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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 C-0091, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Henry E. Frye grew up in Ellerbe, North Carolina, during the 1930s and 1940s. His parents owned fifty acres of land there, and he describes growing up farming tobacco and cotton for his own family and for other farmers in a system called "half farming." Frye also discusses attending segregated schools during those years. He recalls that despite segregation, black and white children in the farming community played and worked together outside of school. In the late 1940s, Frye left Ellerbe to attend North Carolina A&T in Greensboro. While there, he became actively involved in various activities, including Air Force ROTC and student government. Following his graduation, Frye served briefly in the military and was stationed in Japan. When he returned, he enrolled in the School of Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the time, he was the only African American student. Frye graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in 1959 and opened his own law practice in Greensboro, where he and his wife had settled. In this portion of the interview, Frye describes some of his most memorable cases, most of which involved representing the under-represented. During the 1960s, Frye continued to practice law and became increasingly involved in community activities and politics. In 1969, he became the first African American elected to the North Carolina General Assembly. Serving in the House from 1969 to 1980 and in the Senate from 1981 to 1982, Frye worked to address racial issues in the state legislature. Notably, he introduced legislation to abolish literacy tests for voter registration. During the 1970s, Frye was a founding member of the Greensboro National Bank, which was established to offer African Americans a more discernible role in business. He served as the bank's president for its first ten years in existence. In 1983, Frye was appointed to the North Carolina Supreme Court. The next year, he was elected by North Carolina constituents to continue his service on that court. He spends the final parts of this interview discussing his experiences as a supreme court justice and his thoughts about the role of the legislature and the judiciary in state politics.
Henry Frye grew up in a segregated farming community in North Carolina during the 1930s and 1940s before becoming a lawyer. He went on to become the first African American elected to the North Carolina General Assembly and to serve on the state supreme court. In this interview, he describes race relations, his career as a lawyer, and his experiences in politics.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Amy Boening in the offices of Justice Henry Frye. I am conducting our first interview. It is 5:10 p.m. February 18, 1992.
Justice Frye, could you tell us about your background, growing up in Ellerbee, on the farm, being the 8th of 12 children.
Yes, I suppose I can. The question is where do I start? As you indicated,
I was the 8th of 12 children. Six boys and six girls, born to Walter A.
(for Atlas) and Pearl Motley Frye. Both of them moved to the Ellerbe
area prior to the time of my birth and I was born in a small, white
wood-painted house. I recall that because they told me about it and I
saw it sometime later. Ellerbe is a very small town and I was born I
suppose within the town limits, but as long as I can remember, we had
lived about a mile or so from town. It was a small farm, little less
than 50 acres and we farmed tobacco, cotton, and various other crops —
corn, watermelons, cantaloupes, and beans, you name it. But the money
crops were tobacco and cotton. In addition to that we farmed other
people's properties. There were several of us, so my father kept us busy
by farming a lot of other property in addition to that we owned. They
had in our area, as I'm sure in a lot of other areas, what they call
farming on halves. The person who owned the land would furnish the land
and would furnish the fertilizer and things of that nature and the other
person would farm the property, supply the labor and so forth and then
when the crops were sold, you would divide the funds one-half to each
side. So they called that farming on halves. So we did a lot of that in
addition to the farm which we owned. Also, my father had a truck and so
he hauled a lot of wood for people and at times hauled what we call
I went to school there for the full length of my school term which was grades 1-12. I think I'm correct on this that at the time I started school you graduated with grade 11, but they changed it to 12 grades. While I was in the 7th grade, I stayed about 12 weeks if my remembrance is right and another student and myself were promoted to the 8th grade, so we really made the 7th and 8th grades in one year, so I still ended up with only 11 years of the secondary education. The schools at that time were separate — black and white. Ours was called Ellerbe Colored High School, even though it had grades 1-12; and the other school was just Ellerbe High School. However, I checked later to look at my diploma and my diploma has Ellerbe High School, so apparently they did not bother to make separate diplomas for the two schools. I thought that was quite interesting that all of the correspondence and everything in reference to the school was Ellerbe Colored High School and sometime they would put Ellerbe Negro High School and that type of thing. But the actual diploma just has Ellerbe High School on it.
At the time, what did you think of schools being segregated?
Well, at that time we sort of understood that that was the way it was. I
recall one thing in particular that with our basketball, we did not have
a gymnasium and the other school did. I always wondered about that. Why
we had to play outdoors on a dirt court while they could go inside.
Interestly enough in the small towns and rural areas and that type of
thing, whites and blacks lived almost next to each other. In other
words, our farm was on one side of the road and then on both sides—north
and south of our home—were white families. We farmed together and worked
together in tobacco barns at night. I guess you are probably not
familiar with that. In those days, the tobacco once you harvested it, it
had to be placed on sticks and placed in a barn. Then for several days
and nights you would have a fire
How early did your mornings start back then?
My father described it as from "cain't to cain't", and what he said was
that you can't see when you start in the morning and you can't see when
you stop at night. So the idea was to get up and be ready to go as soon
as it was enough light so you could see how to do whatever had to be
done. I recall on occasions going to the sawmill to get lumber to take
to the plant and I recall getting there too early and having to wait
until we got some light so that we could see how to load the truck. Of
course, we would load the truck and take that and deliver it. I did that
at times even during the school year. We would take a load of wood
before I would go to school in the morning. My older brother, who at
that time was beyond high school age, was driving, so I would go with
him and we would load the truck and everything, and I would come back
home and eat breakfast and go on to school. He, of course, would haul
lumber the rest of the day. We understood what work was all about.
Interestingly enough, in the small towns, most farmers did not like to
work on a Saturday afternoon. About 12:00 or 1:00 on Saturday, most
farmers quit work and they would go to town to buy whatever you were
going to buy or whatever you were going to do. If there was
What was your father's view of education? Did he push you in that regard too?
Not really. My father probably, as I recall, had something like a 5th
grade or so education. I think he saw the importance of it and so he
always encouraged us to go to school. If things got pretty tight around
home, he did not mind keeping us out a day or so to help get some work
done. In those days, only a small percentage of people went to college
from that area. He did not encourage us to go, but then on the other
hand he tried to help if we really wanted to go. He was the kind that
sort of let you [do] whatever you wanted to do. In other words, he
didn't push you or anything of that nature except when it came to work.
He told me that I was awful slow and that I had better go to school,
otherwise I couldn't make a living on the farm.
What about your brothers and sisters? Did any of them continue on in education?
One of my sisters finished, got her Masters degree. I believe, we are the only ones who actually got a college education. A couple of my sisters had some college and a couple of my brothers had some technical training of that nature. Three of my brothers went into service — two involuntarily and the other voluntarily. That's about the education level.
Did you have a role model when you were in school who encouraged you to pursue higher education?
I had so many it's hard to name them all. I suppose I would start with my
Scout master, Mr. McIntyre. He was, incidentally, my 8th grade teacher.
He was very strict, but he
Very different from the principal who was, I thought, in earlier years
mean — but I found out later that he wasn't so mean after all. It was
just his idea that he was a strict disciplinarian and the kind of person
who just would not take no for an answer. I recall that our—this is
really unusual, you couldn't do this today—incidentally, we were a small
school. There were 300 to 400 people in the entire school, so you are
talking about a small number of people in the classes. With our choir,
for some reason or other, none of the seniors were in the choir, and he
found out about this one day and he had a meeting with us. He said,
"Starting tomorrow, I want every senior in the choir." We fussed and
complained, but all of us joined the choir. That was his way of doing
things. If he decided that something was to be done, you would do it.
