THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2023 93 Freedom Riders sit in front of their bus that was destroyed by a white mob, 1961. These men and women were attempting to integrate public transportation facilities by riding buses across the South, a movement that spurred the author to action that year. preachers questioned the Jim Crow system, and I had not given it much thought. But as I watched reports about the Freedom Riders incidents and reflected on a newly published book I had just read, To Kill a Mockingbird, I had a civil rights epiphany. In an editorial that I put on the front page of the newspaper, I denounced the mobs that attacked the Freedom Riders and the Alabama political leaders who promoted this violence; rejected the Jim Crow culture in which such actions and attitudes were rooted; and called for the peaceful integration of Auburn University. This doesn’t sound at all radical in 2023, but in Alabama, in 1961, it was downright revolutionary! Reaction to the editorial was swift, beginning with a Ku Klux Klan cross-burning at the Sigma Pi house where I lived. There were also threatening phone calls, and students burned copies of the paper and shouted insults as I walked across campus. The university president called me an “irresponsible radical” and told me to submit all future editorials to the dean of student affairs. The next day the story was in newspapers across the state and beyond, even The Washington Post and The New York Times. This prompted Governor John Patterson to get involved. Patterson had defeated George Wallace in his first run for governor, in 1958, because he was even more extreme than Wallace in his defense of segregation. In his inaugural address, he declared: “I will oppose with every ounce of energy I possess and will use every power at my command to prevent any mixing of white and Negro races in the classrooms of this state.” His campaign against the Freedom Riders earned him a cover story in the June 2, 1961, issue of Time magazine. Patterson’s response to my editorial was both vigorous and vociferous, including a threat to cut Auburn’s appropriations if something were not done to “throttle that damn radical agitator editor.” The university president told me that I had “really pissed off” the governor. But the national media attention gained by my editorial and the reactions to it, plus fear of endangering Auburn’s accreditation if they fired or expelled me, caused the university administration to stop short of such drastic action. I refused to accept censorship and continued to publish material opposing segregation for the remainder of my yearlong term as editor, pretty much daring the university administration to remove me. I passed the Foreign Service written exam in December 1961 and was invited to come to Washington for the oral exam the following April. The examiners were especially interested in hearing my views on civil rights, which gave me the opportunity to tell them the story of the Freedom Riders editorial. This, I’m convinced, is the only thing that could have sufficiently set me apart from my better educated and more experienced competitors to pass the oral exam and be invited to join the Foreign Service, the youngest member of my class—before I had even graduated from college. b Fast-forward to 1979. The State Department had sent me for a year of training at the Army War College, and my class was about to graduate. For the graduation ceremony, as it did every year, the Army invited prominent citizens from around the country to attend. Among the group that year was none other than John Patterson, former governor of Alabama. The day before the ceremony, there was a reception for the graduates and distinguished visitors. I recognized Governor Patterson and made my way to him through the crowd. “Governor,” I said, “we’ve never met, but when you were governor of Alabama, I was editor of the student newspaper over there at Auburn.” He immediately drew back, poked his finger at my chest, and exclaimed: “So you’re the son of a bitch that wrote that editorial!” I was proud to acknowledge that I had indeed written that editorial. I was delighted that it had bothered him all those 18 years; but I passed up the opportunity to thank him for unwittingly helping me get into the Foreign Service in 1962. n Governor John Patterson on the cover of Time magazine, June 2, 1961. The diagonal banner references the Freedom Riders. EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY TIME MAGAZINE ARCHIVE
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=