Oral History Interview with Robert Estill

BETSY BRINSON: This is an interview with The Reverend—do you go the Reverend, Bishop Robert Estill?

ROBERT ESTILL: Robert Estill is fine.

BRINSON: Okay. At his residence at Raleigh, North Carolina and the interviewer is Betsy Brinson.

BRINSON: Well, thank you very much. We’re going to do it this time, for sure. We’re not going to have any technical problems and, I guess, you have to sort of pretend that you and I haven’t talked before at all. And, uh, if we can start, uh, tell me a little bit about where you were born, and what year you were born, and your family background please.

ESTILL: Right. Well, I’m a native Kentuckian. You have to be a, I suppose a Native American, uh, Indian, I suppose we call them now, to be more of a Kentuckian than I. And, uh, I was born in Lexington and born at home on West Second Street. My father was a pediatrician, and my godfather delivered me and he was the Obgyn. They did it at home. And I grew up in Lexington, went to school there until I was sent away to school in Virginia at Episcopal High School, and then came back after that to go into the Navy; and after that into the war.

BRINSON: Okay, let me back up. What year were you born?

ESTILL: I was born in 1927.

BRINSON: So that makes you how old?

ESTILL: Seventy-two.

BRINSON: Okay.

ESTILL: Not quite seventy-three till September when I . . .

BRINSON: You have your birthday, right?

ESTILL: That’s right. That’s right.

BRINSON: I remember when we talked before we talked about some of your early family ancestry in Kentucky, and in particular, about Estill County and a Monk Estill. Can you tell me that story again?

ESTILL: Captain James Estill is the one for whom the county is named. And he was an Indian fighter and earlier, early settler along with Daniel Boone in that time; and mostly up in what’s now Mt. Sterling and that area. And there was a big battle. And it’s known in Kentucky history as Estill’s Defeat in Collins’ history of Kentucky. And he was, uh, killed—he got into hand-to-hand combat with one of the Indians and was killed. And Monk, who was his slave, uh, and named Monk Estill, was with him; and I suppose, came out and carried him off the battlefield and back to the fort. And my cousin in Lexington has a picture of Monk that someone painted at that time, but, uh, that was an interesting kind of coincidence in that early day. I don’t think Captain James did much other than kill Indians (laughing) to be very famous except like all those early settlers he was apparently a pretty rough, tough frontiersman.

BRINSON: Well, that story is cited in The Kentucky Encyclopedia and, as I recall, he freed Monk did he not?

ESTILL: Yes, he did. He did, or his family did.

BRINSON: Do you have any idea what happened to Monk after being set free?

ESTILL: I never heard any more about him. And all I know about him is that little picture of him which I think must have appeared in one of the Filson Club Journals or something because I have a clipping of it but not the original.

BRINSON: Okay. Uh, what about your mother’s side of the family?

ESTILL: My mother came from Baltimore and she was married before and had two children, and was divorced; and came to Kentucky where her mother was living in Paris. And she took her children up to Lexington to Dr. Estill, the pediatrician, and, uh, they got to know each other and married and then I came along. Uh, so, I have that bit of history. My middle name, Whitridge, is a Baltimore name; that was her maiden name.

BRINSON: Whitridge. Is that W-H-I-T . . .

ESTILL: R-I-D-G-E.

BRINSON: R-I-D-G-E, okay.

ESTILL: I was thirteen until I, before I could spell it. (laughter)

BRINSON: Uh, so you have a brother and a sister from . . .?

ESTILL: My, my half, half brother and sister.

BRINSON: And then are you an only child?

ESTILL: And I’m, I was an only child, yes.

BRINSON: Okay.

ESTILL: But we were a big family and all came together. My grandmother and a maiden aunt all lived with us, and so we had quite a large family.

BRINSON: I’ve walked by your house.

ESTILL: Oh, have you?

BRINSON: As I told you, I live down on Short Street . . .

ESTILL: That’s right.

BRINSON: . . . and it still looks like a lovely house.

ESTILL: Well, sadly it’s kind of fallen in disrepair. I’ve always sort of fantasized that I might go back and buy it and fix it up but . . .

BRINSON: Well, there seems to be this spring, uh, several, three or four houses on that street that are for sale, and a lot of renovation so it may be that, you know, people . . .

ESTILL: People are coming back. Good.

BRINSON: Yeah, which is good. Uh, why did you go to Virginia to school?

ESTILL: Well, I guess, uh, in part because my godfather’s son had gone there, and it was a good experience for him. And I wasn’t a very good student in those days, and I think they thought that would help me concentrate on my work. And, uh, so I, I think a lot of boys my age at that time went off to school, uh, rather than stay at school. My sister went right through Henry Clay as did my brother; but, uh, when I came along, I guess they wanted to get me out of there. And I came back, though, after the Navy and went to the University of Kentucky; so I got my Kentucky roots back again, graduated from there.

BRINSON: What did you major in?

ESTILL: I had what was called a “topical” major in those days, which you could--it was, it was not a preministerial degree but it was a topical—you could pretty much choose what you wanted to choose. And I, all of a sudden, much to my own surprise, I kind of came alive academically and got out in three years. And, uh, really kind of enjoyed that side of college and didn’t have too much trouble in seminary.

BRINSON: Let me go back. Now, you were in the Navy during what period of time?

ESTILL: Well, I was right at the very end of the war. I went in—I volunteered at seventeen, not out of any great fit of patriotism, but because you had to do that or else you’d be drafted and just be in the regular army; and I wanted to be in the Navy. And I got overseas quickly, and after boot camp, and my points went up, as they had in those days. So I really didn’t lose but about a year, little over a year. Got back and met my wife at the University of Kentucky so I was glad I chose that ‘cause I, I had thoughts of going East to college; and at that point the colleges that I wanted, didn’t much want me . And, uh, but I had a very good education at Kentucky. I’ve always felt that any big university like that, you can get as much out of it as you put into it, or want out of it.

BRINSON: I want to go back to maybe your childhood, maybe your experience with the war but, uh, I’m, I’m wondering, since we’re talking about the elimination of segregation with this project, if you recall any early incidents, uh, that I would call racial awareness on your part, that . . . blacks and whites lived differently, or . . . ?

ESTILL: Yeah. I’m embarrassed to say that I just kind of took that for granted. We had a cook and a maid and we had a—we lived, backed up, as Second Street still does, to an alley that had a number of black families living there in pretty bad conditions as I look back at it and even look at it today; and I just pretty much took that for granted. It didn’t occur to me that--I played with the children there, and they would come over to our house and play in the house. And, that part--there were no differences except they went home at night and they didn’t go to the club with me, and they didn’t go to school with me. And, but that--I was fairly, uh, unaware of anything very much at that time.

BRINSON: When you were a student, when you were a student at, uh, Woodbury, Woodbury Forest, right?

