Oral History Interview with Eric Tachau

ETHEL WHITE: This is a conversation with Eric Tachau. We are at his home at 309 Westgate Terrace Court in Louisville, Kentucky. It is May 1st, year 2000. My name is Ethel White. If you would, could you please start with a brief biography leading up to your first involvement with civil rights here in Louisville, and perhaps there might a couple of things you could flag that might have been an influence on your decision to be involved specifically.

ERIC TACHAU: All right. I was born in nineteen twenty-four. My parents were Charles Tachau and Jean Brandeis Tachau, and actually all eight of my grandparents, great-grandparents came to this country in the years eighteen forty-eight and ’forty-nine--uh, most of them from Louisville or ended up in Louisville. They were 1:00to be considered refugees of the Revolutions in Europe of eighteen forty-eight. They were—most of them were liberal, middle class Jews, many of them non-( ) Jews, and they individually and separately--jointly sort of gave up on Europe when the Revolution of eighteen forty-eight failed. So I come from a pretty liberal background. Uh, I went to Ballard School as--which was an interesting public school--where Chance School is now overlooking the Ohio River, in which we had—it was during the Depression—we had a wonderfully diverse population; from kids from abject poverty to children of the richest old 2:00blueblood families in Louisville. And we learned a great deal about diversity, and it was a great experience; but there was absolutely nobody of color in that school. And Louisville was so segregated that I don’t recall it ever crossing my mind that it was even strange that there were--that I literally went past a one-room, uh, we then called colored school, to get to my school. And years, years later when bussing was the thing and people were worried about people having to go so far from the neighborhood schools, I was reminded of the fact that I went, instead of a half mile to my neighborhood school, went two and a half miles to my white school. (Chuckle—White) Uh, I went on then to Anchorage High School, which was a lovely little high school, and is--no longer exists as a high school. Graduated in the spring 3:00of nineteen forty-one and went from there to Oberlin College--which among other things was the first integrated college in the United States. I knew that I wanted to go to an integrated school, but I don’t know why I knew that. But the very first evening we were there—the freshman class got there two or three days before the rest of the school--and the very first evening we had a mixer, and there was a young woman--who turned out to be a tremendous pianist later from Louisville--who was African American. And I asked her to dance that first evening, decided I better get that under the belt and find--prove to myself that it wouldn’t do me any harm. And it didn’t. Although she did me a little harm in that she told me she knew exactly why I was dancing with her, and she wasn’t sure whether she was complimented or not complimented by it. But at least she was willing to subject me 4:00to the experience and let me learn from it. So that may have been in the way of my first experience of, of dealing with integration. We had on the farm—well, I had what we called a colored mammy from the time I was a child and was crazy about her, we all were. She later went on to be almost mammy to my children and my sister’s children. And we were all crazy about Viola, but she would never let me kiss her as a child. It just wasn’t right. But we also had some other quote, “colored servants” unquote, that were our good friends as well as servants. But somehow rather this—I didn’t connect as a child the fact that, that I could be good friends with specific colored people but could be totally unaware 5:00of the feelings and goals and cares and concerns of colored people that I didn’t know personally. Took me a long time to learn that. So, let’s see, so then, so I went on to Oberlin in the fall of nineteen forty-one, found that being in an integrated school was a good experience. Oberlin was very diverse as had been Ballard. And in December of ’forty-one the war came along, and in the summer of ’forty-two I dropped out of school—actually, in September—I finished a summer semester and then dropped out and joined the Marine Corp. From October—actually, I guess it was November—of ’forty-two until October of ’forty-five, spent almost that entire time except for just a few months at both ends, 6:00in the South Pacific. And I got back, got out just before November of nineteen forty-five, late October, spent a year doing not much but then went back to Oberlin in the fall of nineteen forty-six. First night back there met a group of friends from pre-war days and only one of them had a date. Uh, a lovely little girl in a red dress. (Chuckle—White) And I told him the next morning that, “If you ever get tired of dating Mary Kay, I wish you’d let me know”--cause in those days you didn’t try to have a date with your friend’s girlfriends. So a few weeks later he, uh, asked if I was still interested in dating Mary Kay and I said, “Yes I was.” And he said, “Well, she’s too easy for me 7:00and, uh, you can have her.” Well years later, turned out that (laughter-White) that, uh, not only was she—well, I knew she was not too easy—but years later, it turned out why she was so insulted. But, anyhow, we had—and so I did ask her for a date. And we had two or three dates that fall; and they were not particularly successful; and she later referred to it—‘cause I was an unrehabilitated Marine. But by the next spring--we had a lot of friends in common--and by the next spring I got to--we got to know each other, and I asked her for a date again; and a little less than three weeks later we were engaged. And that would have been April of nineteen forty-seven. September of nineteen forty-seven we were married. We spent that one year, the first year of our marriage, together as students at Oberlin. She was a senior, and I was technically a senior but 8:00I had--because of the war--had fouled up on my language requirements. It would have taken me an extra full year to have actually gotten a degree, so I never planned to graduate; but she did. And that was a wonderful year. Among other things, because we were both students—we had a little apartment; and we had--we would have breakfast there; Sunday night dinners; but the rest of the meals we ate at a dormitory. And our class schedule was such that I had an eight o’clock three days a week, and she had an eight o’clock three days a week; so the other one made breakfast, which was not a big deal except that we were both full-time students. The housekeeping was a minor part of our lives, and we just got in the habit of not having roles; which 9:00lasted the rest of our marriage really. Although, we did have some roles but more a matter of choice than a matter of tradition. And that was very fortunate. It was just a lucky break; it happened without any real thought. I think there was probably a little more thought on Mary Kay’s part than mine. After she graduated and I finished, we came back to Louisville where we settled down, and where I went to work in a family business. And she started out being a housekeeper and a volunteer, a housewife and volunteer; and got bored pretty quickly and went back to school and got her masters and later her Ph.D.. And was a very fine, very respected scholar and teacher at U of L up until, just before her death in nineteen ninety. 10:00In the meantime—and this probably deals more with the civil rights issue—two things that were of some importance in my civil rights activities. One is that my father, right after World War II, was asked to go on the Board of Directors, or actually to, to be a nonvoting member of the Board of Directors of Red Cross Hospital, which was the Negro hospital in Louisville. And they were, uh—he was very highly thought of by the Negro community, uh; and he enjoyed that a great deal. They asked him--they, they asked him to be a nonvoting member first because he was the first white member of that Board, and they were little afraid of being taken over. And they made quite a big deal out of the fact that, for a couple of years--they changed the bylaws so that he could be a voting member; which 11:00was a great expression of trust. And by that time I’d come back to Louisville, and it was important to me, uh, to see that--part of it being that Mary Kay had grown up in a totally color-blind family--and in very many subtle ways she sort of taught me the ridiculousness of the Southern point of view. That it was not only morally wrong but silly and—I mean, I knew it was morally wrong, but I still was very patronizing toward colored people and thought of them with noblesse oblige rather than as the, uh, in the normal racist, Southern bigot point of view. But at any rate, Dad getting that vote of trust was 12:00important. The other thing was that my grandfather--his father--had been President of the Board of Neighborhood House for thirty or forty years, founded about nineteen forty-eight. Uh, he was getting pretty old, and thought it was time to step down; and he nominated me, or had me nominated and elected, to that board sort of to replace him, not as president but on the board. And I served on it three or four years, and finally the issue came up—and this was before Brown against Board of Education, was in the early fifties—the issue came up as to whether Neighborhood House should be integrated; and I felt very strongly it should be. Where it was located at that time on First Street was a very mixed neighborhood actually, and I was horrified by the point of view of some of the board members. 13:00That just seemed to me so anachronistic that I felt it was hopeless and I resigned. And I learned from that, I guess, that my resignation didn’t accomplish anything and that it was much better to fight than it is to just give up in disgust. So that was a good lesson for me, but it did come from the issue of integration. During the nineteen fifties, uh, actually I was very, very busy making a living in the nineteen fifties. The first four years I was moving up quite quickly in my job and was working sixty or seventy hours a week; and we were having brand new children. And then all of a sudden the company that I was with went under, and I found myself with no job and not much 14:00in the way of savings, and so started my own business. In the meantime, Mary Kay was very busy with the children. She was getting her masters and, I guess, it was in nineteen fifty-eight that she actually taught her first course. And those years, uh, neither of us were particularly involved in the community or in other activities that would be relevant to civil rights. We both got pretty involved as volunteers in the nineteen fifty-two and nineteen fifty-six elections, both very strong supporters of Adlai Stevenson. But generally those years are pretty blank years as far as civic activities. I think it was probably during the fifties that she became a board member of Kentucky American Civil Liberties Union. 15:00WHITE: ACLU?

