00:00:12.080 - 00:00:31.320

We'll get started. Um, so I think I should begin by asking you, uh, to tell me when and where you were born. I was born in 1925. I was born in Los Angeles, for which I'll probably never forgive my parents. My grandparents were living there and

00:00:31.320 - 00:00:54.940

my parents came to San Francisco two months later. So I basically lived in the Bay Area all my life. And One of my early childhood memories, we lived in the marina and we used to watch the men. Playing bocce ball with these big, big cheeses. And

00:00:54.960 - 00:01:12.180

I can't even tell you where it was. I don't remember, but I do remember these old Italian men playing bocce ball with the cheeses. Then we moved to. A delightful two block street which is still there called Edgewood Avenue. It's up behind what is now UC

00:01:12.180 - 00:01:27.650

Med Center off of Parnassus, and it goes right into Sutro Forest, and we lived on the dead end of it, so it was like being in a small town really. It was the kind of place where everyone knew each other and it was just delightful, beautiful

00:01:27.650 - 00:01:54.870

view of San Francisco from there. And then we moved to Sausalito when I was 12. Which It was a very unhappy time for me. I think maybe 12 year olds tend to be unhappy anyway, but uh. It meant My mother put me. I had been going

00:01:54.870 - 00:02:18.380

to Presidio Hill School, which was a progressive private school in San Francisco. Uh, was in those days called Presidio Open Air, and my classmates were Art Hoppe and Pierre Salinger. And uh I was in the 8th grade. We moved to Sausalito and I went to a

00:02:18.380 - 00:02:37.100

small private school there, which was a terrible experience. The woman was an anti-Semite and I had never thought about the fact that I was Jewish before and all of a sudden I was confronted with it. So I finished up the last half of my 8th grade

00:02:37.100 - 00:02:54.770

commuting. On the ferries with my father every morning to finish up at Presidio Hill and it was wonderful. I mean it was a time when I wrote a lot of poetry on a boat. And uh had time to be with my father. And it took us,

00:02:56.260 - 00:03:14.500

Probably about as long as it takes. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge at rush hour now. The Golden Gate Bridge wasn't finished then. And I still remember. Meeting him to go home at the Ferry Building in San Francisco which in those days was really the center

00:03:14.500 - 00:03:35.790

of all activity and. They showed cartoons on big movie screens and um. It was just, I was an only child. My father doted on me and it was just a wonderful time for us to be together. Uh, then I went to Tamil Pia High School. Which

00:03:35.820 - 00:03:59.560

was, Probably a very different place than than it is now. There were No black students, uh, few my senior year because the war had started and they were building Marin shipyards and they built Marin City and the whole character. Of, I think that part of Marin

00:03:59.560 - 00:04:27.660

County and certainly that high school changed, but My last During my last year in high school, the war started. Uh The Japanese were relocated and there were several Japanese in my graduating class, and I remember. It was probably one of the first social injustices I ever

00:04:27.660 - 00:04:50.190

was aware of. There was a little Japanese bait shop in Sausalito which was a very different place than it is now. And people threw rocks at it, broke the windows. And the son of they were all sent to a relocation center. Their son was in the

00:04:50.190 - 00:05:05.640

honor society with me and we were all in the front row at the graduation. And when they called his name out for his diploma, of course he wasn't there to get it, but we all stood and had a moment of silence. I think that was really

00:05:05.640 - 00:05:36.540

the first sort of thing that I ever did. Um My parents Uh Politically active. My father was very active in the Democratic Party and gubernatorial. Things that time there was a man running for governor. I can't remember his name. He lost, but he was very progressive,

00:05:36.620 - 00:05:56.950

and I don't remember who it was. That would have been 1940, 1941, sometime. Culbert Olsen, that was it. Well, no, he got elected in 1938, but then I, he lost in 1942. That may have been it. No, but I think it was someone who was running

00:05:56.950 - 00:06:29.440

against it was the. I don't remember. Anyway, my parents at some point I think in the mid 1930s joined the Communist Party. And as I recall their main activities were raising money for the Spanish loyalists in Spain for the international brigade, the Lincoln Brigade. And I

