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In my college years, I worked as a union labor organizer. I was just one of the many workers trying to do my part to help the community.

My father was a meat worker. He was a union organizer in the meat workers union.

My father was a member of the Teamsters Union in California, where he helped to organize better health care for workers. My mother worked for more than 20 years on an assembly line.

Back in early 1983, my dad was tasked with keeping unions from organizing in his company's distribution centers. His work pulled him away from home for months on end.

I was a young man working in Omaha, Nebraska, in the mid-1960s when I received a call, and I was summoned to Atlanta to work at WSB. It was, for me, the beginning of a real education about the South.

I was a blueberry picker, bindery worker, bookstore clerk and later manager, and a Realtor.

When I was growing up, I was regularly involved in local activities such as food collections, food kitchens, and other initiatives.

My first job out of college was six weeks of picking fruit alongside a dozen or so men from Mexico. The orchard was in Emmett, Idaho. The men spent almost nothing on themselves. Their paychecks went directly to their families back home.

My mother was a teacher, my father was a community organizer. I come from a working class background.