The Interview

Section 1: 0:00 – 0:22 (0:22)MC: So a lot of changes in voting laws occurring around the country, but North Carolina has been the focus of a lot of press coverage and national debate, even in the presidential campaign. And we were wondering — our question is — is there something special about North Carolina that makes it such a prominent battleground for this issue?

Section 2: 0:22 – 1:42 (1:20)

HF: You start out with a tough question. Yes there are a lot of things special about North Carolina, it’s the variety vacation land. We start with that, and it was one of the original colonies of the United States, and so it has been developing in many ways through the years, and it has a lot of history. Both ways. Good and bad. It is a very important, number 11 or something like that in the nation, from the top, and we have a variety of industries and things of that nature. And have had some really interesting politics through the years. We could go way back in history, but I won’t do that.

But we can just start with maybe around the 19th and 20th centuries and come forward to today. But you probably have that information anyway so I won’t get into it. Everything helps if you understand it in the context of history and thats the first point I want to make. And I will go ahead and wait till your more specific questions.

Section 3: 1:42 – 2:09 (0:27)

JC: Alright. So there is a pretty specific history of voting, especially in North Carolina, tied to the Civil Rights Movement. We are here in Greensboro, and the city is famous for the sit-ins that took place here. Do you feel that this civil rights history is connected to why North Carolina stays a prominent factor in voting issues even today?

Section 4: 2:09 – 8:56 (6:47)

HF: Yes, um, yes it does. I am trying to see where to start, I will just talk a little bit and then we can get to try to answer your questions maybe more specifically.

We had what I call the Fusion Period of politics in North Carolina which was in the late 1890s and continued maybe up until close to the turn of the 20th century. It is when the farmers and various others came together and took over the state from what had been a very strong I guess Democratic dominance. And that lasted up until I guess 1899, 2000, when the Democrats came back in and took over with very racist campaigns really, led by the man who became the governor. Things changed. But during that previous period, during the Fusion Period, voting was easy, for the times, I better throw that in. And a lot of people participated, including former slaves, who participated in the registration and the voting, and in public office at the city, county, and state level, in North Carolina. Right around that time, 2000, wait not 2000, 1900. Be sure I get my dates — if I said, I hope I said 1890 not 1990, having lived in two centuries I get them mixed up sometimes.

But with that change, frankly, the Democrats took over and it was a very racist kind of thing for a good while. They took away almost the black vote for example, and that lasted for a long time. Just to sort of jump forward to the various things that occurred during the years, all different administrations. And since I talked about how bad the Democrats were back then, several Democrats kind of led to begin to open things up a lot more, during the 1950s and 60s, in those periods. So, but to just get more to modern times — and if you want to stop me and do it because I get started talking sometimes and don’t know when to quit answering a particular question — I think the 1965 Voting Rights Act was one of the most important things in terms of registering and voting and giving people not only an opportunity to vote but also prohibiting a lot of bad things that had happened in terms of people registering to vote. And as a result of that act, it became fairly easy for most people to register and vote in North Carolina and other states, primarily in the south where the African American vote had been curtailed by all kinds of legislative and other acts that tended to prevent people from registering and voting. One of the most powerful parts of that act was the one that required that states where the registering and voting — and I am being general — did not reach certain levels or a certain date before they could make a change, before the county or the city or the state could make a change in their voting registration procedures, it had to be cleared through the Attorney General of the United States, with the civil rights division of all parts. So this became a very hot and contested thing in the South and some other places, but I am talking primarily about the south and especially North Carolina. And so it allowed a lot of people to register and vote and it became easy to register and vote in North Carolina. And that was going fine here and in several southern states.

Well then here comes along a Supreme Court decision declaring a part of the act invalid. It was the part that, without going into detail again, the essence of which ended up being that you no longer had to submit a change in your registration and voting laws to the Attorney General of the United States, you could just go on and change it. And then if people didn’t like it, they could file a lawsuit. Well one of the many reasons for the Voting Rights Act provision that required that was that trying to get your rights established through the courts is a long and tedious journey. And so you could file a lawsuit today and it could be 10 years before you get relief. And so the Voting Rights Act took away most of that. You didn’t have wait, this is it, you can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can do this. That just changed it all together in North Carolina and in several states, especially southern states, again, I am sorry to say it since I am from the south. And by the way I helped with the establishment of the Southern Growth Policies Board — I won’t get into that — when I was in the legislature. So that’s that history. So then it allowed states and cities and counties who wanted to just go ahead and make changes, some of which were very restrictive. And then you had to file a lawsuit again in order to try to change it. So that’s the bad part of the history as far as — well a part of the bad part of the history — as far as I know. I will stop at that and let you ask more questions.

