Session: 123456789101112131415161718192021222324         Page 117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144 of 592

It's very striking to me, because like you said, when you were at 65, you were sort of protected from McCarthyism and the whole experience.

Yes.

You know, the Fifties was a period everybody thinks of as a period of inertia and inactivity, and here this is this incredible struggle.

This thing is going on -- Victor Gotbaum is in Chicago, and he reads about it, and he tries to organize a strike with Lillian Roberts in Chicago. They fall flat on it. Why? Probably because they didn't have anybody like Elliott around, although who knows. But, see, we were fortunate, almost blessed. We were in the right place at the right time. We had people like Elliott, Leon Davis, and we had the support of the workers. That's it.

You were also lucky to have picked Montefiore. Had you by chance ended up --

It wasn't a -- again, it's like when we went into Charleston, when it was all over, they said, “Oh, those smart cookies. Boy, look what they did now. They picked out Charleston. Look what they did. They made it a national thing now. Now they're going to organize around the country on it. They're carrying on. Boy, are those guys the evil geniuses.” That's what we were called -- the evil geniuses. It's incredible. This story is an incredible story. It's been told.

Ossie wrote a documentary that was performed at our Negro history celebration in '59 on the 1958 strike, the organizing campaign. He got all of the stuff in on it. So that a lot of it is in records. All right. Enough. Enough.

Great.

[END OF SESSION]