ustxtxb_obs_1963_11_15_50_00010-00000_000.pdf

IN TEXAS BEER IS A NATURAL From nature’s light grain comes sparkling, light beer … Texas’ traditional beverage of moderation it’s light, sparkling, delicious. And naturally, the brewing industry in Texas considers it noteworthy that it contributes more than twenty million dollars to the state in excise taxes each year plus additional millions in licenses and permit fees. These millions of dollars help support our public schools, farm roads, old age pensions, teacher retirement funds and help needy children and blind citizens. UNITED STATES BREWERS ASSOCIATION, INC. TEXAS DIVISION has been employed to get the charter and cut the state red tape. He is angry at liberal Democrats, he says, without mentioning he supported Nixon in 1960. “What have they done for us? We have worked our guts out for liberals and they give us nothing even if they win. What has trade union labor done for us in 20 years?” he says. On June 19 last the more militant Negroes of Houston scheduled a protest march to City Hall on the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas. When they heard of the demonstration, Washington and Hogrobrooks jumped in to lead the preparations. Only a handful of Negroes appeared, and Washington made an impassioned speech to endear himself to the militant spirit of those few fighters who showed up. But the demonstration impressed no one. Probably the best indication of the thinking of the Negro power structure comes from Julius Carter, who founded the Forward Times three years ago and built it to a newspaper with a circulation of more than 30,000. 10 The Texas Observer “Martin Luther King’s tactics would not do here,” he says. “I’m against demonstration for demonstration’s sake. There’s just too much demonstratin’ going on. Our job should be to build the Negro economic power, to build the Negro market. Then the whites will respect us.” When questioned, Carter didn’t know the name of Dr. King’s organization. Nor did he know what the letters C.O.R.E. stand for, or what “Snick” is. When asked which Negro action organization he felt closest to he replied quickly: “The Riverside National Bank.” The Riverside National Bank is the first Negro-owned bank in the state, and Carter is one of the founders. PERHAPS THE WHITES, the liberals, presume too much when they voice frustration at the apathetic, conservative, status quo minded Negro leadership. Is Carter any different from a white businessman when he shows off the plaques on his wall from the segregated Boy Scouts, the segregated Girl Scouts, and the segregated United Fund? Hasn’t he achieved true equality when he can value all the things the status-minded middle class liberal values? Why should he be expected to fight differently from the way the liberal fights? We accuse the Negroes of not struggling, when we are really asking them to struggle for us. Make no mistake about it, when Negroes fight for their immediate causes, they fight the only simplified cause left for American liberalismthe race problem. Each time some of the 20,000,000 American Negroes demonstrate they fight for all the liberal causespeace, employment, social welfare, economic justice, political action. So it is inevitable that Negro apathy should frustrate the white liberal. And conversely there are reasons why the Negroes should look with disdain upon liberal exhortations to fight. Negroes have been long used by liberals who needed them to fight their battles. Negroes have been cynically included on slates. The traditional liberal demands have somehow been separate from the traditional Negro demands. Now that traditional liberal demands have become submerged and shaded by the complexities and subtleties of modern life and the Negro question is the last cut-and-dried cause, liberals have latched onto it. Many Negroes are jealous of their cause and do not want it adopted as someone else’s. Middle-class Negroes who exercise the conservative control over the, Houston Negro community have been particularly embittered in this decade of the polarization of the races. They have learned from the whites how to achieve the power, the money, and the status they have. They have learned from the whites how to protect vested interests. They have learned from the whites of Americaliberal and conservativehow important it is to maintain the status quo, or if it must change, how to change.-t and at the same time control the change. They have aspired to be like the class which does the most to oppress them. They have sought the values which helped relegate them to second class citizenship. In short, they harbor hatred for what they want to become. No wonder then that the black bourgeoisie of Houston should be conservative and at the same time torn. It cannot be very long before that tear widens and the Negroes of Houston join in the revolt that has so far passed them by. El SUBSCRIBE OR RENEW THE TEXAS OBSERVER 504 West 24th Street Austin 5, Texas Enclosed is $5.00 for a oneyear subscription to the Observer for: Name Address City, State El This is a renewal. This is a new subscription.