ustxtxb_obs_1963_09_06_50_00015-00000_000.pdf

Since 1866 The Place in Austin . . . the students and the professors, the politicians and the lobbyists, dine or drink beer in rather unfamiliar proximity.” Willie Morris in Harper’s. 1607 San Jacinto GE 7-4171 BarnettConnally?,” “We are tired of gradualism,” “No more 50c per hour,” “Freedom is Not Free,” “Human Rights Over Property Rights,” “Catholics Act NowAmerican Bishops, 1963.” A pretty teen-age Negro girl sat with her sign, “Segregation is a new form of slavery.” A strong young Negro boy’s sign said, “Come On, Get This Thing OverGet On the Ball.” A Negro youth in a T-shirt advertising Coca Cola had one that said, “Gov. Connally: No More Moderation.” Perhaps a fifth of the participants were whites. Several joined the song leaders on stage. The Texas AFL-CIO sent an official delegate from the civil rights committee of its convention in progress in Houston, with a letter from state labor president Hank Brown saying the AFL-CIO is in sympathy with the demonstrations. Delegations of Negroes and whites gathered for the march from Houston, San Antonio, Dallas, Tyler, and other places. THE MARCH proceeded through East Austin into the downtown, past the capitol grounds on Eleventh’ Street, to Wooldridge Park by the city library. Spectators in. East Austin along the sidewalks were frequently called to contemptuously by Negro marchers, asking them why they weren’t marching, too. When a group of Negro women broke into applause on one corner, some college-age Negro youths called them to come on. “Don’t applaud. Walk!” Father Sherrill Smith and three other priests from San Antonio marched in a row. Larry Goodwyn, staff man of the Democratic Coalition, marched along with G. J. Sutton, Negro leader from San Antonio who was among the Negroes Gov. Connally recently refused to see. Goodwyn said, “The Democratic Coalition endorses peaceful demonstrations for civil rights.” A Negro man walked along underneath an umbrella he held high. A 79-year-old Negro native of Austin, Andrew Coleman, made the long, sweaty walk; and so did a blind Negro man with a seeing eye dog. Martin Garcia of San Antonio, a leader in the Political Assn. of Spanish-Speaking Oranizations, was among them; asked if he represented himself or P.A.S.O., he said, “I hope both; but I don’t know.” Mrs. Erma Leroy, a distinguished looking. Negro woman, said out from under the umbrella she held, “The governor is politically dead!” Leading the march, the seven song leaders started off songs that rippled back MARTIN ELFANT Sun Life of Canada 1001 Century Building Houston, Texas CA 4-0686 through the two-block, at one time threeblock parade. One of the girls called out for answers, and got them, hot and fast: “You want your freedom?” “Yeah!” “You want your freedom?” “Yeah!” “You say you do?” “Yeah!” “You say you do?” “Yeah!” “I can’t hear ya!” “Yeah!”/ “I can’t hear ya!” “Yeah!” And then she yodeled high, “You gotta waw-aw-aw-lk! You gotta taw-aw-aw-alk! You gotta mawaw-aw-arch! YOu gotta si-ih-ih-it! For free-ee-ee-dom!” The exuberance and the zest of it all was a very strong thing. Monitors led the marchers in songs aimed at Connally: Tell John Connally, we shall not be moved. . . . No matter what he says, we shall not be rnoved. . . . No matter what he does, we shall not be moved. .. . Just like a tree that’s planted by the water, We shall not be moved. THE RALLY linked themes of racial justice and opposition to Connally. The Texas Council of Voters’ president, W. J. Durham, the N.A.A.C.P. attorney from Dallas, and the Council’s vice-president, Moses Leroy of Houston, both spoke; it was clear that this march and rally were in part that organization’s first answer to the pro-Connally United Political Organization Francis Williams, president of the Harris County Council of Organizations, was the spokesman for the day and the rally’s emcee. “I want the press to tell John Connally and everybody else we’re not satisfied,” he said. Dr. Ruth Bellinger McCoy, San Antonio doctor who supported Connally in 1962 but opposes him now, and who says she knows from her own experience that sickness is caused by Negroes not earning enough to afford care and medicine, said the Negro is still in servitude. Henry Munoz, Jr., read a statement from Bexar Cty. Cmsr. Albert Pena, \(who agreed: “the Negro remains in bondage to his skin,” and Pena added: “Along with the Negro and in many instances worse off, patiently waiting is the Mexican American . . . the most neglected, the least sponsored, the most orphaned major minority group.” Miss Deckert, the 17-year-old Negro girl from Jefferson in San Antonio, so stirred the crowd, they came to their feet on the grass, out beneath the giant oaks of Wooldridge Park, and cheered her rousingly. Dressed in a bright yellow dress, speaking fervently and without hesitation, she said of the youths present, “We have come to show Governor Connally that even though we’re underage to vote, we don’t appreciate what he’s doing. We’re gonna work, we’re gonna talk it up, and we’ll see how much help he’s gonna get out of the young people.” September 6, 1963 15 ##~~~ Professors- Say, professors of provincial world history; fragments of an incipient literature; idealism under pressure; the economics of journalism, and the journalism of economics; government by consent of the politicians; applied ethics; patriotized Puritanism; Americanized education; commercialized regionalism Do your students know that anything is happening in and around Texas except what they read in the The Observer offers a special student subscription rate of $1.50 per student per semester for orders of ten or more subscriptions that can be delivered in bulk to one address. Student subscribers for the fall semester can receive free copies of the Walter Webb issue, as long as they last. Student subscribers this fall term will also receive the Observer’s forthcoming issue on East Texas. Please specify if you want your packets stamped, “Antidote to the ##########~##########.4 “The purpose of our legal institutions should be the rehabilitation, not the extinction of criminals. There is no place in civilized and informed penology for the execution chamber.” John R. Silber, Chairman Texas Society To Abolish Capital Punishment P. 0. Box 52222 Houston 52, Texas Annual Dues: $2.00 Contributing membership: $10.00