'm trying to think, you know, you certainly would work with the groups that don't want violence to not be drawn in and pulled into the violence. I can think of situations where say there's a protest group, and then there's some sort of group that's there just... to do that, to foment violence, you've gotta make sure to tell the protesters and the folks are there, who are there for a positive constructive purpose that if you see these people, or here's what to do, like for example... if they identify the group that is there to just cause trouble and violence, they'll often do it by jumping into a totally legitimate constructive protest group and try to start a fight there. Right. They're taught one thing that I remember, I think Thomas Battle said is that, the training technique is for everyone in that group to go up to the outside, just leave the people who are just trying to foment the violence by themselves, so that... you're not caught up in it, right.
Grande Lum (01:34:46):Or... seek out support, find somebody who can deal with that issue. Whoever that group might be, you know... the marshals or whoever to deal that group, that's trying to foment it or making sure your group, that's what self marshaling does. You have people who are identified as being there...and that way your group, as you're walking down a street. And... I've walked down the street with some of these groups when they're self marshaling that you stay together and you don't get mixed up with groups that there that cause violence, and that you have actions to take protocols to take. If you see a group that's there... to create violence, there... as well, it's making sure that law enforcement is aware of it. Law enforcement, I remember like at national conventions...there were groups, they're trained like a bunch of officers and bikes.
Grande Lum (01:35:45):There's a group... That's there to cause trouble to this bike in between the two groups to keep the groups apart. So that way, you know, you do something you're in trouble, but the group that is not trying to do anything is safe from this other group. So... these are skills and expertise that the conciliators and regional directors have gained over time on dealing with it. That isn't to say you could still... There are times when working with some of these groups that foment violence, that you can talk to them and say, what are you here to do? And can you get them to back down. Can you get them to say, I don't think you want do this. Would you agree... to leave this spot? And here's why you should do so, right.
Grande Lum (01:36:35):That's happened. I have certainly spoken to conciliators, like Ron Wakabayashi... And others who have said, they'll go to one of these groups with the, you know... They often have to talk to whatever law enforcement agency and making sure that it's ok for them to do it. They... ou know, there's protocols that you have to follow... And then, because their goal is to keep people safe... to prevent violence, right. Uh, here. So I think there are ways where you can engage some of those groups. I'm not saying it's gonna be successful hundred percent of the time, but I think it's still good to have that.
Heidi Burgess (01:37:15):Ok. Is there anything more that we haven't touched on media? The question is, how did you deal with media? It seems to me like, we've tried to run that one into the ground
Grande Lum (01:37:30):I'm not sure. Well, you know, Heidi, I could talk on this for a long time, but I don't know. Did we talk... I don't think we talked about... in Sanford when social media started to make accusations, Breitbart made accusations that CRS was fomenting violence, and there were conservative groups doing that, which led to Fox and Rush Fox host like Sean Hannity and Bill Riley and Laura Ingram, and Rush Limbaugh, making accusations that CRS was... causing the violence. It was as egging them on. I don't think we talked about that.
Heidi Burgess (01:38:34):I think Thomas probably did. Because it sounds really familiar, but go ahead.
Grande Lum (01:38:38):Yeah. So this is a... newer phenomenon, right? That wasn't around the first time you did the interviews. And so you had Breitbart stating that CRS are sending secret agents to foment these protests at Sanford. It happened in other places, but I'm going to stick with Sanford for the moment here and made accusations and... had conspiracy theories that Eric Holder was the person doing this often. Eric Holder was the villain often in this one and I was his lackie. Here, it was a way of attacking President Obama as the first Black president. It was a way Eric Holder became the nice standin. He was the head of department of justice. And here is this agency. That's not that well known that you can then make an accusation about. And so there on Breitbart on other extremist, I want to say this I know it's important.
Grande Lum (01:39:42):You know, websites, they would make these accusations. And that was something that was new... In dealing with that. And it was very demoralizing, right? To see yourselves portrayed this way. I had no experience of, you know, Hannity...You know Right. And this is all happening, a lot of it. So... How it often works is that you have whatever goes on this in the internet. And they're people making accusations, extremist sites are making accusations. And then at some point Fox host and Rush Limbaugh pick up, they read it,, their editors pick up on it and say oh, let's run with this here. And that's what happened. This happened during... There had been, the jury was out on George Zimmerman. And so there was a lull. So they started pushing this story out there.