Some of us didn't sing very well, but that's the way things went. But
continuing with Mr. Easterling, that's his name. He is well known
throughout that area incidentally. Mr. Easterling was the coach of the
girls' basketball team, and they had a great team. They were really
good. He worked them hard, but he trained them. They were really, really
great. We also started a band, and I wanted to play the saxophone. The
band instructor gave me instead a clarinet or trombone or something.
Anyway, whatever it was, I didn't like that. So after a few times, I
decided to quit, not play in the band. Mr. Easterling called me to the
office. Everybody was afraid to go the office. At any rate, I
Have you stayed in contact with any of your former mentors?
Yes, but most of them are dead now. Mr. Easterling is dead, Mrs.
Easterling. Mr. McIntyre is still living and doing well as far as I
know. Several of the others, Mr. Forte is still living. I always go to
see him. He is still in Ellerbe and doing well as far as I know. But
getting back to people I looked up to, in addition to people around in
Ellerbe, I read about Walter White who was active with the NAACP. At
that time, Thurgood Marshall was — I did not really know him at that
time, I learned of him later and I was impressed with him at a later
time. What's the guy that, the famous lawyer with the Scopes Trial. I
remember reading that. The name escapes me. But at any rate — Clarence
Darrow, yes, yes, yes. I was very impressed with him, but at that time
really I had no idea or intention of being a lawyer. The thought of
being one barely crossed my mind in spite of the fact that I enjoyed
reading about lawyers and things of that nature. I went through, I
guess, a lot of different ideas as to what I wanted to do. At one time I
was going to be a pharmacist. I thought it would be a great thing, you
know, to hand out prescriptions and things of that nature. Then after I
went to A&T and took chemistry and took some courses in
biochemistry and I really enjoyed that. I think a lot of it had to do
with the teacher who was Dr. Isaac Miller, a very young person who later
became president of Bennett College,
Let me just tell you a little bit about those since we are talking.
Growing up in Ellerbe and with a lot of the things that I saw, I had a
very negative idea with regard to lawyers. I just got the wrong
impression I suppose that most of them were very terrible people whose
job it was, as a lot of folks said around there, was to lie people out
of trouble. So I did not have a very high opinion, generally, of
lawyers. But at any rate, the thing that really started me on the road
to changing my idea about lawyers was an experience I had while I was in
service. This lawyer spent his free time teaching prisoners. These were
military people who were in the stockade who couldn't read and write. He
spent his free time teaching them to read, teaching them to write. This
just sort of shocked me. Here this guy is, this was in Japan and of
course on the weekend, all the rest of us were going out having fun, and
this guy was spending his free time doing this. That sort of changed my
idea a little bit. After that, of course, I met other lawyers and talked
with others and I began to read more about them and that was when I read
about a lot of the things lawyers were doing and the good things they
were doing. I talked with, among others, Kenneth Lee in Greensboro who
had come from Hamlet which was a little town about 15 miles from
Ellerbe, who had done a lot of things in the civil rights area. He had
done a lot of things to help people and had done some economic things in
terms of improving the lives
What made you decide to go to UNC for law school?
Several things. First all, by this time I was very conscious of the fact that we still had largely separate black and white institutions. In talking with other lawyers and people I found out first of all that a substantial number of the judges, legislators, and people who ran the state were graduates of Carolina Law School. So I said, "Well, maybe that's where I need to go." That, together with the fact that I could go there cheaper than I could to one of the private schools, of course. At that time, no black had started at Carolina and completed the three year course and graduated. All of the others had either started and not finished or had transferred from North Carolina Central which prior to that time had been the school for blacks— the law school for blacks in North Carolina. So I said, "Well, I'll try." I applied and was accepted and went on to law school.
What was it like? You were the only black in your law school class, weren't you?
Yes, yes. That was not a major problem for me. It would have been
probably if I had been single. But I was married and by this time my
interest really was solely in law and my
Did you live in Chapel Hill at that time or were you commuting from Greensboro?
I commuted completely the first year. There were two other persons from Greensboro, and the three of us generally rode back and forth every day. The second year I—I'm not sure, either the second or third year, I got a room in the dormitory down there and I would stay down a couple of nights a week or something of that nature. Near the end of my third year, my wife was pregnant; so we found an apartment in Chapel Hill and she moved down with me. For the last semester, I guess, I lived in Chapel Hill and she was there with me.
From what I have read, you were involved in the NAACP pretty early.
Well, yes, a little bit when I was in high school. We had a little NAACP
chapter and I sold memberships in the NAACP and things of that nature.
Incidentally, this is an interesting thing I observed at that time.
Contrary to the situation today, in the eyes of a lot of people the
NAACP was looked at a very radical organization. Black teachers who were
members, and only a few of them were members, kept that a secret. They
would not dare let the school board, for example, or people generally in
the community know that they were members of the NAACP because they were
afraid they would be fired for that reason. I recall incidentally my
English teacher again, Mrs. Easterling, who was elected an officer in
the NCTA which was the North Carolina Teachers' Association and that was
the black teachers. In other words, they had two separate organizations
then for teachers. You had the North—I've forgotten the name of the
white group, but the white group had a teachers' association and the
black
So you weren't active during law school?
No.
Let me back up if I might. I think this is of some significance. One of the questions that I was asked about when I was being considered for my character and so forth for the practice of law, that is really to get my license, one of the questions they asked about was my involvement with the NAACP, which I thought was a little unfair, frankly. I didn't think that had anything to do with it. But that was one of the questions along with some others that I thought were quite inappropriate. Our bar association thing, I understand now, is a lot better and you don't have the kind of problems that we had in those days.
What other questions did you find problematic?
I don't want to try to repeat them because I don't remember the exact
questions. But I was interviewed at the Bar office and the person who
interviewed me is dead now, so I don't want to get into all of that. A
lot of lawyers who took the bar at that time would understand because
there weren't just blacks, even though blacks I think had a harder time.
There were some of the other students who had a very difficult time with
some of the
Prior to going to law school, you mentioned you were in the Air Force in Japan and Korea. Was there anything from that experience, other than what you mentioned about the lawyer you observed, that particularly stands out in your mind?
Well, I could go back. First of all at A&T, as I recall, all of
the able-bodied men had to be in the Army ROTC. They had to take the
basic Army ROTC. And then while I was there, they organized the first
Air Force ROTC chapter. I did not apply for the officers' candidate
portion. So later on all of my best friends were in the Air Force ROTC,
so I wanted to get in too. In order to do so, you had to double up in
terms of the courses in order to be able to graduate. To make a long
story short, I did that and I recall one thing in particular — that the
idea of taking the advanced ROTC was to get a commission as an officer
upon your graduation. In those days, 21 was sort of the magic — in other
words, you were not an adult in North Carolina until you were 21 years
of age. Well, I graduated at age 20 and the big question was whether I
was going to be able to get my commission or whether they were going to
hold it back until I was 21. So I got my commission at age 20 and I
don't know — to this day I have never asked any questions because I
didn't want to stir up anything about it, but it came through all right.
I think one of the things I know happened, during the summer while I was
at A&T and in ROTC, we went to camp. At the camps the black and
white were together, from the black schools, from the white schools,
everybody went to camp together. One of the questions I had in mind
because at that time I had gone to school only with blacks, both in high
school and at A&T because
We were talking about the Air Force.
