Oral History Interview with Charles Tachau

BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE ONE ETHEL WHITE: This is a conversation with Charles Tachau. We are at his home, 1080 Baxter Avenue, in Louisville, Kentucky. It is May 29, 2001. My name is Ethel White. Charles I’d like to start with your background, educational, family, where you come from.

CHARLES TACHAU: Okay, I was born in Louisville, about two blocks from here, May 1st, 1922; that means I’ve just turned seventy-nine years old. And I’ve lived in Louisville ever since, though I’ve been away from time to time; like in college and seminary and the Army and so forth.

WHITE: Can you talk about where each of those things took place?

TACHAU: Yes. 1:00I went to college in, Swarthmore College near Philadelphia in nineteen, what? ‘Thirty-nine to ‘forty-two. Never did graduate. And entered the Army in December of ‘forty-two and served in the infantry from then until I was discharged six months after the end of the war, or more, I guess. January ‘forty-six. Then I almost immediately entered Law School at the University of Louisville and graduated in nineteen forty-eight; and practiced law in Louisville from then until I left to go to seminary in nineteen sixty. The last two years I was practicing 2:00law I was also an appointed judge of Jefferson County Juvenile Court. ‘Fifty-eight to ‘sixty, which was a part time job in those days; and appointed by the County Judge. Then after I graduated from seminary and was ordained an Episcopal minister and priest in nineteen sixty-three, I served a little church in Glasgow, Kentucky for a couple of years, part time; and part time campus minister at Western. Kentucky State College it was in those days, at Bowling Green. Then I came back to Louisville in the spring of ‘sixty-five to accept 3:00appointment as pastor of Saint George’s Church in West Louisville at Twenty-Sixth and Oak to be exact. And I actually served in that capacity for twenty years. It was a small church and it never really demanded my full time. And from time to time I had other part time jobs. And towards the end, I’ve forgotten now just when that would have been, beginning ‘seventy-seven, I think. I began working part time on the Bishop’s staff. And I continued that, really until I retired. 4:00The last two or three years I’m going to say, from ‘eighty-six to ‘ninety, something like that, I was full time on the Bishop’s staff and had given up Saint George’s. And I retired about the beginning of nineteen ninety. I did some interim work serving churches in Montana for a number of months each time: in ‘ninety-one, ‘ninety-two and ‘ninety-four. The reason I did that, the reason I first got invited to do it was because the--at that time, the relatively new 5:00Bishop of Montana, Cy Jones, had been a colleague and priest in Kentucky before he went to be Bishop of Montana. And he had invited me to come the first time. And that’s a sad story, a different story. I won’t go into Cy’s problems, but he was a good friend to me. Since ‘ninety-four, I’ve been pretty completely retired, although I still do a considerably amount of what we call supply work; mostly on Sundays, some years. Last year, for example, I didn’t have a Sunday off from Easter til after the first of November; except for maybe one or two. 6:00Some years I’ve been in more demand than others. And I’m still doing it. I’m busy again this summer. Meantime, just this past winter, I accepted, in effect an invitation I’d guess you’d say, to go and look after two churches on the Caribbean Island of Dominique, which is....Well, not a very well known island, sort of between the Virgin Islands and on south towards South America, but north of South America. Anyway, I did that for the two months of March and April of this year. And I’ve just returned home about a month ago now.

WHITE: Since we’re going to be talking about civil rights. 7:00TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: Could you go back over this long career and let’s start life before your career. In fact let’s start with your family.

TACHAU: All right.

WHITE: Could you lay some sort of groundwork about attitudes that you grew up with about interracial relations?

TACHAU: Yes. I guess I can remember something. Both of my parents and three of my grandparents were born in Louisville and lived here all their lives. And one grandmother was born in Saint Louis and lived here after her marriage until she died. So, we’re an old Louisville family in that sense. Of course I grew up when--during 8:00segregation; I don’t recall that it was much of an issue in Kentucky. Well, it wasn’t really anywhere in the twenties and thirties. Schools were segregated certainly. The interurban street cars were still segregated in my day, although the city street cars were not. I don’t know how to explain that. But I remember as a child, we used to go over to my grandmother’s for lunch once a week. And we had a colored nurse or maid or whatever you want to call her, who would take me and my brother as a kind of a jaunt most of those days. On a ride on the old 9:00Prospect car that ran at the foot of the hill my grandparents lived on. And she would always assert her right, so to speak, to sit in the white section with us; and this was not often challenged. But once, I remember it was, and she was very adamant that she had a right to sit there and wasn’t going to move. I don’t remember having any particular feelings about that. When I went away to college, there were still no colored people in the college I went to. That didn’t seem strange to me. When my father was a boy, I don’t know just when this would have been, sometime shortly before World War I, I suppose. 10:00His family moved to New York for a year or two, his father’s, some sort of business venture. And he went to integrated schools there. And I remember his referring to this once or twice, and it seemed very strange to me. And it was told as a sort of odd experience on his part. Not exactly a bad one or a good one, but just hard to imagine. When I was a teenager, we had a young colored man, maybe two or three years older than me, who worked for us on the farm that my father had out in East Burgin, Jefferson County. 11:00He was great fun and a great friend of mine, and I do remember getting up one morning early, to do something with John, that we were supposed to do. I have no idea now, what. Take a horse somewhere in a trailer or something like that. And having been invited to have breakfast down at his house, which was just below the big house. And did. And my father didn’t approve of that: told me I should not have done that. And I don’t remember how I felt about that at the time. I mean, I was very fond of John, but there was no question you know, that I was white and he was not and that was different and 12:00so forth. My father on the other hand, was very interested--this came a little later I guess--in fact my memory is it was after I started practicing law; which would have been in the, by that time, the early fifties. He went on the Board of Directors of Red Cross Hospital, which at that time was a private, I guess you’d call it, hospital for Negroes in Louisville. And it was the only place where black doctors could practice. Of course, a lot of the colored people, hospitalized patients were in the public hospital. But because the doctors had to be members of the Jefferson County Medical Society in order to have staff privileges at the hospital, and because 13:00the Jefferson County Medical Society did not accept Negro doctors; they could only practice at Red Cross or at home, but not in the hospital. And my father was exercised by this and employed me as an attorney to bring a lawsuit to require the Jefferson County Medical Society to admit Negro doctors. And I associated a black attorney with me to do this, name of Ben Show, who was later quite a distinguished judge in Jefferson County. And we approached the society and they immediately capitulated, and this would have been in the early to mid-fifties, I guess. And it was about that time, pretty clear that times were going to change. Anyway it was apparently 14:00clear to the Jefferson County Medical Society because they immediately agreed to and did accept some black doctors into membership. I remember a reaction of mine, walking to work from the parking lot as a lawyer, on the morning that headline news was that the Supreme Court had outlawed segregation at public schools, famous case of Brown Versus Board of Education. And I remember or I think I remember, my reaction was--and I even almost said this to myself in so many words--that they probably are right; but it certainly is going to cause a lot of trouble. 15:00And I was sort of regretful of it. I didn’t have much sense, at that time, of any emotional involvement on my own part, on the part of the injustices of segregation. I just really wasn’t very aware of that, I guess. And I don’t know that you would be in Kentucky. It wasn’t like in the South, I mean the deep South, where it was impossible for blacks to get justice in the courts or anything, that really wasn’t so true in Kentucky. It probably was more true than I realized at the time, but it didn’t seem to be so true then. 16:00For one thing, blacks had freely voted in Kentucky, or at least in Louisville for a long time, as far back as I can remember. But by that time, that is mid-fifties, I was somewhat involved in politics and was like most lawyers, not very deeply but to some extent. You know, we were interested in Louisville’s black vote, which was pretty solidly Democratic in those days, following the New Deal. I also knew as a matter of history, but not really as a matter of my own recollection, that it had been very solidly Republican basically 17:00from the Civil War until the New Deal. And the blacks had to some extent, often held the balance of power in Louisville politically and were responsible, not solely responsible, for Republican victories in Jefferson County, especially during the twenties.

WHITE: Can I ask you to back up?

TACHAU: Yeah, sure, I’m ready to stop.

WHITE: No, I just wanted to back up and ask you if you had any experiences in the Army, one way or the other?

TACHAU: Oh yes, yes. I did mean to talk about that. The Army was totally segregated during the time I was in it. I was, I had an unusual experience in a way, for G.I.’s during World War II, in that I served 18:00the entire time, almost the entire time, in the same outfit. And I had a lot of close friends that I was with for two and a half to three years in the same company. And a lot of them by chance, sort of by chance, came out of North Carolina; and they had a lot of strong feelings about Negroes. And I remember particularly that we used to debate in the barracks about whether we would salute a Negro officer if we happened to see one. We wouldn’t have been in the same outfit with them or anything, but we might have seen them on the street, you know, or in camp. And it didn’t occur to us, I don’t think that....And I was affected by this....I identified 19:00myself at that time as more Southern than the Northerners in the outfit, who, I don’t remember their having very strong feelings about any of it, for that matter either. Finally coming home from Europe after the war, there were some black soldiers on the same ship I was in, on. Although we were segregated from them and had practically no contact with them, that I now recall, at least. We’d be in a different hold, or whatever you call it. But I remember feeling a little uneasy about that. But I also remember that I was having a terrible bout at that time with 20:00Athlete’s foot. In fact, I had some lesions on my foot, at least one of my feet, maybe both of them, that had gotten infected and I was going to the sick call every day to have these treated. And there was a black enlisted man medic, who was actually doing most of the treating. Every day he would put some medicine on me to treat it. And it did pretty well clear them up. And I remember at first feeling this was strange, but afterwards, you know, he did a nice job and he was a perfectly nice guy. But it made an impression on me that I was to a certain extent, beholden to him, as it were, for doing this work for me, although doing no more than his duty, of course. Does that kind of answer..?. 21:00WHITE: That answers the question. Now we can probably go forward again. Let me ask you about.....Oh, go ahead.

TACHAU: Well, I was going to say, I can talk a little about my experience in Juvenile Court.

WHITE: Okay, let’s do that.

