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becomes irresistible. Moreover, after making gains, the oppressed can see more clearly what they were, how strong they are, and what they are missing. And so they inevitably press on. It is happening everywhere in the world. And it is happening in virtually every urban area in the nation, and in many rural areas. Yet it is not happening in Houston, and there is only one explanation. Houston’s effective Negro leaders are content to maintain the status quo, content to play the game of the white power structure, and undermine any militant leader who may rise in ranks of the Negroes. Let us get down to cases. The effective leadership of Houston’s Negroes includes Julius Carter, a business, man and owner-publisher-editor of the Forward Times, largeit Negro newspaper in the state; A. E. Warner, president of the Houston Negro Chamber of Commerce; George Washington, an attorney and a leader of the United Political Organization minister of the largest Negro church and president of the Baptist Ministerial Alliance; Dr. A. W. Beal, a physician and president of the 20th Century Organization, a group of Negro business and professional men and women; Theodore Hogrobrooks, a businessman and a board member of U.P.O. These are the members of the Negro power structure, and as effectively as the white power structure controls the entire community, they control the Negroes. They may be members of the NAACP, they may have put money into bail bonds for some youthful demonstrators in 1960 and 1961, they even contribute to Martin Luther King when he comes to Houston on a fund-raising drive. But they hold the militants in check. They would like to believe they are cagily trying a new tactic: Be financially independent from the white, build your own economic resources, create your own political machine, put yourself in no one’s hip pocket. In short, play the white man’s game. But Dr. Lash remarks: “The white man has taught you everything you know. He hasn’t taught you everything he knows.” Sociologically it could be said that the members of the Negro power structure have coveted their hold in the Negro community because they have been so summarily and systematically excluded from any of the policy-making functions of the white community or the community as a whole. The Negroes are thus driven to hold onto what power they have, for all menblack and whiteseek some bit of power. Rev. Simpson will not permit the young, more fervent ministers to take the leadership of the community’s Negro Baptists away from him. They must check with Rev. Simpson before using the name “Baptist” or before using their churches for any semi-political purpose. Rev. Simpson has a large, large following and can use that following to good stead when he needs something from the white community. Dr. Beal, a young man who wants to lead a campaign to integrate the hospitals, thinks it best that the Negroes be kept from boorish displays such as demonstrations. He has sought to negotiate, for example, with the officials of Houston’s Memorial Baptist Church. They have had some friendly discussion, but the big sign on the downtown hospital, two months after negotiations, still says “Colored Annex.” And the officials of the hospital have refused to budge. They like to think Houston’s Negroes could demonstrate if they had to. Dr. Beal vaguely promised the hospital officials such a demonstration might come about. But Houston Negroes are through demonstrating under their present leadership. Although Houston is the South’s largest city, when twin “Freedom Now” marches were held last August in Washington and New York, fewer than 50 Houston Negroes took part. Rev. A. A. McCardell, president of the Houston NAACP, had predicted that two chartered buses would go from Houston to Washington. Less than 20 persons rattled around in the one bus that was sent. “Houston Negroes are going to Austin instead,” was the explanation. But only about 20 Houston Negroes went to Austin that day. Returning from Washington, McCardell called for a mass march in Houston for Sept. 29. It was postponed so that it would Houston city elections Nov. 9. The march has been rescheduled for Nov. 24thThanksgivingand Rev. McCardell has predicted that 30,000 Negroes will take part. Several weeks ago a group went into a restaurant to induce the owner to stop holding out against integration. In the group of six were two whites and two Africans. A far cry from the first student movement in 1960. Tired of waiting for the Negro power structure to give them the go-ahead, a group of Texas Southern University students caught the spirit of the sit-ins that year. And led by young, and immature, Eldreway Stearns, a sometime student at Prairie View A&M College is near Houston, and just five miles from Hempstead. Lately students led by William Batts III and Edward Garner, .the student president, have formed SELF, Students for Equality, Liberty, and Freedom, and have instituted an economic boycott of Hempstead in association with demands for integrated facilities and more jobs for Negroes there. The backing the movement, 3,000 of them applauding 46 student leaders who have resigned to protest the administration’s alleged hostiility to SELF. In Hempstead, the boycott is hurting some merchants. Student leaders say they will demonstrate there soon. These events are especially interesting when seen against the general patterns in the-Houston area delineated in Saul Friedman’s article this issue. TSU, they struck out with sit-ins of their own. They were just a few students, with no plan and no financial backing. But they were successful. They closed down some lunchcounters, they got themselves in jail, and they forced the affluent Negroes to follow them. Hogrobrooks’ two teen-aged children were among those arrested, and he backed up the youngsters with bail money and attorneys. Although they were just a few, the students of the Progressive Youth Assn. were exceedingly successful. The white community took notice, and the demands were met. Eventually the downtown lunch counters were integrated, and at PYA insistence Negroes were hired for some jobs previously reserved for whites only. The movement and the organization grew and threatened to eclipse the older Negro leadership. \(It should be parenthetically inserted here that the liberal Democratic white leadership gave little help, little encouragement to these youngsters as they went to jail time after time. At one point when Negroes and white students from Rice University were in court on charges, a prominent liberal Democrat attorney, who now holds high office, defended the whites but not the Negroes. And he told his clients it would be better for them not to be tried Stearns was not as steady a leader as the Negro students might have hoped for. But then what leader worth his salt doesn’t have some faults? He was vulnerable because of them, and one day he found the bail money and financial backing had been withdrawn, and he was deposed as leader. The PYA died, and so did Negro militancy in Houston. Stearns fought again for leadership, but he was offered a job as a public relations man for the Houston Colts and he took it. Rev. Julius Scott, who was leader of Methodist students at TSU, seemed a likely militant leader for the Negro community. He had aided the youngsters of the PYA. He had been working to integrate the Methodist student groups at TSU and other student groups on other campuses. He needed $2000 to continue his work this year, but Methodist Bishop Paul Martin couldn’t find the money, and Rev. Scott couldn’t raise it from among the Negroes of Houston. Rev. Scott took a fellowship at a northern school. ATTORNEY WASHINGTON once was a lawyer for the embattled students of the PYA. Now from his law office where he displays chamber of commerce magazines and U.S. News & World Report for prospective clientshe works for the U.P.O. and gains favor from Gov. Connally. He and Hogrobrooks are able to impress Negroes with their power to name gubernatorial appointees like Hamah King. Washington’s chief client is a group trying to open a string of finance company offices throughout the state. Washington November 15, 1963 9