Oh yeah, yeah. The same thing carried through when I went into service. I
got my commission and later on went into service. As a practical matter
again, let me tell you something else that might serve of interest to
students who graduate and have difficulty finding work. When I graduated
from A&T with highest honor and all kinds of various honors and
things of that nature, including the commission in the Air Force, I was
not called for active duty. So I had a period of time when I had nothing
to do, so I tried to get some work around Greensboro. I couldn't find
anything. There was nothing around Ellerbe of any significance, so I
went to New York looking for a job. And, it was just like a broken
record, when I would finish the interview, "We don't have anything right
now, but if we do we will call you." And I must have heard that a
hundred times because I just applied for job after job after job. And
the other thing that I heard over and over again, "Well, we want someone
with two years' experience." And the question in my mind always was,
"How is anybody ever going to get any experience if everybody requires
two years of experience." So I ended up taking a common laborer job at
Armour and Company, which was called, the company was called, the one in
New York at this point where I was working, was called New York
Butchers. And that's where I worked until I went into the service. Made
good money and built up my muscles very well. And learned a lot about
people on the job. One of the things that I found different on our
working, growing up, for some reason or other, maybe my experience was
unusual, but we
What type of manual labor were you doing?
It involved several different things, but basically this was a plant where they killed the cows, pigs, and sheep as I recall. It was a slaughterhouse. And so I ended up handling those animals after they were killed, and putting them on racks and moving them from one place to the other and even doing some cutting and things of that nature. Got pretty good at it before I left.
What did you think of it, was this your first real living experience up north?
Yes, I had been to New York two or three times before, but this was the first job I had had away. And, well, it was an interesting experience.
I notice you didn't stay up north.
Well, I always said, at that time, if I could get a job making ?100,000 a
year, I might consider living in New York. I would change that now, it
would have to be ?300,000. But I did learn some things. I got to the
place I could ride the subway. I could get on the subway, the A train.
And late at night go to sleep, wake up just as I arrived at 125th Street
station. So I thought I had really learned. I also learned how to stand
up on the subway and read the newspaper while I was riding along. And
one other thing, incidentally, I did go back to New York, to Brooklyn
actually, after I came out of service, while I was waiting to go to law
school. And I lived in the Bedford Stuyvesant area of Brooklyn and I had
a 1951 Chevrolet
Times have changed.
So my opinion changed just a little bit. I was in a much better neighborhood at that time and it was not bad at all. We did not have the crime at that point that they have now.
Going back to your college experience at A & T. What kind of activities were you involved in?
Everything. The Lord and Green
Pastures, I don't know if you've heard of that. But any rate,
he taught at A & T for a while, so the Richard B. Harrison
players was named after him. I had the leading role. I played Leo in The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman I believe. I
played in the Welsh boy in The Corn is Green by
Maynard, I believe he wrote that. And then I also participated in some
shorter plays over at Bennett College which was across the street. And
in one I recall in particular, I don't even recall the name of it, I was
supposed to smoke a cigar in this play. And so for about three weeks
before that, I practiced smoking a cigar because the first one I smoked
didn't go very well with me. But any rate, I learned to smoke cigars
during that particular time and I thought did very well in the play. But
addition to that, one of the things that I enjoyed most was the Student
Legislative Assembly. And I came to Raleigh for the Student Legislative
Assembly. At that time we actually met in the House and Senate Chambers.
And during the second time that I came, I was elected Speaker Pro Tem of
the House. And I was presiding one day and there was a real rivalry
between State and Carolina, even then, among the students, in the
student legislative assembly. And, they got into, the two got into just
a big argument about something, and students then from everywhere
started jumping up and trying to get attention and one would say this
one's out of order and everything. I at first
Was it through the student assembly that you met your wife?
No, that's an interesting story. We had an organization known as Alpha
Kappa Mu Honor Society which was primarily in black colleges and
universities. And I was the dean of pledges. We sent letters to freshmen
who had averages, academic averages above some certain level. And so one
of the persons that I sent one to was E. Shirley Taylor. And I think
that's the way I first met her. But in terms of actually becoming
boyfriend/girlfriend, that occurred later. I did not have a steady
girlfriend at that time. But there was a young lady that I liked. And so
I had invited her to come to something, some party that we were having,
a dance or something. And she kept putting me off. And after about the
third time, she said she hadn't decided whether she was going home that
weekend or something. And I said the next decent lady I see walking past
I'm going to ask her to go to this dance with me. And the next one I saw
was Shirley. And so I asked her if she would go to the dance with me.
She put me off. Any rate, we were in the same class, incidentally, so
she had figured she would see me at the class, at the next class
meeting, and she had planned all of the time to go, but she wasn't going
to give me an immediate answer. Any rate, it turned out that I didn't go
to the class the next day. And so I think she got real upset because she
really wanted to go. But to make a long story short she finally, she
finally got word to me that she would go. And it's very interesting, at
that dance, just prior to that, I had gone to some dances with some
other ladies, who, for some reason or other, would not leave
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
She wrote a letter every day. And she had some beautiful pink stationery and blue stationery. And I think it had a little scent to it. But I looked forward to, I could tell when the mail came, I could spot her letters among the mail anytime. I kind of liked that.
I hear you were quite a poet. Did you ever write her love letters and poems?
Not very much. I may have written one or two poems, or something of that nature. Some of my letters may have been just a tiny bit romantic, but not too much.
The thing of poetry really came later. It's simple poetry. Most of it
relates to things that are happening right at the moment. I really got
started I think this way. Curry School, Curry High School in Greensboro.
had been operated by the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Before that it was Women's College. And the school was closing. This was
going to be the last high school graduation from this school. And they
asked me to do the commencement address. And, as the time got closer and
closer, I just had difficulty trying to prepare a speech for that
commencement. I just said, what in the world do I say to these seniors
who are graduating. They know this is the last graduating class. Finally
that afternoon I picked up a copy of the graduation program. I said, let
me write a little poem to sort of get started with. I started writing it
and using the names of the students of the potential graduates. And the
more I wrote, the more came to me. And, by the time I had finished, I
After you got out of law school, you started practicing in Greensboro, is that right?
Yes.
I have a picture of you when you started your law practice. It's from an article announcing the opening of your law office.
Oh, yes. Now where did you find that? This is a picture of me opening my law office in Greensboro for the general practice of law. Sworn in before Judge L. Richardson Preyer. At that time he was a Superior Court Judge. Later he became a federal judge and when I was appointed assistant United States Attorney, he was the person who administered the oath of office to me. And I felt real great about that, you know he was the same person who administered the oath to me as a lawyer to practice law, and then the same one who administered the oath for that purpose.
During your law practice, do any cases stand out in your memory?
Well, one of the more trying ones, was the time that I represented a
group of workers at UNC-G. What had happened was that the cafeteria
workers went on strike at the university and they wanted higher pay and
better working conditions and things of that nature. But they were not
employed by the university. It was a private concern that handled it.
