KING NAMED MAN OF THE YEAR . Jl . , . .553. K. l.lled Wilkenis .· · Cong~tulates I Jn Traffic •.. M~•r wnk; .., The tragedy and grief of Ore- ·gon's record 553 traffic deaths in 1963 entered the hearts and homes of nearly every major Oregon community. In all, 157 communities felt the abysmal sense of sudden loss that only highway deaths can bring. Portland lost 101 citizens due to traffic accidents in 1963, more than any other Oregon community, according to the Traffic Safety and Education division, 0 r ego n department of motor vehicles. Twenty-six Salem residents died in traffic accidents last year and Eugene lost 22. Five Oregon cities each lost nine citizens in traffic acciexecutive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of · Colored People, this week telegramed his congratulations to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on his being named "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine. In the telegram, dated December 30, ,Mr. Wilkins said: Ne Yo k Th R M t' L h K' J . . · dents. These traffic victims w r -- e ev. ar rn ut er mg r., who became to millions, black and white, in South and North, the were from Beaverton, Coos HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BEING NAMED MAN OF THE YEAR BY TIME MAGAZINE. YOU CONTINUE TO BE A GREAT SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION TO THE ENTIRE DRIVE FOR FIRST-CLASS CITIZENSHIP. ALL AMERICANS WHO LOVE THEIR COUNTRY SHOULD BE GRATEFUL FOR YOUR RE-EMPHASIS OF THE MORAL COMMITMENT OF OUR NATION IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN'RIGHTS, BEST WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR. · symbol of the Negro revolution in 1963, has been named Man of the Year by the editors of Time the Weekly News- Bay, Klamath Falls, Medford · H · th f' N ' and Roseburg magazme. e IS e rrst egro to be so designated since Time established the tradition in 1927 N 1 10 • t t Or . • ear y per cen o eIn s~lectrng for the 37th year the man who "dominated the news of that year and left an indelible mark_ for goo's 553 traffic fatalities good or _rll -- o_n history." T!m.es' ~ditors report King's view of the events of the year: "In 1963 there arose a great ;.er~0~0ca~~-:!~te.aJci"efi Negro dr~appomtment and diSillUSIOnment and discontent. It was the year of Birmingham, when the civil rights is- Wasbingto~ citizens died. on ~ue was rmp,res~ed on the n~tion in a way nothing else before had been able to do. It was the most decisive year Pr~~0~s ~~~h:'sa~~nn:.~~~~!~ m the Negro s frght for equality. Never before has there been such a coalition of conscience on this issue" Florida and Texas are number· Expert political observers have come to the conslusion and your Northwest Defender endorses that able, dynamic and capable editor Jimmy ."Bang-Bang" Walkeri s the best and most logical candidate for State Representative from the East Central Sub-District. Not only has "Bang-Bang" made a di stingui sed record of progress for Portland's only and oldest Negro newspaper in the Northwest, which circulated 25,000 copies of the Washington, D. C. March edition with on the scene news coverage and pictures, and over 7500 copies per edition, but he has planted goodwill throughout Portland and the Northwest. "Bang-Bang" has had numerous write-ups in the three Portland daily newspapers, the Portland Reporter, ·the Oregonian and the Oregon Journal. Also "Bang-Bang" has appearedon Portland four major television stations, KGW-TV channel 8, .KATU-TV channel 2, KOINTV channel 6 and KPTV channel 12. "Bang-Bang" with the progressive ap· proach and pi anning has projected a lofty position in s~ far as sociological, economical and industrial advances are concerned. His program on taxation, civil rights, education, housing and employment are the most far reaching ever projects in our state. Another practical side of "Bang· Bang" is that he is the one and on Iy candidate in the East Central Sub-District that can bring out the Democrat votes. Considering all factors, in· our opinion Jimmy "Bang-Bang" Walker is undoubtedly one of the greatest personalities Portland has ever known. "Bang-Bang" is a member of Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee "SNCC", Urban League of Portland, North Portland Business Men's Association, NAACP, Billy Webb Elks, No. 1050; Prince Hall Masons and the New Hope Baptist Church. ' I have know "Bang-Bang" as a loved one, friend and booster and I believe that his great program on employment, education-taxation and last but not least in the field of civil rights has justified my whole hearted support than and now. S St P 5 · L • ed on the list of traffic deaths. ee ory on age - 9 NORTHWEST DEFENDER UNDERSTANDING AND EDUCATION WILL LE4D TO THE TRUTH ., .... ~~--~--~--.. ~--~--------~~~------~~~~~--------~----~~~~ .. ':'·:_ Ill NO. XCVII PORTLAND, OREGON 5 Cent Per Copy January 9, 196J Gutless Reactionary of 1963 This Program Is Needed Jimmy ("Bang-Bang") Walker, candidate for state representative from Portland's East Central sub-district, has announced he will campaign on a platform stressing en· forcement of Oregon civil rights laws, taxes based upon ability to pay, and decent housing ,jobs and education for all. On taxation, "Bang-Bang" will work for an exemption freeing the first $5,000 in value of a house from property taxes. In order to further ease the load on those making less than $7,500 per year, Walker will seek an increase in personal and dependent tax exemptions from the present $600 to $1,000. Walker proposes that the tax loss to the state from these exemptions be made up through increasing income taxes on corporations and upper income brackets. CIVIL RIGHTS "TEETH'' SOUGHT To strengthen and enforce Oregon civil rights laws, Walker will seek power for the bureau of labor to investigate any evidence of discrimination without waiting for a formal complaint. "Bang-Bang" will also work to make civil rights violations "criminal" rather than "civil" offenses. Walker believes in and will work for tuition-free college education for everyone and for the improvement of facilities on all levels through extensive federal aid to education. As a first step in this direction, Walker proposes an extensive scholarship program in stat" schools for those who cannot afford tuition. Walker will work to put the state government firmly behind a large-scale program of low-cost public housing beginning with a project near Portland St·ate college; where students face a severe housing shortage. NEED JOBS FOR ALL He will, if elected, do everything possible to achieve· A man whose name symbolizes hate, bigotry and op- full employment, and to improve wages, hours and work· pression for many Americans win soon be in Portland. ing conditions in Oregon. Alabama's Governor George C. Wallace, forthright To attain this goal, "Bang-Bang" will advocate: campaigner ("Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, ho-;.:~aising minimum wages for EVERYONE to $1.25 an· segregation forever!") who carried out his campaign pled- -Cutt·ing the maximum work week from 48 to 40 hours. ge to stand in the doorway to progress, in defiance of -Putting the state legislature fully behind massive the federal constitution, evidently decided _his "P)Jbl ic federal public works programs to create new jobs. This· ~ e~~ ~I ack image" has become a bit tarnished. .I ·See Pg. 7 would include new schools, housing and highways. cc' tO March Against Gov. Wallace OTTO G. RUTHERFOR-== 833 NE. SHAVER ST ~ PORTLAND, ORE. ~ 97212
