Oral History Interview with Don Mills

ETHEL WHITE: This is a conversation with Don Mills. We are at his home on Firebrook Road in Lexington, Kentucky. It is December 1st, 2000, and my name is Ethel White. If we could start with a short biography; starting with where you come from and how you got into the journalism business.

DON MILLS: I grew up in Hickman County, which is in far western Kentucky, on the Mississippi River. It’s a small, rural county. It actually has over a thousand blacks and about six thousand white population. And ironically, the, at one time it had about that many slaves in Hickman County, because...(Phone Rings) WHITE: Shall I put this on hold?

MILLS: Well, I’m going to put this off. But ironically, the same number of slaves—percentage--existed 1:00until the Civil War there because the county was one of three counties in Kentucky that grew cotton. And the cotton was grown and shipped to Memphis, Tennessee, down the Mississippi River. My great-great grandfather founded what is Mills Point, which is on the Mississippi River. Mills Point now is the town of Hickman, Kentucky. And in eighteen thirty-two, he deeded the land for the jail and the courthouse; which is now the Fulton County Jail and the Fulton County Courthouse. He operated a wood lot there, that re-stoked river boats with wood. And he also sold moonshine whiskey on the side.

WHITE: Okay, and what was your experience growing up in Hickman?

MILLS: Well, I actually got interested in journalism at a very young age. 2:00In fact, I was thirteen years old, when I decided....I was a young kid of course, and I was looking for something new and different and always trying. I wanted to be a doctor at one time, and I wanted to be a chemist. And then suddenly I said, “Well I’m going to be a journalist.” So I bought, from a mail order outfit, a gelatin film. Which I started my own newspaper there, The Weekly Messenger. And we had a circulation of about ten or twelve, which was mostly my neighbors there around my home when I was thirteen. But finally I decided that the paper had more potential, so armed with a mimeograph machine and a typewriter that I bought on easy payment plan from Sears Roebuck, I launched The Weekly Messenger. And it lasted for some four years. It came out every Monday, because the big time paper there, The Hickman County Gazette came out on Thursday. So, I decided that I would come out on Monday, and that would give me the weekend time to work on it. 3:00I sold ads. I wrote editorials. I carried news stories. And so that was the beginning of my interest in Journalism--so it was just--when I graduated from high school, I just automatically came to UK and entered the School of Journalism.

WHITE: I want to find out who you sold your paper to?

MILLS: Well, I ended up with a circulation of about three hundred persons. I charged fifteen cents a month, came out every Monday. I sold ads. I actually made about close to seventy-five dollars a month off this newspaper, which was a whole lot of money back in those days. It was a real enterprise.

WHITE: Were you the sole practitioner?

MILLS: I was. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood who would help me, my friends. One was Circulation Manager, another, had two or three delivery people. I had a person who wrote sports. I had a person who wrote, what we called Society, back in those days. So I had a number 4:00of people who helped me, but of course, I did basically the--saw to it that it came out every Monday and did the basic homework for it.

WHITE: Did you sell mostly to kids or to adults?

MILLS: No, I sold to grown-ups there in the community. We delivered it door to door. And it was another means of something to read. Sometimes we made little errors, like spelling the name of Eisenhower with an I, or we sometimes had problems getting all of our facts straight. But we were pretty good even then, with the facts of what a news story was supposed to be about.

WHITE: And what was your experience, you mentioned the percentage of blacks and whites. What was your experience with African-Americans or just with the issue of race, while you were growing up in Hickman?

MILLS: Well, I could certainly tell that, you know, the town was very segregated. We had our own part of town that was called 5:00colored town. It was very segregated, although I certainly had friends in the black community.

WHITE: Well now, what kind of friends?

MILLS: Well I just had, you know, friends, we played basketball together.

WHITE: Did you go to school with them?

MILLS: No. The school had not been integrated at that point.

WHITE: Well, then how did you bump up against them, in order to place basketball with them?

MILLS: Well, we would go to a mutual play....Well, it wasn’t a playground as such. It was somebody’s house and that type thing. Plus, also my, there were people helping my mother clean her home. And her name was Patsy and she had a son, who was about sixteen or seventeen. And my mother was also a school teacher. 6:00And I had, you know, interplay with those people as well. And I particularly remember my mother being upset because this sixteen or seventeen year old was going to high school, which was really kind of unusual for blacks back in those days. But he was going to the town of Hickman, which was about eighteen or twenty miles away, and was taking that bus every day. And Patsy, who helped to clean our home, was very proud that he was learning to make strawberry preserves. And my mother said, “Well that’s fine and that’s great, but he needs to be learning more in school if he wants to do right in later life.” And my mother was very compassionate, very understanding....Anyway, I think she in a way 7:00taught me some understanding and compassion at a very early age.

WHITE: Your mother?

MILLS: Yes.

WHITE: I probably need to explain that we’re having just a little bit of a problem here with the phone and climbing over wires and things. But we’re moving along fine here. I think I’m going to put this on pause for a second. Okay, now we’ll try again. Your mother taught you compassion, you said.

MILLS: I think she did. My father was, he was a firm person, very strong person, very well educated. (Phone Rings) WHITE: Okay, pause again. Let’s talk about your father.

MILLS: Well, he had been a principal of schools. He was a teacher, also. But he decided after about ten years that he would seek his livelihood in business, so he went into business.

WHITE: Do you remember....I 8:00probably ought to ask you, if you don’t mind, what decade you consider your growing up years? In other words, when were you in high school?

MILLS: This was the late forties when I was in high school and the early fifties.

WHITE: Do you recall any talk of segregation being right or wrong? Was it something that was simply not thought about? Do you remember, this was, of course, before things began being desegregated in the state of Kentucky.

MILLS: Well, I certainly didn’t....it certainly wasn’t a conversation piece there in Clinton. I didn’t hear much about it one way or the other. I guess I started becoming aware of it when it went Coll--well, I was aware when I was in high school there as well. But I was even more aware once I came to the University of Kentucky, and just as 9:00I developed myself as a person.

WHITE: Well, where did the awareness come from? I guess I’m just trying to get a feeling for...

MILLS: Well, I think it actually...

WHITE: ...attitudes.

MILLS: ...came once again, maybe at my home. Because I know....You know this is back a long time ago.

WHITE: I realize that.

MILLS: We had an outdoor john at the house. And when Patsy first came to work for us, she went out there. And we had two bathrooms inside the house, and my mother finally decided one day well; that’s bad and ridiculous, so she can come use the bathroom here in this house. I just became aware that here was a group of people that were nice, and enjoyed talking with and enjoyed them. And that they lived a different life. You’d go to the courthouse, and there was a fountain for the blacks. There’s a fountain 10:00for the whites. And all that began registering on me at a young age. And I guess I began developing my attitude that later became prominent in my later life.

WHITE: And then what happened? You said you went on to UK, to Journalism School. And you said something about developing yourself or something like that.

MILLS: Well, I went to UK for four years and by that time, the issue of segregation and the issue of integration and civil rights was pretty prominent. And I applied for a Rotary Foundation Fellowship, well my local Rotary Club sponsored me, for a study for a year abroad. And I remember one of the questions that was put to me when I went to Louisville for an interview. 11:00There were thirteen of us that were interviewed for this scholarship. And one of the questions put to me was: “You grew up in Hickman County. You grew up in Clinton, which is on the Mississippi River. It’s way down there. It’s in spirit affiliated with the South,” because we were very close to Memphis and that area. And said, “In your community if blacks, African-Americans are meeting a white person on the sidewalk and it’s crowded, do the African-Americans have to get off that sidewalk?” And I thought, “My gosh, that was quite a question.” And I said, “Well of course not, you know.” And they said, “Well you know, there may be a lot of people, when you go to Europe that may think that and they ask you that question.” And we wondered how you would handle it. So anyway, I ended up winning the Rotary Scholarship and I spent a year....And by then 12:00you had, Kennedy was running.

WHITE: Okay, so this was nineteen sixty?

MILLS: Uh huh.

WHITE: Okay. Go ahead, excuse me.

MILLS: Well, so it was an issue, certainly in Edinburgh University where I went to school. There were about, I’d say, six or seven hundred blacks attended Edinburgh University, all from the Commonwealth countries, mostly from Africa. And I’ll never forget, one time I was asked to go and speak to this group. And they were very pointed, they wanted to know about segregation/integration, civil rights in the United States. And so I talked about it. I also was asked, on another occasion, to defend....You know, debate. There was another Rotary Foundation fellow there, and 13:00he was from Massachusetts; so he took the affirmative side on why the United States should be integrated. So that I was--not because I sought it--I was sort of asked to take the other side because I was from Kentucky. And so we talked about the issue before a very large group of people, and I guess back then I was saying; well we just need to go about it slowly or something. I guess that was the most that I added to that conversation because I really didn’t believe in it. But anyway, I certainly by the time I was in college, I was confronted with it.