And the student government at UNC-G got interested in it and wanted to
help the cafeteria workers. And they tried to get, I don't know how many
lawyers they tried to get, and they couldn't get a lawyer to handle it,
of course they didn't have very much money for one thing. And it was a
very sensitive type of thing, too, because you would be representing
people who were trying to form a union and that type of thing. But, any
rate, to make a long story short, I recall that the president of the
student government of UNC-G, and somebody else came to my office and
practically begged me to take the case. They said, "All we have is
?500." They said, "But we'll pay that and we wish you would do it, and
they said something like, "You're our last hope." I am sort of sensitive
to things like that, at least I used to be, I'm trying to get away from
it. So any rate, I said I'd see what I can do. But the most interesting
thing about it was, they had a negotiating committee that would meet
with the lawyer and someone from the company that handled the food
service. And so every time the lawyer for the company would make a
suggestion he could look at the faces of the members of the negotiating
committee and tell whether they agreed or disagreed with it. And so I
found that my being there wasn't much help one way or the other because
it was just a poor negotiating situation and so I finally told them, it
doesn't make sense, let's find something else, and I won't go into all
the details, but we settled it because the persons from the university
got involved. When we first started, the people at the university said
they had nothing to do with it. It was a private matter between the
cafeteria workers and the company, but we finally convinced them that
the university was involved. And once the university got involved we
worked it out.
Without going into a lot of details, another thing that I got a lot of satisfaction out of, down at Salisbury, North Carolina, a redevelopment project was being conducted down there. That involved condemning a lot of homes and then removing them and making, eventually, an improved area from the standpoint of buildings and things of that nature. And this particular woman owned her own home and she decided she wasn't going to move. And they sent the people out there from the Highway Department or something and she got a shotgun and ordered them off the property. Any rate, to make a long story short again, her minister called me and asked me if I would represent her. She was not satisfied with the representation she was getting down there. And I went down and decided to represent her and we eventually got something worked out on it. As a result of that, I ended up representing a lot of people whose land, whose houses, were being taken, frankly without getting fair compensation for their property, that's really what it amounted to. And we were able to get a better deal for all of them, so I was well satisfied with that.
I could go on and on. Let me give you one more, then I'll quit. There was
a federal program which allowed non-profit organizations to form a
corporation and build housing for low and moderate income people. And so
I worked, first of all, with one of the churches there in Greensboro who
was trying to get some land for that purpose. And the people who were
handling it for the government who owned the land at that particular
point really gave them bad advice. After I checked out the law, we found
a way to get the property and then eventually form the corporation and
get the money and then build that housing and then later on working with
the Low Income Housing Development Corporation out of Durham. I worked
with a lot of other organizations. Mostly churches, incidentally, who
would form these corporations and
From that story and from some other things you have mentioned, do you see as part of a lawyer's role going beyond just the legal aspects of his client's case?
Well, yes. I think, and this is a little oldfashioned, I suppose, but I think of a lawyer as being a person who is performing a service and that your primary interest ought to be in performing a service for someone, realizing that you need to paid for your work, but that you're working not just for the pay, you're working because you want to perform a service.
And whether that's helping someone who needs to have a will drawn or
handling their estate or advising them about various things or whether
it's representing a big corporation, or whatever it is, that the idea is
service. Of course, the servant is worthy of his hire. But that the
emphasis ought to be placed on service, then the money is another thing.
Incidentally, along that line, I recall this elderly woman who was
getting ready to go to the hospital and she wanted a will drawn before
she went to the hospital. And the undertaker, believe it or not who was
her friend, and incidentally undertakers are friends of a lot of people,
they advise a lot of people. Some of them actually practice law…they
shouldn't be doing it, but some of them do. But anyway, he called me and
told me that this lady wanted a will, said she had ?17, that's all she
could afford, but he called and asked me if I would do it for her. I
told him, yeah, I'd be glad to do it. So she came in and I got all the
information and everything and told her to come back in a couple of
hours and I would have the will for her. And she came back and she was a
lady who made a living as a housekeeper, and so she
Incidentally, that was another enjoyable part of my practice — advising people concerning their estates and regarding planning for the future and doing wills and estate planning and things of that nature. I had several people who sort of came to me on a regular basis I think not so much for legal advice, but for practical advice. Elderly people whose children or grandchildren were not doing as they thought they should, and they were trying to decide whether to name them in their will, or whether to give the money to charity or something, and what they could do to work with them and to help them and that type of thing. I probably spent more time than I should dealing with things of that nature. I almost got out of doing regular domestic legal work because I found out that I was not very good at that because people would come to me for advice and then I would give them the advice and they would go and do exactly the opposite of what I told them to do. And then blame me because it didn't work. I found that a bit…disillusioning, I guess would be a good word. So I tried to get away from a lot of the domestic law and let somebody else handle that.
Well, that's kind of common in family law matters sometimes. What made you decide to go into politics?
Well, we in Greensboro we had run a black candidate on a couple of
occasions for the House and been unable to get a
Who were some of your supporters back then who encouraged you to run?
I could name a hundred. I remember one fellow, a dentist there, Dr. B.W.
Barnes, who said well, if you run I'll raise the money for you. And he
did. Then I had other people who said they would be glad to do work for
me and things of that nature and they did. And I remember after I lost,
there were several people who came to me and said, "We want you to run
again and we're going to help you win the next time." Very interesting
thing. Dave Morehead, who was the executive director of the YMCA and
friend of a lot of people in Greensboro, including a lot of the
so-called power structure of Greensboro, talked with, and I think this
is all right to tell, with a fellow named Ed Zane, who was the treasurer
as I recall, of Burlington Industries. Very fine gentleman and very
active in the community and everything. And he said, "Get a complete
resume and get it to me. And I'm going to make copies of it and
distribute them among a group of my friends." And I got a detailed list,
that was my first
Did your campaign encourage bloc voting among the black population? Or did the black voters take it upon themselves?
Well, a lot of the people who were active in my campaign did it. I didn't
go out and say that. But I didn't go out and preach against it either,
because at that time that was the only way to get elected. What had to
happen was that I had to get enough votes in the black precincts to
offset the fact that I lost in so many of the others. And so you put
those
Did you see that as a major goal — to elect black people in North Carolina?
Yes. Very definitely. You see because up until a few years before then, you had very few blacks in any elected office. Town councils and everything else. You would have occasionally one and in many cases, none at all, and so you had to take drastic methods to try to get that done.
So as the first black elected to the state legislature, what was your main priority?
Well, my first thing was to get through that amendment to abolish the
literacy test as a requirement for voting and I got that through. I
found myself, though, spending a great deal of time going through bills
for what I considered bad things in bills that came up in the legislator
and a lot of those were local bills. I also found myself talking with
blacks from all over the state of North Carolina. They would come from
all over the state to Raleigh to see me to try to get me to either put
in a bill for them, or try to get me to stop a bill, and so I spent a
great deal of my time trying to convince them that what they should do
is deal with their own legislators. But there was no dialogue between a
lot of blacks then and their representatives in the legislature.
Sometimes I would take it to the delegation. Somebody would come up and
I would take them and go to that legislator and take them with me and
say that this was so and so
Playing liaison once again.
Yes, yes. But I found that to be very effective and it wasn't long before a lot of them began to have that dialogue with their representatives, which is what they should have had all of the time.
Do you remember any confrontations occurring early in your years with the legislature regarding any racial issues that came to the floor?
Well, when I was presenting my bill to abolish the literacy test, in
talking about it and giving the history and so forth, one of the
legislators asked for the floor and he said that this amendment had
nothing to do with race — nothing whatsoever to do with race. When he
finished, I explained on the floor of the House very clearly that it did
have a whole lot to do with race, that that really was the primary
reason for it being there in the first place and gave my own personal
example to prove it. That, incidentially, helped to get the bill passed.
