Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 October 1967 — Page 9

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1967

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

Poge Nine

Editorials

Bigots take notice

'MEN SHOW THEIR

CHARACTER IN

NOTHING MORE CLEARLY THAN BY WHAT THEY

The primary victory, Tuesday, of Carl B. Stokes in the THINK LAUGHABLE. Cleveland Democratic mayoralty primary election should ^ served notice on the bigoted, the racist and the u 11 r a -c on - > j servative (who operate under the guise of states' rights) hope to capitalize on the civil disorders that have plagued a number of our uruban cities in order to promote an anti-

Negro "blacklash" vote.

Dispite the emergence of a "blacklash" vote in some of the other Northern urban communities, it is heartening to note that Mr. Stokes' victory over his two white oppon- — ents was the direct result of his having received substantial support in the white community. And, this despite the fact that Cleveland was the scene of one of the country's most bloody and costly

riots in 1966.

In a prior bid for the Cleveland mayoralty nomination (1965) Stokes was defeated by incumbent Mayor Ralph S. Locher by a mere 2000 votes. In this defeat Stokes could garner only about 2000 votes in the white community. And this was before the

rioting.

On Tuesday Stokes registered a total of 110,000 votes, more than the combined totals of his two opponents— Mayor Locher 92,000 and Frank P. Celeste (8,000) former mayor of a Cleveland suburb. It is interesting to note that despite the fact tha Stokes received a whopping 96.7 percent of the votes cast in the Negro wards, he also received an imprssive 16 percent 15,000) of the white vote cast in the election. With these figures at hand, however it is not hard to conclude that Stokes could not have emerged victorious had he received the same meager white vote he attracted

in 1965.

VOICE FROM THE GALLERY ~g3 Voting for the strictly for

man may be the birds

We would like to hope that Stokes primary victory in Cleveland can be interpreted as a sign than an ever-in-creasing number of the nation's white citizenry has come to realize that only through the joint efforts of "all" Americans can we realize the "Great American Dream."

Private role in housing

by WHITNEY M. YOUNG, JR.

★ ★ ★ ‘Amen’

Speaking before a YWCA membership meeting in Washington this week, Patricia Roberts Harris, former U S. Ambassador to Luxumbourg and a member of the United States delegation to the U.N. General Assembly, reminded the gahtering that "Middle-class white Americans who live.in segregated nieghfyorbpods are contributing more than a thousanck^Rap Bnowna ond Stokley Carmichaels toward eruptions of racial violence; By failing to end segregation, middle-class whites are making possible the continuation of conditions that breed and develop and willing audience for the advocates of "Black Power," Mrs. Harris said. Respectable, middle-class white and Negro Americans, she said, must become radicals in the struggle for desegregation. They must "b in advance of the 'Black Power' advocates. "We of the middle-class don't have the luxury of being active quietly and calmly," she declared. Today's young Negro says that he has only one life to live and he "won't live it in the way Negroes did before him." The suburbs themselves wil Icollaspe, she predicated, if inner city Negroes come to beliv that Amrican society s moving too slowly in solving Negro problems. Mrs. Harris says the only answer to "Black Power" is a society in which white and Negro Americans live, work, play and go to school together. But the Negro can't do it alone, she added. Americans failture to eliminate the worst aspects of its poverty is making it difficult for this country to convince undecided nations that the democratic system of government was worth copying. "People aboard look at us and say, 'You are so rich, and if you, a rich, democratic one ever can," Poverty and discrimination in the United States, she said, stand as "an indictment of our system." To Mrs. Harris' not so startling declaration we can only add a resound. ."Amen."

Remember!

"Crime has its heroes, ERROR HAS ITS MARTYRS: Of true zeal and false, what VAIN JUDGES WE ARE! FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET (Voltaire) - - 1604-1778

The columns of The Recorder (voice of the people are open to all readers of the community, state or on the national level to present their opinions on the total of human interests or activities. Please confine your comment to 500 words or less We reserve the right to edit copy, particularly in regards to 'academic fact (Encyclopedia Britannica, etc.)" All oopy must positively include the name and address of person or persons submitting the same. However, these will not necessarily be published.

Negro Press Creed un*^ $*•»•< •* America can best lead Hie waHd away teem racial and national antagonism when it accords every man, regardless of race, color or creed, hie he maw and legal rights. Hating no man, fearing no maw, Vha Nogm Press strives to help every man in the firm belief that dff are halt so long as any one is held hack. ]0R.

There

sleeping

are signs that a giant is awakening.

I’m talking about the immense power of nongovernmental institutions to use their many billions of dollars of economic power to help cure the racial and urban ills

of America. In the past, everyone looked to Washington. Business said that putting money into slums was too risky, religious and nonprofit groups said that such

Sn, 'IK. ’ YOUNG and local governments said they just didn’t have the cash, although that didn’t prevent them from finding it for

other causes.

