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Session:         Page of 592

I said, “I'll tell you what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to send a message to the convention and give your feelings about the situation.” Off -- [tape interruption]

She agreed, and the message was sent back to the convention. I remember that I asked Henry Nicholas, “I want to read that message to the convention.” Everybody knew that Mrs. King wasn't coming, and everybody wanted to know what was going to happen, and the Turner forces had been passing out the rumors about what Mrs. King was doing. I got up and I said, “I have a message. Mrs. King will not be able to be here. However, she has sent a message, and I want to read that message to the convention.” And I read the message, it was a long message, to the convention. Their mouths were open. When I finished and walked off the platform, they came up to me -- not Doris, but her people -- “You jerk. What have you done? That's a fake message that you read. That's not the message.”

“Here, you want to see it? Take a look at it.”

Later on, at the RWDSU convention that followed this, where they closed the window on us on the right to secede and really went after us, Mrs. King was scheduled to speak to that convention. They had arranged to get Mrs. King to speak to that convention, and they were paying her something like $3,000 to speak. I did not want to intervene in the thing, I figured if she had agreed to speak, then when I told Cleve Robinson that she was speaking, he said, “She can't speak to that convention.”

I said, “Well, listen. I ain't going to get involved.”

“When is she scheduled to speak?”

In the middle of the convention, they announced, “Mrs. King, we've got a message. Due to other commitments, Mrs. King is not going to be able to speak.” On the platform, they all look at me and they said, “You jerk.” And honestly, I didn't do it. It was Cleve who did it.

So that at the last convention, Mrs. King -- when it was already very, very hot -- sent a taped message. So there was her voice reading it. She is the honorary chairperson.

Anyway, I've gone afar from it. I don't think I've overdone the point. You ask a small question, you get a long answer. All right. I've drowned you. It's 7:20. We've got to finish.

[END OF SESSION]





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