ESTILL: That’s our big rival. Episcopal High.

BRINSON: Episcopal High. (laughter-Estill) I’m sorry—right. That would have been an all-white school at that point in time?

ESTILL: Yes. Yes.

BRINSON: And I assume the University of Kentucky . . . ?

ESTILL: The year I graduated—I believe I’m right—they took their first student in the, I believe it was in the law school maybe.

BRINSON: Okay.

ESTILL: It was in a graduate school at least.

BRINSON: And that was what year? Did you . . . ?

ESTILL: Forty-nine.

BRINSON: Forty-nine. That’s right because that would be the first year after the lawsuit that opened the University of Kentucky to . . . Lyman Johnson.

ESTILL: Yes.

BRINSON: A history graduate program.

ESTILL: That’s right. That’s exactly . . .

BRINSON: Did you have any contact with that student during . . . ?

ESTILL: No, no I didn’t.

BRINSON: Okay. Were you, were you and your family active in a church while you were growing up?

ESTILL: Yes, I grew up in the Episcopal Church and, uh, my father was a vestryman from time to time. My mother was very active in that, and we lived--by virtue--as you know--Second Street, we were fairly close to Christ Church where we went down on Market Street. And we used to have all the visiting clergy come stay with us in those days. They didn’t stay in hotels. They stayed with us, and so I got to know a lot of, kind of, later realized, role models, people that I admired and liked.

BRINSON: Was there any discussion that you recall about, uh, a racial . . .?

ESTILL: Well, we were, we were a fairly, I assume, a fairly typical family of treating the people that worked for us, and any other African Americans that we ran into, with, uh, respect. And, uh, we talked about various ones in the family who either worked for us or for other people as practically family members. It was all that kind of thing.

BRINSON: What about your church though?

ESTILL: The church, as it still is, was just completely segregated. I say still is, but it’s certainly just token now. It’s always amazed me that the church has been the taillight instead of the headlight on the whole movement and, uh--at least the white church, very different in the black church.

BRINSON: When you graduated from the University of Kentucky, where did you go then?

ESTILL: Well, I went right to seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Episcopal seminary there is affiliated with Harvard so you can take courses at Harvard Divinity School or Harvard College, for that matter, though it’s called the Episcopal Theological School. And, uh, I went right there, and it was really not, certainly not integrated because the church wasn’t. And there were very few, and still are very few, African-American clergy, uh, more now. And I don’t know whether you realize it, but we just elected my successor once removed in this diocese who’s an African American.

BRINSON: Is his name Curry?

ESTILL: Michael Curry, yeah.

BRINSON: I actually had a conversation with a woman in the Kentucky Department of Education this week, uh, named Karen Simms and she, uh--I told her that I was coming here to, to interview you and she said, “Oh, I know his successor.” (laughter-Estill) Apparently she and Sheila Curry . . . was that his wife’s name . . . ?

ESTILL: Oh, yes, uh huh, that is.

BRINSON: . . . were good friends growing up or in college or something . . .

ESTILL: Uh huh, well, how nice.

BRINSON: . . . so she’s very pleased to . . .

ESTILL: Well, he was here when I came as bishop in one of our churches in Winston-Salem so I know him from that period. And he only was here about two years and then he moved on to Cincinnati, and then to Baltimore where he was when we elected him. But we’re all very excited over that, and it’s certainly a tremendous breakthrough—he’s the first African-American bishop of a diocese in the South and only one of about four, period.

BRINSON: How long were you in Massachusetts?

ESTILL: I was there three years in seminary. It’s a three-year course, and it’s, it’s--that particular seminary is very academic, and academically oriented. And I have to say again I really had very little time, or interest, or energy to do anything much around, uh, any outreach issues or social issues. We had a marvelous man who taught us ethics, and he would take us out on field trips every now and then. And I remember going down to New York, and going out to Brooklyn, and walking around the first time I was ever on a demonstration. And we had placards that said: “Bring Father Mellish Back.” The bishop had fired one of the clergy; and that was my first demonstration. That was about 1950, I guess. And I hate to say it, but I really didn’t know what the issues were; I just went to get a good grade out of ethics.

BRINSON: When you finished seminary, what happened for you then?

ESTILL: Well, we, we did—during seminary, we did have a few African American, uh, students, and one of them was a, became one of my closest friends there. But we just saw each other at seminary, and he went sort of off one way and I another when we graduated; and I haven’t seen him but a couple of times since. But I came back—under our rules, you go back to your home diocese; and, uh, the bishop, who was Bishop Moody, sent me off as far as he could into the diocese down into Appalachia to Middlesboro. And that was my first parish and we loved Middlesboro and . . .

BRINSON: Let me back up. Do you remember the name of the man who was in seminary with you?

ESTILL: Uh, I was afraid you were going to ask me that. Uh, David Harris.

BRINSON: Okay. Do you have any idea . . . ?

ESTILL: He’s in Chicago now; he’s retired. And, uh, I, I’ve only seen him a couple of times since then but, uh, he was a parish priest in Chicago for a long time and then retired.

BRINSON: Uh huh. Why did they send you to Middlesboro? (laughter-Estill) You said that like you were being banished or something.

ESTILL: Well, the Senior Warden there, when the bishop told him I was coming, said, “What’s wrong with this one?” ‘Cause they’d had a series of kind of bad apples. And I--it was kind of a problem parish. And I was very close to Bishop Moody in those days and it wasn’t punishment, but it was a challenge. And we absolutely loved it. It’s like your first love, I guess, and we--at least, I loved it. I think Joyce was not as comfortable in the mountains as I was, but it was a tiny little church and I was able to do all sorts of things. I was president of the Planned Parenthood and I was President of the Red Cross. The bishop said to me--I said to him, “What do you want me to do down there? What are some of your goals?” And he said, “Well, Bob, your goal ought to be to get elected Outstanding Young Man by the Jaycees.” And so (laughing), three years later, I did. [laughing] But I was able to do a lot of things in the community . . .

BRINSON: Community contributions.

ESTILL: Few of them, if any, had any racial things to them. And years later when I went back to Middlesboro--and, like everybody in their first parish, I didn’t know enough to make anybody very mad so everybody kind of liked me and I was popular. But when I went back years later under the aegis of the Human Rights Commission, I got a very chilly reception from some of the people that otherwise had been very warm and caring.

BRINSON: I’m a little surprised. Going to a town the size of Middlesboro in Appalachia--I wonder if it wasn’t a little bit of a culture shock for you after having lived (laughter-Estill) in larger places and seeing a little bit of the world and . . .