Section 5: 8:56 – 9:18 (0:22)

JC: I find it really interesting, you had said that the Voting Rights Act opened up registration in 1965, but we were reading your story of how you went to register to vote in 1956, on your wedding day. We found it really interesting that it was that specific day, your wedding day, that moment in your life. Can you tell me, why on that day did you decide to go register to vote?

Section 6: 9:18 – 10:58 (1:40)

HF: Alright. Now this is before the Voting Rights Act

JC: Right

HF: In the rural counties especially, registration time was very limited. So you may only be able to register two Saturdays in July and August. If you didn’t register in those two days, you had to wait until the next time they opened registration. Well this was in August, and I was to get married — I was in a little town called Ellerbe, Richmond County — and I was coming to Greensboro to get married and I wasn’t going to get married until the afternoon. So I said this is a Saturday morning, I found out that the registration was opened, so I said I believe I will register to vote because this was my home town. And you have probably seen a lot written about that, that I was asked a lot of questions about irrelevant things as far as the requirements for registering and voting. When I didn’t answer the questions, the person told me I couldn’t register, I didn’t pass. And so I left, and the minister who was also from Ellerbe — we had been together in school, and who was going to marry us in Greensboro that day — went in, he got the same treatment. Neither one of us were able to register not that morning, on our wedding — my wedding day — before we came to Greensboro. So that is that story.

Section 7: 10:58 – 11:05 (0:07)

JC: So you had already done research, you knew what you needed to do to register and you knew that they were not following …

Section 8: 11:05 – 12:48 (1:43)

HF I knew it yes yes. Other than the statutes and constitution at that time, you had to be able to read it and write any section of the North Carolina Constitution. And I think at that time there was a provision to the satisfaction of the registrar, or something, not in the constitution but in the state statutes, it had been in there and I don’t know if they had taken it out at that particular time. But clearly those questions about signers of the Declaration of Independence and things of that nature just had nothing to do with it. It was in a book — I take that back — he said he was reading from a book with those questions.

And I by the way had been admitted to law school at the University of North Carolina at that time, and he knew it. Because I asked him. Afterward I went back in, because I had been in service in Korea and Japan for some time, about that time by the way. Then I couldn’t find a job in Ellerbe or Greensboro that I thought I would, so I went to New York and worked for about 6 months or so. And so I said, “You don’t have any doubt that I am a resident of Richmond County?” and he said “Oh no, I know your mother and father and you are the one who was admitted to go to law school.” Can you imagine? I said to myself, “If you know all that, and you are gonna turn me down, I don’t believe you let many black folks register to vote in this area.” And I was right, they didn’t. Anyway we straightened that out later on.

Section 9: 12:48 – 12:51 (0:03)

JC: How long did it take you to straighten it out?

Section 10: 12:51 – 14:53 (2:02)

HF: Well, again, I was — we came to Greensboro and I got married so I was away for a while. When I finally came back I went to see the chair of the Board of Elections and told him what had occurred. And he apologized. And he said, “If you go back I don’t think you will have a problem.” And he was right, I went back, they had a new registrar, a nice looking elderly lady. She made a copy of that part of the Constitution, what she could legally do, and I wrote it, she looked at it, and she said, “You got it right. You passed.” So I registered and started voting. And the other person did too. But to his credit, the chair of the Board of Elections and the sheriff of the county began to take action to see that that kind of thing did not continue to occur. Now I have to check — I better check my facts — I said the sheriff, I am not sure if it was the same sheriff that was in that day that I went down, or if it was the new sheriff that came right after that. But the new sheriff made a practice of trying to help people get registered to vote, especially blacks, many of whom had not registered and some of them had the kind of difficulty that I had. One of whom, who really could barely read and write, got a lot of newspaper publicity. He, I think, after don’t know how many times he went before he was able to satisfy the registrar that he was qualified and you know, able to read and write. That’s a longer answer than you expected I suppose. Anyway, it’s something that I think about deeply when I talk about it.

