THE CRISIS AN INSPIRING GIFT Founded 1910 REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. FOR .A YOUNG A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES Editor: James W. Ivy Editorial Advisory Board: Lewis S. Gannett, Arthur B. Spingarn, AMERICAN Sterling A. Brown, Carl Murphy Vol. 65, No. 5 Whole Number 553 A JUNIO R LIFE MEMBERSHIP IN THIS ISSUE Ma y, 1958 COVER IN THE NAACP available to boys Mrs. Lorenza Tucker, who graduated from the Music and Arts High School in New York City and then received her B. A. and M. A. in musicology from Hunter College, now teaches in public school No. 103 and . girls 12 years old and younger in Manhattan. Mrs. Tucker, who lives in Jamaica, is a member of the Amato Opera Company and plans to become a concert singer.-Cecil Layne Photo. The love of freedom and brotherhood grow easily in a COMME T 0 FRA K LEE'S ARTICLE-By John A. Morsel/ .. . 261 child's heart ... when it is carefully nurtured and en 1 E COURAGEOUS STUDE TS-By Clarence A. Laws ...... 267 couraged. A Junior Life Membership in the NAACP will URBAN EGRO AND URBA JEW- By Dennis Clark 275 be invaluable in developing any child's awareness and respo nsibility in the struggle for human rights. Junior DEPARTMEN TS Life Memberships cost but $100. A meaningful and LOOK! G AND LISTENING ...... 290 impressive gift for your child, grandchild, godchild, ALONG THE NAACP BATTLEFRONT ...... 300 stepchild, niece, nephew .. . any youngster you love. BRANCH NEWS ...... 303 COLLEGE AND SCHOOL NEWS ...... 310
I WISH TO ENROLL THIS CHIL D AS A LI FE MEMBER BOOK REVLEWS ...... 314 OF NAACP. THE CRISIS wa3 founded in 1910 and is the official organ of the National Association for Child's Nome ...... - ...... _ ...... - ...... ·--...... _ tire Advancement of Colored People. THE CRISIS is published nwnth/y from October to May N.A.A.C.P. inc/ruive and bimonthly J-une·Iuly and August-September by Tire Crisis Pub/is/ring Co., Inc., C! 1ld's Address ...... at 20 West 40th Strut. New York 18, N.Y. Roy Wilkins, assistant secretary. The subscription 20 West 40th Street Price is $1.50 a year or IS cents a copy. Foreign S'Ubscriptio,. $1.75. The dale of upiration of each subscription is printed Ot> the wrapper. When the subscription is due a blue renewal blank I enclose check for $1 00 is nrc/osed. The address of a subscription may be changed as often as desired, but bot/• tire old New York 18, N. Y. and trew addrns must be given and three weeks notice is necessary. Manuscripts and drawings My Nome ...... re/atin_g to colored people are desired. Tirey must be accompanied by retum postage, and while Tna CRJSIS uses every care, it assu,.es tro responsibility for their safety in transit. Ree11tered My Address ...... as secOtrd class matter July 22, 1949, at the post office at New York, N. Y., under the act of ·--·---.,..--·- March 3, 1879. City and Stole ...... The contents of TuE Carsrs are copyrighted. Copyright 1958 by Tire Crisis Publishing ---·-··.. · ·---·-· Co•upqny, Inc. All rights reserved. 113
MAY, 1958 259 • The author exposes the inaccuracies and fallacies in Mr. lee's article, which appeared in the April Crisi•
Comment on Frank F. Lee's "Changing Structure of Negro Leadership"
By John A . Morse-11
HE article "Changing Struc eluding that portion of it furnished ture of Negro Leadership," by by the NAACP, may not be legiti T Frank F. Lee, which appeared mate object of informed criticism. in the April Crisis, calls for more ex In its essentials, Lee's thesis is that tended comment than it could com the traditional leadership elements of mand purely on its merits. It is a the Negro community (typically curious hodgepodge of inaccuracies, clergymen and teachers) are losing omissions, and logical distortions, their predominant influence, or are and ordinarily one would be content at least being forced to share it with simply to say so, citing perhaps one other elements. In view of the de or two of the more flagrant samples. monstrable evidence of change in re But the article was published in the lated aspects of community structure, official organ of the NAACP, and in resulting in part from expanded op such a way as to make it quite pos portunity and broader political aware sible for readers to assume that it ness, the likelihood of change in lead represented in some measure the ership patterns can readil y be con views of the Association. Since the ceded. The qu arrel is with Lee's article doe not, by any stretch of the conclusions as to why this is so, with imagination, reflect NAACP assess what be regards as supporting evi ment of its leadership needs, this dence, and with the implications he JUDGE CARL R. JOHNSON, president of the Kansas City, Missouri, branch, must be made plain, together with the draws therefrom. presents an NAACP life membership plaque to Dr. John W. Williams (R), pastor reasons. To say this obviously does Among these implications. he bears of St. Stephen Baptist church in Kansas City, at a morning service in the church. not mean that Negro leadership, in- down hardest on a re-hash of the More than 2,000 members of Rev. William's congregation witnessed the event in what is believed to be the largest Baptist church in this area. St. Stephen has timeworn charge that the "bourgeois" more than 4,000 members. DR. JOHN A. MORSELL is assistant to character of NAACP leadership un the executive secretary of the NAACP. fit s it for a role at the head of the
260 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 261 resurgent "masses." He undertakes to ing the word in quotes. Mrs. Parks IIOYCOn AND COMMUNITY STRUCTURE tion by the NAACP keeps protest prove this by a discussion of the is admittedly not aggressive in ap The fact is that the boycott fitted alive. NAACP's activity in two well-known pearance or demeanor, but she was into and was both conditioned and Nevertheless, under direct stimula anti-segregation efforts: Clarendon the secretary of the NAACP branch abetted by the organizational struc tion from national headquarters, County, S. C., and Montgomery, in Montgomery and was known as a ture of the Montgomery Negro com NAACP branchc~ throughout the Alabama. person of independent mind and firm munity: most notably its churches, country, alone a1ad in concert with The pertinence of either compari principles. but also its social and business group others, raised thousands of dollars son or contrast betwen the school I do not know whether Lee made ings. All these elements combined to for the support of the protest. On segregation case in Clarendon Coun personal inquiries on the spot, but produce what was one of the most June 1, 1956, halfway through the ty and the bus boycott in Montgom his air of intimate familiarity with effective aspects of the boycott: the boycott, the NAACP was placed un ery is not clear. Both were attempts the inner motivations of the leading collaborative and resilient network der a rigid injunction by the Ala to eliminate some aspect of racial figures in these events wou ld be jus which operated the car-pool in so bama courts, and was forbidden to injustice, but 1they otherwise bad in tifiable only on that basis, if at all. successful a fashion. Inded, it might engage in any ktnd of activity what common only the fact that each In any case, it is thoroughly inac also be stipulated that such move soever in that State. This order was sought initially to improve on seg curate to allege that "in the early ments are destined to fail precisely scrupulously obse:rved from the day regation and subsequently became an days of the boycott leadership arose where these basic structural ingredi it was handed down, although it has attack on seg:regation itself. Lee's outside the traditional power struc ents are lacking. been attacked in the United States Supreme Court, which has sWl to analysis of th'e two situations does ture of the Negro community." Lee No evidence is offered for the flat is here speaking chiefly of E. D. rule at this writing. The order did nothing to make the juxtaposition assertions that ( 1) "there was little more understandable. Nixon, to whom he insists on refer not apply to the NAACP Legal De communication or cooperation be fense and Educational Fund, Inc., ring mysteriously as "the union or tween the NAACP and Montgomery ganizer." through whose r,esources the litiga MONTGCIMERY SITUATION Negroes," and that (2) "this was be But Nixon, leader in Alabama of tion was conductc~d which finally re cause of the organization's unwilling In the Montgomery situation, there the Brotherhood of Pullman Porters, sulted in the ending of bus segrega ness to participate in boycott-type is no question of the widespread and had also been president of the State tion as a violation of the Fourteenth situations out of fear of white retalia intense readim:ss of the Negro com Conference of NAACP branches. He Amendment. tion." But then, no evidence could munity for a protest against intoler had a lifelong record of activity with be given, since neither statement is CLARENDON COUNTY CASE able conditions on the city's buses. in the organizational structure of the true. These conditions were notoriously Negro community and had run for Lee's discussion of Clarendon distasteful and onerous, and had pro public office. By no stretch of the The original demand of the boy County is no more satisfactory than duced a lengthy series of unpleasant imagination could he then or now be cotters was for modification of the was the case with Montgomery. Both incidents over a period of years; the regarded as "outside the traditional excesses of the segregated seating sys the local and the national leadership often-predicted! reaction finally came. power structure" except in an analy tem, including a "first-come-first of the NAACP regarded the exist Whether this c~ntitles the boycott to sis carried through in terms of text served" arrangement; but not for ence of a firm base of local Negro be termed "largely non-directed and book definitions remote from reality elimination of the jim-crow pattern support for the Briggs litigation as a spontaneous" would seem to stretch and substance. itself. This obviously lent a direction vital element in ·the conduct of the the meaning of those terms beyond (Parenthetically, the alleged "ma to the protest which at first made case. It could hardly be otherwise on all reason. neuvering" of the Rev. Martin Luther enthusiastic endorsement by the purely practical grounds, in view of There seems, no reason to question King, Jr., into leadership of the boy NAACP difficult. Of greater import the severe and continuous pressures Mrs. Rosa Parks's own explanation cott may be construed as highly com ance was the strategic value of keep to which litigants were subjected by of her sudden decision to ignore the plimentary both to the qualities of ing the truly indigenous character of their white neighbors. A number of bus driver's order to give up her the chosen candidate and to the or the movement well to the fore at all the original plaintiffs withdrew un seat: namely, that she f~lt suddenly ganizational capacities of Mr. Nixon. times. For Montgomery provided the der this pressure, and only a firm de "fed up" with the whole business. I do not know whether Lee intended clearest refutation yet of the myth votion by the remainder to the prin Even more incomprehensible is Lee's such a construction, but it is the one that Southern Negroes prefer segre ciple involved could have maintained calling her arrest accidental and plac- I prefer.) gation and that only artificial agita- a cause of action.