Grande Lum (01:40:42):And it was demoralizing. And what, you know, in talking with DOJ officials, we agreed we're not gonna respond. You know, there's nothing here... And, what I told staff is just keep doing the work.... Let that go. I did. Now we did have to respond and, and I did have to share, like... Here's the truth here in the matter here, luckily for us other, it didn't go beyond Fox news and some of the, the right wing media hosts and talk show hosts like, like Limbaugh, because once other media looked into it, they realized there was nothing there, you talk to police chiefs and say, no, we love having CRS there. They help in these situations. They're not fomenting things. So you then had some pushback from other media as well.
Grande Lum (01:41:38):So I think Rachel Maddow did a... show on it. And you would have different newspaper reports saying no, you know, CRS is doing good work there as well, but it, you know, there was a moment where you're certainly concerned is it's going to become an even bigger, bigger, bigger story here... And that's something new and for, CRS that's never been pointed out that way. I think it's reputation allowed it to withstand it. And, in that situation... another example, and I think Thomas was involved... in this one as well. I mean, Thomas was actually ... there, he was at the center of some of the stuff, that was going on in Sanford as well, is they would videotape when CRS was at like the national conventions and doing some of the work I talked about earlier and making accusations of the same type, right.
Grande Lum (01:42:36):That, in that regard, and as long as we would just explain internally to the department of justice, here's, what's actually happening... we would therefore then just let it, let it go. For the... most, I mean, let it go by saying we didn't respond to it. We wouldn't go out. You know, we wouldn't have a press conference. We wouldn't do things like that. If asked by a journalist, we would say, here's what actually happened. Here's the truth of it. And as well, so that is something that is new, that has to, that I think, CRS folks need to be very careful about, you know, but if you do your work well, if you do it right, I don't think there's any reason to worry. It's just that you, that's just the atmosphere. And that's just the possibility of what could happen.
Heidi Burgess (01:43:31):Right. There's another angle on that. When I was asking the media question, I was thinking of traditional media, and wasn't thinking about social media, but social media is such a volatile situation and it's all new, because it didn't exist when we did the interviews 20 years ago. And we had a question that we asked way back then about how did you control rumors and the problem of rumor control in the day and age of social media and everybody taking pictures of all sorts of things with their smartphone has to be way more challenging. And it was challenging back in the day. And now it, with the amount of false stuff that's going around, it's got to be out of control.
Grande Lum (01:44:21):It's a harder environment to work in and if you have to be more alert, the fact that any session you're doing, someone could be recording. You have to be alert that anyone who attends a session that you have might go on social media afterward and say here's what happened. And that has occurred, you know, but you certainly talk, you have to talk upfront with people in a meeting, people in a session that you're conducting, we ask that here are the ground rules, right? We ask that you not discuss this as confidential. We ask that you not go social media and you might even have to think through if it does happen, what is your response? Right. And or what are the consequences for the group or for this... case of how you approach it here.
Grande Lum (01:45:17):So there is so much more to be cognizant about... for sure. I think what has served CRS well is the fact that it has a long history of success and a very positive representation, reputation with the protest groups, civil rights groups, community groups, neighborhood groups, and also with law enforcement and business leaders and you know, political leaders that so many have seen the benefit in their communities here. And I found that to be true in talking to congressional members... who know... When CRS has been there at large rallies or large events that were possibly, you know, violence was a concern where CRS played an important role in keeping it safe. And so that kind of support has always been important for people of stakeholders here. But as we, yeah, as we know, as, as things get, as things get more polarized, it gets harder, not easier.
Heidi Burgess (01:46:19):Yeah. I'm sure. So one of our questions is one of the coming up soon is how has political polarization affected the work of CRS?
Grande Lum (01:46:31):I think the last thing I just mentioned is a part of it, right? If they're trying to, there is an attempt to politicize CRS's work and label it as partisan when in fact it is not. And I think that that makes it more difficult because then it's seen, as, you know... Then it's seen as an advocacy organization or a one side, I think that's at least from a CRS perspective. I think it makes it hard. I can also see in all sorts of disputes, if the disputes take on more of a political overtone, makes it a little hard, makes it harder to become the resolution. You know, you're getting further away from, you know, the Maslow hierarchy of needs. You're getting further from,... if political polarization is leads to the win being, you know, showing up the lives or, you know, making fun of the conservatives, that's not a goal that, that CRS is there for right. CRS is there to help create an agreement. And CRS is there to help create understanding if something is more politicized by definition. The goals that each side seeks, I think are gonna be different and more difficult to harmonize here.
