Interview with Dan Taylor, April 13, 2001

Tracy K'Meyer:-- sort of warm-up questions, but they also give me a general sense of information. The first question I like to ask is when and where were you born?

Dan Taylor:In Louisville, in 1928.

TK:Was your family from Louisville? I guess I should say were your parents always here?

DT:Actually, ancestrally would be more like Tennessee. However, located in Louisville, yes.

TK:I guess the main question I need to ask you is how and why did you decide to become a lawyer?

DT:Because I was brought up in the ( ). One of the primary purposes in life is 1:00to serve your fellow man. I believe the legal profession is a very excellent opportunity to do that.

TK:Do you remember growing up when you were first aware that there was racism and prejudice?

DT:I suppose early on it was clear to me that there were different types of people ( ). I would say certainly early enough in my life. I would say probably 2:00at least by adolescence.

TK:What part of town did you grow up in?

DT:In what they call the Highlands. Middle-class neighborhood.

TK:What did your parents teach you about prejudice or racism?

DT:They taught me tolerance.

TK:How did they do that?

DT:By how you teach anybody anything ( ). There are several ways to communicate. You do so verbally or you can use a (ball bat?) or you can leave little notes under people's pillows. What's your next question?

TK:Where did you go to law school?

DT:I went three semesters at the University of Kentucky and three semesters at 3:00the University of Louisville.

TK:So did you finish up here at the University of Louisville?

DT:Yes mam'm.

TK:How did you get your first lawyer job? Did you work for a company or did you work for your own from the very beginning?

DT:I began in single practice. I had a dictionary, chair, and a table, and I had thirteen cents.

TK:Wow. Where did you set up shop?

DT:In a small building now, downtown, called Southern Trust Building. It was many years ago. The office rent for that one room was twenty-five dollars a month. The lettering on the door was decals I had gotten from Woolworth's at a 4:00dime a piece.

TK:Do you remember what year that was?

DT:Sure, 1954.

TK:And did you get involved in civil rights or social issues right away, or did you just do mainly other kinds of law for a while?

DT:It was a few years.

TK:What was the first civil rights event in town that you were aware of?

DT:We were in all of them. When I say we, there were only three lawyers that did anything. Tucker, Delahanty and myself.

TK:Neville Tucker or Bishop Tucker?

DT:Bishop, of course. So I would say the two Tuckers because Bishop was also a lawyer. You know, whatever it was. You mentioned earlier a couple of things, one 5:00of which was the Black Six case. And possibly the other thing you mentioned was the (Cortez?) --

TK:Open housing. I specifically asked about it.

DT:Open housing, yeah. It would not be accurate to say that was the tip of the iceberg. That's not the correct phrase. That was merely part of a continuum. There were a great deal of other things. Right over there is --

TK:Oh, pictures.

DT:Yeah, that top picture on the left is the desegregation of Hassenauer's Restaurant, which is about three blocks from here -- which was. Hassenauer's was there. It's no longer there.

TK:It closed right after I moved here.

DT:( ) the students at Kentucky State, open housing, Cortez, Black Six, on and 6:00on. All of it.

TK:Do you remember what the first case that you worked on was?

DT:I'd have to look in my files. I can't spare the time to do that right now.

TK:Did you do the legal work for the sit-ins downtown, in '61, '62?

DT:Yeah, the only people that did any of that work -- there was a ( et al? ) state this again, made up of Neville Tucker, Bob Delahanty, and Dan Taylor. Not to take away from Bishop Tucker. He was much older. He gave us great guidance and so forth. There were occasionally other lawyers who made contributions. Jimmy Crumlin, Ben Shobe --

TK:I was going to ask about them.

DT:Yeah, absolutely. I think some of the pictures I have are with Shobe.

TK:So you worked occasionally with the black lawyers? I'm thinking about people like Derring and Lunderman --

DT:Oh yeah, oh Derring, bless his heart.

TK:They're both passed away now.

DT:Say what?

TK:Derring and Lunderman are no longer with us.

DT:Yeah, Charlie Lunderman. I remember Lunderman, yes. They also worked --

TK:They would have been about a generation older than you though, right?