TACHAU: When I became Judge of Juvenile Court, in nineteen fifty-eight, we were still pretty much segregated: the court that is. We had black probation officers, male and female, but with very rare exceptions they handled entirely black youngsters; and adults for that matter. And the white officers handled the white children. The facilities we used were segregated. 22:00I remember a particular case we had of a black girl who was several months pregnant by her father; it was a big scandal. The father had been indicted. The girl was being held as it were, for her own safety; in what was then called a Children’s Center. It was in effect a detention center. Of course it was segregated: had white girls and black girls; and white boys and white girls sections. And the Director of the Center, what was his name? Well, doesn’t matter what his name was. He was worried about this girl because she was pretty far along in this pregnancy. And he thought that she might slip and fall, of course, she might have. And he wanted to get her 23:00into a different type of facility. She was not in any sense delinquent. I guess she was being held as a dependent. But there was no facility in Jefferson County that we could put her into, because of her race. And my recollection is that we eventually placed her in a home in Cincinnati. But it may be that we only tried to and didn’t succeed. I can’t quite remember how that finally turned out; but anyway it was a problem because she was black. Had she been white, it would not have been a problem. This would have been ‘fifty-eight, ‘fifty-nine. By that time, schools of course, had been rather peacefully desegregated, at least in city schools in Louisville; and the county schools, too, although there weren’t many blacks 24:00in those days living in the county. I also remember one incident that seemed to be like there was going to be a race problem quite near here now, around Shelby Park. Police brought in some kids, who seemed to be, of course that came pretty close to, well it really was, a sort of integrated neighborhood or at least it was on the boundary between blacks and whites. I guess still is. And the police brought in some kids, who seemed to be forming some racially oriented gangs to beat up someone some way or another, or fight. And I remember saying to them, you know, very sternly, we are not going to have that now in Louisville, this is not going to happen. And 25:00wondering to myself, even at the time, how am I going to enforce that strong statement. And will they believe me? But apparently they did, or at least nothing much ever came of....At least if anything did, I don’t remember now. I can remember thinking, you know, very strongly, we are not going to have racial troubles now, if I have anything to do with it. And of course, it wasn’t long after that, until I went away to seminary and a lot of things began to happen in Louisville while I was gone.

WHITE: Where did you go?

TACHAU: Virginia, Seminary near, just outside Washington. To go back, however, I did have some involvement in the famous Braden case, in the mid-sixties, before I was Juvenile Court Judge. 26:00And in that case, what happened was...

WHITE: Do you mean the mid-fifties?

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: Sorry, did I say sixties?

WHITE: Yeah.

TACHAU: Yeah, the mid-fifties, when Carl and Ann Braden bought a house in the Shively area and turned it over to a fellow named Wade. What was his first name? Andrew.

WHITE: Andrew.

TACHAU: Bubba they called him. And caused a terrific furor and eventually the house was bombed or set on fire, I’ve forgotten which. Anyway it was destroyed. The Bradens were accused of having done all this as a communist plot, and so forth and so forth. Well, the facts about that case are pretty well known, but my father, who was in the insurance business....When 27:00they had difficulty, not the Bradens, but the Wades had difficulty getting insurance. The finance company, whichever one of the Building Loans it was, let’s say, Greater Louisville, I think; had canceled their insurance, or rather the insurance company had I guess. And Greater Louisville was demanding that they furnish insurance or else they would foreclose the mortgage; which had been originally paid by the Bradens and then assumed by the Wades. And my father had written the insurance for them, which was an act of conscience on his part. I don’t think I was consulted about that at all. I don’t remember being. But when the house did blow up or was destroyed, 28:00and the insurance became payable, the question was to whom? And I got involved in that, to the extent of filing a suit and paid the money into court; and joined the Wades and the Bradens and the mortgage company and asked the court to decide who should get the money. That wasn’t a very noble act on my part. I wasn’t called upon to be particularly noble. That’s funny, I don’t remember having any particular opinion at the time, as to whether I admired what Dad had done, or didn’t or disapproved of it. I must have had some feelings about that, but I don’t remember what they were.

WHITE: Let me see if I understand this. The Wade’s insurance had been canceled. They had difficulty getting insurance, and it was at that point your father stepped in and 29:00wrote the insurance?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: And why was there a question about to whom the insurance would be payable?

TACHAU: Well, after the destruction of the house....Of course, insurance on any financed property is payable both to the mortgagee and to the owner. It’s to protect the interest of the mortgagee and it’s property. Well, I don’t remember what the outcome was, but the loan company was saying, “We want the mortgage paid off out of this insurance.” And the owners were saying, “We want to rebuild the house out of the insurance.” So that was the issue. And you know, we took the decision, the insurance company, that we’re just stake holders in this 30:00and we don’t care who gets it. But my recollection is, and you can check this with your husband. I think that’s called an interpleader. I think that was the suit I filed. I think that’s the name of it. We filed suit against both of them. And said, “Here are two people entitled to some money we’ve got and here’s the money and judge, you decide who’s to get it.” END SIDE ONE TAPE ONE BEGIN SIDE TWO TAPE ONE WHITE: Okay, anything else about the Wade case?

TACHAU: No, I don’t think so. I guess I’m about finished now, giving a sort of a personal background on one person’s experience living in Louisville from nineteen twenty to nineteen sixty, more or less: with reference to race relations. So now, 31:00what else?

WHITE: Well, I guess we want to talk about how and when things changed; well for you and for the community, I guess through your eyes.

TACHAU: Well, to begin with, when I went to seminary in nineteen sixty. And by that time I was what? Thirty-nine years old, thirty-eight. There were four or five Negroes going to seminary there then, some of whom I became very close friends with and my attitudes began to change. And of course a lot was going on then in the public sector, and white friends, too, in seminary were very exercised about these issues. I remember a guy that I’m still in contact with this day--a lot younger than me--saying to him something about, “You act as if this 32:00is the only issue affecting our society.” WHITE: You said that?

TACHAU: Yeah. And he said, “It is.” And I remember thinking, “Yes, maybe you are right about that,” you know. I don’t remember that I ever gave him the satisfaction of agreeing with him, but...

WHITE: Well, now at this point when you are in the seminary, well in nineteen sixty, obviously Brown versus. Board of Education happened; and there was a lot of protesting, but the freedom riders hadn’t started yet. Had they?

TACHAU: Oh, I think they had.

WHITE: But they did start while you were at seminary.

TACHAU: I think they were in the late fifties.

WHITE: Oh, okay late fifties?

TACHAU: I think before that.

WHITE: Okay, I thought that was early sixties.

TACHAU: I think the Birmingham bus boycott was before that, and they were fighting it out in Congress. It was big issues, filibustering...

WHITE: I guess what I’m trying to say is....I’m talking about, I’m sorry. The sit-ins hadn’t happened yet. The 33:00freedom riders had. Sorry.

TACHAU: Well, the sit-ins began, I don’t remember exactly when now: but they were basically agitation for opening up public accommodations, they began to be called. And I think that did begin while I was in seminary, maybe a little before; but certainly in Louisville it went on while I was in seminary. My brother was very much involved in that, got himself involved in it. Also I was interested in what my successor in Juvenile Court was doing about it, because he was getting a lot of these cases. A lot of the people being arrested for demonstrating on Fourth Street and down the street here at, what was the name of that restaurant? Hassenauers’s at Barrett and Oak.

WHITE: Now, who was that? 34:00Who was your successor?

TACHAU: His name was Henry Triplet. And they were being brought before Henry. And Henry handled it very skillfully as I now recall; but I don’t remember exactly what he did. He just, he refused really to treat any of these kids as delinquents or bad kids. And at the same time, he was sort of--or felt he was--sort of bound by the law not to just dismiss it lightly. I don’t remember really exactly how he did handle it. But I remember thinking at the time that he was very skillful in the way he did it. And humane. And of course, it was during that period that there was a march on Frankfort for a 35:00Public Accommodations law in the state. That my brother had a great deal to do with, organizing and sponsoring kind of in the background.

WHITE: That was sixty-four.

TACHAU: Yeah, that’s right. And by that time, as a matter of fact, I was out of seminary and was in Glasgow. And I did go up to Frankfort in that demonstration with a small group from Glasgow, and a little bit larger group from Bowling Green, mostly black clergy. I don’t remember if there were any other whites that went. I remember seeing my brother drive by in an automobile with Jackie Robinson.

WHITE: So you went to the march.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: You marched in the march.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: What do you remember about the march? Any..?

TACHAU: Nothing else, 36:00very much. I mean, I remember mostly just it was kind of tiresome, you know; and being in the ranks you didn’t know where you were supposed to go, or when or how long would you have to stand in one place. And who was doing what. It was a lot like being in the Army, they don’t tell you any... But I don’t remember any particular reaction now on the part of either of the congregations I was serving at that time. Although I think there probably was some, but I don’t remember. I do remember that Howard Surface, who had been, already then for several years, the Rector in Bowling Green; and under whom I was really serving, was uneasy about my involvement in it. 37:00I don’t want to say too much about Howard’s attitude, because I really don’t know, but he was often....Howard didn’t like making waves.

WHITE: Well, do you remember uhm....The way you describe this, it sounds like a sort of slow and gradual evolution on your part.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: Do you remember any conscious decision about why you were going to Frankfort?

TACHAU: No.

WHITE: Do you remember any of your mental processes?

TACHAU: No, I don’t really, except partly I had already been involved with a couple of black ministers in Bowling Green. Not me alone. They had been sort of brought into, maybe on a....Sometimes basis or invitation 38:00only basis, I’m not sure which; into the Ministerial Association, which was fairly active in Glasgow and met fairly regularly. And these guys came, I think probably they came always. One of...

WHITE: This was...sorry, go ahead.

TACHAU: One of them was a Baptist minister and one of them was a C.M.E., as I recall. I admired both of them and I think...

WHITE: Do you remember names?

TACHAU: No.

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: The Methodist guy was named Cephus, that was his first name. I remember that; but I don’t remember the others. The other guy, the Baptist guy, I think he may have been Chairman of the Ministerial Association for a while. He was a very powerful kind of guy. Anyway, it seems to me, I probably went on that, as 39:00much out of wanting to express solidarity with them as for any other reason. Perhaps influenced somewhat by my brother, too. But I don’t remember being particularly in contact with Eric about that, at the time. You know, there is a fellow, who I think is still--has been for a number of years--Minister at the Presbyterian Church at Fourth and Kentucky, name of Ronald Rhinehart, somewhat younger than me. He may be retired now, who at that time was the Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Glasgow, and he may remember something about this too. It’s even possible he went, though I don’t remember that he did, to Frankfort at that time. 40:00He has been, what is the name of that church at Fourth and Kentucky?

WHITE: I though that was Central Presbyterian.

TACHAU: I think it is Central Presbyterian Church.

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: He’s been the pastor there for, oh, fifteen years. I haven’t noticed, but he may be retired by now. But he hasn’t been very long if he is. Nice guy. I haven’t seen him for years. But he was in Glasgow, very active in the Ministerial Association at that time and a pretty liberal kind of guy.

WHITE: Do you remember anything going on in Glasgow when you were there? Specifically there or was it pretty much focused on the larger cities, Frankfort, Louisville?

