NEGROESWhat "Liberal" Racists Never Mention

Gary Allen, a graduate of StanfordUniversity and one of the nation's topauthorities on civil turmoil and the N etoLeft, is author of Communist Revolu­tion in the Streets-a highly praised anddefinitive new volume on revolutionarytactics and strategies, published by West­ern Islands. Mr. Allen is active in anti­Communist and other humanitariancauses and is President of the Founda­tion for Economic and Social Progress.A film writer and journalist , he is aContributing Editor to AMERICANOPINION. Gary Allen lectures widely.

• As OUR "LIBERAL" newspapers andradio and television newscasters dwellmore and more upon the rant of hate­crazed Black Nationalists pledging toburn down America's cities; as theytrumpet Stokely Carmichael's returnfrom the capitals of the CommunistWorld to call for open guerrilla war­fare; as they publicize Martin LutherKing's plans to invade and disruptWashington itself-as the pyramid ofracial hate builds - devoutly patrioticNegro leaders work without fanfare onconstructive and realistic solutions tothe very real problems faced by coloredAmericans. Curiously, the accomplish­ments of these builders are ignored bythe "Liberal" Press and seldom con­sidered to be even remotel y as news­worthy as the regular demented cantof an H. "Rap" Brown or a Robert Wil­liams.

It is of considerable significance thatthe work of "Conservative" Negroleaders is seldom projected to the aver­age white American by the "Liberal"

MARCH, /968

news media. Those who would incin­erate America's cities know very wellthat if whites can be led to believe thatthe typical Negro is personified inHubert "Rap" Brown or Stokely Car­michael, and if Negroes can be led tobelieve the twisted caricature of a"Whitey" whose goal in life is to makeof blacks the victims of mass genocide,then America is headed for race warjust as sure as God made little greenapples. And race war is what the fuseof holocaust in Watts and Detroit andNewark was all about-race war ignitedin America by the incendiary forces ofthe International Communist Conspir­acy. The vast majority of AmericanNegroes know this - and their "Con­servative" leadership is working fever­ishly to stop the revolutionaries beforeit is too late.

Listen, for example, to Dr. J. H.Jackson-who maintains that those whocry "to Hell with America" should leaveand go to the "country that they love."And he says: "For those who do nothave the money, we will pay their fare."

Who is Dr. Jackson?Only the President of the largest Ne­

gro religious organization in the UnitedStates. And Dr. Jackson made thatstatement to thirty thousand delegatesat the Eighty-Seventh Annual NationalBaptist Convention conference, held inDenver in September of 1967. Whatis more , the delegates roared their ap­proval of the offer to finance the exodusof anti-Americans. "We want to winthem . . . teach them that Americais great. But , if we can't win them, letus pay them the same compliment they

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are paying us," the Chicago pastor said,and he urged that if our jails will nothold all the revolutionaries we shouldexpand the penal system. During hisforty-minute speech Dr. Jackson was in­terrupted fifteen times by vigorous ova­tions from the tens of thousands ofpatriotic and Christian Americans inattendance-all important Negro leadersin their communities.

Lashing fiercely at the Black Poweradvocates, the Reverend Jackson de­clared: "No hen has the right to cacklewho hasn't laid an egg. Black Powerfolk, many with no soap and no bathtubs, are cackling about their power.They need to do something first." BlackPower is organized hate, and it doesnot describe constructive and produc­tive action on the part of AmericanNegroes, proclaimed Dr. Jackson, whohas yet to grace the cover of Time, Life,Look, Newsweek, or any of the other"Liberal" slicks, American Power, hesaid, is color blind.

And, just so that everyone wouldknow where they stood, the thirty thou­sand Negro delegates to that Conven­tion unanimously re-elected the vigor­ously patriotic Dr. Jackson as Presidentof the 6,300,OOO-member National Bap­tist Convention. Huntley and Brinkley,Time, and Look, didn't second thenomination - and thus Dr. Jacksonremains unknown to the great mass ofwhite Americans.

Among the most widely known of theNegro leaders working constructively tobuild America is Archie Moore, the oldMongoose, former light-heavyweightboxing champion of the world and oneof the most colorful and articulateathletes ever to climb between the ropes.Archie is still in there punching, but hisopponent is more elusive and harder tohit than any of his opponents in thering. The Mongoose's foe now is juve­nile crime, and Archie Moore is havingnone of the "Lo, the Poor Negro" non­sense peddled by white "Liberal" so-

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ciologists and blacks who lack thecourage to compete for success the wayMoore has. Like Dr. Jackson, he haslittle patience with the America haterswho monopolize headlines in the "Lib­eral" Press:

The Devil is at work in America,and it is up to liS to drive him out.Snipers and looters, white or black,deserve no mercy, and those who setfellow Americans upon each otherdeserve no mercy. I'll fight the manwho calls me an "Uncle Tom." Ihave broken bread with Heads ofState, chatted with Presidents, andtraveled all over the world. I wasborn ill a ghetto , but I refused tostay there . I am a Negro, and proudto be one. I am also an American,and I'm proud of that.

According to the former boxing cham­pion, still a champion American, con­temporary young people whining abouttheir hard lot are mostly just soft:

They should have been around inthe Thirties when I was coming upin St. Louis. We had no way to go,but a lot of us made it . I becamelight-heavyweif!.ht champion of theworld . A neighbor kid down theblock, Clark Terry, became one of themost famous jazz musicians in theworld . There were doctors, lawyersand chiefs who came out of thatghetto. One of the top policemen inSt . Louis came from 0111' neighbor­hood .