ESTILL: Well, I really have a love affair for Kentucky, and I’ve always been interested in and paid attention to the mountains. My father was the first doctor to go to the Frontier Nursing Service from Lexington. Uh, since then lots have gone but he was the first one to go down and spend some time there. And he always said that he wasn’t very popular because he didn’t prescribe enough pills. They wanted lots of pills. But Mary Breckinridge is a cousin of mine, and I’ve always been interested in the Frontier Nursing Service and Harlan and that part of the, of the world, of Kentucky. Wish there were more things I could’ve done while I was there or even now. It’s always floored me to think that you go to our mountains and there’s abject poverty, and then you go right over the line and pay $200.00 a night to stay in the Greenbriar, or wherever else you’re staying.

BRINSON: Right. So you stayed in Middlesboro about how long?

ESTILL: Only three years because, again, the Bishop put my name in at Christ Church and . . .

BRINSON: In Lexington.

ESTILL: In Lexington, and, uh, was pretty adamant about my taking it. And I was, I was third choice there; they called two people that turned them down. And I think they were getting desperate, but when I look at pictures of myself and see that I was twenty-seven when I went there, uh, I don’t know why they would’ve hired me except the senior warden was my godfather.

BRINSON: Well, I have heard that you might have been one of the youngest (laughter-Estill) ever hired there. Is that true?

ESTILL: I suspect so. If I’d been bishop, I wouldn’t have hired me at that age with no more experience than I had. But I grew with the church; they taught me a lot.

BRINSON: And it was your home church too.

ESTILL: Yes, yes.

BRINSON: People knew you.

ESTILL: No one could say, ‘We used to do it this way.’ or whatever.

BRINSON: Had you and your wife started your family at that point?

ESTILL: Yes, we had our first child in Middlesboro which was an exciting experience. The, the, it may be different now, but the hospital then was over the drugstore, and the same people owned the hospital, that owned the drugstore, that owned the funeral home that owned the florist. So, they had things kind of tied up. And, uh, then our first child was born. And then we had a second child that we lost, uh, born about in the seventh month; and had we been in a hospital today I think he would have been fine. But they just didn’t have the equipment to deal with that. And then our second, our third and fourth child, children, were born in Lexington.

BRINSON: What were race relations like in Lexington when you moved back to Christ Cathedral?

ESTILL: Well, they were pretty much, in a sense, from at least what I knew about them, they were pretty, pretty dormant. This was 1955, I guess, and I just--my own conscience level needed to be raised. And I noticed in my little, little thing that I really didn’t even have anything much in my journal about race or civil rights or anything until, oh, at least four or five years along which, I’m very, sort of ashamed of. I suppose that I, I preached and taught and tried to be open but I was one of those working behind the scenes—I guess I would think I was—but not very effectively.

BRINSON: Uh, and, of course, the Supreme Court, Brown vs. Board of Education, had come down . . .

ESTILL: Yes.

BRINSON: Do you recall any discussion in Lexington about how the community was going to respond to that decision?

ESTILL: Almost none. I can’t remember now, my memory may be failing me on that, but I can’t remember any sort of gathering or any, even any--I was always active in the Council of Churches; and uh, the ministerial association; and I just don’t remember much to do about that at all, sorry to say.

BRINSON: I’m not sure what year, actually, they started integration in Lexington. It varied from place to place across the state . . .

ESTILL: Yes. Yes. It did, that’s right.

BRINSON: Well, at what point do you think your consciousness was raised enough that you began to become more involved? What, what precipitated your involvement?

ESTILL: Funny enough, I, I haven’t thought about how it started except that I remember being just surprised, and that uh, kind of aghast that the church was literally sending young people off to black summer camp in--over here in North Carolina instead of sending them to our--sending them to our own camp. And being one of the youngest clergy in the diocese, I inherited the job of Youth Director for the diocese as part of my extra duties; and, and also directed the youth conferences. And it occurred to me all of a sudden that there were no black children there at all, and we had at least three churches in the diocese that were black churches. And I remember just almost naively getting up at one of the early conventions, uh, and saying, uh, “Why don’t we have an integrated youth program?” And certainly the schools were beginning to be integrated by then. And I just said it naively, and that’s when Bishop Moody (laughing) kind of exploded; said that, “He had taken care of that and was sending black children at his own discretionary fund expense to their own camp and that ours would remain segregated.” And I remember saying, “Well, that’s . . .” still naively, I wasn’t arguing; I just said, “Well, that’s an unnecessary expense, it seems to me. And the schools are integrated, and I don’t think the young people care one way or the other.” It was that sort of vague sort of thing, and that’s when he beat on the podium and said, “I have a Mississippi conscience about these things.” And that ended a beautiful relationship, with Mrs. Moody particularly, who never really forgave me. She thought it was an attempt to attack him, and I--believe me, it really wasn’t. I think I should have, but I--it didn’t occur to me to do that.

BRINSON: Had they come from the Deep South? Do you think that was part of . . . ?

ESTILL: Yes. Yes. I think he was from Mississippi. But, uh, nothing happened, incidentally. He kept right on sending them and it was, I guess, just years later that anything was really done on that score.

BRINSON: But you think that might have been one of the first instances that you began to speak out?

ESTILL: Uh huh. Kind of backed into it in a way.

BRINSON: Um, can you recall for me how, at what point the demonstrations and the sit-ins began in the Lexington area? I know we talked earlier about your participation in that.

ESTILL: I wish I could be more specific on dates and things. Um, I, I noticed in my little journal that, uh, I had lunch with Ted Hardwick—I think I told you that I knew so many of these people. And he was manager of the Phoenix Hotel, and we were trying to open it up. And I had lunch with him on December 11th, 1962. Uh, that’s the first thing in my book that would indicate that we were literally sitting down and trying to work some things over. And, and CORE, uh, Congress on Racial Equality, was involved, and that whole thing wasn’t settled until January of sixty-three, the end of January. But I wrote in my journal, ‘CORE has done more in the area of race than any other group in Lexington.’ And it was about that same time that we had a march down Main Street, and I think I told you last time, I had somebody’s little boy with me, a little black child. And, uh, he had to go to the bathroom, and Ted Hardwick was kind of like Governor Wallace. He was standing at the door of the Phoenix Hotel with his hands on his hips watching all this; and I went up and I just said, “Ted, this little boy’s (laughing) got to go to the bathroom. He’s either going to do it here or, hopefully, in the men’s room.” And he let us in, and that was not permitted in those days. So that was a little breakthrough.

BRINSON: So he might have been the first black . . .

ESTILL: Might have been . . . I don’t know where it is now, but that’s . . .

BRINSON: That’s a good story.

