My association with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference is sort of predated by an effort that we were a part of here in New York City regarding the reaction to this 1954 Supreme Court [Brown v Board of Education] decision.

[Martin Luther] King was one of the two young ministers - and you know how directly oriented the Negro community still is towards the minister as the leader.

I've never credited myself with a professional life. But, basically, it has been that.

I believe, the NAACP began to try to organize parents of Negro children to file petitions with the boards of education regarding the integration of the school system. You had some very severe economic reprisals against people in Mississippi and in South Carolina. So, in order to try to help to meet some of the physical needs and the economic needs of people in Clarendon County [SC] who had been displaced from the land, and otherwise, and in certain sections of Mississippi, we organized in New York City something called "In Friendship".

I had been friendly with people who were in the Communist party and all the rest of the Left forces, which were oriented in the direction of mass action.

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.

When I came out of the Depression, I came out of it with a different point of view as to what constituted success. And that was even just even personal success.