THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 1

THP Conversation with Al Cohen 7/25/09

with Paul Kittlaus at 696 So. Madison Ave., Pasadena

P: Randi’s working on another book and it might take her a year and a half to get to this project.
And we’re not getting any younger.
A: Yah, The Grim Reaper is looking around.
P: I was talking with John Colburn on the phone, and he was much more interested in talking
about his wonderful grandchildren than about the 1960s.
A: I can imagine that. (laughter)
P: So, I thought I had better take some responsibility now and capture what I can capture. It’s
not so much true with you but the rest of the folks have not thought what all those boxes down in
the basement or out in the garage, what all that stuff might mean in the hands of historians.
That’s archival material. The archivist I talk to said we the subjects of the history don’t know
what’s valuable to keep. We need to let the historians sort it out. Let me show you for example.
This document is from the conference office. It is the list of resolutions adopted at the
conference annual meeting in 1971. It establishes the Women’s Taskforce, one opposing the war
in Vietnam and one in support or the Farm Workers. I looked at those and thought what pains in
the ass we were.
A: We were that! We were right! But... (laughter)
P: We needed to convince everyone else of it. I guess, in honesty I’d have to say that at best I
felt eighty percent we were right. There was about twenty percent doubt.
A: For me it was about two percent doubt. (laughter)
P: And this is the letter that Jim and Noralyn wrote to family and friends when they moved to
Canada in 1973 for their life-style experiment as they called it. I’ve gotten some other
documents like this from others.
A: Are their kids Canadians?
P: Yah, and they are Canadians and they like it.
A: At least they get health care.
P: We stayed with Noralyn Smiley and Paul Flucke.
A: Yah, I remember Flucke.
P: I went over to Jim’s apartment for the conversation. I hadn’t seen him since ’73.
A: He seem about the same?
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P: Yes. His voice is so distinctive that, as soon as I heard it, I knew who he was and who I was
and who we were
...
P: I’m spending many hours now transcribing these conversations, listening to the recording and
typing it all out. I’m actually enjoying it because I hear so much more when I listen to the
recording and typing than I did when I was sitting there listening and thinking of the next
question.
A: I did the same thing when I painted this house. I had some help but I got to know every
corner, every crack in the boards, where the carpenters a hundred years ago had taken a lot of
effort to make the corners fit. You somehow get to feel some possession of the place.
P: Well, lets talk about the Turks. Randi’s framework is 1965 to 1975. The earliest I
remember any of us talking about become us was around 1963. And the first meetings were
in ’64. And those of us who left southern California left in ’73 or ’74. Genie and I moved to
Washington in 1974. The Leas’ and the Johnsons left in ’73. As you think about the Turks what
is your sense of what that group was and how you were connected to it?
A: Well, what comes to mind were the almost monthly meetings, mostly at your house in
Pacoima, as I remember it. It was a combination of working on an agenda together and playing
together with our families. So there were people like the Martins (Jim and Carolyn) who were
not close to us in politics but were around when we went on these camping trips. It was a
political experience but it was also our social life. And our kids got to know each other. I felt
really intentional about the fact that my kids would have alternative parents that they could relate
to--adults that they knew well enough that they could turn to them if they needed to. And that’s
worked out. Jean (youngest daughter) and Tom (Lasswell) had an on-again, off-again
relationship for year (in Portland, OR) until Tom died. And she had a relationship with you.
Maybe she was the obviously one that took advantage of that. But I felt really good about that.
P: Yah, Me too. I may have told you this story. After we moved to Washington we were
feeling all lonely for our old house and our friends. One night Genie had put together a really
great meal for the family. Mark, Adam and Ann and I were sitting around the table. I said
“Who’s the best mother of all?” I wanted generate some praise for Genie. And they all in one
voice said, “Ann Cohen!” That didn’t work out..
A: Didn’t work out too well. (laughter)
P: So what were the values that that group had that made them trustworthy for you kids? To see
us as worthy alternative parents for your kids is a pretty heavy endorsement of our group.
A: Well, the politics has always been a heavy dimension of who I am. I sort of crammed my
scripture hermeneutics into a political framework rather than the other way around.
P: Kind of like Jesus did. (laughter)
A: Well, I don’t know about that. (13:47) And so, it was almost since I was in high school that
the political thing around which I organized my life--well not life but values and, yes, some life
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decisions. So to be able to share virtually every dimension of the current history with a bunch of
people who would always come down in the same place was really affirming. And those were
unsettling times. There were really strong opinions that were dividing people and dividing
families, each of us in our own families between generations were having problems At least
some of us were. So it was a really comfortable group of people to be around. And there really
didn’t seem to be any competition--who else were you going to hang around? And we all had
kids the same age which was another binding thing and the kids liked each other, played with
each other. Even though we did live--I mean we did live in the far corners of the Los Angeles
basin. It wasn’t as if we were living in the same town.
P: What was the spread?
A: Well, we were in Fullerton, way down in Fullerton. Tom was in Northridge and you (Paul)
were in Pacoima. Thompson and Leas were in central LA. I’m not sure we had anybody in
Long Beach. Colburn was over on the west side.
P: Johnson and Moremen were in Inglewood and Western Knoll nearby.
A: So, it meant that if we were going to get that outfit together somebody had to do some
driving but, somehow, it seemed worth it.
P: What were the political battles that we were churned up about?
A: Well, we had this on-going love-hate relationship with the conference which Fred Register
and others could talk about for a long time if they were around. But you know, an alive
organization should be able to withstand that. I mean, what kind of an organization do you have
if nobody rocks the boat?
P: And that was our job, wasn’t it?
A: Yah, that was out job. (laughter) to rock the boat. So that was kind of an on-going theme
for our meetings together. And then there was the war in Vietnam that was a kind of over-
arching set of issues. (17:45) And another central part of it was the race issue, Martin Luther
King, Jr. And then the women were added on to that and the gays were added on to that. One
thing after the other, But I think militarism and the war and racism were the main issues.
P: And the Farm Workers.
A: and the Farm Workers.
P: Do you remember that we worked together on any of these issues? There was this resolution
against the war at the conference.
A: I remember there was you and Tom and I, we were going to some church meeting, I don’t
remember now what meeting, but we were strategizing where we were going to sit, what we
were going to say at different points. There were times when we were very intentional about
being at certain gatherings. And in the middle of all that was the Nestle’s boycott--in Infant
Formula project. That was a specific kind of thing. I know Ann Appley was involved in that.
So we did some things together but we did some things separately. There was the time that
several of us got arrested at the (Cal State) Northridge campus when the football team decided to
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capture the coach in his office and carry him to the President’s office. That was kidnapping
actually. (The police were seeking to arrest those men.) And we had this great idea. It was
proposed that these black football players would come and live with me in Fullerton. (laughter)
That would be a really great place to hide. (Black athletes in the middle of then all white Orange
County) Anyway, they ended up with Thompson. He had a Methodist church somewhere
downtown LA which was a better spot.
There was a rally in the free speech area, maybe four hundred people attended. I don’t
remember how many truckloads were arrested. But that was a campus ministry deal. So that
would have involved Tom and me and maybe Lynn Jondahl. I remember Paul Kerns, our
supervisor, chiding us about that fact that he wasn’t going to do this too often--to vouch for his
people and get us out of jail. So that would have been a subset. There were a bunch of subsets.
Our trip to Chicago--that would have been another subset--you (Paul), Tom, Speed and me. So
did we work together? Yes, we supported each other but we weren’t always in the same place.
P: That’s the change for me as a result of these interviews. That our importance, if there’s any
importance at all, was not so much in what we did together, as a unit. It was the way we
supported each other and challenged each other in our separate locations. Bill and Jim and
Speed all talked about how someone was doing something in their communities and put out a
call and a bunch of us would show up. That was how we worked together.
A: We and the David thing was another illustration.
P: Tell that story.
A: Well, that was a response to Martin Luther King. Ann Appley and I had come to the
conclusion that the Kingdom had come to the USA and race relations was solved, that it had
come to an end and was behind us and it was a good time to have an interracial adoption. We
only had four kids and why not add a fifth. So we proceeded with that, living in South Pasadena.
We had just come back from living a year in England and were working at a church in Whittier.
I was the Christian Education and Youth person. And we were working with the Los Angeles
County Adoption people. We met David in a park in Inglewood right near the Johnson’s
actually.
P: How old was he and what year?
A: He was two and it was 1965. I’ve got all that stuff, the records and press clippings in a box
out in the garage. I didn’t send it with the other stuff to Berkeley.
P: So you met David in Inglewood.
A: So we met David in Inglewood and he came to live with us. Right then we moved to
Fullerton. I got the job as campus minister there--my first campus minister job. Bill Terbek, a
Disciple (regional executive), came up with ten thousand dollars. He talked to Cecil Hoffman (a
Presbyterian, head of campus ministry in the area). They decided that Cohen was hanging
around. So with a pot of Disciple money and Cecil Hoffman’s Presbyterian approval, I, United
Church of Christ, went to Fullerton to represent the United Campus Christian Fellowship. So we
moved in. Well, we were breaking the lease when we moved in because the lease said that no
African American can ever live in this house. This was Orange County. So one thing led to
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 5

