Having the Fur and Leather Workers in the Amalgamated was very important for placing the Amalgamated in the forefront of civil rights and opposition to the war in Vietnam. “I think I strengthened Gorman's progressive hand against those who always tried to squeeze him the other way.” “The union (AMC&BW) with all its weaknesses was still a damn site better than nine-tenths of the unions in America.” The AMC&BW had “a freedom on a personal level to say and do almost anything you wanted, which other unions did not have.”