262 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 263 To interpret the leadership's care General, and with counsel for the de ful weighing of all the factors, in fendant Southern states. It was pat bad there been but a single case. The knows we do have some!) in the cluding the quality of local sentiment, ently the prime consideration affect problem of extending the application NAACP are manifested by its lack as foot-dragging spurred on by the ing the manner of implementation of Brown v. Topeka Board of Edu of "alternate methods of protest" once insistent clamor of the rank-and-file ultimately decreed by the Court. The cation throughout the South would the legal victories were won. Protest is the veriest distortion. Nor does it present entrenched level of defi ance have been with us had there never is a continuing imperative for the detract from the genuine interest was not, however, envisioned- not been a Briggs v. Elliott. NAACP, but it has been a long time which the case held for Negroes gen since the needs of the fight for full even by the harde t-core diehards. In NAACP LEADERSHIP FUNCTION erally to question the evidence for the months immediately following the citizenship could be adequately, or Lee's statement th at "the case . . . decision, strongly segregationist news I should be the last person in the even partially, served by a concentra attracted strong support from the Ne papers, including at least one in Mis world to claim perfection for tion on "protest." Even the legal ac gro masses." (How does one go about sissippi, indicated that grudging ac NAACP leadership and planning. Un tions themselves were not planned as determining how "the masses" feel, ceptance would be the probable der the constant pressure of events protest, but as a means of bringing anyway? And, what kind of support? pattern, with less rather than more and the stringency of limited re about those social changes which In the same way, I suppose, that one speed in certain areas. The solidiJica sources, far too much of the NAACP could appropriately and feasibly be "knows" that Clarendon County tion of the present resistance owes at program perforce represents ad hoc attained via the legal route. showed " the extent to which the least as much to the year's delay in improvisation. But it is again entirely Similarly, the legislative approach rank and file could make their wishes implementation and to the govern incorrect to say that the NAACP has been assiduously pursued for felt and compel obedience to them .") mental vacuum which has persisted "was not organized to prepare for the those objectives best sought via legis Nowhere in his article is Lee so since then, as it does to the intensity eventuality of victory," that it "ne lation. And there bas never been a ludicrously off the mark as in his of pro-segregation sentiment itself. glected to plan for the post-victory slackening in the effort-slowest and oddly self-contradictory criticism of The cream of the jest, however, is period," and that "it ignored the con hardest and costliest of aJI- to bring the NAACP's handling of Briggs v. seen in Lee's contrast of the Clar sequences and possible results of pos about modifications in attitudes and Elliott, once the case has been shoved endon County "mishandling" with sible victory." opinions, to desegregate men's hearts down its unwilling throat by the "the current decisions made by the A detailed blueprint for action by and minds. In short, the NAACP has aroused Negro proletariat. In a startl NAACP in selecting the other four local Negro communities desiring to been, and must increasingly be, an ing echo of the current White Citi cases (Delaware, Kansas, Virginia, be rid of segregated education was instrument for social change as well zens Counci l line, he accuses the and District of Columbia) that the almost immediately forthcoming, rep as a vehicle for protest. NAACP of recklessly disregarding Supreme Court considered at the resenting much careful thought and The confused preoccupation with the foreseeable sti ffness of resistance same time." Aside from the fact that discussion in the months preceding failures of "communication" be by the heavil y outnumbered, strongly Bolling v. Sharpe, from the District the decision. Southwide conferences tween leaders and followers or with rural whites of Clarendon County. of Columbia, was not an NAACP on implementation yielded decisions misdirections of communication "up H is phrase, "blinded by its past suc case, how can Lee reconcile his judg on strategy and tactics to deal with a down" and "down-up" which runs cesses" has become almost a stock ment with the fact that Prince Ed variety of situations. Negotiation, co through so much of Lee's comment phrase among Southern defenders of ward County, Ya., with the same operation, compromise, were the ap eventually comes up short against segregation when referring to the characteri tic , is no nearer integra proaches of choice, wi th the lawsuit what we are reluctantly forced to as NAACP, and in the arne context. tion than i Clarendon County, S. C. only a fin al resort. There was no sume is his basic position in this naive assumption of an easy road; the matter. The expo ure comes when RESISTANCE WAS ANTICIPATED -and for precisely the same reasons? That is, the District Court has not leaders, if closely polled, would have he expresse regret that "the NAACP On the contrary, it was a sumed yet set a date for integration. If ben inclined to agree with Justice bas not been able to orient and or that there would be difficulties in se AACP judgment was right in one Jackson's prophetic e timate of "a ganize the Negro masses into a co curing compliance; bi tter resistance instance, why was it not right in the generation of litigation." herent framework which it Call con was anticipated in some instances. other? The misconceptions primarily re trol." ( Italics ours.) It is to be hoped This pre entiment was hared with As a matter of fact, so far as sponsible for Lee's extravagantly er that Lee will chao e to disavow so the Ju tices of the United States Su choice of terrain is concerned, the roneou conclusions are perhaps most essentially totalitarian a goal. It is preme Court, wi th the U. S. Attorney principle could have been enunciated pointedly revealed in his observation certainly the last thing in the worfd that "structural flaws" (and Heaven to which the NAACP would aspire. 264 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 265 • This piece tells of the o rdeol faced by the nine Negro students at the Central High School, l ittle Rock
Nine Courageous Students*
By Clarence A . Laws
INVITE you to consider the students, Minnijean Brown, must Little Rock school crisis and have quickly dispelled any such idea. I what you can do about it. It I could tell you what has hap is your problem, too, you know. I pened to Minnijean Brown and the should like also to touch upon the other eight students since September. fight against the NAACP in the However, I think you might find South and to indicate our respon it more interesting to pretend for a sibility here, likewise. few minutes that you yourselves are During the month of September Negro students at Central High at 19 57, you, like law abiding citizens Little Rock, Arkansas. everywhere, must have been shocked by the naked defiance of law and As a Negro student you have a the total disregard of human rights right to attend Central High by vir by Arkansas' Governor Orval E. tue of (1) the U. S. Supreme Court decision of May 17, 1954, outlawing Faubus and the unrestrained mobs at Little Rock. segregation in public education, (2) With the advent of federal troops the implementing decision of May 31, 1955, (3) an anemic integration and almost total blackout of news plan of the Little Rock school dis from Little Rock on the Central trict - a plan opposed by the High School situation you no doubt NAACP but sustained by the courts, felt that all was going well with the and ( 4) you are one of some 200 Cr4tlf/ord nine courageous students who are Negro high school students who live enrolled at the school. Of course AITORNEY EARL B. DICKERSON (L) of Chicago, Illinois, a member of the in the attendance area served by NAACP national board, was one of the planners of the Cleveland, Ohio, branch the incidents involving one of the membership campaign. Pictured with Attorney Dickerson are Dr. James E. Levy, Central High School. You represent elected branch president for the fifth consecutive time, and Dr. N. K. Christopher • Originally an address delivered by Mr. Jess than one half of one percent of (R), also an NAACP national board member. Laws, NAACP field seeretary at Colorado the school enrollment, or 9 to 1900 Springs, Colorado, State Conierence public meeting on March 9, 1958. plus.
266 THE CRI SIS MAY, 1958 267 SCHOOL DAY liE GINS tow~d your homeroom through ·the not sit down before scanning it to Or maybe everything will be left in ~oday as every school day you seemmgly endless halls of this 3 000- see if you have had a visitor who tack, who knows? a ~nve at sc.hool between the hour of student capacity school. As y~ do pta'ced a tack on your desk seat or On the "gym" floor there could be e1~ht and ei.ght-thirty. You arrive by so, the impressionable events at Cen smeared it with almost invisible in.ten.tional bumping, pushing, or pnvate vehicle, along with two or ~ 1 High kaleidoscope before you glue. It bas happened before, you tnpptng. Or maybe a half dozen fel more other students like yourself. llke some breath-taking Cinerama. know. As you begin to review the low classmates will decide that it's You do th is for security reasons You see in fleeting moments: Negro lesson for a sub eqeunt class, some your tum to catch the ball. They even though it might be more con ~ s~dents being blocked by the Na boy or girl begins calling you names all throw at you simultaneously. Of venient to go by public conveyance tl on a~ Guard and jeered at by a -unprintable names-and threaten course, to some instructors and stu or even to walk. howling mob as they attempt, with ing you. But you pretend not to bear. dents this is a mere coincidence. You As you leave your automobile out success, to enter school Septem Apparently the teacher does not. know otherwise, for it has happened ?er 4 . . . students being e6corted before. Yet you try to forget it. to ~a l k toward the school, you are ALERT FOR TROUBLE aga1~ struck by its stately beauty mto school through mob blockades The "gym" class is over. You rush but later being forced to withdra~ As you leave for class, someone and 1ts well-kept grounds. What im informs you, casual like: "There is to the shower room. This could be an presses you most, however, is the to safety, September 23 . .. the Pres uneventful day here. Then again ident of the United States acting to ink on your clothes." You know that fact that this school is rated as one someone bas done it again-deliber someone mjght decide to tum on ~f the "top" 33 public high schools restore law and order at Central the bot water in your shower stall, High School, September 24 . . . ately spi lled in k on you. But whi le •n the entire nation. This enviable you may be a seething caldron witlb or to steam up the place and pelt rating is based upon the continuing the lOlst Airborne Division taking you with wet towels. Who knows over and your going to school under in, outwardly you are a picture of high achievement by Central stu calm. You say to yourself. "They'll what thoughts lurk in the minds of dents in national tests. That alone military escort, September 25 . . . those who have been told to tor segregationists staging an unsuccess not have the pleasure of knowing is enough to make the school a they have angered me." ment you until you withdraw from most desirable objective, you think. ful walkout . . . segregationists in school? tensifying harassment against Negro As you walk through the balls The members of the federalized Refreshed, you go to the cafeteria students and whites who are friendly with your bead high, you are alert National Guard who patrolled the for lu nch. You remember the good to them ... the Governor and other to anyone who might try to push, school grounds and balls a few days there, as well as the bad days. politicians keeping the school situ crowd, elbow, kick, or trip you. It weeks ago have been removed, you It is quiet today. If you were Min ation in a state of confusion and happens almost daily; some days recall. As you approach the entrance nijean, before February 20, you re ferment ... school officials refusing many times. When you enter yo;Jr you look deep into the halls to as membered that you dropped a tray to take stern action against those classroom, you take the same pr,e certain if a gang of students is lurk of food on two students when a chair harrass ing Negro students . .. Min cautions which were taken when you ing there. You also survey the win was pushed against your body mak nijean Brown being expelled and went to your seat in your home dows just above the entrance to see room. T he precautions, which a1re ing it impossible for you to move. if there are students bent upon departing for school in New York As Minnijean you would also have . . . the Little Rock school district repeated throughout the day, do nl)t showering you with water or band remembered how two bowls of soup, officials asking the U nited States annoy you very much now. You take lotion. them subconsciously. subsequently, were dumped upon You turn and smile as you wave J?istrict Court for a lay of integra you without provocation. tiOn order . . . encouragement, let Now it's time to go to "gym" to the driver of your car-he still class, which always presents its pie ter . cards, gifts, honors and awards But I should hope you were not waits . . . ju t in case. Then enter culiar hazards. You leave your Minnijean on that day, for if you coming to students, their parents and ing the bui lding you make · straight clothes and books in your locker. were, you would have bad many Mrs. Daisy Bates, their leader, from for your homeroom. You consider it You wonder if you will return to find more unpleasa nt memories to re unusual if there is not a "welcoming people the world over. . . . your locker smashed and your things flect upon. You might remember party'' to revile you with names. All of these school-related events stolen, or merely scattered over the among other things, bow you were Maybe the name callers have moved flash ~rough your mind before you floor. Maybe they will be soaking hit in the face with a rock, bow you into your homeroom, you think. turn mto your homeroom. Briskly wet as a result of water having been were kicked by boys on several oc You wa lk some 350 odd yards you step to your desk, but you do squirted through the locker vents. ca ions. How you were verbally
268 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 269 harassed, in the vilest manner, count roughed up and reviled on October opportunity. That walk would have The failure of the justice depart less times. You would remember 2, and on January 9 you were pushed destined you for history. ment to take action against those how, after rehearsing daily for more down. If you were Gloria Ray, a . To the segregationists, you see, involved in mob violence at the than a month, you were told that you boy was pushed painfully against you are no better or no worse than school in September; could not si ng Christmas carols with you by another on January 21; on Minnijean. If you are a Negro stu dismissal of charges or suspension the Glee Club. This occurred just February 28 your book and pencil dent at Central High School, you of sentences against mob leaders one week before the scheduled event. were stolen and you were spat upon; are automatically marked for mis by the municipal judge; You are a Negro and the school a small nail was driven through a chief. fai lure of the school officials to officials had feared the reaction of block and placed on your seat, point You go through afternoon classes enunciate a fi rm policy regarding the segregationists. But what had up, on March 4. Were you Terrance in the same manner as you did the the behavior pattern of white stu hurt you most was not what the seg Roberts, you were kicked on Oc morning ones. At about 3:45 P.M. dents toward Negroes at Central regationist thought, but what the tober 2; roughed up on December you depart.achool as you came-in High; principal said·when you asked for an 12; and you were hit while in "g~m" your private vehicle - along with explanation as to why you were class on January 10. Were you Jef other students. You know that your the false and inflammatory utter dropped from the Glee Club. Like ferson Thomas, you were kicked on parents, Mrs. Bates, and NAACP ances made by Governor Faubus the playback of a recording, you October 2; knocked down from be officials will be anxious to learn what and other segregationists; hear, as clearly as when you were hind on November 12; and on Feb manner of day you had. You tell the silence of the so-called respon standing before the principal, and ruary 12 you were seized around them. sibile citizens of the community again the words arc equally unbe the neck. If you were Carlotta Walls, After a few minutes of relaxation, on the legal and moral aspects of lievable: "Minnijean, there is still you were kicked by a boy on Feb you begin preparing your homework school segregation; and some differences of opinion between ruary 6; likewise you would have for the following school day. You the apparent feeling on the part of the federal government and the state been tripped and spat upon. Were hope there will be no telephone segregationsists that the students of Arkansas as to your right to be you Thelma Mothershed, you would threats from segregationists to dis will withdraw voluntarily if here. Until this matter is settled, you have had a serious cardiac condition. turb you this evening. They have, enough pressure is exerted upon Negro students may come to class, Nevertheless, you would have been you know, somehow obtained your them. but you will not be allowed to par bumped into and struck too; ink unlisted number. ticipate in extra-curricular activities." would have been spilled on your Today was a tough, tough one, In a petition to the United States District Court on February 20, the dress and you would have been but it's history now. You hope for a DAILY ORDEAL Little Rock School Board listed some verbally abused countless times, as better tomorrow, yet your faith, your of these same reasons in asking that That was it. The principal charged bas every other Negro student at determination, and your proud and the court delay its integration order. that he was misunderstood, but the Central H igh. If you were Eliza unflinching courage will sustain you However, there are many who sus fact remains that you and other Ne beth Eckford, a boy would have hit against the worst. That makes you pect that time will prove that res gro students are still excluded from you with his fist on December 18, know, without being boastful, that ponsible school offici als were the aU non-class activities" This even in and yo u would have been pushed you will be equal to any challenge greatest impediment to the success cludes organizations where member downstairs on January 10. Two in this incredible school situation. of their own anemic integration plan. ship is determined solely on the basis days later the incident would have In light of the excellent progress of scholastic excellence. been repeated; you would have been being made in a number of formerly I would not be fair to Little Rock It should be made crystal clear roughed up in the "gym" countless segregated schools in the South, the if 1 did not point out that there are that it would l?e a great error to con times. If you were Elizabeth, you continuing crisis at Little Rock must some cases of kindness in the deserts clude that onl y Minnijean was sub would have been the brave girl who be puzzling. of strife and hate in that city. It is jected to harassments. If you were walked with regal calm before a true that the so-called responsible Ernest Green, you were struck in phalanx of armed and unfriendly NATURE OF PROBLEM citizens are for the most part silent the face on January 20; hit with wet National G uardsmen on the memor In my opinion, which is shared by and inactive. However, there are towels in the shower room on J anu able morning of September 4. That many others close to the situation. some who meet to discuss the school ary 30. This had happened before. walk would have made you the sym the problem can be attribued largely problem. There are a few who ac If you were Melba Pattillo, you were bol in this fight for equal educational to the following: tuall y speak out.
