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Page Two THE CAMPUS ECHO Friday, November 1, 1963 CamP‘^5®Echo LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Member ASSOnTATED COLLEGIATE PRESS PRESS HAROLD FOSTER EVERETT ADAMS Editor Business Manager JEAN NORRIS Advisor OFFICE EXTENSION 325 The CAMPUS ECHO is the oTJicial student publication of North Carolina College At Durham. It is published bi-weekly during the regular school year, except during college holidays, at Service Printing Company, Durham, N. C. Subscription rates. $1.35 per semester, $2.50 per school year. Second class mail privilege at Durham, N. C. Laments Homecoming Committee North Carolina College’s Student Government Associa tion and Alumni are to be congratulated for the splendid program they afforded this college community for the 1963 homecoming week. The job, as we found out recently, is a very involved one which many of us are unfamiliar with and perhaps would not dare tackle. The homecoming committee for this year spent many long hours preparing what many of us have written off as a most “enjoyable” homecoming week. Though we agree that long hours must be put into anything that is to be good, we cannot just pass over the hours spent by this committee as being ordinary, for they were indeed hours of sweat, toil, and frustration. First there was the herculian task of de sign a week of activities that would be pleasing to a college community that in the past has not been very easy to ap pease. Anent this there was the problem of supplying the program with a replacement that would be as spectacular as the traditional homecoming parade, as that was cancelled for very dubious reasons. We, at this time, are not able to get all the facts to gether concerning the SGA’s inability to obtain a permit for a parade through the downtown area of Durham. However, James Ferguson, SGA president, has informed us that the committee responsible for obtaining the permit was denied it on the grounds that the city does not allow parades to be staged in this area on Saturdays, as of this year anyway. There is also unsubstantiated speculation that the parade per mit was not grarited because of the civil rights demonstra tions staged this past spring by NCC students. Therefore, we await the outcome of those who will seek permission to stage a Christmas parade through the city’s downtown area on a Saturday. Needless to say, the homecoming committee overcame these obstacles and present us with a week of pep rallys, a mock funeral, a Sadie Hawkins dance, live music for two occasions, and had the visiting high school bands perform a very worthwhile tribute to the homecoming queen and her attendants gathered in the triangle in front of the college library. Mr. Ferguson, Mr. George Nixon, and all those working with them deserve a hat tip from all of us for their efforts. And while we are at it; we would remind those students wondering around looking for some extracurricular activity to participate in that the SGA will be presenting more activities for NCC students; your ability is needed! The Harvey Cafe Incident A Duke University male student has charged the man ager of Harvey’s Cafeteria with assault for harassing him and his Negro date when they went there for dinner Hallo ween Eve. According to Andy Moursund, 20-year old Duke sopho more from Washington, D. C., Joseph Pendergraft, 50-year old manager of Harvey’s began assaulting him when he en tered the downtown cafeteria with Cassandra Smith, 18-year old Duke freshman from Winston-Salem, and one of the five Negro students admitted to the Duke undergraduate school. Moursund told the Campus Echo, as well as arresting officers, that Pendergraft first called him and Miss Smith “. . . some of McKissick’s niggers” (referring to Durham At torney Floyd McKissick who is National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality) The manager is said to have then ordered them to sit in the upstairs part of the cafeteria which they adhered after discovering the downstairs area crowded. Moursund stated further that the manager came upstairs right before they finished their meal and started calling him insulting names and making allegations on his parents and family ties. As he and his date were leaving the cafe teria, Moursund said, the manager then pushed him around and kicked him as he started down the steps. Moursund said he and his date then went straight to the police station with the cafeteria manager chasing them for a block or so. Whether the cafeteria manager is guilty of the charges we are not certain; only the courts can decide that. But we are not uncertain that such an act could occur in Harvey’s Cafeteria. Lest we forget that it was at this same cafeteria this past spring that civil rights demonstrators were threaten ed to be shot with a rifle by one of the personnel of Harvey’s if they dared to enter this establishment and ask for service. As the case now appears, nothing will perhaps be done with the manager; it is very hard to substantiate charges of this nature. However, when the person delivering Har vey Sandwiches to Duke and NCC find that those sand wiches he left in the canteens untouched (and we mean for days and days) he will then know that the students at these institutions do not tolerate having charges of the Morsund nature larged against them. This, alas, is what we must do if we are to protect our interests as students and citizens On Apathy, Race, U. S. Policy Student Apathy Dear Editor; Upon frequenting the student government office, I was stun ned to witness the same catas trophe which has been preva lent here for the past four years. The catastrophe I refer to here is the hard work of the presi dent of the student government association, a few of his cabi net members and even fewer members of the student body. The hard work these few are doing is to carry out the pro posals that were stated by Presi dent James Ferguson in his inaugural address. As you know, a number of things were proposed by the S. G. A. president that illumi nated the eyes of a vast major ity of NCC students. Every one of us, no doubt, feel that these proposals will be quite benefi cial to the student body, but very few of us go by his office to ask, “How are things going? May I do something to help?” After all, many things taken into consideration, the student government is directed by and for the student body. It is appalling to observe the majority of the student body loafing and possessing political apathy. The proposals made by the president are for them, and it is their, or our, duty to see to it that they are carried out. This unco-operativeness has gripped this campus like an Eagle does his prey. A few weeks ago, a student congress meeting was scheduled and in orc^er for it to meet, a few mem bers of the congress had to go to the dormitories and get enough members to gain a quo rum. Another example is the low participation that was giv en the program sponsored by the commission on student af fairs; out of over two thousand students, approximately 10 0 students showed up for