APRIL 1967

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VOL. 3 NO.4

-------IN THIS ISSUE· PAGE 6 ~

CESARCHAVEZ

INTERVIEW

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WE OPPOSE A NATIONAL SERVICEWe oppose the draft in all forms, in­

cluding the recently proposed NationalService. The National Service idea wouldhave young people register at 16. Thegovernment would test them to find whe.ethey were deficient in mental and physi­cal ability. The government wouid thenhave young, flexible minds to reeducateand control.

As the liberal senator Jacob Javits says,it would be just like compulsory education.The question we must ask ourselves it,"what is the purpose of compulsory edu­cation?" It was originally to educate thechildren of the poor who could not affordprivate schools. But compulsory educationbas become the means wbereby the govern­ment inatills its values into the youngpeople of this country. This is Why ourchildren are rarely taught Negro History,rarely taught how the federal governmentbroke hundreds of treaties with the Ameri­can Indian in order to take over Indianland. The federal government is racist.The values its education instills areracist. Thus the racist nature of ou'rsociety continues.

A National Service would give the federalgovernment increased control over theyouth of the nation, the people who' nowprotest the government's actions. Weoppose greater control by this govern­ment Which lies to its peOple.

•• • • * * * •Only the American people have the power

to· stop what the government is doing in

WE OPPOSE THE DRAFTWe oppose the draft because it forces

the people of the United States to commitgenocide on the people of Vietnam.

We oppose the draft because it usespeople to fight a war which is not inthe interests of those people. This is awar which brings profits only to largecorporations. It brings death and destruc-'tiQn to ou r people and the people ofVietnam.

We oppose the draft because the draftgives the government the power to killthe people of Vietnam, the poor peoplein the United States.

itself and wage effective war. But thegovernment does' 'not have the right todefend itself a;,d ~g~.d'iectiv~ :ar .....ith­out the consent of the governed.

EDITORIAL

PROTEST AND REBELLIONMany people have understood what is

happening in this country. They have pro­tested the Vietnam war. They have foughtfor the right to vote. They have protestedagainst police brutality in their com­munitiesThey have rebelled against mur­der by the police in Harlem, Chicago,Watts, Atlanta arid Illnter's Point. Thesepeople are blacks in the North and theSouth, farm workers, poor Whites, factoryworkers and students. They are the youthof the country. They are the peoplewho are forced to fight the government'swars 'while sons and lovers of the rich.are given special treatment drai't boards.

The Declaration of Independence statesthat the inalienable rights of all meninclude Life, Liberty and the pursuit ofHappiness. It continues: "That to securethese rights, Government~ are institutedamong Men, deriving their just powersfrom the consent of the governed. Thatwhenever any Form of Government be­comes destructive of these ends, it isthe Right of the People to alter 'or abolishit.

The Supreme Court has said that thedraft is not unconstitutional because thefederal government has th~rigbUodefel.d.-.' ...~., ._:;~, '\" CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

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NO GOVERNMENT OF THE PEOPLEThe United states government, which

commits this. murder in Vietnam, is nota government of the people.

Black people have fought for theirfreedom for over 400 years. They stillcannot vote without haVing their homesand churches burned, their families, jobsand lives threatened.

In Harlem having the vote means nothing;Congress has decided that the people ofthat ghetto cannot choose who will re­present them.

In Puerto Rico people are drafted intothe U:3. Army even though they have norepresentation in Congress.

The war in Vietnam is the third actof genocide committed by the UnitedStates. The first was the enslavement ofAfrican people which cost the lives ofmillions of men, women and children. Thesecond was the wanton. destruction ofthe civilization of the American Indian.Now Vietnam, where already we have usedmore bombs and other weapons that killpeople than were used in all of WorldWar II. And Vietnam is smaller thanCalifornia.

UNSKILLED nature. There is no jobstability in any of the positions, nor isthere any chance of advancement. Someof the jobs are warehouse work whereall that is required is, "to be able tolift things up and put them down." Onefirm which has been funded is a car wash­ing company. They pay $1.58 an hour forcar cleaners. There is no training in­volved. A worker could be replaced onone day's notice.

LILY-WHITE ••IOIISMEDA faced an obstacle in the form of

the Bay Area unions. Many of the EDAprojects involved long-term constructionwork. The impact of the EDA moneywould be much greater if the construction.work could be parceled out to some ofOakland's "hard-core" unemployed. TheBuilding Trade Unions were responsiblefor stQPping any action on this front'.

EDA head Eugene Foley attempted toget an agreement with the BuildingTrades which would apply to those work- .ing on the EDA construction. Foley wasnot successful in his negotiations with theBuilding Trades - their policy of exclu­siVE: apprenticeship and lily-white unionmembE:rship remained unchanged. Foleydropped the project without much of afight.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

UNION DEALSSome of the firms will allow their

workers to be unionized. One firm how- .ever, made an •'off-the-record" agree­ment with the Paper Workers Union,which involved'''not pressing for union­ization" because the prospective work­ers would be from minority groups.

$23,000,000OAKLAND FRAUD !

The kinds of jobs that will open up forOakland residents as a result of thebusiness loans are uniformly or an

Oakland, California

The Economic Development Administration announced inApril 1966 that it would put $23 million into this city to create jobs for 'hard­core unemployed' in order to avert possible racial violence. However, the ef­fect of the ED A activities has been to continue the widening gap between thewhite worker and the black worker.

The firms receiving funds prefer black workers-BLACK' WORKERS ARENaT UNION; THEY CAN BE FIRED AS SOON AS AUTOMATION COMESINTO THE PLANT. Thus the EDA is creating a disposable work force forfor Oakland's businessmen. - .

Serious training programs (such as The Skills Center) which were proposedin Oakland, where men and women would receive an education as well asskilled job trai ning, received little support from EDA or from seimeunions such as the lily-white construction workets union. EDA claimed thatthe training program took too long and cost too much.

The politicians wanted a fast, visible program in Oakland. They poured inmoney and .made headlines in the local press. But they have harmed more thanthey have helped. They are in the process of creating a new work 'force for thiscountry. It IViII con.",ist of unskilled workers from racial minorities who are un­protectea by l1"lOn organizatIOns. The only benefit of this liberal reform pro­gram goes to the businessmen who get both the lederal aid and the workers whowill increase their production and their profit.

As one Washington EDA staff person put it: " ...a serious and potentiallydangerous racial situation existed in Oakland." All of the political figuresaround the Bay Area were predicting a violent outbreak in the flatlands for thesummer. 1;he Oakland police are well known for their harrassment and brutality.Unemployment in Oakland is about 10% for whites and 20% for blac'ks. Housingin Oakland is bad and getting ·worse. There are overcrowded schools and in­adequate health services. The city has been notorious for its lack of action onsocial problems. Here was a perfect situation for the bright young men of theFederal Government t6 prove their ability to stop social unrest and potentialriots with "progressive" programs.

ONE YEAR LATERThe business loans section of the pro­

gram received much publicity at the'outset of the project. Some of the loanshad been started under Area Redevelop­ment Administration, a forerunner of EDAin the Department of Commerce, whichwas closed down, in 1965.

The firms seeking EDA loans alreadyemployed minority group workers. Veryfew employers cared about the race oftheir perspective employees - as longas they were willing to endure long hoursand bad working conditions. They hadfound that Negro· workers, because theyare non-union and have a harder timefinding work than white workers, willaccept these conditions.

"They ~iOOl"ity group WWl'­ers) accept longer hours than most peo­ple. Since we have a lot of night work,mostly minority group people apply forthe jobs." Those businesses which begantheir loan application under EDA generallyhad no qualms about hiring Negro andMexican-American workers. Said onebusinessman in the process of trying toget a loan: "1 will have no problem inhiring Negroes since 65% of the peopleworking in the warehouse at the presenttime are Negroes and they are reallygood at this job because they reallywork hard." Or, as another businessmanput it: "The lower mentality groups workhere now, so it's no problem:'

MENIAL LABOR

federal Money for Segregation lind Scab Labor

APRIL 1967

Joe BlumWilliam MandelFran FertigMike FolsomEllen Estrin,Dave WellmanCarolyn Craven

Terence Ca'nnonEllie IsaksenFrank CieciorkaBobJ>i CieciorkaMike SharonBrooks Penney,Hard~.Frye.

SUBSCRIPTIONS.$2,per year, individual copies,$7 per hundred per month, non­commercial bulk subscriptionsAdvertising: $4 per column inch

Peace & freedom,Jane SchroederWashington, D.C.

CHICAGO STAFFMike James4533.N. Sheridan Rd.Chicago, Ill.

LOS ANGELES STAFFKaren Koonan399-8734Bob Niemann

P.O. Box 117308 Westwood PlazaLos Angeles 24, California

THE MOVEMENTis published monthly byThe Movement Press449 14th StreetSan Francisco, California 94103626-4577

EDITORIAL GROUP

SENDS $40

Dear Movement People:Am ,very, very impressed with your

(our?) paper - especially the wide va­riety of projects you cover·- white,black, black-white, electoral campaigns,community organizing - it presents anaccurate perspective of what the Move­ment really is - people working withpeople for people. Am also impressedwith the quality of the reporting andwriting.

Don't know the first thing about dis­tributing a newspaper, but have a fewcontacts in Washington and N.Y.C. (I'msure you have thousands) and if I couldhelp, I'd like to. If you have some backissues arpund Q.ike 10 or so), send 'emalong and I could put them in some'appropriate places.

I am presently a student at the in­stitute for Policy Studies, which, if youhaven't heard of it, is a lib-rad private(no government or CIA $) res-action or­ganization in Washington.

Yours,John BancroftSwarthmore, Pa•

Dear Movement staff:I have enjoyed reading the Movement

recently" and read in your last issueabout your need for help. I'm enclosinga money order for $40, and suggest youuse it to buy a tape recorder. Specific­ally, I just tried one out called theCraig 212, which would be perfect forthe kind of thing you'd use it for . . .Of course feel free to use the moneyfor anything you want; I'm sending it be­cause the Movement seems like the bestthing around at the moment to contributethe money rve saved.

I find the Movement especially excitingbecause I editedSDS's ERAP Newsletterfor a summer, and now that that is, dead,your newspaper is really the only onethat covers movement activity at alladequately, even if you are limited inhow big an area you can 'cover. I'vegiven some thought to trying to startup some kind of publication c0v.ering or­ganizing in the East, because communi­cation between local groups here is sobad. I don't know if it would work, or ifI could do it even if it was possible. Inthe meantime, I'm glad the Movementexists. If there's ever anything in thePhiladelphia area you want covered, letme know.

WANTS TO HELP

In the introduction of the ar­ticle last month on Californiapolitics we said that $800,000million was lost to the state eachyear in under assessment of va­cant lots. The figure was a typo­graphical error. The correct amountis $800 million. To give some ideaof what this means in land areas:San Francisco County has 23% ofits usable land undeveloped; Ala­meda County 62%; Santa ClaraCounty (around San Jose) 86%. Inthe ten county Bay Area Metropo­litan Area only 15% of the suitableurban land was actually deveiopedfor urban use in 1955 according tothe Water Resources Board.

The Governor has called fa con­structive suggestions on the mat­ter of meeting the bud get a r yrequirements of our institutionsof higher learning. I propose thatthe State enter a revenue-pro­ducing venture, namely, the owner­ship and operation of the privateutility monopolies . .via the rightof eminent domain and similarstatutes the State has full legalauthority to buyout and engagein the utility business. (No otherindustrialized nation on earth hasfound it desirable to entrust thesenatural monopolies to private own­ership.) Let me give you someidea of the amount of money in­volved in California based utilityoperations. The annual earning ofPacific Gas and Electric eachamounts to about $150 million.The figure for Southern CaliforniaEdison is about $90 million. Thusthe total annual profit of thesethree giant utilities alone amountsto almost $400 million.

Dear Friends:Thanks for printing our letter. Matters

have changed for us here since then. Our"Betsy FloodVictims," on which a valianthandful have worked hard for 17 months ­is no more. We all' just came to the endof our strength. We wound up in good order,with speCial notices in N.O. PICAYUNEand STATES. Our people will know how tobegin again when conditions demand it ­which may not be long, as all the flood­slum-debt-health problems remain.

The BFV program did have reper­cussions. We reached mayor, council,U.S. Congress, and are proud of our sup­port to Sen. Bayh's (D-Ind.) good "1967Disaster Relief Act" (S.348). Based ongrants (not loans) to individual sufferers,retroactive to 1964; cost shared by Fed­eral and State Governments; latter mustbring flood-controls up to scratch. lf S.348 passes intact, many besides us will 'get real aid.

One other change since writing you is,the great improvement of the new FlA­TRIOT, just received (you recall we com­pared it to the MOVEMENT). We're happyto seethe PATRIOT has grown, in working­class content andflavor ,as well as appear­ance. We still love the homey, down-to­earth bluntness, and careful economic­political explanations, of MOVEMENT. Ittakes all kinds of us to make a betterworld.

Yours,Pat GrantGrass Valley, Ca•.

