The Press: Color Bar Lifted

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As Washington correspondent for the Atlanta World and National Negro Press Association, Louis Lautier stirred up a storm when he applied for admission to the National Press Club last month. The 911-member club had never admitted a Negro before, and the members split into two sharply divided groups over his application (TIME. Jan. 31). But Lautier's backers confidently expected the members to go along with the national trend toward desegregation and end their color bar. On the eve of the club's referendum vote. Lautier wrote a column for Washington's Negro semiweekly Afro-American, personally attacking two members of the club, George Durno of International News Service and Jerry Greene of the New York Daily News, for opposing his admission. After the column, many a middle-of-the-roader in the fight turned against Lautier, feeling that his piece was out of line and inaccurate. Nevertheless, in the largest voting turnout in the club's history, Lautier last week was admitted to the Press Club by a vote of 377 to 281.