Aaron / Local Black Power Organizations
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Interviewer: You mentioned that some of the programs served the People’s Party Two. You had a clothing programs and free breakfast. How did you get clothes and food to feed the community? Aaron: We would get people to donate them. People would donate them. We would solicit businesses in the neighborhood. We would go around and ask them—we would tell them they were in the community, making money in the community, and you ought to give something back. Some of them did it out of the kindness of their heart and some of them did it out of fear. For fear of being retaliated against. Whatever reason they did it, this is how we got it? Interviewer: What were some of the businesses that would help you? Aaron: A lot of the stores in the neighborhood. We would go to all the stores in the neighborhood. All the little mom and pop stores, the big stores, and solicit, especially for the breakfast program because we had to feed these kids every morning and we didn’t have no money. A lot of us were young and all and we didn’t have no jobs because our work every day was in the party. So, we depended on contributions. We would go to all the stores in the neighborhood and we’d ask them for a monetary contribution. If you ain’t got no money, give us a dozen eggs or a loaf of bread or a gallon milk. Going around to all these stores, we would collect enough to have a breakfast program. (inaudible) That’s how we did it. Interviewer: So you were approaching a lot of the black-owned businesses? Aaron: We would go to all businesses. There wasn’t enough black-owned businesses to support the program. We would go to all businesses. Bar none. In fact, we had a daily program. Some of us would go sell newspapers and some of us would go solicit businesses on a daily basis. That’s how we was able to run them programs on donations.