Newspaper Page Text
pacp rom
Established 1875
By J. H. DEVEAUX
SOL C. JOHNSON Editor and Publisher
MRS. WILL A A. JOHNSON. Asst, to Pub. & Mgr.
J. H. BUTLER Asso. Editor
—-------
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY
1009 WEST BROAD STREET
Telephone. Dial 5338
~" ~
-
Subscription Rates m Advance
One Year _____________ _________ $3.00
...
Six Months ______________________ $ 2.00
Remittance must be made by Express, Post
Office Money Order or Registered Mail.
Entered as Second Class Matter at the Post
Oflice at Savannah, Ga., under the Act ot
March 3 , 1919
“King out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
King in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
“King out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
King in the love of truth and right.
King in the common love of good.
“Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
King out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old.
Ring in the thousand years of peace.”
—Alfred Lord Tennyson
A HISTORIC DAY
January 1st is a day of momentous
and signitieant memory to American
Negroes. It commemorates a day chat
is unforgettable in the life of a people
whose ancestors prayed and toiled and
suffered to see. While not particularly
unique in the history of races and peo¬
ples, it was a day, the like of which
only people who had emerged from a
most cruel form of human slavery, could
appreciate. It was a day full of inex¬
pressible joy and full of implications of
which the emancipated slaves could
have had no awareness. They could
have had no vision of the suffering and
disappointment the immediate years
ahead held for them. There was no way
for them to foresee what 30 or 40
years 01 reconstruction would mean to
them, and it is one of the cruel tragedies
of the nineteenth century that these
freedmen and their children should
have been penalized because they acre
the scars of a system that was imposed
upon them by the very culture that
was erected upon their blood-stained un¬
requited toil of 250 years.
A bit of irony in the whole thing is
that comparatively few of the descend¬
ants of former slaves give serious thougnt
to the meaning of January 1st. the date
of the signing of the Emancipation
Proclamation; few of them know why
the names of the following should be
remembered: Abraham Lincoln, Charles
Sumner, John Brown, Wm. Lloyd Gar¬
rison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Frederick
Douglass, and other important person¬
ages of the time. This is understand¬
able since 90 years after emancipation,
scarcely any of the former slaves, in¬
deed when very few of their children are
alive to tell how freedmen reacted to
the news of physical release from slav¬
ery. Some of them dropped whatever
they were doing, whether it was baking
biscuits, tending the babies, making
the beds, or feeding the stock. Some
were confused and could not believe
what they saw or heard; some ran to
the union soldiers and became camp-
followers ; some, perhaps many, went
for days without food or shelter or cloth¬
ing; others stayed or returnd to their
former masters. We do not blame the
young folk of this generation for want¬
ing to forget the accounts of the terrible
suffering their ancestors went through,
but because of it, the very important
significance of emancipation to them in
all the years since that great event and
in lhe great possibilities it has opened
to them, should not be forgotten. The
emancipation was the culmination of
many years of bitter controversy and
four years of bloody fratricidal war.
Its significance should be as indellibly
stamped in their heritage as the eman¬
cipation of another people to whom it
is a religious observance.
SAVANNAH’S MILITARY GLORY
Some weeks ago, a citizen w rote about
Savannah’s pride in its long record as a
city of military tradition. We were in¬
terested because Negro citizens share in
that pride. We recall with more than
casual interest that one of the important
events in Negro life in Savannah, fifty,
sixty years ago, was the celebration of
the signing of the Emancipation Procla¬
mation. An important factor in the
celebration was the Negro militia which
played no small part in the civic and
social life of the Negro community. The
existence of eight military organizations
was the pride oi Negro citizens who
looked forward to .New Year’s Day when
they would witness the parade of their
soldiers and the festivities that took up
a whole day and culminated with maneuv¬
er-, . r.d :pcc:h-making in Forest City
National Advertising Representatives
Associated Publishers
31 West 46 Street
New York 19, New York
Whalcy-Cahill Company
0513 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, California
Whaley-Cahiil Company
440 Russ Building
San Francisco, California
Park Extension. In resplendent and
appropriate uniform, led by two bands
and one or two fife and drum corps,
these units participated in the show;
The Savannah Light Infantry, I he ( ol-
quit Blues, The Forest City, The (.'nut-
ham Light Infantry, The Lincoln Guards,
The Lone Star Cadets, The Georgia Ar¬
tillery and The Savannah Hussars. One
of the bands had the distinction of being
the band that played for the Savannah
Volunteer Guards, a white company,
whenever that organization went out on
parade. We recall Capt. Augustus Law'
and William Allen of the Chatham
Light Infantry, Henry Walton and Ju¬
lius Maxwell of the Savannah Light In-
lantr.v, Frank Jones and J. C. Simmons
of the Savannah Hussars and Georgia Ar¬
tillery, respectively, Robert West of the
Lone Star Cadets and John Bell of the
Savannah Cadets. There were also Ma¬
jor W. H. Royall and Cols. E. K. Des-
Verney, and John H. DeVeaux who was
in command of the First Regiment ot
Negro troops when they were disband¬
ed. One of the problems which confront¬
ed the militia after the Negro troops
became a part of the state military,
was what to do about the question of
rank: As is usual, jn southern thinking,
there was only one thing to do, one
choice to make, to solve the problem of
what to do about Negro officers who
have attained senior rank: abolish the
Negro militia.
