BY JACK PHILLIPS Gy TY MILLION Ameri- ma) thejp Negroes have turned ethan “cS On gradualism. n 5 on COln Signed the procla- a0 Deg 1 €mancipation the Kets 4, © have taken to the Matin Enforce its principles. Ve thgeether King, authori- the» “tticulate spokesman Up thie SO Revolt, summed ree tage tably, it is an histori- 7 om nae Privileged groups tatily. Up their privileges g \ uve Waited for more Tt pots for our consti- if ations’ God-given rights. With =f Africa are mov- pe speed toward Cte, Pendence, but we : Ward" horse-and-buggy ® at getting a cup of lunch counter.” ot thes of lightning warn- hi, . OMing storm. Phe On Dec. 1, 1955, a i, Parke” Seamstress, Mrs. wltg to 4,VaS arrested for 8ive up her seat in ater white man. Three t ne 72000 Negroes, 75 the a city’s bus-riders Chose 1storic bus boycott. Y kno as their leader the Wn (to the world at Sey gaiths later a federal Tiong “Tt ruled against seg- Monthe municipal buses. iMag S after that the rul- tation Was the end of bus on ‘ Montgomery. Stunt May 1963, the hin gele reached. a peak Sen am, Alabama, the Be eated city in the ‘tig, “Ngham is a major tron, Complex. It draws R€arby mines to feed a Be aa century after Abra-’ fre was Montgomery, furnaces which smelt ore and manufacture steel. It also has a booming textile industry. Most of the labor is drawn from the thousands of impover- ished farmers who have been forced off the land by mechani- zation. The rulers of Birming- ham took and savagely enforced the social patterns of the planta- tion economy: feudal-like rela- tions between employer and employee, slavery-like customs and laws to govern relations be- tween Negro and white people of all classes. Negroes are 40 percent of the city’s population. In 1963 a united anti-segregation leader- ship was set up under Martin Luther King. The program called for desegregation in public ac- commodation, the right to regis- ter to vote and a fair share of semi-skilled and skilled jobs. The tactic was massive non- compliance with segregation laws and submitting peacefully to arrest. Local authorities reacted with a ferocity that made Birming- ham front-page news all over the world and greatly embar- rassed the Kennedy administra- tion. An army of police, state troopers, sheriffs, irregular de- puties and hoodlums attacked the demonstrators time and . again. The “forces of law and order” used savage police dogs. They also used hoses with hydraulic mining nozzles, directing streams of water that broke the skin and smashed the ribs of many demonstrators. Hundreds suffered painful injuries and 8,000, including large numbers of children, were arrested. During a month of demonstra- tions more than 40,000 Negroes, 45 percent of the total, took part in mass actions. Ninety- eight percent supported the eco- nomic boycott. The Kennedy administration, which had failed to move’ de- cisively on the civil rights issue up to that time except to en- force token compliance with the supreme court ruling for school desegregation, intervened di- rectly. A representative of the attorney-general flew to Bir- mingham and succeeded in open- ing negotiations between Negro representatives and spokesmen for the white community. Important gains were made; the most significant was the ex- tension of the revolt to every American city and town with a Negro community. Today there are 20 million Negroes, concentrated over- whelmingly in large urban cen- tres in the United States. In the cities and towns the Negroes are employed mainly in industry and service trades. Seventy percent are wage earners. This makes the Negroes the most proletarian of the many nationality-ethnic groups in the nation. The struggle of the Negro people for social justice is today the sharpest manifes- tation of the class struggle in the U.S. While Negroes constitute only 10 percent of the population, they provide 20 percent of the labor force and 20 to 30 percent of the industrial workers. On Aug. 28, 1963, there was the magnificent March on Wash- ington to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the freeing of the slaves by Lincoln and to press for a civil rights act. Some 250,000 persons, Negro and white, from almost every state, journeyed to Washington. The march was endorsed by every major religious organiza- tion. Unfortunately the execu- tive council of the AFL-CIO took a neutral position. Many affiliates, however, participated. Walter Reuther, a federation vice-president, was one of the march leaders, along with A. Philip Randolph, Negro labor leader. These scenes in Alabama (at left) and California show the brutal reception police in many communities have given to Negro civil rights demonstrators. fom bus boycott to civil rights bill New American revolution This year the Johnson admin- istration passed the Civil Rights Act directed against more ob- vious forms of racial discrimi nation with particular emphasis on public accommodation. Under this act the federal gov- ernment has wide powers to in- tervene on behalf of private citi- zens. © Barry Goldwater voted against this act in the Senate, along with die-hard Dixiecrats. The Negro people rightly hail- ed this legislation as a big step forward; but they realize it is the product of their own strug- gle, not a gift from on high. They also realize they will not get the full measure of its pro- tection without more struggle. The Negro revolt must be seen in the context of a new relation of world forces, in a new and sympathetic climate of world opinion. There is the mighty socialist world, the ex- istence of which is more and more determining the course of contemporary events. The Negroes want an end to discrimination in employment, housing, education and political rights. These objectives can be achieved only at the expense of the monopolies which obtain super profits from their labor, from the landlords who rob them in the ghettoes, and from all who profit by degradation of Negroes. One of the essential ingredi- ents for victory is a labor-Negro alliance. To forge such an alli- ance it is not enough for the leadership of the AFL-CIO to tail behind the. Democratic ad- ministration. What is needed is a struggle against white chau- vinism among its membership, an end to segregation practices in certain unions and joint strug- gle on behalf of Negro rights and for common objectives. The tactics employed to date by the major Negro organiza- tions are admirably suited. to this stage of development. They provide for the maximum mobi- lization of the Negro people and are conducive to the winning of the widest support from the de- mocratic people of the nation. While we cannot defend the rioting which took place recent- ly in some northern cities, nei- ther can we condemn the Ne- groes who lost their patience. Their grievances flow from many years of terrible slum housing, job discrimination, lack of edu- cational opportunities, unem- ployment, police brutality and the despair of their environment. The significance of the Negro revolt must also be seen in the light of the advance of automa- tion. Martin Luther King put it this way in his book, Why We ‘Can’t Wait: “Today, as the unskilled and semi-skilled Negro attempts to mount the ladder of economic security, he finds himself in competition with the white working man at the very time when automation is scrapping 40,000 jobs a week.” He adds: “The energetic and creative expansion of work op- portunities, in both the public and private sectors of our eco- nomy, is an imperative worthy of the richest nation on earth, whose abundance is an embar- rassment as long as millions of poor are imprisoned and con- stantly self-renewed within an expanding population.” _ This courageous leader of his people is reaching for the same conclusions reached by the most advanced thinkers of the labor movement: the need to curb the powers of the monopolies and to find the ultimate solution of the problems confronting the Negro people through a program of economic and social reform. It is no accident that the Negro Revolt, the Cuban Revo- lution and the upsurge in French Canada are contempora- _.ry events. We are living in the most -revolutionary century in the history of mankind. October 23, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7