"THROW WALLACE TO THE LIONS," SAY TORONTO PICKETS
TORONTO -- Thousands of Torontonians demonstrated their solidarity with the U.S. Negro "Freedom Now" struggle on the evening of July 8 and again in the forenoon of July 9. Massive picket lines protested the presence of Alabamats racist Governor George Wallace as guest speaker at the international convention of the Lions [a fraternal order].
As the convention opened July 8, almost a thousand whites, with a sprinkling of Negroes and a very high proportion of youth, ciroled Maple Leaf Gardens in the heart of downtown Toronto,
The Lions had to run a gauntlet of pickets who sang "We Shall Overcome," Placards read: "Throw Wallace to the Lions"; "Segregation ~~ Democracy's Enemy"; "We Need to Extend Civil Rights in Canada, Too,
Several hundred well wishers lined other sides of the streets where the police maintained a horse~mounted squad in reserve in case any Lions found themselves mouse-trapped.
The demonstration was called by eighteen organizations and the Toronto and District Labor Council which had. urged city authorities to deny Wallace the usual civic reception,
The pickets were headed by Rabbi. Feinberg, a prominent spokes~ man of the antinuclear arms movement, and David Lewis, a vice~president of Canadian labor's New Democratic party.
_The next morning Toronto unions repeated the demonstration,
Two other demonstrations occurred spontaneously during the giant evening downtown rally. A group of demonstrators appeared at Toronto's international airport to meet Wallace as he landed in his private plane emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes and the flag of the slave-holding Confederacy, He was accompanied by body guards and a squad of heavily armed Alabama state ‘troopers. The Canadian. pickets found it an unusual sight,
Another group of demonstrators met him as he arrived at the posh Royal York hotel, Here he was flanked by a busload of Royal Canadian Mounted Police who quickly whisked the Southern gentleman up to his suite,
These indignant and massive protests sharply cut across all the hoopla and shenanigans of the 45,000 Lions who jammed hotels and night olubs and tied up city traffic. with their parading. Governor... Wallace's address, which followed formal welcomes from city officials, was restrained, : oS
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