The Case for Civility

In this episode, Ben Whitley sits down with legendary North Carolinian Rufus Edmisten for a conversation spanning politics, law, and life lessons. He shares firsthand stories from one of the most pivotal moments in American history and reflects on his time working under Senator Sam Ervin and what true bipartisanship and professionalism looked like during that era.

But this conversation goes beyond politics. Edmisten shares his passion for mentorship through his "SuperKids" program, his belief in giving back, and why civility is more important now than ever.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Beyond the Bar. We've got a really special guest today, Rufus Edmondson, a legendary North Carolinian. And I, you know, I'm gonna intro you a little bit, it's gonna take me a little bit of time now, but you you grew up in the mountains near Boone, went to Chapel Hill in law school up in D.C., Washington, and then went to work for the legendary Sam Irvin, ended up as a in the deputy chief counsel on the Watergate Committee, personally served Richard Nixon with the papers, came on back to North Carolina, put a stint in as the attorney general, and then ran as a Democratic governor in the 84 race, I believe.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And then has kind of had a whole new chapter of you're a m you've gone and got a gardening show and talk a little bit about gardening, and now you've done so much with scholarships and charity, a whole new chapter. But I got a question that I was thinking about on the way over here that I wanted to ask you, and it was really starting with when you got the Democratic nomination for governor, and you lost that race, but you went right back and won a statewide race again as and as the Secretary of State. And I was thinking a lot of times losses like that define people, you know, and the last thing they want to do is face the same group of voters and say, well, hold on now, allow me to do this. I talk to me a little bit about what you were thinking.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

I analogize that to the business that you've been in and uh I'm trained for being a lawyer. You can lose a case if you're downhearted. You think, I don't want to I don't want to walk back into a courthouse again. Well, you have to get up out of bed and say, am I going to be do something relevant today? Right. Now it was a huge loss when I I I ran for governor. In the primary, I had 10 opponents. Ten. Wow. There were four of us that had over over 80 percent name recognition. Right. We had Lieutenant Governor, we had all kinds of folks. I I had to go through a second primary at that time, Ben, because you had to get over 50 percent.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

So it was like a runoff.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Right. And they had a r I had a runoff, and it was between me and uh Eddie Knox, who was from Charlotte. A lot of bitterness went on in that campaign, and I I never got his his supporters back. And it was a it was a bad year, too, because Governor Hunt was running for the U.S. Senate against Jesse Helms. Against Jesse Helms. Well, he and I both lost. It was a Reagan landslide. Ah, when when you uh lose for governor, I often made a joke that my dog wouldn't even lick me. I was downhearted. Oh I could imagine I uh you know, uh rejection's tough. Uh rejection, you and you think I I personally let people down, and I was moping around one time and had a fundraiser, which is hard to do after you lose that.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Hard to do. Wait a minute, fundraiser for the same race that you lost it. Yeah, to pay for the debt. That's a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And uh I was sort of moping around it as a person said to me, said, Look, how many people in North Carolina do we have? I said, Well, about eight, eight million at that time. He said, How many people were the nominee for governor? I said, Well, me and Jim Martin. He said, Remember that. You had that high honor, and get over this, you can go on. And I sort of picked back up and and then decided, uh I practiced law uh for four years, and I I decided I would never do another domestic relations course, or I would go flip hamburgers.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Well, okay, so part of this was had it was getting back into the law. Wait a minute, I'm a I I don't know, I'm I like the politics, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Oh I had a case one time, had these two warring partners, uh, and my client was a man, and they were fighting over a Santa Claus, an old plastic Santa Claus. And he went on and on and on. And finally I said, I am sick of this. And I called my friend in Boone, who ran the Western Ottawa. I said, Have you got one of those darn old plastic Santa Claus? She said, Yeah. How much is it? He said,$30. I said, put it on railway freight, send it today. I call my client up. I said, I got you something. Oh, slay that old gal you hate so much. I got you a new Santa Claus. He took it, and oh, he was so happy. Oh, she was happy. I was so glad to get rid of those two people, and I said, never again, domestic relations. Never. Yeah, I that I went on to be Secretary of State for two terms. Got it. All right. And then I've been 20, 20, almost 27 years in the law practice of helping people that have problems with the government.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Well, you know, growing up in North Carolina, there there are a lot of these famous names, and some of which we've mentioned here before, you know, late Governor Hunt, and even to the controversial ones on either side from Jesse Helms and Jim Maher and all the others. And Rufus Evans has always been a name that that I've always heard of, and that's just a name that's always been around in in politics. But the stories that you tell about the Watergate and serving the president, and it's funny, you know, nowadays, we we were before the the podcast started, we were talking a little bit about civility in politics, and you know, this show is is is a neutral show, but I mean civility is something that's non-neutral, should return to politics. Amen. And you you're you wrote a book in 2019, and that was your biography.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

