YOUTH HEARTENED BY DEBERRY CANDIDACY
[The latest issue of Nuova Generazione, official organ of the Italian Communist Youth, carries a prominent article (the whole back page) on the candidacy of Clifton DeBerry for the presidency of the United States, The article, which includes a picture of the Social~ ist Workers nominee, is signed by a member of the editorial board of Nuova Generazione, Edgardo Pellegrini, The article is free from sectarianism; however, a small detail is overlooked == nowhere docs the author mention that the Socialist Workers party is a Trotskyist organization! A translation of the article follows: 3]
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For the first time in the history of America, a Negro has
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been nominated for president of the USA, The Negro is Clifton DeBerry, 59 years old, a trade unionist. At his side, Edward Shaw, a white man, a 40-year-old printer of Illinois, is running for the Vice-Presidency, DeBerry was born in Holly Springs,.a racist center in Mississippi. He is the candidate of the Socialist. Workers party, a leftist organization which obtained 20,000 votes in the last municipal elections in New York, : ea
“Many. Negro leaders," DeBerry said recently in a’panel dis-~ -cussion on the subject The Negro Vote in 1964 -- Where Is It Going?, "are going to voice their support to.the idea of once again vcting for the Democratic: party, under the lie and the illusion that Negroes have gotten more under the Democratic:party than they have under the Republican. party... But this just isn't true.: History demonstrates . that the only gains that have been made, have been made asa result. of struggle. Nobody has given anything and whatever gains the Negro people have made were achieved because.they struggled to.get them,"
oo During the panel discussion, other Negro leaders took the floor to discuss.the problem of voting. Cordell Reagon, a field secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, remin-ded the audience that in the southern states "every time a black man registers to vote he faces getting killed" and that today the real question is not the Negro vote but registering the Negro to vote.
Daniel Watts, editor of Liberator magazine, said on the same occasion: "If there is going to be any Freedom Now party (this party is already formed, but only in Michigan) [editorial note by Edgardo Pellegrini] and an all-black Freedom Now party,.it has to be precisely that. It cannot have any whites in the leadership; it cannot have any whites running the organization from behind the scenes} it has to be blackxled, black=dominated."
Watts expressed views substantially similar to those of a Negro organization that has recently widened its influence consider-= ably: the Black Muslims, Organized in religious communities and observing a very rigid moral code, the Black Muslims project anti+capitalist themes along with slogans which the American press has too easily qualified as "racism in reverse," Cassius Clay, the world's champion boxer, is likewise said_to belong to this organization and he has not refuted the rumor, [He has proudly admitted membership,] The Muslims might decide to vote for DeBerry, In that case he would win quite a large number of votes,
For his part, the first Negro candidate for Presidency of the USA made the following forecast on the vote: "I think that a large number of Negroes will vote again for the Democratic party; but a larger section will vote for candidates independent from the ‘parties $3 but I hope that a still larger section of the Negroes will voto. for socialism," ;
DeBerry's and Shaw's electoral platform carrics ten planks,
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First of all, they demand that the war in Vietnam be stopped, that Guantdnamo be given back to Cuba and the Panama Canal to Panama; they demand an end to the testing of nuclear weapons and they are for scrapping the stockpile of A= and H-bombs; that People's China _ be recognized as well as all the governments freely chosen by their peoples. Second plank: turn the arms budget into a peace budget, . for democratic reform of the army, Third plank: freedom now.and ~ equal rights for the Negroes and other minorities, combat all forms of anti-Semitism, Among the other planks, we will mention abolish-~ ment of "subversive" Lists, ending FBI harassment of political dissidents, equal pay for equal work, government aid to farmers, a public housing program, nationalizations, an economic development plan, At a meeting held recently, DeBerry underlined the need for a program among Negroes and American workers to form an independent, united labor party, | ; oe
This, in general lines, is DeBerry's platform,
‘In addition to the observations that could be made about this platform (especially if it is analyzed more deeply), a fact should. . not. be: overlooked: the nomination of a-Negro as. candidate for the White House occurs in the great movement shaking America with in- . creasing force, : :
From Martin Luther King, a Christian leader, to Malcolm XxX, a Muslim leader, pacifists and nonpacifists, intellectuals and labors ers, students and sportsmen, the Negroes. of America are undertaking a struggle of unprecedented scope that may precipitate a crisis for ‘the Democratic party, for the aims of this struggle go far beyond the "civil rights" measures outlined. by Johnson when he was still | Vice-President and which have not yet been implemented in the South as a whole, ea
The Holly Springs trade unionist is a presidential candidate who has no chance of winning -- once again the game will fall to-the two monster parties of American politics, However, a significantsuccess for DeBerry could mean something new: that the Negroes today are not waiting for someone else to hand them civil rights as apresent; they are seeking civil rights through a struggle under Negro. leadership, oe
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