ESTILL: (laughing) And Ted Hardwick, um, like many of my friends then, he was pretty much like I was in terms of being raised just to sort of assume that everything was all right. And, I think, was certainly against doing anything that would change radically or threaten the Phoenix Hotel. But he certainly, at least in a month’s time, he changed his mind. And the same things were going on with the theaters, and might have been a little earlier than that. Uh, I, I didn’t seem to have too much in my journal on that in terms of putting a date on it, but that was probably the, in Lexington at least, that was the most, uh, sort of demon-, the most demonstrating that went on. And that took part--I took the picture--I was standing in line at the, at the ticket office, blocking the line. When the person’s time came, they said, “I’m not going to sit in the balcony.” ‘Cause blacks could sit in the balcony of the then Ben Ali Theater, and that was about the only theater they could go to, as I remember, in Lexington. And that went on for quite a while and, again, I think I told you that we met and met and met. And we met at Christ Church, and Joe Graves was a big part of that; and we had our negotiating team, and Shines, the other, had theirs and, uh, local manager; and we dickered back and forth and met and met and met. And finally he called me one night, I guess, and said, “We’re going …”

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE ONE

BEGIN TAPE ONE, SIDE TWO

ESTILL: . . . said to the Shine Theater spokesperson, “I can’t speak for the group but I’ll certainly get that word back to them, and it seems to be reasonable. We don’t care about any kind of a victory celebration. We just want you to open the theaters.” And so we had a celebration of our own. When the word got around, we thought, ‘Oh, we’ve really done something big.’ Wrong. It was in Poughkeepsie, New York, I believe, that IBM had planned this big meeting of their people, and wanted to take them all to the movies, to the Shine Theater; and then discovered that they were segregating in the South. And they just said, “We’re not going to use your theaters during this time.”

BRINSON: This is the IBM in Lexington?

ESTILL: Well, I guess they found that out from the Lexington IBM people. But that did it. Nothing we did had anything much ( ).

BRINSON: Let me go back . . . a couple of questions. Um, I want to talk about the early demonstrators themselves. I assume, um, the crowd was predominantly black with some white?

ESTILL: Yes, uh, I can’t remember what I’ve said before to you but very few clergy, white clergy. Lots of black clergy. And the Joneses, uh, Clayton Jones particularly and his father, who was a minister; and his brothers and that whole family, uh, stick in my mind. So it was a mix but the white participation in that was pretty skimpy.

BRINSON: Do you have any sense of the age range of the people who demonstrated? Were they predominantly adult? Were they high school students?

ESTILL: No, I think it was predominantly adult in the two instances that, that I’m talking about.

BRINSON: How did the Lexington police handle the demonstration?

ESTILL: I don’t remember any--certainly no brutality, and I don’t remember any particular restrictions or things. Uh, they were present and kind of moving around. But, again, Lexington was so small in those days that we all knew each other. I knew most of the police, probably all of them.

BRINSON: Were there any students or faculty from the university that you recall?

ESTILL: I just can’t remember. I think there were obviously some faculty, I can remember now. But I can’t remember a great number of students. Like here, for example, when we have a vigil at the prison, trying to demonstrate against capital punishment; we’ll have two busloads of students come over from Duke, and another busload from North Carolina Central, but we didn’t have that at these. We certainly did on the big march on Frankfort.

BRINSON: Right. Let me go back also to the, um, the meetings that took place at Christ Cathedral. Uh, were you then the president of the Lexington Ministerial Association at that point?

ESTILL: I don’t think so. I can’t remember that . . .

BRINSON: Joe, Joe thought you, Graves, thought you might have been, but, uh, tell me about those meetings. Who decided to, to call a meeting and how was it they came to be at your church?

ESTILL: I think it basically was the leadership of CORE again, which, uh--one of our clergy, David Bronson--who taught at Bishop Moody’s seminary--was one of the leaders of CORE. And I think they kind of took over when the theaters refused to open up. They kind of took over the leadership, and I don’t remember even chairing those meetings, except I was present at all of them as was Joe Graves and David Bronson. But I, I think they were just kind of meetings where some of us and some of the CORE members met with the people at Shine Theater. I don’t think it had any official, certainly didn’t have any official promotion by the ministerial association.

BRINSON: Okay. Is David Bronson still living?

ESTILL: The last I knew, he was; and was teaching at Temple University.

BRINSON: Okay. Did he stay in Lexington for a while?

ESTILL: No, no I think he got fairly unhappy with the seminary and with Bishop Moody’s position and all. He, he left, he left fairly soon I think.

BRINSON: Okay. Okay. Uh, had you been appointed to the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights at this point?

ESTILL: No, I don’t think so—well, yes I had. Yes, I had. I first met with Governor Combs on March 9th, 1962 according to my journal; and the first annual mayor’s meeting—we used to have meetings with mayors—was the next month on the ninth of April.

BRINSON: Tell me how that appointment came about.

ESTILL: I honestly don’t know unless Ed Prichard had something to do with it maybe. He was an advisor, kind of a dollar-a year-man in Frankfort. Uh, I, I really have no idea other than—as I think I have told the story, Governor Combs never could pronounce my name, called me Reverend Estes; and he grew up right down by Estill County. I don’t why that was. But he, uh--when I went down to meet with him, his pitch to me was: we know all about you and Mrs. Estes, and about the Estes family, and we looked into your background. We think it’s great to have a native Kentuckian here on this and you’re a clergy person, all of that. That seemed to be his criteria for asking me.

BRINSON: So you did not know him before your appointment?

ESTILL: No, no. No. I’d never even been in a Governor’s office before.

BRINSON: Okay. And did you have a, a swearing in?

ESTILL: Not that I remember. We had a, certainly an organizational meeting of the Commission, but I don’t remember any swearing in. And they were kind of stuck with me. They didn’t elect me; he appointed me.

BRINSON: How did your church feel about your appointment?

ESTILL: Well, I always was very careful both there and when I went to the Cathedral, and was reappointed to have my, what we call vestry, approve of it. And in both cases, they approved. I think they thought, if anything, it would probably keep me out of trouble: ‘cause when I became chair of that--other than the kind of things I was telling you about doing in Lexington with the theaters and trying to desegregate the hotels--I really didn’t do much marching or demonstrating or that kind of thing. I always felt that I was more effective working through the Commission or with the Commission and . . .

BRINSON: Was there a local commission in Lexington involved?

ESTILL: Not until later. We, we wanted to get local commissions and, and, uh, that came up later. I think I have a, somewhere in here . . .

BRINSON: I’ve seen that too in some of the Kentucky minutes that it was a little later, but the move toward trying, uh, to get localities to establish commissions certainly came during your, uh, role as leader there.

ESTILL: And we did work hard with mayors, the ones who would come to our meetings. And, of course, not all would. But those that came--and we got onto the well-known fact by everybody who works in government that the real place of power is the county judge, and we worked with those people some. I had sort of a list of people that if something happened in their county or city or whatever, I could, I knew who to call and how to mobilize people to talk some.

BRINSON: I want to go back just a moment to the, to Christ Cathedral in Lexington again because I understand that you early on hired a black secretary at the church?

ESTILL: Yes.