CORRECTION'

Fraternally,Walter & Elizabeth RogersNew Orleans,· La. '

..............~.~ L IETTIER S i , .

DIFFICULTY /

"BETSY FLOOD"

Dear Sirs:Enclosed 1s $2 for subscription to your

newspaper. Although Ihave been a support­er of civil rights caus.es for at least 25'years, rm having diffiCUlty understandingthe "Black Power" concept and think~our paper will help.

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THE MOVEMENT

don't think from what I've heard thatthere's a lot of hostility. I think there'sa contempt for the hippies amongst theblack people that age, but it's still reallykind of open.

A lot of black guys are up on HaightStreet chasing women and this kind ofthing. And, you know, this whole thingof coming down on a white woman is away of getting out of your own bag. Theproblem is that, in order for that to work,the women have to resent being used,and these chicks don't. You can walk upon Haight Street and watch the guys stand­ing out in front of the Haight Levels, Imean they stand out there all day longand they hustle the chicks. as they walk by .and the only time they really enjoy it iswhen a straight woman walks by and reactsadversely to what they're saying. But theattempts are kind of half-hearted when ahippie chick walks by because she obvious­ly doesn't get turned off by it, nor is sheoffended by it, nor does she get up tightby it.

CULTURAL VALUES_The~ are other reasons wh~ple

resent the hippies other than this wholequestion of challenging a cultural value.I really had one welfare lady talk to meabout how whe used to really have a niceblock until all these hippies moved in.HOUSING

The kids up there are crammed inabout as much as they can be crammed in.They're living 10-15 to an apartment now.As rapidly as welfare families have tomove, because the rent comes due andthey, don't have the money, the hippiesgrab it up and that' one less house avail­able to lower income black people.

HIPPIE RACISMI think also there's a lot of racism in the

hippie community, both understood and

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

THE MOVEMENT went into the Haight-Ashbury District of San Francisco'this month to see what has been happening between the hippie and black com­munities. There has been much written about tension between the two groupsin the BERKELEY BARB and other newspapers. We talked with Tom Ramsey,a SNCC worker, who has been working in the area .for around three years. Hereare some of his comments.

WHO ALL LIVESIN T-HE YELLOW

SUBMARINE?

PAGE ~

tiPPlES NOT MIDDLE CLASSThere's a lot of tension between the

black middle class people and the hippiesin the Haight-Ashbury, again because thehippies violate their concept of what whitemiddle-class society is all about. If whitemidcUe class culture is where it's at,and you've spent your whole life trying tobecome a white middle-class person, andall of the sudden white middle-classkids show up, and they don't look likewhite middle-class people at all, in factthey say that whole thing is not whereit's at, it's somewhere else -- that causesa lot of tension. So there's a real coalitionbetween the white liberals in the Haight­Ashbury and the black people to get ridof the hippies. In the terms of the whiteliberals, it violates their own conceptof themselves. In the terms of the blackfolks, it violates their concept of whereit's at.

:ONTEMPT FOR HIPPIE.SAmongst the 18-25 black group I really

I think that tension between the black:ommunity and the white community takeslifferent forms depending on what blackJeople and what white people you're talkingtbout.

There's a real problem with the 8 - 12tge group ,in the black community. Thelippies are really open in terms of leaving:heir places open to people, and these kids..,00 come from poor families go in and,teal like crazy. That's caused some prob­,ems. Then there's harassment by the{Qunger kids of the hippies on the street>ecause the hippies violate the lower classJlack kids' concept of what middle class{ids ought to be. Ahippie is not the obvious~nemy like the straight white cat with thewhite shirt and a tie. That's disconcerting,0 people when their enemies cease being,)bvious enemies.

APRIL 1967 1H E MOVEMENT PAGE 3

BY MIKE JAMESChicago, Ill. One of the jobs of an organizer is to be present, develop ways

that slowly break down people's walls, get inside their hearts and minds andsay: "maybe if enough of us care together we can make a difference." In'thiscity there is a new community union, the LATIN AM E RIC A N DEFENSEORGANIZAnON (LADO), that is try!ng to break people out of their own pri­vate jails, get them together, and build a .movement. LADO is slowly buildingnetworks of contacts and relationships in Chicago's largest Spanish ghetto.

ACKYOUTHAGAINST THE WARBy Renee Goldsmith

Hunters Point, Calif. It has just been released to the American public thatthere is a high ratio pf Negro GI's serving and dying in combat in Vietnamtoday. And the reenlistment rate for Negroes is almost three times higher thanit is for Whites. These Pentagon statistics on Negro casualities until now havenot appeared in public print. But it is a well known fact that the Americanshave built and are building their comfort and ease on the shoulders of theblack man. Recall the Negro GI from Alabama who died in Vietnam last springand could not even be buried in the cemetary in his home town because of hiscolor. The black youth of Hunters Point know this scene well.

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wn't got no business over there tryingto kill the Vietnamese."

The implications of this anti-war stancetaken by black youth, whatever their rea­sons, are of immense political con­sequence. One only has to look at theharsh sentences meted out to seven blackSNCC workers indicted by a federal grandjury, February 10th in Atlanta, Georgiaon charges of "interfering with the ad­ministration of the Universal MilitaryTraining Act:' If found guilty, they couldbe imprisoned up to five years and fined$10,000 each. If the black youth of thiscountry united together against the draftand the Vietnam war, there is no doubtthat it will have a profound effect uponthe morale of the American people. ...

MILITANTORGANIZERS DIG IN

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WILSON BROWN, a SNCC worker, piCkets at the August '66 anti-draft demonstrations in Atlanta,which resulted in sending Johnny Wilson, another SNC~ worker to three years on a chain gang.

old eloquently makes a case for the self­determination of the Vietnamese people."Well, I feel like" why are the Americansgoing to Vietnam? Vietnam is not in theUnited States. Why do they want to gobother with these people? Them people,let them run Vietnam the way they wantto. Our boys over there, they don't needto get killed, but the people who's sendingthem there need to get killed, the Presi­dent or whoever. Because that's Vietnam.You can't send no Americans over thereto take over that country. I'd fight tillI died too, if 1 was a Vietnamese, causeif I live in this room and you live inthat room, I can't tell you when to clean.up your house. That's your house, youdo what you want to with it•••People

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or another refuge as among white middleclass student types. Hut there is a sub:stantial amount of Negroes who deliberate-

.ly "fuck up" the mental exam to get outof the service. A youth of nineteen yearswho received his draft notice took this

,course of "messing up" his mentalexam.He argues that the United States isdestroying the traditions of the Vietnamesepeople.

He stated flatly, ". • • it ain't none ofour concern. If a person wants to keepwith his tradition, families that came downfrom generation to generation, it shouldbe tb,at way and the United States shouldn'ttry to change 'em. They have a right tofollow their own tradition, see:'

. "I AIN'T GOT NO COUNTRY"These black youths are more alienated

from the American society than the whiteliberal or radical. Recently this feelingof alienation expressed itself in the formof a street rebellion in Hunters Pointin the late summer of 1966. When I wasregistering voters for the November elec­tion, I asked one youth who had justturned twenty-one if he wanted to signup. He turned to' me angrilyand'retorted,"Why should I register?" -rm not votin'.I ain't got no country I"

Another, black youth of sixteen years

"I'LL GO TO JAIL"-, .The majority of black youth interviewed,

expressed strong feelings against the,Vietnam war and further stated that theywould not participate in such an "eviland unnecessary war." As one eighteenyear old put it, "I nope it just stops,cause I'm not comin' •.." More vehement­ly he continued, "I'm not going into noarmy. They could take me in front ofthe firing squad. I'm not going into thearmy:' Another youth stated that "ifUncle Sam calls me, I go to jail! youknow." And if they are drafted and donot cooperate, the example of Stokely,Carmichael is instructive.

1'bere does not seem to be a move­ment of black draftdodgers to Canada

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Why is there such a high percentageof Negroes from Hunters Point servingthe armed forces in Vietnam? jobs arehard to come by in a poverty strickenarea; the service offers·you a job withdecent pay and avenues for advancementnot ordinarily accessible to Negroes inWhite America. Food, clothing and shelterare assured. Most of the males 1 inter­viewed were in the ambiguous position,of haVing relatives and friends in Viet­nam but were notth.i:e th~mselveswhether',due to their record or failure to meetthe physical and mental requirements.

OBED LOPEZ, LADO ORGANIZER talks with a resident on Chicago Puerto Rican Ghetto in frontof the LADO office.

PUERTO RICAN REBELLIONLADO works where over half the city's

60,000 Puerto Ricans live. The DivisionSt. and Damen Ave. area is also the homeof about 15,000 of the 80,000 Mexicans inChicago. A large concentration of Negroeslive in and around the area. Division andDamen is where last summer the countryhad its first real Puerto Rican rebellion.It occurred in june, at the end of a car­nival initiated by the Mayor and' 'respec­table" Puerto Rican organizations. Asmight be expected, profits were made bynon-Puerto Ricans.

A young Puerto Rican told me about therebellion. "The riots went OIl for threedays. Nobody knew it wouldhappen,buttheteenagers were aware of the breeze; theatmosphere in the neighborhood was a littledirty. A policeman tried to arrest a youngman; he ran and was shot in the leg. Thecops claimed he had a gun. That set itoff. A guy who saw it got angry and set apolice car on fire. Things began snowballing: three police cars we~e burned,young people grabbed hoses and turnedthem on the firemen. People on the roofsthrew rocks:'

Obed Lopez, a Mexican.wh'o has been thekey mover behind LADO, added that therebellion was "a result of long and growingfriction that existed between people ­especially young people -and the police.Police harassment is a fact here." I askedhim how people in the community thoughtabout the riots. "On the second day I sawthis old Spanish lady; she yelled' show themthat we won't get pushed around' to someyoung guys going by in a car. Even the'solid citizens' who say they can't condoneviolence agreed that the way the policewere acting had to stop, and something likethis was needed. Most people in the areawere able to understand that the riots hadlegitimate grievanCes behind them:'

SAC FLAKES OUTThe community "leadership" responded

to the rebellion by setting up the SpanishAction Committee (SAC). Daniel Melendez,'a Puerto Rican high school studen,t whowas initially involved with SAC but now

works with LADO, talked about SAC. "Ithought this was it. Finally, an organiza­tion had arisen that didn't tend towardsocial functions, or wasn't a slow movingsort of thing like NCO Northwest Com­munity Organization, an Alinsky operationtied to the Catholic Church with a Spanish

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branch in the neighborhood, but the mili­tant group that was needed - the riotsproved this. But after the march on CityHall with Ted Valez (from New York'sEast Harlem Tenant's Council) thingsdwindled within the organization. Peoplehad gotten together because ofthe urgencyof the situation, but had no long rangeperspective. The leadership didn't see therelationship between the problems ofPuerto Ricans and those faced by Negroesand poor southern whites. Militancy wasonly a one or two day affair. I met Obedand we started talking:'

Obed cites the so-called leadership'slack of BEING WITH the people in the.community, and their REFUSAL TO MAKECONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE PROB­LEMS OF THE SPANISH COMMUNITYAND OTHER GROUPS OF POOR PEOPLEin the city as the reason LADO started.•• A group of us knew a little about whatJOIN was trying to do, and we were veryconcerned with black people's struggle.We felt we had to start a group that wouldbe open to the ideas of the Movement andwork within the Spanish community, to helpmake people see we had to break the iso­lation we were in and start working' withother minority groups. We had to work in­dependently of the machine, and the com­munity leaders aren't independent of themachine." ,

LADO BEGINSLADO started by trying to help get young

guys out of jail. Their first action waspicketing a National Foods store on theissue of no Spanish employees. The man­ager was one of the first to complain abouthis windows being broken during the re­bellion. •'They wouldn't give us the figureson employment, so we put up a picket line

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

P.h~E 4 T HE ~to\·EM ENT

FANON ON TORTURE IN ALGERIAAPRIL 1967

Frantz Fanon died in 1961 at the age of 37. During his life he producedimportant political writings which grew out of the revolutionary struggles inwhich he participated.

One side of his experience as a revolutionary is represented by his articlesfor EL MOUDJAHID, an organ of the National Liberation Front of Algeria. .

In this and subsequent issues, The Movement will present excerpts fromFanon's writing which relate to his work in Algeria. :The following excerpt isa free translation of a piece which o~iginally appeared in EL MOUDJAHID No.10, Sept. 1957.

The reader may notice parallels between the Algerian and Vietnamese situ­ations. Fanon's remarks on the French use of torture in Algeria seem painfullytop.ical today.

AS IN ALGERIA, torture in Vietnam is a common practice of the Ky Army and the United StatesA(my.

The Algerian Revolution, by virtue ofits profoundly human inspiration and itsintense cult of freedom, has been pro­ceeding, over the past few years, towardsthe met hod i cal liquidation of severalmyths.

To be sure, the Algerian Revolution isconcerned with reinstating its rights tonational identity; and, in so doing, it istestimony to the will of a peOple. Bu~

the permanent value of our revolutionresides in the message which it conveys.

