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-I 1 AIO Sunday, Sept. 11, 1966 . . . Rl THE WASHINGTON POST > -
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SNCC Is LQsing Support of Atlanta Negroes
By Rober t E. Baker
Washi.J:lgton Post Stat! Wri ter
1
ATLANTA, Sept. 10-This
was the week that Atlanta
declared unconditional. war
on the Studen t Nonviole nt
Coordinating Committee. By
t he end of t he week, Black
Power, SNCC style, was reeling from the assault.
s GC's leader was in jail.
The Mayor was a hero. The
p olice force was riding a
wave of praise. ·egroes were
r evolting against SNCC's
ere
br and of r evolt and
threate nin g SNCC with violence.
"A n ational conspiracy t o
d est:roy us," cried s JCC.
This f irst battle was a defeat for s cc. But it was a
ba.t Ue and not th i~ r~
The spark that set off the
war came last Tuesday, the
d ay after Labor Day, with a
white-cop an d ' egro-suspect
inciden t, the same kin d of
spark that has set off a
score of riots in Nor the rn
ci ties over the pa t fe w summers.
But Atlan ta's riot was differe nt. It was . maller by far
than th e Watts and Harlem
riots . • ' o looting, no shootl ng, no l\1olotov cocktails.
And Mayol" I va n llen Jr,
a South ern liberal, we nt to
t he scen e and mixed with
the crowd, trying to talk to
angry people. The police •
u sed no firearms, wielded no
bi.lly clubs.
And u nlike t he orth e rn
riots, whe re agitators arc
generally blamed but unn amed, .\tla nta put the
fi nger of blame on Stokely
Carmichael a nd his wild
UJJ'.\.L\
lV£U!
signs of i mage-smashing. It
and white, this was a misprone little b and of racists."
had changed its own image.
The Summit · Leadership take in tactics, fearing it
may provide a cloak of m ar No longer was it t he idealConference of Negro leaders
itrrdom for Carmichael. To
istic integrated youth movehere warned Negroes to official Atlanta, t his was a
m ent struggling to change
"r efrain from cooperating gamble worth taking.
society's i nstitutions to let
SNCC vowed to fight on.
with those who would make
t he Negro in. Now it is .,.
vou the tools and victims of Said i<ts Cleveland sellers:
"The only way this country
violence."
virtually all black, wit h a
n
i
g
h
t,
kill SNCC is to kill all
can
By
Wednesday
Black Power; s logan, apparSNCC was on t he run. In black p eople."
ently convinced that soVine City, a SNCC storage
White liberals, SNCC's
ciety's insti tu tions must be
center with i ts p amphlets on avowed e nemy n ow, began
Black P ower, Vietnam a nd pointi ng out that, after all,
brought to earth a nd rebuilt,
police brutality was burned SNCC was not responsible
a nd that each concession by
after calls by Negroes threat- for bad housing, crowded
the whites only delays t he
ening to burn t hem out.
schools, inadequate job opd ay.
In Summerhill, where t he portunities and the fact that
riot
took
place,
Negroes
I n July, a SNCC sound
Atlant a leadership seems to
for med "G ood Neighbor respon d only to cr ises.
truck tou red t he Vine City
Clubs" and people there oor e
slum area where Hector
"Only by our own default
up SNCC p a mphlets a n d
Photos by UPI and AP
Black, a white, Harva rd-edut hrew them back at t he will any outside group gai n
cated um worker , has a folcontrol of t he destiny of AtI VAN ALLEN
STOKELY CARMICHAEL
SNCC workers.
lowing of Negro poor, blar.. . Atlanta Mayor d\!clares war on SNCC
Car mich ael talked back a t lanta," said t he Atlant a
i ng : "Wh at h as your white
' a street rally on Thursday : Cou ncil on Human RelaJ esus don e for you today?"