BRINSON: How, how did that come about and how was it received by the congregation?

ESTILL: Well, it seemed to me that the church ought to be, again, in the lead rather than--and that if I were urging others to have equal hiring opportunities, I ought to do so too. And I, I purposely hired a black person. I didn’t--I can’t say that I just picked the most responsible or qualified person. I really did pick her because she was black, but I think it did help. At least other churches could see that. And except for that one or, one case, I really didn’t have a lot of flack over that because she was very competent and very good. And . . .

BRINSON: What’s the one case?

ESTILL: Well, the one case was one of my vestry members came in and literally burst into my office and sort of leaned over the desk and said to me, “Either that woman’s got to go or you’ve got to go.” (laughter) And I said, “Well, you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of her and a harder time getting rid of me.” Because clergy, Episcopal clergy, are really tenured. Unless you’ve done something immoral, or stolen money or whatever you, you—there’s no way they can get rid of you. Uh, and he backed down and I don’t need, I don’t mean to make too much out of that. But he was—a lot of the, of the resentment that I got, a lot of the anger was that I was selling out my own caste, my own social level; and the way we’ve always handled this. Uh, one of my aunts rose up from what was almost her deathbed once when I went to see her--came up from Louisville to see her--and she threw tubes right and left and said, “Bobby Estill, I want to talk to you about your work with these. . .”—she used the “n” word in the nice way that, the nice way is to say Negroes. But it’s, it’s almost as bad as the “n” word, yet she grew up with people working for her. She had a big farm. She had several black persons on the farm working and was nice to them, all of that kind of thing. But it was just kind of a cultural turnover that I think either threatened or made people see things were changing and they didn’t like it.

BRINSON: Do you happen to remember the name of the secretary?

ESTILL: Sad to say, I really don’t, or what happened to her.

BRINSON: ( )

ESTILL: Sadly, she, she left on her own volition because she got pregnant and had a child. And in those days we didn’t have things like maternity leave and whatnot, and so she had to leave. But I think she stayed at least three, three or four years maybe, and did a good job.

BRINSON: Okay.

ESTILL: And I think made a lot of friends by doing a good job.

BRINSON: Okay. (interruption)

BRINSON: You were starting to tell me about organizing a chapter of the Urban League in Lexington.

ESTILL: Right. Whitney Young, who headed the whole national thing, is, or was a Kentuckian, and I got to know him fairly well. And on January the 30th, 1963, we had a meeting at Christ Church and organized a chapter of the Urban League in Kentucky, or in Lexington actually . . .

BRINSON: And Whitney Young himself came to that?

ESTILL: Whitney Young was there for that.

BRINSON: How did you get to know him?

ESTILL: Well, I just kind of showed up at things he showed up at, meetings and things. I actually met him first, I believe, in Chicago at a meeting of the National Church and Race, it was called, or some such thing. And I went, I represented the Episcopal Church, the national Episcopal Church; and, uh, he was there and, being Kentuckians, we got together. And I think that was what made us want to have an Urban League. Years later--at a little summer chapel where I go in Long Island and take the services in August--I met his daughter. And she was the first African American person to be a guest at the Beach Club at Quogue on Long Island, New York. And there was quite a—I didn’t know it at the time--but there was quite a stir the day before on the part of the Board of the Beach Club. And, “What are we going do? We’ve never had an African American here.” This was on Long Island and must have been about, in the sixties. And I remember some college kids came to see me and said, “We’re going to integrate the Beach Club tomorrow and we need your help.” And I had just gotten there. And I’d been kind of beat up in Kentucky over some things, and I was thinking I’d have a month of relative peace (laughing) but I agreed to do my bit. I said, “I know her father.” So when she arrived at the Beach Club—and she was a roommate of Bryn Mawr, some nice school, one of the girls who was her hostess—uh, I ran up to her and gave her a big hug, which I think scared her more than anything else. (chuckle-Brinson) But I whispered in her ear, “I know your dad and welcome.” And nothing ever came of all that but I remember the New Yorkers were far behind some of us in Kentucky.

BRINSON: Uh, I don’t know if you’re aware, there’s actually a new biography of her father that has come out in Kentucky . . .

ESTILL: Oh, no. I didn’t know.

BRINSON: . . . in the last eighteen months, uh, called, uh, Militant Mediator.

ESTILL: Uh huh. Huh.

BRINSON: I’ll, I’ll send you a piece of that so you can . . .

ESTILL: I’d love to see that. I read—there was another biography of him, I think, uh, back along the way. I’d love that. I’m just looking to see if there’s any more stuff about the Urban League. I think I just sort of helped that day and then . . . well, here, he came to Lexington in sixty-five, Whitney Young did. And I introduced him to a meeting of the Lexington Committee on Religion and Race. They had him as a speaker.

BRINSON: I wanted to ask you about that Lexington Committee. Um, were you involved with it from its early days . . .

ESTILL: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . or what, what can you tell me about it?

ESTILL: Um . . .

BRINSON: I have not been able to find any records.

ESTILL: Uh huh. Let’s see. I may have something in, in my notes here about the first meeting. Yeah. I spoke on December ninth—seems to be, the ninth seems to be a magic day—to the first annual meeting of the Lexington Committee on Human Rights and Religion, it was called. That was 1963 and I think it was, well, I know it was an offshoot of both our state commission’s urging communities to have their own commissions, and also the religion and race conference that the National Council of Churches and others sponsored. And I think that was sort of the motivating force but I, that, I remember that, I had that date.

BRINSON: Can you tell me anything about the, the make-up of the membership of that group and how often they met, what the agenda was, or . . . ?

ESTILL: I wish I could. I, I know, of course, it was peopled by--it was a good mix of people. Homer Nutter’s name sticks in my mind as one of the leaders of that and Joe Graves was involved, and whoever was Dean of the Law School at the time, I think was involved in that.

BRINSON: Was Paul Oberst?

ESTILL: Paul Oberst was.

BRINSON: Now he was not . . .

ESTILL: He was also on our state . . .

BRINSON: . . . he was on the law school faculty. And his wife Elizabeth, I believe, was . . .

ESTILL: Right. Right. I’m sure he was, if not--I know he wasn’t a member of that because he was a member of our commission. But I’m sure he helped get that going.

BRINSON: At the time you were appointed to the, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, I believe the office actually was located in Frankfort.

ESTILL: Yes, and stayed there. Uh, and we hired Galen Martin which is probably the best thing I ever did for Human Rights in Kentucky.

BRINSON: Uh, what can you tell me about when you hired Galen? What role did he play in the early days?