WHITE: Well, let me just slow you down for a minute. What kind of a response did you get before these black groups in Edinburgh?

MILLS: I was....Actually very good, very positive. They were somewhat surprised. I think that they felt that I maybe had horns on, or that I was from the South and therefore I was bad. 14:00Although, Kentucky, you know, they thought it was the South, very much so. But you know, Kentucky really isn’t so much. But anyway, I had a lot of friends there, who were blacks from Africa.

WHITE: So they accepted you. You were obviously a good ambassador. Did they ask any hard questions about the situation in our country?

MILLS: Well, I think first of all at that point they had a view that everybody in the South was just against any kind of interracial activities. They were against inter-marriage, they were against dating, they were against....whatever. And I guess they found in a way that....I tried to say that we certainly had problems. And back then the problems weren’t so much in the North as they were in the South at that time. That’s were they mostly were centered. Which is what everybody thought. They said, well 15:00the North is fine. There’s no problem up North. It’s only in the South. And they kind of looked upon anybody as a Southerner, as somebody who, he had two strikes against him to begin with, with that area. So I think they were somewhat surprised to find that I wasn’t what they thought I was going to be.

WHITE: So this was nineteen sixty and this was mid-way through your college years?

MILLS: This was my graduate year.

WHITE: Your last year, then. And then did you go back and graduate at UK?

MILLS: Oh, I had already graduated from UK.

WHITE: Oh you graduated.

MILLS: I had graduated and then got that as a scholarship the next year to go off to Edinburgh.

WHITE: So let’s return to UK then for a minute, and talk about what you found there. This was nineteen fifty-six to ‘sixty, 16:00in there. What was going on there? Were there any black students? Was there any agitation? And were you doing journalism at UK? And were you engaged in any of this?

MILLS: I was certainly participating in Journalism at UK, and there were very few African-American students at UK; just a real small number. There was no one playing basketball or football, or anybody on the athletic teams. And it was, you know, UK was a very segregated university at that time. Although there were some blacks, but very, very few.

WHITE: Did you, did you write for The Kernel or were you just simply at Journalism School?

MILLS: I wrote some for The Kernel. 17:00I also was one of two people, candidates for editorship of The Kernel, my senior year. I did not get it. It went to, I think, Marvin Beard. And so at that point, after he got the editorship, which he was very good. I believe he’s with the Associated Press. I then concentrated on other activities and did not spend as much time journalistically.

WHITE: So you would not have engaged journalistically, in any segregation-integration issues that would have come up?

MILLS: I don’t know that there were any at that time, at our university, that I recall.

WHITE: Okay. Is there anything else, pertinent to our discussion, to be said about UK before we move on?

MILLS: Well there could be later, but at this point there is not.

WHITE: Okay. Well, 18:00then after you went to UK and after you did your post-graduate studying in Scotland, what happened?

MILLS: Went in the Army for a short while. And then came back and I was attending the Mountain Laurel Festival, beauty contest in Southeastern Kentucky as an escort of a candidate and I ran into Ned Breathitt, who was there and who was a candidate for Governor. And met him. Talked to him. And then I went back to finish up the rest of my Army career.

WHITE: Okay. Well, let me ask you about the Army, whether you bumped up against any racial issues or anything in the Army?

MILLS: Very good question, 19:00certainly did. I was stationed in Fort Gordon, Georgia. And there was this minister that was speaking in Augusta at the, I think, the Baptist church there. He was Martin Luther King, Senior. So there were a number of us, who wanted to go and listen to him. Our company was a military government company, and there were probably about--and we had been called back into the service by Kennedy during the Berlin Crisis. In fact...

WHITE: This was....excuse me for interrupting you. Was this the Reserves?

MILLS: It was the Army Reserves, yes.

WHITE: Okay, go ahead.

MILLS: So our company that I was in, which was the 439th out of Paducah. Back it up a bit, I had gone there 20:00and my first job was with The Paducah Sun Democrat as a reporter. And I got called into the Reserves: got called back up for active duty. So we were in Fort Gordon, Georgia, and as I was saying, this person was speaking, Martin Luther King. And we had heard about him, read about him. And it was a great opportunity for us to go and listen to him speak. So about four or five of us went that night to the service and listened to Martin Luther King’s sermon. And thought really nothing more about it, except it was a great benefit to us. But then the next day--you got to remember this company was a Reserve Company and it was from Paducah, that we were in. And most of the people were from Paducah and Western Kentucky. So the next day we were called in by our Commander, and told that we shouldn’t be causing any problems. 21:00That we should take a very back seat to anything like this. That we shouldn’t be going. Well, we defended what we did. We were off duty and we went to listen to Martin Luther King’s speech. But I’ll never forget, that just the idea that we could be called in and asked about it, was very astonishing to me at that time.

WHITE: Now, I want to make sure that you’re talking about the Martin Luther King.

MILLS: Yes.

WHITE: Because when you said Senior, I got a little...

MILLS: If I said it, I didn’t mean to.

WHITE: ...confused. Okay, just want to make it clear for the record here. Now what do you remember about the sermon? I mean, forty years later? (Laughter, Mills) Is that a fair question?

MILLS: Well, I’m sure...

WHITE: Or would you remember any...?

MILLS: I guess I remember....Probably were about two thousand people in the church that night, and I remember the songs. I remember people singing We Shall Overcome. I remember 22:00Martin Luther King giving a great speech as he was always capable of doing. I don’t know the actual details, you know, forty years later I don’t; but it was just a speech promoting non-violent integration of the two races.

WHITE: Were there any, let’s see, Truman had desegregated the Armed Forces. Were there any blacks in your...?

MILLS: Company.

WHITE: ...unit, Company?

MILLS: I’m sure there was, yeah. Because we were--although we were a Reserve unit in Paducah and it was people local there that were in it. Because you know, you had to be local to go to that Reserve unit. Although I don’t remember--too sure, but I’m sure there had to be some blacks in that community, because there’s no way that they could have been not 23:00given the right to go.

WHITE: But no other experiences really jump out at you? Okay. Now you said, you had been, I guess in the middle of your Army experience, you had been with The Paducah Sun? Is that right?

MILLS: I went into the Army the first time for six months, through the ROTC program. I had a choice of six months or two years. I chose six months. I went to it. And then when I got out of the Army, I began working for The Paducah Sun Democrat. It was the first job I really ever had, full time, in civilian life. And I went there as a reporter. And I did that up until about, maybe about ten months, until October. And Kennedy then at that point, activated the Reserves, as well as a number of Guard units. As I recall. It was the Reserves, because of the crisis with the Berlin Wall. And so we were activated 24:00and sent to Georgia and spent another ten or eleven months there before we were released.

WHITE: And did you go back to The Paducah Sun?

MILLS: Well, when I got back to the States....

WHITE: Back to the States from...?

MILLS: Well, I don’t mean that. When I got back to Kentucky. I wanted to go back to the Paducah paper. I was making ninety-six dollars a week. And I called to see if I could not get some kind of raise. And I was offered four dollars a week by my good friend Ed Paxton, who is a great person. And meanwhile I had been offered...

WHITE: Do you know why?

MILLS: Pardon?

WHITE: You had been making ninety-six dollars a week.

MILLS: Ninety-six a week.

WHITE: And then you were offered four?

MILLS: No, it was four dollars.

WHITE: Yeah, 25:00four dollars a week?

MILLS: More.

WHITE: Oh, four dollars more.

MILLS: I’m sorry, up to a hundred. But I had already been approached by both Breathitt, as well as, Governor Chandler’s headquarters to come and work for them for a hundred and twenty-five dollars a week. And I had a great debate in my mind. Well, first of all, I wanted to go back to the Paducah paper. I think if they had said a hundred and twenty-five, I would have gone back. But they said a hundred, so I said, “Well, twenty-five dollars is twenty-five dollars.” So, I then had to decide whether I was going to go to work for Ned Breathitt, or go to work for Happy Chandler; who at that point was way ahead of, in the polls, way ahead of Ned Breathitt. And I guess I counseled with my brother, Mike. And he, and 26:00we talked about it. And he said, “Well you know, even if Ned Breathitt gets beat in this race, he is a young guy. He’s only about thirty-six. He will be around for a while. And he will, you know, maybe he gets beat now, but in four years it may be different, or eight years.” So, at that point I decided to go and work for Ned Breathitt. Was one of the first two people he hired in his headquarters.

WHITE: Now, you were approached, you are a young journalist, you worked for The Paducah Sun for a matter of months.

MILLS: Yeah, not quite a year, about ten months.

WHITE: You had one meeting, one chance meeting with Ned Breathitt. And now you are being approached by both Breathitt and Chandler to come work for them?

MILLS: Well, let me. I left out three months.

WHITE: Were there...?

MILLS: Yeah. When I came...

WHITE: ...other connections?

