Indianapolis Recorder,Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 November 1955
Page 10
The Indianapolis Recorder, Nov. 19, 1955
EDITORIALS
AND
CO MM ENTS
The Indianapolis Recorder, Nov. 19,1955
Where Is Justice? Any hope we may have had that justice could receive a nod of recognition from Mississippi was shattered last week by the shameful, sinful freeing of J. W. Milam and Roy Bry&nt of charges of kidnapping Emmett Louis Till, the 14-year-old Chicago boy murdered near Money, Miss., on September 23. % Leaning over backwards in an effort to be fair-minded, we could, by using the most outlandish imagination and.-exer-cisitig as much ‘‘Christian charity” as possible, conceive of how a jury anight have ‘‘reasonable, doubt” that the two white Mississippians did actually murder the boy. We tried to «jee how, if all parties concerned had been white, the same verdict might have been reached. Incredibly, we could—as wfe said, by stretching the imagination right up to the breaking point-—conceive of how a microscopically slender thread of doubt could be in the minds of the jurors. On the kidnap charge, however, we fail to see how no indictment could be made. The men admitted kidnapping the hoy. Their statement that they 1 released him after they decided he “wasn’t the one” is titter tionsense—morally and legally. If kidnappers are to be freed of charges simply because they claim to free their victims, let’s all have fun! And the fact that the boy was, murdered, regardless of by whom, would be, to any' decent-minded man on earth, ftn aggravating drctimstance forcing that decent-minded man to demand punishment to the full extent of the law. Face-to-face with that sort of race hatred which, in spite of world-wide condemnation, makes no pretense to be anything else- we can only recoil in horror. What sort of men are they who, sitting on a grand jury, can so shamefully, so callously flaunt their racism before the wortd, while their country claims to be that world’s moral leader? What sort of Americans are they who can put personal prejudice above the interests of their country? Realizing the locale of the Till case, we had not dared hope that real justice would be done. We had, hoWeVer, expected some surface concession to decency. We had believed that a group of men. knowing the eyes of the world were upon them, would make some pretense to be humane . . . We were mistaken. There is a saying, we believe, that “Where there is a wrong, there is a remedy.” Where, 0 God, where?
Congrats, Phil! The Recorder joins the rest of our fair city in congrarulating Phil Bay! on his elect on to the mayoralty. The Democratic candidate who on Tuesday of last week swept all Negro wards will take over January 1 from Republican Mayor Alex Clark. Elected by the second largest majority ever given a mayoralty candidate here, he faces four years of responsibility to those thousands who supported him and also to those other thousands who did not. We have faith that he will live up to those promises he made for a fairer city. At all times rising above “politics” for the welfare of the city and especially its NegrQes. we stand ready to be of what assistance we can in helping make Indianapolis a better place for all.
Ike and Gettysburg There is significance, we feel, in President Eisenhower’s choosing Gettysburg, Pa., as site for the first home he and Mamie have owned in 39 years of mamed life. It is not strange that Ike should choose to rest so near ground hallowed by men fighting for liberty—ground consecrated ,as Abraham Lincoln said almost exactly 92 years ago, by “brave men, living and dead, who struggled” there in the turningpbint battle of the Civil War.' ■ We rather fancy that it will he an inspiring place for a man, physically weakened by the tremendous demands of being President of this country, to regain his physical strength and maintain that frame of mind necessary to help guide his nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated 1o the proposition that all men are created equal.” The basal figures of War, Peace, History and Plenty forming a battle monument hi the National Cemetery there might in effect become sacramentals to our President, being as they are outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual concepts. President Eisenhower has indicated to the doubtful a firm belief in the dignity of man, every man. He has showm himself to be a believer in and worker for civil rights for all. May the Spirit of Lincoln be with him, so that he, another great President, can help see to it that “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people” shall be a complete reality. /
Carnegie Award For Cab-Driver? If we can be so presumptuous, we nominate Calvin Randall for a Carnegie Hero Award. He is, you know, the cab-driver who risked his own life recently to save from almost certain death Mrs. Mary Lucille Chappell, who lost control of her car and was nearly drowned when it dived into Fall Creek near the Boulevard Place brfdgie. The 28-year-old driver for the Northside Cab Company w'as driving north across the bridge when he saw Mrs. CnappeH’s car strike another car, then turn west on Fall Creek Parkway. Then, when he saw the car plowing through the picnic area on the south side of the parkway and along the bank of Fall Creek, he stopped his own car, ready to help. He had already reached the bank of the creek when the woman’s car “nose-dived” into the water. After seeing her come to the surface once, he dived into the freezingly-cold water and rescued her. In these days when it’s almost impossible lb pick up a newspaper without learning of some inter-family killing, of violence and hatred ©it almost every hand, It is good to be reminded that there are still people left who have the natural instinct toward saving his fellowman. Randall did not know the woman, and it made no difference to him. We’re not being cynical, we hope, when we point out that many people would have driven on, or just stopped and w-atched out of curiosity. We’re proud that the cabdriver did neither. That’s why we nominate him for the Carnegie Hero Award.
MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS
BACK IN BUSINESS AGAIN, BUT UNDER NEW NAMES.'
VOICE FROM THE GALLERY
By ANDREW W RAMSEY The Next Mayor And Our Political Program
A. W. Ramsey
Indianapolis Negroes have the dubious distinction of being one of the largest bloc of voters anywhere in the country who after election eet lef, out in the cold without taking r e p r i sals against the party which gained by their vo.es.
At one time both political parties made bids for the Negro vote in municipal elections by slating a Negro for City Council. but in recent years by a sort of gentlemen’s agree-
ment (though both parties vigorously deny it) nei her party has seen fit to so nominate a Negro. Yet Negroes vote in each election for the dubious honor of having a few Negroes given jobs above the broom or pick level. Negroes are never put on policy making boards and they are gi\en only a few token jobs around city hall and in the various municipal departments. The police are able to brutalize Negroes and get away with it because of a very evident racial pattern handed down from above. THIS PATTERN is made plain by the fact that the police are always paired off racially and that Negroes are assigned only to Negro neighborhoods while whites may be assigned anywhere, and by the fact that in spite of a supposed merit system, no Negro has ever been advanced beyond the rank of lieutenant and that those who have been so promoted have been officers over Negroes only. The racist thinking of every administration of the city of Indianapolis in recent decades has had concrete expression in the existence of Fire Station No. 1. as a jimerow unit of the Fire Department and the only station to which Negro appointees to the Fire Department could be assigned. BOTH the Fire Department and the Police Department are under the Board of Safety which has custody over the safety of the lives and property of the citizens. The policy of the Boards of Safety in the past has caused the Negroes of the city to complain of inadequate police and fire protection and to suffer violations of their civil xights by the police without hope of redress. Most of the members of the Boards of Safety seemed to think that Negroes were visitors from outer space who were not-to be treated as citizens. And the police department whose chiefs seem to have al-
For good printing “In a hurry,” phone The Indianapolis Recorder Printing Co., ME. 4-1545. You will be pleased and proud of the work.
ways been recruited from I he enlightened element oi t h e population who have not read the Bill of Rights, in mo t instances could have passed the test to serve in darkes* .Mississippi or the heart of South Africa. And generally Negroes-have been neglected by the city when it came to the collection of trash and garbage and the installation of decent street lights. The absence of the enforcement of traflic regulations on most streets of the ghetto has not only endangered the safety of dirvers and pede trains but have given biased insurance companies an excuse for charging Negroes higher rates for standard coverage. NEGROES who have been restricted in their home buying and renting to certain sections of the city where overcrowding and dclapidaiion are the chief characteristics have been victims of the Zoning Board which allows commercial and industrial interests infiltrate residential neighborhoods and reduce them to unhealthy and unattractive slums. In addition the mayors of the city have allowed the publicly owned utility trust. The Citizens Gas and Coke Utility to segregate its white and Negro employees with "for White” and "for colored signs” in the manner of Georgia and Alabama without raising a voice in protest. In short the Negro voter in Indianapolis has usually come to the winners of the municipal elections for bread
and has gone away with stones. THE TIME HAS COME for us to assert and demand our rights. We have a new mayor-elect who talks nieely-or at least did before the votes were cast—. Negroes should inform him of the things which they want before he makes his appoin‘> ments and insist that Negroes bo put on the various boards that develop policies for the running of our city. And he should be reminded that before the election he said he favored a municipal I K PC and that hs would appoint a human rela'ions commission that would not be just window dressing. Alter the mayor-elect has been informed of what we want, we should then keep tabs on his delivery. If he performs according to our expectations we should show our appreciation by supporting his party in the next eicc ion. all things else being equal. Cut n ne ignores our requests we should repay the favor at the polls at the next election. THE VOICE FROM THE GALLERY is making no predictions on the kind of mayor Phillip Bayt will turn out to be as far as Negroes are concerned. He seemed sincere enough before the election, but his opponent promised many fine things also. We are going to assume that until he proves us wrong Mr. Bayt was sincere when he made us promises while seeking our votes.
By T. C. Johnson Job, Rights Conference
JOHNSON
If the proceedings of the Industrial Opportunities and Constitutional Rights Conference which was held at the An.ler’s Hotel on October 29, are indicative of a happier course events are taking (as they likely are) it is within the bounds of truth and reason to say that more and more Americans who really believe in “liberty and justice for all” are on the
march.