ESTILL: Well, he, he has that gift that some executive secretaries of such things have; working with volunteers of being able to stay in touch with all of us. We never were surprised by anything that either he did or that came up. He always was right there with the news about what was going on and what we might do. He was very supportive to, uh, things like if I did speak at the Lexington Commission, he’d have all sorts of data for me that I, that I wouldn’t have been able to get myself. And he, uh, had a national network that he drew from for his own support. And he and I went to one national meeting and I felt like I was with the President of the United States, ‘cause everybody kept coming up to him. And he just had that ability to be behind the scenes but, but very supportive and, and led from behind the scenes and often certainly put words in my mouth that were very helpful. Followed through, he was great at following through on things that he said he would do and keeping . . .

BRINSON: As I recall, he also was attending, uh, law school outside of work . . .

ESTILL: Yes, yes.

BRINSON: . . . and whatnot. And I wonder if his—I’m not quite sure at what point he actually finished law school and whether you were still there . . .

ESTILL: I think I . . .

BRINSON: . . . but I wonder if with a law degree, if that might have changed some of the focus of the Commission in any way?

ESTILL: Hmm. My recollection is that he got that degree after I had left.

BRINSON: Okay.

ESTILL: But I don’t remember, I, I, hardly even remember any references to his being in school till I found out that he was, ‘cause he did it so much on his own time. And he was a tireless worker. I, I don’t know of anybody that put in longer hours or was more available.

BRINSON: He still is (laughing).

ESTILL: I bet he is; that’s right.

BRINSON: He’s very much involved right now in the new school desegregation case that’s been filed in Louisville. I don’t know how, if you’re in a situation here in Raleigh to follow that in any way. It’s a very interesting case. It’s actually brought by parents of six African American students who want to go back to Central.

ESTILL: Hmm.

BRINSON: And, of course, under the current Order there’s a certain amount of minority students and a certain amount of . . .

ESTILL: Uh huh.

BRINSON: . . . so Central has reached that capacity. Um, and people are very concerned about what the effects of this kind of lawsuit can do with the efforts that have been made for integration thus far. But he’s very much a part of it.

ESTILL: Well, good for him. I’d like to have him on my side any time. He has the, the ability that I don’t of being able to stay focused entirely. I, I can go just so long on something and, and I just have to get off of it and do something else. But as far as I know, he just has stayed absolutely focused on these issues right down the line.

BRINSON: I believe there was another, uh, man working in the office, a Mr. Jones, was it Clayton Jones . . . ?

ESTILL: Yes, yes.

BRINSON: Now, he’s the son of the minister from Lexington?

ESTILL: Right. And a brilliant young man and almost too brilliant for us to keep. He didn’t stay as long as we wanted him to. And I think he and Galen worked beautifully together. But I don’t know what’s happened to him. Joe Graves might have remembered but . . .

BRINSON: He, he thinks he’s moved to Atlanta.

ESTILL: Oh, he was in New York, I think, for a while. Very bright young man--all those Jones boys were.

BRINSON: Right.

ESTILL: But he particularly so.

BRINSON: What, what led up to the rally in Frankfort in 1964?

ESTILL: Well.

BRINSON: Can we talk about that and your role on the Commission?

ESTILL: Yeah. I just have down here: “ten thousand, including me, marched in Frankfort to support Civil Rights Public Accommodation Bill in the General Assembly, refused even to debate the issue and it died in committee.” And then Congress passed it, of course. That was the only comment I had. Uh, I just remember a lot of organizing of getting people there. I had one little aside I don’t think I mentioned to you last time, but it came to me when I looked at this--thinking that I was there when actually a parishioner from Louisville had a little camera and was taking pictures of the march. And when he came to me—I saw him way down the line—and when he got to me, he, he got obviously ready to take my picture so I went like that. (laughter-Brinson) Found out he was working for the FBI.

BRINSON: Oh, made a face at him.

ESTILL: I’m in a, I’m in a picture, I guess, somewhere in the FBI files, thumbing my . . .

BRINSON: Well, you may have an FBI file. (laughter)

ESTILL: I’d be flattered if I did. No, I don’t think they’d pay much attention to me except if they saw that picture. But in answer to your question, that’s about all I can drag up . . .

BRINSON: What do you remember about the day itself besides the people? What was the weather like, for example?

ESTILL: Seems to me it was cold but I, I can’t obviously remember too well. I remember wearing a hat for some reason, which I almost never wore cause I was trying to emulate the Kennedys. But I remember thinking I better have a cap, a hat on today. And none of us—I think we were all fairly naïve about big demonstrations like that. We didn’t know whether—we were always fearing that this or that group would descend on us or throw things at us or whatever. I, uh, I didn’t go in any great fear but I went with some apprehension; uh, and it is, it is something to move along with a crowd that big. It, it showed to me so much build-up of support that, at least we didn’t know we had that kind of support and I think it made a big impact on. . . .

BRINSON: So it actually was a march up to the Capitol?

ESTILL: Right.

BRINSON: Where, where did it start? Do you remember?

ESTILL: Not far. We didn’t, we didn’t march very far, just kind of up, up that street that leads to the Capitol as I remember.

BRINSON: And were there any name celebrities there?

ESTILL: Dr. King was there. I think I’m right.

BRINSON: And I believe also Fred Harry Belafonte might have been there. Peter, Paul and Mary, the musicians.

ESTILL: Yes, yes. They were there.

BRINSON: Um, Jackie Robinson.

ESTILL: Didn’t remember either he or Harry Belafonte, but they could have been.

BRINSON: Did you visit the governor in his office at the end of the rally?

ESTILL: Yes, yes. And he obviously was, uh, open to that, and it wasn’t a forced thing. I think maybe that--well, I think there’s one picture maybe in there of that march, in that scrapbook that I showed you.

BRINSON: But the purpose of the visit to the Governor was to ask for his support on the bill?

ESTILL: Right, right. And to be more forceful with the General Assembly. But as I have noted here, they refused even to debate it. And by that time, most of us knew practically two-thirds of the General Assembly and had visited them and talked to them. And so it wasn’t any great surprise. But it, but it seemed to me it marked a time when the average person could see, ‘Yes, there is a lot of support for this thing. It isn’t just some few creatures that are trying to stir things up.’

BRINSON: Did Paul Oberst play a role in drafting that early legislation?

ESTILL: Yes. Yes. Yes. And very helpful to have somebody like Paul to do that. And, uh, I can’t remember who else—we had another lawyer or two on the Commission. We’d had a series of meetings with Governor Combs that I noted here from 6/22/63 through 7/2/63, uh, over that and then working with General Assembly people. And that was when he issued an executive order on discrimination, and I thought, I wrote in my journal that was a historic step for Kentucky. So we had that kind of just ahead of this march.

BRINSON: I should ask you to let me make a copy of your notes to put in the file.

ESTILL: If you can read my, if you can read my writing, you’re welcome to them. I noticed that January of sixty-six I was busy on TV and radio; traveling the state for the state’s Civil Rights Law that was in the General Assembly and that on 1/17/66 our—I put in quotes—bill passed the House.