another. An occasional hate message you can live with--we also got a message from people
threatening they were going to kidnap our children. How are you going to respond to that? I just
thought I had to go to the police and tell them that we had this threat of kidnapping our children.
What leg could I have stood on if I didn’t?
P: that was hard to do.
A: I didn’t trust the police department as far as I could throw them. But still I felt I had to do it.
The Police posted it on the board and some reporter from Anaheim came through and saw it on
the board and called me up. And I said “Sure, come on over”--being completely naive about
what that really meant. I should never have said that. So he took this lively picture of a child
sitting on my knee. You know, there are only three things that really fly (in the newspaper)--a
child, a pretty girl and a dog. (laughter) So if you’ve one of those things you’ve got a sure thing.
Well, that story and that picture went all over the world. It went to Germany, It went to Russia.
My mother heard about it from a neighbor because it was in the Washington Post. It was wild!
And suddenly our front lawn was full of reporters. It took the Los Angeles County Adoption
agency about two minutes to figure out that they were going to rescue that child. We had not
completed the process, we were still on probation. So they snatched David right away.
The mantra in the Cohen household, repeated by my mother many times, She said,
“Albert, in this family, if it is important, we do not talk about it!” And I bought that you know.
So we told our four kids, who have had a little brother with them for six months, we’re not going
to talk about this. Can you imagine? Can you imagine doing that? So anyway, the place was in
a turmoil. We were getting calls from all over the place. So we called all you people (Turks)
together. And here we were all together in the living room, in Fullerton. And we told the story.
And at the end of the evening it was perfectly clear, we shouldn’t talk about it any more. And
we didn’t talk about it any more and in two or three days it was like it never happened. It was
amazing. A guy from TIME magazine was sort of hanging in the wings--”No, I’m not going to
talk to you.” And they all went away.
The next thing that happened--we moved from Fullerton to Pasadena. (Oldest child)
Anne went to Blair High School and an optional book in a reading class was about this minister’s
family who adopted a Black child. Amazing. And then, it was three or four years later, we
decided we had to talk about it but with Anne only because she was the one that was in the class
and going to pick up that book. And after that I don’t think we talked about it until I married
Faith Annette. She was from the San Fernando Valley and she was raised with the mantra: “If
it’s important, we talk about it! “ So she made us all talk about it. She unlocked it. And I’m sure
that was good for everybody. I’ve got that box with those clipping out in back. We got six
hundred letters, a hundred telling us we deserved whatever we would get for doing such an evil,
dumb thing. And we had five hundred of support. Several of those said, “We did the same thing
and our marriage broke up three years later.”
So there was some prophecy there. So that would be an example of a separate project but
you all were involved in the solving of it. Oberlin College was founded in 1867 as an outpost
against demon rum and the devil in the wilderness. We kind of felt like we were an outpost in
the middle of Orange County. We did find some wonderful people. There was a big farm
workers group in Orange County in 1965 and there was a big anti Vietnam war group active. So
it wasn’t as much of a dessert as it looked like.
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P: This David story had an impact on your kids that unfolded later. At least I am familiar with
Jean’s struggle because she was at UCSB when we moved to Santa Barbara. She came over to
our home several times and wanted to talk about that time. She dissolved in tears several times.
I hoped we could help her but we didn’t have enough time or skill to pull that off. Both Janet
and I knew that she was really struggling. The thing that she articulated was, because it was
never talked about in the family, she made the assumption that because one kid, the youngest,
could be returned, that she, the next youngest, could also be returned. And that was so
frightening.
A: Sure. Sure. Why not? Well, you know, I have never been accused of being a perceptive
counselor. (laughter) Some time after that Anne who was about eight, said she was going to run
away from home. And I said, “Well, I’ll help you pack.” I mean really helpful response from
your father who could have said, “Hey, come over here and let me give you a big hug. You can’t
leave here.” But, no, I said, “Let me help you pack.”
I remember Bill Moremen wanted to do group process stuff with us. And I think it was
you and I who absolutely refused to allow that diversion from the agenda. What could group
process possibly do to help us?
P: We haven’t got time for that!
A: I mean, so bad.
P: We were driven.
A: Yes, we were. I remember Lasswell wanting us to dance. (34:40) That was his way of trying
to break the seriousness about this whole thing. I think he was a lot lighter on his feet that I was.
P: A couple things about the David story that I remember aside from his being part of a couple
of our gatherings--at one of those you were taking a lot of 8 mm film. I don’t know if you still
have that. When the David story broke in the newspaper and on TV--I was in Pacoima--I started
telephoning your house in Fullerton. It was always busy, always busy. I finally told Genie that I
had to get in the car and go. I didn’t know what I would find when I got there but I could not not
offer my physical and spirit presence. Jondahl did the same thing, this self-initiated move--drove
his old Porsche down from Cal State LA. I remember a living room full of people including the
President of the College.
A: Could have been.
P: And there were a couple faculty people. The specific thing you were wrestling with was an
invitation to appear on national television on the Louis Lomax show. What was being weighed
was a vivid and a terrible illustration of racism in America, in Orange County. And to keep the
public aware of that would be possibly helpful. But the cost on you and Ann, especially, and
your family, we decided in that living room, was too high. Life Magazine was also asking to
cover the story.
A: We must have had a series of decision sessions.
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P: It was an event for all of us. It wasn’t too long after that that Speed and Tenny went through
their struggle. Tenny took off with Robby leaving Speed with _____. They were in the
probation period too. The adoption agency reclaimed that child too because the family had
broken up. Speed told me that shortly after that he flew up to the bay area, found where they
were living, took possession of Robby and flew home with him and was able to gain legal
custody. The timing was roughly the same period.
P: Let’s talk about what was going on on the campus in those days? What was in the air?
A: One of the things I did when I sent all that stuff to Berkeley was to keep a copy of documents
that I thought would be helpful--I just let things go.
P: You’re going to be the hero of this whole project.
A: (paging through a three ring binder) 1. 1967, the first annual James Reeb Memorial lecture at
Cal. State Fullerton--William Stringfellow was the speaker.
P: Reeb was the Unitarian Minister killed in Selma.
A: And here’s his story--killed in 1965. Stringfellow’s title was, “the Myth of the Great Society,
the Death of the American Dream.” 2. I was doing a thing called “Genetics and the Future of
Man: a series of lectures and discussion for the church man.” --little sexist there. I was into the
environment and Theodore Dobzansky, professor of genetics at Cal State Fullerton, was an
internationally known geneticist at the time. 3. Campus religious group at Cal State Fullerton--
this was a list of my colleagues in campus ministry there. 4. In May of ’67 a meeting of the area
assembly of the Disciples of Christ at the Congregational Church of Fullerton--they put me on
the campus and I maintained a very close relationship with the region. The theme was “God
Speaks to Reclaim our World.” 5. Of course, when Martin Luther King was shot we had a rally
in the quad. 6. Well, another thing that was going on on the campus was the challenge to the
University by the students. There was a street acting group from San Francisco, the San
Francisco Mime Troupe. They were forbidden to appear on the campus at Cal State Fullerton
but they came to the campus with fife and drum and marched through the campus gathering up a
crowd and then marched off the campus into an orange grove which, right now, is smack in the
middle of 57, the big freeway. Every time I drive along there I think of it as an orange grove and
the people sitting there and the Mime Troupe doing its number. 7. Anti War Picket and the Los
Angeles Police Department, First and Los Angeles Street, “We Will Not Be Silenced, We Will
Not Be Divided.”
P: What year was that?
A: This binder is ’66 and ’67. 8. The Farm Workers. Here’s a letter from Cesar Chavez. “I’m
writing to tell you how much we appreciate what you’ve been giving us. I especially thank you
for the recent dinner you gave and the contribution you brought as a result of that evening.” So
we must have been doing something with the Farm Workers. Well, we had in the '68 election
Cesar sent two workers to every congressional district. We were working for Bobby Kennedy.
So, these farm workers were staying at our house. We were back from England and we had this
van and we had Bobby Kennedy signs all over this van. The farm workers used it. Every night
we’d have a civics lesson at the kitchen table. We’d tell them about the bicameral legislature and
what happens when you get elected to congress and all this stuff. And every day and into the
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 8

