The SPHINX | Spring 1967 | Volume 53 | Number 1 196705301

THE

Sphinx A*A

ROLD HALMA

A m e s s a g e of importance to all people at The Rebellious There comes a time in your life when it seems absolutely right to rebel against old ideas. Against all the things that seem to be stacked up against your generation.

Unfortunately, religious faith is one of the things that may get discarded right about now.

But should it be?

•«•!"• <

%

W

Your Faith echoes the very feelings you probably have right now. About

injustice. Inhumanity. Poverty. Cruelty.

Prejudice. Hate.

That's why your Faith is the very thing you should be working with.

It can strengthen you. It can make things happen. In yourself, and in all the world around. But only if you let it.

And only if you put it to work.

President John F. Kennedy said: "God's work must truly be our own."

What do you say?

Presented as a public service by:

ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC.

The

Sphinx

Volume 53

Number 1

February, 1967

ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC P.O. Box 285 Lincolnton Station New York, N. Y. 10037

Editor-in-Chief

Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Directory for 1966-1967

George M. Daniels

Editorial Assistant Ernest B. Boynton Jr. Contributing

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

Officers

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 , David A. Dowdy, J . M. Ellison, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r t i n L. Harvey, 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, O. Wilson W i n t e r s , L a u r e n c e T. Young.

Editorial Advisory

General President — Bro. Lionel H. Newsom 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

Henry Crawford

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 has been published continuously since 1914. Organizing Editor: Bro. Raymond W. Cannon. Organizing General President: Bro. Henry Lake Dickason.

Second class postage paid at New York, N. Y. Postmaster: Send form 3579 and all correspondence to P.O. Box 285, Lincolnton Station, New York, N. Y. 10037.

3286 W. Manor Lane, S.W., Atlanta, Georgia 4432 South ParKway, Chicago, III. 4676 West Outer Drive, Detroit, Michigan 1526 W. 3rd St., Dayton, Ohio 470 Lenox Ave., New York, N. Y.

Vice Presidents Eastern — Bro. Ronald F. C. Allison Midwestern — Bro. John Wesley Sharp Southwestern — Bro. Earnest L. Wallace Southern — Bro. Victor R. Jackson Western — Bro. Oscar V. Little

Cheyney State College, Pennsylvania 1166 Marcy St., Akron, Ohio 2018 Van Cleve, Dallas, Texas Morris Brown College, Atlanta, Ga. 5835 Ernest Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.

Assistant Vice Presidents

Committee

Frank Ellis, M a l v i n R. Goode, M a r s h a l l Harris, 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. Lawson, 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. Stant o n , Felix W a r r e n , Laurence T. Y o u n g .

Staff Photographer

Jewel Henry A. Callis

Eastern — Bro. Ronald F. C. Allison Midwestern — Bro. John Wesley Sharp Southwestern — Bro. James E. Glover Western — Bro. George H. Pressley Southern — Bro. Victor R. Jackson

f e n n . State Univ., Nashville, fenn.

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

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

4272 Washington St., St. Louis, Mo.

REGIONAL DIRECTORS Eastern Region Massachusetts — Bro. James Howard Rhode Island — Bro. Ralph Allen Connecticut — Bro. W. Decker Clark ...

New York, Northern New Jersey— Bro. Albert Holland Pennsylvania, Delaware, Southern N. J. — Bro. Frank Devine Maryland-Washington — Bro. Thomas Hunt Virginia — Bro. Talmadge Tabb

105 Greenwood St., Boston, Mass.

179 Doyle Ave., Providence, R. I. 66 Dry Hill Road, Norwalk. Conn.

31 Hickory Hill Rd., Tappan, N. Y. 6202 Washington Ave., Phila., Pa. 911 Spa Rd., Annapolis, Md. 324 Greenbriar Ave., Hampton, Va.

Midwestern Region 111 E. 19th. Gary, Indiana Indiana — Bro. Montague Oliver 10926 Pasadena Ave., Cleveland, Ohio Northeast Ohio— Bro. Charles Nunn Central Ohio — Bro. Oliver Sumlin 2724 Hoover Ave., Dayton, Ohio Northwest Ohio— Bro. Robert Stubblefield 1340 W. Woodruff, Toledo. Ohio 1731 Gaty Ave.. East St. Louis. Illinois Southern Illinois — Bro. Harold Thomas 2533 W. Paseo Dr., Kansas City, Mo. West Missouri and Kansas — Bro. Edwin Byrd 5344 N. 64th. Milwaukee. Wisconsin Wisconsin — Bro. Hoyt Harper 2335 Gardendale Dr., Columbus 19, Ohio Southeast Ohio— Bro. Paul Turner 680 W. Van Buren St.. Battle Creek, Mich.

Western Michigan — Bro. William Boards, Jr 4728 Drexel Blvd.. Chicago, Illinois Northern Illinois— Bro. J. Herbert King East Missouri — Bro. Clifton Bailey . 3338A Aubert Ave., St. Louis 15, Mo. 3927 Amherst St., Des Moines, Iowa Iowa — Bro. Ernest Russell 699 N. Crescent Ave., Cincinnati. Ohio Southwest Ohio— Bro. Holloway Sells Kentucky State College, Frankfort, Kentucky Kentucky— Bro. Herbert Olivera West Central Missouri — Bro. Jimmy Buford 3548 Park Avenue, Kansas City, Mo. Central Missouri — Bro. Thomas D. Pawley, Jr. 1010 Lafayette. Jefferson City, Mo. Regional Secretary—Bro. Cramon Myers 404 West 44th Street, Indianapolis, Indiana Southwestern Region Oklahoma — Bro. Vernon L. Fosbee 569 N. 9th Street. Muskogee, Okla.

Louisiana •— Bro. Anthony M. Rachal, Jr 6727 Congress Drive, New Orleans, La. Arkansas-—Bro. James A. Vault 2012 Commerce St., Little Rock, Ark. Southern Region Alabama — Bro. Kirkwood Balton Georgia — Bro. Henry Collier Florida — Bro. Herbert Starke Mississippi— Bro. T. J. Ranee North Carolina — Bro. G. H. Vaughn South Carolina — Bro. Luke Chatman Tennessee — Bro. George W. James Bro. Odell Lewis Bro. William Corbin Bro. Carlton Dias ....

1303 Main St., Birmingham, Ala. 1527 Mills B. Lane Ave., Savannah, Ga. 724 N.W. 27th St., Fort Lauderdale. Fla. 407 Washington St.. Brookhaven, Miss.

1708 Shady Ave., Winston-Salem, N. C. P.O. Box 1311, Greeneville. S. C. 1527 E. 3rd St., Chattanooga. Tenn.

Western Region 330-22nd Avenue, East, Seattle, Washington 2401 W. Cherry Lynn Road. Phoenix, Arizona 949 Broderick St., San Francisco, California

LETTERS To the Editor The Sphinx P.O. Box 285 Lincolnton Station New York, N. Y. 10037

Pan-Hellenic Boost I deeply appreciate your proposed coverage of the Pan-Hellenic Council. This will go a long way towards strengthening the Council and show that Alpha Phi Alpha is deeply interested.

In addition, let me say that you are making the Sphinx a fighting magazine for what is right. This is as it should be.

BRO. WALTER WASHINGTON

Chairman, National Pan-Hellenic Council, Utica, Miss.

Back Issues I missed the February and May editions of the Sphinx. 1 enjoyed the October issue so much that I would like to save all issues. You are doing a wonderful job and all Alphamen everywhere should respond and at least submit articles and pictures of fraternal activities for publication.

BRO. MYRON H. JOHNSON

San Francisco, Calif.

You should have received extra copies of the February and May issues. If not. let me know. — Ed. Convention Coverage Gosh! What an October '66 Sphinx, et al! Thanks for the convention coverage — we're still getting kudos.

JOHN D.

BUCKNER

Epsilon Lambda St. Louis, Mo.

4

Sphinx for Inactive Brothers

Help for March of Dimes

I certainly would be in favor of placing the Sphinx on the subscription basis and offer it to all inactive Brothers. It would be of tremendous value.

Contributions to the March of Dimes have increased for the past two successive years following a 10-year downtrend. We are convinced that this resurgence of support can be attributed to the public's realization that in fighting birth defects the March of Dimes is dealing with a health threat far more devastating than polio ever was.

ARTHUR C L E M E N T , JR.

Durham, N. C.

Dozen Copies The story on the Alpha dance (Alpha Gamma Lambda) in the December issue of the Sphinx is great. In fact the whole magazine is excellent.

Would you send me about half-a-dozen copies right away?

BRO. DICK CAMPBELL

Director of Development and Information Operation Crossroads Africa New York, N. Y. Our pleasure. — Ed.

A Note of Thanks We thank you in behalf of Gamma Delta and Delta Sigma Lambda Chapters for the excellency of the Sphinx.

BRO. HERSCHEL W. ALCORN

Associate Editor Delta Sigma Lambda // couldn't he done without the yeoman efforts of our fraternity's associate editors, such as yourself. — Ed.

We are also aware that the public would never have reached this conclusion without the support you and other editors have accorded our campaigns both in education and fund raising.

Birth defects in their many forms strike 250,000 American infants every year.

Each year they destroy 500,000 unborn babies and kill 60,000 of our children and adults.

One or more birth defects affect the daily lives of some 15 million Americans of all ages.

Those are the figures. They may be frightening but the problem is not unconquerable if you will help us convince the public that even greater support is needed for March of Dimes-financed programs of research, medical care, professional and public education.

CHARLES H. BYNUM

Assistant to the Director Chapter Department New York, N. Y.

Contents

TOP OF THE MONTH Brothers Write on Kentucky and Vietnam

Features The Negro in Kentucky/ Frank L. Stanley

6

Home from Vietnam/ Whitney M. Young, Jr

8

Are We Too Many?/ Nancy E. Sartin

12

The NAACP Life Membership Campaign/ Edward B. Muse

21

In this issue you will discover that two major articles are by two of Alphas outstanding Brothers — Frank L. Stanley and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Brother Stanley's The Negro in Kentucky has been in the works for many months; and we are grateful that he took valuable time out from his busy schedule to provide it for the 7,000-plus Brothers who subscribe to the Sphinx, and the 21,000-pIus additional persons who read it. Brother Stanley, past general president of Alpha, is editor and publisher of the Louisville Defender, one of America's leading weekly newspapers.

Brother Young, of course, is executive director of the National Urban League, and his timely article Home from Vietnam was planned as the final installment of a two-part series on Negro GI's in Vietnam. The first installment The Negro Soldier: 'He Tries Harder' . . . appeared in the October issue.

The Hunger Curtain

Departments Alpha Directory

3

Letters

4

Frat Humor

15

Focus

16

Alpha Workshop

18

Alpha in Action

19

News

24

Nancy Sartin's article Are We Too Many? has to do with the current wave of concern about hunger, poverty and how to aid the poor. Facts cannot be hidden or denied for long, and the facts about hunger are startling, indeed. Did you know, for example, that if all the people in the world were fed on the U.S. level, all available food would feed less than half of them — approximately 1.2 billion out of more than three billion. And if all food were divided equally, we'd all be undernourished, and the share of food would become less and less because every month the world population swells by 4.5 million.

Thus the Iron and Bamboo curtains fade almost into insignificance in comparison with the hunger curtain. On one side are 145 million people in the exclusive eating club, while on the other side are at least two billion undernourished wretches, with 600 million fence straddlers. Partly because of hunger, half of the billion children now alive in the world will never reach adulthood. In the U.S. garbage cans overflow with wasted food, and some dogs eat better than millions of people.

Memo to Associate Editors

FRONT COVER: Brother Whitney Young, Jr., executive director, National Urban League, with M/Sgt. Frederick Robinson of Memphis, Tenn., at outpost five miles from Cambodian border in Delta Country in South Vietnam. Robinson heads an outfit of the famed, precise and effective Special Forces — the Green Berets.