And you you were telling me you may be interested in in writing another book. So I sure do, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

And well, I well with all the people in one another's throats today bothers me so much. When I first went to Washington to Senator Irvin, in 1964, civility reigned. None of this stuff you see now where one member of Congress jumped up a while back and and threatened somebody with a fight right there in the Senate hearing room.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Right crazy. Physical fight.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Crazy, yes. Yeah. And uh in my book, I I want to show that there were times when you can show civility. Watergate was a perfect example of Senator Irvin, Senator Baker. The two people made it made it a deal before the hearing started. We will not have fights on on in public. We'll make agreement to settle it beforehand. And I defy anyone to show me a time when there was not unanimity.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Right. And for those who the younger folks out there, Senator Sam Irvin was the senator from North Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

And he was the chair of the Watergate committee.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And Senator Baker was the co-chair uh from Tennessee, and it was the most significant hearing that probably in in American history that went on in in Washington because we had a president who was defying the law, Richard Nixon. Right. And Sam Urban's committee, of which I was so proud to be a part of at age age 32 years old, Ben. Nobody should have a job like I had at 32 years old. Nobody.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

It was the sign of things to come.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Well, and so there we were, and that was a great example of of civility.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

And the next thing I want to admit, yeah, when I when I ran for governor in 1984, my opponent, I adore the guy, Jim Martin. We ran a campaign where I recall no time any one of us ever saying something ugly.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

It was a none of these negative ads that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

I refused to do it. I had a campaign consultant who said, let's run, let's go dig some dirt upon Jim Martin. I said, Well, first of all, you won't find it. And secondly, if you do find it, I'm not using it. And uh he had a funny little quirk about him. He was a chemistry professor, professor at Davidson. Well, after we'd be at one of these forums, he would pass me a little note with a grade. And I never got over a B. Sometimes even a a C C minus. Uh uh said to me one time, I said, Governor, why why didn't you give me a better grade than that? He said, Well, first of all, I never gave anything above a B in my classes, and uh I wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna blow your head up any. So he's gonna be a part of my book. I've had an interview with him. Oh, good. I have my super kids. Yes. You're quite you're quite familiar with that.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I am, and I make sure that we put a plug in on the podcast for super kids, and too.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Um And the one thing that we do with those kids, we teach civility.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Well, and that's that was my question is how how do we return to civility? We've gone so far.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Well, we we first have to say that you can't teach you you can you're not born with it. Uh it has to start at homes, it has to start with parents. Parents have to start giving good examples of civility. And then as adults, we we've got to do the one thing I think that is critical to civility L-I-S-T-E-N. You've got to stop and listen. That person may have something good to say. And then the the next part that I want to talk about, you've got to have empathy. Can you put yourself in that person's shoes and really think what they may be going through? That person that says something ugly about you.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Are you gonna hold that grudge the rest of your life? Because you're only hurting yourself. I I got a letter one time from Bill Clinton with whom I was friends, and he he wrote me a handwritten note and said, You have to let it all go. Those who hurt you, whatever reason, you have to let it all go so they no longer have it in control over you.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

You don't let one of the things I like is you don't let them rent space in your head for free.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Absolutely. And then another part about civility is this this gobbledygook of information era that we're in.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

AI taking over. I see where some lawyers get in trouble occasionally. They are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

They get a little lazy out there.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

I I saw where one got disbarred somewhere for for uh turning in a brief that had a case that never existed. Right. Made up folks. And so what we've got to do is turn off the send button, the mental send button, both both on the machine and the mental send button in your head before you flame off, say the things you wish you hadn't have said, and uh it all boils down to stop, sort of put a stop sign in front of your eyes.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

