The SPHINX | Winter 1965 | Volume 51 | Number 4 196505104

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ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. P.O. Box 2 8 5 Lincolnton

Station

New York, N. Y.

10037

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Directory for 1965-1966 Jewel Henry A. Callis

Editor-in-Chief George M o r r i s

Daniels

3206 E Street, N.E., Washington, D.C. Officers

General President — Bro. Lionel H. Ncwsom General Secretary — Bro. Laurence T. Young General Treasurer— Bro. Leven C. Weiss General Counsel — Bro. James H. McGee Editor, The Sphinx — Bro. George M. Daniels

Barber Scotia College, Concord, N. C. 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III. 2920 Kendall St., Detroit, Mich. 1526 W. 3rd St., Dayton, Ohio 470 Lenox Ave., New York, N. Y.

Vice Presidents Eastern — Bro. Frank J. Ellis Midwestern — Bro. Billy Jones Southwestern — Bro. Jacob T. Stewart Southern — Bro. W. Dewey Branch Western — Bro. Oscar V. Little

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Assistant Vice Presidents Eastern — Bro. Harry D. Mayo, III Midwestern — Bro. Randall Maxey Southwestern — Bro. Kirby Kirksey Western — Bro. Rufus Skillern Southern — Bro. Warren Davis

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Comptroller— Bro. Gus T. Ridget Historian — Bro. Charles H. Wesley Dir. Ed. Activities — Bro. Oscar W. Ritchie

REGIONAL

Editorial Advisory

Committee

Frank Ellis, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r s h a l l H a r r i s , J o h n H. J o h n s o n , Moss H. K e n d r i x , J . H e r b e r t K i n g , B e l f o r d V. L a w s o n , S a m u e l A. M a d d e n , J. E. M a r t i n , Lionel H. N e w s o m , Gus T. Ridgel, Floyd S h e p h e r d , L. H. S t a n t o n , Felix W a r r e n , L a u r e n c e T. Y o u n g . Staff Photographer Henry Crawford

4272 Washington St., St. Louis, Mo.

DIRECTORS

Eastern Region Massachusetts — Bro. James Howard Rhode Island — Bro. Ralph Allen Connecticut — Bro. W. Decker Clark New York — Bro. Marvin A. Riley Pennsylvania — Bro. Allan Durrant Delaware — Bro. Frederick Franklin Maryland-Washington — Bro. Frank J. Ellis Virginia — Bro. Alfred C. Fentress

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Contributing Editors W. B a r t o n Beatty, Charles A. B r o a d d u s , S t e n s o n E. B r o a d d u s , R o b e r t F. C u s t i s , David A. Dowdy, J . M. Ellison, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r t i n L. Harvey, Maceo H i l l , L. W. Jeffries, B e l f o r d V. L a w s o n , S a m u e l A. M a d d e n , Lionel H. N e w s o m , Gus T. Ridgel, Floyd S h e p h e r d , A. Maceo S m i t h , Frank L. Stanley, Sr., L. H. S t a n t o n , Charles Wesley, 0 . Wilson W i n t e r s , Laurence T. Y o u n g .

Kentucky State College, Frankfort, Ky. 1824 Taylor Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 4778 Lakewood Rd.. Ravenna, Ohio

Chr. Alpha Phi Alpha Building Foundation, Inc.— Bro. William M. Alexander

Bro. Odell Lewis Bro. William Corbin Bro. Carlton Dias

December 1965

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The Sphinx is the official magazine of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III., with editorial offices at 282 Convent Ave., New York, N. Y. Published four times a year: February, May, October and December. Address all editorial mail to P.O. Box 285, Lincolnton Station, New York, N. Y. 10037. Change of Address: Send both addresses to Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, III. Manuscripts or art submitted to The Sphinx should be accompanied by addressed envelopes and return postage. Editor assumes no responsibi'ity for return of unsolicited manuscripts of art. Subscription: $2.00 per year. Opinions expressed in columns and articles do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., and use of any person's name in fiction, semi-fiction articles or humorous features is to be regarded as a coincidence and not as the responsibility of The Sphinx. It is never done knowingly. Copyright 1965 by The Sphinx, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Reproduction or use, without written permission, of the editorial or pictorial content in any manner is prohibited. The Sphinx since 1914. W. Cannon. Henry Lake

has been published continuously Organizing Editor: Bro. Raymond Organizing General President: Bro. Dickason.

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TOP OF THE MONTH

Contents

About Our Contributors

FEATURES Outward Bound Schools— by Ernest B. Boynton, Jr

2

Years of Drums, Days of Lightning— Cornish R. Rogers

5

The Negro After Watts

6

The Voices of Africa and Its Message—Dr. Absalom L. Vilakazi

9

Freedom is Not Enough— President Lyndon B. Johnson

15

DEPARTMENTS Editorials

14

Alpha Workshop

18

Frat Humor

19

Books

20

Chapter News

23

Ernest B. Boynton, Jr. is a journalism graduate of City College of New York. Last summer, as a special assignment, he was among those participating in the Oi<iuanl Bound program to harden young men. His experience included mountaineering, wilderness-living, off-shore sailing, drown-proofing, survival techniques and fire-fighting in Colorado. His article beginning on the next page was written exclusively for The Sphinx. From what we have learned in recent weeks, nothing much has changed in Watts, where widespread rioting and looting took place last summer. Two articles on Watts appear in this issue. Both provide penetrating insight into causes and cures, and raise questions that someday must be answered. The Rev. Cornish R. Rogers, author of Years of Drums. Days of Lightning is pastor of Los Angeles' Calvary Methodist Church. Last year he was co-chairman of the Police Community Relations Institute of the local National Council of Christians and Jews. Following Mr. Rogers article is a highly articulate editorial on the Negro After Watts — what next? It is reprinted from the September issue of the Voice of Missions, a publication of the AME Church, to which we offer our thanks. Africa is very much in the news today. Perhaps there is an understanding of the situation in the Republic of South Africa or Rhodesia; but how many actually understand the thinking of the African when he speaks of neo-colonialism or imperialism or Negritude? Dr. Absalom L. Vilakazi, author of The Voices of Africa and Its Message, is professor of African Studies at American University School of International Service, Washington, D.C. His article is condensed from a speech he delivered in October at the Sixth World Order Study Conference of the National Council of Churches, at St. Louis, Mo.

Book Reviews With this issue begins an important new department on books by W. F. Lucas, author, lecturer and reviewer extraordinaire. Books selected are recommended reading for graduate and undergraduate Brothers alike.

COLUMNS George M. Daniels

8

Quincy Jones

20

A. S. "Doc" Young

21

Langston Hughes

22

COVER: The Colorado Outward Bound School is a tough course for youths who want to learn the art of survival. Here one youth pauses before early morning mountaineering. Cover photo by Al Sisk.

Memo to Chapter Editors It is our intention to constantly expand the section on chapter activities and other fraternal news. This cannot be done, however, unless chapter editors continually submit news and articles to The Sphinx. We also rely upon you to keep us posted from time to time on what Alpha Brothers are thinking about our magazine, and what they think can be done to improve it. We need your ideas and your help.

Deadline for the February Issue: January 15, 1966.


Youths Buried in deprivation and hopelessness learn the art of survival and develop self-confidence at

Outward Bound Schools By ERNEST B. BOYNTON, JR.

Boys like to think . . . They think about piloting a jet through the skies . . . Riding a Pinto through the cavernous canyons of New Mexico . . . Or playing quarterback on a great professional or college football team. Their thoughts are endless. And they are big thoughts. This is good. This is the way greatness is born. This is the beginning of energy, zeal, ambition. Most of today's great scientists began to dream about their work when they were 13 years old! Jackie Robinson began his quest for knowledge when he was only 11. So the thoughts and dreams spill over into action. Gradually, but definitely. For example, when a young man starts thinking about his life's vocation, he should start to conform his actions to his thoughts. Lost Lives At Sea Outward Bound Schools in the United States offer this sort of chance. The Outward Bound program was conceived during World War II as a quick method of hardening up young seamen. The course is a cold-dip-like idea, begun in 1941 by Founder Kurt Hahn of Scotland's rugged Gordonstoun School and London Shipping Magnate Lawrence Holt, who had noted that many inexperienced men gave up and were lost during emergencies because they did not know how to cope 2

Students learn basic seamanship, and their reward comes from the bellytightening taste of danger, the exultation of peril posed, a feeling of glory and peace.

with them (mostly ship sinkings). The organizers started a rigorous sea-rescue school in Wales, saw it as an analogy between being "outward bound to sea" and "outward bound to life." Or to let men find out how far beyond expected limits they could drive themselves. Proving successful, a British trust has since sponsored the six Outward Bound Schools in the British Isles, as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The programs vary somewhat, depending on location and available facilities, but all share a common goal—to bring confidence and maturity to participants by testing their endurance to the limit. In the United States there are three Outward Bound Schools, with more in the planning stages. The first school in America, at Marble, Colorado, was established in 1962, by F. Charles Froelicker, founder of Denver's Colorado Academy. Each summer, groups of 100 to 125 young boys from slums and suburbs (as well as Peace Corps volunteers and Job Corps recruits) are put through a 26-day course in the mountain wilderness, high above the Crystal River Valley, designed to pit them against the challenge of raw nature and, above all, against themselves. A second school is in the wilderness country of Minnesota. Eighteen miles east of the town of Ely the South Kawishiwi River runs through the site of the Minnesota Outward Bound School. To the north

extends a near-impenetrable forest of over 300,000 square miles accessible only through countless lakes, rugged carries, and frequent stretches of "white water." Director Robert J. Pieh of this School has had more than 25 years experience in wilderness camping programs. The third Outward Bound School is on Hurricane Island, 12 miles off the coast of Maine at the entrance of Penobscot Bay. Hurricane is an island of striking beauty: granite cliffs, heavily wooded hills, and the ever-changing picture of the North Atlantic. It is the sea that covers fully half the training of this school. Director Peter O. Willauer, with a background in water sailing, and an efficient staff directs the adventure.of self-discovery through tidal currents, fog, wind and wave. A Frightened Lot Anyone who stumbled into the Colorado Outward Bound School on a Sunday afternoon in August might have mistaken the scene for a modern version of Oliver Twist's deliverance from Fagin. I was on hand to record the telling moment when the buses deposited its cargo of 124 boys at the school's entrance—three and a halt miles from the school compound. The frightened lot, clad in city clothes and carrying their belongings in duffel bags and backpacks, stood in awe and silence. All around were 14,000-ft. Rockies of


central Colorado (some covered with snow), aspen, blue spruce and Douglas fir; in the craggy heights roamed elk, bear and mountain sheep. During the first day, the boys tried to acclimatize themselves to the grandeur of the land, with its lonely vistas across vast stretches of land and the sweet piney thin air of the wild Elk Mountains. Inside the compound under the deep blue sky were tents, leathery-faced instructors, administration buildings, classrooms, dining hall, and in another area a high-wall obstacle course, and the practice pitch for basic training in rock climbing. Listening to Director Joseph Nold deliver his welcoming-orientation speech. the boys soon realized that "enjoyment will be a byproduct." Included in the group of 124 boys were 14 Job Corps recruits from the Boston area, a pilot project whereby these young men are assimilated into the regular program and put through the challenge and survival through learning program. There was an almost evangelistic fervor about the camp, and an air of excitement and accomplishment which draws the youths out of their past resentments and inertia. The students come from high schools. universities, private schools, industry and various youth organizations. Approximately half of the enrollment is made up of scholarship students sponsored by churches, corporations, service clubs, business, boy's clubs, unions, fraternal societies and by individuals. The regular fee is $350. Separated and formed into racially mixed patrols, they compete against each other. The groups vary in success according to their numbers and their leaders (instructors). All leaders need a good background in sociology and psychology, whose reputations are well deserved in mountaineering, wilderness living, and offshore sailing. Specialists in mountaineering, search and rescue, drown-proofing, rock-climbing, canoeing, sailing, first aid, survival techniques, and fire-fighting, these men are assisted by college and graduate students. Some sessions are led by tight-lipped, precise-mannered scientific types.

Dropouts Are Rare What makes these patrol groups at Outward Bound successful is the basic premise that everyone is there to help everyone else. This desire is fostered and instructors are careful not to allow personal recriminations and accusations. One lad who quit the school admitted before departing that at first he thought the others were picking on him. Then he realized they were trying to help him. He resisted nonetheless. Dropouts at this School and the other Outward Bound Schools are rare.

most strikes any visitor—is in development of character and social education. There are no signs of bureaucratic refugetaking behind formalities and institutionalized relationships. Without getting intimate, staff members reflect a deep personal concern for the school and for the boys individually. This comes out in numerous ways: long-working hours; time seemingly "wasted" with boys who just want to talk; flexibility in administration of the rules; attempts to keep groups small and avoid over-regimentation.

