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DAVID BURGESS:

Yes, when we were visiting another migrant camp. I got another couple to come and work with us, and they eventually took our places. I had only occasionally gone to the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen meetings, but we were pretty removed from most FSC members. I decided in the summer of '47, when I had my 30th birthday, that I was closer to the labor movement than I was to the church. It isn't that the church turned their back on me in any way . . . I just felt that basically working with this group of people who were rootless and in a way without much future, you had to concentrate on youth to be effective. I had always preferred to work with adults. And I also thought that the labor movement itself was much more of a viable thing. Then, on the positive side, I was asked by Franz Daniel who was in charge of the CIO Organizing Drive for South Carolina to join. Now Franz, you know, was a Union Seminary graduate. He was part of the Fellowship of Southern Churchmen. He appeared to be the coming labor leader of the CIO in the South.

BILL FINGER:

Where was he located?

DAVID BURGESS:

He was located near Spartanburg, South Carolina.

BILL FINGER:

Working for the CIO?

DAVID BURGESS:

Well, he was in charge of the whole southern drive for all of South Carolina, and he employed me at $50 a week. He was a 1929 Union Seminary graduate, along with Myles Horton. He went in the labor movement and Myles set up the Highlander Folk School. And I think three people, Kester, Franz Daniel, and H.L. Mitchell probably had a very important influence on my life in the South.