Mr & Mrs. Grant c~nn
o o .c n. LOWNDES COUNTY NEGROES go to polls in Lowndesboro, Alabama, the first time they have voted in their lives. 1600 voted for the Lowndes County Freedom OrganizatiIJn candidates. L DES cau TY CAN IDATES. LOSE,. UT BLACK PANTHER STRONG
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization, the only political party crowd, shaking hands, hugging and kissing TAX ASSESSOR in America controlled and organized by black people, was defeated in the people young and old (This sounds Alice L. MOJre (LCFO) 1604 sentimental: I put it in for the benefit of Charlie Sullivan (Dem) 2265 Lowndes County, Alabama last month. The LCFO, also known a s the those of our readers Who may think that TAX COLLECTOR Black Panther Party after its ballot symbol, a leaping black panther, was Black Power people are harsh and fright Frank Miles, Jr. (LCFO) 1603 organized a year and a half ago by Lowndes County residents and mem ening. In Lowndes, where Black Power Iva D. Sullivan (D,~m) 2268 bers of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. began, it is black people together. "It is BOARD OF EDUCATION, PLACE #3 the will, the courage and the love in our Robert Logan (LCFO) 1664 Fear, intimidation, fraud and unpreparedness caused its defeat this hearts," said carmichae(in his speech.) David M. Lyon (Rep) 1937 Fall, but the LCFO' has proved to be a strong political organization. **** BOARD OF EDUCATION, PLACE #4 Though its candidates lost, the Freedom Organization is the only black ELECTION DAY John Hinson (LCFO) 1666 political group that controls and chooses its own representatives. It may Black people in Lowndes County have Tommy Coleman (Rep) 1966 not voted in 75 years. Canvassing near BOARD OF EDUCATION, PLACE #5 win in two years. If it does, it will be looked to all over the country as Bragg, we met a man 112 years old. He Willie M. Strickland (LCFO) 1600 the way to achieve practical Black Power in America. was voting for the first time in his life. C.B. Haigler (Dem) 2170 Almost no one had ever voted. An entire Why did this happen? By Terence Cannon population had been totally excluded from politics·. This is important to remember. Fear was strong~st among those who It came as no surprise to the leadership lived and worked on the plantations. Many LOWNDES COU:'{TY, ALABAMA -- On If you don't see any Uncle Toms that the LCFO lost. The final returns were told they w'ould be kicked off if they election eve the Lowndes County Freedom You can't find them anywhere were: voted for the LCFO, or if they voted at Organization, sometimes called the Black Go on over to the Democratic Party SHERIFF all. Other workers were brought in on Panther Party, held a mass meeting at the They'll be voting over there. Sydney Logan, Jr. (LCFO) 1643 trucks from the plantations, given sample Mt. Moriah Baptist Church near Haynp Frank Ryals (Dem) 2320 ballots with the white candidates marked, ville, the county seat. If you can't find the Tax Assessor CORO~ER taken in a group into the polling place, The minister opened with a benediction:. If you can't find the Tax Collector Emory Ross (LCFO) 1640 not allowed to talk with the Negro poll "God, go with us to the polls tomorrow. Come on down to the jail house Jack Golson (Dem) 2265 watchers and then trucked back to the Be there with us in the morning. There They'll be sitting down there. plantation. CONTINUED ON PAGE 8 is a great feeling here. Help this feeling to spread through all the states of AmE'ri If you can't find the Coroner ca." Or the Sheriff a~ywhere "Our candidates represent the resi Come on down to the undertaker dents of Lowndes County," John Hulett, parlor chairman of the LCFO, told the 400 They'll be waiting right there. people crowded in the church. "They represent all the poor people in the STOKELY SPEAKS country. No matter what happens, to Stokely Carmichael, SNCC C h air man, morrow night I will hold my head as high had been jailed in Selma the Friday before as I have ever done. It is a victory to on a special warrant issued by the Mayor. get the black panther on ballot." He remained in jail over the weekend. Two Then he cautioned the audience, other SNCC field secretaries, campaigning "Lowndes Coanty is not organized. All for the Dallas County Free Independent we have is our organization. In the next Voters Organization, had been stopped two years we ought to know where every in their sound truck by Selma police and house in this county is. We need the help arrested. One cop shoVE'd his shotgun of every Negro in our community." in the driver's face and said, "We're At the end of the meeting the candidates not going to have anymore of this voting each stood and said a few words. Mrs. stuff." • Alice Moore, candidate for Tax Assessor "It's so 500d to be home," Stokely took.the microphone. "My platform is began his speech. He was home. All that Tax the Rich to Feed the Poor," she said day where I had canvassed, people. had· and sat down. Frank Miles, candidate for asked about Stokely, was he out of'Jail, Tax Collector, led the audience in a song would he be at the meeting? His speech with new words he had written. The song was cheered and applauded, and aft'er the BOB MANTS, SNCC Field Secretary, leaves the LCFO headquarters. Mants has went: meeting ended, he moved thro.Igh the worked in Lowndes County since the independe~t political movement began. PAGE 2 THE MOVEMENT DECEMBER 1966 ...... EDIT0 R I A L S .. . LETTERS ..
ON THE NOVEMBER ELECTIONS .... ORGANIZER'S NOTEBOOK ------To The Movement: notebook would deal with the "technical" In keeping with the idea of a revalu things that other organizations would w:mt tionary newspaper being usefulto people's to know.. It should not be a public re struggles, I would like to suggest that lations letter, but should be an honest The Movement have an "organizers' appraisal of a program and should inform notebook," which would be a means of others who might want to start a similar exchanging ideas and experiences between program. commu1ity organizations. Questions like If this idea is considered important how did the Community Alert Patrol get enough to be a regular feature of The organized, or what is the structure of a Movement by other community groups, certain group and what are the advan I would like to begin the questioning by tages or disadvantages of such a structure, asking someone from CAP in Watts to can be dealt with by organizers. T his outline how it was formed (where did way new ideas and techniques that 0;1e the members come from? who did the group uses can be transmitted to organi organiZing? etc.); what the structure of zations in other parts of the state and the organization is (is there a full time cOJntry. Also organizations that try staff? who mans the cars and who is in different programs--like setting up a charge? etc.); how large the organization co-op or a credit union--can report on is, and' what effect it has on po lice the s u c c e sse s or failures of these practices in the area. These are ques programs, and in so doing give their tions that people in -JOIN and the Uptown impressions why the program was suc Goodfellows have and some of the ques cessful or unsuccessful for that pa:J;"ticular tions are probably sh~red by other groups organization. Then other organizers could who are thinking anout setting up such a learn from the groups' experiences and patrol. ask relevant questions of that group. This I hope other organizers consider this would lead to a necessary dialogue be exchange of information as important as tween organizers and would help ne w I do and will be able to sit dow!! o::lce in grouiJs develop without making the mis a while to answer questions asked by takes of older groups. It wO'Jld also create other organizers. It will only be effective a sense of ..movement." if organizers speak to each other about This idea for an organizers' notebook concrete ideas and therefore it is up to arose from a specific incident that I or g ani z e r s to make such a feature think is not atypical. After reading about valuable. CAP in The Movement, some of us at Bob Lawson JOIN in Chicago woadered about the concrete problems of setting up a co;n Los Angeles Area Friends of SNCC munity patrol and wrote to L.A. twice wi.th very specific questions; however, \A'ctlon Project. not surprisingly, we never got an ans IS calling on Radicals of any variety wer. Due to the day to day activities of any community group it is virtually im to participate in possible to answer all (or any) of the independent organizing mail that comes in; but questions 0 f Meeting will be held: interest to many groups could and shoJld be answered by one letter to The Me"e Thursday, December 15; 8:i5 p.m. ment. I think the letters in the organizers' at: 17 Horizon Ave. Venice, Calif. • (m. Windward & Pacific) NEED ORGANIZERS For info., call: Robin Doyno or In the November issue of THE MOVE Larry Lack MENT I reported briefly on a community 733-6119 399-6119 TO OUR READERS organization in Chicago known as the Latin American Defense Or.ganization. You will notice that our masthead this month no longer says "Published by the LADO emerged from the dissatisfaction INCITING TO WHAT? Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee of California," with establishment oriented leadership A correspondent from Nashville This change is a legal one, We are incorporating separately as The Movement that attempted to quiet and stiffle the tells us that a local Nashville paper, Press so that national SNCC won't get sued for anything we say, Puerto Rican Community following the reporting on Stokely Carmichael's We are still very much a part of SNCC. We have never spoken officially for the summer rebellion. appearance in Watts, said, "county national office, but we have been the only newspaper where SNCC people can speak LADO is real and it grows due to a Supervisors, at first fearful Carmi.. directly to those involved in the struggles for freedom in the United States, handful of capable Puerto Rican and Mexi chael might'incite a right, denied him The Movement Press plans to expand its publishing activities beyond the news can Organizers, as well as -a complex of . a permit to speak in Watts," paper, We began with the poster of Che Guevara, and plan to print leaflets, booklets unchanging oppresive conditions that Sometimes even the established and perhaps some community newspapers and newsletters, We will also be publishing exist in the Puerto Rican ghetto. Yet like press tells the truth, material for the national SNCC office, beginning with an analysis of the Atlanta most organiZing efforts, it suffers both "riots," in booklet form with photos, a lack of funds and shortage of fUll-time THE MOVEMENT organizers. is published monthly by The need for Spanish speaking organi The Movement Press zers is urgent. The first priority is for DON'T BUy'THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE Puerto Ricans, then Mexicans, the n EDITORIAL OFFICE: Spanish speaking whites. If you can assist 449 14th Street by coming, giving leads on people, or San Francisco, California 94103 funds, please contact Obed Lopez im 626-4577 HANDS OFF MARK. COMFORT! mediately, c/o LADO, 1306 N. Western, Chicago, Illinois. Phone 384-3323. EDITORIAL GROUP: For freedom, Terence Cannon Mark Comfort is the organizer of the Boycotting the Tribune is one way that Ellie Isaksen Oak I and Direct Action Committee, a people can bring direct pressure to bear Mic~ael Frank Cieciorka ~ on the corporation that has opposed the james grassroots organization of vung people Bobbi Cieciorka rights of black people for many years. JOIN Co.nmunity Union in East Oakland. During the picketing of Mike Sharon We ask our readers not to buy the Tribune the Oakland Tribune newspaper last year, . Brooks