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In a month dedicated to black history, sometimes the most riveting stories come from people with names less familiar than Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King Jr. And many of them are connected to the Triad.

Bob Brown

The year 1968 found campaign volunteer and public relations consultant Bob Brown criss-crossing the country with Richard Nixon — trouble-shooting, keeping up with the press and supplying names from local businesses and black communities to personalize the presidential candidate’s interactions.

Brown also kept notes about the issues and problems that kept those people awake at night, and he pressed them directly into Nixon’s hands.

Not everyone saw Brown’s work as a good thing. The former High Point police officer and federal agent with the Department of the Treasury had previously worked on the political campaigns of both John and Bobby Kennedy.

“I’d run into (black) people who said, 'You mess around with that racist Nixon,’ ” said Brown, 75. “That kind of hurt. But then I had others say to me, 'We’ve got to be on all sides and whoever gets in, we need to be in with them. We don’t need to be on the outside.’ ”

When the campaign was over and the 37th president prepared to take office, Brown figured he would go back to North Carolina and piece back together his business, B&C Associates, which included Fortune 500 companies of the time.

He’d told the transition team just that.

“You have to talk to the old man, because that’s not in his head,” political aide Bob Halderman responded.

When Brown entered the room where Nixon was holding court, the president-elect introduced him to everyone as, “One of my new assistants.”

When the others left, Nixon got down to business.

“He said, 'I know you weren’t looking for a job. I need you. There will be no impediments to our relationship ... you will have access and in Washington everything is built around access.’ He said if you want to get anything done, you’ve got to go to Washington. He said if you want to get done all those notes you sent me, you’ve got to come to Washington with me.”

And from his office in the White House complex — with four secretaries and three assistants — Brown went about fulfilling some of those promises, and other needs he saw firsthand, such as finding a funding tap for financially struggling black colleges trying to educate future leaders.

Brown, who focused on minority affairs, once hopped on a jet and traveled to Keesler Air Force Base in Mississippi after complaints the military was turning a blind eye to the treatment of black soldiers by local businesses.

“The (base commander) said, 'Mr. Brown, we don’t have no problems here,’ ” Brown recalled. He even arranged a tour of the town’s main strip.

“As soon as we got outside the gates, at the edge of the base, basically on the base, there were all these restaurants and joints,” Brown said. He was suspicious that they were not a part of the tour.

“I said 'Stop this car.’ I walked right in (one of them) with all these people following me and this lady came right over to me and said, 'We don’t allow coloreds in here.’ ”

Brown was furious.

“I said if these establishments are not off limits (to all soldiers) by 5 there will be hell to pay,” he told the base commander.

It was done, and three days later all the affected businesses got together and integrated everything to get bring their customers back.

Nixon, who Brown said got little recognition for efforts to improve race relations, always backed him up.

“He trusted my judgment,” Brown said.

Brown wouldn’t change a thing about his time on staff with Nixon.

“It was four years and two months of incredible,” he said.

J. Kenneth Lee

“Hey Mr. Lee, how you been doing?”

Perhaps nothing reflects more clearly the contradictions in race relations during the civil rights era more than attorney J. Kenneth Lee’s relationship with a Ku Klux Klan leader named Clyde Webster.

Lee, who had graduated valedictorian of a class that met in a Hamlet church and never had access to a library, came to N.C. A&T in 1941. He was later one of the first black men to integrate UNC’s law school — a case argued by future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Webster, a carpenter, marched with KKK banners on the day black children integrated Gillespie Park School, and threw bottles through the plate glass window of Lee’s office. Lee represented the children.

Webster, finally caught in the act, was given an active jail sentence for the vandalism. His case was on appeal when he showed up at Lee’s office one day.

“He said, 'I was fired,’ ” the 86-year-old civil rights legend recalls.

Webster happened to be the chief carpenter for the company Lee had just hired to build his home. Knowing the history between the two, the company fired Webster.

“He said, 'You and me ain’t gonna never agree on race, but I’m the best damn carpenter you will find and I will save you money. You won’t have to speak to me if you don’t want to.’ ’’

Though he’s still not sure why, Lee agreed to let Webster stay on the job.

Webster fed Lee architectural changes to insist on — such as tying the four fireplaces in the multilevel home into one stylish stone flue — that indeed saved him money.

Lee’s home had been completed by the time Webster’s appeal came up and Webster’s lawyer subpoenaed Lee to talk about the time the two men had spent together. As a result, Webster was given a suspended sentence.

That day they saw each other just outside the courtroom. Webster, surrounded by other KKK members, reached out his hand to Lee.

“He said, 'I just want to let you know that if anybody in this town ever messes with you, all you’ve got to do is call us.’ ”

Lee saw it as an “unholy alliance,” but the harassment and phone calls stopped.

When school opened the next fall, Webster was back picketing in front of Gillespie with a 4-foot-high sign saying, “NIGGER GO HOME.”

“He looked over toward the street, saw me passing, threw up his hand and hollered as loud as he could, 'Hey Mr. Lee, how you been doing?’ ”

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy. mclaughlin@news-record.com