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taken back. So it became a whole political thing and so the settlement was dead.
I remember that night, it was the worst night I had in Charleston. Andy was in the room. He said, “Okay, I guess we have to pick ourselves off the floor and start all over again,” and right away I was on the phone, calling around the country, to explain what had happened, that the thing had all blown up.
Then began the night marches. Of course, we now didn't know what to do anymore. We figured that we were up against a stone wall, and so Ralph went into jail and went into a hunger strike. Hosea Williams, leading night marches, in violation, curfew. Night marches, hundreds of people, confrontation. You could hear the sirens going every night. Night after night this is happening, and we don't know where it's going, except that we know it's getting very, very ugly, that if it's going to go anymore, that there are all kinds of rumors that the place is going to blow up, that the militants are going to take over the whole thing.
The white militants?
The black militants. We encourage that kind of thing. We get the word out that this is trouble. I remember I'm in the motel with Elliot one night and there had been a severe confrontation at the marches. The sirens. I'm sitting there with Elliot and I say, “Elliot, you know, it just occurred to me, why don't I call Moynihan? Why not? He said, ‘Anything, I should know.’ Let's tell him the town's going to blow.”
So he says, “Okay, try it.”
So I remember at the desk of the hotel, in the lobby, I call his number, and the White House answers and they say he's not here, who's calling?
I said, “Moe Foner.”
“How can he get back to you?”
I said, “I'm at this number.”
Fifteen minutes later, he calls back. “What's the matter?”
I said, “Look, I just thought you ought to know, we've had another night march here tonight. This city is going to blow up. You just have to trust me on this. You know what's happened on how they ended the
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