NORTHWEST DEFENDER Published at 3928 ~. Williams For ever On Guard SPECI.AL LETTERS TO THE EDITOR BE 4-7265 TERRY L. BLACK ••• , ••• , • , , , , , , , , • Publisher jimmy "Bang-Bang'" Walker , , • , • , , , , , , , , , Editor Anle Wllson • , • , , ••••••• , • , , • , , Sports Editor jeanette Waliter •••••••••• , • • • • • • • Social Editor Anella Dorsey • , •••• , •••••• , • , • , Fashion Editor Can;lell Mathews ••••••••• , • Circulation Manager Defender readers please note the BWI!neaa, Manufacturer-a, Professlonat"Peoples, whose firm ads appear In tbls paper, We ask all our readers to patronize them, Please mention you saw It In The Defender. "VIews express by DEFENDER columnists and contributors do not nec:essarUy reflect the policies of thla newspaper." circulation by Mall - Newsboys - Business Please ForNard All Mall/Advertising To: Northwest Defender, 3928 N. Williams, Ponland, Oregon EDITORIAL ~reatest Negro History Yet To Be Written The blindest of racists, even Gov. George Wolloce of Alabama, should perceive that, if he bannot extend the hand of equality to fellow citizens with a black skin because that is the right thing to do, he should because it is the wise and necessary thing. We believe our Negro citizens can be lifted up and integrated in· to every weave of the Oregon fabrics. But the public decisions required to accomplish this will be made only if the nature of the problem is fully understood. In Oregon the need of the Negro citizen is not civil rights. These he hos. His need is the substance behind civil rights: equal opportunity for jobs, for housing, for an education. Yet even when the substance is granted him, he too often finds it is ashes in his hands. What does equal opportunity for a job avail him, when too often because of lack of education and training he cannot compete on on even basis with white candidates for that job? What real meaning does equal opportunity for decent housing have to him, when too often joblessness and poverty gind him inescapably to the block slum ghetto? A job, a decent home, an education - these are the three legs of the stool the Negro citizen must hove to climb into the Oregon sun· light. All are indispensable. But the education must come first. With it, oil is possible. Without it- nothing. Yet the unhappy fact is that vary large numbers of Oregon's Negro children (and children of certain other minorities, too) are not getting an adequate education. It is there to be had. But they foil by the wayside because they cannot keep up with their classes. They con· not keep up because they come from families imprisoned in illiteracy, poverty and indifference to learning. We are convinced that this grim lockstep of functional illiteracy must be broken quickly, and that no task is more fundamental to a :.oi:.J~1cro ,..r ~he Negro problem. Unemployment Benefit Law Changes Billed The new year will bring sev- • THE DEFENDER ADVOCATES A GREATLY EXPANDED PRO- eral changes to Oregon unem" GRAM OF COMPENSATORY EDUCATION FOR THESE CHILDREN ployment insurance benefits IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. THE PROGRAM SHOULD INCLUDE ALL law, according to the state de-, STEPS OF EVERY KIND NECESSARY TO LOCATE AND LIFT UP partment of employment. THESE CHILDREN IN THE EARLIEST GRADES, THUS PLACING First, the new law increaseE' THEM ON AN EQUAL FOOTING WITH OTHER CHILDREN AS ALL the maximum weekly benefit MOVE ALONG TOGETHER IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS. amount from $40 a week to $44 a week and the minimum from e THE DEFENDER BELIEVES THAT, WHEN THIS SPECIAL HELP $15 to $20. IS GIVEN THE DISADVANTAGED, FULLY INTEGRATED SCHOOLS Second, the weekly benefit ARE IN TRUTH GOOD FOR EVERYBODY. WE SUPPORT ALL will now be figured on the REASONABLE MEASURES TO BRING DE FACTO SEGREGATION basis of 1.25 per cent of the TO AN END, SHORT OF BUSSING OR ABANDONMENT OF THE .claimant's total base year NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOL PATTERN. wages, rather than 1/26th of P rtl d the .claimant's highest base a THE DEFENDER ADVOCATES THAT . 0 an AND year quarter wages. . OTHER CORE CITIES MAINTAIN HIGH QUALITY iN THEIR PUB- Since a number of claimants LIC SCHOOL SYSTEMS AT ALL COSTS, AS ONE OF THE MOST who filed in 1963 will have EFFECTIVE MEANS OF PREVENTING THE EXODUS OF WHITE claims carried over into the CITIZENS TO THE SUBURBS. new year, the benefits division a THE DEFENDER REMINDS THAT THE EVILS FOUND IN of the department of employment has had to refigure thouSLUMS.••HIGH CRIME RATES, HIGH RATES OF ILLEGITIMACY, sands of claims because of IDLENESS, ANTI-SOCIAL ATTITUDES ••• ARE THE COHSE- these changes inJhe QUEHCES OF IGNORANCE, POVERTY AND THE SLUM EHVIROH-........ -~~;;_;.,;~··-r MEHT, HOT ATTRIBUTES OF RACE. STACEY'S CLEANERS BUDGET SAVER DRYCLEANING SALE Reg. $1.19 ..... ssE CLEANED & PRESSED Bring your Drycleaning with your Laundry and Shoe Repairing to any STACEY'S DRYCLEANING and LAUNDRY STORE 2000 N. E. ALBERTA 3207 N. WILLIAMS Corner N. E. 20th 3 Blocks S. Fremont 6826 N. E. SANDY 5745 N. E. PRESCOTT Near 68tr 1 Block W. Cully Blvd. 914 N. KILLINGSWORTH 2635 N. E. BROADWAY Across from Albertsons Corner N. E. 27th Cotton Business 20 STORES TO SERVE YOU SHIRTS lleoutilully wos'*! & ironed. 27.~. BOYS WANTED In St. Johns Eastside Columbia Villa Westside To Sell The NORTHWEST DEFENDER Sirs: To the American people and our deceased president we pray, with tears in our eyes, realizing only a faith and thought lives. And the beloved Kennedy family, whose incomparable v.it and versatile talent will reign through the years. Dear God, he died with hopes we Americans will live and unite with love and integrity. He left a warm feeling in each American's heart realizing he died, but will remain alive in the hearts of all Americans, Amen. 4 Barblre to •rw ¥1141• WIWe HarrUI,Mdnw ....-. Lloyd (1..111111 MID)Ha,_. MICt 1.01-.Prap. NEWS ABOUT PEOPLE YOU KNOW A CLASSIFIED MARKET PlACE WHERE YOU CAN BUY AND SELL ANYTHING. Only th·e '64 Pontiac y., So Mid O.s You Buy for less Where Business Is Best MEADOWS PONTIAC 28th & Sandy Bivd. . 235-4101
