 In 1968, he was entrusted with leadership of the Greater Dallas Council of Churches and then the Community Relations Commission, both of which pushed him into the center of local race relations.In 1971 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that students could be bused in order to achieve racial desegregation, and after a compelling presentation by a group of young, minority men known as the “Dirty Dozen,” the Chamber of Commerce established a small Urban Affairs Office.The Urban Affairs Committee guided the Chamber's urban program which set about trying to address problems identified by the Dirty Dozen.