Civil Rights Oral History Project Phase II Launch Event

Civil Rights Oral History Project Launch Video

Transcript

Bill Froehlich (00:00:00):
I want to introduce Heidi and Grande to you all briefly, and then I to give you an outline of where we're headed this afternoon, and identify where you'll see some points for interaction. So, Heidi Burgess, along with her husband, Guy, who's maybe in the same room, but certainly is in the same house, is the co-director of Beyond Intractability. And I'll drop the link to BI in just a minute. She has a PhD in sociology from the University of Colorado, engaged in her postdoc work at MIT. They together directed Colorado's Hewlett Foundation Funded Theory Building Center, now known as the Conflict Information Consortium. She led the original oral history project on civil rights mediation with Dick Salem some 25 years ago.

Bill Froehlich (00:00:47):
Our friend and colleague, Grande Lum, is the former Senate Confirmed Director of the Department of Justice Community Relations Service, and my former boss here at Ohio State at the Divided Community Project. Currently, he serves as the director of Stanford Law School's, Martin Daniel Gould Center for Conflict Resolution, and is the author of the well received book, America's Peacemakers.

Bill Froehlich (00:01:15):
We are really excited this afternoon to launch the website of the second Civil rights Mediation Oral history project that now combines the original project that Heidi's gonna talk a little bit more about in a bit with, 50 hours of new transcripts of interviews with civil rights mediators from the Community Relations Service. It's really an exciting opportunity to have these transcripts available publicly and to have recordings of the videos available as well. I want to quickly highlight the individuals who are part of this oral history project in their service with CRS. Then I'm gonna turn it over to Grande and Heidi to give you more context about the first project and the second, then the three of us are going to have a discussion with one another about some of our highlights and perspectives, on the project and what we've learned from it.

Bill Froehlich (00:02:11):
And then at about 1 20-25, we're gonna have the opportunity to hear from a few of the folks who participated in the project. I saw Tim Johnson, Ron Wakabayashi, Thomas Battles are already on, so you'll hear a little bit from each of them and, and a few others as they join us here today. And then finally, we'll try to hold onto about 20 or 25 minutes for conversation with all of you. So if you have questions, put 'em in the chat. We'll try to answer them live, and in writing. Alright, so who is a part of this oral history project? We conducted 11 interviews, or I'm sorry, 12 interviews and 11 are currently posted. One is not presently complete. The first is from Thomas Battles. He was a conciliator and then a regional director with CRS in the Southeastern Regional office from 1984 to 2019.

Bill Froehlich (00:03:01):
Kennith Bergron was a conciliator and then a senior conciliation specialist in CRS Region five, which is in the Midwest, from 1999 to 2020 Ken returned to CRS as a regional director between, I believe, 2023 and 2025. Our interview was before he returned to CRS Kit Char Berg worked for about 10 years as a conciliation specialist in the Rocky Mountain, uh, Denver region, and then became program director for program development training. And evaluation at CRS headquarters in dc, James Davis served in the CRS Office of Technical Assistance and Administration as an administration of justice specialist from 1985 to 1992. Patricia Glenn was a conciliator in the Chicago office of CRS in the 1980s, and then, was promoted, to the New York office as regional director in 1989, where she stayed for 10 years before returning to Chicago. At the end of her CRS career, Miguel Hernandez was a conciliator with CRS From 1971 to 77, he was laid off, and then he came back over a decade later in 1988 to 1995.

Bill Froehlich (00:04:18):
Timothy Johnson was with CRS from 1984 to 2010, and the positions he held were, uh, conciliation specialist chief of field coordination and senior conciliation specialist Grande Lum, of course. Our colleague here on the call today, uh, was director of CRS, uh, as confirmed by the Senate and appointed by President Obama between 2012 and 2016. Rosa Melendez was the regional director of CRS for Region 10, which is in the Pacific Northwest, based in Seattle from 2000 to 2014 P Diane Schneider was a conciliation specialist and acting regional director of Regional of Region 10, uh, for CRS from 1987 to 2008. And finally, Ron Wakabayashi was the regional director of the Western region of the Community Relations Service from 1999 to 2020. Before we move a little bit further, though, we would be remiss if we didn't note that CRS presently has one staff member. And so I'm gonna turn it over to Grande Lum, our colleague Grand Lum, to talk about the current status of CRS Grande.

Grande Lum (00:05:27):
thank you Bill. And, thank you, Heidi. We're, we are really excited to certainly launch this, the new interviews here. Um, and welcome to all the folks who are on, are online. Just a quick update. Yeah, unfortunately, a lot of difficult things have, have happened. You, on Inauguration Day, there were 57 employees and 30 field offices in HQ between March and September, you know, of the, of this year, basically, DOJ conducted the elimination of CRS 42 employees, then left in on September 29th. DOJ basically gave a reduction in force notices are, you know, RIF notices to the 14 of the remaining 15 employees. the Washington Litigation Group, uh, very graciously took on this case and filed a complaint on October 24th, 11 civil rights organizations, whose CRS services were withdrawn, basically filed the complaint, it's called Ethical Society of Police versus Bondi.

Grande Lum (00:06:34):
One of the groups is named Two Wrasslin' Cats, and there was some thought to having Two Wrasslin' Cats be the lead plaintiff, here, but decide not to. and on October 30th, the, the court denied the request for the TRO, the temporary restraining order on November 25th. he plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction, uh, to ask the court to prohibit DOJ from eliminating, eliminating CRS. And just recently, on November 25th, was when the plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction. this week there was a work on three amicus briefs, one by civil rights organizations, 140 organizations from 35 states have signed on. 105 Congressional members are also signing on to a separate amicus brief and one from state AGs. that's all expected to be filed this Friday, uh, uh, December 5th, I, do want to give a big shout out to Julius Nam, who's been leading a former acting director who's leading much of this effort here. For more information, do go to America's peacemakers com, and you'll get a lot more there. The evidentiary hearing is possibly in December, or in January. So, Bill, let turn it back to you, but just, I thought it was important, and this is our goal is the restoration of CRS. It's called the CRS, restoration Project.

Bill Froehlich (00:08:03):
Yeah, thank you, Grande. Obviously critically important work that you're a part of. And Julius Nam, the most recent acting director of CRS is a part of, I dropped the link into the chat, so you can click it there. And it is public, so feel free to share it. So, thank you Grande, for, for describing what's currently happening at CRS. Uh, I wanna turn to Heidi for just a moment or two, and I'm gonna bring at least for a second, Peter Salem on screen, if he's,, up for it to highlight the impetus for the first oral history project. and I'm also gonna do a screen share at some point in time so you can get a flavor for what the new website looks like. But Heidi, I wanna turn it now to you.

Heidi Burgess (00:08:50):
Okay. We were approached, I think 19 98, 19 99, somewhere in there by Peter Salem's dad, Dick Salem, who had been a conciliator and then regional director in the Chicago office of CRS. And, Dick came to us and said that CRS was downsizing and moving offices, and potentially throwing away a whole bunch of documents. And he didn't want the history that was in those documents to be lost and wondered if we could store them at the conflict information consortiums office. And we talked about that for a while, but decided really, that wasn't a good idea because some of these things were confidential and probably shouldn't move outside of CRS. And if we stored 'em, nobody would be able to see 'em. At the time, there was no internet. We couldn't put them online like we might've been able to now. So they just would've been in a basement.

