Conrad Browne, 1919-2016

One of Koinonia’s early stalwarts and an important figure in my book, “The Class of ’65,” has died: Conrad Browne. He was 96 and lived in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Con Browne was a Baptist minister fresh out of the University of Chicago when he heard Clarence Jordan speak about Koinonia at a conference. He was so captivated that he persuaded his wife to move to south Georgia in 1949 to become part of the communal farm, even though he knew nothing about tending chickens or growing crops.

Con was one of the leaders of Koinonia during the years when it was boycotted and terrorized for its belief in racial brotherhood. He was in charge of the egg delivery route and saw firsthand how local businesses were boycotting the farm. During the height of violence against the community -- the drive-by shootings and bombings -- Con was attacked in Americus by a man who bashed him in the face simply because he was from Koinonia. The sheriff responded by charging Con, still bruised and bleeding, with a traffic offense.

I flew to Rhode Island to meet Con in 2007, joined by Greg Wittkamper, my main character. In our two days of interviews, I could tell how much affection they had for each other. Greg regarded him as a surrogate father and confided later that it was Connie (as he called him) who had told him about the birds and the bees. As we sat in his home on Narragansett Bay, I asked Con why his family had left Koinonia in 1963. “Do I have to?” he said with a pained expression. The farm was hurting economically and could no longer support very many residents, he explained, and the adults decided that the Brownes should go. Con took a job as associate director of the Highlander Center in Tennessee, the place where Rosa Parks had received training in nonviolent resistance. It was a worthy post, but you could tell that it still hurt him after all those years to think about leaving a place he loved so dearly.

My deepest condolences to Con’s wife, Cay, and to his four surviving children, three of whom (Lora, Charles and John) appear in “The Class of ’65.” Conrad Browne was a good man who practiced his faith even when it was dangerous to do so. May his soul know eternal peace.

King Day in a cold place

When I was working on “The Class of ’65,” I adhered to the agreeable weather school of historical research. I tried to visit Americus and Koinonia when it wasn’t so hot and sticky and gnatty in southwest Georgia. That was the best time to go to West Virginia to see the focus of my story, Greg Wittkamper. Until this past weekend, I had never been to the state during the dead of winter.

Then they invited me to be the keynote speaker at the King Day program in Lewisburg. W.Va., a beautiful community near the Greenbrier Resort that bills itself as “the coolest small town in America.” Cool: as in charming and bohemian, not as in single-digit temperatures.

King Day 2016 began, as King Days must, with a walk from a courthouse to a church. It was 9 degrees, with patchy snow and ice from a storm the night before (which is why Greg and I are dressed like Eskimos in the photo). Considering the frigid conditions, a respectable crowd of a couple of hundred made the trek, which was rewarded with bowls of chili and cups of hot chocolate at Lewisburg United Methodist Church.

The service afterwards was multifaceted, to say the least, with hymns, a dance recital, student essay readings, a drum corps and a soaring rendition of “Take My Hand, Precious Lord” by a local pastor, Kathie Holland, who pointed out that Mahalia Jackson had performed the song at King’s funeral in 1968.

And then it was my turn. I told the assembly a little about what it had been like to cover the first King Day celebration 30 years ago this month in Atlanta, where I was a reporter for the Journal-Constitution. How no one knew quite what to make of the new holiday, which was marked with a parade and marching bands like it was a wintertime version of July the Fourth. 

Most of my talk centered on the connections between Koinonia and the civil rights movement, both of which were terrorized for their commitment to brotherhood. At the same time King and participants in the Montgomery Bus Boycott were being targeted in Alabama, Koinonia was being boycotted, bombed and shot at in Georgia. I read from a letter King sent to Clarence Jordan as the two Baptist ministers were commiserating over what their people had to endure because of their beliefs: “You and the Koinonia Community have been in my prayers continually for the last several months. The injustices and indignities that you are now confronting certainly leave you in trying moments. I hope, however, that you will gain consolation from the fact that in your struggle for freedom and a true Christian community you have cosmic companionship.”

I also spoke of the civil rights movement in Albany and Americus, about Koinonia’s support for it and the involvement of the farm’s young people. Greg attended a good many of the mass meetings at black churches in both cities and took part in several marches. I love the photo below showing Greg in a column of protesters in Americus; he's the only white face in the crowd, near the left. Those Koinonia kids certainly stood out. But Greg was no braver than the others stretched out along the street that day in July 1965.

Thanks to the MLK Day committee in Lewisburg for inviting me to speak (Larry Davis and others) and special thanks to Greg and Libby Johnson (and Sadie) for lodging and feeding me in their beautiful warm home.  

Greg protest - Version 2.jpg

Justice is served

My first talk of 2016 was before the Lawyers Club of Atlanta’s fiction book club -- which was a little confusing since “The Class of ’65” is nonfiction. Apparently, they read a true story every year. Lawyers should never stray too far from facts.

As we were discussing the book in a 38th-floor board room with a gorgeous view of Midtown Atlanta, I brought up a legal angle I thought might interest this group. If it hadn’t been for a federal lawsuit, the narrative I focused on in “Class” might never have happened.