For although cons idei ing the rights of all workers,
the conferees gave especial a - tention to those of minority groups. Since Negroes suffer the greatest deprivation of advantages, what is being attempted now in the interest of colored people Is a struggle which in many respect-s is similar to the one abolitionists carried on for a genera-
tion.
Neitner space not propriety will permit details of the numerous steps the slave power long and persistenly took to increase its influence in the Union. The acquisfcion of Louisiana in 1803, the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the annexation of Texas in 1845, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the Kan-sas-Nebraska Bill (1854). the Dred Scott Decision (1857). the attempts to annex Cuba (in 1854 particularly) and the efforts to reopen the slave trade (1859-1860) were the main*slave powjr aggressive acts. NOR WOULD IT be proper to say much about the de*derminqd opposition such measueres finally aroused at life North. Nearly everybody, moreover, knows that abolitionists demanded the immediate abolition of slavery during the years 1830-1861. It is well known also that
the opponents of slavery carried on their mission resolutely by means of the press, tracts, lectures and petitions to congress despite riots, assaults and all kinds of persecutions. Ben Segal, Washington (D C.) representative of the Fund for the Republic, told of his recent travels in the South. At Dalton, Georgia! a labor organizer must pay $1,000 for a license and $500 a day for each day he stays in the town. Mr. Segal also mentioned repressive measures now being used against southern Negroes. THE CONFERENCE was sponsored by the Indiana ^ late C. I. O. Council in consultation with the American Civil Liberties Union of American Friends Service Commit*tee, the Catholic Inter-Racial Council, the Indiana State Department of F. t. P., the Indiana Urban Leagues, the Indiapaolis Church Federation, the N.A.A.C.P. and the Jewish Community Relations Council. Clarence Royster, Mrs. Beulah Bales and John Switzer were the members of* the Indiana State C. I. O. Council’s committee of F. E. P. and civil rights. *- The 400 persons attending were chiefly Hoosiers from all parts of the state, men and women being about, equal in number. About 50 colored men and women attended. A surprising and maybe significant occurrence, was the apparently natural and easy manner in which white and colored persons mingled. 1 never before saw anything like it anywhere. In. vain I watched for self-consciousness, condescension and minifestations of inferiority. Everybody seemed to be just people. MR. ROWLAND ALLEN, personnel director of L. S. Ayres & Company, presided at the forenoon session, which was concerned with industrial opportunities. The panel members were Charles Decker, director of
the Indiana State F. E. P. C. Department; Jack Reich, former vice*-president of the Indiana State Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Fred Witney, Indiana University economics professor, and Philip J. Winkfield. field staff, A. F. S. C. Mr. Decker could not be present because of a speaking engagement at Elkhart. William C. Powell, field consultant for 4he Indiana F. E. P. C and of radio and newspaper fame, made observations on Indiana’s industrial opportunities. He took Mr. Decker’s place on the program. Mr. Powell courageously argued for an effective F. E. P. C. The o'her speeches were fine. Victor Reuther. brother of the famous Walter Reuther, being unable to be present, was represented ably by Ben Segal, who spoke effectively. THE AFTERNOON MEETING dealt with constitutional rights as seen by a legislator, Philip Willkie; an educator, Prof. E. B. Dyche; a labor leader, Ben Segal; the press, Wade Mann of the Louisville Times; and Americans for Democratic Action, Joseph Rauh Jr. All made good talks. A challenging thought was to “get rid of the South’s sins rather than just punish the South.” Regret was expres- . sed that it was necessary to go our of Indiana to get a speaker to represent the press. John L. Wash, a young cololored theology student at Amderson College and a representative of Anderson C. I. O. Local 662? gave the invocation and the benediction. NOTICE Owing to tlie coincidence of THANKSGIVING with our regular PRESS DAY The Recorder will be published on WEDNESDAY, and all dead lines moved forward accordingly. Columnists, Correspondents and Contributors will please take note. Bring or send your news Saturday. HAPPY THANKSGIVING
Some People Say --In Our Town By W. ALEXANDER CHAMBERS
Mercer M. Mance will get a deputy administrative posi in the next city administration. This is according to rumors now in circulation downtown cn the west side. He was a candidate two years ago in the Democratic primary for Superior Court Judge. He has been a Reieree of the Marion County Juvenile Court, a former Deputy Attorney General of Indiana and he has hold other posts under the State or County government. He is a graduate of Harvard University Law School and has practiced law here nearly two decades. Other persons mentioned in connection with possible appointments to posts under the next mayor, Phillip L. Bayt, include Dr. Ralph H. Hanley and Patrick Chavis. Dr. Hanley is a well known ^enlist. He has been active in Democratic politics through the years and recently was treasurer of the Democratic city committee. Mr. Chavis hail from Toledo University Law
THTnGS YOU SHOULDIKNOW
1841
BENHANZIN -tfe"Shark king "
1906
Qf ROYAL LINEAGE CENTURIES OLD, HE
RULED DAHOMEY, AFRICA FROM A SOLID GOLD THRONE I HIS WEALTHY KINGDOM BOASTED AN ARMY OF 25,000 MEN — AND SLOOO WOMEN!