Penney and to cancel their subscriptions. Let Mark was arrested for' 'failure to dis Hardy Frye them know that you want the authorities burse" and sentenced to 6 months in To The Editor: Joe Blum jail. to take their Hands Off Mark ComfortI You (THE MOVEMENT) are the best Alex Stein He served 44 days of this unjust sen most honest un·..hi.li1Z up by leftist bull Mike Folsom tence in the Santa Rita Prison Farm, and s hit movement paper in the country. It's Ellen Estrin was released when Supreme Court justice a joy to read your paper and to see you Roy Dahlberg William O. Douglas gave him a. stay of reaching people 'where they are' in a Dave Wellman sentence. Do you want to know creative humane way. Today it looks as if Mark will have to what's really guing on To Miss Muzio (Letters column, Oc LOS ANGELZS STAFF: return to prison to finish his term. Uke in the movement? In detail? tober). As a Catholic Interracial Council Karen Koonan many other black organizers, Mark member myself, 1 would say you have . Subscribe to 451-3934 Comfort has been subjected to a system m i sun d e r s too d THE MOVE _ Bob Niemann atic campaign by police and city officials MENT'S reflecting the honest mood of a THE KEY LIST MAlLIN; trying to keep him off the streets and comm~nity - which is necessary if we LOS ANGELES MAILING away from young people in Oakland. In which the San Francisco are to understand each other - for an ADDRESS: At a rally in Mark's defense I as t SNCC office publishes the expression of an editorial policy. I know P,O, Box 117 month, Stokely Carmichael asked people the S.F. officer you're speaking: of, and 308 Westwood Plaza documents, speeches and what they could do to help free him. One I'm sure he feels better because of know Los Angeles 24, California person suggested that they boycott the articles you may not be able to find ing what are people's honest feelings about Oakland Tribune, the powerful newspaper anywhere else. cops in generaL It's that dishonest un SUBSCRIPTIONS: $2 per year, individual copies, that has put pressure on the D.A.'s office It comes out twice a month knOWing that leads to tragedy, fear and and the police to harass Mark. We feel hatred. $5 per hundred per month, non and costs a year. that the Tribune could exercise s~milar $10 Vincent O'Connor commercial bulk subscriptions power to free him if they wanted. Expensive, but worth it. Pine muff, Ark. Advertising: $4 per column inch DECEMBER JJ6I THE MOVEMENT PAGE 3 .,.,._------~------~----.....----....------BLA'CK' POlMER IN BAKERSFIELD SANITATION WORKERS STRIKE By Alfredo De Venado to jail right now. The city ain't got the Bakersfield, California -- Despite a_ guts to try it though." court ,restraining order and a suit asking The following morning the city announc for '$600,000, '. thi-r·efuse collectors of ed it would hire scab crews to run the Bakersfield' held firm on their promise garbage routes. The city phones were to strike' and to stop any trucks driven flooded with complaints and they started by hired scabs. On 1\Jesday, October 25 to get desperate. The men had given up .,. at 6 a.m. some forty Negroes, one Mexi picketing, but they stayed on hand to can and one white stood ilL front. of the watch the yards. When one truck started gate of the Bakersfield corporation, yard. moving inside the yard, preceded by a The previous night their union represen carful of city and civil service officials, tatives had appealed to the conservative forty men appeared across the streetfrom City Council for a raise in pay and an the gate. They moved as a single unit end to a· radst administration of their and some started hopping around as if city department. Rather tban, take them they were in fight training. The truck seriously the council joked' about the stopped immediately and within five minu matter·. The union offered to begin ne tes two carloads of po lice were 0 n gotiations immediately, but the council hand. apparently saw more humor than threat in the situation. The following morning their STRIKER'S DEMANDS smiles were gone, and for the next three days the garbage ripened in the warm sun When a city attorney and the superin of the Southern San Joaquin Valley city. tendent of the corporation yards came out to tell the men to get out of the way, the POLICE ARREST ORGANIZER men instructed them that they might' 'go At 10:15 of the same morning a special to hell", and more than one striker re crew of policemen took Jim Mason into minded them that they were taxpayers and custody in front of the city corporation that the officials had best start acting like yard. Mr. Mason, the man responsiblefor public servants. Rather than allow the organizing the strike, had been driven officials to. continue their legal threats, to the picket line and was standing on the individual strikers made their demands: sidew3.lk, yet he was booked on a charge "We want a lora pay increase. How come of "suspicion of excessive speed, and we're the only black department, and the having no operators license in his pos only one that hasn't got a raise in three session". With Mason out of the way city years?" A burly man pushed to the front officials assured the localnewspapers that of the group, "Why do we have snitch the "emergency" would be ended in a few clocks (time-travel recorders) on the hours. trucks? No other department's got 'em." The court injunction was duplicated and, A thin short man asked, "Who pockets city police started their jobs as LABOR our overtime pay? It's in the budget, but RELATIONS MEN. The police beganhunt we don't get to see it." One of the men on ing down each one of the strikers, warning the strike committee chimed in, "We them to go back to work, threatening their don't want to see any more Bill Burnett:" jobs if they failed to do so, and giving (supervisor of the department). There's BAKERSFIELD SANITATION WORKERS Olt picket line, each one a copy of the injunction. The men too many grey-heads in this bunch for held firm. They had relied on Mason for him to be callin .us 'boy: We had enough visor retreated to the yard office. No men thought of. a union to represent them.. help in organizing, but according to Her of that 'boy' crap. Bakersfield ain't no were hired as scabs. No trucks rolled. The situation was summed up best by a man Crawford, president of the striking different from Barna, but we gonna make Work did not begin until three days had domestic worker, wife of one of the strik unit, "With Jim gone, we're on our own, it different. Us 'boys' are about to get passed and the city agreed to negotiate. ers, as she stood by the picket line. but we'll e.ach one of us go to jail, one at treated like men, or watch outl" The black community of Bakersfield "We've been haVing nothing but black a time, before they'll bust us up. We don't watched the situation carefully and saw slavery here," she said. "It's about time need anyone man so long as we stick NO SCABS the power of unity. The dormant labor we got us some black power .• whatever together. I don't think there's one man movement was' shown an example by men that is:' in the forty of us who isn't willing to go The city attorney and the yard super- who until only months ago had never PUBLIC HOUSING STRIKE By Mike Sharon I am in their union and on strike FOR my As the strike grows stronger, the chance ins or other means. SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -A city family." of evictions grows weaker, The Housing STIC is now getting readyfor a confron wide rent strike in Public Housing was Authority tried to intimidate the tenants by . tation with the Mayor. With morefamilies called by the San Francisco Tenant Issues REPRESENTATION DEMANDED sending a letter to each 10 c a I Poverty joining the union and the strike it seems Council (STlC), after one of its members, STIC is demanding that three tenants be Board saying that they.should.prepare to that even if STIC doesn't win all its de the Hunter's PointTenant's Union, called a placed on the city's five-man Housing find housing for evicted tenants, The ten mands this time, a strong tenant's council strike on October 1L Commission. As Ray Riley, Chairman of ants reacted by stating clearly andstrong will emerge. The strike began with tenfamilies in the STIC, put it- to me, "We think that the ly that any evictionwould be stoppedby sit-' Hunter's Point project and has since Housing Commi§sion should be made up of ' spread to some forty other families in the people living in the projects. We' know that project and to five of the city's nine other the Commission can't correct all the prob projects. Now there are over 150families lems of the projects, because they don't on strike with several hundred pledged to understand them. They live inhomes and go on strike in the coming months. The high priced apartments. Two or three have STOKELY IN WATTS Bernal Heights project has sent a list of never been through these projects. I Approximately three to five thousand He related that the Black people in the 200 hundred families which are pledged to wouldn't imagine living in Arizona trying black people came to Will Rogers Park, land have never had the choice of being go on strike. and have asked STlC for help to run California~ I wouldn't imagine a Watts, to hear Mr. Stokley Carmichael in another position. in their area. mayor living in Los Angeles trying to run speak on Black Power. . With sharp gesturing and mimicry, ATTEMPTED BUY OFF San Francisco. You can't eliminate bad Mr. Stokley Carmichael, so success Mr. Carmichael described white America conditions unless you know them:' fully captured and joined the people that as racist, making it necessary for them With a growing rent strike on his hands Support for the rent strike has been. many times he received the traditional to write rules and restrictions on civil Eneas Kane, head of the S.F. Housing coming in from all parts of the city. The symbol of Black audience aproval - the rights in order to curb the inhumanity Authority, and his assistant Revels Cayton welfare rights groups and the welfare talking back; "Yes," "Tell them how it of themselves, and not really in the behalf have begun a campaign to buy off projects workers union have endorsed the strike. is," "That's right:' Mr. Carmichael of the Black populace. This is a populace which are thus far only slightly involved' These groups along with other public hous moved back and forth with humor and that is supposed to have had these rights in the strike. They went to theNorth Beach ing tenants pressured the Welfare Com seriousness, making a deep point at each as their white counterparts have had Projects and said that insulators would be mission into allowing tenants whose rentis I shift. His primary objective in speaking them, and for just as long a period. With put on hot water pipes and that a larger sent by the Welfare Department directly was to communicate ideas, to s h are pointed examples, he discussed with his than broom-closet-sized meeting room to the Housing Authority go have that common ground, and to implore self brothers and sisters the chicanery of the would be provided for the tenant's union. money deposited with the tenant's union directed action. white community, its failures in the world . But the tenants have not taken the bait;and strike account. This audience heard, perhaps not ever at large, ego Viet-Nam, its constant usur the strike is spreading in that project .Several legal aid lawyers have pledged elucidated in better fashion, themselves pation of the very manhood of Black too. their support in the event of evictions, being described as a new generation, or society. He told the people that, in the The tenants are tired of the tiny offers They argue that the rent money is available better, a new type ot Black American. p"st, as intergrationist, demanding to be the Authority always makes when they be to the Authority, if it makes necessary This new Black man vias told to 'define the brother of the white man, the black gin to fight for tenant rights. As one tenant repairs in the projects, The only OEO his own identity, to run his own affairs, people of this country found themselves remarked, "It used to be that ldidn'twant Board to endorse the strike has been the to respect his own being. consistently on the defensive, feeling it to join the union or strike, because I had Mission Area Board, It is clear to the Mr. Carmichael began his conversation necessary to constantly apologize to the children and a wife to support and I didn't tenants why this is so, The mayor's with his people by telling them not to white man for asking for something that want to get thrown out oftheprojects. Now appointees to the city-wide Economic Op believe that they are the blame for the was already his. The Negr,o leaders, I am tired of cockroaches crawling over portunity Council, I was told, are also. position of Black People in America, as C~NTINUED ON PAGE 5 my babieS and fleas from rats biting them. staff or Commissioners of city agencies. they have been told by the White man. I . / ,) . r! ! l.