There are gripes. One Negro youth from Baltimore complained bitterly about the rigorous regimen and the dullness of the surrounding community. The schedule is rough (up and out of their tents at 6 a.m., the boys run three quarters of a

"When some of these boys come in here, they don't know anything," says an instructor in charge of teaching mountain climbing and high-country survival techniques. By design, a mixed group composed of athletes and non-athletes, city

Photo by George C. Thomas, II

Experiences are lived through and shared, since each bears full responsibility for his failure or success.

mile to a frigid stream and plunge in. daily) and the little free time allowed is often taken up with special responsibilities as keeping the grounds and quarters cleaned and ordered. Leadership is fostered and there are various ways in which boys can rise among their peers. For some of the boys, mainly Negro, circumstances, heritage and individual character have left them without motivation and vitality to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps in the classic way. Therefore at the Colorado Outward Bound School the camping and climbing skills for these boys are a secondary part of their training. The principal work here being accomplished—and this is what

dwellers who have never seen wilderness areas, the sons of farmers as well as those living in suburbia, some of the boys come to him with little knowledge on mountain craft. In short order, however, all are ready for their first big endurance test, a five-day climb in windswept high country. Other highlights include a six-mile run up and down mountains, a 50-mile hike to test speed and accuracy over a specified route, and a three-day session alone in the wilderness without food, which becomes a lesson in the edible qualities of roots, berries, frogs and rabbits. The instructor, a spry man with a kindly face, interrupted his explanation to encourage students crossing a tricky "Buram" rope bridge


over roaring Crystal River. "You can do it," he said. This is an expression which is heard from time to time but which is translated into reality in the many programs operated successfully. Find Lost Boy Self-confidence and responsibility can sometimes come early, as it did during an unscheduled all-night mountain rescue by staff and student patrols to help find a 12-year-old boy of a nearby camp lost and quite possibly injured. Weary and tired and near exhausted an Outward Bound patrol found the remains of the boy who had, it is believed, drowned while crossing a rough mountain stream. (All three of the Outward Bound Schools

in their lives. . . . A radically different occasion demonstrated to them the real potential they possessed, gave them selfconfidence in a new dimension, and opened up a future they really did not believe existed. We of this parish are prepared to endorse Outward Bound to the limit and are eager to find every possible candidate. There is simply nothing like it in meeting the needs of urban youngsters whose potential is high but buried in deprivation and in hopelessness." Does part of Outward Bound's success come from giving these boys a specific goal to fight for or a specific thing to fight against or subjecting them to William James' "Moral Equivalent of War"? A mountain or a wilderness is a definite and

(3) vocational importance of work in general, specific skills in outdoor survival; (4) patriotism is fostered in many ways, and this is a help toward loss of race preoccupations. All Outward Bound Schools are integrated, in form and in spirit; (5) there is an absence of personalities. Both staff and students are group-oriented and there is a dearth of "characters"— the kind of people who in their person magnify and sum up some human quality, and while clashing with some, inspire others and are a source of great enjoyment to still others. At Outward Bound, personality is at a premium. The future of Outward Bound in America may be indicated by the progress made so far. The Colorado School opened with 150 boys in 1962. In 1964, with the addition of the Minnesota School, Outward Bound trained 600 candidates. In 1965 when Hurricane Island School opened in Maine the total number of places rose to 1100. Inasmuch as qualified staff constitutes the limiting element in expansion, there was launched an Instructor Training Center in Colorado. An Outward Bound School for girls was started on a limited basis in Minnesota last summer. In 1966, there will be two girl's courses, both in Minnesota. The first course date for girls is from June 27 to July 26. The second, from July 27 to August 25.

The Outward Bound 26-day course is planned to be of increasing difficulty. A six-mile marathon (shown above) is one of three major endurance tests.

have to date a perfect student survival record.) Outward Bound, Inc., a non-profit organization headquartered at Andova, Massachusetts, headed by Joshua L. Miner, III, as president, has received many commendations. George Webber, formerly of the East Harlem Protestant Parish, in a letter said: "The glowing description of Outward Bound given me in person seemed too good to be true. We have been exposed to a host of outdoor programs that sound fine, are excellent in conception, but are really badly oversold. Of course, it is dangerous to generalize on the basis of the two boys from our parish, but for both of them, Outward Bound seems to have been a turning point 4

conquerable thing once one knows how to deal with it. In the big city of today the obstacles to be fought seem big and amorphous and undefinable. A recent book quotes Jackie Robinson as saying: "Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right." Just believing helps generate the necessary strength and skill. Outward Bound is a sterling example of this power. During interpersonal sessions — the core of a broad growth program—the following aspects are developed: (1) social education: a man's responsibility to himself, to family, community, country and all men; (2) communication: reading, speaking, writing, listening;

In addition, Outward Bound will open during the summer of 1966 the Northwest School, which will be located in Oregon, for two 48-boy courses. It is to be a "mobile" course, patterned on the pilot-one run in 1965 in Colorado by a former director of the Peace Corps Outward Bound School in Puerto Rico, William Byrd, who ran the Colorado program. "Eventually we would like to operate the 26-day courses throughout the year. Boys would come from schools, employers, agencies, and above all from the depressing mass of the continuing growing number of unemployed school dropouts," reports Joshua Miner. "To serve, to strive, and not to yield," is the Outward Bound motto. It is heartening to observe the young people at the Schools develop just that attitude. And their discovery was a rich reward.


YEARS OF DRUMS, DAYS OF LIGHTNING By CORNISH R. ROGERS

After years of dire warnings by "socalled Negro Leaders," lightning struck Los Angeles last August in a carnival of rioting, looting, and burning. And, as lightning so often does, it refused to spend itself with one bolt, but persisted in a macabre game of dancing here and there all over the community, leaving in its wake blazing infernos and the echos of "Burn, Baby, Burn."

like animals, something must be wrong. Human beings just do not act like animals under normal circumstances. The questions uppermost in the minds of many was, "Why did this happen in such an enlightened city as Los Angeles?" The per capita income of the Negro here is probably the highest of any city in the nation and the world. One has to strain for a sensible answer.

The specter of a slave revolt rose up to haunt the white community. Out of a ritual fear, gun stores were deluged with sales as if Nat Turner were on the loose again. The traditional words, "savages," "animals," "barbarians," became household terms. Anger and disgust overwhelmed many good people. Negro leaders reacted by wagging their fingers defensively and accusing the police of brutality. Then when it appeared that the riots would continue and even increase in intensity, they panicked and begged for the establishment of martial law with troops. Surprisingly, the troops were unable to stop the rioting upon their arrival; in fact, the rioting reached its height after the troops arrived. Only when the explosive energies had run their course did the riots subside.

History teaches us that discontent expresses itself only when a hungry man discovers what a half loaf tastes like. The nearer one gets to complete equality, the more impatient and resentful he becomes toward those who begrudgingly mete it out to him. All meaningful revolutions begin with a fast developing middle class.

After recriminations and accusations by people in high places were flung back and forth, a period of deep searching for reasons followed. An Attempt To Understand One must never excuse the culpability of persons engaged in lawless acts, but there must always be the attempt to understand. For when persons seem to be acting

No one should be deceived into thinking that the riots were "merely" the result of criminal and hoodlum elements within the Negro area. It was an expression of the entire Negro population in Los Angeles, and every Negro felt vicariously the cathartic sense of relief and release which the rioters acted out for them. The "devil" of rage with which the Negro lives constantly was exorcized through the ritual of fire and abandon. The carnival atmosphere of the riots invites a comparison with the Mardi Gras and some of the Italian festal parades in East Harlem 20 years ago, not to mention the emotionladen atmosphere of the St. Patrick's Day parades up New York's Fifth Avenue. Every people needs a way of releasing rage in non-destructive ways. Unfortunately the Negro in the West has no ritual through which he can ac-

complish this. There was a time when his "holler and shout" church services provided such a vehicle, but he has long since discarded the church. There are no Negro festivals, no community carnivals, no lively myths which can be celebrated. When he tries to fashion a myth out of his own segregated experience here in America, he comes up with the black supremacy motif of the Black Muslims, which he more than likely rejects. And because of his ghettoization, he cannot even appropriate for himself the myths of other cultures in our society. Why he has no viable cults of his own can be understood only in the light of his unique past in America, which is only recently being told "like it is." And people being people: enter the riots. So, contrary to the assertion that the riots demonstrated that Negroes are not human, they displayed in a desperate but convincing way that they are only too human. The riots expressed an affirmation of life not a death wish, even though almost all of the persons killed in the riot were Negroes. Must Change Ourselves This writer received scores of telephone calls during the riot from sympathetic Caucasian congregations asking how they might help in the situation. Should they send money, food? Did any Negro, burned out of his home, need temporary lodging? This Christian concern for others in need was heart-warming, but it was doomed to be frustrated, for there was really no way to help. The problem just did not lend itself to a solution. Of course,


police brutality (read: indignities) should be deplored and investigated and stopped. Of course, attempts should be made to find work for the unemployed in Watts. Of course, the quality of housing should be upgraded. Of course, social service agencies should be beefed up with the help of the resources of the war on poverty money. Of course, community organizations should be strengthened. Of course, the schools should enrich their programs to aid the culturally disadvantaged child (read: racially disadvantaged

child). But even if all these efforts were successfully pursued with adequate funding, imagination, and staff, the basic problem would remain unsolved. For the basic problem is not what we do for these people but how we ourselves can change to the extent that we can say that these people are our people. If we want to change the situation, we have to change ourselves. All of us need to be infected with a dose of Negroness (many of us are, but don't know it) so that none of us can ever again refer to the "them-us" polarity.

"We're on top and they're on bottom," the victory cry of Police Chief William H. Parker, will go down in history as the faux-pas that may well bring history crashing down on all our heads. And let us not be deceived. God is working in history to make all His children truly human, and nothing and no one will frustrate His purposes for long. Sometimes He seems to be harshly cruel, and at other times He appears exasperatingly patient. But He is always there, grinding out His judgments.

The Negro after Watts Any Negro—literate or illiterate—who fails to vote in future elections will have only his own ignorance or indifference to blame. Unless democracy is a fraud, the new Voting Rights Act, which Mississippi Publisher Hodding Carter says «s "secondary only to the Emancipation Proclamation and the surrender at Appomattox," gives Negroes the power to force change as they never could before. And even before the enactment of this ultimate guarantee of what has long been the Negro's constitutional due, other new laws have detailed his rights when he says, "I want a room" at any motel, and likewise when he says "I want good schooling for my child," even in Louisiana. The War on Poverty offers him assistance in getting a job and occupational training; Project Head Start provides a catch-up pre-school education for his kids. Yet just as the framework of civil rights laws gets its finishing touch come angry Negro cries from California: "I haven't got a chance. Whitey is sitting on me. I can't wait any longer. Burn, baby, burn!" The hallowed counsel of the white man to the Negro has been patience—until at length the Negro was able to point out 6

that he had been patient for one full century. The same counsel now has a more concrete content: Patience, to let the new laws work, to let elections bring about the change implicit in all the stress on voting rights, to let the courts strike at anyone who discriminates in housing or jobs. This political weapon already feels good in the hands of many Negroes: those who form an effective voting bloc in Tennessee, those who have for the first time elected state legislators in Georgia. "The answer to police brutality," says the Rev. Milton Upton of the Negro Ministerial Alliance in New Orleans, "is the vote." Against these hopeful and largely middle-class aspirations for the law lies the glowering distrust of almost all Negroes of the poor and angry lower levels. Everyone should have known, says CORE Chairman Floyd B. McKissick, that Congress could not "by one or two measly acts relieve 200 years of injustice." A Southern Negro woman who moved to Los Angeles' Watts district scoffs: "I always been votin' since I got here. But what has it got me?" Civil Rights Leader Bayard Rustin interprets the Watts riots as signifying "a society where a Negro can show he is a man only by setting a

fire"—all other channels supposedly being closed to him. A Charlotte Negro dentist argues that "when the white man says to me, 'Look how fast you have come in such a short time,' he is making a remark that is an insult to a Negro." Thus the setting of the capstone on the civil rights structure brings disillusionment to whites ("Isn't that enough?") and to Negroes ("Is that all?"). The mood of many Negroes in the late summer of 1965 ranged from letdown to rage. Many sescretly or openly think that "violence is valuable" because "now people care about Watts." "I'm as full of hate as a rattlesnake is of poison," hisses a Negro in Montgomery. "There's people walking around mad all over here," an unemployed Memphis janitor says. A rich Harlem lawyer finds it reasonable that "anybody could get caught up in rioting like that." The Rev. Albert B. Cleage Jr., one of Detroit's most militant Negro leaders, reports that Negroes there "had tremendous sense of sympathy and identity." Across the U.S. more moderate Negroes, rejecting such words as hatred and anger, admit at least to bitterness.


