UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN SOUTHERN DIVISION BARBARA GRUTTER, for herself and all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, Civil Action -vs- No. 97-CV-75928 LEE BOLLINGER, JEFFREY LEHMAN, DENNIS SHIELDS, and REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, Defendants, and KIMBERLY JAMES, ET AL., Intervening Defendants. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _/ VOLUME 7 BENCH TRIAL BEFORE THE HONORABLE BERNARD A. FRIEDMAN United States District Judge 238 U.S. Courthouse & Federal Building 231 Lafayette Boulevard West Detroit, Michigan WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2001 APPEARANCES: FOR PLAINTIFF: Kirk O. Kolbo, Esq. R. Lawrence Purdy, Esq. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 2 1 APPEARANCES (CONTINUING) 2 3 FOR DEFENDANTS: John Payton, Esq. 4 Craig Goldblatt, Esq. On behalf of Defendants 5 Bollinger, et al. 6 George B. Washington, Esq. Miranda K.S. Massie, Esq. 7 On behalf of Intervening Defendants 8 9 COURT REPORTER: Joan L. Morgan, CSR Official Court Reporter 10 11 12 Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography. Transcript produced by computer-assisted 13 transcript. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 3 1 2 I N D E X _ _ _ _ _ 3 4 WITNESS PAGE _______ ____ 5 6 WITNESSES PRESENTED ON BEHALF OF INTERVENING DEFENDANTS 7 JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN 8 Direct Examination by Ms. Massie 5 Cross-Examination by Mr. Payton 126 9 Cross-Examination by Mr. Purdy 130 Redirect Examination by Ms. Massie 149 10 Recross-Examination by Mr. Payton 153 Recross-Examination by Mr. Purdy 153 11 Redirect Examination by Ms. Massie 155 12 JAY ROSNER 13 Direct Examination by Mr. Washington 156 14 15 E X H I B I T _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 16 17 MARKED RECEIVED ______ ________ Exhibit Number 97 112 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 4 1 Detroit, Michigan 2 Wednesday, January 24, 2001 3 9:00 a.m. 4 _ _ _ 5 THE COURT: Okay, next witness. 6 MS. MASSIE: Intervening Defendants 7 call Professor John Hope Franklin. 8 MR. PURDY: Your Honor, we don't 9 intend to have any interruptions today, but may it 10 still be understood that we have a continuing 11 objection for the reasons as we set forth before. 12 THE COURT: Continuing objection. 13 MR. PURDY: Thank you. 14 THE COURT: Mr. Franklin, how are you 15 this morning? 16 THE WITNESS: How are you? 17 JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN, 18 was thereupon called as a witness herein and, after 19 having been first duly sworn to tell the truth, the 20 whole truth and nothing but the truth, was examined 21 and testified as follows: 22 MS. MASSIE: Judge, I don't think 23 that Professor John Hope Franklin needs too much of 24 an introduction. 25 THE COURT: I don't think so either. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 5 1 But you may put it just for the record. 2 MS. MASSIE: Just working on this 3 case has definitely been the greatest honor of my 4 life, and one of the biggest intellectual challenges 5 as far as the stimulation of my life and the 6 opportunity to work with Professor Franklin. There 7 hasn't been any greater thing in either category. 8 THE COURT: I am privileged to have 9 him in my courtroom, so it's nice to have you. 10 DIRECT EXAMINATION 11 BY MS. MASSIE: 12 Q. Could you spell your name for the record, please? 13 A. John Hope Franklin. 14 Q. And that's F-r-a-n-k-l-i-n? 15 A. Right. 16 Q. When and where were you born, sir? 17 A. I was born in Rentiesville, Oklahoma on the 2nd of 18 January, 1915. 19 Q. And where is that town? 20 A. Rentiesville, Oklahoma is 17 miles south of 21 Muskogee, Oklahoma. Muskogee, Oklahoma is 50 miles 22 south of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 23 Q. Is there anything north of Tulsa. 24 A. If it is, it's unknown. 25 Q. Tell us about your education, if you would, sir? GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 6 1 A. Well, I began my education in Rentiesville, Oklahoma 2 where I, first of all, was sitting in the back of my 3 mother's school room, she was teaching, that's when 4 I was three years old. And I learned to read and 5 write that year to her great surprise. She was 6 teaching others, but I was also learning. 7 I was in the room, but I kept quiet, 8 there were no day care centers or anything like 9 that. She was babysitting me while she was 10 teaching. I went through the first five or six 11 grades in Rentiesville, and then we moved to Tulsa, 12 Oklahoma. 13 There had been a riot in Tulsa which 14 delayed our moving there. And we went to Tulsa, 15 Oklahoma the tenth of December 1925. I was ten 16 years old. And I went to high school there. 17 I graduated from high school there in 18 1931. Then I went to Fisk University in Nashville, 19 Tennessee, from which I graduated magnum cum laude 20 in May of 1935. 21 And then the fall of 1935 I went to 22 Harvard University as a graduate student in history, 23 and I got my master's degree that year. And four 24 years later I received my Ph.D degree in 1941. 25 And I was already teaching, I taught GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 7 1 three years by that time. And I would say that my 2 career was lodged probably after I got my doctorate 3 in 1941. But it was interrupted, of course, by the 4 war to some extent, and I had various other trials 5 and tribulations along the way. 6 But I began to publish in 1943, and 7 my first book was published that year. My second 8 book two years later, and my third book in 1947. 9 And a number of books later. 10 Q. I know there's a couple of graduate students who 11 took the day off to come in and hear your testimony. 12 I'm sure they're now considering giving up academe. 13 A. Thank you. 14 Q. Tell us about the school where your mother taught? 15 A. Well, it was a one-room school. She was an 16 elementary school teacher, and she was teaching 17 reading, writing to the first grade. I was given a 18 paper and pencil and in the back row with a desk, 19 and she would come back there periodically to see 20 what I was doing. 21 And to her great astonishment when 22 she didn't hear me making any noise she came back to 23 see what I was doing and I was writing what she was 24 writing on the board. And that was the beginning of 25 my education. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 8 1 From that point on, I was on my own 2 and I studied diligently I suppose, I tried to. But 3 both my mother and father were very important 4 intellectual powers or forces in my life. 5 My father was a lawyer practicing 6 first in Ardmore, Oklahoma where he received his law 7 license in 1907. The year of the statehood of 8 Oklahoma. 9 And from that point on he practiced 10 law successfully in Ardmore, Rentiesville, Tulsa. 11 In fact, he practiced law in Tulsa from 1921 to 1960 12 the year in which he died. 13 By that time I was already chair of 14 the Department of History of Brooklyn College, the 15 city of Richmond, New York. And I had already 16 taught by that time at Harvard University, and a 17 number of other institutions as visiting professor. 18 I have been a visiting professor at 19 Harvard University, Cornell University, and the 20 University of Hawaii and various other places along 21 the way. 22 Q. How many children were there in your mother's class? 23 A. I can't remember. I know the room was crowded, 35 24 or 40. 25 Q. And all of those children were black? GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 9 1 A. Yes, yes. All the children in the town were black, 2 all the people in the town were black. It was an 3 all black town in Rentiesville, Oklahoma when I was 4 there. I was born there in 1915, there were no 5 whites in the town at all. 6 It was primitive life such as you 7 can't possibly imagine. No electricity whatever, no 8 central heating, no heating of any kind which wasn't 9 made from wood or coal. No running water, no 10 library except in my parent's home, the only library 11 to which I was exposed. 12 No facilities of any kind that I can 13 think of. No amenities, no amusement, no public 14 amusement. Just a few churches, that's about all 15 that was in Rentiesville. 16 And when I left from Rentiesville in 17 1925 to go to Tulsa, I thought that was a new world, 18 entirely new world opened up. Which it would be 19 difficult to describe, because it was so vastly 20 different in every conceivable way. 21 Traffic, street cars, schools, little 22 library, not much larger for African Americans than 23 this witness stand, but it was there. And it was 24 an expression of the desire on the part of the 25 African American community to have a facility like GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 10 1 that. 2 It was not publicly supported, it was 3 privately subscribed to. And the first time I ever 4 had the opportunity to use books not in my parent's 5 home, was to go to that little library. And it was 6 once more, opened up a new world, entirely new world 7 to anyone who had not experienced that before. It 8 was an amazing experience. 9 School in Tulsa was a different kind 10 of institution from which I had been accustomed. It 11 was orderly, fairly large, although the African 12 Americans population in Tulsa was only about a tenth 13 of the population of the city. 14 The schools was like I couldn't 15 imagine, it was a large number of schools. An 16 institution run by blacks. But, of course, it was a 17 public school. But it was a public--they called it, 18 I don't know, this was a different kind of 19 segregation. 20 They didn't use the term segregation, 21 they used separate, The Tulsa Separate Schools. 22 E.W. Woods was principal of Booker T. Washington 23 High School, of the Tulsa Separate Schools. And it 24 took me a while to understand what that meant. 25 It meant that only people of my color GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 11 1 could go there. And it meant that if you were not 2 of that color, you didn't go there. It meant also 3 that you didn't have the opportunities that you had 4 at Central High School. Vast complex building on 5 the other side of town where they taught modern 6 foreign languages, we had none. They taught French, 7 Spanish, German in centralized schools, but nothing 8 like that. 9 So, I went to college without ever 10 having had a modern foreign language. And I had to 11 take--and I knew that by the time I was a sophomore 12 in college and I was going to major in history. 13 And my major professor who was a 14 young white man, the chairman of the History 15 Department at Fisk University which was all black, 16 of course, it had a mix, it was white and black 17 faculty. 