The committee meetings are held behind guarded doors, but it is impossible to keep that many congressmen from talk- ing afterward. I learned by the grapevine that the committee had met and assigned me to the Agriculture Committee. Gilbert assured me he had tried to get me a better assignment, but other members confided that he hadn't tried very hard. The Agriculture Committee sounded like a ridiculous assignment for a black member from one of the country's most deprived city neighborhoods, but as a matter of fact it might not have been completely out of line.