Heidi Burgess (00:09:49):
It wouldn't make any sense. But the way we could gather and share the history that might otherwise be lost was to do oral histories with former and acting, uh, CRS employees. And we got pretty jazzed with that idea, and Dick talked to some of his colleagues and people were up for it. So we started the oral history project, the director of CRS at the time, and I quite frankly don't remember who it was told all of the CRS Conciliators and regional directors not to talk to us, that he was afraid that there'd be, I don't know, confidentiality problems or something. So we figured we'd mostly have to talk to retired folk. But that was actually good because we got a lot of the old history we talked to, trying to remember who it was, but one of the people we talked to was standing next to Martin Luther King when he was shot.

Heidi Burgess (00:10:51):
So we really got some of the stories from old times and that was fascinating. And, Ozell Sutton is who was, that's right. There were a couple people who were currently employed who said, ah, we'll talk to you. The other thing I forgot to mention that I might mention is that I got really intrigued with invitation, because we just started something called the Intractable Conflict Project, and we were telling everybody that intractable conflicts couldn't be mediated. And here was this fellow coming from an agency that was mediating racial conflicts all the time. And we were using racial conflicts as an example of intractable conflicts. So with the Transitive property, if racial conflicts are intractable and intractable conflicts can't be mediated, then Dick was doing the impossible. So we were really intrigued to try to find out, well, is he lying? Are we wrong? what's the story? And, we did come to the conclusion that No, he is telling the absolute truth, and no, we weren't wrong. And there's a way to answer yes. And to both of those questions. And I might talk about that more later, or you can read about it in the blog post that we put out on Beyond Intractability Substack on Monday. And Bill will put a link to that in the chat he already has.

Bill Froehlich (00:12:26):
Thanks, Heidi. I asked Peter to join us for just a second as a panelist, if he wants to speak a little bit about, his father's work on the original oral history project. Peter, I'd ask you to come off mute if you're able to say a few words.

Peter Salem (00:12:43):
There. I am. I think this is, first of all, just a wonderful project. I'm so glad to see it expanded. And the only thing I I wanted to say about my dad was that he was always a storyteller. he was a journalist. ... one of his early jobs was with the Washington Post back in the late 1950s. he always had a knack for spinning a good tail, when he passed away, and we were going through his, papers, there were folders and folders and folders of CRS notes, good journalists that he was, he took lots of notes, and I spoke with Grande about it actually, before we decided that we would let them go. I think at that time, there wasn't much optimism or much to do with them in the future. So I, and I know he'd be glad to see that you have moved on and, focus this project on, on more current CRS folks. So, to the extent I can for him, I will extend my appreciation for the wonderful work that you've done. Thank you.

Bill Froehlich (00:13:59):
Well, Peter, we're, we're grateful that, to have you here. It's always great to see you, and thank you for sharing a little bit about, your father and his wonderful work at CRS. I dropped his oral history into the chat for everyone to see as well. it's of course part of the original project, not the new project.

Heidi Burgess (00:14:15):
And he, had wonderful stories

Bill Froehlich (00:14:18):
Uh, Grande. I wanna turn to you for a minute, to describe the impetus, for this second project, and perhaps you might talk a little bit how, how it developed and, and frankly how the first project helped you, as a director of CRS.

Grande Lum (00:14:37):
Sure. I, you know, I, I remember tracking the original project, when I first was thinking about joining CRS, I just thought it was amazing, to see things like, what, what Dick Salem did, or folks like Nancy Farrell and, you know, Ozell Sutton, um, Manuel Salinas. It was just, it was like, I just couldn't believe that it was, they were involved in such difficult situ situations, and it was incredibly helpful both before I started, and then secondly, after I started to then go back, because I then understood it with a different lens because when you're then engaged with the agency to then go back, it was helpful as we went through the difficult situations, we, we went through of in a time that I was there, you know, whether it was with Trayvon Martin and with Sanford Florida, or in Ferguson, after the tragedy of Michael Brown, or the tragedy around the Sikh Gurdwara, in Oak Creek.

Grande Lum (00:15:47):
It was just helpful to have other voices of people who had, had experience, in doing so. And, and we, I just thought that there was a second and third generation of mediators and Conciliators who we should also capture, their voices and their experiences and, and their insights, and many of them who, whose mentors were in, were in that, in that first, you know, generation, kit Chalberg, for example, has certainly worked with Silka Hansen for example. And it just thought was and certainly Thomas Battles had worked, quite extensively with Ozell Sutton, as another example. So, and Bill and Heidi, we just, we were having conversations over the years, and I, it just seems like it would be useful for CRS and, and useful for, for the field, in thinking about dispute resolution, and in tracking people who had been working, as Heidi said, in intractable disputes.

Bill Froehlich (00:16:56):
Yeah. And Grande, look, there are, as folks who have taught, all three of us have taught in academic environments, in conflict resolution, dispute resolution, and law schools and otherwise and there's so much out there on mediation, traditional civil mediation, right? The value of mediation, facilitated mediation, et cetera. What's different about the work of the community focused civil rights mediator? And, and why do those differences matter?

Grande Lum (00:17:28):
Yeah. Important question. And especially for those of us who taught, and especially for those people who, there's so many folks who are mediators, on this call, different types of mediators, right? I see folks who, who do more of that court based mediation and who do labor management mediation. There, there are huge differences. I think, and some similarities, right? In whether you have a, you know, a plaintiff and a defendant, or you have a two party, and it's a formal, it's a court base, you're, you have a four hour time limit. There's a, there's a huge difference. And I think it leads to some very different questions, right? From a, from a, from a thinking about mediation when you have, like, who should the parties even be, right? <laugh> in this situation, who should come to the table and who should not be at the table?

Grande Lum (00:18:19):
How does a mediator here gain entry versus in a, in a mandatory, uh, civil based mediation where you pick from a roster of folks or the court provides them to you? You know, how do you do that? You know, what should the goals be, right? I think it goes to Heidi's question that she thinks about, he's thought about for years about intractable disputes, what the goals can't be resolving our values <laugh> in these situations, or agreeing to them, right? There's something else. It could be how lowering the temperature in a situation, getting a specific situation where the, where maybe can protestors do it in a safer location, you know, things in ways that don't create the possibility of conflict here. You know? how should the conciliator operate? You know, there was, remember, I remember when I was there, and I remember reading about from Wallace Warfield neutrality and impartiality, right?

Grande Lum (00:19:18):
What does it mean to operate that way? And, and I think the questions matters less the names themselves, because that can trip us up. And how can we explain, how do we justify to ourselves <laugh> as the mediator or conciliator coming in to the parties and to the external parties? What if the New York Times asked, what if a congressional member asks you, how do you operate? Do you operate in a neutral or impartial way? I mean, there's so many questions that the type of mediation, the type of conciliation that CRS does, and there's a lot of art, you know, artistry to it, I think, because there it is more open-ended than closed ended.