\ '.I, I PAGE 4 THE MOVEMENT DECEMBER 1966 ARVIN FARM WORKERS VOTE UFWOC By Brooks Penny Pixley Strike of 1933. Buildings in the an hour talks about asking for the $5.16 an Not all of the workers are convinced, middle of cotton patches constantly re hour with 75¢ benefits that members of even now, that any union or this one in O~Giorgio's Arvin Ranch' has finally mind the observer of the past and of the Bakersfield local of the Operating particular is a good thing. But now that been broken. UFWOC has won a union previous glorious events that became Engineers get for similar work. He knows the election has been won the w'Jrkers representation election, the Teamsters eventual defeats. that his chance of getting this amount is . who are still violently anti-union are a have pulled out of the area, and UFWOC But the fact remains: DiGiorgio Fruit negligible, but still he laughs and beats distinct minority. On certain issues they is on its way toward building a strong Corporation, 290th largest corporation in the organizer on the back when he thinks can sway some people but they represent union for farm \Yorkers. the country and one of the largest ver of what the reaction of the corporation's no real power base in the uoio:I. In a But no facile generalizations or pro tically integrated fruit producers in the representative will be when he sees this dispute they have only ilbstract objections jections about the future of farm labor world, agreed to a union election for its figure. He smiles when he thinks about like "communism" or "un-christian". organizing are valid. In 1947, the SOJthem workers on this 9000 acre--over 15-1/2 picking a farm w'Jrker just like himself This group of workers represents a Tenant Farmers' Union under the name sq'jare miles--ranch at Arvin, California. who will actually 'go up to the corporatioa phenomena that isn't always in a minority. National Farm Labor Union began a strike On November 4, 283 workers voted in man and say we demand this amount and Most, but not all, of the opposition and at this same ranch that lastedthree years. favor of the union, 199 against it. Workers that amo,mt. anti-unioa feeling is found among Anglos. They were eventually defeated. The land are now drawing up contract demands for The fact that maybe he scabbed on the But the significant breakdow'j is not a scape in this area is filled wi.th the negotiations with the corporation. NFLU strike in 1947, or that maybe at racial one, but one of class identification, memories of past struggles. There are A tractor driver who has been with the tqe start he felt the-union was just for Most of the pro-unioa Anglos are poor people who can tell you about the great company for twenty years and makes $1.60 Mexicans is all erased now. He's a union whites from the south or members of member and it feels good, When O,,,lores other unions someplace else, M,)st of the Huerta ~alks to him he has to admit that anti-union feeling comes from young An this Mexican w!)man is well spoken, smart glos, mostly from California, and wives as a tack and pretty good looking too. of supervisors or salaried personneL And she's for the union,' not for the The anti-union workers have different company. social and economic aspirations, They The racial aspect of the organization feel that they are somew!lat berter than at Arvin has special significance. M:uy the rest and not going to be farm workers people criticized Cesar Chavez for or all their Iives, They identify with the ganizing farm workers along racial lines supervisory and salaried positions and when he first started the NFWA. They consequently with' the company rather said that marching with the Virgin of than w\th the workers. The pro - union Guadalupe at the head 01 the procession, Anglos, on the o:her hand, see them putting up pktures of Zapata and Villa selves as farm workers, even though and talking about La Raza would lead into some of them have been with the com· a blind alley. The majority of farm w'Jrk pany for twenty year:-s or more.. Few ers in the state might be M"xican but hold salaried 0.':" supervisory positions there were still a lot of Anglos and or have any possibility of holding these Filipinos and Negroes. U;1til all these jobs. different people were united under one One w"rker from the deep South, talk banner there would be no viable organi ing about some of the anti-union men, zation. But the success at the Arvin said he felt about them like he used to ranch proves that UFWOC i.s not just a think about "Nigger lovers back home," M,~xican· union. The concept "nigger lover" had Hrtle The total number of people who voted meaning to him within the coatext of the on November 4 was about 550, including struggle with O~Gj,orgio; 'icompany man" the challenged votes. Of these, probably had taken its place, Taking 'inigger lover" 230 were Anglo, and equal number of and "company man" within their proper Mexican descent and the rest Negro and contexts the worker felt that each was a Puerto Rican. 'When the organizatioaal cIa s s traitor, altho~gh he probably drive was first started,. Anglo workers to wouldn't use this term, From the outside whom the organizers talked said "Oh, it might seem incongruous th.at he could 1 thought this was only for the MeXicans," make this equation, but it doesn't 'seem . and then expressed sympathy with the so to him, He readily identifies wit h union. The Puerto Rican ca'mp where few anyone who is involved in the same struggle workers speak English was organized by no matter what their race as long as they a Filipino who speaks no Spanish. One of remain within the context of their commoa the most militant members, who has struggle, He probably still W'Juldn't have emerged as the de facto spokesman for a Negro in his house but he just might the union from the ranch, is a Negro. In vote for one to negotiate his contract ARVIN WORKERS MEET TO CHOOSE negotiation committee. the heat of the struggle there has been with the company. unity amung the races. WHY ARVIN WORKERS WANTED AUNION of work they don't rotate her; they put of our members as a representative right LAMONT, CALIFORNIA- Several WHO IS JESSIE MARCUS? her back on the hard side. As soon as then while he waited. He wanted to have months ago, before the union elections (laughter) "He runs the Mexican camp. Cesar comes in we'll kick out the ladies a union run by the company. He told us at Arvin, Terry Cannon attended a (Checking this out later I found that Mar of the supervisors. Chavez would take all our jobs away and house meetmg here with workers from cus leases the Mexican-American camp "The wages are arbitrary. So are the that he didn't want Chavez or any out the Di Giorgio ranch. He talked with from Oi Giorgio and operates it for a weighings. You don't see them weigh it. siders in there. the workers ab'out the upcoming elec profit.) We get paid by weight and the weights tions on the ranch. Their answers WHAT DID YOU THINK OF •'Marcus keeps a vigil over the camp. came too fast to break down individu don't come out right. Also in the sheds, THE ELECTION IN DELANO? ally, but he was able to report their He tries to keep everyone from talking if a Negro or a Mexican packs an over general feelings about working and about the union. He wants everyone to weight or underweight box they send it "Before the election the workers here living conditions under the Di Giorgio join the T",amsters. He told me he'd back and he doesn't get paid. If an thought the NFW.\ would lose. Now the CorporatioD. hire someone to beat me if I didn't Anglo packs a box wrong they keep it majority is in favor of Chavez. The new vote for the Teamsters. He hired two and pay him. workers don't know what it is all about, men to 'take care' of Saragoza and Men "Some of the foremen are bad, some' though. Marcus isn't hiring people who WHY DO YOU WANT A UNION dez. Marcus says that people have to good, some terrible, terrible. Andrez is support Chavez. He asks them who do what he says or starve. He told not good. People refuse to work for him. they're for and then turns down those who AT DI GIORGIO? me 'You should think and act and believe they refuse to get on his truck. His wife are for the NFWA." "Now we are making $1.15,$1.20. It's the way I do - that's why I'm the Director is a bastard too. If we had our say they *•* not a just wage. You can't support a here.' He's a man, who if he had the wouldn't be there. When we get in they Later, dJring a l:.inch hour I we'll. with family. necessary power, would be like Hitler. will have to get out." Saragoza and ~k'dez ;:0 t:1e Puerto Rican "We want a seniority not to be laid He would get all the people who like Chavez, WHY DO YOU WANT THE NFWA? camp at the ArvIn Rall,~.'l. The PU0rto off. They ask us to train a new person put them in one room and burn them." Ricans are solidly behLld the NFW,\. The and then throw us off like an old shoe, "There was a strike here before by w'~)-;
