Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Moe FonerMoe Foner
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 592

Q:

You made up a new issue of the magazine?

Foner:

Yes.

Q:

With bigger pictures of Ralph.

Foner:

Yes. “Four hundred and four people are more important than any one man's ego.” That's Andy.

Q:

That's what he said?

Foner:

Yes. The turning point in the strike is the thing with Jim Farmer, from CORE [Congress on Racial Equality]. As soon as I began to sense what was involved, I figured that that's the handle, and nobody really said anything to me, nobody seemed to think that it was, but I sensed that that was the way out, and I began to establish relations, through Ruby Martin, with the HEW people in Atlanta, a guy named Bob Albert, who was one of the heads of the Atlanta office. I made it clear to him that I knew what was involved, that the hospital was in--I didn't know to what extent I knew. I was guessing.

There was a private meeting with the guy from HEW, but before that, I tried it out with Bill Vanden Heuvel. I said, “I think that this may be the deus ex machina thing.”

He said, “I think you may be right on this. It sounds like it could be.”

So I said, “I would like to test it with people from HEW.”

By this time, Peter Edelman had said to me, “Ruby has all the documents.”

I said, “Okay, great. Can you get the documents?”

He says, “I'll speak to Ruby and we'll see,” and he called me and says, “Ruby says she'll give me the documents. I'll mail them to you in Charleston.”

Weeks go by and I don't get any documents. I call him back and I say, “Hey, what's happening with the documents?”

He says, “You didn't get them?”

I said, “No.”

He says, “It's dynamite.”

I said, “Well, I don't even know.”





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help