This is a bit of institutional memory. I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bragging, but I did spend fifty years in this fight, and I did do a lot of things.
I introduced Sam to Donald I. Warren’s book, Middle American Radicals (MARs).
In fact, Warren wrote the book because of me! Warren was a committed liberal, but he wrote Middle American Radicals because of a joint march in Washington, DC of anti-busing protestors and West Virginia textbook protestors. It was a grassroots solidarity march against the education establishment.
Warren’s book, Middle American Radicals, began with a description of that joint march.
Guess who thought of that joint march? Guess who spent months putting it together ?
Ole Bob. I had lunch with Warren when he came to DC.
Then, in 1982, I conceived and put together The New Right Papers for St. Martin’s Press, in my own name for once. Sam as always was ready to help, so I assigned him an article to be called, “Message from MARs” based on Warren’s idea of a populist revolt.
Sam did an excellent piece for the book on MARs. But he did a LOT more. As I keep telling my book team, nothing makes me happier than someone who takes an idea I give them and runs with it.
My motto for those who work with me has always been:
“I have three rules:
1) Do it
2) Do it -and
3) Do it.”
If you are working under me and screw up, I can take the heat.
Sam wasn’t working under me. Sam only worked under Sam. But he took the MARs concept and made it his own. He gave it a meaning I could not have conceived of.
You can get hold of The New Right Papers through inter-library loan or at any college library. It’s under my name. You can get a used copy cheap at Amazon or any other Internet bookseller. Sam’s article, “A Message From MARs,” is worth the price or trouble.
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