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Moe FonerMoe Foner
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Session:         Page of 592

Dr. King's death. We had the organizers organize a memorial service for Dr. King, invite the managements if they want to, anybody else to come. So that on a given time, either 12:00 or 1:00 or 11:00 -- with the management's approval, you had in like in 150 hospitals a program going on on Dr. King. We later did it on Vietnam. When we were working on Vietnam, we would reach a point where we could get management to approve, to give us the time to have some kind of -- we always figured out some kind of angle program to try to get media coverage for it, that thirty thousand, forty thousand hospital workers are today doing this on Vietnam. We had a fast for peace once at Community Church on a Sunday. Everybody was fasting all day, and all day long there were speakers and things going on. Trying to figure out ways of involving members and making your position known outside.

You had two other questions. I remember that.

Q:

The core leadership of the union, which I assume was still you, Elliott --

Foner:

It was Davis, Elliot, Bill Taylor, and me.

Q:

Is Taylor black?

Foner:

White. He was in charge of the benefits and pensions.

Q:

So the core leadership of the union is white. The membership is largely black, and you're active in the civil rights movement and so on. But this must be recognized as some kind of a time bomb in a certain sense. What were you thinking about then?

Foner:

We knew that there was a problem, that we had to bring forth blacks. So the blacks were brought forth quickly -- Doris. But many others, blacks were put on as organizers, and then they became vice presidents in the Guild and everything. But they still were at that second level, and nobody even raised the question. Nobody said, “We want Davis to step down.” But there was a sort of a general feeling that at some time in the future Davis is going to step down, and it's going to be a black who's going to replace him. You see, as long as we were doing things and organizing, it did not create problems for us. It became a delayed problem.

Q:

This is jumping ahead a little bit, but I'm surprised that during the time when the black power sentiment becomes more powerful than the integrationist sentiment in the civil rights movement, that you weren't faced with more internal challenges.





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