MILLS: Well, when 27:00I came back from the Army in August or September; August it was. I said to the Paxton’s, “That I really, I was very interested in politics. I would really like to work for Wilson Wyatt, if they could let me have another three months off.” And so I did go work for Wilson Wyatt for three months, when he was running for the U.S. Senate in nineteen sixty-two. And then it was in--after that was over--after the race was over in November, and Wilson Wyatt had lost. I then called Paxton, and, “Asked to see if I could get a raise.” And he said, “Four dollars.” And then meanwhile both Breathitt headquarters, which was at the Seelbach Hotel; and then Governor Chandler, whose headquarters was headed by Earl Clements and he was over at the Kentuckian Hotel--which no longer exists--but was there then. And he offered me a similar amount 28:00of money to come there and work for him.

WHITE: And were you actually hired as Press Secretary by Breathitt? Was that the position you started with?

MILLS: Yes, both decisions I could have gone either way as Press secretary and Head of publicity.

WHITE: And so now we are....It’s the end of nineteen sixty-two and the beginning of nineteen sixty-three.

MILLS: So counting the time for Wilson Wyatt and then Breathitt, I spent fifteen months in the Seelbach Hotel.

WHITE: Fifteen months in the Seelbach Hotel with Wyatt and ...?

MILLS: Breathitt.

WHITE: Breathitt?

MILLS: That’s where his headquarters was.

WHITE: Oh, before he was elected.

MILLS: Yeah.

WHITE: Oh, okay. All right and....What were you faced with and how did you learn? How did you learn how to be a Press Secretary for a governor?

MILLS: 29:00I had, I had...As I say, my journalism career really went back to age thirteen, so I had more than a year’s experience as far as being a journalist. I was a journalist graduate. But I also--through the Rotary Scholarship--I think I learned to interact with other people; not only at Edinburgh where I met a lot of people. You know, not only people from African countries, but Scottish and everybody else. Plus I spoke there at some twenty some odd Rotary Clubs in Scotland and England. And then when I came back to Kentucky, I spoke to some fifty Rotary Clubs here, before I ever went back to Graduate School at UK. So I had--I had a pretty--I interacted with a lot of people. And I think that’s what you need to have as a Press Secretary. 30:00Plus, one item that’s just very important in being a good Press Secretary. Well, a couple of things. One is always tell the truth, and reporters will respect you and they will work with you. And the second thing, try to make it easy for them by giving all the information you can and by just keeping it easy for them. And I think that I did that. And I think Breathitt and the others saw that as something that I could do.

WHITE: Of course, we want to get to civil rights. But can you remember two or three other issues that were particularly important under Governor Breathitt that you were dealing with the Press about?

MILLS: Oh, there were a number of items that we dealt with in the four years. But you know there, working there in 31:00the headquarters, I worked with Georgia, Senator...

WHITE: Georgia Powers?

MILLS: Georgia Powers, who headed the volunteer effort for Breathitt. I became very close to her. And also at that time the March on Washington occurred, I think, in the Fall of that year. And I remember all of us gathering around the T.V. set to listen to Martin Luther King speak in front of the Lincoln Memorial, which I think, was the best and greatest speech I’d ever heard.

WHITE: Was or was not?

MILLS: Was. So anyway, those are some things that happened during that time. Plus we were just working here day and night to try to get Breathitt elected. And as I say, he was very low in the polls to begin with, and by the time November came around he was almost winning. Well, by May, he beat Chandler pretty well. 32:00And then into the Fall, we had a couple of real major issues.

WHITE: Now, we’re Fall of ‘sixty-three now?

MILLS: Yes.

WHITE: Of course, the governors are on a different schedule.

MILLS: The first thing that happened was that Bert Coombs, in June of nineteen sixty-three, issued an Executive Order; saying that all public accommodations, restaurants and hotels, had to be integrated. And it was an Executive Order. Well, then Louie Nunn, within days, bought air time on television and castigated that order and criticized Governor Coombs. And we suddenly were put on the defensive. And Breathitt, Governor Breathitt did not know that the order was even coming until Coombs had already issued it. So 33:00we had no time to prepare any kind of a response.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO MILLS: Well the order was issued in June, and so from then until November; Governor Breathitt was put on the defensive as far as Nunn and the Republicans were concerned. And it became such a lively issue in those times. I remember talking to Pierre Salinger, who was Press Secretary to President Kennedy. They were very concerned about Kentucky’s race for Governor, because there were only two gubernatorial races that year; one was in Mississippi and one was Kentucky. And they felt that Kentucky reflected their situation more, and by that time knew that Senator Goldwater would be running against Kennedy. And they wanted to find out what the race issue 34:00and how it was playing in Kentucky. And one of the things that--and they said, you know, Pierre Salinger said, “Keep me in touch with anything that comes up or develops.” So it wasn’t long into the summer that the Republican campaign took a split of tapes from President Kennedy, his press conferences, and developed this spot which they started airing on the radio stations in Kentucky: in which Kennedy basically is quoted as saying--and it’s all spliced together—saying, “That we need an integrated society. We need to have intermarriage. We need to do this and that”, and quoting Kennedy. It was amazing, the technology, what they had done to do this. And of course, I called Pierre Salinger immediately; and told him about this and what it was. 35:00WHITE: You mean it was the Republican campaign in Kentucky that was doing this?

MILLS: Right, yeah.

WHITE: Oh. Okay.

MILLS: So I called Pierre Salinger and told him about it. And they were to say the least, very upset about it; because it was very false and very incorrect. So anyway, about three or four days later, the Federal Communications Commission issued a decree saying that, “The spot could not be used on any radio stations.” And you know Louie’s brother was very instrumental in his campaign, helped him. So anyway, we had that situation. We had another situation, where during the primary, a handbill had been developed, about fifty thousand of them had been printed, which showed an African-American 36:00man and a Caucasian blonde holding hands at Freedom Hall and it said, “A Bucks for Breathitt Rally.” And the impression from this was left that these two people were at this Bucks....this Breathitt rally, holding hands; and all for Breathitt and all this. So we then....Well, it was during the primary, the Chandler people would not distribute that bill, they would not do so. But in the Fall, it was distributed by the Nunn people, all over Kentucky....in Western Kentucky. Let me back up and say in Western Kentucky.

WHITE: Where it would be even less popular than in other parts of the state. 37:00MILLS: But by then, it was a year of, I mean civil rights was very much an issue. School prayer had just been issued. That was another thing that put Breathitt on the defensive very early. He said, “He supported the Supreme Court’s decision on school prayer.” Governor Nunn used that strongly against Breathitt and the Democrats--the Supreme Court. Then, plus this Executive Order that Bert Coombs had issued; and we were just in a real tight race that involved racial issues very strongly.

WHITE: Now, why do you think Breathitt was elected? How did he get over all this?

MILLS: Well, he barely won in November. He won by thirteen thousand votes.

WHITE: Were these racial issues less 38:00worrisome, say in the big cities in Kentucky? In other words, would that be what helped him pull out the vote?

MILLS: I think, well he certainly did well in Louisville and Jefferson County. And he did well in Northern Kentucky. But we were very concerned about this issue, to say the least. And it certainly played against him in West Kentucky. It hurt Breathitt down there as far as, who are you going to vote for. The election ended up, like the previous year, I think Coombs had won by a hundred and eighty thousand votes over Dewey Daniels, the Republican nominee. This time Breathitt was able to win by thirteen thousand over Louie Nunn. So there was no question that it was an issue and they worked it deeply. They even, back in the 39:00Wilson Wyatt campaign they would hire, I’m going to say, “allegedly,” but I’m almost certain it was true, hired a black to go in restaurants in West Kentucky and be refused service.

WHITE: Who did this? Who sent the black man?

MILLS: Well, I said, “Allegedly,” but we had been told that it was done by the Republicans in the Nunn campaign. And when they were told that they could not be served, then they would say something like, “Well wait until Ned Breathitt or Wilson Wyatt is elected, then that will all be changed.

WHITE: This was nineteen sixty-three. It was when things really were just beginning to 40:00open up, so...

MILLS: Well it was...

WHITE: Well, maybe not.

MILLS: It had opened. It had opened in sixty-two.

WHITE: But the sit ins, I believe, started, were in about nineteen sixty-two. Were they not?

MILLS: Yeah, they were even earlier, ‘sixty, ‘sixty-one, ‘sixty-two.

WHITE: Okay.

MILLS: So it was a live issue.

WHITE: Well it was a live issue. I guess what I am getting at. What my question is, is did Governor Breathitt, and did you have any idea or did you care about the politics of the problem? In other words, did Governor Breathitt simply say, “This is what I believe and this is the way I am going to handle it.” Or was there some calculation about how it would be received and 41:00to what extent, if there was any political calculation, were they whistling in the dark? Or were you whistling in the dark?

MILLS: Well, I think first of all, we defended the order that Governor Coombs issued. We defended the School Board, the school prayer decision; and defended basically the integration of civil rights and did that. And we defended it.