!Symphony Bill Jan. 18. A rare departure from .;s · WOMEN ABOUT TOWN JEANETTE WALKER, Society Editor A gay surprise Motif Birthday Party was given on Jan 5, 1964, for Twin Brothers James E. ;1nd John C. Williams at 4010 N. E. 29th a new alameda home. James E. recently bought for wife Lois, all the setting was motif. James and John was surprised and all their friends _ had a ball. Portland Symphony's regular concert schedule pattern brings a guest pianist, Jorge Bolet, Jan. 18. Conductor Jacques Singer announced the d£·viation from th~ usual Monday and Tuesday night schedule allows the sought-after virtuoso, now making his 25th transcontinental concert, to appear here. Bolet recorded the sound· track music for Columbia Studios' film biography of composer Franz Liszt, titled "Song Without End." For his Portland performance Bolet will play Serge Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30. Singer will open the evening.-:-- - --------- concert with Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and will close the Public auditor i u m performance with 'Franz Schubert's Symphony ,No. 7 in C Major. Symphony to conlaU<CT·I the first performance in panese history of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Mikado" at the end of World War II. Single tickets for the Jan. 18 concert go on sale Mond~y, Jan. 13, at the J. K. Gill box office, 408 SW Fifth · Winner of both the ~ coveted Naumb-<!rg and Josef Hoffman awards, Bolet has concertized throughout Europe. He played 10 recitals ..,.a.ve•._..,_______ 4 in Poland during 1961, is ... \ MR. and DTR• .HANSON DAVIS of 320 N. Monroe enjoy themselves at the 32nd Convention of the Daughters of the Sphinx. 1 featured in festivals from Berlin to Berkshire, and has been soloist with the symphonies of New York, Cleveland, Chicago and a · dozen other cities. His capabilities Include playing three concertos in a single evening with the At· NewHt, Moat Experlencecl hclamlth II\ PortlcmcS KEYS MADE FOR ALL LOCKS Outboard Jgn.itJon Itaya and Marine Locka WALNUT PARK LOCK AND KEY o ... n t o.m. to S:H ""·"'· llollr Cl ... tl IUftHJ' 5U K. E.. Jtlll1Dga-rth If you are interested in Color TV compare these [C 131 CUITIS lATHES Prices- 1 week only. Compare the looks, the sound and color and you will buy a Curtis- Mathis color set at with your set in trade. White-Mann Co. Bzu(l;J_;f{d/zeJ YourChoiceonly .. ~49 9!Xfi~RADE The Concord The Richland is a hancbome modern cabinet of oiled American Walnut veneers ond hardwood solids. Model 35521. The Martinique Ia an elegant French Provincial styled console of authentic Mountain Cherrr veneers and hardwood solids. Model 37521, The Concord Is an Early American designed consol.e crafted of genuine Maple veneers and hardwoodsolids. Model36521. The Roma is a stately console of Italian Provincial design of the finestj!Mountain Cherrr veneers and hardwood solids. Model38521. WBITE-MANN CO. 5001 N. E. UNION AVE. (al Alberta) AT 8-5303 DEFENDER - ADVE HOBB'S RICHFIELD PREE PICK UP & DELIVERY Brake Selvice • Complete Lubrication ~Up Tirel • Batt.eries - AGcessoriea
By Jeanette Walker Society Editor Listed here are the men, women and clubs you have nominated for their outstanding contribution in commun· ity service during the year 1963. Name The 1963 BEST DRESSED WOMAN CANDIDATES • DeLois Eldridge. , ••• 150 Irene Nins ••••••••• 50 From the list you will Vivian Barnett •••.• 150 Althea Williams •••••• 50 choose two individuals and one club. Wilia Cash ••••••• i 100 Gerri Ward ••••• , ••• 50 The male winner will re· I ceive the MALE OF MERIT Lois Brummell.·' '· • 50 John Etta Redditt •••• 50 AWARD. The female winner will reClara Jackson •• • ••• 1 50 Jean Haynes •••••••• 50 ceive BEST DRESSED Vera Gibbs ••••••••• 50 Connie Bruner •••.• , • 50 OMAN AWARD. The club winner will reeive CLUB OF THE YEAR WARD Voting will close March 6. : 1964. Awards will be d at a public meetter Sunday Mar. 29th.1 Votes must be submitted, n the official ballots found\ n this page. You nay also ake advantage of the subcription offer. \ Horrinations are still open f your candidate doesn't ppear on your list. Put their names on a d and address it to orthwest Defender ciety Editor, · 3928 H. illiams Ave., rPortland, Ore. Cora Harris•••.••••• 50 Mae B. Dawson • • • • • • 50 CLUB of YEAR NOMINEES . Royals Esquires' 150 Delta Sigma Theta Sorority 50 Golden Falcon 100 Modern Matrons' so Jack & Jill 50 ~Semper Fidelis 50 Les Femmes 50 Harriet Tubman 50 Modes Royal 50 Urban League Guilds' 50 Links' 50 Portland Bus. Men Assn 50 Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porter 50 Citizen, Club The NORTH WEST DEFENDER Presents its ' . ANNUAL MERIT AWARD Program EASTER SUNDAY March 29th .MALE MERIT CANDIDATES 0 Atty. M. K. Webb 100 Atty. Aaron Brown E. Shelton Hill 100 George Lawson Thomas Vickers 100" Clifford Jackson 100 'Rev. T. X. Graham 100 Blake Johnson John Holley D. ,C. l.'t'illiams Dr. John Marshall 100 James Lee Pete Perry 100 Dr. Samuel Brown Comm. Mel Gordon 100 Bud Meadows Ru~sell Ezell 100 Mack E. Dawson 100 100 100" 100 50 50 so· so· 50 HOW TO VOTE THRU SUBSCRIPTION Complete the form for a year subscription to The Northwest Defender on the ~ ~pm ~O 9pm A subscription to the Special Subscription blank/1 ~ #1 Northwest Defender will be appearing on this page. ~ounted as 150 ·votes to be Enclose your check or send Names of devi ded equally between money for $2.00 and mai I to ' the two individuals and club The Northwest Defender of your choice, or they can Society Editor, 3928 N. be applied t9 one category. Williams Ave. Portland, Oregon. HERE'S HOW YOU DO IT No subscription orders C d ·d Mark the official ballot will be counted unless pay1 an 1 ates !with the names of either in-ment is received with the ~ividuals and club you wish order. ,. From All Over the State 0 0 0 o o o o From All Over the Northwesf All Roads Lead to FIELDS CHEVYTOWN The Sales Leader in the Northwest ..----WEEKEND SPECIAL---.. NEW I 63 CHEVROLET V·8 BEL AIR 4 DR. 52095~~~~E EMBER RED- STOCK NO. 2624 All Models-All Colors-All Body Styles IMMEDIATE DELIVERY .----ALL WAYS TO FINANCE---, 100% Financing up to 42 mos. Fields Exclusl't'e Consolidation Plan, Pay all your bills and BUY o NEW or USED CAR in one easy transaction. ASK US, WE'LL SHOW YOU HOW. {ltl41fUl~Y4!1 CHEVROLET COMPANY FIELDS Grand Ave. 1 Block South of Burnside Bridge The Home of Nothing Down and up to 24 Mos. to Pay on Service, Parts & Acceuories BE 2-0181 • • • • • • • • • • • It • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • and o vote for. .. e • VOTE NOW! OFFICIAL BALLOT v 0 T E N 0 w • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • I CAST MY VOTE FOR: I CAST MY VOTE FOR: I CAST MY VOTE FOR: • -t----------------------------m • • • • • ~ • 4 * • • • • • • • I would like to subscribe to The Northwest Defender for one year. My subscription is to be counted as 150 I li votes for the candidates and club name on the attached 1 ballot. . Please mail paper to: NAME_______________________________ ADDRESS___________________________ CITY________• ZONE ___ STATE___ Enclosed is $2.00 payment for one year's subscrip· tion. Attach this order to the offiCial voting ballot and Mail to The Northwest Defender Society Editor, 3Q?8 N• Williams Ave., Portland, Oregon• - -Z~-----------------------------------~
