interview him before his work and before it was scheduled i got a call from his lifelong assistant peggy roach. she told me he had been hospitalized that very day. i was completely distraught over the possibility that it was now too late to speak to eagan. but jack eagan being jack eagan at 7:30 the next morning was jack eagan. he said you need to speak to jack mcnamara. and he explained, you know, quickly to me after my father and he and the jesuit seminarian had picked up the struggles about contract. with that eagan got off the phone. i never spoke to him again. he passed away later that spring. now, a few days after that morning's discussion and i called jack mcnamara. he told me in 1967 he had helped launch a group called the contract buyers league. he said that the group, which was based in my father's old neighborhood of lawndale, grew to encompass 3,000 african-american families that had purchased homes on contract. led by several african-american buyers and also four migrants and -- migrants in the south and that's significant because one of the -- one of the excuses that people used