TACHAU: There was an incident while I was there that looked rather explosive, but never amounted 41:00to very much. I don’t even remember it very well, but it had something to do....Of course the school, the high school ,had been integrated in Glasgow; in Bowling Green, too, by then. And there was some kind of an incident between a black boy and a white girl on a trip back, maybe, from a basketball game in Bowling Green--coming home to Glasgow or something. I can’t remember much about....I wasn’t really involved in it at all. I didn’t know the parties or anything. But it looked as though it might get pretty explosive in Glasgow, but it didn’t. There was a certain amount of tension. On the other hand, there was a guy named, what was his name? Lusk, or something. Lusk, I think was his last name, who was the black principal of what had been the all black elementary school, 42:00I guess, in Glasgow or maybe the high school, who was elected Mayor of Glasgow around that time and served for a number of years, after I left. In fact, it may even have been after I left that he was elected, though I think it was while I was still there. He was highly respected. So there was a lot of, I don’t know, attitudes are kind of difficult to reconstruct now in one’s memory. Taking those black ministers into the black Ministerial Association was--I mean into the Glasgow Ministerial Association was sort of a step that had to be considered. And yet it didn’t cause a lot of trouble that I recall, you know. It was considered....Maybe it was going to be controversial, but it 43:00didn’t turn out to be, kind of. And similarly in Bowling Green, to the best of my recollection, though I wasn’t very directly involved in that.

WHITE: Okay. So you left Glasgow in nineteen sixty...?

TACHAU: Five.

WHITE: Five. And came here?

TACHAU: And came back to Louisville. Now what had happened. This little church of Saint George’s down on Twenty-Sixth Street had been a mission, at that time--for fifty odd years--of the diocese, in a basically working class, white neighborhood for a long time. And during the fifties, I guess, the neighborhood had more or less suddenly, and more or less dramatically changed from all white to mostly black. And most 44:00of the members of the church had moved out to a different part of town or county or wherever. There was some effort to get some black members to come to the church and a few did begin to come. Anyway, Bob Estill, who was at that time, had just come to Louisville to be Dean of the Cathedral and some other clergy in Louisville, began to be concerned about what was going on at Saint George’s: it was practically closed. Actually I had served there as a seminarian, when I was home one summer for a month, took services down there. That would have been in ‘sixty-one or two. And they had a big parish house that was mostly a gym and is to this day. 45:00WHITE: Mostly a what?

TACHAU: Gymnasium WHITE: Gym.

TACHAU: It had been a big recreation center taken over by the city during World War II, and was a big center of activity under the auspices of the City Recreation Department. While Bob Estill, who had been involved in civil rights at the state level for some little time, while he and others, I guess, were sort of stewing about what to do about the Saint George, or whether to do anything. Or what to do about the civil rights, for that matter. There were several break-ins: kids breaking into the gym down at Saint George’s to play ball. And these people, Bob Estill, 46:00as I say, and several others, began to think you know, well why shouldn’t they? What is a gym for, but to play ball in? Anyway, Bob kind of organized a group of some clergy and some lay people, to sort of take over Saint George and see what they could do with it. And Bishop Morgan more or less commissioned this group to do this. And they acted primarily through Ken Thompson, who, of course, is still around. And Ken had at that point, just recently been ordained, what we then called a permanent deaconate. Though it didn’t turn out to be permanent in Ken’s case, but it was then still. 47:00And there were several lay people, too, primarily from the Cathedral, but not entirely, who sort of volunteered to go with Ken and re-open this whole situation there. And of course, Ken is very gifted at that sort of thing, and he got a lot of help from these other people. Sue Speed was one of them and would remember a lot about this, I’m sure. I can’t remember too many of the others though at that time, several of them have died. Bill Clapper was one, who’s died, and a fellow named Herb Watkins was another one who’s died; and Miss Juliet, what was her last name? France--she’s died. Anyway, as well as some of the other clergy, particularly the assistant at the Cathedral at that time, a fellow named Park Street, who 48:00was a priest and who did kind of backed up Ken. Well, they all backed him up. Fellow named Ralph Leach was Rector at Saint Stephen’s in those days at Shelby and Saint Catherine. And I’ve kind of forgotten who the other clergy were, who were involved in that. They did succeed pretty much in reviving that situation to a considerable extent. Ken brought in oh, several new black members and managed to retain what few whites there were left; although they were almost entirely, just old ladies who lived in the neighborhood. There were six or seven of them, still coming to church regularly when I went there. And there had been a different problem at that church too, that had, it wasn’t just race. There had been a priest there from about ‘fifty-eight 49:00to ‘sixty-one or two. I remember an encounter or two with him when I was on the Juvenile Court, who had gotten into trouble with the law and gone to the penitentiary; and this had been a disrupting thing to the church. That was how it happened that I was taking services there while I was in seminary or rather at home during the summer. Anyway, the problem was that this group, what did they call it? Bob Estill sort of headed it up. I don’t know what they called it. Anyway, they thought that they really should get a priest in there to take charge and so forth, but the diocese didn’t have it in the budget and the budget process was slow and couldn’t get it in. Anyway, a group of them went over to general convention, which happened to be held 50:00in Saint Louis that year, it was ‘sixty-four, and pleaded for a grant to get that started, and got one. My recollection is it was five thousand dollars for three years, for each of three years. And ultimately....I have no particular recollection of how this would have come about. It was mostly on Estill’s initiative, I think, the Bishop asked me to take over the job; and I went there in June of sixty-five. And by that time things were heating up a good deal in Louisville. The biggest thing that was going on at that time was the so called West End Community Council, which had been organized in, perhaps, ‘sixty-three or four. It was a going concern by the time I got there in sixty-five, 51:00with the stated goal--I mean my words, not theirs--of keeping the West End integrated. Now they were talking primarily at that time about the Shawnee neighborhood; that is to say from west of Thirty-Fourth Street, and primarily north of Broadway, I would say or at least north of Greenwood. Because the rest of it, everything else west of downtown was already primarily black. But they worked hard on this: they were just a volunteer organization, and they were both white and black involved in it. And of course, Ann Braden and Carl were very prominent in it, 52:00although by no means the only ones. Now particularly there was a house of nuns, I think they were Sisters of Loretta. I’m sure they were, at Forty-Fourth and Broadway. And there was a very dynamic sister named--her religious name--she was known then as Sister John Martin. Not long after all of this, like so many nuns, she took off her habit and went back to her original name; and oddly, I can’t remember what that was. Although she showed up a number of times more recently. A very powerful woman, smart woman. A fine person. Rose Tolley. You ever run across her? But 53:00when I knew her, she was Sister John Martin. Anyway, but they were--there were a lot of other people in the West End Community Council. But it seemed to me that this was something that I needed to get involved in and I did begin going to their meetings. This also of course, was the time of the launching of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Ken Thompson, kind of as his last act before handing me the keys to Saint George, had obtained a contract with the local Poverty agency. Used to call it CAC, but I’ve forgotten what that’s for, Community Action Commission or something like that--for 54:00Saint George Community Center; which he had also formed as a separate corporation from the church: to have what they called--or at least what I recall they called it--the social service component of project Headstart. And they were working together with the school system. The school system had the actual on site youngsters come into Headstart, but the social services component was the one which arranged for the field trips, and physical and dental examinations, and the parent involvement and the home visits, etc, etc. And 55:00this was all just starting when I arrived on the scene in June of ‘sixty-five. I had no idea what that was all about. It was just a summer thing anyway, but of course, this got us at Saint George considerably involved in a lot of what was going on. Matter of fact, one of our members, one of the members that Ken had brought into the church, was employed--it was the first decent job she’d ever had, I think--as one of the workers for that project at Saint George. And I think we may have had that again the following year. It was a Miss B. McHenry, Beatrice, McHenry, who lived just down the street on Twenty-Sixth Street and was an active member at that time of the Church of Our Merciful Savior; 56:00the other Episcopal Church. The other black, Episcopal Church. Who just died this past year, as a matter of fact. And she was a school teacher. She was appointed as the Director of this Headstart thing for Saint George. Anyway, through this I began getting involved in what was then known as the War on Poverty thing. And I began going to meetings of the, what did they call it, Area Council. I began to know the guy, Minor Danielson. Minor’s still around, I’m pretty sure. He’s worked for the School Board for years and years. But he was fresh out of college then, and I forget what his title was, but he was kind of the supervisor of what was going on at Saint George as well 57:00as some other similar operations at other sites. And I got to be quite good friends with Minor. A very delightful guy. A very able guy. Then there was a woman, what was her name? Madrick, Miss Lucille Madrick, who lived quite near Saint George, who was the Area Coordinator. She was the next step above Minor. She was pretty ambitious and hard to get along with. I remember some conflicts with her. There were a lot of conflicts with her, much of which I wasn’t directly involved with; but there were some, although I don’t quite remember much what they were about. But eventually the CAC fired her and there was a big to-do. This would have been a year 58:00or two or later. There was a lot that was disillusioning about the Poverty Program--the Anti-Poverty Program--to me and others, too. Because most of the people who got themselves involved in it, particularly poor people, had the whole concept of maximum feasible participation of the poor. Wasn’t that the expression? Their idea of an anti-poverty program, fundamentally was that they should get a good paying job. This was not really what the program was supposed to be about. On the other hand, it was pretty understandable. After all in spite of all the rhetoric by well meaning, 59:00and for the most part well meaning whites, about getting rid of all the other causes of poverty, the truth of the matter is that the simplest cure for poverty is money. And they weren’t entirely wrong about that. But it did make for an awful lot of quasi-political fighting and in-fighting and maneuvering and so forth. And one of the most active and effective of the Area Coordinators--of which I now recall there were probably six or seven for the city--was a fellow named Holbert James, who had only comparatively recently moved to Louisville, really to go to Law School initially. He was 60:00born in one of the West Indies, Virgin Islands, I think or maybe Jamaica--I’m not sure--but had been raised in New York. And he was a very, highly intelligent, highly motivated individual.