Section 11: 14:53 – 15:03 (0:10)

MC: And is that experience why you got so interested in public service? Did that influence your career decisions?

Section 12: 15:03 – 16:16 (1:13)

HF: Well I already had that interest. And I will give you one of the things in the background that helped me with that. When I was in service in either Japan or Korea at that time, I have forgotten, there was another officer and I talked with him — I met him and we were just talking about his weekends. He said. “Well I spend a good part of my weekends teaching people how to read and write.” Most of them were military prisoners. And I said, “Oh yeah, how much you get paid for that?” He said, “Paid? I do it for free.” We had a long talk about public service and that had a lot to do with it. That with some other people that I had talked to that you gotta give something back. If you are fortunate enough to have some ability and to do well, you owe it to your fellow man to give something back to others. I have stayed with that most of my life.

Section 13: 16:16 – 16:38 (0:22)

MC: So moving a little forward, when the Voting Rights Act was passed it was the summer of 1965, and you were working as an assistant U.S. attorney. What were your colleague’s opinions towards the Voting Rights Act at the time?

Section 14: 16:38 – 18:50 (2:12)

HF: Now let me see, in 1965, maybe you have checked it out, I have forgotten the years, they may have mixed up a little bit on me. There wasn’t a lot of strong reaction in North Carolina as soon as it came out, let me just put it that way. That much I remember. But it was also during those times that we begin to have some sit ins and things of that nature — it started in 1960 but it continued in terms of trying to get public accommodations open and trying to just get away from discrimination on the basis of race and deal with the military. Not the military, I mean with the — the military was ahead of us as a matter of fact which is another story. But to try to get things better in North Carolina in terms of getting rid of racial things — from the grave yard all the way to the swimming pools. We had the public accommodations national legislation at that time too, the Civil Rights Act, which together people were working on. They had the sit-ins at the Woolworth and at stores and things of that nature. And then it spread to others in terms of employment, and so we had all these things going on at that time. And of course in 65, in that general area, I was still young and trying to make a living, trying to practice law. So, I was not as active as probably some people thought I should have been in the civil rights activities and such. I have to admit I spent a lot of time talking with people who were involved in it, and in fact most of the time encouraged them in what they were doing.

Section 15: 18:50 – 19:22 (0:32)

JC: Throughout your biography, we have read quite a bit about your life story, and you are a trendsetter — you became a role model for a lot of African Americans going into pubic service in North Carolina. You were the first in the U.S. attorney, first assistant U.S. attorney, then in the legislature, and Supreme Court, throughout out your life. Do you see that as a form of activism? Because I am curious when you said people didn’t think you were as active as you should have been.

Section 16: 19:22 – 20:47 (1:25)

HF: Well I guess we thought of activism as you know [ ], and all this which is a form of activism and sometimes makes a great change. But mine was more quietly and more behind the scenes and conferring with people about how to get things done that they wanted to do at that particular time. The one thing I do want to be very careful with, you mentioned about the first African American in the legislature, and that was elected in the 20th century.

JC: Yes

HF: Because we had blacks during the 1890s, I told you about that. And then there were blacks shortly after the Civil War in North Carolina. There is another time we had blacks there. So we had blacks in the legislature shortly after the Civil War, during the reconstruction period, and then it went almost always out, not completely, but almost out. And then it came back during the Fusion Period, and then went out again around the turn of the 20th century. And not a big deal of progress from then up until the Civil Rights Movement started for real during the middle of the 20th century.

Section 17: 20:47 – 21:30 (0:43)

MC: I’m curious, especially considering everything that happened in the 1890s with the Fusion campaign, some of the men behind it like Charles Aycock, today I remembered that he is remembered as the education governor, but we forget his association with the white supremacy campaign and the Wilmington Race Riots. How does that affect — or how does that make you feel to see people forget this, such a crucial aspect and portion of North Carolina’s history?

Section 18: 21:30 – 22:30 (1:00)

HF: Well, the people who were very active in it, they look at it, I don’t mind telling you that I praise him for insisting that we have education for both black and white. I condemn him for taking the racist attitude that he did about it, some say that was the times. But everybody didn’t take that attitude, so there is good and bad. I think we praise him for the good things that he did but at the same time he certainly was not a model for the kind of leadership in the area of race relations and the area of being open and inclusive. So that is about as good as I can say about it.