MAN OF THE YEAR Never Again Where He Was The jetliner left Atlanta and raced through the night toward Los Angeles. From his window seat, the black man gazed down at the shadowed outlines of the Appalachians, then leaned back against a white pillow. In the dimmed cabin light, his dark, impassive face seemed enlivened only by his big, shiny, compelling eyes. Suddenly, the plane shuddered in a pocket of severe turbulence. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned a wisp of a smile to his. companion and said: "I guess that\ Birmingham down below." It was, and the reminder of Vulcan's city set King to talking quietly of the ~vents of 1963. "In 1963," he said, there arose a great Negro disappointment and disillusionment and discontent. It was the year of Birmingham, when the civil rights issue was impres~ed on the nation in a way that nothmg else before had been able to do. It was the most decisive year in the Negro's fight for equality. Never before had there been such a coalition of conscience on this issue." Symbol of Revolution. In 1963 the centennial of the Emancipation Pr~clamation, that coalition of conscience ineradicably changed the course of U.S. life. Nineteen million Negro citizens forced the nation to take stock of itself :-in the Congress as in the corporation, m factory and field and pulpit and playground, in kitchen and classroom. The U.S. Negro, shedding the thousand fears that have encumbered his generations, made. 1963 the year of his outcry for equality, of massive demonstrations of sit-ins and speeches and street fighting, of soul searching in the suburbs and psalm singing in the jail cells. And there was Birmingham with its bomb? and snarling dogs; its shots in the ntght and death in the streets and in the churches; its lashing tire hoses that washed hun~an beings along slipper~ ave?ue~ wtthout washing away thetr dtgntty; tts men and women pinned to the ground by officers of the law. . All this was the Negro revolution. Bmnmgham was its main battleground, and Martm Luther King Jr., the leader of th~ ~egroes in Birmingham, became to mtlhons, black and white, in South a.nd North, the symbol of that revolution-and the Man of the Year. King is in many ways the unlikely leader of an unlikely organization -the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a loose alliance of I00 or so. church-oriented groups. King has netther the quiet brilliance nor the sharp administrative capabilities of the N.A.A.C.P.'s Roy Wilkins. He has none of the sophistication of the National Urban League's Whitney Young Jr., la~ks .Young's experience in dealing wtth htgh echelons of the U.S. business Y. A. Tittle or George Shearing, but he can dtscourse by the hour about Thoreau, Hegel, Kant and Gandhi. King preaches endlessly about nonviolence, but his protest movements often lead to violence. He himself has been stabbed in the chest, and physically attacked three more times; his home has been bombed three times, and he has been pitched into jail 14 times. His mail. bring? him a. daily dosage of opinton 111 whtch he IS by turn vilified and community. He has neither the inventiveness of CORE's James Farmer nor the raw militancy of SNICK's John Lewis nor the bristling wit of Author James Baldwin. He did· not make his mark in the entertainment field, where talented Negroes have long been prominent, or in the sciences and professiOI~s where Negroes .have, almost unnottced, been coming into their own (see color pages). He earns no more money than some plumbers ($1 0,000 a year), and possesses little in the way of material things. . He presents an unimposing figure: he ts 5 ft. 7 in., weighs a heavy-chested 173 lbs., dresses with funereal conservatism (five of six suits are black as are most of his neckties). He has v~ry little sense of humor. He never heard of glorified. One letter says: 'This isn't ~ threat but a promise-your head will be blown off as sure as Christ made green apples." But another ecstatically calls htm a "Moses, sent to lead his people. ~o the. Promised Land of firstclass ctttzenshtp." . Ca~,ence. Some cynics call King "De Lawd. ~e does have an upper-air way about htm, and, for a man who has earned tame wtth speeches, his metaphors can be downright embarrassing. For Negroes, he says, "the word 'wait' has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide" giving "birth to an ill-formed infa~t of frustration." Only by "following the cause of tender-tieartedness" can man ··matriculate into the university of eternal lif~.''. ~e~regation is "the adultery of an tlhctt mtercourse between injustice and immorality," and it "ca.nnot be cured by the Vaseline of gradualism." Y~t when he mounts the platform or pulptt, the actual words seem unimportant. And King, by some quality of that limpid voice or by some secret of cadence, exercises control as can few oth.ers over his audiences, black or whtte. He has .proved this ability on countless occastons, ranging from the Negr~es' huge summer March on Washmg.ton to .a little meeting one recent Fnday mght in Gadsden, Ala. Ther.e, the exchange went like this: Kmg: I hear they are beating you! Response: Yes, yes. King: I hear they are cursino Response: Yes, yes. · 0 King: I hear they are going you~ homes and doing nasty things and beatmg you! Respome: Yes, yes. King: Some of you have knives, and I ask you to put them up. Some of you may have arms, and I ask you to put them up. Get the weapon of nonviolence, the breastplate of righteousness, the armor of truth, and just keep marchtng. .Few ca~ explain the extraordinary Kt~g mysttque. Yet he has an indescnbable capacity for empathy that is the touchstone of leadership. By deed a~d by preachment, he has stirred in hts P.eople a Christian forbearance that nounshes hope and smothers injustice. Says Atlanta's Negro Minister Ralph D. Abernathy, whom Kin" calls ·'my dearest friend ~~d cellmate;;: ·The people make Dr. Kmg great. He articulates the longings. the hopes, the aspirations of his people in a most earnest and profound manner. He is a.humble man, down to earth, honest. He has proved his commitment to Judaeo-Christian ideals. He seeks to save the nation and its soul, not just the Negro." . Angry Memories. Whatever greatness, it was thrust upon him. He was born on Jan. 15 nearly 35 years ago. at a time when the myth of the subhuman Negro flourished, and when as cultivated an observer as H. L. Mencken could write that '"the educated Negro of today is a failure, not because he meets insuperable difficulties in life, but because he is a Negro. His brain is not fitted for the higher forms of mental effort; his ideals, no matter how laboriously he is trained