TACHAU: I think it was in the fifties. I’m sure it must have been. In the very early sixties—oh, I guess I left out that in the mid-nineteen fifties after my father had his first heart attack, I was elected to go on the Red Cross Hospital board.

WHITE: Right.

TACHAU: And we served, both served on it a couple of years and he, I think he probably served until he died in nineteen fifty-five, May of ‘fifty-five. And I continued on that board for a number of years. It may have been the late—I think it was the sixties that I went on the Plymouth Settlement board, which was an African-American settlement house, presumably integrated but it really wasn’t. But it, 16:00it wanted to be. And they integrated the board for survival, but that I think was probably early sixties.

WHITE: What was the story about money from Community Chest? Plymouth Settlement House?

TACHAU: Well, that was Plymouth and that would have been a little bit later than that.

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: That was in mid-sixties but that was a, that was one of my first experiences of learning that, uh . . . the effectiveness of confrontation in civic issues because in, uh, in business confrontation rarely works. You either negotiate or you just plain fight and litigate, 17:00or at least threaten to litigate. But I don’t think that you can—I’ve never found that confrontation works in business, but it certainly does in dealing with social problems. And I learned that I guess from this Plymouth Settlement House, which was--a very fine and prominent black lawyer, Earl Dearing, was on that Board. And we concluded that--we remembered in the Settlement House, were members of Community Chest. And we were shocked at how little money we were getting from Community Chest, and how hard it was to get any increase at all. And finally Earl Dearing and I—with the approval of the Board—took it on ourselves we’d go down and meet with the Community Chest board. And we told them that we were--Plymouth was prepared to pull out of Community Chest; and we were going to announce to the world why we were pulling out. And we were going to go to every Negro contributor in Louisville of any size 18:00and ask them to give to us instead of Community Chest. And within twenty-four hours I think we got notice that Community Chest Board decided to almost double the amount of money we got. And it was a very nice experience, nice outcome. (chuckle—White) I’m not sure that, that was—had to do with civil rights. It does have a little bit to do with my relationship with the blacks. But in the early sixties, uh--and I forget which year it was; it might have been ’sixty-one or ‘sixty-two. The--a lot of black youth in the spring were demonstrating and pushing for desegregating downtown Louisville, and the stores, public accommodations. 19:00And all that spring, every day after school they would gather, usually at First Unitarian Church, which is just south of Broadway, and get together and sort of have a little bit of a pep rally to persuade themselves to go do what they were going to do. And then they’d march up Fourth Street toward, north toward the river, and would try to get waited on in various stores and movie theaters without any success. And every now and then some one would get arrested. But as the weeks went on--and it was always totally nonviolent on their part—as the weeks went on, the community began to find that they, uh, they couldn’t ignore this. And more and more people started putting pressure on the businessmen (cleared throat) that owned 20:00stores down there; and, uh, Mary Helen Bycks was--provided some leadership from the standpoint of the business people to push for desegregation of downtown Louisville. And a lot of the leading—and, I, I—a lot of those people I knew, or a number of them, and I was on . . .

WHITE: You knew a number of which?

TACHAU: Of the business people.

WHITE: The white leadership?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: I mean several, certainly. But a group of us that were entirely sympathetic to these--to the idea of desegregating downtown Louisville--who knew some of these business people, uh--with some leadership with Mary Helen Byck started making appointments and talking to these business people about the need to desegregate downtown Louisville and got a pretty good number of them 21:00to agree. Basically they were saying, “We’d love to see it happen, but we can’t do it by ourselves because then, uh, not enough--the blacks won’t buy enough from us to make up for the whites that are going to boycott us.” So basically they were saying (cleared throat), we’d like to see either the Chamber of Commerce or the City of Louisville; the Chamber’s mandate or the City of Louisville require it. And ultimately that did happen. The City did pass a public accommodations law, and I think that must have been ’sixty-two or three, or an ordinance. Probably ’sixty-three because by that time I’d gotten a little bit more involved, gotten to know Frank Stanley, Jr. I’ll get back to him. But Graham Brown--who was the wealthiest man in Louisville and a very powerful figure; and who owned the Brown Hotel and the office building 22:00across the street--had made it very clear that he would close the Brown Hotel before he would integrate it. This ordinance passed. The day it was to be effective, uh, actually it was effective as of 12:01 a.m. such-and-such a day. I don’t remember when it was but seems to me it was nineteen sixty-three. Frank called me that morning . . .

WHITE: Frank Stanley, that is?

TACHAU: Frank Stanley, Jr. . . .

WHITE: Junior.

TACHAU: . . . who was in his twenties, a very, very bright young man. He called me that morning, and he said, “I’m going to have lunch today at the Brown coffee shop. Will you go with me?” I could not think of any good excuse for not going with him, but I knew 23:00we were going to get arrested; and I wasn’t a bit sure we weren’t going to get . . . pretty--charged with some felony or God knows what. I called Mary Kay and told her, I said, “We’re doing this and not to worry.” And she said, “I’m not worried. I’m glad you’re going to do it.” or something like that. Didn’t bat an eye. But then I thought about it and I figured well, Graham Brown is less likely to do something that everybody will regret if he has time to think about it. So I called—it was maybe 10:30 by this time. And I called him, didn’t get him, got his secretary, told her who I was and she knew--actually my father--he and Graham Brown were good friends. And I told her that at noon that a young African American and I, would be well dressed, were going to come into the Brown coffee shop 24:00for lunch; and that he, that it was the law that he, that we had to be served and that I wanted him to have time to think about it. So Frank and I did go there, met at the door at twelve, and went on in and, uh, I don’t know why I was so scared but I was. I don’t know what I was scared of but I was pretty nervous. Anyway, we sat down at a table, and we were totally ignored by the staff as if we just didn’t exist. And after about ten minutes, Graham Brown came in. And he walked over to where we were sitting and he stood there—he’s a little imposing—and he stood there and said, “Mr. Tachau,” and I said, “Yes sir.” I think we stood up, and he said, “Your father was a friend of mine.” As if to say he would disinherit me if he were still alive, or disown me. Well, I suddenly—that was really 25:00what I needed to hear because I knew dad was so damn proud of me. So all of a sudden, I got my courage. I said, “I know he was, Mr. Brown, and I wonder—I’d like to be friends with you. Will you have a cup of coffee with us?” And he stood there what seemed to me like an hour and a half but probably was four or five seconds, and said, “Yes, I will.” And the three of us sat down, and within two seconds there were two waitresses there. And he said, “We’d all three like a cup of coffee.” And they brought us three cups of coffee just like that. I don’t think any of us finished our coffee before he shook hands with us, got up and left; and we’d desegregated the Brown Hotel.

WHITE: Let me put this on hold for a minute, Eric. (interruption) Just trying to improve the sound. Go ahead.

TACHAU: But that was, anyhow, that was kind of a fun experience. It was fun when it was over. It wasn’t really much fun at the time, but it was--it was fun that it worked and, uh, those are the kind of memories that are fun to have. 26:00Actually, it was sort of before that—Frank Stanley was very much involved in leading the students in the demonstrations a year or so before, along with Earl Dearing. The man that I mentioned that--he and I later were on Plymouth Settlement House board together, and several other middle-class African Americans who later became friends of mine, were very much involved in those early demonstrations. It was about the same time that the demonstrations were taking place here in Louisville, that they started having sit-ins all through the South. And one evening Mary Kay and I went to a program at the University of Louisville where Bill Kuntsler was the speaker; and he was representing 27:00some of the students that were, been charged with felony, he and Norfolk as I recall. They had just been sitting-in peacefully but a disturbance was started really by other people—they were just there—that ended up doing a good deal of damage to the drugstore, wherever they were sitting-in. And they got arrested and charged with a felony, anarchy or rioting or something, and Kunstler’s representing them at that time. And one of the things he did that evening was show us a movie that was showing what was really going on in the civil rights movement at that point. And it included one scene that I particularly remember: two policemen taking a young, nicely-dressed, teenage man into an alley, 28:00and about a minute and a half it showed them coming out. And they didn’t cut the film, so the camera was on this dark alley for a minute and a half. So there was no editing; they just showed them going in and showed them coming out. And this guy--they’d almost beaten him to death. And, uh, I went home, we went home that evening and I said, “Mary Kay, I’ve got to get involved in this thing. I can’t be a spectator.” And she said, “I agree with you completely.” So the next morning, I knew that—I didn’t know who Frank--I didn’t know Frank Stanley, Jr., I knew who he was. His father, who was publisher of The Louisville Defender, the African-American newspaper, had been on the Board at Red Cross Hospital with me, or maybe even still was. But I knew who Frank was and I called him the next morning and told him who I was and I wanted to be involved and I didn’t know what I could do. And, uh, that was not 29:00too long before he—I mean I went to a couple of meetings that I couldn’t tell what they really were about, but they were just sort of organizing, planning, discussion meetings. But it was--that was not too long before the Brown Hotel thing. That’s why he called me that morning. I think he was testing me as much as he was doing anything else. But, uh, that I think was about the spring of ’sixty-three. In the fall of ’sixty-three after the march on Washington, Frank . . .