Bill Froehlich (00:19:53):
Yeah. There's so many great illustrations here and of course, CRS established by Title 10 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, has the strong confidentiality provision that sends a, theoretically, sends a mediator to jail for a year or imposes a thousand dollars fine if the confidentiality is broken. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, and so we don't hear a lot about what's happening inside of CRS, and that's really why, this oral history project is, so exciting, exciting for me. I'll just highlight a couple of quick notes, because you mentioned, gaining entry in the scenario. You know, when I take mediators students to court, magistrate hands us the file, the bailiff hands us the file. If you're a Jams or AAA, you know, somebody's calling you right, as a mediator. But in community focused cases, you might be, you might be Patricia Glenn, and you might get a call from a governor who says, Hey, there's a conflict at this campus.

Bill Froehlich (00:20:53):
Go fix it. Click <laugh>. Now you've gotta go do it. And you've gotta gain entry with those communities, those communities that you don't know or you might not have a relationship with. You've gotta go build trust, or you might be Rosa Melendez a regional director in the Pacific Northwest who's trying to work in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington State, and Alaska. How do you develop and maintain trust and relationships with folks in all of those communities? Well, she's a little old school in this way. She had a Rolodex, literally had a Rolodex. Some of you may not know what that is. I do know what that is. <laugh> that she kept on her desk. And every quarter, she'd call key stakeholders in each of the respective communities, and just check in with them. And she'd take notes on the back of their business cards and say, well, how's your wife doing?

Bill Froehlich (00:21:48):
Or You, you had a surgery last month, are you feeling better to build a relationship, to build a rapport, and to check in with them on substantive issues. Heidi, it's really exciting to have you, as a part of this project, because you are the bridge. I mean, you are the core of this project, both the first and the second edition. And so we wanted to turn to you for a little bit to share about how the two oral history projects contrast. Perhaps you can share a little bit of how the responses from the participants were fundamentally different, or maybe surprisingly the same.

Heidi Burgess (00:22:30):
Before I go there, can I make one bridging comment, which is, one thing that remains unchanged is the relationship building. Almost everybody that we talked to first phase and second phase stressed the importance of relationship building. Now, it got harder to do as funding went down, and staffing got short than it was more a story of running and putting out fires rather than being able to do the proactive relationship building stuff. But that's so key to gaining entry, gaining trust, being able to work effectively. And everybody talked about that. part of the reason I was so excited when Grande called and asked if we'd be interested in doing phase two, is that seemed to me that the environment that CRS had to be working in, and I was, I think he came to us in 20 19, 20 20, something in there. Um, I don't think that George Floyd had happened yet, but there were plenty of things that have had, and then things got a lot worse with George Floyd.

Heidi Burgess (00:23:43):
Obviously, I had the sense that bringing people to the table would be much harder now than it maybe was before that people were much more hesitant to negotiate. They wanted to win, they wanted to make their point. so I was really curious about that, and I asked everybody that I talked to on the second round, a question of how this civil rights scene had changed over the years, and did they feel it was harder to work with people? And I got answers across the board. Ron Wakabayashi said, yeah, there are problems now. working with Antifa, the Proud Boys is certainly hard because they don't wanna have anything to do with government. he might've gone farther to say it was hard, but rather to say it's impossible, I should say. I feel a little bit awkward talking about Ron, knowing he's on the call.

Heidi Burgess (00:24:44):
He should be talking about himself. But anyway, but he also pointed out that they had folks back in the day that were, they called anarchists, and those folks behaved the same way. So there's more, he acknowledged that there's more of that now, perhaps than there was before, but there's always been those folks. But, but what he honed in on is the fact that there's also regular folks. There's regular folks who just want what's fair, and you can work with them, and you, they are willing to come to the table. So he really focused on working with the regular folks and getting things done, even if the proud boys and the Antifa didn't wanna have anything to do about with it. Mm-hmm. And P Diane Schneider really talked the same way. She talked about what, she was retired by the time George Floyd happened. The unrest in Portland happened.

Heidi Burgess (00:25:41):
She had a very interesting story about what she would've done if she had still been working up in Region 10 during the Portland unrest of 20 20, 20 22. She said that she would've just gone neighborhood by neighborhood trying to find people who were willing to work with her. Sort of, again, Ron's approach of finding the people who are willing to work and make progress. Tom Battles. On the other hand, another fellow who's on the call, I gather, was much more reluctant. He said that he would be worried about sending Conciliators into these really rough situations now mm-hmm <affirmative>. Acknowledging that he had been in some really rough situations back in the day, but he saw what was happening now as more dangerous, less controlled, and saw the chances of bringing people to the table and getting them to, I think, if I remember writing, used the phrase, get to Yes, were much smaller than they were before. So answers were all over the board. The other big difference, I'll just mention quickly, is there wasn't social media back in the phase one, and there is in phase two, and that's just been a sea change in terms of terms how the disputants are getting their information and what they're doing, and also how CRS operates, because they could both get information and have problems that generated, were generated by social media. So that was a big difference.

Bill Froehlich (00:27:18):
I love that illustration about social media. You know Grande, those of you who are familiar with CRS's work, Grande has talked about how social media had an influence after Trayvon Martin's death, right. In Sanford, Florida, and how things spread more quickly. But things have accelerated significantly since then. You know, going back to Ron's, oral history, there's an illustration that he mentions where he recalls a police involved shooting of a black man in the local neighborhood. And you could tell on social media how different parts of the community were grieving. Ron describes it as one part of the community was, a younger activists who are outraged, but they weren't really connected, to the family so much. They were really upset and outraged. Another part of the community may have been pro-police, and another part of the community might have been grieving at the loss of a loved one in a neighbor.

Bill Froehlich (00:28:14):
And social media, is helpful in trying to identify what different interests and perspectives are in different neighborhoods and so there's so many ways in which social media plays out now, in the second edition of, of the oral history project and obviously didn't exist in the first. Grande, is there anything that you noticed that you've reviewed the first edition of the oral history project in serious and robust ways, and obviously been a part of the second. What did you notice with respect to some of the distinctions?

Grande Lum (00:28:56):
What I, what I would certainly, everything that I think you've all said resonates here. It's interesting to see that, I think for the second group where there, I think is a sort of a wider acceptance of dispute resolution than there was say, in the sixties, where I think in some ways it was more understandable. And what I, you know, as I was reflecting on the second group, you know, I was thinking about how, and after, you know, like per personally working with a number of the people in the second group, how each of them, what still is the same, I'll say, I'll start here, is the ability to talk to so many different stakeholders. You know, start with Thomas, who just seems to be everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Grande Lum (00:29:52):
You know, he seems to have no [inaudible] in any comm in so many communities, people who know what's the pulse of that community. And as someone like, like Thomas does, talking to a lot of folks and then having them conveying what are the others thinking? What are other stakeholders? Because when you're caught in that us and them situation, it's hard to do. I mean, I think, you know, Rosa, she talked about the situation with the wood carvers. And having been in the police department in Seattle, I think brought her, and as a US marshal, she's able to have both the credibility to bring people together, but also to, to convey it. And Kit certainly, you know, we talked a lot about, you know, he grew up in CRS and to the identity management has who looked young, who was white, who was male, often dealing with communities of color, and then being ... that I think that doesn't change, but it takes, because of the times there is difference too, in how, in how someone enters into a situation.