and sheltered, remain those of a clown." IV!encken had never met the King famtly of Atlanta. King's maternal grandfather, the Rev. A. D. Williams of Georgia's first N.A.A.c.P: lea~ers, helped organize a boycott a?amst an Atlanta newspaper that had dtsparaged Negro voters. His preacher father was in the forefront of civil rights battles aimed at securing equal salaries for Negro teachers and the abolition of Jim Crow elevators in the Atlanta courthouse. As a boy, Martin Luther King Jr. suffe~ed. t~ose. cumulative experiences m dtscnmmatton that demoralize and outrage human dignity. He still recalls the curtains that were used on the dining cars of trains to separate white from black. "I was very young when I .had my first experience in sitting behm? the cur!ain," he says. "I felt just as tf a curiam had come down across my whole life. The insult of it J will never _forget." On another occasion, he and hts schoolteacher were riding a bus from Macon to Atlanta when the driver ord.ered them to give up their seats to whtte passengers. "When we didn't mov.e right away, the driver started curs!ng us out and calling us black sons of bttches. J decided not to move at all hut my teacher pointed out that w~ must ~hey the .law. So we got up and stood m the atsle the whole 90 miles to Atlanta. It was a night I'll never forget. I don't think J have ever been so deeply angry in my life." Ideals & Technique. Raised in the warmth of a tightly knit family. King developed from his earliest years a rawnerved sensitivity that bordered on selfdestruction. Twice, before he was 13. he tried to commit suicide. Once his brother, "A. D.," accidentally knocked his grandmother unconscious when he slid down a banister. Martin thought she was dead, and in despair ran to a second-floor window and jumped out -only to land unhurt. He did the same thing, with the same result, on the day his grandmother died. A bright student, he skipped through high school and at 15 entered Atlanta's Negro Morehouse College. His father wanted him to study for the ministry. King himself thought he wanted medicine or the law. "I had doubts that religion was intellectually respectable. I revolted against the emotionalism of Negro religion, the shouting and the stamping. I didn't understand it and it embarrassed me." At Morehouse, King searched for "some intellectual basis for a social philosophy." He read and reread Thoreau's essay, Civil Disobedience, concluded that the ministry was the only framework in which he could properly position his growing ideas on social protest. At Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., King built the underpinnings of his philosophy.· Hegel and Kant impressed him, but a lecture on Gandhi transported him, sent him foraging insatiably into Gandhi's books. "From my background," he says, "I gained my regulating Christian ideals. From Gandhi I learned my operational technique." Montgomery. The first big test King's philosophy-or of his operating technique-came in 1955, after he had married a talented young named Coretta Scott and ~N•an.ta-1 pastorate of the Dexter Avenue Church in Montgomery, Ala. On Dec. 1 of that year, a seamstress named Rosa Parks boarded a Montgomery bus and took a seat. As the bus continued along its route, picking up more passengers, the Negroes aboard rose on the driver's orders to give their seats to white people. When the driver told Mrs. Parks to get up, she refused. "I don't really know why I wouldn't move," she said later. "There ~asl no plot o~ plan at all. I was just ttred from shopping. My feet hurt." She was arrested and fined $10. For some reason, that small incident triggered the frustrations of Montgomery's Negroes, who for years had bent subserviently beneath the prejudices of the white community. Within hours. the Negroes were embarked upon a bus boycott that was more than 99% effectiv.e, almost ruined Montgomery's bus lme. The boycott committee soon beca~e .the IV!ontgomery Improvement Assocta.twn, wtt~ Martin Luther King Jr. as ~res!dent. Hts leadership was more tnsptratwnal than administrative; he is, as. an observer says, "more at home wtth. a co~ception than he is with the details of tis application." King's home was bombed, and when his enraged people seemed ready to take to the streets in a riot of protest, he controlled t~em with his calm preaching <;Jf nonvwlence. King became worldfamous (TIME cover, Feb. 18, 1957) and in less than a year the Suprem~ Court upheld an earlier order forbidding Jtm Crow seating in Alabama buses." Albany. Montgomery was one of the first great battles won by the Negro in the South, and for a while after it was won everything seemed anticlimactic to Ktng. When the sit-ins and freedomn~le , movements gained momentum, Ktng s S.C.L.C. helped organize and support them. But King somehow did not se<:n: very ef~kient, and his apparent l~ck of tmagmatwn was to bring him to hts lowest ebb in the Negro movement. In December 1961, King joined a mass protest demonstration in Albany, Ga., was arrested, and dramatically declared that he would stay in jail until Albany consented to. desegregate its public factltttes.. But JUSt two days after his arrest, Ktng came out on bail. The Albany moveme.nt collapsed, and King was · bttterly cnttctzed for helping to kill it. To,~ay h~ admits mistakes in Albany. Lookmg back over it," he says, ''I'm sorry I was bailed out. I didn't understancl at the time what was happening. We thought that the victory had been won. When we got out, we discovered tt was all a hoax. We had lost a real opportuntty. to redo Albany, and we lost an tntttattve that we never regained." But Kmg also learned a lesson in Albany. "We attacked the political power structure mstead of the economic powstructure," he says. "You don't win agatnst a political power structure ~here you don't have the votes. But you can wm agamst an economic power structure when you have the economic power to make the difference between a merchant's profit and loss." Birmingham. It was while he was in his p~st-Albany eclipse that King began lannmg for hts most massive assault on barricades of segregation. The tar- ''' The desegregation order still holds, but der Montgomery Negroes have since reto a .somewhat loose pattern of seg- . seatmg, rarely, for example, will a nder and a Negro sit beside each other. get: Birmingham, citadel of blind, diehard segregation. King's lieutenant, Wyatt Tee Walker, has .explained the theory that governs King's planning: "We've got to have a crisis to bargain wit~. To take a. moderate approach, hopmg to get white help, doesn't work. They nail you to the cross, and it saps the enthusiasm of the followers. You've got to have a crisis." The Negroes made their crisis but it was no spur-of-the-moment m~tter. King himself went to Birmingham to conduct workshops in nonviolent techniques. He recruited 200 people who were willing to go to jail