DT:Yes, I would say so. Neville and myself were the youngest of lawyers who worked on those cases.

TK:How did you get involved in doing that kind of work?

DT:It was a matter of ( ). Nobody else seemed to be doing anything, or seemed to perceive it as being that.

TK:Did they contact you or did you contact -- did ( ) people contact you or did you contact them?

DT:I certainly -- we coalesced, merged. I would say that it was simultaneous. Certainly we did not go seek the cases. We did make ourselves available to help. It quickly gelled. ( abhors the ). There was no one else.

TK:How did you get to know Bob Delahanty? Or get to start working with him?

DT:It was very easy to get to know Bob Delahanty. He was wonderful, wonderful, sociable. Extremely interesting, pleasant fella. I met him after I came to the 9:00bar. I wasn't in school, whereas Neville and I were in school together. Met him in the normal wear and tear of practicing law. Very early.

TK:So you said you did some legal work for the sit-in students. I'd like to talk about open housing a little, sort of at length. Do you remember how that became an issue around town?

DT:It seems to me it was an ordnance. For some reason or another relate that to the Smeed administration. I'm trying to think what role Hollingback played. Have you heard his name yet?

TK:I've heard the name. I haven't investigated him very far yet.

DT:So that (made) the case. Obviously, we're talking about an ordnance. So what 10:00is your question?

TK:How it became an issue, and then how did you get involved in working with the open housing movement?

DT:(background noise)

DT:( ) Neville Tucker and I working on that. It must have been ( ). Grassroots politics and that sort of thing. Automatic votes and so forth. I do remember many meetings. I remember going with Neville -- that's Tucker -- in the west end talking to people and so forth. Working on those cases, on that situation. Of 11:00course you had city (insensitive) to that, as I recall. What's your next question?

TK:And marches. Well, one of the questions I have is when you're doing legal work for these movements, what do people -- especially for open housing, let's say in particular -- what are people being charged with?

DT:What we call the laundry list -- breaching the peace, all sorts of little statutes, little ordinances, little catch-all things that can be applied to anything that irritates the system. Normally, almost invariably, not 12:00specifically described. As a matter of fact, I'm glad you brought that up because I believe if you are doing a comprehensive book on the topic that you've stated, that it is indispensable that you talk to Robert (Cedric?). Have you heard the name?

TK:I have heard the name, actually. Is he in town still?

DT:No, he's at Wayne State.

TK:He was another one of the lawyers, wasn't he?

DT:He was a lawyer in Lexington, on the faculty of the law school. He did a ( ) and a ( ) job. Many, many cases. He and I tried cases together.

TK:I remember seeing letters to him. That's why the name sounds familiar.

DT:Yeah, very important.

TK:How (expansive or expensive) were the arrests in the open housing movement?

DT:Lots of them.

TK:And then when people would be arrested and charged, on what basis did you defend them?

DT:Use some creativity and imagination and determination. Depending on those cases, as one depends on any case, i.e. by negating whatever the interdict is that's claimed against the defendant. What's your next question?

TK:So you essentially argue that they weren't disturbing the peace or that they weren't disorderly.

DT:Then you get into all sorts of constitutional rights. Particularly the First Amendment.

TK:The right to assemble and that sort of thing. What happened in most of the cases?

DT:We would generally succeed with ( ) would be sort of a pat on the wrist or probated or dismissal. In other words, there weren't huge numbers of people trundled off to jail for days and days. It was participation in the legal process yielding back type results.

TK:So people didn't really have to spend, after one was arrested, much jail time?

DT:I didn't say that. They would be arrested and carted off. I've got pictures of that, too, I guess, somewhere, of being jailed. And depending on whether it was a weekend or holidays, they'd be arraigned and possibly the case was settled or go to trial date or a pre-trial conference, and so forth. It was damaging to the people who were arrested. Some of them had health problems. Some of them possibly didn't have the inner strength to get through it. Have you heard of 16:00Hank (Craft?)

TK:Hank Craft was the gentleman -- I know his name was on the school desegregation suit later, and I heard that he walked on crutches. But that's all I've heard about him.