Focus gets underway this month with Brother Edward Brooke, Senator of Massachusetts. Any candidates from your chapter? If so, send in their biographical data, list of significant accomplishments and several good black and white photographs.

For undergrads, who are the BMOC Brothers?

The May issue will include a complete convention program and a major article Johnny Can't Read Because . . . by Bro. Oscar W. Ritchie.

May Deadline: March 15.

ALPHA PHI ALPHA FRATERNITY, INC. - the first Negro college fraternity - was founded December 4. 1906, at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

Beginning with its seven founders more than 30,000 men have been initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha. Interracial since 1945, there are now HI undergraduate chapters on college campuses and 199 graduate chapters in 38 states, the District of Columbia. West Indies, Europe and Africa.

Its members have served and continue to serve with distinction in widely diverse areas and furnish responsible leadership in hundreds of communities. In the emerging economic advance, in their business enterprises, in the professions, in government and in civic life it is Alphadom that comprises the heart of the Negro market.

A close knit organization, bound together with common loyalty in the struggle for human dignity: with common causes for cultural enrichment; and with historic accomplishments in educational advance — Alpha Phi Alpha stands dedicated to the principles on which this nation was founded. Alphamen, everywhere, constructively help in achieving America's promise.

"Since Alpha Phi Alpha was founded at Cornell University in 1906. it has espoused many good causes and achieved many victories of benefit to the country, hut its most important service has been in the development of the scholars and creative leaders who will assist our country in meeting the challenges of the 1960*3."

JOHN F. KENNEDY

5

The Negro in Kentucky is his progress more apparent than real?

V

/

By BRO. FRANK L. STANLEY Is the Negro really making great strides in Kentucky? In the current wave of enthusiasm over the recent passage of Kentucky's first strong civil-rights law the common answer is yes. However, the facts tell a different story.

Any assessment of Kentucky Negro progress will show: • No Negro has come near to being elected to the Kentucky Senate.

• The majority of Negro children still attending predominantly Negro schools.

• A decreasing n u m b e r of Negro teachers.

• No Negro school superintendents (St. Louis has two) or administrators attached to boards of education.

• Most Negroes employed in the traditional low-paying jobs.

• Negroes housed largely in segregated neighborhoods, ghettos and slums.

In addition, Negroes generally — the masses — have not benefitted greatly from local, state and federal civil-rights laws.

The best barometer is the widening of the economic gap between Negroes and whites both on a per capita and a per family average.

Yet by most measurements, Negroes in Kentucky appear to be making unprecedented progress. But all progress is relative and any measurement of it depends upon the kind of yardstick employed and the type of comparison made,

6

to whom and what.

The claim of "the first in the South"— made for the 1966 civil-rights law and other Kentucky actions in recent years— is trite and worn, and has little meaning for present-day Negro Kentuckians. While recognizing that they are geographically a part of the South — our nation's most backward section — they have their hopes and inspirations now focused on the North, the East and the West. Kentucky, a border state, is contradictory in a number of ways, just as the blue-grass state's favorite song My Old Kentucky Home both delights and angers with its and the darkies are gay lyrics.

On the surface it is easy to conclude that legislatively Louisville and Kentucky have not done too badly. However, closer examination of the civil-rights laws which have been achieved shows a conspicuous absence of any enforceable regulation in private housing.

Moreover, no Kentucky community, other than Louisville and Lexington, has moved to outlaw discrimination locally.

Some may describe this as lack of motivation or the absence of overt action on the part of Negroes in many communities over the state. It is more correctly traceable to a common mistake in Kentucky of measuring its interracial progress mainly by what has been done in the South and not by comparison with a more challenging liberal Northern, Eastern or Western city.

Non-Progress Made The greatest deterrent to progress is our eagerness to swell with pride over past achievements. Then, too, there is the "enough for now" attitude, in short, the desire to do only what is necessary to keep us from being classed among the worst.

Frankly, the average Caucasian Kentuckian is mostly unaware of the important goals yet to be achieved, or more specifically, of the amount of non-progress that has been made. Certainly most are totally incapable of realizing the tortures of hellish racial prejudice and what it does to the souls and minds of people who are forced to suffer it.

It is impossible for them to comprehend this, for they never have had to endure the whiplash of color prejudice which vir-

BRO.

FRANK L. STANLEY

Alpha's 18th General President tually closes every door of freedom and opportunity to those who, by sheer accident, wear dark faces.

It is not enough, therefore, to point to the few legislative gains which have been made or even take undue pride in the fact that more Kentucky Negroes have jobs now than ever before. Neither is it sufficient to say that certain additional racial barriers have fallen, in public accommodations and employment. The mere fact that such achievements in themselves become big news, as when the state civilrights law was enacted, or when Louisville became an All-America City principally because of its interracial progress, is really an indication that Negroes are still largely regarded as inferiors. Such classification is the most depressing stigma which any human being has to face because it often destroys the very best that is within him.

The United States Department of Labor in its March, 1964, manpower report to President Johnson states: "The noticeable advances in Negro civil rights, educational, occupational, distribution, housing and earnings, have led to a widespread assumption that the economic gap between them and the white population of the country is consistently narrowing. Such an assumption ignores economic progress in the white population which has been more rapid than that of the Negro in the past decade. As a result, the differences between the two racial groups have not only failed to narrow, but have actually widened in such major areas as housing, income and employment. Only

in education is the gap narrowing, and the full rewards of this development have yet to be reached."

Thirty-five years ago the rate of unemployment for Negroes and whites was about the same. Today the Negro rate is twice as high. Between 1949 and 1959, the income of Negro men relative to white men declined in every section of this country. From 1952 to 1963 the median income of Negro families compared to white actually dropped from 57 per cent to 53 per cent.

Since 1947 the number 6f white families living in poverty has decreased 27 per cent, while the number of poor nonwhite families decreased by only 3 per cent.

Plagued by discrimination, the Negro worker continues to be lower paid, more underemployed and unemployed than his white counterpart. The Negro worker, male and female, has been improving his education much faster than the white worker, so that today he is catching up educationally with the white. But despite this, the non-white worker is earning no more relatively; in fact, as disparities in average per capita income show, he is earning relatively less.

These conditions have been worsening in the same period which, since 1954, has seen the virtual collapse of all the elaborate, legal structure of segregation and discrimination, not only federally but in more than two-thirds of the states of our nation and countless cities.

The plain truth is, regardless of how many civil-rights laws we pass, Negroes cannot win complete equality or total integration without broad crash programs for full employment, abolition of slums, the reconstruction of our education system and new definitions of work and leisure.

If the story of Negro progress teaches us anything, it is that the community leaders all over Kentucky, government and private, lay and clergy, faculty members and administrators, cannot sit smugly by, thinking merely because we have achieved some legal victories against discriminatory practices that the Kentucky Negro is now on the final threshold of full and equal participation in life.

Yes, we have made gains, and there is justifiable cause for continued optimism over the progress that we have attained.

But there is in reality little cause for optimism regarding rapid change in the status of the Negroes now or in the near future.

The question, therefore, is not whether Negroes have been making progress, but whether it has been rapid enough to enable them to adjust to an economy whose rate of change is cumulative and intense.

Actually gains have been slight in comparison with those of other Americans, and progress appears at present to be occurring at a decreasing rate when compared with the progress of American Caucasians.

More than the mere passage of civilrights laws is needed is abundantly clear.

To meet the increasing needs as Negroes move from legal desegregation toward integration, employers, government officials, educators and community leaders must all recognize what continued failure to meet the demands of Negro manpower development will mean.

Amazing Saga The story of the Negro in America is the most amazing saga of this nation's modern times. Much of his progress, his historical achievement, cannot be found in textbooks, nor is it adequately written in American history. Progress is one of the greatest evidences of life and must feast on a continuity of successes. Thus it is extremely significant to minority groups like the Negro, which have long endured second- and third-class citizenship and which have been racially set apart, denied and abused and subjected to every conceivable human indignity, to have their ballooning of high expectations brought to reality.

Considerable numbers of people are confused about the real source of the race problem. More commonly it is called the "Negro problem," but of late, more emphasis has been put on the "white problem."

Ralph McGill. one of the most liberal voices in the South today, wrote not too long ago, "The real problem is not the Negro but the white man's attitude toward the Negro."

Gunnar Myrdal, who has analyzed race problems perhaps more exactly than other social critics, admitted many years ago, in his An American Dilemma, that he had studied the wrong people, when he said, "Although the Negro problem is a moral issue to both Negro and white Americans . . . we shall in this book have to give primary attention to what goes on in the minds of white Americans."

Any effort to limit the problem as one that solely concerns Negroes is a fundamental mistake. At the very root of this monstrous American domestic problem is racism, which may be characterized generally as resistance to the laws of God and social change.

Regardless of what progress or strides Negroes have made here in Kentucky or America, people of good Conscience always will be faced with a gnawing consciousness of what might have been. No one has ever been able to record the great deeds of those numberless and nameless souls who might have contributed so much to our country's greatness if they had been given the barest chance to make that contribution.

Therefore, when we recount the interracial progress which has been wrought, we must at the same time think of the wasted talent, the spoiled ambitions, the blunted chances, the lost years which have thwarted human growth. We can only imagine the many poems unwritten, pictures never painted, bridges never built. cities never designed, the undeveloped sciences, the uninvented machines, and the contributions never made and never to be made, because a segment of Americans were denied their humanity and an equal chance to grow.

In spite of the fact that there are some 22 million Americans who were born with the scars and marks of oppression and are forced to live lives of frustration and defeat, America is in a better position than ever before. Law has evolved toward freedom, and while great efforts remain to be made, the path ahead is much clearer now. The progress which we have achieved was made possible because of our belief in the Constitution, faith in our nation's ideals and in the strength of our laws.

7

to avoid

shame

of World War II Vets, Urban

League

seeks ways to aid Negro GPs

when

they return

...

HOME from Vietnam

By BRO. WHITNEY M. YOUNG

To more fully appreciate the facts and facets of a given situation, nothing compares with traveling to 'where the action is.' My recent trip to Vietnam is a case in point. For the experiences are forever etched in my mind.

I did not make the 24,000-mile round trip to that strife-torn Asian country to assess the whys and wherefores of the war but to make a humane, personal contact with our Negro fighting men and to tell them of our concern for them. I wanted to find out what we in the Urban League could do for them when they returned home and to civilian life.

And meet them I did â&#x20AC;&#x201D; on a flat, lonely stretch of delta in the south of Vietnam, where a cow pasture serves as a landing strip, I talked with them; from the decks of an aircraft carrier at Yankee Station (code name for location of the craft in International waters north of the 17th Parallel) I talked to others; along streets and in restaurants in Saigon I met still others. In faraway Danang, in Pleiku, in An Khe, in Nha Trang, and in many more

8

places there of which you have no doubt read about, I met and talked with Negro personnel and others.

I visited our men in such places as the 3rd Field Hospital, near Saigon, where I saw those mending from various injuries and wounds, being aided back to health, or comforted in their last hours, by a Negro surgeon and Negro nurses, among others, who worked deftly and with dedication.

There were heart-swelling moments spent talking to Negro and white buddies who manned outer barricade defense towers near lush green, beautiful but dangerous tree-covered mountains; where these boys of 18 and 19 had suddenly become men and accepted their hard lot with a fierce pride and with deep awareness of the awing responsibilities placed on their shoulders.

I met a handful of disgruntled Negro GI's who wanted "out" and to come home, but even they went about their jobs with apparent awareness that they had a job to do and were doing it nonetheless.

I also met and talked with Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge who made us welcome upon our arrival at a luncheon which he held for us. There was the remembered hour spent with General W. C. Westmoreland, head of the Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV), who displayed a sensitivity to our mission which was admirable.

General Westmoreland readily admitted that he did not know how many Negro officers he had in his command, without excuse. But quietly, while we visited troops in other sections of Vietnam, he had our requested information compiled and waiting upon our return to Saigon.