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE: TACHAU: Okay, to pick up then about Holbert James. I don’t remember now, who it would have been primarily, certainly Ann Braden, but undoubtedly some other people as well; who conceived the idea that if the West End Community Council was really to function effectively, it needed to raise some money for a full-time, at least Director and perhaps other staff. And 61:00they succeeded in getting grants from several national church organizations, among them the Episcopal church, but also United Church of Christ, I’m pretty sure; and the Presbyterians, I’m pretty sure. And possibly some others, well maybe I think some Methodists, too. And I don’t remember now how much money they put together, but it was enough to hire a Director and secretary, I believe. And they did employ Holbert, who came, I suppose, around sometime in nineteen sixty-six. Because I had been going with considerable regularity to meetings of the council, and it was rather loosely organized. 62:00I don’t remember whether I was ever actually, formally made a member of the Board or anything; but I began to have a certain amount of leadership role there, though I was certainly not the only leader of it. But I got pretty much involved with that and with Holbert, whom I admired and still do a great deal. And at some point--and my recollection is it would have been late ‘sixty-six, possibly early ‘sixty-seven--West End Community Council along with at least two other, well I guess really three other organizations: would have been the local chapter or branch of the NAACP, the Kentucky Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and I’ve forgotten the exact name of it, but the 63:00local black Methodist group and the West End Community Council, joined together to begin agitating for an Open Housing Ordinance in the City of Louisville. There was a fellow by the name of Daniels, if I remember correctly, not Minor, but a white guy. He was a minister of the United Church of Christ and had been sent here by the United Church of Christ from I don’t know where, to sort of coordinate, or maybe even promote this kind of activity. And he was one of the ones, too, who pushed on this. What was his first name? Bill, I think? Anyway, I wasn’t very much involved in this in the early stages. 64:00The principal leader, I suppose, really was A.D. King, who was then Pastor of Zion Baptist Church at Twenty-Second and Walnut and a brother of Martin Luther King. And W.J. Hodge, who was the Pastor of--What was the name of that church over on Jefferson Street? Green Street wasn’t it WHITE: I can’t remember.

TACHAU: Anyway, it was at Jefferson Street, about Nineteenth and Jefferson. Anyway, and no doubt some others, that don’t occur to me right at the moment. But Holbert too, got involved. Oh yes, and Leo Lesser, who was the Pastor of the Methodist Church at Twenty-First and Oak. But they didn’t get anywhere with, at that point, the Republican mayor and the Board of Aldermen 65:00of Louisville. The Mayor was named Kenny Smeed. That was an interesting thing too, as to why we should have had Republicans at that time. This was really because in the late fifties, after twenty odd years of solid Democratic rule in Louisville, following the New Deal and so forth. We had a pretty conservative mayor of Louisville, name of Bruce Hoblitzell, who was a real estate man. And the President of the Board of Aldermen was an old, so and so, what was his name? Milburn - who had been principal at Male High School for years and years. And they were both pretty strong segregationists, particularly Milburn. 66:00I remember going on a trip with Hoblitzell as Mayor, when I was Juvenile Court Judge, so this would have been in the late fifties. But anyway they--I don’t remember now what it would have been that they opposed. I suppose it was this Open Housing, I mean the Public Accommodation stuff that was going on while I was in seminary. But as a result of that, the black community of Louisville turned Republican and elected, what was his name? Bill Cowger as Mayor. I don’t mean solely, but I mean their switch was the balance of power. And a Republican Board of Aldermen. And moreover, Smeed was elected four years later to succeed him. 67:00And of course, in those days--well still I think it’s true that since Aldermen are elected in the general election city-wide; they are nearly always one hundred percent of one party or the other. Very rarely is there a minority of the other party I mean. Anyway, that was the situation; and they didn’t get anywhere with Smeed or with any of the Aldermen about Open Housing. Well, there was a certain amount of concession. I think they were prepared to make a sort of declaration of principle, but there were not to be any teeth in the law. My recollection, as far as personal involvement is that there came a time when Holbert at least, and I guess King and Lesser certainly; but Holbert primarily was talking about a need to 68:00move to what they were then, I guess, kind of euphemistically calling direct action. It didn’t, I don’t know how I could have been so naïve; but I wasn’t sure what that meant or didn’t stop to think what it meant particularly. But I do remember Holbert having to get approval of the Board of the West End Community Council to move into direct action. And at that point, I think, or it may have been a little later, the NAACP group pulled back somewhat; and so did Bill Daniels, whom I’ve mentioned, and whatever group of mainly white clergy--although not exclusively I don’t think--he had 69:00kind of drawn into his circle. But demonstrations began, and of course, as it turned out, stirred up a great deal more turmoil and controversy than had been anticipated; certainly by me, perhaps by anybody. But certainly by me: I had no idea we would get into the kind of reactions that we did.

WHITE: Did you, excuse me, did you ever speak against or vote against this direct action? Or were you still not understanding really where it was going to be?

TACHAU: On the contrary, I supported it, but I did not fully understand what was involved. But I supported it out of my confidence in and admiration for Holbert, primarily. Now it became in effect a 70:00Southern Christian Leadership type of operation. That is, the demonstrations were run in accordance with sort of the principles of Martin Luther King: non-violent, but also designed to stir up reaction; and as the expression was often used, “expose the evil”. And consequently the demonstrations were held in areas--at that time--of the city that--we never went into the county, I don’t think. Where it was expected there would be and as it turned out, was the most opposition. Mainly South Louisville around Churchill Downs and further south, never into the county, that I recall. And some other important 71:00principles of SCLC movement, as they began calling it, is that there should always be white as well black leadership. And practically all of the white clergy who were not pastoring in the West End, but who had been, up until that time, supportive; who had something they called an Ad hoc Committee. I can’t quite remember how that got organized though. But they began withdrawing or being uneasy about participating in demonstrations or even supporting the ideas. And there were not many of us left who were willing to do this. Except me and a fellow named Gil Slockey, who was Pastor 72:00of, I guess they called it West Broadway Methodist Church, anyway at Thirty-Seventh and Broadway. Thirty-six. Not only Gil, but his son and daughter, too. Teenagers were very active in all that, and demonstrated and got arrested as much I did. But Gil didn’t go to as many meetings as I did. Eventually I got way over my head in all this. I was going out on demonstrations every night, so forth and getting locked up. Now we were getting background support, you know, in terms of moral support and so forth from some of these others. But I remember particularly being resentful of the fact that Bob Estill said, sort of publicly I think--I don’t remember whether literally publicly, but openly at least—“That he was, had 73:00never been able to decide in his own conscience whether he favored civil disobedience or not.” And I guess Bob was perfectly sincere about that, but at the time it seemed like a betrayal to me. I had really gotten very caught up in all this. And a lot, you know a lot was going on that I didn’t fully understand....

WHITE: Now...

TACHAU: But I got so I did. Yeah?

WHITE: Go ahead.

TACHAU: No, no.

WHITE: I’ll just let you go ahead and do it.

TACHAU: No, you had a question.

WHITE: Well, no, my question was just, I think you’re getting there. My question was just some of the details. I mean ,what were the demonstrations like? What was happening? What did you see? Who was there?

TACHAU: Oh yeah.

WHITE: And then about the lock-ups, and how they happened?

TACHAU: Well, we went out night after night into 74:00South Louisville and demonstrated; and gradually the crowds of, what the newspapers called “hecklers”—which, I guess, was what they were--got larger and larger, and more and more violent. And the number of people who were willing to demonstrate got fewer and fewer. And, ah, finally there came a, well--there had been a lot of arrests....Now my brother had, very helpfully I must say, arranged and raised a fund to guarantee to the--at that time--the only black bail bondsman, to guarantee him against loss, in return for which he was willing to sign bonds for all of the demonstrators for a 75:00cut rate or maybe for nothing. No, I think it was a cut rate. And, ah, this was extremely useful, because there were—there were beginning to be mass arrests; and we needed to get our people back out. There was a guy named Claude Benboe, B E N B O E. He was the bondsman; but Eric had set that up. I’ll say it was very useful, and a creative kind a of thing to have done. There were always some observers from the KCLU at these demonstrations. I remember ( ) got arrested one time for sort of sassing the police chief, I guess, 76:00because he hadn’t done anything else. But, ah, I don’t really remember now too clearly how many times I was arrested; but three or four, not really all that many. Some people a lot more than that. But there finally came...

WHITE: Now, how, how did they come about? Your arrests? I mean where were you when you were arrested and what you were doing?

TACHAU: The time I particularly remember--I’m getting ready to tell you. Well, I’m...We were just marching and singing, and irritating and aggravating these crowds of people, who were out there to throw rocks and stuff at us. And to some extent we were being arrested for our own protection you might almost say. But at the same time, the city authorities, some of them at least, were determined to try to break this up. And finally 77:00there came a night when there was a--we had these nightly rallies--raising money and so forth. We were rallying at--what was his name--church on Magazine Street. Kirby not long after that built a much bigger church over on Algonquin Parkway. But anyway, this was in his church; and it looked like this was going to be a really, pretty raw thing. And there were several Catholic clergy from the West End, who had been supportive up to then--although they had not marched--who came to that meeting to try to persuade us to call off the march for that night. But they didn’t do so. But as it turned out, I was the only one 78:00of the four--by that time pretty definitely four leaders--that is me, King, Lesser and James. I was the only one who was going to go. I don’t know remember why that would have been true.

WHITE: You were the only one of the four of you, that were going to go to the march?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: Going to take part in the march?

TACHAU: Right. I don’t know now why that would have been the case, but it was true anyway.

WHITE: Excuse me. And the other three were black?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: And you were white, obviously.

TACHAU: Right. Anyway we set out in a rented truck, Hertz or somebody’s truck. As I recall Hertz was desperately trying to get their truck back at that time, but for some reason they couldn’t. I wasn’t involved in that, but already the windshield had been broken. A slightly older guy, by the name of Sam Hawkins was our driver. He was kind of like a Sergeant. 79:00I mean he was analogous to a Sergeant. And in the back of the truck we had maybe fifteen or twenty juvenile black kids. And we had to go a roundabout way to get where they wanted to go, which was to have a demonstration, already been announced, at the intersection of Taylor Boulevard and--what is that other boulevard that intersects there? I can’t think. Berry Boulevard.

WHITE: What?

TACHAU: Berry, Berry Boulevard. And I don’t know why we had to go a roundabout way. I think the police already had the regular route blocked off. But Sam knew a way to go around Algonquin Parkway or something and get there. 80:00Anyway we did get there. And ah, we parked this truck. There was a filling station at the corner, fairly good size, kind of an open area around it. And we parked the truck at the end away from the intersection on Berry Boulevard and unloaded the truck, and we started to march from there to Taylor Boulevard along Berry Boulevard. Couldn’t have been as much as a half a block. And it was really a big mob. It was scary. And I remember calling to the juvenile, who was kind of our main juvenile, named Andre Skyles; he’s a dentist now. Saying, “Sing,” they started to sing and the police arrested us all. We never did get as far as Taylor Boulevard. 81:00(Laughing) WHITE: And was that arrest for your own protection? Supposedly?

TACHAU: Well, no. Now they never admitted that they were for our own protection, but to a certain extent they were.

WHITE: What was the pretext? Unruly?

TACHAU: Oh, we had been enjoined, I think, by that time. There was an injunction that they had gotten. But we were arrested for disorderly conduct, parading without a permit, contributing to the delinquency of juveniles and violating this injunction; and maybe other things. Well, definitely other things. I was charged with statutory conspiracy and a statutory crime of criminal cynicalism, which was kind of left over from World War One. Red scares of the early twenties. They had invented this, 82:00I mean they had named this crime. It was defined, at least in Kentucky statutes: “as committing any violation of the law in furtherance of a political purpose.” And there were probably five or six thousand of the so called “hecklers” surrounding that intersection at that time. And maybe fifteen or twenty of us demonstrators.