Free, Black & 21 Whether he likes to be reminded of it or not, the Negro has made spectacular progress in the past decade; if he angrily refuses to look back over his shoulder to see how far he has come, he has nevertheless advanced along the road to full equality in U.S. society. Millions have achieved what Dr. Martin Luther King calls a "sense of somebodiness"—a new self-respect and self-esteem. To say, "I haven't got a chance" is to inflict a great self-injustice. There are at least 35 Negro millionaires in the U.S. Every sizable city has a large middle and upper middle class of Negro physicians, dentists, lawyers, judges and businessmen. They are just as interested in living in the "right" neighborhoods, traveling in the correct social circles, and sending their children to the best schools as are their counterparts in the white elite. There are eight Negro federal judges, 100 city, county and state judges, four U.S. ambassadors. Thurgood Marshall, who recently resigned from the federal bench at the urging of President Johnson to become U.S. Solicitor General, represents the U.S. in the most important litigations before the Supreme Court. Carl Rowan, onetime Ambassador to Finland, only recently resigned as director of the USIA, where he was chiefly responsible for projecting the U.S. image abroad. Edward W. Brooke, attorney general of Massachusetts, is the highest elected Negro state officer in the U.S. Senator LeRoy R. Johnson two years ago became Georgia's first Negro state legislator since Reconstruction. Episcopalian John M. Burgess, son of a dining-car waiter, is Suffragen Bishop of Massachusetts; Dr. Middleton H. Lambright Jr., grandson of a slave, is president of the Cleveland Academy of Medicine. Leslie N. Shaw is the first Negro postmaster of Los Angeles. Historian John Hope Franklin is a professor at the University of Chicago. Individual Negro incomes went up 54 per cent from 1950 to I960, and family incomes soared by 73 per cent. The number of Negroes living in standard housing. compared with census-defined substandard housing, doubled in the same period. Negro-controlled insurance companies have doubled their assets since 1951;

Negro commercial banks have increased their assets from $5 million to $53 million since 1940. All of this adds up to a great deal of political, social and economic advancement, and a great many Negroes know it and take pride in it. But more than ever, after the overriding duty of thinking of all human beings as individuals, the U.S. must look upon Negroes as divided into two groups: a prospering level, committed to integration and possesed of a stake in society; and a slum level, mired in deepening ignorance, immorality and irresponsibility, and growing enamored of a chauvinistic, equal-but separate kind of segregation. This schizophrenia visibly affects Negro leadership. Understandable compassion for the poor leads even the most moderate leaders to play down Negro duties, play up white guilt, the extremists of Negro hatred get by unchided. Understandable embarrassment on behalf of the law-abiding middle classes leads the same leaders— generally after a riot has got out of control—to declarations that "violence must be deplored but. . . ." The vital counsel of patience is lost in the competition among leaders to say, "Baby, you've got the whole world coming to you now"—when the unalterable fact, as certain as the aging of a good bourbon, is that much time will elapse before all Negroes are free. Mack and 21. Martin Luther Who? In his play Dutchman, Negro writer LeRoi Jones pits a decent, un-belligerent Negro against a dirty-mouthed white girl, symbol of decadence and cruelty, and lets her kill him. In Jones' The Toilet, eight Negroes abuse a white boy and then beat him up. During open-end discussions at Manhattan's Village Vanguard last winter, Jones put an extra twist on the death of two white civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi. "Those boys were just artifacts—artifacts, man. They weren't real. I won't mourn them. I have my own dead to mourn for." Novelist James Baldwin writes that "to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in rage almost all the time," and chose a book title The Fire Next Time. Thus the outward message frome the opinion-form-

ing Negro intellectual is intransigence, fury, violence, even though the deeper message is anguish. The Black Muslims promise to "get this white, blue-eyed gorilla off your back," and preach that "the only solution is complete separation." Love and nonviolence, by contrast, is the overriding message of Martin Luther King, yet after the riot in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Governor Brown thought it prudent to discourage even King from visiting California. King went anyway—and thus inadvertently revealed that though he may be heeded and respected by Southern Negroes and Northern middle-class Negroes, he has little standing among slum dwellers. "Martin Luther who?" they asked. Neither the NAACP nor the Urban League has any practical influence over problem level Negroes. Who, then, are the leaders in the slums? Bobby Kennedy tosed up an answer: "The army of the resentful and desperate in the North is an army without generals — without captains — almost without sergeants." For this lack of responsible leadership he found a cause that most politicians are too polite to mention: "Too many Negroes who have succeeded in climbing the ladder of education and wellbeing have failed to extend their hand to help their fellows on the rungs below. Civil rights leaders cannot with sit-ins change the fact that adults are illiterate. Marches do not create jobs for their children." At a recent National Urban League meeting in Miami Beach, both Vice President Hubert Humphrey and former U.S. Community Relations Chief LeRoy Collins also deplored the deepening gulf between the masses of Negroes and those in the middle classes. When he is reproached for not helping Negroes who are less well-off, the middle-class Negro usually explains that a Negro's views of the race problem depend on his economic level, and owing to different interests and needs, there are few common answers. So the middle-class Negro, says on of them in Nashville, "goes out on the patio with a drink of Cutty Sark and says what the hell." Negro psychologist Dr. Kenneth B. Clark attributes the Negro's disinterest 7


in other Negroes to ghetto pathology— which includes an unwillingness to make personal sacrifices beyond those already required by Negro life itself. Only last year, members of Sigma Pi Phi, an exclusive Negro fraternal organization known as the Bottle, debated whether it would be legitimate to donate $5,000 to the NAACP. The main argument against the proposal was that an important aspect of the Boule was to allow members to relax and escape continuous involvement with the problems of being a Negro. Those who argued for the donation, including a Negro millionaire, held that a Negro cannot find even a temporary isolation from being a Negro and to attempt to do so would be a flight into unreality. The is^ue was finally settled by a vote to contribute $5,000 each to the NAACP and the NAACP's legal defense and educational fund, with an additional $5,000 for the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. It was understood that these donations were evidence of the group's desire to be relevant to the civil rights struggle, yet not inconsistent with the need of Negroes to find some shelter from racial bombardment. Color This Face Purple In his book Dark Ghetto, Dr. Clark describes how segregation, economic insecurity, and periodic unpleasant brushes with a white world that considers the Negro an inferior have led to some Negroes' having a complex and debilitating prejudice against themselves. The preoccupation of many Negroes with hair straighteners, skin bleaches and the like often illustrates this aspect of self-prejudice, just as a wholehearted attempt by other Negroes to emphasize their Negroid features and hair texture shows their pride in their "negritude"—a word currently in fashion in Negro communities. "Many Negroes live sporadically in a world of fantasy," says Dr. Clark. "In childhood the delusion is a simple one—the child may pretend that he is really white. When Negro children as young as three are shown white- and Negro-appearing dolls or asked to color pictures of children to look like themselves, many of them tend to reject the dark-skinned dolls as 'dirty' and 'bad' or to color the picture them8

selves a light color or a bizarre shade like purple. But the fantasy is not complete, for when asked to identify which doll is like themselves, some Negro children, particularly in the North, will refuse, burst into tears and run away." Such neuroses, it is increasingly clear, are born in a climate of decaying family structure. A recent Department of Labor report points out that nearly a fourth of all Negro children born today are illegitimate; from 1940 to 1963, while the white illegitimacy rate climbed from 2 per cent to 3.07 per cent of all births, the Negro rate soared from 16.8 per cent to 23.6 per cent. No husband is present in 20 per cent of the homes of "nonwhite" married women between the ages of 20 and 44. More than half of all Negro children have lived in broken homes at least part of their lives by the time they are 18. Dependent-Children relief checks go to more than half of all Negro children at some time during their childhood, vs. 8 per cent of white children. Disintegration of families, said the report, is the principal cause of low IQs, the swollen crime rate, narcotics addiction. As he reaches his teens, a stranger to home discipline, usually a school dropout with an atrophied IQ and no skills to help him get a job, the young Negro in the deep ghetto is incessantly told by Black Nationalists and civil rights demagogues that "The Man"—the white man—is responsible for his savage hopelessness. "The Man" has become a symbol of their despair, and "Get Whitey" has become their battle cry. Opportunity is for Seizing Any Negro—literate or illiterate—who does vote in future elections will have to bear with the ordinary frustrations of democracy; broken promises, corruption. demagoguery, the essential voting weakness of a minority. Perhaps Negroes will at first elect a number of Adam Clayton Powells. But Negro political influence will grow in outright victory of Negro candidates in constituencies where Negroes are a majority, in balance-of-power situations, elsewhere, in the minds of vote-hungry politicians everywhere, in political combination with the majority of whites, who wish the Negro well.

So far the new laws have been chiefly the affirmation of the Negro's constitutional rights; only now is the U.S. moving into providing greater opportunities. Sargent Shriver's poverty warriors, for example, work for the Office of Economic Opportunity; one of the newest bureaus in Washington is the Equal Economic Opportunity Commission. The thrust of Shriver's program is toward creating employment and employable people, and its experiments may give guidance in determining what U.S. society and Government will do next for the Negro. For ultimately, opportunity is a good job—a job that lets a bentdown man lift up his head, marry, get a better house, form a selfrespecting family, acquire the stake that damps the violent impulse. But opportunity is society's only obligation, and the Negro has to reach out and seize it. The much lamented dropout may indeed lack a "father image" of manly zeal, but in leaving school he makes his unwise choice against the advice of his teachers and the clear facts-of-life lesson around him. The NAACP's Roy Wilkins, after giving the whites their lumps for "keeping the screws on," writes: "We will have ghetto upheavals until the Negro community itself, through the channels that societies have fashioned since tribal beginnings, takes firm charge of its destiny. Not its destiny-vis-a-vis a cop on the beat, but its destiny in the world of adults." Talking like a Dutch uncle even at the risk of suffering the cruel label of Uncle Tom. used by many Negroes to avoid thinking about the merits of moderation, Wilkins boldly argues that the Negroes' goal is to "rank at last as men among the world's men." During LeRoy Jones' outburst at the Village Vanguard, a small, rotund, bespectacled man, shaken with emotion, arose. "As a Jew and a white man, I hear you," he said. "What do you want us to do? What on earth do you want me to do?" Jones hit a nihilistic bottom. "Do, man? There's nothing you can do!" Nonetheless, the bulk of whites, some consciously forgetting and some consciously remembering their fears after Watts, will continue to do something. But the Negro himself must do as much.


GEORGE M. DANIELS

Dr. King and Vietnam There are those who labor under the misapprehension that the civil rights movement has little or nothing to do with this country's international relations or foreign policies. Many see the Negro's struggle for equal rights as strictly an internal affair, something apart from America's international dealings. In reality the civil rights movement is an effort to secure for the Negro total inclusion into the mainstream of American life, and it is tragic that some people have seemingly missed so much of this true meaning and significance of the movement. Several months ago Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., created a heated controversy throughout the country when he spoke out against U. S. policy in Viet Nam and called for unconditional negotiations, cessation of U. S. bombings of North Viet Nam, and warned that he was going to contact various world leaders to see what could be done to end the war. His statements immediately raised the ire of numerous whites and Negroes who basically support U. S. policy in Viet Nam. But the criticism's hurled at Dr. King had little to do with what he said. He was apparently creamed for having the audacity to speak out on such a thorny issue, in an area of U. S. life that heretofore has been "off-limits" to American Negroes. Certainly one could easily question what Dr. King has said about Viet Nam, but it is ridiculous and naive to assume that he or any Negro has no right to his opinion on matters of foreign policy from Viet Nam and Red China to South Africa and Rhodesia. The American Negro has not only the right but a responsibility to speak out on foreign issues. As long as his destiny is so inextricably linked to that of whites, the Negro is no longer content to passively permit whites to exclusively decide important international questions. If the State Department had listened to what some Negroes were saying years ago, America would not be so disliked and so often embarrassed in so many parts of the world today, especially in Africa. In 1962 I was in Rhodesia, near the end of a three-months tour of nine countries in Africa from Liberia to Rhodesia to Cairo. As an American Negro in Rhodesia I found a remarkable similarity in the way Africans were being treated by the white minority and the way of life Negroes in America have been forced to withstand for more than three centuries on

American soil. Most cafes and hotels barred Africans. Slums (whites call them reserves) in which Africans were forced to live reminded one of Harlem, Chicago's Southside and Watts. As the American Negro, the African in Rhodesia was the last hired and the first fired; his pay was much less for doing the same work that whites once did but no longer found attractive. Three years ago, as today, roughly 240,000 whites ruled over 4,000,000 blacks. It was then, in 1962, that Louisiana's arch-segregationist, Senator Allen J. Ellender, a ranking member of the U. S. Senate Appropriations Committee, stopped in Salisbury while on a quick tour of parts of Africa. Within moments after he arrived he practically forced the U. S. Embassy there to arrange a press conference, at which he had the audacity to warn Africans that he would oppose U. S. aid to Malawi (then Nyasaland) and Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) if the white-dominated Central Africa Federation broke up (which it later did). He declared that Africans, not Europeans would suffer, and declared that Africans would need white help for the next fifty to one hundred years. While Ellender was speaking for himself and not the U. S., he gave to Africans the impression that he was projecting U. S. policy. The point is, therefore, that if foreign affairs illiterates and segregationist-bent whites can scream off their bloody heads about foreign policy issues, then certainly welleducated, non-violent, rational men of color, as Dr. King, should be able to voice their opinions without being so viciously villified and condemned. It's about time more Negroes spoke out against U. S. bungling in Africa, the idiocy of U. S. policy supporting the Portuguese in Angola and U. S. bolstering of apartheid in the Republic of South Africa. Criticism of Dr. King by whites, however, hurts far less than the criticism that has come from other well-respected civil rights leaders who, themselves, possess a deep concern for international relations. Several have expressed rather pathetic beliefs that Dr. King's involvement in international relations would dilute the civil rights movement at the very time when it should be picking up steam. Admittedly, there are pitfalls; the weakening of the civil rights movement could occur. It is not likely, however, but if it does, then the movement is much weaker than I would have ever believed possible. No one doubts that there is much to be done here at home. With all that President Johnson, and the Presidents before him have done, poor Negroes are still starving; poor whites are still freezing in the December cold; Puerto Ricans as a race do not fare well; and the American Indian is still the poorest of America's lot. Still, while recognizing that the problems of the Negro are manifold, it is grossly illogical to assume that all of his talented energies must be spent only in his own behalf and not also for others. As a warning to Negroes who find it necessary to take positions on matters of international affairs, however, it is imperative, to say the least, that continuous and effective study be given to every issue. That is the sobering burden one must carry when assuming so great a responsibility. 9


The Voices oAfrica Us Message By DR.

