Answer:
Trust is everything. You know sometimes, as mediators, or even in some other roles, if we don't assume that we know enough about the subject, and about the common interests, it is not there. I always assume that one of the reasons I was hired was because I brought certain skills and expertise to the table and then I was just sort of thrown into the lion's den rather quickly and was able to perform really well.

Question:
Now I'm sure that you have some special techniques that you were able to use. You said that you were able to speak the language and so that made them feel comfortable with you. Give us an example of what type of languages were you using, what things were said, and when?

Answer:
Well, first of all, gaining acceptance is one. The other is gaining trust and working with them so that we can determine their priorities. We must also continue to ask them how we can best be of service to this dispute, and determine where the resolution lies.

Question:
What about getting trust not just between you and the parties, but between the parties themselves? Like between the minority groups and the majority groups. Presumably at the beginning of these conflicts there's a high level of distrust. What did you do?

Answer:
Trust certainly makes for more effectiveness, it makes one more effective as a mediator, at least in our culture. There'd have to be some confidence in a person's integrity or their ability, or else they would probably not be successful in persuading people to make a commitment to mediation.

Question:
How could you detect when you were succeeding in building trust?

Answer:
How would I know that I had trust?

Question:
How could you tell that you were getting the parties to be more comfortable to trust you more, to trust the process more? What signs were they giving you?

Answer:
Well, they would reveal the level of interest in it by questions and comments about it. Beyond that, I'm not sure that I could give you much of an answer.

Question:
Was it something very overt and obvious, as them saying, "Hey, we trust you now," or was it something a little more subtle than that?

Answer:
Oh, no it would be more subtle than that, like a willingness to proceed to accept recommendations or to participate in mediation. You could also tell by their level of frankness when talking about their concerns.

Question:
Were you able to operate if these levels were low or absent?

Answer:
Probably not.

Question:
Was your own race, ethnicity, age, or gender, ever a problem with you gaining trust?

Answer:
Oh yeah. I went into Monroe Prison, in the state of Washington, in response to a request from some of the African American inmates. They had arranged for me to talk with some of their members of the Black Prisoners Organization. Two or three of the members of this group, when we sat down to talk, upon hearing my accent, they asked, "Where you from?" "Alabama." It was immediate skepticism that anybody from Alabama could be of any help in this situation, or would be willing to be of any help. Really, there were times like this.

Question:
How were you able to get around that initial skepticism?

Answer:
Well, the same way I would when making a presentation to any group. I'd first try to get myself out of the way, by saying, "My name is Bob Hughes and as you notice, I am not from this area. I was born and raised in Alabama." Try to be up front and honest and open, and hopefully, get past that quickly in order to deal with more substantial issues. Deal with issues at hand. I would usually try to or make a joke about it. "I'm Bob Hughes, and as you noticed, I'm from South Mercer Island, or south Seattle."

Question:
Can you recall any examples of when you were used as a scapegoat by one of the parties?

Answer:
No, I don't recall being used in that way.

Question:
Did you have a special technique that you used to try to build trust between the parties?

Question:
Let's talk about trust, the significance of trust, not only in this case of Louisville, and the police officers, but in general as a mediator, how important is it for you to gain the trust of the parties?

Answer:
Well, I think it's extremely important. Let's say I'm doing mediation and during the process, my sense is that I didn't gain the trust of one of the parties, or both of the parties, and the mediation is not successful, and maybe we go back to court or whatever else they were doing. In that particular situation, I would then not view that I had made my goal. I would not have accomplished the goal because that element, not having gained that trust which is part of the mediation process, is unsuccessful. So the mediation wasn't successful and I accept the blame for that. I also recognize that there are going to be individuals that are not going to trust me no matter what I do, simply because I'm a Fed or simply because I am white.

Question:
Before we took a little break you were talking about how race may affect your job. How your position with the Department of Justice may affect your job. Could you just continue talking about that?

Answer:
What was the context?