A pause.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah, pause, put that pause button on, and then think isn't there something good that I can find in this person? I know this all sounds Pollyanish, it sounds like old Mother Hubbard. So what? It's the basis of uh I was brought up on a uh a family farm of six, five boys and one girl, and we we were all self-disciplinary. If we said something ugly about somebody, the rest of the boys would take care of it. Mom and daddy didn't have to say anything about it. We had our own little system. And you know, when you're brought up that way, right I I don't I realize that not everybody can have a a Norman Rockwell upbringing like I did on a farm, but it's stop, pause, and think about how big a fool am I making myself? And do I need to shut the send button off? Right. Right. I think we've got a book there.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

I I I think it's look, I have I've had moments in my own career where I have felt that energy, right? And I and then you end up sending something that you would regret, right, and you've wasted the the time and energy on it, and you don't even know if they're having a bad day or what's going on. And that's usually the that's usually the situation we we find that we encountered.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Something comes down sideways from the case. In that Greek word I call hubris, you think, okay, nobody's nobody's looking at me, nobody's seeing me or hearing me. Untrue, because you you start thinking you're invisible and you're not. Right. And that hubris takes over, which says, okay, I I'm I'm impenetrable. Right. Nobody can do anything to me. Uh I I think it's uh a time when uh America's at a a very big crossroads right now, and many things could be solved if we only used civility.

unknown 12:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

And that's why I I like the approach of the Whitley Law Firm. Well, thank you. I I uh I think you're I don't like to call it advertising, I I call it uh giving information to people. Uh I I'm so old-fashioned, I I'm not criticizing anybody because they they do the market how they want to, but I I like the way the calm approach that Whitley law firm does, saying you've got the experts here in North Carolina help people, and and my goodness, I I looked out on your wall here as I came in. Some of the people who are the wall of fame out there.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Well, thank you. Astounding verdict. You know, my dad taught me was about you just you you tell the truth and you give information and you tell people what they need to know, even if they don't need to hire you. And that that's kind of been the basis of our advertisements for so many years after I took it over from today. It's just being informational and talking. And and a lot of times people get to know you that way, and they say, Oh, he's a real person, he's an approachable person. And I think people don't need lawyers until they need one, and then it's an intimidating process usually when they have to go thinking about talking to one.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

Somebody's a their whole future may depend on you, that lawyer, that day, and that they mostly want you to hold their hand.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

They do, and the doctor. My dad usually always said um quiet, uninterrupted listening.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Absolutely. Oh, I like that, quiet interrupted listening. I'm gonna parrot that. Oh, okay. I'm gonna do a Ted talk here uh in August. What's your topic on? I've got what's gonna be on civility.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Well, and with well staying on that topic for a little bit, we think about the examples that that that folks set. That the current, you know, the current and it's gonna be hard to change this because the current examples, because this uncivility seems to have gotten results in some of these kind of tribal warfare that we see in politics. So I think it's gonna take a pretty a good example to come along to really help change. But you think it can be done in a much more local landing. And some of the things that you do with your with your kids and your scholarship program is the ways that you've already been doing that. Could tell but tell us a little bit for those that don't know about Superintendent.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

And thank you again, Ben, for your firm making a scholarship donation. Uh about 31 years ago, uh I had a friend who's a principal of a school in Kinston.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Uh well, now my hometown.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

That's where I'm from.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

It's a very poor school there, Ben. Yes, sir. And he called me and he said, he said, I got a problem. I was going to bring a group of kids to Raleigh tomorrow, and somebody stole our bus money. I so I turned around to my I was sitting in my office with uh friend George McCotter and Bonecrusher Smith.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Bonecrusher Smith? Bone Bonecrusher Smith. That's a heck of a name.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And I said, Okay, George, give me$100. Bonecrusher, give me, give me$100. So I called the principal back and I said, get ready to come tomorrow because I'm going to send you some money. So I sent the SBI with the money to pay for their bus. They brought them brought these about about 20 kids to Raleigh. And I knew that they were they were dressed to the hilt with clothes that were too the the say for instance the coat was six inches too long. Right. Hand me down.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Hand me down, right.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

They were just such poor kids, but they're all well-minded. And I said, Why why are you bringing these kids to Raleigh? He said, Well, because they're super kids. I said, like for what reason? He said, Well, last week one of them found a five-dollar bill in the hallway and turned it in. I said, I don't know whether I've done that or not. And I got to thinking, okay, let's let's let's start something like that. Because you I I took them to the Capitol, gave them all a certificate, made them swear allegiance to uh uh North Carolina, and they were so so cute and and talked hardiest into giving a free meal. And uh I decided to start, so 31 years ago, I started something called the Foundation for Good Business slash superkids, and we choose kids who otherwise would not get to go to college if unless we helped them. Over the years, we've had over twenty hundred and twenty-five kids. Uh I've gone to 14 different universities and schools. Wow. Uh we had an annual fundraiser which you attended last year. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