DT:Hank Craft was a good, valiant soldier. There's an example of a man with a physical problem who nonetheless carried on when needed to demonstrate or for a march, for his support and never a complaint from him. So very valuable.

TK:Sounds like an interesting guy.

DT:I don't know whether he's still alive or not.

TK:I've heard that he's not, but that doesn't mean that he's not. Sometimes you hear that people have passed and they haven't.

DT:The time we're talking about now was forty years ago.

TK:Right, and he wasn't young at the time.

DT:No, he was not young back then.

TK:Right. One of the questions I had was how did all these arrests effect the 17:00open housing movement?

DT:To use perhaps a metaphor, or analogy -- the same way a ( ) would effect one's system. It cleansed the movement. Expelled the elements that weren't going to make any sacrifices. Out with the bad, in with the good. That's kind of a cynical remark but that's the answer to your question.

TK:That's interesting. So it meant that the people who stayed in were the people that were willing to go through this.

DT:That's right.

TK:That's interesting. I've never thought of it that way. How did your legal work on the issue of open housing effect you personally, and your practice and your daily life?

DT:It certainly didn't contribute to dealing with the necessities of life, because -- what's the catch phrase -- pro-bono. However, there's no complaint about that. That was my decision. It did not place me locally into the category 19:00of the "accepted lawyers" or societal legitimacy. What's your next question?

TK:Did you ever get any more hostile reaction that? Phone calls, letters, things like that?

DT:Well, yes. Shot at.

TK:Really? When did that happen?

DT:Let's see, the (guy's name was Sherbert?) but we all did. I'm sure Bob did and Neville. You know, I don't want to make any pretension being overly heroic or anything like that. That goes with the territory. At that point in my career 20:00I've had, among other things, one hundred and fifty-one murder defenses, and so -- one hundred and fifty-one murder cases -- that I was exposed to certain personal problems, personal dangers.

TK:There's one question that doesn't relate directly to your work, but I'm asking anybody who knows anything about the open housing about it. It's very fuzzy, but I've heard that the local open housing received some help from SCLC and outside groups. Do you remember anything about that?

DT:There was always a loose confederation with SDS, ACLU, Emergency Civil 21:00Liberties Union, SCEF. All sorts of -- the Highlander. In other words, our effort in Louisville was not the only effort going on. (I'll show you something of interest?). That gives you a pretty good idea of what responsibility was felt in the profession, what the response was. I can't think of any way to but it 22:00more graphically.

TK:Just a couple of wrap up questions on the open housing movement. What brought about the resolution of the issue?

DT:I would have to check my file. I remember it as a win. Positively.

TK:Were you involved in any way -- once the ordinance is passed, I guess in early '68, were you involved in the testing or enforcement of the -- I mean, did you take any cases of people who were trying to enforce it?

DT:I don't think so. Primarily, we would defend people who were speciously charged with criminal offenses. Although, (Cedric/Settler) and I did some 23:00federal cases together.

TK:Who?

DT:(Settler?), in conjunction with counselor Morty Stavis, of New York. In fact, in one or two of those cases was heard in the Supreme Court of the United States. (Baker v. ?) I think was the name of it.

TK:And what did that stem from?

DT:As I said, I'm trying to recall. It's been so many years. Seems to me it had to do with the constitutionality of a particular petty criminal ordinance that was ( ), I believe. I'm only going to say that unconditionally. I don't want to be bound by it and find out later that I didn't know what I was talking about. I 24:00could do several things like read the case.

TK:I can probably find out about it in the law library, too.

DT:You probably could.

TK:Before I go on to questions about the Black Six, I did want to ask, were you involved in any way in the defending of the black students at UofL?

DT:UofL yeah, and particularly Kentucky State College up there at Frankfort. Tucker and I were on those cases. ( ) certain if there was anything going on we were in the story.

TK:Well, I'd like to talk about the Black Six stuff for a while because it seems to be the one big hole that I have. Just from your perspective, can you describe the lead up to that case?