00:06:29.440 - 00:06:50.450

used to think if I sang No Pasaran loud enough they couldn't possibly lose. And they did lose and It totally devastated me. I think at that age it's sometimes a mistake to let kids get too involved in causes because They don't have the perspective to know

00:06:50.450 - 00:07:09.560

that somehow the world will go on and the result was that I just Turned away from all politics. There was a group of Politically active kids at Tam High, they were what we would now call nerds, I guess, and I didn't want to have anything to

00:07:09.560 - 00:07:28.580

do with them. I was very anxious for Eager for social acceptance, I wanted to be just like everyone else. My bobby socks had to be exactly the right length and my pearls had to be the right length and the whole conformity business because my My parents

00:07:28.580 - 00:07:50.440

were very different from the parents of most of my friends. My mother wore shorts and roller skated and was not a typical mother. Well, What I mean, your parents, your dad, you, let's talk about the general striking about the Mooney case because your parents certainly cared

00:07:50.440 - 00:08:13.190

intensely about both of those and You know, I'd like to hear about as many of those memories as you can. Well, my father was A CPA, certified public accountant, and uh. My mother, when I was 5. Uh, commuted over here to UC Berkeley and she was

00:08:13.190 - 00:08:32.960

planning to get I think a master's in psychology and she never completed it because she got disillusioned with Whatever it was they were doing and uh She was for a while the head of an organization called the Jewish Big Sisters Organization, which was an organization that

00:08:33.540 - 00:08:53.490

took care of delinquent Jewish girls. People always used to be amazed that there was such a thing as a delinquent Jewish girl, but there was. This was during the Depression. And Uh, she finally helped dissolve the organization. Because she felt it was such a Band-aid approach

00:08:53.710 - 00:09:15.360

she felt. I remember her discussing it with people that What was needed was to change the economic system that as long as men were out of work they were going to keep battering their wives and Um Their daughters were going to be trying to get out

00:09:15.360 - 00:09:35.550

of the house because of the home environment. And I, I was thinking I've really come full circle because my daughter is a therapist. And she has come to specialize in victims of abuse. And the reason she arrived at that specialty was she was working in an

00:09:35.550 - 00:10:03.020

outpatient clinic in Lynn, Massachusetts and. The biggest percentage of her clients were victims of of of sexual abuse and battering. And it was the same reasons. It was a Rust Belt New England town where there were no jobs and the men were Disillusioned and drinking and

00:10:03.020 - 00:10:20.750

taking their frustrations out on their families and I thought, gee, you know, my mother saw this in the 30s. So your mother was had that activity and then, I mean, I would think it would be fairly unusual for a CPA to be as political as your

00:10:20.750 - 00:10:43.290

dad was. How do you think he came to his I'm not sure. He told me that his father, my grandfather, was a Marxist. My father was very bright. He did a lot of reading, and I think that From what history I've read and from seeing the

00:10:43.290 - 00:11:04.410

movie Reds and Just my memories of that time, which are kind of vague. Um, a lot of intellectuals. We desperate about what was happening in the country. I just came from Washington where I saw the new Roosevelt Memorial and I was reminded of, you know, the

00:11:04.410 - 00:11:26.900

bread lines which of course I wasn't aware of, but Um There are those who think this country was headed for a revolution if Roosevelt hadn't. Put in some reforms, and I think that Uh The Soviet Union and the Communist Party captured the imagination of a lot

00:11:26.900 - 00:11:54.020

of intellectuals. Uh, who weren't Um Weren't workers weren't trade union members, but who saw this intellectually as The only answer. So do you remember going to meetings? Oh yes, and then, for example, talk about the General strike. I mean, you've been, uh, I don't remember much

00:11:54.020 - 00:12:14.560

about it. Um, my father tells me that in the When they had the march up Market Street, uh, after the, I've read the history, a couple of the strikers were killed, and it was apparently very impressive that he carried me on his shoulders during that march.

