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Session:         Page of 592

like to speak to the nurses. Andy was slipped in the back door to meet with the nurses.

I called my friend several hours later and I said, “How did Andy Young do?”

She said, “Do you have any more people like him?”

I said, “Why?”

She said, “You know, at the end of the meeting, they were singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

I saw Andy at the settlement meeting that day. Of course, we had to report in to the strikers, and I said to Andy, “How did it go?”

He said, “All right.”

I said, “How do they sing?”

He said, “Who told you?”

Anyway, there was a lot of excitement of the settlement. The medical college first settled. The settlement was not union recognition; it was the return of the twelve. It was some kind of grievance set up. It was a credit union for handling dues. You can give in to the credit union, that kind of thing. And the state was going to increase wages for all state employees, because they didn't want to do it just for the hospitals. There would be an increase for all state employees. So that ended the strike of the medical college.

Now, meanwhile, we had a strike of sixty workers in the county hospital who were not covered by that, and so that strike drags on for another ten days. I remember, Ralph is in jail, so it becomes a question of, what do we do with this? Let me see my notes here. I see a note here. “They warn against press leaks. We're being besieged by reporters. Someone must know something.” [Laughs]

The county hospital is still on strike. Ralph is in jail and I remember very vividly we're going to have a meeting in the jail with Ralph on what to do. Andy gets to me. He says, “Moe, Ralph is going to ask if he should stay in jail or come out, now that the medical college is out.” He says, “Take my word for it, Moe, tell the truth. Tell him what you think. Don't say what you like him to hear.”

So we go into the jail cell. It was like 130 degrees. We crowded in, Nick, Elliot, me, from the union, Carl Farris, Stoney, and Andy, and Hosea Williams, in a very small cell that was stinking with heat. Ralph





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