PRESSURE ON AMERICAN NEGRO LEADERS
By Evelyn Sell
After interviewing about 300 Negro and white leaders in nearly twenty cities in both the North and South of the United States, the Associated Press concluded that 1964 would see increased demonstrations from the Negro community and greater effort toward conciliation and concessions on the part of white leaders trying to avert any repetition of last summer's upheavals,
Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE] said, "Civil rights activities will increase in numerous places any time after the first week of February."
Mayor Malcolm Maclean of.Savannah, Georgia, agreed with Rev. Mar tin Luther King, Jr., that. businessmen and white officials preferred to head off street marches and protests by making concessions,
Fearful of possible spring demonstrations, white spokesmen all over the country have been urging Negroes to be patient, to trust in peaceful negotiations and the orderly process of the law. In Washing~ ton, Representative William M, McCulloch (Republican, Ohio) urged pas-~ sage of a strong civil-rights bill but warned Negroes "No people can gain liberty and equality through storm troop or anarchistic methods," oo On January ll, Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., of Atlanta, Georgia, attemp~ ted to head off threatened demonstrations by announcing that fourteen major hotels and motels were voluntarily desegregating their facilities, Actually many of these enterprises had already quietly desegregated, The public statement was designed to strengthen the position of Negro leaders who had been insisting that negotiations would bring greater progress than demonstrations, These Negro leaders had organized the Atlanta Summit Conference last October in order to co-ordinate negotia~ tions between white leaders and nine Negro organizations,
Their quiet pattern of talks was shattered on January 7 when more than one hundred high-school students boycotted classes and staged a noisy demonstration in the mayor's office, They were led by John Lewis, -mational chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee | SNCC]. The organization also led sit-ins at restaurants that resulted in two national chains integrating their Atlanta restaurants,
This conflict between different Negro groups in Atlanta is part of a general crisis within the Negro revolution in the United States. A
continually deepening contest for the leadership of the Negro revolution is being waged between the conservatives and the new crop of activists who have emerged from the needs and mass actions of the Negro people, The power and prestige of the conservatives are balanced precariously even though for the moment they have the backing of the white capitalist. power structure,
They can retain this backing only Ke) Long as they are able to - control and contain the Negro masses, But in order to lead the masses, they must do something militant. In doing something militant, they will antagonize the white capitalist power structure, If they dontt . _ antagonize that structure, the Negroes will discard them, What a dilemma
Meanwhile they are caught between the frying pan and the fire, | between the white rulers who insist on altering the status quo as little as possible and the unrelenting pressure of the Negroes! demand for "Freedom Now}" Time and again they are forced to adopt a militant STANCE.
For example, when the New York school boycott was announced, Roy: Wilkins, head of the National Association for the Advancement of” - Colored. People [NAACP], stated that his organization did not support indiscriminate boycotts. Sharp criticism from many Negroes, including leaders of NAACP branches, forced Wilkins to make a statement that “where parents decided upon a boycott, we would aid, ne.
The Rev. MiLt on A. Galamison, leader of the Citywide Committee for Integrated Schools, which is organizing the school boycott in New York, was head of the Brooklyn branch of the NAACP for Several years, He explained why he had to go outside the NAACP to get something started: "If I could have done what I wanted to do as a leader of an established civil-rights organization, I would have remained there. I would not have started my OWN.
He said further: "The people seem to be way out in front of some of the big organizations, and they are demanding that new techniques ‘be used, It is symptomatic of the revolutionary times in which we live that many people are not finding an outlet for their pent-up emotions in the existing organizations,"
How to Win Friends and Influence People __. Whitney Young, Jr., head of the Urban League, complained recently: "The civil-erights cause has become a short cut to leadership, There's no better way today to become a prominent and well-known leader than to lead a civil-rights movement,"
As the conservative leader of a conservative organization, he of course urged the white leaders to ignore the fly-by-night agitators ane give whole=hearted. financial support to long-established organizaions,
He was addressing a receptive audience, The white capitalist
power structure is very willing, even eager, to support and sustain the rear=guard leaders. For instance, Time magazine, for the first . . time in its 37 years! existence, chose a Negro as its Man of the Year, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of the Negroes in Birmingham . became to millions, black and white in south and north, the symbol of the Negro revolution. . ." said the Luce publication. "By deed and preachment, he has stirred in his people a Christian forbearance that “nourishes hope and smothers injustice,”
That recognition should be granted leaders of the Negro community is a welcome development, of course, if long overdue, But the timing and the choice gave the Negro vanguard little cause for rejoicing. King was swept into national prominence as one of the leaders of the less militant wing that organized the 1955 bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, Whatever militancy he displayed then was discarded as he joined the conservative leaders,
Figures like King are now being challenged on the national scene by such leaders as John Lewis and James Forman of SNCC, Gloria Richard~ son, chairman of the Cambridge (Maryland) Non-Violent Action Committee, and the Rev. Albert Cleague, Jr., chairman of the Michigan Freedom Now
A Background Article
_- PORTUGUESE ULTRACOLONIALISM IN. MOZAMBIQUE
. By Franz J. T. Lee
Portuguese colonization of Mozambique began at the beginning of the sixteenth century, In 1505, on his voyage to India, Almeida set’ up a factory at Sofala on the east coast of Africa, He also built a fortress at Kilwa. In 1507 a fortress and factory were built on