An important and unifying influence
in Negro life was destroyed when this
was done. The abolition of Negro mi¬
litia and the denial of the opportunity
to Negro youth in schools and mlleges
to benefit by the discipline of ROTC are
of the same pattern. These action?:
are taken in spite of the fact that Ne¬
groes were expected to and did fight in
every war, including the Spanish war.
World war I, and World war II. They
will be expected to fight in future (?)
wars. Fairness dictates that they
shout I have the same opportunity of
becoming as well prepared as any other
citizens who volunteer or are drafted
to serve their country in time of need.
This comment would be incomplete if
it omitted to name Sol C. Johnson, ad*
jutant to Col J. H. DeVeaux and the
one Negro Confederate soldier we knew,
the late (Rev.) Alexander Harris. Only
the memory of the Negro’s participation
in the military glory of Savannah re¬
mains.
OUR NEW YEAR WISH
We join in expressing a sincere wish
for a happy and prosperous Nineteen-
fifty-four. Our wish for the coming*
year is .more concerned with community
welfare and is influenced and determin¬
ed, more or less, by the successes or
failures of events and aspirations of the
past year. There have been several
things of vital and passionate concern'
to us. We have wanted our city to be
free of rackets that have been the
scourge of many other cities, of the in-
intobrances and misnderstandings, of
the destructive divisions among Negroes
in business, civic enterprises and in pol¬
itics. In hardly any of these areas
was our accomplishment anything to brag
about. The record reveals that boledu
wasn’t dead and that bootlegging had
become “big business”; that while Ne¬
groes made little but not notable gains
in business; that our situation political¬
ly was woefully impotent (and still is);
and that our leaders in politics, religion
and civic affairs were not big enough to
place the welfare of the people and the
whole community above selfish interest
to avoid distressing embarrassment to
those who are continually pleading that
Negroes be given opportunity to parti¬
cipate in the stream of community life.
Our wish, then, is that in 1954 our
city become a cleaner and more orderly
city free from boledo and bootlegging
rackets; that a new vision come to our
Negro business men; and that all the
several and sundry leaders forget their
ambition to head a little empire of their
own and put their hearts, heads and
hands together to reach the type of
achievement that alone can develop the
sense of civic and social responsibility
good citizens must have. If we can
achieve acceptable success in these
things, we shall have a happy New Year,
our wish will come true. Happy New
Year. •
tmk ‘UvavNaii tribune
ENLIGH fLNED COURT DECISIONS ARE BREAKING THEIR GRIP"
SOUTHERN /:• T ■ | mi
PRESSURE
. GROUPS
IGNORANCE
wm iahcew^
iLLSJ WiMi
feel m&^m
Ala. Votes
3 To 1 To Cut
Poll Tax
BIRMINGHAM. Dee. 24— Ala-
bama voters, responding to
annuls bv the National Asso-
ciation for the Advancement of
Colored People and other
organizations, have voted three
0 one to reduce drastically the
cumulative feature of the
nob tax. The new amendment
j awaits the governor’s procla-
| mation to become law.
j Under terms of the amend-
j ment, approved by the voters
in a state-wide referendum on
, December 15, the tax which has
been emulative from the’age.'
of 2i through 45 at a si.50
year will be required only for a
two-year period in advance of
| each election. Citizens who for-
• merly may have had to pay as
much as $30 or more in order
to register and vote may now
vote upon payment of two
years’ back taxes
Throughout the pre-election , ,
campaign, supporters of the
old constitutional provision,
which disfranchised thousands
of low-income whites as well as
Negroes, played up the role of
the NAACP in spearheading
the drive for revision of the
constitution. By this means
they hoped to induce enough
white citizens to vote against
the amendment to insure its
defeat.
Advertisements were placed
in Alabama papers publicizing
the NAACP support of the
amendment and recounting the
Association’s fight against seg¬
regation and efforts to Increase
the Negro vote. The Democratic
Executive Committee of Jef¬
ferson County (Birmingham)
inserted a large display adver¬
tisement in the Birmingham
News which proclaimed: “NA¬
ACP urges adoption of Poll Tax
Amendment (No. li and seeks
death of racial segregation in
Alabama and in the South.”
The advertisement quotes pub¬
lic addresses by NAACP officials
and statements from its publi¬
cations.
The advertisement, designee
to undermine the NAACP pro-
t gram and defeat the amend-
j ment, was so accurate thal
Walter White. NAACP executive
1 secretary, wrote to the commit
j tee expressing thanks for the
POLIO SCHOLARSHIP WINNERS
“tie** -'“-jA
Left to right: Miss Jeannr Ackiss. Oklahoma City. Okla
imedical social work): Jewel Berry. Kansas City. Kans (parasi
tology >: Miss Jessie Abbott. Tuskegcr Institute. Ala. (physical
therapy), won scholarships made available by contributions to the
March of Dimes. Join the 1954 March of Dimes, Jan. 2-31.
I
(
,
|
1
j
1
j
RECEIVES AW ARD Dr. James
| L ' Stuart, chairman of the A.s< r
college business department,
jwas awarded’the Delta Pi Epsi-
L, i on research award for 1952 for
1 a study on „ A gcale lor De _
the Attitudes.of High
.’School Business Education Stud-
1 Toward Certain Aspects of
Office _ Work. , „ He TI received , the
award at the annual banquet
of the organization held in
connection with the annual
meeting oi the National
ness Teachers Association held
i n St. Louis, Mo., last Tuesday,
December 29.
Dr. Stuart assumed his pres¬
ent position at A.yT last fall.
He is the first Negro to win
the coveted research award.
:/r. SIMMS IN CITY FOR
HOLIDAYS
Lt. Robert Jackson Simms is
in the city spending the holi¬
days with his parents, Mr. and
Mrs. Wendell P. Simms, and
other relatives. Lt. Simms is
stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas.
PERSONAE MENTION
A-2-C Charles A.
Jr., left Tuesday night for
Brooks Air Force Base, San An¬
tonio, Texas, after spending the
holidays with his parents, Mr.
and Mrs. Charles A. Simmons,
Sr., of Fellwood Homes.
next time you publish an ad
or us would you be
enough to include a coupon
urging your readers to send in
heir memberships or
^
HEADS COMMITTEE—The Rev.
R. J. Cliffin, prominent local
minister, who has accepted the
chairmanship of the local host
committee for the Second An¬
nual Southeast Regional Con¬
ference, NAACP, which will
convene here on February 26-
28. The appointment of Mr.
Cliffin- was made last week by
W. W. Law, president of the
ocal branch.
The new NAACP appointee
is the popular pastor of the
Frst Mount Bethel Baptist
church, located on Fahm street
in Yamacraw. He is proceeding
to organize a large committee
of citizens to entertain the two
hundred or more delegates who
will come her for the three day
meeting. All persons interested
in working on the committer
are requested- to call Mr. Clif¬
fin at his residence phone
number 4-6766.
The time is short, Mr. Law
said, and those who desire tc
serve will have to call the gen¬
eral chairman, Mr. Cliffin, ai
once. It is expected that the
chairman will announce hi'
full committee next week.
SAVFS WHITE WOMAN
FROM SUICIDE
WILMINGTON, N. C,-r-<ANP>
—A fish house worker last week
prevented an attractive white
woman from committing suicide
in the Cape Fear River here.
The worker. Bill Sessoms.
pulled Mrs. Fannie Hardison
35. from the river after she had
jumped in because of what she
termed “domestic trouble.”
A deputv sheriff who was
in the fish house said Mrs. Har¬
dison calmly walked into the
fish house, walked to the river
opening and jumped in.
Sessoms saw her, jumped in a
boat and grabbed her arm.
She was said to be unconscious
when pulled out. She was taken
to a hospital.
MRS. SMITH AND DR.
EBERHARDT UNITED
IN MARRIAGE
(Continued from Page One)
Mrs. Mary E. Smith, on
°r e “eS ceremon,
perforemd by Rev. E. E. O. O. S. S.
Cleveland, pastor of St, John
Baptist church, in the presence
of relatives ahd a few close
friends. The house was decorat-
i ed with holly, poinsettias, gladi-
j 0 li an d mums.
j pherhardt JIt wore a
/ s with
•ab . detailing , . ..... at the collar. Her
corsage was a w ... 1 e ore vLj 1
Her only ornament was a
5rooch, a gift from the groom.
Following the ceremony, a
reception was given. The table
was centered by a three tiered
wedding cake. Miss Euleta Smith
served punch. Assisting in ser¬
ving were Mrs. F. J. Smith and
Miss Rosemary King. Dr. and
Mrs. Eberhardt will reside at
1139 East Wright St.
Local Doctors
On Health
Committee e
The Savannah Branch of the
National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
has created a Health Commit¬
tee composed of Doctors Carl
Rankin Jordan. Stephen M.