Another thing that happened that was — I'm not sure it was racial — but
it was when I was elected to the Senate. Offices are assigned based on
seniority and at that time the rules of the Senate required that
seniority be based on service in the General Assembly, which meant that
a person who had 10 years in the House and 2 years in the Senate had 12
years' seniority and offices were assigned on that basis. So based on my
seniority, I was something like — let's just say, 7th in seniority in
the General Assembly, so I should have gotten 7th pick on the offices.
But the person in charged just ignored me and didn't make an assignment,
which meant that that left me with just a regular office like people
with no seniority. When I complained about it, two or three members came
to me and said all you are going to do is stir up problems and all like
that and so forth. And I said that I understand that, but I just want to
be sure that we
Were there other instances where you confronted the "don't rock the boat" mentality when bringing racial issues to the forefront?
Yes, this had to do with the Appropriations Committee. At that time the
money that was appropriated by the legislature to the various child
caring institutions depended not on any formula or anything of that
nature but just whatever, I guess whoever had the most influence would
get that amount for that particular institution. It included
institutions which discriminated on the basis of race. I asked a lot of
questions. That was one of the things that I did in the legislature. I
asked more questions I guess than anybody else because a lot of things I
really didn't know. I was always asking questions and probing. I found
out a lot of things by doing that. At any rate, I was made chairman of a
subcommittee to look into the way those funds were handled. My
subcommittee visited several of the institutions and then we came back
and developed a formula really based on need. Based on that some of them
at least that had not been getting very much money began to get a little
bit more. We had to be very careful with that because one of the most
needy
During the sit-ins, what were you up to?
I was practicing law at the time the sit-ins started. Then shortly after
that, I went into the U.S. Attorney's office. Let me back up — during
the sit-ins, I was not involved in it, though some of my friends
declared I started it; but really — it really caught me as a surprise.
One of the persons who was in law school with me said that I had said
that's what ought to be done back then, you know. As I said, I had
nothing really to do with it. I was supportive, but I was not directly
involved. Then later in the U.S. Attorney's office when we had another
group of sit-ins, it got very tense because, here again, I was the only
black in the office. We made it through all right. I ended up marching
one night. What happened was that there was an article in the paper, in
The Greensboro Daily News in effect saying that
the so-called responsible black citizens of the community were not
behind this thing. These were nothing but the students and the radicals
and that type of thing. So a group of responsible citizens, including
me, got on the phone and we called and got a bunch of people. We got
school teachers, principals, professors from A&T, doctors in the
community, and
I understand. You also taught at N.C. Central. What classes did you teach there?
What didn't I teach!
Did you feel any pressure to be a role model for your students?
That didn't bother me. What I tried to do was, in addition to trying to
get them to not use "canned briefs" and to actually brief the cases and
to actually talk about them and be able to deal with them and be able to
write and things of that
Did your students consider you to be a stickler?
Well, they said I was. I thought I was fairly lenient. I tried to get people to say exactly what they mean. A lot of times, all of us don't say exactly what we mean. In that sense, I am a stickler.
In 1971, you organized the Greensboro National Bank. Could you tell us a little bit about this business venture?
Oh, yes. Well, let me give you my experience again. Again, growing up in
Ellerbe and then going to Greensboro and
So I said, we have got to do something about that. So my first thought
was a savings and loan association because I thought that would be
cheaper. When I say cheaper, I mean, easier to organize. But Kenneth Lee
beat me to that and he organized American Federal Savings and Loan
Association. Then I said the next thing is a bank, so let's try a bank.
To give you some idea how much nerve I guess I had — first of all, I
didn't have any money and everybody told me that if you're going to
organize a bank you've got to have some money. I said, "Well, we'll get
some money." So I started talking to people and trying to get some
interest in it. The controller's office is in Washington, DC, but the
one for the region for North Carolina is in Richmond, Virginia. So any
rate, once I got a group of people, a small group who were interested
enough to agree to put up a little money, I went to Richmond. I caught
the bus, went up there, transacted my business; I had to spend one night
up there and then caught the bus and came on back. At any rate, they
told us we needed ?300,000 capital minimum in order to start. The next
time I went back, it was ?500,000. The third time, it was
Things that had occurred at your bank?
No, at his bank. I don't know exactly what they was, but it wasn't too long after that that they made him president of that bank. Okay. So we had to start all over again. We had to tear up those offering circulars, had to find somebody else.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Where were we?
You were just saying that at that point you were determined to get a black person to run the bank.
Yes, any rate, so when I found somebody who was really qualified to do
it, he said, "Well, do you have the money to open the bank?" And of
course I said no. We can't get the money until we know who is going to
run the bank, because people are not going to subscribe to stock if they
don't know who is going to be handling it. Again, to make another long
story short, I talked with Tom Stores, who at that time was heading
NCNB, which is now NationsBank. He told me that there was a retired
person from his bank who would, he thought, would be happy to work with
So it was ?700,000 that we had to have in order to open the bank, that is
in the amount of stock actually paid in. So the organizers came up with
a little over ?100,000 and then we got the rest of it from other people
who subscribed. Among the people — in addition to individuals, three or
four of the corporations in Greensboro actually bought some stock,
really to help us out. I thought that it was a good thing that they were
willing to do that because it was not, it really was not much of an
investment from the standpoint of really making money. I think when they
found out the number of people who had bought ?100 worth, ?1,000 worth,
?500 worth and that type of thing, that it did have some broad support
in the black community primarily, that others went along with it and
bought some stock. So we opened it and I served as president for 10
years. Each year the income of the bank went up just a little bit, not
much — very
But that was a real experience and one of the things when we opened, we
opened in a trailer. I remember talking to a lady about putting some
money in the bank and she said that she wasn't going to put any money in
there because the wind might come along and blow that trailer away and
when we got a permanent building then she would put some money in that
bank.
Do you feel it is very important to have black figures in control of corporations, in control of businesses?
I think it is very important. Incidentally, we got jobs for a lot of black folk at other banks. I would talk to a black person who was at another bank and it wasn't long before that person got an increase, got a new salary — if not a salary increase, got a new position, and others began to hire more blacks. I'm not saying that was the only reason, but that helped a lot of others from that standpoint. But it's really only a trickle, I guess that's the sad part about it, that it has an impact, but it is not a big impact. Sometimes I wonder if I should have really just gave up the practice of law and run the bank just to see how well we could have done in terms of expansion and including so many things and so many people and everything like that. But you can't do everything, so you have to settle for what you have.
[END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
Justice Frye, I'd like to talk a little bit about your role as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and that will probably be most of the focus of today's interview.
All right.
Can you tell me a little bit about your appointment in 1983? Were you surprised at all?
I was surprised when I received the call and also the fact that the
Governor called me one night and discussed the possible appointment with
me and told me that he knew that I would have to talk it over with my
wife and give it some thought and so forth, but to please call him back
before breakfast the next morning, because he didn't want the press to
get word of it before he actually made the announcement. That didn't
give me a lot of time to think about it. Luckily it was the type of
thing that I had given some thought to before, so it was a matter then
of really saying, do I really want to do this, or can I afford to make a
switch at this point in my life to change from a full-time practicing
attorney, which is what I was doing at that time, to go on the court?
