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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview B-0068, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
J. Carlton Fleming, who was on a Chamber of Commerce committee pushing for consolidation in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1960s, tries to explain the demise of the issue in this interview. Fleming believes that consolidation failed because of the complexity of the process; city bureaucracy made the issue too complex for Charlotte residents to understand, let alone support. Fleming also downplays the role that race played in the process, arguing that busing did not affect the debate and that the main culprit was the political process.
J. Carlton Fleming, who was on a Chamber of Commerce committee pushing for consolidation in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the 1960s, discusses the demise of the issue in this interview.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Let me say since we've got the machine on that I'm Bill Moye, and I'm
talking with Mr. J. Carlton Fleming in his office in Charlotte on the
18th of August 1975. I appreciate your allowing me the time. Let me say
just a bit about what I'm doing. I am writing a dissertation in History
for Chapel Hill sort of on Charlotte politics. Economics, too, to some
extent. Culminating primarily with the consolidation attempt there in
1971. I have read some of both the Observer and the
News, and I've talked to a few other people. So, I
have sort of an idea. There are still sort of some questions that I
have. You, I believe, were involved in that 1963 or 1964 committee of
the Chamber of Commerce to study the feasibility of some form of. .
.
That's right. There was a Chamber committee at that time. I guess that was not the first. There was probably some antecedent history before that, Bill. That particular committee looked at other efforts in other places around the country. Durham was one, for example, which had had an abortive attempt at consolidation. Dr. Rankin, whom you may know over in the political science at Duke, was very heavily involved in that effort. I may be a little confused on chronology here, but it seems to me we looked at efforts in other places that, at that point, perhaps, had been unsuccessful but later became successful.
Nashville?
Yeah. We've been in and out of this question at different
Then, I guess in about '67 or '68, the Chamber makes consolidation
I don't know that there was any particular impetus to put it at that time
rather than earlier or later except that that was just a time when the
Who were some of those individuals? Mr. Lowe? Mr. Brookshire?
Yeah. Lowe and Brookshire were, of course, very much involved. Stan
Brookshire was the mayor at that time, and, I
I'm wondering, now . . . From what I've read, the Chamber was very important in establishing committees and getting the legislation passed and bringing the effort up. When, however, Brookshire and Lowe actually came to appointing members of the commission, it seems that, maybe . . . There are sort of two ways you can do this thing. You can get sort of a house committee, a small committee of businessmen. Or, you can go and get representatives from all segments of the community. They chose to get representatives from all segments of the community. I'M having a little bit of trouble understanding why that choice was made. It seems that maybe if they really wanted to get it passed, then, the more practical thing politically to do was to have the small committee.
Well, I guess there are two ways to look at that. One is that, if you get
broad representation, maybe you get a lot of ultimate support because
almost any element in the community can say, "Well, Joe Smith is on the
Charter Commission, and he would represent my views. If he thinks it's
alright, it's probably alright. It's probably too complicated for me to
understand anyhow." The other side of that same proposition, I guess, is
that if you have broad representation like that you do get some imput,
that's unquestionably true, that you wouldn't get if you had a
limited-in-number, establishment-oriented group to do it. Then, of
course, in addition to the Charter Commission itself, there was that
large group that was an advisory group that must have numbered what, you
probably have the figure, fifty or sixty people. I was a member of that,
incidently, and attended a number of meetings and read into the late
hours many nights the many drafts that came out with the assistance of
the Institute of Government. I think the result was not so much, the
unfortunate result, if you want to characterize it as that, was not so
much the product of the way in which the commission was put together as
the drastic amount of change which the commission ultimately injected
into the issue. A small, establishment-oriented committee might have
come up with not quite so many changes, changes that were not quite so
drastic. They might well have come up with enough changes that the
electorate might not have accepted it. I sort of look at
How did it get so far? I mean . . . It seems possibly to have been sort of a lack of communications perhaps between some of those who were initially for it who probably may have supported exactly the type of suggestion that you have just made and the people who were working on the Charter Commission who roamed rather freely through the whole governmental structure. Were they working in a void? Did they not consider what the other people were telling them? Were the other people not saying anything?
I guess that's an essay on how committees work. Sometimes it's not very
satisfactory. I saw the process you're talking about. A lot of the
things you say in your question really accurately suggest what the
answer ought to be. You had committees of people who were very
well-meaning. I think there was a genuine and sincere effort either by
virtually everybody or precisely everybody who was involved on the
Charter Commission and on the other groups that were involved in this.