18 He almost immediately decided that he 19 wanted me to go to Harvard. And we sort of--as an 20 undergraduate I was doing everything that he wanted 21 me to do to be certain that I was eligible to go to 22 Harvard, including the Harvard requirement of two 23 modern foreign languages in order to qualify with 24 any advanced degree. 25 So, there I was as a sophomore and GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 12 1 junior at Fisk University taking elementary courses 2 in French and German, so that I could be eligible to 3 qualify at Harvard. 4 And I took them and I did qualify at 5 Harvard in both languages, and was prepared in a 6 very careful way by him to be able to do the work at 7 Harvard. 8 When I went to Harvard, I had no 9 problem. As a matter of fact it was, if I can say 10 so, it was a push over if that, because of his 11 careful preparation. It was no other explanation 12 for it. 13 Q. Were there many Fisk students at that point who 14 ended up at the Harvard graduate school? 15 A. No, there were not many Fisk students at Harvard 16 graduate school. Indeed, there were almost no 17 students, other than white students at Harvard. I 18 had no black students, fellow students in any of my 19 classes at Harvard. 20 There were a few at the university, 21 maybe one in English and two in law school and two 22 in the Biology Department, and maybe one or two 23 more. Two or three other graduates. 24 I would say that there might have 25 been as many as--this is a liberal figure, as many GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 13 1 as a dozen students that were African Americans at 2 Harvard in 1936 when I went there. In 1935 when I 3 went there. 4 Q. Of thousands? 5 A. What's that? 6 Q. Of thousands? 7 A. Yes, there were 10,000 or more students at Harvard. 8 And I went to Harvard, of course, it was the pit of 9 the Depression. My father had to become what we 10 describe generously as became bankrupt. We lost our 11 home simply because of the extraordinary bite of the 12 Depression. The poverty was unspeakable. 13 So, that I went to Harvard, I could 14 not have gone to the University of Oklahoma as you 15 certainly know. And the University of Oklahoma not 16 only did not admit any blacks, no blacks could be in 17 the town after dark. 18 And they gave me a scholarship, out 19 of state scholarship it was called, and that was for 20 a hundred dollars if, if I passed my courses. That 21 is, I did not have the freedom to fail as they did 22 at normal Oklahoma. You were admitted and then you 23 might or you might not pass. 24 But I didn't have that privilege, I 25 had to pass in order to get that hundred dollars GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 14 1 from the state of Oklahoma against--paid toward my 2 tuition. And that remained the practice down to the 3 time that they admitted blacks to Oklahoma in the 4 1950s. 5 Now, the matter of trying to do the 6 kind of work that I undertook to do in graduate 7 school and after, it would project my life work. 8 Brought me into contact with the kind of life that I 9 hadn't imagined. 10 When I took my general examinations 11 at Harvard in the spring of 1939, I decided to do a 12 dissertation on North Carolina. So, I went to 13 North Carolina and there I went in to see the 14 director of the state archives. 15 And I told him I wanted to do 16 research on free negroes in North Carolina from 1798 17 to 60. And he said, well, I suppose I will have to 18 do something about that. He said, I see no reason 19 why you wouldn't be able to work here, he said, but 20 when we built this building we didn't anticipate 21 that anyone of your color would work here. And so 22 we don't have any place for you to work. 23 He said, but if you will give me a 24 week I'll try to arrange something. And I remained 25 silent and I looked at him and I had my mental GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 15 1 adding machine, I was going to have to pay the rent, 2 board, room and all of that for a week while I 3 twiddled my thumbs. 4 And I just looked at him and he said, 5 well, what about a half week. I said, I'll be back 6 Thursday, this was Monday. I went back Thursday and 7 they prepared a place for me. 8 They cleared out one of the exhibit 9 rooms, the smallest exhibit room there was for the 10 archives or display of archives of materials. And 11 they put a desk and a chair and a waste basket in 12 there. 13 And he gave me a key, he said, I'll 14 give you a key to the stacks because I don't think 15 we can request the white pages to deliver materials 16 to you. So you'll have to get your materials 17 yourself. 18 I said, all right. He gave me his 19 key. He said, you go through the search room that's 20 where all the whites were sitting and doing their 21 research. You go through the search room to the 22 stacks, and you get what you want and bring it over 23 to your room and you can work there. 24 And I did that and it turned out to 25 be the most satisfactory arrangement, because I GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 16 1 could sort of window shop in the stacks, pull down 2 what I wanted, things that I thought I might want. 3 And I would come through the main 4 reading room with my dolly and my library card, 5 laden with materials. And the white researchers 6 looked at me with some disdain as well as jealousy. 7 And two weeks later the director of 8 the archives told me and said, I have to take your 9 key. And I searched my conduct and wondered what I 10 had done that was offensive. 11 I said what's the matter, he said 12 well, the white searchers who see you coming through 13 the room with all of your materials which you have 14 selected yourself, says that this is a 15 discrimination against them and they want keys 16 themselves. 17 He said, well, I can't give everyone 18 keys and I therefore will have to take your key. 19 And you will have to abide by the regular rules 20 which, of course, would involve your bringing one 21 request in, depositing it, then going back to your 22 room and waiting for that to be delivered to you. 23 And I said, well, if that's what you 24 think it should be, all right. Now, it was at that 25 point that I realized the inconsistency and the GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 17 1 remarkable ingenuity, if I may put it, of racial 2 discrimination of those who practiced it. 3 I had to work in three libraries. 4 And within a radius of three blocks of each other, 5 literally within three blocks of each other. One of 6 them was the archives where I described that I had 7 used a separate room. 8 The other was the state library on 9 the other side of the square. And there I could go 10 into the main reading room and work, but there was a 11 regular place in the stacks for African Americans to 12 sit. 13 And we were not supposed to go take 14 the books off the shelf or take the newspapers in 15 there. But actually we were to make that request, 16 but we could sit there in the stacks and use the 17 materials. 18 Then on the other side of the square 19 was the Supreme Court library. And there were no 20 restrictions at all. We sat and did our work at the 21 same table that white people were sitting. 22 I said this is rather strange. In 23 the radius of two or three blocks, we had three 24 practices, three practices of racial distinction or 25 discrimination or segregation. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 18 1 And that gave me to understand that 2 the practice of racial segregation was sort of 3 improvisational. That is they made it up as they 4 went along. 5 They have did this on one side of the 6 block, they did another on the other side of the 7 block, and another on the other side of the block. 8 Whatever seemed to pass their minds, as long as 9 there was distinction. 10 As long as there was a mark of, as 11 old people say, a mark of distinction, a mark of 12 oppression of some kind. The differentiation was 13 there. 14 Or another way, not only was this 15 practice at the highest levels, what I think of 16 libraries would be fairly high. It was practiced at 17 the other extreme, that I couldn't say which was 18 more praiseworthy or meritorious. 19 Outside the city, just outside the 20 city there were two barbecue joints or places where 21 you could go. I didn't go, but some other people 22 did. I went once and that was enough for me. I 23 didn't have to have a barbecue, I had to have those 24 papers and things like that in the libraries. But I 25 didn't have to have a barbecue. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 19 1 But this struck me as rather 2 remarkable, and it was not unlike what they were 3 doing downtown in the capital square. You go out to 4 one of these places, barbecue places. 5 One if you went in to one of them and 6 you wanted to be served, you sat in your car and 7 young white girls would come out and bring anything 8 you wanted, serve you with great applaud. 9 Across the road was another, and you 10 could go and sit in your car all day and they would 11 look out there, and you would be in your car and 12 they wouldn't come out. 13 But you go in the place and you were 14 welcomed heartedly, warmly. I said, what's going on 15 here? On the one side they say we don't serve 16 blacks in cars. On the other side they say we do. 17 On the one side they say you're 18 welcome to come in and eat. On the other side they 19 said you can't even come in the door. You need a 20 road map, or you need an encyclopedia and a number 21 of other aides to help you navigate your way through 22 these racial minds as it were. 23 And that gave me to understand that 24 race distinctions were not very significant, except 25 to make a difference to. And it must have done GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 20 1 something to the people, it must have given them 2 some sense of superiority, or it must have given 3 them a sense of satisfaction if they could be a few 4 notches above or away from others. 5 And I decided that that was a kind of 6 a sickness, a kind of searching for something that 7 would give them a sense of security and superiority 8 and advantage. 9 And that to me--see, I found it in 10 other ways too. I've described what doing research 11 at North Carolina meant. If doing research in North 12 Carolina was that bad, when I went to Alabama to do 13 research with the confederate flag flying over the 14 Archives Building, I didn't know whether I even 15 wanted to attempt to do research there. 16 And the first morning I went in to do 17 research, I told the woman in the search room that I 18 wanted these materials, and she said, yes, I will 19 get them for you. And she brought them and handed 20 them to me. 21 And I waited for her to tell me what 22 to do with these materials, with this background of 23 having waited three days for someone to arrange a 24 room in North Carolina, I thought that I might have 25 to wait a week in Alabama or a month. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 21 1 And she gave me the materials and she 2 stood there and looked at me. And I stood there in 3 a quandary, I didn't know what to do with them, I 4 didn't know where to go, where to sit. 5 I'm in the reading room, but I assume 6 that that reading room was where I could not sit. 7 But since she had not indicated to me that there was 8 a room separate for me in the basement or somewhere 9 else, I then did what I would do in Detroit at a 10 library, I went to look for a quiet corner. 11 And so I went toward that corner, she 12 said you can't sit there. I was like, why don't you 13 tell me where to sit, I said to myself. I said, 14 well, where should I sit, she said, you sit over 15 here with the others. She said that's the coolest 16 part of the room where they're sitting, and they 17 need to meet you anyway. 18 And so she said, you sits there. 19 Then she made all of them stop doing what they were 20 doing, and she introduced them to me. And she said, 21 now you sit there with the others, so I did. 22 But this is all confusing, you see. 23 You can't be certain what to do, you see. That's 24 what I meant by improvisation, you don't know, you 25 don't know where you stand. And I work there off GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 22 1 and on for weeks. 2 And at one point I wanted to look at 3 a set of papers, Governor Winston papers. And I 4 said to the person in the search room, I want to see 5 the Winston papers, they said we can't show them to 6 you, they're in preparation. 7 The only way you can see them is to 8 get permission from the director of the archives. 9 Who at that time was Ms. Marie Bankhead-Owens. And 10 I said, well, when does she come in. They said, 11 well, she comes in, she will be in Thursday 12 afternoon. This is Wednesday morning. 13 She will be in Thursday afternoon. I 14 said, well, how will I know that she is here. She 15 says, well, you will know. Everyone knows when 16 Ms. Owens arrives. 17 So I waited. And the next afternoon, 18 indeed, the whole building took on a different 19 atmosphere. I said Ms. Owens must be here. 20 And I went up to her office and I 21 told her secretary, I want to have a word with 22 Ms. Owens. And she said, well, she's in there, go 23 in. 24 And I went in, and as I went in I got 25 another lesson. The secretary did not close the GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 23 1 door behind me, and when I got in to speak to 2 Ms. Owens she did not ask me to sit down. I said 3 this is another mine field I'm in. 4 And she said, what can I do for you, 5 I told her I wanted to see Governor Winston's 6 papers. And she said certainly you can see the 7 Winston papers and anything else that you want. 8 You're free to see them, just let me know and I'll 9 be glad to facilitate your efforts. 10 I said, well, I do appreciate that 11 very much, I'm still standing. And she said, they 12 tell me that there's a Harvard nigger in the 13 building, have you seen him. 14 And the secretary whose door was open 15 and she was listening to the conversation, she said, 16 that's him, Ms. Owens, that's him. She said, are 17 you the Harvard nigger? 18 She said, I had no idea. She said, 19 you got right nice manners, why don't you sit down. 20 My first invitation to have a seat. 21 She said, where were you born and 22 raised, I said Oklahoma. She said, no, no, that's 23 not where you got those nice manners. I wanted to 24 tell her that my mother taught me, I was discreet 25 enough to let her explore the matter. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 24 1 She said, where did you go to school, 2 I said, Rentiesville, Oklahoma, Tulsa, Oklahoma. 3 She said, no, no, I don't mean that. Where did you 4 go to school out of the state. And I said I went to 5 school at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. 6 She said that's it, that's where you 7 learned those manners. Nice good old confederate 8 state. And I let that pass. And she then went on 9 to tell me about the south and about manners and so 10 forth. 11 And she didn't undertake to tell me 12 why she treated me like that, except that when she 13 told me of an incident where she had a relationship 14 with a black woman, wife of the president of 15 Tuskegee. 16 She said, I called her Ms. Moten. 17 She said, but I wouldn't call you--it would be 18 beyond the realm of possibility for me to refer to 19 you as mister, do you understand that? I'm not 20 going to ever call you mister, I don't call black 21 men mister. 22 I'll call you doctor, reverend, 23 professor, whatever comes to mind, except for 24 mister. You don't deserve that much respect. I 25 said, well, as you will. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 25 1 And the problem with her after that 2 was that she wanted to talk so much that she took up 3 so much of my time and I was busy. And she wanted 4 to talk to me about the race thing. 5 And I began then to think about what 6 race really meant to her and to people like her. 7 And I could not escape the conclusion that the only 8 thing that race meant to her was, well, the only 9 thing that race meant to these other people that I 10 talked about. 11 Is that they wanted to be certain 12 that there was maintained a distant, not laterally 13 but vertically. A distance where they were 14 somewhere above a cut above, that's very essential, 15 very, very essential. 16 And whether it's in a library or 17 whether it's in a hotel or rather it's in school or 18 wherever, this distance, this vertical distance must 19 be maintained this superior position. The position 20 of advantage must be maintained. 21 And I came to the conclusion that the 22 maintenance of this was so important that they 23 didn't mind being inconsistent. They didn't mind 24 being improvisational, as long as that gave them 25 this vertical advantage where they were somewhere GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 26 1 above and somewhere beyond. 2 And that to me was a revelation just 3 to come to that conclusion and to reach the view 4 that these people were groping for a way to live and 5 to co-exist with other people. 6 And the only way they could do it 7 comfortably was to have this distance. To have this 8 sense of self importance and of superiority, if you 9 will. 10 And I have always had difficulty in 11 squaring that with the so-called American way of 12 living, practicing, doing things. And not only was 13 this improvisation was inconsistent and incongruous 14 too, with what we are taught to be the American way 15 of the practice of equality on the one hand, and 16 human relations on the other as well. 17 This came to me another way when I 18 was quite young and just starting my career, when 19 during the time of the war. And the war came and I 20 was teaching in Raleigh, North Carolina. 21 And, of course, the incident at 22 Pearl Harbor what happened there was on the Navy 23 vessels, put the Navy in a very desperate position. 24 And the men who were in their offices on land, were 25 rushed out to pick up the pieces as they were to GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 27 1 serve in active duty in the Navy. 2 And this left great vacancies on land 3 among which was the need for large numbers of petty 4 officers, people to man the office and whatnot. And 5 they sent out a desperate call for volunteers to 6 come and serve in the Navy. 7 So, I decided to volunteer, this is 8 January 1943, I decided to volunteer. And I went 9 down to the Naval Recruiting Station and offered my 10 services. 11 He said, what can you do, the 12 recruiting officer, what can you do. I said, you 13 need people to run offices, he said yes, yes. I 14 said, well, I can do that. 15 I said I ran the office, I ran the 16 library at Fisk University for four years, that's 17 the way I worked my way through college. He said, 18 well, what did that mean. It meant that I could 19 type and do shorthand and stuff like that. 20 I said I have three gold medals in 21 typing. And he said, you do? I said, yes, and I do 22 135 words a minute at shorthand. I said I can 23 operate various kinds of simple machines, business 24 machines. And I have a Ph.D from Harvard. 25 He said, you have everything but GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 28 1 color. I said, oh, he said, yes. I said, well, I 2 thought there was an emergency, I apologize for 3 taking up your time. And I bid him good day. 4 And I left with a solemn resolve if I 5 may say that, that I wasn't going to the army under 6 any conditions, there was no emergency. That they 7 were looking around for people of certain color, not 8 of people of certain ability. And I wasn't going to 9 fight on their terms. 10 The terms that my brother experienced 11 as a graduate of Fisk and principal of a high school 12 in Oklahoma. The sergeant told him when he was 13 drafted and went in to the Army, that I will spend 14 my life being certain that you don't do anything 15 more edifying than peeling potatoes. 16 Well, I wasn't going to peel 17 potatoes, I wasn't going into the Army on the terms 18 of that sergeant or anyone else and I didn't. And I 19 stand before you not ashamed of the fact that I did 20 not serve my country on my country's terms in 21 World War II or any war. 22 Q. How did that experience affect your brother? 23 A. How is that? 24 Q. How did that experience affect your brother? 25 A. It destroyed him, and he died right after the war. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 29 1 Never recovered from the inhuman treatment that he 2 received, not only at the hands of that sergeant, 3 but at the hands of various others. He was a broken 4 man and died in Veteran's Hospital Brooklyn, 5 Virginia in 1947. 6 Q. Professor Franklin, how did there come to be an all 7 black town in the middle of Oklahoma? 8 A. Well, there were not an all black town, not one all 9 black town, but 28 black towns in Oklahoma and 10 Kansas in the period--in the 19th century and period 11 before World War 1. Twenty-eight of these towns 12 established. 13 They were, for the most part, the 14 result of the migration of blacks out of so-called 15 cotton kingdom, that is out of areas extending from 16 Georgia over to Louisiana. 17 They migrated there with the hope of 18 escaping the rigors of the deep south, and the 19 treatment which they received at the hands of the 20 leaders in the cotton kingdom. 