And there was Lt. Col. Samuel V. Wilson. a hero of the famed Merrill's Marauders who fought deep behind enemy Japanese lines during World War II. Col. Wilson, a native of Virginia, was my host.

He also gave a farewell reception for us and displayed an easygoing friendship and eagerness to make our stay memorable.

There were many others who aided us, who made available records and informa-

tion we requested. They made their troops and other personnel available and then silently left so that we might talk with the dozens of Negroes we wanted to meet in private.

We saw many other Negro personnel working in the Embassy and in outposts and villages deep in the interior of South Vietnam. The latter were civilians working with the Agency for International Development (AID) and the U.S. Information Agency (USIA). They were helping them to get more yield from their rice, teaching them about sanitation and working side-by-side with the South Vietnamese in other positive, meaningful ways.

Another happy experience in Vietnam was the fact that Negro personnel were indeed happy to know that for the first time a Negro leader had come to Vietnam primarily to meet them and to see what his organization could do for them. I think

the soldier I met on a street in Saigon typified this feeling when he rushed up and asserted: "Don't tell me! Don't tell me! I know who you are! Urban League! Urban League! Yeah! Whitney Young! Whitney Young! I sure am glad to see you."

Lack Negro Officers The terrible lack of Negro officers, which I found to be the case among the United States military forces in Vietnam, was depressing.

Here we are in Vietnam, I thought â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Negroes again giving our all in the cause of our country, and yet, still practically non-entities in positions of top command and responsibility.

Oh, don't get me wrong. For one can't actually go a literal half-mile in Vietnam without seeing a Negro in command. But they're only non-commissioned officers.

One sees a tough Negro master sergeant, or lesser sergeant, all spit 'n' polish and bursting with pride and esprit de corps, barking orders and letting the fellows under him know who's in command. He looks fine and he's doing a bang-up job.

His white officers are the first to tell you so.

The Navy, of course, was the last of the services to break down its color bar against Negro officers. On a 3,000-man crew aircraft carrier, on which we stayed overnight, there was one lieutenant junior grade, the ranking Negro officer. There are some 240 officers on the carrier.

It was quite a contrast to see, early the next morning, several hundred enlisted men rushing around, working feverishly readying jets and other aircraft for takeoff.

There were white and Negroes and other minorities working, doing the jobs they had to do. It was a beautiful picture

Brother Young gets explanation of small cannon use from Green Beret M/Sgt. Frederick Robinson, near Cambodian

border in South.

Photo by Art Sears, Jr.

of racial harmony, teamwork in action.

The previous evening we had dined with the ship's officers and the only brown faces present were ours, the hordes of Filipino waiters and one Negro who appeared to have charge of the water glasses.

Lest I mislead in my thoughts, when I speak of the lack of Negro officers in Vietnam, I am not suggesting that they should pack over as fast as possible Negro officers from other parts of the world.

But I do feel that there should be much up-grading of those who are there and the creation of others, some of the noncoms, who are already there and who have proven themselves on the field of battle.

A most disturbing element of the talk with the white commanding officers wherever we traveled, was their apparent concerted effort to try to impress upon us that they had no idea how many Negroes they had in their outfits. Some of the regimental officers even had no idea, they said, of how many Negro officers they had on their staffs.

Another point of concern which I noted was that a number of lower grade Negro GI's complained that they had trouble getting promotions. They said they could not attribute it to discrimination, however, they also did not know what else to attribute it to.

Finally, a big point of concern I found was that the officers also have little knowledge of what the Negro GI's and their other troops do on their off-duty time.

We visited bars, for example, to check reports that there is bias at some of them.

We found that a number of them, across the Saigon River, were frequented solely

by Negroes and others solely by whites.

From all indications, this was due to de facto segregation, primarily by choice.

Many of the Negroes in one of the clubs told us that when "I'm off duty. I like to be with my friends. And so I come here where I can find them."

Even at that rate, the commanding officers, it seems to me, should encourage their men to break it up, because it isn't healthy.

In a land where the Negro or white guy in the trench next to you may be the one to save your life from the enemy, in the next moment, the signs of separation one

10

spots every now and then, between these men is deplorable and depressing.

The things which disturbed me about the trip I relayed to President Johnson, along with the good things, when I returned from my trip. The President indicated that he would immediately order an investigation of the officer situation and other conditions existing in Vietnam that mar the teamwork of Negroes and whites fighting in that tragic land.

Welcome Mat Was Out What sort of Negro GI is the Vietnam military conflict spawning? What are this GI's aims? His hopes? His ambitions? His skills? Does he know why he's in Vietnam?

These were some of the questions which churned through my mind as I rode the planes, the highways and the back-alleys criss-crossing Vietnam villages and towns in search of Negro military personnel with whom I could talk.

I was looking for Negro GI's with whom I could shake hands and let them know that we back home had them on our minds, are deeply interested in them and want to know what's happening to them.

With warm smiles, pride in showing us what they're doing, and with pleasant surprise to see a Negro leader from the States in their midst, they displayed all the charm which only one genuine friend can show another. Once they got the feeling that we were not representing the government, but a private organization, the welcome mat was out.

And this "mat" was laid in all sorts of places — in an enlisted men's mess hall, where we ate with them instead of in the officers' mess as had been prearranged; in a tiny storeroom where a GI was stacking supplies. In another location, we stood atop a tower, on an outer defense barricade, while the GI stood guard at his machine gun. Another time I recall jumping on a high running board of a fuel truck to speak to a driver who hails from Portsmouth, Va. And I talked to many GI's in clubs where their dates and the dancing and the rock 'n' roll music made me think that I was in a stateside dancing spa.

Fairly typical of a wide selection of these men is one whom I shall never forget — Master Sgt. Frederick Robinson.

36, of Memphis, Tenn. Sgt. Robinson heads an outfit of the famed, precise and effective Special Forces — The Green Berets.

Tough, brilliant, knowledgeable Master Sgt. Robinson makes one want to stand up and shout "hooray for our side!"

He made no bones about telling us, as his white Southern commanding officer stood by silently and beamed on him with pride, that, "We don't keep a man who's prejudiced in the Green Berets. We're a close-knit fighting team and we don't stand for any nonsense! When every other member of the team's life is dependent upon the other, we can't afford that type of person. We get rid of him quickly."

At a later briefing session in his headquarters, at an undisclosed forward fighting location near the Cambodian border, Sgt. Robinson proceeded to untangle a TV-weatherman-type map of confusion of lines and curves and numbers into a meaningful dialogue, which fairly took one's breath away. Methodically and professionally he explained their setup, the land they had secured and now had to control, and what it meant to the overall effort. I thought as I sat there, and basked in this Negro's efficiency and in his effervescent pride of job, that here is an uncommon man.

From all appearances, even his officers stood back and let him operate things — at least to a point.I talked to many, many other Negro GI's who displayed similar dedication and knowledge of their tasks.

Master Sgt. Robinson, a 17-year veteran of military services, was on his second tour of duty in Vietnam. He completed high school before he joined the Army. He took additional courses after joining the services.

As a member of the Green Berets he, of course, also had to qualify as a paratrooper and go through the most rigorous, highly-specialized training possible for a member of the military.

It is men such as he who are most firm when they say that after the service they have given to their country they will expect no less than equal treatment when they return to their homeland and to civilian life. He is soon to do just that, and also to marry and to settle down.

"I'll take care of myself when I get back home," he says with assuredness. "There's no reason why the Negro can't have what everyone else has in the United States," he declared, "if he's qualified."

And this man, like the others with whom I talked, has a world of experience and disciplined training which can be a boon for this nation in business, in industry, in any area of endeavor he chooses.

If he gets the opportunity.

Otherwise, all of his experiences and. discipline, if not given this opportunity to be used for good, in the face of expanding conflict between the races here at home, can be used as sources of creating further conflict and chaos in this land for which he has given so much.

Help to Readjust Certainly, these veterans are not to be permitted to journey from New York or San Francisco, when they return for discharge, back to their hometowns of Pittsburgh or Phoenix or Chicago or Celeveland or maybe Waycross of Little Hope or Strawberry Plains, wherever they live, with nothing more than a "hello" and a "good luck."

At that point, as the veteran disembarks from his ship or his plane, after having placed his life at death's door in defense of the nation, it will be our job to ask him what we can do for him. It is then that we must not only sing out our praises of him but also to begin to work diligently to assure him that he knows that we are there to help him journey home, even, if necessary, to make sure that he is comfortably returned to his loved ones and friends. Above everything else, we must be sure that the returning GI is helped to readjust to his place in the community, home-wise and opportunitywise.

And so. for example, the National League, at its recent Annual Conference. established a Veterans Affairs Department designed to contact the GI shortly before he is to be discharged, to see if we can help him in his readjustment to civilian life.

Basically, our plan will be to find out more specifically what skills the GI has, if he had some military job which, through retraining, can be adapted for civilian use.

Photo by Art Sears, Jr.

". . . they are spit 'ri polish and bursting with pride and esprit de corps . . ."

We want to know, and to help him, if he desires, to return to school for further education for a better job. Or even to help him find better housing.

Already government agencies, businesses and industries have responded affirmatively in their desires to assist in this newly established program by making available jobs, giving helpful advice in the creation and in the carrying out of the program.

Nobody gave a tinker's damn about how Negro GI's of former wars felt, what they hoped to do, or even how they were feeling, when they returned home. Except his family and close friends who couldn't do much to help him get a job or to better

his condition.

And so, thousands of them returned to the same old communities, to the same old discriminatory conditions, to the same or worse nondescript, little-paying jobs, and to the same old depressing, dismal and hopeless second-class citizenship status they left.

Thus, our reason for launching the plan to aid the Vietnam Negro and other minority GI's. With all the troubles currently besetting the country, here at home. these Vietnam vets will be a force the nation can ill-afford to have embittered.

Besides, the Negro GI's of Vietnam are among the best, of our communities. They deserve the best treatment.

11

Can the world solve hunger problems aggravated by periodic drought, flood and other disasters, or, experts asks . . . already . . .

are we too many ?

By NANCY E. SARTIN

There are close to three and a half billion people in the world today. By the year 2000, we are often reminded, there will be six billion. Has our planet the resources to sustain so many and more to come, when two thirds of those alive now are underfed? Indeed, are we already too many?

Dr. Raul Prebisch, general secretary of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, recently sounded this note of economic warning: "The labor force that will press on the world's markets in twenty years' time is already born.

These people will find no opportunity to be assimilated in the modern economy if there is no real and bold policy of investment and development."

Expressing concern over recent economic stagnation. Dr. Prebisch said that in "the years elapsed since the start of

12

this decade, the rate of growth in developing countries is lower than in the last five years of the preceding decade."

Even more disturbing than poor prospects for the world's breadwinners are the poor prospects for bread eaters. While the population increase geometrically, assisted by lowered death rates and stable or higher birth rates, the land area of the world is fixed. World food production has steadily increased, but not as fast as population. In 1966, production fell behind world population increase. Some demographers are predicting a condition of habitual famine for the world within the next few years.

Sir Charles Darwin, grandson of the propoundcr of the theory of evolution, has pointed out that when man reaches the limit of his numbers that the earth can support he will discover the raw oper-

ation of the law of natural selection. All our illusions of culture, charity, welfare, all our schemes for universal education and peace will give way to the struggle for survival in the next two centuries unless we control the population increase.

In the face of this prospect, opposition to birth control measures on the ground that they violate natural law is diminishing.

Indeed, some church agencies have sponsored projects in family planning in order to encourage the development of a social situation where wanted children will be born to parents who can provide for them.

Governments have entered this hitherto forbidden area on an increasing scale in recent years. Such efforts will take a generation to show any effect. Most estimates of future population now allow for birth control measures in coming years.

The population increase is not uniform.