The genuine atrocities which the Frenchhave committed since Nov I, 1954 havecaused special alarm because of theirextensiveness. \ In fact, the attitude ofthe French troops in Alg.eria is rootedin an interlocking structure of policedomination, systematic racism, and adehumanization that is rationally exe­cuted. Torture is inherent in the colonialcomplex.

The Algerian Revolution, in adopting asits goal the liberation of the national ter­ritory, sets out both to destroy this com­plex and to elaborate a new society.Algerian independence represents notmerely the end of colonialism but theelimination, in this part of the world, ofa gangrene germ and epidemic source.

The liberation of the national territoryof Algeria constitutes a defeat for racismand the exploitation of man by man••••

COLONYJMPORTANTWars of national liberation are often

represented as the expression of internalcontradictions within the colonizing coun­tries. However, the Franco-Algerian warmanifests certain peculiar features, al­though, of course, it shares in a widerhistorical context characterized by theprogressive emergence of movements ofnational liberation.

As a colonial settlement (and there­fore a proclaimed territory of the mothercountry) Algeria has lived under aregimeof repressive military subjugation with­out equal in colonial couritries. This maypartly be explained by the factthat Algeriahas practically never laid down armssince 1830. But (and this is more to thepoint) France is fully aware of the im­portance ofAlgeria to its colonial complex,

DRAFf----~­

CON'T FROM PAGE 1Vietnam. Only the American people cantake the weopons of destruction away fromJohnson, MacNamara, Hershey, West­moreland and the rest. The -'.raft pro­vides the power for the war to continue.Without the draft, there could be no war..We urge every person in the United Statesto say "HELL NO TO THE DRAFT!"

Here are two examples of what otherpeople are doing to oppose the draft:

*NONCOPERATION WITH CONSCRIP­TION (5 Beekman Street, 10 Floor, NewYork, N. Y. 10038)SAYING NO TO MILITARY CONSCRIP­TION

For Draft-Agers Who Have Shunned, orBroken Their Ties To, the System

STATEMENTWe, the undersigned men of draft age(18-35), believe that all war is immoraland ultimately self-defeating. We believethat military conscription is evil and un­just. Therefore, we will not cooperate inany way with the Selective Service System.

We will not register for the draft.If we have registered, we will sever all

connections with the Selective ServiceSystem.

We will carry no draft cards or otherSelective Service certificates.

We will not accept any deferment, suchas 2-S.

-Gregson Davis

and nothing can account for her persis~

tent and incalculable efforts if not therealization that Algerian independence willentail the liqUidation of her empire.

By its location at the gateway to France,Algeria allows the western world to see indetail and in slow motion the contradictionsof the colonial system.

The call-up of national res e r v e s,general mobilization, recall to active dutyof various ranks of personnel, periodic·.appeals for sacrifice launched upon thepopulation, increased taxation and thefreeze on salaries -- all these have servedto commit the entire French nation tothis war of national reconquest.

The widespread and, on occasion, blood­thirsty enthusiasm which has marked theparticipation of French workers and pea­sants in the war against the Algerianpeople has shaken to its foundations thetheory of the 'genuine' France which wouldrise up against the 'official' France.

In the apt words of the President of theFrench Council: ' 'the nation identifies with

. its army which is fighting in Algeria:'The Algerian war has been waged in full

awareness by the French people as a whole;and the few criticisms which have beenexpressed so far by dissenting individualsmerely deplore certailJ methods which"precipitate the loss of Algeria". But (inthese liberal circles) there is no explicitcondemnation of colon i a 1 reconquestas such, or for that matter, the principleof armed intervention or tfie attempt tostifle the freedom of a people.

TORTURE NECESSARYFor some time now there has been a

lively discussion about the tortures prac­tised by F r e n c h soldiers on Algerianpatriots. Documents nave been published,as abundant and apalling as they have beenprecise. Historical parallels have beendrawn. Reputable foreign 0 b s e r v e r s aswell as Frenchmen have condemned thesepractices.

The Frenchmen who speak out againsttorture or deplore its continued use in­variably bring to mind those pure soulsof whom the philosopher speaks; and theapellation "tired intellectuals" which hasbeen bestowed upon them by their com-

We will refuse induction into the armedforces.

We will not accept any exemption,such as 1-0 or 4-D.

We urge and advocate that other youngmen join us in non-cooperating with theSelective Service System.We are aware that these actions areviolations of the Selective Service laws,punishable up to 5 years imprisonmentand/or a fine of $10,000.

As of March 11~3 people have signed thisstatement.* DRAFT CARD BURNING AT THE NEWYORK MOBILIZATION AGAINST THEWAR.

Some Cornell University Students haveformed a WE WON'T GO group whichhas put out a call for at least ?OO youngmen to burn their draft cards in op­position to the Vietnam War at the 4ril15th Mobilization in New York. The actis in flagrant violation of federal law.The penalty is 5 years in jail -and/or$10,000.

In a letter of support for the Cornellstudents Staughton Lynd and Dave Del­linger said, "Civil disobedience, •.• re­mains essential. The aim of draft re­fusal must be •.• not pro t est but re­sistance." ..

patriots .•. is very appropriate. Howis itpossible to desire the maintenance ofFrench domination in Algeria imd at thesame time condemn the means of thismaintenance?

Torture in Algeria is not simply anaccident, or a regrettable error, or amistake. Colonialism cannot be under­stoo'!. without the possibility of torture and

YELLOW SUBMARINE-­CON'T FROM PAGE 2not understood. They're white middle­class kids; they've been raised in a rac­ist society. Many of the hippies, say under22, had no contact with the movement dur­ing '64-'65. Many of those kids havebeen raised with the racist society'sbuilt.; in attitude toward black people andthough they may have liberated themselvesthrough LSD or something out of the sta­tus struggle, they have not gotten rid ofa lot of those racial hang-ups they have.The problem is that ·1 they think they have:­'Fhey don't understand the racism thatthey carry around with them.

There's another group of hippies thatare overtly racist. They come from theSouth or they come from the South-west.They don't like minority people; they don'tpush it, because it's not fashionable topush it, because we're supposed to loveeverybody in the hippie community, quoteunquote. At the same time it's there andthey don't bother to hide it too much.

MYTHS ABOUT HIPPIESIn this morning's paper there

was this big furor about the hippies beingunsanitary and unhealthy and there wasthis great move to get the Health Depart­ment to come out and inspect apartmentsin the Haight - Ashbury district. They weregoing to cite all the Hippies for beingdirty and unclean. Well, yesterday, ac-

massacre.Torture is a modality of relations be­

tween colonizer and colonized.French policemen understand this very

well (they have' been practising these.methods for a long time). In fact, theyhave always consider~d it paradoxical, ifnot scandalous, that the use of torturehas to be justified at all. ...

cording to the paper, they inspected 691apartments in the Hai ght - Ashbury. Out ofthose they cited 39 apartments. Out of the39 cited only.6 were hippie apartments.

COMMUNITY POLITICSBut that was a tactic 'the straight com­

munity I'm sure ·put the people downtownup to. The police harassment is anotherthat I'm sure the straight community isputting people up to. It's hypocritic on thepart of the straight community to do thatkind of stuff and at the same time runaround touting Town Hall·. (Ed: an openmeeting of Haight Ashbury organizationsand individUals that is supposed to dealWith community problems)

We tried to set up an organizing com­mittee in Town Hall. It was to be madeup of representatives of all the differentorganizations in the Haight- Ashb:lry. We,that is SNCC, raised he question, "whatare you going to do about the fact that25 to 30 per cent of the people in thisneighborhood are black? Everybodysaid, "that's a serious problem." I said,"fine, then contact black institutions."The hippies said, "we don't want to getinvolved in' institutions; we don't trustthem." The straight community said...."you do that." So for aICintent:i·andpurposes Town Hall is a white organiza­tion.

They frankly don't give a damn aboutthe black people being involved or notbeing involved. •

APRIL 1967 THE MOVEME~T

LYONS: We haven't had any problemsas far as race is concerned. The biggestproblem we have down here is peoplenot knowing what is best for them, notbeing interested, not understanding. Andthe language problem, some people notbeing able to speak Spanish, and othersnot being able to speak English. Those arethe biggest problems, we don't have anyproblems involving race.

I'm from Texas, you know, and I didn'thave any problems like .this down in Tex­as. The only thing I know about the racialproblem in the South is what I read in rhepaper and what I hear. I just think aboutthem as people: I never think, this is aMexican or this is an Anglo. The_only time

CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

tatives from San Francisco came downand they called us out of the fields atabout 11 0'clock. And they made a littlespeech about how the companies had goodrelations with the workers, and they don'twant the workers to have a union, but ifthat was what the workers want they werewilling to let them have a union and let'em vote. They said that the NFWA wasa weak union; Seemed like to me thatthis was a union that they didn't want.To me this meant that it was the bestunion for us. They made this big frontthat they didn't mind us having a union,but it was the other way around.

MOVEMENT: One 01 the unusual thingsabout the union in Arvi~ is that youhave whites, Negroes and Mexicansin the same union together. How haveyou hane//ed the problem 01 racismand the language barrier?

TEAMSTERSA couple of months after then the Team­

sters came down. They started trying toorganize. These guys would come down intheir big cars, their '66 Mercurys orwhatever, wearing nice suits and whiteshirts. And the workers felt that these guyswere too far up for them to talk to, theydidn't have a good enough understandingto tall<; about farmworker's problems. Butthe National Farm Worker organizers theyseemed more like farm workers them:­selves. They would come out to the ranchwearing bluejeans - they looked likefarmworkers. lf they didn't have pads andpapers and leaflets you couldn't tell themfrom anybody else. This was the best wayto organize because the people feel morefree to talk to you.

People knew the company wanted theTeamsters Union, by the way the companyacted. The company wouldn't let the FarmWorkers organizers come on the ranch,but they would let the Teamsters or­ganizers come on the ranch. They couldgo anywhere they wanted to, but theybarred the Farm Workers organizers.The way the people looked at the Team­sters, they were the company union, andif that's what the company wants, thenthat's not what you want.

AFRAIDSo I talked to some of the !ellows and

we started having these little meetings,6 or 7 of us. Marshall and RichardFlowers would come. We would havemeetings at my wifes uncle's house some­times twice a week. And Marshall or Rich­ard would come over and explain things toguys. I knew these guys was scared ofsigning authorization slips, so every meet­ing 1 would sign one, just to show the guysthere was nothing to be afraid of. Thisworked and pretty soon we had a coupleof big meetings out at Lamont. I wouldpick people up in my car and take themto meetings so they could hear the storyfrom the source.

Ever since then people kind of depend onme for information. They know that Igo toall the meetings and I try to be in oneverything that happens in the union.

One day some of DiGiorgio's represen-

COMMUtnSTSRight after'I started working there, this

union started passing out leaflets, tryingto get them to sign authorizations and talk­ing to them about unions. And I heard alot of different stories, you know, abouthow these were communists, and Mexicanswere going to run the union, and they weregoing to fire all the Negroes and Anglos.One time 1 heard the story that they weregoing to fire everybody and bring in Negropeople from Mississippi and Alabama.

I got curious and interested and wantedto know what actually was going on. I de­cided to find out for myself. One day I sawMarshall. I didn't know who it was at thetime. We were going home one afternoonand I asked him who was in charge, whowas the head man. I didn't want to talk tono organizer or nothing, I wanted to seewhat actually was going on. He told methat Mr. Chavez was in charge and he 'waspretty busy and couldn't come downjusttosee one person.

around with shotguns, and was going tocome out in the field and shoot us, youknow, stuff like that, and it worked.

We went up there a couple of days, but'we sa", these guys on the side of the road.We'd go in the field and the guys wouldcome up to the side of the field with theirsigns and the people would get scared.Sometimes we wouldn't even go in the

, fields, we'd JUST go and come back. Butmost of the people (strikers) was Mexicanpeople so I never did talk to any of them.

I got tired of half-pickll1g grapes, goingup there and then not doing anything. Ihadgot married at the time and Idecided to goto work at DiGiorgio. That's where most ofthe people round here work that do farmwork.

The Farm Workers' Most Important Year

TURNING A"YES" VOTENTO A

UNION

MOVEMENT: How do the workers atDi Giorgio look at themselves: hasthat changed Irom belore th~ union?And how do you work to get them tosee it as _their union and not CesarCh~ve~' union or Marshan Ganz'

(UFWOC organizer in Arvfin - ed.)union?

MOVEMENT: The people who worklor the union now, were they alwaysthe ones who were active?

LYONS: I didn't do any farmwork be­fore, very little, a long time ago back inTexas. 1 came here from Nevada: I livedin Nevada for about 5, 6 years. 1 cameover here to get married, I didn't want tolive in Nevada. It was kind of new to me,I had never saw any grapes.

I first went to Delano with some peoplewho were out here from Texas. We wentup there to pick grapes and this was whenI first saw the union organizers. Theywere standing on the side of the roadwith these HUELGA signs. I didn't knowwhat they meant, so I asked some otherguys that I was riding with. They didn'tknow either, they was just going up work­ing, they wasn't interested enough to findout what was going on.

I finally found out what was happeningafter a few days. I heard a few storiesabout these guys was on strike in Delano.They didn't want anybody working in De­lano and found out that they were tryingto get a,contract.

I have never been a member of or beeninvolved in a union in any kind of way untilthis. So I kind of got interested. I hadheard how unions operate and what theycan do for people, but actually I didn'tknow what to do at that time. So I justthought that I would help a little bit bytelling the guys that people was riding

LYONS: The majority of them is thepeople who was active before-the election.Others have .quit and gone other places.And some of the people who wouldn't sayanything or QO anything before the electionhave come to be pretty good people.

-MOVEMENT: What clij you do beloreyou came to work lor Di Giorgio?

Mack Lyons, 27, is the head of the Di Giorgio Arvin Ranch; Committee ,jof theUnited Farm Workers Organizing Committee. 'The Ranch Committee is similar toa "local," but UFWOC structure is more informal than other unions. The ArvinRanch is the heart of the Di Giorgio agricultural empire. Mr. Lyons is typical ofyoung leadership coming into positions of, power and responsibility as unioncontracts are signed.

: <:LYONS: It has changed, since the elec-

tion. Things like that just don't changeovernight. Since all the organizers left,,they don't have people corning out to theranch asking them to do this and do that.They found that they had to come to theunion hall to pick up information that theyreally wanted. As they came down to theunion hall more often, they found it wasmore and more their union.

AYOUNG UNION LEADER

oo.cn.

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"ill0.o

::r:

A year ago this month, a band ofstriking farm workers from Delano,

California began a 300 mile Pilgrim­age from their home town to the

Capitol in Sacramento. Their sloganwas "Pilgrimage, Penitence,

Revolution. "Then, "Delano" was a movement,

today, it is 'the center of an AFL-CIOunion. THE MOVEMENT staff has

tried to set out here, in three inter- ,

views and a story, how a series 0(-'1victories has transformed a movementinto a union, how far the "Revolution"has gone in a year, and how far it has _

yet to go in this country. As farmworkers are organized across the

_country, the union will go throughmany changes. But its basic directionand character have been set this year.

MACK LYONS on the UFWOC picket line atthe Di Giorgio offices in San Francisco inOct. '66.

THE MOVEMENT

MOVEMENT: What groups do -you think of whenyou think of coalitio~sfor'farm workers to getpolitical power?GHAVEZ: I think of labor, the church; I think of

the civil rights movement; I think of the' students -- allthe student movement with all of lts various group­ings. Anyone and everyone who is really concerned aboutthe ills of the thing.

MOVEMENT: 00 you think that a movement likethat, which would help' the farm workers, would beindependent of the Democratic, Party? Do you seeit as trying to make itself ,be independent?

CHAVEZ: Oh, that's something different. I meant acoalition that would make itself felt in legislative matters,like public protests to elected representatives.

See, one of the biggest problems is that there is toomuch complaining on the part of the good guys and notenough work. They complain that adquate laws do notexist. Now a good many of the good guys are content withmaking the charge -- but you know that's never going tomake .it. I contend that almost any legislator in thiscountry can be gotten to move if the right kind of workis done.

But to form a political party, well, we're not equiped.I think that labor is the only group that could build aparty, but a coalition like this for a political party...There is no understanding. For instance, the studentsand all the more liberal groups would come into thepicture with preconceived notions about labor, and laborwould go in with preconceived notions about students.To build a party, well, these things don't mix.

MOVEMENT: So you're talking about something thatwould be a political force, not a political party?

APOLITICAL FORCE

TOWARDS ALABOR PRESSMOVEMENT: In England at least you have a LaborParty for what it's worth, but here you don't evenhave that. Labor sees itself as one part of a greatbig coalition in the Democratic Party of which itis only a section. It is not independent.

CHAVEZ: Well, yeah. Of course we don't know whatall the problems are, but rd like to see two things hap­pen in America with labor: one, I'd like to see thelabor movement have a labor press, - a daily paper orpapers throught the country that are really labor papers,that let the people know their side of the story, instead ofhaving papers which go only to the membership. Thepublic press has too much over them: and, two, if wecould do that, eventually there would be a political party.

MOVEMENT: So you think that the building ofnewspapers should preceed the builcling of 0 poli~

tical party?CHAVEZ: I don't know the problems, but I think

this is what would be important. Still there would haveto be coalitions, because you can't do it yourself. You'renot that big a group. Labor is the biggest organizedgroup in the country outside religion, but stilL••

like social legislation. Medicare and social security -­it's labor that brought it about. And the end of the bra­cero·:program. Most of the time more people outsidelabor gain benefits than people inside'the unions. Thisis not understood, because labor doesn't know how to letpeople know what it is able to do.

MOVEMENT: Do you think that it is just a publicrelations problem'?

CHAVEZ: No, it's more than that. Lately, I've beenable to understand the huge expenditures that the AFL­CIO puts on legislation and ,on all its other programs.They get this legislation and in most cases it benefitsnon-union members. Now, if I were to do somethinglike that, I'd take every ounce of good will out of it;I'd use that good will in turn for my movement. CivilRights would do it; I'm sure ~my movement would doit; but lqbor is somehow not able to do that. They can'ttake things they do and say to people "look this is whatwe have done." Maybe it's just the size, or maybe af~er

you've been around for a long time no one pays that muchattention to you.

2o..ca.

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MOVEMENT: People compare things the civilrights movement is doing and things that Delanois doing. They say that SNCC and CORE and otherblack movements are working for economic power.A year ago you saic/ "we want to get involved inpolitics". How do you see that economic basemoving into politics?

CHAVEZ: I've always contended that if you have someeconomic power you would have the easiest road to poli­tical power. You would have money and the union peoplethat are abound together which makes it easy for politicalpower. But I don't understand why labor unions don'thave any. power in America.

MOVEMENT: They can't pass a simple thing likerepeo I of 14-b.

CHAVEZ: I've been concerned with this for manyyears. You see, labor is effective in many other areas

POLITICAL POWER

NOTHINGCHANGED"

CESAR CHAJ '

MOVEMENT: One of the reasons people give­students espec ially-as an argument 'for not work­ing with the strike anymore is the merger of theunion with the AFL-CIO. People felt that the unionwould go bureaucratic and control would slip fromDelano into the hands of George Meany. Would youspf!CJk _to this issue?

AFL-CIO

Delano, California ,MOVEMENT: Last year you said that NFWA was half-way between a movement and a union. Nowthere seems to have been a change in the NFWA from a year ago as it movec/ from agitation to organi­

zation.CHAVEZ: I don't agree with you. It's' a case of carrying on 40 different strikes. We haven't changed:

i'think the outside world has changed, 'cause we're not a new thing. It's happened to civil 'rights

It happens to everybody. Our help is not coming from the. same place it was coming from before.The labor movement is by and large our biggest help. And we've been able to keep the church help.

But we're getting very little help from the student, gr,oups or the civil rights groups-well some, but notanywhere what we were getting before. Even our correspondence with our contacts in these groups is

almost nil.And the agitation doesn't seem to be there, because it doesn't make a big spill like it did before.

Y~t, we've got the biggest and the best organized boycott we ever had going on right now. It's thetype of boycott that you can se,e the progress in day by day. That's all we have. We don't have thelarge numbers of people boycotting or picketing with us.

MOVEMENT: Generally speaking, would you say pose very few people do.that the boycott, as it seems to be in Texas, is You know, one of the things that is distressing ~s

the major strategy for winning the strike? that the same people that say the AFL-CIO does this, and say that God is dead in the church -- these same

CHAVEZ: Well, it appears to be that way, but it isn't people are guilty of idoliZing the poor. This is not rightreally. The strike out in the field is the first type of because It is not the truth. I remember some of thepressure, because, if we went on the boycott and we forgot fellows that helped us in the beginning had a very strangeabout the strike locally, then we would never be able to picture of poor people, in this case the farm workers.win elections. Like farm workers are all saints, you know.

The strike has done more th~ just put economic ~es- MOVEMENT: What effects does that have?sure on the growers. It has gIven us an opportumty to _educate the workers -- the scabs who are trying to break CHAVEZ: It, has a very bad effect on people. Youthe strike. No doubt the boycott plays a very significant can't help peopl~.if you feel,sorry for them. You haverole but the boycott itself wouldn't do it. to be practical. This type of feeling doesn't carry you

, for more than what it carried those people whowerehelping us. After a little while it becomesold, and thereis no real basis for ,doing things that you're doing.There's got to be more than that.

But I think that what has really happened is thatthese forces that have bam so helpful to the civil rightsmovement and to us have moved on. The movementdoesn't stay still. It's like a cyclone: it swoops, youknow? This is what we are faced with.

But if we hadn't had that help we would have neverbeen able to get our start.

CHAVEZ: We were as much pained as they were.We were pained for different reasons. We were painedthat all of these forces -- I'm talking about the studentsand others who felt this way -- had such little faith inpeople.

So every time they would bring up the merger, wewould say, "we don't think it is going to be that way,"or "it is the worker's choice." But we very seldomtold them what we felt. I personally felt pained to seehow little trust they had in people. It's a real case ofprejudging people. They think they know what's going tohappen, and maybe it is going to happen, maybe thesethings that they're afraid of eventually will come, butthe point is that they were saying "we don't know it'sgoing to happen, but we think it is -- therefore goodby."

MOVEIJE NT: But there are other people who say"what about the way the AFL-CIO treats move·ments in South America with CIA help .. . "

CH..-\VEZ: I don't know anything about how the AFL­Clf) tre:ats the: move:me:nts in South America and I sup-

PAGE 7

CHAVEZ: Oh, we are pushing that very hard. I get a lotof pressure from the workers themselves, but I'd ratherhave the workers out on the picket line, and out organizing.This is the thing they should be doing.

Now as-far as the administrative work and all of that ­the boycott - that's important, but it isn't as importantas manning that first line of defense. Another thing is thatwe don't have as yet many well trained people for some ofthe work. We still have to train them.

My idea of the volunteers is that they would be a force ••They would not be concerned with union politics. Their con­cern would be building a union and getting knowledge andexperience. They'd be in Delano today and tomorrow they'dbe in Texas and the day after New Mexico. Wherever therewas a fire, we'd send in the force to take over with a strikeand then pass the leadership to the farm workers. This isthe kind of thing I'm looking for.

MOVEMENT: What do you need outsiders to do?CHAVEZ: We still have 30 strikes going. The biggest help

they can give us is the boycott. We went to San Franciscoand we had very little help. We were successful, more thanever before. But imagine what we would have had if we hadmore help.

VIETNAMMOVEMENT: How would you' describe the effectthe war in Vietnam has on farm workers and Mexi­can-Americans? Is the;e a reaction you could de­fin~

CHAVEZ: You see as a group we take great pride in beingvery loyal and very brave. You can't be brave and loyalunless there is a war.. There is a lot of fear and a lot of misunderstanding! Ifsomeone objects to being killed in Vietnam, then someoneraises the question, "Isn't that un-American?" Seewearein the same place that everyone was in the First World War.Uke Gilbert (Padilla), when the strike first started, hequestioned the whole involvement of our country in Vietnam.First'thing I know, there was a committee of pickets whowanted to know if he was a Communist.

We've been hit a lot harder than Negroes. In the Second.World War, the Negroes weren't on the front lines. But theMexicans and the FilipinoS were. Many were killed, and youknow, when someone is killed, their family becomes twiceas loyal. ...

STUDENTS AND OUTSIDERSMOV EMENT: What could students and outsidersdo now? Many people hcive been hung up on there/~tionship of volunteers to the union.

CHAVEZ: We didn't make it that clear when they camebecause we were busy. Some understood and some didn't.My idea was that they were coming here as servants. Theywere coming here with their only objective to help farmworkers have a union.. They would not be involved in any of the politics. Becauseif they were going to be involved in the politics, sooner orlater it Would not be justifiea 'in having theth here, becausethe help they could give us would be destroyed in a politicalstruggle.

That's my interpretation of it. That's why they are notmembers. We pretty much hold the other people who workwith USto thesame thing, be it the Migrant Ministry, be it theAFL-CIO, be it whoever. They don't have membership. Sowe are not making a special case out of it. It is just theway it is going to work. We knowfrom past experience thatit will be a long time before farm workers can take theleadership of the union. That leadership spot has to openfor thein, because if you move to close to it, they'll nevermake it, or it will take years and years.

MOVEMENT: It seems like you do have more unionpeople doing the jobs that volunteers once did.

MOVEMENT: You explained that the Teamsterswere afraid for their packingsheCls, because theperson who organizes the field workers is going toend up organizing those sheds. But do the Team- ,sters have enoc.i~h sheds or canneries organized to 'ma ke it worth th~-ir while to try ancf bust up yourefforts? '

CHAVEZ: I said that this is what they had told us, but Idon't know; only they know, and you can't try to secone}guess them. They do have a lot of cannery workers. Butthen you don't have to have too much of anything. All ofthese things are carved up into little empires and the guy'that has the cannery empire is enough to give you trouble,because, if he feels it is a direct assault on our part, hecan rally his brothers outside the canneries. I can see a5 year strike in Delano. But if we can solve the Teamsterproblem it will be less.