21 And they went to these communities, 22 or they founded these communities with hope that 23 they could somehow break the ties that caused them 24 so much distress and humiliation when they 25 associated with whites. They wanted to be GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 30 1 independent, they wanted to be self respecting and 2 so forth. 3 An example is when my father decided 4 that he had to leave Ardmore, where he was a young 5 lawyer and practicing there and move to an all black 6 town. He had gone to Shreveport, Louisiana to 7 represent a client in a matter. 8 And he went over there with his 9 client, and when they called the case my father 10 stood. The judge said, what are you standing up 11 for, and he said I'm representing my client in this 12 case. And the judge shook his head and said, oh no, 13 you don't represent anyone in my court. And he 14 called him the "N" word, and he said, now you get 15 out. 16 And so that's why he not only came 17 back to Ardmore, but said, you know, I can't stand 18 this, I'm going to go where at least I'll enjoy some 19 self respect. I'm going to find a place where I 20 don't have to rub up against this everyday. 21 And that's why he and my mother went 22 to Rentiesville. But Rentiesville was so small, it 23 was not really viable as a community, as a community 24 to support a man who was a lawyer in a small town 25 where it was not much litigation anyway. And what GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 31 1 there was, it was not for profit, shall we say. 2 Q. I'm familiar with that phenomenon actually. 3 A. Yes. I think that might be why I decided not to 4 pursue law as I intended when I went to college, I 5 wanted to go into history. It's no defamation of 6 the legal profession intended. 7 Q. How is it, in fact, that your mother came to be a 8 teacher and your father came to be a lawyer? 9 A. Well, my mother was born in West Tennessee in the 10 village of Gayid, not far from Brownsville, 11 Tennessee. The daughter of a very enterprising 12 farmer who elected to send his daughter and later 13 some other daughters to college. 14 So that they could come back and 15 train the young people. There was a scarcity, this 16 was in the late 19th century, there was a scarcity 17 to train leaders and teachers and so forth in the 18 black community. 19 So, she was sent away to Roger 20 Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee to study 21 and to teach training and come back to Gayid and 22 teach, and that's what she did. 23 But, of course, in Nashville she had 24 met my father who had come out there from Oklahoma 25 and they fell in love with each other. And that led GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 32 1 to their marriage and going to Oklahoma to live both 2 of them. My father and my mother. 3 Q. Where did your father go to law school? 4 A. He did not go to law school. My father read law and 5 studied by correspondence and took the course, took 6 the examination in 1907 and passed it. He was 7 always somewhat distressed that he was only number 8 two in the bar examination. The first being a 9 graduate of the University of Michigan Law School. 10 And he practiced law from 1907 to 1960. 11 Q. Tell us what it was like to be at Fisk and at 12 Harvard when you were there? 13 A. Well, Fisk was like you say, in the old south, the 14 old confederate south and that's where I learned it 15 very early it was the confederate south. I had 16 grown up in a very interesting racial climate in 17 Oklahoma. 18 There had been the riot, which the 19 white people of Tulsa were in absolute complete 20 denial up until 1996, this riot was in 1921. But in 21 that period between 1921, the time of the riot and 22 1931 when I graduated from high school, there was a 23 very interesting racial relationship, especially 24 after the riot. 25 Where we were free to do as we GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 33 1 pleased, more or less. No one wanted to start, no 2 one wanted to have another riot. And the white 3 people wouldn't even admit that there had been a 4 riot. 5 Large number of whites including the 6 present mayor of Tulsa, and she told me just last 7 year that she did not know about a riot until just 8 very recently. 9 Meanwhile we enjoyed life and with 10 absence of this stress, we enjoyed our inferior 11 position without any intimidation. We went to these 12 inferior schools and nobody said much about them. 13 We got what we lost, in subject 14 matter we gained in terms of self respect and that 15 sort of things. It was pounded into us by our 16 teachers. 17 When I got to Fisk in the old south, 18 this is Ms. Owens' confederate south. I found that 19 the atmosphere was much more oppressive. And I was 20 told that almost immediately. 21 I went downtown, when I say downtown, 22 I mean in the business part of Nashville, the white 23 part of Nashville downtown when I was a freshman, 24 indeed, within the months. 25 I was 16 years old and I was far from GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 34 1 home. Oklahoma to Tennessee in those days was very 2 far. And I went downtown to do some shopping, just 3 to look around more than anything else with some 4 other classmates. 5 And we started back and I went into 6 the place where you bought a ticket to get on the 7 streetcar. And I had only a $20 bill, that was 8 almost the last $20 bill I had in college. 9 But I presented it to the man with 10 some apologies, I said, I'm sorry this is all I 11 have. The streetcar fare was 15 cents, this is all 12 I have and I am very sorry and you can give me the 13 change in one dollar bills or whatever you wanted 14 to. 15 And he rose out of his seat, I 16 thought he was going to jump through the booth. And 17 he said, you don't know little nigger can tell me 18 how to make change. I didn't know, I thought I was 19 being very accommodating, very courteous. 20 And then he took the time to count 21 out the change to me in nickels and dimes and 22 quarters. Nineteen dollars and 85 cents in nickels 23 and dimes. 24 And he was right, I wouldn't try to 25 teach him or anyone else after that how to make GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 35 1 change, if that's what he thought I was doing. I 2 thought I was calling myself being accommodating. 3 And that tend to blight my whole college life. 4 I never went downtown Nashville many 5 times after that. But I never went without 6 remembering that problem, I was absolutely 7 terrified, if you can imagine. I was 16, I was 8 terrified by this man. 9 And it's a big contrast to the kind 10 of atmosphere which I grew up where everyone was 11 holding back and trying to be congenial and not talk 12 about the riot, which they came and bombed us and 13 burned us down and everything, and caused me to be 14 four years tardy in getting to Tulsa in the first 15 place. 16 That was all on the board now and I 17 was confronted with this strange kind of treatment 18 that I had never had before. And that really 19 clouded my whole college life. 20 That was at one end of my college 21 life. At the other end, my senior year when I was 22 applying for Harvard Graduate School, 19 years old. 23 And I had to take the scholastic aptitude test. 24 This is before the graduate records exam. The 25 scholastic aptitude test is one which I had to take. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 36 1 And I went out to Vanderbilt 2 University, that's where you had to go to take it. 3 And I walked in that room and the man who came in, 4 the professor who came in, looked at me and said 5 what do you want. I said this is the room I have to 6 come to to take the scholastic aptitude test. 7 And he threw the test at me, I had to 8 catch it. That was not the best atmosphere in which 9 to try to perform on a test. 10 And I don't know what he did with the 11 test, but I didn't have much competence in his 12 sending it to where it was supposed to go. I don't 13 know what happened to it, perhaps he did send it in, 14 I don't know. But I was admitted to Harvard anyway. 15 I don't know what my score, I think 16 my score might have been zilch, it might have been 17 zero after that experience. 18 And as I walked away from that room 19 on the Vanderbilt campus, a black janitor he said, 20 were you sitting in that room, I said, yes. He 21 said, I have never seen a negro sitting down in any 22 rooms here. 23 He thought it was very strange. He 24 said, what were you doing, I said I was trying to 25 take this examination. And he was amazed and full GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 37 1 of wonder that that had happened. And I was full of 2 wonder too, and I was very relieved to get off of 3 that campus. 4 So, at the beginning, at the end of 5 my Nashville experience, I had these two very 6 unsavory experiences which affected my whole 7 attitude towards Nashville. 8 I was later, much later, the chairman 9 of the board, a trustee of Fisk University and been 10 going back regularly both as alumnus and as a board 11 member. But I have never felt comfortable there 12 because of that experience when I was there in my 13 teens. 14 But we had a marvelous time at Fisk, 15 because Fisk was whereas that all the students were 16 African Americans, the faculty was racially mixed. 17 And we learned there in that rather strange and, I 18 think, some ways unrealistic climate. 19 We learned there that white people 20 were just plain people, just ordinary white people, 21 no mystery about them. And the man who sent me to 22 Harvard turned out to be my best friend outside of 23 my family. The best person I ever had any 24 relationship with. 25 And this was a little oasis there, GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 38 1 where we didn't have any differences, no racial 2 differences of any kind. And where I remember so 3 well when President Roosevelt came to visit the 4 campus in 1934, I was a senior. 5 A student had been lynched, not a 6 student, I'm sorry. A young person living on the 7 Fisk property, the edge of the campus, had been 8 taken out and lynched the spring of 1934. And we 9 were, of course, very much exercised by that 10 experience. 11 And when we learned that the 12 president was coming to Fisk, the president of the 13 United States, students decided to bring him in on 14 the protest. To petition him to make a statement 15 about it. 16 Well, the president of Fisk was very 17 distressed about that and persuaded us not to do it. 18 And I was president of the student government at the 19 time, and he persuaded me not to do it. 20 But this was an experience too, which 21 I should have mentioned this coloring, my old 22 feeling about the town and so forth. 