Wednesday, AprilIO,n0u3 Page 2 7T? H UJl k I it.:. o o F THE DAILY TAK HEEL 76 Years of Editorial Freedom Bill Amlong, Editor Don Walton, Business Manager .Non-Involved Mockery To The memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the non violent crusader for racial equali ty, is being profaned. This is not being done necessar ily, by the Black people throughout this nation who are rioting. Instead, it is being done by those white "moderates' who keep praising Dr. King's non-violence, but who neglect to take any positive action toward achieving his goal of racial equality. And while it is true that Dr. King did abhor violence, it is also true that he was perhaps even more strongly opposed to racism. And if we hear one more white moderate tell us that the violence that is erupting throughout this country now is simply "black racism," we may vomit. For it is these white moderates who must bear a great deal of the blame for what is happening in American today. They have sat back, mouthing pious and well-intentioned tidibts of liberalism, but neglecting to put anything on the line for racial equality. . And it should be painfully ap parent by now that all of their good intentions and deep-down f eel- 'intrc nf hrnthfrhnnrl are. at the f nittyritty level; 'completely h relevant. In fact, they are worse than irrelevant: they are rankly hypocritical. Take Chapel Hill for example. It was very well and good that more than 600 students, faculty arid townspeople among them Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson and Consolidated University President William C. Friday marched from Y Court to the First Baptist Church Sunday to pay tribute to the slain civil rights leader. It was equally nice in a white liberal sort of way that some 2,000 persons filled Memorial Hall Monday morning, expressed their grief over Dr. King's murder and sang "We Shall Overcome." The time has come, however, for the singing to cease and the overcoming to begin. And if we are to overcome especially in this town of Chapel Hill this University is going to have to lend leadership and sup port. And by leadership, we " don't mean that this University has any place telling Black students how equal they are going to be: instead, this University should lead the white people of Chapel Hill into the 1960's, beginning with exertion of pressure on the Board of Aldermen to adopt an open housing ordinance. . THIS UNIVERSITY should lend economic leadership and support Dy Deginning to pay its Negro employees a decent wage, and by white people of Chapel Hill into hiring them in other than menial capacities. .Were it to do this, since it is by far the largest employer in town, it could raise the entire wage scale for Chapel Hill and Carrboro black people. This University should lend leadership and support to in tegration by openly endorsing and supporting the Carolina Talent Search which, shamefully, had, to be financed by Student Govern ment funds alone instead of spewing forth platitiudes about how such a program would discriminate against whites. Pamela Hawkins, Associate Editor Terry Gingras, Managing Editor Rebel Good, News Editor Kermit Buckner, Advertising Manager Monrning Dr. Kim These are just some of the ways in which this University should begin to get involved with the Civil Rights movement involved like, it's never been before. AND UNTIL IT. does get in volved, until it really does start to do something about discrimina tion and economic inequality in Chapel Hill, it is going to continue to be a bastion of , the kind of v aloof white liberalism that is not at all in the context of its great ness, nor in the tradition establish ed here by Dr. Frank Porter Graham, the Consolidated University's first president and foremost advocate of human rights. And until this University does get involved, we don't want to hear any more about-how liberal it is, and we don't want to see any more predominantly white marches and memorial services for Dr. King. His memory deserves much more than such mockery. MEANWHILE, NEITHER do we want to hear any more platitudes about "law and order." It seems to be quite fashionable to deplore Black peoples' lack of respect for law and order, as by ihepots But look at law and order from a Black man's point of view. The only thing the law means to a great many of this nation's Negroes is that some .white cop comes down to a ghetto on a Satur day night and arrests somebody on drunk and disorderly charges, maybe slapping him around a bit in the process. So scratch any great respect they're supposed to have for police offices. Or consider the rights of , pro perty, rights which are so often spoken of in the law and order discussions. And consider that very few Negroes own property. - - - THE IDEAL, OF course, is that Negroes should have respect for laws, rights and such. The truth, however, is that these laws and rights serve to oppress rather than to benefit them. Therefore they can hardly be ex pected to embrace, lovingly, such a legal