15
NEW FRIENDS
One day in early 1971, I had a surprising visitor. The guard announced that Reverend Kenneth Dean of Jackson, head of the Mississippi Council on Human Relations, was waiting to see me. Reverend Dean was a prominent civil rights advocate who had been interested in my case from the beginning. Based on what he had seen and heard, he felt that I had been the victim of illegal entrapment by the FBI. He had driven up to Parchman to talk to me about it. He and his wife, Mary, had already sought out and befriended my parents.
Ken was a complicated person with whom I disagreed on politics and theology. Yet he was genuinely concerned about my welfare. He saw racists as people he was called to love. Over the years he befriended not only me but Sam Bowers and other Klan leaders as well. He won them over with the same unassuming sincerity with which he had won me over. As you might imagine, this made him an enigma to people on all sides. I had assumed that all liberal civil rights activists would naturally hate Southern racists. But that was not true of Ken, nor, as I would soon discover, of several others I would meet. I had also assumed that it was impossible for a conservative to be friends with a liberal without compromising in some way. But I found that that was not true either. I discovered that it is possible for people to hold very different views on important issues yet not be enemies. In parting, Ken gave me a gift: Pensées by Blaise Pascal, whose wisdom I still find inspiring. Though neither of us could have anticipated it at the time, Ken would eventually play an important role in my being released from prison.
About this time, another relationship began developing with an equally unlikely person. Joyce Watts, the wife of FBI agent Frank Watts (who had interrogated me when I was awaiting trial in Meridian), wrote me a letter and sent some Christian books. Joyce had been impacted by the charismatic movement and explained that she had been praying for me regularly since my arrest in 1968. In fact, her whole women’s prayer group in Meridian, Mississippi, had prayed for me weekly for about two years. They believed that God could still do miracles and were asking him to do a big one by saving me and transforming my life. During those two years, their prayers would have made no sense to me at all, but now it was clear that these faithful intercessors—along with my mother and others—had indeed helped pray me into the kingdom of God.
After word got out that I’d experienced a religious conversion, Frank Watts and his partner, Jack Rucker, came to see me on the orders of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who thought I was trying to use religion as a ruse to gain another opportunity to escape. He sent my former interrogators on an official visit to assess the situation.
Frank and Jack talked with me for a while, trying to understand what was going on with me. I shared openly how my eyes had been opened and I had come to true faith in Christ. They listened with intense interest because, as Frank later told me, he had never seen such a change in a person. He said even my countenance was different. And then they asked me an extremely tough question: “Now that you really know Jesus Christ, don’t you think it is your duty to testify against your associates and put them behind bars? After all, they are dangerous people and have broken the laws. For the good of society, they need to be locked up.”
I was still very immature in my faith at this point, especially in the practical application of my faith to daily life. My response probably seemed like a cop-out to them. However, I had been deeply influenced by years of watching war movies (where a prisoner gave only name, rank, and serial number when captured) and by the Klan’s code of secrecy.
As I explained to them, the crimes I committed were done out of a common commitment to a cause and mutual trust. It would be wrong, I reasoned, to testify against my cohorts now—especially since they were no longer engaged in violence. Most of them had already been charged with other crimes. The likelihood of their doing anything else was very small. If I testified against them, so my reasoning went, my newfound relationship with Christ would appear to be just a con game to gain an early release from prison by becoming “righteous.” That, it seemed to me, would dishonor the Lord. However, I did promise that if any of them were suspected to be planning violence again, I would let them know that if they went through with it, I would testify against them.
Frank later told me that the changes he saw in me that day caused him to reexamine his own life. Although he was a good, moral man, a church member, and considered himself a Christian, he came to see that he had never really had a personal relationship with Christ. The recognition that he had had only an outward form of religion led him to a very real, life-changing and personal faith in Jesus that would steadily mature over the years. After that, Frank Watts and I became good friends. Neither of us had any idea at the time what a vital role Frank would play in my life in the future.
* * *
I had been in the maximum-security unit for two years when Sergeant E. R. Moody, who was in charge of the unit, came to my cell one day and asked, “How would you like to get out of your cell for a few hours a day to do clerical work for me in the office?” I was floored by his question. He said, “This could be an opportunity to prove yourself, and it might eventually get you out of maximum security and into the general prison population.” He also explained that he had gained a lot of respect for my parents, especially my mother, during their visits. He had also watched me during the year or so since I had come to the Lord and had seen the changes in my life. He had decided to help me if he could. And so I worked for Sergeant Moody a full year, doing the best job I possibly could.
Much later, I learned that Sergeant Moody had gone to the superintendent and put his job on the line to get permission to offer me this job. There was no reason for him or anyone else to take such an initiative on my behalf. But for some reason, he did.
Now that I was out of my cell each day, I had more opportunities to help others. Ironically, the first person I helped to grow spiritually was someone I would have never even spoken to before—a young black man named Gary who was a cook in maximum security. A common plight (prison) and a shared interest in the Lord drew us together as friends, and he began to ask me questions about things he was reading in the Bible. I was only one or two steps ahead of Gary, but I was able to answer some of his questions. Although I knew nothing about helping others grow in their faith at the time, this was my first experience of something I would be doing for the rest of my life—trying to help people grow as disciples of Jesus.