270 THE CRISIS MAY, 19.58 271 Among those who meet to discuss Perhaps the remammg eight Negro the problem, in an informal way, are students can continue to rise above the Central Lo11g Island, ministers and laymen. The group is level of their tormentors and stay at N. Y ., branch launched a USA flag drive 011 interracial. Central High. The dignity, poise, and self-control of such Negro children as May 17, and for Me When Minnijean Brown was ex morial Day, to encour these are almost superhuman. What age display of Old pelled from Central on February 17, sort of adults do you suppose they will a white women offered to pay for the Glory in every home in be? Can anyone of us imagine himself Babylon. Town super co t of her education. When advised behaving as they have behaved in like visor Arthur Cromarty that Minnijean had been gr anted a circumstances? (center) wishes the full scholarshi p by the New Lincoln I can't. It's much easier to imagine branch well. High School in New York City, this reacting like Minnijean Brown. Minnie kind person offered to buy some isn't the stuff of which ,pioneers are clothing for the girl. Included were made, but she's quite human. a coat, a half dozen dresses, with Little Rock is now the capital of accessories, luggage, etc. Scores of Southern resistance to equal educa telegrams and letters were sent the tional opportunities for Negroes. Al members of the Little Rock School most every professional political race Board requesting that Minnijean not hater of note has visited the city be expelled. during the past eight months. Following is a letter dealing with Having failed in its bold bid to defy the Minnijean incident which ap the federal government by the force peared in the Arkansas Gazette of of arms, the South could still claim some measure of victory if even the NAACP youth council March 3. It reflects, I believe, the members of the Central thinking of a large number of fair presence of federal troops cannot se Long Island branch, minded but silent persons at Little cure for Negro children their legal Babylon, N. Y., partici Rock: and moral right to the best educa pate in the launching of The off pring of Mother's Leaguer tion in their community or state. flag day. and the like at Central High must feel There are those who complain that the expulsion of Minnijean Brown about the three and a half million is an important victory in their war doll ars which the federal govern agai nst integration. One can't help feel ing a sneaking sympathy for Minnie, ment bas spent in the Little Rock who had the wild idea that it was Central High School crisis since Sep permissibl e for her to call someone tember. This is a paltry sum when 'white trash' (and with considerable one considers the purpose. This pur provocation, I might add ) as it was for pose goes far beyond school integra someone to call her 'nigger,' which we tion. It goes to the heart of the au all know needs no provocation. thority and power of the federal Miss Brown apparentl y has a low judiciary. If this is not worth defend boiling point. This won't do! We're ing, then our country is not worth accustomed to patient Negroes here in Arthur Cromarty, (L ), defending, because the foundation of town supervisor of the South. No allowances are to be Babylon, N. Y., explains made for individual differences m this government is based upon un quali fied re pect for the inalienable purpose of Celllral Long temperament. Island branch flag 'White trash' is, of cour e. an un· rights of all men and duly constituted drive to Major Braxton, attractive figure of speech, but so is law. branch program chair 'nigger.' Both terms are contemptuous The South itself is spending mii man, and Louis Leften and insulting in their intent. (Continued 0 11 page 3 18) ant, commander A meri ca/1 Legion Post 1218.
272 THE CRISIS Mrs. Hildegarde Stell • This article covers, compre hensively, the problems macher (L), Connecticut which arise when Negro and Jew meet in urban areas Valley branch program chairman, who won first prize of a Roto-Broiler in a cooking contest conducted by the Cen tral Connecticut Food Exposition. Urban Negro and Urban Jew
By Dennis Clark
Vice-president Woodrow Rainey (2nd from L) of Socialites Social Club presents Club's $50 ini tial NAACP life mem OME months ago in my city of many people in my city were bership check to presi dent Edward Jackson of three youths shot a completely strained. Middletown - Portland, Sinnocent and undefended el It seemed that many Jewish people Conn., branch. At L is derly Jewish druggist to death in the were particularly stricken by this in club treasurer John corner store where he had worked Freeland; at R, Rev. cident. Because the victim was a Jew, Lorenzo Woods, co most of his life. This act represented there was a particularly poignant chairman of branch lif~ the culmination of a long series of aggravation and irresolution in the membership committee. robberies and shootings in which face of the whole situation on the Negroes were the aggressors. In the part of Jews. The ready understand weeks that followed there was a ing that I bad come to expect among great public outcry of anger, dis my Jewish friends was replaced by tress and fear about this tragic mur a grudging reserve. Exasperation re der and robbery. As a person in placed the usual tolerance. It was volved in race relations work I was plain that what has become tradition exposed to the heated rage and tem al Jewish sympathy with Negro as pests of indignation that were lashed pirations toward full citizenship and about in several community meet social opportunity was shocked into ings that I attended. In this atmos suspension by this brutal crime. The Junior warden Detroit phere it became evident that the murder seemed to focus all of the Hunter (L) of Kind resources of good will and sympathy misgivings and frustrations surround David Lodge No. 54, ing the difficult problem of racial AF & AM, presents his DENNIS CLARK is a staff member of Lodge's initial $50 NA the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Com change on the urban scene. ACP life payment to mission or1 Human Relations. He is a This incident and the reaction of Middletown - Portland, frequent contributor to America, Com many Jews of my acquaintance to it Conn., branch president munity, and The Interracial Review. served to highlight some very funda- Edward Jackson.
MAY, 1958 275 mental factors in the relationships American life in this second half As the last white resident on the between the Jewish and Negro of the twentieth century. The issues population, there bas been no marked block in sections where existence is deviation from the general pattern groups in city life. An open and are decreasingly set against a back less than genteel, due to the legacy thoughtful examination of the fac ground of legal segregation, disen of response to Negro newcomers. of prejudice, it is understandable franchisement, and social ossifica Essentially, the white reaction re tors can throw a good bit of light that small shopkeepers should at upon both race relations and reli tion, and are increasingly involved mains the same. The likelihood of times feel the pressure of minority violence is at a minimum, but the gious orientation. It is in this in in a panorama of stalled liberalism, group frustration and counter-pre development of panic and gradual terest that I, a white Christian, ven bloc-vote politics, and social disor judice. ture to comment upon what is es ganization. In this context Jews con white withdrawal is the usual course. sentially a question of Negro-Jewish front Negroes in three ways, two of Community leadership sympathetic relations. which are related to physical prox CHANGING NEIGHBORHOODS toward racial integration does seem to be more readily available in such Jewish people are wise in the ways imity and one of which is in the A second "sphere of influence" in of ci ties. They have for centuries sphere of social psychology. areas, but this does not change the which Negroes and Jews interact is eventual outcome. The promotion of been an urban people. They have One of the places in which Ne in those heavily Jewish neighbor seen racial antagonism grow in city interracial understanding still comes groes confront Jews is in the corner hoods that have begun to chan,ge "too little and too late" to be of streets time after t ime. It is im store. In many of the great segre racially. The sequence of migrations probable, however, that Jews have any practical significance. gated districts the last outposts of of minority groups through our cities The third area in which Negroes ever encountered on such a large white residents are in the corner has often placed Negroes next in line and Jews are particularly linked is scale the type of problem presented grocery stores, small dry good stores behind Jews in the scale of social to them by the urbanization of the not so much a physical one as it is and pharmacies that are owned and status and home buying progress. one of social psychology. The Negro American Negro. The entire social operated in many cases as family Neighborhoods that were once for-· life of the modern city is mo and Jew are both members of min businesses by modest Jewish people. bidden to Jews have received sub ority groups that have experienced mentously different from that of the Because of the economic stake that stantial influxes of Jewish home past. In the past various ethnic actual ill-treatment or a sour toler these small businesses represent, their owners. Because of geographical con ance on the American scene. This groups lived in enclaves in cities, owners have frequently been reluc venience or economic accessibility, fact bas brought forth a sort of and population movement was slow. tant to leave areas that have changed these same neighborhoods are now Today there is a swift movement of kinship or practical affinity between racially. In segregated neighborhoods attractive to non-white homebuyers. Jew and Negro. population and an almost random where the earning power and stand The aspiring Negro sees in these mixture of people from various ard of living are often depressed, areas the same virtues of middle BONDS OF SYMPATHY, backgrounds in metropolitan centers. these little stores fit intimately into class respectability that Jewish fam In this setting the large Jewish pop neighborhood life. They are flexible ilies, fresh from the quasi-ghetto im There is a bond of sympathy and ulations of the majQr northern cities enough to meet the irregular needs migrant "Jewtowns" saw in them a a mutual understanding between the are involved in a very distinctive way of informal local and fa mily living. generation ago. Perhaps there is two groups th at is constituted of their in the struggle of the nation to solve In overcroweded Negro districts the some basis for supposing that the common concern for fair treatment the "American Dilemma" of race "street corner society" that affords "liberal" opinion prominent in big and democratic rights. Hence, Jew relations. an outlet to the young centers around city Jewish circles and the tradition ish and Negro organizations can such small businesses. ally non-violent disposition of Jews, usually be found working together, REGIONAL FETISHES In these circumstances the Jewish exerts an attraction upon Negroes sometimes even working alone, for The scene of decision in race re storekeeper is often the only white seeking a way out of segregated neigh civil rights, fair employment, inter lations bas shifted dramaticall y from man that many Negroes see on any borhoods. These factors may be pres group understanding and racial in the rural South to the urban North. regular basis. He is a person who ent, but the succession of Jew and tegration. Many Jewish groups de The regional fetishes are being strip extends service, but be is also many Negro in residential migration ap vote more effort to bettering race ped from racial problems and these times a family creditor to whom the pears to be much more a question relations than to any other subject. problems are becoming more and grocery bill is owed. The amount of ecology and circumstance. Against this background of con more a part of the urban patterns of anti-Semitism that grows out of In neighborhoods where Jews form tact between Negroes and Jews must that constitute the dominant form of this latter relationship is surprisi ng. a very substantial quotient of the be ranged certain social cbaracteris-
