MISCELLANY PRINTED MATTER International News Service, 1936, 1940-41 INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE Published by DEPARTMENT OF RACE RELATIONS, FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES 105 EAST 22ND STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. Gleanings from press releases and other sources to inform busy but sincere people of some of the things affecting the lives of racial minorities. Let's do away with walls! "We are all one in Christ Jesus." The Material in the News Service is given for information and is not to be constructed as declarations of official attitudes or policies of the Department of Race Relations or the Federal Council of Churches. December, 1936 Election Returns 17 Negroes Get in Legislatures of 9 States (N.Y. Herald Tribune, Nov. 15, '36) Twelve Negro Democrats and five Republicans were chosen for nine state legislatures throughout the country in the November 3 elections. With the re-election to Congress of Representative Arthur W. Mitchell of Chicago, who again will be the only Negro there, eighteen Negroes were successful at the pools in their bid for legislative seats. Five Democrats were elected to serve in the Pennsylvania lower house, four from Philadelphia . . . Electing four Negroes to the State Legislature, Illinois ran second to Pennsylvania . . . Negroes also were elected to state legislatures in Kansas, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, and New York. Hurrah is Over (Kansas City Call, Editorial, Nov. 6, '36) The hurrah is over . . . But the real business of government is yet to be done. it is what officials will do, rather than who they are, which counts. Negroes know from bitter experience how far the law both in its meaning and in its endorsement can fall short of the spirit of the Constitution. No Republican or Democratic victory changes Negroes' situation. The race prejudice which makes them pariahs in the land of their birth despite its commitment to liberty and equality goes deeper than politics. But politics can be the tool with which to demolish it. The equality and comradeship of the campaign can be made to extend over after election. It will extend over---if Negroes work to that end. Obviously their first step is to close up their own lines . . . Prejudice includes all in its mistreatment. All should join hands to eradicate it. 244 Will Aid Anti-Lynch Legislation (St. Louis Call, Nov. 20, '36) A check upon the newly elected and re-elected members of the seventy-fifth Congress which will meet in January shows that 224 Congressmen have indicated in some way that they will support federal anti-lynching legislation and will work against discrimination in civil service, in employment and relief. One hundred forty-seven members of the new Congress signed the following pledge sent to them before election by the N.A.A.C.P.: "I pledge to do everything possible to bring a vote and to vote for an effective anti-lynching bill in the Seventy-fifth Congress. I also promise to oppose all discrimination on account of race, creed, or color, in relief jobs, civil service, or in any other way." "This tabulation," said an NAACP statement, "indicates that colored Americans have many friends in the new Congress who can be prevailed upon to do justice to them in the new legislation." (A later check by the NAACP increases the total to 228.—Editor.) AMERICAN INDIAN INTERESTS A belated vote of thanks: Indian Day Proclaimed (N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Nov. 20, '36) Governor James M. Curley proclaimed next Wednesday Indian Day in Massachusetts. In setting apart November 25, as Indian Day, Governor Curley called upon the citizens "to commemorate the charity and friendship of the Indians toward early settlers of the commonwealth" A year ago the Legislature passed a law directing that the Governor set apart one day as Indian Day. From copies of "Indians At Work," published by the Office of Indian Affairs, we cull the following: Twenty laws affecting Indians were passed by Congress this past year. Most of these deal with claims, land allotments, and appropriations. During the first two years of the Indian Reorganization Act, Indian landholdings increased at the rate of 870,500 acres each year; land values vastly increased under planned salvaging directed by the departments of Agriculture and Interior; financial credit totaling more than $12,000,000 was authorized, repayments to go to a revolving credit fund for re-lending; live stock revenues increased more than four-fold. Of 5,463 field positions in the Indian Service, 2,037 are now filled by Indians. The educational loan fund has placed 258 Indian students in colleges and 141 in vocational schools. Competent trained nurses with one-fourth Indian blood can always secure employment in public health services to Indians. This is also of interest to Negro trained nurses who have a partial Indian heritage. Whites Grab Indian Jobs as Extras in Hollywood (N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Sept. 25, '36) Jim Thorpe, famous Indian athlete, recently sought Federal intervention for his brothers from United States District Attorney Peirson M. Hall, who promised he would place the problem before the President or one of his Washington aids. The athlete, one of America's greatest Olympic Games performers, explained there were 250 Indians in Hollywood who made their living playing extra roles in pictures. Recently, however, the studios have been casting white men in the Indian parts, leaving the Indians without a means of livelihood, Thorpe said. He thought perhaps the Federal Attorney could stop the studio practice of impersonating his people. SIGNS OF PROGRESS Legionaires Set Precedent in Virginia (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 31, '36) "What we are seeing tonight is the most epochal happening since the Civil War," was the description of a white World War veteran in Winchester, Va., of the momentous event when twelve colored members of the American Legion, accompanied by their women-folk attended the annual banquet of the state department of the Legion, held in one of the most prominent hotels in the city, October 29. During the two-day session, it was a common sight to see the white and colored Legionaires walking arm-in-arm through the lobbies and halls of the hotel headquarters of the convention. Women Started Nurses Fight (N.Y. Age, Oct. 3, '36) Back of the admittance of colored girls to the nurses training class of the Jersey City Medical Center is the story of interracial cooperation and effort. Several months ago the New Jersey Interracial Committee of Church Women invited a committee of the New Jersey State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs to join in conferring with hospital heads with the hope of securing training for Negro girls. Tax-supported institutions were visited but no favorable consideration was given save by Dr. George T. O'Hanlon of the Jersey City Medical Center, who promised that no girl with required qualifications would be excluded on account of color. The two applicants, Misses Christine Titus and Helene DeReift, have been accepted and passed all examinations. Buffalo City Hospital Admits Colored Nurse (NAACP, Oct. 9, '36) Miss Eva Bateman has been admitted to the nurse training school of the Buffalo city hospital after passing all the examinations required. She is the first colored girl ever to be admitted for nurse training at the city hospital. The Buffalo branch of the NAACP, assisted by other organizations, churches and individuals has been working for several years to have colored applicants admitted. Buisiness Upturn Benefits Negro Workers (Pittsburgh Courier, Nov. 21, '36) A survey recently completed among the Chambers of Commerce of the major cities and the nation's industrial centers indicates a widespread business revival in all lines and a sharp upturn in trade that has been of great benefit to thousands of colored workers and to the service employes on railroads and in hotels...The steel and packing industries, both large employers of Negro labor, report the greatest gain since the start of the depression in 1929 and as a result have increased wages and put many thousands to work. Negro Waiters Win in Minneapolis (Chicago Defender, Oct. 3, '36) Union waiters local 614 has succeeded in placing Negro waiters in the New Nicollet Hotel Cocktail lounge, after many weeks of conferences with the managers of the hotel and union officials of the Twin Cities. The waiters who are being selected are all union men who will be receiving union wages, and working union hours, also working under union conditions. Equality Is Won By Negro Girls in State School (N.Y. Herald Tribune, Nove. 20, '36) A special committee of the state Board of Social Welfare has reported that discrimination against Negroes exists at the N.Y. State Training Schools for Girls, at Hudson. Recently, however, administrative charges have been made at the school, and efforts to place the Negro girls on an equal footing with the white girls have been successful. One Negro girl has been elected leader of a school department. Having admitted that discrimination did exist, the report went on to say: "Segregation cannot be justified and should not be tolerated and institutional facilities should be extended in entirety so that the Negro girls shall be entitled equally to all of them." One of the points at issue was the housing of the Negro girls in two cottages. This, the committee found, "inevitably limited the number of Negroes who could be accommodated and extended the waiting time for their admission to a much longer period than that for white girls." The report recommended that in the future all admissions be made in order of application. Since the report was prepared, it was learned, Negro girls have been allowed to select their place of residence, and many of them preferred to live by themselves in the two cottages. A third cottage has been set up, it was reported in which both white and Negro girls live. Practice Teaching Discrimination Ends (Baltimore, Afro-American) Through the efforts of Dr. John P. Turner, a member of the board of education and also a police surgeon, the long standing policy of the University of Pennsylvania of sending colored students to Chester and Sharon Hill for practice teaching, has been terminated. In taking the matter up with the institution, the following letter was forwarded to Dr. J.H. Minnick, white, dean of the school of education from Parke Schoch, white, associate superintendent of schools. "In making assignments of students of the school of education to our several high schools, will you be good enough to assign colored students on exactly the same basis as you assign white students. This is in confirmation of my telephone request of this morning." Second Negro to Maryland Law School (Kansas City Call) Calvin Douglass of Baltimore, Md., has just been admitted as a student to the night class, first year of the University of Maryland law school. Young Douglass is the second Negro student to be admitted to the university law school in its history. Donald Gaines Murray was admitted in September, 1935, to the regular day classes after a court battle begun in June, 1935, in which the Baltimore city court ordered the university to admit him and the decision was later affirmed by the Maryland court of appeals. Two Youths Appointed to West Point (Kansas City Call, Nov. 6, '36) Two young Chicago Negroes have been appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point by Congressman Arthur W. Mitchell. In this connection it is interesting to note that non-commissioned Negroes are active in West Point. George Schuyler in the Pittsburgh Courier for October 31 writes: New York City is not far from West Point...I made my first visit to the famous academy not long ago as the week-end guest of my old friend Staff Sergeant "Bob" Thomas, receptionist at the Cadet Hospital...One of the most beautiful stone buildings at West Point is the cadet hospital...But the most important thing about it from our point of view is that aside from the physicians, dentists, surgeons and women nurses, it is entirely staffed by colored men. [2] All the clerical work is done by Negroes in a well-appointed office. The cooking and serving are done by Negroes. The hospital is kept clean by Negroes. The orderlies are Negroes. And what is especially significant is the fact that the dental mechanic, the dental technician, the x-ray technician, the pharmacist, the laboratory technician and the physiotherapist are also Negroes. Each one of them an enlisted man in Uncle Sam's army...In addition to the Negro enlisted staff at the cadet hospital, there are two troops of Negro cavalrymen, with one Master Sergeant, two first sergeants and four staff sergeants...One colored staff sergeant is veterinarian. His duties consist not only of looking after the horses and mules but also inspecting the meat that enters the post and testing the eggs and milk. His yes or no is final. At the post headquarters are several Negroes, two of them staff sergeants. One of them occupies a confidential position, a sort of chief clerk. I was also told there are some colored soldiers employed in important positions about the military post. DISCRIMINATION CONTINUES Electricians Thrown Off Jobs; Denied Union Cards (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 24, '36) Twenty-five Negro electricians who had worked for years with the Standard Electrical Equipment Corporation in New York, were thrown out of their jobs when the plant became unionized and Local No. 