Eighteen months is a hell of a long time. With this kindof strike with only a couple of pickets being paid full timepeople will disappear. They'll just get up and say "aw, we

, quito" We've had this happen before.

MOVEMENT: How long do you think that will take?

CHAVEZ: It's been 18 months and we've only got 4growers.

MOVEMENT: Yes, but they keep coming a littlefaster, don't they?CHAVEZ: No. Perelli-Minietti is the 'longest. Of course,

there we have to take the teamsters on too. And for a littleunion to do that is a big accomplishment. Someday, if thisis written up, the biggest accomplishment won't be beatingPerelli-Minietti or the rest, or beating DiGiorgio; it will be

continuing tl!e strike and making progress against thecombination. That's a hell of a lotof power. Every moveyou make throughout the country, they're there to stopyou.

THE TEAMSTERS'

MOVEMENT: What is your thinking on the kind oforganizing that goes. on among black people in thiscountry and the kind that is going on among Mexi­can-American farm workers?

CHAVEZ: You organize for power so that you can getsomething. You organize so that you can build power to dosomething with it, and so, when you look back, you've gotto see some people (lut there doing something. What I'mtrying_to say is you can't organize by just speaking. Thecivil rights movement's biggest dra~ack is that theydon't have a group that pays its own way. They don't havea membership '·group. This is the kind of power that isneeded. '

So I would agree that Malcolm X was an organizer, butStokely, well, it's an entirely different thing. I don't seeany BUIWING. Maybe there is and I don't know, but Idon't see any building of any power - like people, like1Iloney, like things that they themselves get so they canmake their own determination. Maybe there is lately. Iknow there wasn't before.

Now the approach that Malcolm X used was the housemeeting -what we use, you know? -he was doing thosethings that we know pay: being patient and just accumula­ting, accumulating, committing people and so forth. Andhe's gqne, but the movement continues.

Now over on the other side .•• well, Martin LutherKing in Chicago - nothing, you know? It's organizing,but not .••

MOVEMENT: What do you feel is missing?

CHAVEZ: People. You don't have people working in it.I mean, who are you organizing? You have to have involve­ment, you know. It's not a one man show. There's got to bepeople involved. Once you have people then there's powerto do things. But money won't do it alone -all thesegroups have had a lot of money. That's the other thing,you See, that is why they don't continue; the moment themoney is taken away from them they fall.

MOVEMENT: Because they're depending on moneyfrom the outside ...

CHAVEZ: As long as you have people, you'll havemoney, and if the money stops, that means you've lost thepeople so there's no reason to continue anyway.

MOVEMENT: Do you' find that probiem yourself,here? Because the union gets outside money?

CHAVEZ: Well, It's an entirely different matter when itcomes to a strike. But forgetting about the strike and justtalking about the organizing part of it, it's going, I meanyou know, it can carry itself.

MOVEMENT: Do you see orga~izing of farm work­ers into one big union?CHAVEZ: It will be a miracle if there comes to be one

big union of farm workers.MOVEMENT~ Do you think there will be manydifferent unions?CHAVEZ: I don't know. All I can say is, if it ends up all

in one union, it will be a miracle but that's the way it oughtto be.

CHAVEZ: Now a political force, yes, but not a party,the discipline wouldn't be there. There has to be dis­cipline in a party.

See, it's not bad what the two parties do, becausethey are the pros. They are in power and the only crit­icism we can make is of ourselves for-' not being ableto get that much power to counteract what tl;1ey 'are doing.But to criticize them is, well, like•••MOVEMENf;-'t's like crii{cising them for beingwhat they are.CHAVEZ: But that's not going to change anythiIig. If

we critjcize ourselves, then that begins to change things.

APIDL 1967

See, I think groups that deal in power becomeimpatient with groups who are strangers to power. I thinkeven in individuals you can see this. A good example isMalcolm X. (I am reading his autobiography right now).

When he talks about Uncle Toms, he puts it very clearly.He's saying that these guys will go to work for the devilwhite man. Really he is saying a lot more (he doesn't makeit clear but I'm sure this is his thinking) -that the Negrothinks that if HE gets ahead he is going to be getting hispeople ahead. Malcolm really knew about power althoughhe didn't put it in those words, he kn~w that you can't doit that way.

MOVEMEN T: Because individual soluti~ns to theproblem don't work.

CHAVEZ: That's right. I think the biggest power inAmerica besides the church among Negroes - well, thisis also a religion -is the Muslims. There is discipline,there is money and there is zeal. They have had a fewset-backs, otherwi~e they'd be rolling right along.

MOVEMENT: Malcolm has had a tremendous effecton black organizers~

CHAVEZ: He, knew what he was doing. They understoodhim, and they didn't understand the others. But he had avery good base: he came right from the gutter so hewasn't compromised. The guys who don't come from thegutter have to compromise because they're going to school,they're getting a job, they're working for the government.All these little compromises which, by the time you getto be leader, have got your hands tied up!

ORGANIZING BLACKS ANDFARM WORKERS

MALCOLM X

PAGE 8 THE MOVEMENT APRIL 1967

Delano's # 2 Institution:fARM WORKER SERVICE CENTER

DELANO, CALIF.Leroy Chatfield, head of the Farm Worker Service Center in Delano, is usual­

ly characterized as an "ex-Christian Brother." He left the religious order to jointhe farm worker moveme~t, spent a year raising money for the Farm Worker Co­op headed the Los Angeles NFWA office, and is now directing the "social ,ser­vice wing" of the Union.

SIGN in the service Center.

CHATFIElD: I find it hard to believethat we're at the point where we are. Thatwe actually have a Service Center. I'mamazed that such things can happen at thesame time as much tremendous pressures;the strike, the Perelli Minetti thing,organizing going on, and somehow all'thesethings -develop. A lot has happened in ashort time.

My reaction to the bUreaucratic idea ­of course structures have developed anddepartments have' developed and peoplehave been put in charge of departments,and they, are held responsibie and theyhave also' been given authority. You haveto, take the position that you don't believein organization, you don't believe, in au-'thority, you don't believe in bureaucracy,when you start minimizing and dismissingthose things.

Also, it's a little strange to me -buthow can you talk about organizing peopleand at the same time not submit to the.discipline of organization? I don't thinkyou can have it both ways, and 1. think.anyone who thinks that Cesar doesn'tbelieve in organization' misreads whatreally is going on here in Delano. As tothe charge you hear, "what about 10, 15,20 years from now; you're going to bejust another middle-class union." Thenwe'll have choices to make for a change.

- Wheth~ we want to be middie..:class, com­'placent or not. But at this point the farm­workers don't have the choice. And Idon'tthink it's right for others to make thosechoices for them.

You have to ask, "is the union grow­ing, qeveloping and getting strong?" Andif the answer is "yes" then you have toaccept, it seems to me, the bureaucracythat goes along with that.

But another way to keep the union hon..est and socially conscious is to buildthings like the Service Program, HealthClinic and Consumer Co-ops. I'd be hardpressed to explain how, in what specificways, but they do have a role to play in theoverall organization that t,ends tobalance,because health needs' are different thaneconomic needs, which the uriion addressesitseif primarily to. ..

MOVEMENT: How would yo~ sum upIrom your personal experience, whathas happened in a year and a hall?People tend to characterize it; somesay it's become bureaucratic; somesay just ~nother part 01 the laborunions ...

,!

time. You buy 2 tires at the Co-op andyou'll get your $10 back. "

,I do see a problem arising. Maybe aby-law change will be' necessary. lf wehave a lot of non-Union members who

, are Co-op members, that could be sticky.But a lot of that depends on how we goabout selling the shares. Our thrust shouldbe 9()}b toward farm workers in, sellings~ares. There's nothing to keep us fromhaving a special price for Union mem­bers.

The Co-op for example, will have to payits own way. At this pointtheServiceCen­ter is attempting to underwrite its begin-

, ning. Very soon, we will have to make de­cision about ,when the Co-op will begin topay its own way. And if it can't, the wholething will have to be re-examined, andmaybe we're not ready for a Co-op.

, MOVEMENT:Wh~re d~es the. S-;rvice~~nte~money c()me Irom?

CHATFIElD: The Service Center moneycomes from a joint grant that was providedby the Stern Family Fund in Washington and'the I.U.D. This grant extends for fourteenmonths, beginning last November. Theway I look at it, either by next January,we have something going, paying for it­self, or we don't. The most difficult thingfor me, I can~t figureitoutnow,is how theSocial Service part of the Service, Centerwill pay for itself, since we don't chargefor the services, except for the IncomeiTax returns. Either we start charging;fees, or it is suggested ,and approved by'the membership that a certain smallfraction of the dues goes toward that. 1don't know, rm at a complete loss rightnow.MOVEMENT~ The' garage is the lirstproject 01 th~ Co-o.E1

CHATFIElD: Yes. The service station,garage and cooperative auto-parts store.,Well, everything will be cooperative•.

MOVEMENT: Cooperative mea n swhat?

CHATFIElD: Cooperative means that,when we receive approval from the State'Commissioner, we will issue 2000 sharesof stock, to be sold at $10 apiece. Thisstock will be made' available to Union

.members.MOVEMENT: Only?

CHATFIElD: Our by-laws don'tcallforUnion members only, no. The priJnary

.people who will be buying this stock willbe farm workers. , We"Tregoingtovio­late some mthe time-honored principles,,that is an open membershiE,_MOVEMENT:Not goi~g to sell to thegrow.ers? '- liiATFIELDtWell:"I suppose we'd haveto sell to the growers, but the point is,you have to show a membership card inthe co-op to be able to use the.oo-op.

MOVEMENT: That's ""very dillerent,Irom, say, the Berkeley Co-op ., -CHATFIELD:Once again w~te;adopting

:the p'rinciple that Cesar so strongly be':lieves in - that is: people don't wantsomething for nothing.MOVEMENT: Let's take the garage,as a model. Who will that be adminis-.t~red-'?Y? _

CHATFIELD: That will be administeredby the Farm Workers Cooperative, Inc.,which is a, corportion formed under thecooperative laws and the corporation laws,of California. It has its OwD. board of direc~tors. Cesar is the president of the Farm

. Workers Cooperative. After we issue'shares, at our first general, meeting wewill have a slate of officers elected, justlike every other Corporation.

MOVEMENT: Who gets the pro/its?

CHATFIELD: The profits will go to the 'Co-op.

MOVEMENT: Not to the union?CHATFIElD: No. Many of these things

are separate corporate entities, becausethey have to be, for example the CreditUnion is a State Credit Union: it has its

:2 own corporate structure and is governed,.8 by the laws of the State of California.

o The same way with the Health Clinic,I it is licensed under the state.0. Those' of us who work in the office,

we keep these things straight; most ofthe time the membership doesn't. To themall of these things mean one thing - theunion.MOVEMENT: But you still have to bea separate Co-op member to shop atthe Co-op: Does your union member­ship entitle yo~ t9 membership ,in theCO-OD?

CHATFIELD: Just because you pay yourdues doesn't mean we don't charge you$2.50 for your income tax. The $10 (forthe Co-op) is only paid once for' a life-

JESSICA GOVEA of the Service Center Staff.

MOl EMENT: And you hope that atsome point the lees themselves willpay for the Clinic?

CHATFIELD: vh yes. You know cesar'sattitude about these things - that lots ofoutside money is needed but there comesa point when outside money stops.,Eitherthe organization has developed the meansto grow and build and finance itself, orit collapses.

power..-CHATFIElD: Exactly. What 1wouldfor­

'see is that as the Social Service staff be­comes more aware of continuing problems,they would expose these problem.s betterto the union membership, for a plan of ac­tion.'MOVEMENT: You, started out thisdiscussion by saying that one 01 thereasons you set up this parallel struc­ture is that il Y0tl incorporated thesocial services into the union, itwould not be the "labor union" way

, 01 doing things. That's interesting. Iwish you'd break that down.

CHATFIElD: Well, I guess Igive that asa reason because that was one of the rea­sons given to me.

What's going to happen to the union is,that little by little we're going to developlocals. The AFL-CIO Constitution has cer­tain by-laws and rules and regulations thatgovern the development of locals. So I thinkit behooves us on our side tO,create thosestructures that'those things do apply to, I, ',mean there's nothing wrong with thosestructures. But the movement in Delano,as you're well aware of, has much morethan traditionalIabor union development.

Also the whole question of financing isinvolved. Some groups cannot, will not,provide'money, for a labor organization.Some groups want to finance certain as­pects like a Health Clinic. When I sayfinance I mean give a grant to get youstarted. And 1 might say in parenthesis,that we don't accept any money that wedon't have control over.fmnotpretendingwe don't need outside assistance, but Iam also not saying that outside people whogive money or assistance can tell us how'to spend it.