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE ONE SIDE TWO TACHAU: . . . so Frank called me. He was calling a bunch of people, and he was putting together an organization he called Allied Organization for Civil Rights. And its--it was intended to be a consortium of all the civil rights 30:00organizations in Kentucky. And it was very important to him that it not be dominated by any one group, which would probably have been the NAACP, but might have been the Urban League. And I was not an active member of any civil rights organization so he asked me if I would be on the, be treasurer of it. He—it was marvelous—he--the way he was able to build this organization. He had four officers: he was the president; and Olaf Anderson, who is a Presbyterian minister out at Harvey Brown, was vice president; and Father John Loftus, who was a teacher at Bellarmine, was secretary; and I was treasurer. So there was one black and three whites. So this was still early in the civil rights movement. Then he had an executive committee 31:00that he--that made up most of the prominent middle-class blacks in Louisville but did nothing practically but lend their names. But with the title ‘executive’ he had made them sound very important. They and a Board of Directors that included representatives from almost every organization that was remotely connected with civil rights, including Mary Kay representing ACLU; uh, which again did very little, but being ‘Board of Directors’ sounded important. And then the planning committee—and the planning committee was really the key committee. And there probably were ten of us on the planning committee. That included Lukie Ward, who also became office manager—we set up an office. Uh, Eli Brown gave 32:00us a lot of space in the old Board of Trade Building, which he owned, uh, provided we paid for our utilities. Well, as it turned out our utilities were pretty expensive. Typical Eli—I’m crazy about Eli Brown, but he could never really be quite generous. He always wanted to be but he, you know, he just, he couldn’t overcome his, his being smart. And so he, he gave us the space provided we paid for our utilities; and we paid for a lot of utilities (laughter-White) that winter in that building, but we did have space. Uh, and Lukie was officer manager and her assistant was Georgia Davis, who became Georgia Davis Powers, and was paid. She was the highest salaried person. There was a woman, whose name I can’t remember, who was sort of her assistant; who later became quite a bigwig in the Democratic party and who, uh, 33:00sort of became the top paid African American on the staff of the Democratic party, seventies and eighties. And two or three young blacks who were part-time, paid to sort of be, organize out in the state; and one was Raul Cunningham, who’s still around. And I think Raul was on Dee Huddleston’s staff when he was in Washington and then—he’s had some pretty, pretty good positions, and I see Raul every now and then. He’s gotten pretty old now. This is in 1962. Uh, but the planning committee included people like Harry McAlpin, who was a very, very bright African-American lawyer who later, soon after moved out to California. Bill Freelander, 34:00who was very involved, was on the planning committee; Lukie was on the planning committee; the four officers were on the planning committee. Let’s see, who else was on—uh, there was a Presbyterian minister whose name slips me right now. I saw not too long ago who, who at that time was running the, the youth group place that’s in Smoketown. But he was very involved in it. I think Phil Ardery was on the planning committee. But, anyhow, that organization, under Frank’s leadership—Lyman Johnson was on the—no, he wasn’t on the planning committee; he was on the executive committee. Lyman played a major role in, well, in two respects. 35:00One, he gave the organization credibility in the entire black community, and principally with the NAACP; which meant the NAACP through, really through Lyman’s leadership, accepted AOCR as really being above it rather than as a competitor. And that was a major accomplishment. Dr. Jesse Bell, who was a very prominent physician, helped in that. Johnny Walls, who was a wonderful African-American musician, his wife Murray Walls, who was on the original state Human Rights Commission. They, those kind of people gave the organization credibility within the black community 36:00as well as the white. But the white community—there wasn’t the concern of AOCR, of Frank Stanley usurping the leadership of the community within the white community; but there was, particularly the Urban League and the NAACP. And people like that gave it credibility and also raised money for us. I can’t remember the name of the man that was president of Mammoth Life, but he was undoubtedly the wealthiest black in Louisville and very quiet man; but very supportive and very—supported me. My job was primarily—well, to keep the books, but to raise money. And these people were wonderful in that regard. But we ended up putting on this march. I think it was March 3, 1964 in the rain. Uh, 37:00I believe there was a minimum twenty-five thousand people there. I think I told you on the phone the other day that the newspaper estimated five thousand, and it turned out that that was based entirely on just a sort of an offhand statement by the Frankfort Chief of Police; who was not interested. But one of the reasons I know there was a lot more than five thousand is that we, we had purchased for fifty cents apiece, ten thousand box lunches which we sold for a dollar a piece. We were going to make five thousand on it. But we actually sold about sixty-five hundred. Nobody bought two box lunches so I know there were more than sixty-five—and a lot of people didn’t buy any box lunches. But we, we ended up making (laughing) a little over one thousand instead of five thousand. 38:00The only real battle I had with Frank Stanley—he was a marvelous leader, creative—the only real fight I had with Frank was when we were talking about the box lunches, and I begged him not to buy more than three thousand of them; and he, he agreed he wouldn’t and then bought five thousand. Well if we’d bought three it wouldn’t have made much difference, but he had double-crossed me by, by just promising and breaking his promise. And I told him after this, “Frank, you’ve done a wonderful job, but how can I ever trust you again?” And he said, “Well, that’s not the most important thing,” (laughing) or something like that. I think he just took it so lightly. And he, he was the first Louisville African American who treated me—and treated all other whites—as if he considered himself equal to us, and that was part of what I admired about him. He had a lot of brashness and there were a lot of people who didn’t 39:00like him. He was brash; he wasn’t, he didn’t always tell the truth. He cut a lot of corners. I don’t think he was any way dishonest. But one of the things I admired about him was he really, honestly thought he was as good as white people. And, uh, most of the blacks in those days wanted to be as good as white people, they wanted the opportunity; but they had been so brainwashed their entire lives that they really didn’t think it. That’s what, that’s why the Stokely Carmichaels were so important when they came on, the rap ( ); when they started talking about ‘black is beautiful’ and really took over the leadership of the civil rights movement. That was so important because they were the first to really convince young blacks 40:00that maybe they were better than whites, that maybe their culture really was better than ours. Just imitating and becoming like whites wasn’t good enough but it’d be better if whites became like them. And that was a very important part of the civil rights movement and is still, I think, the big issue today: is to convince African Americans that their goal should not be to be like whites.

