Franklin W. Proctor Oral History Interview

Notice
This is a transcript of a tape-recorded interview conducted for the Harry S. Truman Library. A draft of this transcript was edited by the interviewee but only minor emendations were made; therefore, the reader should remember that this is essentially a transcript of the spoken, rather than the written word.

Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview.

RESTRICTIONS
This oral history transcript may be read, quoted from, cited, and reproduced for purposes of research. It may not be published in full except by permission of the Harry S. Truman Library.

Opened July, 1985
Harry S. Truman Library
Independence, Missouri

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MCKINZIE: Mr. Proctor, could you tell us something about how you came to the State Department in the 1930s, and perhaps give us some background about your life before you came to work for the State Department?

You were, as I understand, one of the first black people to work for the Department of State.

PROCTOR: Well, I was born in Fairfax County, in 1915, on part of the original estate of President George Washington, Mount Vernon. I attended the local school and in going to school I had to walk a

[2]

mile and a half a day. I went to school the whole seven years at this little one room school without missing more than three days, when a vaccination made me ill.

At this school there was a complex where we had the church and school, and the Odd Fellow's Hall. This little place was known as Woodlawn, and the only area now that is recognizable there as having been Woodlawn is the cemetery, which is off limits right in the middle of a part of Fort Belvoir. It has made Ripley's Believe It or Not about four or five times. My parents are there; I went to the cemetery just this last May 28th to decorate Dad and Mom's graves. Our church had to move because of World War II when the Government took over this property for expansion of Fort Belvoir, and so this cemetery is by itself. Near this area is also a Friends House -- a Quaker House as it's known by some -- that has its cemetery, but it's part of the church. Our cemetery is unique because it's the only cemetery in the United States of America that is in the middle of a large military complex and is off limits for the military people.

[3]

Anyway, I went to this school for over seven years. We had a one room school with one teacher, of course. Dad, being a very progressive man, wasn't satisfied with this kind of education for his children, but he could do no better.

MCKINZIE: Did you have brothers and sisters?

PROCTOR: I have three sisters. I was the only boy -- the first child. Of course, I had a sort of ''king of the roost," feeling.

Well, Dad began to make plans, and Dad also worked for the Government. He worked for Fort Belvoir at this time. It was known then as Fort Humphrey. He tried to be progressive, and during the same time that he had to send us to school he took a correspondence course out of Cook Engineering School of Chicago. It was recognized at that time for what we now call electrical engineering, then we called an electrician. As the things would happen -- as we get to it we'll see how things haven't changed much -- Dad was classified as a laborer. When the time came for promotions and chances to be supervisor, Daddy wasn't qualified, because he wasn't classified so

[4]

he could be made one. And to describe to you the kind of man he was, there was a man by the name of Rudd, who lived in the Blackstone, Virginia area. Dad, being the kind of man he was (a Christian gentleman), rented a truck from a farmer (an old Indiana truck that they don't make anymore). He drove that truck, I guess, two hundred plus miles to Blackstone and picked up this man's furniture and his family. He brought them here and helped them get established, knowing that this man was coming to take his job -- that was the kind of man he was. With all injustice at the time, he didn't bother with it. I recall Dad many times didn't have money to buy shoes, so he'd take cardboard and use a shoe last where you fit the shoe. Every night he would have to take nails and tacks and work on his shoes. Well, working in a brickyard where a lot of strain was put on him, inner soles would break loose and then the tacks would stick in his feet. His feet would be sore and bloody, but he would be singing such hymns as "In That Great By and By," and he'd come home across the hill with the sunset. That sounds dramatic, but this is the way it actually

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was. You could come across the hill and you could see him and hear him singing. As a youngster today, who'll tell you what they are thinking, I thought Dad was sort of nutty at that time, because I couldn't conceive of a man having to put up with the things that happened to him. For example, he had to call the little girl I used to play with -- Margaret Roberts was her name and she was Caucasian -- Miss Margaret. Those are the kind of things.

MCKINZIE: I gather he was a religious man. Did he give you a good religious education?

PROCTOR: Very much so. In that conjunction, he insisted on sacrifice. Dad went to Gammon Theological Pastor's School to study for the ministry in the summer months, and he received deacon's order in the United Methodist Church during his lifetime, too. Bishop Shaw ordained him at Constitution Hall back in, I believe, the very early sixties or late fifties. He elected to stay with the parish in Woodlawn as assistant minister as a volunteer.

Mother was also very dedicated and she worked -- she had to work to help us -- all with the idea of

[6]

giving us an education. So, Mommy was working at this little tearoom and she would give Dad the money to put in the bank, because the man was totally in charge at that time. There would come times when we needed the money and Mother would say, "What happened?"

He'd say, "Molly, they couldn't pay the minister. I had the money -- it hadn't been in the bank -- and I loaned it to the church." He did that on numerous occasions. Every week, Thursday, Wednesday or whatever the day was, he would go to his prayer meeting. He would walk a mile and a half to the church. He would sometimes be there alone, do whatever praying he wanted to do, and come on back home and not grumble. Out of those kinds of things came the word excellence -- he believed in excellence.

I have three sisters. We are all pretty close, and there is about five years between the baby and me. I have one sister who is with me in Alexandria now. She is one of the assistant superintendents of the largest black Methodist Church in Alexandria. I have another sister who is married

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to the first black district superintendent in the United Methodist Church in the State of Virginia. And then my other sister lives up here on Hamilton Street and has two daughters, who have been quite successful. I like to believe that some of this same character has transferred to them, because one is a counselor in New Jersey and another is working for Human Resources in the District of Columbia.

Even at this time they are not as active in the church as were we, because, of course, the church took on a different meaning for the youngsters of this day and time, and possibly rightfully so.

MCKINZIE: The church was, I gather, a social center as well as a kind of guidance for you.

PROCTOR: Yes, our church at that time for us was our only outlet for social life. We didn't know what happened two miles away at my uncle's until we got to church on Sunday. This is why I don't have too much concern about the youngster and his attitude toward church today. Today you have the telephone, you have television, whatever you want to do.

[8]

Anything that might happen in the Far East today we'll know in a few hours. We can look at it on television as if it was just across the street. It means that the demands by an individual youngster today for a social acceptance, or for social life, certainly don't cause him to turn toward the church as they did in my day. So, I don't deserve any more credit for what I did in my day at the church than the person of today who almost completely ignores it for the purpose for which I was going. But because of the purpose I did pick up some things that I think they are missing today.

My young life was a thousand things that I can think of, the things that I saw happen as far as my father and my mother were concerned for as having integrity and believing in excellence. He always said, "Anything worth doing was worth doing well," and he insisted on that. He also said, "you don't grumble and stay, if you must grumble, be on your merry way." What he meant by that was that anytime that I had to be discourteous to him and talk back to him and I wasn't able to take care of my own needs, I'd better either listen to him or I might have to look for my own needs. As much as he loved

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me and as close as we seemed to be, that was his philosophy.

MCKINZIE: Did he have any ideas about what he wanted his son to be in life?

PROCTOR: Well, he always said, "Whatever you are, I want you to be a gentleman above all." That was his idea -- be a gentleman. I think he had an inclination for me to become church oriented, but he didn't force anything on us. He didn't try to say what he wanted us to be. He left it to us to ask the questions and for us to help decide what we thought we wanted to be. But in this there was a dream toward maybe church activities -- possibly a preacher. I think that's what he really had in mind. He hoped that I would be, but he didn't push it.

MCKINZIE: Where did you go to high school?

PROCTOR: I went to high school here in the District. As I mentioned earlier, my father was dissatisfied with what we had in Fairfax County. It was the same thing, the bussing, even in that day, back in the 1920s. The little white boys and girls,

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whom I played with, were riding a little yellow Model T bus in those days and they used to pass me and wave at me and yell out the window, while I walked a mile and a half to school. In those days we had bussing, but Dad didn't fight to bus. You might say that he thought the walking may have been helpful. We had one high school in Manassas, Virginia. We came into bussing later on and they sent us there from all over Northern Virginia, we passed seventeen schools to go to what was called Manassas Industrial School. And Dad said that if God gave him strength, and he believed in God to the extent that he believed the means would be made, he wouldn't allow this. During those times you could pay tuition to go to District school. Well, that was so high that Dad couldn't afford to pay it. So what Dad did then was set up a residence in the District of Columbia, which is better, where he paid thirty dollars a month for me to come to Washington and go to Randall Junior High School. I went to Randall Junior High School here in the District. After I graduated from there I went to a cousin by the name of Tryce who lived on Gresham Place near Howard

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University. Dad continued to pay this monthly fee for me and then as my sisters came he paid money for them. So, all of us were educated in the District of Columbia, because he felt that the schools were better here. I graduated from Armstrong Technical High School. I had a sister who graduated from Dunbar High School. I had another sister who graduated from the Mary Washington Vocational School. My baby sister graduated from Cardozo, I believe.

In 1933, just before I was ready to graduate from high school, my college was all set and the arrangements were made for me to go to Virginia State University, but Dad had an accident at Fort Belvoir working with a person not familiar with the language of the trade. He was working on the electric lines this particular day. The man didn't understand the lingo and kept doing what he wasn't supposed to do and finally the pole came up out of the ground, spun around, hit Dad, and broke both Dad's legs. Dad was hospitalized during that period. He did not get proper Government attention because he was classified still as a laborer. Therefore,

[12]

he couldn't qualify for proper compensation, because he was working out of classification. Therefore, the family finances were drained. When I graduated from Armstrong High School in 1934, I believe, there weren't any funds. There had to be a choice made as to whether or not I would go to college or my sisters would not have a high school education. So, with love in the family and the consideration for each other, I concluded that I would go to work.