" aci Mayo Ivan Allen is tions.
o
In a p tt
wagon. :Al
In August, Carmichael led ten other S NCC workers arSo Atlanta, al-1 out 1,o d
framing the black p eople of
together,
1000
Negroes
were
a Negro crowd Uiat sur- rived with a s ound truck.
feat Carmichael and S NCC,
t
his
city
.
.
.
the
r
evolt
is
involved. Three police cars
rou nded a policeman 'issu ing
was beginning to take anSpeakers h arangued the were damaged, a dozen per- agai nst the bestiality of a
a traffic ticket to an Alao t her look at itself and t h e
Mayor
and
h
is
corrupt
r
acist
crowd
With
cries
of
Black
~ons were injured and police
bama SNCC worker.
conditions that made a r iot
police department . . ."
S NCC workers stormed Power and ch arges of police fired tear gas before calm
possible.
But
only
a
few
people
t he Atlanta Ar my Induction brutality. One speaker said was r estored.
gathered around. It a ppeared .,......__,.__------------ 11,
Center to protest t he war in a white cop had murdered a
Mayor Allen and Police SNCC had suffered its great·
Vietnam.
hlack brother. Another · said Chief Herbert Jenkins im- est defeait.
mediately said Carmichael
"T he Viet Cong nev'er t he Negro was shot whi.).e h e
But A t 1 an t a
wasn't
called me nigger," said one had h is hands h eld up high. and SNCC were responsible. t hrough. J ust before mid·
veteran of the w ar.
Anotller said h e was shot Ne a r 1 y everybody else nigh t Thursday, police ar·
joined in.
Last Tuesday, after police- while handcuffed .
r e ted Car mich ael at his of·
m en wounded a egro who
A Negro policeman on
Eugene Patterson, editor fice and charged him with
they said was a fleeing car- du ty at the scene arrested of the Atlan ta Constit ution inciting a riot and creatin
t heft suspect, Carmichael William Ware, a SNCC
and member of the U.S. a disturbance. He was haule
was asked to organize a pro- speaker, and the r iot began Civil Rights Commission, off tJo jail.
test demonstration. He and .is ware Was being hustled called SNCC a " violenceTo many Atlantans,
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""-~ �A·nd ""i7nlike the "";"rthe rn riots, where agitators are generally blamed but unnamed, Atlanta . put t he finger of blame on Stokely , Carmichael and his wild SNCC crew who were on the scene as big as life. The showdown between Atlanta and SNCC was bound to come. Atlanta is obsessed with. its image of progress and SNCC is obsessed with smashing images. That Atlanta is a city of comparative racial progress cannot be doubted. Such progress has been hammered ou,t by its white power structure and its Negro leadership, operating through the Summit Leadership Cpnferehce coalition. The city sends racial liberals, by aJl Southern and most orthern standards, to Congress. Its Negroes vote. Integrated high school football games are played without. incident. com mu nit y F ourteen schools for poor people are operating at night. Atlanta's antipoverty program has been praised as a model. For a quarter of a century, the mayors of Atlanta- first Willlam Hartsfield and now Ivan Allenhave been moderate to liberal, racially. Mayor Allen supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act and now supports the 1966 one. Allen has a nearly daily habit of riding to work by way of Atlanta's slums, several relatively small pockets of shacks, and harassing his department heads to clean up streets. He had a tudy made of all available Federal aid and goes after every penny he can get. Yet there is another side to Atlanta. Racial progress at t imes has been grudging. Eight Atlanta hospitals are under a Federal ul timatum t o stop discrimination by next Thursday or face withdrawa l of Federal funds. Allen and Atlanta were able to swiftly clear a slum and huild an $18 million municipal stadium for the baseball Braves and football Falcons to clinch the status of a Big League city, but don't seem able to clear other slums and provide decent housing as swiftly or with the same determination. For all its progress and shining image, Atlanta hasn't been able to reach down yet t o the poor Negro who, as in other cities, has poor housing, poor jobs if jobs at all, and poor schools. SNCC had been showing �
