Nana Biography

Instead of being home for Christmas, the two of them went off to give turkeys away and Mississippi. And when they came back, they said it was the worst thing that had ever happened. When the train loads or loads of turkeys down there, the wrong people got them. It was just terrible. The people that they had wanted to get them, and they were very sorry that the whole thing that happened. It was very poorly managed.


Who was running it, Dick Gregory?


He was the one that gave it all the publicity, it was his idea, I think. 


Did Sam continue to be involved or was he…? 


Not particularly. No Sam was not the same kind of evolving that Leonard had. Leonard had real feeling for it, and I don’t believe Sam did.

I think he was sorry he hadn’t been in on some of the publicity, But he would’ve liked to have been involved, but I’m not sure that would have given up his summer in Greece. I’m not sure.


Was it a different temperament?


Yes, I think, you know, some people, and Leonard was in the law school, where Reverend Coffin gather recruits for the whole thing and went around the country and got all the people start up to do this. I’ll think of his name, he was a minister. He was at Yale, you know who I mean.


Coffin, right.


Well Coffin came and talked to these kids, just like Billy Graham did.


Where was Sam at the time?


Sam was at Stanford as an undergraduate student, and Bruce was at Andover.


And Sam is how many years younger?



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