Europe, which is by far the most densely populated area of the world, with 275 people to the square mile, has the lowest birth rate, averaging well under 20 per thousand population. South America, which has only 23.5 people per square mile, has such a high present birth rate that its crop land may soon be threatened by spreading cities. The same is true of Africa, with 26 people per square mile now, but some of the world's highest birth rates. Cruelly high death rates in Africa and South America, particularly infant mortality, slow the actual population increase. Both of these continents have great untapped resources that must be developed if coming generations are to be adequately fed and usefully occupied.

Russia now has 26.2 people per square mile (North America has 30.4), and a birth rate only slightly higher than in the United States. It is thus in similar position as regards the world areas of greatest population expansion. Russia is one of the prosperous nations, in a situation where population increase aids economic progress. This circumstance may one day influence Russia's foreign policy more than the fact of its communistic ideology.

Compared to the rest of Asia, Russia is very well off indeed, for Asia, excluding Russia, has a population density of 166.6 people per square mile. Its birth rates, excluding prosperous, population con-

scious Japan, are in the neighborhood of 50 per thousand population. Nearly as high as in Africa where population is less than one sixth as dense.

It is therefore understandable that acute population problems have appeared in Asia, where chronic hunger and malnutrition are aggravated by periodic drought, flood, and other disasters. Must the Indian famine of this year be a spectre of the world's future?

Efforts to avert such a grim prospect are proposed or already underway Will We Eat? Lord Boyd Orr, outstanding British nutritionist, has estimated that in spite of the present population increase it would be possible to feed the likely ten billion people who will be living eighty years from now. He bases this, however, on a determined, concentrated effort by all the nations of the world to increase food production.

What are some directions that such efforts might take? One is to increase the amount of arable land. While the world's land area of under fifty-three and a half million square miles — or about 34 billion acres — is constant, the amount of arable land can be increased. Efforts in this direction in recent years have wrestled land from the sea, from the desert, and from the extremes of Siberian cold and jungle heat.

Edward Rogers, in his lively and informative book Poverty on a Small Planet, describes an experiment in which three acres of sea were fertilized. Fish in the area ate plankton which had absorbed the nutrients; and their growth rates increased as much as three times. Protecting the fish in such sea farms from their natural enemies would further increase yields.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization has done some sea exploring with startling results in discovery of new marine food sources. Not only protein sources, such as a new fish flour that may soon be approved for marketing, but new fishing areas have been found, including a rich, 120 mile long shrimp bed off the coast of India.

Other sources of protein may be found in leaves, especially in the wet tropics. and in insects, which have a higher protein content than meat. (Dried locusts are more than 50 per cent protein, beef about 1 7 per cent.) The chief use of these sources may be for food additives in flour or meal.

One of the results of western diplomacy in the 1950's was the discouragement of agricultural development in areas like India and Egypt in favor of industrial development. PL480 food became a hedge against falling food production. Now that

PL480 has run out — along with huge American surpluses — the steel mills fall idle in nations where already limping economies cannot import food for the work force. Provisions of the new U.S. economic assistance program are still to be worked out. It is hoped that agricultural development will be part of it.

Long range efforts of the U.S. Agency for International Development will result in large scale land improvement overseas.

But they are only beginning to bear fruit.

Voluntary agencies, such as Agricultural Missions which has been in the field for a generation, pioneered the few educational programs for bringing farmers out of helpless submission to the chances of weather.

Food for work programs of Protestant and Catholic agencies have changed sizeable stretches of barren land into productive fields, and have incidentally returned many refugees to self sustaining productivity as well.

But it will take more than such pilot operations to bring the world through the present crisis and into a tolerably nourished condition during the coming years.

It will take crash programs on a scale never undertaken before, and investments of capital and labor of a magnitude that will dwarf the industrial revolution.

The story of such technological feats. of dam building, irrigation, water supply development, specialized seed and fertilizer development, and pest control, is heroic. The amount of new land won for harvest is impressive. Increased production on lands already under cultivation has added unforeseen surpluses to the developed countries. Take the methods and efficiency and fertilizers and equipment of affluence and apply them to undernourished land, and world food production could make another sudden increase.

Another direction just opening up is to tap the resources of the sea. If we were to systematically harvest the sea as we do the land, and conserve and develop its resources, we could comfortably feed a population that may one day be virtually a single vast metropolitan complex.

A farmer in Madha Pradesh, India, proudly displays wheat grown from improved seed in an agricultural extension project. Agronomists hope that such grain, improved water sources, pest control and other modern farming techniques will bring Indian food production out of its present slump. In too many places in the world food supply lags behind increases in population, (photo: WWC)

13

Two of its builders look out over the Chuquicamata copper mine near Calama, Chile, a project of Anaconda Copper. Such investments spur economic development in poorer countries when they help to create and involve local capital. Former operations which merely exploited foreign resources are giving way to partnerships which help boost developing countries into an expanding international market, (photo: WWC)

Can We Prosper?

Emergency shipments of grain to India will keep thousands there alive this year.

But such measures do not solve, or even assist the fundamental problem of lagging food production in a limping economy.

More than a dole is needed to spur economic development.

At a recent Washington meeting of fifteen countries that together provide nearly all international aid, the World Bank disclosed that its head, George D. Woods, will ask the rich nations to increase to $1 billion a year their present contributions to the bank for loans to the poorest countries.

The request came in the face of some discouraging reports about the success of such loans in the past. Although there have been some examples of spectacular economic takeoffs, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico. and Greece, for instance, the unlooked for population increase and food shortages have widened the gap between the rich and the poor nations in the last ten years.

Under pressure from Congress, the United States has gradually tightened its loan terms over the years. The verdict of the fifteen-nation Washington meeting in favor of easing such terms may have some softening effect.

14

International aid has not always been successful or gratefully received. Size and political importance have drawn attention to foreign aid problems in such countries as Indonesia, Egypt, India, and Turkey.

Capital investment cannot always show immediate results, as a glance at the seesaw American economy of the 19th century will illustrate. World Bank economists point with cautious optimism to distinct progress and steady balance of payment made by such countries as South Korea, Peru, and Pakistan. In Africa, Nigeria and Ghana have national growth rates well above that of the United States.

Their even higher rates of population increase have so far prevented any possible economic takeoff.

The argument that poor nations must ultimately help themselves has some validity. Given ample time, such a course would be feasible, even desirable. But we do not have ample time. And ifs and could-bes and exhortations to frugality do not fill the bowl of today's hunger.

To criticize Indian farmers for buying jewelry or a wedding celebration with a year's cash surplus, when they could presumably use the cash for better seed or fertilizer, is to ignore the bald fact that a per capita income of $70 a year can invest precious little cash if anything. Such

yearly incomes are the rule all over Asia, where only four areas, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, have per capita incomes over $200 a year. In Africa, Algeria alone tops $200.

The industrial capacity of these particular nations makes their wealth, along with widespread use of modern agricultural methods. Nations which export chiefly raw materials have suffered in recent years from a sharp drop in the price of raw materials, and an increase in the use of synthetics which replace those raw materials.

Europe's dense population is supported by industry. Only about 20 per cent of Europeans are farmers; and as you would expect, per capita incomes in Europe are never as low as $200. Some are well over $1000 a year. America's per capita income of $ I 900 is earned by a labor force of which only 13 per cent are farmers.

If the hungry nations are to feed themselves, most of their farmers will have to abandon their hand plows and garden plots so that bigger fields can be more efficiently cultivated. Only the enlightened self-interest of affluent nations will provide capital impetus for such a technical and social change, and industrial development to employ those farmers in a self sustaining economy.

At a recent World Council of Churches meeting in Geneva, Barbara Ward, the noted British economist and author, suggested a system of global taxation to meet world development needs. She advocated that a minimum of one per cent of national income in prosperous nations be put into capital investment in developing countries. The present amount is about .03 per cent.

This is one area where self interest and moral imperatives indicate the same course of action. Miss Ward points out that the God who " look on his universe and found it good" also "bade his followers feed the hungry and heal the sick."

The realities of our political situation make it suicidal to ignore the critical problems of hunger, poverty, overpopulation.

If we do not solve them constructively, the destructive solutions of widespread starvation and global war will inevitably engulf us.

Dear Whom: Who is "Whom"? Everybody should recognize who "whom" is by now. How often have you seen letters addressed "to whom it may concern"? Of course that is very indefinite because we don't know just who is concerned, but if it is "Mr. Whom" or "Brother Whom" as the case may be, or even "Mrs. Whom," 1 am sending this to you. Not any "whom" but the "whom" to whom it may concern. It is the column on Frat Humor and surely somebody should be concerned about it. I am, because I am Esther J. Winters, the wife of O. Wilson Winters who has been looking at a pile of clippings, notations and other material cluttering a lamp table since the last Sphinx arrived. These assorted items — look them over and pick out anything that strikes your fancy. I disavow any responsibility for them. I only want to clean my living room.

Tape Recording from a Marriage Clinic Marriage is sometimes like being at a restaurant. You order what you want, then when you see what the other fellow has you wish you had taken it.

"Having a hobby is fine for taking the humdrum out of life," said Otis. "My wife is taking up bird watching."

"Yes," said his buddy, "you're the bird she's watching!"

The noblest of all animals is the hot dog. It feeds the hand that bites it."

Historians finally have hit upon the reason that Robin Hood stole only from the rich. The poor didn't have any money.

Potpourri

There is considerable controversy over the existence and identification of unidentified flying objects commonly listed as UFO. When Brother Kermit Boston was asked what he thought about UFO, he said he knew what it was. When pressed for an answer he said: "UFO is scrapple, that delicious meat product made in Philadelphia. Scrapple is "Unidentified frying objects."

*

* :;:

He was from Richmond and of course he had to be more meticulous than the rest of the whole Army. So the Second Lieutenant asked his tailor, "Will this uniform hold its shape?"

"Absolutely," replied the tailor, "it is made of pure virgin wool."

"Listen," said the officer, "all I want to know is: Will it hold its shape? Never mind about the morals of the sheep."

Overheard—At a Basketball Came: Yes, my wife's persuaded me to transfer my account to a drive-in-bank. This enables me to make a deposit from the front seat at the same time she's withdrawing it from the back seat."

Mrs. Paul Revere (overhead by a neighbor): I don't care who's coming! I'm using the horse tonight!

A lady doing her usual shopping asked a clerk: "What can you suggest for a man of fifty?"

The clerk answered: "A girl of eighteen."

Geologist "What would you call this lava encrusted five stringed ancient harp?"

Student: "I'd call it a dirty lyre."

Smiles, Giggles or Laughs Overheard—At a Card Party: "There's one thing I've noticed about going to Sadie's for dinner. She can dish it out— but she can't cook it."

The moment a man falls in love with himself it's the beginning of a lifelong romance.

•

Frat

Humor

By MRS. O. WILSON WINTERS

The faults a man finds in his wife may be why she couldn't get a better husband.

An old farmer, asked why he never married, explained: "Well, I'd rather go through life wanting something I didn't have than having something I didn't want.

A city fellow, when asked, "Has your wife changed much since you married her?" answered, "She certainly has; my habits, my friends, and my hours."

*

*

The preacher in a vacation resort looked over his congregation and said: "I've been requested to take up a collection for our local orphan's Home. Please give what you can."

A tired looking gentleman in a front pew spoke up: "I'll give two children."

Look out for those beautifully packaged perfumes with the fancy names they are getting out for men. Last Christmas, a young fellow in our town spilled on his hand a few drops of one called "Come and Get Me." Two days later the Draft Board got him. He's now in Viet Nam. By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing.

And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying — Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying."

DOROTHY PARKER EDITOR'S NOTE:

Mrs. Winters is a Consultant teacher in the Philadelphia Public School System.

15

Before the November 1966 elections the cries of Mack power were being countered with cries of white power in Northern cities. Youngsters too young to remember the horror of the name were identifying themselves as Nazis. What many had feared was well under way: Negro extremism was giving ammunition to a white extremist minority.