I came out and I went to work for the Penn-Daw Hotel just three miles south of Alexandria. It's interesting how it got its name. There was a man by the name of Pennlyn who had lots of money, but he had no self-control with liquor and other things. There was also a man by the name of Samuel Cooper Dawson, not an educated man, but he was still quite a man and had lived in this area nearly all his life. So he, with his dedication to duty, and Pennlyn, with his money, got together and built the hotel. They took the first syllables of each name and made it Penn-Daw. Now there's a whole community out here just on down this road. It has a shopping

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center, apartments, and they are building more and more.

MCKINZIE: Was that kind of a resort hotel?

PROCTOR: No. It was just an ordinary motor hotel, one of the first major motor hotels. Each building had four cabins, and each building was individually heated. Anyway, I worked for Mr. Dawson for many ways. I was a busboy, I was a cleanup boy, then finally a waiter. From 1934 until 1937, when I went to the Department, I worked for this Mr. Dawson. He had principles compared to Dad, but not quite as dedicated. He could feel the deep meaning of many of these things as did Dad. He called me his son -- he took me under his wing. A statement this man made was that if you read the Sunday New York Times, even read the recipes and what not, you will become an educated man. He said that he got what he learned from the New York Times. I never met Mr. Pennlyn, because Mr. Dawson bought Mr. Pennlyn out. Penn-Daw was the employment outlet for the people in the Gumsprings area, which was just the next community from Gumspring where my mother

[14]

was born. During this time the Woodlawn group had moved to Gumsprings, because there was a restriction on where we blacks could live at that time. When they left Woodlawn the only other area for them was Gumsprings. They made up, I guess, a good 35, 40 percent of the employment at the hotel. Of course, Mount Vernon was a hiring spot for the people in that area also.

MCKINZIE: What did you think your chances were, while you were working there, of getting an education or getting into the kind of job that you ultimately wanted? Were you encouraged or optimistic? It was a depression after all.

PROCTOR: We were not actually in the depression at this particular time. I think we felt the depression more in the early thirties.

We were made to believe that unless you were going to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a minister you could hang it up. There was no desire or any idea that we would get beyond that point. So, I didn't want to be a doctor. I did have some desires to be a lawyer -- still have. I'm not sure I'm not going

[15]

to continue at the American U. and get my law degree. But that took so much. With the lack of funds, with Dad having been sick, and with Mother not being so well at the time, the idea of getting the certification to become a lawyer was just out. But my father always taught us that excellence was the thing, whatever we did, even if it was working at the hotel. The idea was then to become the biggest thing -- to maybe work up to take Clarence Jasper's job, he was a black who had been with them for years. He was the head knocker, as we called him, at the place. I had my eye sort of set on being whatever the number one man was. By working toward excellence you would always get to that top spot. Of course, during that same period another reason why higher learning and spending the time wasn't too desirous was because in the Post Office Department of the District of Columbia you could find black philosophers, lawyers, you name it. Their initial job was the Post Office and their secondary job, if they worked, was their profession. There were so many of them, and most of the black people in the Post Office had a degree or two. So, certainly there wasn't any desire for me to spend my time. I had a

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philosophy back there that it's better to know and be known for the reputation of excellence than to not know or try to learn through the method of education as we knew it in those days. This is partly why I am successful or had any successes, and I think I had a few. At the hotel there wasn't a question that the guests could ask me that I didn't know -- I had an answer for them. So, I know and am known.

I had also been working part-time at Fort Belvoir at the Officers' Club. The first job I had was working when they were building Fort Belvoir in the beginning. Then I worked for a contractor when I was right out of high school in 1934, digging these ditches for the telephone line that is still in Fort Belvoir. I went in there with this excellence idea, too, but we had these guys who "taught" what excellence was when it came to digging ditches. I just didn't know. We were digging six feet ditches -- these guys would be down five feet and my knees would still be showing. I just could not keep up, though I tried. I got fired for the first and only time in my life, because I could not keep up with these

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people. To show you how hard it was in those days, we had a man by the name of Thompson. It was the Thompson Contractors or Thompson Brothers -- one was called a man-eater and the other was called a man-killer. They had this reputation. We actually loaded a ton and a half of sand in about seven minutes. The time that we loaded this truck was so fast that it equaled almost a steamshovel -- that's the way they worked. Being a young boy just out of high school, there was no way I could keep up. So, finally I took a fulltime job with Mr. Dawson. This was during the time my father had been sick. His legs were broken and he developed double abscesses -- one on each lung. He was at old Garfield Hospital, and there was a Dr. Davis who experimented with him when Dad wasn't given but three hours to live. Father came out of that because of Dr. Davis' experimenting on him. I think many lives have been saved as a result of my father's contribution to that from a medical point of view.

Anyway, I worked for Mr. Dawson and saw his philosophies about learning and this kind of thing, which sent me on my way. In addition to that I had

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two other jobs. As my father had come out of this sickness and had begun to be able to do something, he got a job as a janitor at the Lee Jackson High School -- it's called some other school now -- way out on Duke Street in Alexandria. I helped my father there, and I also had a job working for a lady by the name of Mrs. Hoppday who made beaten biscuits. We went to work about 5 in the morning and beat the biscuits through an iron roller, then cut them out, and baked them. Then we would deliver them to the high-class people in these nice apartments. I'd get out of bed at 5 in the morning and come in to Mrs, Hoppday's at 13th and S Streets N.W, to help make these beaten biscuits and deliver them. Then I would take my old broken down car, a 1932 Chevrolet that Dad bought, go to the school, and help with the janitor work there. And then I would take off and work at the Penn-Daw at 6 o'clock and wash dishes and clean up the kitchen. I would get home at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Dad was the kind of man that didn't think that I should be bogged down, with what little funds I had, to keep the family completely. Then my sisters

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began to grow up, and they too felt the same way, so they went out to do what they could. Between us we were trying to keep things going.

Dad, in his desire (and I don't think it was the smartest move he ever made), borrowed money against our property without having means to repay, to relieve me of the problem. This all happened in the early thirties. He borrowed this money against the property from a man who took advantage of the blacks. I don't mind calling his name; Henry P. Thomas. His name is legend even though he's not dead. It's still a legend in Northern Virginia as far as his dealing in properties with the blacks in that particular area.

So, I worked this long schedule, and in spite of this Dad insisted upon me having recreation. I had a girlfriend, and I would have one day a week off. I had to make this date with her. So I would come and I would see this girlfriend and visit.

A friend of mine by the name of Lawrence Shepard worked at the State Department as a messenger. In fact, that's all we could be at that time. He said to me that there may be a vacancy, so why

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don't I stop by so he could introduce me to somebody. So, this particular Tuesday I was off and my girlfriend lived at 17th and Cochran Streets, and I came by the State Department. Now you wouldn't recognize it because it is known as the Executive Office Building of the White House. We had an East and a West Executive Avenue. The West Executive Avenue was between the White House and what was known as the State Department then. You'd come down the steps and go on over to the White House yard. The East Executive Avenue was between the Treasury and the White House. You'd come out of the Treasury and into the White House. That's the way it's set up now, but at that time it was meaningful. The place closed at 4:30 or 5 o'clock and I came running up these steps. There was no security there, no guards to stop you. The place was just wide open. I came into this place and was just wandering around the halls of this beautiful old building. I'd never been to it in my life. Anyway, I came down the hall and I heard this typewriter. I walked into the room and saw this lady by the name of Virginia B. Lewis. I walked in and

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she said, "Oh, goodness, are you looking for a job?"

I said, "Yes, I am, incidentally."

So, she said, "Let me see if the Chief Clerk is in."

They only had one Chief Clerk by the name of Percy Allen. Mr. Allen saw me, and from that I started my career in the State Department. There is a reason for that. Mr. Allen didn't like me, as I understand the story. I don't think I could prove this, but I was told this by the Secretary's chauffeur, Rudolph. [Cordell] Hull was Secretary of State. Anyway, this Trade Agreements Program didn't require Civil Service to come in, because they were then getting into Mr. Hull's Trade Agreements Program. This was exempt because it was a temporary thing, and you could just be brought right in and hired, without any retirement coming out of your pay. You could be hired without going through the necessary Civil Service procedures. That's why I could walk in and run into Miss Lewis who was secretary for Harry C. Hawkins, the Chief at that time.

Anyway, Rudolph had heard about this vacancy and wanted his son hired. Instead of Rudolph going

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to Mr. Allen himself, apparently he had Mrs. Hull call Mr. Allen and tell him that he wished he'd consider Rudolph's boy. As I understand it, Mr. Allen resented being told what to do in personnel by even the Secretary's wife. He was that kind of individual, so I was sort of a godsend and a gift to him, to walk in just out of mid-air. He could truthfully say when he was going to report to the lady, whenever he was going to report to her, that the job was already filled. He automatically channeled me into this spot, and then went on to check me out. Well, the send-off I got from this Mr. Dawson was so overwhelming that I had very little or no security check. In fact, they didn't have much security check at that time. If I can recall, we had one security man for the entire State Department. Mr. Fitch, I think his name was. So, there wasn't too much security check to be made, but they did make what check they needed to make. I think this happened to be on Tuesday I first walked in, and on the following Monday, July 11, I walked in and took the oath of office for this messenger job. I was considered an assistant messenger, and I think we had some sort of title at

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that time, Custodian of Utility, the salary was tremendous -- $1,080 a year was the salary for an assistant messenger's job. The salary was $45 every 1st and 15th. That was more than two weeks work for $45. There weren't taxes and there was no retirement to come out. We were paid in cash in an envelope. You went to the basement floor in the supply and got in line. Everybody, I believe, except the Secretary got in line down there to get the pay envelope -- this brown envelope with your name and the amount of money on it.

