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Box 19, Folder 17, Document 131
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20 Portland, Maine, Press Herald, Saturday, July 27, 1963
Mayor Of Atlanta Urges
Race Discrimination Ban |
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Mayor
Ivan Allen Jr. of Atlanta broke
the pattern of southern antago-
nism to President Kennedy's civil
rights program Friday by urging
Congress to outlaw racial discrim-
ination in restaurants, hotels and
other private businesses.
At the same Senate Commerce
Committee hearing, Gov, Donald
S. Russell of South Carolina said
that enactment of the controver-
sial public accommodations pro-
posal would aggravate race ten-
sions.
The hearing was enlivened by
another conflict between acting
committee chairman John O. Pas-
tore, D-RI., and Sen, Strom Thur-
mond, D-S.C. The two engaged
in a snappish verbal exchange
when Pastore accused Thurmond
of asking “loaded questions to
catch tomorrow's headlines.”’
Allen testified that Atlanta has
made a start toward integration.
But he said failure of Congress
to pass an anti-discrimination law
might encourage communities
where voluntary efforts have be-
gun to lapse back into previous
Segregation practices.
“Failure by Congress to take
definite action at this time,” the
Georgian said, “is by inference
an endorsement of the right of pri-
vate business to practice racial
discrimination and, in my opin-
ion, would start the same old
round of squabbles and demon-
strations that we have had in the
However, Allen urged Congress
to write into the program a pro-
vision giving local] communities
reasonable time to try voluntary
means to end segregation,
Gov. Russell, in his opposition
to the legislation, said it “offers
no sound remedy for the delicate
and complex problem of racial
relations.”
The South Carolina executive
said it would militate against
“The cordial] atmosphere essen-
tial to peaceful relations.”
Elsewhere on the civil rights
legislative front:
—Norman Thomas, long-time So-
called charges the Negro integra-
tion movement was Communist-
inspired “ridiculous.”
He told a House judiciary sub-
committee: “This is not a resull
of Communist action, It is the
result of failure to give the peo-
ple who were. freed from. chattel
slavery the rights of citizens. They
would be less than men if they
did not protest.”
—Gus Tyler, assistant president
of the AFL-CIO International La-|
dies Garment Workers Union, en-
dorsed the proposals to insure job!
equality for Negroes and denied
that his union prevents its Negro
and Puerto Rican members from
filling high offices.
—James Farmer, director of the
Congress of Racial Equali-
ty (CORE), and Roy Wilkins, ex-
ecutive secretary of the National
Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (NAACP),
appeared before a Senate subcom-
mittee to advocate passage of a
bill setting up a fair employ-
cialist candidate for president,
McNamara Gives Order
ment practices commission.
Mayor Of Atlanta Urges
Race Discrimination Ban |
WASHINGTON (UPI) — Mayor
Ivan Allen Jr. of Atlanta broke
the pattern of southern antago-
nism to President Kennedy's civil
rights program Friday by urging
Congress to outlaw racial discrim-
ination in restaurants, hotels and
other private businesses.
At the same Senate Commerce
Committee hearing, Gov, Donald
S. Russell of South Carolina said
that enactment of the controver-
sial public accommodations pro-
posal would aggravate race ten-
sions.
The hearing was enlivened by
another conflict between acting
committee chairman John O. Pas-
tore, D-RI., and Sen, Strom Thur-
mond, D-S.C. The two engaged
in a snappish verbal exchange
when Pastore accused Thurmond
of asking “loaded questions to
catch tomorrow's headlines.”’
Allen testified that Atlanta has
made a start toward integration.
But he said failure of Congress
to pass an anti-discrimination law
might encourage communities
where voluntary efforts have be-
gun to lapse back into previous
Segregation practices.
“Failure by Congress to take
definite action at this time,” the
Georgian said, “is by inference
an endorsement of the right of pri-
vate business to practice racial
discrimination and, in my opin-
ion, would start the same old
round of squabbles and demon-
strations that we have had in the
However, Allen urged Congress
to write into the program a pro-
vision giving local] communities
reasonable time to try voluntary
means to end segregation,
Gov. Russell, in his opposition
to the legislation, said it “offers
no sound remedy for the delicate
and complex problem of racial
relations.”
The South Carolina executive
said it would militate against
“The cordial] atmosphere essen-
tial to peaceful relations.”
Elsewhere on the civil rights
legislative front:
—Norman Thomas, long-time So-
called charges the Negro integra-
tion movement was Communist-
inspired “ridiculous.”
He told a House judiciary sub-
committee: “This is not a resull
of Communist action, It is the
result of failure to give the peo-
ple who were. freed from. chattel
slavery the rights of citizens. They
would be less than men if they
did not protest.”
—Gus Tyler, assistant president
of the AFL-CIO International La-|
dies Garment Workers Union, en-
dorsed the proposals to insure job!
equality for Negroes and denied
that his union prevents its Negro
and Puerto Rican members from
filling high offices.
—James Farmer, director of the
Congress of Racial Equali-
ty (CORE), and Roy Wilkins, ex-
ecutive secretary of the National
Association for the Advance-
ment of Colored People (NAACP),
appeared before a Senate subcom-
mittee to advocate passage of a
bill setting up a fair employ-
cialist candidate for president,
McNamara Gives Order
ment practices commission.
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