Section 19: 22:30 – 22:55 (0:25)

JC: Moving forward to your time in the legislature, I had read, you said your first priority was to remove the literacy test. I was really interested in how that was received by your fellow legislators. Was that something that people could get behind and did you start it? Or was it something you had to kind of fight more for and it was more controversial?

Section 20: 22:55 – 26:27 (3:32)

HF: Let me take two or three minutes on that.

JC: Yeah

HF: That was my first priority in terms of getting it through the legislature. As you know to get it through the legislature you have to have a super majority. So we had a little book that the telephone company printed with all the names of the legislators in it. Those in the House and then one for the Senate. I had the book with the picture and the phone number and where they were from and the whole thing. So I just went to each legislator in the House — which is where I was, the House of Representatives — and talked to them about it, and said, “Can I depend on your support to get rid of it, abolish it?” I had three columns, yes no and question mark. I went through every legislator in the House and I had some in every category. Very few who said, “I am going to fight it.” Although some of them did pretty strongly. That is the way I did it. So when I introduced the bill, and then before we brought it to the floor of the House, I knew that if 90% of the people who said they would vote for it would vote for it then it would pass. And that happened. It passed the House and a newspaper article said they passed it in the House to kill it in the Senate.

Then I did the same thing for the Senate. I got my list and everything, but also got the list there of the committee to which it was going, and I also talked to a particular leader in the Senate who was, I thought would be, very helpful to me. And he said, “Don’t let them bring it up until I tell you.” And when we did, he told me what to do, and they — the committee in the Senate — you can send a bill out favorable, or you can send it with unfavorable, or you can send it without prejudice. So he said let it come out without prejudice, that is the only way you are going to get it out of the committee. And so that’s what it did, went to the floor of the Senate, and they passed it just as if it was normal, everyday things. So I accomplished what I wanted in the legislature. It went to the people, and either the executive committee or some small committee of the North Carolina Bar Association supported, or recommended, that the people vote for it. I was in that meeting, but when it got to the larger group was not there and they took that away and did not ask that you vote for it. So it failed in the election the following year. So it was still in the Constitution the last at time I looked at it. Now, the Voting Rights Act sort of took care of it mostly. I don’t even know what the status of it is now, I don’t think it’s active. I really haven’t looked at it lately. But I think it’s still in the — it was still in the statute last year, I haven’t looked at it since then.

Section 21: 26:27 – 26:43 (0:16)

JC: I am curious, you had these one on one conversations with other legislators. Did race place into these conversations?

HF: Was it what?

JC: Did race and the racial aspect of the literacy tests play into these conversations?

Section 22: 26:43 – 28:20 (1:37)

HF: Sometimes. Mostly no. Someone for it would say, “I’m for it,” and if you were against it you would say, “I’m against it.” There were some who said, “Well Henry, I don’t know. I gotta check with my people back home.” I put those in the question mark category. But we had mostly, not a lot of conversation about it. In every case where you got something controversial there are a few people that you have a good long discussion with. And so we had those discussions, and when it came up in the House for a vote, I didn’t mention race or anything I just talked about why people should be able to register to vote and vote. Because it is a fundamental thing for people. A voteless people is a hopeless people as they say. And it was going great until one legislator who was opposed to it did what I expected him to do. He got up and just talked about it didn’t have anything to do with race. He just made this long speech and everything. And then I told him about my experience and when I finished with my experience and we got through, somebody said, “I move to the question.” All in favor say — not say aye, it was a vote that had to be — I’ve forgotten now, I think it had to be a recorded vote. So that ended the discussion about that and it passed. And that was it.

Section 23: 28:20 – 28:26 (0:06)

JC: Voting rights now is such a partisan issue, was there a split between the parties on the issue at this time?