00:12:14.690 - 00:12:35.920

I don't remember anything about it. Um I remember. Of course the parties to raise money for Spain and I remember we used to take a beautiful magazine called USSR and Construction which was sort of like life only more beautifully done showing all the things that were

00:12:35.920 - 00:12:54.510

being built in the Soviet Union. And in 1970 when I went to Moscow for the first and only time in my life, I saw the subways that I had seen the pictures of when I was a kid with all the crystal chandeliers and whatnot. I was

00:12:54.510 - 00:13:13.080

prepared for them. And I remember we used to get the new masses, which I read and that's where I First learned about lynchings and I think that my first feelings about the, you know, the unfairness that can go on in our society. And do you remember

00:13:13.080 - 00:13:33.400

when, uh, Tom Mooney was released in the no, I don't remember that, but Estelle Ward who did a, a, um. A biography of Mooney, and I don't know if it was ever published. Estall died a few years ago. Um He told us that he had some

00:13:33.400 - 00:13:47.040

documentation on it and he was going to send it to my stepmother and then he never did so but I, I my parents talked about it, the fact that he, he came up here for a trial and they took him over to my parents' house for

00:13:47.040 - 00:14:05.730

lunch, but I don't remember. I do remember. Uh, when I was older, We always used to take our watches down to Warren Billings, who was his co-defendant. He had a, uh, he was a watch repairman and he had a place. Uh, somewhere around the 700 block

00:14:05.730 - 00:14:23.280

of Market Street, and I can remember taking my watch into him to be fixed when I was in my twenties because my mother had gone to him. He, I can't, he must be long dead by now. I'm sure he is. Um, so then, so it sounds

00:14:23.280 - 00:14:43.750

like you, you broke your heart over Spain and then you went to high school and you, the Japanese internment was really. A kind of a clarion call. Yeah, well, I don't think I ever lost my sense of Man's inhumanity is a man, but I, I just

00:14:43.770 - 00:15:02.770

didn't want to be involved. I wanted to be like everybody else. I mean, I was. I I wanted my parents to be more like other people's parents, and I wanted to be like everyone else. And There was one thing. That happened that sort of changed that.

00:15:02.790 - 00:15:18.420

My, my father used to be in the mountain play every year. He was an amateur actor. And in those days, the mountain play was not as big as it was now, and you couldn't drive all the way into it. And they used to stay at an

00:15:18.420 - 00:15:41.810

inn which was near the amphitheater. I think it's still there. I think I've had, I went up there once. And the caretaker of the inn was this. Retired, Russian immigrated immigrated Taylor. And he Apparently his doctors had given him up for dead, and he said he

00:15:41.810 - 00:15:59.900

was going to go live in a healthy environment, left the East Coast or wherever he came from, and became, did a lot of hiking and ate health foods before anyone was talking about health foods, and he lived to a ripe old age. had no children and

00:16:00.320 - 00:16:15.660

my parents would always go to that. The whole cast would stay there for the dress rehearsal of a weekend that was totally amateur performance in those days. We'd stay there for the weekend. Before the performance for the dress rehearsal and then the weekend of the performance

00:16:15.800 - 00:16:36.330

and Uh, I can remember. Again on my father's shoulders being carried, you know, he would hike, we would hike into the, the amphitheater. And I was very precocious and I learned everyone's lines. They used to say I should be the prompter. And anyway, when Hack died,

00:16:36.420 - 00:16:57.040

his name was Henry Hackman, I think. Um, he left me his library. which was a Marxist library, but when I left for college, which was before he died, he had in the interim moved down to Somewhere down the peninsula Lascati, I think, which was then deep

00:16:57.040 - 00:17:17.970

country and, uh, planted fruit trees that wouldn't bear fruit for 20 years which we thought was the ultimate optimism. When I left for college, he gave me copies of Value, price and profit, wage, labor and capital in the communist manifesto and said if you can understand

00:17:18.770 - 00:17:41.500

everything in these pamphlets, you don't need to go to college to get an education, but you should go anyway. And I took them with me. And uh. I went to Antioch College, which my parents picked for me, and Um Antioch at that point was considered a

00:17:41.500 - 00:18:01.480

fairly radical campus, and All of a sudden I was writing my parents all the things they've been trying to convince me of, but I had arrived at them by myself. Also, I met some other people at college, and we would sit around and talk about the

00:18:01.480 - 00:18:31.120

injustices of the world. I mean this was 1942. Um The war had started and the evils of fascism were very clear to all of us. And I joined the Communist Party, I think in Probably around 1944, the student chapter. Because it was the only game in