And, of course, there were other things like whether I wanted to make a
commitment at least for a period of time to serving as a judge as
distinct from being an advocate, because it is a completely different
role. So, any rate, I thought about it. I talked it over with my wife,
also with my sons and decided yes. So early the next morning I called
the governor and told him what my answer was. I recall that I told him
that I would need 6-8 weeks or something like that to try to sort of
wind down my law practice and get everything straight. He said, "Well,
I'd like for you to be on the court at its next session which is in
February." At that time I think it was about three weeks away, and we
discussed that at some length. He was sort of insistent on that and so I
said, "All right, I'll do
What was the reaction in the press to your appointment?
Well, as I recall, the actual first press announcement was either after the appointment or the day of the appointment, I've forgotten which. So it worked in the sense that there was not a lot of speculation in the paper about it for two or three days as you would have with some. It made headlines in the local paper in Greensboro. I don't recall seeing any negative press about it. In other words, everything that I saw, as nearly as I can remember now, was positive in terms of a good appointment and that made me feel, made me feel very good.
What were your greatest assets, at that time, that you thought you brought to the bench?
Well, I had been practicing law for over 20 years. In fact, for a longer
period than that, but active practice for about 21 years. I had served
in the legislature in the House for 12 years, the Senate for 2 years. I
had served on almost every committee in the legislature, and I had been
a prosecutor in the federal system, assistant prosecutor — actually
Assistant U.S. Attorney — and so, I don't think there was any question
at all about my qualifications for the court. So, and again, I don't
recall any negative comments. I am sure there may have been some and I
just didn't hear, obviously.
Was it difficult for you to make the transition from advocate to a judge?
It was not a big problem. It was some difficulty. I had to sort of catch myself a few times to be sure I remembered that I was not an advocate now. I was the person who had to make a decision. But it was not a major problem. It was a major adjustment and along with that adjustment, of course, was the adjustment of not saying everything that I wanted to say publicly about things generally. So that when a public issue came up, for example, when I was in the legislature, I could give my opinion on it, say what I thought ought to be done and whether I thought what another person was doing was right and what I thought the General Assembly should do, what I thought the governor should do, or what I thought the members of a city council or mayor of a city should do. All of a sudden, I had to be very careful not to comment about things like that because they might eventually come before the court and that was an adjustment and a very significant one.
Often the role of the legislature is to create the law and the role of the judge is to interpret it, but in many cases, the judge's role is to fill in the gaps and create case law. In such cases, do you find yourself tending to be more of a strict constructionist because of your experience as a legislator?
Well, how do I answer that? If the question is one of what did the
legislature intend, of course you have the easy cases where it is very
clear. There are others where it is unclear and in North Carolina we
don't have legislative history as such in terms of our opinions for the
court. Obviously, some of the things I could remember when I was in the
legislature, how I felt about things. But I also knew that what was
placed in a bill did not always accurately reflect a combined, at least
understood, will of all of the members who voted for it. In other words,
some people would have one motive for voting for a bill and others would
have another motive. So where the language is clear then you construe it
right down the line and that's what
Soon after your appointment the following year, you decided to run for election.
Well, I probably made that decision when I took the appointment. I would not have taken it had I not intended to stay on at least a while. So, when I came on the court I knew the term would expire the next year and that the only way I could stay on would be to run for re-election. So, it was just a matter of getting my campaign together and hoping that nobody would file against me. That hope turned out not to come true, of course.
Are there any stories from that first year that stand out in your mind, being the rookie on the bench?
Well, yes, a lot of things. The first one is that the junior member of
the court gets the honor of being the clerk of the conference or the
secretary for the court. That means that you have to sign all the orders
of the court and keep the minutes and things of that nature. That turned
out to be a lot more work than, well, than I had thought about to begin
with. I thought I could just come and be a member of the court. But as
soon as I got here I found out that that was the tradition and so I had
no choice but to do that. After I had been on the court for quite
Then there was another very interesting thing. Because the court had several cases that had been argued before I came, when the opinion came down after I was on the bench, there was this line at the end of the opinion saying Justice Frye did not participate in the consideration or decision of this case. Quite often in the write-up in the paper, this would be repeated. So I had a lady who was a friend of mine, an elderly lady, ask me why they wouldn't let me participate in those cases. She couldn't understand, she thought they were discriminating against me in some way by not letting me participate in those cases. So I thought that was somewhat interesting. I explained it to her. I had to explain that to several people, incidentally, that it was just that I wasn't there when the case was heard and that was the reason why I did not participate in that particular case.
Another thing that was rather interesting. We among the court at the time
we pick our cases for writing sort of go around the table in order of
seniority and you pick your cases. There is sort of a general
understanding among those who have been around for some time that unless
you've really got a special interest in a case that generally you sort
of, the first case that you pick — you've got four cases you've got to
write — the first one you pick, you sort of pick the easiest thing you
can pick. Well, I hadn't thought about that. I just looked at the
What were those first cases?
Well, I wouldn't want to answer that
Was there any case you were especially anxious to get your hands on and write the opinion for?
I don't know if there was any one opinion or even any one in a particular area. You would read the briefs and then you would listen to the oral argument and some of them just presented interesting questions or interesting arguments or cases where they might be a split in the court, but you felt very strongly that this is the way the case ought to go so you wanted to write it and use your language and hope to get the court to go along with you. So that was sort of what I had in mind. Off hand, I don't know of any one or two cases that I felt particularly strong about that.
Which would you say has been your most influential opinion?
I don't know. I guess I would have to leave that to posterity, I suppose.
More recently I know one that has been referred to quite a bit. The case
Smith v. Nationwide dealing with underinsured
motorists' coverage. It was sought after quite a bit partly because it
overruled some previous cases, a major case from the Court of Appeals
and it was an area that dealt with a statute that the legislature has
passed which is almost impossible to understand. Now the legislature has
amended it some more and I'm not sure if it is any clearer overall, the
statute I mean, than it was at that time. In that opinion I
From your experience on both sides, in the legislature and on the court, how responsive do you think the legislature is to the court when you make decisions like that that affect statutory law?
When you say responsive to the court, I think that whenever we interpret a statute, depending on the type, for example, something in insurance, well, that's a very hot subject and so you have your interests. You have your insurance industry and you have in that particular case, I suppose, the plaintiff's bar and those they represent who they would say is the consuming public, of course. So then both sides, depending on their interests, would go to the legislature to try to either confirm what we have already done or to change it. In the case of some of our decisions in that area I don't know that there was anything as a result of that case, but another case that another member of the court wrote shortly after that the legislature made some changes in that area. As to the terms of what the legislature does, though, I think it has a lot to do with their interests, looking at it from the people back home and to some extent, of course, from the lobbyists from both sides.
What do you think are the best attributes for an attorney to possess? And what do you look for in an attorney who is arguing a case in front of you?
One of the things that helps greatly is if the attorney will be thorough
in the sense of carefully laying out the facts as established from the
record, which may include the transcript of the trial and that type of
thing. Accuracy and thoroughness. And then the second thing is the
clarity with which the argument
I've heard people talk about when opinions come down and there sometimes will be a great deal of discussion of facts that were not raised or case law that was not presented by either side. How much does the court go back and do their own research beyond the content of the parties' briefs?
Well, I guess we sort of say that we have no obligation to go beyond what
the parties furnish us. But I think all of us tend to have our clerks
and sometimes ourselves go a little beyond what the attorneys present.
