My life

One day Fulbright was being followed by a national television crew as we pulled in to a small town, parked, and went into a feed store where farmers bought grain for their animals. With cameras rolling, Fulbright shook hands with an old character in overalls and asked him for his vote. The man said he couldn’t give it because Fulbright wouldn’t stand up to the “Commies” and he’d let them “take over our country.” Fulbright sat down on a pile of feed bags stacked on the floor and struck up a conversation. He told the man he’d stand up to the Communists at home if he could find them. “Well, they’re all over,”

the man replied. Then Fulbright commented, “Really? Have you seen any around here? I’ve been looking all over and I haven’t seen the first one.” It was funny to watch Fulbright do his thing. The guy thought they were having a serious conversation. I’m sure the TV audience got a kick out of it, but what I saw bothered me. The wall had gone up in that man’s eyes. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t find a Commie to save his soul. He had turned Fulbright off, and no amount of talking could bring the wall in his mind down again. I just hoped there were enough other voters in that town and the hundreds like it who were still reachable.

Notwithstanding the feed-store incident, Fulbright was convinced that small-town voters were mostly wise, practical, and fair-minded. He thought they had more time to reflect on things and were not all that easy for his right-wing critics to stampede. After a couple of days of visiting places where all the white voters seemed to be for George Wallace, I wasn’t so sure. Then we came to Center Point, and one of the more memorable encounters of my life in politics. Center Point was a little place of fewer than two hundred people. The black notebook said the man to see was Bo Reece, a longtime supporter who lived in the best house in town. In the days before television ads, there was a Bo Reece in most little Arkansas towns. A couple of weeks before the election, people would ask, “Who’s Bo for?” His choice would be made known and would get about two-thirds of the vote, sometimes more. When we pulled up in front of the house, Bo was sitting on his porch. He shook hands with Fulbright and me, said he’d been expecting him, and invited us in for a visit. It was an old-fashioned house with a fireplace and comfortable chairs. As soon as we were settled, Reece said, “Senator, this country’s got lots of troubles. A lot of things aren’t right.” Fulbright agreed, but he didn’t know where Bo Reece was going, and neither did I—maybe straight to Wallace. Then Bo told a story I’ll remember as long as I live: “The other day I was talking to a planter friend of mine who grows cotton in east Arkansas. He has a bunch of sharecroppers working for him. [Sharecroppers were farmhands, usually black, who were literally paid with a small share of the crops. They often lived in run-down shacks on the farm and were invariably poor.] So I asked him, ‘How are your sharecroppers doing?’ And he said, ‘Well, if we have a bad year, they break even.’ Then he laughed and said, ‘And if we have a good year, they break even.’ ”

Then Bo said, “Senator, that ain’t right and you know it. That’s why we’ve got so much poverty and other troubles in this country, and if you get another term you’ve got to do something about it. The blacks deserve a better deal.” After all the racist talk we’d been hearing, Fulbright nearly fell out of his chair. He assured Bo he’d try to do something about it when he was reelected, and Bo pledged to stick with him.

When we got back in the car, Fulbright said, “See, I told you, there’s a lot of wisdom in these small towns. Bo sits on that porch and thinks things through.” Bo Reece had a big impact on Fulbright. A few weeks later at a campaign rally in El Dorado, a south Arkansas oil town that was a hotbed of racism and pro-Wallace sentiment, Fulbright was asked what was the biggest problem facing America. Without hesitation he said, “Poverty.” I was proud of him and grateful to Bo Reece. When we were driving from town to town on those hot country roads, I would try to get Fulbright to talk. The conversations left me with great memories but sharply curtailed my career as his driver. One day we got into it over the Warren Court. I strongly favored most of its decisions, especially in civil rights. Fulbright disagreed. He said, “There is going to be a terrible backlash against this Supreme Court. You can’t change society too much through the courts. Most of it has to come through the political system. Even if it takes longer, it’s more likely to stick.” I still think America came out way ahead under the Warren Court, but there’s no doubt we’ve had a powerful reaction to it for more than thirty years now.