00:18:31.120 - 00:18:52.840

town on campus really, uh, there were, you were either a Trotskyite or you were, you joined the CP. There was wasn't this whole diffusion of organizations that there is now. So if you were an activist, that's pretty much what you did. And, um, I started out

00:18:53.870 - 00:19:07.930

As a merchandizing major, I had always thought I wanted to be a fashion coordinator. I really wanted to be a dress designer because I had an aunt who was a very successful one, but I can't draw and I never could learn to draw, so I decided

00:19:08.190 - 00:19:23.790

that was the next step, and Then I got a social conscience my freshman year. I also Most of my father's clients were in the dress business, and it suddenly dawned on me I did not want to spend the rest of my life with people like them.

00:19:25.170 - 00:19:48.660

So I changed my major to political science and sociology. Uh, partly as a result of some my faculty advisor who was a wonderful man and some courses I took and Um That was my major and I Antiochy work for 3 months and go to school for

00:19:48.660 - 00:20:07.140

3 months and my First job was a salesgirl at Macy's in New York which was They used to say if you went to Macy's training school you could sell anywhere. I think that's probably not true anymore because Macy's doesn't seem to ever have salespeople. But it

00:20:07.140 - 00:20:31.400

was an interesting experience. My own feeling is that Everyone should at some time in their life be either a waitress or a salesperson or be in some capacity. That Many segments of the public deemed sort of inferior because it's amazing. You learn more about psychology than

00:20:31.400 - 00:20:49.950

you could in 3 or 4 classes, um, but New York was an exciting place to be. I was living with 3 other young women in an apartment in Midtown Manhattan, and this would have been in 1940s. 3. And we saw every show on Broadway, standing room

00:20:49.950 - 00:21:08.400

only. We lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. There were still some men around and our apartment was sort of central so we were always having these crazy parties. That changed. The men all went away and then came back when I was a senior, but It

00:21:08.400 - 00:21:27.450

was New York is a very exciting place to be when you're when you're young. I don't think I could live there now, but I loved it then. And uh I remember. Going to Not sure where it was, but it was May Day, and there was a

00:21:27.450 - 00:21:49.400

big parade in New York. And Vito Marcantonio spoke, and he was incredible. Um And it was just exciting. I mean, being a young communist in those days, you felt like you were part of a mass movement because particularly in a place like New York, this whole

00:21:49.400 - 00:22:07.290

stadium was full, full of people waving red banners and Marc Antonio was an open communist and a member of the New York City Council and he later served in Congress. That's right. Oh no, he wasn't the city council, he was a congressman. That's right, yeah. And

00:22:07.290 - 00:22:29.260

he was, you know, he was very charismatic. He was incredible. And, um, It was just a very different world. And what about some of the other well-known communists? Uh, did you as a young girl encounter them, uh, well, later. When I was a little older, I

00:22:29.260 - 00:22:51.720

met Paul Robeson, who was a friend of the family, and One of My most cherished memories is when I Came. I was living in Oregon when my children were born and I My daughter was just 6 months old and we came down from my father's wedding

00:22:51.720 - 00:23:12.360

to my stepmother. And, uh, Paul held Susie in his lap and sang Curly Headed Baby to her when she was 6 months old. She will not remember it, but I'll never forget it. This great huge man with this magnificent voice could be so gentle and sing

00:23:12.360 - 00:23:31.690

so softly, and it was, it was just a moment I will never forget. And so I, I knew Paul. By this time he was unfortunately bitter and uh That was when they weren't allowing him to to speak anymore or just saying they wouldn't give him a

00:23:31.690 - 00:23:56.060

passport and um. It was a very sad time in some ways, but he was still Talk about charisma. That was a man who And what about some of the women in the party? You know, well, I remember one. My favorite women's story, what's in. Ella Reeves,

00:23:56.310 - 00:24:18.460

Mother Blur, Mother Blur. She came to Dayton and some of us went in to hear her. I think it was when I was a Junior or senior. And um. She told this wonderful story about how She had gone to some farming community and some farmer came

00:24:18.480 - 00:24:33.520

up to him and said, Was it that was it Mother Blur or was it someone else? It was one of the, the women who was very prominent, I think that's who it was. He said, my wife insisted that I come because she admires you so much,

