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Art Carter, former head of an AFL-CIO labor council, was a hero of the anti-Vietnam War movement. He stood up to AFL-CIO President George Meany and other labor leaders who backed the government's pro-war policies and inspired others to also oppose the war.
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Piece Description
Art Carter, former head of an AFL-CIO labor council, was a hero of the anti-Vietnam War movement. He stood up to AFL-CIO President George Meany and other labor leaders who backed the government's pro-war policies and inspired others to also oppose the war.
Broadcast History
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Transcript
I spotted a forgotten hero at the memorial service for the nationally prominent San Francisco labor leader Walter Johnson recently, a true but largely unacknowledged hero of the anti-Vietnam War movement – Art Carter, former head of an AFL-CIO labor council in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The AFL-CIO, you might recall, was a major and outspoken supporter of that damned war which was waged as a key part of the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The AFL-CIO held tenaciously to its unqualified support of the war, whether it was being waged by a long-time labor ally, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, or by his anti-labor Republican successor, Richard Nixon.
It was in 1969, at the AFL-CIO's national convention in Atlantic City, that Carter, a 28-year-old delegate, dared stand up to oppose a resolution unconditionally supporting the Vietnam War and the Vietnam policies of then-President N...
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Intro and Outro
INTRO:Commentator Dick Meister says he was recently reminded of the courageous anti-Vietnam War stand of a now largely-forgotten labor leader.
OUTRO:Dick Meister is a longtime labor and political journalist.
