"WhyDidn'tTheyHitB k'"ac .

by JHAN and JUNE ROBBINS

"Why Didn't They Hit Back?" which we reprint from the July, 1963,issue of REDBOOK,is the moving story of how one young person wasinfluenced by CORE's philosophy and practice of non-violent resist-ance to segregation and its evils. It is also an account of the liberatingimpact of an idea on a life that had been shackled by lack of under-standing, dullness and frustration.

Our thanks to REDBOOKand the authors.

JAMESFARMER,National Director, CORE

On a cold, rainy winter eveningin January, 1962, the John Dick-erson family of Cambridge, Mary-land, had just finished dinnerwhen 20-year-old Joe Dickersonsaid to his brother Eddie, twoyears older, "I'm going over toEaston tonight. I hear .[:iomeNorthern nigger-lovers are goingto get beat up. Want to comealong?"

Eddie Dickerson told us recent-ly in New York. "You have tounderstand how boring life in asmall town is. There ain't muchto do and nowhere to go."

Cambridge has a population of13,500 - 8,800 whites and 4,700Negroes. It lies along the brack-ish Choptank River in DorchesterCounty, on the Eastern Shore,and was once the home of sharp-shooter Annie Oakley. On one ofits wharves a 72-pound, world-record-breaking- drurnfish waslanded. Otherwise it is undistin-guished. Although there are anumber of small factories, it isstill largely a rural area. Thereare rolling fields, orchards, saltmarshes and sandy shores, deerand wildfowl.

Eddie Dickerson was born andgrew up there. He is the eighth often children. His father is a brick-layer and is considered a topcraftsman in his community. Fourof the seven Dickerson boys alsoare bricklayers. Bill, 39, the oldestserved in the regular Army andis now a salesman in Miami. Clem,27, works for an Oklahoma oil

company. One daughter is mar-ried to a mechanic, another to atelevision repairman. The young-est, Judy, 17, is still in school.

Eddie left school at 16. He be-gan training as a plumber's help-er, decided he didn't like the workand for the next four years drift-ed in and out of a series of oddjobs. He is six feet one, rangy,hard-muscled and restless.

"Sometimes in Cambridge youget to feeling like you're going toexplode," Eddie said. "So you picka fight with somebody. Almostanybody. You slug him. He slugsyou. There is some blood and lotsof yelling. After it's over you feelbetter. Nobody ever talked to menone about Saturday-night fight-ing being right or wrong. It's kindof like exercise. Sometimes youeven fight your best friend. Butyou have to have an excuse. May-be the person you pick a fight withtried to make time with your gir'l.Maybe he has a hot rod that triedto pass your car. This time theexcuse was that a bunch of whitenigger-lovers and some niggerswere picketing a restaurant. Theywere trying to claim that blackand white should sit down to eattogether. They were outsiders.They were trying to interferewith our Southern way of life.That was enough. I changed myclothes. I put on my new red shirt,my black pegged pants, my three-quarter-legged kicking boots, myleather jacket-and I put a pairof brass knuckles into my pocket-I said, 'Okay, let's go!' "

The demonstration in Easton thatnight was part of a mid-Atlantic Statesdrive by CORE-Congress of RacialEquality-a nationally organized groupthat conducts demonstrations againstracial discrimination. The group hasbeen active in the lunch-counter sit-ins,the Freedom Rides, and the picketingto call attention to the lack of oppor-tunity for Negroes in radio and tele-vision. Two years ago CORE decided tomove against restaurants located on andnear U.S. Route 40, a main highwayon the way to Washington, D.C. SomeAfrican delegates to the United Nationshad been refused service, and the inci-dents had called attention to inequitiesin the whole Washington-Marylandarea.

J ames Farmer, CORE's national di-rector, said, "During the weeks we werethinking about this campaign, CORErepresentatives stood outside restau-rants. They saw white customers go inwho were sloppily dressed. The menwere often unshaven, wearing sportsshirts without ties. The women andgirls were wearing shorts, even at din-ner. Yet respectably dressed Negroeswere turned away.

"We decided we would bring these ir-rational inequalities to national atten-tion."

Early in January a CORE task forceof 10 Negroes and 20 whites moved intoDorchester County in the vicinity ofEaston, Maryland. They had 14 restau-rants to covel' and they knew theremight be trouble.

CORE is devoted to nonviolence.Members a re pledged and trained notto fight back if attacked. They are dutybound to give opponents advance noticeof their intentions. Accordingly theywrote letters to the owners of theEaston restaurants and to the local lawauthorities stating the time and placeof their arrival and what they intendedto do.