evening we’d go out together and register voters. That was going on all over the state. 9.
(reading from a paper) “Black Power” by Rev. Albert Cohen. Whatever its short comings the
rallying cry, Black Power, galvanizes civil rights workers in 1966 the way the Freedom Now did
a few years ago. So here is the change in the racial situation. We’re talking about Black Power.
P: That’s a speech or paper you gave somewhere.
A: Right. 10. “We must negotiate!” That’s about the war from the campus paper. 11.
“Ministers from north Orange country are invited to meet at Cal State Northridge with Dr.
Bernard Hyink to discuss higher education in California. Dr. Hyink is academic vice-president.”
This was sponsored by United Campus Christian Fellowship. We did that. Who else would get
them together to talk about higher education? On the campus, that was a big thing--debating
higher education. 12. “Dear Al.” This is from the school of economics. “Somewhat belatedly
let me thank you for coming to our labor economics class to talk about the grape strike and the
agricultural workers situation in general in California. I don’t have to say how interested the
class was in the subject. We spent thirty minutes post-morteming your discussion. It was very
helpful.” 13. “Orange Country ACLU--Civil Liberties issues in the Delano Grape Strike.”
Well, what was happening? that’s what was happening.
P: And campus ministry was right in the middle of it?
A: Right in the middle. You’d walk onto the campus--it was a great time to go into campus
ministry. 1965. I didn’t know anything about it. Well, my theory about social action in the
churches is--I’m not a surfer and I’ve never stood on a surf board in my life--you sat on your surf
board until the next big wave came along. It could be the assassination of Martin Luther King, it
could be...We were just with John Moyers, the Presbyterian Moyers, not the UCC one. You
remember him?
P: Yah.
A: John was my successor at Cal State Fullerton. Huey Newton had been shot in his bed in
Chicago on December tenth, or something like that, in 1969. John is the only self-proclaimed
communist living in Newport Beach at the time. (laughter) So Ann Appley went down to spend
an evening with John and his wife in Newport Beach. It was raining, it was cold, it was
miserable. There was a fire in the fireplace. And we/they sat around trying to figure out, in
response to Huey Newton, what was the most vulnerable white icon that we could attack in some
way. And we/they decided that the Rose Parade was the obvious symbol of white America. At
that point in time the Queen and every member of the court were bobby-sox blondes with blue
eyes--right off the silver screen. I think there was only one Black person in the entire structure--
hundreds of people--of the Tournament of Roses. That person was Dan Towler, who was a
pioneer in breaking through some of these things.
P: He was a professional football player who played for the Los Angeles rams and then was
your colleague at Cal State LA , a Methodist campus minister.
A: Right. This was 1969 so I had come to Cal State (52:59)Bill Schatz (UCC pastor) was
involved. We decided to appear on the lawn of the Wrigley Mansion (Headquarters for the
Tournament of Roses) on Orange Grove (in Pasadena) right after Christmas to challenge the
Tournament of Roses on the racist image that they portrayed. And our idea was that the
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 9