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers refused them union cards, it was charged recently...According to the attorney for the dismissed employees, President Edward N. Rosenfield, of the electrical concern, stands ready to re-employ the dismissed workers if the union will give its consent. Mr. Rosenfield told newspaperman that the contract he had signed with the union last May provided for a closed shop and that none of the Negro workers were able to produce union cards. According to the N.Y. Times of October 19, Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers denied discrimination against Negroes and promised an investigation. Richmond Mayor Will Not Give Colored Police a Tryout (Baltimore, Afro-American, Oct. 24, '36) Absolute opposition to the appointment of colored policemen in Richmond, Va., which he said would break down, rather than build up, racial relations, was expressed recently by Mayor Bright: The mayor stated his views when the interracial committee of the ministerial association called on him to present resolutions unanimously adopted by the Ministerial Union urging the appointment of colored officers in colored sections. "I want you to know that I am 100 per cent in disagreement with you in the matter of appointing colored police. I would not be true to myself if I did not tell you frankly where I stand as long as I am in authority," asserted Mayor Bright, "It would not be possible to differentiate between whom a colored officer should arrest and whom he should not arrest. You could not tell such an officer that he should confine his activities solely to the people of his race." Md. Teachers Back NAACP in Pay Fight (Baltimore Afro-American, Nov. 21, '36) A legal onslaught against the State teachers' pay differential, estimated at about a $500,000 annual loss to colored teachers, may be made before the January session of the Legislature, through cooperative efforts of the NAACP and the Maryland Teachers' Association, as a result of action by the teachers recently. A Montgomery County teacher has offered herself as a sacrifice for a test case with the objective of benefitting Maryland's 1,400 colored teachers. University Rescinds Its Invitation for Meet of Student's Society (Dallas Time Herald, Nov. 25, '36) Southern Methodist University's student council has rescinded the university's invitation to the National Student Federation of America for that group to hold its convention in Dallas (Texas) late in December, ostensibly because of conflict with the N.S.F.A.'s ruling of non-discrimination against delegates because of race and the Jim Crow laws of Texas. A member of the student committee told a Times Herald reporter Saturday that the committee had met with "insurmountable obstacles in housing and entertainment of delegates," presumably because some of the delegates will be Negroes and because of Texas statutes providing for separation of Negroes and whites in all public conveyances and certain public buildings. CIVIL RIGHTS Gain: Equal Right Law Held Legal (Baltimore Afro-American, Oct. 24, '36) The Pennsylvania civil rights law, passed in 1935 and signed by Governor Earle, was declared constitutional recently by the Quarter Sessions Court of Allegheny County, Judges Braham and McCann presiding. The test of the constitutionality arose when John Psaras, who operates a restaurant in Pittsburgh, sought a new trial after being convicted of refusing to serve a cup of coffee to a colored person. Hotel Must Pay Damages to N.Y. Pair (Baltimore, Afro-American, Oct. 17, '36) Racial discrimination cost the 15 Fifth Avenue Corporation, New York, $200 recently, when Earl Brown and his fiancee, Miss Lois Vaughn, were awarded damages of $100 each in an action brought last spring against the Brevoort Hotel. Seeking dinner, the couple sat down at a table in the Brevoort Grill. The waiters ignored them, even though food was served at surrounding tables, and after more than an hour's wait Mr. Brown and Miss Vaughn left, still hungry. In his decision in favour of the couple, Justice Myron Sulzberger, white, said: "The plaintiffs acted in a decorous manner and were appropriately dressed. My two colleagues on the bench, Justices James S. Watson and Charles E. Tony, are colored, learned in the law and honored. What would happen under similar circumstances if they were refused service, or if some of their white colleagues, after seeing them enter, should walk out? It was a clear violation of the law." Loss: Refusal to Sell to Negro Upheld in Ohio (N.Y. Herald Tribune, Nov. 20, '36) Operators of retail stores in Ohio may refuse to sell merchandise to Negroes, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, in effect, today. The court refused to review a decision of the Cuyahoga County Court of Appeals, which held that the women's apparel shop in the Terminal Building, Cleveland, was within its right in refusing to sell to Ellon Sissle, a [3] Negro woman. The case was brought by Miss Sissle under the civil rights statute in Cleveland's Municipal Court, which held for Miss Sissle and awarded her $1oo damages. The court of Appeals, however, reversed this decision, holding that "retail stores are private businesses not within the provisions of the civil rights statute." The N.A.A.C.P. comments on this decision that the Ohio law is not specific, mentioning only places of public accommodation and amusement and public conveyances, going on to say: Lawyers are considering whether to try to carry the case to the United States Supreme Court or to seek an amendment to the Ohio civil rights law....This is the second time in recent years that the Ohio Supreme Court has narrowed its interpretation of the civil rights of Negroes. In 1933 it ruled in the now famous Doris Weaver case that Ohio State University was not violating the constitutional rights of Miss Weaver by segregating her in one-half of a practice cottage in a home management course at the university. These two decisions by a state's high court are causing grave apprehension among the colored citizens of Ohio because they indicate that instead of a liberal and expanding view of civil rights and social welfare for Negroes, the court is restricting its vision. STATUS OF CELEBRATED CASES Herndon Wins Court Review (N.Y. World-Telegram, Nov. 23, '36) Angelo Herndon, Negro Communist organizer of Atlanta, Ga., today won Supreme Court consideration of his fight against serving an eighteen-to-twenty-year jail sentence imposed for violation of a Reconstruction era law which provides up to the death penalty for those inciting to violence against the State. The court decided to review a decision of the Georgia Supreme Court upholding both the conviction and the law. Sharecroppers New Hearing (Kansas City Call, Nove. 6, '36) Ed Brown, Yank Ellington and Henry Shields, the three sharecroppers of Kemper County, charged with the murder of Raymond Stewart, white tenant farmer, in May, 1934, have been granted a change of venue from Kemper county to Lowndes county, (Mississippi). The men were convicted and sentenced to death. The NAACP appealed the case to the United STtes Supreme Court which on February 17, 1936 remanded the case for retrial. In a scorching opinion read by Chief Justice Hughes the high court expressed indignation at the torture to which the prisoners had been subjected and declared, "The rack and torture chamber may not be substituted for the witness chair." Scottsboro Case Postponed (NAACP, Oct. 30, '36) The trials in the famous Scottsboro case which were to have been resumed on November 2 before Judge William Washington Callahan at. Decatur, Ala., have been postponed until December or January, it was announced here today by the Scottsboro Defense Committee. Judge Callahan is reported to be seriously ill with a heart ailment, necessitating the postponement. Sharecroppers and Tenancy Of interest to all who are concerned with race relations is the newly appointed presidential commission which is to study farm tenancy and make a report by February 1. Among the 30 members are three Negroes, President F.D. Patterson of Tuskegee Institute, Charles S. Johnson of Fisk University and Mary McLeod Bethune of Bethune-Cookman College, Daytona, Florida. In Arkansas the situation grows more acute: To Investigate Sharecroppers and Owners Feud (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 31. '36) Arkansas' State legislature will be asked to investigate charges of violence and lawlessness between plantation owners and sharecroppers at the next meeting of the general assembly in January. Five members of retiring Gov. J. M. Futrell's State Farm Tenancy commission were designated to ask the legislature to make the inquiry. Official Flays Arkansas Governor's Sharecroppers Quiz Commission (East Tennessee News, Oct. 18, '36) Gardner Jackson, chairman of the National Committee on Rural Social Planning stated that "the public must be warned to expect little" from the commission named by Governor Futrell of Arkansas to investigate the charges of peonage and enforce labor among the sharecroppers of the state. "The Department of Justice," Mr. Jackson continued, "is to be commended for its diligence in securing an indictment of City Marshall P. D. Peacher in Arkansas under the federal peonage statute, but the public should be warned that this indictment barely scratches the surface of conditions of barbaric denial of human and constitutional rights which continue unchecked by the actions of federal, state or local administrations in and around the cotton fields of the South." Southern Jury Finds Planter Guilty As Slaver (N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Nov.26, '36) A Federal Court jury convicted Paul D. Peacher, planter- peace officer, today on charges of violating an 1866 anti-slavery statute and he was sentenced to two years in prison and fined $3,500. Judge John E. Martineau imposed the sentence immediately, despite a jury recommendation of clemency and a request that the 42-year old Earle, Ark., town marshal not be imprisoned. The court said, however, he would place Peacher on probation if he paid the fine, making it unnecessary for him to serve the sentence. The jury convicted Peacher on all of the seven counts of an indictment which accused him of falsely arresting a group of Negroes and forcing them to work on his farm... The Negroes told the jury Peacher arrested them without explanation, took them before Mayor T.S. Mitchell in Justice Court and that they were sentenced to $25 fine and thirty days for vagrancy. Peacher was the lone witness against them, testimony showed. Readers should note that this trial was conducted in a Federal Court. Advocates of a federal anti-lynching law look for similar results if lynching cases can be taken out of local courts. The Arkansas Gazette for November 19, reports the visit of Secretary Wallace: On the tour into eastern Arkansas today, Secretary Wallace was taken to Missco farms, a plantation leased by the Resettlement Administration upon which a group of farmers are being rehabilitated with government loans, the only source of credit available to them. He was driven through the fields, stopping occasionally to call a working client to the car... In every case the client's longing to own a farm, with reasonable safeguards against loss, was expressed before the interview ended. Secretary Wallace spent a couple of hours in Dyess Colony, a 600-family project originated by the FERA and completed by the PWA. The group visited the hospital, the cotton gin, and the other units of the community center, ate in the colony restaurant, and inspected a typical farmstead. INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE Published by Department of Race Relations, Federal Council of Churches 297 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Gleanings from press releases and other sources to inform busy but sincere people of some of the things affecting the lives of racial minorities. Let's do away with walls ! "We are all one in Christ Jesus." The Material in the News Service is given for information and is not to be construed as declarations of official attitudes or policies of the Department of Race Relations or the Federal Council of Churches. Vol. 11 No. 5 October, 1940 Negroes and National Defense The big news of recent weeks in the Negro Press concerns the relation of this minority group to the government's plan for national defense. The following are from Negro papers: The Conscription Bill Let Congress Vote the Draft Immediately (Baltimore Afro-American, Editorial, Aug. 17, '40) There is talk in Congress of postponing the vote on the compulsory military training bill. It's true that considerable opposition has developed to the President's plan to draft men for national defense in peace time. The opposition comes from the German, Russian and Italian elements of our population and their sympathizers, aided by the professional peace societies, the sissies and the softies who imagine that we can keep our liberty and democracy without sacrifices. We have felt ourselves safe from outside enemies so long that we have devoted all our energies to making money, improving our health, building schools and taking care of orphans and aged... This time last year France, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Denmark, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania thought their countries as safe as ours seems today... There is yet time to prepare to defend America! tomorrow may be too late. Conscription in Peace Time (Chicago Defender, Editorial, Aug. 31 '40) Conscription during peace time is on of the most decisive issues ever to have been raised in our country. It indicates a dangerous trend of political thought by its very existence. We have been asked why we oppose it . . . The essence of this conscription is Nazism-Facism. It means the blighting of the outlook for thousands of Negro youth whose future is already far too insecure . . . Conscription will not solve the problems of these groups in American society. The army is a jim-crow institution. Negro America got a full measure of race-hating justice in 1917. Conscription would silence our militant voices in the face of an un-American, undemocratic conditions such as lynching, poll tax disfranchisement, peonage, share-cropping and Ku Klux Klan terror. In its adopted form the Burke-Wadsworth bill includes amendments by both houses of Congress to prevent racial discrimination, the Senate clause covering voluntary enlistment and that in the House providing that "in the selection and training of men, as well as in the interpretation and execution of the provisions of this act, there shall be no discrimination against any person on account of race, creed, or color." Military Training Urge Facilities for Race Defense Training (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Aug. 10, '40) The United Government Employees headed by Edgar G. Brown, president, urged the House Appropriations Committee on the President's 2-billion dollar National Defense supplementary appropriation to provide training facilities for Negro pilots and sailors at the Naval and Air Bases. Admiral Stark, it was said, admitted the Navy had openings for Negroes only as mess attendants and was not considering them in the capacity of officers and air pilots. One Congressman stated flatly it was unfair to tax Negroes to pay for a two ocean Navy and at the same time deny them a chance to joint he Navy as sailors, officers and air pilots. Army Air Corps Continues Its Refusal to Train Negro Youth (Pittsburgh Courier, Aug. 31, '40) Flouting the law, the Army Air Corps continues to refuse to train colored youths as either pilots or mechanics for duty with it, on the ground that there are no colored air units to which they could be assigned upon graduation. The Chicago Tribune (white) has this to say: (We quote from an editorial in September OPPORTUNITY) At a recent hearing of the house appropriation committee, Representative Ludlow of Indiana called attention to a recent act of Congress requiring that facilities be made available for the training of Negro airplane pilots for the Army. Asked by Mr. Ludlow what had been done to carry out this mandate, General Marshall, chief of staff, replied that there is no such thing as colored aviation at this time." It is to be hoped that Mr. Ludlow will see to it that the intention of Congress is not defeated by bureaucratic buck-passing. This is said not only in protest against discrimination but also in recognition of the very large contribution to national defense which may be expected of Negro pilots. The first requisite of a military flyer is quick nervous responses . . . In short, the qualities which make a good athlete are required of a flyer. Of course he should have physical and moral courage as well. In all of these qualifications Negroes have given ample demonstration of their fitness. A race which has produced, in the span of a few years, Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong, Jesse Owens, and a score of other absolutely top-notch athletes, provides a rich resource which ought not to be lost to the country through prejudice. In the face of this roster of world champions the physical fitness and courage of their race cannot be questioned by any reasonable man. The record suggests that the country would lose less by refusing to train Harvard, Yale, and Princeton men for the flying corps than by refusing to train Negroes. Defense Industries Our Time Has Come (Call, June 28, '40) The Negro is grimly determined to make this national crisis give him release from handicaps. Other people who live in this country, even Bund members under oath to help the Nazis destroy democracy, find work that is denied to Negroes. Collective bargaining and other labor legislation protect other workers. But not the faithful blacks who equally carry the national burden of taxes and of defense, but do not equally share opportunity. If in this period we let our opportunity be sidetracked because someone says our affairs are minor, the bigger fools are we. Today opportunity knocks! ... We who are the victims of an anti-democratic system have a duty to set our country on its right course. Self-interest and public interest coincide. No Jim Crow for Defense Trades (Baltimore Afro-American, Editorial, Aug. 31, '40) Discrimination in the program of training for national defense industries has been outlawed by the U. S. Office of Education, which decreed, in a recent statement, that: "In the expenditure of Federal funds for vocational training for defense there should be no discrimination on account of race, creed or color. All applicants for training, including minority racial groups, should be considered according to their ability to participate in a training program for national defense." No Color Bar (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 7, '40) The National Defense Advisory Commission this week initiated steps toward opening the doors of defense industries to qualified workers without regard to race, color, age or sex. A statement of labor policy made public by the Advisory Commission to the Council of National Defense includes a protective clause asserting that "workers should not be discriminated against because of age, sex, race or color." 