276 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 277 tics of both groups that serve to set life. The wildly publicized crimes of Luther King are exceptional in any from identical and can lead to diver up a distressing web of tension be some Negroes that glare from the group. The ability of a group to gent views on questions of intermar tween them. Despite the strong affin pages of metropolitan newspapers tr;Un and consistently present in the riage, community life and education ity that we have noted above, there have a bewildering effect upon many forefront of their interests skiiJed which are of mutual concern to both is a great cultural difference between Jewish citizens. The latter seem un leadership is a faculty that must Jews and Negroes. Jew and Negro. This is not just a able to comprehend that such things be slowly wrought. Leadership in difference between a group long ur can exist. The American Jew, largely effective force does not arise out of CONSIDERABLE SOCIAL GAP banized and a group of very recent middle class in thought and de a vacuum; it must arise out of pre agrarian background. It is a differ meanor, is out of touch with the conditions of education, organized An examination of the relation ence of cultural heritage and ex world of harsh rejection, privation, tradition, a degree of leisure and ship between the Negro and the Jew perience. Although the Negro folk and violence to which the Negro has concourse with the elites of power in the light of the social factors <:ulture had as a cardinal element a been assigned by current social and learning. mentioned above indicates that there familiarity and reverence for the forces. is a considerable social gap that pre Bible, and notably for the prophets The American Jew shares actively DIFFERENT COMMITMENTS vails between the two groups in spite and Kings of Israel, there is a vast in the economic abundance that has of the bond of sympathy that they difference between the Jewish view been the nation's harvest for the last In addition to these social con share. One of the practical effects of of these riches and the Negro folk fifteen years. He walks with non trasts between Jew and Negro there this situation is that Jews are often view of them. The complexity and Jews as leader, laborer, and organi is the different commitment that each placed under extreme pressures when uniqueness of the Jewish tradition, zation man in the economic activities group bears to ideals of community they face up to racial issues. Jewish heavy with history, stands in strong of the day. He inhabits suburbia life. Whatever our predictions about people are frequently solidly behind -contrast to the youth and directness and plays a vigorous role as pro the future, we must recognize that liberal race relations practices and of the American Negro orientation. ducer and consumer. The Negro, Negroes do most emphatically exist programs, but they feel genuinely This contrast is made most vivid however, is just emerging from an as a social group at present. As repelled by the social differences pec when we compare the educational economic limbo. Non-whites are such, Negroes seem to have largely sisting in the Negro population. -status of the two groups. American singularly retarded economically. renounced the ideal of racial solidar When racial integration confronts Jews have from the time of their Their family income, job status, ity in favor of a rather loosely con them, they appear to feel very keen immigration achieved an extraor savings and property ownership are strued racial affiliation permitting full ly the contrasts between the great ·dinary educational eminence. ln all below the national average for integration, when possible, into the bulk of the newly urbanized Negro terms of formal schooling, they en whites, and nobody really knows general community. In this respect population and established middle joy ~ top position among American how much of the recent progress of non-whites seem to have a somewhat class Jewry. Thus, Jews do seem to ethnic groups. Negroes, on the other Negroes in these areas has been unreserved commitment to the un have a special problem with respect hand, still struggle under the edu achieved at the expense of such differentiated "liberal," egalitarian to racial change. ·cational disabilities inflicted upon sacrifices as the employment of community. Jews, however, have a Recently when a Jewish family in them by segregation and exploitation. mothers and the postponement of distinctive ideal of community life Levittown, Pennsylvania, sold their In education Negroes and Jews are medical and educational needs. with deep religious implications. This house to the first Negro to purchase further apart than any of the other In social organization we perceive historic ideal antedates by ages the in the city of 60,000 white people, groups in the mainstream of Amer once again a great disparity between "open community" concept. It is there was a spate of anti-Semitic let -ican life. Jew and Negro. Jews have an en operative today in the voluntary ter writing and grumbling that viable apparatus of fraternal, charit residential clustering around syna showed local community relations INCIDENCES OF CRIME able, and civic organizations man gogues that produces heavily Jewish workers how exposed Jews are to ned by articulate and effective lead neighborhoods in our big cities_. the vicissitudes of community change. In family life and in the incidence ers. Negroes are still suffering from These two community ideals, that of This is simply another difficulty for of crime Jew and Negro are also the paucity of leadership that bas the religiously based community and the man of good will. The pitfalls vividly contrasted. The ceremonial been a traditional characteristic of that of the open community based are many. It is only proper, I be of J ewisb home life has no parallel depressed ethnic groups arriving on apon secular citizenship, are not lieve, to point out that when Jews in highly variable Negro domestic the urban scene. Men like Martin mutually exclusive, but they are far deal with racial change, they must
:278 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 279 do so according to their best re itual and to these problems Jews can sources-those of their religion. Re bring the ancient truths and wisdom course to specious and fashionable conferred upon them by the God of panaceas will not prove adequate. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Only a The problems of race relations are spiritual philosophy can comprehend not primarily those of mental hy and cope with the complexity, in giene or civic harmony. The prob timacy, and historic significance of lems are primarily moral and spir- racial reconcilation in American life.
Elmo McDonald HOWARD ~ · WILKINSON of Richmond, Virginia, assumed full-time duties on MRS. EVELYN B. HUNT (2nd from L), basileus, Gamma Xi Zeta chapter of April! as assistant executive secretary of the Virginia state conference of NAACP Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, and George Richardson, treasurer New Rochelle, N. Y., branches. Mr. Wilkinson succeeds John M . Brooks as director of the state con- branch accept NAACP life membership plaques on behalf of their respective ference's political action program. organizations from Mildred Bond, NAACP national office life membership campaign repr.esentative. Looking on are M rs. Frederick Pierce and John W. Tate, past presidents of the New Rochelle branch.
280 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 281 ' Dr. John Morsel/, assist ant to NAACP execu tive secretary Roy Wil kins, examines a report on NAACP activities in theMinneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area. From L, Dr. Morsell, Leonard Carter, Donald Lewis, Atty. Douglas Hall, and Sandy Perry.
Membership drive of the Atlanta, Georgia, branch was sharply stepped up under the direction of campaign y .' .:1'' director Daisy Dunn ~'\. · (center). Office secretary Harolyn Miller and ex ecutive committee chair man V. W. Hodges are shown confering with Miss Dunn.
\ Hartford, Connecticut, CECll.IA TANG is crowned "Miss NAACP of 1958" by Theodore A. Jones, branch merit award1 are president of the Chicago, lllinois, branch at the branch's annual NAACP benefit studied by the recipients tea held in the Parkway Ballroom on March 16. Miss Tang holds the $100 check (from L), Mr~. Antoin· awarded the winner in the popularity contest. ette 0. Washington, Judge Boce W. Barlow, and Mrs. Minnie Jack· son. MAY, 1958 283 Rev. Melvin C. Swann, minister, St. Joseph AME church, Durham, N. C., presents a $100 check as initial payment on his church's NAACP life membership to Rev. William H. Fuller (R), president Durham branch. R ev. Frank Gordon (far R), chair man of the southeast region church commit- tee, is looking on.
Ministers and lay lead ers mirror the intense interest manifested at the opening session of the southeast NAACP regional ministers con ference held in Greens boro, N. C. on March 6. Dr. E. R. Edmonds of Bennett College was keynote speaker at the opening session Cabell Photo
THE DISTRICf OF COLUMBIA'S 19th Street Baptist H elping Hand Club presents a $500 life membership check to Theodore E. Taylor, life membership chairman of the District of Columbia NAACP branch. Pictured (from L) are Rev. Jerry A. Moore, pastor; Mr. Taylor; Eugene Davidson, branch president; Geraldine Tate; Mrs. Ella Bannister, the club president; Marguerite Hall, and Mrs. Martha Winston.
M rs. Dorothy DeLisser accepts a check from Paul Wingate, president FOR FASTER SERVICE: of The Old Sa lts A sso· dation, Inc., as an ini tial payment on an USE ZONE NUMBERS-THEY'RE PART OF YOUR ADDRESS NAACP life member ship. Others pictured INCLUDE THEM IN YOUR RETURN ADDRESS! (from L) are Carlos Jef fers, secretary; Fritz A /exander, treasurer; and George Welch, vice- presidem. 284 THE CRISIS Larry Cassyd, 121/2 - year-old son of Caspar Cassyd (R ) of Palmer Mills, Conn., makes an initial payment of $25 on his junior NAACP life membership to Ros alie Rolle, secretary of Middleton - Portland, Conn., branch. Rev. Lo renzo Woods, co-chair man of the branch life membership commillee is at left.
The Petites and Gents, a teen-age Baltimore, Md., club which has dedicated itself to better citizenship in Baltimore. This club has 100 percent individ ual NAACP member ship. Club sponsor Mrs. Eula M . Watts is second 1. Edward Bailey Ill from left in front row.
DR. J. I. McCLENDON (center), a member of the national NAACP life mem bership commillee, receives final payme111 on an NAACP life membership from Dr. and Mrs. Clarence W. Pres/011 oj' Detroit, Michigan. The Prestons are the first couple i11 the Detroit bra11ch to have paid in full their life memberships.
DON'T FORGET South Jersey "Woman of the Year," Mrs. Alice Terres, receives congra THE 49th ANNUAL tulations from Floyd D. McLean (R), a member CONVENTION OF THE NAACP of the executive board of the Gloucester county CLEVELAND, OHIO, JULY 7- 13, 1958 branch. Rev. Robert Scott, pastor of The Branches Should Start Th eir Preparations Now Memorial Presbyterian church at Wenonah, New Jersey, is at left.
286 THE CRISIS LIFE MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE KIVIE KAPLAN JACKIE ROBINSON OR. BENJAMIN MAYS
co-CHAIRMEN Kelly Alexander Or. John L. Leach George A. Beavers, Jr. Hon. Herbert H. Lehman do you believe Bi1hop W. Y. Bell Dr. James E. Levy Dr. George D. Connon Bishop Edwor A. Love Or. W. Montague Cobb Or. James J. McClendon the worst is over, Nathaniel Colley, Esq. Mrs. Rose Morgan Louis Hubert T. Delany Dr. Maurice Robb Earl B. Dickerson, E1q. A. Philip Randolph t S. Rolph Harlow Woller Reuther in the struggle Bi1hop Eugene C. Floyd Hatcher Jackie Robinson l Carl R. John1on, E1q. Mrs. Eleanor Rooseve lt Or. Mordecai John1on Mrs. Nellie G. Roulhac Robert T. John1on Ike Smalls for human rights? Mrs. Daisy E. Lampkin Or. Alfred E. Thomas, Jr. Mrs. Pauline F. Weeden
' I
Help was never more urgently needed • • • Join NAACP today as a life me~ mber
I wish to become a life Member of the NAACP. Despite favorable court decisions and increased public support,
Send to your local 0 I enclose check for $ ...... freedom for all Americans remains an objective to be accom as first payment toward a Life Membership. branch or tlte plished. And deep within ourselves we know, too, that we can 0 I enclose check lor $500 for full Life Membership. N.A.A.C.P. make a bigger contribution, a greater sacrifice, perhaps, than ~ we already have- no matter how difficult or substantial these 20 West 40th Street Name l Ne w York 18, N. Y. may have been. The walls of hate have been breached, but Address they are still standing. Help tear down the barriers of racial
City and State intolerance. Enroll today as a life Member of the NAACP.
