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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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appeared, or we would bring in lecturers. Not teachers in the current sense, but lecturers. We would bring in, I remember, Robert Brown -- Black economics professor and Black scholar. My brother Phil would be brought in and give a course, a series of lectures.

Q:

This is right through the 1960s.

Foner:

Right through the 1960s. A number of times Al Lowenstein, Mike Harrington. I remember inviting and he came -- he later became on the editorial board of the Times -- Roger Wilkins, was a friend. I convinced him to come. I convinced Tom Wicker once to come and talk.

Q:

What purpose did you have in mind, when you invited people?

Foner:

Just that they should be more informed -- more information about what was going on. On Vietnam we would bring in people.

Q:

The notion that a good and effective leader understood their activities in a context.

Foner:

Yes. Would see that what they were doing on a day to day basis was related in some way to other things. I think I showed you, we did a series of Friday night forums -- Norman Thomas, David Livingston, Bayard Rustin. I think you know that the idea, it's limited what you can get out of that. It makes you feel good that you're hearing things, but you really don't learn unless you are engaged and you're forced to defend or explain yourself. Even if it's on the simplest level and not as profound.

Then we did another thing. We were concerned about the fact that we needed an education program. Hank Paley had introduced me to a guy who had been with him in the paper workers who was now at Cornell, a professor -- George Brooks, who later in the campaign to organize Cornell played a lousy role. But that's the way life is! George was a nice guy, and he agreed to come down. He was intrigued with what we were doing. He sat down and he suggested -- we told him we wanted to develop an educational program, we weren't sure what to do. We had had courses, you know, and that kind of thing. George said, “I would like to take six months -- six months to a year. I'll come down, I'll spend one, two days a week. I'll sit down with the officers individually. You'll tell me which organizers, I'll go out with organizers in the field with them. I'll go to meetings, etcetera, and I'll try after that to put together a program that I think meets your needs.





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