Question:
I think you were talking about it in terms of the trust issues with the parties who were involved in this particular case, the Louisville police department and black police officers.

Answer:
The trust issues there were ok. They got better as time went along which will happen in all situations unless you've had a history or experience with somebody in other circumstances of the case activity or something. At the initial point of contact I think the trust level is generally low because the other people just don't know who you are or where you're coming from. Often just the term the Department of Justice pops these pictures into people's minds of all kinds of things and most of them (but not all of them) are kind of pointed away from the trust as opposed to toward trust. But you work around that and you build it. You can build it over a short period of time if you put some effort into it. My experience has been just shoot straight with people and generally speaking that is enough.

Question:
I think that also before we broke you were talking about the building trust or sustaining trust in a group and that's when you were explaining that some people are simply not going to trust you because of maybe some exterior factors or whatever. Was that the case with the Louisville police officers?

Answer:
No, first of all we went in with a biracial team.

Question:
Why was that important?

Answer:
Again it creates pictures in people's minds. A lot of that takes place on a subconscious level. I'm speculating here but I guess that most people don't say "Oh good a biracial team. We trust both of them now." But I think on a subconscious level they could sense a message that there's some equity here because the picture is kind of even.

Question:
How would it have been different for instance if only you went into that situation or only your partner had gone into that situation?

Answer:
Well, if only I had gone into it, I would have had to work harder with the black police officers organization because all of the FOP people are white. Actually the city team was diverse, and just by the very nature of how we are in this county, how we've been categorized, and the same holds true the other way. In fact it's probably more devastating the other way. I think a lot of times the people representing the Community Relations Services of the Department of Justice, if they are a minority, are perceived to be advocates more so than I am.

Question:
And what are you seen as?

Answer:
I'm the typical federal employee. That's what I'd expect from the Department of Justice kind of thing.

Question:
Is there a certain amount of validity, credibility that goes along with that?

Answer:
I'm sure there's some but I wouldn't attach any weight to it but I'm sure it's happened. And I don't know that it makes that big of a difference to be honest with you.

Question:
You don't feel that race or ethnicity affects...?

Answer:
Oh no, I'm sure it does I just like to think it's not that big of a factor.

Question:
Well, yeah we'd like to but by the nature of the work into which this organization was born, we know that that's not exactly true, so that's why I think we asked the question about how does your race and ethnicity affect the job that you have to do.

Answer:
It just makes it tougher to go in a minority situation particularly a black community, and find acceptance.

Question:
Were you ever able to work effectively when you felt the trust levels were low between either yourself and the parties, or between both parties or all of the parties?

Answer:
Yeah, I mean I go in and I know who I am and I realize that the people that I'm meeting for the first time don't know who I am but because I feel comfortable with who I am I don't worry about that thing. I know it comes up. When it comes up I'll deal with it. I don't go in thinking I have to deal with this.

Question:
So no one ever comes to you and says, maybe not in the Louisville case, but other cases that you were involved with. When you went into minority communities, did people approach you and say what are you doing here and I don't trust you because you are white, because you are male, because you are a certain age.

Answer:
I don't think I've ever had anybody say that to me. I'm sure that people have thought it but I don't think anybody has ever said that. I don't recall anybody ever having said that.

Question:
Tell me what was good about the process that you utilized in building trust between the parties?

Answer:
Specifically from the Memphis case?

Question:
The Louisville case, sure.

Answer:
What was there we didn't have to build on and I don't think we ever looked past that point. I think there were already established levels of trust with the exception of the outsiders who were CRS and the Legal Defense Fund. The rest of them were already where they would ever get in terms of trust. The city was probably in better shape in terms of trust with the black police officers organization. Let me just restate. There were already existing levels of trust excluding the Legal Defense Fund and CRS. I think that one, because we were referred by the judge, two, because we were able to present ourselves in an acceptable manner. Our trust levels rose or the level of trust toward us rose to an adequate level, I don't know if it's the best level, but to an adequate level. The Legal Defense Fund was never trusted by the city who viewed them as only there for attorneys fees, and was never trusted by the FOP because they were just these fast-talking guys from New York. I'm not convinced that the trust level between the black police officers organization and the Legal Defense Fund was where it could be simply because I think that in reality they were thinking the same thing that the city was thinking, that they were just there to collect attorneys fees. But they thought that was okay because they were helping them in the process.