Uh, but, let’s see, well, we had the march. We had it in the rain. Uh, Martin Luther King came, Ralph Abernathy came, Peter, Paul and Mary, Jackie Robinson. We had this wonderful breakfast before the march at the Seelback Hotel. And Joe Hammond, who was a great black entrepreneur and had a little 41:00bar and restaurant down on Jefferson Street--West Jefferson Street--which later became the place for the--for jazz music in Louisville; but Joe was one of the people on the planning committee, I think, and he was given the job of—we rented and we borrowed God knows how many black limousines from every black funeral director within a hundred, five hundred miles of Louisville probably—and we were going to have this great parade up to Frankfort of all these marvelous vehicles. And at that time, uh, I-64 stopped at just about where the Gene Snyder is. Uh, so you had to get from downtown Louisville--you went out Lexington Road and went through St. Matthews, and then out Shelbyville 42:00Road and Middletown and then cut over to get on sixty-four to get to Frankfort--and Joe Hammond was to lead the parade. Well, he’d never been anyplace except in the West End, and he got lost on Lexington Road and led two hundred vehicles all over St. Matthews and Shelbyville Road to--and so we got to Frankfort about thirty minutes late for the parade with all the ( ) in there. (laughing) And what an example of what you can expect with a segregated society. He literally got lost in St. Matthews (laughter-White) which was funny. Well it was kind of a nasty day, but everything really went pretty well. Uh, we had a big crowd. Ned Breathitt--who had just been inaugurated as governor and was from Hopkinsville, Kentucky--and Hopkinsville, if you don’t know, is about as southern as, almost 43:00as Memphis, certainly was in those days--and Breathitt was an old Kentucky southern name, southern Kentucky name. (cleared throat) But he decided that he would like to do as John F. Kennedy did for the march on Washington, was to invite the leadership folks to come in and have tea in his office after the march, at 4:30 in the afternoon, after everything was over. So there were probably twenty of us that did go there, including Martin Luther King. And Breathitt was very cordial, invited us in, and when--and this was going to be sort of a social occasion. (cleared throat) In the meantime, there was a good deal of pressure for a public accommodations law in Kentucky, and a senator from 44:00Lexington, Shelby Kincaid, had introduced a bill, that was a very watered-down bill but it was a start toward desegregating public accommodations. Norm Blume, later Speaker of the House, but at that time a freshman legislature and a teamster organizer from the West End of Louisville, had introduced a very good bill; a very broad public accommodations bill. So our demonstration was for a--I mean the whole March on Frankfort was to pass a public accommodations bill; and when we met with Breathitt, one of the first things that was striking was that when he was introduced to Martin Luther King, King said to him, “Governor, I hear you’re a good man and I hope you are.” And he said it in a tone of voice 45:00that was perfectly pleasant, perfectly cordial but within—by the time he finished that sentence, there was absolutely no question who was in control of this meeting in the governor’s office. And it was King’s meeting, not Breathitt’s meeting. And it was the tone of voice, it was the charisma. And I had met him on two or three occasions before that, but it was the first time I had ever seen him really in action. And it was unbelievable the power of his voice, or his personality. But he took over that meeting and—so he wanted to talk business about how to get this bill passed. And Breathitt said, “I don’t think we can pass the Blume bill. I think we can get the Kincaid bill passed.” And Harry McAlpin said, “I don’t think 46:00we can accept that.” And the governor said, “Well, it’s a start.” And Harry said, “It’s not a good enough start.” WHITE: Who, who was this that said . . .

TACHAU: Harry McAlpin, who was one of our . . .

WHITE: Okay.

TACHAU: “It’s not a good enough start and what it’ll do, if you pass it, it really doesn’t accomplish anything. But it means that we don’t have the issue then to work on the next two years; and if we fail to pass a good bill, we’ve got two years to work on it.” And Martin Luther King said, “That sounds right to me.” Said, “I’m not familiar with your local politics, but that sounds right to me. It’s all right to accept half a loaf if that half a loaf has any . . .” how did he put it? “. . . any vitamins in it.” But he said, “If it’s really not half a loaf, you might as well accept nothing.” He said, “You all have to decide whether it’s possible.” Well, 47:00Breathitt said, “I don’t think we can pass it.” And by that time the whites in the room--who were Father John and Olaf Anderson and I, and I think Phil Ardery was there and Lukie and maybe another white other than Breathitt and a couple of his people--but we all realized this was something we didn’t need to have an opinion on what was, what would or would not be a half loaf. But the blacks, including Frank Stanley and Harry and so forth, were—there was a Reverend King who was from Louisville—they were all solid that they’d rather no bill than the Kincaid bill. So Breathitt said, “Well I’ll tell you what. We can’t work that out this afternoon.” He turned to Frank Stanley and said, “Frank, you, you and three, four or five of the people that you choose, come back here 48:00tomorrow morning at ten o’clock; and I’ll have my people here, my strategists here, and we’ll see what we can work out.” He said, “I . . .” He said, “There is no point in my using all my political capital, whatever it may be, to try and pass a bill that you all don’t want. And I’m prepared to do all I can to pass your bill. I’m not sure we can, but no point in my fighting to pass the Kincaid bill if you all don’t want it. So let’s come up here and we’ll work on a strategy.” At that point, uh--I remember it because it was interesting from another point of view--Phil Ardery said, “Governor, who is going to be here from your staff?” And he said, “Well I think Don Mills and some one and . . . and I’ll have Ed Pritchard here.” So on the way home, Phil said to Frank, 49:00“I don’t think I should be at that meeting.” And I don’t know if you know the Pritchard-Ardery business . . .

WHITE: Uh-uh.

TACHAU: . . . but that’s, that—and I didn’t know that at the time. I later knew all that story and it’s a totally separate story.

WHITE: Should we skip over the story or—I mean for purposes of this tape, do we want to fill it in or . . .

TACHAU: No, no, that’s . . .

WHITE: Researchers can find it.

TACHAU: But, uh, the next morning Frank and Harry McAlpin and Reverend King-- who was not Martin Luther King, but he was the, he was the preacher at the biggest black church in Louisville--and I, and I think Lukie, went up there. And we met with Breathitt and Prichard and Don Mills and I don’t know who else. And probably met for a couple of hours 50:00and what it really boiled down to was—first, they were trying to figure out the actual process for trying to pass the Blume bill, ‘cause this was pretty late in the session by this time. This was like, this was the fourth of March and the Blume bill had been introduced in the House and never gotten out of committee. The Kincaid bill was prepared to be passed by the Senate and moved over to the House any day. It had sort of been held up for the march. Uh, so there was a real question of whether there was even time to pass the Blume bill. So Prichard came up with the notion, which was typical of him, so simple. He said, “Why don’t we just have somebody in the Senate amend the Kincaid bill so it reads like the Blume bill and just a substitute bill but still call it, 51:00have an amendment to the Kincaid bill.” Well, Breathitt thought that was a good idea. So they called up to the House floor and got Norm Blume to come down to find out if that was okay with him; And it was fine with him. And then they asked Shelby Kincaid to come down from the Senate, and he said, “It was fine with him,” so that was the strategy. And, uh, and of course, the, uh, Senate didn’t even realize what they were doing when they did it--they passed it. They substituted it on the floor and they passed it because the leadership ( ). By the time it got to the House, the House leadership knew and it never got out of committee in the House. But we also--but the main part of that meeting really was--which was the first time I’d ever seen this--was the governor sitting there with his staff going through the list of senators, through the list of House members and deciding who was going to call whom and which ones they, they knew they had; and all they had to do was just go through the motions so they wouldn’t insult them, and which ones they knew 52:00they couldn’t possibly get so they, why bother to waste their time. Who were the swing people and who could talk to them. And we were mainly spectators for that, but it was very interesting to see it. Going home, I remember Frank asking, to me, “What do you think the chances are of us getting our bill?” I said, “I think they’re very, very slim. Uh, there’s absolutely no reason for the governor to have misled us on this, and . . .” WHITE: No reason for him . . .?

TACHAU: For the governor to mislead us. When he said, “I don’t think we’ve got much chance, but we’re going to do all we can.” And I said, “I don’t see any reason for him to have misled us on this and I really think the chances are pretty slim.” And Frank said, “Well, do you think it would hurt if we put on a sit-in in the House gallery for the last week or so, day in and day out, to see 53:00if we can put pressure on them?” And I said, “I can’t believe it’ll hurt but I don’t think it will help. But it probably will help for the long pull.” So he said, “Well that’s what we’ll do.” So he organized, and within a couple of days he had about ten of them, uh—I can picture them; I can’t remember names—uh, who are prepared to go sit in the House gallery either till the bill was passed in the House or till it, uh, till the House adjourned. And they did. But one of the things we decided—at the same time that these people were going to go occupy a part of the House Gallery, I was given the job of going in to see Breathitt and telling him this was taking place; 54:00because even though it’s the House Gallery, it’s the executive branch that’s responsible for maintaining the capitol building. And I just wanted to be sure that before some reporter came in and said, “A bunch of blacks are occupying the House Gallery.” Or something like that, that he had a moment to think about it so he didn’t react wrong. So just at the moment they were going in there—Mary Kay went with me to bolster me—and, which she always did, we walked into the governor’s office, his secretary there, and I said, “I need to see the governor for two minutes right away.” And she said, “Well he’s right in the middle of a meeting.” I said, “Well I really only need two minutes, maybe even only a minute, but I do need it right away.” And so she dials in to him, and I could hear her say, “Mr., Mr. and Mrs. Tachau really 55:00need to see you for just a minute or two but need to see you right away.” He comes out. He says, “Come on in.” and he’s got some of his staff people are there and I said, “Governor, I just want to tell you so that you’ve got a moment to think about it before hear about it, there are twelve, uh, Negroes and whites who have just gone into the House Gallery and are prepared to sit there, stay there until the bill pass or adjourned.” And he said, “It’s going to be cold at night. You know, we turn down the heat.” And I, I said, “Well, they’re prepared for that, but I just wanted to be sure that you have a chance to think about it before the press tells you this.” And he said, “Well I really appreciate that, but it’s their constitutional right.” I mean there was no hesitation at all on his part. And then he, he did say—well, he took four or five minutes just to chat with Mary Kay and me, 56:00with his people there, about how things were going; and I think how much he admired our being involved or something like that. I mean, he couldn’t have been nicer. I had been very supportive of him in the campaign for election but, but nothing important. But he, he just couldn’t have been more of a gentleman about—but his immediate reaction, ‘it’s their constitutional right’ was important. Well, the long and short is, the bill didn’t pass. Then in the summer of nineteen sixty-four the Congress passed the Civil Rights Act so that in the spring of ’sixty-five or ’sixty-six rather, uh, Kentucky passed the public accommo-, the Blume bill without any question. Uh, AOCR, after this was all over, we had about twenty thousand dollars of debts, uh, Frank, 57:00Frank wanted to make AOCR into a permanent organization. Several of us felt, number one, that we were not going to be able to maintain the coalition that well; that part of why we’d been able to develop the coalition was that it was temporary and we were not getting on anybody else’s turf, and that if Frank—that the only reason to keep AOCR was really to keep Frank’s leadership. And if his leadership was that important, the NAACP would make him, or one of them, would make him their leader, and he could then develop his own group. Uh, in addition which—I didn’t, I , for one--and there were several of us--didn’t see any real point in starting a new organization with a twenty thousand dollar debt. It was one thing to raise money to pay off these debts, and actually I ended up 58:00compromising a lot of them. Uh . . .