And especially if it's a difficult question. If it's easy we may just
look at the briefs and go ahead and make a decision and write an opinion
and let it go. But if it's a very serious question or if we are going to
go contra to what may generally be considered the weight of authority or
in death cases, for example, we're reading transcripts, you know, to see
exactly what was said in terms of what the witnesses said or what they
didn't say. And you'll find cases, opinions where we count the number of
times that, for example, bench conferences occurred or something of that
nature because we want to be thorough and we want to be right. And
When the members of the bench are in opposition and wish to dissent from the majority, how does that all diplomatically get handled?
Well, I guess the best way to do this is to look at our procedure. And while we take a tentative vote in conference on the same day that the argument is heard, that tentative vote is not binding. But whoever gets the case to write has to circulate a copy of that opinion to all of the other justices at least one week prior to the filing date. Really, one week prior to the conference date for filing opinions. Then the other person has ordinarily about three days, don't hold me to the exact figure, to come up with the dissent. But we are very good about extending the time for filing a dissent if the person asks us for one. So quite often the cases are held up in order to give the other person time to write a dissent. The other thing is, quite often the person doing a dissent will cause the writer of the opinion to make some changes in it. And on at least three or four occasions since I've been on the court, the dissent has caused us to change and reach a result opposite from that originally taken by the majority of the court. So, the dissents are very, very valuable things in this court. And, while the language sometimes appears a bit caustic, on the whole, we get along well.
That's good. How long do you get to write the opinion, from the time you choose the case to the period when it gets circulated among the court?
Well, we don't have any absolute guidelines. We try to get them out within three to six months. But a lot of the very difficult cases, and some of the death cases, take much longer. We feel generally that it's better to be right than to rush an opinion and make a mistake.
Back in the early 70's when you were in the Legislature you supported a bill to abolish the death penalty.
Yes.
Do you find that your personal feelings affect your outlook on some of these death cases?
Well, that's an interesting question. Let's talk about that a little bit.
I did introduce several bills at different times to abolish the death
penalty in North Carolina. And my two basic arguments were, number one,
that the statistics and the studies and all of those things have not
shown that the homicide rate was really any different in those states
which had the death penalty and those which didn't. The other thing was,
the studies showed the death penalty was effectuated most often on the
disadvantaged, whether that was because of color, race, that type of
thing, or whether it was just poor and people who were outcasts and
things of that nature. In other words, it was not administered in a fair
way. Any rate, added to that the thing that death was final. And if you
made a mistake, as has been done in history, there was no way of
correcting it. But that failed continuously through the entire time that
I was in the legislature. When the question first came up about my
coming on the court, I had to think about the question of how I would
deal with that. I concluded that as long as the death penalty is a part
of the law, then it is my duty to uphold the law. So that's the approach
I have taken to it. I have voted and gone along with opinions which have
upheld the death penalty in North Carolina and will continue to do that
where I feel they have been tried in accordance with the law and the law
has been followed. So that's been my approach to it and as far as I know
will continue to be it. I think the question as to whether it should be
a part of the law is a policy question which is for the legislature. And
the legislature has made it fairly clear, not fairly clear, it has made
it clear in North Carolina as in some other states, that that is a part
of our law. So any rate, the key now seems to be, to have it
administered so that only those
Would you have said that if McKoy had not been
overruled?
McKoy, and I don't know how much we need to get into
this for anyone who may hear this later, but just a little history on
that. The United States Supreme Court in the Mills
case, which was a case out of Maryland, in effect, said the instructions
could be taken to mean that a juror who felt there was somethign
mitigating, would not be able to consider that in deciding whether a
person should get the life or death. And so they sent it back. The
question was, whether that case applied to North Carolina law. And, to
me there was just no doubt that the Mills case, which
was a United States Supreme Court case, did apply to North Carolina,
because North Carolina instructions didn't leave any doubt. They said
that each juror had to find each mitigating circumstance unanimously so
it was very clear to me that the case did apply. So I dissented to the
decisions which this court handed down saying that it did not apply.
And, as you know, we had a lot of those cases, and eventually the
Supreme Court of the United States agreed that it did apply. And that
was the McKoy case, of course, which said that. So
then we had the question then of whether it was subject to what we call
harmless error, and we said, yes, it is, so then of the cases that had
come up, we had to first see if there was error, and then if there was
error, was it harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. And if we couldn't
find that we'd have to send it back for a new sentencing hearing. And so
that's what we did. Obviously, I feel that — not I feel, everybody knows — we've got to comply with the decisions of
the United States Supreme Court as far as meeting their requirements
I don't know if you feel comfortable answering this, but are there any lawyers that have stood out to you in terms of their abilities to argue?
I don't know if I want to get into naming attorneys. Some of the members of the Appellate Defender's office have gotten really good in arguing the death cases because they do it all the time. Two or three of the persons in the Attorney General's office who argue the same type of cases have gotten extremely good on it. Sometimes we may tend to listen a little more carefully to what they're saying, because we know that they really know what the law is in a particular area. Quite often we will ask the representatives from the Attorney General's office, what is the state's position on this. A lot of times we're thinking not just about that particular case, but about the same type of issues that continuously arise in certain types of cases, especially in the death cases because they become experts in that area. And then there are attorneys who come regularly in other types of cases. But I don't believe I want to get into saying this particular lawyer may be a little better than that one. I don't believe I want to do that.
When you're hearing a case, are there any techniques you use, such as taking down notes?
Yes, well, first of all for the most part, and I'll just talk about
myself. When I go into the oral argument, I've already read a lot about
the case. I'm fairly familiar with the issues. And usually there are two
or three things that I have some doubt about. And so those are the
questions that I ask. Quite often, for example, in my own mind, I have
said that the law should go this way. And let's say that I'm thinking of
agreeing with the state on a particular issue. The chances are there are
a couple of things I'm not sure about. So I will ask the lawyer for the
state questions about that. And quite often
And as an aside, I'll give you the first time that that type of thing really came home to me was, when I was in the U.S. Attorney's Office, I represented the United States in a case that went to the Fourth Circuit and Judge Craven, for whom the Craven Moot Court Competition is named in Carolina, was one of the judges on that panel. And he seemed to be the only judge on that panel who agreed with the government's position that I was taking. The others were questioning me very hard, and he would almost argue my case for me. You know, he would state, counsel what you mean is so and so and so and this is what you're saying. So I left that day, I said, well I got one vote on my side. Judge Craven is with me. And of course he wrote the opinion disagreeing with the United States' position in that particular case. And so I found out that what he was doing was being sure that he understood the government's position. And once he understood it, he did not agree with it. I guess I've used that technique quite often to satisfy myself as to a position. To just keep pushing that particular question until I'm sure that that's the position and then I know that either I'm with it or I'm against it. I guess my advice to lawyers is when a judge is interested in a particular question and is pursuing it, try to be sure that you present the best side because that may be the key to the question and try not to dodge the judge's questions.
Do you have any advice for new members to the court, a young judge? What would you tell them? What kind of advice would you give him or her?
I think one of the bits of advice I would give the new person is to have
a thick skin. And don't be insulted by the fact that another justice not
only disagrees with what you say, or write, but also doesn't like the
way you said it. Along that same line, I would say don't be afraid to
ask questions. And
It's easy to be intimidated by a judge, from a lawyer's perspective. Do you think judges are intentionally aggressive?
