CANCER IN AMERICAN SOCIETY
By Evelyn Sell -
Federal marshals have arrested eighteen men indicted by the federal grand jury which heard testimony on the murder of three young civil-rights workers in Mississippi last summer. Three local law-enforcement officials were included in the group: Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price and city policeman Richard Willis. Both Price and Willis were indicted by a federal grand jury last year for beating Negro prisoners in jail.
- The eighteen men were indicted under an 1870 law charging conspiracy. to violently deny a person his civil rights. The law. -
provides a maximum sentence of ten years and a fine of $10,000. Because murder is not a federal offense unless committed on federal property, the grand jury could not indict the men for murder. The county grand jury could return murder indictments, however, and the government is expected to present evidence before the county grand jury when it reconvenes in February.
_ The arrests took place both in Philadelphia, site of the slayings, and nearby Meridian. The Ccngress of Racial Equality [CORE] has announced that a community center will be built in Meridian as: a memorial to the three slain civil-rights workers. Jackie Robinson, the first Negro baseball player:in the major teams, and Ralph Samuels,. board chairman of the:Federation of Jewish Philanthropies, are serving as chairmen of a special fund-raising conmittee to secure $250,000 for the memorial; $22,000 has already been raised. The building will contain classroom space, a recreation room, an guditorium and a library. Negro contractors in Mississippi: will be asked to do the construction work,
Architect's plans call for a ten-foot-high wall around the building "to withstand possible bomb or gunfire attack," The father of one of the young victims commented on the protective wall, Nathan Schwerner said, "I for one have the opinion that- protection from bombings, hoodlums, the Klan and the power structure of Mississippt wilt not be afforded by stone walls, vs
“protection will only be afforded to the extent that the - American people and the American government do something about this cancer on our society.”
This: cancer has grown worse in many respects despite the horrified reactions to the triple murder, despite the grand pronouncements of President Johnson about a "Great Society,” despite the highly publicized Civil Rights Law, despite the token arrests of a few racists and the token appointments of a few Negroes.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC] reported that in a seven-month ‘period there were over twenty bombing or arson attacks against Negroes ‘and civil-rights workers in one we ihirteon town alone. SNCC listed:seven attacks on Negro churches, thirteen attempts to burn or bomb private homes, a bombing of the *SNCC Free~dom House and the bombing’of three Negro. businesses -- all in MeComb , Mississippi, trom _May through November 1964,
Nine white men. were arrested in connection with the bombings. They pleaded guilty and were sentenced to five years in.jail., Judge W.H. Watkins placed them on probation. The judge explained that these men ''come: afr om: good families" and were “unduly provoked" by civilrights: activity: in the area,
ae Mrs. Aylene Quin, whose McComb home was bombed recently, tells of the terror-filled lives of the children in that town, Her little
~l4—
daughter received a permanent ear injury as a result of the blast... Her small son Anthony has a scar on his forehead. Every time he touches .the scar, he cries. He's afraid.to go from room to room but. prefers to stay in one spot. The children have torn a tiny . hole in a windowshade and they peer out at the street through the opening. -
These bombings and burnings have stirred up sympathetic re~ sponses, Thirty white students and teachers from Oberlin College in Ohio traveled.800 miles to spend their Christmas vacation in Mississippi. They helped -rebuild a Negro church in Ripley which nad been bombed and burned after a Freedom Democratic party civil-rights rally. This was only one of forty churches. destroyed in the state during recent months,
The » student carpenters. complained. to the local sheriff that they were being harassed by white men throwing firecrackers at them and by shots from a passing car, Sheriff Wayne Mauney dismissed the problem by saying the Christmas firecrackers hurt no one and no shots were fired, When one of the "Carpenters for Christmas" broke some traffic laws while trying to escape from racists, he was speedily arrested and fined $57... The student should have considered himself fortunate, however. The three murdered civil-rights workers had been arrested for an alleged traffic violation, had been kept in jail while the lynch mob formed and had then been transported from jail to the murder scene by the local law officer ina sheriff's car.
At a meeting held to thank the "Carpenters for Christmas," Mrs, Annie Devine referred to the murdered trio. The Negro leader from Canton, Ohio, pointed out that American Peace Corps members have worked in areas around the world without being hurt but "a few kids could not come down to Mississippi to help the underprivileged and underdeveloped without getting hurt. :
Since American students are in greater danger in Mississippi than they are in Peace Corps missions to Africa, it ill behooves the American ambassador to the United Nations to accuse the African nations of pushing Africa into a "primitive state of anarchy." Adlai Stevenson responded hypocritically and threateningly to the eighteen African states which had bitterly complained to the United Nations Security Council about the U.S,.-Belgian paratroop attack in the Congo. Stevenson urged the Security Council to establish an inspec~ tion and investigation group that would go to the Congo and report back to the Council. He could have better called for an investigation in his own backyard.
“Already branded a bald~faced dar by the world in 1961. for | his repeated assurances that there was no American participation in the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, Stevenson reached new heights of hypocrisy in his attacks against the African nations and his defense of U.S.-Belgian imperialism, "I need no credentials as a- spokesman
for racial equality and social justice in this country," Stevenson stated in the United Nations, "and the Government of this countryneeds none in the world. . . We have no apologies to make to any state appearing before this council, We are proud of our part in saving human lives imperiled by the civil war in the Congo,"
. Here, Mr. Ambassador Stevenson} Are you proud of Mississippi? Have you no apologies for the victims of the Democratic sheriffs, judges and public officials in Mississippi? What about the "primitive state of anarchy" in Mississippi?
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