DT:You know, I have to apologize. I did not pull any file on them. As a matter 25:00of fact, any file which I have on them has long since gone to storage. There have been so many cases. If it had been the only case I have ever participated in I'd be right on top of it. The specifics have long since been edged out by the needs of the moment.

TK:You mentioned Cortez a couple times. Could you tell me what you remember 26:00about him?

DT:Yes, Cortez. Partly to be an organizer, since from Stoakley Carmichael -- I'm so sorry. I've got a --

TK:Do you want me to get you a drink?

(break)

DT:You will not think I'm indifferent to what you're trying to do, you will not conclude that I'm in some way deliberately unprepared for this --

TK:Oh, I know. When I do these interviews people have to try to squeeze me into their busy lives.

DT:But time does not stand still in a busy law practice. These cases were a long 27:00time ago.

TK:I sometimes think I'm doing this project ten years too late. I think if I had been around ten years ago people would be a little closer to the event. There'd be more people still living. A lot of people have passed. That I wasn't around ten years ago.

DT:Please understand I'm not purposely trying to evade you or anything --

TK:Oh, I understand.

DT:I'm trying to reconstruct something that happened a long time ago. Thank you, I appreciate your kindness.

TK:And I understand that there was a lot that was going on at the same time. So it's hard to remember which thing was which. But you were talking about Cortez.

DT:Oh yeah. The man of the hour. (He?) had a great deal of privacy, hysteria. 28:00Flamboyance, I suppose, is the word. So Cortez arrives complete with an array of accoutrements or whatever. If he was a tough guy organizer, I don't know. What it was, he was to bring to the mix what wasn't already there. Maybe some (color ) probably intended. It certainly wasn't any situation where there was any ( ) 29:00of leaders. Although, maybe susceptible to questioning the caliber of the leadership. But there were plenty of people willing to fill that role. I defended Cortez both in state court and in federal court, successfully in both places. He was an interesting individual. Abrasive. A degree of charisma. I'm 30:00positive was well-motivated. I believe that was hard to -- I defended him where he became obstreperous in the courtroom, to the extent that he was removed to the hold until the case continued. At that time -- now, presently, technologically and so forth, they've got video hook ups to ensure that a defendant is present in "virtual reality" --

END OF SIDE A

START OF SIDE B

DT:-- entitled to be questioned at his own trial. Although, he was very combative and served as a rallying point ( ) similar to Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson of today.

TK:That reminds me, how did different groups in the community respond to him: black, older leaders, younger leaders?

DT:( ) and sensibly ( ) otherwise ( ). What's your next question?

TK:Do you remember roughly how long he was here before he got in trouble?

DT:I think it occurred very quickly.

TK:That's my sense. He came down, then there was the rally and the riot, then almost immediately arrested.

DT:Yeah.

TK:There's all kinds of rumors and suspicions and everything else, some in the written record and some just in people's memories about him and about was he an informant and all that kind of stuff. What was your take on that?

DT:My take was he was sincere. He was opportunistic. He was egomaniacal.

TK:Were you also the lawyer for people like Ruth Bryant, Sam Hawkins and people 33:00like that?

DT:Oh sure.

TK:Can you tell me anything about working with them?

DT:They were all swell people. Just great (cards?). Bob Simms --

TK:He's not ( ) anymore.

DT:Manford Reed. Swell people. Was really an honor to work for him.

TK:Did any other lawyers work with you on this case?

DT:I mean this politely. I will say again, it was indisputable and totally reliable and never failing triage composed of Neville Tucker, Bob Delahanty, and Dan Taylor. We just understood from the start that we weren't to pick and 34:00choose. Where there was a need, we were there. To give you an example of what I'm trying to convey here -- if there was a case that Delahanty had, and I wasn't even counsel of record but he was out of town, I would go immediately and cover for him, and vice versa. Although, most of the time we were all in on the cases together. I can not think of any of these cases where there was any subdivision, just one of us working on it. We worked together. It was solidarity, camaraderie. We were a team.

TK:What was the response -- I'm thinking from the black community especially -- 35:00to you as a white lawyer doing this kind of work?

