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PAGE 6
THE SPELMAN SPOTLIGHT
May 15, 1963
Voting In Miss. Must Be Shared
OPINION POLL
This month, I have attempted to get a general consensus
of what the men of Morehouse and the women of Spelman
think of each other. It is traditional for one to think of a
Spelman woman dating a Morehouse man. Many students of
both institutions are iconoclasts who break the old tradi
tions ; nevertheless, much of it remains. For this reason, I
have tried to get unbiased opinions from those who date
and who do not date each other.
When three of the women were asked, “What do you
think of the men of Morehouse?”, the following responses
were made:
Ann Ashmore, Senior:
“Actually, I’m proud of Morehouse men.
There are many things they do as individuals
or groups that are impressive. They have an
atmosphere which is more superior in intelli
gence than any other institution in the At
lanta University Center. This is due parti
cularly to the President of the college who
strives to equate them with men from top-
ranking institutions of the nation.
“Morehouse men express opinions well and are not afraid.
If they feel that an inj ustice has been done they petition and
get results. They are courteous and discerning in general
things. I like them very much.”
Fay Jones, Junior:
“I do not intend to inflate the ego of the
Morehouse man for this is slightly improba
ble. I intend only to give a candid opinion of
what I think of the average Morehouse man.
“I feel that Morehouse men have been
built up magnificently. Ironically, they have
lived up to the the great ‘build up’. They
personify ideal men in character and ideas.
Much adverse opinion may be given to men
who deviate from the average Morehouse
man; however, they are quite few in number
as I see it.”
Gwenolyn Kenner, Senior:
“I have always been fond of Morehouse
men as a group. They have the air of conceit
that denotes the quality of the institution
and the quality of the men who attend the
institution. Conceit alone, is not indicative
of superlative quality, but I feel that the
superlative quality of the Morehouse men,
as a group, warrants their conceit.”
When four of the men of Morehouse were asked “What do
you think of the women of Spelman ?”, the following respons
es were made:
Madison Foster, Senior:
“Anything I say will be a generalization.
I do not feel that any Spelman young woman
is the epitome of any ideal. I think they
posses charm and sophistication, yet at the
same time they lack intestinal fortitude to
change the status quo that they find so dis
agreeable.”
Charles Ellerson, Junior:
“Inasmuch as my girlfriend is matriculat
ing at Spelman, it s apparent that I like
Spelman women. However, you are probably i
more concerned as to why I like Spelman wo
men and what I admire most about them.
I like Spelman women for three reasons:
(1) they always maintain a sisterly rela
tionship with the M’House men; (2) they
carry themselves with the dignity, poise, and
charm that men admire in women; and,
(3) Spelman women seem to be women with
a sense of purpose, direction, and ambition which are essen
tial for successful living.”
Edmond D. Robinson, Senior:
“Spelman young women possess a certain
finesse and class which I have found in no
other college women. There is a certain air
of uncommonness about most Spelman wo
men which sets them apart from the masses.
Truly, Spelman women are queenly and they
walk with kings—but too often do they lose
the ‘common touch’. Their sense of pride is
the envy of most women whom I’ve met.”
James Story, Senior:
“To me, Spelman young women are some
what sophisticated. Naturally, they are
charming and appealing. Due to the fact that
Spelman is a type of finishing school, the
young women seem to be dedicated in the
task of finding a husband.
“In this respect, the Spelman woman unlike
other women; due to the fact that this in
stitution—meaning Spelman— produces an
atmosphere of uneasiness, pursue the goal of
finding a husband with much vigor. If the
Spelman women were placed in a more liberal
environment, I am sure that a more stable and secure woman
would be produced.”
C. LeJeune Hickson
In Terrell County, Georgia, a
cotton oil factory provides most
of the county’s income and Negro
workers are afraid to register to
vote. In Dallas County, Alabama,
Negro factory workers earning
$23 a week tell the field workers
of the Student Nonviolent Coor
dinating Committee that what
they most need is a trade union.
And in the Mississippi Delta, a
friend active there says, “We
have to start thinking about this
eoomomic thing. The people feel
that just having the vote is not
enough.”
The Mississippi Delta is a
classic demonstration that jus
tice, like peace, involves compre
hensive changes in the social
structure. It is the most under
developed portion of that under
developed nation, the American
South. In Batista’s Cuba, one-
fourth of all adult males were
unemployed, over one-third of
the population was illiterate, 1%
per cent of the landowners con
trolled 46 per cent of the land,
the per capita income was under
$500 a year. In Barnett’s Missi
ssippi, one of every six persons
in Febuary 1063 was poor enough
to be receiving free Federal food;
in the Delta, the figure was one
person in three.
Leflore County 'in the Delta
contains the city of Greenwood,
where the SNOC voter registra
tion drive is concentrating. The
median income for Negro fami
lies in Leflore County in 1959
was $1400 (the median income
of white families was $5200).
Thirty-six per cent of the Negro
families in Leflore County earned
less than $1000 in 1959; eighty-
nine per cent earned less than
$3000. Thirty-six white families
in the county had incomes of
over $25,000 in 1959. The average
(income of these 'three dozen
families was over $1,000,000 a
year.
With respect to education, to
unemployment, to farm owner
ship, the vital statistics of Le
flore County, Mississippi bears
comparison with Batista’s Cuba.
Seven per cent of the work force
was unemployed in Leflore
County in 1960: white unemploy
ment was four per cent, Negro
unemployment, 10 per cent.
Seventy per cent of the Negroes
over twenty-five have not com
pleted seventh grade. Five hun
dred and fiifty-one white farmers
operate ninety per cent of the
land in Leflore County, while
1162 Negroes operate ten per
cent. Seventy per cent of the
farms occupy less than six per
cent of the land. Two per cent
of the fauns occupy less than
six per cent of the land. Two
per cent of the farms contain
more than one-third of the land.
Those hardest hit by poverty
and unemployment on the hot,
flat fields of Leflore County are
the Negro agricultrual workers.
In 1960 thirty-nine per cent of
Negro workers but only three per
cent of white workers were farm
laborers, while in the managerial,
sales and clerical occupations
whites were preponderant to an
even greater degree.
Liberals have comforted them
selves with the thought that in
dustrialization will somenow,
someday, bring the region into
the modern world. This is an
over-simple solution anywhere in
the South, it is especially so in
the Mississippi Delta, where the
mechanical cotton-picker threat
ens, ultimately, to take jobs
away from tens of thousands of
workers. Already there are many
such expendables, who drift to
the towns and swell the lines
for Federal food. There axe fac
tories in Leflore County, usually
branch plants of Northern-owned
firms, which employ an estimated
twelve to fifteen per cent of the
county’s work force, they have
produced no discernible liberali
zation in the outlook of the
county’s work force, nor the
county’s power structure.
What can change the power
structure?
Theoretically, votes. Sixty-five
per cent of the population of Le
flore County is Negro; but in
the 1960 Presidential election
ony five per cent of the
eligible Negroes voted. Here is
a great reservoir of votes; the
SNCC drive already has resulted
in more Negro registrants than
the total number of Negroes who
voted in 1960. On the other hand,
the largest plantation-owner of
the county is chairman of the
board of directors of Green
wood’s largest bank, a power
greater than that which night-
riders and police dogs can pro
vide. Two tentative generaliza
tions seem unquestionable: 1.
Even to induce Negroes to regis
ter, the freedom movement must
show the connection between
voting and the achievement of
other more tangible goals; 2. To
produce more than token free
dom, the movement must recog
nize that it is necessary to
change the distribution of wealth
as well as to secure citizenship
rights.
In recognition of the need for
a more-than-single-issue pro
gram, Negroes in Leflore County
are now organizing an improve
ment association which will consi
der jobs and schools as well as
votes. Other localities in the South
are feeling their way toward simi
lar programs, with local political
candidates to present them. Mon
roe, North Carolina, put forward
such a ten-point program in
August 1961, which included:
1. No discrimination in factory
employment ;
2. No discrimination by local
employment agencies;
3. No discrimination by the
local Welfare Agency;
4. Employment of Negroes in
skilled or supervisory capacities
in the city government.
At the recent SNCC confer
ence, another such program was
discussed, which included:
1. Exemption of food, clothing,
medicine and household neces
sities from all sales taxation;
2. Free legal counsel for all
who need it, provided by a de
fenders’ bureau whose budget
shall equal the budget of the
prosecutor's office;
3. A minimum wage law of
$1.25 per hour for all workers
irrespective of occupation or
mode of hire.
Such goals may seem alien to
non-violent direct action as we
presently understand it. In fact,
they point to a wider field for
non-violent action than any yet
entered upon: the winning-over
of the Southern poor white
through a program directed to
his needs as well as to the
Negro’s.
Meantime the powers-that-be-
in Leflore County continue in
sublime opacity. A recent edi
torial in the Greenwood Com
monwealth, the county’s princi
pal daily newspaper, was en
titled, “A History Lesson.” The
editorial began:
“South America’s privileged
classes should study the history
of China. Only the chosen few
shared her glory. Her exploited
millions remained, in squalor and
disease, illiterate and ignorant.”
The rulers of Chipa, the edi
torial went on, with no mass of
free men under them to keep them
in check, debauched and ultimate
ly destroyed their civilization. In
China the ruling minority), at 'last
totally weakened by its own ex
cesses, was deposed.
Side-by-side with this state
ment, in the same issue of the
same newspaper, a second edi
torial appeared entitled, “That’s
A Lot of Free Food.” Comment
ing on the fact that one of every
three Negroes in the Delta was
receiving Federal food, the
Greenwood Commonwealth stated
that “certain Negro groups” had
created a problem of “welfare
Cheating” by unscrupulous pro
paganda about “starving Negro
es.”
Clearly the privileged classes
of Leflore County, Mississippi,
have yet to learn their history
lesson. The United States pre
sumes to attempt the transfor
mation of proverty-stricken, cast-
ridden, one-party societies else
where in the world. Dare it fail
to do so in Mississippi?
Staughton Lynd
Professor of History
SNCC News
(Cont’d. from Page 1)
dollar bond. The others paid two
hundred dollars each.
Married Freedom Fighters
The Rev. and Mrs. Bernard
Lafayette - a young couple with
three years experience in the
civil rights movement - are
working for the Student Non
violent Coordinating Committee
on a pilot project in Selma,
Alabama to register Negro voters.
Despite the great odds they’re
working against, the couple
bravely faces the future. They
have had previous experience
with sit-ins and voter registrat
ion drives in Nashville, and
Arndt, Leflore, and Coahoma
counties. They have successfully
registered ten Negro citizens in
Wilcox County where, because of
terrorism, Negroes haven’t at
tempted to vote in fifty years.
Murdered Freedom Walker
On April 2.3 rd, the body of
William Moore, thirty-five year
old resident of Baltimore, Mary
land, was found in a ditch be
side highway eleven outside of
Attala, Alabama. He had been
shot through the head with a
.22 caliber bullet by “persons
unknown”.
A native Mississippian, Moore
was en route from Chattanooga,
Tenn. to Jackson, Mississippi
where he hoped to present a
letter to Governor Ross Barnett
urging “decent treatment for all
citizens”. Moore had left a letter
for President Kennedy in his
mailbox in Washington, taken
a bus to Chattanooga, and start
ed walking carrying signs about
integration.
SNCC leader, James Forman^
said that the freedom march
would continue as scheduled.
Albany
Mrs. E. L. Jackson, recording
secretary of the Albany Move
ment, denied charges by a white
store owner that his store is being
picketed by Negroes' because of his
participation in a federal jury
that freed a sheriff accused of
shooting a Negro. The picketing
is against the merchant’s discri
minatory practices and not his
participation in the trial, Ware
vs Johnson.
Americus
Ralph Allen, a twenty-two-
year old white field secretary for
the Student Nonviolent Coordi
nating Committee, was attacked
and beaten on April 25th. Allen
had escorted a Negro woman to
the Sdmter County Courthouse to
register to vote. Even though
Allen knows the license number
of the car, nothing is being done
about it.
Charles Sherred, director of
SNCC’s Southwest Georgia voter
registration project, wired the
Justice Department and Georgia’s
Governor Carl Sanders demand
ing an investigaton.
Wanda Waples
Today’s Colleges
(Cont’d. from Page 4)
many have fled the fight, but
most of them have remained to
fight it out.
“The plaice to light for a
principle,” writes Professor Irdell
Jenkins, who remained in the
philosophy department of the
University of Alabama to do just
that, “is where it is a living
issue, not where it is an ac
complished fact, and still less
where it has become a mere ob
ject ot sanctimonious self-con
gratulations”.