Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Moe FonerMoe Foner
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 592

because he was quite ill. It was very important that he be provided with audiences, so that we would do what we could do, things like that. I remember whenever he came, we'd come to see him at Joe's home and we'd talk, and when he died, and Joe came to me and said, “How about we do a big memorial for him.”

I said, “Okay, let's do it.” We put together a few people, a committee, Lenny Lamb from the Lincoln vets, Joe, I, and Joan Davidson's sister, in the J.M. Kaplan Fund, who was married to somebody who was close to Spain. And we decided that we would do a big thing, a memorial service for Del Vayo at the Community Church. I said the unions will put up a couple of hundred dollars right away, seed money for what we had to do, and he'd raise money. We would meet regularly at my office. We did this over a three-month period, and then we were putting together the program, and we were going to get somebody from Spain, from the underground, was going to come. Yeah, they did come. Someone from E.T.A.

Q:

The bus.

Foner:

The bus, yeah. We find out these guys are coming. What can I do? We said, “Now, who's going to speak?” And we figured it out. Ossie. “Okay, I'll get Ossie.” And what's her name is the speaker, and I remember, I'll never forget her. She's the famous historian, Barbara Tuchman. See, Barbara Tuchman was a reporter for the Nation in Spain. She comes from a very wealthy family, very wealthy family. And she's a very good friend of the Caddens. See, Joe's wife, Vivian, his widow, is the editor of Working Mother, and they know everybody. Joe, when I started “Bread and Roses,” Joe volunteered to help me raise money, fund-raise for me. But anyway, so I remember I had to clear the program with Barbara Tuchman, because she was speaking. And I remember going to see her, and she went over the list and she said, “And who is this Ossie Davis?”

So I said, “Well, he's a very distinguished black actor.”

“Wwas he in Spain?”

I said, “No.”

“I will not speak on a platform except with people who were in Spain.”

Then this was left to Joe. He said, “Don't worry about it. I'll get her to speak.”

We had this guy from Spain who came, and he turned out to be a bomb-thrower. I didn't know it. Not only that, but he only could speak





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help