Civil Rights Mediation
Oral History Project Phase I

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Civil Rights Mediation
Oral History Project Phase I

Home | Overview | Phase I | Phase II

 


Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

You talked about being seen as a resource when you were talking about building trust. You talked about communications and you talked about being seen as a resource. Do you want to elaborate on that a little bit - what you do to be seen as a resource?

Answer:
I think, especially with the authorities, we don't go in with one strategy and one canned plan that can work. Looking at the issues, the CRS person has more information from the community that usually wants to get access, get these problems resolved and they have all these issues with the authorities. What you're really doing is processing information. You're starting to get that response back on how far the authorities are willing to go and what they're willing to do. CRS is able to cite how we were able, in similar situations, to provide various types of services. "We had this case we mediated where they had a similar type of conflict, people sat down, they came up with this." Or, "In the next city we trained the police officers, we had a community forum, we had the police and the community working together on it, or the police changed their protocols on use of force. They got to an accreditation process so they started building community trust." In each one of those cited experiences, we're describing CRS' efforts and the type of services we provided in that type of conflict. That was why right from the beginning when we set up the conflict resolution program back in 1970-1971, we pulled together all the types of experiences we had as an agency and codified them so that we had a more uniform and proven process. Then we buttressed that by referencing in writing, "We did this in X city or Y city." Even though the individual mediator or conciliator has not had all that experience or gone through that particular conflict, he or she can cite what the agency has done or what we're doing. The more current the experiences or examples of CRS effectiveness, the better impact they have on both authorities and the community. We're basically saying that to authority figures who often, especially when they are in the midst of a civil disorder --we often call this a paralysis of inaction --don't know what to do. Here, someone comes in and says, "In this civil disorder, here's what they did in X city or Y city and it works. Here's the thing on the curfew, here's some of the pros and cons?" It's all codified in our thinking, and that's what we try to do, pull it together so that the mediator is not totally relying upon his or her experiences but those of colleagues and predecessors.

Question:
Is that an available document or just an internal document, the codifying of those experiences?

Answer:
I think it's an internal document; it's the Management of Civil Disorders.



Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

The judge issued his order and instructed the parties to cooperate with CRS. So, throughout the whole desegregation turmoil up here, we had two roles, our mandated conciliation/mediation of racial/ethnic conflicts and assisting the court which was a special type of relationship. In other cities we had some types of relationship with the courts, but it was a special one here on account of the active involvement of the court.



Stephen Thom

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Fundamentally, our role is to insure that the first amendment rights of any American to speak freely and to demonstrate are protected. CRS by maintaining open communications lines open is able to diffuse tensions and mediation conflicts that may arise.



Stephen Thom

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

I think we have to look at what is our role and get out of the way sometimes for the sake of valuable principles that need to be set. Sometimes mediation can be a compromise we need to get out of the way because what we do in mediation doesn't stand up in the courts and have the same precedence that sometimes the courts need, that society needs. I think we need to look at disputes from a variety of views.





Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

The mediator has a major influence on the progress or management of the mediation process. It's what you see in a thing and what can help move the process forward. It's people getting to this confidence level where they're making progress on issues, where they aren't so far apart, where the communication process and problem solving are working.



Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

Have you run into any cases where you felt you should withdraw from moving toward the table because the community felt its interests were better served by staying in the streets or doing other things?

Answer:
Two high profile situations in our region were the shooting death of this off duty African-American sergeant by a police officer in Providence, and there was a shooting death in Hartford, Connecticut, related to a young African American who was 13 years old, by the police. Both of these places had protest activities. In neither case did we get to the table. In Providence -- Larry Turner handled it -- our basic response was related to the violence in the streets. There were demonstrations at City Hall, there were people talking to one another, there were open discussions related to what could take place. One of the community demands was that during these other investigations the state attorney general hire an independent prosecutor to look into this shooting. Larry Turner talked to the attorney general and there were meetings with the community. The attorney general was determined that he would keep it in his office and have one of his assistants do the investigation. There was unrest. The governor set up a blue ribbon commission. We kept the lines open, but we never ended up in mediation. The mayor ended up convening a blue ribbon commission also. The police chief eventually retired, and there are lawsuits pending. Much of the tension was directed toward waiting for the investigation to take place and the results to be announced. We were not able to process that into mediation. There were other activities which involved CRS that took place. We helped the governor's blue ribbon commission looking at community relations around the state. We lowered our goals and objectives into keeping the peace, keeping communications open, making sure people understood the reason for the U.S. Attorney not taking the case for investigation. That was a conciliation approach. I didn't handle it. The conciliation approach is often not conducted at the highest level. It doesn't lead to development of relationships between the authorities and community leaders. The continuing conflict and unresolved differences are probably going to have to be revisited some other time. In Hartford, there was a shooting death of an African-American youth by a Hartford police officer. As a result, we were heavily involved in a number of activities. The chief asked for our help in addressing some of the internal issues in the department because the chief said we do have racial problems in this department. He directed his attention to issues within the department and community forums outside the department. The police came to the open forums. The chief then resigned. The dynamics of the conflict really never lent themselves to a mediation process. There were other issues that came up. There was a court agreement that had not been carried out. CRS participated in a number of meetings regarding this agreement. Nothing positive came back from city officials related to opening discussions about the agreement. The community leaders finally went to court again to make sure that it was reaffirmed and restated. The process didn't allow itself to evolve into mediation and we were not able to process the tensions and issues into a mediation process. With the police chief resigning, there wasn't an appropriate leader to meet with the community.



Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

When CRS offered our assistance, the judge's basic concern, and our recommendations to him, was to deal with the turmoil in the streets, try to get the violence and turmoil under control. But in the subsequent year the full city would be under desegregation orders. So the judge developed a new desegregation plan. We were heavily involved with the judge in the process. He hired two desegregation experts and appointed four masters.



Martin Walsh

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

After the school department refused to voluntarily implement a number of CRS's recommendations based on CRS experience in the South and other communities going through desegregation, CRS brought these recommendations to the court. During the course of CRS work with the court, the judge had to order the school department to implement a number of these measures which had been found to be effective in communities going through desegregation across the country. Boston did not voluntarily accept our recommendations even though in all the other communities, e.g., Denver and Prince Georges County, the school systems and communities accepted CRS recommendations. So that's why I say Boston was an anomaly. We basically were working with the court to reconstruct a governing system for the schools. That's what we basically were doing. Parent councils in the schools and the whole planning process, especially the role of the experts and court masters, were intended to signify an outreach, as much as possible, to the reasonable people in the city. For example, Eddie McCormick from South Boston was the former lieutenant governor and the judge chose him to be one of the masters. The people the judge selected as masters and court experts were of the highest caliber. It was a partnership process that the judge wanted to do right. In CRS's role with the court, CRS was basically the helper to keep the desegregation process moving as the judge had all the authority. In our other role, CRS was concentrating our efforts at first on trying to stem the violence at the schools in South Boston and then Hyde Park. We were holding the line and getting ready for the development of a plan where we could put into action some way of healing the city. We were tasked by the court to establish the city-wide coordinating council, a blue-ribbon body to help heal the racial strife brought about by the desegregation process.





Dick Salem

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

CRS sent a team in to try to serve in the mediational and intermediary role. The FBI was there, Bureau of Indian Police, customs officials, they needed all the police types they could get there. There were rifles and firing and a few killings. CRS responded with a cadre of field representatives - - conciliators and mediators -- who were housed in a church in the town of Pine Ridge, five to ten miles out of Wounded Knee. There were blockades along the road. The first road block was maintained by the tribal chief, Wilson’s people. Then the FBI had a road block and the third road block was the American Indians right outside of Wounded Knee. We established our base in a church. There were beds and phones and a few rooms and we had anywhere up to a dozen people there at a time, doing a variety of activities. We would transport people in and out in conjunction with the other Feds. They knew we were there, but they didn’t accept us or like us. You had a situation where you had FBI agents who are really trained to work behind desks or in urban settings, and there they were out there in the plains and the cold. You had BIA police, and customs police, perhaps, and Marshals and none of them were very happy there. Many of them weren’t getting overtime and their families were back home. There were bunkers that the AIM members had built. There were armed people in them with gunshots going off at night sometimes. There were shots fired into the place. That was the setting. I don’t remember when I got a call to get in there, but I brought in a fellow from our Philadelphia office, Tom Hadfield, to do the administrative things, just to get it organized, keep track of who had what cars and who was where. Marty Walsh was there when I arrived and had helped get negotiations started. They had just declared a cease fire and there was a demilitarized zone and they were trying to get talks started. The Feds were all in the BIA building. Kent Frizzell was a solicitor of the Department of Interior which handled American Indian affairs. Dick Helstern from the Justice Department was there doing administrative and legal work with him. Stan Pottinger, the head of the Civil Rights division was there for a while with some of his staff. These were others who were assigned there from those agencies in Washington. They were in regular phone contact with the Acting Attorney General Snead who was in touch with the white House.

Question:
Now who was negotiating with whom?

Answer:
Nobody at this point, but they were opening negotiations. Frizzell was the top federal official. Harlington Wood (later a federal judge) had been there earlier. At an earlier time, there had been efforts to open talks and they hadn’t gone very far. Now Frizzell and his people were going to talk to Russell Means and Dennis Banks and the leadership of the American Indian movement. We had staff going back and forth as I said sometimes escorting lawyers in or bringing people out who were sick or wanted to leave. We were talking to people trying to gauge what we should be doing, and then trying to help get talks started. Marty had carried that ball with his staff, and then I came in to replace him and we overlapped for a few days. Nobody authorized us to mediate. I don’t think the parties felt any need for that, but we were there to participate and help facilitate. We were more in a facilitative mode.

Question:
Explain how you’re using those two terms differently. What do you do when you’re facilitating?

Answer:
Well you’re helping to get things going. You’re there to help in those roles to do what you can to keep it moving, but they didn’t want you sitting at the head of the table saying this is what we’re going to do.

Question:
Were you at the table at all?

Answer:
Oh yes, but our role was peripheral. We were often in an observing role, information role. We were not in a role to take charge.