It was good to see you there.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

At uh Pam's Rust.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Pam Farmhouse.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

The farm, yeah, Pam's Farmhouse. And uh we're holding another event for anybody out there that listens to us on May the 15th at the governor's mansion, and you can either call Ben or call me, and we'll we'll get you in for a for a little fee. But you help a kid. You're helping the kid. And we teach these kids too. One of the main things, Ben, is the kid has to show civility. We test them along the way.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

And because this is a uh interview process, they apply the interview process, which I'll do one tomorrow. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

And and uh we I interview every single one of them because I won't know what they're made out of. And I I don't care if they don't have to be a Michael Jordan, they don't have to be Einstein. Right. I'm I'm looking for a quality where where they will give back and where they will be responsive. And for instance, at Christmas time, we we send them all a$500 check. And I say, okay, keep half of it. Yeah. The other half, give it to somebody that is less fortunate than you, and write me a letter about it. Some of those letters will bring you to tears. They'll just bring you to tears. And and even one said, I want to I want to apologize, Mr. Edison, but I gave it to my mother because she didn't didn't have enough money to buy groceries. Oh giving back. Just wonderful stuff. And that that's how I teach civility. And it's it can be done. Right. We start very locally, and uh the one thing that parents need to do is is stop this stuff of being so indulgent. Uh I I'm all for throwing the the gadgets away in class time. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Get back outside.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Cell phones. I I look, I've I know about teenagers. They'll find they'll find a way. You don't say put it in your pocket. That's very good.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Just take them up during the school day and keep them away from that. Uh because on social media, you don't see the the hurt on somebody's face. You you don't see the emotion. You don't see that they're hurting.

SPEAKER_01 19:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

It's like you said a moment ago. You've had a time in your life when something was hurting you very deeply, or you may have hurt somebody and wish you'd never said that. And everybody's done that one time or another. That's right. Wish you hadn't said it. Well, it's even multiplied a thousand times now by these infernal devices which we all live by. Right. Uh but I can't find my examples saying that.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

I get you're right. I I have I have saved taken specific time and put it away for a couple days, and it is it's nice. I do on the weekend. It could be gone in a drawer. You on the all weekend. That's good. Almost.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

Almost. I I'll I'll take it back up Sunday, but I'm out there gardening. Leave it in the house. And gardening's a good therapy too. I've I've got to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Now is that is that is that been has that been your kind of mental escape?

SPEAKER_00 20:07

That's my yeah, that's my mental escape. Uh I grew up on the farms, I said, and uh all the other boys I I I would I was a mama's boy. She was the she was the church lady. So she had to take the the flowers to church every Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

And I'd say, well, Mama, can I help you in your garden? And uh that was easier because the other boys had to go down to the bottom land and hoe the tobacco and the corn and the cabbage. And I was I was a mama's boy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

You saw an easier path. Yeah, easier path. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

You can sneak off and take a little nap. So, yeah, and uh she had the best dahlias in the world. And uh said, you mentioned Mama Grove got this garden show with with Mike Rayleigh on WPTF every Saturday morning at uh eight o'clock in the morning. And that's the weekend gardener, right? Weekend gardener.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

And sometimes we talk about stuff other than gardening. It it's sort of like sitting around an old country story. Oh, yeah. It's the oldest running garden show in America. Yeah. Been going for over 50 years. Uh we have uh good listenership and get a lot of characters on that show that just want to call up and talk about whether they still use Laura or not. Or who or who likes uh it's just some easy-going conversation.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah. Well, that's good. Well, uh, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I and I've we mentioned a little bit about your book that you wrote in 2018, and we're gonna put something up. That's Rufus, is the name of that book. And we're gonna be looking out for the next one. This is a a topic that couldn't come at a better time and in our nation's politics and North Carolina politics. So we look forward to that. And uh hope to have you back sometime, Rufus. It was fun. Thank you, Ben. Got a great firm. Thank you, sir. Join me next time uh with Ben Whitley Behind the Bar.