Great story of people getting to see the better sides of each other. My favorite for decades has been from a Bill Moyers' book.
Franchot “Fran“ Buhler was one of the most inspiring people Bill Moyers described in his book “Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country” He accomplished most by doing what seemed the least.
Great story of people getting to see the better sides of each other. My favorite for decades has been from a Bill Moyers' book.
Franchot “Fran“ Buhler was one of the most inspiring people Bill Moyers described in his book “Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country” He accomplished most by doing what seemed the least.
“…Although Fran served in full time ministry for over two decades as the Associate Pastor/Director of Ministry at First Baptist Church Tallahassee, he was a ministry leader his entire life. His life's mission of "recycling human potential from the field of broken dreams" is woven through his every professional opportunity and personal experience. Fran mentored returning Peace Corp volunteers in Transition Centers and directed a national municipal task force of mayors for the National League of Cities and US Conference of Mayors. He was called a "national asset" by a former White House Press Secretary for launching a transformative community development project in a South Carolina community of 1,100 people in the heated civil rights era of the late 1960's…”
If you get a chance to read Bill Moyers "Listening to America" (which I have a treasured signed copy of) look for the part at the end about his frustration trying to interview Fran Buhler, a community organizer hired by the President of Wellman Industries in Johnsonville South Carolina. Buhler almost never spoke, and always had a way of listening, waiting for anyone and everyone else to talk. Moyers found the secret to his success was more due to opening a community center and getting the wives of Black and White workers to volunteer to make curtains and do other little things to prepare it for the start of the "real" community organizing meetings.
The women had casually come together (with subtle request to each individually as he gathered more helpers), with light enough work that they could talk to people they had never talked to before, forming friendships and eventually getting their husbands to come along. Buhler seemed a "poor" organizer, mostly "wasting" a lot of time during which the men started discussing what they thought the problems were. Buhler never seemed to offer any solutions, instead asking them to discuss what they thought would work. The man who hired him, Wellman, wouldn't offer solutions either, though he did tell his managers that they had to build their homes well distributed in the communities of their workers. They didn't offer solutions either, but did live among them and mingle enough to know what their concerns were. The community members "gave up" on waiting for solutions from the "organizer" or company management, and implemented all their own best solutions.
The book reveals a lot of problems the country was going through back then (1970) and many of the issues were not resolved well if at all, but Johnsonville did a far more acceptable job of allowing people to improve their lives more realistically and peacefully through 4 decades of Wellman's life, keeping an company and the community viable when so many others left that were more loyal to the industries than the industries were to their communities.
Wellman could easily have made far more money moving to Mexico but he seemed a great answer to my daughter's favorite question, "Is he rich or does he just have money"?
Great story of people getting to see the better sides of each other. My favorite for decades has been from a Bill Moyers' book.
Franchot “Fran“ Buhler was one of the most inspiring people Bill Moyers described in his book “Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country” He accomplished most by doing what seemed the least.
For a bit on the modest Fran Buhler besides what Moyers describes in his book, see: https://www.tallahassee.com/obituaries/tad058120
“…Although Fran served in full time ministry for over two decades as the Associate Pastor/Director of Ministry at First Baptist Church Tallahassee, he was a ministry leader his entire life. His life's mission of "recycling human potential from the field of broken dreams" is woven through his every professional opportunity and personal experience. Fran mentored returning Peace Corp volunteers in Transition Centers and directed a national municipal task force of mayors for the National League of Cities and US Conference of Mayors. He was called a "national asset" by a former White House Press Secretary for launching a transformative community development project in a South Carolina community of 1,100 people in the heated civil rights era of the late 1960's…”
If you get a chance to read Bill Moyers "Listening to America" (which I have a treasured signed copy of) look for the part at the end about his frustration trying to interview Fran Buhler, a community organizer hired by the President of Wellman Industries in Johnsonville South Carolina. Buhler almost never spoke, and always had a way of listening, waiting for anyone and everyone else to talk. Moyers found the secret to his success was more due to opening a community center and getting the wives of Black and White workers to volunteer to make curtains and do other little things to prepare it for the start of the "real" community organizing meetings.
The women had casually come together (with subtle request to each individually as he gathered more helpers), with light enough work that they could talk to people they had never talked to before, forming friendships and eventually getting their husbands to come along. Buhler seemed a "poor" organizer, mostly "wasting" a lot of time during which the men started discussing what they thought the problems were. Buhler never seemed to offer any solutions, instead asking them to discuss what they thought would work. The man who hired him, Wellman, wouldn't offer solutions either, though he did tell his managers that they had to build their homes well distributed in the communities of their workers. They didn't offer solutions either, but did live among them and mingle enough to know what their concerns were. The community members "gave up" on waiting for solutions from the "organizer" or company management, and implemented all their own best solutions.
The book reveals a lot of problems the country was going through back then (1970) and many of the issues were not resolved well if at all, but Johnsonville did a far more acceptable job of allowing people to improve their lives more realistically and peacefully through 4 decades of Wellman's life, keeping an company and the community viable when so many others left that were more loyal to the industries than the industries were to their communities.
Wellman could easily have made far more money moving to Mexico but he seemed a great answer to my daughter's favorite question, "Is he rich or does he just have money"?