WHITE: But did you defend it out of conviction or was there any political aspects that was brought into play?

MILLS: Oh, without question it was very much conviction, no question. Ed Pritchard was a strong advisor to then candidate Breathitt. He and I lived together some at the Seelbach Hotel. Pritch had been a strong advocate during the Roosevelt years, when he worked in the White House. 42:00Breathitt felt that way. I felt that way.

WHITE: Advocate of integration?

MILLS: Sure. Of you know, getting the African-Americans the opportunities that they deserved.

WHITE: Okay. So he, so you and Governor Breathitt handled this issue...

MILLS: With others.

WHITE: ...from conviction from the start. Then Governor Breathitt is elected.

MILLS: I think neither of us thought it was such an issue to begin with. I don’t think we thought...

WHITE: As volatile as it...

MILLS: That it was as volatile and as much as people in Kentucky that might vote against you because of it. I mean, that was the first thing.

WHITE: Some naiveté.

MILLS: We had misread, I guess, what the feeling was. We just thought it was a right thing to do: and so we proceeded and so did the other people in the campaign. 43:00WHITE: Once Governor Breathitt was elected. Kennedy has been assassinated....

MILLS: Well let me...

WHITE: ...or soon after that. Okay. Was there something...?

MILLS: Well, I was just going to say, as I had stayed in touch with Pierre Salinger. Then we won, and Kennedy called Breathitt that night; and Pierre Salinger called me too, later. But anyway he had called, he called President Kennedy and told him....President Kennedy called Breathitt and told him, “That he was coming to Eastern Kentucky and that he would be there in December and he wanted him to join him there to tour the area and that he had an important program that he wanted to announce.” Salinger invited me to come to Washington to go to a press conference that Kennedy had. 44:00So, which I did.

WHITE: When was that?

MILLS: This is about a week after the election. It was about November the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, something like that. And I went there. And went to the White House, you know, and showed them my invitation, my letter and went to Pierre Salinger’s office; and he welcomed me, then took me over to the press conference, which was going to come along. It turned out to be Kennedy’s last press conference. And I guess the thing that struck me most was his defending foreign aid, which he did that day. That seemed to be a big issue. The opposition was saying that, you know, you shouldn’t be spending money on foreign aid. But anyway, I remember that most of all about this press conference. And then I left a picture that had been made 45:00of Kennedy when he came to Louisville in nineteen sixty-two campaigning for Wilson Wyatt. And I left this photograph to get Kennedy to sign it, and for Salinger’s office to return it to me. And so anyway, after November the twenty second, of course the trip to Eastern Kentucky on the part of Kennedy did not come about. And I got this picture back from the White House and said--this is from Pierre Salinger’s secretary--it said, “We were unable to get the photograph autographed. I’m returning it to you . I hope matters are better in your capital than what they are here.” So then after that, Johnson called. President Johnson called Breathitt and told him, 46:00he just followed up on what Kennedy was going to do. He came to Eastern Kentucky and they announced the Winter Emergency Relief Program, which then led into the Appalachian Program.

WHITE: Did you go to Eastern Kentucky with Breathitt and....Johnson?

MILLS: Johnson, yes. Uh huh.

WHITE: So you met Johnson and did you have an impression? This may not be civil rights, but...

MILLS: Well, actually I met Johnson several times during the four years, because Breathitt was very close to Johnson and to that administration. In fact he helped nominate him. In ‘sixty-four, Breathitt was one of the three or four people who seconded the nomination for Johnson. And he had become close. And there were a number of times....not only when Johnson would come to Kentucky; but I remember going to Pittsburgh 47:00one time when the Ohio River had flooded. And he asked Breathitt, “To fly over with him.” I did not do that. Fly over the, the Ohio River Valley. I’ll never forget, one thing, he handed Breathitt a cigar and said, “Take this to my good friend, Ed Pritchard.” Pritchard and Johnson had a very close--in fact, Pritchard invited Johnson to the Kentucky Derby, I think in nineteen forty-eight. Anyway it was an interesting time. Plus, you had all your people involved in civil rights. And Breathitt started playing a very major role there as well.

WHITE: Well, let’s talk about that, because I know that Johnson got into office and got what was originally Kennedy’s Civil Right’s Legislation passed. The Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. And it took Kentucky about two more years 48:00to pass its own. But...talk. Can you just talk about that?

MILLS: Well, I don’t think there’s any question that the legislation had been proposed. Then with Johnson’s ability to lead, his ability to put together a coalition, his ability to do that; but I think there was also a lot to do with the fact that it had been Kennedy’s program. And there was a lot of sympathetic votes for it, to pass it, because of that. And it went through very strongly. There were some people who filibustered, some senators, but, you know, it was a very good thing. Breathitt then was asked--first of all, Breathitt was asked to introduce the resolution at the Governor’s Conference supporting the deal, with co-sponsoring, I think, which he did. And that he was later put on a committee to 49:00help implement the Act. Twelve or fourteen different leaders across the United States. And during all this time, I was always with Breathitt. I went everywhere with him, and got to meet a lot of people who were involved in civil rights.

WHITE: Do you remember any of them? This many years later--is there anybody that stands out?

MILLS: Well one just, Ennis, he just died the other day.

WHITE: Who?

MILLS: Or was it Roy? Ennis?

WHITE: Oh, Ennis, yeah.

MILLS: Who just died, I think, the other day. But Abernathy, I remember talking to him. Remember Jose Williams. All these people were there, I mean, at one time or another. I got to see them and got to....plus Martin Luther King came back to Kentucky two or three times. His brother, A. D. King, was a pastor 50:00at a church in Louisville. And I know we went there....Breathitt went there to introduce Martin Luther King. I guess it was, at the church in Louisville--A. D. King’s church. So we had a lot of, you know, acquaintance at that time with the people involved.

WHITE: Do you remember any conversations--I mean I know I’m asking you to think back almost forty years--but do you remember any particular conversations, or incidents, or hurdles that you engaged in, in the course of moving Kentucky in the direction that the 51:00National Legislation was taking the country? I mean, this is not counting the March on Frankfort, which we’ll get to in a minute.

MILLS: Well, not just me, you know, many, many people were involved. Other people in the Governor’s office, as well as, other people in Kentucky: but we tried, in nineteen sixty-four, to introduce a Civil Rights Bill; which we did, following up on the Executive Order. And Breathitt worked to get that passed, but it didn’t pass.

WHITE: Do you remember what or who were the specific obstacles? Or was it just that Kentucky wasn’t ready generally?

MILLS: Well, you had all your Republicans then, that were...

WHITE: Against it?

MILLS: John Sherman Cooper was an exception and so were Marlow Cook and Bill Cowger out of Louisville. But beyond that, in your Fifth 52:00District of Kentucky, which was Southeastern Republicans, they were very much against it. West Kentucky. Plus, you had a lot of Democrats that were against it in certain areas. And then maybe Breathitt didn’t know....I mean, he was just fresh as governor, this was, he just came in, in December. He was thirty-six or thirty-seven. And the truth about the matter, Breathitt did not have a very good legislative session, his first session. Whether we were not ready, whether we did not know what to do or what, but that was not the only Bill that went down in defeat. There were others as well.

WHITE: So some of it was a new green administration. All right, well that same year, it was nineteen sixty-four, was it not, that there was a march on Frankfort?

MILLS: ‘Sixty-five, I think, wasn’t it?

WHITE: Well whichever.

MILLS: Yeah. ‘Sixty-five, I think is when it was.

WHITE: Okay, what do you remember about that? 53:00MILLS: Well, I remember they were marching on the Legislature and marching on the Governor. And Breathitt was talking about....Breathitt brought it up in a Cabinet meeting. He said, “We’re going to have this march.” And a number of people there in the Cabinet said, “Governor is it all right if we march with Doctor Martin King?” And Breathitt said, “Fine.” He said, “As a matter of fact, my daughter will be joining you,” Mary Fran Breathitt. And so Breathitt’s idea about it was fine. He encouraged the March. He encouraged the activity, because he thought it would help him in the long run pass the Civil Rights legislation. So, they did march. 54:00And then after the March, Martin Luther King, along with a number of Kentucky Civil Rights leaders, came up. A meeting had already been planned for Breathitt’s office. And they sat down and probably talked for forty-five minutes to an hour. Of which, I was there, because once again as Press Secretary, he had given me that opportunity to always be there, in order to let the Press know what was going on. So I was there--didn’t participate, but observed. And I guess one of the things that struck me was that Martin Luther King said very little during this forty-five minutes. He listened mostly to the civil rights people of mostly Louisville, make their case. And then he would occasionally chime in with something or say something, which everybody listened to very intently. But 55:00it was a great experience that occurred at that time. It was something to be part of.

WHITE: Did you actually see the March itself?

MILLS: Oh yeah, we watched it from the Capital.

WHITE: From the Capital?

MILLS: As it came up. Yeah, I was up there with Breathitt, and we watched it come.