It would be presumptouous of me to claim or pretend that I speak for Africa, for there are many voices of Africa, as indeed there should be. What is of importance, is that the difterent voices should be heard above the din of noises that come from almost every quarter about Africa, for it is very easy to be an African specialist today. All that one does is go to Africa for a summer, and when one comes back one is an authority on all aspects of African life. Not that the outside world should not talk about Africa and the Africans. Indeed it should. But it is equally important for the outside world to stop and listen to what the African has to say, and not to fret at the hard, almost rude stare that he fixes on it. It is only in the last decade that the African has begun to look back at the rest of the world, to talk back to it and attempted to define himself and his world. At times his efforts at self definition have seemed unduly truculent and a little too shrill to the outside world, but we must remember that the African is an angry man—a man who knows that he has for too long been overlooked, trampled upon, abused and silenced. When he does talk even in what seems to him a whisper, the outside world hears a shrill shout because it has been accustomed to his muted silence. Despised and Abused To explain the African's deep sense of hurt and grievance, one has to remember, without bitterness, that Africa was carved up like Dutch cheeses and distributed among European powers without so much as "by your leave" to the African. He found himself with no voice, no opinions, and, to the West, no feelings. He was reduced to the status of a sub-human. As the African sees it, the plunder of Africa, and his final degradation as man reached its lowest point with "chattel slavery" which, as Senghor says: ". . . emptied Africa of her sons." Apart from being despised and abused, the Africans have had the common experience of depersonalization which was the result of their colonial status. All the colonizing powers had three things in common which, in turn, were the expression of the Western world's attitude toward the Africans and which led to depersonalization. First, there was a deep contempt for the culture and civilization of the Africans which was regarded as either negligible or non-existent, simply because it was neither 10

L. VILAKAZI

Christian nor white. Secondly, there was a fixed will to alienate the Africans from what was basic on their beings by forcing them to assimilate the rules, prohibitions and taboos of the newly imposed civilization: and, for good measure, to confuse and humiliate him by rejecting them as persons. Those of the assimilationist school, like the French, chose assimilation as the crucial instrument in African depersonalization as it is the most effective means to tutelage. The British went about it in a different way. Their profound contempt for the cultures and civilizations of African peoples was shown in their condescending solicitude for the "lesser breed without the law" whose customs were to be recognized as long as they did not offend against British concepts of law and justice. Unlike the French, they were not going to throw the pearls of British culture before swine, so they allowed native customs to continue, which they proceeded to undermine by introducing British structures in government, financial and other economic institutions. Finally, Africans everywhere were fed with negativisms. They were told everywhere: "You are incapable of doing this or that." They were told that it took the white man two thousand years to develop the things which are now regarded as the essence of civilization, and that black men could not achieve those dizzy heights! Everywhere, they had to listen to insulting questions like: Are they ready for self-government? Can they really make good doctors? Can they understand our science and the intricate and subtle aspects of our philosophy? What for the European was hailed as a feat of endurance, for the African it was unmistakable evidence of his brutish origins. A brilliant military victory for the whites was a bloody massacre for the Africans. When Europeans carried away thousands of African cattle and horses, these were legitimate spoils of war. When the Africans did the same thing, it was malicious theft of European property and an intolerable provocation. White rights were not negotiable, but African rights were, because they were gifts from the white masters! It is this which has led the depersonalization of the African, as a result of the experience of colonization. It is from this that he wishes to save himself, and the images and myths which have been created served to reinstate him as a man with dignity in his former state and to help him recapture the


feelings of belonging to his native Africa. That is why African politicians have devoted considerable time and energy, first to destroy the old images and myths about Africa and the Africans, and secondly, to create new ideologies. If you like, these ideologies or "myths" are affirmations of a readiness to act—to act politically. There is nothing disparaging about calling them myths because, as McRea has pointed out, "every ideology is in a sense, a myth, for it declares the premises and the circumstances on which a man will act, reject, dispute or struggle." Pan-Africanism What, then, are the slogans and ideologies used by African politicians and opinion makers in this landscaping exercise? One of these, and indeed, the central one from which all others derive, is Pan-Africanism. Legum, while pointing out that Pan-Africanism is not so much a unified or structured political movement as a movement of ideas and emotions, says of it that it is the African politician's answer to the fact that Africa, as a continent needs a high degree of unity, and that this is seen as the way in which the aspirations of African nationalism can be met. In this sense, he points out, it is not only an ideal but a grim necessity; the only answer to Africa's needs. African personality, as a slogan and as a concept, has captured the imagination of Africans throughout the continent, and nothing meaningful can ever be said without invoking it. It is, an index of the African's awareness of his alienation. When used in speeches, it is often as an expression of the determination to regain lost ground and the lost dignity of their persons as Africans and not to live or exist as someone else's copy. The dignity of being an African, and thus the African personality can only be regained, however, by regaining the cultural lost ground. This is the meaning of the African renaissance of morale and culture, for this is truly the quest for the African personality, a determination to recast African society in its own form, drawing from the past, and marrying what is valuable and desirable to modern ideas! The renaissance is not just a dream. African art forms have become fashionable everywhere. African dancing has come into its own, and everywhere, leaders wear national dress and clamor for the resuscitation of African traditional customs and practices. It was Dr. Nkruma of Ghana who put the case for African personality and African political style in a nutshell. "For too long in our history," he has said, "Africa has spoken through the voices of others. Now, what I have called the African personality in international affairs will have a chance of making a proper impact through the voices of Africa's own sons." The extraordinary thing about the concept and slogan of African personality is that it is exceedingly potent in influencing behavior. It has had the magic effect of boosting the morale and the images of the self of Africans and thus giving them a dignity and poise (sometimes, unfortunately tinged with arrogance) which they have never had before. One is struck by the self assurance and dignified carriage of African students whom one meets abroad. They walk with their heads

high and shoulders thrown back, conscious of the fact that on their shoulders rest the future of Africa. Contrast this with the half apologetic and mincing manners and servile speech of the older generation who grew up under colonialism and were anxious to win the respect and plaudits of their colonial masters. A New Consciousness Another new slogan and concept is that of Negritude. As a concept, it was originated by Africans of French expression living in Paris, and it "stands for the new consciousness of the Negro, for his newly gained self-confidence and for his distinctive outlook on life with which he distinguishes himself from the Non Negro." Negritude has a close similarity to the concept of African personality. Both are an answer, as Mboya put it, to "the echo of the past African world with its ideals, values and cosmological ideas—the past that the African has lost touch with due to the interposition of colonial rule." Both are seeking an integration with all that is good and constructive about this past in order to salvage (the African) personality and to find a foundation on which to build (new) institutions. The concepts of African personality and Negritude, have been accused of fostering racism because they press the claims of blacks and extol their virtues and, it is alleged, encourage what could be a bitter black confrontation with white supremacists. It seems clear to use that accusations are based on a false analysis of the problem and an insufficient understanding of the things behind these concepts. After all, there is a distinction between racism and race consciousness. To assert that I am Zulu and proud to be one is not to say that I am therefore against the Afrikaaner. I believe that Zulus have certain qualities, that, for example, all Zulu girls are beautiful and virtuous. I am not thereby impugning the virtues of other women or in any way denigrating them. It is only when race consciousness elevates itself above other races, when it discriminates and attacks them that it becomes racism. Negritude and African personality are a vigorous defense of, and a statement of belief in the worth of the African person. Both make very strong, even bold, claims for their group but so far, none of the spokesmen of either have preached race hatred. On the contrary, one can discover throughout the literature, positive statements of an all-embracing humanism. Neo-Colonialism Yet another of these words which are building blocks, as it were, of African images and policies is Neo-colonialism. The African political leaders, meeting in Cairo in March, 1961, declared neo-colonialism as "the greatest threat" to the emerging nations, through which they become victims to an indirect and subtle form of domination from the developed Western nations, particularly America, the Federal Republic of Germany, Israel, Britain, Belgium, and Netherlands, South Africa and France. The methods of operation of all neo-colonialist nations are the same. "They grant some sort of independence to a country 11


with the concealed intention of making it a client state, and controlling it effectively by means other than political," or "Neo-colonialism will fabricate an elite devoted to it, and falsify elections and set up Quislings devoid of popular support but armed with the watchful confidence of the Mother Country. It constantly raises obstacles likely to delay real independence and tries to involve Africa in Euro-African economic associations by the expedient of aid to underdeveloped countries." In discussing African ideologies, one can hardly omit to mention the concept of African socialism. Perhaps no part of African ideological development has given more trouble to the Communists than has the concept of African socialism. One of its articulate spokesmen, M. Senghor of Senegal, has warned again and again of the danger of using foreign models to solve Africa's problems, and he and other African socialists have insisted on a home grown product. Senghor declares: "We must never tire of repeating that dialectic materialism was born of history and geography; it was born in the nineteenth century in Europe. Conceived in that milieu, it was essentially designed to analyze and transform it . . . and what of Asian and African realities? The Israelis, like the Chinese, have been able to find their road to socialism adapted to the spirit and realities of their native soil." It is this strong bid for ideological autonomy which is of importance in the development of Africa and which has some pointed lessons for the West. Take Africans Seriously What we have said has far-reaching implications for the outside world in its relations with Africa. The first thing which seems to us to be of crucial importance is that the world should take Africans seriously, and not dismiss their voices as mere ebulitions of boyish spirits. The Africans are in dead earnest about what they say, and here we wish to suggest some of their problems insofar as the West is concerned. In the first place, the most serious problem which the Africans face is the one posed by their friends, from both the Eastern and the Western blocs. Both blocs are eager with their solicited and unsolicited advice about how the Africans should conduct their affairs and themselves. They also stipulate conditions under which their friendship with the Africans can continue, and the most embarrassing condition is that Africans should be enemies with the enemies of their friends. It was to this kind of embarrassment that President Nyerere referred when he said: "we like and respect our friends but we wish they would not choose our enemies for us!" This is not unrelated to the tendency of the West to want to get the African committed to their course. Perhaps this is a peculiar weakness of the Americans, that they want to be popular and loved. They seem to be incapable of grasping the fact that if I am not pro-American, I am not therefore anti-American. In Africa, this is one of the most distressing things about meeting and talking to Americans. Another side of this problem is the fact that the Western 12

nations see a Communist in any African who is not enthusiastically for the West, while the Communist bloc of nations has an uncanny facility for discovering dirty capitalists or stooges of the imperialists in most African leaders who are not Communists or who even ask questions about how Khruschev was removed from power, for example. Tom Myboya referred to this tendency of the outside world in a speech in Cairo. With his usual punch and lucidity of thought, he told the world what the Africans mean when they declare themselves positively neutral. "We find, he said, "that both the Westerners and the Russians look at Africa through the same pair of glasses: one lens is marked 'pro-Western' and the other 'pro-Communist.'" It is not surprising that looking at Africans this way, most foreigners fail to understand one great reality about our continent, that Africans are neither pro-Western nor pro-Communist, but pro-African. As Legum pointed out in his book, it is a remarkably simple point, once it is grasped, and it gives us the whole meaning and substance of positive neutrality. It is simply the African assertion that he is not uncommitted and that his commitment is to Africa. By this, the Africans refuse to take cold war positions, and the whole of the African political stance is an act of "casting aside all subservience to foreign masters and interests, and a confident assertion that African interests are paramount." Perhaps one of the lasting values of the Papal visit to the U.S.A. will be, for the Africans, that he made neutralism, as a word and a concept, respectable again, for it had come to be one of the unholy words in America for which the Africans were castigated. Congo Independence The definite bid for ideological independence and for the development of institutions and philosophies "adapted to the spirit and realities of Africa's native soil" is going to be crucial for the development of moralities and ethical codes in Africa: and the Western world must be prepared for new definitions and not assume that the African world will have to accept Western ideas for all time. There are already some very interesting pointers to this kind of development. The 1964 American-Belgian-British socalled "rescue" operations in the Congo gave us a rough picture of what could be developing. Words and ideas are defined anew or given totally different value orientations. It is no more valid anymore to invoke "humanity" as an explanation for our actions or motivations. During the Congo incident, "humanity," as the Africans saw it was distinctly "white," and no amount of moralistic preaching could convince them otherwise. As the journal West Africa pointed out to the non-African governments involved, including America, this was a humane attempt which governments in any way answerable to electorates had to make: to rescue their citizens from danger and death. To the African critics of the operations, however, it could not be separated from the general picture of the Congo. It was a picture of continuing and well thought out plotting to destroy Congo independence, partly to restore


