My father mostly defined himself as an anarchist. Not the cliché definition of those who want chaos and violence but the idea of a freedom from hierarchy and the idea of freedom for the individual with social responsibility as a part of the construct. We needed to be brought up to be moral humane people not as individuals with external authoritarian controls to force us towards a humane stance. On the way there though he was for socialism and definitely getting there through revolutionary action. Both of my parents were the most political parents of any of my friends or neighbors. I thought all kids spent evenings collating and stapling political papers or sorting stuff for bulk mailings. By high school I knew my parents and their close friends were some kind of vanguard. So of course I wanted to know what shaped my father’s politic.
What things or people impacted you in terms of the politics that you came to?
Wilfred Reginald Major
Oddly enough my father.
So that was rebellion or go straight to anarchy?
No. My father would say,
“How in the hell did I deserve these three (Reggie and his two brothers, Russell and Howard) goddamn radicals? Where the hell did you learn this stuff?”
“From you!”
And he would never accept that. Dad taught us to be good union people. That we had to be for the worker. Dad told us about the bosses. Our father was on the picket line for the longest strike in American history. ( I did a bit of research to find out about this strike and found reference to a strike by structural unions of the New York City District Council that was announced on May 1,1924 against the Iron League and National Erectors Association and lasted 14 years. I think this is the strike my father was referencing.) Dad stayed on the picket line two and half years or something like that. They won and then lost. They got a good contract and as fast as the company could they sold. They said the strike was a part of the “red” thing. It was mine mill and smelter workers which was a communist union and the owners brought in American Steel but the workers won the strike (first).
There were little kind of political things that went on around me that I was a part of. It has to be ’43 or close to it. A Philip Randolph decided to have a March on Washington and my mama had enrolled me in the NAACP youth group, whatever that was. These folks were going to march on Washington to get jobs for the Black people and I said, “To hell with that, I’m lazy.” I could type and whatnot and I volunteered to help the March on Washington. Somebody got me.
There was big red case. A guy name Herndon, he was a teacher and he was accused of being a communist and they had me handing out leaflets.
I handed out leaflets for the Scottsboro boys. I was a little small but I knew what it was about.
I met Canada Lee and he was cruising. I was so hurt. He was a hero and of course he played Bigger on the stage thing of Native Son. I went with some kids, somebody gave us some tickets, but I don’t know who. And when Bigger was putting this girl’s body in the furnace. The way they did it was they had him in silhouette. They had him like he was in front of the furnace. And he’s struggling with this body. Oh man, he worked his ass off. Now years later I am out of the service and I am in the Hotel Teresa bar. I’m sitting down there. And first of all this dude was kinda short. He looked familiar. I said, “You look familiar. Are you an actor?” He said, “Yes, I’m Canada Lee.” “And I’m like, “Oh, I saw you,” and we talked about that and he asked me what I was reading and I was pretty well read. We had a nice discussion. And he let me know what he wanted and oh shit. You know…
But my politics it was mainly my father and giving it to the people. A lot of reading when I was in the service. And when I got out of the service there were two images that are still seared in my mind that settled my politics forever. One was a picture of a bulldozer with the skeletons, not skeletons they still had flesh on them but they might as well have been skeletons, of the people killed in places like Dachau, and the other was the atom bomb. I had been fairly patriotic, no raving, I told you when I was busted on the docks for smoking. That kind of diminished my patriotism somewhat, but I pretty much had it together.
When they bombed Hiroshima I just couldn’t deal with it. I think it was something like 25,000 people killed, whoop, just like that. And so for me I said you know they got Mount Fuji over there. You want to do something? That’s their religion Mt. Fuji. You want to do something, blow that mother up and say “”There went your mountain. You all give up.” But no they did Hiroshima. I’m very unforgiving.