288 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 289 Carolina) has thought up another Negro boys were toting books for the plan to help speed integration. He 'whites,' and that Negro girls were caUs it "The Golden Carry-The wearing aprons to school, all the • • • Books Plan." Tills is the way be school kids could go on with their work without any further disturbance outlines it in the January-February, from segregationist mobs, National 1958, Israelite: Guardsmen, or federal troops. elusive of a few books. With an in This may help toward the final solu CORRECTION ter:national circulation it enjoys ex tion of the 'integration' problem of the change relationsrups with some 50 • • The February, 1958, issue of South, implementing the several Su * * * • The Crisis carried this item, at medical periodicaJs in various parts preme Court decisions to end racial seg of the world. Although it bas been page 195 : "The American Public regation in the public schools. GoLDEN makes this com Health Association has elected the chief medium of expression for There is no vertical segregation. But 'MR. neither is there '45-degree-angle' segre • ment on "The Courtship of Dr. J. H . Barnhill of Raleigh, Negro authors on medical subjects, Atlanta's Standish": North Carolina, to membership, its pages have never been restricted gation if the 'sitting' or 'leaning' Ne making him the first Negro to be on a racial basis, and it has had many gro is a servant, a domestic, or a chore What a wonderful name this man so recognized." This statement is boy of some kind. has - Standish T hompson, and here"s contributions from non-Negro au Therefore the Negro parents of the the story: untrue and misleading. Several thors, who have included some of the Crisis readers, as well as Dr. South should make this proposition to Brother Standish is the Tax Com Berwyn Mattison, executive sec most distinguished names in modern their loca l school boards; that they will missioner of Atlanta, Ga., and he is a retary of The American Public medicine. allow their children to carry the books man with a problem. This year Brother Health Association, [nc., have The cover page of the second is for their 'white' class mates. A system Standish sent out the tax forms in only pointed out the untruthfulness in sue (March 1958) of the 50th vol can easily be worked out whereby the one color-the cards were all printed the statement. Dr. Mattison, in a ume carries a portrait of the late Dr. Negro boy, (going to an integrated on white paper and hundreds of people letter to the editor, adds: "This school), can meet a 'white' classmate saw in this gesture a move toward the Walter G. Alexander who served for at a convenient corner, a block or so complete mongrelization of the Anglo professional society has elected a number of years as genera] secre many Negroes to membership away from the school, and carry the Saxon race. over the years. It is a matter of tary of the National Medical As 'white' boy's books into the school Brother Standish made a public state pride to us that it is impossible sociation (1912-1924) and as chair building. And if there are sixteen egro ment (Atlanta Journal, Feb. 27) : to teU how many members in our man of its Publication Committee students in a school of four hundred 'These white cards will not affect seg total constituency are Negroes. ( 1941-42). A past president of the 'whites,' an alternating system can be regation according to the way the law The American Public Health As NMA (1926), be practiced medicine worked out so that by the end of the stands.' The Tax Commissioner wanted semester, each 'white' boy wi ll have it clearly understood that this tax-form sociation has never questioned in Orange, New Jersey, for 48 years. race, creed or color. Its criteria his books carried into the school build printed on while cards for all the citi Ac:tive in civic and political affairs ing by a Negro student, at least once. zens is 'not a step toward integration.' have to do only with personal he served for two terms in the New and professional integrity." The Negro girls would not have to Previously the tax bills for white The Crisis regrets this error Jersey State Legislature and as a dele participate in this 'Golden Carry-the c:itizens were on white paper, and those and wishes no disservice to the galle-at-large to the Republican Na Books-Plan.' The girls should wear a for Negro taxpayers were on yellow APHA. tional Convention. At the time of sort of miniature apron over their street paper. The beleaguered Brother Stand his death in 1953 be was revered as dresses, and this would setlle everything ish summed it all up; 'The new proce the main tional MedicaJ Association and had 'white' girls may even adopt those cute tained.' NMA JOURNAL CELEBRATES long been regarded as the backbone little aprons themselves, but they will Brother standish is merely following of the organization. have served their purpose. the principle laid down by our Ne HB Journal of the National Med I know I am calling on the Negroes anderthal ancestors who refused to bury ical Association, now in its 50th T NEW GOLDEN PLAN to make a considerable sacrifice, but it albino horses in the same mass graves year, is the oldest existing Negro is worth it because this would settle the with their own chestnut browns. But r medical periodical and contains more ITTY, sardonic Harry L. Gold matter even for the most outspoken do not envy Brother Standish's position than 50 per cent of what Negroes W den, editor-publisher of The 'white supremacists.' Tf it became during the next few months. Even John have written on medical subjects, ex- Carolina Israelite (Charlotte, North known throughout the South that the Alden couldn't help him.
MAY, 1958 291 290 THE CRISIS "CAPITAL INCIDENT" that a Negro could hit any harder than a whi te boy. oTmNo shows up the Anglo Saxon's propensity to associate N FARM WORKERS IN '57 crime with Negroes like the insinu ation of the U. S. News & World AY B EN NETT, executive secretary Report that the muggers of Mark F of the N ational Sharecroppers Ethridge, publisher of the Courier Fund Inc., New York City, asserts, Journal & Louisville Times, and his in the Fund's annual report, that the wife, in Washington, D . C., last governme nt's farm program is incon February were Negroes. In a letter siste nt and works against itself. "The published in the Washington Post program of subsidizing bigne s," she (February 23, 1958), Mr. Ethridge says, " throws more and more small explains that the muggers were not farmers off their land into city slums Negroes: or into the migrant stream." My wife's piece in This Week Maga The report has this to say about zine about our being 'mugged' in Wash the migrant worker: ington and the round-up on crime Here is a sample of the life of one of 'Fear in the Street of the Nation's Cap the half million or more migrant farm ital' in the U. S. News and World R e workers in this country: port for Feb. 14-have produced a Men, women and children loaded spate of letters addressed to us. Some onto trucks in early evening. First stop of them are indignant over crime in the made at 11 P.M. for a meal. Told by Capital, some are sympathetic, and diner's proprietor to move on. Next some, from my less ardent admirers in stop at 1 A.M. for gas. Migrants not the South, think that only poetic justice allowed to use toilets. An hour later was done when a Negro hit me in the stop made in a woods for 'bathroom' head. purposes. Continued riding all night. That is what disturbs me about both Stopped at 6 A.M. for purchase of cold pieces, it never occurred to my wife to cuts, bread and soda pop at country say that they were white boys, and the store. At noon stopped for drinking piece in the U. S. News and World R e water at a spring. State troopers fol port leaves the implication that they lowed trucks rest of day and no stops were indeed Negroes. They were not. permitted. At 8 P.M. stop made at a There were five of the young thugs, country store to purchase more cold three stayed in the get-away car and cuts, bread and soda pop. State troop two 'mugged' and 'yoked' us, whatever ers prevented migrants from leaving the expression is. truck. Stopped at 3 A.M. for I \12 hours All of them were white; three from for sleep. At 11 A.M. of second day, Asheville, N. C., one from South Caro migrants arrived at the camp where lina and one from Maryland, just over they hoped to work. (Adapted from a the District line. AU of them had good Florida State Board of H ealth report.) old English names common to the What does the migrant find at VIRGIL D. HA WKINS, director of public relations at Betlume-Cookman College, South; all were products of good old 'camp?' Sun-up to sun-down picking if Daytona Beach, Florida, who has fought to break down segregation at the Uni segregated southern white schools. the weather is good. Days of being versity of Florida by enterin~ the law school oj the university, is presented a I'm sorry to discomfit those who cooped up in crowded shacks if rain citation by the NAACP college chapter at Bethune-Cookman. seemed pleased to have me hit in the sets in. head, but I did want to set the record In most cases, housing for migrants straight. Besides, I would never admit is wretched. Even in Northern states it
292 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 293 sometimes consists of abandoned barns, By far the largest number of farm chicken coops amd delapidated shacks. families with cash incomes of less than day cake with candles; and there white persons who applied at the Men, women and children are often $1 ,000 are in the South. These south were candy and fruit and nuts. same time and were hired. herded into one: room. Medical atten ern states need government help most Miss Smith has been in Brazil An unusual term of the concila tion for migrants is sporadic at best. in services to farmers such as adequate since October. During this time she tion was the company's agreement to Cases of infant diarrhea as well as dis credit and employment, vocational, has lived with eight families: Brazil review the employment record, .abling illness of adults have many times health and educational programs. . . . ian, English, German, American, qualifications and abilities of all Ne Economic pressures against the in ·gone untreated. Schooling in the past and Japanese. groes presently employed as counter •usually has cons:isted of a few years in dependent Negro farmer, sharecropper •elementary school, and this in inferior and tenant farmer continued to come girls, dish washers, porters, janitors -segregated southern schools which un to the attention of NSF. The Fund con MONTGOMERY WARD and receiving cl<;:rks, to determine ltil recently only held 'short sessions' tinued its interest in finding help for whether or not such personnel should '56 .children could work in the fields. some and granted several loans from HE Newsletter (March, 1958) be promoted if 1they are interested Education now must be of prime con its own funds. T of the New York State Com and qualified andl if "customer-con cern if we are to seek a better life for mission Against Discrimination re tact" positions are available. lfhe
296 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 297 mond, Virginia, and was educated at and even took needy children into Bacon School and the City Normal her home. At one time she had sev School, both of Richmond. She al enteen of them living with her. ways believed that pupils should The Virginia Randolph School at learn to use their bands as well as Glen Allen was named for her, and their minds. In 1908 she was ap former Governor Peery appointed pointed as the first supervisor for the her to the board of directors for Jeanes Fund, and she worked as a Virginia's industrial school for Ne supervisor in the states of Virginia, groes. Georgia, and North Carolina. Miss Randolph is survived by an Deeply interested in the problems adopted daughter, Mrs. Carrie Brown of juveniles, Miss Randolph worked Sample, and a niece, Mrs. Aretha with the Richmond Juvenile Court R. Davis.
], W. Stanb'"ll•lr.
