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I give you all that background on Ben because the Group came out of this kind of relationship that Ben had with me, and I presume with a few others, in the HARYOU days, when I was struggling to maintain the integrity of HARYOU. Ren was not a member of the board of directors, but he was a close friend and advisor.

I think by that time, he'd become my lawyer. I'm not sure when he became my lawyer. Oh, now I'm beginning to date when I knew him, because he was my lawyer when my father-in-law died, and I think my father-in-law died in '61. I know he was my lawyer then because my wife and I consulted with him on my father-in-law's estate and will and what not. So I must have known him from the fifties.

It's one of those interesting things -- I don't quite remember when I started to know him. And I knew of him long before I knew him personally.

Well, anyway, getting back to the Group -- Ben saw what was happening with the HARYOU situation. You know, he saw that I was David against Goliath. He always wanted me to know that he was behind me. But he did more than that. He invited a number of people to his apartment, to discuss problems with community and race, and it was a highly selected group whom he invited. Bob Weaver, Raymond Jones, Jim Dumpson -- there were about eight to ten of us who would meet about once a month at Ben's apartment to discuss general problems. You know, each of us in terms of our particular area of activity. And to get the Group's consensus about, what do we do