system. The ideal could be attained, however, if the laws were extended to protect Negroes as well as white businessmen. Open Housing legislation is an example of the kind of laws which are needed before the system can begin to benefit Negroes, thereby earning their respect for it. But as long as Negroes are pro- secuted but not protected, by the laws il does't make sense to talk about they're respecting them. And as long as predominantly white legislative bodies, such as both Congress and the Chapel Hill Board of Aldermen, refuse to act favorably on Civil Rights legisla tion the only lobby open to Negroes will continue to be the street, the only effective political tactic to be a brick put through a window. And if white America doesn't wake up to this fact, she's sure as hell going to be killed in her sleep. 4k 94 fa We White Can Learn And Can Be Decent To The Editor: Since leaving the memorial service for Martin Luther King at Memorial Hall a few minutes ago, I have run into two markedly different responses to the remarks made by James Robert Wagoner. As I walked back .toward my office I talked with a couple who essen tially agreed with me, and then a few minutes later ran into-some people who had a strikingly different reaction to his words. Since this difference of un derstanding may well be widespread, I would like to express my in terpretation. Mr. Wagoner said the white people had done poorly by the black people of this community, and country, and around the world. He said the black people were on the, verge of reacting to mis by destroying the white people. He said this community could exercise leadership ,in creating a Situation in ' '" Which an 'alternative ;6Md be peached. He said a number of other things, but these breif lines connote the parts of his address which seemed to me to dead to the alternative interpretations. Mr. Wagoner's words were bitter and angry ones. They carried a threat of future violence. They were demanding in that they called for a major change of behavior on the part of the University, and of the white community. On the other hand, his tone of voice was con Dastardly Deed . . . To Silent Saim To The Editor If you haven't already, go see the paint job somebody did on Silent Sam, hurry, because it's being scrubbed away -now. '"' It's like expecting to see a clown's face and instead finding a grinning skull. The campus police don't know who did it. They discovered it at 4:14 Sunday morning. Ah, the harmless pranks of schoolboys! My word yes. Please find the ones who did it and lock them away in padded cells, and when you pass by their cells speak softly so they will not howl and jerk about on the floor, because they've got to be very, very crazy. Look at Sam and you'll know why. The only other possibility is that they were only temporarily maddened by - anger and blind vengefumess, perhaps. Carzy! That's the only word for what they did to Sam. People going to the Folk Music Festival at GM Sunday afternoon stopped to look. Tfaev didn't say much. A boy wearing sunglasses and a girl The Daily Tar Heel is pub lished by de University of North Carolina Student Publi cations Board, daily except Mondays, examinations periods and vacations. Offices are on the second floor of Graham Memorial. Telephone cumbers: editorial, sports, news S33-1C11; bus iness, circulation, advertising S33-1163. Address: Box 10S0, Chapel Hill, N. C., 27514. Second class postage paid at U.S. Post Office in Chapel Hill, N. C. Subscription rates: $3 per year; $5 per semester. From the Temple University News trolled, his thoughts were reasoned, and his demeanor was one of concern. In circumstances in which many would vent anger by attempting to hurt others, he spoke what seems to me to be truth. When others would give up efforts to achieve reconciliation, he tried to tell us what it will take to find our way out of the . dilemma history and our ancestors left us in. Whereas he could have led the Litany and left us feeling that we had done something im portant, he chose to speak from his own heart and try to achieve something really of value. This black man, at a time of terrible tragedy for himself and all of us, but a time when he could easily have said, "There is no hope", expressed his con fidence and trust that we who are white can learn, and can change, can be decent to our fellow men. Despite all the evidence - he might : well , have used to reach the contrary conclusion, he asserted with has addressto us t h a t ihe was willing to believe that we could ;face truth, and deal with people honestly, and, in all of its meaning, love our fellow man. I think he did us great honor, and I hope we cart live up to it T John P. Fflley, MJ). Associate Professor r School of Public Health in a flowerirint dress walked up to Sam slowly, holding hands their faces frozen in identical dumb, open-mouthed stares.. There was red paint on Sam's face and chest and legs. Not blood red. Make believe, candy-cane red, f There was green paint on the rolled