WHITE: Fifteen or twenty?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: It was only your truck?

TACHAU: That’s right, that’s all there were. And there was a fellow named Bill Warner, who of course, is still around; whom I had known, more or less as a fellow lawyer. He may be a little younger than me, not much though. I don’t know whether he was an assistant city attorney at the time, or 83:00had been employed as a sort of Special Council to the City Law Department or something. Anyway, he was there and had either, obtained this injunction from the Chancery Court; or else was there in his capacity as enforcer of it: and who had tried to dissuade us. But anyway, it was also he, who directed the police chief, who was there, fellow named Bender, to arrest us. And I think it was Bill, though I don’t know this for a fact, who came up with these various charges; particularly the ones that were more serious than the misdemeanors. And we were, you know, all thrown 84:00in jail. Well, it was all pretty dramatic. It was a Friday night, I guess or Saturday maybe. No, I think it was Friday. And we had agreed, or at least I had agreed, that I would not come out on bond. As a sort of a protest I would stay in jail for a day or two, or I don’t know. He never said how long. So we were arraigned in Louisville Police Court the next morning, and since I was charged with this cynicalism, which was a felony, fairly high bond was set; maybe ten thousand dollars. And ah, so I didn’t make bond. I was sent over to the county jail 85:00for the next hearing, or pending the next hearing. This was kind of scary to me because the jail was still segregated, and I was put in the white box; where I didn’t feel there was a very friendly crowd. (laughing) And it wasn’t. And eventually the jailers were nervous about my safety there and recommended that I arrange for bond. And Dedum Alston, who was the black Episcopal Priest in Louisville and had taken little or no part in any of this that I now recall, at least not at that time. He had come just to call on me as a pastoral call at the jail. And having been told by the deputy jailer that I really ought to arrange to get out of there, I asked Dedum to get in touch with my brother and see if he could get me out. 86:00And the upshot was they did get me out later that evening. So they were having a big rally, sort of in memory of me, you might say, at Saint George’s’ Church. And one of the guys from—Josea—Josea Williams from Martin Luther King’s operation had come and he was making a big speech. They were going to march from Saint George’s Church on City Hall and so forth. Sort of an anti-climax. And in the middle of all of this, I appear. And they started off with a big whoop and a holler and marched to Eighteenth and Broadway, not that far away really.

WHITE: Did you march with them?

TACHAU: No, I was pretty well worn out. Where a big mob met them, including the police and everybody was arrested. But 87:00there was an interracial couple had come down from Cincinnati to participate in this and they were particularly the object of the--some of the mob’s wrath. Now this would have been a South End mob there, or I guess it was partly. I don’t know. I wasn’t there myself. But anyway, this couple was--at least the man was--pretty badly beaten up and hurt. And it sort of scared me. And I began to see that the thing was really getting out of hand. And so the next night maybe, or Monday night; or whenever the next meeting was. I talked to Neal Lesser about my concern that we really were beginning to go too far with all of this. And Lesser agreed with me, and we declined to participate in any further marches; 88:00which in a way really broke it up. I have wondered ever since whether I was right or not. Well, there were some more marches, but they were up in this neighborhood. I remember one time marching around. But we were then obeying the injunction, which was not to march at night. I remember one time marching around Collegiate School. And another time, a whole bunch of us being arrested up near where the Uptown Theater was in those days, not quite that far, but on Bardstown near Eastern Parkway. But a lot of it kind of petered out because the opposition wasn’t there anymore in the East End. In fact, there were a lot of people in the East End, that watched us and cheered us on. And 89:00eventually there just were not many more people left to march. And interestingly the thing was won at the ballot box that Fall, when the black community switched and elected a Democratic Board of Aldermen in the mid-term election. And they proceeded to enact the Ordinance and so forth. I don’t know of any other instance in the whole civil rights activities of the sixties where it was that decisively won in an election. Part of that was due of course, to the fact that for years and to this day, I think, the division in the whites in Louisville is--politically is such that the blacks hold the balance of power if they vote as a block; at least sometimes. 90:00Well that’s the story of that. Now to go back before that kind of dramatic thing, there was the whole thing about whether or not to disrupt the Derby, which at the time I’ve just been talking about was in the later part of May. This, of course, was in the early part of May.

WHITE: This is the same year?

TACHAU: Same year, ‘sixty-seven. And a lot of our activities were being facilitated, you might say, by so called “technicians”, who were members of Martin Luther King’s staff, who were sent up to work with us.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO TACHAU: And some of them in particular, those so called “technicians” who were pretty fiery, were of the opinion that the way to bring the whole thing to a head was to disrupt the Derby, by running out onto the track. And in fact, before the Derby, 91:00during a race a few days before, somebody actually did do that. And Doctor King came up to Louisville, in effect to say, “No we’re not going to do that. Somebody’s going to get hurt and it’s not our style;” and so forth. And I remember a meeting down at his brother’s house all one night with, I don’t know, A.D., and Holbert, and Leo, and Josea Williams and this other guy, I’ve forgotten his name, who was kind of their lieutenant here; Ann Braden, Doctor King, myself, maybe one or two others. In which....It was very interesting. He was unmovable, although he was willing to listen.

WHITE: Unmovable about calling off the demonstration for the Derby?

TACHAU: Right. I mean he proved to be unmovable. I don’t remember taking 92:00any part in that, other than just being there, though I may have.

WHITE: What was your impression of King?

TACHAU: Oh, he was terribly impressive, you know, such a presence really. Well, anyway, to begin again, after the elections in the Fall and the end of that Open Housing thing. Then....Meantime Holbert got into some trouble, personal trouble, and resigned and left the community; and I was asked to take over his job as Director of the West End Community Council. And I agreed to do that for a little while; and did do it on a part time basis for, I don’t remember now, maybe six months, something like that. From September to May or June of ‘sixty-seven, ‘sixty-eight. 93:00At that time, well one of the things that Holbert had done that had nothing to do with civil rights things, was to get a lot of VISTAS in. You know what they were?

WHITE: VISTAS?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: You mean as in the federal program VISTA, V I S T A?

TACHAU: Yeah, in those days we called them the domestic Peace Corps. And he had a bunch of them assigned to the West End Community Council. They came in and were assigned to various jobs. It really didn’t have anything to do with civil rights directly, but more with poverty areas, organizing welfare rights groups, tenants councils, things like that. So when I took over Holbert’s place there, I had a lot of these VISTAS. Well, in the meantime, there was a Catholic Priest up in Milwaukee, if I’m not mistaken. It may have been Minneapolis, 94:00who was always known as Father Groppi, G R O P P I, who accomplished a great deal or so it seemed, through an organization that he had formed, the junior members, something like that, youth maybe, of the NAACP. It seemed to me that this had a lot of....Anyway it was kind of a model to me about how to go about the next step as I saw it. And oddly enough I don’t recall now what objective I, we had in mind, if any, just kind of continuing agitation maybe for more justice or something. I don’t remember now. But anyway, I recruited a couple of these guys who had been active in the Open Housing thing. One of them, Sam Hawkins, who I already 95:00mentioned, who was a Louisville guy. And one of them was, what was his name, Robert something or other, was one of the King “technicians” that came up and decided to settle in Louisville, and to be VISTAS. And sent them away to be trained by VISTA and to be sent back with the mission. Now I don’t know to what extent VISTA knew this, but they did go to Philadelphia for six or eight weeks, maybe longer than that. But in my mind and in theirs they were to organize something sort of similar to the movement that Groppi had, when they came back. And sure enough they did. And moreover, I succeeded in getting a grant from the National church, Episcopal Church, 96:00which had just had this special convention under Bishop Thiessen...

WHITE: Thiessen.

TACHAU: ...leadership and formed this general convention special program. And I got them, I don’t know, seemed like a lot of money at the time, probably five thousand dollars. Of course, Sam and Robert were paid nominally by VISTA, but they had a....I remember they were able to rent an office, buy or rent a car and they had a secretary, maybe one or two other people on staff. And they organized this outfit called the Black Unity League of Kentucky, known as BULK. I was sort of its godfather, 97:00but I was not allowed to come to its meetings. Or at least only by invitation.

WHITE: Why?

TACHAU: Because I was white. But I was always recognized by Sam and Robert as their mentor and to a certain extent, boss, although I never tried to boss them. And I never was in any way out of touch with them or out....Anyway, an incident occurred in Louisville...

WHITE: Can I just ask you....I’m not sure if I understand what the...

TACHAU: Purpose.

WHITE: Purpose of the Black Unity League of Kentucky was?

TACHAU: I don’t know. (Laughing) Looking back, it was just sort of to agitate for more justice in Louisville in some way or other. We may have had more specific goals than that, 98:00but at the moment I don’t remember what they were. Maybe to, you know, more and better implementation of the laws which we persuaded to get passed or something. I don’t know. But there came a time in May when there was an incident. One of the, guys, who still I see his name in the paper every once in a while. Real estate man, Manfred Reid, R E I D, who had gone on the Board of the West End Community Council, I guess. And he got into some kind of hassle with the police over a traffic stop and this and that. And anyway, there was a protest being organized to protest what had happened to Manfred. And Sam and Robert, Sam in particular, wanted to get Stokely Carmichael 99:00to come down and address this rally that they were going to have at Twenty-Eighth and Greenwood. He couldn’t get Stokely, but a guy named James, what was his name? Cortez, James Cortez, who represented himself to be one of Stokely’s lieutenants, and may have been for all I know. Although I later doubted it. But anyway, he volunteered to come. I remember Sam came and got me out of some kind of a church conference I was in, or a meeting on a Saturday afternoon down at Saint Paul’s Church: to come and put up a hundred dollars, on a Saturday afternoon, to wire to Cortez for his traveling expenses to come to Louisville. I still have that, my copy of the money--Western Union, at 100:00least I think I do. So he did, and they had this rally at Twenty-Eighth and Greenwood. And a big crowd showed up. It was about two blocks from where I lived and I was there, kind of observing. And lo and behold, it did break out into a riot; and then we had a little riot for three or four days there in Louisville, right around the end of May of ‘sixty-eight. Well, I was in a rather weird position there. In a way, I really had wanted us to have a riot. I thought we needed one. They were having one everywhere else in the country, why shouldn’t we have one in Louisville? And in another way, I really didn’t want to be hurt. I stayed in my house most of the time. Somebody said, “Oh, you don’t have to worry, everybody knows you.” I said, “Yeah, but not everybody likes me.” But 101:00I remember, I had been....There was this fellow named Eugene Robinson, a black man, who was the chairman of the West End Community Council at that time and sort of my boss. He had been with me when this meeting got started out at Twenty-Eighth and Greenwood. Then for some reason he had to go over to a meeting at Joe’s Palm Room, which was at the corner of Nineteenth and Jefferson. But he was going to come back and get me. Well he did offer to come back and get me, but it was pretty dicey getting in and getting out and getting me, but he did. I don’t remember much about that. Anyway, he took me over to Joe’s Palm Room, where we watched some of this, what was then going on, on television by that time. I was sort of fresh from the war zone. I was very popular 102:00coming in … WHITE: Popular in Joe’s Palm Room?