the country's riches to the Western imperialist countries and partly in order to weaken African independence elsewhere. On the African side the evidence was the Belgian-aided secession of Katanga, the ouster of Lumumba . . . U.S. assistance to Tshombe when he became Prime Minister, and Tshombe's use of mercenaries. Above all, the picture was not one of separate governments, each pursuing its own objectives and looking after its citizens: it was a picture of Western conspiracy, of Europeans against Africans. One of the facts of life of this world is that Africa and her peoples are very poor at the present time and stand in great need of economic assistance. The Africans know of their need, but the rich nations will be making big mistakes indeed if they imagine that they can exploit African poverty for their political ends and for cold war purposes. Much of the aggressive behavior of some African powers in recent months in their relation with the U.S. can best be understood if this is taken into consideration. Westerners may smile a little at this kind of pride, but they had better take it seriously. It takes only a careless or ill-advised statement of an officer, say, of the aid-giving country to create the impression that the poverty of the receiving country is being exploited for political purposes. This is the main reason behind the "no strings attached" attitude to foreign aid which might seem to the aid-giving country like looking a gift horse in the mouth. The Africans know as well as the next man that development needs money. They know, too, that money does not grow on trees, and that States, like individuals, cannot live on the abundant air and sunshine of Mother Africa. The case against "strings" to foreign aid is that it is blackmail, that it is taking advantage of economic power to compromise African independence. Such aid is wrong because it is humiliating, and I think that the rich aid-giving nations ought to ponder the simple truth in the statement attributed to Bishop Sheen. That great organizer of Catholic charities is said to have told his students: "you will never be able to convert the man who is the object of your charity until he has forgiven you for the bread you gave him when he was hungry."

in African when the Western churches will have ceased to prevaricate on the question of equality of all men and on their rights to run their own church affairs. Again, the matter of aid becomes a crucial one, and the view has been expressed in Africa that perhaps the World Council of Churches could perform the functions of the U.N. in providing technical assistance so that African churches may build their church life without undue interference from the aid-providing churches. The Church in Africa, particularly as represented by the Mission churches, has had the unfortunate habit of burying its head in the sand in order not to see what was written in bold letters for anybody to see. It was this attitude which made them go on in Africa as if the so-called "Separatist" churches did not exist. The attitude was understandable, for they posed in a painful and embarrassing way, the question of relevance of the mission churches to the African situation. These churches challenged the cultural imperialism of the mission churches, and asked for the purging of the church in this connection. Not only that, but I believe that these Separatist churches were the fore-runners of what is now a common movement—an African reformation—a break-away from Western Protestantism! I predict that this how future scholars will see this general move for autonomy in Africa. It is not only self-rule that is involved here. It is a total evaluation of the basic tenets and doctrines bequeathed to Africa by the Western church, and much is at stake! My field notes taken from all parts of Christian Africa show this unmistakable trend.

The Church in Africa

In this connection, I think that Christians in the West ought to be warned against the all too prevalent idea of pushing missionary activities and endeavors in order to win Africa through the church for the West. I think that it is an unworthy Christian motive. I also think that it is based on a wrong idea of the relationships between religion and political ideology. But much more serious, in my view is the fact that the church got itself in a situation where, instead of disassociating itself from colonialism, merely worked itself deeper and deeper into the mire. Africans have a name for the kind of activity, and the name is neo-colonialism.

The Christian Church also has some important lessons to learn. It ought to remember that in Africa, and in the minds of the Africans it has always been associated with colonialism. In many cases the connection between the church and the colonial power was such that the missionaries were agents of their governments. Missionary practice was based on the colonial pattern and reflected the same racist attitude which marked the secular governments. It behooves the church. therefore, to so conduct itself that it clears itself of the taint of colonialism. Christian expression in the form of Western cultural institutions and practices are under fire, and one hears the view expressed again and again in Africa that the people will begin to believe in the sincerity of the foreign Western missionary

Finally, I think it is important for the church in the West, especially in America, to make up its mind about its public and private stand on the issue of civil rights and the Negro in America. It is important because the Africans measure the sincerity of American missionary or Christian activity by the way American churches accept or reject the Negro in their midst. It is something of an anachronism for the American churches which discriminate against the Negro at home to send missionaries to Africa. You can rest assured that the African will begin to believe in the sincerity of American Christianity when the American churches will have ceased to prevaricate on the issue of civil rights; when a man will be respected not because he is white or yellow, but because he is a man. 13


Editorials THE RIGHT OF DISSENT In the United States, the right of dissent is an integral part of one's legal and cultural heritage. The first Amendment preserves the right of even one man against a majority in this basic freedom. For the functioning of the democratic process, then, dissent is both legitimate and essential. Therefore we believe that men and women have the duty to dissent when their basic convictions are contradicted by governmental policy. However—and we say this with full intent of its meaning—-when one's dissent is a violation of law, then one must be willing to suffer the consequences so long as that law is the rule by which one must be governed. The right of dissent should be expressed with responsibility both to the integrity of the individual conscience and to the common good. The irresponsible campus and street demonstrations and draft card burnings in protest against U.S. policy in Viet Nam certainly do not fall in this category; they are not for the common good and one can easily doubt whether, in most instances, such demonstrations come even close to having anything in common at all with integrity of conscience. The issues in the war in Viet Nam and possible solutions are very complex and there are sincere differences. These differences, as well as the history and background and longrange implications of the Viet Nam crisis should be carefully studied by those who feej they must demonstrate either for or against governmental policy. Too often one's emotions dictate his path to action, and too often his decision has been embarrassingly wrong. It is clearly understandable when one is fighting for his civil and human rights—as equal access to public facilities. And it is just as clear that the right to dissent belongs to every man. On the other hand political activity is a privilege and we do not see it in the same light as civil rights. Students have a grave responsibility merely in trying to obtain a reasonable education. They should not be side-tracked from this goal. Dr. Grayson Kirk, president of Columbia University, said recently that a student who rates political activity above education should surrender his place to someone who regards the university as something more than an opportunity to mount an ivy-festooned soapbox. Students do have political rights. We believe any recognized student organization should be free to invite any speaker it desires; that students should have a right to hold meetings 14

to discuss any subject, however controversial, provided these meetings do not in any way disrupt normal university activities and functions; that students should be able to participate in off-campus activities if they desire, and if they look to the university for no special treatment if they get into trouble. A responsible student, however, will not incite violence nor attempt to embroil institutionally his school in a partisan fashion in any subject of current controversy as Viet Nam.

REPRESSION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA We note with deep concern the tragic and deteriorating situation in those countries of Southern Africa where the principle of minority white rule is the basis of policy and is maintained by repression in various forms and degrees. In spite of demands both local and international for greater justice, governments have hardened their position in South Africa by the intensification of the insidious policy of apartheid; in Rhodesia, by the search for an escape from any limitation on white political authority; in Angola and Mozambique, by the steps taken by the Portugese Government to resist all demands to share any authority with the majority of the peoples of these countries. We hope that the United States will seriously restudy its policies in regard to the whole of Africa, but we further implore the U.S. to give special consideration to those nations that are still under the harsh heel of the white minority. Too long now the U.S. has turned the other cheek to Portugal and South Africa. As for Rhodesia we fully support President Johnson's stand against a Unilaterial Declaration of Independence and his willingness to lend our government's full support to the British government's policy of economic sanctions. America's Africa policy should go much further, however. A program of economic assistance, under U.N. auspices, if possible, should be set up now to aid Zambia. Aid to all independent countries should be generously increased and, when foreign aid must be cut, Africa should not be consistently slashed. It would also do well if our government sought to discourage such American investment in Southern Africa as gives support to the continuance of minority rule on that part of the African continent.


freedom IS NOT ENOUGH By PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Howard University in Washington, D.C., is an historic institution that has long been an outstanding center for the education of Negro Americans. On June 4, 1965 President Johnson delivered the commencement address at Howard, and the full text deserves wider attention and more careful scrutiny than, generally it has been accorded. That text is reproduced below.) Our earth is the home of revolution. In every corner of every continent men charged with hope contend with ancient ways in pursuit of justice. They reach for the newest of weapons to realize the oldest of dreams: that each may walk in freedom and pride, stretching his talents, enjoying the fruits of the earth. Our enemies may occasionally seize the day of change. But it is the banner of our revolution they take. And our own future is linked to this process of swift and turbulent change in many lands. But nothing, in any country, touches

us more profoundly, nothing is more freighted with meaning for our own destiny, than the revolution of the Negro American. In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation: deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope. In our time change has come to this nation too. Heroically, the American Negro — acting with impressive restraint — has peacefully protested and marched, entered the courtrooms and the seats of government, demanding a justice long denied. The voice of the Negro was the call to action. But it is a tribute to America that, once aroused, the courts and the Congress, the President and most of the people, have been the allies of progress. Thus we have seen the high court of the country declare that discrimination based on race was repugnant to the Constitution, and therefore void. We have seen — in 1957, 1960, and again in 1964 — the first civil rights legislation in almost a century. As majority leader I helped guide two of these bills through the Senate. And, as your President, I was proud to sign the third. And soon we will have the fourth new law, guaranteeing every American the right to vote. No act of my administration will give me greater satisfaction than the day when my signature makes this bill too the law of the land. The voting rights bill will be the latest and among the most important, in a long series of victories. But this victory — as Winston Churchill said of another triumph for freedom — "is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are tumbling. Freedom is the right to share, fully and equally, in American society — to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated, in every part of our national life, as a man equal in dignity and promise to all others. The Right to Share But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a man who, for years, has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity — not just legal equity but human ability — not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and a result. For the task is to give twenty million Negroes the same chance as every other American to learn and grow, to work 15


and share in society, to develop their abilities — physical, mental and spiritual—and to pursue their individual happiness. To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. It is stretched or stunted by the family you live with, and the neighborhood you live in — by the school you go to, and the poverty or richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the infant, the child. and the man. This graduating class at Howard University is witness to the indomitable determination of the Negro American to win his way in American life. The number of Negroes in schools of high learning has almost doubled in fifteen years. The number of nonwhite professional workers has more than doubled in ten years. The median income of Negro college women now exceeds that of white college women. And these are the enormous accomplishments of distinguished individual Negroes — many of them graduates of this institution. The Widening Gap These are proud and impressive achievements. But they only tell the story of a growing middle class minority, steadily narrowing the gap between them and their white counterparts. But for the great majority of Negro Americans — the poor, the unemployed, the uprooted and dispossessed — there is a grimmer story. They still are another nation. Despite the court orders and the laws, the victories and speeches, for them the walls are rising and the gulf is widening. Here are some of the facts of this American failure. Thirty five years ago the rate of unemployment for Negroes and whites was about the same. Today the Negro rate is twice as high. In 1948 the 8 per cent unemployment rate for Negro teenage boys was actually less than that of whites. By last year it had grown to 23 per cent, as against 13 per cent for whites. Between 1949 and 1959, the income of Negro men relative to white men declined in every section of the country. From 1952 to 1963 the median income of Negro families compared to white actually dropped from 57 per cent to 53 per cent. In the years 1955-57, 22 per cent of experienced Negro workers were out of work at some time during the year. In 1961-63 that proportion had soared to 29 per cent. Since 1947 the number of white families living in poverty has decreased 27 per cent while the number of poor nonwhite families went down only 3 per cent. The infant mortality of nonwhites in 1940 was 70 per cent greater than whites. Twenty-two years later it was 90 per cent greater. Moreover, the isolation of Negro from white communties is increasing, rather than diminishing as Negroes crowd into the central cities — becoming a city within a city. Of course Negro Americans as well as white Americans have shared in our rising national abundance. But the harsh 16

