Today's Chapel Hill News includes my story on a new book of photos from civil rights marches in the 1960s. The photos were taken by Jim Wallace, while he was a student at UNC. What didn't make that article as it went to press for the CHN earlier this week, was a conversation I had with Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass. Pendergrass was a Chapel Hill police officer from 1961-1964 and is in several of Wallace's photos. Here's an excerpt from my updated story on the book, "Courage in the Moment, The Civil Rights Struggle, 1961-1964." (Read the N&O version of this story here.)

Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass remembers arresting protestors during the marches in the early ‘60s when he was a patrol officer with the Chapel Hill Police Department.


The current Chapel Hill chief at the time, Chief William Blake, emphasized a calm, non-violent law enforcement response to the marches, Pendergrass said. Blake had a good rapport with march organizers and the department typically knew about sit-ins and marches ahead of  time, he said.


The book shows police officers, including Pendergrass, removing protestors from buildings and roads and putting them in police cars. Officers were always instructed to handle protestors gently, and be impartial, Pendergrass said.


“We approached it with a manner that we wanted to be fair and impartial,” he said. “Chief Blake made a statement to us in the very beginning that we live here and we know these people and we’ll be seeing them every day, let’s treat them how we’d like to be treated and approach it in an impartial manner.”


Pendergrass was a Chapel Hill police officer from 1956 to 1982. He then ran for Orange County Sheriff and has been sheriff since, making him the longest serving sheriff in the state.


In 1961 there were about 20 police officers in the department, he said. Police made more than 3,000 arrests during the marches, he said. Policing the protestors took a lot of extra hours and manpower, he said, but there was never any violence, which is a credit to Chief Blake, he said.


Police treated civil rights marches and Ku Klux Klan marches the same, he said. The Klan marched from Carrboro, down Franklin Street to the planetarium at UNC, in full white robes and hats, but were never violent, Pendergrass said.


“There was a lot of people that didn’t like us taking that approach but after it was over with they all realized they we did the right thing, we didn’t have any violence,” Pendergrass said.

The Orange County commissioners plan to meet with Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass Thursday night to discuss the county's participation in the federal Secure Communities program. (See previous post here.)

"I think we're going to find out the sheriff is very sensitive to what the board's position is in how far immigration services goes in manipulating local law enforcement," said Commissioner Barry Jacobs.

The county commissioners are on record opposing participating in 287(g), a program that allows local law enforcement to initiate immigration enforcement. This program does not do that, the sheriff says. It allows local law enforcement to tap into a federal database that can tell them, and federal agents, when they have a person wanted on immigration matters in their custody.

Tomorrow's meeting begins at 7:30p.m. in the new county senior center next to the Sportsplex in Hillsborough.

Commissioner Mike Nelson spoke with the sheriff and county manager today but says he needs more information to fully understand the program.

"I don't know enough about what the implications are to understand what it all means, " he said. "It's a program I knew nothing about until this morning."

Two interesting developments on immigration front have caught the attention of a local civil liberties group.

First the Chatham County Board of Commissioners voted not to join 287(g), a controversial program in which local law enforcement officers carry out immigration enforcement on behalf of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The commissioners specifically cited the program's rounding up a preponderance of immigrants on non-violent traffic offenses.

Then last week, we reported that Orange County Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass had joined another immigration program, a database program called Secure Communities that can alert the department and ICE within minutes if local deputies have arrested a known illegal immigrant.

The question the civil liberties group has is what's the difference. It's a question Jesse and I discussed as he reported the story late last week. If either program can pick someone up on a traffic charge and get them deported, is Secure Communities simply an "end run," around the more controversial program? Sheriff Pendergrass says no, that if ICE wants to come pick up someone in his jail that's up to the federal agency.

In an e-mail Peggy Misch of the Orange County Bill of Rights Defense Committee says the groups is seeking an interpretation of this new program. It will meet to discuss the issue at 7 p.m. Thursday in the OWASA meeting room (lower floor) 400 Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro.