NVCR 2
Page 10


H: I know, but why that instead of not just becoming a Citizen's Council in
 Tennessee? I mean cooperation implies two equals cooperating as opposed to a
 merger of the two.

K: Actually, that did happen. When Dr. Davidson died, or became ill to the point of
 he could not be active again, the Tennessee Federation for Constitutional
 Government did join and become part of the Citizen's Council, because the two
 were quite compatible in structure and attitude.

H: But wouldn't the TFCG perhaps have been strengthened if they had done that
 earlier? Why didn't that occur?

K: No, I don't think so. They did all they could in Tennessee. The fact that they
 joined the Citizen's Council didn't alter the degree of activity.

[end Side A, Tape 1]

H: It seems to me that there were a number of different causes that sort of
 coalesced under the segregationist cause. For example, religious segregation
 versus states' rights segregation as versus sometimes anti-Semitic folks, and
 John Birch Society types. Is that an accurate understanding of the movement?

K: Well, as we were mentioning awhile ago, the umbrella of liberal and the umbrella
 of conservatives spread wide. Some conservatives under the umbrella, some
 conservatives would repudiate and even look down upon, and the same situation
 occurs in the liberal camp, too, I'm sure; the militant masses would not be
 embraced thoroughly, I think, by the intellectuals, so you have to be careful with
 that sort of tent- spreading.

H: Were there tensions among the segregationist movement because there were
 such diverse viewpoints?

K: We had to temporize a little bit with some of the folks, that we're not advocating
 violence and you don't have to make this big to-do and cause mayhem in the
 streets. Any organization has some disciplinary problems that need to be
 corrected, but that's what you would expect. Part of the reason to have an
 organization is to keep the wild man from being turned loose on the streets.

H: It seems like from the readings that I've done of the Tennessee Federation for
 Constitutional Government that a constant refrain was warnings against violence
 and the need to maintain law and order. Was that very high on your priority list?

K: Yes, we were insistent on the right of free speech and assembly, [and] that's the