This is THE REAL STORY about how Abe and Magdaleno met.

Abe and David Stamps had driven down to Atlanta to be there for the final two days of the "Lighting the Torch of Conscience" march from Florida's death row at Starke, FL to the grave site of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta. We arrived in the evening and went to a hotel. In the morning we went to the Amnesty office and soon found ourselves sitting in front of the desk of Magdaleno M. Rose-Avila, who was on the phone. When he hung up, his exact words were, "Great! Where am I going to find a Jew at this late date?" Abe replied, "I'm Jewish, what do you need?" The Rabbi who was to speak that evening had called to cancle.


Abe got the gig, having no idea that he would later that evening speak from the pulpit of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as one of several dozen speakers, some of whom were major national figures. The agenda was that big shots had five minutes, lesser known people had 3 minutes. Some of the big shots took much more that their allotted time. Abe started getting the "TIME" note when he got past seven minutes.....

And THAT began a long friendship between Abe and Magdaleno. Here is a photo of the two of them after they coordinated the first major El Die De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration at the grave site of Cesar E. Chavez.

AND, just to settle this matter once and for all, here is the eye witness testimony:

David Stamps Wrote:

Dear Abe and Magdaleno,

I can't say that I was the only other person in the room at the time, but I was there.

My recollection was that Leni said something like, "Great, the Rabbi just cancelled, where am I going to find another Jew at this late hour? And he looked up and there were the two of us, "reporting for duty."

I think Abe did say something like, "I'm a jew" without realizing what was actually happening.

As far as running over time, I don't know. I do remember that Abe started his speech by putting on his skull cap (yarmulke?) and did a nice job. Heck, most of those shindigs runs overtime.

My memory of the event also included standing on the steps of the church talking to Roy Scheider - which was fun because I had seen "2010" about a week before.

So the discourse is about evening or morning - I think it was morning, but I am not sure.

The main thing, it seems to me, is that you both owe me for introducing you to each other because you clearly have a wonderful friendship and have enriched each others' lives.

And as Yogi Berra said: "History ain't what it used to be."

Best to both of you,

David Stamps

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