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poster. The Los Angeles Times did about an eight inch story on the announcement “Opening Bread and Roses -- this project is beginning.” We got the Daily News.
Anyway, I would constantly call John or tell him what we're doing, because he was like the founding father. I told him about Lawrence. Johnny Hoerr is close to the United Church. I once met him at a thing there that they were having, where I spoke and he spoke for an American Yugoslav, the writer Louis Adamic. Mean anything to you?
No.
Wrote in the 1930s. Someone Art Keys, of the United Church, was doing a program with Yugoslavs on Adamic. They had traveled around the country with the United Church, and they were having a reception. I spoke, and Johnny Hoerr spoke. When I told him about the Bread and Roses Day he said, “Oh, that labor movement! What they could do.” He says, “You know, I was born in [?], Pa. Nobody knows what [?] means in terms of the labor movement. It's when the CIO Steel Union got started.” He says, “This should be done all over the United States.” But then the exhibition opened in our place. But you see the thing is that when these things happen, like Bread and Roses Day in Lawrence, and the endowment -- NEH -- learns about it, you know, they get such a shot in the arm. So that, I was waiting for that to happen. I knew.
Do you remember the date of the Bread and Roses Day?
It was in April 1980.
It sounds to me -- this is a little bit of a side road -- it sounds to me though that most of the art type exhibitions had as their principal goal the promotion of the image of the labor movement in the larger community. Rather than being directed towards the rank and file. We haven't gotten to “Take Care,” and that was important.
The thing is that that's true. I would always see beyond that. But nevertheless -- like the Lawrence Day program. We had a lot of unions coming in to Lawrence for that event. When we had the Bread and Roses, the Lawrence exhibition, at 1199 our own members and other union people came, because they really get an opportunity. We had a mini Bread and Roses Day, you know, with songs -- that kind of thing. All of our openings attracted the other union people plus our own members. Remember, our union at that time was a very very busy place.
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