fact of the matter is that in the battle for true equality too many are losing ground. Complex and Subtle We are not completely sure why this is. The causes are complex and subtle. But we do know the two broad basic reasons. And we know we have to act. First, Negroes are trapped — as many whites are trapped — in inherited, gateless poverty. They lack training and skills. They are shut in slums, without decent medical care. Private and public poverty combine to cripple their capacities. We are attacking these evils through our poverty program, our education program, our health program and a dozen more — aimed at the root causes of poverty. We will increase, and accelerate, and broaden this attack in years to come, until this most enduring of foes yields to our unyielding will. But there is a second cause — more difficult to explain, more deeply grounded, more desperate in its force. It is the devastating heritage of long years of slavery; and a century of oppression, hatred and injustice. For Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences — deep, corrosive, obstinate differences — radiating, painful roots into the community, the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a reminder of oppression. For the white they are a reminder of guilt. But they must be faced, and dealt with, and overcome; if we are to reach the time when the only difference between Negroes and whites is the color of their skin. Dark Intensity Nor can we find a complete answer in the experience of other American minorities. They made a valiant, and largely successful effort to emerge from poverty and prejudice. The Negro, like these others, will have to rely mostly on his own efforts. But he cannot do it alone, for they did not have the heritage of centuries to overcome. They did not have a cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless years of hatred and hopelessness. Nor were they excluded because of race or color—a feeling whose dark intensity is matched by no other prejudice in our society. Nor can these differences be understood as isolated infirmities. They are a seamless web. They cause each other. They result from each other. They reinforce each other. Much of the Negro community is buried under a blanket of history and circumstance. It is not a lasting solution to lift just one corner. We must stand on all sides and raise the entire cover if we are to liberate our fellow citizens. One of the differences is the increased concentration of Negroes in our cities. More than 73 per cent of all Negroes live in urban areas compared with less than 70 per cent of


whites. Most of them live in slums. And most of them live together; a separated people. Men are shaped by their world. When it is a world of decay ringed by an invisible wall—when escape is arduous and uncertain, and the saving pressures of a more hopeful society are unknown—it can cripple the youth and desolate the man. There is also the burden a dark skin can add to the search for a productive place in society. Unemployment strikes most swiftly and broadly at the Negro. This burden erodes hope. Blighted hope breeds despair. Despair brings indifference to the learning which offers a way out. And despair coupled with indifference is often the source of destructive rebellion against the fabric of society. There is also the lacerating hurt of early collision with white hatred or prejudice, distaste or condescension. Other groups have felt similar intolerance. But success and achievement could wipe it away. They do not change the color of a man's skin. I have seen this uncomprehending pain in the eyes of young Mexican-American school children. It can be overcome. But, for many, the wounds are always open. Perhaps most important—its influence radiating to every part of life—is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. For this, most of all, white America must accept responsibility. It flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to provide for his family. This, too, is not pleasant to look upon. But it must be faced by those whose serious intent is to improve the life of all Americans. Family Is Cornerstone Only a minority—less than half—of all Negro children reach the age of 18 having lived all their lives with both parents. At this moment, today, little less than two-thirds are living with both parents. Probably a majority of all Negro children receive federally-aided public assistance during their childhood. The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. When the family collapses the child is usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled. Unless we work to strengthen the family—to create conditions under which most parents will stay together—all the rest: schools and playgrounds, public assistance and private concern—will not be enough to cut completely the circle of despair and deprivation. There is no single answer to all these problems. Jobs are part of the answer. They bring the income which permits a man to provide for his family. Decent homes in decent surroundings and a chance to learn are part of the answer. Welfare and social programs better designed to hold families together are part of the answer.

Care for the sick is part of the answer. An understanding heart by all Americans is also part of the answer. To all these fronts—and a dozen more—I will dedicate the expanding efforts of my administration. But there are other answers still to be found. Nor do we fully understand all the problems. Therefore, this fall, I intend to call a White House Conference of scholars, experts, Negro leaders, and officials at every level of government. Its theme and title: "To Fulfill These Rights." Its object: to help the American Negro fulfill the rights which—after the long time of injustice—he is finally about to secure, to move beyond opportunity to achievement, to shatter forever, not only the barriers of law and public practice, but the walls, which bound the condition of man by the color of his skin, to dissolve, as best we can, the antique enmities of the heart which diminish the holder, divide the great democracy, and do wrong to the children of God. Chief Goal of Program I pledge this will be a chief goal of my Administration, and of my program next year, and in years to come. I hope it will be part of the program of all America. For what is justice? It is to fulfill the fair expectations of man. Thus, American justice is a very special thing. For, from the first, this has been a land of towering expectations. It was to be a nation where each man would be ruled by the common consent of all—enshrined in law, given life by institutions, guided by men themselves subject to its rule. And all—of every station and origin—would be touched equally in obligation and in liberty. Beyond the law lay the land. It was a rich land, glowing with more abundant promise than ever man had seen. Here, unlike any place yet known, all were to share the harvest. And beyond this was the dignity of man. Each could become whatever his qualities of mind and spirit would permit —to strive, to seek, and, if he could, to find his happiness. This is American justice. We have pursued it faithfully to the edge of our imperfections. And we have failed to find it for the American Negro. It is the glorious opportunity of this generation to end the one huge wrong of the American nation—and in so doing to find America for ourselves, with the same immense thrill of discovery which gripped those who first began to realize that here, at last, was a home for freedom. All it will take is for all of us to understand what this country is and what it must become. The Scripture promises: "I shall light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out." Together, and with millions more, we can light that candle of understanding in the heart of America. And, once lit, it will never again go out. 17


ALPHA WORKSHOP Increase: Fraternity Jewelry: As of November 15, the following prices went into effect as it relates to the official pin-badge and other jewelry of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.: Description

Style No.

Price, eac

A

Full Crown Set Pearl 10K gold

$10.25

B

Crown Pearl—2 Onyx in each A and 5 Pearls

11.25

C

Monogram Recognition Button

1.50

D

Pledge Buttons (Sphinx heads)

1.00

.01 carat Diamond Genuine Opal, Amethyst, Topaz, Ruby G a r n e t , Onyx, Tur-

5.00

quoise, Sapphire

.80 .50

Engraving—initiation date

.50 1.00

NOTE: The Government excise tax ( 1 0 % ) is eliminated, however any State or City taxes are in addition to above prices. Constitution Amended The Constitutional Amendments adopted at the 59th Anniversary Convention to the Constitution and By-Laws of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated—August 12th, 1965 in Chicago, Illinois were duly circularized to all chapters, pursuant to provision—Article XVII, Section 1, Page #27 (Revised 1962)—August 23, 1965. On October 27, 1965, the General Office reported to the General President, Brother Lionel H. Newsom, that the aforesaid Amendments have been duly approved by a margin in excess of 5 1 % of the Chapters, whereupon the General President is announcing: "The Constitution is So Amended." A Revised (1965) edition of the Constitution will be distributed to all chapters within the next thirty days—-which document now becomes the basic law of the fraternity. Additional copies will be available at 25 cents each through the General Office. Election of General President: (mail ballot) Quoting from the minutes of the Executive Council— August 12, 1965; "That the Report of the Committee on Election be amended to read that in the event the chapters sustain the amendment (elimination of the office of General PresidentElect), the ballots for the election of General President to serve the 1967-68 terms shall be mailed on April 1, 1966. The ballots shall be returnable to a lock box in St. Louis Mis18

souri and said ballots to be counted at the 60th Anniversary Convention in St. Louis, Missouri August 1966." Since the Chapters have sustained the amendment mentioned herein, ballots will be mailed to every active brother in Alpha Phi Alpha as set forth herein, returnable as indicated by or before June 15, 1966. Grand Tax: That time has come and gone—the deadline, without penalty, was November 15, 1965. Many recognized this and have made payment through their chapters—we shall expect many more within the next few weeks. We had our largest registration of active members in 1965—almost 7,000—let's make it 10,000 for 1966. Pan Hellenic Summit Meeting:

Engraving (add'l to pin charge —3 letters)

Individual order charge

From The General Secretary's Desk

A Summit meeting of the National Heads and Executive Officers of the eight member organizations of the National Pan Hellenic Council has held at the National Office of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Washington, D.C., September 18 and 19, with 100 per cent attendance. A joint statement was issued recognizing the existence of severe initiation problems with undergraduates, and proposing a handbook outlining accepted procedures for initiations. Other discussions were held again endorsing the purposes of the organization and to assist college and university administrations in attaining their education and cultural objectives; to maintain on a high plane fraternity life and interfraternity relationships; to serve as a forum for the consideration of questions of mutual interest to member organizations, and to serve as a standard bearer for the affiliate organizations in the areas of pledging and initiating. Field Secretary Applications are being accepted for the position of Field Secretary and/or Assistant to the General Secretary of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Incorporated. Interested brothers are urged to write to the General Office, 4432 South Parkway, Chicago, Illinois for a job description and application form. 59th Anniversary Convention Official Minutes: Each Chapter of the Fraternity is being mailed three copies of the official minutes of the 59th Anniversary Convention, recently adjourned at Chicago, Illinois, within the next few days. If your chapter fails to receive this allotment, notify the General Office. There is available through the General Office a quantity of the Alpha Jubilee Record Albums, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Sphinx—special price of $3.00—get your order in now. Also a supply of Alpha automobile decals are available at 25«l each—also the 1965 Alpha Directory at $1.00 per copy.


Turning to page ten of the November issue of the Sphinx, I am inclined to give the impression which one of the readers of my column received from the face lifted, classical and sophisticated Frat Humor, formerly known as Frat Fun. The face lifting was depicted in the action study of the columnist. To be sure there was no improvement of the face. Nature and father time have had too much control over it to expect such optimism. The classical aspect was portrayed in the pianist role attempted by the writer. The sophistication came in the belief that some one, anyone, would be fooled by the pose of concentrated artistry. Dear Frat Fun: I haven't become used to saying Frat Humor yet, although I like it better than Frat Fun. You may be seasoned in your writings and may be full of humor but I think you are a bit removed from fraternity fun as we undergraduates term it. The picture of you at the piano was a complement to the accompanying article, especially the musical theme that pervaded the column. But Brother, don't think you are fooling anybody. In the first place your fingers are too close together and some are on the black and white keys at the same time, next to each other. The fellows voted you a passing mark for trying. Brother Joe, Bell Glade, Fla. Dear Brother Joe: I thank you for reading the article and scanning the lovely, handsome picture. Brother Winters

If so—what did he do? How does he sharpen his shoulder blades? I'm hanged if I know—do you? Can he sit in the shade of the palms of his hands? Or beat on the drums of his ears? Do the calves of his legs eat the corns on his toes? If so—why not grow corn on his ears? Why instead The instead

do they say Amen after prayers of Awoman? same reason they sing "hymns" of "hers." *

*

t

*

When two nudists are in the picture of health, would you call that a double exposure? If a thief is always crooked, is a magistrate?

Frat

Humor

By O. WILSON WINTERS What time of day was Adam created? Just before Eve.

How was Jonah punished? He was whaled? This And That Where can a man buy a cap for his knee? Or a key to the lock of his hair? Would you call his eyes an Academy, Because there are pupils there? In the crown of his head what gems are found? Who travels the bridge of his nose? Can he use when shingling the roof of his mouth, The nails on the tips of his toes? Has the crook of his elbow been sent to jail?

Why wasn't Eve afraid of the measles? Because she'd Adam.

Why did Adam bite the apple Eve gave him? Because he had no knife.

Christmas Candor His wife asked him what did he want for his twentieth wedding anniversary,

and he quickly replied—a divorce. :.'= * * % Wife—"Do you think they should put the warning on cigarette packs that they "Can be dangerous to your health." Husband—"Why should they? They They don't put it on marriage licenses."

She peered at her face In the mirror for years, And didn't mind the crow's feet. So why now the tears? Well, the rest of the crow Is beginning to show

I wonder if infants enjoy their infancy as much as adults enjoy their adultery? *

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The remarkable change that has come over the White House since the occupancy of Lyndon Baines Johnson as president is found in this story. The White House telephone rings and the caller says: "Is the President in?" "No." "Is the Vice President there?" "No, there is no vice here." "Is Dean Rusk there?" "No, he's in Viet Nam." "Well who is taking care of the White House?" "We is!"

Sympathetic Sandor—"I tell you lady, I'm hungry, I'm broke—and I'm starving. I haven't tasted food for three days." "Don't worry about—it still tastes the same." Farmer: "Do you see that woodpile out there?" Hobo: "Uh huh. I guess so." Farmer: "Well, I want you to saw it." Hobo: "Mister, you saw me see it, but you sure ain't gonna see me saw it."