Southern Christian Leadership Conference wagon train should be included as an entrance to the
Rose Parade. That certainly would be a symbol. Well these poor people should have ignored us.
But no, they decided to debate us--separately. The news people including TV would go inside
and interview them and then they came out and interviewed us. These would be side by side on
the six o’clock news. Well, it sort of ended in a stalemate at the time. Somebody threatened to
burn our house down. My kids took the call here at the house. So, they were here huddled
together holding each other up when we got home from wherever we were right after this
happened. But, what was the outcome? The outcome was that the next year they had Billy
Graham as the Grand Marshall of the Parade which I thought was a kind of Elijah on Mount
Carmel experience. Who’s got more power here, Billy Graham or these ragtime ministers? But.
But, every year since then the court has been integrated.
P: Really?
A: You bet. I check every year. You know, some people leave a building, the Smith-Jones
Memorial Chemistry Building. Cohen hasn’t left anything but an integrated court at the
Tournament of Roses. There not many people who know that story. But now, there’s a Asian,
there’s a Mexican, there’s a Black and two whites.
P: Well, congratulations.
A: Thank you very much.
P: We need to put a brass plaque someplace. (laughter) Where would we put that?
A: Maybe in the middle of Orange Grove Avenue.
That was an example of our acting separately. We were just with Moyers. He got a
divorce from Lynn and married a Norwegian Lutheran woman who come from the same area
that Faith Annette’s family comes from in Norway--near Lillehammer. They live in Geneva.
We were in Strasbourg, right near Zurich, and this was a month ago. We were about to head off
to Zurich to catch a plane to LAX. And John came over from Geneva by train, three hours, to
spend an evening with us. So I still keep track of John.
This is another situation. Lynn Jondahl, Tom Lasswell and I were in a radical gathering
at a seminary in the mid west. Is there a St. Paul Seminary in the mid-west?
P: A Methodist seminary in Kansas City.
A: Well, we were at St. Paul. The women were in charge of this meeting.
P: These were campus ministers, right?
A: Yes. And the women decided that all the men should take care of the babies who were there.
Tom and I said, “By God, we’ve done this enough and we were not going to do this for some
strange woman we didn’t even know. Jondahl (who was unmarried) caved in and I have this
image of Jondahl with this baby on his lap in the middle of whatever discussion was going on.
All of us men had been threatened by an outfit called Bread and Roses in Boston, a group of
militant women who were threatening castration and whatever else they could think of for the
men who insisted on staying on as male chauvinist pigs. Anyway, we were at this meeting for
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 10

two or three days I guess and then we got on a plane to go back to New York. While we were in
New York Tom and I decided to visit the UCC John Moyers at the headquarters. We decided
that we should propose to him that there should be a campus ministry outreach by the United
Church of Christ to--it was Stokley Carmichael’s group or maybe it was the Black Panthers--who
emigrated to Algeria or someplace. And so we walked into his office and put this proposal on
the table. He thought we were crazy. (laughter) He thought we were out of our minds. Which
of course we were pretending to be. And then we had this serious conversation for an hour or
two trying to convince him that the UCC should sponsor us as campus ministers in Algeria. I
don’t know if he ever caught on to what we were doing. But, you know, that’s the lighter side.
But we were harassing the church.
P: Our job. Our vocation. (laughter)
A: That was the kind of thing that added sparkle. There was a sense of humor that runs through
all of this. Irv Sarnoff is in my consciouss every time we think of these times. I see him every
once in a while.
P: Who is he?
A: Irv was kind of the Scout Master to all the people in anti-Vietnam war movement in Los
Angeles. Irv would sponsor these meetings. There’d be a hundred people there or a hundred and
twenty-five people, all through the war, and we’d have two hundred and twenty-five ideas about
how to end the war and what should be the next action. I remember at one of these meetings
standing up in the middle of the meeting and saying that Mao Zedong was the greatest man of
the century. (laughter) Think if I were running for a seat on the Supreme Court, what the people
could come up with. I remember this Jewish fellow coming up to me after the meeting was done
and telling me I was out of my mind, that I didn’t know what I was talking about. You know, the
antiwar movement had both ends of the spectrum. It had kids. It had college students and high
school students. But it also had all these old people. Like we are the old people in the Iraq
antiwar movement now. It’s the same thing. A lot of these guys were Jewish. liberals,
Socialists. I remember the year we marched on the Pentagon. I don’t know what year that was.
That was the year we levitated the Pentagon. that was the same time as that famous photograph
of the young girl sticking a flower in the gun barrel of a soldier.
P: I think you and Tom went to that event from Chicago after the Urban Training Center time.
And I came home for some reason. That’s not important but I remember it. That would have
been 1967. We celebrated your fortieth birthday that fall on the airplane flying to Chicago.
A: I remember. I got carded. (laughter) Did you guys set that up? I always wondered.
P: What was that?
A: I was carded for how old I was in a bar in Chicago. You guys must have set that up. That
was great.
P: I don’t think so.
A: So here I am in Washington DC with my beads. I still have my beads. I should give them to
the archive. I was driving my mother (who lived close to Washington) to distraction. Well,
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 11

anyway, the high point of that event for me was standing on the Memorial Bridge over to
Arlington Cemetery--it goes from the Lincoln Memorial over to Virginia at that point. And
we’re twelve, fourteen people abreast from the Tidal Basin to the Pentagon. The column that I
was in stopped and the group that was coming behind us, then beside us, there was applause as
they got closer. It was veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
P: Oh, the Spanish Civil War.
A: That was my first political interest. I was in grade school and my classmate, David
Montgomery, and I--we had little mouse figures. We would draw the battlefield at Toledo and at
Madrid and draw up these armies of mice.
P: Really?
A: Yes, we imitated what we knew about the Spanish Civil War as it was going on. David
Montgomery was one of my best friends in school.
P: What school?
A: Back in Philadelphia. We went to Haverford School. I remember the Sunday morning we
decided to find out what those Catholics were up to (in church). (laughter) And on a bright,
sunny Sunday morning--I can see us now walking up the steps of this Catholic Church in Wayne.
We both had three years of Latin by then and we both were Episcopalians. So two people who
knew Latin and were Episcopalians could fit into a mass with very little trouble. That was a
great breaking of a barrier, walking into the unknown, to satisfy ourselves that that was a friendly
place.
P: Another story I’d like to have you tell is the story of your trip to Mississippi--you and Tom
and Pete Flint.
A: Oh yah. Now, how did that get started?
P: I was in Pacoima at the time. I think there was an invitation to bring books for the Freedom
Schools in Mississippi.
A: Oh, I know what it was. It was the Christmas after Freedom Summer. And we were
convinced that the good old boys were going to come home from college and raise hell in the
black communities in Mississippi and that we should be there to stand beside our black brothers
and sisters when these guys came back. If Mississippi Summer was ’65 then this was Christmas
of ’65. That is what we gathered around. And I had this friend, Gedney Fenton, from the days
when I was at Oneonta (Congregational Church in South Pasadena). He was Vice-President for
financial affairs at Purex Corporation. And he was driving a red pickup which he was parking in
the executive parking lot. He was driving these people NUTS. And they finally banned him
from parking his truck there. Anyway, he loaned us the truck. And the truck was half full of
contraceptives and half full of mimeograph paper. (laughter) That’s the way I remember it.
P: One to aid reproduction and one to stop it. (laughter)
A: Anyway, that’s the way I remember it. That might not be right. Anyway, we put a length of
manila rope in the truck for some reason, and probably a shovel and whatever else. And we
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 12

stopped in Texas to see the Black Like Me author, John Howard Griffin (a friend of Pete Flint’s).
We were driving through Texas, then Louisiana, then Mississippi. He convinced us that a length
of rope in the back of our truck was probably not a great idea. (laughter) So we left the rope
with him. So we drove to Jackson where SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, Stokley Carmichael was in charge, was headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi. They
said we’ll take the truck while you’re here and we’ll take you up to Columbus, Mississippi.
That’s where you are assigned. So here we were, in the middle of the night driving the length of
Mississippi through all these little towns where civil rights workers had been killed. I can’t
remember the town’s names now. It was really creepy.
And we got to this Freedom House in Columbus. We stayed there for ten days or
something like that. I think I have some pictures of that. At one point Tom and I are walking
along along the road in the black part of town and, of course, there are no sidewalks in the black
part of town. And we see this Red, White and Blue US Mail truck come around the corner.
Tom and I were both paranoid enough to think that he was going to try to run us down and kill
us. (laughter) I remember jumping over the side of the road into a field to save our lives from
the US Mail. (laughter) At some point I was preaching at some church--I guess we were all
farmed out. I said to Tom, am I supposed to preach about God or am I supposed to preach about
the (civil rights) movement? And Tom said, “That’s the same thing.” (laughter) Once again my
theology was a little shallow.
Let’s see what else can I remember? I made these calls home. We were trying to raise
money for a Freedom School.
P: You called me and I recorded those conversations. I played them back to the people at the
Pacoima Church who gathered at my house, that first house I lived in there. And you told us the
story about going to integrate a church on Christmas Eve.
A: Yes, at Starkville.
P: Tell that story.
A: The movement was wonderfully democratic. Everyone was always free to decide whether to
be involved or not involved in what was happening. So we decided to integrate the Starkville
Episcopal church. I don’t know why they were lucky enough to be picked out. One Christmas
Eve. There was a lot of talk (at the Freedom House) and some people decided to go with us and
some decided not to go with us. That was OK, perfectly OK. So on Christmas Eve we drove
over to Starkville, nearby. This church sat on a hill. So you park down here and you walk up
some steps. So we walked up the steps...
P: Who was in your group?
A: Tom was and I don’t remember who else was.
P: You had some Blacks in the group?
A: Oh yah, we were going to integrate the church. There were about six of us. It happened that
I was in the front. I put my hand on the church door knob and an usher was standing there. He
put his hand on mind and looked at me and asked, “Are you here to worship?” I said, “Yes,
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 13

we’re here to worship.” So he let me open the door and we walked in. The church was full and
the service was in process. And instantly everybody knew what had happened. We filed into a
pew and there was electricity in the air. I don’t know how to describe it but everybody was
suddenly on their guard. One thing I remember and I think about it every Christmas.
Somewhere in the service we were singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” one of the lines of
which is, “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” Whoa! Was that ever
the right theme for what was going on. I don’t exactly remember how we extricated ourselves. I
don’t think we stayed and stood around for coffee. I think we just got up and left. But there was
a dance, a party going on back in Columbus and we were the heros of the evening. So... I’ve got
the Starkville Christmas folder in one of my books.
P: That’s another place we should have a brass plaque—“Al Cohen was here and things
changed.”
A: I think we visited the rector earlier. That’s probably why we picked that church. We had
gone around and visited some churches to raise the issue.
P: Let me ask...one of the things that is startling to me (1:17:00) as I listen to these stories from
all of us was how willing we all were to say about the institutions that we were a part of: “It ain’t
working and it’s got to change and it’s up to us, it’s our responsibility to figure out how to
change higher education, to change the police department in Los Angeles, to change the UCC
conference, especially, to bring them into the new age or into God’s Kingdom,” as you often
said. Where did that come from, this sense that it was our responsibility to do this rather than
just ride along with it?
A: I think it was partly following the lead of this little group of students who were set that they
were going to change the university. It’s a kind of chicken and the egg thing. Fortune magazine
did a survey in the mid ’60’s to try to determine just how many of those students out there are we
talking about. They decided two percent and they called them the Forerunners. Two percent. In
the mid 1970’s at Bullock’s (Department Store) the department for young people was called
Forerunners. That’s how quickly society absorbs these irritations. When son Peter was sworn
into the (San Diego) Police Department sixteen years ago--when would that have been--early
’90’s--all the officers had mustaches. That’s when I came to the conclusion that the model for
human society was the human body. I mean, what else could there be. Our bodies are the basic
structure. Go back a million years. How do we work? You get a cut and it heals over, maybe
there’s a scar and soon it smoothes out and it’s like it never happened. That’s what happens with
society. These aberrations come along--and we were certainly an aberration given what was
happening in the ’60’s and ’70’s. so there was the Students for a Democratic Society, Tom
Hayden and that crowd and they were determined to change the university and change the
country. I think we picked up on the spirit. The Black thing, the Martin Luther King thing. So
there were a lot of examples for us. Usually the church follows, its doesn’t lead. We jump on
the bandwagon when it’s up at least to thirty five miles an hour. We don’t lead it. We were
tuned in to the Jim Bevels and the Stokley Carmichaels and the Tom Haydens.
P: Let me ask about you personally. What was it in your experience prior to 1963 that led you
to be open to this and to define your theology and your politics in one structure? I mean you
weren’t pleasing your mother when you were being so radical.
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 14

A: No.
P: And pleasing your mother was a big demand in you.
A: Yes. Mom’s have a big impact on us. I’m watching (daughter) Annie with (grandson) Pete.
The total devotion of these people (his parents?)to each other, that’s really impressive. Implicit
in it is a lot of control: when you go to bed, when you get up, eat, go to the bathroom. But...they
sent me to a Quaker School, Haverford, and Haverford at that time was more aware of its Quaker
beginnings than it is now. My father went to the same school but he survived it without it
impacting him. But it did impact me.
P: The Quaker thing?
A: Yes.
P: How did it impact you?
A: Well, I did campaign for Norman Thomas in the school election in 1944 because I felt that
Franklin Roosevelt was not doing his job especially with Black folks. And he wasn’t. It was
Eleanor who was the guiding light in that pair. We got twenty seven votes for Norman Thomas
in that election in an area where everyone was a Republican. We moved them beyond Franklin
Roosevelt. Well, my friend, David Montgomery--here we are working out the Spanish Civil
War on our desks with mouse armies. I won the award for most improvement two years in a
row. (laughter) Faith Annette reminds me I probably was coming from pretty far behind.
(laughter) My prize for it were two books on the Spanish Civil War. The school was closely
aware of who we were. My prize the second year was (a book on?)on China. That’s because
the Headmaster was a Chinese missionary’s son and he hoped I would pick up on China. And
we had an open table. My mother was an unreconstructed Confederate from Richmond,
Virginia. My father was a Philadelphia Jew. And everything was on the table. We ate together
every night and every Sunday noon and we talked about stuff that was going on. And sure, I got
a heavy dose of Navy. I decided a while back that the Army-Navy game was a bigger item than
Christmas in our house when it came to how much preparation and who was invited to the house
and how big a celebration it was and how important it was. I mean, we were Navy.
P: What was you Dad’s position in the Navy?
A: He graduated from the Naval Academy in ’07 and he was on a track to be an Admiral. He
was a great athlete, very popular, a great bridge player, a great raconteur. I mean what else do
you need to become an Admiral? But his father talked him out of it in 1920 or ’22. A fellow
named Dwight Eisenhower was a lieutenant at that point. He stayed. by 1920 Mac Arthur was
an old guy, he was getting ready to retire. But my dad allowed himself to be talked out of it to
return to Philadelphia to run the family business--an envelope company. But he really never left
the Navy. In 1939 he was putting recruiters on the corners in Philadelphia recruiting people
because (he knew) the war was coming. He knew we were going to be involved in it. Actually,
he knew when it was going to happen because the Kellog-Briand Peace Pact (1928) said you
couldn’t build war ships. So what the Japanese did was build merchant ships on war ship hulls.
Everybody knew that when the bamboo screens when up on the ships in Yakosuka--one year
from then those ships would be ready to go to sea as war ships. They’d drop turrets onto the
hull. So, on December 7th, 1941, my parents were on the floor of the living room in somebody’s
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 15

