National Committee of Black Churchmen

Tell us some more about the Inter Civic Council and the development of the Tallahassee bus boycott. How did that work itself out or did it work itself out?$$Well it did because the Inter Civic Council was called, was created when we decided to support the students and C.K. Steele [Charles Kenzie Steele] was, was a pastor of Bethel Baptist Church [Bethel Missionary Baptist Church, Tallahassee, Florida] and, as I said, had been preaching since he was ten years old in the, in the mountains of West Virginia and in the coal mines. DuPont [King Solomon DuPont], and then we even had, most important of all, the chaplain at Florida A and M [Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, Tallahassee, Florida] was a man by the name of Dr. James Hudson. He was the only real faculty member who ended up supporting us and his, you know, his welfare was threatened. They didn't fire him but when the investigation started and then they arrested us, I'll never forget, I was supposed to be down at court at nine o'clock in the morning and when I got downtown I found that I only had fifty cents in my pocket 'cause I had rushed out to be on time so that they wouldn't create any more problems. And so, there was a lady there, a black woman, bless her heart, she's about eighty or ninety years old and so she over--she was there attending the court session and she had heard me say something and she reached in her pocket and gave me fifty cents. I told her, I said, I'm going to the bank, I don't need this, but she said, "That's all right, you stick to your guns and do what you's got to do, Reverend," and you know so that was the way it was and, of course, the, I won't say, he wasn't a judge but he was a low, low-life lawyer and so he spent time trying to create the illusion that we had all kind of money and we have been receiving some support from the National, NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] and the like, but when he was passing this case, he would talk about the fact that this wasn't the poor Inter Civic Council, that we were getting money from everywhere and we were getting some money from some places but it wasn't that much but they end up, to make a long story short, they found us all guilty, C.K. Steele, myself, K.D.S. DuPont, everybody that was on the, the board of directors on the Inter Civic Council, was found guilty.$Now let me ask you, we skipped a little talking, discussing your church in Tallahassee [Florida]. Can you tell us the name of your church and a little bit about it, Trinity [Trinity United Presbyterian Church, Tallahassee, Florida] (simultaneous)?$$(Simultaneous) Well, when I started the church, I was living on 1710--no, I'm sorry, that's, that's another place, I'm sorry, but anyhow, I started, I, I had found a home to rent and we started holding services in my home. This was in 1953 and it got to the point where it was too crowded and an inconvenience 'cause this is where I was living. I used to have to clean up, set up chairs in the living room and the dining room and then, one of the interesting things was, we had one of the few televisions that we had brought, black and white, and so when service was over, we'd turn it on and some of them would stay around to watch television because some of them didn't have, hadn't seen, it was all black and white, but finally we ended up with, 'cause it was inconvenient and when we got some growth and everything, it got to the point where we, we, it was just inconvenient to have to try to clean up on Saturday night, set up folding chairs and we had people standing on the outside. And so, with some help from our white friends from downtown, they got us a rental agreement with a black school and we started worshiping in the auditorium in, and this was still part of, of the area in Tallahassee, near Florida A and M University [Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College; Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University]. And one of the things was after we moved there to the school, we had services and I had found an organist, or a pianist played for us and he taught on the faculty at Florida A and M University, FAMU by this time, by, except the legislature hadn't voted that way. And so we, we, we met at, the name of, see again, I can't remember the name of the school but I think it was Barnes School [ph.]. I'll say that, I think I'm correct, and we started holding services there and it was interesting because some of the white people from downtown came to worship with us and they were quite complimentary. Oh, you all worship just like we do, 'cause they had come expecting us to be jumping and shouting and all that kind of foolishness and I'm a Presbyterian, I'm a third generation Presbyterian minister. I probably was too careful to have, was too dignified 'cause it wasn't 'til I sort of learned from C.K. Steele [Charles Kenzie Steele] and there was a, an A.M.E. Zion [African Methodist Episcopal Zion] minister whose name was K.D.S. DuPont. Wouldn't you like to guess what the K.D.S. stood for? His father had named him King David Solomon DuPont [King Solomon DuPont] at Fountain Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church [sic. Fountain Chapel A.M.E. Church; Greater Fountain Chapel A.M.E. Church, Tallahassee, Florida]. DuPont was as tall as I was and a very well-known man in the, in the black community and he had a knack for finding out everything in terms of, 'cause we didn't have to worry what white folks were saying about us, the maids and things who went, would come to the meeting. White people thought they were deaf and then they would talk about 'em in front of them and then they'd come back and tell us what they were up to.