Well, I think sometimes most of us even as judges become a little more aggressive than we expect to. And incidentally I had to catch myself several times appearing to argue with attorneys and becoming a little more animated than I realized. And how I observed that was listening to the tapes afterwards. I don't think generally judges intend to be. But we're trying to get answers and sometimes we're trying to resolve a question in our own minds and we become a little more of an advocate than we intend to be. But I think that from a lawyer's standpoint, obviously you should be respectful towards the court, but if you've got a good point, you stick to it.
You've been a member of the bar for a while now. Have you noticed a great degree in the different standards that used to be required for admittance to the bar?
I'm not sure that I can really answer that. I think that the methods used today are probably better than they were in the time I came along. I think that, but that's a thought without having any real statistics to back it up. As far as the exam itself is concerned, I looked at the exams and they're pretty tough, but they were tough when I came along. I think there's a conscious effort on the part of the bar examiners to get good questions and to grade them fairly. And so I feel pretty good about the present system.
Did you ever face a difficult ethical problem during your practice, any conflicts of interest situations?
Difficult ethical situations, hmm. No specific one comes to mind. When I was practicing law, one of the things I started doing was working with the development of apartments and housing projects and things of this nature, where federal funds were available one way or the other, through the Federal Housing Administration or something of that nature. And the lawyer who worked with it had to fill out all sorts of forms to disclose any type of interest [that may raise a conflict problem].
[END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 3, SIDE B]
[We were speaking about]
the requirements of filling out forms, disclosing everybody almost that
you ever dealt with in any way, anybody you had any financial
arrangements with, any associations, things of that nature. And then
later when I organized a bank, I organized a little bank, Greensboro
National Bank, and we had to go through the same type of thing, filling
out all of these forms and that type of thing. And so then when I went
to the Legislature we had the same kind of thing of the question of
filling out forms there. So any rate, and I recall the questions of the
identity of interests as distinguished from the conflict of interests.
In
There's a lot of talk today about jobs in the legal profession being very stressful and affecting people's personal lives. Have you ever found your career as a lawyer, or as a politician, or as a judge taking a toll on your personal life? How do you manage your many responsiblities?
Well, I'm not sure I've managed it nearly as well as I should have. It
can be very stressful. I still don't have the full answer to how to keep
it from being stressful. But some of my techniques are these: One, I try
to concentrate on whatever I'm trying to do at the moment. In other
words, I may have three things all of which have to be done by
Wednesday, and today's Monday. So I have to decide, now which one can I
work on today. And while I am working on that, get the other one out of
my mind. But if I try to do all of them at one time, the chances are I'm
What sort of outside activities do you participate in?
Well, on the physical standpoint, I used to play a lot of ping-pong which I don't play as much of now, but that's probably my most enjoyable game. When I was younger I played a little basketball and things of that nature but I can't do that anymore. But I play a little tennis, hit at the golf ball a little bit and I'm a fairly good bowler, and I love dancing, and so that's along that line. I'm almost always active in some kind of civic activities, church activities and things of that nature, which again give me some variety, give me a change of pace. And I work with everything from tutoring students in school and doing a little speaking around and various things of that nature. So just a lot of different other things, oh, and one of my favorites is watching A & T basketball or football and when I get a little time, Carolina and some of the others. But that's some idea of the variety.
When you talk about your involvement with the church, that's your church back in Greensboro?
Now while I work in Raleigh, I live in Greensboro. So, that's where my activities are primarily. A lot of my time in Raleigh is spent working, even at night, sometimes early in the morning. But I do get my physical exercise here in the sense of ping-pong and things of that nature, bowling.
Where do you play ping-pong?
In the place where I live. We have a ping-pong table there and two or three people who think they're pretty good. So we play sometimes as late as 11:00 at night. When I get through with that, go and take a shower, I go to bed and sleep like a baby.
Did you find it difficult to find time to spend with your family, especially when you were raising your sons?
Yes, that was primarily during the time I was away with the legislature. So what I did generally, first of all, I would leave on Monday afternoon and come to Raleigh and stay generally until Friday. But I would call them every night and talk with them about something. Either at night or sometimes even early in the morning, just sort of stay in contact with them. And then I tried to find time during the weekends to spend with them. As they got a little older, both of them became good bowlers and they were in the bowling leagues and they were also in the little leagues with basketball and they played either softball or baseball, I'm not even sure which one it was now. So we on the weekends, we traveled around North Carolina, and went as far as Washington D.C. and went south to Atlanta and places like that, bowling and various other things. So we had a lot of time with them on the weekends. And so while I didn't spend nearly the time I would like to have spent with them, we did have a lot of quality time together.
From what I understand, your wife is very active in the community and in the education profession. Do the two of you get involved in community activities together?
Well, most of our community activities have been separate. But then we
get back together after that's over. Now with the boys and their sports
and things of that nature, we were together. So we would maybe go
somewhere like on Friday and stay for the weekend for them with their
tournaments and things of that nature. So we spent that time together.
But in the organizations around Greensboro, generally she would be in
one and I would be in another. So we would both take care of that.
Are you the only judge that keeps his roots back in his hometown?
Oh, no, on this court, let's see, Justice Meyer and Justice Webb both live in Wilson and drive in on a daily basis. Justice Whichard lives in Durham and drives in on a daily basis. We were, I guess, the major ones, in fact, the Chief now has even moved his home back to Greensboro. Justice Exum, Chief Justice Exum. So it's not unusual to live in one place and work in another.
Why did you settle in Greensboro?
Well, I came to Greensboro to go to A & T. My wife went to A & T and she got a job working there. Now this is before we were married, of course. And we both liked Greensboro. So when we got married, she had a job as a school teacher at that time, working in Greensboro. And we had a nice house where we were living in, we didn't own it, we were renting it. And she wanted to stay there and I liked Greensboro. So we stayed there and I started out commuting to Chapel Hill to go to law school. After I finished, I came back. I still liked it. I started my practice there. I've grown to like Greensboro and she's grown to like it and you couldn't pry either of us away with a shovel.
North Carolina is known to be a rather conservative state. That may be an understatement.
Well, in a lot of ways, yes, I believe that.
Do you feel Greensboro may be more liberal than most North Carolina cities?
I doubt that Greensboro could be accused of being liberal. It's probably
more progressive than some parts of North Carolina. Greensboro has a lot
of variety and there's no
What do you envision for the future of North Carolina? Do you see any trends that the state may be becoming a little more progressive in some respects?
Well, with the right leadership North Carolina should go into the twenty-first century as a more progressive state. I don't see any signs of any great movement right at this time, and by saying great movement, I mean great movement either way, but there's always hope.
What would you like to see?
Well, I would like to see North Carolina live up to its motto, "to be rather than to seem" and to be, I mean, to do a better job of being fair and open in everything from employment in the state government to encounters in the cities and that type of thing, and I would like to see our industries do a better job of being open in terms, again, of employment and not just employment but promotion and that type of thing. I'd like to see us do a lot better job especially with our secondary schools in terms of giving them the kind of support that is needed in those areas and just real leadership both at the local and the state level, and here again, I can't talk too much, because as a judge, I don't want to get into criticisms of any specific people or parties or anything of that nature, and so I'm hoping that things will continue, well, I can't say continue because I'm not sure they are getting any better right now, but I think there is hope. Let's leave it at that.
END OF INTERVIEW