TACHAU: Yeah. Particularly in the back room, because all the people were wanting a first hand account, not just what they were seeing over television of what had happened and so on. Well anyway, the riot went on for two or three days...

WHITE: Can I, can I just clarify a point?

TACHAU: Yeah, sure.

WHITE: The riot took place about two blocks from your house, but you didn’t actually become involved in the riot, in the demonstration? Excuse me. You watched it?

TACHAU: No, I was staying there watching.

WHITE: You were watching. Okay. And so Eugene Robinson was coming to get you, sort of away from the site...

TACHAU: Right.

WHITE: ... of the demonstrations. Okay.

TACHAU: And I can’t quite remember why he was going to do that, because we were not anticipating that, that was going to happen. Why was he going to come back and get me? Partly it seems to me, it had something to do with his 103:00maybe having taken the keys to my car or maybe even taking my car...I can’t remember that. That’s funny. We were not really anticipating that a riot was going to break out--but why he was going to come back and get me--but he did anyway. Meantime, I had almost forgotten this. One of my Saint George kids that I looked after all the time--and one of the things I looked after this boy about--he would go up around Twelfth Street, where he had been born and raised; and play up there. He was about fourteen or fifteen years old. And about nine o’clock every evening he’d call me, and I’d go and get him and take him home. At that time his family was living down on Thirty-Eighth Street. And lo and behold, I had this kid on my mind that I had to get him home. And Eugene and I did go by and get him and take him home. He was scared out of his wits, as I recall. 104:00Anyway, the riot went on for two or three days and began to kind of peter out. There was an interesting incident in which Sam Hawkins was trying to calm it down and had been....Invited the Chief of Police, who was then, what was his name? Hyde, C. J. Hyde--to come up and--to Police headquarters and talk about the possibility....No, no. This had already happened. Hyde had turned over to Sam and the rest of BULK, the policing of this particular area, saying, “Maybe you can get these people to calm down this looting thing.” I don’t remember whether I had been involved in that, or even … Well, I must have known about it. I don’t think I was consulted. But anyway, Sam came to see me 105:00at home and said, “He needed to go up to Police headquarters and confess to Hyde that they were unable to control this, and would I go with him?” And I did, and met with Sam and Hyde and Gene Albe, who was at that time, City Law Director. Guy I’d known for a long time, nice guy, and perhaps one or two others. And Sam was saying he was unable to control this and he wanted to admit this to Hyde and say that they couldn’t continue....And while we were talking, Hyde was called to the phone, or maybe the radio and came back and said, “Well the crowd has dispersed and apparently gone home and we can just call the whole thing off. I mean, apparently it’s over.” And sure 106:00enough, it was. Hyde was reluctant, too....Sam had said, “You ought to--you need to seal off the area between Broadway and Greenwood, Twenty-Sixth and Thirty-Fourth,” something like that. And Hyde said he, “Was very reluctant to do that; everything he had read about these, was if you sealed off areas you created a very explosive kind of situation.” That’s what we were kind of debating. It’s interesting, because the roles were kind of reversed. After that I don’t remember any direct personal involvement of mine. Oh well, no I do, of course, because very shortly after all this, then the…Now who would this have been? I don’t remember now, who was kind of behind this. 107:00Hawkins and Cortez, Manfred Reid, Mrs. Bryant, Ruth Bryant and three or four other people; fellow named Keith Cosby, who was uncle of Kevin Cosby, the Pastor now of Saint Stephen’s Church. How many is that? One, two, three, four, five--there was one other. I don’t remember if Reid was the sixth, I guess. They were arrested. And it was claimed that they had formed a conspiracy to cause a major explosion down at the Louisville Refining Company on Southwestern Parkway. And Cortez, who was to put it mildly, an ambiguous kind of a character, had apparently claimed 108:00this while he was in jail. He had been arrested, I guess, on charges of starting a riot, which he had. He also claimed that he was an undercover agent for the FBI, or at least so the prosecuting authorities of the police alleged. Now he always denied this to me and denied that he had told them any of this stuff. But I don’t see how they could have made it up. Anyway, most of them got out on bond, but we never could get him out. And kind of, as a matter of kind of conscience, I visited him a number of times in the jail during that summer, you know, and would leave him ten dollars or buy him a comb for his Afro or something. Eventually there was a trial 109:00and they were all acquitted, maybe not by the jury, maybe the directed brief. I can’t remember. They didn’t really have any very substantial evidence against them. I had gone in the meantime--just about the time they were all being arrested and this charge being made about this conspiracy to blow up the Louisville Refining Company--I had gone to the twenty-fifth reunion of my college class; and was gone up in Pennsylvania for two or three days. During which time, my brother, I think, well I’m sure he was the one that arranged for mother to post bond for the five of those who were Louisville residents. They were under maybe five thousand dollar bonds a piece, but Cortez was under maybe twenty-five 110:00or something like that. Mother didn’t pay that or wouldn’t have anyway. Eric was always good at arranging bonds, I would say, not that he… And a lot of other things, I don’t mean that’s the only thing. I remember having to make several phone calls home from Pennsylvania during that kind of frenetic weekend. Of all the dumb things, to have gone off to that twenty-fifth reunion that I wasn’t really interested in anyway. But it was also the weekend that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, among other things. That was really more on my mind than the … WHITE: Do you remember? Well, no if you were at college, you don’t remember the fallout in the black community about that.

TACHAU: No, I don’t remember. Of course, 111:00it was right after that, wasn’t it, that Doctor King, himself was...?

WHITE: I think it was before. I think King was assassinated in the Spring, maybe and Kennedy in the Summer?

TACHAU: Yes, I guess that’s right. Kennedy was in early June or late May, as the case maybe. I guess King was around...

WHITE: April maybe?

TACHAU: Around April, yes, I guess that’s right. And there was a certain amount of effort to start a riot in Louisville over that, but it fizzled.

WHITE: This was over Martin Luther King?

TACHAU: King, yeah. A guy named Townsend, I remember, who was a friend of mine, sort of, who tried to start something and one or two others. They weren’t able to....I mean Townsend wound up in jail over it; but they weren’t able to get anybody to go along with them.

WHITE: Let me ask you--you were--you 112:00were brought into the civil rights movement gradually. You didn’t know what ‘direct action’ meant. You became involved in the direct action. So my question is, what made you, once you figured out what ‘direct action’ meant, you continued to be involved. So two questions: One is, what happened within yourself? Why did you decide to stay with the demonstrating? And then, why--you probably can’t be specific--but why then did you decide enough was enough?

TACHAU: Well I think, you know, in a way, I give a slightly false impression of saying I didn’t know what ‘direct action’ meant. I did know it meant demonstrations and stuff. 113:00I didn’t anticipate the kind of reaction that it would evoke, or even that it was intended to evoke such a reaction. I think, I think the reason I supported it, as far as I can now recall, was that it seemingly was part of my job to support Holbert and the West End Community Council. It also seemed to me that as Pastor of our mostly black church in the West End, that’s where I was supposed to be. Now you get very caught up in that kind of thing. And there is a good deal of exhilaration: and I went along with it and it was exciting. It was 114:00gratifying in a way to be regarded as kind of a hero, as well as a villain by others. But to be considered sort of essential, even if just as a token, by people like Holbert and A.D. King and so forth. Now as to the backing off. It was clear that those people being beaten up down there at Eighteenth and Broadway was a kind of a watershed for me. And it suddenly seemed to me, I was out of line: because as a Christian and as a priest and for that matter, 115:00as the leader of this movement; it was supposed to be non-violent. I was committed to that and I did not think it was appropriate to continue deliberately provoking violence. And I didn’t want to see somebody hurt. And somebody had already been hurt as far as that goes, but, I mean, any worse hurt.

WHITE: Also the demonstration that you went to in the truck?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: Were you the only white person, when the rest, among a group of blacks?

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: So this last little group of demonstrators that was incurring the wrath of a mob of five or six thousand people (Laughing)..

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: Were twenty-five blacks and a white?

TACHAU: Yeah and except for Sam Hawkins, I think all of the blacks were juveniles. I don’t think there were any 116:00 adults.

WHITE: Did you know that you were going to be the only one?

TACHAU: I don’t know how long before I knew it. I certainly knew it by the time we started out. It’s funny. I have no recollection at all as to why none of the other black adults went that particular night. I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t. At least I don’t think I was. There must have been a reason or some kind of an agreement that they wouldn’t, but I don’t remember now what it was.

WHITE: Do you, did you have the impression that....You talked about the forces on your side were dwindling in number. Were people getting scared...

TACHAU: Oh yes.

WHITE: ...or were they getting tired?

TACHAU: Well both. Well, for instance this kid I mentioned, 117:00who is now as I say a perfectly respectable dentist named Andre Skyles. I remember his saying that he had, had to defy his parents in order to come out that night. He was a leader because he was a big, stout, handsome kid, that was a football player and he had a great voice. He could sing “We Shall Overcome” all by himself without an orchestra.

WHITE: This is a black kid?

TACHAU: Yeah. And he was kind of a leader of that group, although never formally or anything. I don’t remember....Well, I do remember two others. One a girl named Carolyn Fisher and her brother. I don’t remember his name. Their last name was Fisher, anyway. 118:00WHITE: What a, what happened after Cortez got out of jail? You said there was a trial, and he was acquitted. And then the...

TACHAU: He went away and he’s never been heard of again.

WHITE: He went, he went away. (Laughing) TACHAU: As far as I’m concerned.

WHITE: And you never really established his connection with Stokely Carmichael, right?

TACHAU: No.

WHITE: Did things quiet down in Louisville?

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: Did things quiet down in your own...?

TACHAU: Yes. I think everything quieted down a whole lot. Well, you know, we were beginning at that time--the whole movement thing was beginning to move from the black-white thing to the anti-Viet Nam thing. And I remember certainly being very sympathetic about that, but never feeling particularly called on to get involved in it 119:00personally or very directly. Now I do remember there was going to be some kind of a big demonstration in Washington. And I remember feeling I really ought to go to that, or want to go to that. This would have been in the mid...