* * *
The year 1972 brought several dramatic changes in my prison status. The new governor, Bill Waller, had taken office in January. In February, he appointed John Collier, a prominent plantation owner from the Mississippi Delta and a dedicated Christian layman, as superintendent of the state penitentiary. One day that spring, Mr. Collier was making an inspection tour of the maximum-security unit and noticed my cell—cluttered as it was with stacks of Christian books and literature. He wanted to know who was assigned there. After completing his inspection, he came into the office where I worked and saw even more faith-related books stacked around my work space.
Superintendent Collier introduced himself to me and asked if the books were mine. I stood up and answered yes. He asked me, “Do you know the Lord?” “Yes, sir,” I replied. He said that he did, too, and after a brief conversation, he left. This seemingly chance encounter was far more significant than I knew. During the next couple of months, I saw Mr. Collier two or three times, and then only briefly. But some of his key staff—the prison chief of security, the staff psychologist, and the four chaplains, who visited maximum security often—had gotten to know me well. This would soon bring surprising developments.
In May, my friend and mentor, Sergeant Moody, retired. My new supervisor, Sergeant Patrick Mooney, who also worked in maximum security, recommended me for trusty status. This meant I would be given more freedom within the prison. Much to my surprise, the prison classification committee, with the support of the chaplains and the prison psychologist, unanimously approved the recommendation, a
nd Superintendent Collier concurred. Three years after my escape and recapture, I was given a status of trust and responsibility that no one could have predicted and some of the security personnel thought was crazy. They assumed my conversion was “jailhouse religion”—the temporary adoption of religion as a psychological coping mechanism or as a pretense to gain some advantage while in confinement.
My first time out of the maximum-security unit as a trusty was with Chaplain Glenn Howell, who took the risk of inviting me to his home for dinner and fellowship with his wife and children. Mary was a great cook and a warm, loving person. She treated me to the best meal I’d had in four years. What a gift to be in normal surroundings, eating and talking with ordinary people, with little children running around. It was the first of a number of such occasions with Glenn and his family that I would enjoy in the years ahead.
Shortly after that, my supervisors felt that the time had come for me to be released from the maximum-security unit altogether. I was assigned to work as a clerk in the chaplain’s office, in the administration building. My new living quarters was a garage apartment in back of the superintendent’s home, where the Collier family lived.
For someone with a record like mine and just out of maximum security, this kind of move was more than unusual or even extraordinary—it was unheard-of. Skeptics on the prison staff thought Mr. Collier was naive, if not stupid, and that I had conned him with my “jailhouse religion.” They predicted I would escape again, as there were no guards and no locked doors to prevent my leaving either the administration building or my garage apartment.
I could have easily walked away at night and no one would have known for eight hours. But escaping never entered my mind. God had changed my heart. I knew that his plan for my life did not include any more prison breakouts. When I left Parchman, it would be by an official release and not an escape. As I went about my work in the chaplain’s office, the weeks grew into months, and many of the doubters realized that I had, indeed, been changed.
In addition to my daily clerical duties in the chaplain’s office, I accompanied the chaplains on their rounds to the various camps, helping with ministry and with Bible studies. I also periodically traveled with the chaplains, usually Chaplain Howell, on speaking engagements to churches around the state of Mississippi. Invitations came from churches of all sizes, mainly Baptist and Methodist. The chaplain would usually talk about the importance of ministering to those in prison, and I would talk about what God had done in my life. I enjoyed being able to bear witness to the life-changing power of Christ and explain the need for true faith and genuine repentance.
All seemed to be going well for me. Then, suddenly, Superintendent Collier resigned after less than a year on the job at Parchman. I heard that it was related to political conflicts with people in state government. It was a sad day to see him leave after such a hopeful beginning. He was succeeded by Mr. Bill Hollowell, a former sheriff and highway patrolman, who was quite security-conscious. The new superintendent took a dim view of my living behind his house with no security. Consequently, I was assigned to live and work at the pre-release center, where I would remain for the next four years.
The pre-release center was the next best place to live at Parchman prison. It was a minimum-security honor camp without fences or guards and only a couple of round-the-clock supervisory personnel. Parolees were sent there three weeks before release, to receive counseling and instruction during their transition from prison to free society.
Unlike an ordinary camp, pre-release was modeled more on the lines of a college dormitory. A deliberate effort was made to create as normal an environment as possible. The front door opened into a large, well-furnished and carpeted lounge area. This space opened into a modern cafeteria, forming the center of a building that had a wing on either side. The wing off of one side of the lounge contained a dormitory with modern bunk beds and bathrooms. The other wing housed a classroom and a suite of offices for the state’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. Prerelease sat on a large grassy lot with no fences and had a lake about a hundred yards from the building. It wasn’t a country club, but it was one of the nicest arrangements on the vast prison complex.
