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zc:::, • 1 1I • m PI 1 a: C 1-- z C • 1-- c PI 1 I 1-- zc:::, �I I. "Business is business. I work with white men every day and I get along. But when they start fooling around with my brothers, that's it. I don't care anymore. Long as his skin's the same as mine, he's my brother." -Atlanta Journal, Sept . 7, 1966 Photo: Julius L este r PERSPECTIVE on THE ATLANTA REBELLION Copyright 1967 Aframerican News Service 360 Nelson Street, SW Atlanta, Georgia 30313 Published by The Movement Press 449 14th Street San Francisco, California 94103 Additional copies available from either address 50¢ Text by Julius Lester Photos by Ru fus Hinton Juliu s Leste r Jimmy Lytle In seeking to determine the cause of the recent rebellions * in Atlanta, Georgia , the mayor, city officials and the press looked no further than to the presence in the city of the Student Non-Viole nt Coordinating Committee a nd then closed their investigation. By attacking SNCC the y joine d the increasi ng number of government officials and newspapers who claim that the rebellions of this past summer have not been acts against a s ys tem th at offers a Ii vi ng dea th to black me n, but h ave been only th e result of agitation by Communists and / or bl ack nationa list groups . No evi de nce has ever been put forward to substantiate th ese cl a ims. Yet th ey a re repeated over a nd over aga in in th e face of much evide nce to the contrary. The refusal to accept the meaning of the rebellion s of this past summer will only result in more disturb a nces of the same nature.

We u se t he word "r ebe lli on" in stead of riot , b eca u se it c0 nveys a

tru e r mea ning of what has been occurring. In no ne of the in 'c idents of the summer of '66 did black people go int o white ne ighbor h oods . Their first target was always tbe po li ce . Their second has been wh it e - owned busi nesses in th e g he tt o . These targets h ave bee n chosen deliberately, be ca us e they a re the most visib le s igns of oppress ion in the ghetto . These reb e llions h ave be en co nsci o us political ac t s, just as the s it-in s and picket lin es were co ns cio us political acts. Demonstrations in the g h etto do not te nd to co mply with the accep t able mea ns of protest. To use the word riot gives rise to images of black men running amok, w ithout ca use or reason. This im age does the black man no h arm, because he knows why he's throwing bricks at policemen. It does do a disservice to whit es, though, wh o are n ot given the opportuni ty to understand. �No grievances justify mob action and insurrection." -Congressman Charles Weltner, Sept. 7, 1966 II. Atlanta had many warnings of something to come. In June 1966 there were street demonstrations in Mechanicsville, a black ghetto that is adjacent to Summerhill, the rebellion area. These demonstrations were organized by local residents to protest inadequate facilities . The police managed to quiet th e residents and some temporary measures we re taken to provide adequate playground facilities. In August there were two consecutive nights of incidents outside the Palladium, a black club, in southwest Atlanta, when black people felt that the police were unjustly arresting patrons of the club . In both instances the y tried to free the arrested pad:ies and run the police from the area . In one instance they succeeded. The most direct warning to the city of Atlanta came in a report presented to the mayor in February, 1966. This report was prepared by the Community Council of the Atlanta Area, Inc. , under a Federal grant from the Urban Renewal Administration of the Department of Housing and Urban Redevelopment. It was called "Social Blight and its Causes (with special reference to the blighted areas surrounding Atlanta Stadium.)" This area, in part , is Summerhill-the area where the rebellion occurred , the rebellion for which the Mayor can find no other cause than Stokely Carmichal and SNCC. C: 0 c

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a:: 0 0 ..c: 0.. �III. Atlanta, Georgia is hailed by many as the most progressive city in the South. The New York Times of September 7, 1966 says: The city has been Widely praised as a model for the South in its peaceful acceptance of school desegregation , and its two daily newspapers-The Constitution and The Journalare among the most liberal in the region in racial matters. Perhaps Atlanta is the most progressive city in the South beca use it , more than any other Southern city, resembles the cities of the North . It has its industry , its imposing skyline, an air of affluence , a symphony orchestra, an annual arts festiva l , a major league baseball team, a professional football team, a nd air pollution. If these credentials are not enough to qualify Atlanta as a metropolis of the sixties , it also· has urban renewal. As it has bee n exercised in most cities, including Atlanta, urban ren ewal is nothing more than evicting poor black people from their homes , razing the area and "renewing" it with high cost apartm ents, hotels, motels , and e xpressways. In Atlanta the Ma rriot Hotel , a delu xe accommodation