There was a lot of talk about a white backlash before the elections, and less talk about it after the elections were over.

There was no indication anywhere that a backlash against the Civil Rights movements had won any elections. Those who suggested anything else really didn't know that Civil Rights leaders have consistently opposed riots and lawlessness all along.

Before the election what the Republicans lacked was a covey of national leaders. One of the most important, and warmly welcomed, new Republican leaders is the new senator from Massachusetts —- Edward W. Brooke. A Protestant in a predominantly Catholic state, a Republican in Democratic territory, a Negro in a state where there are relatively few Negroes — about two per cent of the entire population of the state, most of whom live in the Boston area — Edward Brooke still won handily. He became the first Negro senator chosen by all the people of a state in the history of the nation — the only two other Negro senators came from Mississippi during the Reconstruction days when most white voters were disenfranchised.

If ever a man was singled out for testing, it was Brooke. Inducted into the United States Senate on January 10, he faces the formidable hurdle of being the first Negro in the nation's most exclusive club.

What the "professional politicians" around Capitol Hill and around Beacon Hill's State House in Boston said was it couldn't be done. Congressman Eddie Boland of Massachusetts, a valued lieutenant of the late President John F. Kennedy, reportedly placed a bet that the

16

Republican Party of Massachusetts would not permit the advancement of Brooke.

Boland bet that Brooke would never be given the attorney general nomination in 1962 by the Republican convention, and if such a miracle should happen, then he never would survive the Republican Primary.

Yet Brooke won both the nomination and the Primary, swamped his Democratic opponent in the November election, and went on to four sensational years as the outstanding attorney general in the history of Massachusetts.

Destined for Leadership The political analysts were quick to leap to the conclusion that the Brooke career would end right there. "Well, they did elect him attorney general, and he's not a bad fellow. His race didn't seem to hurt him. But they'll never elect a Negro a Governor, and they'll never send one to represent the state in Washington."

There might have been some justification for this facile explanation but it exhibited a naivete about the man himself — and his determination to win a seat in the United States Senate. Brooke knew what it would mean to the Negro people, to the people of Massachusetts and to a world struggling with problems of war and peace, poverty amid plenty, and with man's hatred of man. He was convinced that Senator Leverett Saltonstall would retire in 1966, and that he could win the nomination and the election.

What Brooke's opponents seemed unwilling lo admit was that Brooke has been destined for leadership since childhood.

His mother tells how she hoped he would become a doctor, but that he spent so much time haranguing his childhood friends at club meetings, she was convinced he would develop into a minister!

He was a faithful altar boy at their neighborhood Episcopal church in the northeast section of Washington, D. C. His father was a lawyer with the Vet-

erans Administration, and was dedicated to an even greater opportunity for his son.

In 1962, when young Brooke had won the Republican nomination for attorney general, and Senator Saltonstall banged the gavel to still the tumult so the Convention could hear its nominee, Brooke supporters sought his father so he could be present with the family on the platform.

They finally found him anxiously pacing the back corner of the balcony, hiding out as far as possible from the platform.

When told that Ed had won, he smiled through tears in his eyes: "I just didn't believe that you fellows could do it; and I just couldn't stand to watch a defeat."

The senior Brooke did not live to see his son in the United States Senate. But his mother has, and she helped in no small way to put him there. During the fall of 1966, she was busy among her Washington friends raising vitally-needed funds for her son's campaign. And during the final days, she was with him frequently along the campaign trail in Massachusetts.

She was the star of the Election Eve Telecast, which many felt was the most moving and effective political TV show ever. The camera switched from fatherly Senator Saltonstall. who gave the candidate his valued blessing, to the Brooke family — wife and two teenage daughters. and then to his mother, Mrs. Helen Brooke.

"Everyone feels, I guess, that his mother is the Number One person in the world," said the candidate, "but in my case it is true. I owe her so much."

"How are you bearing up. mother?" he asked.

"Oh, just fine," she replied, in all of the election turmoil. "I'm so proud of you, and I know that you are going to win."

The candidate-son faced the hard realities of politics and prepared his family for the worst: "In this game, mother, you can never be sure. Some win; some lose."

Mrs. Brooke concluded: "Whether you win or lose tomorrow, I'll still be proud of you." There were few dry eyes left in the living rooms of Massachusetts!

Edward W. Brooke was elected a United States Senator by nearly half a million votes. No "backlash" ever developed.

There were no ugly racial incidents in the

entire campaign, and there have rarely been any in Brooke's career.

And in all of the political turmoil across the nation in an off-year election, how did the Republicans do? They grabbed 47 new congressional seats, elected three new senators, moved into governor's mansions in key states.

'That Guy Is Class' In Boston, the press and television met with Brooke the morning after the triumph to interview him. Although exhausted from a year-long campaign and an almost sleepless night, Brooke fielded all questions with usual skill.

As the press left, the staff overheard one famous writer comment: "That guy is class!"

Brooke has been "class" for a long time.

The late John F. Kennedy had a similar love affair with the press, and for many of the same reasons â&#x20AC;&#x201D; each developed a rapport, based upon the dynamic, articulate leader's frankness, good humor and consideration for the public's right to know.

Brooke's skill in the area of public opinion has been evident since he was state commander of the American Veterans in the early 1950's, national Judge Advocate of AMVETS, a candidate for the Massachusetts House in 1950 and 1952, and then as chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, where his impressive factfinding made him a state-wide figure.

What will Brooke's victory mean to American Negroes? His victory speech foretold the story: "The people of this great state have answered all of the George Rockwells, have answered all of the people who would divide us and who would keep men from being brothers; and I say to the people of this state that I will do everything within my power to merit their confidence and their support and their faith in me as a man."

Brooke's landslide election helped him to emerge as a man with demonstrated ability to win votes, give direction, integrity and purpose. His pledge: " . . . to do all that I can to bring peace on earth, to stop the war in Vietnam.

". . . to do all that I can to stabilize this economy and bring about a responsible society. ". . . to do all that I can to give equal opportunity to all Americans for decent housing, quality education and equal justice under law.

". . . to unite men who have never been united before and bring about across this nation and across this world the brotherhood of man."

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13. That ALPHA OUTREACH remain an integral part of the Alpha effort to encourage students to complete high school and college. In addition to its traditional features. Alpha Outreach should include a Big Brother program to help meet the need a multitude of boys have for the companionship of men. In this enlarged sense, Alpha Outreach shall be a mandatory part of each chapter's program.

LAURENCE T. YOUNG, General

Secretary

14. Scholarships are growing both in necessity and abundance.

Local chapters shall provide an important service, first by functioning as an information center on the availability of scholarships from various sources; and second, by annually awarding scholarship aid.

The suggested minimum amount of scholarship aid shall be based on chapter membership as follows: vtembers

We have complied with postal regulations and now have all of our mailing lists zip-coded â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a task which took considerable time, effort, patience, and money. In all future mailings, it is urged that all chapter officers, and other brothers include a zip code, which is the last word now in mailing.

So many requests have been made for copies of the adopted recommendations at the 60th Anniversary Convention (1966), that the General Office has been directed to have major recommendations published in The Sphinx for wider circulation.

ADOPTED RECOMMENDATIONS 1. That the General Convention go on record in support of a program under direction of the General Office to expand circulation of The Sphinx to inactive brothers on a subscription basis, with such a program to be worked out by the Board of Directors.

2. That further efforts toward the establishment of the Alpha Phi Alpha Distinguished Lecture Series be suspended until such time as the Fraternity makes formal provisions for the establishment and the support of this proposed program.

3. That a booklet be compiled and distributed to all undergraduate chapters offering guidelines in chapter business procedure and suggestions on chapter projects.

4. That a committee be appointed by the General President to seek membership in the National Interfraternity Council as it is working a great hardship on those campuses requiring this association as a pre-requisite to full campus participation.

5. In view of the fact that the proposed budget is submitted four and one half months prior to its effective date. January 1, 1967, the Committee recommends that the approval given the report be subject to review by the Board of Directors in December 1966. at which time a more accurate determination can be made of 1967 estimated income, and that adjustments in the 1967 budget be made by the Board of Directors, if necessary, based on data presented by the Budget-Finance committee at that time.

6. That all Alpha men of graduate status become life members in the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

7. That Chapters now without Life Memberships in the NAACP begin immediately to pay for one.

8. THAT WE MUST ABOLISH ALL â&#x20AC;&#x201D; ABSOLUTELY ALL - BRUTALITY IN THE SPHINX CLUBS, AND IN OUR INITIATIONS. 9. That a committee be appointed by the General President and the Board of Directors to study and to report the findings relative to initiation procedures and practices.

10. That a study be made and action taken to determine the status of the individual who is initiated into the Fraternity and terminates his education before his Baccalaureate Degree is conferred.

11. That each presidential candidate be required to submit to the Alpha Electorate a vita, which includes a structure of his platform each time he qualifies as a candidate for office.

12. That the Committee on Audit present a summary of the C.P.A.'s report in general business sessions. This summary should include: a. The balances as of the beginning of the audit period; b. The financial transactions during the audit period; c. The balances at the end of the auditing period.

18

7-25 26-49 50-99 100 and over

Scholarship $

250.00 500.00 750.00 1,000.00

15. That college support be an integral part of Alpha aid to higher education. Chapters can and should support colleges and universities in the communities and/or state through: a. Support of the local colleges through alumni affiliation applicable. b. Support innovation projects in education through actual participation when needed. c. Work closely with the colleges as a referral agency to bring them qualified Alpha men or such noted speakers who may not be known by the school personnel. d. Avail themselves for career forums and make suggestions for college scholarships.

16. Federal Programs Monitoring Systems. A myriad of problems in vital areas of American life can be met in full or in part under programs that are financially supported by the Federal government.

Alpha chapters should tap these-resources to cope with problems in education, housing employment, etc. These programs are covered by the Federal policy against discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Local chapters shall monitor the programs in their communities and report to appropriate Federal agencies the instances of non-compliance with that policy.

17. Social Action Committees shall be created by local chapters to plan and execute programs designed to make the chapters instrumental in social change in the community, the state and the nation.

18. A Social Action reporting system shall be established by the Board of Directors to provide and publicize an account of each chapter's activity in the areas suggested above and in other areas.

Each chapter shall submit to the Regional Directors an annual report of its activities. The essence of these reports shall be published annually in a given issue of The Sphinx.

19. That a new chapter be published in the History.

20. THAT IT BE MADE MANDATORY FOR SPHINXMEN TO PURCHASE A COPY OF THE HISTORY OF ALPHA PHI ALPHA. 21. That the General Organization contribute a larger financial support to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History insofar as it is feasible.

22. The Recommendations Committee strongly suggests that Article 20 of the Recommendations Committee's report to the 55th Anniversary Convention be implemented as of this convention: (Louisville. Kentucky) "That every graduate chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha assume leadership, on a local level, of establishing A COMMUNITY RELATIONS ORGANIZATION which will be composed of groups covering every segment of the Negro community. We further recommend that this organization study other similar successful organized efforts by other minority groups such as the National Jewish Community Relations Organization."

AHA

Alpha* in* Action ^

General President Newsom sent a red hot letter to all national officers on January 3, calling to their attention a series of "urgent" undergrad problems. Among them: a total disregard for the general constitution in that brutality is being continued, and the failure of some Brothers to pay honest debts incurred by them both as individuals and as chapters...As if this wasn't enough, undergraduate officers are not filing their forms with the vice presidents (regional) in time for proper initiations, and they are not expediting these forms in proper order with the general secretary. Often, in fact, says President Newsom, "they come up short with the funds required for proper initiation." For example, he said, "they are not paying for the history, the pin and other essentials."...Towards solving these problems a special undergrad meeting may be called in various parts of the U.S. for the specific purpose of letting undergrads know of their relationships with the National organization and their respective school administrations. ...Also suggested: a special session at coming regionals...Above all, according to President Newsom, a representative of each undergraduate chapter must be present at whichever meeting will be decided upon.