o o 1939 01 GIORGIO PEAR STRIK.E[ By Richard Boyden and Ken Blum The DiGiorgio Corporation's success and Earl Fruit Company officials. at breaking strikes and subduing union ac Sixty workers were arrested and three tivity is well illustrated by the Marysville. badly beaten on July 21, 1939. The judge strike of 1939. DiGiorgio owned several told them at their arraignment: large ranches in the area, all operated "You fellows can either plead guilty by a wholly-owned subsidiary of DiGior to vagrancy and the anti-picketing or gio, the Earl Fruit Company. dinance and 1 will give you 6 months The Un i ted Cannery, Agricultural, in jail wih a suspended sentence out of Packing and Allied Workers of America 'the county ~ or you can plead not guilty (UCAPAWA-CIO) had been organizing in and demand a lawyer and we will give the area of several years, together with you a 6-man jury, and they will find you AVAILABLE NOW! BUY COPIES FOR the Workers Alliance of America, the guilty and I will give you 6 months in radical league of employed which- had jail and you can do it in jail. What do YOUR FRIENDS..... 12,000 members in California. you want to do, pie a d guilty or not To; Farm Worker Press, BoX; 1060, Delano, Calif Six hundred and fifty workers (fruit guilty?" workers, spray men, peachthinners, irri On one occasion sixpickets were beaten, gators, pear blight-control men and gen put in a car and taken out of the county SEND ME COPIES OF "BASTA!: The Tale of eral laborers) walked off their jobs on without the inconvenience of arrest and Our Struggle" Deluxe Edition $2. 50.each. two ranches on May 1, 1939; DiGiorgio trial. Several men deported that way re had been bringing in Filipino workers to turned from San Francisco with money -;: Name "E replace the Anglos and drive wages down. donated by longshoremen to set up a ---'------" Deman,ds included a 5¢ raise. After 10 soup kitchen in the CIO hall to feed the Address ~ days of picketing, the company raised 'wives ·and children of other men who had City~ ---'------Total enclosed.•••. $_____ "> wages and the strikers returned to work. been forced to leave. The hall and kitchen "o Two months later Earl Fruit brought were raided and busted up by a sheriff's in Filipino and Japanese crews and laid posse. off some of the Anglos. 600 workers went Governor Olsen called the union, law out on strike again. The next day five enforcement officials, and the Earl Fruit STOKELY INWATTS Conti nued from page 3 pickets were arrested for violating a new :Company to a joint meeting to find a solu particularly of late, have aided and abet make efforts to run their own affairs, Yuba County anti-picketing ordinance. :tion to the dispute. Earl Fruit refused the ted the brainwashing of Black populace, their own schoo.! boards, their OWt1 law This ordinance, and similar laws all 'invitation, saying that there was nothing by alwa'ys insisting we raise ourselves by enforcement agencies. In other words to over the state, were largely the work of to discuss, that there was no strike among the measure of white mans' standards. place the destiny of Black people in the the Associated Farmers, a semi-fascist its employees. Instead of negotiating, the It was in this last area that Mr. Car hands of Black people. and violent anti-labor organization. In Earl Fruit Company and DiGiorgio de michael sailed home to the people. He Mr. Carmichael had told Los Angeles Yuba and Sutter Counties, the Earl Fruit cided to import hundreds of strikebreak related, they must recognize themselves that he was coming to define Black Power. Company was the largest single contribu ers. The strike was broken. for what they are and stop being ashamed His talk was this definition. Speaking more tor to the Associated Farmers. The su It is important to note the racial im of it. Describing Black people as thick directly on Black Power he emphasized pervisor of the company in the area, H.H. plications of the strike. Earl Fruit used lipped, broad nosed, and nappy headed, its meaning as being for Black People, Wolfskill, was a director of the Associa Oriental workers to lower wages of he said that with this as a frame of and for their own determination and de ted Farmers, and the Earl Fruit Company whites, thus C;;lusing racialtensions among reference, a standard, then Black people fining. He said white people, despite their was a member. the W o'r k e r s and making organization were beautiful. ' seeming confUSion, already understood Joseph DiGiorgio, founder of the fruit across racial lines extremely difficult. Mr. Carmichael told the audience to .the term power. The Black Power move empire, was a prominentAssociatedmem ment is their own, one not likely to be ber. He raised over· $10,000 to finance usurped by white people as other move public relations for them. ments had been. DiGiorgio wrote letters to his big busi In speaking, Mr. Carmichael, did not ness pals and received the folloWing re FARM LABOR SUPPORT GROUP FORMED imply that his people were purist or un sponses: (note their connection to agri blemished by the long years in a sub SAN FRANCISCO -- A permanent com told THE MOVEMENT, "was that they status cont,act with white people. He said culture) mittee to support the organiZing activities were formed around a specific issue or AT & SF railroad (shipping to market) that it was going to be hard for Black of rural workers has been formed here. boycott. When that was over, the group people to liberate themselves from white $780; Bank of America (credit and owner Called the AgriculturalSupport Committee collapsed. We are trying to build a b~oad thinking. He implored them to start now of over 1/2 of northern and centrai Cali of San Francisco, its members are from support base in San Francisco." by teaching nonviolence in their own fornia) $500; California Fruit Exchange labor unions, student groups and political One of their first activities will be $500; California Packin g Corporation organizations. picketing stores in San Francisco that communities and not to white communi ties, also to support their local organi $1,000; Crown Zellerbach $250; Kern According to a statement issued by the carry products of the Perelli-Minetti zations, to work wIth one another, to County Lan d Company $500; Safeway committee, its purposes are to "support Company, a Delano wine producer struck respect and love one another. Stores $1,500; Southern California Edison fully the efforts of the United Farm by UFWOC. This Black spokesman for Black people (power for irrigation) $300; Southern Pa Workers OrganiZing Committee," to An important aim of the committee is manages to form a very close relation cific RR $1,300; Tidewater Associated "institute community action and educa to concern itself with the needs and ship with his listeners. He is not em Oil (large land holdings) $500; Union lee tional projects" to "raise money and interests of city workers as well as pathizing their ideas and feelings. Rather, (cold storage) $250; Union Pacific;Rail provisions for the striking. workers," rural. They hope to build more com he gives one the feeling that he is talking road $500. and to "develop an understanding of the munication between the two groups of about a common knOWledge, something he Under the anti-picketing ordinance, over common problems which face rural and workers. lives with his people. 200 arrests of workers were made until city workers." Anyone wishing to Jom the Committee Harold C. Hart-Nibbrig the strike was broken. Many workers , 'The trouble with previous farm worker should call YU 2-3645 or 626-5396 in Director, Police Malpractice were brutally beaten by Sheriff's deputies support groups," a committee member San Francisco. Complaint Center, Watts
10 01W y~tr, -- SeM(mi'S q-r~s Reft 'fivt' ~ SW&jvr~ticw to THE MOVE'ME~T as (t IWCW~ g!fr= . ye Sf~~ ~'Way ~ - ~ ;u6 jiw ttW' V~~ yr~ if!2.00 ~ )f1«', mer- ~~ ~~5 jr $1.75. ric ~~------ ~a~rt1S------C~ 1~ Z~y-- PAGE 6 THE MOVEMENT DECEMBER 1966
enough to do in the fight for equal rights. They FREEDOM PRIMER This history of the civil rights saw that most Negroes were too poor to eat in movement was written for SNCC's the' white man's restaurant, even when they had Freedom Schools in the South. It the right to. Some people decided that what Ne reflects the mood and thinking that groes needed more than public accommodations resulted in the SNCC call for was the right to vote. If Negroes could vote, then Black Power. they could have some voice in making decisions We have printed here Chapter II about their lives. So a voter registration project of NEGROES IN AMERICAN HIS was started in southwest Mississippi. TORY: A FREEDOM PRIMER, by Frank and Bobbi Cieciorka, published Voter registration workers found it was very by The Student Voice, 360 Nelson hard to get Negroes registered. They found that Street, SW, Atlanta, Georgia. most white people didn't want Negroes registered now any more than they had wanted them reg istered back in Reconstruction. The white people were still using the same methods to keep Negroes from voting. .The registration test was hard. There were no rules to say who passed and who failed the test. The Registrar just decided. If you were' black, you probably wouldn't pass, even if you answered all the questions right. If you did pass, your name was published in the paper. You might lose your job or be shot at. Even if you did get registered, you couldn't help decide who would .be candidates. Often you weren't allowed to vote. People began to question whether just trying to get Negroes registered was enough. Then someone had a new idea - freedom reg istration. Freedom registration forms asked only a few simple questions about how old you were and where you lived. You didn't have to take a test. Anyone who wanted to register could. In 1963, a freedom vote was held in Mississippi. Negroes who had "not heen able to register but who wanted to vote, could vote in the freedom ghettos. Lynching continued in' the South, and vote. It was not an official election. But it showed The Modern Movement race riots happened more often in the North. th!it .80,000 Negroes in Mississippi knew how to vote and who they wanted to vote for. People THEN CAME 1960. Almost 100 years after the asked more questions about what it meant if so Civil War, four Negro students sat down at a' many people in Mississippi wanted to vote and By THE BEGINNING of the 20th Century, the Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, North were not allowed to vote. Some people decided Negroes in America were in many ways as badly Carolina. They were courteous and well behaved. it meant that the regular Mississippi Democratic off as they had been under slavery. Legally Negroes . They asked only what was theirs by right - that Party candidates were not legally elected since were free, but in fact they labored under economic they be allowed to eat like anyone else. Their tac they did not represent the majority of the people and political and social slavery little different from tic was ari old one, and yet it was revolutionary. in the state. the past. Negroes who left the South found them It was simply refusing to accept injustice. The People decided to set up a new democratic party selves crowded into northern ghettos, unable to tactic had been used before. There had been sit-ins called the Freedom Democratic Party. This new get work. and freedom rides before. But somehow 1960 was party would challenge the legality of the regular Even the trade union movement, which was or different. The movement spread at once. All over Democratic Party. ganizing workers to try for better working condi the South other students also held sit-ins. Within During the summer of 1964, civil rights workers tions and higher wages, usually did not let Negroes days, thousands of young people were sitting-in all over Mississippi talked to people and freedom join. White businessmen used the old southern and being attacked and arrested. registered people and helped to set up the FDP. trick of playing Negroes and poor white workers _ Two months later, in April, 1960, some of the The FDP sent democratically elected representa against each other. When a union threatened to sit-in students, with' the help of adyisor Ella tives to Atlantic City to challenge the representa .strike for higher wages, the boss would threaten to Baker, organized the Student Nonviolent Coordi tives of the regular Mississippi Democratic Party fire all the strikers and hire Negroes instead. A nating Committee. SNCC set up communications at the national Party convention. But the na lot of Negroes needed work so badly that they between the many different groups that were tional Democratic Party refused to seat the FDP were willing to work for very low wages. That way demonstrating. businessmen tricked Negroes and poor whites into In 1961 came the freedom rides to protest dis fighting each other instead of joininiLtogether to crimination in interstate travel. There had been Supreme Court decisions outlawing such segrega tion before. But it was not until the freedom rides that Jim Crow was finally kicked out of the bus stations. People came from all across the country to try to integrate bus stations nonviolently. In Alabama and Mississippi buses were attacked and burned. Many freedom riders were beaten and arrested. Since then the Movement has gone on and grown.