DT:Mixed. ( ) important members in that regard. (you want to shut your machine off?)

TK:Sure. What memories do you have of the days of the riot?

DT:Let's rock and roll. Let's go to court. Let's defend these people.

TK:Were you in the west end when it started?

DT:Yeah.

TK:What were you doing there? Or do you remember how it started?

DT:Had a little ( ). Like a bubble burst, or a boil.

TK:So I asked you about working with the other defendants on the Black Six, and who was on the legal team. What was your legal strategy during the Black Six trial? How did you try to defend them?

DT:I mean this politely -- I don't have the capability nor do either of us have the time for me to make a lawyer out of you. We just addressed any charge according to our professional abilities.

TK:Did you challenge the evidence that they had? Or. . .

DT:I'll say it again. Neither one of us have the time for me to take off every 37:00move that a defense lawyer makes. There were just so many different ways to attack a criminal prosecution. It's helpful if one of those attacks is peaceable, and practicable, and viable, and successful. It's justified. But as far as me ( ) go to the police here, say "(this is )" to defend the case as your training and direction to do it.

TK:I've seen the Braden papers contain scattered copies of legal documents. I have a feeling that it is not a complete record. That it's a copy of something 38:00here and a copy of something there.

DT:Your feelings are probably correct.

TK:Mostly centered on Cortez. What was the impact of that case, do you think, on the local movement?

DT:It was helpful when the case was one. I think it was very invigorating. It shoots new life into an effort. Nothing succeeds like success. Very proud to -- that those cases were won and the effect they had on the community, and on the movement. It just strengthened it.

TK:In general, a question I like to ask, when people talk about the movement nationally in the late sixties and going into the early seventies, they talk 39:00about a police clamp down or an attempt at repression of the movement. What was your sense in Louisville of the relationship between the police and officialdom, I guess you could say, and the movement? And maybe how it changed over time?

DT:They were -- the two things you named there were opposing forces. There was some rearrangement. But a force liberality and constitutionality by virtue of the efforts made here locally.

TK:One question I have, because I heard of it and I noticed there is a picture 40:00about it right there, is the case of Taylor verses the state bar. What was that about? I've seen in the Braden papers one mention of it, or one letter about it, but I don't really know anything about what it's about. There's a picture right there?

DT:Do you know who that is?

TK:Kunsler. He's pretty famous so I've seen his picture before.

DT:Great lawyer.

TK:What did that case stem from? Was it out of this kind of work?

DT:I suppose that most of my problems with the Bar Association had to do with my political activity. Same with ( ) Aubrey Williams and Neville Tucker. We would say -- what was that case about? There was more than one of them.

TK:Oh really, against the state bar? Or them against you.

DT:I say this comically. Poster boy cases, Taylor B. Hayes, which was of course decided in the Supreme Court of the United States, where I got the highest contempt sentence ever given in the history of the United States.

TK:What was the name of the case?

DT:Taylor B. Hayes. If your not familiar with that yet I suggest that you might do so.

TK:If I know the exact name I can look it up.

DT:Yeah, Taylor B. Hayes.

TK:And that went to the Supreme Court so it would be in the law school records.

DT:You want the citation?

TK:Sure, if you have it handy. If not I can ask the reference librarian to help me.

DT:Yeah.

TK:I'll do that. The other thing I was wondering is what's going on at the same time as this civil rights stuff is the Vietnam protests here in town. What I don't know is were you also involved in that sort of stuff?

DT:I would say that there was an overlap. But the person I think of more in that connection is Settler. He did a lot of that. But he also did a lot of civil rights cases.

TK:You said he was at the University of Kentucky, but was he part of an organization, or did he just do it on his own?

DT:He probably, like all of us, was in the ACLU. But we quickly found out where each other ( ). As a matter of fact, he was so active that the legislature 43:00attempted to pass -- I'm not sure, I don't think they succeeded -- the Kentucky legislature made a bill prohibiting professors at the law school from participating in civil litigation because it ( ). He was a teacher there.

TK:Was there any other official effort to get you to stop the kind of work you did? I mean, you talked about things like sugar in your gas tank and stuff like that --

DT:Get shot at and put in jail. ( ) complaints, you probably got a full plate.