00:24:33.650 - 00:24:57.800

and she said to him, If she admires you so much, why isn't she here? He said, well, someone had to stay home with the kids. And people weren't thinking about that kind of thing that much in those days. Then my guess my first. taste of successful

00:24:57.800 - 00:25:21.890

political action was Toward the end of must have been about the 3rd quarter that I was on campus. Yellow Springs is in southern Ohio. It was a Jim Crow town, and I've never experienced this before. And the theater had a roped off section, the movie theater

00:25:22.230 - 00:25:44.430

for the local blacks. And we got together with the students from Wilberforce and decided we had organized a group called the Committees of Correspondence after the American Revolutionary Group. And we got together with the kids from Wilberforce and we sat, we went picked night when they're

00:25:45.730 - 00:26:01.890

The movie wouldn't be too crowded, and we took the 2 seats next to the aisle and kept the 2 seats next to us vacant. And the black kids went and sat in the roped off section. Then one of them walked down toward the front of the

00:26:01.910 - 00:26:16.780

theater as the manager walked down after him. All the rest of them followed the manager, took the two seats next to us, and there was nothing he could do because You couldn't bother them without bothering us, so they took the rope down and never put it

00:26:16.780 - 00:26:33.610

up again. And we were so flushed with our victory that we decided we were going to go on to some of the other theaters in the area. And the dean of women at Wilberforce was so worried that her girls might be in trouble That she um

00:26:33.790 - 00:26:53.780

locked them in the dorm so that was the end of that but we did, we did get the. Jim Crow section taken out of the theater in Yellow Springs, so that was That was exciting for me. Then I had a job period. In Washington DC working

00:26:53.800 - 00:27:14.260

for the State Department. And it was my Washington was very Southern in those days. It was totally Jim Crow. And the women I was working with were mostly from the South and very bigoted, and I was just very upset. I mean, I was from the San

00:27:14.260 - 00:27:33.620

Francisco Bay Area. It's not that I ever knew many black kids. I didn't. Uh, the only ones I knew were the, our housekeeper's children, who she'd bring with her sometimes when she came. But, uh, I, I just, I thought this was totally unfair. So one night

00:27:33.790 - 00:27:52.540

I'm coming home from Work I saw a sign that said NAACP, so the next night I got off the bus and went and knocked on the door and said, Is there anything I can do after work to help? Walter White was still there. And um. They

00:27:52.540 - 00:28:14.190

said yes, I could help them. They were reviewing court martial cases of black GIs who'd been convicted of raping women who were obviously prostitutes and had their money in their pockets, most of them. And various South Pacific islands. And At this point I'm not so sure

00:28:14.440 - 00:28:31.960

that I would have felt the same about it as I did then, but anyway, we were reviewing all these cases which were, you know. The guys were not given any defense and I was working with a A new graduate of Harvard Law School, black attorney, and

00:28:31.960 - 00:28:51.800

it was, it was very exciting. It was feeling that. We may might be able to make some changes because my work was so depressing we were I was in what was called the Division of World Trade Intelligence and we were tracking. South American firms that had

00:28:51.800 - 00:29:11.830

Nazi connections in South America. And I often wondered after the war what they did with all those files. They probably shredded them. So you, you got the job while the war was still going on? Oh yeah, yeah. What year did you graduate from 46? The war

00:29:11.830 - 00:29:35.970

ended in 45. Um, so I had 2 job periods in Washington. And then I came home. Uh, got myself a job. I wanted to be home for a while. I sort of was stressed out and I got myself a job with the Marine Firemen's Union. And

00:29:35.970 - 00:29:53.110

I got fired from that one. Walter Stack, who was a business aide, do you know about Walter? I've met him. Walter is the guy who used to walk across, run across the bridge, I think he died, didn't he? Yeah. Uh, Walter was the business port, the

00:29:53.110 - 00:30:21.160

patrolman there, and my boss was. A labor hero, a martyr. Uh, named Ramsey who was connected with the King King Ramsey Connor murder case that it was. An infamous frame up, so I was always told anyway, Ramsey. From my deal was totally corrupt. And he wanted