23 And we were called off from doing 24 that, that's another story of the president. The 25 president of Fisk said he would get us an GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 39 1 appointment with the president of the United States, 2 if we would just not badger him when he was on 3 campus. 4 One of the things that we did though 5 that spring, was to not only to entertain the 6 president of the United States, the Fisk class 7 singing and that sort of thing. But we welcomed the 8 whole community. 9 The president said he was only going 10 to stop at Andrew Jackson birth place, and Fisk 11 University. Well, white people in Nashville 12 couldn't imagine the president of the United States 13 would come to Nashville and go to a black school, 14 and that's all he would do in Nashville. They 15 couldn't believe it. 16 And we therefore, arranged bleachers 17 and so forth for everyone who wanted to come and see 18 the president of the United States. And as 19 president of the student government, I was sort of 20 officiating around and people doing what I told 21 them, so to speak. 22 And one white man came up to me and 23 said, where are the white people sitting, I said 24 anywhere. He said, anywhere, and I said yes. And 25 he was very, I don't want to convey that he was GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 40 1 hostile, he was not. 2 He said, you know, this is very 3 strange. He said, I voted democratic ticket every 4 time in my life. He said, but if Franklin Roosevelt 5 doesn't think anymore of my vote than to come out 6 here to a place where I have to sit with black 7 people, he said I'll never vote the democratic 8 ticket again. 9 And he wasn't hostile, he was 10 bringing me in on the resolution that he had taken. 11 He just couldn't do that. Democrats were going to 12 do that, then he had to turn his back on them. 13 And that put another cast on my view 14 of this whole thing. I was utterly and completely 15 confused by these different attitudes that I saw. 16 That I continued to see and I continue to see even 17 in my later years. 18 I sometimes think that if I'm going 19 to understand this, I need to be awarded another 20 degree. It's a conundrum, it's difficult to 21 understand. 22 Well, all of these experiences 23 happened since I--I won't belabor, I won't burden 24 you with anything since then. But the experiences 25 that I've had since I've been 80 years old, and that GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 41 1 wasn't yesterday you see. 2 But I've learned not to be too 3 surprised, there have been lessons to me and I have 4 learned more lessons. 5 I remember the night before I was to 6 receive the medal, the Presidential Medal of 7 Freedom, I gave a dinner party to celebrate that in 8 Washington at the club which I belonged there. 9 And I invited some friends to come in 10 to have dinner with me that evening, and some of 11 them had not been to the club before and it was a 12 very wealthy place, and I was taking them on a tour 13 of the club. 14 And we got up in the library, we were 15 in the library and I remembered I had two more 16 guests that hadn't arrived. So, I would go down the 17 grand staircase to the lobby, to see if the guests 18 were there. 19 And as I came into the lobby, a white 20 woman walked up to me and said, listen, go and get 21 my coat. She gave me her coat check, she offered me 22 her coat check. 23 I said, madam, if you will present 24 that coat check to the uniformed attendant at the 25 club, and all of the attendants here are uniformed, GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 42 1 perhaps you will get your coat. And I walked away, 2 I don't know whether she got her coat. I didn't 3 wait to see whether she did. 4 I thought that she might meditate on 5 that for a while and perhaps come to some conclusion 6 that she had reached out to a person who, in her 7 view, was there to serve her. Why otherwise should 8 I have been there if I wasn't there to serve her. 9 She could have looked on the wall and 10 seen my pictures the Man Of The Year the previous 11 year, but she didn't. I guess she didn't. But 12 maybe she thought that the Man Of The Year was also 13 a porter, I don't know. 14 Q. What was Harvard like when you were there? 15 A. What's that? 16 Q. What was Harvard like when you were there? 17 A. Well, it was the great university that it is, and I 18 didn't run into many racial incidents at Harvard. I 19 know that it was--there was so few of us there, so 20 few blacks there that I think we were inconspicuous 21 to the point of being almost invisible. 22 I remember that when I was taking a 23 course in economics, in this world economic history, 24 one of the very distinguished people in world 25 economic history, counsels, advisors, presidents of GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 43 1 that sort of thing. 2 He told a so-called Negro joke in 3 class and I'm sitting there, but he was oblivious to 4 the fact that I might have been offended or that I 5 was even there. It just weren't enough of us there 6 to make any difference, no critical mass or 7 anything. He didn't see me. 8 You got one person and 35 or 40 9 people, I guess, you can't be seen I don't care how 10 dark you are. Your consciousness is not extended to 11 that point. 12 I think that the thing that I 13 experienced at Harvard, most searing experience, it 14 was not the anti--not the race, not racism but 15 anti-Semitism. And that was really a remarkable 16 revelation to me. 17 I didn't know what anti-Semitism was, 18 I had been so busy trying to wear my way through my 19 problems, life problems that I had before me, that I 20 did not know that other people had problems. 21 So, when I was a member of the 22 Henry Adams Club, which is a club of American 23 history students at Harvard. The time came for us 24 to have officers, to nominate officers for the 25 following year, we had a nominating committee. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 44 1 And I'm so naive that I did not 2 realize that when was I proposed for the nominating 3 committee, number one person on the nominating 4 committee, the first person proposed. 5 I didn't know that I was to be 6 certain that I wasn't nominated for anything. So, 7 when the nominating committee met and the chair, I 8 was not the chair, the chair said, well, for whom 9 should we have for president. 10 And I named the person who I thought 11 that should have the president. I said, he's an 12 outstanding student, best student in our group. And 13 I think he should be in. He's faithful, active in 14 the club, he should be the president of the club. 15 Dead silence all the way around, 16 absolute silence. I don't know what's going on, 17 what's the matter. And then one of the students 18 spoke up and said, well, he doesn't have all of the 19 attributes of a Jew. But he's still a Jew. 20 I'm so speechless, I don't even know 21 what they're talking about. And I finally was able 22 to indicate to him, I don't know what these 23 attributes are that the students have, what are 24 they. 25 Well, you know, but I did not know. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 45 1 And I was speaking honestly, I did not know. I 2 never heard that before. And so I really will have 3 to go back--it struck me as so untoward, so un 4 everything, so unAmerican that I don't even remember 5 what happened. 6 I can only say that that person when 7 all of these others fell by the way side, most of 8 them didn't even get their degrees, this person 9 became the most distinguished fellow in the history 10 of Harvard University. 11 He thought there were a few things, 12 and I was proud that we remained friends for 60 13 years. 14 But the other thing about Harvard was 15 that the climate was such that I was able to 16 understand immediately what there was about it that 17 caused so many young people to become full of 18 themselves and take themselves more seriously than I 19 thought they should. 20 As I said, I didn't have any 21 problems, I didn't have any difficulty with academic 22 problems at all. I had some financial problems, but 23 those were solved after the first year with 24 fellowships and so forth. 25 And when I finished my exams and I GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 46 1 was asked by my major professor if I wanted any 2 further fellowships, and I said no, I just want to 3 leave, I want to get out of here. The atmosphere 4 was so stifling to me and I wanted to leave and 5 become myself again. 6 The pretensions were so great, and 7 the effort to be like professors was so great that I 8 thought it was no place for me, so I left. And I 9 was glad to get a job and write my dissertation when 10 I was working. I was writing on their money, on 11 their fellowship money. 12 I was happier and got more 13 experience, and learned more and was out of that 14 climate that--you see I began to realize that it was 15 something wrong with that climate, it was 16 anti-Semitic. So, probably I didn't see it because 17 it was anti-black too, much more than I really could 18 feel or experience. 19 It gave me, it put me on notice that 20 if Jews were special I must be very special. In an 21 unsavory and unattractive way. 22 Q. You said something earlier, Professor Franklin, that 23 I didn't understand when we first talked about the 24 riots in Tulsa delayed your arrival in that city by 25 four years? GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 47 1 A. Well, my father had gone to Tulsa the year before to 2 start a new life, to make a living. And he did 3 well, he was prospering and everything. So much so 4 that he said that we could come up at the end of the 5 school year, he would come and get us and everything 6 at the end of the school year and we'll be together 7 again. 8 And I so was very anxious because I 9 was six and going to be with my daddy again. And we 10 were packed and waiting for him to come. And he was 11 coming on the point of day the first of June. We 12 waited and he didn't come. The next day he didn't 13 come. The next day he didn't come. 14 There was no means of communication. 15 There was no telephone, there was not a telephone in 16 Rentiesville. There weren't many telephones 17 anywhere in those days. 18 Finally my mother read in the 19 newspaper that had been dropped off at Rentiesville 20 from Muskogee, down in Muskogee, the Muskogee Daily 21 News, that there had been a riot down in Tulsa. And 22 there were many casualties. 23 And then she didn't know whether her 24 husband, our father, was living or dead and didn't 25 know that for several more days. And finally we got GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 48 1 a note from him. 2 When the riot broke he stepped out of 3 his place, his office, to see what was going on and 4 he was seized, taken to a place of detention. Kept 5 for several days there. 