TK:Put in jail?

DT:Yeah, eight times.

TK:What for?

DT:Purportedly -- it's hard to connect this word with my ( ) nature -- contempt. 44:00Next question.

TK:Again, in the late sixties and early seventies, I've seen references to various other cases and I was just wondering if you (remember) any of them. One of them is called the Darrell Blakemore case?

DT:Uh uh.

TK:No, ok. The Louisville Seven? A group of seven Black Panthers arrested in a drug raid?

DT:I hate to think that you're getting that -- who is telling you about that?

TK:I saw, again, at the University of Wisconsin, they have this collection. Basically what they've done is collected flyers and --

DT:There never was such a thing as the Louisville Seven.

TK:Ok, I just saw a flyer about it.

DT:It's ephemeral. That may be the self-promoting propaganda of some would-be.

TK:Oh, that's interesting. It's true. I've never seen it anywhere but this one pamphlet that I read. And a Cedric Wilson or Willie Burnett?

DT:Cedric Wilson was defended by Dan Taylor.

TK:What was the nature of that case?

DT:That was where I was too busy to pick up the ten thousand dollar offer a week, I think it was Playboy magazine, offered for the first instance of a jury acquittal of a black man having shot a white police officer. I defended Cedric Wilson. I won that case.

TK:You did succeed.

DT:Yeah.

TK:That's interesting. Was that in the seventies, I get a sense. Again, these are thing that are just in the papers and records --

DT:If I were you -- excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt.

TK:That's ok.

DT:I again what you to preserve that point about who went to Mississippi in 1965. One black and one white. Dan Taylor and nobody else.

TK:And you said the other one was Bishop Tucker.

DT:No, that was Neville.

TK:Neville Tucker, ok. And that was 1965?

DT:Yep.

TK:Did you go as part of an organizational effort --

DT:We were probably -- National Lawyers Guild would probably be --

TK:I was wondering. Were you a member of the National Lawyers Guild?

DT:Oh yeah, sure.

TK:I had read that they had sent people down there.

DT:Well, they asked for volunteers. We paid our own way. We always paid our own way.

TK:I guess that's what I meant. In fact, I think I know someone who is writing a book about that effort, the National Lawyers Guild and --

DT:I hope so.

TK:He's writing about the National Lawyers Guild, and it was a medical group, too, that sent -- was basically looking at material and sending professionals down to Mississippi. That's 1965, so that's a year after Freedom Summer and all that stuff, right?

DT:Well, there was still plenty going on down there. Yeah, lots.

TK:So Settler did more of the Vietnam stuff than you did is what you're saying?

DT:Oh yeah. As a matter of fact, I don't lay claim to -- I may have defended a couple of objection cases. You might say how is it that you can't remember what you did or didn't do, but it's been so many years.

TK:Do you feel like -- I guess I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this question. You're very involved obviously in the late sixties doing this kind of work. One question is were you also doing regular criminal cases at the same time?

DT:Oh yeah.

TK:You have to make a living right?

DT:You can't carry one on both shoulders. If your question is were we all happily maintaining a middle-class standard of living, with primary income, of course not.

TK:I heard that from Delores Delahanty.

DT:It was all absorbing and so forth. There is however a total overlaying correlation. But before you -- constitutional law, criminal law and civil rights practice, all of the (piece?)

TK:So you were working on other cases at the same time that you were working on those?

DT:Yeah, I would do ( ). I would agree that there was other law practice, but we certainly weren't --

TK:Making it up --

DT:We weren't enforcing mortgages or garnishing people or ( ) chapter s corporation, which to this day I don't have the slightest idea what that might be. What's your next question?

TK:At what point, or was there any point, when you could say that your involvement in these kinds of cases, not faded, but diminished.

DT:It never has.

TK:So you continue to do these kind of cases.

DT:It's all ( ).

TK:Because one of the things I'm trying to figure out is where a good end point to the story is. So you never felt like there was a time when you diminished working on the movement stuff? It just continues on. Do you work with any particular organizations or do you take cases individually?

