Transcribe
Translate
NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, Fort Madison, Iowa, 1967
Page 002
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
- 2 - "If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure, and, since the entire race has been mysteriously indicted, no reason not to attempt to destroy it root and branch. This is precisely what the Nazis attempted. Their only originality lay in the means they used. It is scarcely worthwhile remembering how many times the sun has looked down on the slaughter of innocents. I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them...Whoever debases others is debasing himself. That is not a mystical statement but a most realistic one - which is proved by the eyes of any Alabama sheriff - and I would not like to see the Negroes ever arrive at so wretched a condition." - James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time Riots have broken in several of the nation's larger cities in their Negro neighborhoods...and for various reasons. We must deplore the fact that such a thing takes place...but the conditions which we allow to exist without doing anything which is constructive and realistic to bring about the changes which would decrease the chances of riots must be deplored, also. Now, there is much talk about the riots and the rioters, while all of the time, it has been proven that poverty, unemployment, inadequate education and discrimination are widespread and growing rapidly in the center of our cities. Those exact conditions may not exist...right here..., but they do exist not far from here, and each and every one of those areas is only a magnified mirror. The people who are living in the ghetto have nothing to lose...or at least they feel this...for, for the most part they are closed in! Granted, gains have been made in the area of poverty, for all...but these gains are very small, and the feeling among most people not affected by the conditions of ghetto living is one of unconcern...in fact, the very existence of these areas is ignored. The ghetto is very much a part of life in these United States...and so is the filth, poverty, unemployment and inadequate housing which make them what they are. We can help if we do nothing more than write to our Congressmen and ask them to stop just making critical comments about the riot torn areas and set up constructive programs which will realistically produce a solution to the existing problems. "Let America make haste! It is considerably later than we think...The conditions of the American Negro is today's bitterest joke about freedom and justice." DO YOU KNOW...the Negro MAYORS in US Cities in 1967? City Flint, Michigan Saginaw, Michigan Springfield, Ohio Ypsilanti, Michigan Population 196,940 34,521 - Negro 98,265 16,550 - Negro 82,723 11,838 - Negro 20,957 4,671 - Negro Mayor Floyd J. McCree Henry G. Marsh Robert E. Henry John H. Burton University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Women's Archives
Saving...
prev
next
- 2 - "If one is permitted to treat any group of people with special disfavor because of their race or the color of their skin, there is no limit to what one will force them to endure, and, since the entire race has been mysteriously indicted, no reason not to attempt to destroy it root and branch. This is precisely what the Nazis attempted. Their only originality lay in the means they used. It is scarcely worthwhile remembering how many times the sun has looked down on the slaughter of innocents. I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity, for the health of their souls, and must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them...Whoever debases others is debasing himself. That is not a mystical statement but a most realistic one - which is proved by the eyes of any Alabama sheriff - and I would not like to see the Negroes ever arrive at so wretched a condition." - James Baldwin in The Fire Next Time Riots have broken in several of the nation's larger cities in their Negro neighborhoods...and for various reasons. We must deplore the fact that such a thing takes place...but the conditions which we allow to exist without doing anything which is constructive and realistic to bring about the changes which would decrease the chances of riots must be deplored, also. Now, there is much talk about the riots and the rioters, while all of the time, it has been proven that poverty, unemployment, inadequate education and discrimination are widespread and growing rapidly in the center of our cities. Those exact conditions may not exist...right here..., but they do exist not far from here, and each and every one of those areas is only a magnified mirror. The people who are living in the ghetto have nothing to lose...or at least they feel this...for, for the most part they are closed in! Granted, gains have been made in the area of poverty, for all...but these gains are very small, and the feeling among most people not affected by the conditions of ghetto living is one of unconcern...in fact, the very existence of these areas is ignored. The ghetto is very much a part of life in these United States...and so is the filth, poverty, unemployment and inadequate housing which make them what they are. We can help if we do nothing more than write to our Congressmen and ask them to stop just making critical comments about the riot torn areas and set up constructive programs which will realistically produce a solution to the existing problems. "Let America make haste! It is considerably later than we think...The conditions of the American Negro is today's bitterest joke about freedom and justice." DO YOU KNOW...the Negro MAYORS in US Cities in 1967? City Flint, Michigan Saginaw, Michigan Springfield, Ohio Ypsilanti, Michigan Population 196,940 34,521 - Negro 98,265 16,550 - Negro 82,723 11,838 - Negro 20,957 4,671 - Negro Mayor Floyd J. McCree Henry G. Marsh Robert E. Henry John H. Burton University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa Women's Archives
Campus Culture
sidebar