CHATFIELD: I would forsee that as wedevelop the Social Service staff, they willbecome more sensitive, more aware andmore efficient in applying pressure. Andactually they do pretty well - in theWeifare Department. Maybe this is a cruelthing to say but, I would say that unionmembers are treated better by the WelfareDepartment than non-u n ion members.Which is a shame; everyoneshould be /treated equally. We can't assure thateveryone will be treated equally, but we aregetting to the point where we can prettywell guarantee that union members aregoing to be treated better.I

I.,.I· >'~"

MOVEMENT: We're trying to trace the changes the .union has' gone through inthe "lost year, since belore the Pilgrimage. One 01 the things that was not here

, a year ago and is very much here' now is the Service Center. What is the ServiceCenter and what does it do?CHATFIELD: I think the Service Center in a certain way has always been inexistence. Especially in the early days of the union when Cesar, Gil (Padilla)Dolores (Huerta) and Julio (Hernandez) were the Service Center. ,Any problema member had with an employer, any welfare or income tax problems, any ser­vices that they needed, then they came to the union. And the union at thattime, as I said,' was Cesar, Dolores and Gil.

Last October, after I <;:ame back from my assignment in Los Angeles, Cesarand the union officers decided to form a parallel structure to the union. One ofthe things which p~ompted this was our affiliatidn. with the' AFL-CIO, whichmeant that it would be more desirable for us to develop our union structuresmore along traditional union lines. Probably this is more desirable from the,labor union point of view, more, easy for them to understand what is going on,and for them to deal with us too~ This parallel structure took the service partof the program out of the NFWA-AWOC.

Coming under the parallel structure, which we call the National Farm work­ets Service Centei, ~nc., is the He~lth Clinic, the Credit Union, the ConsumerCo-op, the social services that I just mentioned briefly, and probably a tenuousrelationship with the farm workers theater (Teatro Campesino) and the FarmWorker Press (publishers of EI Malcriado).

What I mean by a tenuous relationship MOVEMENT: Thatis the result otis that Cesar thinks it is desirable to havean umbrella board that serves to coordi­nate, clarify, serves to develop an of thesethings that I've mentioned. We don't go into the Health Clinic and tell them how·torun their Health Center; they're a separateentity. But on the other hand, someonehas to be able to interpret. We don't wantthe Health Clinic or the Credit Union or .the Social Services to go off on their ownand not be sUbservient to the purposes ofthe union.

Anyone who talks to Cesar for ten min­utes can tell that he will sacrifice every­thing for the sake of the union. Unless webuild a union that's strong and does the job,we can have the most beautiful HealthClinic in the world but it might as well befinanced by OEO or someone like that.

MOVEMENT: Does the Service Cen­ter help the organizing? Why isn't itiust a do-gooder kind 01 thing?:::HATFIEIlJ: If someone comes in witla proble~, what we do fir~t is ask, "are.you a union member?" if he 'says •'yes" ,,then ask to see his blue card. And not onlydoes he have to show his blue card, but he,has, to be a paid-up union member. And thereason for this: it isn't a charity program.,We're not a welf,are agency. It's an or";ganization that people belong to, and ifpeople belong to the organization theyhave certain rights.

Let me give you a practical example:suppose we have six people in the office.Five of them are union members, one isnot. They live in Earlimart, let's say, allof them. We service all 6 of them. The guythat got something for nothing, goes back,to Earlimart with those five people -they'all live in the colonia -and brags. "1 gotthe same thing the union people got. Youdon't have to pay dues." That willdestroythe union. Now, when we refuse him herein front of those five people: first of all thatindividual is confronted with the advan­tages of belonging to the union, and the

I necessity...I Jl '1 MOVEMENT: Do you see a time, at-

Iter the strike is won, when the Ser.

, vice Center would begin to take onquestions such as the schools, inade-quate housing, welfare, hospitals?

APRIL 1967 THE MOVEMENT,

PAGE 9

that an election will be held. No date hasbeen set as yet.

If the union wins the election, this meansonly that the company must sit down andnegotiate with the union. The Act has noteeth requiring that the company mustsign. Such elections and negotiations areusually followed by a strike,' When thecompany refuses to sign a contract.

*********TEXAS IS A WILD SCENE

This state was. a fitting place for theassassination of Kennedy and the birthof Johnson. It is a one-party state; poli­tical factions fall along individual loyaltylines. This makes for some strange bed­fellow,s, particularly when liberal Dem­ocrats and right-wing Republicans joinforces to gang up on the conservativeDemocrats.

The state AFL-ClO has only 200,000workers and is relatively weak. It istied to the "liberal coalition" aroundSenator Yarborough. The AFL strategyhas been to encourage voter regi~tration

among Negroes and Mexican - Americans.The major industry (besides oil) is

aerospace. The UAW has organized thisindustry and has considerable economicpower. Politically, the UAW seems to betied t"n with the Johnson-Connally conser­vative faction. It emphasizes union organ­ization rather than voter registration.

All labor and liberal factions supportthe strike, which has to walk a carefulway among the warring political groups.(In 1958 a group of Mexican - Americanstried to form an Independent Party, sep­arate from the Democratic Party factionsin Rio Grande City. Its .leader was as­sassinated on the courthouse steps duringa rally: that's Starr County politics).

Starr County seems to be, according tolocal people, a center for smuggling.North from Mexico comes marijuana,narcotics and people. South from Texasgo cars and liquor. The local judge hashad no criminal trials for two years.When strikers were arrested for a sit-inat the International Bridge none of thelocal authorities knew how to book them.

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Mexico. Each morning as the Mexicanworkers gather for the bus that picksthem up at the Internatonal Bridge, UF­WOC organizers talk with them, explainthe union, and get inside information thathelps the union.

PACKING SHED ELECTIONSGene Nelson was able to meet the re­

quirements for a National Labor RelationsAct representation election at the StarrPacking Shed. In order for an electionto take place, the shed must be an agent,packing products for other growers; theymust do at least $50,000 in interstatetrade, and 3016 of the packingshed workersmust request an election.

Nelson was able to get signatures of7016 of the workers there. The NLRBhas held a hearing and issued a statement

• ••GROWER'S VIEW OF TEXAS STRIKE

LA VERDAD is a four-page newspaper, published in Eqglish andSpanish whenever money is given for its publication. It supports the right­wing grower line and is, according to local people, distributed by the StarrCounty Sheriff's Department on their daily routes. We reprint here parts ofan article appearing on page one Feb. 10, 1967.

We all know that all of the people stirring up trouble are paid "loaf­ers" who have come from Delano, California to help intimidate and harrassthe poor folks of Rio Grande City...the core of the leadership of the unionat the site of the strike is comprised of "known" criminals...

Incidentally, there will be a Banquet of some sort here (CorpusChristi, ed.)...to "officially" turn over some of the money collected tothe striking workers. Everybody is invited...for a $2 i SO meal ticket. ..

First time in our lives tha~ we have seen farmllaborers invited tobanquets and socials.

In several of the towns we visited last week, there were city officialswho dare the union to start their shenanigans in their cities. Most of thesesaid that law or no law these union clowns would be run out of the city innothing flat. _

A sheriff in one of these cities said that he would NOT put up withall that bull. "If these guys come here and start trouble as they have inRio Grande City, I won't fool around with them. I'D GIVE THEM 24 HOURS

.TO CLEAR OUT AND STAY OUT. If these tramps think that the constitu­tion of the U. S. was drawn _up for their protection only they are nuts.There are decentfolks that happen, by their conduct and records as citizensto come FIRST in line."

agricultural boycotts since then.Ray Rochester found it necessary to tell

the press that "his business has pickedup because of a union boycott." FromDelano we know that growers begin tomake such comments When a boycottbegins to hurt.

Also, according to the Valley EveningMonitor of McAllen, Texas, "Soon afterthe union announced its boycott, Rio GrandeValley lettuce shippers rallied behind LaCasita and offered to let the farm usetheir brands in shipping La CaSita pro­duce."

• •

SIGNING UP WORKERS• A team of organizers under Bill Chand­

ler is signing up workers presently work­ing at La CaSita, both those Who live inTexas and those who come over from

BOY~OTTSince the border cannot be closed to

the Mexican workers who are used asscabs, much of UFWOC's effort is goinginto a· boycott of La Casita products:lettuce, celery and melons.

The boycott has been very successfulin the major Texas cities. The boycottteam, mostly students under the leader­ship of Gil Padilla, NFWA vice-president,are more knowledgeable than, say, theSchenley boycott teams of a year ago:the union has had a lot of experience in

FARMWORKERSOPEN SECOND FRONTBy Terry Cannon

Rio Grande City: TexasFor the farm worker movement, Texas

is the new frontier, the second front inthe battle with America's growers andplantation owners. Strategically. it is asimportant as Delano, for the Rio GrandeValley, a rich farm area extending 140miles -north of the river, is a center forhand-harvested crops. 1'No-thirds of theresidents of the Valley are of Mexicandescent. During the May-June peak 30,000Mexican citizens are employed in the

_fields. The median income for a Spanish­speaking male worker in the valley is$879 a year.

Ironically, the strike at La Casita is astrike nobody wanted. (Farmworkersthere, as all over the country, are readyto strike, but the union's ability to organ­ize is limited). Nor was Starr County thebest place to begin organizing: only 5%of the Valley's farmworkers work there;the county is most noted for its oil pro­duction, five million barr-els a year. The ­land is mostly semi-arid. Only in theeastern part of the county do you beginto _see vegetable crops and irrigation.

The .St~ County growers understandthe importance of this strike (see theeditorial from "La Verdad" below). Theyhave invited grower representatives fromDelano to "advise" them on how to meetthe threat of unionization. . (Presumablythe Delano growers are the experts inthe field of union fighting).

The union's strategy falls hito threeparts:

THE TEXAS STRIKE (clockwise from left):Workers talk in front of UFWOC headquarters;Two wives prepare meal in strike kitChen;The home of one of the striking workers, aunionpiCket captain;Pancho Madrano of the UAW and Jim Drake, NFWAadministrator, discuss the strike with visitor(center);Scab workers being hauled in a La Casita trUCk;Singing in the union dining hall.

PAGE 10 THE MOVEMENT APRIL 1967

OAKLAND----­CON'T FROM PAGE 1FUNDS TO BIGOTS

Many of the loan applicants, althoughhappy to exploit black workers, madecomments while being interviewed whichindicated their attitude towards Negroworkers. One employer stated: "I have toget here for the morning shift so that Ican personally oversee my employees­some of these people, no matter how hardyou try, won't work since they can getwelfare and unemployment." This em­ployer referred to black workers as fromthe "lower mentality group."

MUCH MONEY-FEW JOBSThe number of· jobs whiChwill be cre­

ated as a result of the EDA money Jorbusiness expansion is extremely small inrelation to the huge amount of moneywhich is being spent. The seven approvedbusiness loans, as of February, 1967,

promise to create 364 jobs. The loansamount to $1,042,000.

RUBBER STAMP REVIEW OF JOBSIn order to evidence "community sup­

port" and approval of the EDA program,an EMPlOYMENT REVIEW BOARD wasset up. This Board was supposed to reviewall the employment plans of the firms ask­ing for business loans. The Board consistsof one representative from labor, one frombusiness, one from each of the five Oaklandtarget areas, and one from EDA.

Up to the present this Board has simplyrubber stamped all the EDA proposedplans. The members of the Boardfrom thetarget areas feel that "they have bee ntaken." Until very recently they had no ideawhat their role was supposed to be. EDAnever set out any policy guidelines forthem. The representatives rarely receivedcopies of the employment plans before themeetings of the Board took place. They hadno time to study them or talk them over be­fore they were requested to vote approvalor non-approval. When they did receive

,plans previous to the meeting, they oftenfound "revised" copies when they got tothe me~ting.

One Board member stated that the Boardwas reluctant to vote down a plan and ask

~for major changes because the firmswhich came up for review had spent a greatdeal of money and tirr.e on their expansion.The Board had nothing to do with thefirms. until the loan process was nearlycomplete. Often this would be nine monthsor .more after the firm began work on theloan.

LADO------CON'T FROM PAGE 3on weekends. Stores like this were takingSpanish people's money but not puttinganything back. The picket lirle gave us anopportunity to distribute leaflets and showpeople things could be done. It helped usto become known. It was a beautiful sight.People would stop, read the leaflet, talk,and we would explain why we were there•People' would say 'you're right'. Manyturned away. The store finally releasedemployment figures and has hired somePuerto Ricans." ,

LADO opened its storefront at 1306 N.Western in October with the help of theIndustrial Union Dept. (IUD) of the AFL­CIO. According to Lopez, "IUD was tryingto get Sen. Douglas re-elected. They payedthe rent, but they pulled out in DecemberWhen they realized that they couldn't con­trol us and use us for their own pur";·poses. '},

For a while an outpos-t of the IllinoisState Employment Service was located inthe LADO office. It was a good way to bringnew people in, and some people who cameto the outpost are now working with LADO.

