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MN: Okay. Now, when you joined Glide were they already involved with the Third World Student Strike, the Third World Strike?

LW: The Glide journey really begins before I went to Glide. I was asked to serve as a member of the board of trustees of Glide Foundation, so I think they asked, invited me to be a board member because of my, I guess it was a reputation of being, of trying to be relevant to the, to the many changes that were going on within the church and the community. They knew about that, so that's why they invited me, even while I was a pastor of Pine Church, to be a member of the board of trustees, so in the, in the board meetings, of course, we knew, we learned about the ministry of Glide Church. So I was very supportive of that, and being a member of the board of trustees, they knew where my heart and head was, very supportive of that progressive ministry. So by 1967 I knew pretty much about what Glide was, how the ministry of Glide.

MN: So how were you involved with the Third World Strike at San Francisco State?

LW: I think it was in the second, let's see, I went there in '67, the Third World Strike, I think, was '68, when the things began to happen on the campus. So when some of the, couple of the Glide staffpeople went out to SF State, I decided I needed to, I'd like to go with them, so I went with them. I think at that time there was, Cecil Williams and Janice Mirikitani were supportive of the students, and I wanted to go, so on one of the trips out to SF State while they were, the Third World students were on strike and were on, marching on the campus, I joined them and so that was my, and I felt very much at home because I felt like this was part of my ministry. At that time my title was Minister of Community Life, so that meant that the community was not only in Glide, those who came to Glide, but the community was out there where people were in the struggle for justice, for equality, for recognition. So the Third World student strike felt like this is where I need to belong, this was part of my community.

MN: Did you ever have any conversations with S.I. Hayakawa?

LW: Yes. We went to, when the San Francisco JACL decided to honor him at a dinner down at one of the wharf restaurants or, yeah, one of the restaurants here, those of us who were, supported the students joined the students in picketing the dinner at which he was honored. So we were able to march. That was one of the meetings that we had with, not with Dr. Hayakawa, but in opposition to his presence and tactics during the strike.

MN: Now, you had an incident where a Japanese American called you a "nigger lover." Can you share with us that experience?

LW: Yeah, I think some of the Japanese American community thought that my involvement at Glide, also involvement with the student strike, Third World student strike was really an African American issue, and they, they identified me as one who was with them, supporting that, this struggle that is unrelated to us as Japanese Americans. So I went into a store, a shop that was run by Japanese Americans and wanted to buy some, buy some equipment, and while I was talking and making a, trying to decide what to purchase, one of the persons in the store came up to me, a Japanese American, and called me a "nigger lover." I was shocked and didn't respond. I just shook my head and then went on, but he, he didn't, at least he didn't stay there and confront me, put his face in my face. He walked away. And I thought about that for quite a while, and then thought I, well, I felt like I needed to let him know what was going on with me and so I wrote him a letter saying that, "Being called what you called me is in a way an honor because I remember when I was a kid, Dr. Frank Herron Smith, who was a Methodist, who was a supervisor of the Japanese American Methodist churches, was called a 'Jap lover' before, just before the evacuation because he went, he stuck his neck out, talked to as many people as he could, made public, wrote letters to editors, went on the radio saying that we should not be evacuating the Japanese as some of the people are now talking about, it would be a terrible mistake. And because of that he earned the title of 'Jap lover,' so I'm, in a way, that's a real credit to me that you likened me to, or linked me, that I linked myself with him."

MN: You turned it around.

LW: Yeah.

MN: Did you ever get any response to that?

LW: Actually, no, I don't think, I don't remember anybody ever mentioning that to me.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.