There is a growing mood among many chapters to seek ways to underwrite the expenses of two or three Brothers to attend national conventions from the Monrovia, West Africa, chapter...Don't be surprised to not only hear plans to this effect in Los Angeles in August, but prospects for a national convention to be held in Africa, as well...Eastern Regional Convention is set for Berkeley Carteret Hotel, Asbury Park, N. J., May 5-7...Nearly a dozen Brothers are executives at Chrysler Corporation, 19

Detroit. (See Top of the Month)...Bro. Samuel T. Calloway, Jr., vice president of Beta Omicron Lambda, Mobile, Ala., has been appointed to an administrative position on the Mobile County School Board, becoming the first Negro in Alabama to hold a supervisory position dealing with both Negro and white principals...Brother Calloway is a graduate of Alabama State College and Tuskegee Institute. He did advanced study at Iowa State College and the University of Nevada.

Beta Fsi Lambda chapter in Los Angeles, Calif., always seems to have a busy year. Aside from its regular NAACP life membership support, it supports a YMCA branch, the Boy Scouts of America, and a "Go to Church Sunday" program. In addition it has its own authors study club and discussion groups and strongly boosts U.S. Civil Rights Commission programs. Last year's off-year election found chapter members getting out the vote, raising funds for the successful bid of the Rev. James Jones to the Los Angeles City Board of Education and Bro. Lionel Cade's election to the Compton City Council...At year's end Beta Psi,Lambda presented its annual scholarship to a graduating Jefferson High School senior, organized and supervised a tour of a local technological laboratory for high school students, launched an evening tutorial program at Jefferson High, and funded a program to transport students by bus from Jordan High School to UCLA every Saturday to participate in workshops. It continues to administer the three-year-old tutorial program at Manual Arts High School.

Alpha Tau Lambda chapter (Tulsa, Okla.) closed out its year with a wives and sweethearts celebration. Bro. Robert S. Waugh was elected president. He is assistant principal of Roosevelt Junior High School...

Eastern Vice President Bro. Frank Ellis publishing a quarterly newsletter for his region. Other regional vice presidents might find this interesting...Editor is Bro. William A. Carter, III, 1126 Calley Drive, Alexandria, Va. Associate Editors of the Sphinx should submit biographical data and photographs of Brothers for Focus.

Some Brothers have written the Sphinx in hopes of discovering where Alpha stands in regards to Bro. Adam Clayton Powell's congressional and legal difficulties. However, the Sphinx would be grateful to find out where Alpha Brothers stand on this issue themselves'. Write a letter-tothe-editor..,for publication, however, it must be signed.

20

In 1934 Alpha Phi Alpha was 25 Years Old. That Same Year a Check for 25 Placed the Fraternity Squarely Behind . . .

By EDWARD B. MUSE

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People congratulates Alpha Phi Alpha for its continuing support of the association's Life Membership campaign. NAACP members and supporters have reason to be proud of its many achievements in the field of Civil Rights, yet we all know the job is far from complete.

Since both of our organizations have marked more than a half century of progress, I think you might be interested in a brief historical profile of the NAACP. The NAACP is America's oldest and largest civil rights organization. It was formed in 1909 and organized its first branch in 1910 with a total of 229 members. Presently it has approximately 455, 150 members in 1,845 units in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The idea for the NAACP first originated in 1909 when a group of 60 Negro and white clergymen, social workers, publicists, educators and philanthropists issued a call to "all the believers in democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of protests and the renewal of the struggle

THE NAACP LIFE MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN

for civil and political liberty."

Since its founding, membership in the NAACP has been open to all who believe in its objective — first-class citizenship for all. Although no official records are kept, the Association estimates that approximately 90 per cent of its members is Negro. The Board of Directors and the staff are also interracial. The official policy of the NAACP is formulated at annual national conventions by delegates elected by the membership.

The NAACP seeks the end of all forms of racial segregation and other forms of discrimination in every aspect of American life. Its objectives include equal justice under the law, protection of the right to vote, personal security against mob violence and police brutality. It also seeks the end of all types of segregation and discrimination, whether deliberate or by neglect, in public education, in employment, in housing, in transportation, in health and recreation facilities, in libraries and museums. It has constantly worked for the end of discriminatory treatment in all places of public accommodations including hotels, restaurants, theatres, and

taverns. On local, state and national levels the NAACP has waged continuous, vigorous campaigns for legislation in all of these areas.

Because of its size and the scope of its activity, the NAACP has been able to engage in several different programs simultaneously, using different techniques according to each specific situation. To accomplish its goals the Association utilizes every legitmate means at its disposal. Its techniques include legal action, political action, direct action, economic pressure, and education. Through its national staff and field representatives throughout the country, the Association is able to advise and to assist its local branches in specific campaigns on the best methods of achieving their goals. On many occasions the NAACP has cooperated with other civil rights organizations — both local and national — to eradicate segregation in specific areas. The Association played a major role in the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, August 28, 1963.

Constitutional Rights The legal arm of the Association is de-

21

voted to the establishment and enforcement of the Constitutional rights of Negroes in both state and Federal courts.

Its lawyers have successfully fought more cases in the Supreme Court than any other similar organizations petitioning the court.

It has consistently gone to the defense of accused persons whose rights are in jeopardy because of racial prejudice.

In the political arena the NAACP has always actively encouraged Negro Americans to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens. Its first Supreme Court case, 1915, involved the right of Negroes to vote. For several years the Association has conducted vigorous voter registration campaigns in many areas of the South.

In 1964 the NAACP expanded and accelerated its voter registration activity throughout the country. The Association is credited with having played a major role in the 1964 increase of the Negro vote nationally to an estimated 6,000,000.

Prior to the 1964 national election, the NAACP had not actively opposed any candidates running for Presidential and Congressional offices, but merely made their voting records available to the public. However, a resolution adopted at the NAACP annual convention in 1963, while reaffirming the Association's traditional policy of non-partisanship regarding the political parties, called upon NAACP branches and members to oppose those candidates whose records and pronouncements did not support its Civil Rights objectives, and particularly those members of Congress who voted against the civil rights bill.

The NAACP maintains a bureau in Washington, D. C , and its professional personnel is registered under the Federal statute requiring registration of lobbyists.

The Association's Washington Bureau played a pivotal role in the drive which culminated in passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Through all the various media of communications, including radio and television, news articles, pamphlets, magazine commentaries and speeches to various groups, the NAACP constantly exposes evils of racisms in all of its forms, seeks to educate the public to the positive bene-

22

fits of integration and thereby to create a climate of opinion favorable to equal rights.

In conjunction with the above methods of achieving its goals the NAACP engages in all forms of direct action techniques and mass protests. Direct action tactics may be used singly or in combination, depending upon the circumstances involved. These may include selective buying campaigns, public demonstrations, rallies, marches, picketing, sit-ins, and other direct challenges to discrimination.

Under the guidance of Mrs. Clara Luper, NAACP youth advisor, the Association's Oklahoma City Youth Council successfully staged the longest consistent sit-in campaign in American history. The campaign was launched in 1958 and in five years desegregated over 120 stores, hotels, lunch counters, motels and opened up new job opportunities to Negroes.

The NAACP completed a two-month campaign in August, 1963, in Charleston, S. C , during which more than 800 persons were arrested for picketing and sit-ins.

Ninety merchants in the city agreed to a six-point demand which included job opportunities and desegregation of the city's services. The city's leading hotels and four of its best restaurants desegregated. Other campaigns have had similar successes.

In its 57-year life the NAACP has achieved an impressive record of accomplishment. Probably its most dramatic and far-reaching achievement was the 1954 Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in the public schools. The decision was significant not only because it destroyed the myth of "separate but equal" but because it also brought before the entire country the evils of segregation.

It was probably this decision more than any other single factor which has accounted for the change in the climate of public opinion making possible the accomplishments of the past eleven years in other areas.

Lynchings and FEP In 1909 when the Association was founded there were 89 recorded lynchings

in the United States. The last recorded lynchings were three in 1964 in Philadelphia, Miss. One of the NAACP's major campaigns for almost four decades was waged against lynching.

Other notable achievements have been the enactment of Fair Employment Practices Acts in 38 states and 57 cities. The Association's unceasing attack on employment discrimination was a vital factor in the inclusion of Title VII in the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, making it a Federal right to equal opportunity in employment.

It creates an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to assist in implementing this right. Employers, labor unions and employment agencies are required to treat all persons without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

NAACP campaigns have resulted in the enactment of Fair Housing Acts in 19 states and 55 cities. It was instrumental in gaining President Kennedy's Executive Order of November 21, 1962, banning discrimination in most federally-assisted housing. The Association also played a vital role in the passage of legislation creating the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Association has helped make it possible for more than 7,000 Negroes to enroll in southern state universities. The NAACP is engaged in a massive campaign to end de facto school segregation in states outside the South. Since 1960 NAACP branches in 75 cities in 18 nonSouthern states have launched campaigns against de facto school segregation.

Kivie Kaplan, a Boston industrialist, was elected president in 1966. He succeeded Arthur B. Spingarm. noted New York City attorney, who had been president of the NAACP since 1940. Other officers include: Bishop Stephen G. Spottswood, chairman. Board of Directors; lesse Turner, vice chairman; Alfred Baker Lewis, treasurer; Dr. Harry Green, assistant treasurer; and Roy Wilkins, executive director.

The Association is supported primarily by its members. There are 1,500 local units in 50 states. Membership fees range from $2.00 annually up to $500 for a Life Membership.

More than 22,000 individuals and organizations have enrolled as fully paid or subscribing life members making annual payments of $50 or $100. Life Membership payments now constitute a substantial part of the Association's income.

Contributions to the recently established NAACP Special Contribution Fund are deductible for income tax purposes.

Each Life Member vidual plaque attesting Negro in the United Foundation Principles Republic.

receives an indito his Faith in the States and in the of the American

Occupying a prominent position in the lobby of the Association's National Office is a huge bronze wall plaque upon which are inscribed the names of fully paid-up NAACP Life Members, now numbering more than 3,000. Among these are such notables as the late Jawaharlal Nehru, Ralph J. Bunche, Jackie Robinson, Harry Golden, Miss Marian Anderson, Adam C. Powell, Nelson Rockefeller, Averell Harriman, Duke Ellington, Alan Paton, Martin Luther King, Jr., Sammy Davis, Jr.â&#x20AC;&#x201D; who is serving as chairman of the National Life Membership Committee â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Harry Belafonte, Floyd Patterson, Miss Lena Home, Robert C. Weaver, the late Nat "King" Cole, Richard Rodgers, Edward R. Dudley, Edward Brooke, Louis Jordan.

Dore Schary and Francis Cardinal Spellman.

During this critical period, the NAACP continues to seek new Life Members, both individuals and organizations wishing to help the Fight for Freedom.

The Association needs financial as well as moral support. The NAACP asks you to help defray the enormous financial costs involved in securing for all Americans the freedom, justice and equality guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America.

Alphas Aid NAACP It was more than four decades ago when the Alphas made their first Life Membership payment in the NAACP. A check for $25 was received in 1934, marking also, the 25th Anniversary since the founding of the NAACP. Two years later, we received an additional $25 payment. The records include letters by Dr. Charles

Following 35 chapters are fully paid Life Members, representing a total of $17,000: Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Chicago, III. Alpha Alpha Lambda Montclair, N. J. Alpha Delta Lambda Memphis, Tenn.

Alpha Gamma Lambda New York City, N. Y. Alpha Lambda Epsilon Jackson, Miss.

Alpha Lambda Louisville, Ky. Alpha Omicron Lambda Pittsburgh. Pa. Alpha Psi Lambda Columbia, S. C. Beta Gamma Lambda Richmond, Va. Beta Phi Lambda Savannah, Ga. Delta Alpha Lambda Cleveland, Ohio Delta Lambda Baltimore, Md. Delta Sigma Lambda Pine Bluff. Ark. Delta Xi Lambda Orlanda, Fla. Epsilon Beta Lambda Macon, Ga. Epsilon Gamma Lambda Dorchester. Mass.

Epsilon lota Lambda Suffolk, Va. Epsilon Lambda St. Louis, Mo.

Epsilon Nu Lambda Portsmouth, Va. Epsilon Omicron Lambda Lawrenceville, Va. Eta Eta Lambda Annapolis, Md. Eta Rho Lambda Rochester, N. Y. Eta Theta Lambda Wyandanch, N. Y. Gamma lota Lambda Hempstead, N. Y. Gamma Lambda Detroit, Michigan Gamma Rho Lambda Gary, Ind. Gamma Theta Lambda Wilmington, Del. Kappa Lambda Greensboro, N. C. Mu Lambda Washington, D. C. Nu Lambda Petersburg, Va. Rho Philadelphia, Pa. Sigma Lambda New Orleans, La. Zeta Omicron Lambda Philadelphia. Pa. Zeta Zeta Lambda South Ozone Park, N. Y. Zeta Omicron Lambda (Ladies Auxiliary) Philadephia, Pa.

Subscribing Life Members who have paid a total of $5,300 to date are: Alpha Rho Lambda Columbus. Ohio Alpha Tau Lambda Tulsa, Okla.

Alpha Xi Lambda Toledo, Ohio Alpha Zeta Lambda Bluefield. W. Va. Beta Lambda Kansas City, Mo. Beta Pi Lambda Albany, N. Y. Beta Theta Lambda Durham, N. C. Delta Eta Savannah. Ga. Delta Tau Lambda Phoenix, Arizona Delta Rho Lambda San Antonio, Texas Epsilon Delta Lambda Anniston. Ala. Eta Beta Lambda Wichita. Kan. Eta Gamma Lambda Arnaudville. La. Eta Psi Lambda Tuscon. Arizona

Eta Tau Lambda Akron, Ohio Gamma Eta Lambda Austin, Texas Gamma Gamma Lambda Seneca, S. C. Gamma Alpha Lambda Stauton. Va. Gamma Phi Lambda Kensington, Calif.

Gamma Zeta Lambda Tampa, Fla. Phi Lambda Raleigh. N. C. Pi Lambda Little Rock, Ark. Tau Lambda Nashville, Tenn.

Theta Delta Lambda El Paso, Texas Zeta Epsilon Lambda Red Bank, N. J. Zeta lota Lambda Trenton, N. J. Zeta Theta Lambda Harrisburg. Pa.

In addition, a dozen chapters are expected to continue their commitments to the fight for freedom in the near future. They are located in Phoenix, Ariz.; Wichita, Kan.; Nashville, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Lynchburg, Va.; Lexington, Ky.; Norfolk, Va.; WinstonSalem, N. C ; Jersey City, N. J.; Miami, Fla.; Jackson, Tenn.; Charlotte, N. C ; and Los Angeles, Calif.

23

H. Welsey, then Alpha's National president, remitting additional funds during 1938 and 1939. By 1942, the Alphas had their first fully paid Life Membership.

We can define in concrete terms the excellent contribution made by the Fraternity to the Life Membership program of the NAACP. However, it would be impossible to properly evaluate the great work done by individual Alpha men in the past. The contributions are legendary in the annals of the growth and progress of the NAACP. United States Solicitor General Thurgood Marshall was general counsel for the NAACP for many years as well as an outstanding member of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity.

It is of more than casual significance that the Alphas elected to make their first payment in 1934 toward the Life Membership in the NAACP. This was indeed an important year for the Civil Rights movement. It was in 1934 that the vice dean of Howard University Law School, Charles Houston finalized the comprehensive plan for a massive legal assault on segregated public school education.

Houston, an Alpha man, could not imagine that it would take exactly 30 years before the highest court in the nation could finally say what the NAACP had been saying since its founding, 'In the field of Public Education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place, separate educational facilities are inherently unequal'. While the court in this instance addressed itself to the question of education, it was clear to all thoughtful men, that the court had finally sounded the death knell to segregation per se. . . .

The decision was years in the making.

It was the product of the combined efforts of NAACP Branches, its legal staff, many under the leadership of Alpha men throughout the nation.

Today we can say the entire legal structure of the segregated society has been destroyed. However vast the past victories may appear, the great challenges are ahead. In the field of housing, employment, education, in fact, in every facet of American life, we are jointly dedicated to the complete elimination of all barriers based on race or color.

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NEWS Theta Psi Lambda Decries Powell Removal The president of an Alpha Phi Alpha chapter called recently for a new political apparatus for Negroes to give them increased national political power.

Bro. Don N. Harris, president of Theta Psi Lambda Chapter in New Jersey, said the decision to form a formidable vote bloc was the product of the concern registered in the Negro community following the Congressional action against Bro. Adam Clayton Powell, Democrat of N.Y., who was stripped of his committee chairmanship and had his seat temporarily taken away when Congress convened in January.

Bro. Harris, in letters to President Lyndon B. Johnson, Congressman Edward J. Patten, (D., N. J.), and Speaker of the House John W. McCormack, said: "What has happened forces us to take a more critical look at our loyal continued support of the Democratic Party."

Acting on behalf of the local Chapter, he also expressed strong concern about the recent feeling of "racism that has become apparent in the past year. To us the indignities that have been placed upon the people of Congressman Powell's district are just another extension of the defeat of the Civil Rights Bill and the attack upon Dr. King in Chicago last summer."

Form Zeta Delta At Northern Michigan The Zeta Delta Chapter was installed January 7 on the Marquette campus of Northern Michigan University, with Midwestern Vice President Billy Jones officiating.

Organized in May, 1966, the Chapter received official recognition from the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity on October 7, 1966. Officers for the newest Alpha

Chapter are Bros. Cornelyus Raymond Schaffner, president; Larry Burrell, vice president; Alfred Weeks, secretary; and Calvin Holt, treasurer.

Delta Eta Inducts 8 The Delta Eta Chapter at Savannah State College in Savannah, Ga., has inducted eight new brothers. They are Bros.

Sharon Bryant, Kermit Kemp, Acie McCollough, Robert Moore, Thomas Nevels, Frederick Romanski, listed in Who's Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities; Marvin Scott, and Sylvester Singleton.

There is new emphasis in the Chapter on the social impact that Alpha Phi Alpha has to have: at Christmas, for example, Brothers collected toys, clothing, food and funds for purchasing these items and distributing them to needy families of the community.

Socially the Chapter was in a whirl at the College's Homecoming activities, winning top honors in the parade float competition.

Delta Delta Brothers Rank High Academically Nine new Brothers were recently initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha at the Delta Delta Chapter on the Albany State College campus at Albany, Ga. They are Bros. Prince Reid III, Eugene Washington, Willie Strickland, Stalin Smith, Melvin Shelton, Louis McDonald, Jack Frink, Bennie Walker, and Wiley Graydon.

With a grade average of 3.57, Bro. Strickland has received a scholarship given annually to the highest ranking freshman by the graduate Chapter, Gamma Omicron Lambda. Bro. McDonald, prior to the start of the 1966-67 school year, had just completed a 181day tour of duty in Vietnam.

MISS BABCOCK! IF HE'S COLORED . . . HIRE

HIM!!!

25

Other outstanding Chapter Brothers are: Bro. Ernest Simmons, top-ranking science major, recently honored at the science honor night banquet by Governor Carl Sanders, listed in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities for the second time; Bro. John Gulbreath, highest ranking student in French department; President Cleveland Haynes, top male student in social science department, senior class vice president, senior class secretary of external affairs, student government, social science club president, Sigma Rho Sigma Honor Society member, also listed in Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities for the second time.

SREB to Assess Negro College Needs The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) has initiated a five-year commission which will undertake "to look at the problem of the predominantly Negro colleges and universities in the South, in a long-range perspective, and to formulate activities designed to deal with emerging needs and opportunities, as well as to suggest possible general guidelines for longrange development."

Bro. Dr. Lionel H. Newsom, general president of Alpha and associate director of the Atlanta-based commission of the SREB, said that the project is not to be another survey or fact-finding study of predominantly Negro colleges. The staff will engage in the study required to fill the gaps in available data on the institutions, and to bring some available data up to date.

He cited the fact that there are now no current figures available on financial support in such form that the staff could evaluate the present situation. These data will therefore have to be secured, he said.

With the assistance of a grant from the Carnegie Corporation, one of the nation's major philanthropic foundations, the program will assess the predominantly Negro colleges in traditional areas such as enrollments, degrees offered, and financial data.

26

NAACP LIFL MEMBERSHIP . . . Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Bro. Frederick Weathers (c.) St. Louis, Missouri, Branch Life Membership chairman, presents a Life Membership plaque to Bro. Dr. John Gladney. Bro. Atty. Morris Hatchett, Branch president, looks on.

Specifically, the study will focus on ten topics. They are: • Admissions Policies: realizing that more opportunities are now available for the Negro and that an unusually high number of Negro students will continue to enter the predominantly Negro colleges ill prepared to do standard college work, it is hoped that corrective measures may be found and recommended for keeping the doors of higher education opened and implementing readiness programs to assure these academically-deprived youths an opportunity to become intellectually competent . . . and subsequently enter the mainstream of American life.

• Curriculum and Changing Patterns of Vocational Opportunities: predominantly Negro colleges in the past have offered rather limited curricula, heavily weighted toward the humanities and teacher-education. In view of changing and improved patterns of race-relations and broadened, heightened occupational opportunities, however, the predominantly Negro colleges must reasses their course offerings. Diversified college programs must be implemented that will allow Negro youth to prepare themselves for occupations now available to them and to provide new and vitalized basic courses which recognize the expanding frontier of general knowledge.

• Graduate and Post-Baccalaureate Programs: the commission will study what graduate work should be added to or phased out from the offerings of predominantly Negro colleges. In some cases, the phasing out of a program which duplicates another in the same state may strengthen the training available for Negro students and at the same time enable the predominantly Negro institution to improve its offerings in other fields. In other cases, a different type of solution may be most expedient and beneficial.

• Instruction: the most important characteristic of any college in the final analysis is the quality of instruction. The study will seek to identify factors which have prevented many predominantly Negro colleges from achieving the maximum quality of instruction desired. Some of these factors are common to all higher education,

Brothers of the Delta Zeta Lambda Chapter of Orangeburg, S. C, assemble to discuss plans for the forthcoming annual South Carolina State meeting of Alpha Phi Alpha Chapters on March 4.

and some may appear with more significance in the predominantly Negro institution.

• Administration: considerable attention will be devoted to problems related to governing boards, presidents, and faculty participation. Moreover, the commission feels it is imperative that we separate fact from fiction, or myth from reality, in determining the extent to which faculty are involved in making significant decisions.

• Financial Support: recognizing the need of Negro colleges to receive financial aid in substantial amounts, the commission will look for specific areas in which additional financial support will remedy chronic ills of the college, and determine the amount of funds needed to enable the college to provide high quality education for many more students, without unreasonably increasing the financial burden of these students.

• Interinstitutional Cooperation: there are many patterns of interinstitutional cooperation, and these will be identified and their applicability to specific problems in Negro higher education assessed.

• Public Land-Grant Colleges and Universities: one-third of the students enrolled in predominantly Negro colleges in the fifteen Southern states are students in the fourteen public land-grant institutions.

Recognizing that their stated purposes have been different from those of other predominantly Negro colleges, the study will review the problems confronting these institutions in a particular study of their situation if the specific projection of their needs is to be achieved.

• Junior and Community College: the focus here will center on the question of how the public community college, primarily contemporary institutions lacking the historic tradition of the predominantly Negro senior colleges, may best serve the needs of Negro students.

