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DM: So you mentioned that you had started to become involved with the American Friends Service Committee. What other kind of volunteer work did you start to do over the years?

AM: Well, I remember supporting... one of the things that I did was I was on a task force to look at human services in Boulder, City of Boulder. The city councilman, who at that time was Tim Fuller, was gay. So he tried to support a human services ordinance against discrimination against gays and lesbians. And I was part of that group that tried to push that in the city council. Finally passed, but at a great cost because he lost his seat the next time. And the only black (African American) who was on the city council at the time nearly lost his position, too, but he managed to hang on. So I was part of that, and then, yeah... so I've been part of the kinds of initiatives, too. One thing that I can never forget, remember we had a lot of "hippies," quote, "hippies" living in Boulder, or hanging around in Boulder. And so I was part of that human services alliance task force, and I remember at the end, after having gone through the whole series of why we need to take care of, how we treat people, the only thing that the city came up with that was non-harming but would move the hippies out of the city park, and that was to turn the sprinklers on. And I remember looking at Tim and saying, "This is the best we can do?" He says, "Well, it's not, doesn't harm anybody, just wets them up, wets them." But it was that kind of understanding that there were certain things you can do and certain things you cannot do because the forces are not there. And how to make that change is really a hard one.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.