Answer:
Most the time the parties themselves think of it in the context of our mediation because we need some of these things done or certain areas addressed. They create some approaches to it and identify resources that I wouldn't be familiar with at all. Like the one I mentioned this morning about the attorney justice professional.

Question:
So were you always receptive to those community resources that they highlighted or emphasized, or who had the final say?

Question:
When they understood how their behavior was influencing the wrong kind of population, were they willing to change?

Question:
And what were you asking?

Answer:
We were trying to get a fix on the place. We wanted to know why were they still in lock up. The guards were saying tensions were too high, that it was too dangerous to end the lock up. But that was not our perception when we talked to the residents. When we met with the American Indian group, as I said, they were mostly well behaved within the institution. They avoided overtures, they said, from the Black Brotherhood Development and Cultural Organization (BBDCO), to partner with them. They wanted to be left alone.

Question:
The BBDCO was another organization within the prison?

Answer:
That’s the black group. This is the American Indian group. And they were just concerned that their people be taken care of and they wanted no part of the violence. There were half a dozen, 5 or 6 Hispanic inmates, Mexican American, and they too, would align with the American Indians. They didn’t want any part of any violence.

Question:
And, in fact, hadn’t been part of it earlier?

Answer:
Probably not. I don’t remember, but probably not. There were only a few and they stayed to themselves. There was a segment of the white population that was overtly racist and would attack the blacks. The blacks were quick to respond. Keep in mind, virtually everybody in that place was there for a crime of serious violence. Murder or serious assault. Otherwise you could get out and work a community program.

Question:
And these were teenagers, I gather?

Answer:
Up into their early 20's

Question:
So after you talked to them all what did you decide to do?

Answer:
Well, then we had to sit down and see what we could come up with. It was difficult to get in to see the black inmates. They were a Muslim group. I was the "white devil", (which they later called me in their newsletter) who could not be trusted. They verbally abused me. You know, you expect some of that. The BBDCO said "we can’t end the lock up," and it became apparent to us that they were using the lock up, as leverage against the institution. Nobody in the reformatory wanted to be in lock up, but the BBDCO was using it politically. Creating a scare by saying it wasn’t safe. It wasn’t clear why they did this, but perhaps it gave them some power. As I walked out of the room I remember a BBDCO leader pounding on the table and waving his fist at me and saying, "there ain’t going to be no mediation in this place and if there is, it’s going to be in front of television cameras.” So that told me that the only question we had to resolve ultimately would be the openness of mediation to the press. I had the good fortune some weeks earlier to meet a women named Gwen Davis who ran the Antioch Minneapolis Communiversity, an affiliate of my alma mater, Antioch college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. We coincidentally met on an airplane. I remembered that she had told me that her husband, Syl, worked with prisoners. I called Syl from St. Cloud, told him what I was doing there and he came out to the institution with Raymond Johnson, an ex-offender, who regularly worked with the BBDCO.

Question:
And were they black?

Question:
In the joint sessions did you do something to try to get parties to listen attentively to each other and talk civilly to each other?

Answer:
If I felt that somebody was really not participating, if somebody was overtly making obstacles, I would try to correct that on the site gently, but as firmly as necessary. If that wasn't working, we'd go into a caucus on the subject. Folks were pretty well engaged with each other and with the point. Of course I think a common problem all mediators face is sticking to the agenda and dealing with one issue at a time. I had no hesitation on insisting that we had agreed to an agenda and problem statements, it had been agreed to and I would insist we take up one thing at a time. I thought of a couple of other cases where I had some community resources. I seem to be only talking about Native American cases, but there were a few others. I thought of two examples. One was a tribal hassle. In Arizona there were serious difficulties between two main factions to the point where an election was in serious contest or they needed to have another election. It didn't look like it could come off without violence. I think BIA called on us to see if we could be of any help. We went down and talked with an Interior Department attorney who was helping BIA on this and who analyzed the scene for us. This is before we got out to the reservation at all. I'm not clear on detail, but the resources aspect was how to pull this off. BIA will not supervise a tribal election. We didn't see that we could directly do that and so somewhere in the course of the discussion somebody got the bright idea, "Hey, what about the League of Women Voters?" The idea came up and we all grabbed it. We got in touch with the city and the state heads of the good old League of Women's Voters and they said sure, they'd be glad to go out and supervise the election. I went on-site and discussed it with the tribal folks in advance, obviously. There was advance agreement to it. We didn't want to just let the ladies go out there by themselves. I don't pack a gun, but I went too. There were provisions for security and we had assurances for all kinds of things, but it was still a potentially volatile scene. The balloting went on all day and then there were a few characters who wanted to make some problems, but they got eased out. It was in the community hall of the reservation. Folks sat around while three women from the League counted the ballots. I hung around until late that night, until the result was reached and it went off all right.

Question:
Then it was successful then.

Answer:
Yes. The other resource example was an community in California. An intra-community conflict arose over an election of leadership of a major organization in the Samoan community. I had a helper who was on the staff of that county's human relations commission and he had excellent understanding and background in the Samoan community, which I didn't have, and we conducted a pretty difficult mediation in one or two sessions with quite a few people around the table. There were some high tensions in that scene. Apparently one of the cultural givens with Samoan folks is that you handle a lot of things physically. Some of that practice was threatened in the course of the mediation. It happened that the little man who was the long time president of the community organization had a very small build but every other male Samoan present had a line backer physique. We finally reached an agreement as to how the election would be conducted with the help of the county human relations commission. It did take place and it came off with relative peace.

Question:
Did you seek out the human relations person?

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?