the I. Q. program. If NCC is to be the type of college where students may ex ercise autonomy, then it is ne cessary for us to get behind the student government and help them get over their worthwhile programs. Except for the loyality of the few cabinet members, the stu dent government is without help. These few people keep the apparatus rolling and if they didn’t it would wreck. NCC students need to be shak en from their political apathy. We hope something will come by to make them realize that the work of the SGA involves the cooperation of the whole student body. Robert L. Parker White Looks At Black Dear Editor: NEWSWEEK MAGAZINE, October 21, 1963, featured a questionnaire of white attitudes toward the Negro. Although the questions ranged from general subjects to specific ones as jobs, schools, housing, and personal contact with Negroes, the one area where 90 per cent of the whites (North, South, East, and West) drew the lines was when asked “Would you mind your teen-age daughter dating a Ne gro?” In case the reader is not fa miliar with the above article, I would like to include this ex cerpt in this letter. “Why this almost universal anxiety over intermarriage? Some of the fear undoubtedly stems from a genuine concern about the social consequences for the parents and children of mixed marriages. Some whites earnestly believe in the mainte nance of racial purity. But as many Negroes and quite a few white psychiatrists have point ed out, white prejudice against intermarriage may be rooted in personal fears of sexual inade quacies. This, in turn, may help to account for the durability of the stereotype of the “Negro as “oversexed.” If this absurd idea of Negroes being “oversexed” is true; why wouldn’t the white man focus my attention on familiar Negro females? Why would he espe cially seek out white females to marry? Do white bigots subcon sciously think that white fe males are “oversexed” also? Would the oversexed Negro male find sexual compatability with the “oversexed” white fe male? What then, about the Ne gro female and the white male, both now “undersexed”? A friend of mind now attend ing Harvard University told of an interesting incident that oc curred the first week of classes during his freshman year at that Ivy-league school. One day upon entering gym class, he along with his white classmates (he being the only Negro in that class) were instructed to report to the athletic field where they were to select teams for a game of football. To his surprise the game would not get underway because both team captains wanted him. It seems that each side felt that the one with the Negro halfback would eventual ly win. This was embarrassing to him because while in high school he was a “bookworm”— having never participated in any varsity sports and very lit tle sandlot activities, but con centrating on his studies. He didn’t even know how to hold a football! Yet these young white Harvard freshmen had been seeing Jimmy Brown and a host of other Negro NFL foot ball players on television. Also, the sports pages were filled with the exploits of Ernie Davis, Willie Mays, Wilt Chamberlain, and Floyd Patterson. It is pos sible that some “brainwashing” might have occurred as to the Negro possessing physical prow ess. Now if one associates muscle and brain with sexual potency, we can see how this misconcep tion might have occurred. If I had a son contemplating mar riage to a Caucasian and she seemed only interested in him physically, then, I too would have some reservation about him marrying her. Charles McNeil Birmingham Or S. V.? It seems to me that the Unit ed States is far too unconcern ed with its domestic problems, especially where the gigantic 20th century problem of race is concerned. After viewing many of our nation’s leading newspapers, I am prompted to ask, “Is South Viet Nam more or less impor tant to the United States than Birmingham, Alabama?” Cer tainly one has the choice of saying either, but according to my observations and facts of Durham. A college community becomes a frightening place when students do not know when to expect the ossified and unbiquitous hand of racial hate and segregation to raise and smite them. gathered from the American Newspapers, it seems as though Viet Nam is of paramount sig nificance to the United States, and considered more of a trou ble spot than Birmingham. The United States has not act ed on its domestic race problem as a country responsible to all its citizens should have. This neglect, and especially in Bir mingham, has resulted in the death of many innocent, hum ble, and loved Afro-American little children: not to mention the adults. The Buddist demonstrators re ceive more financial aid from the U.S. than the U.S.’s civil rights demonstrators. As I see it, this is the U.S.’s own little silly way of preserving or in stituting a so-called form of democratic government in the political institution of South Viet-Nam. There are those who say that the U.S. is very concerned about Negro demontrations, because after all didn’t Mr. Kennedy send troops down there (Bir mingham) to get students in school, and didn’t he send two mediators or trouble shooters down there to settle problems. Certainly Mr. Kennedy did! But compare this with the 16,000 men he sent to Viet Nam, and then compare the millions of dollars spent everyday in the form of financial and military aid for the Viet Namese to that of zero for U.S. civil rights demonstrators. The close ties of the United States and the Diem regime that has now broken up, proves that the time and effort spent on Viet Nam has been wasted. This wasted time and energy could 'have been used in Bir mingham or some other scenes of ill-democracy by the inhu mane whites. Sure some time and finance should be spent on U.S. foreign policy, but not in the sense to forsake 20 million people who are an integral part of this country, and who are definite ly for and believe in democracy. This year has marked the ze nith of the black man’s patience and perserverance with slav^ ery, injustice and nullification of his dignity; therefore he has taken on a new image—one of the Black Revolter. And this is a just image: While 20 million blacks are asking for redress of grievances and in many cases have been denied this right to even ask for redress of grie vances, the U.S. government has the audacity to neglect these many Afro-Americans and in vert its energy and support to a hope-to-be democratic country that may ultimately turn pro- Communist. The efforts and support in Viet Nam are perhaps signifi cant to some people, but we feel that the U.S. should take care of its domestic problems before going abroad. It’s a shame that the U.S.’s Birmingham problem is still pending in the “status quo, ante bellum.” William Cheeks Campus Echo Staff STAFF NEWS EDITOR Charles Clinton SPORTS EDITOR John McKnight STAFF WRITERS Thomas Hardin, Marie Harris, Doris Hodge, Ronald Jacobs, Frances Neely, BiUy Watts TYPISTS Louise Freeman, Phyllis Hawkins, Everlee Hariston, Joyce Hill CIRCULATION Clifton Johnson, Gerald Roper PUBLIC RELATIONS Ronald Jones