for the cause, caref.ully pl~nned his strategy in ten meetmgs wtth local Negro leaders. Then, declaring that Birmingham is the "most thoroughly segregated big city in the U.S.," he announced early in 1963 that he would lead demonstrations there until "~~araoh lets .God's people go." Awattlng Kmg m Birmingham was Publtc Safety Commissioner Theophilus Eugene ("Bull") Connor, a man who was to become a symbol of police brutality yet. who, in fa<;t, merely reflected the ~eethmg hatreds in a city where acts of viOlence were as common as chitlins and ham hocks. As it happened, Bull Connor was running for mayor against a relative moderate, Albert Boutwell. To avoid giving campaign fuel to Connor, King waited until after the April 2 election. Between Jan. 16 and March 29, he launched himself into a whirlwind SJ?:aking tour, made 28 speeches in 16 ctttes across the nation. Moving into Birmingham in the first week of April, King and his group began putting their plans to work. Bull Connor, who had lost the election but to relinquish power sent his spies into the Negro community to seek information. Fearing that their phones were tapped, King and his friends worked up a code. He became "J.F.K.," Ralph Abernathy "Dean Rusk," Birmingham Preacher Fred Shuttlesworth "Bull," and Negro Businessman John Drew "Pope John." Demonstrators were called "baptismal candidates," and the whole operation was labeled "Project C"-for "Confrontation." . The protest began. Day after day, Negro men, women and children in their Sunday best paraded cheerfully downtown to be hauled off to jail for demonstrating. The sight and sound of so many people filling his jail so triumphantly made Bull Connor nearly apoplectic. He arrested them at lunch counters and in the streets, wherever they gathered. Still they came, rank on rank. At length, on Tuesday, May 7, 2,500 Negroes poured out of church, surged through the police lines and swarmed downtown. Connor furiously ordered the fire hoses turned on. Armed with clubs, cops beat their way into the crowds. An armored car menacingly bulldozed the milling throngs. Fire hoses swept them down the streets. In all the Birmingham demonstrations result~d in the jailing of more than 3,300 Negroes, including King himself. The Response. The Negroes had created their crisis-and Connor had made it a success. "The civil rights movement," said President Kennedy in a meeting later with King, "owes Bull Connor as much as it owes Abraham Lincoln." That was at best an oversimplification; nevertheless, because of Conr.or, the riots seared the front pages of the world press, outraged millions of people. Everywhere, King's presence, in the pulpit or at rallies, was demanded. But while he preached nonviolence, violence spread. "Freedom Walker" William Moore was shot and killed in Alabama. Mississippi's N.A.A.C.P. Leader Medgar Evers was assassmated outside his home. There was violence in Jackson, Miss., in Cambridge, Md., in Danville, Va. In Birmingham, later in the year a church bombing killed four Negr~ Sundayschool children, while two other youngsters were shot and killed the same day. ~hose events awakened long-slumbenng Negro resentments, from which a fresh Negro urgency drew strength. For the first time. a unanimity of purrontinuerl
STAN WAYNAN-LIFE LETTER FROM A BIRMINGHAM JAIL While Martin Luther Kinf.l Jr. was in Binningham's city jail last April. a group of white clergymen wrote a public statement criticizinf.l him for "unwise and untimely" demonstrations. KinR wrote a reply-on pieces of toilet paper. 'the IIJar{!ins of newspapers, and anything else he could get his hands OIZ-and smuggled it out to an aide in bits and pieces. Although in the tumble of events then and since, it never got the notice it deserved, it may yet live as a classic expression of the NeRro revolution of 1963. Excerpts from the letter. which was addressed to "My Dear Fellow Clergymen": MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. WITH THE PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. An unprecedented coalition of conscience. WE have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we sti II creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say "wait." precipitate violence. Isn't this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates hecause his unswerving commitmeht to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of the Crucifixion·> • The question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice -or will we be extremists for the cause of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill, three men were crucified for ihe same crime -the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The 1 other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. So, after all, maybe the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. • -Before the Pilgrims landed at MAN OF THE YEAR GOING TO JAIL IN BIRMINGHAM (LEFT: ABERNATHY) A Christian forbearance that nourishes hope and smothers injustice. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that "Funtown" is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored," when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title '"Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ·'nobodyness"-then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched across the pages of history the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence, we were here. For more than two centuries, our foreparents labored in this country without wages: they made cotton "king," and they built the homes of their masters in the midst of brutal injustice and shan)eful humiliation-and yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible' crueLties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. inspirational than administrative; as an observer says, "more at with a conception than he is w details of its application." Ki was bombed, and when his people seemed ready to .take to streets in a riot of protest, he trolled them with his calm of nonviolence. King became famous (TIME cover, Feb. 18. 1 and in less than a year the Su Court upheld an earlier order forb 1 im Crow seating in Alabama buses.'' Albany. Montgomery was one of the first ~real battles won by the Negro in the South. and tor a while after it was "':on everything seemed anticlimactic to K111g. When the sit-ins and freedomnde , movements gained momentum, Kzng s S.C.L.C. helped organize and support them. But King somehow did ~ot seem very efficient, and his apparent l<~ck of unagmatzon was to bring him to hzs lowest ebh in the Negro movement. In December 1961. King joined a mass protest demonstration in Albany, Ga., was arrested, and dramatically declared that he would stay in jail until Albany consented to desegregate its public faciiJtzes.. But just two days after his arrest. Kzng came out on bail. The Albany movement collapsed, and King was hztterly cntzczzed tor helping to kill it. To.