MCKINZIE: What kind of duties did you have when you first started there?

PROCTOR: Well, the duties of a messenger at that time were that you were supposed to carry messages. There wasn't too much going on that you needed to carry messages for, because they did have telephones. The biggest job for the messenger -- it wasn't written this way but it was -- was that you relieve your boss man of that terrible chore of opening the door for himself. You had to swing the door for the man and bow. I try to describe it sometimes by saying that I did a good job -- the excellence again that Dad

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taught me. I tried to play "Nearer My God to Thee," with my chest against my knees when I opened that door, so that the man would make sure he could get into this door. The next thing was keeping your Chief's desk clean and shiny. Curtis White was a young man who was the original messenger there before I came, and there was a guy by the name of Lawrence Shepard. We would get up in the morning once a month at 5 o'clock and we would clean off everything. We would buy our own furniture polish, because there usually wasn't any there. Incidentally, to tell you why it may not be there, we had a man named Mr. Carr who was the only Assistant Secretary in charge of financial matters. This gentleman would only spend so much money even if it meant buying your own pencils. I can recall when I had to buy my own pencils in the State Department if the money ran out. So, likewise, as when pencils ran out, such things as furniture polish and the other things ran out. If it did we bought our own furniture polish to clean our desks and make them really shiny. We had some competition between us in our section on whose desk would shine the best.

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And another thing that you were rated on was presence -- you had to be there. Another thing was to keep the water cannister cold. I was pretty slick; I kept a record of my boss's schedule. When he went out for a meeting I came in and changed his water, so I had that one up on the boys by keeping my boss's water cold. They weren't quite as conscientious as that. I kept my boss's water cold, I kept his desk shining, and I made sure that I swung the door clear so that it wouldn't touch him and he'd know that I was swinging it. So, I have now up in my personal files a bunch of excellent performance ratings. We were rated at that time; excellent-1, very good-2 and 3, good-4, 5, & 6, fair-7 and poor-8. I kept a number one down the line because I did those chores, and, of course, I carried my messages well. I was at my desk most of the time, because if you had to carry a message and your boss came back from going out, and you weren't in your place and he had to open the door, that would count. You rushed to get back there and keep your door swinging. Of course, we made quite a joke of it since we had to do it.

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This was a part of the system in the State Department at that time. As time went on some tremendous people helped me. One was a lady who was treasurer of the Credit Union at that time. This ties in with Dad and the story of the borrowed money that I mentioned earlier. There came a time when Daddy couldn't make the note, and Thomas was about to foreclose and take this property that had been in the family for generations. I needed $300; that's all the balance was at that time. It's like $3,000 today. I went to the credit union through the proper procedure. I had been borrowing money from them before and I had account number 463. All the accounts ran in numerical order, I guess there is something like forty, fifty thousand of them now. My number is 463, so I was among the first persons, because the thing wasn't established until just before I arrived. In the meantime, Mr. Crenshaw, who worked for the communications people, was the chairman of the credit committee. At that time you'd have to appear in person and go down to the three credit committee members in order to get their approval for a loan. Well, it is true, making $45 every first and

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fifteenth, that your money didn't last. And in the meantime, just immediately prior to my coming, my father had been in the hospital. In fact, my father took sick after his leg break, and as a result of this leg break and all he was still sick again in 1937 and through 1939. I went to Mr. Crenshaw and I got on my knees in actual prayer because I needed the money that bad. And this was his remark, "Get the hell out of my face, you're disturbing me." And I had to leave this man. By this time I moved from the messenger at the Chief's desk and had gotten a promotion to $1,200 a year. That was terrific. I was sitting in the center corridor which led up and down the steps to the White House at that time with no obstruction at all.

Mrs. Irene B. Leech was the treasurer. She said, "You look sad, Franklin, what is wrong?" I told her my problem, explaining it to her as I tried to explain it to Crenshaw. She said, "This is criminal. I'll tell you what you do. You be here at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. I'm going to see what I can do. I have to do something short of illegal, but I'll do it." So, I came in the morning early, and Mrs. Irene

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Leech went to that safe, gave me the $300, and had me sign a note, which was the legal procedure. This is where the thing may sound fictitious, but it's the truth if I ever spoke it in my life. I jumped in my car and I drove like mad to Alexandria. The old Mount Vernon Boulevard had just opened up. It was a two lane thing, which would now be called the George Washington Parkway. I really flew into Alexandria, knowing all about the place -- the bank and all. I had paid attention to credit union activities there and I knew a little bit about procedure. So, I ran over to Alexandria and instead of going to Mr. Thomas' office (I didn't know then that I couldn't pay the note off), I dashed into the bank. The bank was just opening up at 9 o'clock and there was a young clerk in the bank. I walked in and I said, "I want to pay off Sandy proctor's note."

She said, "Who has the note?"

I said, "Mr. Thomas."

She must have understood me to say that Mr. Thomas had sent me, and since all of us looked alike at that day and time, she assumed that I was Mr. Thomas' messenger. So, she did her business and gave me the paid note -- I paid it in cash. And she said -- I recall

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it as distinctly as if it happened yesterday -- "He usually sends the check, but I guess it's all right." So she gave me this portfolio containing my father's bill and I stuck it in my inside pocket. And, so help me God this is the truth, as I went out the door and started around the corner to go back down the street toward Thomas' office, his messenger was walking in with his check to pick up this note. That's how near my father's place was to being lost. Sometimes I refuse to tell it because it sounds so fictitious, but it is as true as ever I spoke it. Then I went into Mr. Thomas' office. He had a method of softening up to the clients and he would pat his hand on the shoulder and talk to them. "Sandy, you know, I like you people. I'm going to do all I can for you, but now just sign here and sign here." When I walked in I was out of breath because I was running.

I said to him, "Mr. Thomas, what do you charge for a release?" I had some lawyer friends in the Department; in fact, this fellow Shepard was studying law. So, I had done a lot of inquiry about the procedures.

And he said, "Two dollars and a half." He was

[30]

not suspicious, because this was impossible. So then I pulled out the portfolio and he said, "Well, I can't release anything, because your father no longer owns his property."

So, I said, "I have it all here."

The man sat in his chair for fifteen straight seconds without saying a word. He got just as white as anything as he sat there. I don't recall all the other details because I was so happy at what was happening. Father wasn't so pleased with me at that moment, because I wasn't very courteous. But anyway, finally it was legal and the papers signed, and there was nothing he could do about it. We got the release made and to make a long story short our property was saved because of a genuine Christian woman who worked for the State Department. There was no fuss raised about this loan because I didn't tell anybody -- it wasn't anybody's business. And I made sure with the help of God that this money was paid as it should be paid. It was paid on time and there was no question to be raised about it. It was illegal maybe in some procedures, but it was not illegal as far as the money being mishandled, it was

[31]

not. The necessary notes and all were there with the cosigner on the note in case there was default. In other words the Credit Union was taking a chance of losing the money, so this was necessary, I think. And that particular episode of one subordinate individual who was dedicated to the Department was the turning point in our lives. It was by that time that my mother wasn't well. She had a heart condition. My father was at the point where he would have been put into mortal shame if this had happened and he had lost his property. I had sisters then and had we lost our property we could not have stayed together. I was serving God only in that act. He is responsible for whatever I have been or whatever I may do in the future, including being able then to latch onto my darling wife. And because of that my baby sister, who is married to a District Superintendent, after high school days and after marriage got her degree from Clark College in Georgia. She and her husband went to college together and he went on to Gammon to get his theological degree. My sister Flora has done a tremendous amount of college work. My other sister had no desire to go to college;

[32]

she went into the vocational area in the first place. She has done quite well. She has one son and he's now aspiring to become an Eagle Scout.

During all this time, going back to 1937 when I first got my job, in spite of all these things I found time to do things for my church like teach Sunday school. I also became the first black scoutmaster in Northern Virginia. We had a troop in Gumsprings. At the time I became a scoutmaster I couldn't have spelled it, to tell the truth. I didn't know what a scoutmaster meant, but I did know that it was good. The twelve points of the Scout law and the three points of the oath went along with the kind of training I had. So I became a scoutmaster and I was a scoutmaster from 1938 until after I got married in '41. When I got married I left the neighborhood to live in the District of Columbia with my wife's people, and I had to give up the troop. The boys of that troop today (some of them are grandfathers) I can't meet unless they talk about those troop days, and the majority of them have made something of themselves. Some of them have gone into the service. I have letters in my file now from a fellow that went in the service,

[33]

saying that the troop made him. Then just last month I just happened to be somewhere in the area and the young men, who now are fathers and grandfathers, said that this was the high point of their lives, and they regret that we don't have the same thing now. They must have fallen down somewhere along the line, because they should have picked it up and carried it. They should have pushed for it for their children, and hopefully for their grandchildren. And yet nobody seems to have done anything about it.

MCKINZIE: This was when you were still a messenger?

PROCTOR: I was working as a messenger in the State Department at that time, yes. I had this troop and we met ever week. There were many interesting episodes in this troop, so many things that took place there.

One I can remember and the boys remember most, was the line. As a disciplinary measure we used to have what we called "the line." If a boy didn't do what he was supposed to do we would carry him through the line. In the line we spaced the boys in two lines about two feet apart side by side and three

[34]

feet between the lines and sent the boy through the line. Each boy had his belt held correctly in his hand, he had one lick on the boy as he went through the line. If he went through the line too fast, he'd have to come back and go again. And if one of the boys just got over zealous and wanted to hit him too hard or hit him wrong with the edge of the belt, he’d have to go through the line. It was quite a thing. All through this troop area, whenever we had our meetings and it wasn't like scouting should be, with your patrols, your patrol leaders, your senior patrol leaders, and assistant patrol leaders, you could hear in all those places, "All right man, you want to go through the line?" This was it. But when we went through the line, there is one thing that I did and I think works today, because my neighborhood can demonstrate it. I said to the boys the same thing I'm saying to youngsters today, "We agree that you should go through the line” -- not "I say you go through the line." We agreed that he should go through the line, and then we would have to have a conference. And if he was sincere about not going through the line

[35]

I would defer that line going, but when they went through that line they themselves agreed and they knew that they should go through the line. I always told them that whatever was reasonable to them was reasonable to me. Whatever they thought unreasonable, I thought unreasonable.