WHITE: What does that mean?

TACHAU: Well, I got Greyhound Bus to forgive us for seventy cents on the dollar. We owed them $5,000 or $6,000 and things like that. Uh, but about that time Frank got offered the number two position in the Los Angeles Urban League which was really a big job which he took. And, I mean, I was one of the people urged him to take it. There were a lot of people said, “No you better stay here and help raise money to pay off these debts.” Well he wasn’t going to help raise money. I mean that wasn’t his style anyhow and it was no point in that. I mean, this was the civil rights movement, part of the contribution to the civil rights movement that I could make, and people like me could make was for us to stay and raise the money; and for Frank to go on and do other things. And he did. He—unfortunately, he got into trouble when 59:00he was, when Whitney Young, Jr. died. Frank was being considered for head of the national . . .

END OF TAPE ONE SIDE TWO BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE ONE TACHAU: Unfortunately, Frank had some stuff on his resume that wasn’t totally true. Like, for example, he’d gotten a masters degree in such-and-such, when he really had done everything except complete his thesis. So he didn’t have a degree; he’d done all the coursework. But there were enough of that that he was not a finalist for that job of Executive Director of the National Urban League, and probably rightly. The last time that he came back to Louisville, several years later--he had pretty serious problems with his stepbrother, I think, or half-brother, I’m not sure which, over, taking over management of The Louisville Defender. And 60:00I saw Frank on the street about ten years ago, and he had some sort of dementia in which he looked like a very ill; old man. And I really don’t know—I assume he’s dead, but I don’t know. But he was a brilliant young man. He left us with those debts. We did get them paid off. It was the right thing for him to have done. It did me, helped me a lot in, with a lot of people in that (laughing) a lot of people thought I was kind of a hero, like Phil Ardery still talks about my having taken on the job of, that Frank deserted me. Well I don’t think Frank deserted me. Number One, I urged him to and that was just my job. It wasn’t a great deal of fun. I did get a contribution toward paying off the debt from Ned Breathitt, which was ( ). It wasn’t a very big one. But I mean I wrote everybody in the world that I thought might 61:00contribute something. And it was amazing the number of liberals who would not contribute because we should not have gotten into debt. Well, we did all this—and there was no question Frank was kind of extravagant. I mean, box lunches was an example. But had he been more conservative about those kind of things, he never would have gotten it pulled off in a short period of time and gotten all these organizations from all over the state to be involved. The criticisms of him are unfair, but anyhow, that’s . . .

WHITE: Where, can you remember a few either individuals or organizations who did contribute money, white or black? In other words, who were the people that did get behind this with their resources?

TACHAU: Well, the black physicians, particularly, Walls; 62:00Jesse Bell; Morris, Lois Morris’ husband; Dr. Bryant, Geneva—not Geneva Bryant, what’s her name? But the father of the new alderwoman was a doctor here. They—Woody Porter. I mean those people all did among them probably $10,000 or $15,000. A few whites: Henry Wallace, a couple of thousand dollars; his sister, Augusta Lyons, maybe a thousand. Barry and Mary Bingham gave some money, not as much as I would have expected. Mary Helen Byck. A lot of people who are--you know, if I were doing it over again, I would’ve, I would’ve 63:00arranged some meetings with people that have real money with Frank Stanley. There were a lot of people that were scared of Frank. They thought he was young, rash, irresponsible; he was in a way all of those things, but he was extremely responsible in that he got it done. And it was really a very tricky thing to have done. It took a lot of creativity and a lot of imagination and a lot of guts, uh, a lot of hard work; and he did a brilliant job. But had—if I were doing it over again, I would have made sure that there was a little more time for him to actually meet, to arrange to meet with people, with liberals with money and get five or ten thousand out of them rather than two hundred and fifty dollars out of them. One of the things—there were a number of church rallies where people like Roy Wilkins came and Ralph Abernathy and W.T. Wyatt and Andrew Young; 64:00and they would be the principal speaker. They’d be at black churches and we’d always raise a thousand, two thousand dollars. I remember the first one was at this Reverend King’s church--it’s the one at Eighteenth and Chestnut--I cannot remember his first name. But we were at his church and he—when it comes time to raise some money, after the speech and everybody’s excited, he stands and he says, “Here’s a hundred dollar bill. I want to make the first contribution (phone rings) ( ), and they started passing the plate (phone rings) and, or the baskets; and there’s a bunch of them and carry them, carry them back in the back room. I’m counting the money, (phone rings) getting ready to go make a night bank deposit. He comes rushing out, says, “I want my $100 back.” (laughter—White) (phone rings) But it was effective. I think he substituted 65:00a $10 bill for his $100 bill. But there are a lot of little funny things like that happened.

WHITE: Speaking of little funny things, can we, can we just back up for a minute, ‘cause I want to back up to the march on Frankfort. You told me a story over the phone that involved your arrest. We have, we have skipped over that.

TACHAU: Oh, well now this was much later.

WHITE: Oh, that was later?

TACHAU: Yeah, that was, that was open, that was the open housing stuff in Louisville in the late sixties.

WHITE: Oh, I misunderstood you. I thought this was in Frankfort.

TACHAU: No, this was an open house . . .

WHITE: Okay, forget that one. Can we back up anyway . . .

TACHAU: Sure.

WHITE: Can you, can you describe any sort of—I mean, what the march was like itself? The sounds and sights and the . . .

TACHAU: Yeah. It was a very dreary March day. Basically, we assembled—we were 66:00to assemble in the area just south of the Kentucky River where there’s a wide two-lane highway or roadway with a big grass middle that heads straight south to the Capitol. And that’s about a half mile. And then we were going to walk from the Kentucky River up to, in front of the Capitol where we had this, the, set up a stand, speaker’s stand and, and microphones and all of that. And everybody would be ( ) there. One of the reasons I know there were a lot more than five thousand people was that we had people actually backed up across the river when they were starting to gather; backed up across the river several blocks and people fanned out in all 67:00directions; so that the area that we had planned for sort of the assembly area would have probably held three thousand or four thousand people and it ended up being a small part of the total crowd. So it was a big crowd that was led—and there’s, there’s a picture that you see from time to time of the front group of marchers, was Martin Luther King, and Olaf Anderson, and Frank Stanley and maybe, I don’t know, Peter, Paul and Mary, I don’t remember, but several of them in the front. Actually I was not in the march itself. I was worrying about trying to get the box lunches sold, because the people that had the box lunches had just taken positions and they weren’t mingling with the crowd. Well the crowd was so thick that people couldn’t get to them or didn’t know about them. So I was 68:00getting all kinds of people to sell box lunches, and to get the crowd mingling and all, and trying to get these people with box lunches out where the marchers would be. So actually I didn’t get to the speaker’s stand for—I mean, this was typical of Frank. He, he made it a big stand with lots of seats and all these various committees, and people had different kind of ribbons that were Executive Committee, and Planning Committee, and Board of Directors and all. You had the ribbons with your name on it, the AOCR. I’ve got my ribbon someplace. And he had particular ushers so that everybody had assigned seats. And everybody was made to feel very important and that was one of the things he was so good at. But the program itself, the march probably itself probably took forty-five minutes or so, and then the program was maybe an hour and a half. And it consisted 69:00of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jackie—well, by Frank, Martin Luther King, Jackie Robinson, Ralph Abernathy, and then singing in between by Peter, Paul and Mary. They sang three or four songs. And it was a very, it was a very thrilling experience really. A lot of people brought their children. Two of the people who were there, and not prominent but there was no way you could miss them, were Ned Breathitt’s wife and daughter, who participated. His wife died just a few years later, and I don’t know what’s happened to that daughter. She was, she was maybe twenty at the time, eighteen, eighteen or twenty. There were a good many prayers and then it broke up, and there were the, whatever it would have been, fifteen 70:00or twenty of us, that went into the governor’s office. But it was a very moving experience and I considered, except for the box lunches, totally successful. (laughing) And that’s why I was furious the next day that the paper estimated five thousand people ‘cause, of course, our big purpose was to put on a big show of strength. Fortunately the legislators and the governor, people we were really demonstrating for, knew that it was a big crowd.

