GIVES PRESS CONFERENCE IN PEKING
Hsinhua, the Chinese news agency, reports that Robert Williams, the | well-Inown socialist-minded American Negro leader now touring China, gave -a press conference in Peking November 1 in which he declared that "The American Negro struggle is one of the most significant struggles going on in the world today,"
Struggling inside the U.S., he said, "the American Negro is waging a campaign in the heart of social reaction today," He said that "the enemy
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of the Negboes is the same enemy of the peoples of Latin America, of Asia’ and of Africa,”
"Our slogan is 'freedom now,!" Williams declared. "We are not going to surrender our human dignity. We are tired of being oppressed, We have decided that we prefer to live with human dignity for just thirty seconds than to live one thousand years crawling at the feet of such savage oppres- -sors, We have decided to resist,” .
Monroe Case
Williams appealed for. world support for the defendants in a trial seneduled for January in Williams! home town of Monroe, North Carolina, ‘The defendants are Mrs, Willie Mae Mallory, Richard Crowder, John Lowry and Harold Reape, They face a frame=up charge of. Nei dnapping."
"The U.S. is the greatest force for evil in the world today," Williams told the assembled reporters, "It surpasses all other forces of reaction, The U.S. is becoming the new racist colonial nation ~- colonial power == of the world, It is the last great stronghold of social evil, social reaction, exploitation and racism in the world today."
The American Negro leader continued: "We know the significance of our struggle, We are going to resist the racist savages of the barbaric . U.S. even if we must stand alone, If we must stand alone against the most powerful reactionary forces in the world, we are going to. And if we must fight their machine guns, their gas, their armored cars, their police dogs, if we must fight them with our bare fingers, we are going to,
"We are not going to fail, because our cause is a just cause and our struggle is a just struggle,"
Maots Statement
In his opinion, militant Negro freedom fighters and civilized whites. in America were very happy at the statement of Chairman Mao Tse-tung, call~ ing for support of the Negro struggle around the world. "We who are oppressed are grateful to Chairman Mao. However the same racists who oppress Negroes have labeled the statement a 'racist' statement, calling for the unity of colored peoples against white peoples, and they say that this is 'racist! in its motive, But we who have lived under oppression are accuse tomed to this tactic, .
"We hear people who should be supporting us complaining before the world, not about the savage deeds against Negroes, but attacking Chairman Mao, who is appealing to the peoples of the world, of all colors, of all: races, to support us in our just struggle. We know where their sympathies are. We also can see that these people consider South Africa and Portugal worthy to be called members of the ‘free world! society,
"We seek redress and relief from racial tyranny and oppression, We believe in those who defend our cause and we are not concerned with slan~ derous name calling,"
In speaking of the persecution of American Negroes under the Kennedy
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administration, Williams referred to his own experiences, The first criminal charge lodged against him was for the crime of ‘sitting on a stool in a public restaurant,-a stool reserved for white people only." His second "crime" was "ici dnapping" people "that I rescued from death, people who were captured by enraged oppressed Negroes during a race riot. And © for this, for my part in saving these people, the government of the U.S. has Joined the KKK in seeking me for a possible 1 life-time sentence in prison,
He displayed a poster issued by the FBI while he was being hunted in the U.S. The poster brands him as a "criminal, "as being “extremely dangerous," a designation that is equivalent to approving his being shot on sight. A quarter of a million of these posters were placed on display in post offices throughout the United States,
Williams continued: "The Kennedy administration has maintained that “it is not a racist government, that it supports the cause of integration and justice for black Americans, This is a lie of a racist hypocrite of the vilest sort," Loe
The "token method" used by the Kennedy administration means that in some instances one out of a hundred thousand, or one out of.a million, or even one out of twenty million Negroes “is granted a limited form of integration. This is to make the world think that the Kennedy administration is just, that it is not racist. It is also using the method of pretending to push for a civilerights bill. But as Negroes, as Americans, we know that q civilerights- bill is -not necessary. This method of introducing bills in support of Negroes is for publicity to deceive the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa and even of Europe to believe that the U.S. government is a just government.
"The Kennedy administration is also striving to dominate the leader= ship of Negro movements and Negro groups," Bribe Attempt
A week before he was forced to leave the U.S. and seek refuge in Cuba, Williams said, his lawyer was approached by people representing government circles in North Carolina. They said that if Robert Williams would, denounce Fidel Castro, and tell the Negroes that “our most effective struggle would be through nonviolence and pacifist methods, they would take me to New York, introduce me to the American people on the major television networks - « e and they would make me one of the biggest Negro leaders in America,"
‘Williams continued: "All over the racist U.S. our people are defending themselves, their homes, their women and children. They are meeting violence with violence, They are fighting the racist police, the KKK, . police dogs, machine guns, riot guns, tear gas and even armored cars,
“T am sure that you are going to see more self-defense on the part of our people in the future, despite all: the urgings of the Kennedy govern-= ment and the pseudo-leftists and other phony Marxists who urge us to turn the other cheek,"
Williams spoke of the rise in understanding that is occurring among
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the Negro people in the United States, “As people struggling for libera- | tion and for human rights in the U.S., we are fast learning that the people who oppress us, the white supremacists of the U.S. who murder little girls in churches in Birmingham, who keep Negroes living in a state of terror, wno maintain racial segregation and white supremacy by brute force and violence, are the same people who ars murdering in cold blood the innocent and helpless women and children of South Vietnam. The most outspoken © racist senators of the U.S. who fight against justice for Negroes are the same people who are most vocal in advocating an invasion of Cuba. These are the same people who justify the slaughter, savage slaughter of innocent women and children in Cuba. We can see also that this is the same racist government who stands up in the UN as the foremost defender on the right of South Africa and Portugal to maintain a seat in the United Nations, This is the most outspoken advocate for denying the Peoplets Republic of China a right to sit in the UN."
U.S. imperialism, he said, had become the common enemy of the Negroes and of the peoples of Latin America, Asia and Africa,
Impressions of China
- On China, Robert Williams said that he was very much impressed, "I am convinced without a shadow of doubt that the interest of the Chinese people in the Negro struggle is sincere and that it reaches even down to the small children of eight to nine years old, I feel never more welcomed in a place in my life since I.have been here by so many people.
"With the exception of Cuba, this is the first time in ay life that I have ever been allowed to feel that I belong to the human race and that ft have the right to exist on the face of the earth with the dignity of man and be treated with equal dignity as all other races,"
He spoke of the achievements of the Chinese people. “In the West we have been told by the propaganda media of the U.S. that the Chinese. economy 'is on the verge of collapse, that no consumer goods are being produced in China any more, and that the Chinese are incapable of building heavy industry. I must admit that I have been rather shocked by the success that I have noticed in the factories especially in heavy industry,
"T have heard from the U.S. directly that there is no food in China in the market places, But even in the rural communities, in the small stores, I have found that they are well stocked,
"I have been told that China is a warlike nation, that the , people of China are belligerent, are hostile. I find this not to be true, I. find the people of China among the most friendly people anywhere.
"T have been led to believe ‘that China is a police state, that the people are being forced to do forced labor at bayonet point. But I did not see anybody being forced at bayonet point in China, In fact, people are being forced by bayonets. in the U.S... . If this is what fney call a police state of terror, then a lot of people will eee od be praying in the U.S. for a police state to be introduced there soon,
[For previous story on Robert Williams! tour in China see World Outlook November 8, .
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