This was my process as I came up through the years. I'm still using it here and I used it as a supervisor at the State Department.

MCKINZIE: But the State Department didn't particularly have that kind of philosophy at that time, did it? I assume that pretty much you got told on the job what to do. It's a little dichotomy, isn't it? You were working with the Scouts having this one philosophy and were having to live with quite another kind at the State Department.

PROCTOR: Well, at the State Department in spots you could be your own man. You could do what you felt. But as far as being directed, you were just told even during the hiring process.

MCKINZIE: Could you go to the cafeteria?

[36]

PROCTOR: No, during those days we couldn't go to the cafeteria at all. We had a blind man's stand downstairs where we had to get our food. That was what you might call a snack bar that you could go to. The main cafeteria, right across from it, we were not allowed in at all. We couldn't even go into the place, unless we went in to get the boss or something of that nature. To go in and get in the line was forbidden. You couldn't even get hot soup to take out of there. The messengers at that time had to eat in the room where the GSI, the Government Services Incorporated group, dressed; in their dining room was where we ate. Of course, there wasn't too much objection to it because we could do all the things we wanted to do -- play cards and talk as ugly as we wanted. It was what you call complete freedom. That was about the only place of complete freedom we had in the whole Department at that time. Nobody bothered you and you could do what you wanted, play cards, play checkers, stay late, come early, bring your sandwiches -- you do your thing.

There came a time, as things began to grow in the very late thirties or the very first part of

[37]

the forties, when I became acquainted with a guy by the name of Dave Scull, who was a Quaker. Dave was opposed to segregation. We had a good friendship because I like thinking and people who think. And there came a time when Dave said, "It's time to break this thing up." He was looking for somebody to go into the cafeteria with him. I don't remember all the details now exactly, but I happened to be the guy, because of my relationship with David. Dave went into the soup line and I went in there with him. It was such a horrible experience, and I was so nervous that the little cup of soup that I got I never tasted, because it spilled. I wasted it all over my tray, I was that nervous. Anyway, I went through the line and, fortunately, or unfortunately, I can't recall any real repercussions to me because of the incident. It seems that Dave took the whole brunt -- Dave caught it. Awhile after that Dave left the Department.

MCKINZIE: Did you have any knowledge that that had to do with the incident?

PROCTOR: Well, I don't have any knowledge except a

[38]

belief and it was Dave's belief also, which I think he could verify -- because of his progressiveness and because he was progressive in that area. He was progressive in many areas, so I don't think that we could just pin it down to that particular episode.

MCKINZIE: Were there any kind of instructions that were given about what you could and couldn't do of that nature, or was it sort of understood and passed along?

PROCTOR: No, it was not written -- you just didn't go in there. Nobody else was going and you were just told "Man, you don't do that." When you came, you always had these poor individuals who fell heir to that duty to keep it straight, like Macbeth, who was a weary old man and the head messenger. He would just pass this word on to you. You were indoctrinated when you came in after you met with Allen. Mr. Macbeth was his head messenger. In fact, he became my boss after I came in. We didn't work for the people in the areas, really. Except for rating purposes, Mac was your boss. I just recall all these things and except

[39]

for some you were just told as you came in. It was indoctrination by Mac, Rice, Edwards, and a few others who were really born plantation practitioners. I had no disregard for it, because they were excellent -- it was excellence shown there. This was the way it was, and they did it the way it was supposed to be done. And I think this is the way the word came around about what we could and could not do.

MCKINZIE: Did you have any aspirations that you might get out of the messenger job at that time?

PROCTOR: At that time, no. You would be a messenger. It wasn't until the early or mid-forties that you felt that you had any chance at all.

I can think of Mr. Roy Sorrel. This is a terrific and also an unbelievable story. When Mr. Sorrel came to be hired he wanted to make it known that, "I am a man with two degrees from Howard University, and I am fluent in German." I was with him, because he was going to sit with me, watching the foreign end. I remember when Mr.

[40]

Allen, the man who hired me, said to him, "This will do you no good here." Roy was assigned as assistant messenger to sit across the table from Room 136 under a bellhop's box with numbers on it. If his boss wanted a messenger he would push 6 and that was on 136. Roy would go in to see what the boss wanted. That was the process we used as the messenger. Someone would call you and ask you for whatever he'd want, like empty the trash can. That was another thing we had to do, keep the trash cans empty.

Anyway, Roy Sorrel had these two degrees in German from Howard University. Of course, they kept a record on your background of what you could do, not by color at this time but by alphabet. There came a time that a German document had to be translated for the White House. They went down the whole list of employees and whether they just got to Roy Sorrel's name and stopped, I don't know. But I do know that Roy Sorrel was prevailed upon to try to handle this translation. Roy left his desk and went to the little building where the translating bureau was. The reason that they needed him was the fact that there

[41]

was a serious illness of the two translators that they had, and it certainly wasn't practical to go outside the State Department. They had too much pride to go outside the State Department to get some translating done, and therefore, they went internally to find out who was qualified. Roy happened to be qualified and Roy did a magnificent job, I am told. I understand that there was a commendation for the way the job was done. Roy translated these documents, I think, in three to five days, but when he finished the documents he became Roy Sorrel, the black boy, and he was put back as a messenger in the hallway in front of door 136 with me. Of course, Roy didn't stay around very long. Roy was also studying military science and tactics. I don't want the State Department to look bad, because Roy couldn't use his translation abilities any other place, for this matter. The Post Office was the only other work he could get. So, Roy studied military science and tactics and finally through the OCS he went into the military. The last that I heard Roy was either a "chicken" [colonel] or a lieutenant colonel in the service.

[42]

That was no incentive to a young buck like me to even go to school. In fact, I was planning to go on to night school, and if anything was a turning point against my going to school that was it. Here's a man with two degrees, and here I'm deciding to go into undergraduate work. What incentive was there for me? That really solidified my philosophy of knowing and being known, rather than being educated. I followed that though not completely, because I did see the need for education when things broke. I did try and I did go into higher learning, not on what I'd say a straight college basis, but through the Agriculture School. I guess I have some fourteen or fifteen credits or more through that school in the area that I went into. As I went into it I just transferred from one section to the other, lithography, press operations, supervision. When I got to the point that I wanted to know more about my government, I took American government and then I found seven courses of English down there and that kind of thing. But foremost on all of this was knowing and being known. In other words, if you asked me how many people worked over at the Soldier's

[43]

Home now, I could tell you -- this was the kind of thing I did. How do you get from here to there? I'd have one route and then a back-up route for you -- that kind of thing. Really that solidified it for me, and then I became, almost before I left the State Department, Mr. Intelligence. Of course, the State Department was a tourist attraction during those days, and with the messengers sitting in the hall where people came in, they would ask the first person they saw and we almost became guides. I wanted to always outdo my good friends Lawrence Shepard and Curtis White, so I went into extensive learning of all the details of where everything was in the whole of Washington, D.C. I became excellent in being almost a tourist guide. And when I excelled, Lawrence too would almost become a guide from competing. Now, you could get all the information you wanted but you had to get it at my desk, because I had to play my tune on my knees when my boss came so I could keep my excellence. I never had hopes to be a real guide. I would give you all the information and point to them. So, when I saw Mr. Harry Hawkins, Mr. Ross, later Jack

[44]

Reinstein, and some of those fellows come down the corridor, I would be there to swing that door. I was going to keep my excellent rating.

MCKINZIE: You worked first for Harry Hawkins.

PROCTOR: Harry C. Hawkins was the Chief. I also worked for Jack Ross and then I worked for Marc Catudal later, when we moved out of the main building, that has now been torn down. It was called the Architect Building. A new building has been built in its place in the seventeen hundred block of New York Avenue.

Trade Agreements was the only office in the whole building at the beginning of the series of annexes. Of course, that was following Passport moving out of the main State Department Building up on the first floor to the Winder Building, where it remained until modern times. Then part of our team moved out to the old Grant Building, where FDIC is now located. We were across the street from the Walker-Johnson Building. At the time we moved, there were some personnel officers in the Walker-Johnson Building; I don't mean to say that we were the first people to move into annexes, but

[45]

we were adding to the annexes, which reached some fifty-seven, I believe, for the Department. This is where Marc Catudal was, and there is quite a story there. At this time I had moved up as a messenger from $1,200 to $1,320. I wanted to learn to type. I had had some typing in high school.

Marc Catudal was a lawyer, and I sat in a well which entered off of his room and the girls pool. I became the messenger for the pool, where Rachel Campbell worked. She was the supervisor at that time, and later became Jack Reinstein's wife. Working there also was Corrine Young, a girl from Florence, Alabama and a number of other girls. All were Caucasian, because no black girl could qualify to do that typing. I wanted to be a typist. At that time Jack Ross was our Assistant Chief and Marc Catudal was the man who sat next to me. I would type in there and the girls all in the pool said, "Franklin, you better not be typing there, because you know Mr. Catudal is funny, he doesn’t want you typing." I had a typewriter and, in fact, I became so proficient I was able to type

[46]

the ordinary letters for them. That was additional help in this pool -- again, excellence in trying to know and be able. I think by this time that Rachel had moved up, and Corrine Young was the Chief, she said, "Proctor, Mr. Catudal is not going to like that."

