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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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the floor, and members are asking questions and it's televised. [Telephone rings. Tape stops and starts] Credits have to be worked out. I said, “Look, all I want is that it's Bill Moyers' journal and I'm not getting involved. At the beginning when Moyers intoduces it, he should say, “This program has been organized in cooperation with Bread and Roses, the cultural project of District 1199 of the national hospital union and supported by grants from etc., etc.

This is humanities, obviously. When I tell Lynn Smith that we have a humanities project that's going to be on national television, she flips! She starts running around the humanities and passing the word, “Those crazy people at 1199 -- this is what they're doing now!” Because every time we do something I'm calling her, and she's right away getting the word out.

Q:

So it was just an interview of Andy about the significance of King's experience?

Foner:

Yes -- that's right. I have the tape.

Q:

Do you remember what kind of questions the members asked?

Foner:

I can't remember, but it was very good! The members loved the idea that they were inside a, you know, a live telecast kind of thing. You know, it's a real big feather in your cap to do a thing like that.

At the same time, learning foundations and learning fund raising becomes very complicated and very difficult. Bob Schrank says that the way to do it is to get to David Hunter of the Stern Foundation. David was very interested. David and Bob act as the hosts for a luncheon meeting. They invite foundation directors, I make the pitch. It didn't work -- it didn't work. There were about nine or ten people, but it just didn't work.

Q:

Because?

Foner:

I don't know why. It just didn't work. People there were interested, they said, “I have to go back and find out.” The idea of funding a union is not exactly the most exciting thing in the world. One of the people who was very excited was Linda Gillies, who is the executive director of the Vincent Astor foundation. She was pushing like crazy, and her proposal went all the way up to the top and Mrs. Astor said, “No.” Linda Gillies called me up one day and was crying.

Q:

Dick Gillies' wife?





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