I think that Walter's [White] whole career is indicative of a large degree of egocentricity. Perhaps to be generous, you would have to say that he was a product of his period, which was that of self-projection in the name of organizational interest.

I don't think that the leadership of Montgomery was prepared to capitalize, let's put it, on the projection that had come out of the Montgomery situation. Certainly, they had not reached the point of developing an organizational format for the expansion of it. So discussions emanated, to a large extent, from up this way.

[Walter White] had keep [people] waiting while you got the impression that he was terribly busy with calls to Washington. I've seen such exhibitions in that direction as having someone come out of his office to the switchboard operator - which at that time was sort of located in the center of wherever people were waiting - and ask to call such-and-such a place, or a call through to Mr. So-and-so, or somebody like this, you see.

I'm sure, out of the context here of Stanley Levison's relationship with the Jewish liberal forces, that had made contributions. I remember one such contribution before they moved from Montgomery. An associate in the real estate business with Stanley had lost a son in the war, and she wanted to do something in memory of him. So, she made available certain monies to be used by the emerging leadership there in Montgomery. I'm sure other individuals did.

Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.

I think the reasons for not selecting persons like the Reverend Borders and John Wesley Dobbs were, in my book rather obvious reasons: because they were people who were basically oriented in the direction of the established method of not confronting the power structure, but trying to elicit concessions by various and sundry means of, well, let's call it accommodating leadership.

After the '57 initial meeting - I was up this way working, not as a staff person - there became the need for a much more definite organized office. What you'd had prior to that time were these big meetings in different places, and there was nobody to pull anything together. Everything was left to [Martin Luther] King and the group that was around him.