Yes, I remember very well about Marge Franz, for instance. Her father was
Joe Gelders and she was a full-time volunteer. She and her husband, who
was a GI, a lawyer . . .I've forgotten exactly how it was, but anyhow,
they were full-time volunteers in the office. Preston Lewis, that was
her name at the time, her husband taught in the language . . .he taught
French at Chapel Hill, in other words. She came and worked full-time in
the
Page 119 office and Louie Burnham, I've told you
about him, he was a southern writer and was very much in touch with
leaders. And Palmer Weber, who was sort of an organizer. They came to
Durham to see me and I particularly remember sitting on the porch of
that apartment where I was living . . .I lived on one side of the hall
and the office of the Progressive party was on the other side of the
hall. I remember sitting on the porch and Louie telling me that he
thought I should do this job of running for governor. I said, "But
Louie, I don't want to do that. I'm not aspiring to be governor and it
would be a very tough thing." He went on to point out to me that having
run that much of the course, the only thing to do was to try to go on
through and if there was no one else who was willing to undertake the
job, I should do it. So, I had such great respect for Louie and for
Palmer and the other people and I decided, "O.K., I'll do the best I
can." So, there it was. This was the beginning, really, of the civil
rights movement in the South, civil rights as we knew it. This Wallace
campaign of the Progressive party in the South was really the first
serious one. The Southern Conference had done a grand job and the
Atlanta organization whose name we were trying to think of that I know
so well, Ralph McGill and so forth, had done excellent work on this, but
there had not been a serious proposal of having integrated
organizations, of not having meetings if they could not be interracial
and make that a prime objective. So, I really have considerable pride in
having contributed "my little light" . . .is that Paul Robeson's song,
or was it Pete Seeger, "My little light, let it shine . . ." Whatever.
Anyhow, I was pleased, even though my light was small, to try to let it
shine.