END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE TW0

BEGIN TAPE TWO, SIDE ONE

ESTILL: . . . January of sixty-six, we’re dealing with Ned Breathitt. And the twenty-seventh of January sixty-six, he signed the state Civil Rights Law on television; and, “that was a great day for Kentucky,” I said, “and in many ways, the culmination of my work with the state Human Rights Commission as it turns a corner in the type of work this Commission will be doing, and I feel my work is done,” I said. My last meeting was, uh, 9/23/66, after six years of being on there. We have the best Civil Rights Law in the South.

BRINSON: Best and first, too.

ESTILL: First is right.

BRINSON: This is a question that calls for a little conjecture on your part, but it interests me that, um, Governor Breathitt, uh, held office, was able to—and clearly sees this as one of his most significant efforts while he was in office. Uh, but his political career never really went any further than that; and I wonder if you think this may have damaged that for him in some way.

ESTILL: I, I’d hate to think that. Uh, I have no idea whether that was right or wrong, or true or false. But, uh, and I hate to say this about him because I’m fond of Ned Breathitt, but, but he was kind of dragged in, kicking and screaming on some of these issues. And I suppose, as we found with the death penalty, there are lots of politicians who say, “I have to be for the death penalty, but I’m really opposed to it. And if I’m elected, I’m going to not put it in . . .” or whatever. And I think Ned again is, is a product of the same kind of upbringing that most of us our age had, and that he put--I think he put politics before civil rights; and probably had to. So, even though that was a great day and he does take, rightly so, credit for doing it, uh, I--certainly it wasn’t his image that here was the most liberal bishop, or governor in the South. That wasn’t his image at the time. I’m not sure that he didn’t just decide that the business world was a better place to be.

BRINSON: Well, he also, as I recall, after, um, the passage, was appointed by Lyndon Johnson . . .

ESTILL: Yes, that’s right.

BRINSON: . . . to a National Task Force.

ESTILL: He did have. He did have. Do you mind just . . . (interruption)

ESTILL: Sixty-eight I was appointed to the Kentucky Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. That was a sort of funny thing. It really never took off or never did much, and I was made the chair of that. But we had a weak Regional Director, and a lot of government red tape; and that whole effort for the U.S. Commission to start up state advisory committees that seemed to me never really worked very well.

BRINSON: Of course, 1968 was a pretty important year too . . .

ESTILL: Yes.

BRINSON: . . . uh, riots in places and whatnot.

ESTILL: And I think in part that was what they were looking for, some group to sort of keep the lid on rather than to help take the lid off. And I noticed we met in February of that year with Governor Louie Nunn, so there’s a third governor. And he gave us a good bit of time but was cool toward sponsoring a state open housing law. “At least he may not oppose us,” I said.

BRINSON: And a bill for open housing did pass in 1968, I believe . . .

ESTILL: That’s right.

BRINSON: . . . in Kentucky. How, how was, uh, Governor Nunn on civil rights?

ESTILL: Well, my word “cool” toward sponsoring a state open housing law, I think is what I must have perceived him to be. Uh, I went back to Frankfort and lobbied for the open housing bill and said, “The prospects look amazingly good.” I don’t know why I said that except that they did, I guess.

BRINSON: I believe that was sponsored by Mae Street Kidd? Did you ever have any direct interaction with her?

ESTILL: No, never, never did, but I, I remember that name.

BRINSON: Tell me who else was, uh, who else did he appoint to that committee in sixty-eight?

ESTILL: The Kentucky Advisory Committee?

BRINSON: Right.

ESTILL: I honestly can’t remember the membership of that, and I was chairman of it. But it was a pretty broad selection as I remember.

BRINSON: I wonder if there are any records from the group at all that you . . . ?

ESTILL: There must be and I don’t even remember the name of the regional director except, uh, I have in here that he was weak, or she or he, whatever it was. Galen Martin might have some, some of that.

BRINSON: At what point did you meet Kennedy?

ESTILL: That was when I was at the Cathedral in Louisville when he was, uh . . .

BRINSON: Now which Kennedy are we talking about?

ESTILL: Oh, I’m sorry. This is Robert Kennedy, yeah. He was running for office and came to, before the primary and, in, uh, Indiana. Of course, we were right over the river, and so I worked for him there. I’d go over the river at night taking my clerical collar off and putting on a necktie, and trying to drive with the other hand, putting my buttons on, go from house to house. And, uh, it was just before that time that I had that dinner with him at the Binghams’. And then, uh, Joan Bingham, uh, was very interested in him, and so I would pick her up and—she’d come down to the Cathedral—and I’d pick her up and we’d go over and work the precinct. And then on Election Day we worked the precinct, and our precinct went almost completely for him. And I remember seeing him the night of the victory celebration before he left for California. He had fallen out of a convertible; somebody had pulled him out shaking his hand, and he had a big, fat lip and a tooth had chipped off and his hand looked like a piece of meat that was beaten up from shaking hands. And I remember he said to me, “How are things going?” (laughing) in his campaign, I guess; and I remember saying, “Well, better . . .” and I hated myself for saying that. But we had a very slow start because that part of Indiana was very conservative, but, uh, that’s when I started working for him.

BRINSON: Tell me about the dinner at the Binghams’. This is Barry and Edie Bingham?

ESTILL: Well, it turned out that it was Barry, Senior, who was very openly for Adlai Stevenson and sort of in that camp politically; and, uh, Mrs. Bingham, Mary, and then young Barry and Joe Graves, and an aide to Mr. Kennedy and John, uh, Tom Johnson who was one of his chief cohorts. Tom went down from Yale when he graduated and just volunteered to work for Kennedy for, for senate in New York, and kind of came up through the ranks and, and was very close to him; and Joe Graves and I—just eight of us I think. But he had just come back from being in Appalachia, and it was a very moving evening to me. We were cutting into big filet mignons while he was telling us about seeing children who were living on bean soup and, of course, I had been in that area and I knew what some of that was about. I one time remember cutting a diaper off a child and taking it down to the hospital from its mother, who said she was going to come down and get my children. That kind of thing was going on in the mountains, probably still is.

BRINSON: Now, I’m, I’m missing a piece of that. You cut the diaper off of the child?

ESTILL: That was when I was working with the Red Cross, and we were asked to go up and take this child from its mother, who had about six children and was drunk; and just a terrible situation. And I remember picking up the littlest child out of this filthy little crib that was full of feces, and she was so filthy that I just took my pocket knife and cut off what, a rag it really was, that was a diaper. And I washed her off and took her with me back downtown to the hospital. But he had those same experiences. But I really--at that point, that’s when I really dedicated myself to try to help him get elected; because he had really, it seemed to me, been up on the mountain and was a changed person from the image that I knew him before as.

BRINSON: Had you been on any of those earlier trips into Appalachia with him?