The lawsuit was William Wittkamper et al. v. James Harvey et al. and the School Board of Americus, Ga. Koinonia parents filed the suit in the fall of 1960 when the city school board refused to admit three of their children because they thought having students from the communal farm would produce conflict and unrest at Americus High. Judge William Bootle (above) recognized religious persecution when he saw it and ordered the schools to admit the Koinonia children. Bootle was hanged in effigy in Americus, in part because of that ruling and and in part because of an even more controversial decision he issued a few months later, ordering the University of Georgia desegregated.

The students who entered Americus High that fall were Jan Jordan, Lora Browne and Billy Wittkamper. A year later, Billy’s brother Greg Wittkamper -- my main character -- began at the school. All of them were treated terribly because of their unpopular beliefs, an ordeal which forms the heart of the book . And none of it would have unfolded without the strong arm of the federal judiciary.

Thanks to the Lawyers Club for inviting me, and special thanks to my friend Katie Wood for hosting the event. That’s Katie on the left, with our friend Chris Smith. We've all played poker together for years -- but that's another story.

Christmas 1965

Here’s a short Christmas story from “The Class of ’65” that shows something we can be thankful for. It happened 50 years ago this month in a time and place that seems familiar yet so far away.

A group of people from Koinonia drove into Americus to hear a visiting minister speak at the largest church in town, First Baptist. Among them were the community’s leader, Clarence Jordan; a couple of newcomers, Millard and Linda Fuller; and a recent high school graduate soon to leave for college, Greg Wittkamper, the main character of my book. One of Greg’s best friends was with them, too: Collins McGee, a civil rights activist who worked at the farm. Collins (as you can see in this photo with Greg) was black.

As the Koinonia party entered the church, an usher became visibly alarmed at the sight of a black hand reaching for a bulletin.

“Who’s he?” he asked.

“Why, that’s Collins McGee,” Greg answered innocently.

The congregation was singing “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” as the Koinonians took their places in a pew. Just as they came to the line about “peace on Earth, goodwill to men,” the usher hurried over and grabbed Collins by the collar. 

“You’ve got to get out of here,” he commanded.

The Koinonians knew First Baptist was segregated, but they had hoped that their interracial group would be allowed to join the worship service in the spirit of the season. Not a chance. They left peacefully. Outside the sanctuary, Clarence looked back at the church and was struck by the way its white columns and floodlit steeple stood out against the vast night sky. He reached for a preacherly metaphor. “I want you to notice,” he told everyone, “how much darkness there is.”

I heard this story from two different participants a quarter of a century apart. Millard Fuller first told it to me in 1987 when I was writing a profile of him and his work as one of the founders (with his wife, Linda) of Habitat for Humanity, the housing ministry that traces its roots to Koinonia. Years later, when I was working on “The Class of ’65,” Greg Wittkamper told me the same anecdote as we were sitting on his deck in the mountains of West Virginia. The experience of being turned away from a Christian church because one of their party was black left a deep impression on them. But they weren’t surprised. Despite the new civil rights laws, that’s the way things were in Americus and many other places in America.  

I’ve thought of this story several times this year as I’ve spoken about my book. A good many people have asked whether I think race relations have really improved since the 1960s. It’s a legitimate question. When every month brings news of confrontations with police and hate crimes and more rancor and distrust, you have to wonder. 

I’m retelling this Christmas tale now because it shows in its small way what things were like not too many years ago. It also shows how things that once seemed immutable do change. That church eventually dropped its restrictive policies when its membership realized that exclusion was not in keeping with their faith.

Clarence was right: There’s a lot of darkness out there. But there’s also light, and most of us, when we search our souls, are drawn to it. For that, we should be grateful.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Peace be with you.

David Wittkamper, R.I.P.

I received some sad news this morning: David Wittkamper, one of Greg’s brothers, died of cancer overnight in West Virginia. He was 65.

David plays a vivid supporting role in “The Class of ’65.” He was the third of the Wittkamper boys, three years younger than Greg, and just starting school when the terror campaign against Koinonia began during the 1950s. David attended Americus High School for one year and then left because of the constant bullying and occasional physical abuse, continuing his education with family in Indiana. It was in David’s class in Americus that some students cheered the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Greg and David were very close. When Greg returned to Georgia in 1969 after his travels with Friends World College, the two of them hopped on a motorcycle together and trekked out west and down to Central America. (The photo above shows them as they get ready to embark; that's David on the left.) Both were conscientious objectors during the Vietnam War and did their alternative service at the Friends World campus on Long Island. A few years later, they settled near each other in southern West Virginia, where they made their living with their hands, like a couple of farm boys, building barns, digging wells and such.

David always struck me as the quintessential latter-day hippie. When I met him, he was pushing 60 and still wore his hair in a pony tail. He distrusted authority with the conviction of someone who had grown up in a time and place where authority truly could not be trusted. He was a sensitive soul with a sweet disposition. Like Greg, he often teared up when he spoke about the things he and the others at Koinonia went through when they were young.

A couple of years before he fell ill with bladder cancer, David built a tree house on his property -- not a little playpen, but an aerial bungalow in a sturdy tree that he wanted to rent out and invite his friends to stay in. When he showed pictures of it in the binder he used to carry around, his face lit up with pride. I’d like to think of David sitting in that treehouse now, looking over the rest of us with a smile.

David is survived by his wife, Teresa, and his sons, Wesley and Jonah.

Greg Wittkamper with his brothers David (right) and Dan (front) at a Koinonia reunion in 2012. Their older brother, Bill, who lives outside Chicago, was not able to make it.