Heidi Burgess (01:48:07):And I would expect that is something that CRS conciliators are facing more and more over time. Would you say that's correct?
Grande Lum (01:48:18):Or, yeah. And, you know, and CRS is the jurisdiction is not to deal with something that's strictly political, right? It has to have a component. It has by the conflict itself must have to do with an identity based group, whether it's race, gender, and all these things. So by definition, CRS could not do purely political work. And I would say that if... something had political, overtly political challenges to it, I think CRS would also say, even though it may have a race issue, it's one where CRSs services should not be provided, or it would be too problematic or too difficult to do. So then you're bringing in all those other issues of rightness, of practical, you know, practical outcomes here. So yeah, it becomes harder to even decide to go into a situation.
Grande Lum (01:49:18):I think, I think, especially since you're a federal employee, you don't want to go any... If something is controversial in a certain kind of way, it makes less sense for CRS to be there. Now, if it's one of community conflict that can, that is, yeah, it may be controversial, but it's one where CRSs service makes sense. And because it can bring to an agreement on a policy or it can make an agreement to how to keep people safe. That's, you know, that's good. So yeah, I think ... it makes the equation more complicated, right? For sure.
Heidi Burgess (01:49:54):So we're close to time. I want to bring up two things that related to that, that before, when you were talking, you talked about, I thought CRS being at one of the political conventions, which surprised me because that's not a intended to be a racial situation. And then you also talked a bit about, I don't know whether it was potentially becoming involved or actually becoming involved, in election violence, which would be strike me as political not.
Grande Lum (01:50:30):Oh yeah. So I'm glad you raised that. On the second I'llstart with the second question first, you know, CRS would never be involved in an election issue. I was just thinking... More the general trends of society that there's, I think there's a concern. And by the way, they may have racial elements to it though. And I'm... speaking to the larger issue, larger societal issues. And we do need to... deal with them, right. As well for sure, I'm concerned about, about violence and elections that I'm concerned about these things. And sometimes I do have a racial element to it, right. As well, but I'm not advocating for CRS engagement that that CRS would clearly should clearly stay away fromany sort of issue on an election issue there.
Grande Lum (01:51:26):On the... first question at conventions, this was true at democratic and national conventions, CRS would come and play a role and work with the law enforcement, you know, there. And if there was an issue that had to do with race... Then CRS could be involved given its expertise at dealing with protests and rallies... and helping people, helping calm tensions, helping reduce conflict, overt conflict in a situation. So that's why CRS had done a number of conventions. I'm not sure it's done so re recently, but it did under when I was a director and certainly did prior to my becoming director as well, but you could only be engaged, as long as if it met your jurisdictional requirements here. And we would always make sure if we did the democratic convention, we would also do the Republican convention. Right. That was important. And we would... go on it, the CRS conciliators would be ready to go, but we were always, they were always very careful as to when they would be engaged in a situation or not. And this was dealing often in the streets. So this was purely working in the streets outside of the convention itself. It would be where the protest groups were. That was the space at which CRS would work.
Heidi Burgess (01:52:54):All right. My mind goes back to Chicago, 1968, but I'm guessing they CRS probably CRS
Grande Lum (01:53:00):Was not as far as I know, I, there was not at 1968.
Heidi Burgess (01:53:05):Yeah. It was still pretty young then all right. Well, we have used up another two hours. Ok. We have lots of questions left. I hope we willing to come back and do this again.
Grande Lum (01:53:18):I enjoy it's actually, I, you know, I find it it's useful to think about, important to think about. And so I appreciate the thoughtful question side.
Heidi Burgess (01:53:26):Well, I just enjoying this thoroughly and am delighted that we can continue for another time or two. So as per usual, I'll get in touch about scheduling. Ok. And thank you very much.
Grande Lum (01:53:39):Thank You, Heidi. Have a great weekend. Hope you and guy have a great weekend. Take care. Bye.
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project Phase 2 As a public service, Beyond Intractability hosts this site in conjunction with the earlier Phase I of the Civil Rights Mediation Oral History Project. IRB statement for Phase II interviews “Research conducted pursuant to Ohio State University Office of Responsible Research Practices IRB protocol 2021E0493.” |
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