THIS CHORUS of the Laurel, Mississippi, youth council has been featured at Jerry/ones many meetings and gatherings both within and without the state. Lawrence Hobson (seated front L) is the chorus director. VIRGINIA E. RANDOLPH (June 6, 1870-March 16, 1958)
298 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 299 DEATH OF MRS. ARTHUR SPINGARN Along the N. A. A. C. P. UNERAL services for Mrs. Arthur B. Spingarn, the wife of the president F of the NAACP, were held in New York City on March 24. Mrs Spingarn died in New York City on March 22 after a long illness. Battlefront She and Mr. Spingarn lived in Manhattan. The private services, attended by family members and a few close friends, were held at a funeral chapel. Dr. Channing H. Tobias, chairman of the ASSOCIATION NEWS NAACP board of directors, read the 23rd Psalm and Tennyson's "Crossing RESIDENT Arthur B. Spingarn says it "is ridiculous on the face of it" the Bar." Pto charge that the NAACP is operating underground in Alabama. Other officials and staff members of the Association present at the services Mr. Spingarn's statement was in reference to a court order issued on were Mrs. Grace Fenderson of Newark, a vice-president; Roy Wilkins, April 9 by Circuit Court Judge Walter B. Jones of Montgomery, Alabama, executive secretary; and Thurgood Marshall, special counsel. Judge William requiring William P. Mitchell of Tuskegee and W. C. Patton of Birmingham H. Hastie of Philadelphia, a member of the board of directors of the to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for violating an NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., also were present. injunction against the NAACP on the ground that the organization in which Mr. and Mrs. Spingarn actively supported the NAACP in the early days they have been working is a front for the NAACP. of the Association before World War I. Until about the World War II The Association suspended activity in Alabama in June, 1956, after an period Mrs. Spingarn customarjly attended NAACP annual conventions as injunction was issued against it and a fine of $100,000 was imposed for well as other functions of the civil rights organization, and was Mr. Spin refusal to turn over the names and addresses of NAACP members in the gam's constant companion as he devoted a large amount of his time to state. The Association withheld the names out of fear of exposing its mem NAACP work. bers to official and unofficial intimidation, pressures and persecution. Appealing from the decision of the Alabama court, NAACP lawyers took the case to the United States Supreme Court, which last January heard BOARD MOURNS HANDY PASSING argument on it. No decision has been handed down as yet. R. CRANING H . TOBIAS, chairman of the NAACP board of direc The NAACP president branded the latest Alabama move as "another D tors, sent the following telegram of condolence on March 28 to Mrs. futile and malicious maneuver" intended "to stop the Negro's struggle for W. C. Handy, widow of the famous composer: civil rights. This struggle," he asserted, "will go on, with or without the NAACP, because the southern Negro is no longer willing to put up with FOR MYSELF AND WIFE AND FOR NAACP BOARD OF DIRECTORS, second-class citizenship." EXTEND HEARTFELT CONDOLENCES ON PASSING OF OUR GOOD Here is the complete text of Mr. Spingarn's statement: FRIEND W. C. HANDY. HE WAS AN ABLE MAN, CREATIVE GENIUS "The NAACP has not operated in the State of Alabama since June, 1956, AND WARM PERSONALITY. HIS CONTRIBUTION TO ART IN AMER when an injunction was issued and a fine of $100,000 levied against our ICAN LIFE WILL STAND AS LONG AS ART ENDURES. IT WAS A organization. The Association has not, since that date, employed or desig PLEASURE TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH HIM IN HIS ENDEAVORS. nated William P. Mitchell or W. C. Patton or anyone else to represent it in PLEASE EXTEND TO MEMBERS OF FAMILY AND ACCEPT FOR YOUR that state. NAACP lawyers, however, have filed suit to set aside the injunc SELF OUR GREAT APPRECIATION FOR ALL THAT WAS DONE tion and lift the fine. The case was argued before the United States Supreme Court in January and a decision is awaited. Meanwhile, the Alabama court FOR HIM. order has been scrupulously obeyed. ''The charge that the NAACP has been operating in Alabama under SCHOOL FUNDS ground is ridiculous on the face of it. It is just another futile and malicious maneuver on the part of the State of Alabama to stop the Negro's struggle LARENCE MITCHELL, director of the NAACP Washington bureau, for civil rights. This struggle will go on, with or without the NAACP, C told the House subcommittee on special education on April 2 that the because the southern Negro is no longer willing to put up with second-class officials of eight southern states-Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, citizenship." Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia-could not be trusted
300 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 301 to administer any type of federal assistance to education without anti-segre gation safeguards. He cited a letter from Roy Wilkins to Marion B. Folsom, secretary of health, education and welfare, in which Mr. Wilkins warned that 'any What the Branches government plan for assistance to the states in the form of grants for scholar ships, teacher training, and other methods of reducing the waste of talent should not subsidize a system which has stifled talent among the chi ldren Are Doing and youth of 4,000,000 American families, except for a handful of hardy, persistent and fortunately placed individuals." "We ask that no state be given any funds unless its appropriate officials California: Eighth annual meeting of members of the SACRAMENTO pledge that they will be spent in conformity with the requirements of the branch's credit union was held in March, with reports from committees and U.S. Supreme Court decisions of May 17, 1954, and May 31, 1955, in the the board. school desegregation cases," he asserted. Printed reports of the several committees and the board and manager Mr. Mitchell cautioned subcommittee members that "at some point, the were prepared and distributed to the membership. They revealed an in Congress must decide to call a halt to the wanton program of using federal crease of more than $45,000,000 in total assets of the credit union during money to promote illegal school programs of racial segregation." 1957. Present assets are now $164,548.32. The report further showed "Now is the time to act," he added, pointing out that "Congress cannot $127,000 had been loaned to members during the year, an average of more ignore the extensive pattern of tax-supported defiance in some areas of the than $10,000 a month. Manager, Mrs. Virna Canson, reported that members country." taken into the Sacramento branch through the credit union exceeded 365, or The NAACP's legislative specialist noted that a Chicago newspaper last an average of better than one member per working day. month estimated that southern states have spent more than two mi ll ion President Alex B. Moore reported purc!Jase of new equipment and sig dollars in attempts to defy the Supreme Court decisions banning segregated nificant changes in policy made by the board of directors during 1957. public schools. Report of the credit committee showed loans had been made for such He noted also that in Mississippi the state legislature has had under con diverse purposes as refinancing of old bills, purchase of automobiles, down sideration "a proposal to Jet a private organization, th~ White Citizens payments on homes, home improvement, medical expenses, school expenses, Council, fight desegregation with tax money." taxes, insurance and NAACP life memberships. Attorney Nathaniel S. Col ley is chairman. Connecticut: The CONNECTICUT VALLEY branch-which com NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLYWOMAN prises the cities of Bristol, Forestville, and Plainville--won first prize in the RS. MADALINE WJLLIAMS, whose husband, Samuel Williams, is a Central Connecticut F ood Exposition held at the Plainville High School on M member of the NAACP national board, was honored at a testimoni al February 28 and March 1. The branch entered a booth and a contestant in dinner in East Orange, New Jersey, on March 27. Mrs. Williams is the fir st the Cooking Contest. Negro woman to be elected to the New Jersey State Legislature. Mrs. Hildegarde Stellmacher, branch program chairman, won first prize, a Roto-Broiler, for her casserole. Principal speaker at the dinner which was held at the Surburban Hotel The HARTFORD branch presented five certificates of merit to the was Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP, who paid tribute to Hartford Times, the Hartford Courant, Judge Boce Barlow, Mrs. Minnie Mrs. Williams' devotion to pubHc service. Jackson, and Mrs. Antoinette Washington "for service in improving inter Among the 500 persons attending the dinner were representatives of var group relations." The certificates were presented by branch president Arthur ious organization in which Mrs. Williams bas been active as well as fe llow L. Johnson at the sixth annual symposium on the church's role in race rela members of the Assembly, freeholders and other leading citizens of both tions. The meeting was held at the Immanuel Congregational church, with races. A telegram of felicitation was received from Governor Robert Meyner. Rev. J. Oscar Lee of the National Council of Churches as the main speaker. Mrs. Williams was presented with two plaques. Dr. Everett B. Simmons, The Hartford branch reports the following highlights among its 1957 president of the Oranges-Maplewood NAACP branch, made the presenta activities. A survey of health conditions in the local community, preparation tion on behalf of the branch. The second plaque was presented by Samuel of an anti-discrimination clause for the ci ty council , and help in the p1"epa ra Haynes, editor of the New Jersey Afro-American, on behalf of his newspaper. tion of bills for rent control.
302 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 303 Five delegates were elected to represent 'the local branch at the New England regional conference held in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, April 26-27. Edward Jackson, John Freeland, Charles Ghent, James Polk, and Jerome Byrd comprised the delegation. Among the highlights of the meeting were a report by Carl Whitman, co-chairman of the special fund-raising committee, initial payment on an NAACP junior life membership by Larry Cassyd, and initial payments on life memberships by John F reeland, treasurer, and Woodrow Rainey, vice president, for the Socialite Social Club; and an initial life-membership pay ment by Detroit Hunter for the King David Lodge, No. 54, AF&AM, of Middletown. Illinois: "Integration Through Districting" was the subject of a panel discussion at the March 28 meeting of the CHICAGO branch. Iowa: NAACP vice-president Ike Smalls of DES MOINES was recipi ent, in March, of the "Annual Americanism Award for 1956-1957" from the Des Moines Post 637 and Auxiliary Jewish War Veterans of the U. S. "for outstanding service to the United States, State of Iowa, and City of Des Moines." Sidney C. Levine, commander department Nebraska-Iowa, Jewish War Veterans of U. S. , was the main speaker; the medal and certificate were presented to Mr. Smalls by Louis M. Williams, director of the Jewish Com munity Center. Representatives from eleven Iowa branches attended a one-day NAACP conference at the Willkie House in Des Moines on March 2. NAACP branch director G loster Current, and A. P. Trotter, state president, con-
FRANKLIN H. WILLlAMS (R), west coast regional secretary counsel of the THE Covington, Virginia, branch exceeded its membership quota with the help N AACP, accepts a $1,500 check for the N AACP freedom fund from Mrs. Majorie of these able membership workers, under the direction of Rev. M. L. Robinson Brown, president of the New London, Connecticlll, branch of the NAACP in (R), chairman of the branch membership committee. the presence of Douglas Bennett, who ser~·ed as chairman of the branch"s special fund-raising commillee.
Appreciation awards were given to Dr. Allen F. Jackson, Frank Simp son, Atty. George Ritter, Councilman John Clark, Mayor James Kinsella, Mrs. Sadie Mills, Representative Gertrude Koskoff, and Mrs. Charlotte J>jtowski. Certificates were also awarded to branch members who had brought in twenty-five or more memberships. And the branch education committee presented four brotherhood awards to essay winners at the North East Junior High School : a book to each winner from the 7th, 8th, and 9th grades, and a five dollar cash prize to the overall winner, a student from the 9th grade. Nearly 100 members and friends attended the recently monthly meeting of the MIDDLETOWN-PORTLAND branch held in the VFW Hall of Middletown.
304 THE CRISIS ducted the luncheon meeting. Hudson high school auditorium to put on a show which would be in bad This meeting is one of a series of campaign-planning conferences being taste as well as offensive to the public. conducted in key areas throughout the country by Mr. Current. Pennsylvania: Sixty-two NAACP delegates were in attendance at the Michigan: President Prince Drewry of the MACOMB COUNTY branch NAACP clinic sponsored by the ERJE branch on March 15 in the Erie has been elected to the executive board of the recently organized Macomb YMCA. Madison S. Jones, NAACP special assistant in housing, was the County Interracial Association. The local branch and the MCIA are work principal speaker. Morning workshops of the clinic discussed responsibility ing together to eradicate local discrimination. Mr. Drewry, who is rounding in molding opinions and environments, and are public accommodations out his thirteenth year as branch president, served for six years (1930-1936) public? Speakers were Rev. Lawrence Bennett, youth director of the Erie as the sole Negro member of the Clinton Township board of education. Mr. council of churches; Rev. Jesse McFarland, minister of the Shiloh Baptist Drewry is a former vice-president of the Michigan state conference of church; for the second workshop: Rev. Donovan White, minister First Uni NAACP branches and an NAACP life member. tarian church; Rev. Paul Martin, minister St. James AME church; and At Robert J. Greene, field representative of the Michigan Fair Employment torney Gerald McNelis, chairman of the branch legal redress committee. Practices Commission, was speaker at the March 16 meeting of the GRAND Speakers at the two afternoon workshops on employment-FEPC and RAPIDS branch. housing and redevelopment were Attorney Edward G. Petrillo, Jr., Howard McKinney, Rev. Jefferson Myers, and Madison Jones. Minnesota: The ST. PAUL branch has commended the American Civic and social worker Wayne L. Hopkins is serving as membership Veterans' Committee for giving its Americanism award to the nine Negro campaign chairman of the 1958 drive of the PHILADELPHIA branch. atudents of Little Rock, Arkansas. Mrs. Robert Bonner, chairman of the speakers' bureau of the Philadel Mississippi: The youth council and chorus of the .LAUREL branch phia branch, served as moderator of a panel- consisting of Matthew Adams, attended the sixth annual regional conference of the NAACP held in president Local #585 of the UAW; David Phillip, vice-president PTC; Lewis Greensboro, North Carolina, March 7-9. Carter, executive director Urban- League; and Charles Shorter, NAACP executive secretary-which discussed "Economic Use of Manpower-A Nevada: The housing committee of the RENO-SPARKS branch spon Community's Responsibility" before the student body of Saint Joseph's Col sored a mass meeting on low-rental housing on March 20. Featured speakers lege on March 27. were Jay Baker, Reno public housing director; Graham Erskine, director of The sociology department of Pennsylvania Military College has re the Urban Redevelopment Agency; and Mayor Len Harris of Reno. quested a regular lecture service from the Philadelphia branch for the race relations phase of its sociological courses. N ew Jersey: The MONTCLAIR branch sponsored a brotherhood meet ing on February 23 in the St. Mark Methodist church of Montclair. Speak Virginia: Howard M. Wilkinson of Richmond assumed full-time duties ers were De Derwood Baker, director of the Center for School Services at __ps assistant executive secretary of the Virginia State Conference of Branches New York University; Dr. Kelrno Porter, Jr., president of the Clergy Club on April 1. As assistant to W. Lester Banks, VSCB executive secretary, Mr. of Montclair; Sydney Kellner, area director of the American Jewish Com Wilkinson will serve as director of the VSCB's political action program. He mittee; and Oscar Cohen, director of the program division of the Anti succeeds John M. Brooks as director of the NAACP's Virginia suffrage Defamation League. program, now that Mr. Brooks has been appointed director of the NAACP's• southwide voter-registration drive. New York: Alex Ellis, a senior at Niagara University, addressed the March meeting of the NIAGARA branch on "The Road to Success." Washington: Rex Jones, field representative of the Washington State The COLUMBIA COUNTY branch has succeeded in getting the Hud Board Against Discrimination, was guest speaker on March 23 at a mass son board of education to refuse use of a school building for the production meeting sponsored by the YAKIMA branch. His subject was "The Tyranny of a black-face minstrel by the local American Legion Post. of Silence," an expose of the failure to acknowledge the Negro's contribu It all began when American Legion Post #184 ignored a letter branch tion to America. president Mrs. Muriel Jenkins had sent to the Legion calling attention to the Mr. Jones was introduced by branch president Ted Spearman. fact that the black-face minstrel is offensive to Negroes, since it tags a whole Wisconsin: "The Recreational Needs and Facilities for Teen-Agers and race as buffoons and clowns, and tends to perpetuate racial stereotypes. The Young Adults in the Near-Northside Community" was topic of discussion branch petitioned the school board to prohibit the Legion from using the at the March 9 meeting of the MILWAUKEE branch. Speakers were Mrs.
THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 307 Thomas Cheeks, board of directors, YWCA; Donald Dyer, director, munici pal recreation department; and Robert Starms, executive secretary, North side YMCA. Stella Hartman of the community welfare council was con sultant and Rev. R. B. Gutmann, executive director, Neighborhood House, was moderator. The Housing Committee of the Board of Community Relations of the City of Jackson, in cooperation with the JACKSON branch, sponsored a housing conference on March 22 at the local YWCA. Dr. Hoover Rupert THE NAACP CHURCH DEPARTMENT WANTS 1,000 CHURCHES of the First Methodist church moderated a panel consisting of Madison AND OTHER RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO BE LISTED ON ITS Jones of the national office, who discussed housing for minority groups; Robert Hastings, housing for older people; Mrs. Bette Jenkins, housing for " SHARING FOR SOCIAL ACTION" SCROLL OF HONOR low-income families; and Rev. James Schmitt of St. Mary church who sum marized the proceedings. SHARE in the material responsibilities by working On Sunday, March 23, following the housing conference, the Jackson branch held a mass meeting on discrimination in housing, with Madison to implement equality of opportunity for all people. Jones, NAACP special assistant for housing, as the principal speaker. Every church can share by contributing $50 or '$1 00 (or more} to the NAACP Freedom Fund. SHARE through a practical concern with others in your community for the improvement of race rela tions. Join your local NAACP and other interested L community agencies in efforts to improve housing, voter registration, schools, health, and job opportu nities for members of minority groups. The NAACP .Q Church Department will be a liaison between your group and the "Churches for Freedom" program of your local NAACP branch. SHARE with others information on problems, plans, and procedures in the area of Christian social action.
MRS. RUTH WASHINGTON (L), president of the P. M. lnterlude Social and Charity Club, presents a $500 contribution to the NAACP freedom fund. Judge for further information, please write: Carl R . Johnson, NAACP national board member and president of the Kansas City, Missouri, branch, accepts the gift on behalf of the Association in the pres ence of Mrs. James S. Livingston, a club member who promoted the special REV. EDWARD J. ODOM, Jr., NAACP Church Secretary benefit which raised the money. 20 West 40th Street, New York 18, New York
308 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 309 the east-west belt of Africn anulh St• t•t MAN Cot 1 uoe has chosen of the Sahara and north of lho Ro,Iyn Pope etnd Mnrinn Wright to Union. receive foreign travel awards, to College and School News • start in June, 1958. The grants in clude study and travel for one year Dr. Howard E. Wtl,nn, tlenn o( the University of Colt(()min at Los Angeles School of I!ducaLion; and The Council on Cooperative Col Samuel B. Sullivun, long-time lllinois C~e~He~ lege Projects and some members of school administrator, have Qeen STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE HOWARD UNIVERSITY the United Negro College Fund WASHINGTON 1, D. C. named stn/T consultants to THE EDu Cheyney, Pennsylvania have organized a COOPERATIVE CATIONAL TELEVISION AND RADIO I fully accredited by ARTISTS AND LYCEUM SERVICE, CENTER, Ann Arbor, Michigan. The National Council fOT Accreditation of Teacher Educatloo • • • and TEN SCHOOLS AND COllEGES with headquarters at F lorida A&M The Middle States Aaaoclation of TO SERVE YOU University in Tallahassee. Randolph • Colleqes and Secondary Schoob Edmonds is the project director. SUMMER SESSIONS • School of Law THE OMEGA Psr PHI FRATERNITY, Leading to Degree B.S. In Ed. • Graduate School Purpose of the organization is to INc., held two district meetings Firat Seuion: June 2-Juno 20 • School of Music work cooperatively to assist young April 3-5: the seventh district meet Second Sesaion: June 23-July 11 • Sc~ool of Religion Third SGIIaion: July l4·Auquat 1 artists and to give them more fre ing--comprising Alabama, Florida, Fourth Seuion: Auqun 4·Auquat 22 • College of Medicine quent opportunities for performing. Georgia, and Mississippi-in Mont Graduation from a standard four.year • College of Dentistry hiqh achool required for admlasion • College of Pharmacy gamery, Alabama; the ninth district FOT further Information cmd cataloq • School of Social Worlc • -Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, write to Reqbtrar • College of Uberal Am RESIDENTlAL SEMINARS ON WORLD and Texas - in Hot Springs, Arkan JAMES HENRY DUCKREY, PrKldeat • School of EnginHring & Architecture Cheyney, Penn.ylvania AFFAIRS (Lafayette College, Eas sas. 18 NATIONAL HONOR SOCIETIES ton, Pennsylvania) sponsored a sem ADVANCED ARMY AND AIR lt.O.T.C. inar on "Tropical Africa and US Write Foreign Policy" at Hampton I n CENTRAL STATE COLLEGE stitute April 10-13. The seminar de DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS Eetabllalted 1887 WlLIEJtfORCE, OHIO voted attention to developments in OVER THREE SCORE YORS OF EDUCATIONAL SERVICE TO YOUTH CHARlES H. WESLEY, Prerident In choosing a college, a student, hlr parenll and advlson ohould give thoughtful consideration to Ill program of education, Ill character-building potentialitl.,., Ita Intellectual atmoaphere, the rd!olarly standing of lh faculty, the beneficial efJecta of MORGAN STATE COLLEGE lh student life ond rtudent activitleo, and the opportunities available for education BALTIMORE 12, MARYLAND In leadanhlp and social action. CENTRAL STATE COUEGE II co-educational and Inter-denominational, ond lh ttudenh are selected solely on the baala of merit without reference to race or nationality. A low faculty-student ratio of one to nine provld.. A fully accredited college of Liberal Arts virtual tutorial Instruction and adequate educational guidance and counnl. open to all qualified students regardless FUU STATE, REGIONAL AND NATIONAL ACCREDITATION of race, religion, nationality, sex. CURRICULAR DIVISIONS ARTS AND SCIENCES HOME ECONOMICS • 35 areas of study in 19 departments BUSINESS INDUSTRIES AGRICULTURE MILITARY SCIENCE AND TACTlCS • Advanced ROTC • 7 national honor societi• EDUCATION (R.O.T.C.) • Regular, Evening, Summer Sessions HEALTH AND PHYSICAl EDUCATION MUSIC Write: SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL ADMINISTRATION for Appncatlon, Cotalog and otlter infort~~ation , write: DIRECTOR of ADMISSIONS and PLACEMENT ReCJistrar, Central State Coii•CJ•, Wilberforce, Olllo
310 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 311 Annual fund drive of llr N l 111 1 1 I tllldh· lr , i' ullrrulllljl tho Una fessor of English, is Morehouse de CoLLEGE during 88th founder '• 1I11V ,,., II~ nl ( 111t11 .11 h\ Cira~chrnl School bate coach. Fratemities-Churches-Ciubs netted more than $25,000 1111 ,, Nulmn.al Sdl•n~:c Pnumlntron Choirs • YMCA's • Sororities • 1 huh 11 ~ h i p TOURS Twenty MoRGAN STATE COLLEGE • OUR SP£CIALTY freshmen who earned high averages The Cancer R c~car ~. h l uhwuhllt~·,. • for References• The Greyhound during the first semester have been of MeuARRY M 1 1m At ('orr r tll 1)11 I ARO UN IVERSITY ha begun Ius Co. and the Penna. Railroad inducted into Promethean Kappa sponsored a scric~ ol 1wu k cturcs. construction of additional dormitory in ATLANTIC CITY it's Tau, freshman honor society. and three ~t howing nl microcinc facilities for women students, which Dr. Broadus Sawyer, associate photopruphy by l)r. Guy Yoi in and with construction and facilities will LIBERTY H·OTEL professor of business administration, Dr. R o~:cr Roblncaux, both ns ociate cost approximately $325,000. (THE HONEYMOON HAVEN) bas been awarded a fellowship by directors of the Centre d'Imniuno Dillard was host in March to 1519 Baltic Avenue the Remington Rand Corporation to Pathologic, Hospital Saint-Antoine, seventy-five principals from ten TRY OUR 7 FOR 6 PLAN attend the Unicav Data Automation Paris, France, March 21 and 25. southern states at the university's an (STAY 7 DAYS & PAY FOR 6) Program this summer in New York Dr. Harry T. Penn, D.D.S., pres nual principals' workshop. FREE PARKING City. ident of the National Dental As Dr. Daniel Thompson, professor Opportunities for employment are sociation, was annual Turpin Me of sociology and chairman of the practically limitless, but colored morial Day speaker at Meharry. division of social sciences, has been and two summers, a gift made pos youth must be qualified to compete, • selected as a member of the Oxford sible by John H. Merrill, Jr. according to Roberta Church, mi Institute of Methodist Technological nority groups consultant, US De TOUGALOO SOUTH ERN CHRISTIAN Studies, sponsored by the World • partment of Labor, in addressing CoLLEGE graduate Harold Clarke Methodist Council. the Morgan student body. John W. Parker, chairman of the English department at FAYETIE THESE high school and college students are active NAACP workers in their • demand for fu~ l citizenship. From L, they are Leroy Canady and Lucy Thornton, YILLE STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE, George A. Beavers, Jr., chairman Hampton lnsmute; .Armistead Williams, Norfolk, Virginia; and Barbara Lee, was speaker at the annual memorial of the board, Golden State Mutual Life Williamsburg, Virginia. day worship service of Iota Iota Insurance Company, Los Angeles, chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fra and Basil O'Connor, president, Na ternity. The ceremonies were held . . tional Foundation for Infantile Paral .. : . in the St. Paul AME church of ysis, have agreed to serve as vice :~ . ·. ·.. , ... Raleigh, North Carolina. chairmen of the current UNITED NE ~~ :. ·,~. .~:): : ::··· GRO COLLEGE FUND campaign ...... • Official opening of the UNCF Affirmative and negative debating 1958 campaign was made by execu teams of MOREHOUSE COLLEGE tied tive director William J. Trent, Jr., for second place with Bowdoin, Holy over the American Broadcasting Net Cross, University of Pennsylvania, work on April 13. and Wooster at the Brooklyn Col lege Invitational Debate Tournament • held in Brooklyn on March 7. Sixty JoHNSON C. SMITH UNrvERSITY three institutions participated in the observed its 91 st founder's day on tournament, and Morehouse won April 7, with Dr. Kenneth Irving a higher rating even than Amherst, Brown, executive director of the Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, et. Danforth Foundation, St. Louis, al. A. Russell Brooks, associate pro- Missouri, as principal speaker.