What happens is, when you get so many people involved . . . That is, not
just the Charter Commission but this large advisory group that was
involved, also. You get consultants involved with various aspects of a
possible charter that they themselves are responsible for. I think you
get to a position where you get a division of labor, and this committee
is responsible for the finances, and this committee is responsible for
the makeup of the legislative body, and this committee is responsible
for
And nobody is really sitting there with a broad view where the whole. . .
I think there were people who saw it, but they were people who figured
there was just not a whole lot they could do about it because they had
assigned a guy, not a guy but a group of people part of the pie. That
part of the pie just got bigger and bigger and bigger, and those people
thought it was the most important thing in the charter. They'd build it
up and build it up and build it up. It's sort of the way bureaucracy
operates. The first thing you know, you've got people who are so tied in
with what they themselves see as their function . . .Well, on a
governmental level sometimes they add staff and they add projects and
they ask for additional appropriations. As soon as they come in, you add
staff and you add projects. The thing just has the inborr ability to
pyramid. I think that's what happened here. We got over-complicated in
the approach because we had so many people that we assigned jobs to. I
don't know that there was particular lack of communication. I think
there probably was pretty good communication. I don't think anybody
really felt they had the ability to say, "Well, you fellows over there
in Article Four, Section Three who are responsible
That does seem to be a very difficult sort of thing to control. It does look like it did get out of hand.
Well, our basic mistake was in trying to come up with a perfect charter in conjunction with consolidation. If we had consolidated first and then tried to come up with as close to a perfect charter or an improved charter as we could come up with gradually after we had a consolidated government, I think the effort would have had a good chance of success. But, we tried to get all the perfection at the same time we tried to merge, and the people didn't understand all those anxieties for perfection, and didn't think the proffered perfection was perfection.
I guess that's really, in a way, where I am right now. Everybody, the people that I've talked to . . .Sounds very much exactly as you've just said. The Chamber was very important in initiating it. Then, the Charter Commission was established, and they just sort of went overboard and got way beyond perhaps what the people initiating the action in the first place would like to have seen.
I think that's true, although the people initiating it may
Some of the people who were opposed said that very thing. They'd be in a
meeting at some club perhaps debating somebody who was for the charter.
. .On some very technical points. This might be some junior executive
that was loaned more or less as in the United Appeal campaign, and he
might be very much
One other thing in the interest of historical accuracy for the purpose of what you're doing. I think the electorate here was very concerned about the move from at-large elections to district elections or the ward system as it has been called. That seems like a rather bad connotation. I guess that's one of the things that concerned the electorate. We've had reasonably good government here in Charlotte in the time I've been here. I've been here since 1953. We've had generally honest, capable government. Decent sort of people on the city council and the County Commission. I think some people were concerned about what might happen in a ward situation, particularly in a black area or a low-income area where political influences purely and simply through the purchase of votes, to just put it right on the table, might have some very harsh consequences. That you might have substantial representation on a legislative body that would be composed of individuals who really wouldn't have either the good of the community or their district at heart but would be just more or less bought politicians, Bought by somebody else who could afford to buy them.
It seemed to have been one of the major issues . . .As far as ward
politics, and inability to find qualified candidates in all the
districts, and that sort of argument. That also seems
I really wonder if the school busing question had much of an impact on this thing, Bill. I would be inclined to doubt it. Not that that was a pleasant episode for this community. It was anything but. I really doubt that the busing situation would have had any impact on the consolidation proposal had the consolidation proposal been simple and had it not involved districts. If you had retained at-large elections and kept the number of representatives on the legislative body at about what it was, that is, twelve, give or take two or three, I really question that the busing situation would have had much to do with it. Again, I'm trying to put that in focus. When did we first have our busing order here?
The actual decision was, I believe, the 23rd of April of 1969. That was
just when the mayor, or Brookshire and Lowe were appointing members of
the commission. Between there and `671 were the various court devisions.
I guess the fall of '70
When was the consolidation vote? What was the date of that?
March of '71. The schools had started with the busing in the fall of '70, and this was eight or almost at the end of that first school year. . .
I don't think the public here would have turned down consolidation per se because of what had gone on on that busing
controversy. I may be wrong, and you're probably going to get some
opposite opinions on that subject, but I just doubt that seriously. I
really think it was inherent in the other things we talked about. I
think if there had never been a school busing case here the results
would have been virtually the same as we had. I don't think there was an
impact.
You think, then, the crucial thing was just that it went so far and made such drastic changes in the whole . . .
