LEGISLATIVE RUN-AROUND ON CIVIL RIGHTS
_ By Evelyn Sell
The civil-rights bill, on which hearings are supposed to start January 9 in Washington, is part of a calculated maneuver by the capitalist white power structure in the United States to head off and contain the civilerights struggle that rose to new heights in 1963,
Last April the whole world was shocked at the police brutality -against Negroes in Birmingham, Alabama. . Police dogs, fire hoses, beatings, bombings and mass arrests were used against the picket lines, marches and sit-ins of the Negro community protesting racial inequalities, The chief organizers of this naked show of racist violence were the officials charged with upholding law and order and the. Constitution of the United States.
“Sympathy demonstrations with the Birmingham Negroes were held throughout the country. Mass rallies protested the police terror and demanded federal protection for the Freedom Fighters of the South. These rallies were the largest Since the protests over the lynching of Emmett Till in. 1955.
A new wave of mass demonstrations against Jim Crow swept the South, Negro leaders and others begged President Kennedy to send ‘federal troops to Birmingham, .They were told that this was impossible because no: federal court orders had been violated. The NAACP |National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] pointed out that under Ue S.Code 242, title 18, it is a-punishable federal offense for anyone "under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation or cus~ tom" to willfully deprive any citizen of any rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. Still Kennedy did not act,
When the Negro community, in desperation, struck back at the: police and the racists, Kennedy ordered federal troops to the area but kept. them inactive forty miles from Birmingham.
Ever -sharper criticism was voiced across the country both against the Kennedy administration and against the philosophy of nonviolence preached ‘by such leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr. Mere and more voices cried out for self-defense measures by the Negro community.
At the end of May a new battle front erupted in the North, Picke
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ets appeared at construction jobs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in protest against discriminatory policies in the building-trades union. ‘The traditional Negro leaders who had depended on winning over "white" friends, who had settled for token gains, were being swept aside by the growing. mass initiative. | New young militant fighters were moving into leadership of the struggle.
Kennedy Goes into Action
Kennedy, who had been silent on the terrible events in Birming~ ham, made e TV broadcast in which he pleaded that the issue of civil rights be taken "out of the streets and into the courts." (Nine years after the Supreme Court otittlawed school segregation, ‘less than eight percent of Southern Negro children attend the same school as whites.)
'. Kennedy also proposed civil-rights legislation covering voting rights, public accommodations, school desegregation, extension of the Civil Rights Commission, establishment of a community relations service and the withholding of federal funds in cases where racial discrimination occurs in federal-aid projects. The proposed provisions were weak and inadequate (for example, no deadline on school desegregation), but the gesture enabled Kennedy to parade as.a great protagonist of. civil rights and it gave the more conservative Negro leaders a plausible argument for reducing the mass struggle to mere petitions for enactment of this pitiful package.
After almost six months of labor, 2 subcommittee presented the. House Judiciary Committee with a draft that was much stronger than the original Kennedy proposals, The horrified administration pressed for a weaker version. Attorney-General Robert Kennedy was very active in this and the President himself intervened, Their argument: only a weak bill could get through Congress and half a loaf, after all, is better than none. The administration succeeded in getting the comnittee to knock out a provision against police brutality, claiming the Republicans would never vote for it.
Roy Wilkins, nead of the NAACP, ‘answered this October 25 by pointing out that in 1956 the House voted 279 to 126 for a civil-rights bill that included the very same provision, Of those in favor, 168 were Republicans; 111, Democrats. ..
After some jockeying between the Deinocrats and Republicans, the House Judiciary Committee finally approved the weaker version demanded by the administration and, in accordance with the legislative procedure, sent the bill to the House Rules Committee.
The function of this committee is to decide when a bill shall be brought to the floor for discussion and vote. The chairman is a Southern Democrat, Howard W, Smith of Virginia, and the majority of the members are Democrats. Smith, a Long-time opponent of civil rights, stated. publicly, "I don't think this bill ought to be passed,"
He kept the pill in his committee and refused to hold the hearings that are part of the process of bringing a measure to the floor for
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Johnson Continues Kennedy ‘Gourse
In his first major address as President, Johnson called for S speedy passage of the civilerights bill. He personally met with con-..; gressional leaders following his speech, The chairman of the House, | John McCormack, announced that the Democrats would try to force.the bill out of the Rules Committee by using a discharge petition, ra device requiring a majority of signatures of members of the House; that is, 218, ,
This maneuver was calculated solely to gain prestige for Johnson. and the liberal Democrats. To bring the total to 218, a lange number of Republicans would have to sign and their leaders oppose discharge petitions, arguing that they disrupt orderly legislative procedure.
The petition was doomed from the start but on December. 9 it wa begun. and within an hour 115 members, mostly Democrats sooking Negro. votes, had signed. Conspicuously absent were the names of two top Democrats: Majority Leader Carl Albert of Oklahoma and Majority Whip Hale Boggs of Louisiana. As of December 18, only 167. signatures had been obtained, oe -
‘The impasse would seem to doom any hope of passing this-measure, And this in turn would seem to increase the attractiveness of utilize ing other means in the civil-rights struggle. Smith, however, is part of. a. smooth-working team. He came to the rescue. First, he announced thet hearings will be held “in January." That offers a ray of. hope -- | and also enabled Johnson supporters to claim a "victory." Next, Smith collaborated in trying to keep up interest in the legislative. game by saying on a radio and TV broadcast, when asked if he thought the bill would pass, “Tha very much afraid that it will," .
It is indeed possible ‘that the bill will eventually be passed. What then? The answer to that question was given back in 1957 at a Leadership Conference on Civil Rights held in Washington to put pressure on Congress for passage. of civilerights legislation.
" ‘one. of the delegates went right to the heart of the matter when . he burst out: "We have enough laws already! We don't need any new laws; all we need is for them to enforce the laws we already have!"
New laws, more laws, do-nothing courts and do-little politicians and do~evil police -~ the only way to win the civil-rights struggle is through the mass action of the Negro people themselves, Lo.