Question:
And with you being able to witness the levels of mistrust going on did that impair your job at all or did you try to build the levels up at any time?

Answer:
On a very soft plane I think we probably worked in an ongoing fashion to improve trust level.

Question:
Like what? What's soft?

Answer:
Oh you know just when we would caucus with individual groups we would just kind of talk about where we saw points that would make that particular party that we were caucusing with have a positive kind of feel toward the trust of the other groups. But that wasn't a big priority because it wasn't getting in the way.

Question:
Can you think of any other cases where it may have gotten in the way? That you actually needed to take more of an initiative to increase the levels of trust?

Answer:
A mediator must gain trust. Now, sometimes, to do that he has to do many things. Number one: he has to let the protesters vent. You see the difference between mediating a racial conflict and mediating a labor conflict, is that both sides come to the table in labor conflicts. It's not so in racial conflicts. With labor, both people know how to mediate. When you get a racial conflict, that's not necessarily so. It may be or it may not be. Now how do you bring this group of protestors to the table with city manager, chief of police and people at that level, when they are totally unequal? That's not so on labor, totally unequal. How do you protect their rights and their interests without showing a preference for them? I do it from the very beginning, I said, "I am not neutral. If I am neutral I can umpire this, like a game. I am not preferring sides, but I am forced to officiate evenly, even if the other side does not know what the rule is."

Question:
So you see trust and fairness being linked.

Answer:
Oh yeah, they are linked. And then much of the trust comes from how you demonstrate and conduct yourself. It's the perception of you, really. One way is to know, and know you know what you're talking about. Then the other part is, you have to convince both sides that at the rate they're going, they're going to do greater damage to each other. I convinced the city that, "You may have some powers, but when you have a segment of your city who perceive you as something less than fair and honest, you've got a problem. You may be able to enforce your will for a time, but," and I use this point often, "power is like a can of coffee; every time you dip into it, you've got less. Every time I take a sip out of that cup I've got less, right? Every time you have to use power to enforce, you've got less power left. If you keep dipping into it, it becomes powerless. When it comes to people you're enforcing against, you have to understand," and I say this quite frequently, "that in a democracy, you manage people with their own will. Without that will, you cannot. 10,000 police could not enforce the law in this city unless the will of the people is that they do. You can have all of the guns that you want, but you can't shoot a million folk. If a million folks rebel, even if 10,000 of those folk rebel, you are in big, big trouble. So you manage and you rule by that concept," and I keep emphasizing that all of the time. I use this with police officers. You couldn't take 10,000 Einsteins and rule this diverse city. So white folk alone can't rule this city. You couldn't take 10,000 W.B. DuBois and rule this city because black folk alone can't rule this city. There must be balance between the various groups, some sense of community that's inclusive enough to get the rule of the people to rule this city.

Question:
Is a sense of community also related to trust?

Answer:
It is.

Question:
How so?

Question:
Tell me a little bit about how you go about building trust, especially with the white community.

Answer:
Well, one way that it happens is that many of the cities in which CRS intervenes – or has interventions – are repeats. So, you know, Silke has probably been into wherever – Aurora, let’s say – thousands of times over the last 15 years that she’s been in Denver. After a while, people get to know you, and so trust gets built up over what you did in the past. People trust you from that standpoint, and that’s one way that it happens. Another way it happens is to go in and suggest to the establishment, "Gee, Police Chief Jones, why don’t you call Chief Johnson in so-and-so city. You’re all members of the Association of Chiefs of Police. Give him a call and talk to him about what we did.” Often times, that would even happen without your having to suggest that. So you make your phone calls, that you’re going to intervene, so there’s usually a lapse time of a day or two. By the time you get there, that police chief may have already checked you out.....