Bill Hansen, a college student fromCincinnati who accompanied the group,said, "It was very simple. We sent inone or two white demonstrators. If theywere seated, we sent in a mixed pair-one white and one colored-to the res-taurant. If they were seated, we senttwo Negroes-or four-within a fewminutes. Of the fourteen restaurantswe tested, eight--including an exclusiveand expensive place called the Tide-water Inn - courteously seated andserved us. Six refused us and we estab-lished picket lines in front of them.

"As dusk fell kids got out of the localhigh school and men returned fromwork Many of them gathered to jeer,whistle and call us names. Pretty soonthey started shoving us around. Theyknocked the picket signs out of ourhands, spit on us or stuck out their legsto trip us.

"Then the rough stuff started. A bigfellow wearing a red shirt and a blackleather jacket stepped in front of meand slapped me in the face. I stfggeredsideways a few paces, then resu ried my

place in the line and kept on walking."A few seconds later this same fellow

started punching me, and other guyswaded into the rest of the line. It didn'tlast long. The police moved in. Theywere state troopers, and although therewere no arrests that night, I want tosay they did a good job. One of themeven apologized, saying, 'They're abunch of young punks. They're out fora good time. This is their idea of fun!'He offered me a box of adhesive band-ages. I managed to laugh and said,

"No thanks-we brought Our own.'"Eddie Dickerson told us, "You know,

where I grew up it was considered fairsport to catch us a colored boy all aloneand slap him or kick him or call himnames-anything to scare him and makehim run. We'd give him a fail' start.Then me and my pals would take afterhim-down an alley, over a fence, any-where at all. If we caught him, we'dbeat him up. But mostly he got away.It was a kind of a game. Sometimes thebigger colored kids would come over toour territory and challenge us. If youtrapped and caught one of those boys,it was something to brag about."

It has been charged that responsiblemembers of the white community inEaston paid some. money into a strong-arm fund that was distributed amongwhite delinquents. Eddie Dickerson hadbeeh in trouble with the law on a num-ber of occasions - speeding, streetbrawling, possessing a pistol withouta permit, intoxication and punching apolice officer, all were on his record.But he firmly denies ever having re-ceived any money from anyone in con-nection with the CORE demonstrations.

"I did hear talk that you could get asmuch as three hundred dollars for beat-ing up a CORE officer," he told us. "ButI thought it was a joke. You don't makethree hundred bucks that easy."

Young Dickerson and his brotherstarted for home when they heardpolice sirens. "We were driving backto Cambridge, talking it up and laugh-ing," Eddie recalls. "I said, 'Boy, I hitthis one guy in that line as hard asI ever hit anyone in my whole life. Ithink I busted my hand doing it! I for-got to use my brass l<.:nuckles!'"

It was raining harder as the carspeeded and jolted back towardCambridge. "For some reason I couldn'tstop thinking about those men I'd slug-ged," Eddie told us. "Why didn't theyhit me back? Were they yellow or some-thing'? There were guys just as big asme. And even the little guys lookedtough. What was going on? Why thehell didn't they get mad and hit back?"

Dickerson says he brought up thesubject once 01' twice on the ride homeand was met with shrug's or unsatis-factory answers. Eight and a half milesout of town, he asked to be let out onthe road.

"My brother Joe thought I wanted torelieve myself," he told us. "But insteadof going back into the bushes, I startedwalking along the road the way we'd

come. I told Joe I' was going back toEaston to ask those guys why theyhadn't hit me back. Joe said I was plaincrazy. He gunned up the car and droveaway. I knew those CORE guys werestaying in a church in Easton. I headedfor it."

Bill Hansen, sitting in the churchwith the other picketers, soaking hisbruises and talking about what hadhappened, recalls Dickerson's entrance."There was a knock on the ·door," Han-sen says, "and I opened it. There was ayoung fellow on the doorstep. He waskind of purple-nosed with cold and rain-water was running off his head andneck. He said, 'I, reckon you don'tknow me.'