00:30:21.160 - 00:30:37.250

me to go to bed with him, and I wouldn't, and I lost my job. I don't know if it was because of that, but Stack told me it was because of that. And so there was, I was staying with my parents and also in the same

00:30:37.250 - 00:30:59.940

apartment house was a guy named Dave Headley who was head of the CIO PAC here. So he said, why don't you How would you like to do some volunteer work for us? And I said, I'd love to. So It was Roosevelt's last campaign, 1944, and He

00:30:59.960 - 00:31:21.010

was sharing it was the Democratic headquarters in the marina and There was a guy named Frank Havener who was apparently run for Congress. I don't know how many times he was the incumbent. A typical Old time politician who would come in, shake everybody's hand, and Um,

00:31:21.440 - 00:31:38.110

I was 19 at the time and this was before the 18-year-old vote, but I didn't mention it to anyone. I mean, I didn't think it was pertinent and The week before the election, the woman who was running the headquarters got sick, and so I ended up

00:31:38.110 - 00:31:54.020

running the whole thing. And On election day someone said, Jerry, you better go vote before it gets busy, and I said, I can't vote. I'm only 19. And I said, and we left you in charge of this whole thing. I said, well, it's too late to

00:31:54.020 - 00:32:15.040

do anything about it. So that was my first election campaign. And then my last job at Antioch I was working for the National Maritime Union in New York and um It was Not the best time to be working for the NMU. I spent most of my

00:32:15.100 - 00:32:32.370

time. I was in the steno pool typing long stencils of accusation of one officer against another. There were was when they were trying to get the communists out of the union, which they did. And I was then engaged to my first husband, who was an NMU

00:32:32.370 - 00:32:55.380

seaman. whom I had met when I was home in San Francisco and his name Haroldano met him at the CIO canteen which was in the basement at 150 Golden Gate, which later became the ILWU headquarters. At that time it was the CIO headquarters. And he was

00:32:55.400 - 00:33:15.790

in New York, which is where he was from, but I'm waiting for a ship. And the Western Union went out on strike. It was the first wave of post-war strikes, and It was mostly women and teenage boys on the picket line because that's who worked for

00:33:15.790 - 00:33:36.940

Western Union in those days. And it was freezing cold and the cops were on their. Horses with their batons and if we didn't move they would charge us and it was my first. Real experience with what was meant by, you know, the police being an arm

00:33:36.940 - 00:33:56.190

of the state and being oppressive, right, right out of the Marxist textbooks. But we were having a wonderful time because we were in love and we were holding hands and walking along singing union songs and the cops hated us because we were obviously enjoying ourselves so

00:33:56.190 - 00:34:19.880

much this strike was in New York, New York, yeah. And um. Then I graduated although I didn't go to my own graduation because I had Uh, passed some tests so I didn't have to finish some classes, and Antioch was under an accelerated program. We had no

00:34:19.880 - 00:34:38.860

summer vacations and because during the war they wanted to get you in and out of college as quickly as possible. So I finished what had been a 5-year program because of your job periods. I finished it in less than 4. And I got married the week

00:34:38.860 - 00:35:05.810

I would've graduated in San Francisco, so I didn't didn't go to my graduation, and I had been accepted. At the University of Wisconsin Graduate School in Economics. And I didn't go because my first husband had been in the Merchant Marine and just finished high school, and

00:35:06.120 - 00:35:22.410

in those days it was pretty unthinkable for a woman to have a graduate degree while her husband was only a high school graduate. He wanted to be a lawyer. And um. And he didn't get the GI bill because he'd been in the merchant marine. They finally

00:35:22.410 - 00:35:44.030

gave it to him a few years ago, a little bit late. And so we came back to San Francisco and I went to work and he came over here to UC Berkeley. And um. I got a job. At the ILWU and I was very proud of

00:35:44.030 - 00:36:02.850

myself because they didn't know who I was. The officers were all friends of my father's, and I was able to get a job there just on my own steam, which was very important to me. And I started out as a typist in the research department. And

00:36:02.850 - 00:36:18.920

in those days we were over on 604 Montgomery. And we were living on Telegraph Hill. We didn't have a car, but I could walk down the hill to work. It was Uh, in my high heels, which I wore those days and hats which I wore those