So it was up to the federal government. But its response was inadequate. It ended some forms of legal segregation, but in matters like housing it failed to make discrimination illegal or to provide an adequate supply of low-cost housing. As a result there are over seven million dilapidated homes and apartments in America. The big lesson here is that the federal government can’t do the job alone. Building decent housing for all needs the cooperation of private industry, nonprofit groups and government, all working together. In the past month a beginning has been made in this

direction.

America’s huge insurance industry announced that it would invest $1 billion, mostly in low and moderate cost housing projects in slum neighborhoods. The government will insure their investment, guarding them losses in what always been a risky investment against area. Without such government help it would be nearly impossible to get those private dollars into low-rent housing construction. In a little more than a year, 1,000 moderate income families will move into the first of the buildings which will be constructed by the insurance industry. As part o fits share in the pledge billion dollars, the Prudential Insurance Company will build a cooperative apartment house on the edge of the Newark ghet-

to.

Nonprofit groups also are beginning to take part in the revival of private interest in decent housing. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark has announced that it will sponsor new housing and rehabilitation programs in several northern New Jersey cities. But this is more than a bricks and mortar plan. Recognizing that many lowincome families need help in many areas and that a decent home won’t solve all their problems, the Archdiocese plans provide special help for tenants. They will help furnish and decorate the new home, and will provide guidance in educational, economic, medical, and other needs. Such services are desperately needed. They Can help create the sense of community which the typical barracks-type of low income project destroys. The importance of these planned projects is that they show that business, religious, and civic leaders are coming to realize that they have an

important stake in the cities, and that they must do something about the explosive urban conditions which threaten America’s future. After this summer’s riots many people called for repressive measures and police action. But the creative people in leadership roles understood that the cry from the ghettos cannot be answered by guns, but by action to end poverty and poor living conditions. The Catholic housing plans in New Jersey, for example, grew out of Archbishop Thomas A. Boland’s visit to Newark’s riot area, and his decision to involve the in the «bcted and e problems of the poor And enlightened leadership of the business community has responded with the insurance industry’s housing

Letters to the editor... Mrs. C.D.M. pays 'fitting tribute' to Martin L. King

To The Editor Recently I’ve been trying •to put into words a fitting tribute to Rev. Martin Luther King-mere words are inadequate to express the soaring pride that his coming has brought to us. A recent article in the September issue of “Readers Digest” provided the impetus that was needed This article by Carl T. Rowan criticizes Dr. King on his stand on Vietnam-calls it a “tragic decision.” This sort of reasoning causes moments of grave doubt that the Negro will ever see the light. Then I read the article by another distinguished N e g r o-Ernest Dunbar in the latest ‘Look’ magazine and this restored faith in the ultimate good sense of the Negro. He writes with an understanding that is both heartening and rare in the Negro. By stating that Roy Wilkins Mnd Edward W. Brooke were both "Establishment blacks” he consigned the likes of Carl Rowan to their proper place. With the whole world in chaos and the future of the Negro in grave doubt, there is need for factual reasoning on the part of the Negro. Those of us who were skeptical of Rev. King’s advocacy of “Brotherhood’ as solving the whole problem were nevertheless convinced of his sincerity and self sacrifice. His coming has exposed the great fallacy that the Negro is free. His freedom extends in only two directions. If he is unusually gifted, he can sell his talents to the “Establishment,” as so many have done, or he can follow the path that the courage of his convictions lead him and run the gamut of reidicule and suspicion of his motives. That has been the lot of Rev; King, not only, by whites, but by frigjhtened and confused Negroes. Aware that Rev. King was young and that youth is most idealistic, there was the very fear that Qoming up against hard core racism. Dr. King would become disillusioned

Now that we are engaged in a campaign to see who will govern our fair city for the nexa four years it is necessary that we come uj) with some sort of valid criteria for the election of the candidates which the two parties are offering us. For the top post in our municipal government we have two gehtlemen, Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside, who are attempting to charm us into voting for them. From their public statements the writer has concluded that both of them are in favor of motherhood, against crime. j Both are also in favor of the maximum of civic improvement at the minimum expenses to the taxpayer. They both believe that the citizens should have some sort of housing and that we should attract more industry to the city so that we can have more jobs and hence more tax revenue. They are equally together on such things as the need for the smooth flow of traffic, recreation, and concern for the aged. They seem to differ only in size, shape, age and the ability to use the English language orally to the fullest extent of its power to conceal their thoughts. The difefrences may be enough to some to make a choice and for those who swallow the old bromide “vote for