Bill Froehlich (00:31:07):
Yeah. I love how you're mentioning or talking through entry and talking about who's at the table. In particular, I, I, uh, there's a vibrant story, and I forget who sang it in the first, set where the conciliator said, Hey, after the death, a tragic death, usually at the hands of law enforcement of a, of a black man in the community, you know, I'd go into that community and I'd try to gain entry. And yes, I would talk to the mayor, and I would talk to the elected officials and the city manager, and I'd ask them who to talk to, and they'd tell me some folks, well, those were the usual suspects. And then I would go to the black mortician in the community, and I'd talk to him because he had the pulse, or she had the pulse of what was happening in the black and brown community.

Bill Froehlich (00:32:00):
I'd asked them who else I should talk to because those folks who have the knowledge in the community aren't always, aren't just, aren't exclusively those with titles, whether formal or informal, or nonprofit or city titles, but, but there could be steps beyond and in different directions. Ken Bergeron told a story about an assessment. He was conducting, on work focus with educational concerns and indigenous communities. And he was meeting with, the indigenous leadership and the local non-indigenous leadership to talk about educational issues. But he learned pretty quickly that they were representing their communities. The folks with the knowledge were layers deeper. The folks with the knowledge were elders who were versed in cultural awareness a tribal coordinator. they were a social worker, and, and a superintendent in the school district. It wasn't the folks who he was originally talking to, who he had to get into the conversation. but he learned during his assessment that he needed to get to the folks who had more knowledge about the conflict in the community.

Heidi Burgess (00:33:16):
One of the things that really impressed me about everyone I talked to in both faces was not only their ability to gain entry, but also their ability to be trusted by both sides. Mm-hmm. It's really hard to come in and be trusted by the minority communities and be trusted by the white school superintendent or the white police chief, or whoever's in authority. The assumption either is that either you're on their side or they're on our side. And CRS, every one of the folks we talked to was masterful in walking this fine line. And the notion of, we talked about the notion of neutrality a lot, and were they neutral? And no, most of 'em said they weren't neutral, but they were impartial, they were fair, and they developed a reputation for fairness. And so, I'm thinking back, people that we talked to in the first round, a lot of them were white men. Dick Salem was a white man, but he was trusted by the Native Americans at Wounded Knee. He was trusted by the Jewish population in Chicago during the, um, Skokie, KKK March, I should say, that he was Jewish. So it wasn't too hard to get trusted by that community, but it was also trusted by the KKK. Um, that's one of the ways I think, in which this kind of mediation is different from other kinds of mediation and just super tricky, is how do you build trust across these very stark divides?

Bill Froehlich (00:35:13):
Yeah. I wanna go back to Rosa Melendez's strategy. I told you about that Rolodex earlier and building trust. There's an illustration really pops out for me. Grande mentioned an indigenous wood carver who was killed by a law enforcement officer in Seattle. In that scenario, Rosa described one of the indigenous representatives of the community - or perhaps it was a different scenario. It doesn't so much matter for the purposes of building trust - said they weren't sure if they trusted Rosa. But one of the other indigenous representatives told her peer, you will trust Rosa. I trust her. Do not call our relationship into question. Because she had built that relationship, that party to the mediation session, that stakeholder stood up and told her peer, you won't question what Rosa's doing here, because I trust her. And that, that really, demonstrates how building that trust, using that Rolodex, being an advocate for CRS's work, pays dividends in mediation sessions, in conversations with community. Grande...

Grande Lum (00:36:44):
Yeah. I ... think there's a truth to that sort of, in some ways more formal. I mean, because you have time, there are also certainly examples from protests. I mean you know, Ron, one thing I learned from Ron Wakabayashi is, you know, whether it was, say at the protest in Oakland about the shooting of Oscar grant and where individuals are starting to rock a a bus. Ron also has that ability, you know, the ability the network is absolutely critical. And the ability to have that credibility, identity management in that moment with parties that don't know you, but to very quickly to, to do that, I think is, is really amazing. And I think many of them have that. I mean, Thomas and Mildred dupre de Robles, when they were mediating, you know protests at Sanford would show that in real time. And also the types that you talked about where with the Dream defenders who had taken over the State House of Governor Rick Scott and doing shuttle diplomacy, you know doing more like international you know, negotiations at some level. And that being a different type of example where, again, the ability to build credibility with protest groups like the, what we'll call the Dream Defenders and Governor Scott's staff, right. Governor Rick Scott's staff.

Bill Froehlich (00:38:10):
What's really exciting about this oral history is project is you can read the transcript, but you don't have to listen, uh, to us talk about what took place. You can go straight to the Oral History project in phase two and say, who's Ken Bergeron? Right? You can go to the website in phase two and you can watch the recordings and you can listen to Grande's voice. you can listen to Ken Bergeron or Thomas Battles, or P Diane Schneider, Tim Johnson, who's joined us here. You can listen to them talk about the work that they were doing at CRS in a few minutes, we're gonna turn to some of our guests from CRS, like Ron and Tim, and I see P. Diane Schneider, and I see Thomas Battles on as well. Grande and Heidi, I wonder though, are there any other illustrations from the new oral history that, that really stood out to you that were vibrant and dynamic that you wanna share with this group this afternoon?

Grande Lum (00:39:14):
I'm happy to share one about Kit you know, interviewing him was such a pleasure to see first, uh, his development to become a conciliator. He started when he was very young, got a master's in conflict resolution from Denver, and how he learned from a lot of folks like Ben Liu, Grace Sage, Phillip Arieolla, Silka Hansen, and then he walks through an example of a mediation at University of Northern Idaho where there was the elimination of the Mexican. There was a, the proposed elimination of the Mexican American Studies program. There were student walkouts, there are threats. And what I think he does, and he walks Kit, walks it through so well, is what does the process look like? And who should, you know, who should be at the table? There were community leaders who demanded to be at the table and who were not part of the university here.

Grande Lum (00:40:08):
And how Kit Chalberg manages that is I think, quite beautiful and thinks through the sort of the process, you know the long term goal, they end up with a 20 page MOU They all agreed, you know, enrollment was low. You need to, we need to do something. And that gave them the impetus to increase enrollment, recruit better, recruit professors, and doing that. So I thought that was just a wonderful example. I would encourage folks to, to either listen, or to watch that one.

Bill Froehlich (00:40:44):
Thanks Grant. Heidi.

Heidi Burgess (00:40:47):
There were a lot of things I could choose from. I'll bring up one with Ron Wakabayashi, who talked a lot about the incident that Bill mentioned earlier when a black teenager was attacked by police, it had real shadows of the Rodney King situation and could have gotten out of hand really easily. And Ron knew that there was a role for CRS, knew that he wanted to get involved, didn't have the connections to the community originally, but there were vigils that were being held every night in memory. Well, I think the youth did not die, so it wasn't in his memory, but it was protesting the treatment that he received. And Ron kept on going to these visuals night, after night after night. And finally after 40 nights, somebody came up to him and said, Hey, who are you? And Ron explained who he was and why he was there.

Heidi Burgess (00:41:59):
And that person turned to be his entry in, because must have said something along the lines of, Hey, this guy sounds like he might be helpful, and got him in. But it was just incredible persistence where most people would've just said, eh, they're not interested, and walked away. He just kept at it. And the end of that story, there was, he shared with me a wonderful New York Times article, which I now realize we need to link to the website, and we haven't yet. a wonderful New York Times article talking about how the whole community decided that violence was not helpful way forward. And the concern was that there were three cops who were put on trial, and there was a fear that they were gonna be acquitted, just like the Rodney King cops were acquitted. And the community would blow up afterwards. And it didn't, because not only Ron, but lots of other people were working with people all over.