6 When he got out everything that he 7 had had been destroyed. The house that he rented 8 for us had been burned to the ground. His office 9 had been destroyed, the building had been wrecked. 10 He couldn't find anything, any of his possessions 11 anywhere. 12 And that kept him really from writing 13 us or communicating with us for some days. And 14 because when he could get around, when he did get 15 around to communicating with us, he couldn't come 16 because by that time he had established his law 17 offices in a tent. There was no buildings in the 18 black community, no building at all. 19 He established his law office in a 20 tent, he stayed there at night. And he was busy 21 with his clients suing the insurance companies, 22 suing the city, suing the mayor, everyone in sight 23 for some compensation, reimbursement and so forth. 24 So he was so busy he couldn't come. 25 And he finally was able to--the city GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 49 1 had passed an ordinance saying that there could be 2 no reconstruction in that section of town unless it 3 was a fireproof construction. 4 Well, they didn't have any money to 5 build fireproof. My father advised his clients to 6 build with orange crates, if necessary, build with 7 anything. And they, of course, were arrested for 8 violating the city ordinance. 9 And he took that case to the state 10 supreme court and it was declared, the ordinance was 11 declared unconstitutional. So we had to wait four 12 more years and then we went out to Tulsa in 1925. 13 And that's when I found what Tulsa 14 was like, and what life was like there, how 15 different it was, how wonderful it was in so many 16 ways. 17 But this climate that I'm talking 18 about, which is kind of an artificial climate, but 19 one that was maintained and that gave us a sense of 20 freedom and of well-being that it was probably not 21 quite true. 22 But it was enough for us to feel that 23 we could go where we wanted to, and do what we 24 wanted to do and be what we wanted to and without 25 any serious consequences, or adverse consequences, GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 50 1 and we did. 2 But, of course, the town couldn't 3 have been more segregated or more Jim Crowe than it 4 was. And my parents, of course, would not and did 5 not ever demean themselves by accepting segregation 6 of any sort. 7 When I went to the courtroom with my 8 father, if the blacks were not segregated by law but 9 by custom they were, he never let me sit over there. 10 If it was a jury trial and the jury 11 was sitting, then he brought me to the bar and I sat 12 with him at the bar. If not, he said you can sit 13 you can sit over there where the jury is supposed to 14 sit. 15 When the Chicago Symphony Opera came 16 to town my mother was a musician she loved the 17 music, she wouldn't go to the opera because it was 18 segregated. 19 And she said, well, if you want--I 20 said, I want to see the opera. She said, well, it's 21 segregated we don't go to anything like that, but if 22 you want to demean yourself, if you want sell your 23 dignity that way, go ahead. 24 And I went with music teacher and so 25 forth, I went. I told this story in a PBS GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 51 1 documentary and the director of the Metropolitan 2 Opera in New York saw it and wrote to me, and said 3 I'm sorry you learned a little opera under those 4 conditions, but I'm glad you've learned to love it. 5 From now on you will never have to do 6 that again, you can be my guest in my box at the 7 Metropolitan whenever you want to. And Joseph--and 8 I have become very good friends because I go to the 9 opera as his guest. 10 But they wouldn't tolerate any kind 11 of segregation. So, I grew up in a household that 12 was hostile to the practices of racism. And I 13 learned, I learned what they were, although--I 14 learned what that was, although I didn't practice it 15 as a youngster. 16 I would have to wait and learn what 17 the adversities were before I would be able to 18 practice it. As I was able to practice it after I 19 went to college. 20 Q. You were able to practice? 21 A. To abstain from going into segregated places. As a 22 child I did not, as an adult I did. It was 23 something that I was forced to like during the 24 research and that's all. 25 Q. You went back to Fisk to teach, is that right? GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 52 1 A. Uh-huh. To Fisk? 2 Q. Yes. 3 A. Yes, I went back only for one year to teach. I 4 taught there in 1936, '37. Just an interim while I 5 was in graduate school, I went back to teaching at 6 my friend's place, the man who sent me to Harvard, 7 he was going away. 8 And by that time I had a master's 9 degree, and although I was a very, very junior 10 teacher at Fisk, they tolerated me for one year. 11 And I taught there and then I went back to graduate 12 school and finished my Ph.D. 13 But I stayed out of downtown 14 Nashville for the most part when I was back there 15 for that one year. 16 Q. What were your other teaching jobs, and how did race 17 become a factor? 18 A. Well, I taught at Fisk, St. Augustus college in 19 Raleigh. Then I taught at North Carolina College 20 for Negros in Durham. 21 It was when my luck ran out in 22 Raleigh with the draft board, and they were about to 23 draft me that I changed colleges. 24 And I called Dr. Sheperd, the founder 25 and the current president of North Carolina College GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 53 1 for Negros. And this is after I was not able to do 2 anything else in Raleigh, and after the president of 3 St. Augustus College told me he would not write a 4 letter to my draft board. 5 He said because he thought the Army 6 would be good for me. And it would teach me to hang 7 up my clothes, to be neat. And I told him my mother 8 had done that already. And I got up and left. 9 I called the president of North 10 Carolina College in Durham, North Carolina for 11 Negros in Durham. I said is that offer that you 12 made to me last year still standing, and he said, of 13 course. 14 I said I'll come to your college, 15 I'll come over and teach under one condition, he 16 said what's that. I said, you're on the Draft 17 Appeal Board, aren't you? He said, yes. I said 18 that you will keep me out of the Army. 19 He said, well, it would be a disaster 20 for the United States for you to go into the Army. 21 He said, I will be glad to keep you out, maybe we 22 can win the war then. So I said I'll come right 23 over. So I went over there and I spent four years 24 there. 25 Then I went to Howard University, at GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 54 1 that time I had published several books and I went 2 to Howard University as a full professor. I was 26 3 years--I'm sorry, 32 years old. 4 And then I stayed there nine years 5 and I went to Brooklyn College where I went as 6 chairman of the department and professor, it was 7 1956. 8 And it was there that I got some more 9 experiences in this life of what it means. I 10 learned a great deal about northern racism. 11 Brooklyn College is located in a 12 wonderful residential section of Brooklyn. And I 13 was living in an apartment, my wife and my son and I 14 were living in an apartment up on east--when I saw 15 all of these lovely houses there down there, and I 16 said, well, it must be wonderful to walk to work. 17 And so I began to look for a house. 18 And no real estate dealer in Brooklyn 19 would show me a house. I'd read in the New York 20 Times here is this house for sale, then I would go 21 and see the real estate dealer who advertised the 22 house, it wasn't available for me. 23 And I worked at that for several 24 months and I wasn't getting anywhere. I wasn't 25 seeing a house, I couldn't even see a house. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 55 1 And then I concluded that I wasn't 2 going do see a house through the real estate 3 dealers, and I decided the next level of search 4 would be to find houses offered for sale by the 5 owners. 6 And I would confront the person who 7 was the sales person who would be the owner. And I 8 began to see some houses, but not many. 9 And as I went into the homes that 10 were for sale by the owner, I remember one instance 11 we came out of this house, he told us that it was 12 just about concluded the sale. But if that fell 13 through, he would be glad to call me and took my 14 telephone number. I didn't hear from him. 15 But I came out of that house, 16 apparently the word had got through that we were 17 looking for a house. This black couple was looking 18 for a house, and every white person in the block was 19 out in front of their house. All the way down the 20 block, to watch to see this black couple come out. 21 It was sort of sending a message, I assume. 22 I thought I could read the message, 23 it said that they didn't want me in that block. 24 Well, they couldn't get me anyway, because the man 25 didn't call. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 56 1 We finally found one house though 2 that sounded interesting and we called, it was a 3 Saturday afternoon, we called this owner and this 4 owner said, what are you doing and I said, well, 5 we're not anything that we can stop doing--that we 6 can't stop doing. 7 He said, well, why don't you come 8 down here and see this house. And went down to this 9 house and we looked at it, and we were very 10 interested in the house as we approached it. 11 We parked and we rang the bell and 12 the man came to the door. He and someone else was 13 sitting in the kitchen, you could see it, this 14 living room, dining room, kitchen, you could see 15 that. 16 And he said just a minute, and he 17 went back and he took a drink. And he came back, he 18 said you want to see the house, you're the one who 19 called, and I said, yes. 20 He said come in. He said, this is 21 the living room, I said I thought that was the 22 living room. I didn't know, but I thought that. 23 Then I attributed his change in 24 attitude to the drink that he had taken, that that 25 might be a misreading. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 57 1 But by the time we got past the 2 living room and into the dining room, he began to 3 push his house. He began telling me how good it was 4 and that how much money he had put into it, and that 5 I might be very pleased with it. 6 And he said, how do you like this, I 7 said it is all right, I like it. He said, you know 8 how much money I put into this basement. And then 9 he took me upstairs, me and my wife and my son 10 upstairs. 