WHITE: Looking out a window or standing on a porch?

MILLS: Yeah, well maybe looking out the front window. Plus I think it was on television, wasn’t it? I think it was on live television at that time, too. I think it was, yeah.

WHITE: I wasn’t here, so. I believe it was, but I did not see it.

MILLS: Yeah, it was. It was, yeah.

WHITE: Do you remember any particular sights? I mean, do you remember being struck by anything at all? I mean numbers of people or...?

MILLS: Well, it was probably ten thousand people that marched up Capital Avenue. And I was, there was Ed Pritchard and Bob Bell and...

WHITE: Marching?

MILLS: ...Phil Swift, all people that were either in our Cabinet or Pritchard 56:00was one of his right hand people. Plus his daughter, Mary Fran, who was then sixteen years of age. They were right in the front line.

WHITE: Did the Press make anything of that?

MILLS: Sure they did. And then Breathitt made, you know--he didn’t--I mean, you know--he encouraged them really.

WHITE: Was there ever any trouble at the March? Any skirmishes or whatever?

MILLS: No, none whatsoever.

WHITE: Peaceful?

MILLS: Uh hmm. Very peaceful.

WHITE: Do you think anything came out of that March? No legislation passed for two years.

MILLS: Sure. Well, it was ‘sixty-five, and that was before the Legislature met in January of sixty-six. So the timing was very good.

WHITE: So it gave it a nudge.

MILLS: And it helped. Breathitt also, I’ll never 57:00forget this incident happened too, about that time. It was the Voting Rights Act in Selma, Alabama. And there was a march in Louisville that A. D. King had organized. And Phil McChesney was another assistant in the Governor’s office and myself....It was on a Sunday afternoon, so we said to Breathitt, “That if he didn’t care, we wanted to go and march in that deal in Louisville on that Sunday afternoon.” And we were working for him, so we asked him if it was okay. And he said, “Fine.” He said, “Sure, go right ahead.” So, we were maybe at my place or whatever. Got a telephone call about twenty-five minutes later from the Governor, and the Governor said, “I think I’ll just go and join you.” So he went with us, and all three of us marched. And that was the 58:00voting right, you know, the right to vote. You know, in Selma, Alabama they had denied, disenfranchised. So anyway, Breathitt’s heart was at the right place, which I think is very important. And he too, grew up in a very segregated community, very Southern community, Hopkinsville.

WHITE: Do you know anything about his, internal story? If he grew up in a segregated area, how he got to having the convictions he had?

MILLS: I’m sure he would be quite willing to talk to you about that. And I noticed the other day where he said, “It was the best thing he did while he was Governor, was to pass the Civil Rights Law.” WHITE: All right then, when the Civil Rights Bill became law in nineteen sixty-six...

MILLS: ‘Sixty-six. 59:00WHITE: Do you remember anything in particular about that?

MILLS: Well, it was a Bill that was drafted by the Kentucky Human Rights Commission, which then was Galen Martin, and they put together this Bill. Breathitt looked it over and came to an agreement on it. And he also made a very important decision then, that it would not be amended. The Bill was going to go out there as it was, and we were going to be for it all the way, with no amendments. Because there were all kinds of people wanting to amendment it, to water it down and basically to kill it. And so, once the Bill was put together and Breathitt held a news conference; said, “He was supporting the Bill and he was going to push it 60:00into law.” I’ll never forget, the Speaker of the House then was John Y. Brown, Senior. And Breathitt asked John Y. Sr. to introduce the Bill in the House. And John Y., who was, he was very dedicated to that cause, but he was sort of the old school. And I’ll never forget when he got up to make his speech in the House, he kept talking about our “colored people”. And just used it, it seemed like a hundred times, although I’m sure he didn’t use that phrase that many times. Every time he would use that phrase we would just cringe, you know. But his heart was there. He was probably in his seventies at that point. But anyway, we politely told him, look, other than that it was a great speech. 61:00(Laughing) So anyway, I do remember that, cringing when he would--every time he would use that word, those phrases. Anyway it passed overwhelmingly. And Breathitt really went all out to push it, in both the House and the Senate. Shelby Kinkaid introduced it in the Senate. Shelby was Mayor of Lexington at one time. And in fact, this past summer, I nominated both Shelby and Pritchard for the Human Rights Award, presented this past summer.

WHITE: Why do you think it passed overwhelmingly? I mean by then had the ground been so well prepared...?

MILLS: Well, I think a number of factors were involved. I think one, the 62:00fact that the federal law had already passed. If somebody was really reluctant, you could say to them, “Well this will give us power to enforce the Bill. If we don’t—you know the civil rights--if we don’t have a Bill, then the federal government will do it.” And of course, nobody likes to hear that kind of....Nobody wants the federal government coming in doing anything. I think that was a factor that helped. Plus Breathitt didn’t allow amendments and made that very clear from the very beginning. And then he just got his people all behind it. And he passed, and it was number two on his list. It was either number one or number two on his list. The first one was the Strip Mining Bill, which also passed. It was really a very revolutionary Bill. And we had about ten Bills that went through and passed them. It was a very, very successful legislative 63:00session and Breathitt was praised, not only in Kentucky, but nationally and world wide. The London Times had an editorial about Breathitt’s leadership. This was at a time when you had George Wallace saying states ought to do all....You know, let’s don’t let the federal government and this....And what The London Times said, “This shows you what a state can do if it’s really fully committed to the cause.” So we did do it, you know, passed a lot of good legislation that really stood out.

WHITE: Anything else? We haven’t even gotten to the (Laughs) Lexington paper yet. But 64:00before we move on, is there anything else that stands out in your mind about civil rights, while you were working for Governor Breathitt?

MILLS: Well I don’t really know, except this. I would say that I was able to see that Louisville had a lot of very active leaders of civil rights. Not only African-Americans, but also a number of white people there that were very strong, Miss Bick, for example was extremely strong in this area. There were just a lot of whites who pushed it as well as blacks. But there were a lot of blacks that took the leadership. I did not find that to be true in Lexington. Did not find that to be true in other areas of Kentucky.

WHITE: Is there a reason for that? Or is it just circumstances? I mean do these things just happen? 65:00MILLS: Well, of course one, well you know there were certainly many more African-Americans in Louisville than were elsewhere in the state. But I think it’s got something to do though with the type of caliber of leadership of the people that are involved, whether they are African-American or whatever. And those people just didn’t come to the forefront in Lexington at the time. It was very noticeable to me then when I became editor of the newspaper.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE WHITE: We were just talking off the tape about the fact that you’ve been to every county in Kentucky and that you learned what made Kentucky tick. And maybe you could try to talk about that a little bit. It might have something to do with what we’ve been talking about.

MILLS: Well, first of all, you got to realize I was a pretty young age. I was about twenty-five. 66:00I used to laugh about why I was the person that always went with Breathitt. And it was really because I was single: according to Breathitt. He said, “The other people were married and they needed to go home at night and be with their families.” So I was always the one that went with Breathitt, where ever we went. And he made a lot speeches and went to a lot of places in Kentucky. And it was interesting, and you know; seeing people and going there. And from like a strip mine base in Eastern Kentucky and Pike County; and Breathitt was very active in going to those sites and watching a strip mine in operation. We did that in a number of places in Eastern Kentucky. We went to Louisville and helped participate, not only in the areas involving civil rights, but the development of the downtown, the development of the community. Although at that time, the Mayor and County Judge 67:00were both Republican, but still there was generally a good rapport among the group. Plus, you know, Louisville is so big and got so much, that Kentucky, you know the fairgrounds and all those things are there. Whether you even run into a local official or not. There’s a lot a Kentucky Governor has to do in Louisville anyway, roads and so on, regardless of the local leadership. So that was part of it. And the other part of it was going to far Western Kentucky, to Paducah and to the Mississippi River and those areas down there. And to Fulton and even over to, back up the Southern end of the other State....What you really found about Kentucky or into Cincinnati area, Northern Kentucky. Kentucky is a very diversified state. I mean, you’ve got the South and the far West of Kentucky, you’ve got almost Yankees up 68:00in Northern Kentucky, you’ve got still a different type group of people in Appalachia, you’ve got mid-America living in Louisville. Lexington is sort of a different style community of people as well. So Kentucky, unlike most states in the United States, is a very diversified state; not only with the people that are there, but also the economy is pretty diversified. It’s very dependent upon, you know, back then it was really very dependent upon tobacco and coal. Manufacturing was not as strong, but certainly a big push made to bring industry into Kentucky. Breathitt did a good job on that. He did bring a lot of workers, work producing jobs to Kentucky. At that time, every community was trying 69:00to get a factory. So it was good to go into the community and observe the people and the leaders of that community and how they acted. State parks have always been a big thing in Kentucky. Bert Coombs primarily built the system. But Breathitt built a few parks. For example, the Barkley Lake Park, which Breathitt, himself, put together, was done, well it was done unusually with fifty percent federal money and fifty percent state money. And how that came about was, Fort Campbell being close to Lake Barkley, Breathitt being close to Lyndon Johnson, said, “Try to talk him in to getting money for that park.” And it was finally determined that it would be a recreational area for the soldiers at Fort Campbell to go to Lake Barkley. So they put up, the federal government put up 4.5 million, the state of Kentucky put up 4.5 70:00million and built a nine million dollar Park there back in the sixties. But that took a lot of cooperation. And you learned about your congressman. Carl Perkins was very influential during this time, particularly with Appalachia, but with schools and with education and so Breathitt worked very closely with him. And once again I was involved by being there, just as an observer. So all of this, as a very young person, made me get to know Kentucky pretty well.