Heidi Burgess (00:43:05):
They had tentacles going every which way, convincing people that violence was not gonna help their situation. And that they should, no matter what came down from these trials, the community response should be nonviolent and they should start working together to improve community police relations. And, black Latino relations that were, if I remember right, they were both blacks and Latinos in those communities and waring gangs. And, and it was an impetus to really start bringing folks together. And I might use that to circle back to my original question, which was, was dick lying or was I wrong? it depends how you define success. And that was one of the things that I asked, we asked everybody first round and second round, is, how do they define success? And success is not peace on earth. Everybody lives happily ever after. But success was getting people to realize that violence was not a solution to their problems.

Heidi Burgess (00:44:18):
Getting people to realize that they could talk to the police chief and the police chief could talk to them, getting people to realize that gang violence maybe wasn't the answer. These are huge pluses. One person told me, and this relates to what Bill was saying, success is getting recommendations from people you work with in the past to other people. So the more times they were recommended is, yeah, this is a person to be trusted. That was what this one person, and I frankly don't remember who it was defined as success. So success isn't the whole story, but there's lots of little successes along the way.

Grande Lum (00:45:03):
If I could just jump in and right there, I think that that's a point that people sometimes who are reluctant to say, why do, why mediate these situations? You're either on one side or the other. Right. We are in a time of increased polarization. I think when you watch or read the interviews, what it gives you a sense of if that mediator had not been there, how much worse it would have been had they not made that intervention. This was certainly true. you know, with Dick Salem and, what happens in, in Skokie. It's just very clear. And by the way, I do wanna say, if . . . you had not done these interviews, it's very hard to show the value of what CRS has been. It would've been very difficult to write the book that Bert Levine and I did, and you can't. It's hard right now as you're trying to litigate this to explain what is it that CRS did, and whether it's, you know, there in Skokie or in Sanford, it's just, or, you know, in Oakland, where, where Ron worked.

Grande Lum (00:46:12):
It's when you, when you read the transcripts, then you get a sense of you of the what if. And, and I think that's where you can see it. Yeah. What is the goal? It may be smaller, but it may be different, but they, but that's important to the parties, right? It's all voluntary. They have to figure out what they want, and it's very hard to get there. And that's where the CRS conciliator made a huge difference.

Heidi Burgess (00:46:35):
Yeah. And that's where I think the oral history project is gonna make a huge difference, because the notion that CRS is gone, and if they have one person in my book, they're gone. It's a huge void. And all those, what ifs can now happen unless somebody else steps into those shoes. And I'm just hoping, like the Ohio State Divided Community Project has been doing a little bit of this kind of work and community mediation centers, part of NAFCM have been doing some of this work, and, and there's talk about doing much more. Somebody is really gonna have to go in and fill this void. And this is the best information we have about how to do that.

Grande Lum (00:47:22):
And I would be ... I just wanna say there's a couple folks from California conflict resolution unit, who are on this, Greg and Kendra are here, and they're doing that work right now as well.

Heidi Burgess (00:47:35):
I mean, somebody's gotta do it.

Bill Froehlich (00:47:37):
Well, one of the things that I find most fascinating is that even when CRS had more staff than it did a year ago at this time, right? A year ago this time, had 50 plus Conciliators staff, when it had far more than that, there was always more work to do. And CRS Conciliators, you know, I, Tim Johnson, I recall Tim Johnson telling me, you know, I said, Tim, well, were you able to follow up with folks and make sure that the solutions were durable? Well, he would say, look, I had to go to another project. I had to go to the next task. I had to go to the next assignment. And sometimes you would hear back from communities, but most times you wouldn't, and you wouldn't have capacity to go back. There's so much work here. I think that one of the lessons for me that's consistent across all, both sets of oral histories is there's so much work here for us to do for NAFCM organizations to do for the Trust Network for Bridging Divides Initiative for our state offices in California and Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Bill Froehlich (00:48:39):
And everyone is doing it differently, right? everyone is doing it differently, and there's still more work to do. And hopefully these stories will help encourage that work and identify different lenses that folks and organizations and local state offices can bring to that work, because there are a lot of communities and lead out there.

Bill Froehlich (00:49:03):
I want to transition now, if that's okay with you, Heidi, and Grant to hear a little bit from our guests who we interviewed who are on here, of course, Grande is one of them. But I'm gonna elevate and promote to a panelist, our friends and colleagues, Ron Wakabayashi, of course, Ron was a regional director in the Western region and his friend and colleague Thomas Battles, who was a regional director in Southwest. At one point in time, they were the only two regional directors in the country.

Bill Froehlich (00:49:34):
I'm also gonna promote two panelist, uh, P Diane Schneider, who as we said earlier, was based in the Pacific Northwest, and Tim Johnson, who had a number of roles in central office and in the north northeast. I'm gonna promote them. Those are the folks I see on the call. If I've missed someone, please hit me up in the chat. Of course, if you all have questions for Heidi Grande or myself, please let us know what we have, try to get to them in the chat. I see some have already populated. And if you have questions for our guests as well, you know, I don't wanna put them on the spot, but if they're open to answering them you know, we'd love to hear more from their voices. So I wanna make sure that we give them the floor. So we're gonna turn to Ron first for comments or reaction. Then Thomas, followed by P Diane, uh, and Tim Johnson. Ron...

Ron Wakabayashi (00:50:27):
Thanks, bill. I kind of don't even know what to say. Well, I guess the one thing I'd like to share is that we all had to learn to become feds that there was a different role, which is a plus, had a plus and a minus to it. You know, feds are, are both loved and hated at the same time. But you have, we have to learn to manage that in making sort entry, which, you know, people have talked about a lot. But I also wanted to kind of say that like this is a network. Like, one example I give is ... I'm on the West Coast and in the southwest where, you know, the Latino population and immigration has been an issue for a long time.

Ron Wakabayashi (00:51:20):
And I, early on, I could spot the beginning of what became the Dreamers during their first march, you know, in Florida. And I got, got ahold of, Mildred and Mildred, you know, like did a wonderful job working with, with those people of young students. Years later when I'm working in Arizona with another group of people. And, you know, related to some kind of immigration issues, you know, the, some of the dreamers from that project that Mildred had worked on knew of CRS's work through that. And, and I just kinda share that to say that there's a network. I mean, the work that Tim Johnson has done in different places, you know, kit, people in, you know, just in my own region, Rosa and Marquez, James Williams, you know, all contributed and become part of the kind of credibility that you have.

Ron Wakabayashi (00:52:24):
But, you know it's also like that each one of these folks does the work differently. And that's understandably, and it should be that way because we come in with our own kind of, background and toolkit. I just wanna say that, you know, that my concern now is that for the next ... if we get CRS to come back, the next generation of conciliators that have to do this work will have a new set of challenges. I mean, the trust for, for government and federal government, I think certainly will take a hit in this current environment. And that's another process they have to overcome. But thank you Heidi, and Bill and Grande for doing this project. I think it's gonna be really helpful.

Bill Froehlich (00:53:10):
Well, thank you, Ron, for your, service to CRS and legacy in southern California and with the Japanese American work as well. It's so great to have your voice as a part of this project. Thomas I want to turn, turn to you now and let let you share, share what you like.