house with a big map of the Pacific Ocean trying to decide whether the Japanese were going to
strike Manila or Pearl Harbor. These were people who had no special connect to the
government. But it is how clear the Navy was that it was about to happen. That’s why David
Griffin’s book is called The New Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt knew it was going to happen but he
let it happen because he knew it was the only way to get the country to go to war. That’s what
Chaney and those people figured out too--there had to be a new Pearl Harbor. Anyway, how did
this get started?
P: Well you have a radical vision of social change and bringing in the Kingdom of God and your
whole career has been as a reformer and a revolutionary beating on the walls and on the chests of
leaders of the university and the church and other places. And I’m just trying to figure out where
does that vision and energy come from.
A: Well, a lot of that was tamped down when I was in the Navy. When I got out of the Navy I
went to Oberlin (Seminary). I had four years at a liberal, politically active campus. My first
year there a person I’d never heard of named Pete Seeger, did a concert at Fairchild Auditorium.
Blew me away! It was such an incredible evening. I went out the next day and bought a guitar.
(laughter) I’m tone deaf. I can’t play a note. And he made it look so easy. Anybody could do
that. Good grief. I’m going to get myself a guitar and be like Pete Seeger. 1954 and I’d just
gotten out of the Navy. They took us, the freshman class at Oberlin, to Akron, a five hour bus
ride, in order to save us from the evils of communism. This was the McCarthy time. They
showed us the wonderful care the tire manufacturers were taking of their workers. They showed
us how they had a picnic area for the workers for lunch and how they had a nursery area for the
kids and on and on and on. I remember distinctly we were told we shouldn’t buy books at the
cooperative bookstore because it was a communist organization. So that was the mood of the
country. So, my conversion from the Navy began at Oberlin. I cut my ties when I got out and I
didn’t have a single thing to do with the Navy until I went to my thirty fifth reunion with Faith
Annette because she decided she needed to know who I was.
P: Reunion of your graduating class at the Naval Academy?
A: Yah, I’d never been back there. So, I cut my ties. And they never approached me. I thought
that was amazing. They had nine years invested in me and they let me resign and they never
wrote me a letter after that. Wouldn’t you think they would have written and said, “Why don’t
you join the Naval Reserve, or do something to give back what we gave to you?” Fortunately,
there was no connection at all. So that helped. Then you and Lasswell got ahold of me in ’59
and you were well on your way from your experience back in Chicago and elsewhere. So, I
credit you people with pushing me over the edge. (1:32:31)
...
A: The draft made radicals out of an age cohort from 19 to 30. They didn’t want to be killed. I
mean, that’s a pretty good impetus. And so we picked up on that. We did draft counseling. That
was life and death stuff.
P: Earlier you used the image of riding the wave. You sit on your surf board and when the wave
comes along you ride it.
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 16

A: The draft created a wave. Who was our den mother on the Clergy Counseling Service for
Problem Pregnancies?
P: Liz Canfield.
A: Yah, Liz Canfield. We were breaking the law, we were actually breaking the law.
P: To counsel women/girls who were pregnant and wanted to terminate the pregnancy.
A: And to hook them up with a doctor who would do the abortion. And we said, “Arrest us all if
you want to.” Of course George Bush would have.
... (Al prepared a lunch for us)
P: Al, give us a blessing.
A: Lord, we thank for the day, for the experiences that we’re recollecting today. We thank you
that you’ve guided us through the years, that you’ve kept us alive, that you’ve called us in one
way or another to be focused on the kingdom. And we thank you for the collegiality and the
friendships that have sustained us through the years. We ask your blessing on this project, that
there can be some socially redeeming outcomes to Paul’s efforts to describe what’s happened for
future generations. We thank you for this food. Keep us safe on the road. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.
P: Amen.
A: I think another thing is I went to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday morning(‘til I
left home) with my Mother to an Episcopal Church. One of the phrases in the liturgy is: “We
present ourselves, our souls, our bodies, a living sacrifice.” That’s pretty heavy. I said that
every Sunday morning.
P: And you paid attention.
A: People under estimate the similarity between the Navy and the church.
P: How so?
A: They both are called “the service” because money is not the object. That you’re in it for the
service of the community. That’s the whole point. So whether you’re doing it in the Navy for
the constitution and the government or you’re doing it for the church in service for the Kingdom,
it’s really quite similar. A life of service is different from a life of profit or the life of
entertainment. You don’t do it because it’s fun, you do it because it’s a contribution.
P: So you started by talking about going to the church and presenting yourself as a living
sacrifice and it seemed the same in the Navy, that’s what they were asking and that’s what you
were giving.
A: I remember at Haverford in the study hall the proctor’s desk was a foot above the floor. Mr.
Shaw, the history teacher was in charge of the study hall. Several of us were gathered around his
desk which came to my eye level--I don’t remember how old I was. And I said in a positive
voice: “The president said, it must be right.” And nobody said anything. Mr. Shaw didn’t say
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 17

anything. There was a blackboard behind him and my words bounced off the blackboard. And I
stood there having to eat my own words. Well, that was a moment of illumination. Nobody
said anything to me but it was important enough to...you know there are certain things I have a
photograph of in my mind.
P: What’s the point of this? I don’t get it. “The president said, and it must be right.”
A: Well, the president was not right...just because the president said something doesn’t make it
right.
P: Who was the first president who you found out was not right?
A: Well, Franklin D. If you were going to deal with him...people have to deal with Obama. ...I
don’t really remember the depression. My grandfather gave my parents a house to live in in
1926. So we were not in danger of losing our place to live in. He(father?)was president of the
company. I remember he said they paid the workers first and he was paid from what was left
over. I remember my mother sold encyclopedias at one point. But we also had a maid. I grew
up with a nurse that was in the house. She got married and left. I must have been six years old
when she left.
P: As you think about the Turks, how would you draw up the structure? Who had the most
influence, who played what role, who was in the middle, who were in the concentric circles?
(1:42:57) What’s your perception of the social structure of the group?
A: I took the minutes. I’m a minute taker. You were the convener, the moderator, the chair of
the meeting. Lasswell was an important figure but I’m sure exactly sure...Seems like everybody
had a sort of... I think the group was you and Lasswell and myself and Jondahl and Colburn,
Johnson, Lintner, Moremen, and Leas toward the middle. It’s really hard to do that. I don’t
think that was very clear.
P: Pretty democratic. We went were the spirit moved.
A: It was shared leadership.
P: Jay Lintner was doing some writing about different kinds of power and came up with one I’ve
never seen before, various forms of power: formal, informal; power because you hold an office,
power because you hold money. The one that I had not seen was the power to convene. He was
looking at community organizing and there was great power for the one who said, “Why don’t
you and him and him and him” as in the old days--always hims, “Let’s get together and talk.”
Things can really flow if someone invites people around the table or into the circle. I don’t think
I had any control over outcomes but--let’s get together and talk and we’ll figure some stuff out
that we can all support. As you said, the values were so congenial that there was a lot of basic
trust. And there was a lot of basic competition with each other in the group. I remember that.
A: I don’t remember that. Tell me. Give me some examples of competition.
P: It was more just testosterone around the circle. Sometimes it was about who was the most
radical.
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 18