My new assignment consisted of assisting the vocational rehabilitation staff of four counselors and their secretaries. My initial duties were few and menial: making coffee twice a day, keeping the staff lounge clean, cleaning the bathrooms, making photocopies of documents, and so forth. Before long, I was asked to teach courses to the parolees, including a motivational course called “Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.” Another was “The World of Work,” which centered on employer-employee relations. I also taught a driver’s education course to help inmates get their driver’s licenses before they left.
Not long thereafter, the chaplains’ offices relocated to the pre-release center, and I once again served as their clerk under Chaplain Glenn Howell, in addition to my other duties. While there, I got to know the new chaplain for women, an older lady named Wendy Hatcher, a member of First Presbyterian Church in Cleveland, Mississippi. Because the female population was small and didn’t require all of her time, she often spent time in the office doing administrative work. She turned out to be something of a spiritual mother to me. Seldom did a day pass without our discussing the Bible and the Christian life, and she was always bringing me religious books and tapes. She also brought various members of her prayer group (mainly women) to meet me, and they took an interest and began to pray for me regularly. Often it fell to her lot to pray and counsel me through times of doubt, confusion, and despair. (In spite of having had such a dramatic conversion experience, I went through a period of doubting my salvation.)
Much of this unsettledness came from my struggles with indwelling sin, especially pride, self-righteousness, a judgmental spirit, and various sinful thoughts and desires. I desired holiness, but I did not yet understand the intensity or dynamics of the lifelong battle with the world, the flesh, and the Devil. Nor did I understand how to consistently live the Christian life. It was easy to identify with Paul in Romans 7:22–24 when he said, “For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” But I couldn’t find my way to what he said a few verses later: “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (8:2). Some days were good; others were bad. The cycle of ups and downs was unsettling and discouraging. And exposure to certain forms of “victorious life” teaching only made it worse.
Through her wise counsel and prayers, Wendy helped me get on a path of deepening growth in the Christian life by introducing me to spiritual classics—books such as Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by Martin Lloyd-Jones. Thankfully, she was patient with the perfectionism that I had developed from being the adult child of an alcoholic, something that would take quite a while to change.
Several months after I had moved to the pre-release center, the Reverend Ken Dean, who had visited me when I was in the maximum-security unit, returned to Mississippi from his seminary studies in New York. He had been involved in helping facilitate reconciliation between individuals and groups who were racially or politically alienated from one another, and he wanted to see if he could help me reconcile with some of my enemies, and they with me. To this end he suggested the possibility of my talking with Mr. Aaron Henry, the head of the Mississippi NAACP. Ken arranged a phone call for us, and it turned out to be a cordial conversation and a small step toward reconciliation with a leader in the black community, though we spoke only once. It wasn’t much, but anytime people on opposite sides of an issue can speak cordially it is a small step that can draw them a bit closer and strengthen a foundation for further progress. A long series of small steps can eventually bridge large gaps if both sides are willing.
Ken also proposed a meeting with Mr
. Alvin Binder. Al was a prominent criminal attorney in Jackson and a leader in Mississippi’s Jewish community. When the Klan began its terror campaign against the Jews, he took a year off from his lucrative law practice to help the FBI stop it. A tough-minded, highly competent lawyer, he had played a crucial role in breaking up the Klan.
In a propitious coincidence, Frank Watts had worked closely with Binder on the Meridian bombings and knew him well. A few months before Ken Dean approached Al, Frank had also suggested a reconciliation meeting. Al’s terse response was, “Let him rot in hell.” With that rebuke in mind, I told Ken that if he thought he could persuade Binder and arrange it with prison officials, I would be glad to meet with him. But I was not optimistic. Nevertheless, a few weeks later Ken showed up at Parchman with my nemesis in tow. This was another momentous development that appeared insignificant at the time.
When Al and I first stood in front of each other, there was a suspicious and prickly tension between us. The air in the room was electric. He was a trial lawyer and fired questions at me to see if I would try to evade him or deceive him. I answered truthfully and directly. I told him how sorry I was for all I had done. I offered to make whatever amends I could. Once he realized I wasn’t playing games, the tension gave way. When Al left that afternoon, we weren’t good friends, but there was enough easing of the tension to call it a step toward reconciliation. Moreover, the foundation had been laid for what would eventually become a real friendship.
This moment marked my first rapprochement with a member of the Jewish community. I had made another effort before this. A couple of years earlier, Frank Watts had asked me if I would like him to arrange an opportunity for me to ask Meyer Davidson’s forgiveness. I wanted to do it, but when Frank reached out to Davidson, he was not ready to consider it. I couldn’t really blame him for feeling that way—it would be a difficult thing to give any credence to a so-called Christian who had tried to blow up his home then later claimed that he had been changed by Jesus and was actually a “real Christian” now. At least I could be grateful for the fact that in spite of all the terror I had inflicted on them, he and his family had not been physically harmed.
Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love Page 13