Thomas Battles (00:53:37):
Thank you. Good morning everyone. First of all, just to talk a little bit about the project. It was a wonderful opportunity to share CRS's story, in this format. Heidi, I think you and husband did a great job with this. It was also a great opportunity as a leader in CRS at the level as a regional director to share my story and service in the work as, as a leader in a region who has so many cases in so much of a rich history, as they call it, the dirty South, dealing with racial ethnic conflict and being the cradle of the south. And the tension and the pressure to keep that legacy going, because Ozell Sutton was my mentor, and following behind him as regional director. But I grew up in CRS when Gil Pompa was regional director, and Wallace Warfield wasat headquarters.

Thomas Battles (00:54:38):
But following them along down the road was a lady by the name of Rose Ochi, who was just as committed, and then a guy by the name of Grande Lum and then Becky [Monroe], and they, they did a marvelous job and leading agents, and then there were others. But I was also happy to tell the story in the work of some wonderful people that I worked with throughout this country, in the regions and their commitment to making a difference in this country. And I think that's one of the most important things about CRS because we were a non-law enforcement sworn agency. The longer the people worked and did their job, the more committed they got, they, they got into it, and they felt that they made a difference. And they did make a difference. And that's what's so hurtful about what has happened to the agency.

Thomas Battles (00:55:29):
Now, I can tell you hundreds of stories about Mildred going in the situations, and I tell you all the time, if I had to go into a fight, I'd take her with me in a heartbeat without question. Then I had, you know, I had Dion, and Dion was with us when we to Richard Spencer to University of Florida, and he did a great job, but nobody did training in my region better than Walter Atkinson. Entire police department's. Entire police training academies needed Walter to do training for academies. And that took weeks and weeks and months, depending on the size of a department. And Tim Johnson taught us that because he was the administration of justice person at headquarters. And that was Tim's legacy, because we needed OTAS - office of technical assistance - to help us to help the country. And that's why OTAs was so important to us.

Thomas Battles (00:56:27):
So I thank you for the oral history. There was another oral history we did years ago, uh, at the Lorraine Motel. Unfortunately, we don't have access to that material. That's why this oral history is so important, because I think it'll outlive us all and it'll tell the story of this agency. So I think the fight continues because I saw an email today from the national President, the national chairman of the NAACP, who sent us an email this morning, said, I support the amicus brief. So there are people joining every day on to this project. Grande I don't know if you saw it, but Leon sent us an email this morning saying that National President, the national chair, says he's joining the Amicus. So I thank you for this opportunity to share the CRS story, the oral history. It was a great opportunity, uh, to, to just to talk about CRS and the work that it's done. And it's doing, gaining entry was not easy, but Pat Glenn was a great mentor in talking about and gaining entry. She would teach that every time she had as a training. And I think Kit picked up something from her, and I just hope that we get a chance to bring some of those young folk back that had to go home not too long ago. Thank you very much.

Bill Froehlich (00:57:46):
Uh, thank you, Thomas, for your service to CRS and the country and your advocacy. It's great to work with you and Ron at the Divided Community Project on a regular basis. And I'm so glad that your story is shared with us, and your voice is here. I wanna bring in now, P Diane Schneider, and so I'm gonna add you into the spotlight, P Diane, and it's great to see you. I don't know that we have met on Zoom. I know that Heidi led the conversations with you, but I, I'm delighted that you can join us today, and we'd love to hear any reaction or comments you that you have.

P. Diane Schneider (00:58:27):
Well, it is a pleasure to, to join the group of illustrious persons. One thing that occurred to me, and I would like to follow up on just a bit about what Ron was saying, you know, the population and dynamics in the US have been changing over the years, of course. And one of the things that CRS was able to do was over time, to employ increasingly skilled field staff with broad, diverse expertise in and different backgrounds which then could afford better assessment of emerging conflicts that were occurring, and which maybe we hadn't specifically dealt with, with before, except perhaps the communities had, but weren't in some way able to communicate what was going on. What we found then, when looking at these community racial and cultural conflicts, our diverse experiences and points of view helped us to, in the post-conflict resolution situations, allowed us to work toward what later began to be called community development, where then we could have some effective inclusion and participation from members of the community that, we're so happy to see that we could see what their needs and goals were and help them to find ways to focus on those and to progress.

P. Diane Schneider (01:00:38):
And feel that perhaps their opinions were valued, where in the past, it was felt like they felt they were just shouting into a bucket or something, and were not being listened to. So I always felt that was part of the key to finding ways to help communities to develop themselves then so that we could overcome. And of course, I'm a big supporter of the word impartial rather than neutral for some of the reasons that have already been mentioned.

Bill Froehlich (01:01:23):
P. Diane, I love this illustration of empowerment. That's what you're talking about, empowering communities to, make their own choices and, be inclusive, frankly. It's really lovely to have had your voice as a part of this conversation. I'm grateful for your highlighting the value of bringing in different types of folks to CRS team, to make sure. All voices can be heard in conversations. It's such a, such an important concept ... thinking in different ways about bringing people into those conversations. So it's great to have you join us here, P, Diane, and I'm gonna turn now to Tim Johnson. Tim, uh, was actually our, Guinea pig, I suppose, in the oral history project. We tested the oral history project with him and so he was interviewed first, so I suppose it's fitting to give him the, the last comment here as the bookend here with respect to the project. And so Tim, take it away

Timothy Johnson (01:02:35):
First. I'm very encouraged that, some legal proceedings are taking place to try and recapture our agency. Clearly the need is still there. I was fascinated by the discussion today how things have changed and how social media is playing a huge part, and how tribalism has divided us, not only left to right, but within various communities. And that's an obstacle for any mediator to overcome. I can't just go to one group in, in a community and say, okay, you are the spokesperson because there's other spokespersons as well. You know, we also talked about how to build trust, and I think, you know, using past experiences, you know, well, you know, we were here before and you can talk to so and so. That's one way, but, another way, and I think this is common to all mediations, you gotta sell the process. People don't understand it. People at the highest levels don't understand it. So you have to sell it. You have to say, you know, what is this thing that we're doing? You know, what is this table that we're inviting you to sit at and why is it valuable? And we also have to look at what is success? Is success getting them to the table? Or is success getting a written mediation agreement? Or is successes earlier? Someone mentioned getting people to realize that there is a problem. Tom mentioned, uh, one of the other things that CRS could do, and that the movement to resolve disputes, discrimination difficulties around discriminatory issues must include more than mediation.

Timothy Johnson (01:04:50):
It has to include establishing dialogues, or assessing, doing training programs, inviting people to sit down and, like Lyndon Johnson said, reason together. The fact that if you look at the employment history of CRS, most people who joined CRS stayed there. Why? Because of, because of what CRS is and what CRS could do and what CRS should come back to be doing. You don't get that in other federal agencies. You get a lot of jumping around, you know, well, I'm, I was at HEW and then I went to defense, and then I went to there, and then I went to here. CRS not so much. People stay for 20 or 30 years. In closing, let me just say, we still have the problem. We still need to be proactive and reactive, and hopefully this project is gonna get that done. Thank you.