"I said, 'Yeah, you're the one whobeat me up a' couple hours ago.' Hewalked across the sill. I honestly didn'tknow what to expect. I thought maybea bunch of guys might charge us whenI swung open the door, and wreck theplace. But instead there was just thisone fellow. He sat down on his heels,like he wa s squatting at a campfire.He looked up at us, standing around,and he didn't say anything for a while.Then he said, 'I want to know what'sgoing on. I hit you and you didn't hitme. I came back here by myself. Youcould mob me now and really poundinto me, but you don't. Why not?' "

Hansen told us, "I didn't know justwhat we had hold of. He could havebeen a White Citizens Council plant,a stool pigeon. In that case it was agreat chance to show him that we arenot a conspiratorial group and havenothing to hide. Or he could have beensome kind of pathetic nut, in whichcase he needed any kindness and charitywe could show him. But we decided hewas just a fairly decent, naive sort ofperson, who wanted some simple an-swers. So I said to him, "Well, you'rehere. That's the reason. We want toreach people and make them under-stand.' "

Dickerson asked curiously, "Whyshould colored and white eat together?We don't want it and they don't wantit. Who in hell do you guys think youare, coming down to force it UIl L1O;7You come down here and ask for troubleand boy, you get it!"

Hansen said, "We didn't hit you backbecause we aren't angry with you. Wedon't believe in violence. Fists andknives and guns have never reallysolved any human problem. We honestlythink that love can overcome hate. It'sa stupid drawback to this country tohave ten pel' cent of the populationdenied equality of opportunity. It's adrag on all the rest of us-prejudicecosts us money." ...

"Finally I wound up," says Hansen,"by pointing out that most of the worldis colored-that whites are really theminority. Supreme today, yes-but howabout tomorrow?

"When he got up to leave, it wasnearly three A.M. We were all ex-hausted, but it was 0UI' impression that

Dickerson was a completely sincere per-son-uneducated, certainly, but with agood mind and lots of curiosity. Wetold him we were going to Cambridgeto spend the night with the St. Clairs,a .Negro family. We offered him a ridehome and he took it."

Ed Dickerson recalls that he didn'tdo much more thinking that night. "Assoon as I hit the sack I fell asleep," hesays. "But in the morning my brotherJoe shook me awake and asked me whathappened. I said, 'They ain't such badguys.' And he said, 'You're nuts! Youreally are crazy!'

"A lot of times my brothers have saidI am crazy. It hurts my feel ing's, but Itry not to think about it. I know theymean well. We fight a lot, but we area pretty close kind of family. My fatherand mother are real decent people inlots of ways and they did the best theyknew to make us kids good. In someways they were strict, but not all thetime. They taught us to stand by eachother and Pop would show us how totake on some guy who was ,gettingornery. He always said to us, "Boys,remember that if youre bigger thanthe other guy, hit him! If he's biggerthan you are, run like hell!" I'll saythis for my father-he could take careof himself. He was plenty strong.

"I guess I had a pretty good timewhen I was growing up. I don't thinkI ever had a real enemy, even though Iprided myself on being so tough. I'monly afraid of two things-heights andbumblebees.

"A week after the Easton rumblethose CORE people started in on Cam-bridge. They threw up picket Jines infront of some restaurants down onRace Street, our main drag. I didn't goright away down to see them, but Iheard there was a man-size fight anda lot of arrests.

"The next day I got up, dressed niceand went down to the courthouse to seewhat was going to happen. There musthave been twenty of them picketerscharged with disturbing the peace,loitering and obstructing traffic. Thejudge fined some and sent some to jail.It mane me mad because I knew 'whomust have really started the fight. Ifthere's anything' I don't like, it's aphony pinch. I walked over and shookhands with one of the CORE people.He was colored. A deputy or somebodymoved up behind me and grabbed myarm. He broke the grip-he damn nearbroke my elbow-and he yelled, 'Letgo! You're nuts, shaking hands with anigger.'

"I don't like nobody to push mearound. I don't really know what gotinto me, but I said, "So what? He's myfriend.' I could hear people around mestart talking. I got out of the court-house and I walked around outside oftown for a couple of hours. I kept think-ing real hard. I asked myself how comewhite people ever got the idea theyowned the whole world and ho whitesgot to be boss of everything? Was it

Eddie Dickerson

somewhere in the Bible? I didn't thinkso.

"When I got home my father waswaiting for me and with him was threeof my brothers. I kind of knew the newswould have spread to them. They said Iwas a plain disgrace to the whole fam-ily. Then they pushed me through thedoor into the yard.

"Somebody yelled, 'Get out and stayout!'

"I hollered back, 'I want my clothesand all the other stuff lawn!' A coupleof minutes later a suitcase came flyingout. They had put in some shirts andunderwear and my boots, but they keptmy Sunday suit and my hunting rifle.I sure hated to leave that rifle behind.

"I hung around a little while longer.I was hoping to see my mother. I knewshe was somewheres in the house. Butfinally I picked up the suitcase andwalked on down the street. I was somad I couldn't see straight."

Eddie's first thought was to thumb aride to Baltimore, where he had friendswho might give him a job. "By thetime I got a few blocks from the house,I cooled down some," he recalls. "Theidea that I had been th rown out of myown house and might never see my fam-ily again was pretty awful. Maybe if Iwent away for a while and then cameback, they would forget all about it.But why did I do it in the first place?Just for the fun of st.iiiing up trouble?All that stuff Hansen said to me in, thechurch that night suddenly seemed tocome back to me, and it sounded right.If this segregation stuff was wrong,there was an awful lot of work to dobefore it was going to end. I'd showmy family a thing or two, and anyway,these guys needed all the help theycould get. Suddenly from feeling miser-able I felt pretty good. For the firsttime in my life I had a-hold of an ideathat seemed important. I knew I justhad to find out more about it."

Dickerson walked to the house of the

St. Clairs, the Negro family who, heknew, had offered hospitality to CORE.He told them that he was experiencinga change of heart and a change' of con-science on the race question and heasked them to let him stay with themwhile he did some more thinking aboutit.

He told us simply, "They didn't askme 'for board money. They didn't quizme. They just took a chance on me."

Herbert St. Clair is a 59-year-old un-dertaker, respected and prosperous. Heand his wife Ruth and a married sonwho lives with them welcomed Dicker-son. All, however, were apprehensive.

Within a few hours there were annoy-mous telephone calls that threatenedthe St. Clair family with time bombsand lynch mobs.

Eddie said, "I knew there were twokinds of law in the county-one forwhite and one for colored. When I wasa kid there was lynch law in ru ralMaryland. Once my father took me andmy brothers to a spot where there hadbeen a lynching the night before. Theyhad cut down the body, but the ropewas still swinging. Pop said, 'Well,you see, that's what happens.' Nowa-days nobody gets lynched. Colored peo-ple who make trouble just disappear

.in thin air. People say they wentNorth. But everybody knows what real-ly happens-they get taken out anddrowned. There is a strong tide in thebay."

Herbert St. Clair is vice-president ofthe local chapter of the NAACP, but heis not completely committed to the non-violent viewpoint of CORE. He and hisSOil and half a dozen neighbors stoodround-the-clockguard duty with loadedshotguns. At their insistence, policewatched the house for ten days. Oneevening a car drove slowly past anda single rifle shot was fired at thewindows.

Dickerson occasionally ventured outto do odd jobs in the segregated neigh-borhood. Once he went to a roller-skating r-ink, hoping to see some oldf'iiends,

"I saw them," he recalls. "I wastripped, pushed and they spit on me.I doubled up my fists and got ready toslug it out, and then I thought, Oh,what's the use? and I left."

A few days later Eddie heard rumorsthat a movement was under way to havehim committed to a state mental institu-tion.

"I bet they damn well could do it,too," he told us wryly. "I was the dumb-est kid in my class. I had a hard timegetting through ninth grade. And Iguess what I was doing' seemed crazyenough to most people in Cambridge.I decided to leave town. I didn't wantto get buried in no Shake pit."

He went to Baltimore, obtained aninterview with CORE organizers andwas assigned to distribute literature toqualified Negro voters and encouragethem to register.

He said, "Again I was housed by a

Icolored family. But by this time, youknow, I hardly paid attention to whowas colored and who wasn't. It didn'tseem to matter so much. I was workingpretty hard. I had a part-time job as adishwasher in a local dine!". I camehome late at night to a nice, peacefulhousehold-the people were more relig-iOLlSand more polite than any whitefamily I knew-and there was a cleanhouse and a clean bed."There was a lot of books in the

house, and I started to read. I reaelpretty slow, but I wanted to know moreabout what I was mixed up in. I reada pamphlet on anthropology. I'd nevereven heard the word before. I read abiography of Ghandi. I tried to read abook on economics but I didn't knowwhat most of the words meant."Eddie learned that two men were

making inquiries about him, with par-ticular regard to his mental health. Hetold us, "I got scar-ed. I decided I betterget out of the State of Marylandpronto ... "A few weeks later the CORE cam-

paign in Albany, Georgia, began. Itwas an ambitious undertaking, broaderin scope than the Freedom Rides andlunch-counter sit-ins that preceded it.The organization aimed to negotiatewith town a.uth orit.ies an across-the-board agreement to desegregate all pub-lic facilities on a planned time scheduleover a period of years. The mayor andother law-enforcement officials refusedto discuss the matter, and failed evento reply to repeated letters requestinga conference. CORE set up placard-carrying, hymn-singing picket lines ~IIover town and asked for volunteers toman them. Eddie Dickerson responded.He said, "I'd earned about forty ddl-

lais cutting lawns, painting, and haul-ing t.iash. I figured it was enough Fopay my bus fare to Albany and keepme in food and smokes tor a week orso. I needn't have woriied. I was inAlbany only thirteen hOUl'S when theyarrested our whole picket line andtossed us in jail."The cops handled me pretty rough

and they made me mad. They shovedme in a cel! and practically slammedthe door on my hands. I doubled up myfist and pounded on the bars and cussedall the swear words I ever knew."A voice behind me said, 'Okay, now

you feel better. Sit down and take iteasy.' I turned around and saw a thin,dark-haired guy with glasses, a dirtybeard, and a bruise under his right eye.It was Marvin Rich, a CORE director.I sat down next to him on a filthy bunkbed, There were foul' other guys in thecell. One of them was also a COREmember - Fred Gardiner, a studentfrom Iowa. The other three were drunks01' local stumblebums.On the morning of the third day Mar-

vin Rich was released. Eddie appearedto be ill. He sat on his bunk, saying fewwords."1 guess maybe 1 had the I flu," he

told us, "I felt awful. I couldft eat. I

think I was running a high fever,Gardiner kept saying I should ask fora doctor, but I said, 'No, I ain't goingto ask them for anything!""The parade of drunks and bums

went in and out of our cell and thecops kept making remarks to egg themon to beat us up. They even kind ofsaid the judge might go soft on themif they did."Finally one beefy, bleary-eyed guy

took them up on it. He tripped me. Igot up and automatically pushed him.He fell down. I turned my back. Hejumped me from behind, He reallyworked me over good. I stayed non-violent, but I had to jam my fists inmy pockets to do it. Another of theprisoners joined in. They kicked me inthe kidneys, and it hurt so much Icursed at them at the top of my voice,but nobody came to see what washappening,"Later I learned that Bill Hansen,

who was put across the str-eet in anotherjailhouse, was beaten up at almost thesame time. They broke th ree of hisribs and fractured his jaw."Imprisoned across the aisle from

Dickerson was another cell load ofprisoners, all Negro. Among them werethe Reverend Ralph Abernathy, Dicker-son remembers that the Negroes sangand had vigorous prayer services."The Reverend Abernathy seemed to

do most of the prayer-leading," Dicker-son told us. "You know, I never remem-ber hearing Martin Luther King's voice.I was disappointed. I thought he wouldbe a powerful preacher, But maybe hewas just sick and tired like I was ... ,"I tried to memorize the songs, I

knew most of the tunes. I've alwaysliked music. Sometimes I'd sing along.There was one to the tune of 'I-Iallelu-jah, I'm a Bum.' It went 'Hallelujah,I'm traveJin', hallelujah, ain't it fine?Hallelujah, I'm travelin", down f ree-dom's main line!" , , ,At the end of six days Dickerson was

let out. He was refer-red to the home ofa local CORE sympathizer, and, he says,spent an hou r submerged in a tub ofhot water, scrubbing' himself with afloor brush ancl yellow soap. The follow-ing day he took a bus for New Yorkand there told James Farmer that hewanted to work full time for theorganization.F'ar-mer, a well-educated, aiticul ate

man, says, "I wanted to help Eddie. Iknew that people in his community re-garded him as a moron 01' worse. But Ifelt that there was a lot more to himthan anyone had yet seen. The fellow-ship and acceptance he had experiencedin CORE-even the jail term-had beenpsychologically good for him, He wasbeginning to realize that there areimportant ideas loose in the world andthat working to make this country abetter place to live in is exciting-moreso than just beating up somebody onSaturday night."Farmer gave Dickerson a tiresome,

undramatic job in New YOl'].::CORE

headquarters, I-Ie changed typewriterribbons, sharpened pencils, sorted andfiled letters and pamphlets, He waspaid $25 pel' week. It enabled him tolive at the Y.IVLC.A., with almost noth-ing left over for social recreation. Hesaid it didn't matter. He read a greatdeal."I never saw nothing like the New

York public libraries," he says almostreverently. "There was a book abouteverything I ever heard of. I was read-ing modern political and economic his-tory, and I can tell you it was slowgoing. I went to night lectures in non-violent techniques."When I heard that a CORE task

force was getting ready to go to Dur-ham, North Carolina, I asked if I couldbe counted in. Mr. Farmer talked to meabout five hours and then he said Icould go."I was in Durham three days. I got

very nervous waiting for something tohappen. It would have been kind of arel ief if it did. Meanwhile we kept onwith the nonviolent drill."In one drill session they asked me,

'If someone puts a lighted cigaretteagainst YOUl'neck, will you remain non-violent in your body and spirit?' I saidI thought I could. Then they said, 'Whatif you're with a woman and someonesets fire to her hair like they did to theGreensboro sit-ins? What will you do?'"Up in New York I had one answer.