Section 24: 28:26 – 30:23 (1:57)

HF: Not — well there may have been in with the parties, but in the legislature I had Democrats and Republicans split. And I don’t think either party, as far as I know, I don’t know that either party took a position as such on it. It was an individual type of thing. And I felt pretty good getting my bill through! A lot better than one other bill I had that I wanted that I couldn’t get through, which was the landlord teller[tenant] bill, to in essence get us to adopt a very strong bill giving tenants a lot more rights than they had at that particular time. And that failed so then we broke the act into different parts. We would bring up one part that we thought we could get a positive vote on and we would get that through, and then the next legislature we came back again with another part, and we finally brought that law into what was then the 20th century. Because before, the landlord tenant law in North Carolina was based on old English — what do you call it? Whatever, I’ve forgotten the name of it, it was absolutely terrible. Poor tenant didn’t have a right — the term I use was didn’t have a leg to stand on. If the person — you know — just no rights. You could furnish a place to stay in and everything go wrong and everything and you try to stop paying your rent to get them to fix it. No sir, haul you into court and make you pay the rent even though the place was not up to standard. Several of us didn’t thing that was right so we finally got that changed. Now we have gotten off the subject a little.

Section 25: 30:23 – 30:42 (0:19)

MC: Going back a little bit, you talk about that there was a little bit of push back to get rid of the literacy test. What — I am curious to see — what did the — why was there push back? What was the reasoning given by politicians at the time?

Section 26: 30:42 – 31:46 (1:04)

HF: Well some said that a person needed to — if a person couldn’t read and write, you don’t want them voting. You don’t want a person voting, they said, who doesn’t understand what is going on. They pretended people could round them up and get them to vote any way they want to and things of that nature. That was the kind of argument that I got. And how we had the law set up, if people could read and write, they could understand what the laws were, and be more intelligent about voting and everything. And I said well yes, but I still think that it’s important for everyone who meets the requirements, and doesn’t have a criminal — at that time didn’t have a — I started to say criminal probably better didn’t have a felony, could register and vote and that’s the way it ought to be. And that view actually prevailed, my view.

Section 27: 31:46 – 32:10 (0:24)

JC: And what is it about a vote that it’s so symbolic, that it needs to be for everyone. Is it — ’cause its more than just a conversation about — I don’t know. A lot of time in conversations voting stands apart from civil rights and rights in general. Can you speak at all as to why the vote is that symbol?

Section 28: 32:10 – 33:58 (1:48)

HF: Well I need a half hour but let me see if I can do it in a few minutes.

JC: It’s a big question.

HF: We don’t have a pure democracy, right? We have a representative democracy, right? Well we elect somebody to represent us, to make the laws, and to carry those laws — carry those laws out. So a person who has a right to vote has a right to challenge the person who votes differently from the way that person thinks you should vote. And so if you have a mass of people who can’t vote, if you are a representative elected by these people over here, and those folks don’t have anything to say about it, who are you going to look out for? Right? I mean that’s the practicalities of it. So, that’s why the vote is so important. And you can, if you don’t like what the person is doing, the next election you run somebody against that person, and if enough people don’t like it they can vote that new person in to replace this one. And that’s the whole idea. I called it a representative democracy, its also called a republican form of government, where again the basic idea is you elect people to represent you. You have different branches of the government, some for making the laws others for seeing those laws are carried out, and then a third branch which settles disputes when there’s a question about the law or something of that nature.

Section 29: 33:58 – 34:27 (0:29)

JC: Bringing that question around to the law that passed in 2013 and the new voting restrictions. People in favor of the law talk about how it protects from fraud and that it’s actually protecting the essence and the importance of a vote because people should not be able to fraudulently vote. I was wondering what your response to that would be. Whether — you know in their minds it is worth it to accidentally make it harder for people to vote to protect it.

Section 30: 34:27 – 37:42 (3:15)

