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attack at one of the AFL-CIO council meetings in this period when the NALC was coming into being?

Yes I do. I recall Phil telling me, and maybe others, about it with humor. George Meany said, “Who appointed you to speak for the Negroes?” Which didn't stop Phil. Meany couldn't understand--or pretended that he couldn't understand--the issues that Phil Randolph would raise in terms of race and the American labor movement. I think he apologized for it later.

Did you ever hear A. Philip Randolph say, or somebody quoting him as saying, that his response to George Meany (if not immediate his response at some time) was “Because I'm the only one here.”

Yes, I think I heard heard that. I think he think he made that response in his usual Harvard-type style, inflection. But it's interesting (going again on the basis of recall) when he told us about that face-to-face, he told it with humor as an indication of the limitation of Meany. I don't recall his telling it with any kind of bitterness. Meany, on this issue, just seemed to me to have been a very limited man.

Of course his own union, the plumber's union, was wholly white was it not?

Sure.