In '32 we organized the Young Negroes' Cooperative League and had some degree of success in terms of establishing stores and certainly buying clubs in various sections of the country. I was designated as - I don't know what exactly - I believe it was director. I'm not sure what it was, but it had to do with getting out the necessary mail and all of that - organization.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

I guess the best way to describe that would be to connect with the fact that I came out of college just before the big Depression, and I came to New York.

I went to what is known as, and was at that time, too, Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina. In fact, because of the lack of public school facilities, I began there. I began boarding school at the high school level; in fact, a year below the high school level.

One of the stories that dominates our family literature was the fact that my maternal grandfather contracted for - I don't know under what terms - but, for a large section of the old slave plantation. He established himself - sisters and brothers, cousins, etc. on fifty- and sixty-acre plots.

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

In '32 we organized the Young Negroes' Cooperative League and had some degree of success in terms of establishing stores and certainly buying clubs in various sections of the country. I was designated as - I don't know what exactly - I believe it was director. I'm not sure what it was, but it had to do with getting out the necessary mail and all of that - organization.