Letters: May 24, 1963

Birmingham & Baldwin

Sir:

Your [May 17] issue covering "The Negro's Push for Equality" was expertly executed. You first gave a forceful, factual account of Birmingham's brutality—appealing to the readers' hearts. You followed this with a philosophical article on James Baldwin—appealing to the readers' minds. You have done your part. Let us now hope that the readers have hearts and/or minds.

LARRY L. SMEVIK Binghamton, N.Y.

Sir:

I feel that Baldwin is profound and searching in many of his insights, but that, on the whole, he is too pessimistic. As a Christian and as an American—and, incidentally, as a Caucasian—I am confident that the Negro's struggle for equal rights and opportunities is going to be won. My hope and prayer is that his struggle may be won soon and without mass violence.

PALMER VAN GUNDY

Glendale, Calif.

Sir:

The choice confronting officials in Alabama and elsewhere in America is a simple choice: responsible reform or irresponsible revolution. The ruling class would be wise to open its eyes and see that its best friends are Martin Luther King and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Democracy in the United States simply cannot afford any other alternative to the changes these moderates sponsor.

ROBERT G. L. WAITE Brown Professor of History Williams College Williamstown, Mass.

Sir:

What other police force would abstain from raw use of force when hundreds of screaming, shouting demonstrators charged down the most crowded downtown sidewalks knocking down any who got in their way? Where else are there policemen who can calmly write out citations for teen-age demonstrators screaming filthy obscenities at them?

Get your boys out of Martin Luther King's office and tell them to report the other side of the story. Then you can intelligently evaluate and interpret!

G. B. ROLLINGS WORTH JR. Birmingham

Sir:

"Bull" Connor may be a ridiculous and dangerous official, but give him credit for keeping the Negroes away from the whites. If he had, as you said, allowed crowds of whites to gather without dispersing them, there is little doubt that there would have been a race riot that even you would not enjoy writing about.

DAVID CAIN

Anniston, Ala.

Sir:

You have certainly given an unjust image of the citizens of Birmingham. We would not stand for such brutality against anyone.

The Negro demonstrations were not scenes of violence; only a very few Negroes became unruly. Two Negroes were bitten by dogs, but only after one drew a knife on an officer and the other hit the dog with a board. The water hoses were turned on only after demonstrators had been given ample warning to disperse. Would your reporter deem it better to use guns instead of billy clubs and water hoses? Or should mobs be permitted to run rampant over our police officers who are enforcing the very laws that prohibited the Ku Klux Klan from demonstrating in our city streets against the Negro many years ago.

BERT S. DAMSKY Birmingham

Sir: