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Friday, July 19, 1963 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE Paje Seyen Dialogue on Albany, Ca Continued from page 1 charges of vagrancy or disturb mg the peace when they set foot on the streets, then the right of peaceful protest is most certainly not a part of the lexicon of de mocracy in Albany. Why is Albany a powder keg, when other Southern, and Georgia communities are meeting the sit uation maturely? There are a number of reasons For one thing, the people of Albany pride themselves on their city, and they mourn the loss of their reputation as one of Amer ica’s progressive communities. They tell you of the air-condi tioned Negro school, the Negro swimming pool, the Negro col lege, and the Negro wealth. This is no mere alibi. Albany in its fine history has sought to meet the needs of its Negro citizen, even if only in its own way. The whites resent deeply the fact that the Negroes do not appreciate what has been done for them. The leading citizens cite with unconcealed glee the defeat they administered to Martin Luther King — a defeat the Negroes concede. King you are told many times had made Albany his num ber one target city, but when he left, not to return, after exacting a few promises never kept, this was confirmation to the white community of the correctness of their approach to meeting the Negro situation. There was the incident of the bus boycott which a half year ago led to the closing down of sendee, and the leadership uses this case to prove that the Ne groes are without leadership and their demands unreasonable. Af ter meetings by the white with the Negro leadership, led at that time by a young well-liked Negro physician—Dr. Anderson—a form ula was worked out which Dr. Anderson assured the whites would be acceptable to his group. He came back almost immediate ly with a set of demands for in tegration which the whites in a huff rejected almost in a state of shock. This incident, incidentally, has strengthened the hands of the white racists, and has practically destroyed the one hope for medi ation — the growth of moderate groups who see that the city is heading for tragedy unless the two camps can meet at some point to negotiate. In talking to the white and Ne gro leadership about the situa tion, you get all the stock an swers, but as you probe and chal lenge, you find that both sides ac cept the idea of negotiations, but while the Negroes may be eager for it, the whites are afraid of it. Consequently the whites may be speaking only for the record when they tell you that there Is no responsible Negro leadership who can bring the Negro com munity along with it. The Negro leader today is Sla ter King, brother of the lawyer whose demonstration in the courts in defending the youngsters pick ed up off the streets as "vag rants” was as superb a perform ance as any we’ve seen, not ex cepting the years we spent in the courtroom covering trials for the daily papers. The brothers King are the leaders of the commun ity ,and these two fine-looking, conscientious, introspective men would be a credit to any group. Whether the rank and file of the Negro community will follow Slater King if he accepts less at this point than their full demands, we have no way of knowing, but we are as sure as we are sitting at this typewriter ■— and every one without exception finally agreed with us (at the start you got only the surface answers, slo gans, ready prepared rationaliza tions from both sides, but as you dug deeper, you got to the guts of the matter, with mature con sideration and thoughtful ans wers) that this extension of the period in which neither side is talking to the other is not only dangerous but almost a certain path to an eruption. While we were sitting with one city official, he signed the docu ment selling to a private com pany the city swimming pool, which has been closed these many months as well as all other recreation facilities. The Negro attorneys are fighting this sale in the courts, but meanwhile, since the pools are no longer commun ity owned, Albany cannot be forced by law to permit Negroes’ entrance. This shows the shallowness of the universally held rationaliza tion that Albany is ready to grant rights to its Negroes, but only under the law. The Jewish leadership im presses this on you that if due process is followed, the people of Albany, steeped in the Anglo Saxon tradition of law, will not resist. When you ask a leading city of ficial about school integration, he tells you that such suits have been filed by the Negro commun ity which will make possible by 1 D6.0 the beginning of school inte gration. Why so many years af ter the Supreme Court decision— also a matter of law — the Ne groes of Albany still must wait, draws no satisfactory answer. There is no difference, neither visible or otherwise, in the Jew ish community and that of the leading white lights towards the NegTo problem. In fact, the Jews are so well integrated into com munity life, that there is no bar to them anywhere, golf clubs, boards of the most important banking and industrial organiza tions, and elsewhere. Although it was known that we are the pub lisher of a National Jewish week ly, not even one of the non-Jews we interviewed asked even the first question about Jews. The Jews themselves did. They were most vocal in castigating national Jewish organizations and northern rabbis and anyone at all from outside of Albany for mixing in with their problems. It cannot be said that there isn’t some justification for their position, even though you interpret — and they deny this most vociferously — that it Is dictated by fear or insecurity. After all this is their community, they must Live out their lives there and conduct their businesses. The Jews feel no special re sponsibility as Jews to seek to ameliorate the situation of the Negroes, and just could not un derstand this concept, even though it was documented for them. The line of control in Albany starts with the daily newspaper, the only one in the city, which also owns the lone TV station. When we questioned the city editor as to why no news had been published of the hunger strike, his answer was that in his judgment this was not news. He sought to editorialize to me on the question, but we wouldn’t let him evade, and pressed him hard. It developed that he also was the Associated Press representa tive for Albany, which accounted for the fact that no news of the hunger strike in which my daugh ter had already gone without food for six days at that point, had appeared in U.S. newspapers. The New York Times man had been in Albany over the previous weekend, but he too missed the story of the hunger strike. Meanwhile the SNCC leadership had been contacting daily papers and TV stations all over the U.S., and it became a mystery to me why the news had not gotten out until we learned that the police department denied to each re porter that there was a hunger strike. By now, we were thoroughly aroused, so we called our New York office and asked Charles Roth to notify the New York Times. We called to our home too in Indianapolis and asked that the daily papers be notified. The Indianapolis Star carred the ac count of course, but also the de nial from the Albany police de partment whom they contacted, that such a hunger strike had been going on. How could this kind of lie be tolerated, and did this not Indi cate that something close to cor ruption was being condoned by the power structure. The fact that the Associated Press was involved in this dis honesty, (other than the person in Albany who represented them must have been involved, for news of Albany goes first we feel to a central office somewhere in the South before going out to all the nation) is the first Instance in our entire history of such fla grant violation of the canons of good journalism on the part of the AP. But even this could not have kept the lid on in Albany were it not for the collusion of the courts — all we must tell you designed to keep order — even if it denied elemental rights of jus tice. Everything in Albany rested on this one concern — keeping order. In fact, the clear refrain ing from any violence on the part of the police department, even under severe provocation, stemmed from this same concern that if order were disturbed, then the Negro had a chance to win concessions. We spent one entire day watch ing the court procedure. The girls and boys charged with va grancy and disturbing the peace told their stories — and here we must applaud the judge fully. The attorney, the Negro C. B King, got every chance to present any motion, challenge any pro cedure of the prosecution, and in terrogate and even press the Chief of Police, who was on the stand not a few times, and even though anger was displayed as Mr. King put the prosecution in clearly contradictory positions, time after time, the judge let him proceed with every consideration. The only trouble was that when it came time to pass sentence, the judge seemed to ignore the testimony and arbitrarily passed conviction, which he did in every instance. In the vagrancy cases against the college students, the evidence was so clear that these were chil dren of fine families, that even though they were sentenced to 60 days in jail, this was suspended with the judge urging that they leave Albany. The judge played his role as part of the machinery to keep the lid on the Negro. Outsiders must be forced to leave Albany, even though their activities were law ful. There you have it — the police, the newspapers and the courts, all of one mind, and with no op portunity of protest. Is it any wonder that the Ne groes are restive under this kind of iron control. If this one-track purpose of keeping order were enforced in order to give time to the representatives of both sides to talk out the situation to reach an understanding, then perhaps it could be condoned. But no body in Albany is