WHITE: Was that the march on the Pentagon?

TACHAU: ...seventies. I don’t remember exactly.

WHITE: Oh mid-seventies?

TACHAU: Anyway Bishop Reed was here by then. He was still ( ). It was before Bishop Martin had retired, so that means it was seventy-one or two. And I remember going to see Bishop Reed and his talking me out of going to that.

WHITE: Well there was a....I can’t get the years in there, but I think the march on the Pentagon was the late sixties.

TACHAU: Yeah, this would have been after that.

WHITE: Then there was the poor people’s march right around in there.

TACHAU: Yeah, that’s funny. I’ve kind of forgotten whether I was involved in that. I think maybe I was a little bit directly. Now, when they had, of course, the bussing controversy in Louisville in the mid-seventies, 120:00I never felt any call to get involved in that. That was a different issue. That was white peoples’ problem and I didn’t feel any need to get involved in that, although I was still Pastor of Saint George.

WHITE: Were any of your congregation involved? Or they must have been affected by it.

TACHAU: Well, they were and they were pretty uneasy about it, but I can’t remember anything very specific now about the persons or personalities.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE TWO BEGIN TAPE THREE SIDE ONE WHITE: We’ll just talk about the bussing for a second. Did you, do you remember making a conscious decision not to get involved? That you had, had enough or this wasn’t your thing.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: It wasn’t just something that just didn’t happen.

TACHAU: I don’t remember a particular moment when I decided that, but I’m sure that I--Well, partly I had, had enough, and partly I didn’t feel that it was my issue 121:00or our issue in the West End.

WHITE: Does that mean....You did say that some of the Saint George, Saint George’s parishioners were bothered by it. But that does that mean...

TACHAU: Well, they were bothered...

WHITE: ...they were not directly affected?

TACHAU: No, no. It was the ones who were, who had children that were going to be bussed or maybe going to be bussed or were being. You know. They were worried about their own children. I was too, for that matter.

WHITE: Then why did you decide it was not your issue? That’s not an accusatory question. I’m just curious...

TACHAU: No, no. I understand.

WHITE: ...to get inside your thinking.

TACHAU: Well it was in that sense, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. That did not call for me to organize counter demonstrations or anything.

WHITE: All right now back to, back to the Open Housing demonstrations.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: That was very definitely your issue. 122:00When you and the people you knew began to be involved in the very beginning, was the impetus economics or equality? I mean, I know they’re tied up together, but what was the prime reason?

TACHAU: Yes. That’s an interesting question. I think the economics perhaps, predominated. It’s funny, now it seems to me that Ann Braden wrote a paper of some sort or maybe Holbert did. Isn’t it funny, I can’t remember which of the two, showing how almost everything depended on this. There was no, I mean they were attempting to show that because of the economics of this and also of the de facto segregation, 123:00that there could be no breakthrough in any other significant ways as long as people were segregated to neighborhoods. Now of course, we knew--as it certainly proved to be true--that passing laws and so forth was not going to do away with racially segregated neighborhoods over night. And indeed, has not for thirty odd years. Although there has been a lot of movement and change. But the fact that you could be prevented in effect by, well not by law so much as the law was not on your side. But I think it was, as I recall it was being presented 124:00as--in terms of the economics--as being at the basis of any change in the justice situation. But of course, justice is, it seems to me at least, is always the fundamental issue.

WHITE: Also, you talked about the East End. I think you said they were watching and cheering you on, but basically not involved particularly.

TACHAU: Yes.

WHITE: And in that context and particularly in the context of the other white clergy, what kinds of conversations did you have with these people? And what 125:00were you thinking?

TACHAU: Well of course....To answer the last question, I guess looking back I was feeling awfully self righteous a good deal of the time. I got pretty good support from the other clergy of my denomination, some of it fairly active or at least affirmative, including the Bishop and the Dean and Herb Donavan, who was then the Bishop’s assistant. On the other hand, they were concerned about the issues that I mentioned Bob Estill articulating about, civil disobedience as a matter of 126:00theological principle, so to speak. And they had, various different ones had different views of that and reservations, as well as some who were....Now particularly, awful nice guy, but very conservative guy who was then the Rector at Calvary, was much influenced by ( ) since childhood, who was a lawyer. And he preached quite a sermon about the iniquity of civil disobedience. So there was some of that. I think there was one priest, older than me, for whom I had a lot of respect and affection, too, who took 127:00me aside at one point and warned me against what he called a martyr complex. Or at least I think that’s what he called it. That’s what I called it anyway--which had a lot of effect on me. It made me kind of look at myself again and try to decide whether I wasn’t sort of glorying in that sort of an image of myself. That had a good deal of effect on me. There was a point, I don’t remember now quite exactly when this would have been, when there was going to be a clergy conference. Just an annual clergy conference at the conference center, that I had indicated I wasn’t going to go to, because I had to be in a demonstration or something. And the word came to me, perhaps directly, 128:00I don’t remember how exactly, from Herb Donavan, I guess, that the Bishop expected me to show up. And I felt that I was obligated to do so and did. It’s funny, I don’t remember much about what happened there. But then later, not much later, there was the Diocesan Convention, which in those days was held in mid-May and was kind of right in the middle of all of this, down in Henderson, Kentucky. And some of the lay people there, a couple of them particularly, wanted to go into my activities.

WHITE: You mean publicly? Before the convention?

TACHAU: Yeah. There was a—there was a program from the federal level, called Model Cities, 129:00I forget what this was supposed to be all about. And I don’t know that I ever did have a very clear idea. But there was considerable movement on the part of local powers that be, to get Louisville named as a Model City, which would entitle us to a certain amount of federal subsidy for this that and the other thing. I don’t remember much about it. But the kind of official line of the civil rights people in Louisville was that we should oppose this as long as Louisville was not willing to go on with Open Housing and so forth. This was used as a vehicle for attack on me at the Diocesan Convention by some of the clergy who felt that this was....To oppose the 130:00good program for Louisville and for that matter for the downtrodden people. And I’m not at all sure that, that was really very sincere on their part. But it was convenient way to attack me for having opposed that. I did not....I felt at the convention that those who wanted to cross examine me and raise questions, had every right to do so, but I was a priest of the Diocese and accountable to the convention. People who wanted to raise questions had a right to do so. It made Bishop Marny very nervous. He did not want the convention kind of taken over by that, as it was threatened to be, no doubt. And it was going to be, it was, quite divisive. And 131:00he tried to rule us out of order or something. I don’t remember the details now. And to a certain extent, I guess he did and then it would crop up again in some other context and so forth. I remember finally, Bill Mill. Did you know Bill? Who was kind of a strong supporter of mine, finally moving to table something or other, which of course is a parliamentary maneuver and is non-debatable. And the motion passed and that really did bring an end to it. I remember the two people, particularly, very well, whom I had known all my life, contemporaries of mine, who were particularly vehement in their cross examination of me and so forth.

WHITE: Now were these people, I’m not going to ask you to name them, but were these people from Louisville or from around the state?

TACHAU: Oh yeah. From Louisville.

WHITE: From Louisville. 132:00TACHAU: And particularly my naming them, you know....I still see them every now and then. We’re pretty good friends.

WHITE: Well, who were they?

TACHAU: Well, one is Marshall Hardy, who is a lawyer, two or three years older than me, I guess. I went to Ballard School with him as a child. Practiced a certain amount of law with him. Active as far as I know, to this day at Calvary Church. And the other was, forgot his first name, but one of the Palmer boys, whose farm backed up to my father’s farm. I always knew them. He’s a little older than me, too. Last couple of times I’ve seen him, he’s out at the Church Home now. When I’ve taken services out there. He’s always very....What is his....Oh, Lawrence, Larry Palmer. 133:00I’m sure there were others. There were also some supporters though, too, amongst the lay people.

WHITE: What about other people that you might have known? Of course, you were not living in the East End at that time. You were living near Twenty-Eighth and Dumesnil, you said.

TACHAU: Right. Well...

WHITE: But I just wondered if you had any other conversations from anybody who might have been in a kind of a semi-leadership position. If you remember any particular conversations either supporting you in what you did, or taking issue with you I what you did?

TACHAU: Not much, directly. Now I got a lot of letters during that time. A number of them from people I didn’t know or had never heard of. Some of them were from just kind of old friends, and in some cases very supportive. And some cases 134:00very thoughtfully questioning. And some of them kind of crank letters as far as that goes.

WHITE: I was going to ask you if you received any threats...

TACHAU: Yeah, I’ve read some that, and one that I’m still trying to figure out what....All the colored symbols and things....It’s somebody obviously not really in touch with reality. But it is an interesting letter all the same. But I didn’t get a great deal of that. Other than other clergy, I can’t remember having had any direct contact with....Or for that matter, other lay people in the church. It was almost always through the church. Now there certainly were people who thought, who felt, you know, embarrassed by 135:00seeing an Episcopal Priest dressed as I currently am, on national television being locked up. Which I never saw myself, but I understand was shown a time or two. Well, that is a little embarrassing. Now, I do remember one in particular, but I think there were probably two or three seminary classmates getting in touch with me and wanting to know if there was any way they could help.

WHITE: What about, what about the attitudes of some of the black people that you talked to? Here you were the Rector or Vicar, I guess, of a black congregation. How....I mean can you describe any expressions of either anger, or pain, or bewilderment? 136:00Anything stick out in your mind?

TACHAU: Nobody ever expressed anything, in the way of black people, but support and admiration for what I was doing.

WHITE: I mean about their own, about attitudes towards them, attitudes toward their own treatment and why they had to get out and demonstrate and why this was an issue. You don’t remember any of that?

TACHAU: No. I don’t remember any of that.

WHITE: So most of your conversations had to do with strategy...

TACHAU: Yes, yes.

WHITE: ...that kind of thing? What you were doing.

TACHAU: Since you raised it. I’m trying to kind of remember one or two. This isn’t exactly the same thing. But one of two encounters with Lukey Ward, which were puzzling to me during that period. She was involved in....Although I don’t think Lukey ever went out and demonstrated, but she did kind of 137:00office work for A.D. King, sort of receptionist and coordinator. You remember Lukey?

WHITE: Jasper Ward’s wife. She wouldn’t like that. (Laughing) TACHAU: No. But that’s all right. You’re Gabriel White’s wife, too. (Laughing) Well, it’s funny, because having brought that up, I can’t remember anything about it. I remember being kind of uneasy about what Lukey was doing or standing for...

WHITE: Why?

TACHAU: Well, I don’t know.

WHITE: Weren’t sure what her motives were maybe?

