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he Zvening Stat
With Sunday Merning Edition
Published by THE EVENING STAR NEWSPAPER CO., Washingfon, D. C.
SAMUEL H. KAUFFMANN, Chairman of the Board
CROSBY N. BOYD, President
NEWBOLD NOYES, Editor
“BENJAMIN M. McKELWAY, Editorial Chairman.
A-12 HX
- THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1966
Rioting In Atlanta
The most surprising thing about the
riot in Atlanta is that it should have
happened there. For Atlanta, by general
- agreement, has been a model for south-
ern cities in its race relations.
Mayor Ivan Allen Jr. has walked the
last mile in search of racial peace. He
had almost solid Negro support when
elected. He was one of the few southern-
ers to testify in support of the 1964 civil
rights bill. He has added Negroes to the
police force. Atlanta’s schools and city
facilities are totally integrated. Many
Negroes are employed by business estab-
lishments and the city has sent eight
Negroes to the state legislature.
All of this counted for nothing,
however, when a suspected Negro car
thief was wounded while trying to
escape from arresting police officers.
When some 500 or more Negroes took to
the streets the mayor climbed on top of
an automobile and tried to reason with
them. He was shouted down. Taunts of
“white devil” and “black power” greeted
him. Finally the mob surged around the
car and the mayor was jarred loose from
his perch and fell to the street.
No, this didn’t happen in a Birm-
ingham or a Selma. It happened in
Atlanta. Little wonder that the Rev.
Martin Luther King Sr., who lives in
Atlanta, was heard to ask: “What do
they want? The mayor came down. He
tried to speak to them and they
wouldn't listen. What do they want?”
It was a good question, but hard to
answer. For most of the members of the
mob may not have known themselves
what they wanted—unless it was an
excuse to throw rocks and rant about
police brutality.
The mayor says the riot was deliber-
ately caused by some of Stokely Carmi-
chael’s SNCC henchmen, and he may be
right. For the mob began shouting “kill
the white cops” after SNCC representa-
tives, according to the police, spread the
false word that the suspected car thief
“had been shot while handcuffed and
that he was murdered.”
Whatever may have been the case
with the rioters, it seems clear that what
the SNCC people want is trouble, trou-
ble, trouble. And that is what they are
going to get, though not in the form
they want, if this sort of madness keeps
up.
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