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

I'm sure, out of the context here of Stanley Levison's relationship with the Jewish liberal forces, that had made contributions. I remember one such contribution before they moved from Montgomery. An associate in the real estate business with Stanley had lost a son in the war, and she wanted to do something in memory of him. So, she made available certain monies to be used by the emerging leadership there in Montgomery. I'm sure other individuals did.

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.

Nixon was the one force in Montgomery for a number of years that made any effort in the direction of challenging the power structure. Ed Nixon's source of direction for that comes out of his relationship with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Care Porters and the Randolph philosophy of mass action. So, Ed Nixon really was the force that conceived of the boycott and drew up the original papers for the boycott.

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

I was born in Norfolk, Virginia. I began school there, the first year of public school. When I was 7, the family shifted back to North Carolina. I grew up in North Carolina; had my schooling through the college level in North Carolina.

I had known, number one, that there would never be any role for me in the leadership capacity with SCLC. Why? First, I'm a woman. Also, I'm not a minister. And second, I am a person that feels that I have to maintain some degree of personal integrity and be my own barometer of what is important and what is not.