blanket over his shoulder. There was brown paint all around the base, and -splattered red and green paint on the plaque that Shows a woman calling a boy away from his books and giving firm a sword. ? Red paint, orange paint, green, yel low, brown paint. On the back of the base, a red hammer and sickle. On the front, in green, tins: "Who did it, E2i?" " Students have always played tricks on Sam and be has always borne them with quiet good humor. There have been balloons tied to the barrel of his rifle and feathers stuck on his hat He has keen festooned with toilet paper after Tar Heel victories and with flowers in the spring. The one tiling all the good jokes on Sam have had in common is that they were labors of love. ; But now he has been smeared and splattered, and it seems a work of neither love nor even of hate but of -sheer unreason. And maybe the way to understand & is to see it not as the work of people but of a thing, of irrationality, flf this understanding is right, then It doesn't matter whether the ones who 4id it were students, or whether they Were white, black or multi-colored like Sam. What matters is that they were infected with the same dank, poisonous ,r mat choked and crazed a man o 5A. m rifle in Memphis, that - tin 1 1 1 a. - - ,s through the streets of Washington Durham and Raleigh. NTow, it seems, a whiff of it has blown 'into Chapel Hill and splattered SUent Sam with paint. Mike Jennings Raw Hatred Amd PoMiieai By WAYNE KING Special To The Daily Tar Heel (Editor's Note: Wayne King, past editor of the DTH, is metropolitan bureau chief for the Detroit Free Press. As a student and correspondent for Newsweek Magazine, King has covered demonstrations and riots at Ole Miss, Birmingham, Savannah and other south ern cities.) It was Hemingway, as I remember who said that courage is grace under pressure. I remembered the quotation Sunday when I wandered over to GM to hear the lawn concert somebody told me was being held. I came over with vague remem brances of .emerald green grass that smell ed so good you could take a big bite out of it; a pleasant, sunny Sunday screen door summer and all that. Silent Sam, I'd noticed in the morning, had been, as the administration would put it, "defaced." I didn't think the old boy looked bad at all in fact, I assumed the day-glo decoration had been applied by a Black and that it was all nicely sympbolic: Silent Sam, the symbol of the dead confereracy, and thus the sym bol of all that's wrong with Chapel HOI, now looked like be was wearing an African mu-mu. Then I noticed that there was , no crowd on the lawn, just a few scattered guys and couples studying or lying in the shade. I figured the concert had been called off in memoriam to Dr. King. Out of respect, I thought. "No," a guy named George La Monte, who used to be my roommate, told me. "They moved it inside because the slack-jawed idiots think it might cause a riot. - That's when I remembered the quota tion. . .a good one. . .especially for catching the mood of the mior catastrophe that was happening. Moving that concert inside seemed the most graceless, and the most gutless, thing I could remember happening in Chapel ttm . " Hill. It was not true, of course Thousands of gutless, graceless, outrageously stupid things have been done in Chapel Hill and will continue to be, no doubt. But this One seemed particularly sad. Things are obviously an a sorry state in Chapel Hill when the supposedly enlightened, liberal segment of UNC is so bone-weary, scared or just plain beaten that they get spooked at the drop of the word riot. Earlier, LaMonte had been telling me about a contingent of Blacks who had marched up to the Deke house. When they did, someone had poked a shotgun or a rifle out of a window. The leader of the Negro marchers said: "I see your gun, but you ain't seen ours yet." He asked what the name of the place was and a Deke answered Xlike they always do, like they're an nouncing the second coming of Christ) "This is the Deke House." Flourish of trumpets. The Black militant wasn't impressed. He turned to his man and said: "Deke House, man. Write that down." Grace? Courage? If the Deke with the rifle had possess ed etiher one, he would have invited the Negro in for a beer. As it was, the Negro turned out to be the coolest -guy around, the guy with more poise, more grace, and thus more courage. The same goes for the lawn concert. If the organizers had had any grace, they would have held the concert, and if trouble had come, it would have come. You don't avoid it by hiding in the corner, pulling down the shades and pretending you're having a great time nervously applauding a strained performance in a shadowy room. But the frightening thing is that Chapel Hill and the University have allowed themselves to get into such a mess that it might be too late even for a massive infusion of grace. The gutlessness of thousands who have . gone before is now being visited, like original sin, on the present population. And theirs, in