• Church-Related Institutions: in light of the growing enrollment in both public and private colleges, increasing construction costs, demands for higher salaries by both faculty and staff, expanding curriculum and course offerings to satisfy new career opportunities, a dwindling supply of quality instructors, and what appears to be decreasing financial support in rela-

27

tion to these increasing needs, it is imperative that attention be focused on this area. The necessity for the development of new patterns of cooperation among public, private, and church-related colleges must become a reality if these colleges are to provide adequate educational opportunities for Negro students in the South.

The SREB project will utilize information already available from other studies.

Additional research and study will be required to secure data not available or not in a form usable for making needed comparisons. While many significant experiments are already in process on campuses in the region, the project may initiate pilot programs to test the reliability, depend-

ability, and the validity of new ideas. As the project proceeds and specific recommendations become clarified and guidelines are developed, action programs will be suggested and encouraged.

Gamma Delta and Delta Sigma Lambda Chapters Arkansas Chapter Combine Efforts Gamma Delta and Delta Sigma Lambda Chapters of Arkansas have joined forces in the 1966-67 academic year to promote and advance a state-wide Stay in School and Graduate program.

In a different area of community service, the undergraduate chapter on the Arkansas A & M college campus actively supported GOP's Winthrop Rockefeller's successful bid for governorship, with both chapters aiding voter-registration and election-day voter-transportation.

Are College Students Being Short-Changed?

The Brothers of Zeta Epsilon Lambda Chapter meeting concurrently with their wives make preliminary plans for the 3-day Eastern Regional Convention to be held at the Berkeley Carteret Hotel in Asbury Park, New Jersey, May 5-7. Coordinating the convention is Eastern Vice President Bro. Frank Ellis.

Have America's colleges and universities forgotten how to educate? "Definitely when there is segregated educational facilities," says Bro. Rev. Lawrence F. Haygood, keynote speaker at Alpha Nu Lambda Chapter Founders' Day observance program at Tuskegee, Ala. Bro. Haywood does not claim that American universities are incapable of turning out skilled engineers, doctors, lawyers, scientists and research scholars.

He does allege, however, that the universities are not meeting fully their responsibility for providing a quality education for all.

"The peril of college professors today," he said, "is that of poor academic performance of students who have the ability to excel," even though high school graduates enter college better prepared than did students of three decades ago.

He said that it was urgent to achieve desegregated education on the local, state and national levels because "segregated educational facilities is a major deterrent to high academic achievement of Negro youth."

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Bro. Haygood explained: "Desegregated education provides an occasion for creative academic competition and eliminates the feeling of superiority on part of whites and the feeling of inferiority on part of Negroes."

A graduate of Alabama's Stillman College and Virginia's Union Theological Seminary, Bro. Haygood criticized "those who have" for what he called "waging a war against those who have not." "The rich are getting richer; the poor are getting poorer," he declared.

Lea Fellas New Boys Club for Zeta Brothers The second Zeta Omicron Lambda Chapter club for junior high school boys has been opened in the University City section of Philadelphia.

Located at the H.C. Lea Junior High School, the club was established by Bro. Bruce Taylor, of the Lea faculty, who had been encouraged in this pursuit by Bro. Vincent Hawkins, advisor of the first Alpha Phi Alpha club for boys â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Sigma Phi Alpha Club.

Theta Rho Lambda President H. Gray Gillem (2nd I.) year scholarships to President McKee of The Northern for Donald Wilson and Sandra Fishack (seated). Looking chairman of Theta Rho Lambda Education Committee, and president emeritus of the Chapter.

The first boys' club was started by Bro. Fred S. A. Johnson, former executive secretary of the Columbia Branch Y.M.C.A., who is currently serving as Alpha Outreach chairman.

The purposes of the clubs are the "development of the spiritual, intellectual,

presents two full tuition, one Virginia Community College on are Bros. Taylor Williams. and Ronda Gilliam, founder

social, and physical life of the adolescent toward the objective of Christian living."

Ocala Chapter's Founder's Day The Epsilon Pi Lambda Chapter of Ocala, Fla., recently observed its annual Founders' Day at the Mount Carmel Baptist Church in Gainesville.

At the observance, officers for 1966-67 were elected. They are: Bros. John Dukes, Jr., president; Benjamin F. Brown, Sr., vice president; William E. Jackson, secretary; Benjamin F. Miller, treasurer, Nathaniel A. Nelson, parliamentarian; Alphonso L. Johnson, editor to Sphinx; and Eugene F. Broxton, chaplain.

Nu Chapter Grows...

Emphasis on Practical

Alphas and Lea Fellas of the Zeta before rounds at a highly successful Philadelphia Y.M.C.A. Assisted by teachers, they provided an evening of junior high school students.

Omicron Lambda chapter in Philadelphia pause "Autumn Discotheque Au Go Go" at the West parents and two H. C. Lea Junior High School of relaxed and wholesome recreation for scores

Alpha Outreach, a community oriented project, designed to aid youngsters of pre-secondary school age to develop the academic skills necessary to enter college, has been in operation at Lincoln University (Pa.) in conjunction with Nu Chapter's three-year-old Tutorial Program. Participating in a similar federal government program called Upward Bound are Bros.

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Members of Omicron Lambda, their wives and sweethearts on ascending staircase at the Birmingham Parliament House during their annual chapter dance in December.

Bro. Frank Ellis, who formally welcomed eleven neophyte brothers into the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and presented their shingles and pass cards. Nu was then designated as the coordinator of an Eastern Regional Song Book, which will incorporate the songs of all chapters on the East Coast.

Elected to Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities were Bros. Norman Armstrong, Joseph Reed, Herman Lawson, and Rodney Richards.

Some of the Uu Brothers who are demonstrating Alpha Phi Alpha ideals of leadership, scholarship, service, and wholesome participation in campus activities are: • Bro. Michael Harmon, senior from Pleasantville, N. J., majoring in physical education, president of the Varsity Club and a member of the Track Team.

• Bro. Herman Lawson, senior premed major from Harrisburg, Pa., student assistant in the Biology Department, member of the Biology Club, secretary of the Senior Class, and director of the Nu Chapter Tutorial Program.

• Bro. Levi Nwachuku, senior from Nigeria, West Africa, majoring in history, on Dean's List with 3.67 average on the new four-point system, student assistant in the History Department, and a participant in the Honors Program in the History Department.

• Bro. Rodney Richards, senior premed major from St. Croix, V. I., on Dean's List with 3.76 average, student assistant in the Chemistry Department, president of Nu Chapter.

Bro. John ter "1966 Bro. Hall, supervisor

B. Hall (r.) receiving in Man of the Year" award who holds a Master of Arts of art for Jefferson County

Birmingham, Ala., the Omicron Lambda Chapfrom Bro. J. Arthur Jordan, the 1965 recipient. degree from New York University, is an assistant (Ala.) Schools.

Rufus C. Nance and William McBride.

Plans are being projected for a Negro Culture Week early this semester. Already contacts are being made with the national headquarters to secure one or more Brothers who are leaders in the Civil Rights movement, as Dick Gregory, Floyd McKissick, and Martin Luther King, Jr. The program will focus on Black Power, the direction of the Civil

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Rights Movement, and Negro Awareness.

On the social scene, March 18 has been designated as Alpha Weekend.

Nu has been active in inter-chapter affairs, with Bros. Charles Saunders and William McBride serving as representatives to the Washington, D. C , Eastern Regional Conference.

Nu Chapter was honored by a visit from the Eastern Regional Vice President,

• Bro. Robert Ragland, senior history major from Brooklyn, N. Y., on Dean's list with 3.40 average, student Senate representative, resident counselor, participant in the History Department's Honors Program, and vice-president of Nu Chapter.

• Bro. Rufus Nance, junior majoring in economics from Chester, Pa., captain of Cross-Country, Wrestling, and Track teams, member of Varsity Club, Co-manager of laundry facilities, an assembly monitor, treasurer of the PanHellenic Council, and Dean of Pledges of Nu Chapter.

• Br. Alton Chitty, junior chemistry major from Pleasantville, N. J., student assistant in the Chemistry Department.

• Bro. James Johnson, junior from Pittsburgh, Pa., secretary of the PanHellenic Council, member of the Baseball team and Varsity Club.

• Bro. Aubrey Watkins, junior from Pittsburgh, Pa., majoring in economics, on Dean's List with 3.40 average, vice-president of the Junior Class, business manager of the Lincolnian.

• Bro. Robert Cain, senior biology major from Penns-Grove, N. J., on Honor Roll with a 3.00 average.

• Bro. Michael Simpson, senior political science major from North Braddock, Pa., resident counselor, treasurer of the Political Science Club.

• Bro. Charles Saunders, junior psymajor from Norristown, Pa., on Dean's List with a 3.79 average, recipient of Phi Beta Kappa Faculty Group Award, Student Senate Representative, member of the Class of 1968 Yearbook staff, participant in the Psychology Department Honors program.

• Bro. Roger Johnson, sophomore pre-med major from Pittsburgh, Pa., on Honor Roll with a 3.00 average.

• Bro. William McBride, sophomore history major from Brooklyn, N. Y., comanager of the Student Laundry, an assistant to the Chairman of the History Department.

• Bro. Roger Sherman, sophomore from Nassau, N. P., Bahamas, pre-med major, member of the track and wrestling teams and the Varsity Club, assists the Vicar at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church in Oxford.

• Bro. David Pogue, sophomore mathematics major from Brooklyn, N. Y., on the Cross-Country and track teams, member of the Varsity Club.

• Bro. Allen Letsome, junior chemistry major from St. Thomas, V. I., on Dean's List with 3.75 average, a student assistant with the Chemistry Department.

• Bro. Alanzo Gipson, sophomore mathematics major from Memphis, Tenn., on Honor Roll with 3.27 average, member of the Lincoln University Band and Intramural Bowling Squad.

• Bro. Thomas Moyer, sophomore psychology major from New Castle, Del., on Honor Roll with 3.14 average.

• Bro. Clifford T. Bennett, junior political science major from Cleveland, Ohio, member of the Lincoln University Choir.

slated for initiation sometime during the semester. They are: Kent Johnson, sophomore from Saluda, Va.; Frederick Fields, chemistry major from Philadelphia, Pa.; Edward Gayles, junior, from Los Angeles, Calif.; Arthur Niles junior, sociology major from Brooklyn, N. Y.; John Mann, junior, history and government major from Richmond, Va.; and Bernard Jones, sophomore, history major from Waverly, Va. Gamma has been awarded a plaque by Virginia Union for having maintained the highest scholastic average for male Greek letter organizations on the campus. Bro. Haywood A. Payne, junior chemistry major and honor student, has been awarded a full scholarship to RandolphMacon College in Ashland, Va. He won the award on the basis of his high scholarship and, Randolph-Macon's need for Negro students in order for the college to qualify for federal funds.

Gamma Tops Greeks at Virginia U.

Bro. Thomas D. Harris, IV, Gamma president, has been nominated for competition in the awarding of a much-sought Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. Majoring in English, his vocational objective upon graduation in June is public relations.

The school year 1966-67 will be a significant one for Alpha fraternalism at Virginia Union University. The Gamma Chapter started the year off with six new Brothers. Pledged in October, they are

Gridiron offensive guard and Bro. Wilbur Jackson, junior major, did a great job on the lineup of the fighting Virginia Panthers.

center, biology starting Union

Miss Myra Dawn Parrish (c.) was named Miss Alpha Phi Alpha for J966-67 at Virginia Union by Gamma Chapter fete. The sociology major from Madison Heights, Va., is shown with her attendants and their escorts, Sphinx Club pledgees.

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Bro. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.. listens to Past General President Belford V. Lawson during recent Mu Lambda Chapter's dinnerdance at the Washington (D.C.) Hilton Hotel attended by more than 700 people, celebrating the founding of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. Sharing the dais were General President Newsom and

Alpha Historian Dr. Charles H. Wesley. Bro. King was given a $500 donation for his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and an additional $500 were donated to the Henry A. Callis Scholarship Fund at Howard University.