We made it because we had agoal, and we were willing to work forit. Don't talk to me of your "gua/'an­teed national income ." Any foolknows that this is insanity. Do webring those who worked to get aheaddown to the level of those who nevergave a damn? The world owes no­body-black or white-a living. Godhelps the man who helps bimselj!

AMERICAN OPINION

Mr. Moore does not blind himself toancient injustices but emphasizes thepositive while challenging the revolu­tionaries. "I've seen almost unbelievableprogress made in the last handful ofyears," he says. And he adds: "Do wewant to become wild beasts bent onlyon revenge, looting and killing and lay­ing America bare? Hate is bait, bait forthe simpleminded." According to theformer champion, who now makes hishome in San Diego, California, "Ifyou listen to the professional rabble­rousers, adhere to this idea of giving upeverything you've gained in order torevenge yourself for the wrongs thatwere done to you in the past, then you'llwind up watching your neighbor, be­cause he'll be looting your house next.Law and order is the only edge wehave. No man is an island." And be­lieve this, says Moore, "if we resort tolawlessness, the only thing we can hopefor is civil war, untold bloodshed, andthe end of our dreams."

The meeting of qualified men of bothraces is imperative to problem solving,the former boxer believes. And he em­phasizes , "Mind you, I said qualifiedmen, not some punk kid , ranting thecatch phrases put in his mouth by somepaid hate-monger. There are forces inthe world today, forces bent upon thedestruction of America, your Americaand mine. And while we're on thesubject, do you doubt for a minute thatCommunism, World Communism, isn'twaiting with bated breath for the blackand white Americans to turn on eachother full force?"

"Do you want a chance for life,liberty and the pursuit of happinessin the land of your birth, or do youwant no chance at all under the Redheel?" Moore asks American Negroes.And he hits especially hard at BlackNationalists parroting the Communists'cry for a separate Negro nation withinAmerica's borders:. "I do not intend togive up one square inch of America.

MARCH, 1968

I'm not going to he told I must live ina restricted area . Isn't that what we'veall been fighting to overcome?"

Believing that much can be done tomake America a better place in whichto live by properly motivating the na­tion's young people, Archie Moore hasdeveloped his own self-help programcalled A.B.C.-Any Boy Can. "By teach­ing our youth , black, white, yellow andred, what dignity is, what self-respectis, what honor is, I have been able toobliterate juvenile delinquency in severalareas," Moore reports with justifiablepride. And he adds: "If any boy can,surely any man can. I want to taketeams of qualified people, top men intheir fields, to the troubled areas of thecities.... If some bigot can misguidethem, then we can guide. I've spent toomuch of my life building what I've gotto see it put to the torch just to satisfysome ancient hatred of the grandson ofa man who beat my grandfather. . . .I invite the respected Negro leaders ofour country to join me."

Men like Dr. Jackson and ArchieMoore make sense. Dignity, self-respect,and honor have meaning to them. Theyare builders, not destroyers. Yet,curiously, it is the revolutionaries whoseevery utterance makes the headlines ofour "Liberal" newspapers . It is they whoare being pitched to Negro youth as theWave of the Future. Those familiarwith the modus operandi of the Com­munists do not have to ask why.

IAND THE CASES of Dr. Jackson and

Archie Moore are far from isolated.In Chicago, for example, there is theReverend Henry Mitchell, President ofan organization of some sixty ministersknown as the North Star United Mis­sionarv Workers of America. I talkedwith the Reverend Mitchell in his WestSide Chicago church just after havingspent five days with the Black Powermaniacs attending the New Politics

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Con vention held at the Palmer Househotel over Labor Day weekend.

The Reverend Mitchell is a tall ,muscular, former boxer who was bornin Kingston, Jamaica , and brought toAmerica at an early age by parents seek­ing economic oppor tunity. Thisgenuinely remarkable Negro Americanbecame a skilled craftsman-an accom­plished carpenter, plumber, concretefinisher, and electrician. Fifteen yearsago, after serious study, Henry Mitch ellprepared for the ministry and was or­dained. Calling upon a lifetime of self­reliance, he bui lt his own church andset out to serve Christ and his com­munity.

As I entered his office, the broad­shouldered Revere nd Mitchell handedme a flyer containing a cartoon show­ing an empty pulpit from which washung a sign reading "Gone out to forcepeople to love one another." In theflyer his North Star Missionariesdescribed themselves as a "non-violentorganization, also a non-passive one."You can believe that they mean whatthey say. Last spring, after Martin Lu­ther King announced that Chicago wasto be his chief revolut ionary target forthe summer of 1967, Henry Mitch ellcalled a press conference and told Kingand Company to stay out of Chicago,that hate and racism were not wantedthere. Reverend Mitchell explained tome that rather than work constructively,the Southern Christian Leadership Con­ference has preferred to foment hateand turmoil within his community with­out giving comfort or hope to those leftin the wake of the hate mongering. Heasked :

What is going to happen to thosepoor and hungry people; what hashappened to the low-income andrelief famil ies of Chicago? Are theybetter of f af ter bowing to th e wordsof turmoil expressed by his followers?Are they any better trained? Do they

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have better jobs? Or are they jllStexisting from day to day becausethey have turned to demonstrationsinstead of devoting themselves to th ehard work and self -reliance whichalone call improve their lot?