WHITE: And you don’t remember that any photography or video cameras or anything could make the crowd seem bigger than had been reported in the newspaper?

TACHAU: Not that I recall.

WHITE: So do you think . . .

TACHAU: Oh I think that there, I think there were pictures that showed the crowd was bigger than five thousand but, you know, this, this was in the early days of instant video taping.

WHITE: Well, I know that you’ve got an eleven-thirty 71:00appointment, and I think this is a good place to take a break; and we’ll get back together another day.

TACHAU: That’s fine. (interruption) WHITE: It is now May twenty-second, and we’re going to continue our conversation.

TACHAU: Nice to see you again. I realized that a couple of people, or three or four people, that I did not mention, who should be mentioned because they made major contributions during the AOCR days: were Hugh and Charlotte McGill who—a black couple from the West End. Hugh was at that time a legislator, I believe, and they were just very strong, hard workers. And the other person I didn’t mention, Reverend Grayson Tucker, who was a white minister who was providing his ministry at that time in what’s called Smoketown, and was also 72:00very involved and very helpful, and was one of the few survivors that I know of of the sit-in in the Capitol building. And he, I’m sure, has some interesting things to say about the civil rights movement. I’d like to move on to my next involvement that I can think of--besides spending a lot of time trying to raise money to pay off the debts of the AOCR, the march on Frankfort--was that I got a call one morning from a young man named Bill Dailey from Buffalo, New York, I think. He was a college student here one summer and he was very idealistic and decided that he and some of his friends, African-American friends, were going to desegregate Fontaine Ferry Park 73:00where the owner had sworn he’d close the place before there would be any blacks there. Although Fontaine Ferry Park is located right in the middle, or right on the edge actually of a major black neighborhood in Louisville. I was asked to come down at eight o’clock on Sunday morning, or something like that, and be a witness to their desegregating. So I went down there, and their desegregating consisted of their, of them and a few others, including me, standing just outside of Fontaine Ferry Park and some policemen standing right on the, in the entranceway. And after a good deal of discussion that was fairly meaningless, three or four of the young blacks stepped across the line and were promptly arrested. And there was no violence, no, nothing 74:00that was really out of line, other than the law that the police were enforcing was out of line. And so then they were charged with trespass. And they were tried in Tom Valentine’s court, and Tom had been a friend of mine since childhood. And I was to be a witness. And I really, I had no idea what the defense was. I mean if they were talking about the unconstitutionality of the law then they didn’t really need a witness. There was no argument about the facts. But anyhow I was put on the stand and the attorney--who I think was Neville Tucker--for the, the young people began the questioning of me and was leading me toward--somehow or other I guess wanting me to testify that the police had really acted improperly. But after a while, I--after 75:00three or four questions, I realized that I really wasn’t telling the truth; that he just led me right along. So I turned to the judge and I said, “Judge, could we go back three questions and ask the questions of me again?” And he said, “Why is that?” And I said, “Because I think I’m perjuring myself.” And he said, “Well, I’ve never had that request before, but I think it’s appropriate and we can.” So we went back and I reanswered the questions. And years later after he’d become a federal district judge, I was called as a witness in a trial that was a civil case in front of him; and as I was put on the stand, the judge said to the bailiff, I guess it was bailiff, “Swear this man in twice because it takes two times to keep him from perjuring himself.” (laughter) That’s an amusing little sideline, I hope. The next real event that 76:00put my life in the civil rights movement was the open housing demonstrations of, were they the spring of nineteen sixty-eight?, I think; in which my role was actually a fairly minor role. My brother played a very major role in it. I went on two or three of the marches, and went to several of the rallies and I raised some money for it. But other than having the fun of getting arrested one night and spending a night in jail . . .

WHITE: Wait. Let’s stop and try to describe that one if you could.

TACHAU: All right. Well, it’s kind of a silly story. We had—there were probably three or four hundred of us that went out to sort of demonstrate for open housing 77:00in a very segregated neighborhood, in the south end of Louisville on the edge of a park. And I can’t remember the name of that park; it’s a fairly small park and it’s not too far from Churchill Downs, because we’d parked our cars at Churchill Downs and walked over there. And it was kind of a, not a very pleasant evening, I mean the weather wasn’t very nice. It was kind of damp and wasn’t actually raining but it was chilly and damp. And we--police made it very clear that we were not allowed to march, so we all just sat down on the sidewalk. And it got cold and nobody really knew when we were--how we were going--how we were going to leave or what was going to bring this to a head, so to speak. And about that time, several hours we were thinking, well this is sort of a silly, futile exercise, 78:00the mayor’s assistant, Bill Warner, who, a long-time friend of mine--he was Bill Cowger’s, or not Bill Cowger; I think Denny Schmead was mayor--but he started pointing out leaders to be arrested. So the police would come arrest a leader, pick up sort of out of, out of the blue. They were sitting on the sidewalk everybody else was. And I finally decided that I wasn’t going to get arrested, and I was bored sitting there so I wanted to get arrested. So I went up, got up and walked over to where Bill Warner was and I said, “Bill, I think what you’re doing is unconstitutional.” And he said, “What’s that?” And I said, “I think you either arrest nobody or everybody. We’re all doing the same thing, and I don’t believe it’s constitutional to choose people you’re going to arrest.” Whereupon a fat, little policeman 79:00standing next to him--that I knew who he was--said, “What are you, some kind of wise guy?” And I said, “I don’t think so, but I don’t recall inviting you into this conversation.” So he said, “Well, you’re under arrest. I’m the Chief of Police.” I knew he was and I said, “Fine. What I am charged with?” And he said, “Well, how do you like DPP?” And I said, “I’m not sure if I know what DPP means.” And he said, “It means Drunkenness in Public Place.” I said, “Well, I don’t really like that much.” And he said, “Then that’s what you’re charged with.” And I said, you know, “You’ve got absolutely no reason to think I’m drunk. I haven’t had anything to drink in at least twenty-four hours.” And he said, “Well, that’s what you’re charged with anyhow.” So I went on and spent the night in jail, and other than being in a cell with Henry Wallace, who wanted to talk all night, it really wasn’t a bad experience. (laughter-White) 80:00Got out, got bailed out the next morning. Mary Kay, she was with me, and after I was more or less hauled off—and I really wasn’t hauled off, marched off, put in the paddy wagon—Bill Warner went over to where she was sitting and said, “They’ve arrested Eric.” And she said, “Yes, I saw it.” And he said, “I’d like to take you home.” And she said, “Bill, that’s very kind of you but I can’t accept that.” So anyhow after a while the march broke up, and she went on back with the rest to the parking lot at Churchill Downs. And she drove home, and I guess called Fred Goldberg, who was sort of a family lawyer at that point; and Fred got me bailed out in the morning, which I sort of resented ‘cause we were trying to fill the jail and create a problem. That was my reason, one of my reasons for wanting them to arrest all of us. But at any rate, that was really sort of the end of that, other than the fact that the only people 81:00who were being charged with drunkenness during those open housing demonstrations were the, the anti-open housing people who were protesting the protestors. And several of them were drunk. And every morning during those, that period the newspaper was publishing the names of everybody who got arrested the night before. And there would be a hundred pro-open housing people and there would be five or six anti-open housing people, and the five or six anti-open housing people were almost always charged with drunkenness, so the newspaper just put me in with their group which, which I minded a good deal. And I called the ombudsman of the paper, ( ) I think, he was a friend; and he, he certainly commiserated with me. He said, “We’ll do anything we can to correct it, but . . .” he said, “. . . I really don’t think that what you want is for the newspaper to publish a story saying: “Eric Tachau—we mistakenly reported 82:00Eric Tachau was charged with drunkenness in a public place, that he was against open housing; and he was charged with drunkenness in a public place but he was for open housing.” But if that’s what you want, we’ll publish it. So I decided to let that go. So, so the record shows that I—the record at the courthouse shows--I was pro-open housing; but the public record, the, the media record shows that I was against open housing. Anyhow, those demonstrations worked. And it became the major issue in the mayor’s election that year, Board of Alderman election; and I think Frank Burke was elected Mayor, and almost the first thing that they did was pass open housing. But the one thing that I would like to mention about it is that 83:00a lot of the people, the kids, a lot of people who were protesting did have jobs and did need to get bailed out; and the whole business of trying to fill up the jails, or the jail, didn’t work very well because a lot of them really needed to get out. And there was a professional bondsman in town, a black man, Claude Bendall, who was making everybody’s bond free. And he’s one of those unsung heroes because they were setting bonds fairly high and if some of these kids—and particularly some out-of-town kids that got involved--if they had not shown up, he could easily have been bankrupted. I mean, he had millions of dollars of bonds outstanding and he never lost a penny; but it was a pretty gutsy thing for him to do, I thought. His wife, incidentally, was, was elected as an alderman, I think, 84:00that fall election and was one of the people that voted for the ordinance. Two more quick events I need to mention. In nineteen sixty-eight, after the killing of Martin Luther King--actually after the killing of Bobby Kennedy--we had our so-called riots in Louisville; and they were really pretty mild compared to most cities. But there were three young men who were considered pretty radical--rabble-rouser types. One was from out of town, and two were local men who were making speeches; pretty, 85:00pretty strong speeches, but not preaching violence in any way. The night that the riot kind of broke out at Twenty-eighth and Dumnesil, and shortly thereafter there was a fire at a, an oil plant, I think, down off of Southwestern Parkway that was believed to have been incendiary. And for some reason that no one’s ever known, the police decided that these three young men and a middle-age black man in Louisville 86:00. . .