WHITE: And do you think this diversified population and diversified economy is one reason that it doesn’t make it particularly difficult to get legislation passed, for this reason? Or not necessarily?

MILLS: Well I think, well I think it certainly has something to do with it. 71:00I think, you know, Kentucky has always been, we’re making a lot of progress. We’ve been, think we’ve been making progress for thirty, forty years, improving the school system, improving pay for teachers, improving life in general. That will have a, you know, once you get into having great schools and great universities, that will be an elevation of the people that will help the state be very progressive in a lot of areas, including legislation.

WHITE: What did you find out, I mean you went on, after work with Governor Breathitt, you went on to work at a newspaper in Lexington. Did you form, while you were still working with Breathitt, did you form any particular opinions about Lexington? Did you get to know Lexington at all?

MILLS: Well I had gone to school 72:00here. I’d been to the University here, plus another year of Graduate School here, so I felt like that I knew...

WHITE But being in school...okay.

MILLS: ...Lexington pretty well, plus Frankfort is only twenty-five miles away, so you do deal in Lexington. You come over here a lot. So I felt that I did know Lexington pretty well.

WHITE: What did you....What was your impression of Lexington? What did you think about it?

MILLS: Well, I felt that Lexington was a fast growing community, that a lot of people wanted to come here to live, either because of IBM at that time, or because of University of Kentucky or Transylvania. I think any time you’ve got universities, you tend to attract people to that community. Plus at that time you also had a lot of migration of Kentuckians into Lexington. A lot of Eastern Kentuckians 73:00moved to Lexington, it was sort of the place where they thought that they should, their second home. The parkways had opened up Eastern Kentucky. The road system in Kentucky had opened up Lexington to a lot of people. And people started coming here and they liked the community. I think the horse industry lent a whole lot to that, it made it a nice community with a tradition. While at the same time, the university added to it. For a long time, Lexington would not allow any....IBM was the only white collar industry that came here. And that gave it a little different flavor than say a community like Louisville or some places where they don’t. But I, when the Governor’s office was 74:00finished, I had, I was trying to figure out where I was going to go to work. And Breathitt was very helpful in trying to place some of his people. And Breathitt had called the White House, since they were still in power, and was trying to get me a job in the White House with Johnson. So, I went to interview at the White House. And they said, “Well we’re interested in--we’re getting ready to run a campaign in sixty-four,” I mean in sixty-eight. And this was sixty-seven, December, “so we want you to talk to the Democratic National headquarters. Rather than working here, we’d like for you to work over there in helping Johnson’s campaign.” Which I thought was just super and great. So 75:00I went over and interviewed and I talked to people there, Jim Jones and others. Anyway then I was offered a job to go to work for the Democratic National Committee as an assistant to the guy who ran the program, which would have been great for me. Offered fifteen thousand dollars a year. Well, about that same time I was contacted by The Lexington Herald . Tom Adams wanted to know if I would come over and talk to them. They needed an editor. The editor had just retired, Herman Evans, in December. So I said, “Well I’ll go do it.” And I went over and ended up, I was offered 76:00a job for twelve thousand dollars a year with The Herald Leader. I then went into a, gosh, a long debate in my own mind what I should do. It was similar to what I did when I was choosing between going to work for Happy Chandler or going to work for Ned Breathitt. So, I had this, that I was trying....what do you do? I had a week to make up my mind. And I guess the person....I could see myself going to Washington, getting in with people there. That had been really my ambition anyway was to eventually do something like that. But Ed Pritchard, who was my very close friend, who had gone through all this. He had been in Washington, worked for Roosevelt. He had been Felix Frankfurter’s chief law clerk. He had a real history of Washington. He had been to Harvard and Princeton. 77:00And he said, “Let me tell you this.” He said, “You can always go to Washington to work, but he said, the position at The Herald Leader as editor only comes along about once every twenty years. If I were you, that’s exactly what I would do, is go there.” WHITE: Are we talking about the editor or an editor?

MILLS: The editor: but I’ll explain that in a little bit. So I was offered that, and I ended up taking the job at The Lexington Herald. And came here, started work on January 1st1968.

WHITE: And what did you find?

MILLS: Well, first of all, I had the title of Editor. 78:00I was told that my prerogative would only be over the editorial page. I had nothing to do--even though it was called the Editor of the newspaper; I would not have anything to do with the news side. That would be handled by, basically Fred Wachs, who then was the General Manager. And so I accepted that, and Pritch knew that too; when I talked to him. We knew that going into it, so it was nothing strange; that was part of the thing to begin with. But I was told that I would have total control over the editorials, which I did. And there was never any interference in that. I guess I thought in my own mind—well, wherever I’ve been I’ve always been able to work in and try to use my influence. And so I thought, “Well, I’ll come here to The Herald and I will--even though I don’t have anything to do with the news or anything like that--I will...you know....enhance itself or increase itself;” which it didn’t 79:00at the time. But anyway, I guess that was my thinking. So I came here, First of January as the Editor with those limitations in nineteen sixty-eight.

WHITE: And what was, of course, we’re focusing on civil rights, but were there any civil rights issues that the paper was covering in Lexington?

MILLS: Well, I got here and spent the first week and went out with some of the people at the paper. And first of all, found they were very conservative in their thought; their thinking, people at all levels there. Not necessarily on The Herald news side--but on the, people at the top in the paper. And either Tom Adams--who was the second person in command--or maybe it was, I think it was Tom Adams said that--and 80:00Fred Wachs wasn’t along--he said, “Fred Wachs has been invited by the University of Kentucky Faculty Senate to come out and speak next week, or something, about the paper. And he cannot make it; would you be willing to do that for him?” I said, “Yes, I’d love to.” Well, I showed up for the UK Senate Faculty meeting, and they were expecting Fred Wachs and they were ready for Fred Wachs.

WHITE: How do you spell Wachs?

MILLS: W A C H S.

WHITE: Okay.

MILLS: So they turned lose their thoughts on me. First question they wanted to know, was why The Herald Leader in nineteen sixty-eight was still carrying “colored notes” in their newspaper? Second question was, taking 81:00to task for not playing a civil rights story on page one; when they were at the restaurants in Lexington boycotting: and why it never appeared in The Herald Leader, but was buried, usually in the back of the paper?

WHITE: Now what do you mean by “colored notes”?

MILLS: Just what that said.

WHITE: I mean, “still carrying colored notes”?

MILLS: There was a columnist, who was African-American, who wrote under the heading “Colored Notes”.

WHITE: “Colored Notes”. And there had been...

MILLS: And it had been part of that paper for a number of years. I don’t know how long, far back.

WHITE: Did they object to the name or the fact?

MILLS: To everything.

WHITE: Everything. Okay. (Laughter, Mills) MILLS: You know, the idea that in ‘sixty-eight you’d still have something like that going on. And it was degrading 82:00to the African-Americans of this community.

WHITE: Did you have an answer to these questions?

MILLS: I did have an answer. I told them that I was Editor of the paper. And that while I was editor of the editorials I did not--I was not in charge of the news. But I agreed one hundred percent with what they were saying. And said, “I will try to use my influence to change that.” But they....First they were very disappointed Fred Wachs didn’t show up. They were all ready to take hold of him. And here I was. And they let all their fiery talk and their unhappiness leveled against me. And they knew me. They knew where I had come from. They knew I had been with Breathitt. They basically knew me. But I guess 83:00they wanted me to be a messenger back to The Herald Leader, which I did do that. And I went back and told them. There were a lot of people on the news side that felt that same way. I mean it wasn’t....To The Herald Leader news side. They first of all felt that the rioting story should have been on page one. They thought there shouldn’t be “colored notes”. The other item that they talked about was the segregation of African-Americans and whites in the Society column and Engagement column. But there was a lot of little things like that.

WHITE: The Society column was segregated?

MILLS: Well, yeah, well, I mean it was, if you had a white bride here or fifteen white brides, they would be there. And there’d be another little place you’d put the black brides. So it was, you know, had that tone of being a pretty segregated 84:00paper to some extent. I mean, I’m going to defend the people that were there, the other news people, because one, they did not feel that way. Well, I’d say ninety-five percent of them didn’t. But they were under, they worked for someone and that person wanted it that way.