WHAT IS THE MOVEMENT? On the outside, it is civil rights organizations like CORE, SNCC,'SCLC and the NAACP. It is places like Albany, Georgia; Birmingham, Alabama; McComb, Mississippi; and LoWndes County, Alabama. It is people like Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, and Fannie Lou Hamer. To people across the country, reading news papers and watching on television, the Movement is the horror of bombed churches and senseless murders. It is the excitement of a March on Wash ington or. a Selma-to-Montgomery March. On the inside, the Movement is day-to-day hard work. It is walking and knocking on doors and talking to people. It is people getting together in work for higher wages. Because of this, when a mass meetings. It is fear and learning pow to over company did recognize a union, that only meant come fear. And maybe most of all, the Movement that Negroes had a harder time getting jobs. is people learning to ask questions. Negroes dId not give up fighting and hoping, Missi'ssippi is a good example. In many ways but very little was gained during those years. In Mississippi is one of the worst states in the coun the South, more and more black lando~ners lost try. The Movement decided to concentrate on Mis- \ their land., They had to become sharecroppers sissippi. CORE, SNCC, SCLC and the NAACP or leave the South. In the North, a system of have all worked in Mississippi and still work there. de facto segregation grew as more and more Ne In the fall of 1961, some people began to ques '5roes migrated to the cities and were confined in tion whether public accommodations testing was DECEMBER 1966 THE MOVEMENT PAGE T
representatives. That made a lot of people ask Malcolm also believed that Negroes should de more questions about democracy and our national fend themselves. He said he would be nonviolent government. only if other people were nonviolent with him. He The FDP had a freedom vote and elected Mrs. said that since segregation was illegal, anyone who Hamer, Mrs. Devine and Mrs. Gray to represent tried to enforce segregation was a criminal and them in Congress instead of the regular Demo- should be treated as a criminal, even if he was a 'cratic candidates. Then they went to Washing chief of police or a sheriff. He said, "In areas where ton, D.C., to challenge the seating of the regular our people are the constant victims of brutality, Democratic candidates because they were -elected and the government seems unable or unwilling to illegally. During the Challenge, there was lots of protect them, we should form rifle clubs that can testimony gathered about how black people in be used to defend our lives and our property in Mississippi were not allowed to register or vote. times of emergency ... the time has come for The testimony proved that the Mississippi Con the American Negro to fight back in self-defense gressmen were not legally elected. But the House whenever and wherever he is being unjustly and of Representatives voted to seat the regular Rep unlawfully attacked." resentatives anyway. It voted to deny democracy Not all black people agree with Malcolm X and in Mississippi. not all black people agree with Dr. King. Many Now people in MissIssippi are asking questions people have different ideas' about how you get again. What does ~t mean when Congress accepts freedom and equality. But many black people are members who are oot elected legally? What kind beginning to feel that they must find ways of con of Congress is it? What kind of voice in -the gov trolling and bettering their lives if they are ever ernment do people really have? How can people to attain real freedom and equality. New ques get their fair share of representation in this gov tions are being asked about controL Where does ernment which is supposed to be theirs? community. They must no longer take orders from it come from? Who really controls a community? outside forces. We will organize, and sweep out 'of How can people who live there get control of their SOME PEOPLE BELIEVE that one of the best ways office all Negro politicians who are puppets for the own community? Ito get equal rights is to go on demonstrating to outside forces." / make the nation aware of all the ways Negroes This is the kind of thing that many black people IN MISSISSIPPI, PEOPLE are searching for new are discriminated against. These people say that in the South are beginning to say now. They are ways to gain control over their lives. One idea is when the country becomes aware of injustices, it beginning to think that black people should con the Freedom Labor Union. The FLU started when will act to correct the injustices with new laws, trol politics in communities wher~ black people are the workers on one plantation went on strike for such as the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights a majority. higher wages and better conditions. They were Act. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the most famous Malcolm did not think new laws would better thrown out of their houses and are living in tents. spokesman for his point of view. things for Negroes. What was needed, he said, was They are trying to develop new ways of making a Dr. King first became well known during the that the laws we already have be fully enforced. living. New branches of the FLU are being formed Montgomery bus boycott in 1955..In Montgomery, He talked about some of the reasons why laws are in other parts of. Mississippi. the Negro people chose to stop riding city buses not enforced. He said, "The Constitution itself has In Mississippi there is also a Poor People's Cor rather than ride at the back of the bus. They held within it the machinery to expel any Representa poration. This is an organization where poor people a boycott which lasted over a year. They formed tive from a state where the voting rights of the can get money to start their own cooperative busi car pools to take each other to work. Finally they people are' violated. You don't even need new leg nesses. This way people can own their own com won their right to sit where they chose. islation.... If the black man in these southern panies instead of being hired to work for someone The Southern Christian Leadership Conference states had his full voting right, the key Dixiecrats else. was formed as a result of the boycott and Dr. King in Washington, D.C.... would lose their seats. In Alabama, black people are setting up a sep became its president. Dr. King has since led dem The Democratic Party itself would lose its power. arate political party which will represent their onstrations in many different places both in the ... When you see the amount of power that would interests. Some people call this a third party. They South and the North. He was awarded the Nobel be lost by the Democratic Party if it were to lose mean it is number three next to the Democratic Peace Prize in 1964, and he has become famous the Dixiecrat wing ... you can see where it's and Republic!?-n Parties. But for Negroes in the all over the world for his work in the freedom move against the interests of the Democrats to give vot Alabama black belt, it is the "first" party. ment. Dr. King was the leader of the Selma-to ing rights to Negroes in states where the Demo Where is the Movement going? That depends Montgomery March in the spring of 1965. crats have been in complete power and authority on the people in it, the questions they ask, the Dr. King believes that Negroes should continue ever since the Civil War." decisions they make. to use nonviolent means of protest, but he admits it is hard to be nonviolent. He has often said that Negroes in America cannot be expected to stay nonviolent if the country does not respond to Negro demands for justice. Dr. King says that there are just laws and unjust laws. He says people have a moral responsibility to obey just laws. But they aiso have a moral responsibility not to obey.unjust laws. A just law, Dr. King says, When did the is one which "uplifts human personality. Any law Movement start? that degrades human personality is unjust.... All Was it in 1775 when segregation statutes are unjust ..." the first abolitionist Dr. King also says that any law is unjust which society was formed? affects a minority which had no voice in making Or in 1663 when the law but which does not affect the majority the first slave revolt which made the law. "In disobeying such unjust was planned? laws," says Dr. King, "we do so peacefully, openly Maybe it was in and nonviolently. Most important, we willingly 1526 when the first accept the penalty, whatever it is. But in this way slaves ran away and the public comes to reexamine the law in question." joined the Indians. Many people feel that Dr. King's approach is Then,again, you might .... ~ . the right one. But other people question whether say that it began new laws will ever bring the Negroes real freedom. thousands of years ago In 1954, the Supreme Court of the United States when, even then, made a ruling that separate schools were not equal human beings were and that schools in the South were to integrate oppressed by their with all reasonable speed. In the 1964 Civil Rights fellow men and they Act, Title VI says that federal funds will be cut found that there is off from any school which is not integrated unless something in the it turns in a plan for integration which is accepted. human spirit which In spite of these federal laws which were passed can't stand chains... to correct the injustice -of segregated schools,. be fore 1964 less than 5% of the Negro school chil dren in the South attended integrated schools. Since 1964 the ilUmber is still less than 10%. Dr. King believes, with many others, that this approach has been slow, but he sees this as the best way the Movement can go forward. Some disagreed with this way. Among them was Mal colm X, the militant black leader who was shot to death early in 1965. Malcolm said: "The polit ical philosophy of black nationalism means: we must control the politics and the politicians of our DECEMBER 1966 / .THE MOVEMENT PAGE 8, LOWNDES CO. Continued from page 1 A precinct worker told us of an elderly man who was being shown how to use the demonstration voting machine. After the precinct worker had demonstrated the machine he asked the man to try it him self. The man started trembling and refused to touch the demonstration rna": 'chine. "I'll do it on election day," he said, "but not now, not now." "You know that man didn't go down on election day," said the worker. A tenant farmer in Benton was told that if he went down to vote he would have to move that day. He went to vote, and was kicked off. The LCFO is trying to buy land for those who were evicted. A retired teacher was told that she would lose her pension if she voted. She did not vote. Others were afraid that their employers would know how they voted. This -seems strange to people who are used to a se cret ballot. It's not. Whites built the voting machines, installed them, ran the where people had gathered all morning to FRAUD The whites of course told the Negroes to polls, made up the rules; the voting be taken to the polls. Mrs. Maggie Con vote Democratic. booths were in white sections of the nors had just returned from voting. "I TERROR county. From th!; point of view of people pulled that lever till the black cat howled," The whites used two kinds of fraud; the who had never voted before, why WOUldn't she said. Just then one of the teachers "graveyard vote" and "helping." Fort Deposit is the stronghold of white the whites know how they voted? drove up to the school in her new car. Before the election there were 2700 strength. Late in the afternoon of election Black people in Lowndes County do "I'll bet the rooster crowed, when she white voters registered. This was about day, Stokely Carmichael, who was driving not all own cars or trucks. Many old voted," said Mrs. Connors, nodding at the 700 more than were eligible. The extra people to the polls, pulled up to a service people could not leave their homes com teacher. The rooster is the symbol of the white vot!)fS were either dead or had station in Fort Deposit. The attendants, re fortably. The LCFO· organized car pools Alabama Democratic Party. moved out of the county.; Many of these cognizing him, refused to serve the car. and pick-Up routes, but it was impossible There is a small black professional voted by proxy in the-Novem15er election. Shortly afte" that, as Carmichael pUlled during the 10 hours the polls were open to and middle-ciass group in l.Dwndes. They The LCFO poll watchers were instruct away, someone standing by the side of the check every home in the county. do "all right" under the white regime and ed to challenge all whites who were not .road fired several shotgun blasts at them, Some people were confused by having to most of them, according to LCFO leaders, who they claimed to be. Even if there was narrowly missing the car behind, also vote tWice, once in the primary and once either voted Democratic or split tneir the slightest suspicion that someone was driven by LCFO people. in the general election. votes, marking the ballot for some of the claiming to be someone he wasn't, the Dusk fell before the polls closed. In The whites pulled a very effective LCFO candidates. poll watchers and clerks were told to Fort Deposit, the courthouse lights are trick. They did not assign people to vote "When Moses crossed the Red Sea he challenge. Many white voters were chal kept on every evening of the year. But as in the precinct where they live. There are left some people behind," Carmichael said lenged, but in some pollS, like Sandy Andrew Jones, a resident of Fort Deposit, eight precincts in the county. Only about at a mass meeting election eve, "We're Ridge, home of th'e white sheriff, the and a leader in the LCFO, drove up to the half voted in their own precinct. Others going to leave some Uncle Toms behind."