In high school days, I had been tutored by a man by the name of Charles Thomas, who took a liking to me. He should have been a college professor but because of debt problems he couldn't be anything. They put him into a portable at the high school, and evening after evening for two years I sat in his portable from 3 until 6 being indoctrinated in psychology by this man. The psychology that I used in the bank episode just didn't come; I had been working with this man. So, anyway, knowing what Charlie had taught me I said, without thinking, to Corrine, "Well, if he doesn't object, would you?"

She said, "Oh, no, I wouldn't mind." So, I then went to Marc Catudal and I said, "Mr. Catudal, do you mind?"

He said, “Oh, well, I know Mr. Ross wouldn't

[47]

want this."

Then I said, "Would you mind then if he okayed it? Would you object?" So, I went to Mr. Ross, all in the same five minutes. I said, "Mr. Ross, can I use the typewriter?"

He said, "Well, I don't think Miss Young would want you to do it and I know Marc would object."

I said, with this typical plantation intelligence purposely applied, "Mr. Ross, Miss Young said she didn't mind if Mr. Catudal didn't, and I went to Mr. Catudal and he said he wouldn't mind if you didn't."

And he said, "Well, no, I don't mind." That was where I had possession of the typewriter to sit there in my little cubbyhole and just type and learn, based on my little experience I'd had in training -- and I learned to type. Of course, I still use it today. I learned to type sitting there with Marc Catudal, and that's one of the things that I remember mostly about Mr. Catudal; he didn't object.

That, too, was really another step in the right direction of my life in the State Department. I

[48]

might say that in all these things about diplomacy, they were so diplomatic that they didn't prohibit me doing this, although it was objectionable right from Corrine on down. They didn't want me to do it, but there was so much diplomacy that if you could shoot through that armor of diplomacy then they allowed you. I took advantage of that opportunity also.

MCKINZIE: Were there at that time any black people very high up in the State Department?

PROCTOR: No, indeed. This had to be before '43. At that time, as far as I can ascertain, except for the one or two people in Haiti (I can't think of the man's name now, he's an Ambassador. There were no black officers in the State Department -- none whatsoever. Everybody was classified as a messenger.

Prior to that there had been one lady, whose name is Mrs. Gray now. She was my wife's principal at Randall where I went to school. Mrs. Gray, as I understood, was hired as an addressograph operator some years ago in the State Department, under a man by the name of Rusk. She was hired there and put off

[49]

into a place by herself where she became a typesetter for what we called at that time an addressograph. She did that on the third floor in the State Department. She didn't stay there long because she was an educator, and she couldn't put up with the mess. She left and went on to education in the District of Columbia schools, where she stayed until she retired. She was the only official that I know of, except they tell me that there was one man, who played a great role for some Republican President some years earlier, by the name of Pinkney. He was made Assistant Chief of the Mail Room, and they made things so difficult for him -- had him pushing trucks, wearing aprons and all this kind of thing -- that he didn't stay either. He couldn't take it and got out of the State Department before my time and became an interior decorator. That's what he worked with until he retired.

Those were the only two clerical positions in the State Department held by blacks, as I understand it, other than the Foreign Service aspect, until 1942 the war came. At that time, as history will show, even in the deep South they felt it was an

[50]

honor to go into the service, and they picked the cream of the Caucasian boys to go into the service.

Well, prior to that time all the boys were leaving the Mail Room, which was the lowest of clerical jobs and all white. This created openings in the Mail Room for blacks. We could not be anything other than that, and the very first black that I can recall who became a clerk in the modern day was a guy by the name of Raymond Tyler. Raymond Tyler became a Mail Room clerk. Then as things happened, almost immediately following all of this we had fellows to go into reproduction and we were running mimeographing machines, so they made that clerical and called it CAF-2. One machine operator was a guy named Forest Headley, who is now still in the State Department, working for legal services. And there was Vassar Gibson (just to name a few who became machine operators) and Louis Morse were running the mimeograph machine.

MCKINZIE: This was after '42?

PROCTOR: This was right at '42 or after '42, along with the wartime. The boys went in there running

[51]

the machines, and then they got behind in the work. I had one regret at that time, that trying to know and be known, didn't qualify me for this clerk's job. That was the breakdown. That's the thing, probably, that caused me to get back into agriculture, because I found that there was a fallacy there. I was not ready. I could not move into the clerical job and I wanted to be the very first one, but Tyler had been smart enough to take the Civil Service exam and pass it. So Tyler, as we called him -- Raymond Tyler -- was the first clerk in the State Department in the Mail Room and then bang, bang, bang, right behind this the mimeograph operators were being peeled off and put into the service. Some volunteered and some were drafted. So, there the machines were standing. The messengers were the backbone and worked for these people, but there was nothing being prepared for these messengers to carry. This became a very serious problem. So, we began to become mimeograph operators. We began a training process and we became mimeograph operators. And as soon as I could, being machine oriented (that was my cup of tea) and because I could be trained very

[52]

quickly, I was in there in 1943 as a mimeograph operator.

The communication process was needed, and so that was one of the preconference things that went to conferences. At this time the Food and Agriculture Conference was being set up for Hot Springs, Virginia, in May of 1943. I went along with a guy by the name of Stegmeyer to Hot Springs. I did a whale of a job and stayed at the Homestead in Hot Springs. I hadn't been anywhere at that time but to New York, I believe. I went to this conference in Hot Springs -- the first time I had been away from my darling wife. We were married in November, 1941. On the second leg of this conference in the fall of 1943, I celebrated my second anniversary in Atlantic City. My wife had a fur coat for the first time in her life and she came up there to celebrate our anniversary in Atlantic City. So, anyway, we attended this conference, and we ran the machines.

MCKINZIE: Were you the only black person to go?

PROCTOR: No. There were all these other black boys who were mimeograph operators. But because of my

[53]

being always sober -- not drinking at all and these kind of things -- I paid strict attention to things. The State Department and those people wanted somebody that they could really rely on, so I was picked to go with Stegmeyer as a forerunner along with Louis Morris, Robert Preleau, Paul Simmons, Chester Walker, and John Taylor.

When we came back from Hot Springs in May or June (we went in May and maybe stayed over to June) this conference continued in Atlantic City at the Claridge Hotel. We stayed down in the hotel for blacks. We took photographs of the blacks in the Claridge with Governor [Herbert] Lehman being the only white in the picture, and this was called the secretariats. And then we had the other photographs of the whites from the State Department with Governor Lehman and that was called the secretariat, too. Since there wouldn't be very much means of these pictures crossing, if you were in the black picture you were the token secretariat. So, they kept a “pure" secretariat.

We went to these conferences at the Claridge Hotel. I was the forerunner and I was the only

[54]

one with Stegmeyer who went up there to help set up. Stegmeyer had charge of running the machines and he also was a typewriter expert. So we checked out the typewriters and got them set up. We knew what was there because we had some stored. We checked serial numbers, and this kind of thing to set up for the secretariat two weeks ahead of their arrival. But here is the irony of all this; I went to the hotel and I couldn't go in the front door, and they wouldn't allow me in the back. The first time I went we had to go through a whole security wrangle to get into the Claridge Hotel. In spite of all that sounds so abnormal about all this, the amount of progress made in my lifetime -- I'm a young man now -- has something to be said about it. Anyway, I couldn't go in there so I had to have a special pass with the Government. It was a great big badge that told who I was and allowed me to get in the back to work with Stegmeyer down in the storage area where we were working with our typewriters, getting our mimeograph machines set up, and so forth. But there came a time when the Government took over

[55]

this hotel from the Claridge people and it became Government property on a temporary basis. Then we rode up to the door in the morning in what they called the jitneys in Atlantic City. My wife's uncle happened to own one, incidentally, so I rode pretty jitney style while I was there. And I would drive up and we would have the hotel people with their jackets on right there opening the door and taking us in. But prior to that time I could not get in. They had a difficult time for me to get in even in the back at the Claridge Hotel. During the period we had no difficulties at all during the meetings, except that we didn't stay in the hotel. They rented this hotel on Arctic Avenue in Atlantic City where the blacks stayed, on the other side of the tracks, for our headquarters. That meant we had to transport to and from the hotel in three eight-hour shifts. We had a large number who went up -- messengers, machine operators and binder operators. Maggie Gill for example, still works at the State Department and works in reproduction.

So that was the two conferences that they carried me to. Growth, as far as people moving in,

[56]

stenographers slipping in here, or a junior officer going in there, began to take place and shape after that period. That was the beginning of black infiltration into what you might call the clerical area of the State Department.

MCKINZIE: You mentioned the words "plantation mentality," which I'm sure some of the officers must have had. Did that strain their "plantation mentality?" Do you recall any instances of that during the war?

PROCTOR: Well, there were still certain restrictions; they just didn't drop it. Since there weren't any women going to the service, it certainly didn't leave any operation for the blacks in other departments. We had opportunities only in the service areas, like running a machine (which was too good for a white girl to do), messenger work, Mail Room work, and the driving of the automobiles. It is there today the same way. These are the predominant areas where blacks are hired today, and that hasn't changed. So, I can say that it didn't disturb the "plantation mentality" too much because this was

[57]

necessary -- it was the necessary thing to do. In other words, you either had to hire blacks in here or the job didn't get done, because the white boys were going to the service. So, I can't quite see that this interfered with their "plantation mentality" too much except for stuff like you might watch in pictures. It pictured the slave coming out of the field to the big house with his talents for singing and dancing, to entertain both himself and the master in the house. I don't think that it disturbed them any more than those occasions. It might change their schedule a little, but I don't think it bothered them more than that.

MCKINZIE: When did you get out of the messenger job?