A: I think we avoided most of that bullshit. that was out there but maybe we didn’t avoid it. I
think we were pushed from time to time by one another. I tend not to see and not remember
what I don’t like. It works pretty well. I spent nine years in the Navy and have no recollection
of any homosexual inference, activity, event or anything else. Nine years. Now the chances
were that there was something going on somewhere. I didn’t see it.
P: I want to talk more about the group but there’s a loose end for me about how you talk about
yourself. You talked about when you were growing up you had an “open table” with your
parents and you talked about stuff. But earlier when we were talking about David you said that
you learned from your Mom that, “If it’s important we don’t talk about it.” That’s a
contradiction.
A: See, for them it wasn’t that important. If it was really important, they didn’t talk about it.
Like, I’m eighty-one years old. I have never set foot in the synagogue that my grandfather was
president of, that my father was raised in and bar mitzvahed, until February of this year when
Faith Annette says, “Why don’t we go visit the synagogue that has been such a part of your
family’s life for crying out loud, for a hundred years.” Good idea! So, she calls them up and she
hears, “Charles J. Cohen’s grandson? Of course, we remember him. We’d love to see you.
Come on in on Saturday.” So, we’re welcomed with open arms to this Orthodox Synagogue a
block and a half from the Charles J. Cohen Envelope Company which I had visited any number
of times. I mean, this is the old timers. Faith Annette is led in to a separate door, she sits behind
a wall that’s about this (three feet) high where the women are; separate from the men. I mean,
these guys are serious. What did we discover? Have I talked to you about this?
P: No
A: What I discovered was that I have two great aunts whose names are Mary and Katherine.
This is in an orthodox Jewish household in 1890. These two women must have been such a pain
in the ass to my grandfather. I can’t even imagine his two sisters calling for women rabbis in
1895. These women did not get married. One was a sculpturess, an artist, painter. The other
was a journalist. They’ve got files of their own at the University of Pennsylvania archive, the
Jewish archive. Not one word did I ever hear about those women. Isn’t that amazing?
P: Why? What was going on?
A: What was going on? I never asked. Did my mother and father agree that I was going to be
shielded from any connection to the Jewish community? Did they decide that we were going to
be solid Episcopalians with nothing to get in the way confusing us? Were they ashamed of that
background? The Philadelphia Jewish community was certainly not ashamed of that
background. They celebrated it.
P: So that was something between your mom and dad that they worked out.
A: Apparently. Well, my dad must have been second place to her father his whole life. Faith
figured that out too. The only thing on her mind was her father.
P: And why was he more important?
A: I don’t know but he was the central person.
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 19

P: Was that Navy?

A: Oh yah. My dad was named Albert. He was Navy. He would have to have been to get
married to her.
P: Because she’s Navy and her parents would have insisted on it.
A: Yah. Well, I’m not sure that it would have gone that far but she felt that urge. So, what was
the question?
P: The open table and the “we don’t talk” about important things.
A: Oh yah. So, we didn’t talk about it. But the stuff I thought was important we did talk about.
Every once in a while John L. Lewis would come by in the conversation, they hated him almost
at the same level that they hated Roosevelt. But how many of our friends had conservative
parents? A lot of them.
P: So, what is your feeling about this Jewish background that you’re just discovering?
A: I never see anything that I don’t like! (laughter) Nobody ever did anything bad to me. I’ve
not been the victim of discrimination in any way ever. So it’s been fun. There was no big deal
at having my name at Haverford School although it was different for my classmate named
Freedman, who I don’t seem to remember anything about, except that I’ve met him at these fifty
year reunions--fifty years out. We had 62 people in the class. About a quarter of those people I
have absolutely no memory about. I must not have related to them at any level. It was just a
small class. You’d think I could have related to 62 people. I must have related to only about
twenty people. Freedman, when we were back east he was saying--of course Faith brought this
out, she’s the journalist and can make people talk--he felt so badly discriminated against that he
went to the headmaster and the headmaster said, “Well, we’ll take care of that.” But of course, I
wasn’t Jewish. I was Episcopalian. But the name Cohen doesn’t translate immediately into anti-
Semitism. Although it should. Actually, I have a good time with it. Those Rabbi friends of
mine over on the west side (needs a more specific reference) thing...well, they think I should
speak Yiddish for one thing. So, I was over there one time. It was a meeting. We were at a
coffee shop. It was over on the west side near that big, blue building, a mercantile center, I
forget its name. There’s a coffee shop there. So, it’s a Unitarian minister, the Rabbi and myself
and several others. I order a hot chocolate and a Danish. The Rabbi orders bagels and coffee.
The Unitarian orders a coffee and a Danish. The Rabbi turns to him and says, “You can’t eat a
Danish over here. You’ve got to eat bagels. You’re on the west side.” The Unitarian says, “But
he just ordered a Danish.” The Rabbi looks at me then back at the Unitarian and says, “His name
is Cohen. He can order anything he wants.” (laughter) That’s they way it’s been for me.
(Rabbi) Paul Dubin, got so sick he couldn’t come any more, but I feel like he’s adopted me and
he wants to make sure I’m OK, that I’m not making any bad decisions. So being Cohen has been
fun.
P: So how’s being Cohen and your experience with Israel been?
A: It’s a great cachet when you’re there. People look at your passport and immediately smile,
and ask how you’re doing and if people are treating you right. It has nothing to do with how I
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 20

feel about the Israeli government. I am not conflicted at any level in my criticism of the Israeli
government.
P: You’ve never sounded like it to me.
A: They’re wrong and they’re going to pay a terrible price for what they’re doing. In this world
as well as the next.
P: Well, let’s go back to the Turks. You remember any of the gatherings we had or any of the
work we did together that we haven’t talked about so far?
A: Well, we haven’t talked about the Thanksgiving holidays on the beach in Mexico, at El Faro
Beach (just south of Ensenada), the day the dog ran off with the turkey.
P: I don’t remember that.
A: Oh yah. I think it was Genie who used to prepare the Turkey. You’d bring it down and we’d
carve it there. I guess we left it on the table and gone down to the beach to play ball like we
always did. And we came back to see the dog heading down the beach with the turkey. A local
dog...I do remember that. (laughter)
P: There was the father v. kids football game we played every year. The father’s beat the kids
every year until we didn’t and then we quit. (laughter)
A: That sounds right. Why should we humiliate ourselves?
P: We haven’t talked about Red Rock Crossing.
A: Oh yah. That was the week (in 1968) of the Democratic convention. We listened to it on the
radio.
P: We went there a number of times. You led us to that place. My memory is that we used to
go at the end of August. The Arizona schools started a week earlier than the Los Angeles
schools where our kids were so that meant that all the prize camp sites were open and we could
get the pick of the best. We’d move in and set up a regular village. The Leas’ were there, the
Johnsons were there, the Lasswells were there.(I don’t remember the Lasswells there, but do
remember the Mawsons the year we went – still have some photos)
A: I remember when Leas got appointed to head COMMIT that he had a COMMIT handbook or
something with him and I remember him sitting under a tree by the creek while other stuff was
going on over here, he was over there trying to get a fix on his new thing.
A: I’d forgotten that we went there a number of times. Thompson rescued a kid from drowning.
We were over here and he had been monitoring the inner tube thing, floating down the river.
And I think the kid he rescued was from another family, not our group.
P: I remember taking a big bunch of kids on a hike up on those big rocks over on the east side of
the creek and it got dark before we got back. It was dangerous enough in the bright sunlight but
in the dark it was treacherous. I felt so stupid. Here I was being the adult in this--I sometime
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 21