for those who can a ffo rd to be delu xely a ccommodated , sta nds in the heart of what use d to be a bla ck slum a rea, Buttermilk Bottom. Bl ack s lums a re never a nything to brag about. .. shacks, rats, roa che s, ga rbage th at spills out of the cans and into the stre ets beca use the Sa nitation Departme nt seems to collect more on a whim than a sche dule. The shacks and apartments in the s lums that bl ack people dignify b y calling home are usually rented fr om la ndlord s who pocke t the rent and refuse to make re pa irs . If he is e ve r c a rrie d to court for refusing to maintain his ·property acco rding to the building and health codes, the resulta nt fine i s s o low a s to enc ourage him to continue to do nothing. Eve ntua ll y, these "homes" a re conde mned a s unfit; the city pays the slumlord a health y sum for the prope rty (which he has inte n tiona lly a llo wed to de te riora te so it would be condemned a nd bou ght by th e city) a nd th e residents , poor , black powerless, are told they mu st move . The are a is t o be "re newed". T his " re newa l " is ha iled almost as loudl y a s would be an annou ncement tha t J es us was goin g to prea ch a t First Baptist on the third Sunday. T he newspa pe rs procl a im the new s far and wide . The Chamber of Comm e rce pre pa res a new publicity brochure. T he mayor is inte rv iewed on his wa y to th e ba nk with his latest haul of graft fr om this "boo n to th e c ity . " The victims of this "boon", blac k people, rece ive the he a rtfelt s ympath y of city offic ials a nd are kno wn throughout hi s tor y a s the "ine vitable victims of progress." (Afte r a ll , didn 't Jesus Himse lf l ay the cornerstone for capitalis m whe n he sa id , 'A nd the poor ye shall always have with yo u .'?) But a few ca n 't be a llowed to hold back what is good for a ll , we are told , s o th e y pa ck up their clothes and belongings a nd move in to a n a lready overcrowded part of the city . T his is the urba n re newa l blue print from city to city across America . Atlanta has fo llowed it c onscientiously . "I don't care how many buildings they put up. They ain't for us ." -Resident of street in ph oto to author . �J ] IV . "I'm running this city,,, There're a lot of people in it who're not very good, but I'm running it," - Mayor Ivan All en, At lanta Const itu tion , Sept. 7, 1%6 There was much e xc itement in the halls of the Chamber of Commerce when ta lk began abo ut the possibility of Atlanta acquiring a major l eague bas eball team . You can't be a big le ague city without a ball team a nd Atlanta wanted to be "big lea gue " . An 18-million-dollar s tadium was built s o that Atlant a could be . The bl a ck victim s of thi s s te p toward progress were forced to move without any hous ing being provided for that which was to be dest royed. L ike refugees from the conflagration of a wa r the y didn' t understand , they moved into Sum merhill and Mechanics ville . Prior to the e rection of this hous e of progress, Summerhill was not considere d a slum, although the trend had begun due to the changing e mployment opport unities and the aging of the hous e s. According to the Community Council's report: This deterioration h as been accentuated through clearance by reduci ng the available lowincome housing·-units. This increased demand for housing has resulted in a further division of old houses into several apartments and in a more widespread doubling up of families . One of the most common remark s to our inte rviewers by long-term re sidents concerned how rapidly the areas nearest the s tadium have changed since the clearance . The doubling up and increased pressure for housing caused "a good many of the s table people to move away . " During the four months that we have been talking with people in the area closes t to the s tadium , the interviewers ha ve observed an extremely high turnover among renters and a loss of homeowners ... Many of the area s surrounding clearance s eem to become little mo re than temporary qua rters for people who are constantly forced to move. Thus , clearance and relocation , without careful cons ideration of the effect on neighborhoods , has a sn owballing effect in the destru ction of the surrounding areas. That is Summerhill, expendable , as black people have always been. �f V. To many, including Mayor Ivan All en and Mr. Ralph Mc Gill of the Atla nta .Constitution, it is possible fo r someone to ente r a n area with a soundtruck, shout "Black Power!" several times a nd people will knock each other ove r getting out to the s t reets with bric ks a nd bottles i n the ir ha nds . If the Mayor a nd the press a re t o be believed , this i s actua lly wha t happened. A re bellion , howe ver, cann ot be induced by some witch docto r na med Stokely from the s tone-age SNICK tribe. Rebellions ha ppen beca use people know no other way in which to ma ke themse lve s heard. T hose who de mons t rate with Molotov c ocktails a re not people who can go to c ity pl annin g c ommissi on hearings a nd hear thems e lve s discus sed as an it em in the budge t. A re be llion i s the la nguage of those who must ta lk t o the