25 Negroes Replace Aliens in Jersey Plant (Baltimore Afro-American, Aug. 31, '40) Colored citizens here (Paterson, N. J.) gained their first major benefit from the national defense program last week when the Wright's Aeronautics Company hired twenty-five men to work on government contracts. The action followed the dismissal of a large number of white workers because they were not American citizens. Negro Mechanics Assured Jobs in Boeing Aircraft Factories (Pittsburgh Courier, July 27, '40) Local Negroes (Los Angeles, Calif.) especially aviation mechanics, are feeling encouraged over news from Seattle that a long 12-week fight had been brought to a triumphant close with a flat statement by the Boeing Aircraft company, that it would hire qualified Negroes. Racial Aspects of War Hemisphere Defense Colored May Benefit Most from Defense Alliance (Baltimore Afro-American, Sept. 7, '40) While the United States goes ahead with plans for the Defense of the Western Hemisphere, with its population of 146,000,000, attention is called to the fact that, accepted American racial standards, most of these people are colored. Delving into a report published in 1925 by the U. S. Department of Labor, Dr. Charles Houston points out that the United States, Canada, Argentina and Uruguay are actually the only predominantly white countries in the Western Hemisphere. The remaining twenty countries are chiefly colored, including Mexico, Brazil, the West Indies, Panama, etc., whose white populations are not more than ten per cent of the total. John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, makes another point: The future of the western world may depend on the thoroughness of the cooperative effort henceforth to be put forward by the countries of the hemisphere. In some cases the populations of whole countries are overwhelmingly Indian, and because that is true, we here in the United States need to adjust our own thinking. We read much of the efforts of "Fifth Columns" to destroy unity and make countries ripe for external aggression, but few of us realize fully the extent to which apparently harmless propaganda among Indians and about Indians in the United States has been made to serve purposes which we may well describe as subversive. The value to ... (certain) powers of the false picture of American Indian conditions, drawn by the Fifth Columnists, may be chiefly its use in causing the Indians of the southern countries to look with horror upon the United States. (Indians At Work, July, 1940) Good News for England's Slums (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 14, '40) Putting over the destroyers-for-bases deal may be helpful to some Negroes. Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad and British Guiana, where air bases or naval bases or both will be established by the United States, are step-children of the British Empire; Caribbean slum areas where poverty, absentee-ownership, illiteracy, malnutrition and disease are rife. Air bases and naval bases require many years to complete and the labor of tens of thousands of workers. The projected bases will altogether require as many men and as much material as was required to build the Panama Canal ... The coming of the Americans then should be good news for the British West Indies. Child Refugees America's Humanity or an American Fad? (Baltimore Afro-American, Editorial, Aug. 3, '40) Congress is willing to send United States ships abroad to bring thousands of children out of the reach of gunmen and bombs spreading death and destruction over England. The great heart of America has always responded to the world's suffering. We hope it always will. But, for three hundred years American has spread the mantle of its compassion upon every persecuted minority except its own black minority. It's time that we long sufferers offered our plain objection and opposition. Every refugee admitted from abroad means one more to be hired before we can get a job, and to be kept on after we have been fired. Every refugee means one more to have a vote which we do without, one more to ride our trains while we are jim crowed, one more to use our public building where signs are erected to keep us out. We who for three centuries have built this country must sit in a corner among the cinders or wait at table upon the people of every nation in the world that come to our shores. [2] French Minorities Change of Attitude Certain (Pittsburgh Courier, July 27, '40) Foreboding is the word from France, where the new totalitarian government issued its first anti-racial edict in the form of a decree ousting Jews from government jobs. This appears to be the first of a series of bans aimed at the darker races and will work considerable hardship on the Negroes who happen to be French colonials. Paris Bars Negroes and Jews from Theatrical Shows (St. Louis Argus, Aug. 23, '40) Reliable reports reaching here (Moscow, U. S. S. R.) revealed that although theaters are being reopened in Paris, Negro and Jewish artists are prohibited from appearing. Negroes Ordered to Leave France (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 14, '40) From Paris, once regarded as the capital of all free men, regardless of where they were born or lived, has come the order that all Negroes, Arabs, and Indo-Chinese must leave. Where they are to go, nobody knows. Railway Bars Aliens at Vichy (N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Sept. 17, '40) Foreigners, "whoever they may be, Jews, and colored people" no longer may buy tickets at the Vichy railroad station. Africa The African Battleground (Pittsburgh Courier, Editorial, Sept. 14, '40) The revolt of French officials in Equatorial Africa, the deep penetration into Kenya by invading Italian forces, the impending struggle for the Suez Canal and efforts of English secret agents to stir up trouble in Morocco and Algeria point to Africa as an increasingly important battleground of the war. Most of Africa has been at "peace" for a long time, with the exception of the Ethiopian war, the Spanish-Riff war and the engagements in and around German colonies during the First World War, but that "peace" has been an era of humiliating enslavement ... Now for the first time, there is a likelihood that tens of thousands of blacks will be armed by rival governments to fight out European issues on African soil. Another Minority From the "Chronicles" of the Contemporary Jewish Record (July-August, 1940) we quote a review of events: Continental Europe can now be called a veritable trap for the Jews. To the number of Jews already under the Nazi domination, there were added about 84,000 residents of Belgium, about 200,000 of Holland, and nearly 450,000 residents of France. The panicky switching of alliances is extending this controlled area, as in the case of Rumania, which is today a completely racist state, and through the growing influence of pro-Nazi elements in such countries as Hungary, where anti-Jewish policies are becoming more and more vicious. Furthermore, Nazi fifth column propaganda outside of Europe is continuing to exploit anti-Semitism. Its poisonous influences have been increasingly felt in the New World, as evidenced by recent happenings in several Latin American countries. The entry of Italy into the war has placed the Jewish communities in the Mediterranean in the direct line of danger ... Palestine faces direct Italian attacks ... The Soviet Union now includes in its population more than half of Europe's Jews. While looking forward, as in the case of Bessarabia, to liberation from racist policies, the Jews of these countries are exposed to the existing conflict between Soviet ideology and the religious and cultural patterns of Judaism. The attention of Jews in the United States was directed mainly toward the problem of relieving war victims, while preparations were made for the reception of refugee children from England ... The verdict reached in the Christian Front trial in Brooklyn, N. Y., and the increasing venom of Father Coughlin's propaganda were more than offset by the concrete evidences of the spirit of national unity in the face of events abroad. These are expressed in the general temper of the public, the weakening of anti-Jewish and Nazi propaganda, and the increased demand by the public for vigorous action against fifth column activities. Minorities Lose Friends Educator Dies at Age 84 (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Aug. 10, '40) With the death of Charlottesville, Va., recently, of Dr. James Hardy Dillard, white, the Negro race has lost one of its greatest benefactors in two important fields -- race relations and education. He had given most of his 84 years to the cause of understanding between the races in the South and was mutually beloved and revered by both groups. Of Dr. Dillard, W. E. B. DuBois wrote: (N. Y. Amsterdam News, Aug. 24, 1940) James Hardy Dillard was a white Virginian, a gentleman in the finest sense of a hackneyed term. He put no "side", he did not strut or put on airs. He came quite genially and sat beside you and began to talk. He assumed that you belonged to the same planet as he, and were interested in the same things. Before you knew it, you were talking with him as a friend. Death of Prof. Loram Removes Important Figure from Field of Indian Affairs (Indians At Work, Sept. '40) Professor Charles T. Loram of Yale University, eminent authority on race relations, died July 8 of a heart ailment, while conducting classes at Cornell University Summer School in Ithaca, N. Y. Intimately identified with American Indian problems, Dr. Loram was well-known to Indian Service men and women and to many Indians. Dr. Loram had not only devoted his life to the cause of the South African native, the American Negro and racial groups in the Pacific areas, but had been instrumental in focusing attention on the problems of the North American Indian. Indian Items From recent copies of "Indians At Work" the following are quoted from the white press: The American Youth Forum has made its award for the best painting offered in competition by young Americans. Boys and girls number 52,587 joined in the competition. The winner, who received $1,000, is Ben Quintana, a Cochiti Pueblo boy, 17 years old, a student at the Santa Fe Indian School. His painting is reproduced in color in the "American Magazine" for August. (Indians At Work) * * * Alaska's population is about 60,000, half of them Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos. The defense of Alaska in the long run depends on its further development. It needs people. There are fine harbors and potentially strategic air bases there. (Jacksonville, Fla. The Journal.) [3] Due to emergency funds, more building construction has been carried on among the Indians in the last seven years than in the previous half century . . . Improvements have included hospitals, schools, quarters for employees and installation of water, sewer, power and telephone systems. (Salt Lake City, Utah. The Tribune.) * * * Sulfanilamide, "the wonder drug," has come to the rescue of the Nevada Indian in his fight against the dread eye disease, trachoma. The new method of attacking the disease was brought into use less than two years ago by an Indian Service physician in the Middle-West. (Carson City, Nevada. The Chronicle.) * * * From the teepees of the Shoshone Indians, northwestern band, the word has gone out that the tribesmen want the United States to keep out of war. At the same time, however, the redmen, 1,800 strong, are willing to defend the country against any invasion. The Indians voiced their policy in a signed document to be given to the "public press and broadcast so that all may know how we stand." (Salt Lake City, Utah. The Tribune.) * * * Virginia's Indians are industrious farmers and fishermen, who constitute a third racial element of the State's rural population in maritime counties in the approximate ratios of one Indian to 1,800 whites and one Indian to 65 Negroes. (Richmond, Va. The Times Dispatch.) Books and Magazines Two recent autobiographies of Negroes have merited prominent reviews. Dusk of Dawn, by W.E.B. DuBois, covers the major facts in the life of the seventy-two year old distinguished leader of Negro Americans. (Published by Harcourt Brace & Co., $3.00) In The Big Sea (Knopf, $3.00) Langston Hughes, still under forty, gives a vivid account of the experiences and observations that give such deep meaning to his writings. Important to all who are interested in minorities are three publications of the American Youth Commission of the American Council on Education, 744 Jackson Place, Washington, D.C. In a Minor Key ($1.25) by Ira DeA. Reid, introduces the series with a simple graphic presentation of facts and figures; Children of Bondage ($2.25), by Allison Davis and John Dollard, is a case study of personality development of Negro youth in the Deep South; Negro Youth At The Crossways ($2.25) by E. Franklin Frazier, gives results of a study made principally in Washington, D.C., and Louisville, Ky. The Negro in Virginia is a WPA publication sponsored by Hampton Institute. As Long As the Grass Shall Grow (Alliance, $2.50) by Oliver La Farge, tells of the new spirit that has developed in American Indians during recent years. Who is Johnny? by Leopold Gedo (Viking, $2.00) is a fascinating story of the adventures of a 14 year old Negro boy who was left as a baby in a Hungarian foundling Home. After exciting travels through central Europe he finds his brother and returns to America. The Negro World Digest, (1 West 125th Street, New York, 25c a copy) started publication in July. It contains condensations and reprints from books, magazines and newspapers, both current and of past years. The first issue was promptly sold out. Common Ground, a new magazine, 222 Fourth Avenue, New