PROCTOR: Well, I got out of the messenger's job when I got the machine operator job. When I got out of the messenger job I was promoted to CAF-2, $1,440. Then I saw the value of training that I didn't necessarily have because the school system had its bias then. I think I was cheated severely in high school because of some of the laxness of the principal and some of

[58]

the teachers.

Now, in my schedule I went along pretty fast and I can give a lot of credit to Charlie Thomas, the training that he gave me in psychology, etc. In 1943 I was made a GS-2, in 1944 a GS-3 and some kind of supervisor; in 1945 or '46 I was made a GS-6 (I skipped the 5 going from the 4 to the 6), and by 1948 I had gotten as high as a GS-8 and supervisor of reproduction. I just went right on in and kept moving. In fact, I learned another thing in the psychology that I was taught. Bob Bell and Cliff Hoover were the white boys and I got myself in such a way that they certainly weren't going to push me aside; they had to go over me to get moving. And then, with the "plantation mentality" in those days, if you happened to get in the way you'd be kicked along. I saw to that -- planned it -- put myself in the way, so that there was no way that they could bring McMullin, Crump, or one of other boys who were supposedly between me and the supervisor position, over me without it being known. I kept my nose clean and stayed on top of everything

[59]

so that when this guy moved I made a chain of it. He'd have to cut the chain, move me aside, and bring them up, or he'd have to move me too. They don't get a lot of credit for it. I put myself in a position where they had no choice without making an issue of the thing. They had to do it for expediency -- that's why I was moving that fast. The Department hadn't changed that much, but I put myself in a strategic position. They either had some guy who had a drink of liquor, whose leave record was bad, or who had insubordination, or something. I saw to it that that was not in my record, and if anything, they could criticize me for was putting too many hours in rather than not enough hours. So, I put my foot in that position so that when that whole gang moved to three, they had to cut the chain to move me out of the line. Otherwise, I just moved until there came a time when they cut the chain.

MCKINZIE: Was there any kind of awareness of change on the part of the people who were coming in? You mentioned when you first came in and you were

[60]

sitting there in front of Room 136 that you couldn't see much further than sitting in front of Room 136. Did the prospects for blacks appear to be any brighter during the war for the postwar period?

PROCTOR: There is no question about it. During this first breakthrough, of course, you just got bright sunlight and you could see possibilities. Of course, the Mail Room had chiefs, too, and if you just were going to limit it to the Mail Room as time went on you could be made the chief for the Mail Room. It was fast coming in my case to be some kind of chief in the reproduction area. It did brighten up. In fact, I believe that had a lot to do with the crash training that I tried to do through the Agriculture Department Graduate School.

MCKINZIE: When did the State Department end the business of messengers in the sense that they existed when you went there in 1937?

PROCTOR: There came a time, when I really got into this chain, when it got to the point where I should

[61]

have headed the Reproduction Section. Bill Steinaker was chief at the time and he felt, "Okay, let's get rid of the plantation thinking and get this thing moving -- let's put Proctor on the job." Well, Jimmy, a young fellow who at the time was the secretary in that area -- a dear friend of mine -- didn't think so and it didn't come to pass. So, around 1952, when I should have made this job, I was put into what is called the Administrative Training Program, which moved me automatically right out of Reproduction. The move broke the link in this chain because it wasn't time for a black supervisor yet -- it wasn't division chief, but it was a branch chief. And I was put in this program. The qualifications for this program was that there was a limit somewhere between thirty and thirty-five and you had to be not more than a Grade 5. I was both overage and a Grade 7, yet I was put in this program; that's the way they broke the chain, to move me out so they could move over. So, I was promoted out of Reproduction at that time with honors. Then I went into the so-called training program. When you came out of this training program you were placed. So,

[62]

I was placed in a Grade 9; I was moving. In fact for a split second I was the highest paid black in the Department in the domestic field. I moved into this Grade 9, and as such I went to work for a man by the name of Dan Schmidt. I like the guy; he means what he says. He's prejudiced, he knows it, and he says he is. He tells you he is going to act that way, and that is a man you can deal with. And during that administration it was decided we would have no more white messengers. This was degrading for the white boys who were coming back. So, somewhere between that '43 period and the '52 period they decided not to have messengers, because that would make the blacks outrank the whites. In other words, the messenger was the lowest job you had. As long as the blacks didn't go above the messenger, then it wasn't any reflection on the white boy to be a messenger. But now with the white boy coming back as a messenger it put him below the blacks. It couldn't be. So, then we restricted the messengers to the blacks only. which meant that you would have this plateau and if

[63]

if the white boy became a clerk at a GS-2, he would be on this plateau, but there would be none below. Why I remember this so well is because of a young man who has a name that sounds like everything but black. We called him Speedy, but the guy had a funny name and it didn't point to blackness. This is where I discovered this was happening--I didn't know it before, really. I just knew that there weren't any white boys working, but I just thought that maybe they weren't applying. Dan made this statement and I'll never forget it. Dan picked up this list of employees, and he just looked at it and saw this boy's name on it. He said (jumped up and hit his desk hard with his fist), "I thought I told them not to put any more white boys in as messengers. Get me Mr. Shallenberger and bring him in here. I want to apologize to him for being hired as a messenger." In comes this dark brown kid and the expression on Dan's face is the reason I remember this so well. That was the thing that let the "cat out of the bag" in my presence, that they weren't hiring white boys as messengers. And then the

[64]

messenger thing got so sticky that even the commission got involved some way, where the messenger job was saved for returning veterans. This meant that they could guarantee the blackness in the messenger thing, because the veterans would only get into this messenger job. There were some whites complaining and wanting to get into the messenger job as a stepping stone, as did some of them come into the Reproduction and get a foothold and then move out. But that's just a fact. I happened to know what was happening at that time. I was either in my training period or I had just come out of it and began to work for Dan when this statement was made.

MCKINZIE: You mentioned changes occurred over a period of time and they were slow and evolutionary, but, of course, people make those changes happen. I was wondering if you recall any particular people who made it better or worse or particular instances where things were particularly better or worse because of somebody's work?

PROCTOR: There came a time when in personnel we had a

[65]

lady by the name of Dorothy Campbell who came down from Connecticut as employee relations officer. Again, to show you how biased the Department was at one time, we had two recreation associations in the Department. There was at first a recreation association called the DSRA -- Department of State Recreation Association. We didn't have anything, we couldn't b e a member of DSRA. So, a guy by the name of [William] Boswell, a black fellow who is now a Foreign Service officer, worked in Communications, the telegraph area, which had a tremendous number of blacks in it. He started a recreation group in "D.C.," which stood for a Division of Communications. They had a ball team. Then somebody had the bright idea of passing it on to all the blacks in the Department. So, we set up an organization Department-wise for blacks and called it the Excelsiors.

That was just before Miss Campbell came. My idea always leaned toward economics. It was always that way and I said to Miss Campbell, "Now, look, we couldn't care about your social life, but we would like to enjoy this 10 percent discount you get downtown."

[66]

They had a big catalog where you went downtown and could buy things in all the main stores. And so I saw Miss Campbell, and I had a meeting with her and we talked about the economic conditions. To make a long story short we got the recreation association to agree to give us cards. Many of these groups wouldn't give the discount to Negroes. The Department wasn't all that difficult; it was more the environment in which we lived. They were just keeping up with what was happening in the community -- that's the way it was. So we got some sort of affiliation so that we could take advantage of some of these 10 percents, although we had a different color card. There was a yellow card and a blue card, and some of the places would recognize both cards, while others would recognize just one. Nevertheless, that was a breakthrough.

While the Excelsiors were working there came a time when we had a president; the whites had a president; we had by-laws; they had by-laws. And there came a time that I saw the possibility of amalgamation. We didn't have an organization then, it was dead, and in order to amalgamate I knew we

[67]

had to have an organization. This was where I had difficulty dealing with my people in some areas, because they couldn't see beyond their nose. "Awe, we are sick of this stuff." Bitterness was coming in all around. "The heck with it, we can do it on our own." I saw the means for amalgamation and in order to amalgamate you had to have something to put together. What I was saying was "amalgamate these two organizations." I became its president of the Excelsiors for this purpose,

MCKINZIE: When did that happen?

PROCTOR: The amalgamation was in 1946 or '48, when Dottie Campbell came in. And when we did amalgamate there had to be a Board of Directors, and so I happened to be another first. I was on the first Board of Directors when they amalgamated these organizations. They became one, the Department of State Recreation Association. I became the black director on the Board of Directors. McDash, [John] Bell, and the other Directors who were on the Board were, most of them, fifteens.

[68]

I was quite lonesome. Of course, this was an area where the breakdown seemed to begin to get a little looser. I also worked with the Excelsiors during the amalgamation. I think that prior to that amalgamation, the Excelsiors put on a dance. I engineered that thing where we had this dance. We had a cabaret type in the Lincoln Colonnade on U Street. I thought that was quite a period in my life of which I'm pretty proud. The DSRA expected a whole lot of mess at that time. There was the impression that blacks were going to get drunk and make a lot of mess. I saw to it that it wasn't any mess. At that time we began to get black policemen and every black policeman was off duty (my buddies who all graduated from high school at the same time). I had a policeman in every little niche and corner (in plain clothes) around this place, and we had better security than they've got in Russia right now. Just as a side episode, there was one of my men who still works for AID, he got a little overzealous and used a curse word, and I had to pay ten dollars to get him out of jail, because

[69]

that's how tight it was.

This thing was either the making or the breaking of the so-called amalgamation idea, in getting the blacks and the whites together in the Department. And some of the fears were valid ones based on false information. This was a chance to break down some of this. This is also going back to Charlie Thomas in the early thirties. Charles Thomas and his tutoring was responsible for this. I got this thing together and we had a successful party. Miss Campbell happened to attend escorted by Clem Conger, who was quite active. He was a pretty good man. So, this brought us together at that point in the recreation department. That's how we got together.

