Box 20, Folder 2, Document 7

Marietta Gae sf 030 003

Mayor Ivan Allen Jre,
City Hall,
Atlanta, Georgia,

My dear Sir*-

I live in Marietta and possibly do not have the right to address a
letter to you,however,l could not resist the temptation. I notice
in the papers partial extract of your statement before the Senate
Committee on the Civil Rights Bill. You refer to the fact that
the negro can walk into a bank and borrow money, can walk into a
department store and purchase goods and can go into a grocery store
and purchase groceries, but when time comes to eat, he is not
welcome af a restaurant and his status changes to a secom class
citizen.

These segregated businesses were established by their owners on
the basis of choosing their customers; they worked hard, put up
their own money and when they have made a success, the ndro wants
to walk in and eat with the whites instead of other negroes, Just
why he does not want to eat with other negroes is difficult to
understand and this to m is a strong argument in faver of
segregation, He put no money nor work into ‘these segregated
businesses, but now wants to tell the owners how to operate theme

However,the negro loses no rights by these segregated establishments
and does not change into a second-class citizen. There is no law
against him establishing his own integrated eating places, hotels,
theaters, etce, am then the public would have the choice of
integrated or segregated facilities. He has the freedom of

choice to establish his own integrated business, the sam as the
white man has to establish his segregated business.

I presume you have a swimming pool at your hom. Is it integrated?
Is your hom integrated? How many négro clerical workers do you
employ in your office at the City Hall? How many negro clerical
workers does the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce employ? Some of the
Directors of the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce are bankers and I
presume some of them approved the Chamber's resolution asking
certain Atlanta businesses to integrate. Has the banks with

whom these executives are conrected integrated? If so how

many negro tellers do they have, how many negro stenographers

do they employ ani how many negro executives do they have?

is the Ivan Allen Marshall Co., integrated? If so how many
negro clerks do they have; how many negro stenographers do they


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employazand how many negro executives do they have?

I am not a rabble rouser; am 73 years of age; have lived in Marietta
all my life; have many ffiends among the colored folks in my town
and on a percentage basis of our acquaintances, expect I have more
real colored friends than you, but I don't eat with them and they
don't eat with m and this does not mean that I am better or worse
than they.

I realize I have asked some personal questions but in view of your
public stand on the regro question, I think the public has the right
to know how you handle this mtter personally.

I am enclosing an extract from a speech by Abraham Lincoln on the
negro delivered more than a 100 years agoo

I have written similar letters to the Kennedys but they are
unanswered «

Yours very truly,
MRL

M.R. LYON

207 Freyer Drive , n 4
Marietta, Georgia, sale é :

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