~lay h~ admits mistakes in Albany. Lookmg hack over it," he says, 'Tm sorry I was bailed out. I didn't understand at the time what was happening. We thought that the victory had been ~on. When we got out, we discovered 11 was ~II a hoax. We had lost a real opportunzty to redo Albany, and we lost an initiative that we never regained." But Kzng also learned a lesson in Albany. "We attacked the political power structure mstead of the economic powstructure," he says. "You don't win against a political power structure where you don't have the votes. But vou n win against an economic po~er ucturc when you have the economic to make the difference between merchant's profit and loss." Birmingham. It was while he was in is post-Albany eclipse that King began planning for his most massive assault on the barricades of segregation. The tar- ''' The desegregation order still holds but o1dcr ~1onlgomery Negroes have sine~ revencd to a .somewhat loose pattern of scgrcg_aled. seatmg, rarely, for example, will a while nder and a Negro sit beside each other. Birmingham, citadel of blind diesegregation. King's lieut~nant, Tee Walker, has explained the that governs King's planning: got to have a crisis to bargain • In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they . • HOSES IN BIRMINGHAM • Unw1ttmg/y, he and his city brought millions of people to the Negro's side. To take a moderate approach, · ng to get white help, doesn't work. sters were shot and killed the same day. nail you to the cross, and it saps Those events awakened long-slumenthusiasm of the followers. You've benng Negro resentments, from which to have a crisis."' a fresh Negro urgency drew strength. For the first time, a unanimity ~f purpose slammed into the Negro corfsciousness with the force of a fire hose. Class lines began to shatter. Middleclass Negroes, who were aspiring for acceptance by the white community, suddenly founc a point of identity with Negroes at the bottom of the economic N.A.A.C.P. Leader Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his home. There was violence in Jackson, Miss., in Cambritlge, Md., in Danville, Va. In Birmingham, later in the year, a church bombing killed four Negro Sundayschool children. while two other youngheap. Many wealthy Negroes, once reluctant to join the fight, pitched in. Now sit-in campaigns and demonstrations erupted like machine-gun fire in every major city in the North, as well as in hundreds of new places in the South. Negroes demanded better job opportunities, an end to the de facto school segregation th:1t ghetto life had forced upon them. . . . Reprinted by permission of Time
Royal Esquires' and BillyWebb Lodge Ushered in the New Year MAC and MAY DAWSON ,."" I . - MR. and MRS. PETE PERRY MR. and MRS. SHAG THOMAS & GUESTS FASHION EDITOR TIA DORSEY and SOCIETY EDITOR JEANETTE WALKER MR. and MRS. CARL LEWIS MR. pnd MRS. SPENCER (Left Front) and COUSIN FROM LA CALIF. ENJOYING GAY NEW YEAR BALL. O.NE ROUND TABLE- HAYING A BALL I I, I I I I
SNCC Demonstration of '63 Greatest in N.W. History! By Sheila VanHyning Defender Staff Writer PORTLAND - Twelve hundred marchers took to the streets of Portland Sunday afternoon to voice their grief and anger over the murder of four children in a Birmingham church the previous Sunday. Through the efforts of the two sponsoring organizations, the Youth Council of the Nat!. Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) and Portland At timhes up to a 1,000 marchers Including many Caucasians marc ed for "FREEDOM I\IOW!" Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.), almost everybody in theNegro community was notified of the march. People weremarchingwho had been fighting for civil ril!hts in Port.Wld for years without seeing anything like ~e massive display of feeling that occurred Sunday, Students were marching who had been working in the South, facing jails and beat- · ings all summer, and who have come back to Portland to join the fight against our • more subtle forms of bigotry. Most of the marchers, however, had been newly aroused to the need to demonstrate, Some were the new ·members of Friends of S.N.C.C. who, moved last Sunday by the Birmingham • tragedy, had committed themselves at a S.N.C.C.- sponsored "Jobs and Freedom" rally to the fight for freedom. Others, who had never before .demonstrated publicly their desire for freedom, greeted each other as they joined the march: "I • WII.LAMETTE ... still paying the same consistent high rate ... as we have for the last two years All savings received on or before the lOth of any month earn a big 4¥.1% from the 1st of thai month. SAVINGS INSURED TO $10.000 BY FEDERAL. SAVINGS & LOAN INSURANCE CORPORATION '~
Hat~.:d' s Toil The das taJ•dl~· assassination of President. Kennedy _n o t onJ~· points out. man's inhumanity to man but 1t also stands as a grirrt svmhol of hatred's tragic toll . . . ' · John Fitzgerald Kenned~· was a man not onlv tall in stature but towering in principle, too. He had an ar~ent dedication to the cause of human dignity, equality of opportunity for all Americans, brotherhood for all of the world's citizens and justice for every human being. He was pursuing these goals for human rights with the youthful energy, vigorous vitality and obvious sincerity which were winning friends for our nation throughout the free world and even gaining the respect of countries with opposite Ideologies. But here in our own country, Kennedy was con· stantly running into roadblocks thrown up by Dixie die-hards, racial bigots in both the South and North a.nd other foes of human rights and equal justice. When Medgar Evers, the martyr of Mississippi, was shot down in cold blood, Kennedy apparently saw the foreboding implications. He saw the gruesome and deadly handiwork of the forces of bigotry and racial injustice ... and spoke out, frankly, condemning this evil and vicious crime, and the type ofbigots who perpetuated it. He hurled these challenging question!': How long will America be the land of equality of opportunity for all •.. except Negroes? How long will the world see us as the land of full freedom for -aJI ••• except the Negro? How long will it b11 the citadel of j~stice for all ..• except Negroes? Kennedy's speech that day and his plea for human dignity and equal rights for a!l Americans will go down in history as the most forthright and straightforward appeal for civil rights ever made by a.tt A_me:r.ican presidettt. Then came August and a half million marching feet resounded on the streets of Washington in an unprecedented, orderly demonstration a.gainst racial injusticr~ That historic assemblage, conducted in dignity, with tb~ theme of Martin J.