00:36:18.940 - 00:36:42.070

days holding onto my hat so it wouldn't fly off my head. And um. The NLW was a very exciting place to work in those days. I worked through. Couple of big strikes and it was. Not a big office. This was the international office, not the local

00:36:42.070 - 00:37:04.240

10 office, so I got to know all the officers fairly well and I was the office baby and everybody's favorite. I was 21, fresh out of college and um my second week on the job. I was substituting on the switchboard and I Cut Lou Goldblatt off

00:37:04.260 - 00:37:25.480

on a long distance call to Hawaii. roaring out, who the hell did that? And he saw me and he said, Just don't do it again. Well, I don't, I, before, I mean, we wanted to devote a whole session or more to the ILWU, uh, so, uh,

00:37:25.830 - 00:37:43.460

I wanna do some follow up on, on some of the things that you've been talking about, um. Do you remember the Oakland general strike when you, when was that? That was in 1946 also, but I was probably still back in that was the department store workers,

00:37:43.570 - 00:37:58.220

uh, no, I don't remember. In fact, there's a very good exhibit at the Oakland Museum right now about it. And what about, uh, I'll have to go over and look at it. The Oakland Museum now. It's wonderful. Uh, what about Elaine Black Unida? Did you, uh,

00:37:58.560 - 00:38:18.940

have any contact with her? I knew Elaine much later when I got involved in the peace movement. Elaine was very involved in Women for Peace, and so I knew her through that. I didn't know her earlier. She was, she was head of the auxiliary or she

00:38:18.940 - 00:38:35.600

was a member of the auxiliary. So that she would have been involved with Local 10, the Longshore Local, not with the international, but of course I, I, I know who she was and I know who Carl was. Cause they, I mean, um, The reason I'm asking

00:38:35.600 - 00:38:55.360

about them in particular is that uh. Their activities have been very well documented by the San Francisco Labor Archives and so on. Uh, what about another, uh, woman that I interviewed for my, um, Cannery worker stuff, Elizabeth Nicholas, did you ever know her? No, I knew.

00:38:57.620 - 00:39:17.810

What was her name? Marcy Stack, who married Walter Stack, she was a cannery workers organizer. I didn't know how much Marcy had done till I went to her memorial where Norm Leonard did really a beautiful. A piece of Telling us what I knew Marcy much later

00:39:17.870 - 00:39:43.140

and uh. Um And then Angie Ward, who was Mary Destov Ward, who I think just died recently. I was a close friend of my stepmother's, and Angie organized for the utility workers, I believe, but I didn't know her well until later. Elizabeth Nicholas was in the

00:39:43.140 - 00:40:03.710

peninsula. She lived in Mountain View and she played a very instrumental role in getting the CIO union into the packing houses down there in the 30s and the other woman I knew was Carolyn Decker Gladstone. Richie was my father's lawyer and one of his closest friends

00:40:03.710 - 00:40:20.960

and so I knew Carolyn fairly well. I've, I've interviewed her. She died a few years ago too. I, I guess so. They all died. Well, she was a very close friend of my stepmother's. And Carolyn in her later years, as you probably know, became very conservative

00:40:20.960 - 00:40:39.870

and very involved in Zionist stuff, but, uh, in her heyday, I understand she was pretty incredible. I didn't know her then. She's older than I am, right? But she was also very young. I mean, she came, she came to San Jose in 1933 when she came

00:40:39.890 - 00:40:59.120

right from Harlan County. And uh you know she was this very pretty young girl, quite dazzling Eleanor Khan, who was my mentor at the ILWU when I worked on the Bridges case. Used to say that she knew Carolyn when her When her nose was long and

00:40:59.120 - 00:41:27.280

her hair was short. She later got a got a nose job and let her hair grow. Um Well, I'm trying to think, just. Stop this one. So Louis Corey was one of the teachers your teachers. And um, I was telling Olga, his daughter, that when I

00:41:27.280 - 00:41:45.930

saw Reds, I was probably I said, I know who that man is. She said, when I saw it, I stood up in the middle of a packed movie house and said that's my daddy. So at Antioch you got in charged political discussions with this man because

