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Louisville ®urier-Journal
9/10/66
The Quality
Of Leadership
In Atlanta
REJECTING the easy and superficial course
of outraged denunciation, Mayor Ivan Allen,
Jr., of Atlanta is reacting sensibly and con-
structively to the recent racial disorders in
his city.
While condemning Stokely Carmichael and
his cohorts for their role in the rioting, the
Mayor_conceded that the substanda iving
conditions in the Negro area where the out-
break occurred would be a fertile field for
| agitation by anyone.
» The city, he said, ‘‘must assume the respon-
“sibility of housing, education, and employ-
» ment opportunities for many of these dis-
advantaged people, and in Atlanta we have
_ fccepted this as our responsibility.” The
/Ma or also made it clear that he favors
[ passage Ot -1e civil -rights bill ni now_ before
Congress with an even stronger op open- chousing
A provision than it contains in its present form.
“With this kind of leadership, Atlanta should
continue to show the way to racial accommo-
dation in the Deep South.
The rioting in Atlanta came after a police-
man shot a Negro sought in a car-theft case.
The policeman’s judgment, in this instance,
is open to question, but the use that Car-
michael and his lieutenants made of the inci-
dent brings Carmichael’s judgment into even
more serious question. The evidence is strong
that he provoked the violence, and to what
purpose?
Mr, Carmichael, it is becoming increasing-
ly clear, is a liability to the civil-rights move-
ment. His purposes are undefined and his
aggressions unfocused. His tiresome chant
of “black power” is dangerously provocative
and he has yet to define what it means in the
context of his operations.
Dr. Martin Luther King, on the other hand,
continues to speak in accents of reason. Com-
menting on the Atlanta outbreak, Dr. King
said: “It is still my firm conviction that a
riot is socially destructive and self-defeating
. (but)... while condemning riots, it is just
as important to condemn the conditions which
bring riots into being.”
This is virtually the same position that
Mayor Allen takes, yet Mr. Carmichael im-
plies that Mayor Allen is a racist. If he is, then
so is Dr. King, and Stokely Carmichael is
going to have a hard time selling that idea.
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