312 THE CRI SIS of his jlte test competence, and lhis THE THREE DUMAS most intensive study. This study of The Tita ns: A Threo·G•ntrotlon 1/oorophy Marx is to me most inadequate, and I ol the Duma•. By Andr' Mourole, lrcont• cannot see what it will add to the av,er loted from tho French by Oorord Hopklne. age student's knowledge of the most Now Yorkr Harper & lrothere Pultllehera, pressing problems of our day. Har1ris' 1957. 501 pp. llluetroted • • , fl. study of Veblen seems to me querul 'J hi l'iUjlntphy uf tht r IIII C' ntt'd ous and unappreciative; and his Stlll dy Prc nchmc n, whn hiiJlJlenrll tu ho nf of German socialism incomplete. Tho Ney 111 o~ tru~ tlnn , thww•. lnd11e nlnlly, effect of this book on me is n teel 1l na or ~11111 MC, ll huuh Jl 11 hl nD tho t ri!'!ll of its in co mpl etc ne~s nnd l n~.: k ur ltl>' l11 11 l'llcct• ot Arnllrk tlll lllt' r Jlr cjmll~ t' icnl conception. 1 connot eo why il \lv o• on N e~ ro tnlent. All thr co llve1l 111 tho written nnd nt wh t the nuthor WM cent er or French lire, not on tho mnr niming. ain ; their fticnds and n ssocln t e.~ were lf I should presume to judge wiiJ nt tho lending men nnd women of their Harris bad in mind while writing this day. They were extraordinary persons book, it would be this: frightened, with and their countrymen accepted them ECONOMIC QUESTER S views, but no major work until 1958, so many others, at the witch-hunt, he as such, and when they died France when he published his current book. Economics and Socia/ Reform. By Abrom L. became weary and disappointed with erected monuments to their memory in Ha rris. With a foreword by Fronk H. To me this book is a great disap his work at Howard University ~LDd the Place Malesherbes in Paris. Knight. New Yo rk: Harper &. Brothers, pointment, partly because it is a con welcomed security and status at 1the Mr. Maurois brings these remarkable 1951. XV1 + 357 pp. $5.00. ventional textbook of the sort which I University of Chicago. He gave up 1the people to life. One is a dashing Napo I have known Abram Harris for at do not think helps the education of scientific study of Karl Marx and Com leonic general, an extraordinary physi least thirty years and saw much of him youth. It is, to be sure, a learned trea munism and settled down to ten years cal specimen, from Saint-Domingue; when he was a young professor of the tise based on an astonishing amount of of silence and teaching, with desultory one is the greatest storyteller of all social sciences at Howard University. research. I possess no knowledge of this essays. Then, bringing together parts of time, lovable and eminently outrage He had a brilliant mind and was an literature which would enable me to his twenty years of study, he mad1: a ous; and one, more complex, is a dra omnivorous reader. I doubt if any liv evaluate its accuracy or comprehen book that followed no logical patt•em matist obsessed with the social prob ing scholar knows the work of Karl siveness. But I do know something of but tried to portray Mill as a twenti,eth lems of illegitimacy and prostitution. Marx as well as Harris. But the liter modem social problems and of the at century prophet without showing how ary output of Harris has been small, tempts of thinkers and workers to solve vastly the social problems had changed The three Dumas (the original is and always, to my mind, far less than them. To this fundamental part of hu since his day. Harris then filled in with called Les Trois Dumas) are Thomas his scholarship warranted. As a Negro, man history and thought, it seems to Commons and Veblen and ended with Alexandre Dumas (1762-1806), the naturally, he was interested in the Ne me that Harris adds nothing. He de an extraordinary exposition of Musso revolutionary general in the armies of gro problem. He wrote, with Spero, votes a fourth of his book to John Stu lini's corporate state, emphasizing as its Napoleon; his son Alexandre Dumas The Negro Worker in 1931, an excel art Mill, examining meticulously what exponent a little known Catholic priiest pere ( 1802-1870), dramatist and novel lent study of the Negro and the labor this great nineteenth century philoso and certain papal encyclicals. This will ist; and the latter's son Alexandre Du movement. In 1936, Harris published a pher said about reform, but devoting sell his textbook in Catholic schools mas fils (1824-1895), creator of the study of Negro banking which was a almost no space to just what it was that and prove his anti-Communism, !but French problem play. General Dumas small part of a wider and more com Mill proposed to reform. Harris then what will it do to let current Ne1gro was born at Jeremie, Saint-Domingue prehensive scheme of studying Africa devotes fifty pages to Commons of the students as well as white underst 314 THE CRISIS MAY, 1968 315 gated him to obscurity. His son Dumas Isaacs Menken as "a Jewess." Though ume of l~& nifh:unce . Professor Harlan's p~re inherited his extraordinary energy she was converted to the Jewish faith, work i, n /IIndy showio,g that: and a talent sharpened by nature into CATHOLIC NEGRO IIIHOPI Philomene Croi Theodore (as she was Educational reform within the con genius. Nobody ever worked so hard ly christened) was actually a colored girl, text of racism partook of racism , or so continuously as Dumas p~re. His as the facts dug up by John S. Kendall REV. CARLOS A. UWIS, U D. whatever may be the long-range ef Dlvlnt Werd MlultnlfJ collected works run to 301 volumes suggest. Dumas p~re was proud of being fect of expanded education on white his mistresses to 120, and his children: • A btlnl •wvty uf tho ~I llvln• • nd Negro and "did not in the lean mind be attitudes. Discrimination in education he boasted, "to more than five hun ing reminded of his origins . .. and never 4 d~'fuutl N ~11ro llhhot•' of th• was a cancerous growth that r~t l till dred.': He made a great deal of money, took offense, provided the comments Cillhollt Chwth reform. The outhcrn Jlilll ~:nllu ll and his generocity was exceeded only by • ll l u ~ h 1IP.d wllh photos end rn•ps. were made in a friendly tone. . . ." Board's bympnth etic omt lltntlo fi ll his prodigality. "He loved arranging Once when he played with the idea of • Sl•ty PINO$. pronch tu the 111cc h•uc In Suuthcrn 1 apd sharing the pleasures of others.'' 1rlco, $1.00 per copy. Ten percent diS· running for office in the Antilles, he pu blic cdm:ntion litckcd th moml count on orders or ten or more copies. When the architect Durand explained remarked: "I will send them a lock of O r m n c~ or •uch a movement ns Onn to him that his villa of Monte-Cristo DIVINE WORD PUBLICATIONS my hair to show that I am one of dhi's oul Porco, nnd was therefore Bay Saint Leuis, Miss. could have no firm foundation because them.'' Dumas fils, on the basis of a weakened by compromise. the subsoil was clay, Dumas told him letter to Baron Edmond de Rothschild, to dig down to the rock. "That will "was one of the earliest Zionists.'' Odd The author, in a lucid style, and us cost several hundred thousand francs " ly enough, I find the usually scrupulous ing reli able source materials, reveals explained M. Durand. "Indeed, I ho~e Mr. Hopkins translating "ghost writers" how the rich "liberal" leaders of the their graduates up blind alleys of man so!" said Dumas with a smile. (negres) as "niggers." "Faire travailler North made a complete surrender to ual skill at a time when skills were Dumu fils's bastardy, his father's pour soi des 'negres' ne fut jamais glo White Supremacy in the South and sold being displ aced by new machinery and liaisons and debts, and the "luxurious rieux ni sympathique" is what Mr. out the Negro as an American citizen, techniques of mass production" upon and entertaining existence which was Maurois writes (p. 181), and not with the Reverend Charles H. Park the insistence of these black and white the rule in the paternal home" left its "Making 'niggers' work.... " (p. 183). hurst, of the New York Madison Square Uncle Toms of that day. mark. Count Horace Viel-Castel claims Presbyterian Church, counseling the J . W. I . The story told in these pages is an that the father saddled the son "with Negro to talk less about his "civic his new shoes and old mistresses.'' This rights under the Constitution, particu old, now well-known, and richly docu- larly the right of suffrage." Employing . men ted phase of education in the South dissipated young man, however, devel SEGREGATED EDUCATION oped into a priggish moral reformer. " outhem" sources of respected authen retold in facts, figures, and interpreta He was obsessed with "the protection Separate and Unequal: Public School Cam ticity he demonstrates how the tacit tion. Although it adds nothing new to of decent women against rakes, and, paigns and Radsm in the Southern Sea bargain between these "pillars" of their southern chronicles to which it pertai n~. consequently, the necessity of establish board States, J90J- J9J5. By louis R. Har respective communities " underlay the it has value in emphasizing once aanin lan. Chapel Hill: University of North whole educational movement and dic ing paternity.. • .'' "Dumas [fils] de Carolina Preu, 1958. XII+ 290 pp. $6.00. why school d e.~earcgn ti o n today i1 a sired and adored what he said he ex tated its tactical methods. The [North mu.rt in America. It is most unfortu Settling on the 1901-1915 time peri- ecrated, and that was why so many ern] philanthropists acquic ced in dis· nate th at it is a " cholarly" job, rather od because "these are the years when franchi cment and jim-crow laws and women loved him. It is a strange and, than one with wider public appea l to the Southern Educational Board [com undertook to promote acquiescence in when aU is said, a moving spectacle, the general citizenry, who need very this, of a dramatist who had turned posed of rich, patronizing Northern th e North," reminiscent of the unholy industrialists and white supremacist alliance prevailing today in the U.S. badly to be made aware of the histori himself into a preacher to actresses, but cal picture it paints far more than the had first to preach to himself, that he Southern leaders] fl ourished," and be Congress between Southern Dixiecrats few experts in race relations and his might not succumb.'' cause "by 19 15 the pattern of racial and conservative right-wing Northern Republicans. The analysis points up tory, who already know it. Neverthe The career of the three Dumas is a discrimination in public schools was how this was accomplished in the less, it is a good, helpful, well com lively biography which often reads like rather complete, Separate and Unequal posed study worthy of addition to any a romance by the Elder Dumas. Mr. has timeliness on its side since school Carolinas, Georgia, and Virginia. It Maurois pictures three notable human desegragation, especially in the South, indicts Booker T. Washington for his library as a useful reference source. beings just as they are, in both dress is continually in the forefront of Amer role in this conspiracy to provide "a Huoa H. SMYTHE and undress, with all their virtues and ican domestic - and occasionally for Negro education inferior in quantity and vices. eign-news. And any well written and quality,'' and indicates how the best One or two additional comments. On reliable source that contributes to our endowed colored schools of that era, page 357 Mr. Maurois describes Ada understanding of this problem is a vol- "Hampton and Tuskegee, led many of 316 THE CRISIS MAY, 1958 317 SO RICiHT FOR YOUR LIBRARY! A LIMITED SUPPLY OF BOUND VOLUMES OF 7~e Cl-iJiJ FOR 1953, 1956, and 1957 NOW AVAILABLE REPRESENTATIVES of e teve n ~owa branches who attended the one-day NAACP $5.75 each postpaid conference m D e.~ M oines 011 March 2. Among the authors of articles in these volumes are: DON'T FORGET Donald Stone August Meier THE 49th ANNUAL Martin Jenkins George Padmore CONVENTION OF THE NAACP Irene Diggs William Worthy Ndukwe Egbonu Otto Leichter CLEVELAND, OHIO, JULY 7-13, 1958 Branches Should Start Their Preparations Now Homer Jack Roy Wilkins Wilson Record leopold-Sedar Senghor Arthur Spingarn Ruth Wilson These volumes contain vital information on the Negro COURAGEOUS STUDENTS diocrity as long as Southerners are and his problems. (Continued from page 272) mor~ interested in prepetuating a lions annually, chiefly in tax-payers hor~tble past than they are in pro Send check or money order now for number of vol money, on an indefensible and lost motmg a hopeful future. The South cause-Segregation. If half as much will continue to spread human dis umes desired, as the supply is definitely limited. energy and money had been spent in cord at home and distrust abroad / compliance with the courts' orders until Southerners and Americans as has been dissipated in defiance ~verywhere recognize that tyranny school integration would no doubt IS no better in Birmingham than it is 7~e C!*iJiJ be an accomplished fact. in Bu~apes t, no better in Mississippi The hard core South will continue than m Moscow. Yes, no better in 20 WEST 40th STREET NEW YORK 18, N. Y. to be a land of misery and me- Little Rock than in Latvia. 318 THE CRISIS We recognized a need . . . anc~ filled it! The DAILY [,EFENDER Founded February 6, 1956, by JOHN H. SENGSTACKE Published by ROBERT S. ABBC)TT PUBLISHING CO. ( Incorporated) 3435 S. Indiana Ave. Chicago 16, Illinois