- LCFO had no poll watchers. Again, the polling place after the polls closed, the had to be driven across the county to vote Hulett said he thought that about 300 black people had no experience in ob lights were off. 10 or 15 miles away. This also meant Negroes voted Democratic. Since all the serving an election. Some left the polls Jones had come to pick up the LCFO that if a voter lost his voting slip and whites, with a few exceptions voted Demo when they were ordered to by the white poll watchers. As .he stepped from his did not remember where he was to vote, cratic; that means that roughly 2000 whites officials, though the officials had no right car he was approached by a group of a driver had to take him to three or four voted. That seems to bethe top white voting to do that. Others were ordered not to whites. One of them, a Fort Deposit precincts, checking the rolls each time to strength. take notes, which they had a right to do. merchant, was holding a pistol and swung find his name. This caused a great deal of Actually, the whites voted "White," not In some cases, like Sandy Ridge, poor at Jones. Mr. Jones blocked the blow with confusion. Husbands and wives would have Democratic. Two of the elected white planning resulted in the absence of poll his hand, staggered back, and was struck to vote in different sections of the county. candidates were Republicans. The RepUb watchers. from behind with a rifle butt. He was beat- The LCFO plans to change this before lican candidates won by less than 300 votes, Plantation owners instructed their ten CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE the next election. LCFO leaders feel this victims of straight Democratic ticket vot ants to ask the white officials for "help." was a deliberate attempt to confuse the ing by whites who forgot to vote for them, . voters. not being used to a two-party system. The feeling of the LCFO leaders is that UNCLE TOMISM the Toms will come around in the next CARMICHAEL'S SPEECH AT two years as they see the LCFO growing I was standing near Mosses School, stronger. MY. MORIAH CHURCH IN LOWNDES It is so GOOD to be home, and we've We will pull that lever so that our worked so long for thiS. children will never go through what we We have worked so hard for the right have gone through. We don't need educa to come· together and organize. We have tion -- all we need is the will, the courage been beaten, killed and forced out of our and the love in our hearts. houses. Lowndes County used to be called the But tonight says that we were rIght! Devil's Backyard. Now it's God's Little We have done what no one said we could Acre. do. Colored people have come together We will open the eyes of all the. black tonight. They said that niggers people in Alabama. We're saying to them, can't come together. Tonight says that we come to LoWndes County and we will show CAN come together, and we can rock this you HOWl whole country from California to New York We are telling them - you don't have to City! depend on a cracker like Wallace. We They have called us Black Panthers, are not non-violent. We are not saying separatists and nationalists. But in Mont to the whites - we are going to hit you gomery, all the big shot Negroes, they over the head. We are saying - you stop don't haveANYBODYto vote for. We got hitting us. somebody to vote for. We did things our WE CAN STICK TOGETHERI way and we wonl Black people are going to have their Black people can do things by them own political party. We are going to selves and for themselves. They told us control it lock, stock and barrell the black people couldn't go anywhere. White people all over the country are We have, and we're shaking the whole going to stop living on the sweat of our world. backs. It is time for Negroes to Stop fussing There are some who are not with us. .over white folks. We have let white people When ·Moses crossed the Red Sea he left run our lives. We tended their babies and some people behind. We are going to left ours alone. leave some Uncle Toms behind. We told them we knew what we were We have a lot to remember when we doing. We told them we were smartenough pull that lever. We remember when we to do for ourselves. And all those school . paid ten dollars for a schoolbook for our teachers in Lowndes County who told us children. We remember all the dust we we were stupid and uneducated. Who are ate. they going to vote for tomorrow? We are pulling the lever to stop thatI Tonight is our night. Tomorrow is our When we pull that lever we remember day. the buckets of water we pulled, because When we pull that lever we pull it for we have no running water. all the blood of Negroes that the whites We are pulling the lever so people have spilled. can live in some fine brick homes. We We will pull that lever to stop the are going to say goodbye to shacks, dirt beating of Negroes by whites. roads, poor schools. We will pull that lever for all the black We say to those who don't remember - (I. to r.) MARK COMFORT, organizer of the Oakland Direct Action Committee; people who have been killed. We are going You better remember, because if you STOKELY CARMICHAEL; TWO LOWNDES COUNTY RESIDENTS, join hands to resurrect them tomorrow. don't MOVE ON OVER, WE ARE GOING' and sing at Mt. Moriah Church election eve. TO MOVE ON OVER YOUI DECEMBER 1966 THE MOVEMENT PAGE 9 INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HULETT "We Weren't ReaUy Prepared" I sat with John Hulett. Chairman train 100 people to be carpenters. of the LCFO. on the stoop of a white Local people would get the salaries. run store two days after the election. They tried to get us to take people He had been driving around the coun from Macon County to train the people, ty getting the final vote counts from but we said no. Our people are going the polling places. We sat and drank to get the money. Then we'll have soda pop amI' swatted away the honey people to build houses and stores?' bees. Why did we lose? I asked. How is the spirit (If the people? "We weren't really prepared. We "Even though we lost. the people thought we was but we wasn't. People have strong confidence. Things are didn't know how to keep the records getting stronger." at the polls. Then Mr. Hulett had to leave. He "The machines were. controlled has been the only LCFO person work by the whites. For the next election ing full time for the Organization. we will seek to move the polls out He drove off to begin the work of the of the white districts into the Negro next two years. In 1968 the positions areas.' We should have 16 polling open will be on the Board of Revenue places instead of 8. Eight in the, (the governing body of the county). white areas and eight in the Negro. the Superintendent of Education and "We have enough evidence to the County Soliciter, (county attorney). prove there was voting fraud. if we could get the federal voting officials to join us." "If there is no struggle, there is no What is the LCFO going to do in progress. Those who profess to favor the next two years? "The first thing is houses for freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, the evictees. We're going to build are men who want crops without plow grocery stores run by the LCFO. ing up the ground. They want rain Most of those who voted against us without thunder and lightning. They were plantation workers. They need to know that we will provide for them want the ocean without the roar of its if they are fired. They would have many waters. This struggle may be a done much better if they were not moral one, or it may be a physical under pressure. "We've bought 7 acres where one: or it may be both mora I and phy Tent City is. We'll build a black gro sical: but it must be a struggle. Power cery store. then, a service station. concedes noth ing without a demand, Maybe we can get each person in the LCFO to donate 3 or 4 trees off It never did and never wi 11 ... men may oo their land. Then we'll have the lum not get what they pay for but they ..c: 0. ber to build the store and homes. must certain Iy pay for aII they get." "We are applying for a poverty -Frederick Douglass JOHN HULETT, Chairman of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. program grant of $241.000. This will en on the head with the rifle butt and a tire chain by members of the mob. Inlervievv vvilh Sidney Logan, dr. One of the two Lowndes County Negro deputies sauntered up as one of the whites was pointing his rifle at Jones' head. The " deputy made no arrests, but LCFO people "THEY'LL COME ON OVER TO US feel that his presence saved Jones from being shot. Jones was driven to the LCFO head After the election I had dinner felt returning to Lowndes County "I've been trying to get an FHA quarters, bleeding heavily, where elec with Sidney Logan, Jr., LCFO candi after the war. loan for over a year. The FHA agents tion work~rs and residents were gathered date for sheriff, and his parents. "I come back here and was treated are very tight in with the merchants. to hear the election returns. Why did we lose? like a kid. You had to take anything. They give me the runaround. They "Mr. Jones was the last person I "The plantation owners gave You go over to save this country, keep pushing you. They want me to thought they'd try to get," Carmichael ballots marked Democratic to their then you come back and ain't even re-survey all my land before I can told the people at the headquarters. "He's workers. A lot of the plantation work considered." get a FHA loan. They say I have to one of the toughest men in the county." ers stayed home. They brought the We talked about the economic put a $4,000 water system in. It only Jones had been offered a house and land others down in trucks from Fort Depo situation of black people in Lowndes. costs $1,500 to get a water system. by the whites if he would ask Negroes to sit, Sandy Ridge and Bragg. Some "They won't let you have enough I told them I wanted to put the extra vote Democratic. He refused, and con pe ople wanted to be with us, but money to do any good." he said. money into cattle to make an income, . ~he tinued to live in Fort Deposit. they wouldn't attend mass meet "You can't borrow money. The banks then they s!:tid I had to have insurance. ings. Then they didn't know how to After the election returns were in, charge you 8% on a loan. We've "Some people, who aren't as full vote. armed guards were assigned to the homes talked about starting a Credit Union. in the movement as I am, get money "They'll see that nothing has You have to get some place where right off to get cattle, everything. of the LCFO leaders. It was feared that changed by electing the whites. Then you can get some money. People have They use every trick in the book to if the whites were brave eno;]gh to attack they'll come on over to us. It's al to look after their health. We don't get me to cut loose from the organi Jones, they might try to attack other LC FO ways been hard on Negroes down' have a hospital. There's two doctors zation. I won't do it. leaders. No other assaults took place; there in Fort Deposit and Bragg. in the county and they live down "Once we get a Credit Union then the willingness of Lowndes County resi The Negroes are on the fear side with the other people. we won't have no trouble in voting. dents to defend themselves may have been of the whites down there." "You see, if a colored person That's what keeps people from voting. the reason why. I asked his father what he thought gets kicked off his land, where you They want to know where they are Jones was taken to a selma hospital. when his son decided to run for going to get money? That's what they going to get help if they get kicked When he returned to Fort Deposit several sheriff. were afraid of. That's why they didn't off their land." days later, his family had been evicted "I didn't feel so good about that vote. I asked what was going to be done from their home. The LCFO is now buying part. Any other office if it could be. about the