Bishops' Wives Jailed for Racial Witness
Diocesan Press Service. April 7, 1964 [XX-10]
While the nation watched, the wives of three Episcopal bishops last week helped spearhead a Southern Christian Leadership Conference move for racial reform in the East Coast Florida town of St. Augustine.
Participating in week-long racial demonstrations that resulted in the arrest of more than 300 Negroes and whites were Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, 72-year-old wife of the Retired Bishop of Central New York, Mrs. John M. Burgess, whose husband is Suffragan Bishop of Massachusetts, and Mrs. Donald J. Campbell, wife of the former Suffragan Bishop of Los Angeles who is now on the staff of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass.
Two of the crusaders for racial reform, Mrs. Peabody and Mrs. Burgess, were arrested and jailed on charges of trespassing, being undesirable guests, and conspiracy. They were taken into custody by local law officials when they sought service at a motel restaurant.
Mrs. Burgess, one of the first demonstrators to be arrested, spent one night in the St. John's County Jail, before a $750 bail bond was posted. Mrs. Peabody passed two nights in the crowded and segregated jail. She is the mother of four sons and one daughter: Endicott, Governor of Massachusetts, George, an Episcopal priest and officer in the National Council's Department of Christian Education, Malcolm, a director of the Episcopal Society for Cultural and Racial Unity, Samuel, a teacher at Rye (N. Y. ) Country Day School, and Mrs. Marietta Tree, U. S. Representative to the United Nations' Commission on Human Rights.
The spunky Massachusetts matriarch posted bail bond of $450 on Friday and returned to Boston with Mrs. Burgess and Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Peabody will make a return trip to St. Augustine on May 5, the date set for her trial. She already has stated, "I'm going back to take my medicine with the others. " She has pleaded not guilty to the three counts against her.
Others arrested in the demonstrations included the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., chaplain at Yale University and one of the first "freedom riders" in the South; the Rev. William England, Boston University chaplain; Dr. David Miller of Yale Medical School; the Rev. Arthur Brandenburg, Methodist chaplain at Yale; Prof. J. Lawrence Burkholder, Harvard Divinity School; and the Rev. Jacques Bossiere, Episcopal priest from Paris now teaching at Yale. Bonds for them were set at $100.
The New Englanders' participation in the nation's oldest city resulted from an appeal by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which is led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. At SCLC's urging, the Massachusetts group descended on St. Augustine to campaign for a "better deal" for Negroes. Demonstrations were aimed against discrimination in public accommodations.
Mrs. Peabody told reporters: "I never expected that at my age I would be asked to participate in this kind of thing, but I am delighted to do so."
After she was jailed on Wednesday, she declared in an interview: "I want the experience of staying in jail. As far as accomplishing things, I think what we have done has brought the community's attention to the situation here."