turn, will fall even more heavily on those who are to come. The handwriting has . been on the wall in Chapel Hill hundreds. of times before, and each time, it has been whitewashed over, obliterated only to appear again in an even more awesome script. The last time, a few years ago, Negroes and whites hit the bricks in the longest sustained avil rights demonstration in modern U.. history. Arrests mounted into four figures, the demonstrators were beaten, doused with ammonia, and in one staggering instance, urinated on by a white waitress. Over in Hillsioro, Judge Mallard handed down sentences reminiscent more of Selma than Chapel Hill. And what did University do? Chapel Hill and the They hid in a comer, called the concerts indoors, and prayed for rain and more policemen. No wonder everybody is scared. They've got damn good reason to be. They've done nothing, they plan to do nothing and thus they have no hope, only fear a vague, debilitating angst that has Dekes brandishing guns and concerts being pulled indoors. Out at a local restaruant, I'm told, two shotguns and a pitchfork rest in the corner. A few years ago, another restuarant owner used a water hose and his wife's bladder capacity to ward off demonstrators. But now it's guns and pitchforks. A startling escalation over just a few years. And the Negroes have upped the ante, too. Remember when they just sat down in the streets and tied up a little traffic? In those days, THAT scared hell out of the white folks. But, still they dont do anything. I passed a student on the dorner, in front of Harry's, and he was collecting signatures on a petition for open hous ing. . Open housing. In 1968, after all that has gone before, one sad-eyed, bearded, political science student sitting forlornly on the corner, entreating passersby to sign on the dotted line in support of the Twentieth Century. And Bill Amlong, th DTH editor, tells me that President Friday and the rest haVent yet screwed up enough courage to formally support it. Great God Almighty. - Oh, you might say, "this is different. Things are bad because Dr. King was killed, because he's a martyr, and our colored people are mad about that." You can forget that argument. In the first place, most of the young Black militants that are throwing those bricks and firebombs thought of Dr. King whom they sneeringly referred to as "de Lawd" as just slightly more likable than George Wallace. Not, it's not grief, sorrow, or righteous anger being poured out over the grave of a fallen hero. What's happening in the country and what is certain to happen in Chapel Hill today or tomorrow or next-year ifr nothing ., is done, as made up of-vequal parts-raw hatred and a feeling of political necessity. Negroes are throwing bricks, setting fires, looting stores and sniping 21 policemen because they can see no other way to get whitey to do sometbir? other than pull down the shades or reach for a shotgun. That's the political part the part many Negroes feel x necessary to blast the President Fridr; and the Sandy McClamrochs and iY. rest out of their false feeling that A: wlH all go away if you just stay indoor long enough. The hatred part is more complex. That's the part that comes from be insulted three times a day, seven dajs a week, 52 weeks a year, every wakf-;f moment from cradle to grave. But you treat the colored deceX you say? Think about this a minute. You p into a store tor try on a pair of shoes. The clerk looks at you like you've g- syphillis. You're embarrassed, so yea pick out a pair of loafers without even trying them on. Then the cashier wont take your check until he checks your driver's license, your student ID, your birth certificate, your voter registration, your bank and the birthmark juebeloTr your navel. What would your reaction be? You'd want to burn the goddam store down, right? Now multiply that experience by, say, ten thousand, and you begin to get the idea of why "those people" are throwing those bricks. What do you do about it? I don't know. But I do know that you don't do It by buying a shotgun, canceling a concert or mealymouthing around on something as self-evident as open housing. it ail nas to do with courage nt the courage to reach for a shotgun, or call out the National Guard, but the kind it takes to tell the State Legislature and the racist restaur at owners and the people "of the state that the University and Chapel Hill is going the whole route recruiting Negro students actively, and giving them full scholarships, thousands of them, not just a few; boycotting every business that even looks like it's discriminating; pro viding jobs, housing and education in massive doses; moving on every front, not only with force, but with the grace that comes when you do it because it's right, .not because you're too scared to do anything else. Will it work? Probably not, because its a atle late in the development of a literate community for anyone to even have to say it. ... 1 ydnt say it in fact, if I didnt hke those lawn concerts so much.