beating of Mr. Jones. land and will build him another home. He He have to take so many chances. Logan's father answered. "Some still refuses to leave Fort Deposit. He's a brave man. I'm thataway. thing got to be done about this. Else THE BLACK PANTHER IS STRONG Standing up for my rights. White everybody be afraid. We got to let folks done everything to colored white folks know that something be I went to Lowndes County with Mark people, but I never give up. I just done. He organized that committee Comfort, organizer of the Oakland Direct want to do right." getting them into the Freedom Or Action Committee, and Evelyn Knight, an Sidney Logan,' Jr. served in the ganization. Then the whites forced organizer with the Richmond Welfare U. S. Army during the Second World him to move. If nothing be done about Rights Organization. Mark and I stayed War. He was stationed in Belgium the men who beat him, we won'~ get and Germany, and received an award with Mrs. Francis Moss, who has lived any votes in Fort Deposit in the next all her 70 years in Lowndes. She talked for marxmanship. I asked him how he election." with l~S a long time about life in Lowndes County. "I can remember when I used to run in the house whenever I saw a white man coming down the road. I was afraid I'd be killed." The memory was very strong doing this for the next generation, for in her. She put her head in her hands and our children." started to shake, halfwaybetween laughing They are not downhearted by the defeat. and crying. "And I wasn't a baby then," They are together and they will win. To she continued, "but a grown woman." live in Lowndes County under the dic Life is better now. "The freedom or tatorship of the Whites is to be tough, ganization is doing God's work," she disciplined and resourceful. They will not says. "But God moves terrible slow be turned back now, so close to Victory. sometimes. I want to make him hurry up." Stokely Carmichael said at the mass A neighbor of hers, 85 years old, said meeting, "When you mention Selma, peo after she voted, "I don't know if we' 11 ple say - There's some mean white folks win. I know we will keep on fighting.If down there. But when you mention Lowndes
I'm beaten I'll know I was whipped fight County, they say -- There's some mean \ ing. I'm not doing it for mjself. I'm niggers down there I" LOWNDES COUNTY RESIDENT reads SNCC primer on voting. PAGE 10 THE MOVEME NT DECEMBER ·1966
day on how the boy had been shot and why. Then a girl spoke. -She was saying, 'Jus tice should be done.' She wanted to know EYE WITNESSES TO THE ATLANTA "RIOTS" what people were going to do about this. Some more people spoke. After a short The press and. the politicians tried time, 1 left and went to my sister'shouse. to blame SNCC and Stokely Carmichael 1 talked to her for awhile, then returned for causing the "riots" in Atlanta. to the intersection. The guy with the beard Here are two· sworn affidavits by was talking Black Power. Perry, this people who saw what took place. They colored policeman said, "You have to teIl a much different story. move." The man with the beard said, "Mr. Perry, will you please stop pester ing me." Then there was another fellow with this man, and he had on overalls. He had 'a long beard and he had on san 1, GENEVA BROWN, live at 45 Ormond dals. The policeman, Perry, told the man St., S.E., Atlanta, Georgia. 1 am 27 years to shut up. So the man with the mike kept of age and a housewife. 1 have never been right on talking. They arrested both of arrested. I've lived in the Summerhill the men. That's when the people really area about three years. I'm a native of got mad and started shaking the paddy Atlanta. Quit school while in the 11th wagon, trying to get those two men out. grade. It was on Tuesday·, September 6, Some people wanted to know w!lythe police 1966. I got home about five minutes be were locking those two men up. Others let fore it happened. I was ·getting out of a the air out of the tires so they couldn't taxi cab about 1:00 that day. I heard drive the paddy wagon away. Some police two shots. At this time I saw a boy started shooting in the air. Peopleran and running and a policeman after him. They when the policemen stopped shooting, they were about 30 or 40 feet apart. He was all came back. The truck moved forward, hollering, "Mama, don't let them kill and it was dragging, because the tires me." I had paniced and run to meet him. were flat. I wasn't pushing the paddy wa I got to the front of his mother's house gon, but 1 was in the crowd watching. A just as he fell on her porch. When the ATLANTA STREET SCENE during September insurrection, lot of people got on one side and tried to boy was laying on the porch, the police push the paddy wagon over on its side. man pointed the gun at his head and About five or six policemen got on the snapped the gun, but it was empty. If he after her son ran up and fell down, he up without my permission, they could other side of it and tried to hold it up. No had had another bullet in the gun, he would 10Gk him up. The police left and followed asked for a glass of water and she said one told people to throw anything. People have killed that boy. By this time, the boy's him, Stokely, through the neighborhood. the police stated, 'don't give that S.O.B. in the neighborhood were really hot. No mother had come out of the house. She any water.' She said the policeman was one had to tell them to throw anything. asked him who shot him and he pointed going to shoot him on the porch but that Mayor Allen was out there. He was look to the policeman and said, "He did mama, she told him, 'don't do that.' She said she ing scared and he was telling people what he did." She said, "You didn't have to told him t6 shoot her, but not her son, he was going to do. shoot my child." By this time a crowd that she could take it. She told me he had had gathered. The boy was bleeding and the I, BETTY JEAN McFAVORS, live at a tumor on his heart and had heart One boy with a light mustache was talk policeman said he had attempted to resist . 806 Washington St., Atlanta, Georgia. trouble. After talking to her, I walked back ing to the mayor and the mayor said let's arrest. About 20 minutes later, over 40 I'm .. 22 years of age and separated from to the intersection. People were writing go downtown and talk man to man. People people had gathered around the porch. 'my husband. 1 have two boys, one Sand the signs for their march. They carried some shouted, "He's not going anywhere." Then The girl next door came and got me other 8. I'm unemployed. up to Georgia Avenue. These were all the mayor got on top of a car. Hundreds of because she thought I was going to pass local people from this area. people started shaking the car. He was out. When the policeman saw the crowd It all happened on a Tuesday. Labor smiling before he got on the car, but people gathering, he got very nervous. He put the Day was on the 5th and the riot was on could tell he was faking. Then the mayor gun in his holster and' told everyone to be the 6th. 1 was on Ormand St. walking The people from this area were very sent for reinforcements. They came with calm, that he was going to call an am towards Capitol. 1 heard some shots. I angry. I went home about 2:00 p.m. and shotguns, submachine guns, etc. I saw a bulance. Then he went to a police car that Saw a policeman running. I ran to see returned to the intersection again about policeman get knocked down. He was had driven.up. He reloaded his gun. Later what was going on. I stopped at Capitol 3:45. From Georgia Ave. on down Capi getting ready to shoot somebody, so some a Grady Ambulance came and took the boy and Ormond. I saw the police in front of tol and Ormond, there were about 300 one knocked the gun out of his hand and to the hospital. The way that policeman this boy's house. It was about 12:45 p.m. people out there. I stopped at the inter then they knocked him down. Policemen was shooting, he could have killed any After that happened, an ambulance ar section and that's when 1 saw a man with shot the tear gas and people started run body. I returned home, which is only a rived and parked in front of the boy's a beard, long bushy hair and his beardwas ning. Then when it cleared, they came couple of doors from the Prather house. house. There were a lot of people gath about two inches long. This was my first right back. Ivan Allen gave the orders to I heard from some children tht there was ered there. People went back to the in time seeing him, He was screaming" Black shoot the tear gas. 1 was standing on my going to be a demonstration at 4:00p.m. on tersection of Capitol and Ormond and Power." He was also asking people to sister's porch. I remember some white the corner of Capitol and Ormond St~, so began writing up signs. They wanted to take the mike and trying to find out who had policemen were telling people to get off I walked up there. around that time. About block off the street and have a march. seen the shooting. He told them that ifthey the street. They didn't give people timeto 15 or 20 people were standing around. I 1 had heard three shots. It sounded like saw it, they should come forward and talk leave the street before they shot the stayed about 10 minutes and then left, be a .38 pistol. 1 went to the boy's mothers' ·about it, to say what they thought should be tear gas. One cannister hit me on the leg cause the crowd was making me nervous. house after the ambulance left. Three done about it and to also tell who they and two fell at my feet. One of them didn't I returned home and waited until my white and one Negro policeman were thought was responsible for what happened. go off. I really told them off. I told them husband came from work. Then about there, but they wouldn't let us go up on One man took the mike and he said that it was good they had hit me instead of my 5:00 I walked back up there. The mayor the porch. Over a 100 people gathered by the police told the boy to halt after stop children or they would have had to kill me. was out there and he was on top of a' car. this time. I stood out there about an hour ping him in his car. The boy got out of the They also brought dogs out here. I went There was a colored man up there with and when 1 finally did go up on the porch, car and started running. All this time, home about 9:00 p.m., because they him. Mayor Allen tried to get people to I saw blood on it. I didn't know the boy the policeman was shooting at him. There wouldn't let anyone back on the streets go home. Then he tried to tell them to who had been shot. His mother said that were a lot of rumors going around that before that time. follow him to the stadium. People said it happened here and they would demonstrate advertisement here. I don't know if it was SNCC had anything to do with it or not. This thing Christmas in Vietnam! Where Has JIll The gladness gone? has been building up a long time. People have been shot around here before and nothing was done about it. People were There will be little laughter in Vietnam this Christ-· not told what to do, they were just mad. mas ... Christmas 'and napalm ... What carols shall No one had to tell the people to do anything wrong. One man in the back of we sing while our bombers devastate a small nation? the SNCC panel truck said to get the white And in the villages of Vietnam (and in many Ameri policemen out of the area and leave the can homes) there will be tears for those for whom black ones there. He never said anything there will never be another Christmas. about violence. He was brown-skinned ...i' and he had a beard and a lot of hair on his What gifts can we give our friends this year that head. There was another fellow with a lot of hair and he had on sandals with long will not by. their sheer irrelevance shame both them straps. Then I met some SNCC people and us? the day after the shooting. I've seen Carmichael on T.V. before. Sto~
PEOPLE AND POWER II I JII II JACK MINNIS BILL MANDEL TO SPEAK or WHY AREW,E IN ViETNAM.....? FOR "BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES" nYEYTUSHENKO'S RUSSIA"