-ARMED WITH MODERN RIFLES! DECLARED WAR ON FRANCE IN 1892 ! FRANCE HAD TO HIRE CRACK* AFRICAN TROOPS, (SENEGALESELTO DEFEATHIMfENDED HIS DAYS IN KINGLY EXILE AT MARTINIQUE l '
CaNTfVeAfT/ii— / a £*TC*C&S'
School. He has been active here in Democratic politics several years. * * * “IN OUR TOWN” several individuals encountered eventually or infrequently in our rounds of the weeks have seen fit to comment indirectly or directly on the recent U. S. Supreme Court decision involving use of public recreation facilities in the State of Maryland. Views or opinions have been constructive, confusing disturbing and provocative in their relation to social justice over our land in spirit and fact. The Supreme Court in the recent Maryland case, even as in the ruling oi\ public schools “ruled oiit”, or against,.the time-worn or outmoded ^doctrine of “separate but equal” facilities. Provocative views or opinions are causing the writer to “go out on a limb.” But in sustaining our plight we shall take refuge in the philosophy of the poet, Alexander Pope as follows:' Eye Nature’s walks, shoot folly as it flies. And catch the manners living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can. But Vindicate the ways of God to man. —Pope The recent decision of the U. S. Supreme; Court on public schools, and otherwise the Maryland cas£ on .the use of (declared) publig'facilities connote in spirit atid long ‘range implication new prospects or promises for a significant mi-, nority group of our land. Customs or traditions over a period of three ’hundred years have conditioned people of this group, by far and large, in the manners of futility and frustration. Within the spiritual or ideal scope of things the individual has been arrayed against himself. Thus the biggest problems of the Negro group in pur land have their roots is a defection of spiritual or ideal visions. In simple language the greatest problems of the Negro group abide in the failure of the individual to appreciate or understand fully the consequences of human dignity (SELF-RESPECT) in each man. woman and child over the land. ACTIONS at all times or places, not words or claims, are the undeniable proof of the feeling or understanding of individual human dignity <SELF-RESPFCT). Self-respect has its root$_or beginning in fitting behavior (GOdD CONDUCT) wherever or whenever human beings con^p together in common activities or interests. Human dignity (SELF-RE-
SPECT i is a spirit in free human beings. It costs nothing at any time or place, and it is one way of reflecting equality of all human beings. But being free and equal cannot, does not mean any more than free or equal in the spirit or feeling and understanding of human dignity. The individual is free for self-expression or self-improvement. The individual is free to use labor or talent and ability in satisfying, or in fulfilling worthy desires or aims in purposeful living. Today Negro people of our land face the greatest challenge of all times. It stems out of the fact that vast numbers of Negro people daily prove that they do not THINK, or ACT in terms or manners of individual human dignity. What other people (90 percent' of the land think of the Negro group finally deter- * mines our status in the land. The most significant change in the thinking of the other people will follow at such time as there is a significant change in the general thought and action of Negro people as inoividuals. There is testimony on all sides that the other people (90 percent) in our land are subceptible to an evolution of social justice, a change in thought and action in relation to the Negro group. There is testimony that now is the time. But 15 million people of African ancestry are blind to a fundamental step in decreasing their problems. We hold that the way out is not through “empty clamour against effect,” but rather in exploration and action against the total specter (cause* of futility and frustration. FinaL ly we shall need to “catch the manners living as they lise,” . . . . ; But vindicate the ways of God to man.”
Voice of The People . t-. , • Stick Together
to Mrs. Mamie
(Dedicated
Bradley) V•.
As a face dejected, tom and cast assunder, What are we going to do? We are an Ethiopain hue. Shall we go down on our knees and pray, That we Shall live from day to day. Or shall we do as a great man once said, “United we stand, divided we fall. Let’s all join hands with the NAAOP. And stick together. Mrs. Helene H. Beatty. St. Vincent’s Hospital Room 257. -
For good printing “In a Parry* phone The Indianapolis Recorder Yrfcrtlflt Co* ME. 4-1545. Yon nffl be pleased afel proud of the Work-