WHITE: When you say ‘believed to be incendiary,’ you mean they thought it had been deliberately set?

TACHAU: Yeah, been deliberately set. And it was almost at the same time of the speeches so it was, sort of before the riot but it was by, by half hour. But those three young men, the middle-aged black man who I never really knew, and then Mrs. Bryant, Ruth Bryant, who was middle-class. Her husband was a black physician--I’ve known her for years--and whose daughter now is an alderwoman, Sherry Bryant. But Ruth Bryant . .

WHITE: Sherry Bryant Hamilton, right?

TACHAU: Sherry Bryant Hamilton. But Ruth Bryant was always a very strong supporter and leader really in the civil rights movement. Somehow those five people were charged with having plotted to blow up this place and were arrested and charged with a felony. And bail was set pretty high. And my brother and I—you could, you could post bail, citizens could post bail. Claude Bendall, they wouldn’t accept his bail, except 87:00a cash bond which then would require—there was no way he could really do that for free. But the other type of bond was, that they would accept, was unencumbered real estate. And my mother’s home was not mortgaged so Charles and I persuaded her to make bond for these, for four of these people—we really didn’t trust the guy from out of town quite enough to ask her to take that risk. And Charles and I had agreed that we would reimburse mother if, if she lost it. I don’t think my agreement was worth much, and I don’t how much his was worth. But anyhow she made bond, and that was—I don’t know how old she was then; she would have been close to eighty, seventy-something, mid-seventies--and I was very proud of her. And she never batted an eye. And the judge—when 88:00she went in to make bond--the judge in a very patronizing way wanted to make sure that she knew exactly what she was doing and the risk she was taking. And finally she just had had it. And mother was really a very modest person, but she finally just had it and she said, “Young man, before I was married my name was Brandeis. Don’t tell me about the law.” So that was amusing. Lastly, in nineteen seventy-five when the school desegregation case came down and schools were desegregated . . .

WHITE: Can I back up one minute?

TACHAU: Yeah.

WHITE: ‘Cause you have Black Five here. Is that who we’re talking about?

TACHAU: That’s, that’s what I’m talking about, right.

WHITE: Those are the people who were accused?

TACHAU: That’s who I’m talking about, right; and they were called the Black Five.

END OF TAPE TWO SIDE ONE BEGIN TAPE TWO SIDE TWO TACHAU: I really don’t know why those five people were ever arrested in the first place. No 89:00one came up with any evidence whatsoever. But then in 1975 when the schools were being desegregated, it was the result of a case brought by the ACLU; and actually Mary Kay was, my wife, was president of ACLU at the time of that decision and during, in 1975. So she was very involved in that and my role . . .

WHITE: Now when you say “that decision,” are you talking about James Gordon’s decision . . .

TACHAU: Gordon’s decision, yes.

WHITE: To, to have school busing.

TACHAU: To have school busing, right. And incidentally an interesting little sideline on that, I think, is that his original decision was contrary, and it was appealed. And the Court of Appeals overruled him and remanded it back to him; and really the decision that became his--the famous decision and for which he always took credit--was really implementing 90:00the Court of Appeals overruling of his original decision. And the older he got, the more proud he was of what he’d done and the more he would, friendly he was toward Mary Kay, who he considered made his career for him by (laughing) supporting the appeal. My role was strictly one of being supportive of Mary Kay’s role at that point. There was a funny little thing that happened in that I had been very involved in lobbying no-fault in the nineteen seventy-four legislature and had learned . . .

WHITE: This is no-fault insurance.

TACHAU: No-fault insurance. Yeah. And I learned that you could be a much more effective lobbyist if you were a member of the legislature because you could trade votes. So in the spring of nineteen seventy-five, I decided 91:00to run for the legislature and ran in the Democratic primary. It was a Republican district so my chances of winning in November were not great anyhow. But at the last minute, a person with good name recognition within the party got into the primary election and beat me in the primary; which absolutely saved me because had I won in the primary, then I—the Gordon decision came down a month later. The fall of nineteen seventy-five was when we were having all the demonstrations over busing. The only way I could have possibly gotten elected to the legislature would have been if I had divorced Mary Kay. So, you know, it was one of those times that life just works out wonderfully. I lost the primary and never had to try to figure out how to keep from ruining the rest of my life by trying to run in November.

WHITE: Who was it that beat you in the primary? Do you remember?

TACHAU: Uh, I can’t remember his name. 92:00WHITE: That’s okay.

TACHAU: He’d gotten a good deal of publicity. He had been sort of high up in Bill Stansbury’s, no, not Bill Stansbury. He had been involved in Jefferson County, in Julian Carroll’s campaign for Jefferson County, and had been rewarded with some sort of job and had been indicted for accepting a bribe with a good deal of publicity; and then was, was not found guilty in his trial. And, uh—but he got a good deal of name recognition out of it. People didn’t remember whether he’d been charged or not for that, but Marshall Eldridge, Senior—when my brother asked Marshall if he--or when Marshall asked my brother if he was working pretty hard for my campaign, Charles said, “No. Goodness, no. So-and-so can 93:00prove he’s not a crook. Eric can’t.” (laughing) So that went all over town—my brother said I couldn’t prove I wasn’t a crook, but he was right.

WHITE: So did the Republican win?

TACHAU: The Republican got reelected then. No harm was done. But I do want to mention that the real, the people who really deserve the credit for the whole school desegregation business--if there is credit due--are Suzy Post, who was executive of the ACLU; and Bob Settler, who was their attorney. And they really did, both of them did a tremendous job. And Bob Settler went on to be—he was at that time professor at the University of Kentucky Law School--went on to Wayne State in Detroit where he is today, as far as I know. I have not mentioned Carl and Ann Braden, and there can be no discussion of the civil rights movement in this community 94:00over the past, almost fifty years, without mentioning their tremendous leadership and courage; and the fact that they were almost always right. And lots of people who were very involved in civil rights and very friendly with them frequently thought they were wrong about something, strategy or something, and almost invariably they turned out to be right. And Ann, in particular--Ann I think was more thoughtful than Carl was. And she really has a philosophy that stands her in good stead, because she never really has a problem deciding what her position is because it’s always consistent with her philosophy. Basically, she is maybe 95:00the strongest democrat, with a small ‘d’, that I’ve ever known. She’s absolutely convinced that through the democratic process and through education that the majority of people will vote the right way, will do the right thing. And I really do agree with her, but I frequently find myself in individual situations not agreeing with her. And I’m almost always wrong, and she’s almost always right.