But down South I began to feel differ-ent. I realized I didn't really dig thisnon-violence thing yet. If you're aSouthern boy, you learn early to fightto protect women. Once my father andmy brothers and me jumped out of ourcar and stopped a man from beating upa colored woman, It seemed to me thatif CORE is an army, they should keepwomen out of the front lines."I couldn't be su ie that I wouldn't

hit back to protect a woman, so I apolo-gized to all the members of the Durhamgroup and went back to New York."CORE directors did not reproach him,

They put him back to work at his office-boy job. A few weeks later he was putin charge of a picket line in New YorkCity that was demonstrating ag'ainst-anational restaurant chain. There, Eddietold us, he fell in love with a prettycollege girl who volunteered to help."Her family was POOl',like mine," he

said. "She was good-looking, she had agood shape and she was very smart. Iriev er dated a college girl before. And Irealized she admired me. I kind of likedmyself, I was a full-time CORE worker,a captain on the picket line."Dicker-son wrote a poem for his new

girl. .. He said ruefully, "She read itand she started to correct the spelling.I knew then we'd never make it. Aftera while I stopped seeing her,"Just before Christmas, Eddie received

a letter from his mother asking re-proachfully why he had stayed awayso long. She told him about th •• 50 rela-tives who had gathered for Thanks-giving', and, he said, it made him home-

sick. He went back to Cambridge forthe weekend."My father and my brothers let me

in the door, but it wasn't exactly ahappy reunion," he reported. "I spentthe whole time arguing. My father saidhe'd rather see his family dead thansee Negroes and whites mixing in Mary-land. They all wanted to know howmuch I was getting paid and theythought I was lying when I told themit was only twenty-five dollars. Lots ofSoutherners think CORE and theNAACP are financed by Catholic andJewish millionaires."There were no physical fights."I could easily have got into a scrap

or two," he said, "but I didn't. I real-ized that I caused a lot of those rows-I had talked back to my father just toprove I was big enough to get awaywith it. Now I suddenly felt big enoughnot to have to do it. I spent a lot oftime talking to Judy, my sister. I toldher I felt the work I was in was themost important thing in the world andI was educating myself so I could makeit my lifework. She didn't say much,but she listened."Eddie Dickerson had talked to us in

New York. Af tor we heard his story wetold him that we would like to visitCambridge. We wanted to talk to rela-tives and neighbors who had witnessedhis abrupt change of heart."You don't think I'm conning you, do

you?" he asked anxiously. We assuredhim that we did not. We said it seemedimportant to understand all the emo-tional and intellectual factors that hadinfluenced him. He agreed."I don't understand myself how it all

happened," he said. "I know that some-thing must have prepared the way, be-cause when these ideas were explainedto me, it was like I'd been waiting tohear them all my life. Well, good luck.Take care."Certainly the town where a child is

born and grows to manhood helps makehim whatever he becomes. Cambridge,however, is unsuited to pave the wayfor radical changes. In 1960, 15.2 per-cent of the labor force was unemployed,compared to 4.8 per cent in the stateas a whole. Only 3 per cent of the popu-lation of the age of 25 or over is college-trained, and only 28.7 per cent has com-pleted high school, contrasted with thestate-wide figure of 41.7 per cent. Schoolintegration is spoken of as "successful,"but at present only two Negroes attenda formerly all-white school.The town appears to lack both eco-

nomic strength and intellectual leader-ship-a dual handicap that may help toexplain the fact that the median familyincome in the area for the year 1959was $3,233, compared to a state-widefigure of $5,417.We visted the offices of the Cam-

bridge Daily Banner, and viewed onmicrofilm the news coverage of theCORE picketing and arrests. It ap-peared to us that events were fu~y andimpartially reported. Maurice rimpo,

a Banner newswriter, drew our atten-tion to two editorials that, he said,represented the viewpoints of the in-fluential town moderates. They were asfollows:"Perhaps Cambridge has not been

making fast enough strides to satisfythe wishes of those outsiders who haveno real or lasting interest in the com-munity's welfare. But this communityhas made measurable progress in bi-racial matters in the past decades,progress CORE and the others maynot be aware of.... ""The good will of the people of

Dorchester County is under severe testas a result of the efforts of Baltimore-based integrationists to try to forceovernight integration of Cambridge.... Dorchester-men are proud and inde-pendent. They resent coercion, ultima-tums and the threats of a boycott .... "Herbert St. Clair, the Negro under-

taker who sheltered Eddie Dickersonwhen he first left home, told us he dis-agrees strongly with both editorials."What do you mean by the moderate

viewpoint?" he asked. "You mean thewhite man's moderate viewpoint. Wecolored people are one third of thepopulation down here, but our point ofview means nothing."We don't kid ourselves. It's hard to

believe that Washington, D.C., is onlyseventy-five miles away-we live likethe Deep South. There are parts of theEastern Shore where Negroes still getoff the sidewalk and stand in the gutterwhen a white person walks past. I can'tsee that things are any better here inCambridge today than they were formy father fifty years ago." ...We had no difficulty finding the Dick-

erson home, an unpainted cinder-blockhouse decorated by two red brick col-umns at the front. It is well cared forand comfortably furnished. We foundEddie's father and his brothers Joe andJim and his sister Judy watching a tele-vision Western in the family livingroom.John Dickerson sat in a rocking chair.

Thin strands of gray hair fell over hislined face. His shoulders slumped, yetthe muscles in his arms and chest stilllooked powerful. When he spoke, hisbreath came in weary gasps. When webegan asking questions about Eddie,his face twisted, his eyes grew narrowand his voice sounded irritated."I don't want to talk about him. We

don't agree with anything he is do-ing .... "Eddie's father rose from his rocker

and firmly showed us to the door."What Eddie did was terrible," hesaid. "I'd like to think that somedayhe'll get his senses back. Colored andwhite living side by side as equals justisn't right. They aren't my equals. I'mdead sure of that."John T. Comer, supervisor of pupil

services for Cambridge schools, said,"Eddie was a very poor student. Hewas in a special class for slow pupils.He spent two years in first grade and

two years in second grade. He quitschool in ninth grade."He added, "He was well liked, how-

ever, by both classmates and teachers.He never caused any trouble. If youscolded him, he'd never answer back.Often, on the playground, he'd stick upfor some younger boy who was beingpushed around .... "We talked to a number of young men

and women who had known Eddie asfriend and schoolmate.A pretty young matron pushing a

baby carriage smiled and blushed asshe recalled her high-school friendshipwith Eddie."We girls considered him a good

date," she said. "He was attractive anda lot of fun. He was always willing togo places, and if he had money, hewouldn't hold it back. The way thingsturned out, I'm sure glad I didn't marryhim, but I might have if he'd askedme .... "

A younger boy who told us he wasstill in high school recalled, "Eddie usedto be a hero to me. A. couple of biggerboys started knockirrg me around onceand he chased them off. He was alwayssticking up for somebody. I rememberI heard about how Eddie and anotherboy were fooling around in some richlady's greenhouse and the other boystrippe.d all the flowers off some rare,expensive plant-a rare orchid, I thinkit was. The other kid was already insome kind of jam, so when the ladythat owned the plant started to yell,Eddie took the blame for it."And the other kid wasn't even grate-

ful. Later he stole lli'ddie's knife andsold it. I'"Eddie was determined that his sister

Judy was going to stay good. She'snot the kind. that would go bad anyway,but Eddie was taking no chances. Hewouldn't even let her have any dates.Once a fellow came to call on her andEddie and one of his brothers openedthe door, picked him up and threw himin the river. I sure miss Eddie. I justdon't understand what got intohim ..Cambridge Police Chief Bruce Kinna-

man, however, takes a less charitableview of Eddie. Kinnaman, a vigorous,sharp-eyed police officer, spoke freelyof the tension and difficulties stirred upby the CORE demonstrators."They are lawbreakers," he said

angrily. "They come in here and defyour laws, and when we arrest them,they get down on their knees and startto sing hymns. Or else they stand upand sing 'The Star-Spangled Banner.'It riles me! ... As to Eddie, I've knownhim a long time. I don't see how anygroup of people with their headsscrewed on straight could make a saintout of him. He's the kind of simple-minded nincompoop who will do any-thing anybody tells him. Tell him tocarry a picket sign, he'll carry a sign.Tell him to stick a knife in someone,maybe he'll do that toe. I feel sorry forhis folks, but as fal as this town is