MCKINZIE: Do you recall anybody who particularly made it difficult at that time? Were there individual efforts or were there some organizational efforts to make it difficult?

PROCTOR: Well, there were people. But Mrs. Campbell was working for me, not as an individual, but

[70]

through an organization (the Recreation Association) and through personnel. At that time personnel was beginning to get in some minor people like Holland, the guy who now is our top black security officer for the State Department. He was a picture-taker (photographer) for Security. He took them at a Grade 3 -- for, I guess, ten years before he began to move. We had people moving in that area. Frieda Ambers had moved in when Mrs. Campbell's first job was to get a black into the Department in employee relations. Of course, you always have die-hards but it's difficult to point a finger and say that there were groups or individuals who were really culprits in this thing, because, don't forget, you are in the diplomacy area. There was too much diplomacy for you to point your finger and say who was not doing something. You could easily point at who was doing something, because that was favorable in the person's mind. The person who was unfavorable was going to be diplomatic. As it is now you can't put your finger on the culprit who is carrying on the mess. For instance, the example I gave

[71]

you about my using the typewriter. Look how silly that was, beginning at the stenographic girl, "Oh no, you can't do that Proctor. It's all right with me, but I know Mr. Catudal won't do it."

He said, "All right with me, but you know Mr. Ross won't do it."

And when I spoke to Mr. Ross he said, "Well, I don't mind, but they down there won't do it." So, who do you point the finger at? It's that kind of method still going on in the State Department.

MCKINZIE: Having started out sitting here at that desk waiting for the bell to ring, when that was over obviously you were in a quite different relationship to other people in the State Department. It's a little different, isn't it, to be responsible for that kind of thing than it is to be responsible for the door or the wastepaper basket?

PROCTOR: Yes. You felt you had more responsibility, but it certainly didn't take it long to become almost a permanent thing, because it turned black almost overnight. Then you didn't have the atmosphere of being a part of the system. You'd work

[72]

beside the white boy, but he soon moved over to something else. At the moment you started coming in, bang, there was no more infiltration at the intake level. So, it didn't take it long before you could really realize that you were right back where you were, with your people doing your people's thing. These jobs, as they became black, were relegated to nothing again. It is just like, for example, the guy who swung the doors for the hotel that was just a measly rotten job, about as low as you could get. But when the blacks came to war and they said, "Look, we've got enough of this; we are not going to do this anymore," they turned it around now and made it a unionized thing, and it's a great thing to be a doorman. It's likewise for the waiters -- once upon a time if you were a waiter you were just a servant, but now the waiters turned out to be unionized and it's a fine job. These things happened about the same way. You didn't have enough time and you didn't develop properly so that you could realize that anything was changing much.

[73]

MCKINZIE: And as far as you know there was no one working in an organizational way to make change. I mean, now, I think, there is some effort.

PROCTOR: There was a Dr. Davis who came into what we call now an OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity) program. We had this OEO type program way back there in the forties. I met and got close with Mrs. Campbell because of this fellow Davis. Then we had other fellows that came down and worked. I had meetings in my living room talking with the fellows who came down as OEO people to right some of these problems. Back there in the early fifties or in this area we had another OEO program type thing. There was a training for equal opportunity.

I would be hard-pressed to just put my finger on an individual person. It seems to me particularly that in the Department so much was done, and you didn't know it was being done. These people came together as diplomatic people and said, "Look, we've got a problem here now. We've got to meet this thing head on." So, in privacy, I would imagine, they worked this thing out, and then it came out as

[74]

being done. It's an agreement type thing, as I pointed out with my boys when I sent them through the line. So, you really don't find a person in serious rebuttal to the extent that you could point your finger at them, because "we have agreed that we were going to follow this line." And you do it on the compromise basis to meet the leftists and the rightists. We came together and halfway agreed that there was not going to be enough argument between them to realize that there was any difference. That's what I found.

MCKINZIE: As far as the State Department in comparison to other agencies in Government, did you feel that things were just about as fair and the opportunities were about as good in the State Department as they would have been in the Interior Department, in Commerce, or someplace else?

PROCTOR: At that time I can't recall too many blacks doing too much. During part of that time Duncan, who became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior during this modern day, was going through

[75]

the same thing of scrubbing floors and so forth. So, I can't see where there was any difference. In fact, the State Department was equal to any other place in Government. There wasn't anybody around the State Department who would go to other areas to get better treatment.

MCKINZIE: In the State Department, though, regardless of where you were particularly before it got big, it must have been kind of exciting to be around where so much important stuff was going on. When you got in the new building I suppose it seemed to be like any huge bureaucracy, but at one point evidently it was almost a place where you could sort of feel things happening, couldn't you?

PROCTOR: Yes. Of course, I can't talk about the complete negative side all the way through. There is some positiveness here, too, in the Department, particularly from my point of view.

All the discussion about how blacks were treated was a universal thing; it certainly wasn't exclusive for the Department of State. I think the State

[76]

Department was equal to any treatment when you compared it with other agencies, but the difference in the State Department was that it was a diplomatic agency, and it had more dignity to it than any other agency. That's where the State Department stood out, leaving out the racial tones and other things. When a Foreign Service officer entered the corridors of the State Department his presence was felt, as the presence of a President was felt when he entered a building at that time. A Foreign Service officer demanded that kind of attention and it gave him an air of dignity. I think I've said before that I was very proud of my home; my mother and father did a magnificent job in keeping the kind of home that I wish was around today. Our little church that I tried to describe also was the epitome of dignity. And a very close third in all of these was the Department, in my mind.

The Department had a dignity that I think was different from any other department. Therefore, Foreign Service had to transact business in a special way as compared to today's business, for

[77]

example. In our credit union, he wouldn't just walk right in and say I need a loan -- he would go at it diplomatically to have this business taken care of. This was not because he was trying to hide anything, but because of the impression that it may have a person who couldn't understand. There seemed to be an air of honesty in the Department, and it was a pleasure to say with pride -- I know I did --I work for the Department of State." It was real, even in the lowly positions. It gave you a pride to say that you worked for the State Department.

I'll tell you how it affected me, I recall a time in the later years when I had an opportunity to move from the Department proper with what is known as Voice of America now. I refused to leave because of my feelings for the Department and for what the Department meant to me. I was a part of the kind of organization that it appeared to be from the sincerity, the dignity, the atmosphere. I requested not to be transferred. I made a remark, to be emphatic, to Seaburn Baker, who

[78]

was the boss, that if it meant taking a grade cut I'd prefer staying at the State Department than to take that two grade promotion to leave. I don't think that that was just my opinion, I just think that was sort of the atmosphere, sort of the mental attitude that one received from being a part of the Department. The dedication and work that I mentioned earlier -- 5:30 stints in the morning -- that was noble from my point of view. But it was nothing for a person to work around the clock to get a job completed in the Department; it was that type of dedication. The Assistant Secretary was so dedicated to doing the job and having the State Department the number one financially responsible agency in the Government that we even had to buy our own pencils, if necessary. That was the kind of dedication in the Department during those very early years, which brought me closer to home -- the church-life training that I had. I just want to stay close to that kind of organization.

MCKINZIE: Could you then talk briefly about your career after the Truman years? You went into quite a bit

[79]

of leadership work after that, did you not?

PROCTOR: Yes, that's true -- very much so. In fact, I mentioned the recreation association. This was one of my extracurricular activities. In 1948, with things becoming more progressive, the Department was getting bolder, possibly losing a little of the dignity that I talked about. There was a suggestion that, because of the difficulty with the low-paid employees in paying the Credit Union debts, that perhaps we should set up a special committee. Having remembered that very powerful episode with Crenshaw (chairman of the Credit Committee) when my whole family's life may have been destroyed and he wouldn't even listen to it, I thought that would be very damaging and that we would take a step backwards rather than a step forward. Now, Charles Aulette, who is now no longer a member of the State Department (he is an official of the Credit Union, in fact, its legal counsel), was a man who felt very strongly about this kind of thing. Being a French boy in the suburban areas he had to rough it and he recognized it. So, I

[80]

came up with an idea and I went to him and I said, "If we can get this delinquent list cleared up, will that be necessary." He said, "No." He was chairman of the delinquent committee at that time. Incidentally, at that time we had two blacks involved with the Credit Union. Dr. Charles Johnson was on the Board; he was sort of a figurehead and Fred Brown, who is still connected with the Credit Union, although retired, was on the Credit Committee. I set out to clear the delinquent list so I asked Mr. Aulette to give me a list of all the people who were delinquent. You talked about the Department being a small cohesive thing, and when it was small and cohesive the game of knowing and wanting to be known was easier. I knew everybody by name and his initials, so I didn't have to go to a book for a telephone number or anything. I just went to it. Having that background, I was able to distinguish a black from a white on this list. I began to work with the delinquency problem and found that they had a procedure for doing this. You could go over and talk to the treasury and get an extension

[81]

agreement. Then you'd be able to wipe out the delinquency and start fresh again. I wiped practically this whole thing out on my extra time by going to the blacks and being some kind of a leader, exerting all the leadership I could. I would say, "Look, buddy, you better pay your cotton pickin' debt or this or that is going to happen to you, and I'll see to it. I will tell you how you can get out of this mess. Come on and go with me and we'll fix this thing up." This is the way I did it. I didn't go to one white person. The white persons I telephoned, and on my telephone I didn't sound non-Caucasian, so I got to them that way. And as a result of that I was able to wipe out the delinquency. I thought nothing of it because it was just the right thing to do. Then Mr. Aulette said anybody that could do a thing like that needed to be a part of this organization, so I was elected to the Credit Committee at a regular meeting and didn't even know it. The next information I got was the fact that my name was put up, because he knew I would serve. He said, "Aren't you going to serve in this position? You were