ESTILL: Not with him, no. No. In fact, I haven’t been back to Appalachia except once or twice with the Human Rights Commission.

BRINSON: Okay. So the Commission traveled, uh, to different parts of the state?

ESTILL: Yeah.

BRINSON: For what . . . ?

ESTILL: Well, usually it was a speech at a Rotary Club or, or a Chamber of Commerce or a church group, something like that. I was for a while President of the Kentucky Council of Churches, and I was able to broker that into some opportunities to talk about civil rights and things churches could do.

BRINSON: Did the white ministerial community come along in the sixties at all?

ESTILL: Very spotty. Very spotty. I was bitterly disappointed with our own church and . . .

BRINSON: Your church in Lexington or the one in Louisville?

ESTILL: Well, the clergy of the Episcopal Church in both dioceses. Bishop Marmion in Kentucky was very involved and very outspoken and very supportive, Gresham Marmion.

BRINSON: How do you spell that? M-A-R . . .?

ESTILL: M-A-R-M-I-O-N. He’s still living. He’s way up in his eighties and he lives in Louisville; but he was very active, and I think in part called me to be his, Dean of his Cathedral because of his feelings about that. He wanted the cathedral to get involved, which we did. He and I held a requiem for Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Cathedral . . . forgotten it.

BRINSON: Was that a difficult service for you?

ESTILL: Yeah, it was. Uh, oddly enough—no, I’m sorry, I’m getting it mixed up with when Kennedy was assassinated. I was in Lexington then, and I remember being in my office—everybody remembers where they were that day—but I was in my office, and--which was right next to the church. And I, as soon as I heard it, I went over and unlocked the main church—we always had the chapel open—I unlocked the doors of the main church and then went up to the organ bench. And we had real bells but they were electrified, and I began, opened it up to toll the bell; and by the time I’d gotten to about the third toll, the church was packed with people. They just kind of intuitively came toward the church. I remember young Dan Chandler, uh, came up and sat on the bench with me.

BRINSON: And who was Dan Chandler?

ESTILL: He was Happy Chandler’s youngest son. I guess I told you that I, I knew Happy Chandler—my father was their doctor and he either called me Father Estill or Bobby, nothing in between. And when I was on The Moral Side of the News in Louisville, which was a dreadful radio program with a rabbi and a priest and two ministers, uh, John Claypool and I . . .

BRINSON: Was the program called that? The Moral Side of the News?

ESTILL: Yeah, yeah. WHAS promoted it and you had to be trapped in your car to listen to it. We’d go down on Tuesdays for lunch and look at the paper and decide on a moral issue and then discuss it. We thought it was grand. We had a lot of fun and we all got to know each other really well. But, uh, it then aired something like eleven o’clock at night on Tuesday, and you had to be in the car even to listen to it, let alone turn it off. But I made a crack about--they had something in the paper that just said Happy Chandler had--was responsible for integrating baseball. And I made a crack about that, that that was about as far from being accurate—he may have, certainly was commissioner and he certainly gave his permission but . . . and I thought it was about all I said. I just said I don’t think his reputation is too great on that score ‘cause he and a little group of Lexingtonians met every week at the Idlehour Country Club for lunch: a group of men, and they really kind of held Lexington together. That was a really powerful group and they were very, very conservative. Well, I no sooner got home that night—I was out at a meeting of some sort--and the phone rang about twelve o’clock and it was Happy Chandler. And he had heard the program—I don’t know why on earth he would have heard it—but he said, “Bobby, I can’t believe that you would say that about me. Your old friend and I did integrate baseball.” And he went on and on. And I said, “Well, Governor, I’m impressed that you stayed up long enough to listen. (laughter) But I didn’t really say that much against you. I just said that there were other forces at work too.” He forgave me, I guess.

BRINSON: Well, there are—there’s a historian right now at Eastern Kentucky who’s beginning to kind of relook at just that situation.

ESTILL: Oh, really? (laughing)

BRINSON: Yes, and is agreeing with you that he, that maybe Happy Chandler got credit for something for a long time that wasn’t quite his. He might have just been there at the right time.

ESTILL: Well, bless his heart. He knows better now. (laughing)

BRINSON: Right. Right.

ESTILL: I notice one other little note and you really ought to get on your road but . . .

BRINSON: I’m fine. I want to go through your notes.

ESTILL: “5/27/68: at home”--I guess in Louisville—“when a riot was reported in the West End of Louisville. Made some calls and spent the night manning phones at the downtown YMCA, dispelling rumors.” We decided that we needed to do that. We need to work harder on things and calm the situation.”

BRINSON: Who, who organized that, the telephone, uh, hotline at the YMCA? That’s—I haven’t heard about that.

ESTILL: Um, I have no idea.

BRINSON: Were the people who worked the phones primarily from, uh, the ministerial community?

ESTILL: I, I just, I can’t remember, honestly. I was kind of involved in the downtown—as most Episcopal churches were then—so I never had anything happen downtown. [clears throat] We had a coalition of downtown, uh, clergy and churches called Urban . . . something, Urban Caucus, I guess. I can’t think of the name of it right now—I did organize that, but I suspect that’s what it was. That we had a network whenever anything happened, one or the other of us could call around.

BRINSON: And who did you call?

ESTILL: Well, we didn’t call; we answered phone calls that came in that would say, “We hear that the mayor is being held hostage (laughing) in Indiana;’ or something like that. And I’m not sure where the calls came from but they were--they were obviously--we were the second leg of the calls. Somebody would call up somebody and say, “Call Dean Estill and tell him that they just blew up St. George’s.” And I would call St. George’s and, “No, they didn’t blow us up.” And I’d call back and say, “They didn’t do that; that’s wrong.” I can’t remember but seems to me maybe the police even worked with us on that.’

BRINSON: Well, that would make sense then that maybe the radio stations gave out the number for . . .

ESTILL: Uh huh, might have, might have been.

BRINSON: . . . to the public.

ESTILL: I—this was all I had in my notes. I was dying to get down into the riot area and see if I could be of any help, but I, I think I probably did better work there. And on the first Saturday in May of 1969 I attended the seventy-fifth Kentucky Derby, said hello to Katherine Graham, my new parishioner, Scotty Reston, who was with her, and good-bye to Ned Breathitt and—all of whom were at the Derby—and then I rushed out, jumped in a taxi and flew to Washington.

BRINSON: That’s why Katherine Graham was your new parishioner, because you were moving to a church in Washington, D.C.

ESTILL: That’s right. That’s right. That was her church. I knew her daughter, Lallie, then Wayliff, and, uh, so I had an introduction to her right away. And I ended up--I married, or performed the marriage service for, Donnie Graham, who is now the publisher. I’ll give you these notes for what they’re worth.

BRINSON: Okay. Thank you.

END OF INTERVIEW

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