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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

I can get [Brian] Lanker and people like that to let us have the right to use them, it will be wonderful.”

Q:

When was this?

Foner:

This must have been about -- let's see, well, we had the School of Social Change, it must be about maybe eight years ago, seven years ago.

Q:

Early nineties.

Foner:

Early nineties, yes. It's sometime in the early nineties. So I tried every way to talk to people who might know Brian Lanker. Finally I said, “Look. Let me look him up and let me call him.” So I called him. I got to his secretary, I told her, and she said, “Brian said send him some stuff of what Bread and Roses is doing.”

I sent him the packet, and his secretary called me up and said, “He's interested. He says, ‘which ones are you interested.’” And I listed around five or six.

He got on the phone, and he said, “Look. I spoke to the woman who did the text, and when I mentioned that it was Bread and Roses and you, she said, ‘Let them have it. They're wonderful people. Bread and Roses is wonderful.’” So he says, “I'm going to give you the right.”

Q:

How did she know that?

Foner:

She had been teaching in the New York schools. This woman, she must have known me and known the union.

So he said, “I'll send them to you.” We had those, and we shopped around and got some others from other friends. We made an error in having painters paint some of them. One thing I learned, you can't mix photos with paintings. But the series was very exciting.

Q:

How did you select the twelve people who were photographed?

Foner:

Frankly, on the basis of certain people I wanted to have, and certain people, like --

Q:

Name some names.

Foner:

Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou.

Q:

Fanny Lou Hamer.





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