Turning to her daddy, seven year old Susie asked, "Why doesn't Tommy talk?" "He can't," replied the father. "Babies as small as he is, never do." "Oh yes they do!", Susie assured him. "Why, at Sunday School last week, teacher told us that Job cursed the day he was born!" 19


BOOKS By W. F. LUCAS THIS AFRICA: Novels by West Africans in French and English by Judith Illsley Gleason. Northwestern University Press. $6.50 $6.50 As a first study of modern African literary history this edition comes to us as a much needed guide for the neophyte and student of African literature. Mrs. Gleason has performed a service long overdue. From the First Congress of Negro Artists and Writers held in Paris in September of 1956, we are given an intelligent synthesis of materials and of African literature's historical genesis as far back as "Chaka" by Thomas Mofolo (who wrote the first African historical novel), and up thru Rene Maran's Batouala (winner of the Prix Concourt in the 20's), and further into the current trends in West African writing by writers of French and English expression. Little or no emphasis has been placed on East and Central Africa for as Mrs. Gleason states their materials are "just beginning to show itself, and it is impossible at this time to predict what directions it will take." Other considerations are given the work of South African writers (Abrahams, Jordan, Modisane and M p h a h l e l e ) . . . all of whom are in exile. The substance of modern African writing in the novel form concerns mainly city and village life and quite necessarily the inner life and the African mind. Further emphasis is placed on colonial influence and the legacy of African heroes on modern African thinking with an extensive bibliography that should keep the further interested reader busy for a few years to come. The quality of this edition from its dust jacket to its print and binding is a revelation to anyone interested in a book as a work of art inside and out. Though Mrs. Gleason is ofttimes given to bursts of sentimental moments, I guess she perhaps may realize that this may be the one way that a new body of literature may gain acceptance on the world scene. 20

The International Language of

Music By QU1NCY JONES

Music is the one "language" that doesn't have to be translated. In 1956, when the State Department sent Dizzy Gillespie overseas on a Good Will Tour, I organized the band for Dizzy and travelled with it to Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Greece, and other places. That tour reinforced one of my sincere beliefs: music as the means of universal communication, something I have preached all my life. When we first played in Bengal, for instance, they didn't understand what we were doing — they didn't dig our beat. It wasn't long, however, before they heard us talking to them — the natives starting imitating us on their own unusual instruments, and pretty soon they were wailing right with us. It's good to see how the rest of the world lives. Finding a cobra outside your door is a strange experience to you, but in some countries it's just a part of everyday existence. In Karachi, Gillespie invited a street-met snake charmer to his room to join him in a duet. The management was a little disturbed 'til Dizzy stopped them with, "Why not? — the man's a musician, isn't he?" The native bellboys spread the news all over town. The fact is, all of the friendship tour capers I have been on through Europe and Asia have been mellow and rewarding experiences, with the exception of one incident. I once tried to extend some good fellowship to a small monkey in Pakistan. I don't know what I said that he didn't agree with, but he slapped me in the face so hard I had to wear a bandage over the scratches for a week. All of the "instant communication" music has achieved for me in these and foreign lands serves to point up many things, one of which is music's close identity with art. Art and music are never separated in my thoughts. Both are great expressions of emotion. For me, music is the most tangible expression. Also, the most flexible — you can send it out more ways, reach more people with it. Music always comes to my mind in pastel colors. It sometimes hurts me that I have to put it down in plain black and white. When I do put it down I never forget the power of music's universal appeal. Music is not just for musicians' enjoyment. It is for everyone. For that reason, many of my albums contain jazz-flavored dance music. All of my scoring features a pronounced beat and it has been said that my characteristic sound comes from the use of two drums and a guitar — this last instrument being seldom used in dance bands. There is a vast potpourri of music to be heard in this country today — jazz, folk, rock and roll, country and western, Broadway musicals, movie scores, you name it. My advice is to sample it all; avoid identification with just one style of music, for that limits growth. Music has no boundaries to what it can offer to the person and to the world. We should never underestimate its role in our lives today. ©Associated Negro Press International


The Inside Outlook

BOOKS (con't.)

Maybe There's H O P ! By A. S. "DOC" YOUNG

Buster Mathis is 21 years old. He stands six feet, three and a half inches. He weighs 300 pounds or thereabouts. Despite his bulk, he's quite fast on his feet. But, no, Big Buster isn't playing tackle for a pro team in football. He wants to be heavyweight champion of the world. Not long ago, Buster made a financial deal with a "sponsoring group." It's something on the order of the deal Cassius Clay has with his Louisville millionaires, much like the deal Beau Jack had with all those gentlemen years ago who promised to protect him from all evil, but gold-bricked on the job so efficiently that Beau Jack became one of the few men in history to go from shoeshine box to riches back to shoeshine box. Others had gone from rags to riches to rags. But, like a good jazz man, Beau Jack was an improvisator. Anyway, Buster Mathis has one of those deals. And it could be a good one. Cassius Clay hasn't gone broke yet. He hasn't had the chance yet, for one thing. And he's blown so much potential income being a Black Muslim, he hasn't journeyed yet into the neighborhood where the real riches are. Anyway, here's Buster Mathis, with this deal with these guys. And the promotional campaign is on! "We are sort of ballyhooing my debut because we feel sports fans should know there's a different kind of fighter coming up," Buster says. "Not a Muslim, a braggart or a gangster. But a law-abiding Baptist. Sure, I like to talk about being champion, but I'm not just trying to be a big mouth. I want people to know there's hope for boxing." Millions of fans will be happy to hear it. They'd just about given up boxing for dead, and with good reason: During the past few years, the so-called sweet science turned sour. It went to the hounds and the hoods, to loudmouths and the lackeys. It got so that unless you had a police record, you weren't eligible for the clan; or unless you turned your back on worthy challengers, top brass wouldn't let you fight; or unless you possessed the finest set of lubricated lips since Jezebel, you couldn't get a headline. The boxing reigns of Sir Floyd Patterson, Dr. Charles S. Liston and Muhammed C. M. Clay have been marred by more scandals than Polly Adler's, more mystery than Hitchcock ever dreamed of, and less fighting than you're likely to see in the new-baby ward of the average hospital. Patterson was a hermit with a weak neck (or a china chin) and more problems than a Beverly Hills psychiatrist is likely to hear in 18 years (he was a nice guy, though). Liston was a fugitive from the underworld who seemed to have had it pretty well made in the upperworld until, according to one expert or the other, he developed bursitis — which led to two strange-twist endings so unbelievable that not even Hollywood would've dared use them. Muhammad Clay, backed by Caucasians and managed by Caucasians and trained by Caucasians, fell under the influence of the Black Muslims — and between his yakkity-yakking and theirs, he hasn't been able to hear himself think since that time. So, it's encouraging to hear Buster Mathis say something soft and simple, like: "I want to be a good champ." Big as he is, if Buster, The Baptist, can't save boxing, it's a lost cause. ©Associated Negro Press International

JIM CROW'S DEFENSE: Anti-Negrc Thought in America 1900-1930 by I. A. Newby. Louisiana State University Press. $6.50 Perhaps an alternate title of this work should be called Backgrounds of Racist Ideology in America. Though this work concerns itself especially with a thirty year period, its span probes into the density of European influences from Count Arthur de Gobineau (France), Houston Stewart Chamberlain (Anglo-German) thru Madison Grant and Lothrop Stoddard (American) to Thomas Dixon (The Clansman) and James L. Byrnes (Former Secretary of State) and many, many others including former Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Warren G. Harding to name a few. In what is perhaps one of the most comprehensive bibliographies of anti-Negro thought collected in one edition this volume may well serve as an initial compendium for further research and study on the subject. Judging from this volume alone I imagine that a total history of anti-black thought and deed in the world since the beginning of time would indeed fill at least fifty volumes as a conservative estimate. FAVOR THE RUNNER by Jay Richard Kennedy. The World Publishing Company. $5.95 Jay Richard Kennedy combines his marked talent for crisp, forceful writing and vivid characterization in this timely extraordinary human document and political novel. James Farmer, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) says that if any white novelist has understood the nuances, subtleties and dilemmas of the civil rights revolution like Mr. Kennedy, it has escaped his attention. "It should be read by every civil rights advocate in the nation." It is a stirring book, bringing into focus the Harlem riots of the 1930's and the crusades of the first freedom riders; the savagery of the Spanish Civil War and the cowardice of men when heroes were needed. Favor The Runner is a powerful account of the present as it explores the human issues and passions behind today's fight for civil rights. 21


BOOKS (con't.)

SIMPLE DENIES NEGRO ANGELS EQUAL RIGHTS By LANGSTON HUGHES

PATTERNS OF RACE IN THE AMERICAS by Marvin Harris. Walker and Co. $5.00 Professor Harris is Chairman of the Dept. of Anthropology at Columbia University who has spent a number of years studying the future of United States relations with Latin America. Though his major interests in this work are centered on Brazil and Mexico his appointments and techniques of survey-study are illustrative and revealing as a further study in Pan-American Race relations. Its histories and source materials stand out as comprehensive materials to date on the subject as an advanced contribution enhanced with maps, tables, bibliographic material and other data germane to his findings. His challenges to Frank Tannenbaum (Mexico) and Gilberto Freyere (Brazil) reveal their respective weaknesses and strengths which he qualifies and enlarges on. As manumission and miscengenation are by and large the two most important factor residuals from pre and post slavery periods in Brazil. The system of caste through economic dependence is still the basis of racist perpetuation in Brazil althrough the polyglot culture of Brazil may have less racial tension in comparison to the southern United States. Race consciousness is less of an anathema in Brazil due to climate, cultural admixture and Latin Europeanization of social techniques. However, socio-economic escalation in Brazil still has its parallels to Wall Street and Park Ave. while education is still overwhelmingly the perpetual stair to anywhere.

PINKTOES by Chester Himes. Putnam/ Stein and Day. $5.00 A glimpse at Black and White sensuality cushioned in a v;'.v a vis hard lustre that has its own personal aperture the author seems decidedly melancholy about. Originally published in France this volume crept thru on the "Candy" wagon with some sticky facts about the wonderful world of sex. What else is new Tiger?

"There is enough crazy doings in this world to make a disturbed man lose his mind. Worriation over the happenings! I think I am going crazy myself." "Over what?" I asked. "Over not being able to solve the race problems," declared Simple. "I have been studying it ever since I been black — and it still disturbs me. I reckon I will be washed whiter than snow in the Heavenly Kingdom before it is finally solved." "How a man of your habits and beer drinking facilities can expect to go to heaven, I do not know," I said. "I am always ready to meet my Maker," declared Simple, "but I do not want to go before my time. You know that tale about the old lady who was a Methodist, but went visiting at the Baptist church one Sunday in Savannah? The sermon was all about hell fire and damnation — but how true Christians was always ready to meet their Maker. The old lady declared when the shouting got going that, Yes, bless God she was ready! 'Ready! Ready! Ready!' she shouted. 'Yes ready now to face my Lord.' "Just at that point into the window flew one of them magpie-crows than can talk. The old black crow lit on the rafters where nobody could see him. When the old lady shouted that she was ready to go to Glory, the crow said in a high voice, 'Come on, Come on, Come on sister, Come on.' "That old woman hollered, 'Lord, I know you don't mean me — I'm just visiting this church!' "But as to myself Jesse B. Simple, I am not afraid to die. Everybody dies, so it must be natural. I just don't want to die by being shot, run over by a car, cut, robbed, mugged or kidnapped. I want to die natural with my wife weeping at the bed side and all the girlfriends I ever knowed before I got married wailing down the street. And my buddies in the corner bar saying, 'I wonder do Simple need a collection taken up to bury him — because he were always too broke to buy himself more than a couple of beers.' "Then the boys would get to arguing about who to give the money to as to make the purchase of the wreath — because some of them fellows might think the next bar down the street was a flower shop. Fact is, if I was living, I doubt if they would trust me with the money for my own funeral. They know I would rather have a few drinks. Let us drink now to Boddidly who is gone from our midst this evening. He was a good man who tried to do right, but often slipped by the wayside and backslid on the road." "Do you mean to say that you think Boddidly might have gone to hell?" "He may be," said Simple, "but I hope not, because if Bo has gone to hell he will be sure to meet Mack down there. Him and Mack was mortal enemies all up and down Lenox Avenue. If they meet in hell, they would sure start a fight and I do not want Negroes disgracing themselves in front of the Devil." "You mean you carry your race pride so far as to not even wish Negroes to fight in hell?" "I do not want Negroes to misbehave no place," said Simple. "That Negro who went to heaven and acted like a fool just because he had new wings and wouldn't stop flying until he flew into the Golden Gate and knocked it down — he were a disgrace to our race. He should have set down cool, and let his white wings rest graceful on the ground, and sipped of the milk and honey of eternal life, and taken a small piece of manna and said, 'Thank you, I do not wish any more,' like rich white folks at a cocktail party. But no, that Negro was so excited his first day in heaven, he had to go flying BAM' into the Golden Gate. Neither in heaven nor hell do I wish any of my people to disgrace the race." ©Associated Negro Press International

22


Chapter News Scholarship Important for Delta ETA Going down the home stretch of the 1964-65 school year. Delta Eta Chapter has enjoyed the status of prosperity in scholarship and other various activities. With a chapter consisting of thirty-four brothers and with the very qualified advisor in the person of Brother J. B. Clemmons, Delta Eta kicked off the school year by winning second place in the homecoming parade with Brother Charles Day. Staying on top or near the top of things. the brothers of Delta Eta placed second again in the intramural basketball tournament led by the brilliant playing of Brother Robert Patrick. Looking toward the future of the chapter, an interest club was initiated into the chapter. This idea was brought before the brothers by Brothers Bradford Torain and Vernon Hector with whose great leadership abilities saw that the idea was carried out. Men Inclined Alpha, better known as the MIA's was the name given this club and the brothers of Delta Eta are happy to say that sixty members have been initiated into this club. As of now, the brothers of Delta Eta are working and planning for its annual Spring Ball which is to be held on campus. April 13. With scholarship as its most important goal, Delta Eta has produced scholarly men such as Brother Bradford Torain. Brother Torain, a junior from Cedartown, Georgia majoring in Electronics, was recently inducted into Alpha Kappa Mu National Honor Society with an accumulative average of 3.4. He was also elected man of the year by the men of Savannah