11 And then he finished showing me the 12 house, he was pushing the house on me. So I told 13 him that I would let him know. He called me the 14 next week and said, what about the house, you want 15 it? 16 I said, I think so, but I've got to 17 go away to see my father, he's not well. He said, 18 when are you coming back, I said I'll be back by the 19 first of December, we'll be back soon. 20 He said, look, if you want this house 21 I'll take it off the market now, I'll wait for you. 22 I said, well, I think I want it, he said I'll take 23 it off, I want you to have it. 24 And so I came back and I told him I 25 thought I would take it. So, we signed the contact, GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 58 1 my lawyer was in on the deal, and my lawyer, my 2 Brooklyn lawyer. 3 And he said, well, how we going to 4 pay for this house, he said, well, we've got to find 5 the money. And he said, do you have an insurance, I 6 said yes, and I told him the insurance company. 7 He said, well, your problems are 8 over. He said, they had set aside several scores of 9 millions of dollars for their own customers, their 10 own policy holders. 11 He said, what's your policy, I got it 12 out for him. How much was it, $20,000. He said, 13 what's the name of your insurance agent, I told him. 14 So, the next day I got a call from my insurance 15 agent. 16 He said, now I don't want you to get 17 a misunderstanding, we have done a lot for you 18 people. I said, what are you talking about. He 19 said, well, you want to borrow money to buy a house, 20 I said yes. And you've got lots of money for your 21 policy holders. 22 He said, it was not really for 23 everybody. He said you want to buy a house on 24 New York Avenue, I said yes, 1885, he said that's 25 the wrong block. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 59 1 He said, I can't lend you money to 2 buy a house that far down because you're leaping 3 over a white neighborhood going into this other 4 neighborhood, he said, that's too far. He said you 5 have to take it neighborhood by neighborhood. 6 I said, well, I want to live in that 7 neighborhood. He said, we can't lend money for 8 that. I said, well, what's this money for that 9 you've got. 10 He said it's for our customers, but 11 they have to conform to the pattern of living that 12 we want them to conform to. I said, so I can't buy 13 in that block, that area, because I'm black, he said 14 that right. 15 He said, but I'll get the money for 16 you, I said from where, he said another company I 17 can get them. I said well, then that's the company 18 that I should be insured by. 19 And I said and as of now, you can 20 consider me not your customer anymore. And I turned 21 him down. I turned his offer to get the insurance 22 company to get the money for me. 23 And there I was back where I started. 24 I went to my lawyer, Murray Gross, I said Murray, I 25 still don't have the money, this man won't let me GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 60 1 have money from this insurance company and I 2 cancelled my $20,000 insurance with him. 3 And we have to start over. He said, 4 well there's banks, we'll get it from the bank. And 5 he told me the full story of this when I was about 6 to leave Brooklyn for Chicago. 7 He pulled out the folder of requests 8 that he made to New York banks. Not one bank in 9 New York would let me have the money, not one. This 10 included the bank in Harlem, it was a front for a 11 downtown bank anyway. 12 So there I am with no bank to lend me 13 money. And then he told me then how his father was 14 on the board of the South Brooklyn & Savings Bank 15 and he got the money through his father. That's the 16 only way I got money to buy that home. 17 I was so determined to have it and I 18 was determined to have it by the time the insurance 19 company turned me down, that he then decided that he 20 would help me get the money, and he did from the 21 bank on which his father served as a board member. 22 That was quite an experience for me. 23 In the community where I had been the 24 favorite, my picture was on the front page of the 25 New York Times when I went to Brooklyn. It was a GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 61 1 spectacular historical appointment, an African 2 American the chair of the department at Brooklyn 3 College of the City University, that's a first. 4 But although I could teach their 5 children, I could not live among them. That's what 6 the message was. And I felt that perhaps I was like 7 the barber who could cut their hair, but could not 8 belong to their church. Or the maid who kept their 9 children, but could not sit down to eat at the table 10 with them. 11 I didn't know. This is a strange 12 kind of treatment of a person who do they entrusted 13 their young people to me. So that when I moved in I 14 felt that I was moving among enemies. And I was. 15 The man next door would not move his 16 car so that the moving van could come into the curb 17 by the house. It had to sit out in the middle of 18 the street and take our belongings out of the van. 19 It took hours, tied up traffic and 20 everything but he didn't care. I got anonymous 21 calls from people that I knew that they hated us, 22 they lived in the same block. Telling me things 23 about myself, telling me I thought I was more than I 24 was. 25 One time we went out, my son and I GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 62 1 went out to paint the picket fence in front of our 2 house, apparently the word got around in the 3 neighborhood up and down in the block that we were 4 there, not to destroy the neighborhood, but to 5 improve it I suppose they might have said. It was a 6 half gallon of paint to put on a picket fence. 7 But they all came and stood and 8 looked across the street. Just looked, didn't say a 9 word. The silent treatment they gave me. 10 And it was the end of my wife's 11 career because they began to taunt my son who was 12 six years old. These are adults. Frightening him 13 when he would ride on his bicycle. 14 Telling him, aren't you afraid to be 15 here and that sort of thing. And he would come home 16 and tell us what they said. And my wife said, I 17 must be here for him. 18 So, she gave up her librarian career 19 and remained home until he went off to college. 20 Never set without him, never being without him. 21 Never letting him become a latch key kid, she was 22 there whenever he came home from school. 23 So it was my northern exposure to 24 racism was not better than my southern exposure. 25 Q. Was that different when you went to Chicago GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 63 1 subsequently? 2 A. What's that? 3 Q. Was that different? 4 A. It was largely different when I went to Chicago. By 5 that time I had become accustomed to walking to 6 working to work, you see. And so in Chicago I 7 wanted to walk to work. 8 But there the University of Chicago 9 controlled all the real estate in that area and they 10 secured the home for me. They were the intervenors, 11 sort to speak. 12 They knew that a certain professor 13 was putting his house up for sale, because he was 14 going to Vassar, as president of Vassar. And so 15 they said, if you like this house we will arrange it 16 so that you can get it. 17 And I liked it and we purchased it, 18 and it was that. And the second day we were there, 19 or maybe the same day we moved in, the youngsters in 20 the neighborhood learned that there was a youngster 21 in the neighborhood in the house, so they wanted to 22 know if they could come in and visit with him and so 23 forth. And they welcomed him. 24 We only had one incident, and that 25 was when my son who by this time was becoming fluent GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 64 1 in French. Belonged to the French Club which was 2 made up of adults and students. 3 And he had gone across the street 4 from our house to the home of one of the wives of a 5 professor in the English Department. 6 And the University of Chicago 7 policeman saw him coming out of this house and he 8 stopped him. And he said, what are you doing in 9 this neighborhood, why are you coming out of this 10 house. He said, I live across the street. And they 11 wanted to know what I did. 12 And then my son came into the house 13 out of breath and he said, the police, University 14 Police stopped me and wanted to know what I was 15 doing in the neighborhood. 16 And I called Edward--the president of 17 University of Chicago that moment. And told him 18 that the person who was patrolling that neighborhood 19 had stopped my son. 20 I said he cannot grow up being 21 stopped by the University of Chicago Police, I want 22 this stopped now. 23 He called the policeman in and 24 reprimanded him and issued an order to the police 25 department of the University, that they were not to GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 65 1 do this, not to accost young blacks in the 2 neighborhood because it was a presumption, it was 3 early profiling you see. 4 It was a presumption that something 5 was wrong if he was coming out of one of those 6 houses. And I said you can't do this, my son cannot 7 like that, we cannot live in this situation. And 8 that was stopped immediately. 9 That was the only experience that we 10 had that I would say untoward or adverse. And he 11 lived happily ever after that at that school and 12 went on to Stanford after that. 13 Q. Chicago is your last appointment before Duke, is 14 that right? 15 A. Yes, I retired from the University of Chicago in 16 1980, driven out by the weather. And retired to 17 Durham where I wanted to live. I was a fellow of 18 the National Humanity Center, I was a senior fellow 19 at the National Humanity Center. 20 And I was there writing the life of 21 George Washington Williams, one of my subjects. And 22 the second year there I was invited to be the Duke 23 professor at Duke University. 24 So, I didn't go from Chicago to Duke, 25 I went from Chicago to Durham to the National GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 66 1 Humanity Center, then I became a professor of the 2 Duke. Called out of retirement, I had no intention 3 of teaching anymore. 4 But those were eight or nine years of 5 the most delightful times of my life of teaching at 6 Duke. Both first and the second year. And then in 7 the law school I taught in the law school for seven 8 years, teaching American constitution. 9 Q. What made you like Duke so much? 10 A. Well, it was a different kind of experience, and I 11 was invited to be the James B. Duke professor. I 12 had had two chairs, one in this country and one in 13 England. And I was accustomed to chairs. 