WHITE: So it was mostly management? I mean the top people.

MILLS: Oh yeah, management, yeah. And I’ll say this for Fred Wachs; he thought that he would fan racial problems if he put stories on page one. And that was bury them and therefore it will go away. His feeling was that way. But I’ll say this, it didn’t take long after that until those things were dropped. The “colored notes” went out. The race stories, we still had a problem with. But since as I said, I was not editor of the news. But I’ll never forget that 85:00first speech I ever made and how I was just sabotaged, you know, by all these people and their gripes about the paper.

WHITE: Do you think, do you think Wachs? Could he have sent you out to be a whipping boy?

MILLS: Oh he knew what was going to happen to him.

WHITE: He knew?

MILLS: He knew that they were after him. (Laughing) He knew that, believe me, he did. And he would admit it, too. He knew exactly what he was doing.

WHITE: All right, well you said the paper continued to have trouble covering the stories.

MILLS: Well, I mean, openly...

WHITE: The civil rights stories.

MILLS: ...like they probably should have. Now, you know the “colored notes” was done away with. Slowly, but not quickly the desegregating the Society pages, you know, making them more—ah, proper. And then 86:00in nineteen seventy-three, Knight-Ridder--Knight at the time--bought The Lexington Herald-Leader. I think it was in October. And they interviewed people for Editor of the paper.

WHITE: I thought that’s what you were?

MILLS: I was Editor, but I only had control over the...

WHITE: But you were not editor of the paper? You were not...

MILLS: I was Editor of the paper.

WHITE: Okay.

MILLS: But. Editors have a lot of...Like David Hawk was editor of The Courier Journal for a while, but he didn’t have anything to do with the news.

WHITE: I understand that, but you said they were interviewing people for editor.

MILLS: To take over under the new ownership of Knight.

WHITE: Okay.

MILLS: The job I had.

WHITE: In other words, people were interviewing for your job.

MILLS: Yeah and I was a candidate, and they interviewed other people as well.

WHITE: Okay. That’s all I’m asking.

MILLS: I was a candidate. 87:00And they were interviewing other people as well, or considering bringing somebody in from some other city from the outside. Of course, Knight-Ridder has about thirty-two newspapers across the country. So then they decided to name me Editor. And they did and gave me not only control of the editorial page, but also control of the news and the whole operation. So at that point we then began making some changes. I hired the first African-American reporter.

WHITE: Who was that?

MILLS: Marva York WHITE: Marva?

MILLS: Marva York, Y O R K, Marva, M A R V A. She had gone to the University of North Carolina. Her father had been Chairman of the New York Board of Education. 88:00And what Knight-Ridder did was, they gave you some money that she could fly in here; and we could interview her. So Marva flew in here, and we interviewed her and hired her as a reporter. And I can’t think of this person....We hired another person either within a week or two or shortly thereafter, that was from Lancaster, who also was African-American.

WHITE: Lancaster, Kentucky?

MILLS: Lancaster, yeah, Garrard County. And we only kept her for about three or four months, until The Courier Journal hired her from us.

WHITE: What was her name?

MILLS: That’s my problem. I cannot think.

WHITE: Okay, that’s all right. We can look it up.

MILLS: It was about that time. So they were the first two reporters that were African-American, that were really reporters; full time workers. You know, Knight-Ridder made 89:00it very clear that their policy was very open, community, whatever. Under the old thing, I had, in the editorial, which I had complete freedom to do, I remember using the phrase one time, the lily-white Rotary Club of Lexington. And this caused Mr. Milward to come in, very upset. He came in to Fred Wachs...

WHITE: Mr. Miller?

MILLS: Milward, M I L W A R D. He was of the old school, establishment of Lexington and he came in and just told Fred Wachs that he ought to fire me, how bad I was. He was a great Rotarian too, you know, and he said, referring to it as the lily-white Rotary Club of Lexington. So anyway, Fred Wachs never said a word to me. And he didn’t. I heard about this later. As he said, “He would never 90:00interfere.” WHITE: That’s what I was going to ask you.

MILLS: And he didn’t.

WHITE: He never said anything to you?

MILLS: Uh uh. And of course, once Knight-Ridder bought it in seventy-three, he no longer had control of the paper.

WHITE: What happened to him?

MILLS: Well, he finally died in ‘seventy-five; but he was probably hospitalized during that year of ‘seventy-four. So he was there just for a brief while. But it was also, it was a trust that was here, that owned the paper at that time. It wasn’t owned by Fred Wachs. It was....The Stahl family owned the paper and they hired him to run it. And there were two other people, one with a bank and one with a law firm, that made up the three person Board. But Fred Wachs was the one that ran, basically the newspaper, except for The Herald editorial page. 91:00WHITE: Well, what about some other editorials? Do you remember any others that you wrote on the race situation? Or on civil rights?

MILLS: Of course, I found it very disturbing that here was Lexington, which was a pretty growing city, did not have a single black in its fire department. And I also found it disturbing that we had four Council people and one of them was black, Harry Sykes.

WHITE: This is the City Council?

MILLS: Correct. So I began editorializing on Harry Sykes, who was African-American. Sort of saying, “Well how can you be a member of the City Council, represent the black community and 92:00not push and push strongly to integrate the fire department.” And of course, Harry came in to meet with me and said, “I’m doing it quietly.” And I said, “Well you know, it takes more than that. It takes actually saying it in the City Council meeting and showing it.” Well, it wasn’t long until the city--the fire department wasn’t integrated. And you know what they said at the time, they said, “Well the reason we’re not integrated, we don’t want to have to stay for twenty-four hours. And we shouldn’t have whites and blacks sleeping together;” and all that kind of stuff. There were some people who said that to me. But anyway, we did that. And also there was a very small number of blacks in the police force, very small number and we also talked about that. We also, 93:00we put in for an open housing law and we were pushing for Open Housing Law.

WHITE: On the editorial page?

MILLS: Yes. And what was amazing was, that in Louisville at the same time was trying to get one passed. And it was also an issue before the Kentucky Legislature. This may have been, this was probably before Knight-Ridder bought the newspaper in seventy-three. This is in the period ‘sixty-eight to ‘seventy-two.

WHITE: Right.

MILLS: I’m going back on that one.

WHITE: That’s okay.

MILLS: But in any event, we were for an Open Housing Law and said so. Well, everybody was talking about it. Louisville and even in Frankfort. Suddenly Joe Johnson, who was the County Judge and a Republican County Judge, who controlled the Fiscal Court, suddenly just put an Open Housing Law 94:00through for Lexington and Fayette County. And it was a surprise to everybody, including me.

WHITE: Did you ever find out, what went behind that?

MILLS: Oh I think--Joe was kind of a maverick. And he liked to do things differently. He liked to--I guess in his heart he just thought it was the right thing to do, so he did it.

WHITE: Were there, were there ever any, you know, marches on the paper for it’s editorial policy or unpleasant phone calls that you remember or any, any people take serious issue with the paper?

MILLS: Well, there were no marches, certainly.

WHITE: Oh, I’m being facetious when I say that. But was there any trouble from the community because of the paper’s editorial stance?

MILLS: I don’t know whether there was any trouble, but certainly letters to the editor, which we ran, that 95:00 disagreed.

WHITE: How did, do you remember what the balance was? Letters to the editor. Were there as many that supported you as not?

MILLS: Well, the letters to the editor, unfortunately, was not handled properly when I was....That part of the paper was handled by another guy. Like when I became Editor of the whole paper we instituted a policy where every letter had to be signed, and we checked it out before it ran. Checked where the address was, and who it was and called them up.

WHITE: Oh they didn’t do that?

MILLS: They hadn’t been doing that before.

WHITE: Did they allow anonymous letters to be printed?

MILLS: Some, yeah. (Phone rings) WHITE: Do you want me to put this on pause? 96:00Let me do it, just for a sec. This is asking you to....This is asking to speak secondhand or to engage in hearsay, I guess, but what did you find out when you first came to The Lexington Herald? What did you find out about its previous policies?

MILLS: Well, first of all, I was generally familiar with the previous policies and knew about the situation from Frankfort or from wherever or as a journalist. So I knew—I mean about them; I didn’t know the details as much about it, as I did once I got here.

WHITE: Well, I guess what I’m trying to ask is, did you know anything about....I mean the fact that there were these segregated Society columns; and the fact that they more importantly, 97:00I guess, didn’t cover segregation issues. Did you know or find out anything about how that policy was arrived at? I mean, did they simply float into it or was there a specific decision made by the powers that be?

