Mr. Shanker's union had gone on strike against the New York City public schools and stayed out most of the fall of 1968. The dispute had begun with, as WFB puts it, "an explosive disagreement between [Mr. Shanker] and the superintendent of a school complex in an area predominantly Negro and Puerto Rican," the main issue being "community control," which various minority groups saw as necessary for their own "empowerment" and which Mr. Shanker saw as directed against his teachers. AS: "Well, I think that a decision has been made, and I think it's been made by the Mayor, I think it's been made by the Ford Foundation, I think it's been made by high executives in businesses, I think it's been made by some liberal reformers, a decision [in favor of] ... community control. The liberals do it perhaps out of a sense of guilt--black people have been slaves and persecuted for years, now let's give them something."