Joseph M. Hendricks oral history interview, December 10, 1993

Interviewed by Stephen Tuck. Among topics discussed: Upbringing in Talbot County, Georgia; racial situation in Macon; Mercer University; involvement of theology professor McLeod Bryan in civil rights movement; Bryan and Committee of Southern Churchmen and Fellowship of Southern Churchmen in 1964; The Combustible; sociology professor Das Kelly Barnett and segregated Macon buses; English professor Welcome Talmadge Smalley; Macon Council on Human Relations (MCHR); Hendricks’s involvement with MCHR in 1959; Macon civil rights movement’s links to Atlanta civil rights movement; Frances Pauley; NAACP’s small role; MCHR members: Gus Kaufman, William Randall, Ruth Hartley Mosley, Fisher Mosley, William Hutchins; goals of MCHR; rise of Macon civil rights leaders out of MCHR; lack of race riots in Macon during 1960s; William Randall, black ministers, and Macon bus boycott in 1962; Donald Hollowell and Thomas Jackson; Hedricks and Randall activity toward desegregating Hospital Commission (Macon-Bibb County Hospital Authority) in 1965; desegregation of Mercer University in 1962; Sam Jerry Oni, Nigerian Baptist convert; Harris Mobley, student of McLeod Bryan turned missionary convinces Oni to apply to Mercer; African-Americans accepted into Mercer: Bennie Stephens and Cecil Dewberry; desegregation of Mercer in Ashes for Breakfast by Thomas J. Holmes and Gainer E. Bryan, Jr., in 1969; treatment of blacks on Mercer campus prior to desegregation; Rufus Harris as president of Mercer and desegregation; race relations in Macon compared with Columbus, Augusta, Albany, Savannah, and Southwest Georgia; role of colleges and universities in desegregation in Georgia cities; Paine College in Augusta; Atlanta’s influence on Macon; role of newspaper reporter George Doss and Macon integration; Doss and MCHR; city politicians’ and business leaders’ unwillingness to integrate Macon; Ed Wilson and desegregating golf course; desegregating public library; nonviolence in Macon bus boycott; arrest of Randall for traffic violation; integrating Macon schools; opposition to integration; Ku Klux Klan; “genteel” segregationists in Macon; Mayor “Machine Gun” Ronnie Thompson in late 1960s; Thompson drives tank through Macon; effects of black power, Vietnam, and national race riots on civil rights movement in Macon. Different atmosphere in Macon after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination; Hendricks describes Macon on the brink of chaos in late 1960s; Poor People’s March; Ronnie Thompson and March; Randall’s opinions of Thompson; Mayor Edgar H. Wilson and Macon blacks; rural areas and cities around Macon; Warner Robins, Georgia; murder of Willie Jean Carreker in Talbot County in 1974; Will D. Campbell; civil rights and desegregation in Talbotton; reasons for slow integration in Talbot County; Christine Hardnett; Democratic Party and the white primary in the 1940s; Harry Strozier, Hoyt T. Davis, and Primus King case; Republican judges; much of civil rights struggle in the judicial realm prior to 1960s; Clarence Jordan and Koinonia Farm in Americus; Mike Bryan and Ray Brewster’s work with Koinonia; peril of those staying at Koinonia; Americus businessman Herbert Birdsey refuses to boycott Koinonia, business bombed; effect of civil rights movement on relationship between Mercer University and Macon.