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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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humanities. All day conference, with 400 members. Workshops with prominent people participating. As a matter of fact one of the workshops on literature, you know who led the workshop? Ed Doctorow. Who led the workshop “Is the Media Fair to Labor?” Jack Newfield, with a panel of four. What's his name? The guy who used to be in the Young Lords who was on channel four. The Hispanic guy. I forget his name. But heavy hitters -- in all areas.

At the end of the day, at the final session where they report back -- Ossie and Ruby had a workshop. Howard Roberts led a workshop on “Music for the People.” All of that kind of thing. Eve Merriam led a workshop on oral history. I had everybody in the thing. [Michael] Harrington was involved. It was wild, but it was good. At the end of the day, after they'd come back after lunch, to keep them we had two things. Number one we would have the first showing of scenes, parts, of the videotape. Parts of the videotape and Micki Grant doing numbers from “Take Care,” and Ossie doing the sketches. Talking through the sketches of “Take Care.” So people walked out like, very excited.

I told you about the legacy of Dr. King -- Andy Young at Columbia, the lecture. Yes. The Labor Day street fair -- 100,000 people.

Q:

Tell me about the Labor Day street fair.

Foner:

This was another idea I had. A street fair, Labor Day. Why shouldn't there be a Labor Day street fair.

Q:

At that time there was no Labor Day parade.

Foner:

No. The second year of the street fair, the Labor Day parade resumed so we had to switch. We had it on a Sunday -- we switched to a Sunday and they had a march on Monday.

The Labor Day street fair was an idea that I projected as part of Bread and Roses. When we sat down with a committee, and we had to figure out what should be in it, where it should be -- originally I wanted it to be in front of the union building, on 43rd Street. That's a narrow street. But I said, “It has to be on 43rd Street.” [laughs] “The Labor Day street fair is on 43rd Street, the union headquarters.” [laughs] Then it became clear that it was too small. So we then opted to have it on 42nd Street between Ninth and Tenth Avenue, and that we would get the street closed for the day, and that we would put up stages, and we have performances there. We would put a stage on Ninth Avenue, and a stage at Tenth Avenue. Then you have to have food. So we would bring in vendors with foods of all nations. Then, there were





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