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Candy magnate championed civil rights
by Adam Lynn, Tacoma [WA] News-Tribune
April 6, 2005
Fred Haley stood up for what he thought was right, even when it seemed all Tacoma opposed him.
Brown & Haley's
Mountain Bar is the world's best candy bar. "Brown & Haley makes 'em daily" is the motto, and my mom wouldn't let me eat 'em daily, but I was able to buy and savor a Mountain Bar maybe once a week all through my childhood. Yum.
I never knew until today, though, that the man in charge was a sweetie himself.
Helen & Harry Highwater, proprietors Unknown News
It was that tenacity that people recalled Tuesday, one day after the former president and chief executive officer of the Brown & Haley candy company died at his home. He was 92.
A shrewd businessman who helped open international markets to Brown & Haley’s signature Almond Roca confection, Haley took the most pride from his record of defending civil liberties, championing minority rights and advocating education reform, those who knew him said.
“He was an intellectual powerhouse with a lot of vision and a lot of courage,” said his daughter Susan Headley of Tacoma.
After serving in the Navy in World War II, the Stadium High School and Dartmouth University graduate returned home to run the company business and quickly immersed himself in local causes.
In 1954, he was elected to the Tacoma School Board, where he fought for desegregation and the hiring of minority teachers.
Fred Haley's career highlights:
♦ Chairman and chief executive officer, Brown & Haley
♦ Awarded William O. Douglas Award by state chapter of American Civil Liberties Union (1985)
♦ Member, governor-appointed Washington State Board Against Discrimination (1964 and 1967)
♦ Director, National Committee for Support of the Public Schools
♦ Member, Tacoma School Board (chairman 1956-57 and 1963-64)
♦ Chairman, Washington Citizens Committee for Civil Rights Legislation (1961, 1963 and 1965)
♦ Chairman, governor-appointed Washington State Temporary Committee on Educational Policies, Structure and Management (1982-85)
It was a cause he pursued his entire life, said historian Ronald Magden, who wrote a biography of the Tacoma native.
“He was the heart of the liberals of Tacoma,” Magden said. “He kept an open mind about what to say and what to do.”
His reward often was scorn and investigation.
“The FBI had a file on him a mile long,” Magden said.
Others reacted more positively.
In 1985, the ACLU gave Haley its William O. Douglas Award for his work fighting for civil liberties.
“Fred Haley is a man who is not afraid to take unpopular stands or to take risks on behalf of civil liberties,” the organization stated in announcing the award. “He acts upon his beliefs, and our civil liberties are the beneficiary.”
That philosophy didn’t always prove popular, especially when Haley took a stand against the House Un- American Activities Committee during the communism scare of the 1950s.
Residents boycotted the candy company when Haley joined fellow school board members Jim Boze and Ray Kelly in a vote that kept school counselor Margaret Jean Schuddakopf, accused of being a communist, on the Tacoma school district payroll.
More than 20,000 people signed a petition calling for Schuddakopf’s ouster.
He also became “a pariah” in the business community, Magden said.
“They hated him for it,” Magden said. “He was really blasted for it. It was remarkable that he was a successful businessman.”
Schuddakopf, called before the House committee when it came to Seattle, invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when asked if she were a communist.
Her action was considered a tacit admission, and many Tacomans called for her to be fired, Magden wrote in an article published in the winter 1997/1998 edition of Pacific Northwest Quarterly.
The American Legion bought a newspaper advertisement criticizing the decision to retain Schuddakopf and asking the state to intervene.
Haley countered with an ad of his own, saying the evidence against Schuddakopf did not merit her termination.
“It seems to me that it is for us to stand steady, to remain wedded to high concepts of justice and tradition,” Haley said in his ad.
“Our children will be seen in the end to be served well by our reluctance to throw away our compasses and our charts while our life boats blaze in the heat of public passion.”
Schuddakopf was later let go on another vote from which Haley abstained.
Haley’s daughter Mimi Haley said her father proved that a person can stand up for what he or she thinks is right and still get ahead in the world.
Haley and his wife, Dorothy, had four children. Dorothy Haley died in 2003.
“His legacy to the community? I think it’s courage,” Mimi Haley said. “The courage to stand up for your convictions, to believe things that maybe other people don’t believe.”
One of the things Fred Haley believed in most strongly was the power of education, said the people who knew him.
For nearly 50 years, he was a driving force to improve the K-12 and higher education systems, serving on local and state boards.
In Tacoma, he proposed ending school segregation by redrawing territories from which schools drew their students and by creating schools with special programs in poor areas, Magden said.
His thought was that kids from wealthier areas would want to attend the so-called “magnet schools.”
“He wanted the best teachers for the poorest students,” Magden said.
A lifelong traveler who insisted that his children, even at a young age, see the world, Haley visited Russia in 1960 to tour schools there.
He came back impressed, especially with the way the Russians emphasized foreign language education.
“If we Americans are as dedicated to educating our young people as the Russians so obviously are, we may still be the free world’s best hope for the future,” he told The News Tribune upon his return. “But, I fear we aren’t so dedicated. If we continue to drag our feet in this most fundamental challenge to society, we are in trouble.”
Haley led the effort to open the University of Washington Tacoma campus and insisted that it be located downtown, near the centers of politics, art and culture, Magden said.
“He wanted to change society through the schools,” the historian said.
A man of means, Haley nonetheless had a gift for relating to everyday people, Magden said.
He was greatly influenced by the loggers and other laborers he met while working summers for the Forest Service, the historian said.
Susan Headley said her father would stop and talk to anyone he met on his daily walks from his North End home to the Brown & Haley factory downtown.
“He was fascinated with people from all walks of life,” Headley said.
In 1963, Haley took a bus back East to participate in the March on Washington, an event he described as “a religious experience.”
He later served on the state’s Board Against Discrimination and petitioned to get the first black man admitted to the all-white Seattle College Club.
Inez Guinn provided what might be a fitting epitaph for Haley’s life when she addressed the Tacoma School Board during his last meeting as a director.
Guinn, then the education chairman of the local NAACP chapter, applauded Haley’s work to end segregation and to advance civil rights, according to an account of the meeting published in the June 25, 1965, edition of The News Tribune.
“I think we will find his only fault was that he was far ahead of his time,” Guinn said. “He was one man with social foresight.”
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