Let me be more specific. I think we would have had difficulty had we done
no more than change the method of representation from at-large to
district. I think that would have been a difficult thing to sell in
connection with consolidation. Because consolidation itself is one big
hurdle. You've got to get the voter across that one. Then, when you get
him across that one, and you say, "Now, Mr. Voter, here's hurdle number
two. Instead of being able to vote for all the councilmen now, you now
are able to vote for 20 per cent of the councilmen or 25 percent.
Including one from your district." That's a second
Maybe it's the tenor of the times. A lot of things have been happening on
the national scene . . .A lot of people like to look for conspiracies,
perhaps. There are, perhaps, some circumstances
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
"government, the book type, university academic type try for this
consolidation. Now, we know that if we let them just do it they are
going to fall flat on their face. Then, once they do that, we can just
hammer home with the annexation, and we'll have essentially what we want
in a limited extent in that we'll have a lot of these suburbs. We won't
have to go through
That's an interesting thesis. I would doubt . . . Somebody may have
thought of that. I doubt if anybody thought of that and acted on it in
that way. I don't know that anybody in the early stages of this would
have concluded that the Charter Commission was going to get as far
ranging as it did get. If you really wanted to . . . The thesis that you
state there, Bill, would really be the thesis of the guy on the City
Council, for example, who would like to stay on the City Council and
extend his power base which he figures would be in the affluent suburbs,
particularly, and his sources of financial support for campaigns, and
things of that nature. I don't really see. ..I would doubt seriously if
anybody in that category really was motivated in that direction. Again,
I could be wrong because I don't know everything in the minds of all the
people involved in that particular effort. It seems to me that there
could have been consolidation without the dilution of that individual's
power base. Unless they had gone to district representation, presumably
he'd be at least as strong as he was before. If you still had at-large
elections and he was dependent upon sort of the establishment and the
silk-stocking districts and things like that for his political base
anyhow, he'd still have relatively just as much power or even more power
than he had before. I doubt if anybody really went at it that way. I
guess the appointment power lay primarily with Brookshire and Lowe. I'd
be completely convinced
I guess that, in a way, is sort of what I'm hunting for. The question of political acceptability. Theoretically, this sounds very good. You're going to have sort of a community meeting. We're going to get all the problems out on the table. We're going to get the university professors and whatnot in here, and we're going to come up with solutions to the community's problems in more or less an ideal form. We'll modernize and rationalize and, if not out costs, at least try to keep the costs down a good deal. This question of political acceptability. Mr. Brookshire had won four elections as mayer. Mr. Lowe had been elected every time he ran and had served, by this time I guess, this was his second term. The Republicans had been in and out.
Both very popular figures from an election viewpoint and still very well regarded.
I'm having trouble really figuring out how . . . It seems like somebody dropped the ball, or . . . Not necessarily one person. There definitely seems to be a slip there. I'm just wondering. This question of the political practicality of the thing. It seems to have been, from all I can find out, a very idealistic . . . It ended up anyway as a very idealistic sort of thing which politically speaking wasn't saleable to the public.
Well, you're exactly right. The ultimate package was just a package that the public was not going to buy. I think . . . Well, quite frankly, I knew that when the charter came out. Cliff Cameron, who's a great guy and a good friend of mine, was involved in the effort to pass the referendum, as you know. I told Cliff very early in the game that I thought consolidation was great. It was a tremendous goal for the community, and we ought to have it, but that we weren't going to get it with this charter. That the public was just not going to vote for what was in that package. It was just more than they were going to swallow. I hated to be I-told-you-so about it. I was convinced from the beginning that once the charter was in the form that it was going to go to the veters . . . I was completely convinced that it would never pass.
He seemed to be, perhaps, having doubts himself. He didn't exactly jump on the bandwagen right away and lead the charge. He must have had some doubts himself . . .
Well, if he didn't lead the charge initially, I doubt if it
Well, I thank you.
Yes. sir. I'll be interested in what your conclusions are. Is this going to be published, Bill? Is there any liklyhood that your conclusions . . . Net thinking, obviously in terms of interviews. But, are any of your conclusions likely to see the light of day?
I would hope so. Now, whether the printers of the books will think so, the publishers of the books will think so, I don't know. I will send you a copy of the interview.
Don't worry about it. That's a lot of trouble. Don't feel that you have to do that, in all seriousness, because it's a lot of trouble to transcribe these things. If you decide you just want to pick out parts that you want to make some use of, feel free to do that and don't worry about having to send me a copy of the transcript. That's an awful lot of trouble for you.
END OF INTERVIEW