<Begin Segment 33>

TI: Let me just explain. So from 1957 to 1967, where were you?

FH: I was -- that's a good story. I was asked to go to the Richmond district, which is the middle class, Park Presidio YMCA, 360 Eighteenth Avenue, way out in the suburbs. From the ghettos to the avenues. So I went there, and a couple years later, my boss says, "Come on in, I got to talk to you. Fred, can you take over, go to state YMCA which is Stonestown, right near the school, the San Francisco State College?" And so I said, "Well, thank you for your confidence and appreciate, but who's going to take my place here?" "Oh, no, you didn't hear me. You're going to take over this YMCA and get them up to date. You keep this Y." I said, "I can't do it. I'm working my head off right here, and I can't do this." "Oh, yes, you can, Fred. You can do it, you're good." "No, no, can't do it." Well, we've got to try. "Well, okay," so I said, "I'll try." Two years later, it was '57, 60, maybe '62, calls me in and he says, "Fred, there's another Y in trouble. It's called the Mission Y, and it's out in the Mission district. Their territory is half of San Francisco, all the rest. I want you to take that over." I said, "Roy, I have a hard enough time doing what I'm doing now." "Oh, yes, you could do it." "No, I can't do it." "Yes, you could do it." "I'll tell you what," he says. "You just got to not work harder, but think smarter." I said, "My gosh, how can I do three YMCAs?" Well, anyhow, the upshot of all this is I went back and I went back to my office and I sat down and I said, "My god, three YMCAs and all the different committees, three different boards, when am I gonna do YMCA work, just service these committees?" And then something came to mind. I say God spoke to me. You put these three into one. You merge them, have one board, one staff. That's manageable. So I did that, called it Ultra City Branch, three into one. That happens all the time now. You heard of mergers? Well, I started that way, way back, out of necessity. And then, this was about '65, about '67, I mentioned the fact I got fired. So I said, "My gosh -- " of course, it always takes two to tango.

TI: And before we get there, I just want to make... during the '60s, that was a turbulent time.

FH: Very turbulent.

TI: There was lots of happenings --

FH: Young adults and young kids, and '63, you know, the march, Martin Luther King march to D.C., I was there for that.

TI: You had the Haight-Ashbury, you had the "love children"...

FH: Haight-Ashbury, love affairs there, the "love children," lots of changes. So I mean, I'm working through all this stuff. But it was exciting times. And I also started a thing at the time at our church basement called the Western Addition... it's called WACO, Western Addition Community Organization, WACO. I still remember that. It was a grassroots, and I could just get out in the street, and in a half hour get three hundred people to go to City Hall through this organization. And I did that for a while. And we did it in our church basement. This mostly was Afro American and Japanese, we combined to fight these housing problems, fight crime. And the main thing we tried to do was we wanted... actually, redevelopment to have subsidy in those things, yes.

TI: So it was just a very exciting time, then.

FH: Well, I don't know. [Laughs] It's interesting that I became an activist like that for a while. And so anyhow, that's... it's history, but it was exciting, yes, for me. And I could just see that if you let the people know, you're gonna get support.

TI: So let's go to 1967. You said you were fired.

FH: Yeah, they fired me.

TI: This was after you had taken over three YMCAs.

FH: That's right.

TI: You've merged them, you've...

FH: I merged them, made it into one Y. And it was doing well.

<End Segment 33> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.