Martin Sheen kicked off his career as an activist by staging a caddy strike at his local country club when he was just 14. The West Wing star lost his first job at the all-white country club in Dayton, Ohio after proving to be a troublemaker.He recalls, "Today it would be considered child labour or child abuse, toting bags for these people - and this club was racist."They were anti-Semitic and they thought of themselves as upholding the pillars of the community. They were doctors and lawyers but we were servants. They used words that I found embarrassing and obscene."To this day I won't use the 'F' word because they used it and I didn't want to be like them. To this day, I can't belong to a private club because the first black man I saw hit a golf club was Joe Louis and he wasn't allowed to play at private clubs."All of this led to me starting a caddy union. When I was 14 years old they went out on strike and it lasted 48 hours so they fired me."


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