[82]

elected at the annual meeting." So, I became a member of the Credit Union Committee in 1948, I believe. I worked on the Credit Committee and that really put me into a spot where I could do a job. Twenty-five years later I was still on the Credit Committee as chairman of the Credit Committee, having been chairman for the last twenty years. Until January of 1973 I was chairman, and as such I was able to do a tremendous number of things. I was active in most of the extracurricular activities; I was the volunteer solicitor for the blood program. The reason for that was because the Red Cross wouldn't take black people's blood until after World War II; you couldn't go. So, then there was the feeling among blacks that they didn't want to bother with that now. "What? You want to take my blood now?" Therefore I felt that in order to receive we had to participate. My whole motive behind all this was to get participation in the various activities by the blacks in the mainstream, and this was one man's business. So, I was a volunteer for the blood program and later on I

[83]

became an official blood donor and United Fund campaigner for the whole Department. I got involved in all of the extracurricular activities. I coached basketball -- I had the team for the State Department. One time we had the Excelsior team and the Department team. The first integrated sport in the District of Columbia Public Schools was engineered partly accidentally by my team and the State Department team. When I got a permit to play I got it for the Department of State basketball team. They never realized that we had two teams. So, I carried the Excelsior team in, all black, and was playing against the Department of State Recreation team in the old Cardoza High School. All of the white boys played except one, and he was a boy from North Carolina just starting his career. He is now the top legal man for the State Department. His name is Ed Lowry and he wouldn't mind me saying that. He wouldn't play because that was his training and teaching coming out of North Carolina. But we had this game, and of course, my boys were better. Some of the same boys still work for the Department right now.

[84]

MCKINZIE: Do you recall when this game was?

PROCTOR: Yes. The game was in 1947. I'll never forget it. I had a fine team. I have a photograph of my team and the team that we played. Incidentally, I had Elgin Baylor on my team for a couple of games. My wife taught him math at Randall High School.

Anyway, that was just an episode in some of the extra things I did. Being recognizable as a first on this, whenever a name came up for a recommendation when I wasn't around, it was, "Look, I can't think of anyone but this Proctor guy." That would put me into everything. I guess maybe at that time, I was sort of boiling in my juice of completeness and "I'm the great, I am. I imagine that I sort of glorified a little of that, but unconsciously so. I think that's why I didn't say no. When I realized that there may be a possibility for others to represent blacks I said, "Look, let's go." Lowen Hackett became a member of the Board of Directors of DSRA, and I put other people on the Board. Virginia Butler became vice-chairman in charge of activities for the Recreation Association later on. Those are

[85]

the people that I put my fingers on and suggested that they serve. I made it possible through some of their bosses that they would be able to serve so that we could get representation. I certainly didn't fight for the positions that I had or the positions that I could have, because I was interested in people, interested in getting people together and more interested in getting my race of people into the mainstream. Now, for me to be less than what I have said would have meant I was a liar and a cheat, and I couldn't have been sincere about it. So, we got the other people involved. But I did enjoy every extracurricular activity in the State Department. I might say, too, that I did work in Employee Relations for a while. I got into that with this Mrs. Campbell in the late 1950s. From there I went into personnel. Then I began to retrogress and finally left the personnel area, working as an Administrative Services officer in charge of budgets, papers, pencils, and things -- not people. You will say, "If you were doing so well and you felt you were doing so well, how come you didn't

[86]

get in a place and stay?" Well, I was a diplomat, too, and I tried to use my diplomacy to get things done. For example, I think I mentioned very early that the Department still had diplomatic areas of not doing things. A file folder can be so marked with just no writing, statements -- little tricky ways that you are not supposed to do certain things. You open the file up -- “his is a no-no for this division. You do something else." That's called the "hidden agenda" and they still have them. You just never remove them, as long as you're in the Department, I do believe. Because once somebody gets the foot on your neck in the State Department, you're gone, you don't survive it. You do not have a comeback once you get the foot on your neck. I can just name numbers of reasons and numbers of things that could be true. Among the reasons that I got out was that I felt that that boot was coming down toward my neck, too. I didn't want to be a part of that -- of the situation which still goes on.

I might just point out here that in spite of

[87]

these radical things there were some beautiful moments in the Department. I am thinking of some beautiful people who came through the Department, both black and white. I can think of one fellow by the name of Richard Fox who's got a terrific job -- he's executive director for cultural affairs. Because of the Department allowing a person to come, in he came in as a OFO officer and got himself situated, and he's going great. He is still doing great things for the Department. I can think of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy who was allowed to come in and do his thing. And then there is no more beautiful person than the person who now is in charge of the area that has to do with liaison and this kind of thing, Barbara Watson. She is the ranking black person in the Department of State, incidentally. She is allowed to move within the Department. They have some other people -- lesser people who have moved. We have Sam Mitchell, who was in charge of domestic personnel. He's a GS-15. Eula Mae Jackson, formerly my secretary when I was in the reproduction section as

[88]

assistant chief or whatever they called me, is now one of the assistants to him. I think she's at least a GS-13. Canton Cox, who has come up in the personnel area and who is black, works in personnel also. There's in the reproduction area where I was at one time, three branches. One of them is headed by blacks, Ted Mauritte and Virginia Butler. So, all in all, there has been a tremendous amount of progress.

Now, I certainly wouldn't want anything I have said to mean that the problem is completely lopsided and it's the only agency that has "tails and horns." I don't mean to imply that at all. But, in passing, with this sort of black-white thing being a problem in most areas, I think some things need to be said about the Department, beautiful things have taken place. I'm saying that it's not a complete "horn and tail" organization, and neither is it a total "halo" situation. Some of the things I'm trying to say are not to tarnish the "halo," but to at least show that there is a possibility that some tarnishing could take place

[89]

if something isn't done about it.

MCKINZIE: Yes, very good.

Administrative Training Program, U.S. State Department, 61
Agriculture Department Graduate School, 60
Alexandria, Virginia, 6, 18, 28
Allen, Percy, 21, 22, 40
Ambers, Frieda, 70
Armstrong Technical High School, District of Columbia, 11, 12
Atlantic City, New Jersey, 52, 53-55
Aulette, Charles, 79-81

Baker, Seaburn, 77-78
Baylor, Elgin, 84
Bell, John, 67
Bell, Robert, 58
Blackstone, Virginia, 4
Boswell, William, 65
Boy Scouts, 32-35
Brown, Frederick, 80
Butler, Virginia, 84, 88

Campbell, Dorothy, 65, 66, 67, 69, 70, 73, 85
Campbell, Rachel, 45, 46
Cardoza High School, District of Columbia, 83
Catudal, Marc, 44, 45, 46-47, 71
Claridge Hotel, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 53-55
Conger, Clem, 69
Cook Engineering School, Chicago, Illinois, 3
Cox, Carleton, 88

Dawson, Samuel Cooper, 12, 13, 17, 21
Department of State Recreation Association, 65, 67-70, 83-84
Dunbar High School, District of Columbia, 11

Fairfax County, Virginia, 1-9
Food and Agriculture Conference, Hot Springs, Virginia, 1943, 52, 53-55
Fort Belvoir, Virginia, 2, 3, 11, 16
Fox, Richard, 87

Gammon Theological Pastor's School, 5, 31
Gibson, Vassar, 50
Gill, Maggie, 55
Government Services Incorporated, 36
Gumsprings, Virginia, 13-14, 32

Hackett, Lowen, 84
Hawkins, Harry C., 21, 43, 44
Headley, Forest, 50
Hoover, Clifford, 58
Hull, Cordell, 21

Jackson, Eula Mae, 87-88
Jasper, Clarence, 15
Johnson, Charles, 80

Leech, Irene B., 27-28
Lee Jackson High School, Alexandria, Virginia, 18
Lehman, Herbert H., 53
Lewis, Virginia B., 20-21
Lowry, Ed, 83

Manassas Industrial School, Manassas, Virginia, 10
Mary Washington Vocational School, District of Columbia, 11
Mauritte, Ted, 88
Mitchell, Sam, 87
Morris, Louis, 53
Morse, Louis, 50
Mount Vernon, Virginia, 1, 14

New York Times, 13

Office of Economic Opportunity, 73, 87

Penn Dow Hotel, 12-16, 18
Post Office, D.C., 15
Preleau, Robert, 53
Proctor, Franklin W., background, 1-19

Randall Junior High School, District of Columbia, 10
Red Cross, 82
Reinstein, Jack, 43-44, 45
Ripley's Believe It or Not, 2
Roberts, Margaret, 5
Ross, Jack, 43, 44, 45, 46-47, 71

Schmidt, Daniel, 62, 63
Scull, David, 37-38
Shallenberger, "Speedy," 63
Shepard, Lawrence, 19-20, 24, 29, 43
Simmons, Paul, 53
Sorrel, Roy, 39-41
State Department, U.S.:

• • Credit Union, 26-28, 77, 79-82
    integration in, racial, 64-73, 82-85
    messengers, 22-25
    racial segregation in, 36-74
• Steinaker, William, 61

   

  Taylor, John, 53
  Thomas, Charles, 46, 58, 69
  Thomas, Henry P., 19, 26, 28, 29-30
  Trade Agreements, Program, 21, 44
  Tyler, Raymond, 50, 51

  United Fund, 82
  United Methodist Church, 5, 6, 7

  Walker, Chester, 53
  Watson, Barbra, 87
  White, Curtis, 24
  Woodlawn Cemetery, Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, 2

  Young, Corrine, 45, 46, 47, 48