MONTHLY REVIEW of November, 1966, r'l Sukarno problem has, of course, been William Mandel, the noted KPFA contains an excellent analysis of why the eliminated sinc,e the article was written e~mentator on Russian affairs, will U.S. fights in Vietnam. The article says, and, presumably, now, American business present slides and conversations with in part: "A look at the map of the region can exploit the hospitality of the Malaysian the Soviet Man on the Street, Sunday, is enough to snow the central strategic government. Thank you, CIA. Taiwan "is December 11, at 7:30 p.m. The showing position of the Vietnamese 'hump' which a stabIe and prospering nation w her e will be at the SNCC Auditorium, 449 juts out into the South China Sea fro m many American investments are finding 14th Street in San Francisco. _ roughly Hue in the north to Saigon in the their most profitable ventures •••• This will be Mr. Mandel's first South. Anyone wanting to build up a Operating a plant on Taiwan runs into show ing in San Francisco of his strong counter-revolutionary base and almost no labor problems in the normal slides and conversations from his r.e pole of attraction in that part of the world sense. Chinese workers there in many cent journies through the U.S.S.R. would naturally select South Vietnam as Cfl3leS consider two days off a month to Mandel's most recent trip was his the locus of the effort. And the historical be progress:' fourth to the Soviet Union. He travelled -"c 1000 miles by train and 1200 miles by background of faltering French colonial o The Japanese textile industry is highly ism provided the Americans with the ~ developed and the primary consideration bo~t up the Volga River. needed opening, first for their financial o of the government and the industry "is He emphasizes that his 80 slides ,,0 and political influence and later for their 'J: are not "tourist photos." He has tried a. to extend automation, already the domin military take-over .... the days of the ant. factor in the bigger plants, to offset to illustrate lessons that he has learned in his meetings- with Russian older imperialisms in Southeast Asia are rising wages ••• Japan •.. offers splen citizens. Part of his program is an in numbered and the only alternatives before did promise for the long haul." depth study of a typical Russian the region are revolution or increasing In Korea''the trend is establishedfor an village. dependency on American economic and and one worker. "No attempt was made," increasingly sop:1isticated Korean textile "Yevtushenko's Russia" is pre military power. lf the revolution could says the article, "to sabotage the plant." industry ...• The domestic market is sented by The Movement. Admission be checked, the imperial fruits wf)uld The article concludes: "Until communist small, largely because of the impoverish is $2.00 general, $1.50 for students. ripen and fall of their own accord." aggression is rolled back in South Vietnam, ment of the countryside, and ventures in A special discount of 50¢ on the ad Adding a kind of premature footn te to obviously this is not a healthy locale for Korea ffi'lSt give major consideration to mission will be given to those buying the MONTHLY REVIEW analysis was the businessmen seeking new opportunities in the re-export potentiaL" a subscription to The Movement. September, 1965, issue of TEXTILE IN Asia." The article does not again discuss The article goes on and on, recounting DUSTRIES, a leading trade journal of the "opportunities'" in South Vietnam. the benefits of South Asia for American U.S. textile industry. The entire issue Taking up Malaysia, A.B. Cullison, the business. An "efficient and inexpensive was devoted to articles about the inter article's author, comments that in that labor force" in Taiw:mj a "plentiful sup national expansion of the U.S. industry. country "American business finds a gov ply of inexpensive labor" in Hong Kong; exploitation of the labor of the people in It is well wf)rth read~ng throughout for ernment and commercial comm'lnity "up to five years free of taxes andduties" the' 'underdeveloped" countries; and the those who are interested in understanding hospitable to new ventures." But, goes in Malaysia. profitable exploitation of the market's of the mechanics of U.S. imperialsim. How the Malaysian analysis, "President Su It is this sort of information, right those countries which are "developed." ever, one article, "InternationalTextiles: karno, of Indonesia, is disrupting the from the horse's mouth, so to speak, A noble goal indeed, with which the Far East," is of particular interest here. internal Malaysia markets wIth his 'con which gives the lie to the beneficent mothers and wives and children of the The article opens with a description of frontation' pressures, attempting to use rhetoric of American statesmen and their 5000-odd dead American soldiers may a Viet Cong attack on a textile mill near jungle guerillas and subversion to sabotage industrialist counterparts. The real goal comfort themselves during the lonely Saigon. The guerillas killed four guards an otherwise s tab 1e economv." The of the U.S. in So:.zth Asia is the protifable years ahead.
MOVIE REVIEW: 1111 ..11.11 11 11 11 1111111.11111..11111111111111 1111 ..1111 ..1..111111111111 Losing Just The Same AN HOUR OF LIBERAL RACISM the street with a "do rag" on his head; suggests, could the ghetto have produced (they) would be much happier. This, of By Dave Wellman does nothing but comb his hair and watch the complex music of jazz. the intense course, is a 'fantasy' the luxury of which TV; and lives in an unreal dream world insight of the blues and the powerful only the directors and producers of ' Los .. Losing Just The Same" is a tele with very little on his mind. driving sound of rhythm and blues? Are ing Just The Same' can afford. vision "documentary" about West Oak ''If I get enough money I'd buy mea car we to conclude that the music and art Not only'ls Robert's life without mean land. You "won't learn much from it. And and I wouldn't have no worries or trouble. which has developed among black people ing and dignity. But for a ghetto youth if you're poor or have worked with poor It'd be out of sight," he says staring off is another example of losing just the he has remarkably few encounters with the people you will see people and a ghetto into nothingness. same? police. The only time we see the police you have never seen before -and probably -cording' to the movie there isn't The movie leaves you with the feeling is either cruising down the s t r e e t or never will. You should see the movie mll, n more to Robert's life. All he does that there is nothing positiv,e or of worth screaming by with sirens blaring and lights just the same. It is an attempt to view i::j lounge in pajamas watching TV; ride in the ghetto, including the_ people. But flashing. Robert never confronts them. the ghetto from the eyes of people who on buses thinking about fancy cars; walk even the inhuman conditions of ghetto life This is remarkable, when you think about live in it. The product is incomplete and the streets; work half-heartedly on a cannot prevent people from reacting to it, since we are told later that he has a long humiliating: it sees only one side of lousy job; and sometimes he fights with injustice in uniquely human ways. police record and lives in a city where the ghetto life, the side that white liberals his mother. Bob is despairing about his Despair is only one reaction. Defiance police are not noted for their interest in and social workers see. And since THEY situation. He doesn't have much fight in and the assertion of human dignity can the problems of black youth. Dealing with are "losing just the same" all we see him. be seen on buses, in school, on the job, the police is not the only thing missing is despair and defeat. "I say, 'boy, you ought to make some and in the street; but not in this movie. from the movie. For a movie that claims The picture of poor people is strictly thing of yourself before it's too late:' This might be considered simply as an to probe beneath the ghetto it is strange and simply a negative one. Life is hard: But the next day it's the same olddull day oversight. We don't think so. They are ab that we never see social workers, pro money is stretched, food is rare, and and it doesn't do:' sent because they don't fit in with the point bation officers, or even church meetings. dreams and hopes are smashed on the We meet a defeated young man. He is of the movie. You can't be a loser and be More oversights? hard rocks of inadequate schools, wel docile. He is defiant and angry about very defiant or have dignity. For example, Rob- ' Luckily for the people making the movie, fare restrictions and police brutality. little. err's dropping out of school is attributed Robert was, in reality, arrested. We say The movie claims to describe a "world You don't have to know Robert to ques to his inability to perform and his lack of luckily since it is clear from the beginning
. of violence and monotony, processed hair tion the accuracy of this"documentary,' I self-discipline. This may be true. But that they expect him to eventually be ar and welfare checks, fantasy and despair." All you really have to do is w'ltch black the movie never even considers the pos rested: Seeing the movie, one would expect It does this quite well, so well, in fact, kids walk across a street: you will see sibility that his dropping out of school him to be arrestedfor vagrancy, loitering, that one is left with the idea that is ALL more defiance and anger, more self-re may have been itself an act of defiance or or maybe curfew violation, since he is so there is in the lives of poor people. The spect and dignity, than you will see in the a realization on Robert's part that school dull and lacks any fight. But no. Robert people in the movie are cowed, re?igned, full Sixty minutes it takes "Losing Just and the quality of education in West Oak is arrested during the San Francisco and unreal. No\'/here does the movie show The Same" to end. The sign over the land is a dead-end. Another example is the riots for throwing a molotov cocktailll the tensions and struggles which poor driver's shoulder will say "no smoking, way the movie portrays Robert when he is Rather strange behavior for someone as people go through and which are positive radios silent:' But you won't be able to working. The impressiOn we are left with full of despair and as the movie indicates assertions of their integrity as human avoid the sound of transistor radios and is that he is incapable of doing the job Robert is. And as we see him walking beings. See the movie if you can. It will the heavy smell of smoke as the kids satisfactorily. And again, the idea that from the jail to a waiting prison bus, we tell you a lot about people who think the carryon' 'business as usual". Robert may be putting-on someone or doing see the first real act of pride and defiance only way change will come to poor people The film claims to probe beneath the as little as possible never seems to enter on his part. He swaggers into, the bus and is if people outside the ghetto do some_ ghetto surface. It fails miserably. It the minds of those who made the movie. tells his mother in no uncertain terms: thing about it. The movie makers, as you doesn't even deal with the SURFACE The effect of this is humiliating. And "Don't be mad'" can see, seem to be unconscious victims accurately. Robert is rarely shown with the directors heap insult upon humiliation But that's about all the defiance and pride of the racist paternalism so prevalent in his friends. There are no scenes of the with their constant emphasis on conjured that we see in the movie. Perhaps the this country. street life of black youth. Robert never "fantasies." They even have a "dream directors are more comfor tab I e with The mO'vie is misleading and simple. It seems to go to parties, never goes to the scene" in which Robert rides through West "Good Negroes." It's probably very clear paints a picture of poor people that calls pool hall, doesn't associate with girls, and Oakland in a cadillac. The only thing miss that the movie leaves out and distorts for sympathy and not respect. As we fol seems to have no friends or "partners." ing is a scene shOWing him eating water more than it "documents" about ghetto low a black family around West Oakland Is one to simply conclude that Robert has melons, scratching his head and doing a life. One wonders why it was even made. we see only three things: monotony, fan no 'soul'? We never see Robert seriously shuffle for the big time movie makers from It's obvious to this ""Titer that if the ghetto tasy, and despair. The oldest son, Robert, discussing problems that are bothering Berkeley. (Memory is short, but did the is to be accurately and sensitively por on whom the movie focuses most closely, him. The dilemmas, contradictions, and folks in Watts throw watermelons atcadil trayed, another r:novie needs to be made. comes on as if the only things he wants struggle that characterize poor people try lacs, or was it something else at some And if the next movie is to be at all out of life are a cadillac, a process, and ing to solve problems and maintain per thing else?) The movie makers seem to meaningful, it will have to be done by the a chance to be a singer. lf we are to be sonal integrity are nowhere to be found suggest that if Bob would only stop 'dream people who live in the ghetto themselves. lieve the movie, .hen Robert is a very in this movie. One wonders how, if life ing' about being a singer and face up to That's the only convincing thing about dull young man. He lifelessly walks dow.1 is as meaningless and placid as this movie the reality of making $37.50 a week, :-te "Losing Just The Same."