You get what you can take: The fight to make the skilled trades representative

Mitchell Ayers, 2 ½, carries a sign protesting employment practices at the Downstate Medical Center construction site in Brooklyn, New York on August 8, 1963. His mother, Eunice Ayers, 27, also took part in the demonstrations. The use of children in such demonstrations has stirred up controversy between those who feel that it is too dangerous for the children and those who think their affect there is worth the risk. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff) & by& Damaso Reyes, AmNews Executive Editor “At the banquet table of nature, there are no reserved seats. You get what you can take, and you keep what you can hold. If you can’t take anything, you won’t get anything, and if you can’t hold anything, you won’t keep anything. And you can’t take anything without organization.” ‘A. Philip Randolph “It was a moving sight to see the cream of Brooklyn’s [B]lack leaders tossed around in the struggle to obtain better economic opportunity for minority members,” an& Amsterdam News& article told readers in the summer of 1963, when community and labor activists, as well as clergy, had had enough of discriminatory labor practices on local construction sites.& In Brooklyn, the structures that would become& SUNY Downstate were...