HF: One of the things — I was in the legislature for 14 years — and one of the things I worked on the whole 14 years was trying to open up the right to register and vote. And not to prevent people from registering and voting. Now we had those arguments back then, that there may have been some fraud. I said, well, thats why you’ve got people to investigate and look into things. And so they investigated and looked into it and what did they find? I have forgotten the percentage, one tenth of one percent or something that’s whatever you may have somebody voting who was not qualified. Well that person is not going to make an effect on the whole voting system, on the whole thing. Now if you’d found 10% fraud then you’d have something to talk about. But I have not seen any statistics in North Carolina where it was such that you had a very high amount of fraud. So I would much rather see three people who are registered and voting who did not have the right to register and vote then to have a thousand people who are kept from registering and voting because you make the thing so tight and so improper that they can’t even get out and register and vote. And I feel very strongly about it and I worked on it my whole time I was time I was in the — that was one of my main things, I was on the elections committee so we could work on getting things done. One of the things they used to do was put the primaries way ahead of the voting time so that — I mean there were different reasons for doing that. Then there was another move that put it right closer to it. And usually there was a reason that people had for it. Restrictions — you can have restrictions in two areas. You can have restrictions for the primaries with the parties, which we have had cases on that for years and years, and then you can have it with the registering and voting itself, in other words not to get it — see at one point the Democratic party, that is my party, I don’t mind telling you. At one point the Democratic party fixed ways to keep blacks from participating in the primary because they were running North Carolina, and a good part of the South, and they didn’t want blacks to register to vote. So what they did was, we had the Democratic primary, and you had to bring law suits to get a right, even if you could register to vote, that you didn’t have a voice in the Democratic primary. So with the lawsuits and various other things they finally got that change before I came along. So that the party opened up. And because it was in North Carolina and the South, generally it was the party of the people, I mean, the white people, I mean let’s put it bluntly. I meant to stir it up not too much on you.

Section 31: 37:42 – 37:55 (0:13)

MC: We are talking about the right to vote and how certain people are qualified. Do you think that a person has to have some sort of qualification to vote or can anybody vote?

Section 32: 37:55 – 38:31 (0:36)

HF: If you are of the required age, you live — meet the geographic requirements of living in that particular area, and your citizenship had not been taken away because you committed a felony, then by George you ought to be able to register to vote. That’s the way I look at it, and by the way a whole lot of us had that same idea back when I was in the legislature. So we opened things up, made it easier for people to register and vote.

Section 33: 38:31 – 39:12 (0:41)

MC: Moving forward to what’s happening today. So it has been almost 8 years since President Obama was elected with the hope of uniting the country, including bridging a lot of racial divisions. Why do you think voting rights and racial distrust are major issues in this country as we near the end of the Obama presidency?

HF: Ask the last sentence again so I can be sure what you are asking.

MC: Why do you think voting rights and racial distrust are major issues in the country as we near the end of the Obama presidency?

Section 34: 39:12 – 43:44 (4:32)

HF: This isn’t the first time by the way that it’s been that way, let me get that out of the way. But unfortunately, he has not been able to really unite the country. I don’t think it’s all his fault. He has some faults like almost every president — I guess maybe, in fact I would say all of them but people kind of except George Washington, you know. His — the opposition seems to magnify everything that he does that they disagree with. And I don’t want to spend much time on this, but the thing that he had where he wasn’t an American citizen because he wasn’t born in the United States. And that just went on and on and on and finally the registrar came and look, here is his real birth certificate. And that satisfied everybody except one or two people who are very prominent, whose names I will not call, but who are still in the news. The issues now — we just — I am not happy about the way things are going. I’m just hoping that somehow people who are reasonable all the way around on something will try to find a way to make things a little better and to get a little better understanding and work together.

And I guess that is a good point to throw in a little organization called the Institute of Political Leadership, the IOPL, which is — at the North Carolina, ok — whose purpose is to improve the practice of democracy in North Carolina. And it is a nonpartisan organization, which includes Democrats, Republicans, various minority parties, and individuals who are unaffiliated, who are working and training a group of people who we hope will be able to help improve the democracy in the state of North Carolina. Small organization, nonprofit, I was chair of it for a couple years, no longer chair of it but I am still on the board, and I hope people will look it up. Because when I talk to people and tell them what it is trying to do, almost everybody says it’s a great thing to do. So I will tell y’all if nobody else pays attention, look up IOPL, North Carolina.

JC: I have been on the website.

HF: Oh you have already found it. There you go.

JC: I saw it in an old interview that you did that you talked about it.

HF: Yeah and there is a song which I am sure you’ve heard, which says, “Little things mean a lot.” It does. Little things mean a lot. We do right now about 20 people, twice a year, for 11 weeks of training in everything from how to file a financial report, to ethics, how to make public speaking and things of that nature, and discussing the issues, how to discuss the issues and disagree without being disagreeable. But 40 people are not enough to really make the big dent that we would like to make.

JC: I’m curious ..

HF: I gotta say one more thing before I leave that alone.