Dick Salem

 [Full Interview] [Topic Top]

The CRS staff would move back and forth, as I said, and at times we had great difficulty. It could have been with anybody. The FBI resented us, because we were the ones promoting peace, prolonging the takeover. Or at times we were stopped at Wilson’s road block. The feds had made strategic errors. They’d left the phone line from the Wounded Knee trading post open for a long time, so the leaders of the American Indian Movement were on the phone to reporters all over the country. They were on talk shows and were getting a world of publicity. They finally cut off the phone and only opened it when they had to speak with their attorneys. They put a tap on this phone and that would come back to haunt them. The FBI started to stop our people. "You’ve got a can of gas in the back of your trunk. We’re not going to let you through. We’re going to confiscate it." Well, what happened is that in Wounded Knee, gas would be siphoned from our tanks. We’d get stuck on the road coming back. Someone would have to go out and rescue them. So, we put a can gas in the trunk as a security measure. Or I’d come out and go to the staff meeting, which they’d have every morning and someone would show me a picture. "This is Crazy Al. Is he in there? He’s wanted on felony charges in three states." Yeah, he was in there, and they knew he was in there because they must have had informers inside Wounded Knee and strong spy glasses on the outside. there. They knew he was in there, but they want me to say it. I would only say, "I’m not sure.” I had to make the point that they could not use CRS to extract information. They weren’t happy, many of them weren’t happy with us. Although, some of them, such as Wayne Colburn, the head of the marshals, understood what we were doing and appreciated it. Still they gave us a hard time coming in, they gave our people a hard time. Mark Lane was there as one of the AIM lawyers. He was involved in a number of high profile cases and was a very controversial civil rights attorney, not like William Kunstler who was also one of their attorneys, a very creditable person. Lane was not to be trusted, I learned. One of our jobs was to escort the lawyers through the road blocks. Anyone we escorted had easy access. I did that one day. I was alone in one car and they were following me down the road. We got through Wilson’s road block, and we got to the FBI road block, and then we get to the last road block, the American Indian road block. But before we get there, Lane, he was with attorney Beverly Axelrod, swings his car around mine, zooms up to the road block, says something to the guard there and zooms into Wounded Knee. When I got to the road block, the guard was standing there with a rifle pointed at me. "They told me not to let you through, no matter what," he said. I got out of the car to talk to this sixteen year old with his rifle pointed at my head. "Do you want a cigarette?" Finally he put the rifle down and let me through. That was Mark Lane. He hated anybody who worked for the Department of Justice, or the Department of Injustice as some people called it during the Nixon years. It was a frightening incident. Later, Beverly Axelrod, through one of the CRS staff, apologized for Lane’s behavior.

Question:
So to recap, CRS’s role involved running errands, getting materials that the Indians needed, getting people in and out, and facilitating the discussions to some extent?

Answer:
Helping to get the discussions going.

Question:
How did CRS go about doing that?

Answer:
Meeting with the leadership, interpreting what was happening to the Feds, meeting with the Feds and interpreting some of that on the other hand.

Question:
So you met with the leadership on both sides, interpreting what was going on at the other side. Is that what you mean?

Answer:
Interpreting to one what might be happening with the other. I don’t know how important that was. It was more important to let the Feds know. I don’t know how much they really cared, their hands were sort of tied. They had to find some peaceful way out of this.

Question:
Now when you say interpreting, do you essentially mean message carrying?

Answer:
No, it’s not message carrying. It’s helping them understand perhaps, that there was no serious threat. We were trying to motivate negotiations, and sometimes there were reasons why they couldn’t take place. It might have been an internal conflict within the leadership of AIM, where the leaders could not reach consensus. We might not be able to talk about this with the feds, but we could explain that they just had to be patient not press the issue.

Question:
Did you do any mediation within one side, like helping AIM to resolve some of these things?

Answer:
No, not to my knowledge. Marty Walsh told me that one morning he went to one of the leader’s rooms and pulled him out of bed to get him to a meeting. I told you that they showed me a mug shot of this fellow named Crazy Al. He was a tough looking white fellow who walked around Wounded Knee with a rifle. Well the first day we went into Wounded Knee for a negotiation and Frizzell asked me if I was sure it was safe for him to go in. I assured him that AIM was going to protect the Feds who came in. I told him that a security patrol would assure his security. They will meet us at the helicopter and walk with you to the church where we’ll be talking." It turned out that Crazy Al was heading the three-man security patrol. So you play different roles, some are unexpected, or maybe unimportant, you never know, you just do it.





Copyright © 2000-2007
by Conflict Management Initiatives and the Conflict Information Consortium

Beyond Intractability maintains this legacy site as it was created in 2007 with only minor formatting changes made in conjunction with the posting of Phase II of the Civil RIghts Mediation project in 2025.
Copyright © 2000-2007
by Conflict Management Initiatives and the Conflict Information Consortium

Beyond Intractability maintains this legacy site as it was created in 2007 with only minor formatting changes made in conjunction with the posting of Phase II of the Civil RIghts Mediation project in 2025.