Bill Froehlich (01:06:04):
Well, Tim, hopefully we'll take a step in that direction in helping, helping, uh, to do some proactive and reactive work and articulating a memory of the quality work that CRS has done. I just wanna build on that comment one re one quick reaction to the oral histories that I heard, and some folks used this language, and I know Miguel Hernandez, who's since passed in his conversation with me, he called his work at CRS a vocation, not a job. And, he came back to CRS after being laid off over a decade later. That's, that's how committed he was to it. And it's clear to me that so many folks who have been interviewed in both of the oral history projects, just truly believe in this work at the Community Relations Service, the work that community focused civil rights mediators are doing.

Bill Froehlich (01:07:01):
It's great to have you all on here. We have about 20 minutes left in the conversation, and most of that time, Grande, Heidi and I would, would love to answer and respond to questions if the conciliators don't mind. Ron, Tim, P Diane, and Thomas staying on, in case you wanna jump in and answer a question. We, we'd love to have you participate in that way, if you're okay staying on the featured screen. There's two questions in the chat right now. One I wanna broaden, one is from Jude. Jude writes, the rapid evisceration of CRS by the current administration exposes the deprioritization of funding for collective peace building and reconciliation processes. Under such circumstances, how do we clearly articulate clearly the responsibility for of universities for shouldering the establishment of centers for reconciliation, forgiveness, peace, conflict resolution, I suppose, in the internal and external environment. And maybe I want to take this question a step broader than universities as well. Grande you've been in the position of testifying about how to justify this work. You've been in the hot seat before, so perhaps we might start with you and then turn to others if they have ideas.

Grande Lum (01:08:28):
Yeah. You know, we talked about this a bit in some ways in our Divided Community Project Steering Committee meeting and, you know Nancy Rogers, who is on the call. I do think it is a matter of making sure that our ... I started with the universities, university leaders are articulating the importance of all the thing that, that Jude talks about. You know, the importance of reconciliation. And I do think the universities can be, should be a place where you can have that sort of independence to doing so. But as we know, universities have been under huge attack under this administration. But you would hope that things like peace reconciliation ... it does have a universal appeal, right? That New York Times Sienna College poll that the second worst problem in the country is our political division. Like, they don't like it. So there is a hunger for people for that. I do think it's, we need to affirm our leaders when they say something positive. It is a collective action issue. We need a lot of people doing it at the same time,

Bill Froehlich (01:09:49):
Heidi, you were leaning in. So I'm, you know, <laugh>,

Heidi Burgess (01:09:54):
Um, I, I agree with what Grande said with an asterisk, which is that one of the things that I'm seeing now more in the peace building community than the university community. Because I retired from the university and haven't been in that environment for a while now. But in the peace building community, there is a lot, still a strong tendency to bifurcate the good guys and the bad guys. It's us versus them, and them is Trump and more broadly conservatives. So if you're somebody who voted for Trump, you're a bad guy. I don't wanna talk to you. Um, I don't wanna listen to you. I don't believe what you're saying, and that's not gonna get us out of this. And I think universities can be places that elevate all voices and act as mediators, essentially, to have constructive con conversations about ways forward. I also think that one of the things that is good about CRS and a story that can get transferred is that they really focused more on ways forward than looking backwards with blame and what happened. Yes, something bad happened. Yes, people should be held accountable, but how are we as a community gonna move forward and build something better out of this? And I think that's what universities can and should be doing. I think that's what mediators can and should be doing. Peace builders can and should be doing this. We've gotta look forward to ways to build rather than looking backwards and blaming Who's wrong?

Bill Froehlich (01:11:47):
Grande, do you want to jump back in and then I'll turn to Thomas...

Grande Lum (01:11:49):
Yeah. A couple quick points is it's a philanthropic question, right? <laugh>, we need foundations and to donate to this cause. And there is a interest right now in the bridge building, right? We can talk about the braver angels and search for common ground. There is I think some interest there and I'll raise it, right? There are coming from conservative angles, the desire for civil dialogue ... and so I think there's a concern if you are from the left about this, but that is a place where I think there is a, where this kind of work can also reside.

Bill Froehlich  (01:12:34):
Thomas.

Thomas Battles (01:12:36):
... A couple of observations. There, there was always a concern about the political realities that we lived in when we were at, when you were at CRS. The thing about it, the Conciliators and all us always was taught, do what you were charged with doing and what the director did with the politics, whatever may come up about your work. And so, and Tim Johnson, who was the OTAS person, always taught when his training stay between the lines. So we always knew what the ... conciliator was going to do when he or she was, was in the field. [corrected: Utah Valley University] was where, where Charlie Kirk was killed. There's a video up now by the university president. She was listening to her students. So there are a number of publications that, that we have that some of the universities, if they look at 'em and read 'em, can draw something from them to help them through this season and this time that we are in.

Thomas Battles (01:13:39):
But I'll point out [corrected - Utah Valley University], because we are in this season now, and there's a lot of talk about things happening on college campuses around Charlie Kirk's name that could bring a lot of division in this country. So there's material out there for you. But I mentioned this President in Utah, because she's listened to her students. She talked about it, and then she made some, and she made some decisions, and she acted. So speaking out, listening and trying to bring people together of goodwill is a challenge in this environment, but it's not impossible. And so again, like I said, the divided Community project has a lot of material and resources that could help some of these communities as well.

Grande Lum (01:14:22):
Utah Governor Spencer Cox, right? Stepped into that moment, you know, he had been behind the disagree better. There is, I think in, especially in this toxic, bitter polarization, polarized times, an importance of having CRS type work ... to lower the temperature and to have people disagree better to have, and to be able to find common, common ground.

Bill Froehlich (01:14:50):
Thank you, Grande and Thomas and I am putting a link into the chat with the Divided Community Project's resources, our toolkit. Most recently the Divided Community Project published two guides. One is on symbols, monuments, and contested public spaces, urges communities, or, identifies how communities from a design perspective might, work through problems with symbols, monuments, and contested public spaces like Confederate monuments, naming problems, other issues. And then the second guide is a guide for communities and campuses that are dealing with divisive issues and want to do so in a proactive way, or if they need resources. It is also an off the shelf manual to react to think about that proactively. Grande, you've got your hand back up, but Thomas tried to pitch it to Tim Johnson.

Grande Lum (01:15:42):
Go Tim first.

Bill Froehlich (01:15:44):
So, Tim, do you want to share a little bit more about working between the lines as Thomas pitched it to you earlier?

Timothy Johnson (01:15:53):
Sure. Recognizing political realities. I always, when I was in the field and when I was in headquarters, and when I went back to the field, what I did was I said, okay, I have to provide a service to the people in the community that is consistent with what our legislation says, as opposed to providing them what I might have favored, or felt, would be more than what was in, you know, the legislation. And the legislation was quite clear to offer, to provide assistance to resolve disputes, disagreements and difficulties, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so I'm gonna offer that. I'm not gonna come in and say, you know, flash a badge and say, I'm from the Department of Justice, and this is what you have to do. Stay within the lives and say to the people, okay, looks like you have a big problem here.