While King is leading his followersup the blind alley of racist agitation,where in frustration and anger theyturn inevitably to revolution as thepanacea, the Reverend Mitchell and hisNorth Star Missionaries are cond uctingpositive programs to elevate their com­munity both economically and socially.The key, Mitchell points out, is employ­ment : "Let a man own something andhe will have pride in himself, his homeand his family . With a job, he knowsthat what he has, he has earned. Withjobs people can qualify for loans andbuy their own homes-and when a manowns his own hom e it won 't become aslum."

In order to get jobs for those whowere employable but uneducated, theN orth Star Missionaries presented anon-the-job training proposal to the Cic­ero Manu facturers Association. "If youendorse North Star 's training program,"Reverend Mitch ell told the assembledheads of the Cicero business community,"we can get people off public aid . Toomany of our people have been livingon aid too long; they have no pride leftand they turn to the government foreverything. If you endorse us to helpour selves, .. . it will be N orth Star 's jobto teach our people community responsi­bility as well as on-the-job responsibilityonce you have put them to work."Since that meetin g, Cicero businessmenhave cooperated whol eheartedly andseveral thousands of previously unem­ployed N egroes have already been placedin good jobs.

The major obstacle to finding emplo y­ment in the area had been th e require­ment of a high school diploma, wh ichhalf of the residents of W est Chicago

AMERICAN OPINION

don't have. Now, thanks to the NorthStar Missionari es, on-the-job trainingprograms (with pay) have replaced thediploma requirement. Before sending aprospective worker to an emplo yer,No rth Star counsels him on acceptinghis responsibility to do a good job andbe a reliable worker, and it stresses thatthe emp loyer is a friend who wants tohelp, not an enemy as he has beenpainted by most "Civil Rights" groups.The N orth Star workers emphasize thatthe right attitude makes the differencebetween an emasculated male on theWel fare rolls and a self-reliant workerproviding honorably for his family.

The Reverend Mitchell is justifiablyproud of the North Star 's job program.He says :

The rabble-rousers have been.rholl ting abou ) jobs. lPe made job.ravailable j1lst b), meetin g with busi­nessmen . N o sbonting and no march­in!!, and no hate. lV e are wo rki ngwith m en that K ing had declaredwe re bigots and ioould never hire aNegro. lVho ioonld want to hiresom eone sent by K ing or Carmi chael?

Mitchell's problem now is not find ingjobs, but finding men who will acceptthem. And it is not that he isn't find­ing good positions; they are factory jobsstarting at between $1.79 and $2.71 anhour. But, while Chicago is in thethroes of a labor shortage, man y, ac­cording to the Reverend Mitchell,"would rather live on twenty dollars aweek Welfare than earn $100." Wel­fare, he believes, is a narcotic, and likeany other narcotic eventually leads to

addiction. This, he says, is what the"Liberal" white politician has done tothe N egro :

Negroes are bistorically a " Con­servative" people. The)' used to beashamed to be on lPel fare. Bnt th ewhite politicians and " Lib eral" social

MARCH,1968

wo rkers convinced them there wasnoth ing wrong with it . N ow it hasbecome a wa)' of life for man)'f amilies, generation after generation .The govem m ent said, "lPe'II lookom after th e poor. A ll )'011 have todo is vote for us, If )' 0 11 do n't, )'o1lrcheck will be cnt of f." T he)' createda permanent class of poor people,who eoentually were so m orall), de­graded b), th e State that th e)' didn'tmind being poor.

At the inception of their program, theNorth Star Missionaries went to the I

local Welfare authorities, explained thatthey had obtained the cooperation ofCicero businessmen, and asked for thecooperation of the Welfare workers.The crux of the request was that if anable-bodied man was offered a goodjob, the Welfare department should cutoff the dole so that the man would havean incentive to accept the job. The Wel­fare people, according to the ReverendMitchell , couldn 't have been nicer-orbeen of less help. As one of the sixtyNorth Star ministers told me: "It seemsthat for all their prattle and crocodiletears about the plight of the poor, theWelfare bureaucrats want more peopleon the dole, not less. The taxpayers behanged, there are dynasties to be built!N ow we have many more job openingsthan we can provide people to fill. Lordsave us from social workers! "

That senseless attitude on the part ofWel fare bureaucrats has led to otherhard ships for the N egro people in urb anslum s. Skyrocketing Weifare has uppedtaxes to a point where many business­men have been forced to take theirfactories to the suburbs in an attemptto escape drowning in a sea of taxes.Once relocated in the suburbs, it is diffi­cult for many Negroes living in thecore of the city to get transportation tothe new facilities. Results? More un­employment, more Welfare, and evenhigher taxes; a vicious circle in whi ch

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the politicians living off the problemsof the people stay in office by promisingto escalate the dole.

Closely related to its job program isNorth Star's campaign to encourageNegro youths to stay in school, at leastuntil they obtain a high school diploma-and to continue beyond high schoolwhen they have the capability. "White'Liberals' have convinced many of ouryoungsters that it is hopeless to get adiploma because they won't be able toget a job anyway. Many have decidedthat life is completely hopeless afterlistening to the social workers and'Civil Rights ' agitators. Our programhas proved that they will be able touse their education," Mitchell says. Theeight thousand hardworking membersof Reverend Mitchell's North StarUnited Missionary Workers of Americacouldn't agree more.

Another method used by the white"Liberal" power structure in its waragainst impoverished Negroes in Chica­go is the Urban Renewal can game."Like most of the other federal pro­grams that are sold to the public as help­ing the Negro, Urban Renewal does theNegro far more harm than good," theNorth Star President says. "It doesn'tupgrade us, it degrades us. Urban Re­newal has been rehabilitating a numberof buildings on the West Side, butUrban Renewal turns out to be WelfareRenewal. The rehabilitation consistsmostly of steam cleaning the bricks ,patching some plaster, a paint job andsome rewiring if necessary. Then therent is jumped from $100 a month to$160, a figure most large families herecannot afford, causing many apartmentsto lay vacant. The bureaucrats use thisas an excuse to call for higher rentsupplements. But if the government ispaying sixty percent of the rent the mandoesn't really feel like a man, his in­centive is gone, he becomes a keptNegro in a federal Uncle Tom's Cabin."

It's all a sweet deal for the "Liberal"

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power structure which uses the ChicagoHousing Authority to condemn propertyand force owners to sell even when theydon't want to , and knowledgeable peo­ple in the area maintain that the politi­cally controlled contracts are used as away of "rewarding" local Democrats forcampaign contributions. As the Rever­end Mitchell shrewdly observes : "Ifthe government has its way, eighty per­cent of the Negroes are going to windup on what amounts to federal reserva­tions. He whose bread I eat, his song Ising."

Following the destructive West Chica­go riots of the summer of 1966, theNorth Star Missionary Workers declaredwar on crime and riots. As their Presi­dent told me: "Riots don't solve any­thing. The poor people suffer the mostfrom riots. Riots don't put food on thetable, clothes on your back, or pay therent. All the riots do is run businessaway from our community-and weneed more business, not less."

During late 1966 and early 1967,workers from North Star visited homeson the West Side to stress the need forindividual responsibilty. They queriedthousands of Negro residents concern­ing whether they endorsed agitation andriots as a way of solving problems.Ninety-five percent responded stronglythat they did not approve. A majorportion of the effort in the home-to­home canvass was devoted to educatingthe community that the local police aretheir friends and deserve support. Ac­cording to the Reverend Mitchell:

The phony cry of "police brutality"has been used to fiet riots started.This year the tactic did not work .The homeowners and business peo­ple in the community actually wantedmore protection. We had educatedthe people to understand that if theyput fifty thousand policemen in ourcommunity it wottld not solve thecrime problem unless the police had

AMERICAN OPINION

community support. We worked tomake the community conscious of itsstake in law enforcement. A year agoif somebody saw a crime being com­mitted across the street he just turnedhis back and paid no attention. Thisyear things were different .

When looting broke out in Chicagoduring the massive snowstorms of early1967, the parishioners and friends ofNorth Star Missionary Workers tookphysical action to end open crime intheir community. Citizens' patrol unitsgrabbed and held hoodlums until policeofficers arrived on the scene to makearrests . The North Star also circulatedflyers offering a reward of $100 to$25,000 for the arrest and conviction ofcriminals.

Was the war on crime successful?Martin Luther King had promised along hot summer for Chicago, but itnever materialized. A North Star spokes­man explained:

They tried to get the riots startedagain on the West Side this pastsummer. After the Detroit riots theComm unity Patrol was set up inChicago. Local citizens manned fourhundred cars to patrol the area. Anypotential disturbances were reportedto the police. The community andthe law worked together. I wish thewhole world could see how beauti­full y we worked together. And weare still working together. The revo­lutionaries did get some lootingstarted on Madison Street, but itonly took place on one block. W egot there before the police did . We.rtopped .rome of these boodlums andthen they couldn't cry " police bru­tality." They would have had to cry" community brutality ."

The only way )'ou can get anythingbig started is to have the cooperationof the community, otherwise tbere isnothin g they can do. W e learned

MARCH, 1968

later that the same people that weretrying to get a riot .rtarted in Chicagowere the same people who had beenin Detroit, and later they went upto Milwaukee where they toeresuccessjul in fomenting insurrection .A number of the.re people werewhite.

It is the opllllOn of the North StarMissionary Workers that the civil insur­rections we have been witnessing inAmerica have not been race riots, butself-destruction : "In Detroit and theseother places they were only destroyingtheir own communities," ReverendMitchell told me. "The closest we havecome to a race riot is in Milwaukeewhere Father Groppi is trying to fomenta direct confrontation with whites. Inorder ' to have a riot you have to haveagitators working among the whites aswell as the Negroes. You have to havemarchers and counter-marchers, pick­eters and anti-picketers. If one side staysout of the way, the other side looks likea bunch of fools."

Still, Henry Mitchell is apprehensive.He believes that die methods whichwere so successful in preventing riots inthe summer of 1967 may not work in1968. The criminal and Black National­ist elements have intervened to thepoint where people are again becomingafraid to cooperate with the police.Teenage gangs, supported by the Waron Poverty and led by trained Marxistrevolutionaries, now have tremendouspower within the city and are intimidat­ing the citizenry. It is a repetition ofthe theme of Two Revolutions at Once- as in Algeria, where the worst crimescommitted by the Communist F.L.N.were perpetrated against fellow Mos­lems to keep them in line.

"I will give this country five moreyears to last the way things are going,"warns Mitchell. "These people are wellfinanced and we have to work withpractically noth ing. Khrushchev said to

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Kennedy in 1962, 'I'll have your childrenteaching Communism in ten years andI won' t fire a shot.' That man 's pre­diction is becoming a reality. There isno more effective way to destroy anation than to make it tear itself apart.A handful of rabble-rousers took overRussia, China, Cuba. and the rest­because nobody would support thosewho were willin g to stand up to theCommunists. If you fight Communism,it seems like you fight it alone.

"W ell, if that 's the way it's got tobe, we'll fight alone. And we meanbusiness every step of the way."

II"SLUMS ARE MADE by people - not

plaster or brick ," Mrs . Matti e Coney toldme in Indianapolis , where I went tointerview her for AMERICAN OPINION.She has recentl y quit teaching afterthirty years to devote full time to herburgeonin g Citizens Forum, a non­profit, privately funded group of oversix hundred neighborhood "block clubs"working together to better themselvesand their neighborhoods in the India­napolis area.

Working on the project with Mrs.Coney is her husband , Elmo, a big,powerful , and highly articulate manwho has left a successful business careerto devote his time to the CitizensForum. He says of their program:"T here is nothing so powerful as anidea whose time has come. The timefor Mrs. Cone y and her idea has come."

Mattie Coney tells it like it is-like itreally is-and this delightful Negrolady has powerfully stirred the peopleof Indi anapolis of both races. As sheexplained to me:

I f eel th e time has come for thegood people, the majority who havebeen backing up against a wall , totake a stand. A merica was not startedby cowards, and if we do not have astrong people wit h the courage to say

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things are wrong, then we are in deeptrouble. T here are many elemen ts i17all neighborhoods and groups whoare attempting to destroy the veryprinciple of ONr country. That princi­pie, upon which we are going tohave to revive this country, is the"Spirit of ' 76," and it' s got to f lowall over the country, Patriotism, sel f ­reliance, and integrit y are not dirtywords .

As I have noted, Mrs. Coney'sCitizens Forum is built around theorganizing of block clubs throughoutthe city. The clubs, Mrs. Coney told me,were start ed in 1964 by people goingdoor to door checking to see that every­one in the community had taken atuberculosis test. The project was ex­panded from there. Most who joinedliked the sense of belonging, and apowerful sense of pride grew from theirparticipation in community betterment.Every resident in the predominantlyN egro areas served by the CitizensForum is given an invitation to join theblock clubs. The theme of every meet­ing is "Believe in yourself, help your­self, be of help to others, be a responsi­ble citizen, earn your rights and free­dom ."

Mrs. Coney told me that she is con­vinced "it will take more than legalequality to solve civil rights problems,"and she "preaches the gospel" of per­sonal pride and individual responsibilityto all who will listen. H er hundreds ofblock clubs have dedicated themselvesto cleaning up their city physically, andmorally, to developin g good deport­ment, manners, language, appea rance,and consideration for others . No wonderthe Indian apolis St ar expressed the viewthat Mrs. Coney's crusade, "may winmore dramatic victories for racial har ­mony than any army of sociologists,pickets and legislators."

No silly do-gooder, Mattie Coneysays, "I believe the right-thinking N egro

AMERICAN OPINION

wants to get dow n off the white man 'slap and walk like a man... . You can'tact like an inferior and. then dema ndrespect as an equal." And, the CitizensForum is a genu ine association for theadvancement of colored people.

Block clubs take on projects likepainting and repair of houses, cleanin gof yards and alleys, repair of fences,planting and maint enance of lawn s.Each April the Citizens Forum sponsorsa "Spruce-Up Campaign" in whichtrucks are sent throughout the com­muni ty to pick up trash. The first year42,000 tons of trash were collected, andlast year 180,000 tons (including ninehu ndred aban done d refrigerators) werecarted out of the cente r city. "C leanli­ness is a matter of pride," maintainsMrs. Coney, "and must be taught. Sincewe have so many people who have beensteeped in undisciplined Welfare livingfor so long, it is simply a matte r ofeducation to overcome bad habits ."

As par t of its "good neighbor pro­gram," Citizens Forum urges rentersto protect property, because "destructivetena nts mean higher rents." MattieConey also has a solution for the "ratproblem ," which is more effective andmuch cheape r tha n the multi-milliondollar federal scheme. H er solut ion :"Educate the commun ity out of prideto place its garbage in cans and put atop on their meta l garbage cans to keepout the rats." Of course this is so simpleand so inexpens ive that no "Liberal"could possibly have conceived it. Com­munity rehabilitat ion, she contends,"does not begin wit h money, but withpeople wh o care about themselves. Badneighb orh oods develop because ind ivid­uals fail. Negroes m ust change th eirenviron ment by their own efforts . Andthat hasn't anyt hing to do with who theylive next door to. If I am a sloppy, dirty,noisy, rowd y neighbor in one part oftown, I will be the same in anot herneighborhood. You don't get culture ona moving van ."

MARCH , 1968

Certai nly the strongest factor in thesuccess of the Citizens Foru m programis the dynamic whirlwind energy andforceful personality of its founder, Mat­tie Coney . She doesn't mince any wordseither :

1 am very alarmed about the lackof tencbing of courtesy, discipline,p"llct"a lity and trntb jnlness ill ourschoo ls. I'm 1I0t so interested ill a boyhavillg a M aster's Degree as ill af ellow beillg able to P"t ill a goo dhon est day's wo rk f or a goo d day'spay, and to have som e prid e anddigllit y ill work which yOll call do.1 am interested ill child ren learningto develop th eir potential and learn­illK to recognize th eir limitation ,If?'e are 1I0t all equal because weuieren't all cut out of th e samecookie m iter: bn: ability has nothingto do with race.

1 am interested ill the schoo lsteachin g th at freedom is 1I0t f ree.Y o tt wo rk at it fr om the time yOllare born till the time YOll die . Ourschools have to teach that som eonehas to pay th e bill f or eoerytbing .This idea of expectin g a " GreatW hite Father" to band yOll somethingf or 1I0thing is an economic im possi­bility and bns created a class of ir­responsible Welfare slav es. The ideath at all yOll have to do is satisfy YOllr/?,IIll et, get drun]: and have children,throw them ont onto the communityand someone will care f or th em , mustbe dispelled.

Mrs. Coney is in the process ofattempting to get other communities totry the program she introduced sosuccessfully in Indianapolis, where herefforts are generally credite d withhaving prevented the sort of civil in­surrection that has found its wav tomost of our other metropolitan areasover the last several summers. H erCitizens Forum even mails to interested

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part ies a How To Do It Kit.'*' But noteveryone gets excited about the CitizensFo rum formula for solving personaland community probl ems. Mr. Coney~escribes the reaction of "Liberal" politi­cians:

One y0ll11g man got so entbnsedabottt our program he talked to anumber of people in Washingtonabout it . T hey had all heard of it,bat they said it wasn't the kind ofprogram they could promote inWashington . Th ere wasn't any majorfllnding involved. Th ere wasn't anypolitical power to be gained . . . . thepoliticians can't say to the peopleback home, "Look what I got foryOll, YOlI'd better keep me in of fice."Th e W ar on Poverty in this town isactllally agaillSt our program. T heyfight lIS tooth and nail. Th ey areafraid we'll r« them out of busi­ness. Y OII know what? W e [ustmight.

The mil itants, describing themselvesas "angry young men," say it is too latefor such positive programs as those ofthe Reverend Mitchell and Mrs. Coneyto improve conditions. As a BlackPower fanatic told me recentl y: "T hatkind of program is going to take usa long tim e to get what we want andwe won't wait any longer." When Iasked Matt ie Coney about it she ex­plained that she has no sympathy forN egroes who wallow in self-pity, orthose with a chip on the shoulder whowould rath er loot and hate than workand help . "You mean it's too late topick up debri s out of your own yard? "she asks. "T oo late to put garbage inthe garbage can ? No one is so under­pr ivileged he can't wash his ow n body,learn a little self-discipline and helphimself."

• W ri te : Cit izens Forum, 3211 N orth IllinoisSt reet, In dianapolis, Indiana 462 08 .

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Indianapolis, she maintains, has thou­sands of good jobs that aren' t bein gtak en."There isn't any area in Indianap­olis where a person can't get a goodjob if he is qualified. P robably theseyoung revolutionaries aren' t qu alifiedfor honest work. People don't get posi­tions by hollering and whoop ing andscreaming and lying dow n in the road.They get there by hard wo rk," Matti eConey says.

She believes that the news med ia doN egroes a great disservice in devotin gso much space to the "Black Power/H ate-Whitey crowd." It makes it veryhard , she says, for the good people whoare working to do something positive."It is embarrassing to all hard-workingN egroes. W e are doing the best we can.W e are law abiding. W e do not cramjails. Negroes are all different; we're notall the same. I don't feel good aboutpeople doi ng bad . All we want is to bejudged as individu als. That' s what mostN egroes want." And she adds : "Therevolutionaries getting fat leading therevolt against au thority would still beunkno wn hoodlums an d backwaterpreachers if they had not been publi­cized at every oppo rtunity. A nd notethat at the same tim e they promotedthe haters the 'Liberal' Pr ess did notseek out responsible spokesmen for thetens of mill ions of N egroes with anopposing viewpoint. They didn't dare.We'd have told them decent Negroesare too busy wor king to im prove ourlot to dance about shouting slogans inthe streets."

Like Reverend Mitchell's North Starmovement, Citizens Forum also carrie son an educational public relations pro­gram on behalf of the police, andsupports the local Crime Alert pro­gram. This is one of the great accom­plishments of Citizens Forum, saysMrs. Coney. "For awhile there was akind of protection if N egroes were in­volved and peop le did not cooperatewith the police. That has changed now.

AMERICAN OPINION

If trouble is brewing people giveCitizens Forum a call and they advisethe police. That's why we haven't hadany riots here."

An d Mrs. Coney is the kind of power­ful and "Conservative" American whocalls for "public officials who will nottolerate lawbreakers and disorder, andwho will supp ress crime and violenceregardless of color; and for judges whowill act with speed and vigor to jaildistur bers of the peace." She says shealso feels that "white 'Liberal' bleed­ing hearts" are encouraging crime andviolence instead of steering peopletoward positive solutions to problem s.An d she takes a forthright stand inopposition to Communism and forAmerica :

A merica, yo" r A merica and myA merica, is the last great strengthand hope that is working for the free­doms and dignity of the individllal.I believe in A merica. Th ere is noother conntry that can approach it .

And, that is still tru e precisely becauseof responsible citizens like Mrs. MattieConey and the members of the nearlysix hundred block clubs of her CitizensForu m in Ind ianapolis-Americans all.

IIIWHILE SERVING as an assistant pastor

in a large H arlem church, the Rever­end E. Freeman Yearling began attend­ing meetings of the various BlackSupremacist groups. Garbage, he con­cluded, and went about minding hisown business - the business of JesusChrist.

In the fall of 1966, Fre eman Yearlingwent down to enroll his son in the Mal­verne, Long Island , schools. But localschool officials didn 't want young Year­ling- to attend school in his own town.W hite Supremacist segregationists? N otexactly. It seems that there were al­ready lots of Negroes attending the

MARCH , 1968

local school and the village "Liberals"wanted the boy to go to school in thenext town so that everything would beracially balanced there too. Send myson clear over to the next town to goto school, fumed the minister. That'sabsurd!

"This is a hypocritical 180-degreeswitch from what the 'Civil Rights'people were supposedly fighting for,"the Reverend Yearling explained to meas I visited with him recently. "Theschool desegregation decision of 1954said that school admission should notbe based on color. Now the Negroleaders want to do just that. It is notthe duty of government to legislate peo­ple together or apart, but to protectindividual rights. Using force for suchthings is, to my way of thinking, un­Am erican, un-Constitutional, morallywrong and anti-God. People who havea common mind, common goal, andcommon purpose will automaticallygravitate towards each other."

The Reverend Yearlin g filed a peti­tion to send his son to school in his ownneighborhood and also asked for anopportunity to address the School Board.Before granting the latter request theBoard recommended that Yearling firsttalk to local "Rights leaders." One ofthe local wheels in the "Civil Rights"movement was Lincoln Lynch, a WestIndian wh o looks like he could get in­vited to one of Truman Capote's parties.Lynch, an activist in the Marxist NewPolitics movement and a featuredspeaker in last fall's anniv ersary celebra­tion of the Communist Worker, toldReverend Yearling that he wanted nopart of the American form of govern­ment and was personally a Black Su­premacist. At the time, Freeman Year­ling thought it odd that a Black Su­premacist should be working so fer­vently for "racially balan ced" schools,but he was learning about the mentalityof the Far Left in a hurry.

The local "Rights leaders" tried to

37

convince Reverend Yearling that itwould be better to bus Negro childrento other schools even if the local schoolswere better. "They were willing to givetheir children an inferior education forno other reason than to balance theraces," Yearling told AMERICAN OPIN­ION, shaking his head in concern.

Speaking at the next School Boardmeeting, the embattled minister ex­plained to the Board and an audienceof interested citizens that once you givethe government the power and authorityto assign people, it could inevitably usethis authority beyond the classroom,even to the point of assigning Americansto jobs, communities, and even homes.School busing, he explained, "is a care­fully contrived gimmick to control peo­ple," and "it doesn't make any differencewhether you call it planning, socialism,Communism, or whatever-once peopleare assigned by the government as itsees fit, they have no freedom."

Some of the local "idealists" and"humanitarians" became a trifle hysteri­cal about all of this and it apparentlycaused dreadful cases of insomnia be­cause Reverend Yearling began to gethate calls well into the early hours ofthe morning. In fact, so unglued werethe battlers for "freedom, justice andequality" (as they say in S.N.C.C.)that this man of God and his familysoon had to have police protection.There were death threats, his home wasegged by Black Power fanatics, a brickwas hurled through the picture windowof his living room, narrowly missinghis small son. The Reverend Yearling'semployer, the Metropolitan BaptistChurch of Harlem, didn't prove to betoo tolerant of dissent either. No soonerhad he begun to speak out against Com­munists in the "Civil Rights" movementthan they fired him. The Pastor ex­plained in writing, as demanded byYearling, that "the Church stands be­hind Martin Luther King" and thosein his movement - and therefore

38

the anti-Communist Yearling had to go.The Reverend E. Freeman Yearling

is made of stern stuff and is not thetype to crawl away and hide in AdamClayton Powell's watermelon patch. Infact he proceeded to challenge Powellin the special election for the HarlemDemocrat's Congressional seat. Yearlingsays he felt there ought to be one Negroin the race just to make sure it wasracially balanced. Powell, the whitestNegro since the White Knight rode hissteed through Harlem, "squeaked by"with about eighty percent or so of thevote in what will go down as one ofhistory's more cogent arguments againstuniversal suffrage. Again, the ReverendYearling was harassed by movinghordes of Leftists, burned in effigy, andhis posters vandalized - this time byan organized group whose attitudesmay be judged by their prominent par­ticipation in the Communists' massiveApril 1967 pro-Vietcong rally in NewYork .

Undaunted, Yearling continued tofight and was elected to his local SchoolBoard, joined The John Birch Society,and formed the thousand-member Na­tional Negro Congress of Racial Pride-a new national anti-Communist organ­ization emphasizing free choice andinidvidual responsibility.

The Reverend Yearling believes thatmost Americans, Negroes especially, are"Conservative." "Look at this country,"he says. "These cities were not broughtdown out of the skies by angels . TheAmerican people worked and builtthem . Everywhere you look you see itis the Free Enterprise system that hasbrought us everything we have. Ameri­cans know it, and so the vast majorityof Americans are 'Conservative.' I havealways known that. My grandfather,who died at the age of 110, had been aslave, but acquired eighty acres of land.He was his own boss, had his ownquarry and his own livestock. This wasthe Free Enterprise system, and I was

AMERICAN OPINION

brought up to appreciate and revere it."Like the other "Conservative" Negro

leaders we interviewed, the ReverendYearl ing believes the "Civil Rights"leaders and their white "Liberal" campfollowers have done far more harmthan good because they have aimed theNegro people in exactly the wrong di­rection. Yearling contends:

Th ey have told all P OOl', and espe­cially N egroes, to depend upon thegovernment . The y have led peopleto believe that somehow integrationwould solve problems. I don't agreewith that. It insults the dignity andint egrity of our people. It destroysthat numb er-one thing we call pride.People who don't have pride inthemselves don't have pride in any­thing else. "Civil Rights" people andwhite "Liberals" are doing greatharm and are doing more to destroythan to build up . I think, given anopportunity, anyone can make it . Mygrandfather did and he had far lesseducation and opportunity than allof our people do today. H e uiasn'teven a high school drop-in, muchless a drop-out.