14 But Duke had never had an African 15 American sitting in a chair, named chair, and I 16 thought that it would be a good experience for Duke. 17 And that was one of the main reasons that I 18 accepted. And I think it was good experience for 19 Duke. And I hastily say that it was for me too. 20 I said this was some crowning 21 experience of my career, and a very packard one. It 22 was no unhappy experiences about that at Duke at 23 all. And they have been very good to me and paid me 24 homage that I could be paid, I think. 25 I have an honorary degree from Duke. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 67 1 There's the John Hope Franklin Center for Africans 2 and African Americans documentation at Duke. And on 3 the 8th of February, they will open the John Hope 4 Franklin Center for Interdisciplinary and 5 International Studies, the whole building. 6 It will open on the 8th of February. 7 So I have no quarrel with Duke about what they do. 8 Q. I will say though that on the honorary degree 9 they're not really standing out a list of 10 institutions that you have degrees from, it's 11 probably easier to go through then the list of ones 12 that have? 13 A. I wouldn't say that. There are maybe a thousand 14 colleges and universities in that country, two or 15 three thousand, I have only 128 honorary degrees. 16 Q. Tell us about your scholarship, Dr. Franklin? 17 A. Well, you mean my public work, my writing? 18 Q. Yes. 19 A. I was very fortunate in picking a subject for my 20 doctorate dissertation, which at the end of the line 21 that is when I finished with it, my mentor at Howard 22 Professor Shaveying announced at my final 23 examination, said my dissertation was ready to be 24 published. He recommended that I publish it, that 25 it be published. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 68 1 Mr. Crittenton the head of the 2 North Carolina Archives, the one who put me in a 3 separate room and so forth. Who was a Yale Ph.D in 4 history, by the way. And upon reading my 5 dissertation, asked if he could send it to the 6 University of North Carolina Press, he says it's 7 ready to be published. So he did and they published 8 it. They published it. 9 Its been published and republished 10 and reprinted. And the University of North Carolina 11 Press has even brought out a new edition on it the 12 last three or four years. That's at one end. 13 And then my second publication it was 14 off of one of my students. I was lecturing on the 15 Civil War at St. Augustus College and one my 16 students came up to me and said, you know, you're 17 talking about the Civil War and it reminds me that 18 we have a Civil War diary that's been in the family 19 since 19--he said since the end of the Civil War. 20 And would you like to see it and I said, yes. 21 And he brought it, he sent for it and 22 it came up, and I read it and it was so interesting. 23 It was a diary of a white man who at the age of 57 24 years old, wanted to go into the Army and he did. 25 He enlisted in the Union Army, but he was put in the GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 69 1 Infantry, you know, how long a 57 year old would 2 last in the Infantry. 3 And he was then transferred after 4 1864, he was transferred into the recruiting 5 section. And he was dispatched to recruit black 6 soldiers after the United States proclamation, to 7 recruit black soldiers. 8 And he kept an account of that. And 9 I then published that as a Civil War diary of 10 James T. Ayers. That's just been reprinted by the 11 Louisiana State University Press this year. 12 Then I began to work on the Militant 13 South. And I was in the middle of that when I was 14 asked if I would be interested in writing a history 15 about African Americans and I said no, I'm busy. 16 I'm busy doing this. 17 But the head of the college kept 18 nagging me and nagging me and finally I relented, 19 and agreed to write from Slavery To Freedom, The 20 History Of African Americans. That was 57 years 21 ago. 53 years ago, I'm sorry. 54 years ago. 22 And that, of course, has gone through 23 eight editions. And it's used widely. It's, I 24 guess, between three and four million copies are in 25 print. GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 70 1 And I then proceeded to do other 2 things, write out for other books. I wrote a book 3 at the University of Chicago on the subject of 4 Reconstruction After The Civil War. 5 The Militant South which I postponed 6 to write From Slavery To Freedom, the Harvard 7 University Press published it. 8 That's a very interesting angle. I'm 9 writing my autobiography now, and the only thing I'm 10 finding is the actual historians through that book 11 on the Militant South. Which is not about blacks at 12 all, it's about whites. 13 There was a feeling that maybe I was 14 not qualified to write about whites. And the reader 15 whom I know now who it was, reading it for the 16 Harvard University Press said that, I don't see why 17 you need a Negro view of the south. 18 But if you insist on having a Negro 19 view of the south, maybe Franklin is the best person 20 you can get to do it. That's in the review which he 21 submitted to the Harvard University Press, which I 22 later did receive. 23 And I said to the director of the 24 Press, I don't see no Negro view of the south, it's 25 a view of the south period. The director of the GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 71 1 Press said, we understand that, that's why we wanted 2 it and they published it. 3 Then I wrote a book on the 4 Emancipation of Proclamation from a textual study of 5 the Emancipation. Like Lincoln came to write it and 6 so forth. 7 And then I wrote a book, another book 8 on white southerners it's called Southern Odyssey 9 Travel of the Annabella North. Which I described 10 the addictions that southerners had to the north, it 11 was a real addiction. 12 So much so there were large numbers 13 of them in the north at the time of the Civil War. 14 And they ran home from the war, but the day the war 15 was over they began to come back. And that story is 16 a bit interesting in itself. 17 That book won some kind of prize from 18 the Southern History. And I don't know, you remind 19 me that I wrote that. I will be able to tell you 20 why I wrote it, but it goes on. 21 Q. Let me ask you about your experience recently as the 22 chair of the President's Initiative on Race? 23 A. Uh-huh. 24 Q. What was the initiative, or how did you become to be 25 involved in that? GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 72 1 A. Well, I can tell you what the initiative was. The 2 president decided very early in his administration 3 that we had to do something about the problem of 4 race in America. This is President Clinton. 5 He come to North Carolina when he was 6 running for president and asked if I would visit 7 with him and I said, yes. 8 And I met him and the vice president 9 candidate, the candidate for vice president and the 10 family all at the same time, they came to Durham. 11 And I met them all a week before the election in 12 1992. 13 And then shortly after he became 14 president, the next contact I had with the 15 administration was through the vice president who 16 said to me one day he said, you know, I want to know 17 something more about race too. 18 And I wonder if you would help me 19 understand it by providing the intellectual feed if 20 I will provide the other kind of feed. 21 He said, I propose to hold three 22 seminars at my house and then invite 25 or 30 people 23 to each one of those. And I would like for you to 24 meet these--these would be influential people. Some 25 would be members of the cabinet, some will be GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 73 1 members of Congress, some will be scholars and so 2 forth, and I did that for three consecutive weeks. 3 The vice president and Mrs. Gore. 4 And my next contact I think was with 5 the president, when he conferred on me the Medal of 6 Freedom. And he made a speech on me that day which 7 surprised me, I didn't know he knew that much about 8 me. This was 1995. 9 And he told stories about me, some of 10 which I shared with you, and I was really amazed. 11 But it was shortly after that, that he began to talk 12 to me about the Initiative of Race, which he had set 13 up in the White House already. 14 And it was through that initiative 15 that they began to develop programs of various parts 16 of the government for the immediate racial 17 situations in those departments and so forth. 18 And then finally, he decided he 19 wanted an advisory board to the Initiative, which 20 was staffed by people in the White House. 21 He wanted an advisory board that 22 would recommend to him, that would study the 23 situation and recommend to him some things that we 24 thought he ought to do. 25 And the board was created on the 13th GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 74 1 of June, 1997, announced, it was the day. And the 2 next day it was announced at the meeting--at the 3 commencement at the University of California 4 San Diego. 5 The president met with us the day 6 before, and he took us all out there in Air Force 7 One, and we were really part of the commencement 8 exercises back there at U of C San Diego. 9 And he made the announcement there, 10 had all of us to stand. Told what we were up to, 11 what he wanted us to be up to, and he met with us 12 and brought us back to Washington. 13 Then we were on our own after that. 14 We were organized as an advisory board, under the 15 public laws of the federal government, which meant 16 that we were a public agency, no private meetings at 17 all. 18 We were getting acquainted, we had to 19 get acquainted in public. It was awkward for me to 20 say, now, what's your name and put that down. 21 But we began to develop a plan of 22 work with staff of about 25 to 30 people who helped 23 us. And we decided to study various aspects of the 24 problems of race in this country. 25 To start a dialogue is what the GRUTTER -vs- BOLLINGER, ET AL 75 1 president wanted us to do, is start a dialogue. 2 Some people felt that that was not terribly 3 necessary in view of the fact that we have been 4 talking about race for three or 400 years. 5 But we felt that it was desirable, 6 very necessary to look at the problem 7 systematically, and to bring to bear on the problem 8 the research and findings that scholars and 9 statesmen had brought to it. 10 And that we could enlighten ourselves 11 and inform the Initiative on Race and the president 12 on the subject, and to make recommendations to him 13 about what he should do or could do. 14 We met in various parts of the 15 country as a board, and we individually were 16 burdened because by this time large numbers of 17 invitations were coming to us from all over.