York ($3.00 a yr.) was launched in September under the guidance of Louis Adamic to emphasize the expanding conception of American life that is superseding the old "melting pot" idea. It will interest racial as well as national minorities. The drive for universal suffrage in the South makes of timely interest a monograph entitled "The Attitude of the Southern White Press Toward Negro Suffrage, 1932-1940" (Foundation Publishers, Washington, D.C.) The study shows "a continuing intolerance in the deep South and a growing tolerance in the border states." The conclusion: "As the United States girds herself for the preservation of democracy, it might not be a bad idea to have some democracy to defend." News Notes, Here and There Judge Parker, whose Supreme Court appointment was opposed by Negroes, in a Federal Circuit Court in the Southeast ruled that there can be no discrimination in public school teachers' salaries on account of color. The decision may bring a new day for Negro education. (Christian Century.) * * * The Supreme Court decision on graduate training for Negroes has brought about a new law school at North Carolina College for Negroes which opened on September 17. Instruction will be given by Duke and University of North Carolina professors. (New York Times.) * * * For the sixth year the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority maintained a clinic in the Delta section of Mississippi, where exists some of the greatest health need of Negroes. An account of this unique work appeared in "Survey Graphic" and was reprinted in the August "Reader's Digest" (Baltimore Afro-American.) * * * In Canada Negroes marked the 107th year of their freedom on Canadian soil at Windsor, Ontario. Many Canadian Negroes trace their origin to the underground railroad system which brought them to freedom from slavery in the United States. (Philadelphia Independent.) * * * In Atlanta one of the great typographical unions has admitted more than twenty Negroes into full fledged union membership. (Chicago Defender.) * * * Following the example of New York and New Jersey, the State of Illinois has established a commission to probe the living and working conditions of Negroes in that state. (Norfolk Journal & Guide.) * * * Ministers in New Orleans, white and colored, worked for recreation facilities for Negroes, especially a bathing beach. The nearly 200,000 Negro children of the city have no lake front facilities. (Chicago Defender.) * * * In Kansas City, Mo., the Hi-Y boys, Negro and white, held their first interracial training camp. (Kansas City Call.) * * * In Richmond, Va., two white dailies have discontinued the policy of giving special pages to Negro news but distribute this throughout the entire paper. (Chicago Defender.) * * * Negro residents of the Chicago Southside may be helped by recent action of a white neighborhood organization which is now working for the abolition of "restrictive covenants." White tenants are moving out of the neighborhoods and the owners cannot rent to Negroes under the present restriction. (Norfolk Journal & Guide.) [4] TO OUR READERS This is the time of year when the majority of those who give to the New Service send us their contributions. If you contributed less than a year ago please do not feel that this is a dun - but also please remember to send your subscription when the year is up! Perhaps it would be easier to renew now and be reminded at the same time each year. Those who receive the Service on the club basis or in consideration of a contribution to our work may disregard this letter. All others please send 50 cents to help keep this Service going. It is the only digest of interracial news and serves a unique purpose. Cordially yours, THE EDITORS The Editors Interracial News Service 297 Fourth Avenue - Room 52 New York, N.Y. I enclose 50 cents for a year's subscription (6 issues) to the Interracial News Service. Name Address The following would be interested to receive sample copies of the News Service: INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE Published by Department of Race Relations, Federal Council of Churches 297 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Gleanings from press releases and other sources to inform busy but sincere people of some of the things affecting the lives of racial minorities. Let's do away with walls ! "We are all one in Christ Jesus." November, 1940 Race and Defense Today as the country moves ever closer to a war footing Negroes are reminded vividly of their experiences during the World War 1 especially in the United States fighting forces, and they are putting forth every effort to secure equality of treatment. Typical of the struggle is what has taken place in regard to war services. In September a group of Negro leaders met on invitation with President Roosevelt and representatives of the War and Navy Departments. They presented a seven point program calling for unsegregated opportunity for training and service of Negroes in every branch of national defense. Instead of getting what they asked announcement was immediately made that while Negroes would be accepted in the Army on the basis of population proportion they would continue to be segregated. The statement closes as follows: The policy of the War Department is not to intermingle colored and white enlisted personnel in the same regimental organizations. This policy has been proven satisfactory over a long period of years and to make changes would produce situations destructive to morale and detrimental to the preparations for national defense. For similar reasons the department does not contemplate assigning colored reserve officers other than those of the medical corps and chaplains to existing Negro combat units of the regular army. These regular units are going concerns, accustomed through many years to the present system. Their morale is splendid, their rate of re-enlistment is exceptionally high, and their field training is well advanced. It is the opinion of the War Department that no experiment should be tried with the organizational set up of these units at this critical time. (Kansas City Call, Oct. 18, '40). This brought nation-wide repercussions in both white and Negro press. "Time" for October 28 carried an article on it. We quote from several Negro papers: Reaping the Whirlwind (Pittsburgh Courier, Editorial, Oct. 26, '40) It was evidently considered a smart piece of maneuvering on the part of the Administration when it called three Negro leaders to Washington for a conference on the Army, and then promptly announced that a rigid jim crow system had been established on the basis of the talk. Here was one thing calculated more than anything else to make American Negroes see red. The Administration, by placing its signature on nation-wide segregation of Negro youth called to the colors, certainly sowed the wind. White House Disgraced (Kansas City Call, Editorial, Oct. 18, '40) President Roosevelt committed the sin unpardonable as far as Negroes are concerned when he issued a statement upholding the jim crow policy of the United States army. President Roosevelt approved the army as a social club for white men with Negroes performing the duties of flunkies. . . . The President held his tongue on Negro questions for seven years, never uttering a word on the anti-lynching bill and other bills which vitally affect the Negro. As commander- in-chief of the army, he has remained mum on the discrimination against Negro soldiers. Now we know why. He approves jim crowism. Another editor took a somewhat different point of view. The St. Louis Argus, October 18, says in part: This question of segregation of races in this country is, as most of us know, based upon race prejudice, and race prejudice is born of inconsistencies and is without reason. Thus we find ourselves fighting it on the one hand and encouraging it on the other in most of our affairs in life. Should we ask our teachers in St. Louis if they would like to see the abolition of colored schools, the pros and cons would furnish interesting debate. The same would be the case if inquiry was made about our churches, Y.M.C.A.'s, Y.W.C.A.'s and many other organizations. So far as jim crowism and segregation are concerned, we here and now denounce such as being fundamentally wrong and against what we call a democratic form of government. In this we believe that the Negroes as a whole agree. In fact, most of the white people of the nation agree with this, especially those of liberal mind and thought, but we doubt that the course which is being pursued by some of us will hasten the day for a change. Progress in Achievement Many of our readers do not have current information about Negro achievement so we give occasional space to some of the more outstanding examples of attainment along various lines: Eugene Gash, the 19-year-old piano wizard hailed as the Black Paderewski, gave his initial New York recital in Town Hall recently and fully lived up to advance notices. The critics all gave him credit for considerable technical talent which they found very surprising in one so young. (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Oct. 26, '40). A packed house greeted Dorothy Maynor, the young Negro soprano, when she gave a recital last night in Town Hall (New York City). The recital showed an impressive advance upon anything Miss Maynor has done previously in this city. The glorious voice has now filled out and come under finer control. It has lost none of its luscious coloring, but has more fullness in the upper register as well as exceptional variety and color and remarkable flexibility. Miss Maynor can now play upon this vocal instrument with authority, wealth of contrast and of rhetorical effect. (N. Y. Times, Oct. 24 '40). * * * Philippa duke Schuyler, eight-year-old composer and pianist, gave two recitals last week of her own and other compositions in the Little Theatre in the Science and Educational building at the N. Y. World's Fair. (Pittsburgh Courier, June 29, 1940). * * * Although only 16 years of age, J. Ernest Wilkins, Jr. , a student at the University of Chicago, was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, the outstanding honorary scholarship society recently. Young Wilkins, who entered college at the age of 13, three years ago, is majoring in mathematics, and has already completed five major courses towards his Master's degree in that subject. Last week, he was also notified that he had finished among the first six in a national mathematics contest, sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America. (Pittsburgh Courier, June 22, '40). * * * Miss Shirley Simpson, 19-year old Hunter College student, this week became the first Negro to be elected editor-in chief of the Hunter Bulletin, weekly newspaper. (Norfolk Journal & Guide, July 13, '40). * * * For the first time Cleveland (Ohio) has a Negro Junior high school principal. He is Russell H. Davis, named recently by the board of Education on Supt. Charles H. Lake's recommendation. (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 21, '40). * * * Wilbur J. Hardaway, real estate insurance broker and prominent Indiana political figure, became president of the city council (Gary, Ind.) following the death of Edward Kreiger, incumbent. Hardaway, whose council elevation is said to be the first since the Reconstruction, presided over the body, all eight of whom are white except himself, Monday evening at the regular session of the lawmakers. (Chicago Defender, Sept. 21, '40). Advances From the ranks of 30,890 Negroes enrolled in college this year, 3,913 were graduated last June, including 237 with the Master's degrees and 9 with the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, according to a compilation made by the CRISIS magazine for August, 1940. * * * Negro students are to be admitted to the dormitories at Michigan State College (Lansing, Mich.) for the first time as a result of a protest made by a committee from Detroit. (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 21, '40). * * * A fight by parents of Crestmont, Pa., to obtain admittance for the children into the Abington Junior High School was won when the promise of accommodation of colored pupils in the school was made recently by the township school board. Parents of twenty-six children had refused to send their children to a segregated seventh-grade class in the Park School after they were refused admission to the junior high school. (Baltimore Afro-American, Oct. 12, '40). * * * Climaxing a three-year fight led by Dr. Joseph A. Randall in Clairton, Pa., a permanent injunction restraining city officials from interfering with the use of the municipal swimming pool in city park by colored resident, was handed down this week by Judge Joseph A. Richardson in Common Pleas Court. (Baltimore Afro-American, Oct. 5, '40). * ** History was made on May 9, when during the 34th annual sessions of the Louisiana State Medical, Dental and Pharmaceutical association, Dr. William H. Sinkler, Jr., and Dr. A. B. Vaughn, Negroes, both of St. Louis, performed major operations at the St. Frances hospital in Monroe, La. (Pittsburgh Courier, May 18, '40). * * * A new milestone in the progress of interracial cooperation in the Old North State was passed last week when four Negro executives of the Mechanics and Farmers Bank of Durham and two other Negro business men of Durham participated in the fourth annual North Carolina Bankers' Conference held at the University of North Carolina. (Norfolk Journal & guide, July 20, '40). * * * The Pensacola New-Journal (Pensacola, Fla.) announced last Sunday that "after some study" it had decided to accede to the wishes of its Negro readers and capitalize the initial letter of Negro. The newspaper stated this was done in recognition of the progress of the race. (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 12, '40). * * * Through the efforts of the San Diego (Calif.) Race Relations Society, the Consolidated Aircraft Corporation, located in San Diego, and now handling millions of dollars in government contracts for airplanes, has been persuaded to employ competent Negro engineers and aircraft workers. (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 12, '40). * * * Dr. Albert Einstein, famous physicist and scientist, in a message delivered Sunday afternoon at the N. Y. World's Fair, expressed his belief that this country still has a heavy debt to discharge to the Negro. That part of Dr. Einstein's letter which had to do with the Negro race was as follows: "As for the Negro--this country has still a heavy debt to discharge for all the troubles and disabilities it has laid on his shoulders; for all that his fellow citizens have done and to some extent are still doing to him. To the Negro and his wonderful songs and choirs we owe the finest contribution in the realm of art which America has so far given to the world." (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Sept. 28, '40). * * * Because they were determined to exercise their constitutional right to vote in the November presidential elections, despite the lynching last June of one of their number, Elbert Williams, members of the (Brownsville, Tenn.) local branch of the N.A.A.C.P. won a complete victory when they registered at the courthouse on September 4 and 5, under the protection of United States Attorney William McClanahan, who acted on orders from the United States Department of Justice. (Chicago Defender, Sept. 21, '40). [2] The Undemocratic Side Newspaper Woman Loses Damage Suit (Pittsburgh Courier, Nov. 