talking to each other, and the Negro on the street — not the leadership — is predicting an explosion any mo ment. In Slater King we met a novel kind of Negro leader—thorough ly dedicated to freeing his peo ple, yet an introspective man who knew about Israel and Judaism, who had not the least trace of any anti-Semitism, and who was frankly puzzled at the refusal of the white group to talk things through. He bore the whites no animosity, yet he was proud and resentful of their injustices. The white leadership of Albany by this strict control is deluding itself. Keeping the lid on and repression gives a false sense of security, so that the conclu sion of the construction firm of ficial we met at the airport was entirely warranted. The leader ship does not recognize that time is running out. We make a mistake when we label these people as “bad peo ple.” They are not. Under any other kind of criteria, they are of our finest people. You must understand their po sition. They contend that those seek ing to give what they consider excessive civil rights to the Ne groes are taking people not pre pared to enjoy and exercise them and placing in their hands control of the community. They see perhaps far greater change than will emanate when the pres ent chaos is over, but this is the way most people react who fear change. The Negroes themselves do not overestimate their readiness for the rights endowed to every UJS. citizen. They recognize that most Negroes need to be regenerated— but contend that this condition is traceable to the deadening effect of the present system, where jobs, education and free doms are denied them. But on the other hand, the white leadership also recognizes and talks freely about the poor white trash. In fact, this is where the bloodshed will begin — with these who compete with the Ne groes for jobs and who like the Negro have been victimized by the system. They are uneducated and resentful, and they unlike the leadership cannot think deep ly enough to understand that a peaceful revolution is in the making and is the sole hope for transition without bloodshed. One must not prejudge the white leadership. They are the victims of their own maneuver- ings. In order to preserve their way of life, which can be a laudable goal, they have counten anced the growth of a system in which they are now so entangled that they are unable to extricate themselves. Let’s see how this works. Whenever any efforts at set ting up a bi-racial committee or other kind of mediation has been attempted, these have died aborn ing. The daily paper, for instance, whose publisher is a confirmed supporter of the present regi mentation, has been a stumbling block in the way of any attempt at moderation. That the paper has not spoken out against the police state system which now op erates is ample demonstration of how once one condones one viola tion he is inevitably led to con done worse ones, until all sem blance of democracy and good government is wiped out. Those in Albany who do not close their eyes to reality cannot move. The system will destroy them, and martyrs they are not. They once accepted, in the name of retaining order, the need to sacrifice certain rights of in dividuals who are Negro, and now they find that these same rights of free speech are denied them and they are powerless to do anything about it. Everyone seemed to want to do the rigid thing. Meanwhile every thing to invite the very opposite was taking place. The officials we talked to recognized the pos sibility of an eruption, and con ceded that as long as meetings between the white and the Negro were not taking place, a grave chance of an explosion was being hazarded. Albany could wake up In time. We hope so. It is far behind other communities In their concessions to the Negro, but It has a history of fairness, and Is a thriving In dustrial center, which means ita leadership can be effective. NEELY PHARMACY 1970 Howell Mill Road Telephone: TR. 5-5650 Clean-E-Ze POLISHING CLOTH CLEANS AND BEAUTIFIES 98 FINE FURNITURE (removes surface scratches, water and alcohol atalna). Removes yellow discoloring and surface scratches from . . . REFRIGERATORS AND ALL WHITE GOODS Band Instruments . . . Aluminum Sterling Silver . . . Gold . . . Brass . . . Chrome and Pewter GUN STOCKS and GOLF CLUBS ALL PLASTIC MATERIALS . . . RADIOS, ETC. “Try One and You Will Never Be Without One" CALL FOR FURTHER INFORMATION P. O. Box 294, Chamblee, Ga. or GL. 7-8444 , CLIP AND MAIL j | Please send me No. Clean-E-Ze Polishing Cloths. * Enclosed $ . Add 3% Georgia Sales Tax. | Name I Address I City State WE'RE MOVING Business in our Briarcliff—La Vista Store has grown so we just had to find more space . . . On Friday, July 19 we’ll open in a much larger, more complete toy store in the Toco Hills Shopping Center at La Vista and N. Druid Hills Rd. There will be no change in our usual policy of Discount Prices on every toy in the shop! 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