JC: Go for it

HF: The Chief Justice of North Carolina is a graduate of that program. Our Secretary of State is a graduate of that program. Our State Treasurer was a member — well is a member but she is no longer State Treasurer, but she was. So we have people, and there is another member of the court, the Supreme Court, who went through the program I believe. Some on the Court of Appeals, and a lot of people who are in public service right now in North Carolina. We just need to find a way to improve the practice of democracy in North Carolina and it takes time. But we have got to work on it. Now you have another question.

Section 35: 43:44 – 44:28 (0:44)

MC: So another thing I find really interesting is there is all this talk about partisanship at the federal and state level, that a lot of bills are not able to pass in the Senate and in the House. When you were in the legislature, was it as partisan as it is now? Or do you think this is a recent development?

HF: Oh let’s see are you talking about national now or the state?

MC: The state.

HF: Oh ok back to the state.

JC: Especially with your experience during a lot of the laws regarding voting and opening up elections, was this — did you face partisan issues?

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HF: Oh yeah there were partisan issues, but there were times when we would finally come together, again, a group of people who would get together in the legislature and say, look you know it’s time — on this issue — it is time for us to do what is good for North Carolina. And it happened. It wasn’t as often as I’d like to have seen it. But partisan politics is nothing new, I mean I told you all the way back to the turn of the 19th into the 20th century — we had it way back then and we are gonna have it now. But somehow we have also got to find a way to work together to get things done, in other words, I will just throw out this — I am trying to think of what I was saying — oh yeah, I mentioned with the Voting Rights Act that they changed — that the Supreme Court of the United States made about declaring a part of it invalid. Getting back to North Carolina and a lot of states, the very next week, they began to change the laws because they didn’t have to get pre-approval from the civil rights division of the Justice Department. I’ve forgotten, there is another one, again, that the Supreme Court gave that kind of opened things up more probably than I think it should. But that is a matter of opinion. And people were on both sides. And that is the political system. But, there is no question in my mind that you ought to open up the registering and voting to every citizen who meets those basic qualifications and give them chance. I’ve told several people who said they weren’t going to vote because they weren’t going to make any difference, I said, “That is a defeatist attitude.” Lady came and congratulated me when I lost my first election and she said, “I meant to vote for you.” I said, “Oh you didn’t vote?” and she said, “No, the washing machine was out of order and the man was supposed to come and fix it. And I thought he was supposed to come in the morning but he didn’t get there, and I thought he was gonna come, and by the time he got there it was too late for me to register to vote.” I said, “Lady, I see that you are really a supporter of mine.” I try to get people to see the importance of not only registering, but the voting, expressing your opinion. I used to go to the barber shop — I go now sometimes. People would come in there, oh they would be talking about this or that, what is right or wrong. I said, “where do you vote?” “Oh I don’t vote.” I said, “I don’t want to hear a thing you’ve got to say. Go register to vote. Then vote. Then you’ve got a right to talk about what is right and what’s wrong with the political system.” And they got done quick.

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MC: So looking at the Shelby decision, Justice Roberts said that race is no longer an issue when it came to voting. How do you respond to that?

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HF: Are those his exact words?

JC: No, not in so many words.

HF: I don’t want to get in the position of criticizing a specific member of the court, who I happen to know and happen to participate on a panel with and various other things, I don’t want to get into personalities.

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JC: To bring the question I guess more general, we have talked about how there have been transitions and defined periods in this issue and you had mentioned in the past that it was “for the time” it was “well that is just the times,” it gets chalked up to a moment in history. So I guess the question asked more broadly is do you think that this issue was of the history, a moment of the 60s or 70s or the past, or do you thing that race is still an intrinsic part of voting rights?

HF: Give me one question without the other one because I am trying to focus on specifically what you’re talking about.

JC: Sure, is the tie between voting rights and race a product of times, of history, of a specific moment, or is it just inherently connected?

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HF: It’s historical. And if you start with the history and bring it all the way up in the United States, people were kept in slavery because they wanted to be. That was the feeling of the times that was what was going on. And then slowly but surely we began to do things to change it. Some people led it, others went along with it, others fought it. It is the same thing with ideas these days — not these days, that it has always been I guess — that there are people who have a feeling of what ought to be, either because they think it is right or because they have an advantage by being a certain way. I don’t think that has changed, I think that remains. So those who want to change have to convince enough people that what is going on is wrong and ought to be corrected, either because it is going to be good for the country or because in the long run it is going to be good for them. And if you can convince enough people of that then you can make the kind of change that you want to, that you want to make. So I think that’s the way I look at it.

