Box 13, Folder 21, Document 94

Box 13, Folder 21, Document 94

Serving All the Services

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Lit. Col, William V._ Schmitt, USA sesessseeseees Officer-in-Charge

Maj. Ed Swinney, USAF . ...ecee++-ssenees.. Executive Officer

Capt. D'Arcy E Grisier, USMC .,, Administrative, Liaison Officer

Lt. Col. Roy Thompson Jr., USA secesee eeese-» OIC, Vietnam

Gordon A, Skeon ....005 seueas seus » General ‘Manager

Trnest AS Richiter pecevssersvecevevtevessssstasy MaANILINeG Iocitor









Bruce Biossat

Why Atlanta Has

Cause for Worry,

ATLANTA

1 UN like the great northern cities, is worried
about its summertime. Memory of its two racial
“disturbances” last September still runs strong.

Those brief but explosive events sullied Atlanta’s
image as the perfect model of a racially harmonious south-
ern city.

Both white and moderate Negro leaders are concerned thal
worse outbursts could occur in 1967.

Rumors run through Atlanta that militant, even radical,
elements are preparing to take advantage of any trouble thal
might develop. There are reports of small
arms being sold on the streets to Negre
teen-agers. :

What really lies at the base of this un
settled mood is the fact that Atlanta, one
of the nation’s real boom towns, has now
grown to the point where it has taken or
the problems and difficulties of the typica
modern American metropolis.

Its special immunity is vanishing, Its
“model” aspects are blurred and may soor
be_gone ROPE LCT ee

Says one Negro leader here:

“What the city is finding out is tha
this whole movement is not about a ham
burger (lunch counter desegregation). It’:
about better schools, housing and jobs.”

A white scholar adds:

BLOSSAT “We in Atlanta have progressed enoug!
to have acquired some of the same problems northern cities have
And we're stupid enough to have created some of the sami
problems, too.”

Currently the city is torn by argument over location o
certain new Negro housing.

Under Mayor Ivan Allen, some low-rent public housing unit
and some privately financed Negro dwellings are planned for jus
one large area where Negro housing is already heavily concentrated

NAACP leaders are bitterly contesting the plan on the ground i
will foster further growth of a sector that is well on the way t
becoming the city’s single huge Negro ghetto. They want the ney
construction spread beyond this southwest Atlanta area.

por LONG years, a good part of the city’s Negro populatioj

was, in fact, scattered widely in “poverty pockets’’ of varyin,

_ Size. The commercial boom, the freeway network and urba)

renewal have combined to wipe out many of these pocket

altogether. Others are on the way to disappearing. Displace

Negroes move to the swelling southwestern “wedge” where it i
now proposed to add the controversial housing,

The issue is not yet resolved. But leaders see it as a trouble
some factor in the equation that keeps Atlanta in shaky peace,

__A modestly hopeful step, growing out of-dast September’
violence, was the city’s creation of a Community Relations Commis
fion—a 20-member group led by a respected attorney, Irving Kahle:
Nogroes and whites alike commend the inquisitive hearings con
mission panels have held in various slum sectors, Slum resident
have had ample chance to air grievances.

: But, since the commission has only advisory authority, som
Negro leaders ave skeptical of the prospect of much real benefit.

The credit to Atlanta for smoothly desegregating public ac
commodations and some schools has worn thin, Most Negi
leaders today see the city as just another Chicago or Cleveland-
not doing enough about schools, jobs and housing.

(Newspaper Enterprise Assn.)







The most difficult of all virtues is the forgiving spiri
Revenge seems to be natural with man; it is human t
want to get even with an enemy.

—William Jennings Brya