concerned-good riddance."The Reverend Albert Medlock, former

minister of Cambridge's Grace Method-ist Church, sharply disagreed with theconclusions of other local authorities."I know a lot of people in Cambridge

looked down on Eddie as lazy and shift-less because he never settled down toone job. But I think all those years hewas trying to find himself. I consideredhim very bright in many areas. It'strue he didn't have a conventional mind,but he was totally honest--everyoneknows he never lied. His parents aren'tregular churchgoers, but Eddie camevoluntarily to Sunday school and whenhe got old enough he joined the church.He was always interested in moralquestions - what the church teachesabout the relationship of man to man."He was different from his family.

Yet he was willing to sacrifice himself,perhaps to an absurd degree. I marriedEddie and his wife and I baptized theirbaby-T know what I'm talking about."We were startled. We said that Dick-

erson had never mentioned the fact thathe was married. ."I can scarcely blame him; it was 90t

a happy situation," the minister re-plied. "Eddie and his brother were bothdeeply involved with the same girl. Itwas Eddie who married her. I know hehas sent money to support the child.His wife is an intelligent girl and comesfrom a very decent family, but it wasnot a spirtually healthy union - al-though I hoped it might grow to be.I understand that she has gone out of

town to establish residence for a di-vorce."My view of Eddie is that he never

had the chance to develop himself prop-erly. If he was slow and lazy or occa-sionally violent and dissolute, it wasbecause his environment did not pro-vide the proper encouragement for himto become something better."We returned to New York and asked

Dickerson why he had not told us abouthis marriage and his 14-month-old son."I don't know," he said dejectedly,

"I knew you'd find out when you wentdown home, but I guess maybe I hopedthat by not mentioning it, it would goaway and seem like it never happened.We never really wanted to be man andwife. We had agreed to get a divorcebefore I even left town. The little boy ishealthy and strong and a good kid-but I just don't feel like his father.His mother is a nice person and she isyoung and pretty enough to start herlife over. I wish her the he~t of luck. Tguess I was wrong to date other girlswhile I was still married."He asked anxiously what people in

Cambridge had said about him. Wetold him that nearly everyone seemedfond of him but many believed him tobe irresponsible."I know," he said. "Up North here,

people who hear what I've done thinkI'm the greatest .... And down homethey think I belong in the booby hatch.But I'm going to show them that I canamount to something. I'm going to nightschool.

"The CORE people are the only onesI've ever known who treat me withdignity, as if I'm as good as anybody.Even after I slugged them, they be-lieved I was a good guy. And when Ichickened out in Durham, they wereready to trust me again. I appreciatethat. I want to prove myself to them.I don't have any doubts no more. I feelpretty strong that everyone-no matterwhat color skin he has-should haveequal opportunities. God meant it thatway. And it don't make sense to beatthem up so they'll believe it. It has tobe done by nonviolence if it's going towork. ... "Marvin Rich, the CORE official who

shared a jail cell with Eddie in Albany,had the final comment:"I think Eddie was lost before he

came to us. He had nr sense of identity.He didn't know wh~re he was going.Nobody had much use for him, so ofcourse he didn't have much use for him-self. If you don't re'jpect yourself, youhate the world or £Y handy target.That's what made hi so fast with hisfists. When CORE s owed him that aman's strength can be used for spiritualand moral purposes, it straightened himout ..."The tragedy is that there are so

many Eddie Dickers,ons-thousands ofyoung men and women whose lives arewasted. Maybe that's what produces ourbigots. But if we can reach Eddie, Iguess we can hope in time to reachthem all."

THE END

An EpilogueFrom Redboolc, September, 1963

"Why didn't they hit back?" was the question that puzzled EddieDickerson when he slugged those Freedom Riders. It was also the titleof an article in the July REDBOOK that told how young Dickerson laterregretted his action so deeply he joined CORE to help the cause ofracial equali ty. While that story was still on the nowsetands Eddiereturned to his home town, Cambridge, Maryland, for the acid test ofhis conversion. In a press photo, which appeared in papers across thecountry July 9th, he is shown kneeling with others in front of a restau-rant in protest of segregation just as the proprietor slapped a raw eggin his face. The youth bore that and other indignities without strikingback, and now it is the restaurant owner who feels regret. "I'mashamed," he said afterward. "I'll never forget it. It makes me feelvery little, less than a man."

CORECongress of Racial Equality

38 Park Row, New York 38, N. Y. o!eo490