Point ing to Harlem as a case in point,the Reverend Yearling maintains that iflegislated equality and the W elfareState really solved problems, then thatarea should be a veritable paradise.There they have voting rights, "Ci vilRights," their own elected officials andnine thousand laws threatening every­thin g but the death penalt y for discrim­ination . Still Harlem, says Yearling, ismora lly the most depraved place he hasever seen, a showcase of evil, de­bauchery, and corruption . "Yet," hepoints out , "the 'Civil Rights' peoplecome there to recrui t people to go downSouth to straighten out problems downthere, ignoring the filth in their ownbackyards. T hat kind of thing makessense only to revolutionaries!"

MARCH, 1968

Getting back to what he calls "Whiteythe Lib," Reverend Yearling noted thatthe City of New York helped create theslum in H arlem thro ugh rent controlswhich brought about over-crowding andrun-down housing, and now the poli­ticians and bureaucrats claim they musthave more powers to alleviate the prob­lem just like they do in D etroit, Chicago,or Watts. The "Civil Rights" people, heexplained, compound the problem ­by screaming "police brutality," andthen encouraging lawlessness; by de­manding improved economic condi­tions, and then burning down what hasbeen built up ; by calling for qualityeducation, then boycotting schools; bycrying for better jobs, then causing un­employment by dema nding fantasticwages and destroyi ng the attitudes thatmake for good workmen.

A cornerstone of the National N egroCongress of Racial Pride is "to exposeand eradicate Communist activitythroughout the United States, especiallyamong ethnic minorities." E. F reemanYearling believes the "Civil Rights"movement is an attempt to use theNegro, "to take away from us all thoserights with which we were endowed byGod-under the pretense of helping us.Communist agitators are using theN egro to further their own ends and toenslave us all."

The Reverend Yearling is a practicalscholar (Non-Sectarian Bible College,W estern Baptist Theological Seminary,American Baptist Theological Semi­nary) who believes that education is acontin uing process. After a great dealof study, he has concluded that we arenot really witnessing a Black Revolu­tion in America. The "Liberals" andthe Communists, he says, are simplyusing black faces (like Martin LutherKin g and Stokely Carmichael, whomYearling describes as "prostitutes paidto do a job") to give the Revolutioncoloring and to make it appear that ithas something to do with helping the

39

I American Negro. "It is," the scholarly,outspoken minister says, "their programto identify themselves with the legiti­mate aspirations and legitimate com­plaints of people they would enslave :

Y OII see, it is a legitimate aspira­tion of N egroes, as with all Ameri­cans, to own and succeed in theirown businesses. Stokely Carmichaeltalks abont businesses owned byN egroes, but how can' yOll impro veYOllr economic level by bllrning downwhat individual N egroes, workinghard and acting sensibly, havegained? It turns out that the reuolu­tionaries aren't interested in improv­ing 0 111' lot at all, but we are beingused to terrify and prepare the Ameri­can people for guerrilla warfare inthe streets. Kin g has stated that onlyMarxism has the revolutionary spirit .Okay. H e's made it quit e clear wherehe stands.

The strategy of the Communists,Yearl ing believes, is to unite the non­white Am ericans against the whites andthereby bring on the final holocaust outof which they expect to emerge thevictors. In the end Negroes will be en­slaved along with everyone else. Fromhis attendance at Black Nationalistmeetings, and his thorough study oftheir literature, Yearling is convincedthat they couldn't be so confident unlessthey kno w they are being protectedfrom the top by men in our own gov­ernment. "No other conclusion meetsa test of reasonableness," says the min­ister:

I have heard it discussed again andagain by the Black Supremacists.Th eil' aim is to make it appeal' as ifthe Negroes are a nation within anation and that this is one nationfightin g another. That way they canbring the U.N. into the situation. Ithink men at the top of our govern-

40

ment are lettin g this go on as an ex­CIIse to build their own power in thiscountry, L.B.J. says he knows what'scaflJillg insurrection in Vietnam, buthe doesn't know what's carISing ithere. It's all Pal·t of the same war.N egroes are being used to create acrisis and the crisis is an excuse tor« up a dictatorship .

Still, he says, there are serious signsthat Am ericans are awakening to whatis happening - and he plans to be apart of the patriotic renaissance. E. Free­man Yearling is a man with a mission.As I write, his National N egro Con­gress of Racial Pride (931 Orlando Ave­nue, Lakeview; West H empstead, NewYork) is growing rapidly throughoutthe country, and the Reverend Yearlingis meeting a national speaking sched­ule that would shatter a Sampson. "TheWinds of Change," he says, "are at lastmoving in the direction of sanity.Americans - of all races and tempera­ments - are awakening !"

Coun t us among those who are con­vinced that he is right.

* * *T HESE THEN are a few of the Negro

Americans working with the millionsupon million s of their decent , patrioticbrothers to build a better America. Ifit were not for the racist att itudes of the"Liberal" Press, their story would notseem at all isolated. Today they donot rate feature stories in the massmagazines , grants from the Ford Foun­dation, or attention on national tele­vision. They are the Forgotten Men ­the "Conservative" majority. They arehonorable, morally straight, creativecitizens working to build a betterAm erica. They say the word Negro witha fierce self-respect - and they deserveto. But they pronounce the word Amer­ican with a transcending pride and love- and they make us ever thankful to abenevolent God that we're Americanstoo.••

AMBRICAN OPINION