00:41:45.930 - 00:42:01.690

he was a trot, absolutely, and it must have been extremely compelling to have because he was obviously a significant figure even if you disagreed with him. Oh yeah, he was a worthy person to have an argument with. Yes, well, Corey had written a book. I was

00:42:01.690 - 00:42:20.040

talking to his daughter about this too, about. His theory was that the class struggle was no longer pertinent in this country because The middle class was growing so that pretty soon there would be no working class and no ruling class, there would just be a middle

00:42:20.040 - 00:42:36.370

class. Well, of course what we're seeing in the last few years is just the opposite of that, and I was talking to Olga about that. She said that's right. I mean, Daddy's been That theory could go. But she's still very proud of him, I take it.

00:42:36.440 - 00:42:53.860

Well, of course he was her father, and it was interesting talking to her about him and getting a daughter's viewpoint as opposed to she said for instance. I was telling her about the reunion last year which she didn't go to, and one of the main key

00:42:53.860 - 00:43:09.660

figures at the reunion was a guy who had been a CEO during World War II and went to jail and was married to one of my classmates and also Granddaddy I finished up later. Antioch had a lot of COs because Arthur Morgan, who was a Quaker,

00:43:09.790 - 00:43:27.330

had been Put the co op plan in and really Changed the school around and there was also a professor who I had my freshman year who left Antioch who was a pacifist, a man named Chatterjee, and the story that I heard was that he left because

00:43:27.330 - 00:43:45.360

he, he didn't want to be in a position of influencing so many students because they're ending up in prison. But she told me about an argument that her father had with Dole and It was when they Bertrand Russell spoke at Antioch, and it must have been

00:43:45.360 - 00:44:01.010

a quarter when I wasn't on campus because I don't remember Bertrand Russell coming to Antioch. And they went to pick him up at the, they picked him up at the airport, brought him in. And he and Corey got into an argument with this guy who was

00:44:01.010 - 00:44:19.120

not going to declare himself a CEO. He could have not gone to prison. He could have done alternative service, but he, his position was that he was protesting the whole system. And her father said to Bertrand Russell, but that's what we went to jail for during

00:44:19.120 - 00:44:34.250

World War I was so that people could be conscientious objectors, and you're ignoring all of this, and this was a History of him that I hadn't known when I was there. I didn't know that he'd been a CEO and um so you know it was just

00:44:34.250 - 00:45:02.710

an interesting sidelight. Did, uh, did Max Schachtman ever come? No, not that I can recall. Antioch was Like many liberal institutions, I think was Particularly cautious about who it had on campus. Uh, I remember, and I don't remember all the details. We tried to get Robeson

00:45:02.710 - 00:45:20.230

on campus and they wouldn't have him because by then. Peekskill had happened and he was a controversial figure and they didn't want him. We all rejoiced. When a man named Oliver Loud, who taught, was a physicist who had worked on the Manhattan Project and who was

00:45:20.230 - 00:45:40.610

a Marxist. We got him in through the back door. He's still there. He's Emeritus, and I saw him when I went there. Um, he came to Antioch in 1945 and. Um One of the reasons I was able to graduate early was that the one course I

00:45:40.610 - 00:46:00.120

flunked at Antioch was physics. Physical sciences have never been my forte. And I put Antioch had what they called symmetry. You had to have courses in all fields, so I kept postponing the physical science courses, and I was taking all three of them when I was

00:46:00.120 - 00:46:18.020

a senior. And two of them I was taking from him and so my mindset was where it was supposed to be plus he was a wonderful teacher and he was especially good at teaching physical science to social science students. And he had worked on the atom

00:46:18.020 - 00:46:42.530

bomb and um The bomb dropped My last quarter of Antioch. And He had explained to us the implications of it. I mean then we had a special assembly, I remember, and he explained to us the possibility of a chain reaction and what exactly atomic energy could

00:46:42.530 - 00:47:05.610

do. I mean this was a baby bomb compared to what we've got now. But That was when Uh, Norman Cousins had a thing in the Saturday Review of Literature called Is Modern Man Modern Man Obsolete, and I remember part of graduating from Antioch was you had

00:47:05.610 - 00:47:11.720

to write a senior paper, and we had to use that as our topic. And because