TACHAU: There always seemed sort of sexual overtones with Lukey as far as 138:00I was concerned. Not towards me so much, but...or maybe that--although I don’t remember thinking that. But yes...and in that sense, sort of a little confused about her motives. I really didn’t doubt that she was very sincerely devoted to “the cause”, but there always seemed to be some kind of emotional....You never quite knew where Lukey’s emotions were going to take her in a given moment or issue. Seems to me now, looking back on it - I’d kind of forgotten this. Those strategy sessions, which you know, stand out in my mind as attending every day for months, but of course, it was probably only three or four for a week. In King’s office at Twenty-Second and Walnut. 139:00It suddenly occurs to me, I believe Lukey attended those too, but it would be—but maybe just as sort of A.D.’s secretary. I don’t remember her participating much. But it would be mostly King and Holbert and Leo and myself. And maybe, maybe that guy who’s name I’ve forgotten about, who I described as sort of a lieutenant of the SCLC contingent that came up here.

WHITE: Did you and the others tend to see eye to eye on how you were going to do things?

TACHAU: Yes, I think we mostly did. I think there was always a certain amount of sparks between Holbert and A.D.. At the time, I don’t know how much I identified this at the time, but looking back on it, it seems to me that 140:00was a good deal more power struggle, than it was ideologic. But you know, King considered that as the brother of Martin, he was sort of....And Pastor of the largest church, etc., he was sort of entitled to be in charge. I think basically he was a fairly weak, not even very bright kind of a guy. And Holbert was very strong and very bright and much more fitted to leadership, but he didn’t have the same kind of prestige that A.D. had. So I think that’s partly what was going on. I don’t remember that actually affecting anything particularly. Maybe it did. I don’t remember feeling any sense of conflict during that period in my own feelings about which side I should take. 141:00Maybe I did, but I don’t remember now worrying about that at all.

WHITE: Why do you think, in nineteen sixty-five, you were asked to take the helm at Saint George’s Church? This was before your activist days, although you had been present at the march on Frankfort. You had attended that. But you had not, sort of, been out on the front ranks.

TACHAU: No, I certainly hadn’t. I don’t know. I think it had probably had something to do with availability, something to do with....I don’t know really.

WHITE: Your work on Juvenile Court, maybe?

TACHAU: Yeah, I mean there was a certain amount of carry over. I was still fairly well known around Louisville. 142:00I do remember having persuaded without any serious difficulty for that matter, the little congregation in Glasgow to donate maybe the Lenten offering or something like that to this organization, whatever they called it, in Louisville, that Bob Estill sort of headed up. I can’t remember what they called it, UMC or something like that, Urban Mission Council, maybe, you know, something like that. And perhaps this made an impression, I don’t know. They were certainly, you know, they had gotten this grant, they were looking for somebody to take the job now. Well, I don’t know any particular reason why they would have asked me to do it. I do remember having come up to Louisville for some other reason and meeting with Bob 143:00and perhaps one or two others in his office. And Bob asking me, I think the way I remember this, Bob asking me, “If I might be interested in that.” And I said, “Well yeah, I might be.” Partly I would have been interested in anything. I didn’t like the job I had. I would have been interested in almost anything that would have taken me out of that. But what I particularly remember is Ken Thompson picking up this big roll of keys and sliding them across the desk at me. Because he was anxious, you know, he either was or was feigning that he was anxious to get out of it. He probably was, I mean, he had a full time job. That was another full time job on top of it.

WHITE: Well, I mean since we are taking about race. You said there were a few white members left at Saint George’s and they were mostly the old ladies. What were the race issues of Saint George’s after you were there? And you were there for twenty years?

TACHAU: There were never 144:00any after that. Now by the time I started getting locked up, there were only two of those old ladies left. A couple of them had died and one had moved to Paducah. And those two did pull out and transferred their membership to Calvary Church. They were embarrassed that their minister got....Although you know, I saw one of them...

WHITE: They were embarrassed because their minister?

TACHAU: They were embarrassed their minister being arrested. Although I saw one of them, that I particularly remember, afterwards several years later, two or three years later and she...at Saint Paul’s Church as a matter of fact. And she was very gracious and affectionate really. There were never after that, any racial issues at Saint George’s. And there were none....They were perfectly 145:00accepting of the idea that there would be black members there. Now no doubt there were a good many who hadn’t been, who had left before that. But those old folks, that was their church. They weren’t going to let a few blacks run them out.

WHITE: And what about the West End Community Council? I mean it started out by being a group that was trying to stem the white flight from the community and then presumably got all involved in the demonstrations. Now did they ever get back to their original job or were they able to continue with the original?

TACHAU: Not really, not really. Because by that time, that was a lost cause, really. And I think, although maybe Ann, I don’t know who else would remember. 146:00Somebody else might....Well, Sister Rose Calley might remember. But my recollection is it never amounted to much after BULK and that riot. I think it kind of disintegrated. Eugene Robinson was a strong person. I forget now what he did for a living. But whatever it was, he moved away not long after that. I think that had considerable effect. But we’d, the Council had always been regarded as sort of on the fringe, particularly as far as the NAACP was concerned. And we were, I think.

WHITE: On which fringe? I mean the left radical fringe?

TACHAU: Yes, yes.

WHITE: And why was that?

TACHAU: Well, the NAA, especially the leadership here in Louisville, I guess, was not, 147:00they did not get much involved in demonstrations. Now they did a march, kind of counter march to ours, as I recall, down on Fourth Street one time, during all that excitement. But that was--they were doing their own thing. They did not get involved in the South End stuff. And moreover there were others whom I don’t particular identify, but maybe I do to some extent identify them with the NAA. There was a guy named Elmore, who was Pastor of a black church over on Algonquin Parkway, who was also employed in some capacity or another by the Commonwealth Attorney’s Office. And he organized a group of black clergy, who sort of denounced 148:00us during that. And another fairly influential guy was Bishop Eubank Tucker, who was a Methodist Bishop and also an attorney. And he was vehement in his....He regarded, particularly Holbert, as an upstart. He, Tucker, had borne the heat of the battle for decades in his opinion, in the Louisville area, and here were people coming in all of a sudden and snatching the leadership out from under him. Is the way I interpreted it--he interpreted it. I mean, I had a long string of correspondence with him about his hurt, you know, Holbert in particular. He identified him 149:00as having implied that he was an Uncle Tom of some kind. So there was bit of that going on. I had, had a run in with Tucker as lawyers back when I was Juvenile Court Judge and started to hold him in contempt of court. Now his son, Neville, on the other hand, who was considerable more active by that time. As a lawyer, he was one of our main ones that defended us in Louisville Police Court. Neville Tucker and Bob Delihay was the other one. You remember Bob? Dolores’ husband. I had known Dolores before. She was a probation officer in Juvenile Court when I was judge. I had a lot of interlocking stuff there. And there was a third lawyer, oh, Danny Taylor. Danny nearly got us all locked up a couple of times. I mean Danny was a nut. 150:00WHITE: How? You mean because he was outspoken?

TACHAU: Yeah, and well...I don’t mean he really did—I don’t know. He had a knack for antagonizing the judge though. There was a guy named Bill Coleson, whom I knew pretty well, too, as far as that goes.

WHITE: This was the judge who you came before after you were arrested?

TACHAU: Mostly, yeah. He was at that time....In those days, this was all before courts were re-organized in Kentucky. And he was, I think, yes I’m sure, he was the elected judge of the Louisville Police Court.

END OF TAPE THREE SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE THREE SIDE TWO TACHAU: But I don’t remember now who were the prosecutors that went for this claim of the conspiracy to blow up the Louisville Refining Company. I don’t remember now who was involved in that....you 151:00know on the “other side”. In fact, I don’t even remember who defended those guys in court. And they were acquitted of course. Who would have been the prosecutor then? Oh, I guess it was, I guess it was Shoring. That’s right, it would have been Shoring. He was the Commonwealth’s Attorney then.

WHITE: Edwin?

TACHAU: Yeah. I was thinking he was back in the Braden case, but that wasn’t him, that was Scottie Hamilton, was the Commonwealth’s Attorney then in the Braden case in the fifties. So it was Shoring. What was his first name? He just retired now as a judge.

WHITE: Edwin.

TACHAU: Ed, yeah.

WHITE: Well, do you have any particular memories of 152:00what happened in the courtroom? I mean do you remember any particular demeanor or statements on the part of the judge or the prosecutor or any of the people there?

TACHAU: No, I don’t really.

WHITE: Not particularly.

TACHAU: I remember mostly feeling, you know, it was a big crowd of people in the courtroom and you didn’t know when your name would be called, or whether you’d hear it when it was. Or what would be going on then up at the bench. They’d whisper everything. I really don’t remember anything else.

WHITE: Let me ask you and perhaps this is a good closing question.

TACHAU: Good.

WHITE: You might be hungry. (Laughing) To reflect on progress, if any. Number one: did it take demonstrations like that to move 153:00the ball forward? Number two: has the ball been moved forward? And Number three: what is our job now in two thousand and one? Where do we need to go?

TACHAU: Well, I think looking back, we were probably quite right in the mid-sixties, in terms of Louisville, to do what we did. And it did accomplish some things. Some changes took place, have taken place and are still taking place. On the other hand, the fact that we still need Lewis Coleman and others who support him and I’m firmly of the feeling we do, would indicate that there’s still a lot to be done.

WHITE: What? I mean, what are the particulars?

TACHAU: Well I mean, the kinds of issues that Coleman is concerned about, 154:00it seems to me primarily, though he keeps getting involved in others, are the employment ones and the economic ones. And those always need to be addressed. Now the whole question of proportional equality, if that’s the right word, has always bothered me a little bit. But if blacks are twenty-five percent of the community are they supposed to have twenty-five percent of the jobs building Louisville Sluggers? Well, I can see the argument yes, but I can also see that you may never achieve that or maybe they should have more than that. I just don’t know. The whole police issue 155:00is an ongoing one and is likely to be for a long time. I think we do live in a different climate than we lived, certainly in the forties and fifties and sixties. I mean, the whole issue of politically correct...certain things you just can’t hardly say or think even anymore that seemed to be just taken for granted a long time ago. And that’s a big change. Nobody suggests that we should be segregating our schools or our restaurants, you know, all those kinds of things. Or the street cars or the buses. So I mean life 156:00is pretty different than it was when I was, some of what I described in my own lifetime. But there is still a good deal to be done. I mean--I don’t know--I don’t know what is the right approach anymore. I guess I really think Coleman’s probably a good leader and is doing the right thing most of the time. And I always liked him. He was kind of a kid when I was doing all this. Buddy Coleman, I would call him. He’s a good preacher, too.

WHITE: Thank you, very much.

TACHAU: Yeah.

END OF TAPE THREE SIDE TWO END OF INTERVIEW