Dobihal, Rev. Ed, 2005 February 28

Edward Dobihal moved to Hamden in 1964 and spent his career in New Haven working at the Yale Divinity School and as Chaplain at Yale New Haven Hospital. He discusses the role of churches in the Civil Rights movement, in both New Haven and in the southern United States. He also talks about the changing relationship between New Haven's churches in the early 1970s. Dobihal came to Connecticut from Washington D.C., where he had participated in the 1963 March on Washington. A member of the First Methodist Church, Dobihal was part of a community of politically active church members in New Haven that included figures such as William Sloan Coffin. Dobihal talks about the climate Civil Rights movement and compares New Haven's political and racial climate to places he knew in the South, and also considers the different levels of church involvement in the movement in the North and the South. He touches on the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, integration, the role of interfaith, interracial churches in the civil rights struggle, and other related issues. Dobihal then discusses the early 1970s and the tensions that split the New Haven Council of Churches. He took part in forming Downtown Cooperative Ministries, which became Interfaith Cooperative Ministries, after the 1970 May Day demonstrations. He talks about trying to unite congregations for social change across racial and faith lines, including the growing Black Muslim populations. Dobihal mentions that he was one of several New Haven residents whose phones were illegally wiretapped by the government in this era.

Interviewer: Johnson, Emily

Length (min): 69