'"'Pressured from the machine and othersocial agency's in the area resulted in theoutpost pulling out just after IuD... Peoplewouldn't believe we're bad if we had anISES office here."

ATTACKS AID LADO ', Lopez said that LAOO has been attacked

by other groups since it started. "We'rea new group and tlEy feel threatened. Weare militant, and even though NCO issometimes militant, they, consider usoutside the boundaries of traditional or­ganizations and leadership. They've calledus communists, like' when trying to keepa local principle from being friendly to us.

FEDERAL DOLE TOWORLD AIRWAYS

One of the firms which won approvalfrom the Employment Review Board wasWorld Airways. They will be leasing anairplane hangar, financed by' grants andloans from EDA, in the Port of Oakland.They claimed they will create 1,126 newjobs. World Airways is in line to receive'$10 million for their program.

World Airways was not content withgetting this federal financing.

. EDA' then embarked on a program ofcreating a FEDERALLY FINANCED job

.training project for airplane maintenancemechanics.

At a Manpower Development andTrain­ing Act Advisory Committee meeting atthe end of November, a programfor train­ing 510 people over a two-year periodwas proposed. The qualifications for theapplicants would be (1) residence in Oak­land for six months or more, and (2) a'10th gra:le level education, especially inmathematics. It was estimated that $1.5million would be needed for this program.A representative of World Airways statedthat they "would probably be one of themajor employers" who hired men out of the

·program.A man from the San Francisco Depart­

ment of Labor questioned the EDA rep­resentatives present at the meeting. Hesaid, "How can you say that these 500men who will be trained will be hard-coreunemployed, if they need a 10th gradeeducation1" THE EDA RE PRESENTA­TIVE REPLIED THAT EDA'S PURPOSEWAS TO TRAIN lONG-TERM UNEM­PlOYED, NOT "HARD-CORE" 'and any­way, "if we don't absorb these peoplenow, in five years they will become hard­core unemployed:'

The program was passed by the MDTABoard. The general feeling was that"something is better than nothing," andthat there "is a need for training pro­grams at this level too."

World Airways has a government-fi­nanced training program for future em­ployees - AT A TIME WHEN TRAINEDAIRPLANE MECHANICS ARE AT APREMIUM. As an article in the S.F. Chron­icle states, QJec. 12, 1966) there is an"acute shortage" of mechanicS. The in­ternational Ass 0 cia t.i 0 n of Machinists"could put 2000 to 3000 airline mechanicsto work immediately - if they couldfind them:' While other airlines (such

lVIVA LAHUELCA'. ..."..LAD.D.

LA11N AMER\CANDEFENSE ORGAI?A1ID~

He was good, -saying he's open to any groupif they're helping people. The attackshaven't hurt us much. In fact, they've triedto keep me and Carlos Castro from get­ting together, but that brought us totalking to each other. It's guys like him,people here, and others with small fol­lOWings that will make a movement if wecan get together."

Carlos Castro is a former YMCAstreetworker. He recently quit over differencesin policy: "I'm with the people; theprofes­sional people aren't - they want to con­trol." Castro, a young, dark Puerto Ricanwho was raised in the states, is closer thananybody else to the young guys in the com­munity. He was the only person to defendthe young guys at Daley's invitational"keep things quiet" hearings after the re­bellion. Castro walked out of the meeting.

as United Airlines) are paying to traintheir workers themselves, World Air­ways' trained personnel will be a giftfrom the taxpayers.

No one in Oakland can figure out whyWorld Airways is getting such a presentfrom the Federal Government. Even Fed­eral Officials proclaimed ignorance on

'the topic:

WHAT IT MEANSThe large sum which is promised to·

World Airways may simply be a way ofkeeping the men at the Port of Oaklandin sympathy with the Federal program.The projects which revolve around thePort make up the bulk of the $23 milliongrant-loan package from EDA. ,The Portplans to build an industrial park. Manyof the businesses which are asking forEDA loans are going to locate in thisindustrial park.

The Port was essential to the EDApro­gram because the City of Oakland was un­able to propose any public works pro­jects in time for the EDA public announce­ment of their program: The city admin­istration was ineffective so EDA pickedup on the businessmen of the Port and

I committed the money to them.It is possible that someone in the

Federal Government has recognized thatan eXpanded port facility will be useful in

. commerce with the East, war commercewith South East Asia, or possibly tradewith China at some future date.

It is also possible, and perhaps morelikely, that the funas to the Port of Oak­land were committed in much the sameway that the business loans were handedout; that is, haphazardly, with no planningor design for long-range social and eco­nomic change. The theory under which EDAis supposed to be working is that moneywhich goes into business expansion willeventually "trickle down" to the ghettoresident. This theory doesn't pan-out.Has the increase in this country's wealthin the years since the Second World War"trickled down" to the black citizen1

Yet even with this framework of allo­cations for business (as opposed to giving.directly· to the unemployed themselves),EDA has given away and committed itsfunds in a reprehensible manner.

The EDA Program is not orientedtowards a planned program of socio-eco­nomic change in Oakland, despite its wellwritten press releases. They attempted to"move as fast as we can before somethingblows up." As a result they committedmillions of dollars with little effect.

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Daley called him bilck and apologized~-

I t~lked briefly with Castro on the streetabout the neighborhood, the leadership, andthe petential for building a movement."The people who call themselves leadersdon't know the people who were hurt, thelady who lost her baby at seven months. Ishare this lady'S pain when I held her inmy hands. They were talking to the press,trying to stop their own people. The youngpeople are the hope of the community.They are aware of jail, job loss, apdstay­ing out of school. But we've got time. Wewill march, march" march. The olderpeople will follow. Some of the smallbusinessmen give us a little money. Theyknow they're being treated rotten, but theywon't..say anything in public."

BLACK AND PUERTO RICAN UNITY"Carmichael talks about Negroes and

Puerto Ricans working together. DivisionSt. is the place where it can be done. Theleaders don't want that. ..

HELPthe author of the book

TOMORROW WAS YESTERDAYorganize a National Financial lnvest­rnenLPo.o.JJQ!. tl1e~.E.Q<?IlQr~l.~_ t:re edam ofNegroes by buying a copy of said bookor by offering ideas, suggestions, etc.of how to get the apathetic Negromasses to become interested enough:to organize himself against the exploi­~tation of the wealthy privileged few.

, Write:Investpool for Economic Freedomc/o James N. Brown4171 22nd streetSacrane nto, California 95822

LYONS-......---­CON'T FROM PAGE 51 think about race is when a Mexican is~eaking Spanish and I can't understand it.I wish I was a Mexican at that time.

MOV EMEN T: Why do you think youhaven't had those kind of problems?in t'he past that has been one of thebiggest problems in organizing farmworkers.

LYONS: I think it's mostly the wayeverybody is treated -all farm workersis treated. They're mostly interested in abetter way of life: they're not interestedin color or race or anything like that. Theyfeel that if they get together for one time,they can get what they want. I don't thinkanybody's thought about the race problemas fat' as I can see.

MOVEMENT: How about the fact thatthe packing shed jobs, the tractor jobsand the truck jobs have been restrictedto Anglo workers? At least only, Angloworkers are doing these jobs.

LYONS: Most of these guys in thehigher paid jobs have been around here along time. The supervisors, most of themare from Oklahoma and Arkansas, and alot of the Anglo workers are from Okla­homa and Arkansas. And I think it's prob­ably because they like one another, he'sfrom the same home state, something likethat.

MOVEMENT: Don't the Mexican, Puer­to Rican and Negro workers object tothat? '

LYONS: Actually the job 'don't pay thatmuch more than any other job. Enough tobe upset or angry about it or anything likethat. A guy was telling me that they havehad MeJ9.cans and Negroes that they put onthe tractors, and they didn't want the job:it was too hard, or it was too dusty.

MOVEMENT: That sounds like"Negroes and Anglos· ~an't cut as­paragus:' or -'-:only,Filfpinos can packfruit in the field."

LYONS: The supervisors, they're theones that separate the races. like theyhave Mexicans and Puerto Ricans that justprune trees, no Anglos and Negroes prun­ning trees. The Negroes and Anglos don'tthink anything about it, because probablythey don't want to prune trees. They don'tknow how to prune trees. I haven't beenhere that long, but the way_l see it, theMexicans and Puerto Ricans were the firstones that started on trees, so they justkept it that way.

MOVEMENT: You really don't thinkthere's any dissatisfaction with that?

LYONS: there may ~ be s 0 met hat Ihaven't seen, but I really haven't heardanybody squawking about - "I haven'tgot that job because I'm a Mexican or I'ma Negro." Maybe it's because Negroesnever had opportunities for these jobs,so they don't squawk about it.

You know these are farm workers andthis is about the last place Jhey can go toget a job. They have to be kind of satis­fied with what they get.

MOVEMENT: But the whole thingabout the union is that people aren'tsatisfied with what they get.

LYONS: Now that the union is here,1 think they'll feel like they have morerights and 'have more voice and morestrength to ask for these things. Beforethe union they was just afraid to speak up,afraid to ask for something. They more orless HAD to be satisfied with whatthey got.Or they'd probably be looking for ano'therjob if they wasn't. I think that's what keptit quiet mostly.

MOV EMENT: People saw farmwork as

.being the end of the road.

LYONS: That's the way farm work islooked at. But since the union, they got adifferent attitude. They feel as importantas a mechanic or a construction worker,or an electrician. Farm labor was the lastplace you could go. II you get fired off afarm labor job and you don't have no skill,where else you going? The only place theycan g-o is up. ....

APRIL 1967 THE MOVEMENT PAGE 11

ORGANIZER'S NOTEBOOK 111111.11.11 ~ .. PART 2

THEATRE THAT DOES SOMETHING

"I SPY FOR WELFARE" skit; (left to right) Shirley Hall, a JOIN member; Dovie Coleman, Chair­man of the Welfare Staff Committee; and Melody James, JOIN Organizer.People Removal and to have a say in when we put on two skits in Washing-Urban Renewal." The theatre project ton D.C. last weekend at the conferencewas born and has continued "happening" on "Radical Vocations in the White Com-and avoiding long theoretical talks about munity."its use or direction.

II!1

i!

with the cops in Uptown.The skit is a series of humorous

scenes showing the progression of or­ganizing a. young hillbilly, called JuneBug. A cop beats him up for standingon the street corner and he is takento court. He can't understand the judge,the judge can't understand him. Further­more the judge assumes the loyal, help­ful officer, "who has sworn before hisGod," has no reason to lie where the•'punk hillbilly" does. June Bug is sen­tenced and a month later back on the samestreet corner minding his own business.

The same cop starts to push him aroundbut this time "JOIN-Man" interrupts theattack and informs June Bug of his rights.Yet one •'JOIN-man" can't always be thereto rip off his coat in the telephone booth,and he can't change the situation alone.So the next time the cop approaches, three"JOIN-Men" break up the attack on thehillbilly by taking a picture of the beating,getting the cop's badge number, and hisdescription, "fat, stupid, bully," When thecop manages to recover from his shockhe states, "Hey you .can't do this tomel I'm a cop. What's goin' on?" Thethree"JOlN-Men", coolly and in completecontrol slowly turn toward the cop as aplank of united men. They answer simply,"We're from JOIN.... Jack."

The last scene is a line of organizedguys on the same street corner. Thecop approaches, and seeing them hisstrutting, pompous walk turns into a jumbleshuffle. He says, "Good day," and scur­ries to June Bug to answer a question.The cop refers to him no longer as"Hillbilly Punk,"'but as "Sir," and "Mr.Boykin." He is truly a civil servant. Andall go off to "Dancing in the Streets."

STREET CORNER SKITSOur enthusiasm also grows toward the

spring and summer plans for street cornerand park performances. They'll be help­ful re-enforcements to JOIN's actions inthe welfare, housing, police brutality, andhuman rights strugg~.

The group's impression of the theatreis still one of fun and excitement. Wehave not really embarked on the hard, 'work" of art yet, but perhaps the hopefor our survival and sucess lies in thefact that we have chosen to use the mostco-operative area of art, the theatricalexperience. For it relys on the unity ofits participants' efforts.

It would seem that • 'ensemble playing"in a radical theatre like the one JOIN isstarting, can only serve to re-enforce the"ensemble struggle" in ChIc ago andthroughout the country. Our theatre, JOIN,and the Movement must supply a growingcosmos that our society and system havefailed to provide, nurture, and answer to...EDITOR'S NOTE: This article on theJOIN Theatre is the first is a seriesof articles on radical theatre across'the theatre. The next article will beabout the Teatro Campesino by LuisValdez.

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,qUESTIONSBut the problem posed by the skit was

the same problem of JOIN. We know ouraims, and we know a lot of changing musttake place, but how do we fill those in­between scenes, what strategies are mosteffective, how do we encourage people tostand together, and how will the endingreally find us? And as we keep workingto clarify and strengthen the skit, organi­zers are also searching for those deeperanswers for the success of JOIN and theMovement.

As we gradually build up a strong groupof skits, our most recent plan for thetheatre project is to line-up visits to somecollege SDS chapters. Hopefully thesevisits will serve as a needed fund-raiserfor JOIN while also explaining communityorganizing and how our issues are relatecto the ones the campus confronts.

oo.ca.

DONNA LEE DOWN-AND-OUTOur favorite skit is a tale ()f wel­

fare run-around and the medical services"given" to the recipients. The story, basedon a real recipient's experience, is aboutDonna Lee Down-and-Out who visits inagony the welfare doctor Piss-Ain't­Worth-It. After a long waitthe doctor findsher "fit as a work horse" and suggestsa construction job. So she visits Dr.JOIN-It, still in agony, and a riotous em­ergency 0 per at ion follows where thepoisons of "Knuckle Under Welfare,""Ashamed to Be Poor," and "Too littleFood" are removed. "JOIN," "FreedomNow," "End Slums," and "Equal RIghts"are thrown into her open body for hersurvival.

But the s e rio u s operation is in­terrupted by the forceful and efH cientcaseworker, Miss Dogoody. She has cometo d~liver the good news to Mrs. Down­and-out that she has placed her in aconstruction job and located a babysitterfor her ten children, and if Donna Leedoesn't seize the opportunity immediatelyher welfare check will be cut off. Insistingthat the private doctor who doesn't under­stand •'these people" shouldn't help DonnaLee "dodge her responsibilities," andthat "the welfare department cannot makeindividual exceptions," Miss Dog 0 0 d yprops Donna Lee up to sign some formsproclaiming, "I'm only, doing my job."

When the doctor can finally return to hispatient (Miss Dogoody is retrieving somespilled papers), it is too late. The patientis dead. The doctor and nurse cover herand exit. Miss Dogoody, alone and insilence turns to the audience in per­plexion. "My God, can you beat that.These Poor People would rather die thango to workl"

This may sound ridiculous and ex­.aggerated, but it is all too close to thepatronizing and de - humanizing experi­ences numerous recipients have had withtheir caseworkers and welfare depart­ment.

JOIN-MANAnother function of the theatre group was

discovered while working on the policebrutality skit. It became an effective wayto question and discuss aims and strategyto change the problems young guys have

COMMON PROBLEMS'Several weeks ago we were asked tei do

some skits for East Garfield Park Unionto End Slums, another community union inthe city composed mainly of black pe<1ple.We did a series of three skits, one foreach of the main issues JOIN is or­ganizing around: welfare problems, hous­ing, and police burtality. We were re­ceived enthusiastically, and without anyspeeches a very warm understanding ofsimilar enemies and the need to fightthem together had united the room ofstrange people. We also found this true

BIG BAD URBAN RENEW-WOLFA favorite evening is pulling out the

"JOIN Fairy Tales of Love, Flowers andFreedom" and describing the plight ofThree little Pigs who had to keep runningfrom the Big Bad Urban Renew-wolfwho was huffing and puffing and blowingtheir homes down until they got organizedby a JOIN member; or the trek of little­Red-Riding-JOIN to an Uptown slum towarn her hippy grandmother about UrbanRenew-Wolf. Finding the wolf insteadof Granny, Little Red shoots him pro­claiming a changed James Thurber line," Poor People aren't as easy to fo'ol asthey used to be."

We get together and improvise the situ­ations and then a qUick script is typedup selecting from a tape recording orqUick notes the scenes and lines thatworked best during the improvised meet­ing. Then we meet again, read throughthe scripts a few times and discuss im­portant statements that must be made. Theskits are s i mil a r to the " agit-prop"theatre of the thirties, the situationsprimitive, the characters very black andvery white. Nothing is ever "memorized"••• the message and relationships becameinstinctive to all of us at JOIN.

ASHOT OF ENERGYSince that night we have never questionedthe value of the skits. And soon we

began to discover the skits had otherpurposes too. They told a very pointedstory. But they also warmed-up and in­tegrated the new groups of people wefaced each Thursday, a night set asidefor interested new people, talk, laughter,coffee, and singing. And rather than takepeople away from organizaing, it hasserved as a shot of energy and focusfor several people who had been fumblingto find the best ways to work withinJOIN. lt has also served as a method ofbringing new members into an activerole in JOIN's work. Already several newpeople who have seen the skits havesuggested ideas or even written scripts

As the weeks went on we began tostructure the skits more carefully. Westudied our faults and began the longprocess of putting style, control, andpolish into our skits.

"PROPHET OF DOOM"There never was a formal diSCUSSion.

The skit about the "Prophet of Doom"(a JOIN organizer parading in a toga witha sign declaring, "The End is Near")who visits the slums to warn Mrs. De­'prived about the approaching "AngE:Iof Death (Chicago's Urban Renewal bull­dozer cloaked in black and carrying ascythe) was put on at a Thursday nightcommunity meeting. The laughs were loud,but louder still was "the new presentationof the familiar message, "Uptown peo­ple must organize to try to stop Poor

Chicago, Illinois By Melody James

Many radicals have ,spent thoughtful hours considering the question ofarfs place in the Movement. Certainly art for its own sake has little meaning toa movement attacking the basic structure of our society. What has art got to dowith changing the landlord-tenant structure, the welfare system and the entirestructure of the economy? There is little time to pursue art as a hobby whenlife is made up of immediate concerns like ending our involvement in Viet Nam,and ending the supression of freedom and human rights that gallops so ste?dilythrough our country. ' '

But there is another view of art that has been used and has had mean­ingful results throughout history. And that is the use of art as a tool or weaponfor change, as a radical force in society. Anything that excites the mind toaction qnd the body to move is radical, and it is with this perspective that theMovement can explore and use the areas of art.

JOIN Community Union has started atheatre project to begin such an ex­ploration in Uptown Chicago. Uptown iscomposed mainly of poor southern whiteswho have migrated to the city to look forjobs. But there are also groups of poorIndians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, andNegroes. JOIN was started several years'ago as a project of ERAP of the Students;for a Democratic Society and has becomea permanent organization rooted in thecommunity to be used as a base of a poli- 'tical movement that unites with similargroups for social and economic change inthe city.

JOIN's most recent issue is to changethe city's plan of Urban Renewal scheduledto tear down this area within a year.This will really mean •'poor people re­moval" from Uptown. We are working ona petition campaign to organize the com­munity to fight for the kind of Urban Re-'newal we want; decent housing with agurantee that we can remain after the"clean up" wiJ:hout rents being doubled.

MAINSPRING OF DIRECT ACTIONThe JOIN theatre project is designed to

supplement the organizing being donearound these issues. "The theatrical ex­perience," has always been an effectivemeans of communication for people. Butwe are attempting to make that ex­perienCe a political experience. We wantto use the experience to serve as a main­spring to direct action.

Radical political theatre certainly isnot new to America. But the JOIN Theatregroup is new when one looks at who isdoing it. Unlike the recent radical theatregroups like San Francisco Mime Troup,e,the Free Southern Theatre, or the LivingTheatre in New York, the JOIN groupis made up of an interested group ofcommunity people and students.

Since November a steadily growinggroup has gotten together once a weekto discuss ideas for short skits. Themajority of these ideas for situations wewant to portray, people and institutions wewant to stick some pins into and changes 'we want to see always come from com­munity people.

At first we were pleasantly surprisedat what we could "throw together:' Werelied heavily on the willingness of acouple of individuals to improvise••.and risk making fools of themselves. Wewould put together some ideas of exa­gerated sit u at ion s, broad characteri­zations, stick in a "dramatic conflict,"search for a punch line, pin some cos­tumes on, scatter a few props aroundthe front of our meeting hall and sud­denly the JOIN theatre group was "on" •

Until that first night of skits there hadbeen casual di'sagreements over the vir­tues of a theatre project for JOIN. Themain question was whether, at this time,JOIN could sur v i v e the expansion ofanother committee that would obviouslytax the precious organizing time of thesame group of people.

PAGE 12 THE MOVEMENT APRIL 1%7

NOTES FROM CHICAGO MICHAEL JAMES- - --. -

LESSONS OF ELECTORAL POLITICS

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cincts, as in those relatively untouched,Kissinger received 5% as opposed to15-2076 of the vote in the intensive pre­cincts.

Movement people in Chicago have manyquestions about the future in electoralpolitics. Those questions are unanswered,partly because they are only beginningto be formulated. What we did learn,howe v e r, is that organization paysoff -- if only slightly. Organization re­

,mains our task. ...

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ing to build strong organizations of thepoor. Those people most active in hiscampaign were a handful Of gang mem­bers who worked closely with a staffmember of the new School of Com­munity Organization.

Clark Kissinger, candidate of the .Citi­zen's for Independent Political Action,ran in the. white, middle class Catholicand Jewish 49th ward. His campaign wasthe most radical of all the independents,focusing on issues that most of the othersfailed to deal with. CIPA has not yetdevoted much attention to finding andworkin~ around is.sues directly felt bypeople in a middle class neighborhood.Kissenger did poorly, but'the campaignhelped build the organization, which con­tinues to maintain' an office and twofull-time staff members. What CIPAlearned was that in the 9 precincts workedintensively they received 3 to 4 timesmore votes than in precincts that were ".worked only moderately or left relativelyuntouched. In the moderately worked pre-

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ward. The syndicate replaced the whiteincumbant with a Negro, leaving Jacksonwit h 0 u t the white-black issue thatcharacterized all the independent blackcampaigns except Hubbard's. Jackson didnot have an organization, although hereceived considerable 'publicity in theDefender, Chicago's most important Negropaper, and he was supported by theWest Side Organization (WSO), a strongand militant welfare union. Unfortunatelyfor Jackson's campaign, WSO's resourceswere not employed in the race, but 'ratherin their continuing slow work towardbuilding a recipient's union and fightingpolice brutality.

The hopeful thing about Jackson isthat he is open to working with and help-

.'

NO":" IESPONSIBLE TO POOR

ONLY VICTORYSammy Rayner, the only independent

victory, unseated one .of the "silent six"Negro machine alderman. He did not talkabout issues in his campaign, but isrelatively good when asked. An affiliateof the civil rights movement, Raynerwill follow Leon Depres (white ex-radicalfrom Hyde Park), the only reform ori­ented anti-Daley muckraker on the coun­cil. Rayner will be as good as the peopleof the 6th ward push him, and unfortu­nately the organizations of people to dothat have yet to be built.

NEED FOR POLL WATCHERSIn contrast to Rayner, Fred Hubbard,

former YMCA street worker, seems tohave lost his campaign in the 2nd wardof Cong'ressmen Dawson's southsidestronghold because he did not have suf­ficient poll watchers. Observers feelcer­tain that he won, but was robbed. Thematter is in the courts with evidencethat includes 106 affidavits from peoplein one precinct who said they voted butare not shown to have done so on thevoting records.

Hubbard's campaign was not issueoriented, but based on the need of "in­dependent black representation." He isnot a radicar, but knows about communityorganization and employed some of it inhis campaign. Important about the Hub­bard campaign were it's theft' by memachine, his prese!lce in the community,and organization. Hubbard's organizationcontrasts with the fight waged by GusSavage who lost in the 21st ward; Savagewas a more radical black candidate, waspopular, but had less organization•

Chicago has one of the oldest, most powerful and influential political machinesin the country. Sitting at the top of this complicated structure is Mayor Daley,an expert at revamping the face of the machine when its working parts becomevisable and bring about some public concern. AltIlough faces may change, themachine's economic and political grip on people's lives remains tight. A com­ponent of the machine is the city council, composed of fifty aldermen. Alder­manic elections were held last month, and there was a bid by anti-machineindependents in twelve wards to capture seats on the city council.

Most of the independ~s were black,running in middle class Negro and tran­sitional (white to black) wards. While thecandidates weren't radical, and the over­all independent effort unsuccessful, theindependents, whether they be potentialfriends or enemies of the movement,suggest several things that radicals in­terested in electoral activity might findhelpful.

PRECINCT ORGANIZATION. Rayner won his compaign after 4-1/2years of work in traditional politicalfashion. After losing in 1963, he wasalways present in the community at­tending funerals (he's an undertaker),block club meetings and social func­tions. He received the support of Veteran'sfor Peace, of which he is chairman. Im­portant to note about his campaign isthat he - 'had precinct organization (theindependent campaigns indicated that re­sults are in direct proportion to pre­cinct organization), and he had pollwatchers who guarded his 6076 of the vote.

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SEID ONE TO A fllEIIDINEED FOR MANY .UESLester Jackson did poorly in the 29th

While most of the independent black.campaigns were run in middle classNegro wards by middJ,e class Negro can­didates, there were two campaigns in poorblack wards. In the 28th Curtis Foster,a middle class cand.idate, received 3076of the vote in his bid against the Italianincumbant controlled by the syndicate.Foster had some precinct work, but clearlynot enough in that he should have donebetter running against a white opponent.Foster did not come out of, nor washe responsible to a constituency of poorpeople. The building of that constituencyhas yet to be done, and Foster's cam­paign was not rWl. for that purpose.