Question:
Have you ever had a problem where you weren’t trusted because of your race?

Answer:
Sure. I did an intervention in one of the bigger midwestern cities. Again, it was a situation of police using excessive force. It was a mediation, and I don’t think the police chief trusted me; I think he felt that I was not neutral. So I think there was a situation where the mediation broke down. I don’t know that it broke down completely because the police chief didn’t trust me; I think there were other factors involved....

Question:
Were you able to get around that?

Question:
Were those meetings, or interviews private, or did you have all the groups at the same time hearing their grievances? How did you do that?

Question:
Initially there are 20 people who are sitting at the table, developing these trusting relationships, developing a mutual understanding. But the goal is to eventually get the whole community to develop a more trusting relationship. How do you transfer what's learned at the table to the rest of the community?

Question:
How do you find somebody to call?

Question:
Do they recognize that ahead of time?

Question:
Going in a very different direction now, let's talk a little bit about how you build trust with the people you are working with. One of the things that I am especially interested in is that you are a white woman.

Answer:
You noticed.

Question:
I did. But the people reading your interview won't know.

Question:
And actually that's my next question, how important was it for you to gain the trust of the parties?

Answer:
Oh well, you know probably in almost all cases there's an outsider and you're always faced with that because in most cases people don't know you. At this particular time, and at any time over the history of CRS being a representative of the Justice Department, you were always suspect by somebody and it would depend on the community, depend on the times that would shift, who was particularly suspicious about who you were. The way that you overcome that is just by sitting down and talking with people and demonstrating to them you're committed, you're involved in helping them find a solution. You can be answering questions people have concerns about, if they have any, what they see as leniency on one side or the other. If you try to clear that up they will come to trust you, but it takes some work and preparation. I think over time as they see that you're there to be of help, there are no suspicions about where your commitments are. It's only over a period of time that as people get to know you, those sorts of suspicions get to be set aside.

Question:
What were some specific trust- building strategies or activities that you used when either race, ethnicity, gender, or CRS affiliation was an issue?

Answer:
I would find someone from whatever the community it might be and in this particular situation it was in the black and the white community. I knew that if I would involve the community in this process it would be helpful to have people within the community who knew me, to introduce me to people and become a bridge and to be a patron of what was happening. And in that particular case there was a prominent State Legislator that I had known for many years and he was well loved in the community and became my bridge into that community. There were parts of the community that I needed to have some access to. It was also true on the other side that we were going to want the business community leaders in particular cities to be committed because in this particular city nothing happened unless a "blue book business" leader was being alarmed. So again, it was through someone I had met in the city, in another case, that became the bridge into that organization where I could go over there and speak and talk about what I was trying to do. I could win their support that if we could reach an agreement it was going to be something the business community was going to support.

Question:
In this particular case, this wasn't a community that you lived in. How did you cultivate those networks of people that you could call?

Answer:
I had other cases in this community before so I knew individuals here and there, and that's one of the real things. In that case it was a blessing because so many times you may go into a city and you have no context at all. That really makes it even more difficult.

Question:
In those instances where you don't have any networks or any people to intervene for you how do you build networks, or find them? How do you identify the resources?

Question:
Can we explore this trust issue a bit more? How significant would you say that trust was in this case--how did that affect your work?

Question:
No you don't reiterate anything verbally. What you do is show what you do. You don't get up there and talk to people about what you're about. They'll find out what you're about. You see what I mean? They're not interested in hearing you talk about yourself; they want to see what you do. So when she found out what I could do and would do and how I did it, I was her boyfriend. I don't mean literally so, but it was a situation where I wasn't going to let her down. Nor was I working for her and she knew that. She knew that I wasn't working for her, but she also knew that I wasn't going to lie to them about whatever occurred in a situation. That's how you build trust. No matter what you do in some instances, some situations, you're not going to be trusted. There's always an element of that when you're coming from the Justice Department. People are leery of government officials and Justice Department people. They've had enough experience of getting busted over the head by somebody from the established order.