By ANDREW W. RAMSEY the man” they may be the deciding factors. But for us in 1967 to be taken in by such root and herb medicine means that we are far too naive for the complexities of the space age. It means that we have not learned our political abe’s. The last chance that voters have to select the men of their choice is during the primary when so many elect to stay at home and allow the party machines to select their men for them. After the primary it is up to the voter to examine the party machines, their manipulators and the teams which they have fielded for the general election. It is not so much what the candidate says that he believes as it is what his puppeteers - believe. The candidate who claims to believe what his party is opposed to is either lying or flirting with political suicide and neither Mr. Inside nor Mr. Outside has been reported to have suicidal tendencies. There are real issues in this campaign and they are apt to be snowed under as both candidates choose to talk about the universal virtues and the eternal pipe dreams of the citizenry. It is nice to hear both candidates promise so much good as so little cost to the taxpayers, to learn that both would run the city as Christian gentlemen, but it is more important to determine what they and their party believe about federal aid to the little people, about public housing, and health and employment in the public sector. It is important to know whether they are

promising one thing to one section of the city and quite the opposite to another section. And it is important to know what the attitude of the kingmakers of the party has been as established by the record and by their pronouncements and it is very important what the attitude and records of their running mates are. And finally we must realize that both political parties are employing the techniques of the advertising gentry to sell us a bill of goods and they are doing this by using the mayorality candidates as the packages in which the goods are wrapped. If we are wise we will insist on seeing what is on the inside of the package rather than accept the contents on faith because we like the outside. It is easy to say that in moste of our elections we have a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee but that is over simplification. Instead we should take a lesson from the wolf as recorded in the “Jungle Book” by the late imperialist poet Rydyard Kipling: “For the wolf is the life of the pack And the pack is the life of the wolf; That is the law of the jungle, As old as the earth and the sky And the wolf that shall keep it Shall prosper And the wolf that shall break it shall die.” Let’s watch the pack rather than the wolf.

SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON

cortimitment, the formation of the Urban Coalition of city, business, labor, religious and civil rights leaders, and with expanded work with groups like the Urban League to open up job opportunities. So some first steps have been taken. Seen in the context of the desperate need for massive help in jobs and housing, these first steps may seem feeble. But so are a baby’s first steps, yet babies later walk and run. If action is followed by that of other private groups, and if government at all levels responds with similar ac-

God of all nations

fidence that the people with the power and the money to change things are aware of their responsibilities.

Larger Lesson: Amos 1-2, 9:7-8. Lesson Print: Amos 1:3-5, 24-8, 9:7-8. Motto Text: Ps. 47:8. Time: 765-755 B.C. Place: Irarel This is another of those great lesson, telling of the deep convictions of a consecrated laymen viewing will be: 1. God Holds All Nations Accountable to Him Amos 1:3-5 2. Privilege Nations Are r Especially Accountable. Ajnos .,3;4-8 3. Jehovah Lord of All. Amos 9:7-8 4. World Evangelism or World Revolution Which? GODS HOLDS ALL NATIONS ACCOUNTABLE TO HIM: This is announcing that God’s tolerance of the evil of certain nations will run out. This irrevent tendency of mankind to run into God’s face is open rebel li on of which he will soon tire. He implies He will be merciful three times but will send judgement and punishment

and bitter and sell out to the “Establishment.” But no one, and especially Negroes, can listen to his logic on the Vietnam situation and reject it on any ground save expediency — a desire to play up to the strongest side. If Rev. King’s brand of logic and patriotism does not prevail it is proof that there is no reservoir of fairness and logic in the world today. The N e g r o e s’ patriotism and allegiance should not in all fairness extend beyond that expressed in the verses that I learned in school. “Woodman spare the tree— Touch not a single bough — In youth it shelterd me — And I’ll protect it now.” The same sort of feeling you would extend to a parent who provided you with shelter but neglected You otherwise — as a child. It is asking too much for any one who is aware of white America’s history of race relations to believe that the U. S. is fighting a selfless war in this little Asian country. This added to the fast that continued war is a direct contradiction to the object of lasting peace that is preached about, a direct contradiction to Dr. King’s non-violent stand, a direct contradiction to the great self-righteous stand that is taken over the elements of ‘Black power,’ who is accused of inciting to riot. We are expected to blindly accept the fact that violence be reserved strictly for the discretion of the great and honorable white man. We are to believe hisr violence is for the good of all, eventually, though it is spread over thousands of years of his history and there is no end in sight. And any one, especially the Negro, who dares to question these things is considered the worst kind of traitor. Instantly all Negroes who stand to loose the good favor of his peers is ordered to warn his fellows that they are approaching quicksand. Instantly the “Establishment Blacks” pick up the scent and lead the chase like the hounds of the old southern lynching

