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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Q:

The Institute for Southern Studies?

Foner:

Yes, but I forget which one.

Q:

I know which magazine. Southern Exposure, was it?

Foner:

No, not Southern Exposure. I learned very very late in the game that the writer was writing a long critique of the Charleston strike. Leon Fink, who is writing a history of 1199, had heard about it. I got in touch with the author and the guy said, “Look. I sent a copy of this to Doris Turner a year ago and asked for comments, and I never heard from her. Since I never heard from her I assumed that nobody had any quarrel with what I was saying.” I said, “I've just seen the draft and I have lots of quarrels.” We spent hours on the phone. I was trying to argue point by point as to what he was saying. Because he was using a great deal of the workers that felt we were manipulating them, and we were using it for other purposes, we weren't really interested in them -- that kind of thing. I went down the line, point by point. He later made substantial revisions in the article, but not nearly enough. He really said, “Look, it's too late for me to do anything more with it.” So parts of it were changed, and that's the way it worked. But at that time, he was getting that kind of thing from people. He wasn't creating it -- it existed there.

Q:

So people had felt to some extent manipulated.

Foner:

However, at the same time I've spoken to people at various times in years. I've always got this impression from people in Charleston -- that it was their finest hour. The workers themselves. I think I may have told you that we asked the workers at the end of the strike to write down what the strike meant to them. We have that collection. Now of course that was right after the strike.

Q:

When people were full of hope.

Foner:

That's right. But a year later, Jim Wooten went back to Charleston and did an article based upon the film that had come out then. He was present at a film showing. He interviewed workers and he talked about changes that had taken place in Charleston as a result of the strike -- political changes.

Q:

How long did it take for the whole thing to unravel?

Foner:

Two, three years.

Q:

Is there anything you would have done differently, to have altered the outcome in that specific bargaining unit?





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