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JC: A lot of people look at this law that just passed and see it as a reversion, a step backwards, back into the 60’s, back into a time ..

HF: You say this law?

JC: These new voting restrictions with ID and shortened early voting period, things like that. Do you feel that this is progress coming undone?

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HF: Yes without question.

JC: Yes absolutely.

HF: Without question. I think that those who feel that you gotta have all these restrictions and make it difficult really for people who are not very sophisticated– and frankly sometimes some of them who are sophisticated have difficulty with it. And the more confusion there is, the less people are going to register and vote. So it’s, it’s not automatic one way or the other, it’s people. People make the difference. And if you’ve got the right leadership and then the people working on it and working together, you can make things better. I hasten to stay, going over time, if you’re talking about centuries, we are in a much better time today than we were 100 years ago in terms of the country and things of that nature. But we have those times were I think we are sort of going in the wrong direction and some of us are trying to change it and get it in the right direction.

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JC: Do you worry about a general apathy, especially among young people. You know you talked a couple of times about, “I meant to go vote,” or, “I feel this way but I didn’t go vote.” Do you worry that this will play into this issue? You know, if the Supreme Cou– if the court now, and then if it makes it to the Supreme Court that’s a whole different story. If this law, remains, do you worry that people will just accept it?

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HF: No, I don’t worry about that. I think that we are a little more intelligent than we were 100 years ago. We are more conscious of it, we are more conscious of other people’s rights and things of that nature. Or when I say we, the larger percentage of people. And so I think that — I guess the best way I know how to — which way is the pendulum going, and I think it is going up rather than down. Right now, some people would say, “well how in the world can you say that?” I am looking not just two years but I am looking kind of towards the future. And our problem — one of our problems of course is that people who feel about things in a way that are progressive sometimes sort of drop the ball. And say, “Oh well I am doing ok, and my children are doing ok and everything, and I don’t believe I want to get into all of this. I am just gonna take it easy.” And I don’t like that attitude and if you tell me that you get a good lecture from me.

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MC: Just another quick question about voting, do you — a lot of people — I mean there are all these Moral Monday protests and now the case has gotten to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, do you think that the pushback to this law is a symptom of the progress that has been made regarding voting rights in the state?

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HF: Well, sure. I don’t want to get into what the Supreme Court of North Carolina will do having served on that court.

MC: yeah.

JC: absolutely.

HF: Having served on that court I don’t want to get into that.

MC: of course.

HF: If I felt strongly enough I might write a brief or something or be a — but anyway I better not get into that. I got plenty to do so I don’t need to get directly involved in it. But it is a difficult situation now, and especially with — I guess you talk about the, I have forgotten the case now, that is coming before the court. I would take that, make the decision as to whether to recuse. See one of the problems with court, a court is supposed to be neutral. And if it would affect you personally, generally you would recuse. Or, if the other members of the court think that it would affect you personally, they would vote to recuse you if you don’t. Now I am talking not just about the Supreme Court of North Carolina but courts in other places. In Pennsylvania they had to do that. I said they had to do that, there was a member of the court that was going to be directly affected — I think it was Pennsylvania, some court — by something, and they suggested that he recuse and the person said, “no I am not going to recuse. I am going to vote like everybody else.” Well that creates a problem right. So ethics apply to the court just as they do to individuals. If you — if it is directly involving you than of course you don’t, you don’t participate in the decision of the particular court. And to the credit of the court that I was on, I don’t remember any time where a person had that interest and still decided that they would not recuse themselves. And I say that, I feel good about that. The things you feel good about and the things you feel bad about, you know? And the law is a difficult area, and sometimes there are very tough decisions that need to be made and hopefully we have the right people on there. And reasonable people can differ as to what is the right thing to do in a given situation. But again, I think the future is going to be brighter than the past.

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JC: Alright. Is there anything that you want to say that you didn’t get the chance to before we wrap up?

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HF: Well, don’t give up when you are trying to do the right thing. Just keep on keeping on.

JC: Thank you so much for talking with us today

MC: Thank you so much