WHITE: And, and what is your association with the Bradens?

TACHAU: Well, I first got to know them, barely knew them back in 1954 when they had—we didn’t discuss this before? They bought a house in southwestern Louisville, just outside of Louisville actually in Pleasure Ridge Park, which was a very segregated neighborhood. And they bought a house and promptly transferred it over to a young black couple 96:00with the express purpose of desegregating that subdivision or that town.

WHITE: This was Andrew Wade, right?

TACHAU: Andrew Wade the III, I think, who was—they were a middle-class black couple. There was very little in the newspaper about it. I got a phone call one Saturday, I think, from Charlie Steel--who was then the executive of the Louisville Urban League; and I was with a small insurance company here in Louisville--and was telling me that--told me the story and said that the insurance company had found out about the Wades now owning this house and canceled the insurance. And the mortgage company was going to cancel the mortgage if they couldn’t, if they weren’t furnished with insurance. And they had about a week to get the insurance, or maybe even less than that, and could I help them? Well, I called two or three agents I knew, and they weren’t 97:00the slightest bit interested. So I said, ( ) I said, “Yes, I would.” I didn’t think it was right. I wasn’t so much concerned with the issue of desegregation as I was concerned with really, in layman’s terms, due process. It just didn’t seem fair to have the issue of whether these people had a right to live in this neighborhood determined on such a false basis rather than on whether they did or did not have that right. And so I, I arranged for our little insurance company to write the insurance and place it with Lloyds. And then the house was blown up. And--actually the Bradens were accused foolishly, stupidly of having blown up the house. And that’s a long story and it’s in Ann’s book that she’s written; and I think every word of that 98:00book is true, certainly the part about that that I know of is true. But that’s when I first got to know them and just have kind of known them ever since. I, I was--I’ve always been embarrassed by the fact that in nineteen sixty-four when the march on Frankfort took place, we were right in the height of the Cold War and the Bradens were believed by many people to be Communists, which meant disloyal to the United States. And Frank Stanley—they wanted to be involved in the march on Frankfort, and Frank Stanley said that was one battle we didn’t need to fight and wouldn’t let them be involved with us. And I went along with that. I’m not sure--had I protested enough, I’m not sure it would have made any difference; but I didn’t protest. And I’ve probably apologized to Ann at least three or four times 99:00over that, and she’s always said, “I understand perfectly. You probably made the right decision.” But I don’t think I did. But anyhow that’s just another example of not always being right, I guess.

I think I’m about to come to the end other than to say that just in the last week I’ve kind of gotten involved again. And this I--Ann Braden called me a week or ten days ago, and we’ve got what I consider to be a real crisis going on right now. I’ve never really, I’ve never believed that the community was as completely polarized in my lifetime as it is right now over race. The busing was a bad time, the open housing was a bad time for the community; but the anger on the part of blacks is greater than ever before, both of those times. The anger on the part of the whites 100:00was as great as it is now, but the blacks weren’t so angry. The combination of their having put faith in the mayor when he fired the Chief of Police and then finding, learning that he’s not their ally is disillusioning.

WHITE: And you better just, because somebody may be listening in five hundred years, just focus on what the issue is.

TACHAU: Well, in the—three or four months ago, the FOP, which is a police union, something—Fraternal Order of Police—were having their annual dinner, and they were going to give special awards to two officers who had shot and killed a young black who--under circumstances that are questionable. But at any rate 101:00that the black community--much of the black community--considers was murdered by the policemen. And they were going to give these officers this award and the mayor--at the last minute the mayor found, not only found out, learned about it, but found out that his Chief of Police had known it for several, some time and had never mentioned it. So he fired the Chief of Police for not having told him about it. I think the general reaction in the community, and certainly the black community, was that he, that he had recognized how wrong this was to give these awards. The mayor said, at the time, ‘that his reason for firing the Chief of Police was he couldn’t trust him,’ and it was really because he hadn’t told him. It turned out later that that really was the reason and it really wasn’t because of, they shouldn’t have given the awards. Although I think he probably thought they shouldn’t have—but 102:00it was, I mean it was not really in sympathy with the blacks; it was just anger at his own Chief of Police. In the meantime, a lot has taken place, including the failure to have a national search for a new police chief, and coming up with--the search committee coming up with three candidates all of whom were and are still loyal to the former Chief of Police and are perceived to be tools of the FOP. And then just this past, well, two or three days, the veto by the mayor of a Civilian Police Review Ordinance that passed by a six to five vote of the Board of Alderman but won’t be--his veto won’t be overridden. But what has really infuriated the black community is the 103:00so-called control, crowd control that took place Derby weekend by the police of the whole West End, which has never been accurately reported. It’s been reported and has been treated by the mayor and by the newspaper as just some mistakes in judgment. And the blacks consider they were, for all practical purposes, they were put in a concentration camp for a weekend: and the most important weekend in Louisville. And there is unbelievable anger. And the mayor had the sad judgement just the other day of publicly apologizing for any inconvenience, which is trivialized, as far as they’re concerned, trivializing what was a lot worse than inconvenience. 104:00And I think we’ve got a very serious situation because the anger is such there, that the possibilities that I saw, even a few days before the veto of the Ordinance, of some sort of face-saving but still giving something meaningful to the black--I don’t see it now. I don’t see what there is—I don’t see the compromise out there. I know that the mayor’s notion is that--one of these candidates for police chief is black. He will probably be the mayor’s choice. He will not--he refuses to believe that this man is perceived by the black community as being what we used to call a ‘Uncle Tom’ in the civil rights community, and not the slightest bit interested in other blacks; but only in his own career. 105:00And the mayor’s been told that and doesn’t believe it. He says he wants something other than the Civilian Review Board to sort of change the culture in the police department. But actually he’s perceived as having given in so thoroughly to the FOP since the firing of the Chief of Police, that I don’t--I think the blacks absolutely will refuse to believe that he’s thinking of a change of culture. So I, I think we’ve got a very serious situation, and I guess I’ve learned in the last ten days or so that I’m not a very good spectator.

WHITE: I have two more questions before I let you run along to the news conference that has to do with this issue.

TACHAU: All right.

WHITE: The first one is, and it does have to do with civil rights, do you have any knowledge of or comments about how the 106:00FOP, Fraternal Order of Police, got to be as strong as it is today?

TACHAU: Uh, well, I . . .

WHITE: Assuming I’m correct in that.

TACHAU: It’s, I’m not sure that you can be a member of the Louisville police force without being a member of the FOP, so that it’s--so every policeman is a member. They’ve done a very good job of representing policemen’s rights, both from a job standpoint and from the very thing of minimum discipline. And I think that probably on the whole, the leadership, the political leadership has thought that the Louisville police are a good police force. 107:00And I think the reaction of the police to the firing of the chief, uh, really that what’s happened is Armstrong’s backed down. That they’ve just shown their strength. I mean, this business—we could get into it a lot more than I really . . .

WHITE: Have time for.

TACHAU: Or, or—and I don’t want that to dominate this whole thing. I mean, it’s—my views of what’s taken place in the last few months are still—there are a lot of people that disagree with me. The sort of history of unions nineteen seventy-five, you know, there are a few facts in which other people have different perceptions, some opinions. But by and large it’s I think pretty accurate history of my involvement at least, and what was kind of going on. So I don’t want to end this on a controversial note. What I’d like to do is 108:00end this--I’d like to end this discussion by saying that I’ve gotten an unbelievable amount of joy and pleasure out of my involvement over fifty years in efforts for social justice. But what has made it doubly pleasing, joyful was that Mary Kay was just, if not even more involved, during almost all those years, certainly ( ) from really as early as I was; and that we fed on each other a great deal. We were both very supportive of each other’s activities but enjoyed so much sharing our, 109:00our happiness in feeling we were making a contribution. And I just think that I’ve been so incredibly lucky in all of this. I mean, it’s just good luck. And I, I can take some credit for some of what I’ve done, but basically the good luck of learning that--of being involved in these things; and then of having the wonderful good luck of, of being married to Mary Kay and being able to share with her just seems incredible luck. There’s no other word for it.

WHITE: Okay. No further questions, and thank you very much.

END OF SIDE TWO TAPE TWO END OF INTERVIEW