Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324         Page 569570571572573574575576577578579580581582583584585586587588589590591592 of 592

Henry Nicholas. We were making very little headway, and we knew the opposition. It was a state hospital law. It was great power. So I called Stanley and said, “Stanley, I have an idea.”

He said, “What is it? Is it on Charleston?”

I said, “Yeah. Why can't we get the SCLC to agree to say that they're giving up their headquarters in Atlanta and they're moving their headquarters to Charleston for the rest of the strike, and for the strike they will remain in Charleston.” Ralph [Abernathy] would stay there as much as he could, but Andy would be assigned to be the leader and to maintain contact with me. And they agreed.

So the SCLC headquarters were in Charleston throughout the strike, giving us the kind of force that we didn't have with the ministers and everybody and with the media.

Then one day they had a board meeting of the SCLC. They brought in everybody. Stanley was going. We had just put out an issue of 1199 News which was titled -- very beautiful photographs of the strikers -- “1199-B is Here to Stay,” and inside was a large section devoted to the leaders of the strike, the leaders of the civil rights movement who I had gotten to agree on a joint statement, the first time since King's death that they had agreed on anything. Each page was devoted to a different -- two-page spread -- a different leader on what he had said and done. There was a two-page spread on Ralph, and I was so proud of it, I brought copies down to the meeting and I put them on the desk for Ralph to see.

Ralph Abernathy.

Ralph Abernathy. And I'm sitting there and he's turning through these pages, and it suddenly dawns on me what a stupid mistake I've made, that to put Ralph in the same league with the others, Ralph, who had been in jail, who has made a million speeches there, and these other people just gave -- and he picked it up. “Oh, I see you have Roy Wilkins. Do I remember him coming down here?” And he went through, one by one.

Then Carl Farris, F-A-R-R-I-S, who was the labor chief of SCLC at that time, got up and made a strong attack on 1199 for taking the headlines and pushing SCLC to the side, and then Andy Young got up and said, “Carl, you're stupid. You don't understand that we should be kissing them. They brought us back. We're in the news again. What they've done is a tribute to us, and we should be glad.”