Angry at Everybody

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, meeting in Chicago, lashed out on all political sides. Southern Democrats, cried Executive Secretary Roy Wilkins, were members of a "calculating clique" that uses Washington "as the seat of a conspiracy to continue human slavery under another name. Let there be no uncertainty. There will be a massive march on Washington as a living petition for a redress of old, old grievances." As for Senate Republicans and their leader Everett Dirksen: "The Dirksen leadership can bring on moral disaster for the Republican Party . . . We intend to work for the defeat in the next election of those lawmakers who fail to support and vote for strong civil rights legislation. We shall remember them." And the next day the N.A.A.C.P. adopted by acclamation a resolution criticizing President Kennedy's civil rights legislative package as "inadequate."

The major on-the-scene victim of the N.A.A.C.P.'s broad-gauged anger was none other than Chicago's Democratic Mayor Richard Daley, who has made a successful political career out of collecting Negro votes. Accompanied by Illinois' Democratic Governor Otto Kerner, Daley spoke to the convention, admitted that the Chicago civil rights situation is not perfect, but certainly is "as good as any." When Daley insisted that "there are no ghettos in Chicago," there were murmurs of disbelief in the meeting hall.

More than You. No sooner did Dick Daley sit down than Dr. Lucien Holman, 42, a Joliet dentist who heads all N.A.A.C.P. activities in Illinois, stood up. "I don't agree with anything Mayor Daley said," cried Holman. "Everybody knows there are ghettos here. And if those of you from Mississippi think you're the first persons ever bitten by police dogs, you're wrong. That little technique began right here in the sovereign state of Illinois. And we've got more segregated schools here than you've got in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana combined."

When Holman finished, Daley stalked out scowling. Next day he had still more to scowl about: as he marched through downtown Chicago at the head of the N.A.A.C.P.'s Independence Day parade, there were some ominous portents--signs saying such things as MAYOR DALEY, WHAT IN HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE? And when, at parade's end, Daley tried to address a throng of some 20,000, a terrible to-do broke loose. As Daley faced the crowd, there were boos, hisses, and chants of "Daley must go ... Down with ghettos." For more than ten minutes, the red-faced mayor of Chicago stood there, trying to make himself heard. Finally, eying the front rows of seats where the most vociferous group of hecklers was seated, Daley snapped: "I recognize a contingent of the Republican Party is here." He marched off the platform and headed for his limousine.

"Kill Him!" At least, Daley escaped any physical threats. Those were reserved for a Negro speaker later on. The Rev. Dr. J. H. Jackson, president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. Inc., biggest Negro religious denomination in the U.S. (5,000,000 members), recently had made a statement opposing a mass Negro march on Washington. For that statement he now received thunderous boos. Unable to speak, Jackson started to leave. A group of about 50 closed around him, shouting "Kill him, kill him!" They pinned Jackson against the platform until he was finally rescued by ushers.

Such was the civil rights climate in Chicago last week that the N.A.A.C.P. and James Meredith, a protege of the organization and only last year a nationwide Negro hero as the only member of his race at the University of Mississippi, started squabbling publicly. Speaking at an N.A.A.C.P. youth meeting, Meredith criticized Negro youth leadership as puerile--and cast doubt on the advisability of a national civil rights march on Washington, scheduled by the N.A.A.C.P. and other Negro organizations for late August. For expressing such sentiments, Meredith was denounced by the N.A.A.C.P. chairman of the evening's session. And for that, Meredith said the next day that he had "shed my first tears since I was a child" over the "intolerance and bigotry" he had found at the N.A.A.C.P. convention.

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