DT:Certainly, any opportunity I had would be helpful to whatever case it is. I'm very grateful to have and so forth. Certainly, you've got Emergency Civil Liberties Union. Different organizations. The Guild, yeah. Sometimes our philosophies differ a little bit. I have to do in here what I think is necessary for the particular case.

TK:You talked about you and Neville Tucker and Bob Delahanty, and obviously 50:00neither two of those are around any more. Were there any younger lawyers that came up next, in the next generation that did this kind of work?

DT:Not that I've seen.

TK:I wondered about that because I haven't heard any younger names. Now, I've heard a rumor that Bill Allison had been involved in the Black Six stuff.

DT:Allison, that's a name that is valuable, yeah. Yes, he was a young lawyer. A very fine man, and certainly would have been helpful for his participation. It wasn't identical with ours. But yeah, he was certainly with us. He's an alderman now.

TK:Right, and that's easy to get in touch with. But he would have been fresh out of law school type lawyer at that time, right?

DT:He was working with Ann Braden.

TK:So I'm going to try to get in touch with him. I've got a little bit of space to do a couple extras. Might be good as a beginner. I have a couple of general 51:00questions that I'd like to end with. One of them we sort of hit on, which is if you were writing this book, when would you finish it? I ask everybody this question.

DT:There's no way to finish it. There will always be conflict among human beings where those in power seek to extend it and ( ). There will be the competition 52:00for the two things, the two R's -- resources and requisition. That's the human condition. There are, however, spurts and so forth. As I look back over my practice, the fervor, my involvement and so forth in this decade -- '60 t0 '70 -- was one thing. In ( ) was another. There are -- what is that word? -- modes and non-modes. There's another word for it, but yeah. Spikes, yeah, let's do it that way. Therefore, you do have to close the door, but perhaps to be overly poetic, realize that the door's on its hinges. What's your next question?

TK:That's why people talk about using this epilogue. To sort of end it somewhere, and do an epilogue to talk about ongoing. I know people aren't 53:00usually comfortable tooting their own horn but I'm going to ask anyway. What would you say your contribution to the movement was?

DT:. . . Along with Tucker and Delahanty, more significant than anything else that was done.

TK:Why so?

DT:Well, occasionally I ask someone whether they want to make a point or make a difference. The movement, like anything else, attacks people who are more 54:00interested in self-aggrandizement than societal good. Therefore, conflict ensues. I'm reminded of having Trotsky killed with a hatchet in Mexico, if you're aware of that. So the power in this society -- of course, I guess we do indeed have a court of public opinion and so forth -- are important. At present, the power in this society is present in the courts and in the system. In order 55:00to get an adjustment of some political and societal problem, that is the place you go. That's where the iron fist is. So while we ( ) a lot of folk, we do love to strut around. Stick my face in front of my opponent. Of course the system, the media, I'd be surprised if they had a one percent comprehension of what's really going on. Not all the media over there is the alternative media. But I've 56:00little use for the posers in the movement, and that feeling is, I'm positive, reciprocated. What's next?

TK:The last question is how do you think over time your work in this field effected you, either practically or philosophically? How do you think it's effected you, doing this kind of work?

DT:I think I'm more pragmatic. One hardens a bit and escapes some of the worthless romanticism attached to what you're trying to do. It forces you to really get right down to the nitty gritty. Discover within yourself what it is 57:00you want to do, and why you want to do it, and how are you going to do it, and are you doing it.

TK:That's interesting. One of the things I think I have to learn about the whole legal -- as I keep interviewing -- is the legal aspect seems to be much more nitty gritty, get down and not this big philosophical thing.

DT:You need it all, you know.

TK:Yeah. Well, one of the hopes of this project is that I will talk about economic work and political work and legal work and church work. Because most people think the Civil Rights Movement is about demonstrations, right? But like I said that was my last question, so I'm going to turn this off.

END OF INTERVIEW

Interview

With

Dan Taylor

April 13, 2001

By Tracy K'Meyer

Transcribed by Elizabeth KoslikUniversity of Louisville

Oral History Project