deaf. The report by t he C ommunity Council was prepa red in language that the Mayor could hear a nd understand. In the a rea a round the stadium 8 to 12% of the families have annual inc omes of less · tha n $1 ,000 Another 15-25% have incomes betwee n $1,000 a nd $2,000. Educ ation s h ows a simil a r pa tte rn: 5-10% of the adults ha ve ne ver been in school. Another 20-30% have ha d le ss tha n 5 yea rs of educa tion. About one-fourth to one-third of the children live with only one pa re nt. The infant mo rta lity rate is betwee n 40 a nd 50 de a ths pe r 1,000 live births, twice a s high as middle cla ss areas . The ir streets a re unpaved ; the school s are muc h more crowde d; the e nforcement of sanit ation , ho us ing and other s ta nda rds is muc h less stringent; in man y nei ghborhood s s treet li ghts are virtually no n-existe nt. . . Cou pled with t he absence of services have been many unfu lfille d promises to improve condit ions. Bond iss ue s have been sold on the promises of improved school s o r s tre ets or pa rks, but the s e servi ces h a ve not mate rialized. P ublic officia ls have stated the ir desires to improve this or that si t uation , but conditions re main e s sentially unchanged. It s hould be no s urprise that mos t people simply do not believe the be nign express ions of good intent made by local officials. our summers of riots are caused by America' s winters of delays." 11 •• • - Martin L uth er Ki ng, Jr . At lanta Journal, Sept. 10, 1966 " �VI. "The Atlanta Community-Negro and white-will be making a sad mistake if it writes off Tuesday's disturbances in the South Side as a plot of outside agitators, to be dealt with by replenishing the police department's supply of tear gas." -The Counci l on Human Relations of Greater Atlanta, Inc . Atlanta Constitution, September 9, 1966 The summer was almost over and Atlanta was about to relax, because "niggers ain't never been known to riot in the winter." The day after Labor Day a white policeman shot a black man suspected of auto theft. (Given a chance he could have proven he had borro wed the car he was driving. ) "The ambulance come to take him off and he lay down there ," said Mrs. Marjorie Prather, mother of the victim . "My other s on and this other police was about to get into it out there . He wa s saying, ' I know you didn 't have to shoot him. You didn't have to cause this. You could ha ve caught him cause he wasn't running that fast.' And some of the people told me that when the policeman shot him once , he said, 'Lord , let me make it back to the house. Let me make it back t9 the house. ' I told the policeman 'You didn 't have to do an ything except take a long step to catch him , but you didn't even try·. You were too busy s hooting at him'.' Thus, it began. How many other times had wh ite policemen shot black men? How many other times had white policemen beaten black men and taken them off to jail? How many other times? But this time was the one time too many. In Cleveland it was not being able to get a glass of water in a bar run by a white man. In Watts it was the simple arrest of two men on a traffic violation. It's always something that has happened an infinite number of times before, but on one occasion it becomes the proverbial straw breaking the camel's back. �"You go home and eat a big steak with mushrooms, while we has to go home and eat sardines. Let us go home with you." -Atl anta Constitution, Sept. 12, 1%6 VII. , No matter how many times the city of Atlanta and the press scream that SNCC was respon s ible for the rebe llion, the black people of Atlanta know that SNCC did not des troy h o~es for hot els , mote l s , expressways and a ball s tadium . The y know that SNCC did not fo rce the se people to move into Summerhill , Mechanicsville and other a l ready crowded are as of the city. They know tha t SNCC does not set the exorbitant prices bl ack pe ople are forced to pay for groceries in the ghetto s tores o wned by whites . Yet , Ivan Allen s ays SNCC is respons ible for the rebe llions. Thos e black men he has bought off with tea a nd c ookies can say, a s did the Rev. Otis Smith, "Our main c oncern i s Stokely Ca rmichal. Whethe r or not we have a riot is up to him . " . The Re v . William Holmes Borde rs can s a y, " We 've got to s top him before he s tops us. " Dr. 0. W. Davis can s ay , "Mr. Ca rmichal is an albatross around our necks.' ' Like Shadrach, Mesha ch and Abednego, Ivan Allen a nd the city of Atlanta a re in a fiery furnace , but they do not feel the heat. It is not, howe ver, the grace of God that keeps t hem from feelin g the flame s. It is their own inability or unwill ingne ss to respond to des pera tion a nd des pair. Rather than recognize this , which would be no sha me, the y launch a ve ndetta against SNCC . Whether SNCC lives or dies i s not important, becau s e the black c ommunity will continue to fi ght unti l a s ociety i s c reated in which the black ma n will be able to fulfi ll him s elf. In that society there will be no place for the Ivan All ens , who think a city' s image and progre ss can be s eparated from the peop le of that city . P h oto : Jimmy Lytle ��