-utMr King's memorable speech, ''I have a Dream" (full of free· dom)-at the foot of the statue of the Great Eman· cipator-toucbed the heart of the nation, and the President, too. We were there, a.nd an inside source reported that Kennedy said it was one of the proudest moments of his life. Nearly 250,000 Americans-of all colors and creeds-bad demonstrated peacefully and effectively the great need of insuring human dignity, full civil rights and equality of opportunity for ALL of our nation's citizens. Again the busksters of hate struck last fall. This time four innocent little girls in a. Sunday School in Birmingham were the victims of a. bigot's bomb.. ' Kennedy was horrifie!l a,t the incident. He dispatched the Justice Department's top personnel to Alabama to find the perpetrators of this terrible crime i!!lll to hi!Ye them prosecuted. 1\Ieanw.hUe he heg;m ple'lding w1t.h the ton legislators to get quick I!.Ctio!l. 'In s m";o.n!ngful ch·ll rights law. As usual, Di1l:iffra.h• Md ob§t.r,1r-tionlsh! resumf'.d their delaY· lDP' "·"d ,.ta lllnl! tactics, a.nd more roa.dblocks we~e thrQwn uv. From on11 of th" m"" who wa!' closest t() Ken· nedy, we learned that not only did JFK r,onsider civil rights the most important domestic problem in our nation today, but his most ardent ambition was t() be able to correct our nation's racial injustices. We also talked with him personally and felt the reassuring clasp of his hand. It was almost an obsession with him, but he constantly ran into bitter opposition from chairmen of many of the top CC?ngressional committees who threatened to wreck h1s entire legislative program if he persisted in his advocacy of civil rights. . ~any times, in waging his battle against Dixie's IDJustices, be bad to call on his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, to run interference or carry the ball for him. But his dedication to the cause of full freedom for all mankind and civil rights and equality of opportunity for all Americans, never w:wered. Dixie's deadl;v hurrican11 of hale has taken a tr;~ .;;,il' tnll in f.hp, pa.st dN·adp, .. . First youthful F.mnwt.t Till Willi> f"la.in in Mississippi, n!'Xt ·NAACP '"'HI~rs lbrr.r .T . .Moor" of .Florida nnd F.\'ers of Mjo;;: ~!' s l~pl WPrp, murdi'.rl'rl, lhl'n thP four little srirl!! 1!1 Jkrm:ng;hl!m ,wl're fn.tJt .lly homhl'rl. And now t.he I'OH!!try!! hil:hf'f"t f'X~>Rnth·P, 1h*l Prf'f"iclpnt of onr nation, has l>fop.n B!Os;a,ss.i!1af4'il. Finally, th6 a.nti~llmRx~t!1~> ~;!a.rlng; of lt poii<•P- !m!.n 11nd llf fhA sm:pP.f'tt>il ""'"!S<lin himself~endrd this v!~!ons "Jl"t~ of ' 'engooncp. - Who will. bA .next? Anrl whn t. l!.f"' we doing tl) &re. that Ha.te·!l holocaust do"" not, m11'kA Us deadly strike again? The courageous 1\ennedy ha.'! .followed the fool~ steps of Medgar Evers into Eternity a..<; a martyr to the hallowed cause of Freedom .. : · It is our ardent hope that the tragic death of this great ~nd good man will shake the conscience or. our n?-tion and laVI'makers into implementing qm~k action to. secure the human and ch·ll rights which he stood for, lived for and died for If these righteous and lofty goals can be )1;ained l~en perh~.ps, John Fitzgerald Kennt>dy will not hav~ rlu•d m ' 'am. ~}' f)n;sid.-;nl Is 1).-;ad By L. M. Meriwether My President is dead I implicate.then;t. When news of look no further." Why? I feel this loss doubly be- t~e Presidents shooting was Despite the fact that warn· cause I am a Negro and Pres- first announced Friday, news- ings were received that Oeident Kennedy by hie words <l'asters recalled that last wald would never reach the and his deeds recognized that month Adlai Stevenson was county jail allve, a man with · thia nation could not cont.inue hl.t over ~he head and spat an extensive police record to heap indignity and abuse on by rac1st elements in Dal- was permitted to roam in and upon one-tenth of its peop'e. las.. It was al.so reve~ed that out of the city jail with a gun My President Is dead! th~ Presidents secunty guard on h!s hip and shoot him ~ ~ ~ hail. been particularly appre- Why? · ' · But mingled with my grief henl!\!ve and fearful of thel!l"i nesp!te Lhe fact that no is horror 11t the ma.ch!~ations elements. But sud<ienly, even motive has been a.dvenced, of the American press and befor(l. Oswl!ld WAA arrested, with Oswald's d~at.h Texas the lor.al pollee force in this Nne of reasoning was Pollee hR.v~ d~lR.rf!d KennaTexas. The former have tried abandoned in favor of smear- dy'e assassination case clol!ed. and convicted Lee Marvin Os ing Cu!ba. and Russia. Why? wald of the murder of Pres!: i< i< i< i< i< i< dent Kennedy without bene- Another factor which is a I hope that someone, somefit of trial, obviously forget- cause fOO' alarm is the com- where will ferret out the .an~ ting that a man is innocent plcte laclc of objectivity of swers to these and the many until proven guilty. Over and. t~e Texas polft:e force. Des- other questions which are pol· over radio announcers and p1te the fad t~t eye witness- luting the air like a plague. the press have identified Os- es implicated two other per- Add not to my anguish wald as "Kennedy's Mur- sons in Kenne<iy's assassina-.with a blanket of half-truths derer" or a "Marxist Assas- tion, Texas police after cap· and evasions. Can't you un· sin". turing Oswald, boasted : derstand my grief? The fact of the matter is "We've got our man. We need My President.Is dead! Slayer of Oswald Was Ex-.Promoter ·R:uby, the 52-year-old Dallas mght club impressario w h 0 ' shot ~o death the inan charged With assassinating President Kennedy, once promoted a 12-year-old Negro "talent discovery'' known as Sugar Dadd~ in stage performances here, It was disclosed. Ruby brought the boy who~e real name was not im~ mediately disclosed, h e r e from Dallas where he had "discovered" him, and book-· ed him in several acts. Later he took Sugar Daddy to New ~ork bt~t reportedly had diffiCulty fmding bookings there for him. Oswald was an American operating in a climat~ produced by American ideals or rather the lack of practicing them. Whether or not he and/or others killed President Kennerly may forever be hidden from us now that an ft.SSM· sin's bullet hM sealed his Jip11 forever. And the MCilmulation or circumslR.nt.lal eviden('f! which now e::~.n never be refuted chMges nothing. JFK: Martyr • tn Paradise i< ~ i< What is sllll evident is that Oswald and/or others, flourished in 11. society which allowed six innocent children to be murdered and their murderer to go unapprehended. This disrespect for law and order permitted a postman ·journeying for freedom to be killed on the highway and his killer left free to gloat in victory. This disregard for human dignity allowed Medgar Evers to be shot in the back and killed. It matters not what labels we hang on the ~uilty. Emboldened by success, the next target W!t.'l the s11preme one. M.v Prel'ident. is oel\d. ~ « i< 'rhe press r:a.n also be blamed for straining our internationa.J relations with· Russia and C11ba by inventing far-fetched theories trying to HOUSES NEEDED ! ! 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