LOOKING GOOD — Posed here are the members of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity who received degrees in medicine and dentistry during Meharry Medical College's recent 90th Commencement xercises. Seated (left to right) are: Buford Gibson, M.D.; Clyde Bennett, D.D.S.; Albert H. Gaines, M.D. and George Breaux, M.D. Standing are: Melvin Wright, D.D.S.; Edward Bailey, M.D.; Warren Bennett, D.D.S.; Leroi Alexander, M.D.; Orlando Lightfoot, M.D.; George Kent, M.D.; Jonathan Reed, M.D.; Jacob Adams, M.D.; Billy Ballard, D.D.S.; Wilbur Suesberry, M.D.; Vorts Glasper, D.D.S.; Hargrove Wooten, M.D.; and Louis Manuel, M.D. State College during Men's Festival week. To further its striving toward more and better scholarship, the following brothers were placed on the honor roll for the winter quarter with the following averages: Brother William Martin, a junior from McRae, Georgia majoring in English, 4.0; Brother Grady Riggs, a senior from Savannah, Georgia majoring in mathematics, 3.6; Brother Bartha Moore, a junior from Waynesboro, Georgia majoring in Biology, 3.3; Brother Phillip Dryer, a junior from Savannah, Georgia majoring in mathematics, 3.3; Brother Charls Day, a junior of Savannah, Georgia majoring in mathematics, 3.3; Brother Bradford Torain, a junior from Cedartown, Georgia majoring in electronics, 3.3; Brother Richard Anderson, a senior of Winter Park. Florida, majoring in Health and Physical Education, 3.6; and the editor to the Sphinx, Bennie Brown, a junior of Cedartown, Georgia majoring in mathematics, 3.0. BRO. BENNIE BROWN

New President At Cheyney State Delta Pi Chapter, Cheyney State College, Cheyney, Pennsylvania welcomed the new school year with new goals, proj-

ects and activities aimed at bringing us ever closer to the realization of the aims of our great fraternity. The new school year also finds Cheyney with a new president. The new president of Cheyney State College is Bro. Dr. Leroy B. Allen, former president of Bluefield State College in West Virginia. Dr. Allen replaces another Alpha, Bro. Dr. James H. Duckrey, as president of the college. Dr. Duckrey is retiring at the request and urging of his physician, after fourteen years of dedicated service to the college and to the community. Delta Pi is building for the future upon a foundation of solid past accomplishments by both the chapter and individual brothers. At the top of the list of individual accomplishments rests the record of Bro. Larry McCallum. Bro. McCallum successfully completed his undergraduate studies in a brief three year span while maintaining a 3.00 ("B") average. The fall and winter months will find Brother McCallum busy with his graduate studies at Temple University. While at Cheyney, Bro. McCallum was president of the Delta Lambda Delta Dramatics Society, business manager of the school paper and recipient of the Phi Beta Sigma Dramatics award. 23


Bro. Alleyne also graduated with a 3.00 ("B") average. Bro. Anderson, a transfer student from Maryland State College, was Cheyney's first Liberal Arts graduate. Chosen to lead Delta Pi during the coming year as chapter president is Bro. Louis Harris and as vice president, Bro. Ronald Jenkins. Bro. Harris is president of the Senior Class, editor of the yearbook, the "Beacon," president of the Social Science Club and Human Rights Council, recipient of the Intercollegiate Conference on Government Award, and a nominee to Who's Who. Bro. Harris was also selected "Undergraduate of the Year" by the Intra-Fraternal Relations Committee, composed of Nu, Psi, Rho, Delta Pi, and Zeta Omicron Lambda chapters.

Convention Plenary Session. National officers of Alpha Phi Alpha meet with St. Louis convention leadership (top photo) to plan and arrange 60 anniversary convention to be held in St. Louis August 15-18, 1966. Seated (l-r): Atty. Billy Jones, Midwestern Vice-President; John D. Buckner, convention general chairman; Dr. Lionel H. Newsom, general president; and Laurence T. Young, Sr., general secretary. Standing (l-r): Atty. Morris M. Hatchett, convention vice president; E. Keith Pickett, convention committee secretary; and Andrew F. Syndor, convention Committee treasurer; Shelby T. Freeman, president, Epsilon Lambda; Frank T. Lyerson, president, Delta Epsilon Lambda; and Arthur C. Ray, Jr., president. Alpha Eta. Bottom Photo: General President and officers greet some of the 46 Alphas of Greater St. Louis who are life members.

Bro. Jenkins is parliamentarian of the SGCA, the Student Senate, and the Social Science Club. He is also a nominee to Who's Who and a member of the Board of Controls of the Eastern States Association of Teacher Education Institutions. Bro. Vernell Woods is also a leading force in collegiate and fraternal activities. Included among the projects and activities for 1965-1966 is the expanded guidance and career program. The guidance program will again include another Career Conference. A new addition to the guidance program will be a tutorial project. The tutorial project will be aimed at Cheyney freshmen and high school students. The guidance program is aimed at helping youth develop a positive concept of themselves, to aid them in becoming economically efficient, and to help them in becoming concerned and intelligent citizens. The brothers of Delta Pi also do volunteer work for the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation. BRO. LOUIS HARRIS

Also in the truest Alpha tradition were the scholarly achievements of Bro. Larry Box. Bro. Box leaves Cheyney with a major in biology and minors in physics, mathematics, and German. While fulfilling his academic requirements, Bro. Box maintained a 3.00 ("B") average, plus a rewarding roster of co-curricula activities. Bro. Box was treasurer of the Science Club and a member of the editorial board of the Cheyney literary magazine, the "Journal." Bro. Box was also the re24

cipient of several "Journal" prizes and awards for his poems and essays. Our future also rests upon the accomplishments of such brothers as William A. T. Byrd, Gladstone Alleyne, and L. Victor Anderson. Bro. Byrd was head resident in the Men's Dormitory and a leading force and voice in the renowned Cheyney Concert Choir. Bro. Alleyne was chapter president, president of the PSEANEA. and a leading force in the Student Senate and Men's Dormitory Council.

Homecoming at Norfolk State Epsilon Pi is a chapter of eager young men who are ready and willing to work hard to see that Alpha Phi Alpha rates high in the community, the nation and the world. This year Norfolk State had one of the largest and best parades in the history of the institution. There were numerous


floats and decorated cars of lively striking colors. Besides the numerous departments which were represented in the parade, there were also marching bands from many of the neighboring schools. The brothers of Epsilon Pi were well represented in the homecoming activities. With the help of a few strips and cardboard, they covered a car and made it resemble a rocket ship. The theme of the parade was "Welcome Alumni" and the theme for the Epsilon Pi car was "Alumni in The New Age." The sweetheart of Epsilon Pi Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha is Miss Mary Annette Holloway of Surrey, Virginia. Miss Holloway is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Holloway, ST., and a graduate of the Luther Porter Jackson High School in Dendron, Virginia. While in high school, she became affiliated with the choir, Girls Glee Club, cheering squad, patrol squad, and the basketball team. In the community, Miss Holloway is a member of the Populawn Baptist Church in Surry, where she has been a Sunday school teacher, secretary of the junior choir, secretary of the senior choir and secretary of the missionaries. In college at Norfolk State, Miss Holloway is a lower junior majoring in elementary education. She is a member of the NAACP, college choir and SNEA. Her favorite pastime includes swimming, singmg, reading, cooking, tennis, and piano. Bro. JOSEPH STITH

New Alpha House at University of Texas Epsilon Iota Chapter, which has been on the campus of the University of Texas for five years is off to a flying start this academic year. Last year at this time, it was decided that the Chapter needed a house. If could not get a house at that time because of the chapter's precarious academic status. In order to maintain a house, it simply had to raise its Grade Point Average. Of all the fraternities on this large state campus (28,000 and still growing), Alpha was number 41 academically. It was then that Operation G-P-A was initiated. This was a rigorous program of group study and mutual tutoring which was designed

to foster academic excellence. The hard work paid off and Epsilon jumped from number 41 to 11 in less than a year! Also in keeping with its status as the only predominantly Negro fraternity on campus, Epsilon Iota, in conjunction with Board of Directors of the Alpha Building Foundation secured a grant of $1,500 which enabled the chapter to acquire a house which stands as a symbol of unity and brotherhood on this diversified campus. The untiring work of chapter President, Alvin White, Jr. last summer culminated in the acquisition of a house of which all Alphadom would be proud. It

tempers flared (on the opposing side). But the eleven Alpha contestants displayed the gentlemanly qualities which are Alpha and under the calculated coaching of Brother Robert Booker of Dallas, Texas, Alpha capitalized on the opposition's un-Alpha-like conduct and enlarged the lead from 13-12 to 27-12 in the last nine minutes of the game. — B R O . FRANKL.IN GLASCO

Revitalize Pledge Program at F.A.M.U. The Brothers of Beta Nu Chapter Florida A & M University, Tallahassee,

National and executive officers of the eight-member National Pan Hellenic Council meet at the national ffice of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity in Washington, D. C. See Alpha Workshop, Page 18. is a spacious and comfortable house and is to the thirteen brothers living there "just like home," and a haven for academically oriented Alpha Spirit. The surge of academic excellence and the acquisition of the house were not Epsilon Iota's only activities, however. Each year it is traditional to select from hundreds of beautiful nominees, the "Ten Most Beautiful Girls" on campus. This is the first year Epsilon Iota entered a nominee, Miss Violenta Ricks of La Marque, Texas. From more than five hundred nominees, Miss Ricks survived successive eliminations and became a finalist in the contest. Epsilon Iota is also, for the first time, competing in contests of another sort, namely Intramural Athletics. The last contest was a very hard fought one and

have set out to accomplish several ambitious goals this school year. Under the leadership of its president, Bro. Ronald L. Thompson, Beta Nu has initiated a revitalized pledge program which accents scholarly and manly development. This new program is proving to be quite successful. Beta Nu was represented at the 1965 National Convention by Brothers Thompson and Warren G. Davis. These brothers gained valuable experience which is being reflected by their outstanding work in the chapter. Bro. Artie L. Polk, a sophomore preengineering major from Apalachiocola, Fla., exemplifies the image and actions of the Beta Nu man on the move. In his bid to become a mechanical engineer, Bro. Polk was employed as a student trainee


The Sphinx

Second Class Postage Paid

P.O. Box 285 Lincolnton Station New York, N. Y. 10037

At New York, N. Y.

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at the Kennedy Space Center. As a trainee in mechanical engineering he worked on various projects with the engineers involved. During his stay he attended a party in honor of astronauts Jim McDivitt and Ed White. — B R O . HENRY G. WALL

Brother Goes Abroad This summer Bro. Raymond A. Burns, Jr., Delta Beta Chapter, Bethune-Cookman College, had the opportunity to participate in the Operation Crossroads Africa program, under the direction of Rev. James H. Robinson. Burns was a member of a group of 14 students who had the occasion to go to Kenya, East Africa, to participate in

tion of an agricultural college campus. Burns was sponsored by the New York City Mission Society Camp MinisinkHarlem U n i t j | ^ A senior majoring in Sociology, Burns was elected "Man of the Year" by the Men's Senate of Bethune-Cookman College as the most outstanding male student on the campus for possessing the highest qualities of scholarship, for participation in extra-curricular activities and for excellent traits of character. Burns is president of Delta Beta and president of the Senior Class. Huger Wins Election In October, Daytona Beach voters elected the first Negro to sit on the City Commission. He is Bro. James Huger, business manager of Bethune-Cookman and president of Beta Delta Lambda Chapter. Name Alpha to Biracial Commission in Louisiana

self-help programs now being conducted throughout Africa. The group shared in projects as the construction of a maternity clinic, teaching school, and the beautifica-

Doctor Henderson is an active member of Eta Gamma Lambda Chapter of Southwest Louisiana; he is president of the New

Racial tensions and unrest moved Governor John McKeithen of Louisiana to form a Commission for Human Rights in August of this year. The commission held its first meeting in September. The Governor charged the group with the responsibility to solve to the best of its ability the problems that would be brought to the Conference table which would deter "chaos, burnings, killings and shootings." Named to this commission which is formed of equal representation from both races is Dr. James H. Henderson, a dentist in New Iberia. La.

Iberia Chapter of NAACP; past president of the Community Progress League; a 32 Degree Mason and Shriner; the first Negro in the Iberia Parish area to send his children to a so-called all-white school; the first in the area to live in an all-white neighborhood. Brother Henderson was the first Negro in his Parish to run for City Council and was in 1963 defeated by only a few votes. In addition to still other civic duties, he was among the organizers of the first anti-poverty program in a six parish area. He is a graduate of Hampton Institute, 1948; Meharry Medical College, 1953. A veteran of World War II and the Korean War, he has worked with the Federal Government as well as the State Government since settling in New Iberia. — B R O . COLEY M. BELLAMY


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