>Now, to put the meeting in context, the "New Voice" leadership of the
>AFL-CIO had done little by way of making race a central isue in the
>rebuilding of the labor movement, and it still has not. This rankled most
>of the participants at the conference. Now the question is, how could
>racial issues be brought to the forefront of the AFL-CIO?
One of the principal organizers of the BRC was the AFL-CIO's education director, Bill Fletcher. I just spoke with someone who was invovled early in the Congress' planning process who speculated that Fletche's interest in the Congress was in improving his bargaining position within the Federation, where, as Mike Yates argues, racial issues are not at the forefront, to put it mildly. That's not meant to sound cynical about Fletcher, since trying to prod the "New Voice" leadership to pay more attention to race and racism can only be a good thing.
Doug