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NAACP newsletters, Fort Madison Branch, 1967-1970

1967-05-21 Newsletter, Fort Madison Branch of the NAACP Page 2

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Americans. They pay taxes, fight for the country and do as well as anybody else in meeting their responsibilities. And yet we tolerate shameful injustices which deprive them, by threats and by actual violence, of their right to vote and to participate actively in the affairs of the nation....
Here I can see you will protest. You will point to the Supreme Court decisions that have upheld Negro rights, to education in integrated colleges and schools. It seems to me that our motives are judged by the real fruit of our decisions. What have we done? We have been willing to grant the Negro rights on paper, even in the South. But the laws have been framed in such a way that in every case their execution has depended on the good will of white society, and the white man has never failed, when left  to himself, to block or obstruct or simply forget the necessary action without which the rights of the Negro cannot be enjoyed in fact. Hence, when laws have been passed and then contested, and then dragged through all the courts, and then finally upheld, the Negro is still in no position to benefit by them without, in each case, entering into further interminable lawsuits every time he wants to exercise a right that is guaranteed to him by law. 
...I think there is a possibly some truth in the accusation that we are making laws simply because they look nice on the books. Having them there, we can enjoy the comfort of pointing to them, reassuring our own consciences, convincing our-selves that we are all that we claim to be, and refuting the vicious allegations of hostile critics who question the sincerity of our devotion to freedom. But at the same time, when our own personal interests and preferences are concerned, we have no intention of respecting the Negro's rights in the concrete. North or South, integration is always going to be not on our street but 'somewhere else.' That perhaps accounts for the extraordinary seal with which the North insists on integration in the South, while treating the Northern Negro as if he were invisible, flatly refusing to let him take shape in full view, lest he demand the treatment due to a human person and a free citizen in this nation. That is why the Negro now insists on making himself as obviously visible as he possibly can. That is why he demonstrates. He has come to realize that the white man is not interested in the rights of the Negro, but in the white man's own spiritual and material comfort. If then, by making himself visible, the Negro can finally dis-turb the white man's precious 'peace of soul,' then by all means he would be a fool no to do so.  Yet when we are pressed and criticized, and when the Negro's violated rights are brought up before us, we stir ourselves to renewed efforts at legislation, we introduce more bills into Congress, knowing well enough how much chance those bills have of retaining any real significance after they have finally made it, if they make it at all." 
Taken from- THE BLACK REVOLUTION by Thomas Merton the Trappist Monk printed in NEGRO DIGEST- August 1964
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THE SUPPLIANT by Georgia Douglas Johnson
"Long have I beat with timid hands upon life's leaden door, Praying the patient, little prayer my fathers prayed before, Yet I remain without the close, unheeded and unheard, And never to my listening ear is borne the whited word. 
Soft o'er the threshold of the years there comes this counsel cool: The strong demand, contend, prevail; the beggar is a fool!'
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John Howard Griffin, the author of Black Like Me, has had to have large amounts of his bone structure replaced with metal as a result of undergoing intensified treatments to darken the pigment of his skin. His facial bones, shoulder blades and parts of his leg bones have been replaced with metal. It is ironic that this should be the result of one man's sincere effort to 'know' what it is really like to be Negro in America!

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-2- Americans. They pay taxes, fight for the country and do as well as anybody else in meeting their responsibilities. And yet we tolerate shameful injustices which deprive them, by threats and by actual violence, of their right to vote and to participate actively in the affairs of the nation.... Here I can see you will protest. You will point to the Supreme Court decisions that have upheld Negro rights, to education in integrated colleges and schools. It seems to me that our motives are judged by the real fruit of our decisions. What have we done? We have been willing to grant the Negro rights on paper, even in the South. But the laws have been framed in such a way that in every case their execution has depended on the good will of white society, and the white man has never failed, when left to himself, to block or obstruct or simply forget the necessary action without which the rights of the Negro cannot be enjoyed in fact. Hence, when laws have been passed and then contested, and then dragged through all the courts, and then finally upheld, the Negro is still in no position to benefit by them without, in each case, entering into further interminable lawsuits every time he wants to exercise a right that is guaranteed to him by law. ...I think there is a possibly some truth in the accusation that we are making laws simply because they look nice on the books. Having them there, we can enjoy the comfort of pointing to them, reassuring our own consciences, convincing our-selves that we are all that we claim to be, and refuting the vicious allegations of hostile critics who question the sincerity of our devotion to freedom. But at the same time, when our own personal interests and preferences are concerned, we have no intention of respecting the Negro's rights in the concrete. North or South, integration is always going to be not on our street but 'somewhere else.' That perhaps accounts for the extraordinary seal with which the North insists on integration in the South, while treating the Northern Negro as if he were invisible, flatly refusing to let him take shape in full view, lest he demand the treatment due to a human person and a free citizen in this nation. That is why the Negro now insists on making himself as obviously visible as he possibly can. That is why he demonstrates. He has come to realize that the white man is not interested in the rights of the Negro, but in the white man's own spiritual and material comfort. If then, by making himself visible, the Negro can finally dis-turb the white man's precious 'peace of soul,' then by all means he would be a fool no to do so. Yet when we are pressed and criticized, and when the Negro's violated rights are brought up before us, we stir ourselves to renewed efforts at legislation, we introduce more bills into Congress, knowing well enough how much chance those bills have of retaining any real significance after they have finally made it, if they make it at all." Taken from- THE BLACK REVOLUTION by Thomas Merton the Trappist Monk printed in NEGRO DIGEST- August 1964 ------- THE SUPPLIANT by Georgia Douglas Johnson "Long have I beat with timid hands upon life's leaden door, Praying the patient, little prayer my fathers prayed before, Yet I remain without the close, unheeded and unheard, And never to my listening ear is borne the whited word. Soft o'er the threshold of the years there comes this counsel cool: The strong demand, contend, prevail; the beggar is a fool!' ----- John Howard Griffin, the author of Black Like Me, has had to have large amounts of his bone structure replaced with metal as a result of undergoing intensified treatments to darken the pigment of his skin. His facial bones, shoulder blades and parts of his leg bones have been replaced with metal. It is ironic that this should be the result of one man's sincere effort to 'know' what it is really like to be Negro in America!