parties. To those of us who are receptive, Dr. King has given something of value. Something that has been glimpsed only on occasion. We no longer have to beery the fact that we have so few representatives of history in a white world that would strip us of everything that it in itself holds dear and leave us beggers. In Dr. King, we have a living breathing symbol of every thing that the human spirit can aspire to. A great man of the present and the future. A mind that can accept the fact that the outcome of the present crises lies a whole lot in the hands of the Negro. We have no uniting theme — our loyalties are widely divergent. Between those who hate the white man and blame him for all the Negroes’ ills, and those who play up to the white man for personaf gain. There must be found a common ground of reason and acceptance of facts as they are. True — the white man has exploited, abused and limited the Negroes chances. But he did this with the Negroes apparent willingness and, for the most part, cooperation. IS is only lately, and largely through the efforts of Dr. King, has the fact begun to filter down that he really has been misused. So the next sensible step is to accept part of the responsibility for the existing state of things and go on from there. With the spirit of anger and vengeance out of the way, we can proceed with the determjnation that our struggle should account for something. Far above a job or economic progress is the sense of belonging to a group whom the individual can take pride in and who takes pride in the individual. Rev. King has laid the foundation and black men all over the world should move forward. Knowingly or unknowingly, like the white man, he * has used his women as scapgoats for the, ills of the human race. But, unlike the white man, he hasn’t tried to build a world wherin his women could be

REV. J. T. HIGHBAUGH SR. on the fourth. This was in opposition of Israel and Judah’s beliefs. They believed at the time each nation had a god of its own. However, they considered Jehovah as their God and themselves as His chosen people, privileged to do as they

pleases

“Not so,” says Amos. “I am God of the whole creation and they owe me respect.” Romans 1:17-20 PRIVILEGED NATIONS ARE ESPECIALLY ACCTmINTABLE: In the passages between 1:5 and 24, the Philistines, Tyreans, Edomites, Amonites and Moabites are singled out for judgement. But in 2:4 Amos speaks out against his own land, denouncing their disregard of God’s law and their lies in worship and life. God did regard Israel as His chosen people but never people chosen to disregard His law. Here punishment sets in with them as with other nations. Moral decay is more tragic than treason. At t h e World Congress on Evangelism, a chart showed our world population growing at the rate of 40,000,000 per year while Protestant church growth is only 5,000,000 per year. The nemesis is stock piles of atomic missiles are fast growing in the hands of nations whose revolutionary ideologies would enslave these milsomewhat compensated for this heavy responsibility. And, to a lot of us, it appears that what started out as an appeal to reason and human kindness has degenerated into a demand that the white man make this kind of world available to Negro women also. When history and common sense teaches that it is not in the nature of the white man to do so. If this seems to be hitting below the belt, it is meant as in the nature of physician probing the sensitive spots before he can diagnose and prescribe a cure for the

disease.

A nation or race is no greater than its concern for its sick and old, its women and children. Mos. C. M. D. ’

World is cruel due to skin color: reader

lions without Christ. It is Christ or chaos, which? JEHOVAH LORD OF ALL: Here God points out He guided the travels of Israel from Egypt to their promised land of Ethiopia and the Philistines from Crete to Asia’s mankind. ‘God works,” says Amos, “in the affairs of all men whether they regard it or not.” God has brought us all to America, the Indian, the Caucasian, the Black man, and the Jew. If we each ignore God, we will be destroyed individually. If we ignore Him collectively, we will die collectively. The soul that sinneth shall die. EVANGELIZE OR REVOI^ UTIONIZE WHICH? Dr. Carl Henry, on the eve of the Evangelism Congress, spelled out our delimna in Berlin: “Our century of crisis now faces a final choice between world evangelism and world revolution. A decisive verdict on civilization in our times, and possibly an end-time judgement, hangs over the whole human race. “Outwardly life goes on, while an enlightened generation, armed with the most devastating weapons of mass destruction known to human history, stockpiles missiles against the day when the whole earth may tremble like a devasted Hiroshima.” Can we, whose souls are lighted with wisdom from on high, Can we to men benighted The lamp of life deny? Salvation, O salvation The joyful sound proclaim. Till earth’s remotest nation Has learned Messiah’s name.—Bishop Reginald Heb-

er

To The Editor: If I had been born with a different color skin, this world would not have been so cruel because of the color of my skin. My heart is as large as my helping hands. My mind is as clear as a bell. I learned to forgive and try to forget the cruel things others said and did. I was told in my youth that God knows no color of one’s skin. His gate to His Heaven is open to all who keep His faith to enter it. Death knows no color regardless who it calls. The graves of the dead are filled with the earth we tread. The living will never know why God created the dark color of my skin. Holsey C. Owsley 505 W. 40th Street

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