had trouble with that--having these kids with me and we were all scared because there were big
cliffs you could fall off of. But we got back alright.
And there was another time. Jim Johnson remembers this too. (2:07:28) Somehow part
of our group drove around and came into Red Rock Crossing from the east side. Our regular
camp site was on the west side. We thought we’d be able to walk across like we usually did.
But there’d been a rain and the creek was a torrent and unsafe for crossing. All the food was on
the west side and your family and mine, I think, were in that group on the east side. We were
hungry and there wasn’t any place in the back country that we came through to get food. and it
was a two hour drive around to the other side. So we had to build something to get some of that
food across. You used to say, at some tough spot on our camping trips, we had to “make do.” I
think you were the architect of this thing, a kind of pulley attached to one of the trees on the west
side. There were no trees on the east side. Somebody threw a rock across the creek with a line
attached to it. Then we pulled a rope across attached to the line and eventually we transported a
basket with food in it. That was a great adventure.(I had forgotten this, but do remember it
too. Also remember some horses in our camp site and Al was very friendly with them.)
A: I don’t remember that. I should.
P: One of my favorite stories with kids from one of those camping trips was about Robby and
Glenn, the Leas kids, one from each side of their blended family, were about the same age and
about the same height, maybe two or three years old. We were sitting, a bunch of us, up on the
camp site that Genie and I were set up on. Glenn and Robby walked toward each other along a
path just below us. Glenn had a metal drinking cup. And they talked gibberish to each other
with great intensity, first one then the other. It was so funny. Then Glenn, with the cup, reached
over the bonked Robby on top of the head. Klank! And they turned and walked away. (laughter)
I always wondered what had transpired there.
A: Those were good times and with good friends.
P: In my conversation with the Leas’ I said that I’ve been thinking recently that this group was a
confirmation class for me. I didn’t know at that time what the hell ministry was all about. I
didn’t grow up in the church. I went to seminary but you don’t learn how to be a minister in
seminary--you study Old and New Testament, Church History, Theology, etc. So I was kind of
making it up as I went along. And this group formed and shaped me in a lot of ways. What
became my theology, what was the relevant theological stance to take in relationship to the world
around you and that you bring something that isn’t of that world and that challenges that world
and on behalf of that you take risks. It’s not about career building. It’s about doing what needs
to be done at a particular period of time because the Gospel requires it. I feel like we all did that
for each other and we all understood that. I didn’t understand that coming into it. My hunch is
that we all changed in the midst of that. The intensity of that was high and the courage we gave
each other to go out into the world and to our jobs--to the campus, or to Pacoima, or
Morningside--and doing what needed to be done at that time. I mean, the stories are really
amazing. Bill Moremen told the story about a young man who was resisting the draft and the
FBI was after him. When they were closing in on him he went to where he hoped he’d find
sanctuary, the Western Knoll Church. Many of the ministers in the area came and chained
themselves together with this kid at the altar of the church. And the armed authorities entered
with big chain cutters. Morrie Samuels, the Episcopal priest we worked with, said to them as an
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 22

announcement, “This is God’s house,” which didn’t impress the police at all. they cut the chains
and hauled the kid off. Where the hell does that come from, that willingness to do such a thing?
...
P: So we can see some small evidence of change that we were working on.
A: It all would have happened sooner or later. But I think it’s not unfair to trace it through those
years (2:26:53)
...
P: We took up the issues of our time. What I’m trying to figure out is whether you can make the
case that, because we were such pains in the ass to the conference and to the national church that
we helped the church understand that it was a natural part of our common life lived under the
gospel to take up these things and to wrestle with them and to end up taking stands.
A: Here we’ve had this whole conversation and we haven’t even mentioned the word
environment.
P: How could we have done that? Talk about that.
A: Well, “Silent Spring” came out in ‘65(it actually was ’62)--Rachel Carson, “Earth Day” was
in ’70 I think, in ’71 we had the Joint Ecology Task Force of the UCC conference and the DOC
regional office. They each gave us $250 so we had a budget of $500. That was pretty good for
an upstart organization. And then there followed a flood of proposals at the annual meeting on
population and nuclear power. So another thing that we were raising between ’65 and ’75 was
the whole environment as an issue. We were never too successful with the national office on that
because the peace and justice people had too strong a grip on policy.
P: And on race.
A: Yes, race too. But there was one breakthrough thing. The Commission for Racial Justice of
the UCC did a study on toxic water that was seminal! It was national and it was very important.
That was a breakthrough. Everybody at the United Nations who was concerned about the
environment knew about that study and knew that the United Church of Christ had done it. That
should be remembered as part of the scene.
P: And you gave major passion and leadership to that.
A: Yah. That was my big item--in addition to all the other stuff we’ve talked about.
P: How come that has been your major passion? How did you get there? Some conversion?
A: I was a boy scout and I went camping. It just seemed just so entirely logical to me. I can’t
figure out why everybody isn’t an ecology freak. I don’t know why not. One of the things I can
remember at school, I don’t know how old I was, was of drawing diagrams for days at a time
trying to figure out the pattern. Here I was taking English and math and Latin, and this year
chemistry. What does all this have to do with each other. I spent a lot of time trying to hold that
together in a piece. John Cobb talks about the sin of the university that’s divided all this stuff
THP Al Cohen 7/25/09 page 23

one from the another. Nobody gives a damn if you see it as an integrated whole. So I guess I’ve
always had this holistic pattern. I want things to fit together. That’s what the environment is all
about.
P: Do you have any sense of accomplishment in your work in that area?
A: Well, I think one was Don Clark and the Network for Economic and Environmental
Responsibility (NEER)--named by Ted Horvath. Remember him, he worked for the Stewardship
Council. We had members in every conference. That was successful organizing, I think. We
brought resolutions to the Synod. We worked with the World Board and the Homeland Board.
Both Susan Peacock and Charles McCullough were open to us. That was progress.
Well, I have to--have you ever been in this garage? I’ll show you what I’ve got.

Although I had read Silent Spring too, Al was my intro to ecology at the local level. I went
to one of the small group conferences he organized. I think he was an inspiration, and a
prod, for all of us to become aware and active.