2, '40) Miss Lucile Bluford, Kansas City newspaperwoman, lost her $10,000 damage suit against the registrar of the University of Missouri when a jury in the Federal District Court decided last Thursday night that she is not entitled to damages for being barred from the Missouri University School of Journalism. The jury, made up of twelve white Missouri-born farmers and merchants, took only 45 minutes to return a verdict in favor of S. W. Canada, the registrar. The trial lasted three days. Charles H. Houston, of Washington, attorney for Miss Bluford, filed a motion for a new trial Friday morning. The jury which decided against Miss Bluford was chosen from a panel which Houston sought to quash when the trial opened Tuesday morning. He filed a motion challenging the panel on the ground that Negroes had been excluded "pursuant to a systematic unbroken course of race discrimination extending over a period of fifty years." Detroit Klan Threatens to Lynch Family (St. Louis Argus, Sept. 13, '40) Mounting Ku Klux Klan activity in Hazel Park, Mich., on the outskirts of Detroit was behind the threatened intimidation of Charles Mimms, a Negro. The Klan rounded up a large crowd of thugs in a pool room and surrounded the home of Mimms, throwing rocks and other missles and constantly urging the crowd to "get your guns and kill some niggers." Mimms, who is highly respected among his neighbors, decided some time ago to build a home on his lot, which he has owned 17 years. Hazel Park police stood idly by while for five nights in a row, the hooded Klansmen paraded before the home of Mimms and sought to intimidate him. Georgia Boy Lynch Victim (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Sept. 14, '40) Charged with an attempted criminal attack upon a white woman, a 16-year-old colored youth was taken from the city jail (LaGrange, Ga.) early Sunday morning and lynched by a band of six white men. 150 CCC Colored Camps; Only 2 Have Colored Personnel (Pittsburgh Courier, Sept. 7, '40) Charges of racial discrimination in the administration of the Civilian Conservation Corps were made on the floor of the House by Representative Chester H. Gross, Republican of Pennsylvania. Mr. Gross said: "Mr. Speaker, I am informed that there are 150 Negro C.C. C. camps in the country and that there are only two of these camps that have colored personnel. Now, I do believe that they might as well give the colored people of this country who are capable a break, and here is one place they could at least supply colored doctors and colored chaplains for these colored boys." Students Protest NYU Grid Star Ban (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 26, '40) Indignant because Leonard Bates, 210-pound Sepia backfield star of New York University will not be allowed to play against Missouri when his team goes to Columbia, Mo., November 2, thousands of N.Y.U. students last week organized an All-University Committee on "Bates-Must-Play" and prepared plans for a huge mass meeting of protest. Whites Rented Flat for $27.50; Cost to Us $102 (Baltimore Afro-American, Oct. 5, '400 A seven-room flat on Chicago's East Fifty-Sixth Street which rented for $27.50 when occupied by white people thirty-two years ago, now rickety, rat-infested and partially window-less--occupied by colored people--brings in $102 a month in rent. The rental per cubic food is the same as it is on the city's Gold Coast. But this rental is paid by colored people, the city's lowest income groups, and consumes from 30 to 50 per cent of their income. Germans Destroy French Statue To Black Soldiers (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Oct. 19, '40) Germans, now occupying conquered France, took time out last week to destroy the famous bronze monument of French soldiers of African descent, heroes of World War 1, who did much to preserve for France the liberty which she has now lost to her German conquerors. The Germans are said to have regarded the monument as an insult to the white race. The statue consisted of a bronze group of Negro soldiers surrounded by the French Tricolor. Germans Adopt "Jim Crow" Cars (St. Louis Argus, Oct. 4, '40) The Warschauer Zeitung, official organ of the German occupational authorities in Poland, published notice that "From Sept. 29 the front platforms and seats in the front parts of street cars will be reserved for Germans as far as necessary. The rear parts of street cars and trailers are assigned to the Polish population. . . . Jews may travel only in cars with signs 'For Jews Only'." Race and Religion During recent years the Roman Catholic church has developed a steadily increasing program among American Negroes. This has taken various forms,--social service to the underprivileged, efforts to open doors of Catholic colleges to Negro students, interracial club rooms in New York City where discussion and fellowship are sponsored, and a monthly magazine. The following items report some of these activities: Catholics Ask Aid for Negro (The Detroit News, Sept. 3, '40) Resolutions petitioning the American Catholic hierarchy to establish a department of Negro work in their National Catholic Welfare Council and to use their influence to obtain adequate education for the Negro Catholics of America were adopted at the closing session of the twelfth annual convention of the National Catholic Interracial Federation in Detroit Monday. Helps Needy in Harlem (N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Oct. 30, '40) A visitor strolling along West 135th Street in Harlem (New York City) could hardly fail to notice the incongruously inviting atmosphere of a store where green plants flourish in the window, and a sign on the door extends a universal welcome. This is the De Porres Catholic Lending Library of Friendship House, nucleus and symbol of a project of social rehabilitation, directed by the Baroness Catherine de Hueck, friend and counselor to Harlem. [3] Blames Harlem Crime Conditions on Whites (Pittsburgh Courier, Oct. 12, '40) Bitterly assailing the conditions under which the white population requires the Negros to live in Harlem, an outstanding white official of the Roman Catholic church last Sunday declared that "crime would exist in Harlem so long as those conditions exist." Important action was taken at the Protestant Episcopal General Convention in Kansas City. (Christian Century, Oct. 30, '40). Younger southern bishops defeated the proposal for a separate Negro episcopate on the ground that it was segregation. On the first day's discussion the proposal for a Negro missionary district with a Negro bishop, to include Florida and Georgia, seems to be favored by the house. The second day during a stormy debate Bishop Demby, retired suffragan of Arkansas and only Negro in the house, made his first speech in twenty years' service. He opposed the proposal as a great setback to Negro work and asked for more Negro suffragans instead. Missionary Bishops Littell of Hawaii and Burton of Haiti declared that could not tell their people the church favored segregation. Bishop Bland Mitchell of Arkansas, in the speech that decided the debate, declared that "Bishop Demby has used remarkable restraint; there is tragedy and suffering behind his smile." Bishop Barnwell declared interracial meetings were impossible in his diocese, asserting "things are not going to change in our lifetime. It is shameful, but is got to stand for two or three hundred years." He was interrupted by shouts of "Why?" and "No!" The vote was against the proposal 54-37. In editorial comment the Norfolk Journal & Guide for Oct. 26 said in part: If the tenets of Christianity were separated from democracy there would be nothing left worth defending. Our whole structure of democratic ideals would collapse. We would have a system of government but not a way of life which would distinguish us from the totalitarian peoples. . . . Consider the anguish which beset Bishop Barnwell, of Georgia, as he pled for a plan to set up a separate jurisdiction for Negro Episcopalians at the recent General Convention of the Church. Hear the Bishop: "We in the South favor a Negro bishop to lead his own people until God's black and white children can walk along side by side." The convention rejected the proposal to set aside the Negro communicants in a separate diocese with a Negro bishop... We surmise that the proposal was rejected because a majority of the churchmen were not convinced that the condition could be remedied by isolating the Negro communicants. To do so would be to acknowledge conditions recited by Bishop Barnwell are permanent and there is no power in Christianity to change them. If there is no power in our religion to change these conditions, then the whole Church is doomed, and with it democracy is doomed. For Better Understanding: Plan Campaign to Offset Groups Promoting Hatred (Kansas City Call, Oct. 4, '40) An appeal for unity and goodwill among citizens of all faiths and classes was made public this week by the New York Round-Table of Christians and Jews. The appeal is being issued simultaneously in 2,000 communities. Industry Ready for Workable Religion, Church Council Told (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Oct. 19, '40) "Industry is ready for the presentation of mature religion - daily, hourly," said Harry Uviller, impartial chairman and administrator of the dress industry, New York City, before the 19th annual meeting of the Department of race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches, held at Riverside Church recently. He continued: "If we can impress people with the view our great religions are taking toward life here and hereafter, we will be able to solve the question of race in industry as well as race everywhere. It is impossible to hope that people who are dedicated to a common interest in the labor unions and employers will lose their race prejudices if they are surrounded by it elsewhere. The only groups that can overcome it are the Church and all organized religion." Word coming to the Department of Race Relations, Federal Council of Churches, from the Syracuse, N.Y. Interracial Group tells of a sectional interracial conference held on October 26, where about 60 people, including delegates from Binghamton and Albany and guests from New York and New Haven spent a profitable day considering their common interests and problems. Discussion centered on "Employment," "Leadership" and "Youth." The correspondent reports: Because the discussion group on Youth contained young people, its discussion was very vigorous and therefore very helpful. It was decided that in Syracuse there is serious need for more recreational opportunities and more youth leaders. It is our intention to do something about this in the coming year. In the Employment committee, it became apparent that the colored people of Albany are much better off financially than those in Syracuse. The committee recommendations were that a study be made in Syracuse of all available training facilities and that a vocational guidance bureau be set up at Dunbar Center under the combined auspices of the Center and our Inter-racial Group...One concrete action taken was the setting up of an inter-community bulletin to be called "The Central New York Inter-Racial Bulletin" and to be issued monthly. ORDER BLANK INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE 297 Fourth Avenue - Room 52 New York, N.Y. I enclose 50 cents for a year's subscription to the Interracial News Service (6 issues). Name Address (Make checks payable to FRANK H. MANN, Treasurer) [4] INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE Published by DEPARTMENT OF RACE RELATIONS, FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES 297 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Gleanings from press releases and other sources to inform busy but sincere people of some of the things affecting the lives of racial minorities. Let's do away with walls! "We are all one in Christ Jesus." The Material in the News Service is given for information and is not to be construed as declarations of official attitudes or policies of the Department of Race Relations or the Federal Council of Churches. Vol. 12 March, 1941 Race Relations to the Fore The month of February was marked as Interracial Brotherhood Month. Reports coming from hundreds of communities to the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of Churches, as well as those seen in the secular and religious press, show that the entire month has now become a time when pulpit, press and radio stress the fact that Christian democracy in this nation can only become a reality as it is demonstrated by interracial fellowship and understanding. For example, observances took place in communities from New England down to Florida, from New York and New Jersey on the Atlantic Seaboard to Oregon, Washington and California on the Pacific and out in the Islands of Hawaii. In a Vermont community, the first Negro ever seen by children of the town sang in a school following which the church school decided to study Negro spirituals. The lessons in race relations learned by these children may be quite as important as those who occurred in a community in South Carolina where a large group of colored and white students met in a service for interracial fellowship, or in the large city church in Brooklyn, N.Y., in which a congregation of a thousand whites and Negroes were ministered to in a communion service by white and Negro pastors and deacons. Significant was the fact that ministers throughout the country spoke frankly on the injustice being suffered by Negroes in the national defense program. In many communities all the racial groups represented in the city shared in common brotherhood services. Those who sometimes feel that these services are merely an emotional expression and do not result in practical activity will be interested to learn that as a result of a sermon preached in St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1940, one member of the congregation made a gift of property on which will probably be erected a George Washington Carver community center for the use of the Negro population of the city. S mimeographed statement covering the extensive reports received from hundreds of groups in 40 states by the Race Relations Department, Federal Council of Churches, will be sent on request. Opinions At this time of crisis we think our readers will be interested in the trends of thought evidenced in papers edited and widely read by Negroes. On Democracy Three notable addresses were made in Washington last week. Each sought to stress and define democracy. Chief Justice Hughes spoke with unaccustomed bluntness when he stated that "Liberty cannot be preserved by majority rule unless the majority hold sacred basic individual rights regardless of race or creed," and following up this thought emphasized the fact that "rancor and bigotry, racial animosity and intolerance undermine the very foundation of democratic effort." In his address to the nation, Mr. Roosevelt referred to the totalitarian dictators as seeking to set up a "new order," and, by implication, spoke of our country as having a government "based upon the consent of the governed." Senator Burton K. Wheeler declared that "while we sympathize with the oppressed and persecuted peoples of the world, we realize that we have great problems at home," He declared that the best way to safeguard our independence and freedom in America is to set our own house in order.-- (Emmet J. Scott, Howard University, in the Pittsburgh Courier, Jan. 11, '41.) President Roosevelt has pledged America to save England from the scourge of Hitler; but at the very moment of his third inauguration, when he was uttering the words,"Democracy cannot die," - Negroes before his very eyes were being segregated in the grandstands...If President Roosevelt is sincere in his denouncement of the enemies of democracy, ...let him reassure a tortured world, and our own tortured American Negro population in the following ways: 1. All out attack on Negro discrimination in America, including the vote in the South, jobs in all industrial activities, and equality in the armed services. 2. All-out aid to China, the democratic colossus of the East, with positive guarantees that after Japan shall have been conquered, there will be no more white domination. 3. Demand of England that she give immediate freedom to the 350,000,000 Indians. (Arthur Huff Fauset, Principal, Philadelphia Public School in Philadelphia Tribune, Jan. 30, '41). Attitude of White Americans Threat to Democracy (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Jan. 25, '41) The attitude of white Americans toward Negro Americans stands as a threat to the whole practice and theory of Democracy, in the opinion of Edwin R. Embree, president of the Julius Rosenwald Fund of Chicago. Addressing the Graduate Sociology Club of Yale University, he argued that "so long as we degrade one segment of the people we set a pattern of caste and discrimination that may easily be transferred to other groups. No race or class can be assured of fair play as long as we continue to treat any group unfairly." On the European Conflict According to an Associated Press dispatch from Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, the British are arming and training 200,000 Ethiopians to fight the Italians in Abyssinia... With the Italians on the run in Libya and Albania, and cut off in East Africa, the prospects of Haile Selassie winning back his kingdom are very good... But what is most illuminating to the colored people of the world is the fact that England withheld aid to Ethiopia until the British Empire was threatened. ... Had England given Ethiopia the help she asked in 1933 and1936, the British Empire would not be in the fix it is today. (Editorial—Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41). * * * American newspaper last week blossomed out with articles and editorials praising General Felix Eboue, (Negro) Governor of Chad Province, for his courage in aligning Central Africa with the regime of the French General DeGaulle, which is aiding the Allies. But in all the articles and editorials, patently designed to swing. Negro opinion to the side of England and the United States in the current world struggle, nothing has been said of the fact that in neither empire as constituted, could a General Eboue rise. Both England and the United States have worked assiduously to keep colored subjects and citizens from being equals and taking their places as such. Both countries have set their faces against Negro officers in their armies, navies and diplomatic corps. (Editorial—Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 22, '41). On Aid to Britain Negroes should support "all out aid", including the Lend-Lease Bill, to get Great Britain, short of war, because she is fighting the cause of democracy, the only hope and salvation of minority groups... While I have no illusions about the past role of Great Britain in relation to the peoples of color, the stark, bald, forbidding facts of Nazi Germany show their utter contempt and disdain for the Negro people, whom Adolf Hitler, in "mein Kampf," alludes to as sub-human, or half-apes. When the Nazis swept over France, it was not long before they had pulled down the monument to Negro soldiers in Paris, and caused all Negroes to be ordered to leave the country...Contrast with this the cooperation Britain is giving Emperor Haile Selassie to reestablish the independence and sovereignty of his ancient and peace-loving nation... Besides, by every standard of decency and civilization, democratic England is as different from totalitarian Germany and Italy as New York is from Georgia. And British labor will emerge from this war with the realization that the liberty, security and the future will never be safe for the white world until it is also safe for the peoples of color. (A. Philip Randolph, President, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41). On National Defense Where Are the Negro Officers (Editorial—Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41) So far the War Department has lived up to our worst expectations with reference to Negro officers. Where are the Negro officers? There are two in the regular army and a few score in the National Guard, but where else are Negro officers to be found? The simple fact is that there are none, and the War Department is making no effort to get any. A very clever move was made recently in suddenly opening CCC commands to Negro reserve officers. The real purpose it would seem was to shunt these Negro reserve officers into the CCC and away from possible command of troops... There will soon be over 80,000 Negro troops under arms, organized in separate Negro units, but largely commanded by white officers. Minorities Urged to Make Gains in Crisis (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Feb. 8, '41) Dr. Rayford W. Logan, professor of history at Howard University, in speaking on "Minority Needs in the National Crisis" before the third annual Conference on Adult Education and the Negro, held in Washington recently, said: " All minorities must endeavor to make such new gains as they can...The 370,000 Indians owe it to themselves and to other minorities to squeeze every concession that they possibly can from Great Britain; at the same time they must not permit Hitler to dominate Europe and India... Negroes in Africa and in the West Indies should similarly exact every ounce of concession possible from their overlords, and the Negroes in the United States must take the same position." The white press has also spoken out. A series of editorials entitled "Negroes and Our Defense," appeared in The Richmond (Va.) Time-Dispatch from which we quote the introductory paragraph: In Virginia, and in other States, unfair discrimination against skilled Negro workers is hampering the arming of America, and contributing to the lag in the defense program. "All-out" defense cannot be achieved, so long as a large body of skilled men is prevented by arbitrary ruling and subtle prejudice from putting its capabilities to maximum use. The Job Situation Job Chances Discussed in WPA Publication Unemployment is proportionately greater among Negro youth than among white youth in the cities, a new WPA pamphlet states in a study which disclosed that 40 of every 100 Negro youth in the labor market of seven representative cities were without jobs as compared to 18 of every 100 white youth. Defense Prosperity Boom Cursed by Race Prejudice (Baltimore Afro-American, Feb. 15, '41) Despite the job boom rising on the wings of the defense program, colored men are being turned down daily by biased employers, experience notwithstanding. Typical example is the case of John Nunley of Baltimore, veteran and head of a family of four. Unemployed since last November, Nunley put in an application for crane operator at the Navy Yard. They wanted a man with six month's experience, according to the information blank. Nunley had had six years' experience operating cranes. They sent him back a rejection notice with the polite advice that he did not have enough experience. A steel worker for over twenty years, Nunley went up to Midville Steel Works where they are begging for skilled workers to turn out war materials for which they have a fat contract. But this time, the personnel director said: "nothing doing for colored. Sorry. There's no use waiting." Rochester's Defense Millions Lily-White (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Feb. 22, '41) Millions for defense but not one cent for Negro jobs was the essence of a charge hurled at Rochester employers by local ministers of that city last week in a race relations symposium on "Prejudice, Our Common, Problem." Denouncing the economic plight of Rochester's colored population, the Rev. James E. Rose, pastor of Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, said: "We spend $200 per pupil to educate children in Rochester, supposedly to help them become useful citizens. [2] But we educate black children to take over their mothers' and fathers' jobs as ditchdiggers and washerwomen." Charging that only two defense industries in Rochester were employing Negroes, he said that among all the other big plants in Rochester, only one Negro was employed—as a janitor. "Rochester Christians," he asserted, "must do more than talk about race relations. They must act to get jobs for Negroes." Pass Tests, Can't Get Posts (Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41) Dr. Wm. N. DeBerry, executive secretary of the Dunbar Community League at Springfield, Mass., has asked United States Senator David Walsh to investigate the failure to include Negro workers in the defense program. He cited the example of a local Negro girl who passed a civil service examination for a clerical job at Camp Edwards, Mass. She was ordered to report for work, but upon arriving was told to go home on the flimsy excuse that she was under weight. Dr. DeBerry, also told the case of a young Negro draftsman, a college graduate, who received one of the highest marks of all candidates but was ordered to return home on the ground that the officer in charge was not ready to make any appointments. Aircraft Company Will Not Hire Negroes Even in Menial Capacities (N. A. A. C. P., Feb. 14, '41) The Vultee Aircraft Company at Nashville, Tenn., not only refuses to employ Negroes as a part of its "regular working force," but holds out only the slightest hope of employing them in menial capacities such as porters and cleaners, Mrs. E. W. Grant, secretary of the Nashville Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, revealed today. Similar reports come from many parts of the country. In California, Negro boys taking courses given by the factories under government subsidy received job application blanks with a statement appended: "No Negroes accepted." In Brooklyn, the Urban League has worked since last July to get qualified Negroes employed. At that time the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation reported acute lack of skilled workers, but has steadfastly refused to employ Negro aviation mechanics who graduated with good marks from the Manhattan High School of Aviation Trades. Something is Being Done About It Federal Agency Bans Discrimination on Defense Housing (Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41) Discrimination against Negro workers in the extensive $281,000,000 defense housing program was banned this week through an executive order issued by John M. Carmody, Federal Works Administrator, who issued the following regulation: "There shall be no discrimination by reason of race, creed, color or political affiliations in the employment of persons, qualified by training and experience, for work in the development of defense housing at the sites thereof." Machinists' Color Bar at Navy Yard Broken (Baltimore Afro-American, Feb.15. '41) Progress in the fight against discrimination against colored skilled workers in the U. S. Navy yards was noted this week in the employment of more than a score of colored machinists at the Washington Navy Yard, following their graduation from the apprentice school there. Did Not Protest in Vain! (Kansas City Call, Jan. 17, '41) The thousands who went to the Municipal auditorium, Dec. 8, did not protest in vain. The many conferences and letters also served their purpose for 25 Negro union carpenters are at work on the cantonments at Fort Riley, Kansas. Ten reported for work on Tuesday, and the remaining 15 Wednesday. Negro Carpenters Being Used on Local Defense Projects (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Feb. 8. '41) Approximately 500 colored carpenters and piledrivers have been given employment on national defense projects in the Norfolk area during the past three months it was reported recently by W. H. Bowe, who also announced details of a plan to enroll into membership in the Piledrivers and Dock Builders Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Labor, colored carpenters who had been denied employment on national defense projects because they were not members of carpenters' union and were barred from membership in the white unions on account of their color. No Discrimination at Radford Plant (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Feb. 22, '41) Skilled Negro workers are being employed on the Hercules Powder Plant construction job and on affiliated defense work near Radford, Va., it was reported to the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce last week. These workers are being hired without discrimination and are proving satisfactory. Legislation Congress to Ignore Negro Legislation (Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41) Unless the unforeseen happens, bills now in Congress designed to aid the Negro have little chance of passage at this session. There are several bills which have been offered, chief of which is the perennial anti-lynch bill; the anti-poll tax bill, another of those debatable measure claimed particularly aimed at the South and its evil practices; and third, one of the most important as far as the economic situation is concerned, the bill to have domestic workers covered by the Social Security Act. This bill would give Negroes working as domestics rights to unemployment payments, rights to payments of old-age insurance, and in fact, all the rights granted workers under the provisions of the Social Security Act. Fight Just Begun, Say Poll Tax Repealists (Baltimore Afro-American, Feb. 8, '41) While the fight to have the poll tax law repealed was lost in Tennessee, organizations which sought its defeat declare that the fight against it has just begun. A survey has shown that in 1888, before the law was enacted, 90 per cent of the population exercised the right of the franchise; in 1940, the percentage of the adult population voting in the State was 29.7 per cent. Newspapers of the State have united in demanding the restoration of the free ballot. Note: Congressman Lee Geyer, who introduced the federal anti-poll tax bill (H. R. 1024) has made an appeal to all who believe in this measure to write their representatives in the House to sign the petition to bring it out of committee for open discussion and vote. Anti-Discrimination Bills Get Support at Albany (N. Y. Herald-Tribune, Mar. 5, '41) Representatives of organized labor and social welfare leaders gave "whole-hearted" support today to nine of twelve bills barring racial discrimination in industry. [3] Tells White Ministers of Equal Rights Bill (Norfolk Journal & Guide, Feb. 8, '41) The Rev. Richard A.G. Foster of New Haven, Conn., spoke before the white Methodist Ministers Union last week on the Equal Rights Bill that is coming before the Connecticut Legislature this month. The white ministers approved the bill. Civil Rights Advances Court Library Opened to Negroes by Jackson (N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Feb. 13, '41) Attorney General Robt. H. Jackson commemorated the birthday of the Great Emancipator, Feb. 12, by outlawing discrimination against Negro members of the bar at the District Court building in Washington. His order was prompted by a dispute over refusal by the District of Columbia Bar Association to admit Negro members in its organization and to permit them to use library facilities in the Federal Building. Dallas Jurist Declares Housing Jim Crow Illegal (Baltimore Afro-American, Jan. 28, '41) In a decision rendered at Dallas, Texas, last week, soundly berating the City Council for passing a segregation ordinance affecting housing, Judge William H. Atwell ruled that racial segregation as attempted by the council, was definitely illegal. Missouri Pacific Will Sell Race Pullman Space in South (Pittsburgh Courier, Jan. 18, '41) The Southern Conference of the N.A.A.C.P. branches achieved its sixth victory in the South-wide fight against Pullman discrimination, when the Missouri Pacific lines advised that reservations from colored people would be accepted for berth space in sleeping cars operating on Southern divisions of that system. Education From an article in Phylon we summarize: In 1938 the Supreme Court decreed that the 17 states maintaining separate racial schools must provide equal facilities within the state for graduate and professional education. What has happened to date? Six states (Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina) have made no provision and offer no scholarship aid; two (Alabama and Louisiana) offer courses in Education; five (Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia) offer scholarship aid for out of the state study (but Maryland has enrolled two students in the law school of the State University—white); four (Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia) offer both some courses and some form of state aid. In addition several study commissions have been appointed to work on the problem. Progress has also been made in the teachers' salary struggle, according to recent issues of the Pittsburgh Courier. Full and complete equalization between salaries paid white teachers and Negro teachers in the public schools of Louisville, Ky., beginning September, 1941, has been promised by the Louisville Board of Education. Members of the Escambia County School board may voluntarily equalize the salaries of Negro school teachers, it was said at Pensacola, Fla., recently, following a meeting of the board at which the board attorney declared a law on the state statute books compels the county to pay equal salaries. The N.A.A.C.P. scored another victory in its fight to equalize teachers' salaries when the Abingdon (Va.) school board agreed to this for the 1941 term. Colored teachers in Kent County (Chestertown, Md.) schools will receive equal salaries with teachers in the white schools if a bill now pending in the state legislature is adopted. Proposes Single Salary Schedule for White and Colored Teachers (Blue Ridge Herald, Dec. 12, '40) At a meeting of the County School Board in Leesburg (Va.) on Dec. 10, plans were made for increasing the salaries of the colored teachers, principals and supervisors until they should be on a par with white teachers holding the same kind of certificates doing the same kind of work and with equal experience in the school year of 1943-44. Glimpses of Other Minorities Native American Indian Art Holds the Spotlight (Indians At Work, February, 1941) The contribution of the Indian to the modern American way of life is the subject of a comprehensive exhibit devoted to fashions, jewelry and interior furnishings against a background of living Indian traditions and prehistoric art, which opened on January 22 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, under the joint sponsorship of the Museum and the United States Department of the Interior. After April the exhibit will be taken on a tour of several large cities. Instead of drawing on the styles or cultures of foreign countries, some of which are no longer available as sources, this exhibit is of pure American origin and development. Lending a touch of native color at the preview, four American Indians were among the guests of honor. Census Will Class Mexicans As White (Pittsburgh Courier, Feb. 8, '41) For the first time in the history of the census, Mexicans will be definitely classed as white persons. Previously, Mexicans had been classed as "non-whites" and until protestations were received this designation has stood. Chinese Agent of Chase Bank Held (N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Jan. 7, '41) Titus Tsung Yao Chen, Chinese representative of the Chase National Bank was arraigned recently on a charge of embezzlement. According to U.S. Commissioner, Garnett W. Cotter, it was the first such case involving a Chinese in the sixteen years in which he has held office. Chinese here, as elsewhere, long ago established a high reputation for honesty. New Books of Interest "East By Day," by Blair Niles. A novel based on the famous slave ship Amistad. "Whittling Boy," by Roger Burlingame. The story of Eli Whitney whose invention of the cotton gin sired the Civil War. "Behind God's Back," by Negley Farson. A rich book of clear and understanding descriptions of South and middle Africa. "Let My People Go," by Henrietta Buckmaster. True stories of the Underground Railway. "The Negro in Art," Alain Locke, editor. A comprehensive pictorial record. "Growing Up in the Black Belt," by Charles S. Johnson. A record based on personal stories. "Sharecroppers All," by Arthur Raper and Ira de A. Reid. A grim and revealing book that faces squarely the economic problem of the South. [4] INTERRACIAL NEWS SERVICE Published by DEPARTMENT OF RACE RELATIONS, FEDERAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES 297 Fourth Avenue, New York, N.Y. Gleanings from press releases and other sources to inform busy but sincere people of some of the things affecting the lives of racial minorities. Let's do away with walls! "We are all one in Christ Jesus." The Material in the News Service is given for information and is not to be construed as declarations of official attitudes or policies of the Department of Race Relations or the Federal Council of Churches. Vol. 12 No. 3 May, 1941 A Notable Victory Supreme Court Grants Negroes Equality On Interstate Trains N.Y. Herald-Tribune, (white), Apr. 29, '41 The Supreme Court held on April 28 that Negroes traveling from one state to another are entitled to railroad accommodations equal to those furnished white persons. Chief Justice Hughes delivered the decision on a test case brought by Representative Arthur W. Mitchell, Democrat, of Illinois, the only Negro member of Congress. No dissent was announced. Mitchell contended that he had been "forcibly ejected" from a Pullman car in Arkansas, while traveling from Chicago to Hot Springs in 1937, and had been compelled to complete the journey "in a Jim Crow car with second-class accommodations." "This," Justice Hughes asserted, "was manifestly a discrimination against him based solely upon the fact that he was a Negro. The question whether this was a discrimination forbidden by the interstate commerce act is not a question of segregation, but one of equality of treatment. The denial . . . of equality of accommodations because of his race would be an invasion of a fundamental individual right . . . guaranteed . . . by the Fourteenth Amendment, and in view of the nature of the right and of our Constitutional policy it cannot be maintained that the discrimination . . . was not essentially unjust." Fear that such a decision might be forthcoming and that it might crack the segregation laws of the South cased unprecedented action by ten Southern states whose Attorneys General filed a joint plea urging the Supreme Court not to take action in the Mitchell case because of the social aspects of segregation. Their brief denied that segregation laws have the intent "of harassing or oppressing" . . . but are "rather for the benefit and protection of the members of both races." They expressed the fear that a decision invalidating the segregation law on railroads would break down all state and municipal segregation in public services—street cars, theatres, hotels, restaurants and schools. The News Service Helped: Some Southern railways have relaxed their discriminatory practices and have allowed Negroes to purchase Pullman space. Our March issue carried such a report concerning the Missouri-Pacific Railroad. By showing the article to the ticket agent in Little Rock, Ark., Miss Camella L. Jamison, General Secretary of Negro Organizations of the United Christian Missionary Society (Disciples), was able to secure berth rates in a compartment though she was first informed that she would have to pay full compartment rates. Miss Jamison wrote us— "I do not think that I would have been successful if I had not made use of the Interracial News Service—it was a helpful protection." Schools and Salaries Educators too are concerned about implications of Supreme Court decisions. In an article in the New York Times (white) for April 27th, Edwin Camp of Atlanta writes that educational leaders of 14 Southern states met recently to consider the problem of equalizing school facilities and salaries of Negro and white public school teachers. Says the author: To meet the requirements of the law the secretary of the Georgia Education Association figures an additional $75,000,000 a year would be required in the South for salaries and $325,000,000 for physical facilities. White leaders argue, with considerable statistical support, that the Southern States cannot undertake such a burden alone; that the low earning power of the section is already overtaxed, with the whites paying heavily for the education of Negroes. They ask Congress to provide the necessary funds. . . . Throughout the section leading Negroes and whites are working together on the problems raised by the legal requirements of equality. They are working with a singleness of purpose and a tolerant understanding and sympathy which would have seemed impossible a decade ago. For example, The Charlotte (N.C.) News (white) said recently: "The South has always spent $5 on every white pupil to $1 for the Negro. This is short-sighted policy. . . . The only way segregation can be just is for the Negro to have his portion measured out with the same spoon used for the white." The Richmond Times-Dispatch (white) asserted: "We must accept the inevitable gracefully and cooperate with our Negro fellow-citizens in working out an amicable solution." And the other day, in Mississippi, appeared this editorial in The Jackson Daily News (white): "Present manner of distributing the common school fund is a lie and a fraud on its face. Further subterfuge or camouflage will be useless. The nation's tribunal of last resort has spoken. Whether you like the decision or not doesn't matter. It must be obeyed." The Struggle for Civil Rights 16 Ways South Keeps Polls Lily-White Pittsburgh Courier, (Negro), Jan. 18, '41 Sixteen current devices by which mass disenfranchisement of the Southern Negro is affected were outlined by Dr. Ralph Bunche, head of the Howard University political science department, at the 36th annual convention of the American Political Science Association in Chicago. Among those in current usage outlined by Dr. Bunche are the following: "Exclusion from the Democratic primary. This is in actuality a 'white' rather than a 'democratic' primary, for all whites, whether Democratic or Republican, are frequently admitted to it, while all Negroes are barred; "Requiring one or more white character witnesses. Often the colored applicant must have these appear in person; strict enforcement of the literacy tests against colored applicants; "Putting unreasonable questions to colored applicants in Constitutional understanding or interpretation tests; severe application of property qualifications and requiring only Negro applicants to show property tax receipts; basing rejection of colored registrants on alleged minor mistakes in filling out registration blanks; "Evasion, by informing colored applicants that registration cards have 'run out,' etc.; requiring colored applicants to suffer long waits before the officials attend them; requiring the applicants to fill out their own blanks though those of white applicants are filled out for them by officials; "Deliberate insults, humiliations or threats by officials and hangers-on; discarding only colored applicants for conviction of misdemeanors; requiring enrollment in Democratic clubs, from which Negroes are barred, for primary voting; severe application of the cumulative poll-tax to colored though not to white voters; "Loss of jobs or threat of loss of jobs by those Negroes who get 'uppity' and insist on their right to register; warning prospective voters in small towns that they will be 'marked men' in the white community, and intimidation through physical violence." Poll Tax is not American Kansas City Call, Editorial, (Negro) Apr. 18, '41 The tide of public opinion has set against the poll tax. Once defended on the ground that the citizen without property ought to contribute something to the support of government, this measure is out of favor except in the eight Southern states that continue it. The poll tax in the eight states restrains Negroes' voting. That is the real reason it is kept. But at the same time that the poll tax is deterring Negroes from voting, it also cuts down the white vote. Democracy is dead, whenever the people do not participate in public decisions...Too bad the eight Southern states which cling to it think less of American principles than they do of their pet hate. Bar Association to Move Rather Than Admit Negro Lawyers to Library Philadelphia Independent, (Negro), Mar. 2, '41 Showing contempt for the order of the attorney general that they must admit Negroes to the library of the District Bar Association, Washington, D. C., as long as that association uses the rooms of the municipal court, the association has instructed its committee to obtain rooms elsewhere. Homes are Bombed by Angry Texas Citizens Norfolk Journal & Guide, (Negro), Apr. 12, '41 The 13th bombing of Negro homes occurred in Dallas, Texas, recently. The bombings have come about because whites have resented Negroes moving into a certain section. The city purchased several of the houses that had been purchased by Negroes in order to ease the tension. Replies Favor Negro Doctors Newark News, (White), Mar. 27, '41 A trend in favor of admission of Negro graduates of accredited medical schools as internes at City Hospital (Newark, N.J.) and of Negro women to the nurses' training school there is shown in letters received by the Newark Interracial Council, it was announced recently. War Department Finally Places Colored Stenogs Norfolk Journal & Guide, (Negro), Apr. 19, '41. Five colored girls who waited and watched finally won out in their "sit-down" battle with the officials of the war department when they were ordered to work and assigned to offices last week after spending a varied length of time sitting in the offices doing nothing. The five had been called in by the civil service commission as a result of passing examinations and then assigned to the war department. Won't Play Teams With Color Line Baltimore Afro-American, (Negro), Apr. 26, '41 Following a series of heated protests in the wake of the U.S. Naval Academy's recent refusal to permit Harvard's star lacrosse player, Lucien V. Alexis, Jr., (Negro) to perform against the Navy at Annapolis, Harvard University this week announced severance of athletic relations with any opponent permitting discrimination. Said the corporation: "In the future, the athletic committee should make it plain to other institutions with whom we are competing that it is Harvard's principle that there should be no racial discrimination among out students." New York University recently had a similar situation and took the Negro from the team. This led to student demonstrations and resulted in several suspensions. The newspaper "PM" (white) expressed drastic criticism. We quote part of one editorial: John Carr Duff, assistant professor of education at New York University, has written PM objecting to our conclusion, based on a statement by Dean McConn, that NYU is guilty of racial discrimination against Negroes. The dean said visiting athletes from Southern universities must compete against Negro players when they come here "whether they like it or not," but admitted NYU does not include Negroes on its team which go into Jim Crow territory. He explained this policy by saying that the college didn't want to be responsible for indignities or embarrassment which Negroes might suffer down South. Professor Duff, who makes it clear he is voicing only his personal opinion, says: "Is it not evidence of common sense as well as racial tolerance here that we compromise on a 50-50 basis with the Southern universities...?" The answer is, good heavens, no. Professor Duff refutes his own argument in those few words. He points out the compromise; the straddling of an issue that is, if any issue ever was, impossible of compromie. The whole thing's very simple: the school either treats its Negro students and athletes in exactly the same way it treats white students and athletes, or it doesn't. New York University doesn't treat its Negroes in the same way as it treats its whites...That's race prejudice in our book. Church Leaders Face National Problems Washington, D.C., Apr. 18, '41 Prominent churchmen and churchwomen from more than half of the states of the nation assembled April 18-19, at the School of Religion of Howard University for the third annual [2] two-day meeting of the National Conference of Church Leaders. Sponsored by the Home Missions Council of North America and the Department of Race Relations of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the conference attracted nationally-known leaders who participated in two daily seminars, symposiums, addresses, lectures and reports on the crises in the rural church, the war situation, the ecumenical movement, and the dilemas confronting modern youth. Dr. Mark A. Dawber, white executive secretary of the Home Missions Council, declared: "All the Dies Committees, and all of the other groups are not going to solve some of the problems we are facing. The only real solution is to see that all the masses of underprivileged people have bread and a higher standard of living. Hitler could come over here now and take lessons in maltreating the Jews from the way we treat some of our minorities." Describing the conference, Dr. Marshall A. Talley, editor of religious literature, National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., stated: "This conference shows a definite trend toward cooperation among denominational leaders and their ability and willingness to discuss together the most crucial problems now confronting the Negro people and our nation." The Economic Situation The situation of Negroes in the defense program remains acute. Robert C. Weaver, recently appointed on the staff of the Office of Production Management, in an address at the National Conference of Church Leaders held in Washington, D.C., April 17-18, (see above) reported that advances have been made in employment of Negroes in construction of camps. He analyzed the general situation as follows: 75% of the work in defense industries requires trained labor; Negroes are mainly unskilled. Therefore, the first need is to work on training. Equipment for training is scanty, so Negroes get the last chance and even when they secure training they are seldom employed. This does not mean, however, that the situation is hopeless. Public pressure such as has been exerted at Kansas City brings results. Government action may result from the demand by groups and individuals for Senate Resolution No. 75, requiring an investigation of the Negro in defense; or from pressure for an executive order. The OPM has already sent out 13,000 letters signed by co-director Sidney Hillman calling on employers to use the labor at hand, specifically Negro Labor. Said Mr. Weaver: "This problem will determine the economic life of Negroes for a generation or more." A delegation of a dozen church leaders from six denominations, headed by the executive secretary of the Department of Race Relations, Dr.George E. Haynes, interviewed officials of the OPM in Washington, D.C., April 17, to urge action by federal authorities. Discrimination in All-Out Effort Washington Post, (White), Apr. 23, '41 Sidney Hillman brought into the open last week one of the most ticklish problems in defense production: the employment of Negroes. The all-over fact is that relatively few Negroes are getting jobs in defense industries. In some localities employers are importing white workers- intensifying housing and health problems and adding to the postwar problem of population readjustment - while able-bodied Negroes already on hand are left on WPA and relief. Efforts to correct unjust discrimination: To Widen Negro Job Opportunities (Bulletin, N.J. Welfare Council, Mar. 14, '41) Representing the New Jersey Welfare Co[unci]l at the recent state conference sponsored by the State Unemployment Compensation Commission to consider the problem of Negro employment especially in skilled work, was David Fales, Jr., chairman of the Council's recently appointed Interracial Committee. Holding of the conference was part of a nation-wide effort by the Federal Social Security Board to promote broader employment opportunities for the capable Negro. Mich. Gov. Asks Defense Plants To Drop Color Bar Baltimore Afro-American, (Negro), Mar. 15, '41 Declaring the present emergency to be one calling for national unity, in which "every citizen must be permitted to contribute his utmost," Governor Murray D. VanWagoner has called on Michigan industry to drop all racial bars in its employment policy. "Every opportunity should be given colored citizens for work and on-the-job training," said the governor. Fleming Tells Textile Union of Discrimination N.Y. Herald-Tribune, (White), Apr. 24, '41 In a criticism of what he called "un-American" discrimination against the hiring of Negroes and aliens in industry, Brig. Gen. Philip B. Fleming, administrator of the wage and hour division of the Department of Labor, said recently (at the second biennial Convention of the Textile Workers of America) that the national defense program was being deprived unnecessarily of skilled labor which it could use to full advantage now. Negro Employment Shows Increase N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News, (Negro), Apr. 19, '41 Federal Security Administrator Paul V. McNutt announced recently that more than 76,000 Negro workers found jobs in January through the State employment offices coordinated by the United States Employment Service. According to Mr. McNutt, Negro placements for January accounted for 21.1 per cent of all the jobs filled by the State Employment Services - an increase of more than 10 per cent over December, 1940. Democracy's Bar Sinister (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Editorial) ...That the unions are revealing now a more enlightened policy with respect to the granting of charters to Negro chapters, will, we think, be shown by a summary of the present Virginia situation. There is now a Negro carpenters' union in Richmond; there is another at Newport News, and there is a lathers' union at Norfolk. Virginia unions and employers seem to be changing their attitude toward Negro labor. Crawford Clothes Co. Hires 200 Negroes Survey Reveals N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News (Negro), Apr. 12, '41 Contrary to public thought that there were no Negroes employed with Crawford Clothes Co. (Long Island City, N.Y.) the Amsterdam Star-News learned this week that there are more than 200 in the firm's employment filling not only porter jobs but many other positions as junior executives. They are all union members and enjoy the same rights and privileges as white workers. Defense Plant Gives Jobs to 9 Men in City (Baltimore Afro-American, Mar. 8, '41) Marking what is pointed out as being the first entry of colored workers in the plants of private defense industries in Baltimore, nine men are scheduled to begin work on Monday at the Bartlett Hayward division of the Koppers Company, engineers and manufacturing machinists. [3] Negroes Win Bus Boycott PM, (White), N. Y., Apr. 20, '41 After a militant four-week boycott campaign in Harlem (New York City) led by three Negro organizations joined in the United Bus Strike Committee, an agreement was signed with the Fifth Avenue Coach Co., the New York City Omnibus Co., and the Transport Workers Union, which breaks down the color bar among their mechanics and bus drivers and guarantees the employment of a number of Negroes equal to their proportion of New York's population, reckoned at 17 per cent for Manhattan. The TWU agreed to waive seniority rights for all but 91 laid off white bus drivers. After these 91 are put back to work 100 Negroes will be employed before any more white drivers. In the maintenance division, Negroes are to fill the first 70 jobs open; from then on the bus companies agree to employ whites and Negroes alternately until 17 per cent of the workers are Negroes. Picket lines at principal bus stops in Harlem since March 25 were removed. The Negro committee will be continued under another name for activity against color bars in other industries. Other Encouraging News To Dramatize Negro's Contributions to America Pittsburgh Courier, (Negro), Mar. 15, '41 A series of educational radio programs planned by the U. S. Office of Education and financed by the Rosenwald Foundation grant will dramatize Negro contributions to American life. The programs, to be broadcast nationally, will portray the role Negroes have played in American education, art, science, industry, and other fields of endeavor, U. S. Commissioner of Education, John W. Studebaker reported. "We shall do our utmost to report accurate and full information about constructive activities and accomplishments of Negroes in this radio series. Much of this information is not available in textbooks and in general reading matter, yet it is the type of information that could help to improve race relations and aid in solving many problems of majority and minority groups," said the Commissioner. Graduate Student Heads Social Work Organization Michigan Daily, (White) Edward Dalton, of Detroit, 26-year-old graduate student in the University's Institute of Public and Social Administration, is the president of the American Association of Social Work Students at the National Conference of Social Work. The AASWS is composed of men and women who are studying for the degree of Master of Social Work. Dalton, who has been acting president for the University of Michigan Social Club, was the only Negro delegate from the 40 graduate schools of social work represented at the last Conference, held in Grand Rapids, and will preside over the Association at its meetings to be held in Atlantic City, June 1-7. Miss Anderson to Aid Needy with Prize Norfolk Journal & Guide, (Negro), Mar. 29, '41 Marian Anderson, recipient this week of the $10,000 Edward A. Bok award for the person who has contributed most in a way "calculated to advance the best interest of Philadelphia each year," announced that the money would be used to further the education of some talented person. Named Editor of School of Social Work Journal Norfolk Journal & Guide, (Negro), Feb. 15, '41 The editorial board of "Trend," a quarterly magazine of the New York School of Social Work in New York City, elected for the first time in its history, a Negro as editor of its magazine. He is Marx G. Bowens. Mr. Bowens is a graduate of Amherst College, and has done graduate work at Columbia in sociology and psychology. *** John E. Stackhouse has been appointed "operator in charge" of the Postal Telegraph's branch office at 125th Street and Seventh Ave., New York. The title carries the responsibilities of office manager. Pittsburgh Courier, (Negro), Mar. 15, '41. *** In a letter to the Interracial New Service, the librarian of the Wilmington, Del., Public Schools reported that the Wilmington Teachers Association, composed of 550 white teachers and 60 Negro teachers (all the public school teachers) has elected James A. Gardiner of the Howard High School faculty (Negro) as its treasurer. This is a bonded position and carries with it, also, remuneration. *** A Negro girl who back in her pigtail days spent most of her time treating the wounds, both real and imagined, of her sisters, brothers and playmates now has the distinction of being the first member of her race ever to be graduated from the School of Nursing of Mayor Memorial Hospital of Buffalo. She is Miss Eva Malinda Bateman, 21, of 121 Madison St., and she had acquired 170 quality points during the three-year course. Only 67 are required for graduation. Miss Bateman topped scholastically the entire class of 58 students. The next highest student had 158 quality points. Her aim is to become a public health nurse and to that end she is attending classes at Canisius College. Buffalo Evening News, (White), Jan. 30, '41. Two other Negro girls have been accepted and will enroll in Mayer Memorial Hospital at the beginning of the next term. *** A 26-year-old Harlem musician named Dean Dixon was well on his way last week to doing what no Negro has [ev]er done--conduct a first-rank symphony orchestra. Musician Dixon had already waved a crisp, confident baton over the New York City Symphony, the National Youth Administration radio orchestra, and an amateur symphony of his own in Harlem. At a Town Hall recital, Conductor Dixon made more news. He directed a 38-piece white outfit which he had founded--the New York Chamber Orchestra--in concertos with a debutante pianist, Vivian Rivkin. Critics gave them all a hand, agreed that Dean Dixon had scored a point. (Time, Apr. 21, 41). *** Five years of intelligent effort on behalf of his people brought unusual recognition to Cleo W. Blackburn, 31-year-old executive secretary of Fl[?]nner House, Indianapolis, Negro social service center. He was awarded by the city's junior chamber of commerce the distinguished service medal annually presented to a man under 36 adjudged to have rendered notable civic service. Never before has this honor come to a Negro. (Christian Century, Feb. 26, '41). *** A unique honor has come to a young Negro, aged 22, Julian Dempsey, who has the distinction of having designed an evening gown for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, which she has worn this year upon two formal occasions at the White House . . . According to the young designer, he made his talents known to the President's wife by sending her a collection of his sketches. N. Y. Times, (White), Feb. 17, 41. *** James Avery, a Negro student in the Senior High School of Cranford, N. J., is acting as a mayor of the town for Thursday, May 1, during Boys' Week in the town. Avery has been captain of the football team and a leader in other student activities [??](S[?]gion to Interracial News Service). {4} Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.