Timothy Johnson (01:17:06):
Looks like there's, you know, the possibility of disturbance or violence or, disruption to peace, economic concerns, et cetera. Would you like to figure out a way to resolve that? If you don't ... the people who have the problem are gonna still have the problem. And, you know, they'll do something else. There'll be demonstrations, or there'll be court, or there'll be suits or whatever, or sit with me at a table with the opposing party and resolve it. So, again, as I said earlier, it's selling the process. You know, we all sit here and we all agree that, you know, love, peace, and happiness would be wonderful. Let's all hold hands and sing, you'll overcome. Not everybody agrees with that. Okay? And I love this term ... we need to disagree better. What a great concept that is. I'll write something about that and I'll give credit to this group for giving me that term. But yeah, you know, if we sell the process everywhere in terms of going to the universities and encouraging them, encouraging them to be more focused on peacemaking. I'm suggesting we go to middle schools and to high schools and, and to teach them to be more focused on peacemaking, which we're doing in Howard County. You know, we're providing information and training for the schools, but it, it's not enough. You know, it has to be part of their curriculum, not part of ours.

Bill Froehlich (01:19:02):
Yeah ... part of their curriculum, not part of ours. I love that. P Diane, I want to get you in and then answer Josh's question really quickly and then we'll wrap things up. P Diane, go ahead.

P. Diane Schneider (01:19:15):
Well, I just wanted to bring forth also the issue that if we don't have effective communication, or if we're not aware that people communicate in different ways, then we may be thinking that we are making some progress, when actually we are getting parts of the community to kind of retire and just not want to make waves, which may mean that they won't be able to progress in the way that could help them to come to a resolution. And many of the people that we have worked with in the past don't even mention coming to a table to talk about a document. And especially Native people say, wait, wait a minute, what did documents do for us in the past? We don't even wanna talk about documents. So that's why it was so important for CRS to have people from such diverse backgrounds and diverse degrees of expertise and points of view, because we had, we had to be very adaptable depending on where we were and who was there. Otherwise, we might have people that we're speaking to very effectively, and they're not listening.

Bill Froehlich (01:20:40):
Thank you P Diane. And I think that gets to Josh's question about whether a solo approach or an individual approach to this work is really or a team approach which is more effective. And I love that Josh is asking this question as the author of the classic co-mediation article with Leila Love: Two heads are better than one, or are two heads better than one. Frankly, P Diane, you're, you're getting to that answer. Bringing a diverse team into a scenario may be helpful to gain entry, to build trust, to communicate more effectively, to notice cultural distinctions and differences. There are many illustrations that I could share here. One is Rosa Melendez, again, going to Arizona to support Ron Wakabayashi and his team during demonstrations about House Bill, 10 60 or 10 70, or Senate bill 10 60 or 70 in Arizona.

Bill Froehlich (01:21:38):
Rosa was brought in to gain entry with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and the sheriff and his team, right? She was able to, uh, help them get into that conversation because she has a culture as a former law enforcement officer from Seattle Police Department, former US Marshal for the State of Washington. And she's respected in that capacity. That's a culture, law enforcement, right? And so that identity, her identity was useful to gain entry and to communicate, as P Diane says, effectively with the stakeholders on the ground in that scenario. Grande, I see you nodding. And then I'm gonna ask one last question of Grande and Heidi and I suppose myself. But before I do that, I just wanna thank the Conciliators who are here for their time this afternoon and for their serious investment of time in this oral history project, and of course, all of their dynamic work at CRS. So, thank you all and GrandE, I wanna turn it to you to pick up the conversation.

Grande Lum (01:22:53):
Yeah, I first wanna acknowledge that Julius Nam join joined us who really has been the leader of the CRS Restoration Project. Just want to thank Julius for all his work in advancing this. And there is a direct line from the oral history project to what Julius is really leading around the litigation to show the value, to be able to share your stories. There is a direct line to being able to do that. Secondly, Kevin Averick, noted that James Lowe, you know, was in the Lorraine Motel, right? When Martin Luther King was dead.... James Lowy, unfortunately wasn't interviewed, at the time. I think he had, passed away ... but he was a huge pioneer to the creation and to really the early success of CRS.

Grande Lum (01:23:41):
Um, one last note for me, is that you know, the work that you all do that CRS mediators have done, it's not a nice to have, it's a, it's a must have, right? Especially as our country is really, unfortunately tearing apart our ability to reason together, our ability to disagree better, our ability to do that is dependent upon third parties. Dependent upon people to help out who really do want to bridge the divides here. So, again, I wanna thank everyone for their participation and making this happen.

Bill Froehlich (01:24:20):

Thanks. Thanks, Grande. Thanks for acknowledging that other CRSs, on the call today, and for all the important work that's still ongoing, that Julius is spearheading. I wanna close this session today. And try to wrap up by about two o'clock by asking Grande and Heidi, uh, for any reaction or reflection on today's session, and to ask them, well, if you had unlimited resources of time and money, what would you do with the oral history project? Heidi, would you like to start?

Heidi Burgess (01:24:53):
Sure. Before I answer that though, I wanna echo Grande's thanks to all the folks who are on the call today, who took a lot of time talking to us. It's really very wonderful that you are willing to do that. My hope is twofold. I'd like to interview more folks, and I'd also like to do more with the interviews that we have. The transcripts still are rough. They still need cleaning up. The first time around, we coded everything and we sorted it. So you could look up from the first phase and find out what everybody said about entry, what everybody said about building trust, what everybody said about impartiality. This new set has also been coated, but we haven't collated the coating yet. So that's kind of low hanging fruit that I wanna put that in with the earlier stuff so we can add in the more recent observations with the old ones. So those are my two goals and hope to keep this project going and alive, and mostly keep CRS going and alive.

Bill Froehlich (01:26:10):
Grande,

Grande Lum (01:26:12):
A hundred percent <laugh> to what Heidi said. I do wanna thank Bill. This would not have happened. We would not have gotten here. And, but, you know, but for your stewardship, we would not have gotten here. I I would add, yes, more interviews, the ability to analyze across those interviews for trends, patterns. I think there's a lot ... Arthur Garrity, the judge said ... CRS conciliators are worth their weight in gold. There's a lot of gold <laugh> in these interviews, and we just have to mine it and present it, because I think there are approaches to gaining entry credibility, all these things that we can do more, so much more with. I would also like to see maybe interviewing some of the, the, the recipients of the CRS services, here. That would be really striking to get the perspective of those who receive the services, who can talk, who can answer the what if questions as well here. But I thank you all ... for those intents, and certainly thank you, the, those that were interviewed.

Bill Froehlich (01:27:18):
Yeah. And thank you both. And there's one other person that we need to thank today, and that's Guy Burgess who has been so integral to this project and putting up the website, revising it, and been involved in so many conversations as well. I don't know if he's on camera or not, but I wanna make sure that we thank him again for all of his hard work on this project. And I agree with, with both of you. Maybe I wanna take a different approach to what I would do with more resources, and some of these I have or divided community project has already. But I would create more tools for classrooms and communities to understand some of these concepts and for civil mediators, traditional civil mediators, to understand how these skills are distinct and how they might be able to use the skills they already have and build upon them so that they can support their own communities.

Bill Froehlich (01:28:09):
It's been a pleasure working with the both of you. And I know it's been a long project. It's been a labor of love, for me, and I think for the both of you. It's been really rewarding to interview so many dynamic and compelling individuals. And it's been great to work with the two of you. And I know we're, we're gonna continue to be in touch. So thank you all on behalf of Heidi Grant and myself for joining us this afternoon. And please let us know, if you wanna, wanna stay in touch or reconnect about the project, we will send the links we put in the chat and the resources, as well as this video out, in probably about a week's time once, we've done some light editing, and put it up on YouTube. So thank you all and take care.