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CHARLESTON'S LEGACY   O'DELL

was the battle cry as the community was urged to buy only food and medicine. The black middle-class was asked to cancel charge accounts in stores-all of this was a way of making the merchants of Charleston, as part of the "power structure," feel the seriousness of the strike for it must be kept in mind that up to this point the hospital administration had not yet even agreed to discuss the hospital workers' demands. The administrators considered as unthinkable the rehiring of the twelve workers who had been fired. The official attitude had been expressed by Dr. William M. McCord, the Chairman of the South Carolina Medical College Hospital when he said, "I am not about to turn a $25-million complex over to a bunch of people who don't have a grammar school education."

Confronting this official policy the growing strength of the hospital workers' support was clearly demonstrated in the Mother's Day March on May 11. Some 15,000 people participated in the march that day led by Miss Mary Moultrie, Reverend Abernathy, who came out of jail for the occasion, Mrs. Martin Luther Kind and Walter Reuther, President of the United Automobile Workers of America. Reuther's presence on this occasion and the support he gave on behalf of his union created repercussions in the Executive Board of the national AFL-CIO. As a result, they too gave some formal support to the hospital worker's strike.

The entire month of May was a kind of test of strength with the curfew, the troops, arrests and the courts being countered by day-time demonstrations, picketing on King Street as a way of enforcing the boycott, and evening mass meetings in many parts of the city to keep up the spirit of the movement. There were several hundred additional arrests and one of the most expensive items for the union was fees to local bail bondsmen. Meanwhile, the Medical College Hospital Administration finally agreed to discussions with representatives of the union. However, reminiscent of the disagreements at the Paris peace talks about the shape of the table, the hospital authorities balked at any of the workers who had been fired being in on the negotiations. Nevertheless, this was resolved because the pressure was on from all sides.

On May 27 the SCLC staff decided to give major attention to convincing the longshoremen to close the port of Charleston. This was a major source of untapped support for the hospital workers and it was recalled that the longshoremen in Charleston had closed the port on the day of Martin Luther King's funeral-along with other ports on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf areas.

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