McDew, Jr., and Charles N.
Collier, it was announced by
W. W. Law, the branch presi¬
dent.
The South Atlantic Medical
society, of which Dr. Richard
W. Moore is president, has co¬
operated in the appointment of
the local NAACP health com¬
mittee. The committee will work
on health problems affecting
the minority group in this area,
especially discriminatory prac¬
tices in local health facilities.
Mr. Law said that the local
NAACP committee was ap¬
pointed following a recommen¬
dation from Dr. W. Montague
Cobb, Howard university, Wash¬
ington, D. C., who is chairman
of the NAACP national health
committee . It is hopcd that the
NAACP will be ab i e to obtain
the support 0 f all members of
the medical, dental and nursing
P iofessions through the corn-
mittee just appointed, he stated.
TO ATTEND CONFERENCE
(Continued from Page Fivei
Bowdoin college, will give one
of the principal addresses. Other
speakers will be Dr. Wilson
Compton, president of the
Council for Financial Aid to
Education, William W. Tomiln-
son, vice president of Temple
university, and Milton Christie,
editor of the Kiplinger
Letter in Washington, D. C.
Raymond Burkley, chairman
of District II and secretary of
the General Alumni Association
of Temple university, will pre
side at the conference.
Mr. Donnelly is a former
Beach high school (Savannah
Ga.» teacher,
_
Send The
T RI RUNE
j To Your
i
Friends
SALUTE MARCH OF DIMES
Left to right: Carl Murphy, Baltimore. Md„ president of the
National Newspaper Publishers Association; Mrs. Jane Morrow
Spaulding. Washington. D. C.. assistant to the secretary, U. S. De¬
partment of Health, Education and Welfare; Mrs. R. Stillmon
Smith, Macon. Ga.. president. Women's Auxiliary to the National
Mediral Association, and Dr. J. H. Jackson. Chicago, president of
the National Baptist Convention, Inc. These leaders praised polio
I campaign to raise funds for Polio Prevention Program, research
I patient care and professional education. They urge evervone to
respond liberally to bring nearer the day when polio will no longe.v
be a threat to any home. 1954 March of Dimes, Jan. 2-31.
TTH'RS., DECEMBER 31, lfcfe
PRESIDENT CDC
APPEALS FOR
VIORE VOTERS
II
Leroy Wilson, president of
the Citizens Democratic Club,
lac., makes an appeal to lead¬
ers of all organizations to now
join hands in trying to get Ne¬
groes to register to vote, es¬
pecially the leaders of religious
and fraternal groups, as well as
the labor and social groups,
when we join hand in hand to
.
accomplish this, then we will
be able to tell the orld that we
are mong the rest of the world
who are trying to make democ¬
racy work. We will be almost on
the level with South Africa
and all the rest of the “civil¬
ized” countries.
Yes, we need to get together
Savannah, not in some other
place. We are still trying to
climb—no matter how much
, , ve k now we do not know any¬
thing until we know the way to
the Court House to register,
and that is not enough; carry
some one with you and when
the time comes to vote, carry
vour friends and your acquaint¬
ances with you to the polls and
see that they vote—no matter
how they vote, but get them to
the polls and to vote.
This is especially to the re-
’igious groups. I know that you
and your followers are bound
for the Promised Land, and so
am I. but will you please, for
me, add just one more little
stop on your long, tediotis jbur-
ney, and let that stop be the
ballot box. You will find that
when we do this in great
Strength, when we do land on
the other side of Jordan, we
will arrive with a full .stomach.
The Citizens Democratic club
will meet on the second Wed¬
nesday night in ‘each month at
the Recreation Center, 37th
and Ogeechee Road, the time
8:30 p. m. We will always’ wel¬
come the public to come ajhd
meet with us, and we will :be
glad to meet with any group or
groups as long as they are for
the betterment and best inter¬
est for our people.
5 MORE PHYSICIANS
LOUISVILLE—(ANPi - Five
more physicians were admitted
to the Jefferson County Medj _
cal g ociety hcre last week The
organization t00k place in Us
{irst meeting last month
| Among the latest to bc
ac '
cepted was Dr - Gra “ M - James,
ecen Dy appointed a clinical
i ns tructor in pediatrics at the
i u n j vers it;y 0 f Louisville Medi¬
cal School. Other new members
are:
Dr. J. H. Walls, Dr. J. B. Bell,
Dr. Gerald Hart and Dr. E. M.
Hubbard, Jr.
The Jefferson County Medical
Society changed its bylaws to
allow Negroes to become mem¬
bers. Dr. Maurice F. Rabb was
the first admitted.