Answer:
What did you do when you weren't trusted by the communities that you were involved in?

Question:
Is that how you gauged how much trust they had in you and the process, by when they were ready to sit down and move forward?

Answer:
Yeah, because there was no reason for them to come to the table if they didn't trust me. Coming to the table could be dangerous for them. You've got students sitting there with the faculty and the administration, who have complete power over them. You've got administrators sitting over there with somebody from the Justice Department. They always felt like there was this potential for investigation, no matter how many times we told them, it still had its own power. If they agreed to come to the table, it generally meant they trusted that I was going to be able to protect their interest within that context. For example, not let the students just chew up and spit out the administration without any real benefit to that. Or allow the administration to just dump on the students. But that there was going to be some mutual respect and dialogue going on, and certainly there would be some venting going on, but it would be within the context of, "How do you feel about that?" "What was your response to that?" ...and not assassinating people or ticking individuals off. If they trusted me with that, then they would come to the table.

Question:
How were you able to get them to trust each other?

Question:
Did you always know all of the parties before you went down?

Question:
Did you ever keep on working on a case when a key party was not willing to work with you?

Answer:
No. I may continue in a different direction. One whole group may decide they may not want to participate, and you can't really address the problem systemically without them. But you can still coach or guide the other group through either helping them move toward a referral, or helping them develop a strategy to respond. For integrity's sake, I would tell the other group, "I understand that you don't want to participate, but I am going to continue doing this." I wouldn't do it behind their backs.

Question:
Does that bring people around sometimes?

Question:
Tell me about the role of trust in this case. How important was it? And how did you try to build trust with the reluctant party?

Question:
What was the role of trust in this particular case? Was that important?

Answer:
Yeah the fact that it was taking place here in Atlanta and the fact that CRS in this office has a good working relationship with the city, county, county sheriffs throughout the state, county police, and state patrol. That history had a lot to do with allowing us to enter. Because the key actors in terms of law enforcement were the City of Atlanta and Georgia Bureau or Investigations (GBI) and Atlanta State Patrol. Those were probably the three local power makers.

Question:
Ok.

Answer:
So we already had working relationships because of other casework with them and that trust level was already there on both sides. Generally speaking, if you have a respected law enforcement person who speaks up for you that takes care of about 80% of that trust with all the others because if he buys then everyone else agrees it's okay. We had very good rapport with all the law enforcement agencies, even at the federal level.

Question:
So you didn't have to do anything to build or sustain any type of trust because it already existed on a high level?

Answer:
Just talking, telling her what I was going to do, and who I was, where I was coming from and she just decided to take a chance.

Question:
Did it happen in one sitting?

Answer:
Oh, of course. First the Indians had to trust me, and I had to trust them.

Question:
So what did you do to try to get them to trust you?

Answer:
You start by asking questions. "You can't bring up everything. In what order do you want to bring this up? What are you willing to settle for? What is the bottom line position? How do you want to present this stuff? Who will be your spokesman?" That wasn't easy because it turned out to be the woman and her son. There wasn't a lot of leadership in the Indian community. "You don't want five people talking, so who is going to be the spokesperson?" The woman chose to be the spokesperson. You've got to defer to her. Let's go through the ground rules on mediation. Then I had further complications. I had people there from the outside. The U.S. Attorney, a very liberal guy, had hired a young Indian woman who was the first female Indian person to get a law degree in Oregon. She was there. I had an Indian guy from the state who was part of the Alcohol Control Commission of the state. He was an Indian official with the state. He wanted a piece of the action.

Question:
And you decided that, you didn't leave that up to them?

Question:
You have referred a couple of times now to "the dance”. You've had a really nice description of mediation as a dance that you're now referring to but haven't put on tape. Do you remember how you put it before, can you tell us again?