The Black Caucus in Congress had boycotted President Nixon's 1971 State of the Union address, after a confrontation the year before in which the President had declined to implement the Caucus's list of sixty proposals. Mr. Dellums was not in Congress when the initial list was presented, but he had since become a leading member of the Caucus. Where this show fails as conversation it nonetheless succeeds as an encapsulation of a moment in our political history. RD: "We don't see ourselves as being party loyalists. The problems that confront blacks and browns and reds and yellows and poor people and women and young people in this country go far beyond partisan politics. I don't see myself in the United States Congress as being loyal to the Democratic Party. I'd like to hope that I have enough integrity and enough courage to be loyal to people in this country who desperately need to have their problems solved."