ustxtxb_obs_1965_08_06_50_00008-00000_000.pdf

Stone and Oliver, the chief asked what this was all about, and Oliver said to the chief that we wanted him to call HA-YOU and notify them that the place was integrated; that we would like to see Negro waitresses hired in the Raven and every other business establishment in Huntsville, and that if HA-YOU was notified and they told us they had been, we would leave. The chief asked what HA-YOU was and how to get in touch with them. Oliver pulled out a piece of paper with the phone number of the location where the HA-YOU youngsters were having their picnic. The chief picked it up. Before leaving, Todd said: “You’d better go out of here. We’re fixing to write up warrants for disturbing the peace.” “Well, come ahead,” said Oliver. The front of the Raven became quite crowded with police officers, many wearing the. various brands of western hats affected by the different local and state agencies, and some in plain clothes. About 6:45 DeBaghi went over to the table of Rev. Bud Poteat and his wife. Poteat is a minister with the Church of Ecumenical Fellowship, United Church of Christ, in Houston. My notes of this conversation: DeBaghi: “What do you want?” Poteat: “We’re with HA-YOU. If they tell us they’ve been notified you’re integrated, we’ll leave.” DeBaghi: “I want to cooperate.” Poteat: “We do, too.” DeBaghi: “Are they waiting for the call?” Poteat: “Yes, here is the number of the state park where they are.” DeBaghi took the number and left. Shortly thereafter, according to Bill Malone, an instructor in history \(“Southern west Texas State College at San Marcos, who had a seat near the front of the room, he overheard one of the men tell the cashier: “Get the number of that civil rights organization. That’s the only way we’re going to get rid of these sons of bitches:” In the confusion, they had not asked us to leave. The one table at which Huntsville people had still been eating was now empty. A photographer for the Department of Public Safety arrived and began circling the room, taking pictures of each of the participants. This visibly angered Dr. Wilson, who promptly held up a sheet of paper in front of his face. As the photographer passed Wilson’s chair, the latter put his hand on his arm and asked him what his name was. The photographer jerked his arm away and didn’t reply. A few of the others also followed Wilson’s lead in shielding their faces, but most let him take the pictures. Reverend Oliver was arrested for investigation. He talked to police officers for a moment and then announced to the group, “None of us can leave. We are being held against our wishes. You have a full legal right to sue the Raven. The front door is locked.” A waitress said that the county judge locked the door. Bob Stone stood up and said, “It appears that we have two choices. We can attempt to leave and possibly be 8 The Texas Observer arrested, or we can stay until notified by HA-YOU that the Raven is fully integrated.” Oliver said, “Why don’t we all request to leave, for purposes of suing the restaurant?” “Request individually,” someone suggested. “I think we ought to all stay, or all leave,” said Yarbrough. Dr. Wilson made his way to the front of the room and tried to leave, but found the door locked. Dr. Wilson says, “I protested that four other people had left [the Huntsville people], and when I tried to get out, an officer hit me in the stomach with his elbow and said, ‘Stop pushing,’ and I said, ‘I’m not pushing. I’d like to get out with these people.’ He said, ‘You stand back, you’re not going anywhere.’ I moved over to the head of the counter and began making notes. Highway Patrol Sgt. Maurice Goodwin shoved me over and said, ‘Get out of the way, I need to write there and you don’t need to write.’ He preempted my writing place, so I just stood there and watched and made notes. At about 7:25 we were told we were under arrest for disturbing the peace and to line up at the front door while Officer Goodwin filled out our names. I was among the last in line, and it was 7:32 when I gave Officer Goodwin my name. \(Neither this officer nor any other made a move to After being frisked I was escorted out the door. A dozen photographer’s flashbulbs went off in my face as I made the brief walk to a waiting patrol car. Across the way, I could see a large crowd gathered on the courthouse steps. Tom Lichten was delivered to the door, and then Julie Cadenhead, a pretty red-haired secretary of about 20 in Austin who had attended the youth conference. At the county jail we were asked to wait in the car, and others were waiting on the lawn; a group of about 15 HA-YOU youngsters were across the street from the jail. Some of our group who were already in the cell block on the second floor started singing freedom songs, and the HA-YOU group joined in. “I’m on my way to Freedomland” resounded around the Walker County jail, strangely, though, for our position almost midway between the two groups emphasized for us the different pacing, so that one group’s words were heard as an echo of the other’s: “I’m-I’mon-on-my-my-way-way.” The patrol car driver, Miss Cadenhead, Lichten, and I listened and no one said anything. The Whites in Jail By 8 o’clock we were all safely put away in a large tank, containing one room with a table and a five foot bench and two cells, each with four beds. The seven women in our group were quartered separately. Since we had assembled on short notice, many of us did not know each other, so everybody shook hands. The 26 were: Frank Pinkerton, professor of sociology, and Malone, the history teacher, at Southwest Texas State in San Marcos, and Thomas Hipp and Wayne Oakes, students there; Hal Womack, a philosophy major at the University of Texas; Mark Klein, a student at Cornell who happened to be visiting Womack and decided to come along; Dick Vie UT Officials on an Issue Asked his attitude toward the fact that a University of Texas associate professor, William Cody Wilson, was among the 26 whites arrested in Huntsville in civil rights demonstrations, Dr. Harry Ransom, chancellor of the University, said an individual member of the university has a right to activities that are clearly his own personal activities as a citizen and not as a university official. W. W. Heath, chairman of the board of the University’s regents, was also quoted in the Houston Post that he believed Wilson was “free to demonstrate” just as anyone else is, that the regents have never discussed an individual’s “freedom to lawfully demonstrate, petition, or speak,” that “We’re quite anxious to preserve all those rights,” and that “I sometimes feel we worry about the freedoms without worrying about the responsibilities.” El big, a C.P.A. from Houston; Harry Schneider, a graduate student in political science at the University of Houston; Joe Hawthorne, a lab assistant at Shell Chemical Co., Houston, and Mrs. Hawthorne; Rene Buller, a Beaumont student and son of a professor at Lamar Tech; Anthony Kneupper, a feed store manager from San Marcos; Margo Corley, an employee of the Texas State Institute of Child Psychology; Anne Keith Finleyson, a student at the University of Houston; Linda Shaffer, a University of Texas student; Anya Allister of Berkeley, Cal., who had been working in Mississippi, had met the Texas youth group when they went to Hattiesburg, and came to Huntsville after HA-YOU was organized; and Stone, Oliver, Dr. Wilson, Yarbrough, Campos, Rev. and Mrs. Poteat, Lichten, Miss Cadenhead, and myself. We pooled our cigarettes and established a ration system. While all of us were surprised at the police for arresting us, about half of us were outraged by this while the other half felt the incident would drive home the point we had attempted to spell out at the Raven; We had induced a number of townsfolk to ask “What is HAYOU?,” and the whole town would know that 26 white people were willing to go to jail for HA-YOU. Somebody suggested that the press would not make our motives clear, but would paint us as misguided souls who demonstrated at an integrated restaurant. This drew rebuttal that the Raven had not been fully integrated. No one thought the press would make it clear that recognition of the right of Negroes to select their own leadership was our point. Thus there evolved a decision to write an open letter to the people of Texas. I whipped out a three-paragraph statement that we were white Southerners who answered a call from our fellow Southerners, the Negro young people of Huntsville; that we sought not only to help them, but to help free all of us from the Southern caste system; that “Hey You” had become a password of freedom in this East Texas community that we wanted to associate ourselves with, and that we hoped all con-.