MILLS: Well, I think there were a couple things. I think one, just by being a conservative management. I think that was part of it. And you know, they just thought this is the way it ought to be. The other thing, I think Fred Wachs genuinely thought that if he did not play up the student sit-ins, luncheon sit-ins, that type of thing; that the whole issue would go away. And I think that was part of his thinking. Of course, The Courier Journal came over here and covered it. And 98:00at that time, Courier had a very big circulation in this community, of people like the UK faculty and people like that who wanted a different light to be read, to be seen. What is amazing, is after that, two or three years, The Courier Journal has had no circulation here. I can’t even get The Courier at this house now. I kept it for a while, but nobody out here takes it. Used to the Louisville paper was subscribed to by just about everybody on the UK faculty and by other people in the community. But what has happened is, and The Herald-Leader is providing them now with a newspaper that is well rounded and covers all facets. It’s just no longer necessary to read The Courier 99:00Journal here.

WHITE: Do you remember, I mean....Do you remember anything about sit ins in Lexington?

MILLS: Other than what I read or what I heard....

WHITE: You weren’t really here then.

MILLS: I was not here. Those were in the early sixties...

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO MILLS: Those were at Walgreen’s, but see you got to remember that I had contact with the newspaper people in Frankfort, lots of people. I had contact with Shelby Kinkaid, who was the Mayor here and then was in the State Senate. So they pretty well knew what was going on and they certainly would tell me. And anything I wanted to know, I could find out.

WHITE: Okay, back to the paper. Do you remember--aside from what you’ve mentioned--do you remember any--once you were there and 100:00in charge of the entire paper--do you remember any specific stories that the paper covered? Once again I’m asking you to think back thirty years. Anything that looms large in your memory? Any sort of a big deal event?

MILLS: Now are you talking about civil rights or everything in general?

WHITE: Well, I’m talking about civil rights or anything that might devolve on civil rights.

MILLS: Well, I’m sure we covered...

WHITE: Of course, there was Open Housing, which you wouldn’t have covered, because you were editorial page editor, but do you remember anything about it?

MILLS: Well, sure we covered it. I mean, if there were violations we covered it. If there violations of the Human Rights Commission we covered it. We published them and we...

WHITE: You mean editorially.

MILLS: Well, news wise.

WHITE: Right, but I mean those were the years that 101:00you were only in charge of the editorial page.

MILLS: Well, I thought you meant seventy-three on now, I’m sorry.

WHITE: No, no, no. And I am jumping around a little bit and I apologize. No, I’m back in nineteen sixty-eight.

MILLS: Sixty-eight.

WHITE: Do you remember anything about Open Housing demonstrations? Although you wouldn’t have covered them, because you were an editor.

MILLS: I didn’t cover them. Well, I just felt even then they did not do justice to stories that were involving anything along those lines.

WHITE: Do you remember what form those demonstrations took? Do you remember seeing any of them? Or do you remember any conversations at the paper about what was going on, specifically? This is aside from your paper’s policies.

MILLS: Well, I don’t think there were a lot of demonstrations at that point. As I told you earlier, Lexington 102:00lacked good African-American leadership, which they did. A professor, a law professor at UK, who was African-American and I cannot remember his name because he didn’t stay here that long. But he was sort of taking the lead in the community, but there were not very many that did. And there just weren’t, it just wasn’t a very big issue in this community, unlike Louisville and other places.

WHITE: So they simply passed the Ordinance and took care of it.

MILLS: That’s what Joe Johnson did.

WHITE: Right. Well, let’s see. How long were you with the paper?

MILLS: Until nineteen eighty.

WHITE: Until nineteen eighty. What about, was school desegregation an issue toward the, in the nineteen seventies in Lexington? 103:00Was that anything that the paper got involved in?

MILLS: Well, it wasn’t really much of an issue here. I mean, we integrated the schools.

WHITE: Or before then..

MILLS: And the schools were integrated.

WHITE: When were they integrated?

MILLS: Once again you didn’t, once again you did not have that active leadership that I think it is important to point out various matters.

WHITE: So this community really depended on the white community simply doing things right?

MILLS: Mostly.

WHITE: With a little push from the paper.

MILLS: Well certainly, the paper, plus you had your Human Rights, your local Human Rights Commission here. You had your Urban Board, which was very good.

WHITE: What about the Human Rights Commission? How 104:00did it operate?

MILLS: Well, it was a local Commission and it began, you know, it began bringing--where there was a complaint, investigating and doing what they could. But I think from the viewpoint of the newspaper from seventy-three and four on was, if it was a story, we covered it, no matter what it was. And if it involved civil rights, fine. If it involved something else, if it was a news story, we then judged it according to its news value. And a lot of the same people who had been here under the old management of the paper, just stepped right in and did it right, too. I mean, they were wanting to do it correctly.

WHITE: Did the personnel at the paper, mostly remain the same?

MILLS: Mostly for a while.

WHITE: After Knight bought it, for a while? There wasn’t a mass exodus.

MILLS: I mean they brought in new reporters. There’s always a great turnover among 105:00reporters. And there was a Managing Editor. And some people were promoted to a Senior Managing Editor with no authority, where they had been Managing Editors. And we had, like Andy Eckdol, who was City Editor in the old regime. He was promoted to managing editor very shortly. And he was an individual who saw news properly anyway. It wasn’t a, it was not an ideological problem for him anyway. He just wanted to be a good journalist and that’s what he tried to do. And a lot of reporters, the same way. And if a reporter had been biased, then he was brought in and talked to about it. He wasn’t reporting properly, in our view.

WHITE: And it is an accepted part of newspaper, 106:00the newspaper business, is it not, that the editorial side does not get involved in the news side and the news side does not get involved in the editorial side?

MILLS: Correct. It’s supposed to be two separate issues.

WHITE: So Mr. Wachs did the sort of normal, accepted thing, by leaving you alone even if he didn’t really agree with you?

MILLS: On the editorial page, yeah.

WHITE: On the editorial page. Even though he didn’t...

MILLS: But he did exercise control over the news side of The Herald-Leader as well as, the afternoon paper then which existed, which was The Leader.

WHITE: When did the papers merge? Roughly.

MILLS: I want to say about eighty-one. They just did away with The Leader. I mean it just dropped out, like The Louisville Times did.

WHITE: Is there a....So as the seventies 107:00went on, there really wasn’t--there were not a whole lot of major developments in the civil rights field for the paper to cover?

MILLS: I don’t know, because I think by then we had gotten to a point where, I guess there was an ease in that area. Now, it’s back, the quality of schools and whether....That’s a very important issue now in Fayette County, is whether or not, you know, like in the bussing. We did criticize the bussing plan for Fayette County because we said it was the African-Americans that were being bussed and not the white students.

WHITE: I should have said bussing and not school desegregation, because that’s what I meant. When was bussing? In Louisville it was nineteen seventy-five.

MILLS: Well, it was in the seventies in this community, and we editorialized quite a bit on the plans that were presented. 108:00And took issue, took real issue with the plan that finally was adopted here; and that was simply because it was the African-Americans that were being bussed and not the whites. They said they’d go down to the African-American community and say well, we’re going to send you way out here and send you over here and there. And they didn’t do whites that way. And that was very bad and the Superintendent....Well, they finally got another Superintendent. But I think that was the worst part of bussing as far as Fayette County was concerned.

WHITE: Did you have any influence?

MILLS: Well, I hope we did. (Laughing) WHITE: Did you get the plan changed?

MILLS: Well, I hope we did. I don’t know, you know. We didn’t get that first plan changed. First of all we were kind of happy to get a plan passed, because we didn’t know what might come. But nevertheless, it was not a good plan. It was a plan, but not a good plan. And then you got into, 109:00now we have Magnet Schools and we have a lot more....Well, I don’t know about more, but certainly have fodder still for talking about civil rights and about what’s proper for the community and what’s good. I think, unfortunately, I think, the African-Americans have always taken the, have always been mistreated, even today. I mean, always. We’ve made a lot of progress, but we’ve still got a long ways to go. Bussing is a good example. I’m not familiar with Louisville’s system of bussing, but I do know a little bit about Fayette County’s. I would be raising cane myself if I were a black parent and my kids were being bussed all over the 110:00county of Fayette and white kids were not. I would just ask them to be fair. And we’ve come a long ways, but we’ve still got a long ways to go, everywhere.

WHITE: So if I were to ask you if you would like to sum up what you’ve lived through and what you’ve learned, that would be it? We’ve made some progress, but we’ve got a long way to go? Or words to that effect?

MILLS: Well, you know, my life has been very much involved in civil rights from the time I grew up, went to college; from the time I worked in the Governor’s office, which was a really, very, very great time to be there, for that issue. Sixties was when a lot of change took place in this country and this community, and Louisville and others as well in the state. And it has continued, but probably not 111:00as such a high profile as it was back in those days. Then, up until the seventies, it was, you know, probably the number one issue. And it certainly remained that way, as an important issue, but then other things have come in. The Viet Nam War and this and that, whatever we’ve had. But I’m just simply saying, while progress has been made, we have not gone as far as we should. As far as we should be for it to be a really totally equal society in which all citizens are involved in. And I feel that strongly. I think a lot of progress has been made, but we still have a long ways to go.

WHITE: Thank you very much.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE TWO END OF INTERVIEW