CIVIL-RIGHTS EXHIBIT AT WORLD'S FAIR OPENING
By Evelyn Sell
On April 9 the Brooklyn branch of the Congress of Racial Equal ity [CORE] announced plans to tie up New York World's Fair traffio on opening day, April 22, Leaflets urged: "Drive a while for freedom. Take only enough gas to get your car on exhibit on one of these highways."
[In the United States, a tactic of stalling automobiles on a highway offers quite practical possibilities. Possession of an automobile has long been a necessity for a majority of workers as transportation to and from the job. Millions of Negroes own automobiles, and they are not always low-priced or second-hand models, although many installments may still be due on them, since they are most often bought on "easy" credit terms, Even several decades ago, automobiles were used by American and Canadian workers to form virtually impassible barricades around plants during strikes, ]
Mayor Wagner's administration quickly swung into - action against the “stall-in" plan, A new traffic regulation made it illegal to. run out of gas on expressways, bridges and tunnels. Offenders will have to pay a $50 fine,
The very next day the sanitation workers union stated that all 10,000 members would refuse to show up for work on April 22 if they were asked to haul away stall-ins, The president of the Sanitation Men's Local 831 said, "We're not going to scab on anyone fighting for freedom or civil rights,"
However, the sanitation workers! principles were not matched by Brooklyn CORE's parent organization, On April 11 the national leadership of CORE suspended the Brooklyn branch and warned all. other CORE members against participation in the stall-in. The Manhattan and Bronx chapters refused to. give up their support to the project and withdrew from the national organization over the issue,
A member of the CORE steering committee that ordered the suspension called the stall-in "non-violent hell-raising, It won't end segregation but it might end CORE," The committee announced that its plans for the Fair were to picket the pavilions of six southern states and six companies who engage in unfair hiring practices,
Paternalistic Advice --
The stall-<in plan has been blasted by conservative Negro leaders and the so-called friends of civil rights among white liberals,
we 22e
New York senators Keating and Javits “urged Negroes to ignore: the proposed stall-in. Keating called the plan "a demonstration Of irresponsibility." Senators Humphrey (Democrat) and Kuchel (Republican) who are leading the bipartisan civil-rights bill forces, issued a joint attack on the militant tactics used in civil-rights demonstrations.
In an April 15 statement they condemned "Illegal disturbances, demonstrations which lead to violence or to injury. .-. " They olaim that such demonstrations "strike grievous blows. at the cause. of decent civil-rights legislation," They urged Negroes instead to pursue a "peaceful crusade with the same good manners, forbearance and devotion so abundantly displayed last August in the civil-rights maroh on Washington,"
Last August's civil-rights march was designed to persuade Congress to pass civil-rights legislation. Now, almost a year later, no. such legislation is on the books but Humphrey and Kuchel tell. the Negro people to be peaceful, forbearing and good-mannered in the face of repeated bombings, shootings, police brutality and legislative donothingism. oo a
Their go-slow advice is even more ironic when we know that the civil-rights bill has been locked up in the Senate for five weeks through the efforts of eighteen Dixie Democrats and one Southern Republican.
Even if this pitifully inadequate bill is passed by the ond of the summer, as is now predicted, the average Negro will not benefit from its provisions for many years to come,. Laws are only as good as the enforcement powers that back them up. The sad story of the © Supreme Gourt school desegregation decision reveals the sober. truth about the enforcement of civil rights in.the United States, Ten years after the court verdict less tnan ten per cent of southern Negro children attend integrated schools, Kennedy's Brother, Too
In the face of this sorry record the so-called good friends of the Negroes persist in denouncing all militant attempts by the. Negroes to gain some measure of equality, They warn the Negroes that any "excesses" by civil-rights forces will bring down the wrath of the racists upon the whole movement for Freedom Now.
Attorney-General Robert Kennedy added his voice to this chorus when he spoke before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on. April 16, He fully endorsed the warnings of Senators Humphrey and Kuchel who claim that the passage of the civil-rights bill would be seriously hampered by violent demonstrations,
Appearing with Kennedy.at this meeting were a number of Negro | leaders who issued a statement condemning the proposed stallein at
the World's Fair. opening... Such an action, the statement claimed, would be contrary to the "broad interests and needs of the Negro people,"
The statement was signed by Roy Wilkins of the NAASP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People], Whitney Young of the National’ Urban League, A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,. Dorothey. Height of the National Council of Negro Women, ‘James Farmer of CORE and John Lewis of the Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee [SNCC]. (Mr. Lewis later denied. signing the statement although newspapers listed his name.) The Rev. Martin Luther King endorsed the statement, also,
Ministers Attack "Freedom Now"
Other militant Negro groups are currently under attack as the country braces itself for the expected race crises of the summer, A group of Negro Baptist ministers in Detroit condemned "extremists" who, they said, are. spreading “violence, bitterness and hatred" under the guise of working for civil rights, ©
. The ministers specifically condemned the Michigan Freedom Now Committee, which is petitioning to get on the state ballot, and the Group on Advanced Leadership [GOAL] which has waged successful battles to get fair history texts into Detroit public schools so that white and black children can learn the true history of Negroes in this country. . DS ,
Dr. Williams, the president of the Baptist Ministers Conference, said, "Extremism is neither God!s way nor the American way. I want you to make this clear to your people from your pulpits. I want you to tell your people that this protest thing has gone overboard, that it has gone too far," -
Protest groups such as the Brooklyn CORE, GOAL and the Freedom Now Party are continuing their militant struggles.in the face of repression, threats, warnings and the withdrawal of the fainthearted from the ranks of the freedom fighters, It is racist violence that "has gone too far"; the struggle to win true equality _ has not gone far enough yet. ee.
NEW