ustxtxb_obs_1965_08_06_50_00009-00000_000.pdf

cerned Texans would give massive and immediate support to HA-YOU. Womack was joined by his colleague from Cornell, Klein, in violently objecting that the term, “white Southerner,” was chauvinistic and implied agreement with the argument that “outsiders” had no right to try to change the South. The term “white Southerners” drew strong support from the San Marcos group. Some of us were manifestly more proud of being Southerners than others. The tradition of Southern insurgency was brought up, and racist tendencies in the Populist movement were, too. Negroes Come to Sing Suddenly, someone said, “My God, look out the window.” We crowded around the window that looked out toward the courthouse square. They came into view around the corner, file upon file of marchers that stretched one block, then two, then three. We watched silently for a moment, and then people started making exclamations, softly as if to themselves. Gil Campos said, “Let’s give them a welcome.” He began singing, and we all joined in. The line circled the jail once, twice, five times. Lichten counted them: “About 250,” he said. The voices of HA-YOU floated up to us . . . “Oooh Freedom!” One of the San Marcos group yelled, after each “Freedom,” the word, “Now.” we all laughed. Their appearance had affected us all and humor seemed as good a cover as any. They marched again and again around the jail. Finally, at 11:15, they left. The “open letter” began undergoing revisions. Those less concerned with semantics slipped into the eight available beds. I went to sleep on the floor. At four o’clock in the morning someone stepped on me. I heard them still editing the letter and went back to sleep. From almost the first minute we’d been jailed, Cody Wilson yelled out every 15 minutes or so in a nerve-rattling voice, “I want to make a phone call.” He alternated this with “I have a constitutional right to make a phone call.” There was a definitely authoritarian movement among the sleepy prisoners to induce him to seek his rights in the morning, but sometime during the night, the police let him make a call. The next morning Sampson yelled up to us from outside the jail. One of the professors, remembering Thoreau’s question to Emerson, called out: “Sampson, what are you doing out there?” This drew a great laugh. The Reverend said they were raising bond money and everybody should be out by 10 o’clock. Plans were made in jail to form a professor’s committee for HA-YOU and a task force in the liberal community to raise money for many community projects the youngsters hope to initiate to help them create a community-wide organization. The jail began to heat up as the morning passed. The “open letter” was now several paragraphs longer. and still going strong. Some of the “floor-sleepers” relaxed on the vacated beds. By noon it was quite hot, and the caliber of the state pris on system, headquartered here in Huntsville, became a topic. Someone remembered that Leadbelly had written two great songs while incarcerated at the Sugarland prison farm of the Huntsville system, and the story behind “The Midnight Special” was told. The night train out of Houston passed Sugarland, and sometimes the light from the swinging lamp on the engine caught a window of the prison. A folk myth grew that the fortunate inmate of such a cell would be the next one out of jail. The lyrics took on a new meaning for us: “Let the midnight special Shine its light on me. Let the midnight special Shine its ever-lovin’ light on me.” By two o’clock there was a definite consensus in support of Sampson shining his light on us. Eight of us decided to stay in jail and fast as a protest against our “unlawful arrest” and continuing segregated conditions in Huntsville, but the HA-YOU brain trust decided otherwise. Shortly before 4 p.m. we were all bailed out. HAYOU and a group of sympathetic white students from Sam Houston State in Huntsville provided transportation over to Kermit Davison’s house, where we learned more of the story. The picnic at the state park had lasted until 8 p.m. Sunday night, its participants unaware of our arrest.’ At 8:30 Sampson left the picnic and drove to the Raven, where he learned of bur arrest. He hurried to HA-YOU’s headquarters where, according to various participants, “Sampson stormed in the door,” and his manner was “real cold and hard, you know.” He said, ” ‘Okay, you kids say you’ve got an organization, now let’s see if you do. We need 500 bodies. In thirty minutes. They’ve jailed all the whites. They’re in jail for you?’ freedom. You got an organization that’ll produce 500 bodies to support the whites in jail? Okay, thirty minutes. Give me 500 bodies.’ ” Sampson says, “I walked outside and looked up and said, ‘Lord, give us 500 bodies.” The HA-YOU youngsters deployed through the town, and by 9:30 a milling crowd of about 300 had assembled at Davison’s house. About 50 adults dropped out during the mile-long march to the county jail, but another 50 or so stayed in ranks during the entire march. Linda Talbert, a Negro student from Texarkana now in her junior year at the University of Texas, had come to Huntsville the same afternoon we had. She said, “Do you know why HA-YOU was able to raise so many people in thirty minutes? Because the fact that 26 white people were willing to go to jail for HA-YOU simply had an electrifying effect in the Negro community. There was no discussion. The kids just yelled to everyone they met: `They’ve arrested the whites for supportthg us and we’re going to march to the jail. Gather at Kermit’s.’ And, in thirty minutes, we had 300 people.” Elmo Willard, the Negro civil rights lawyer, drove up from Beaumont. After complicated behind-the-scenes efforts, various put up the $5,600 cash bond necessary to bail out 26 people at $200 each, but the judge refused to accept a cash bond and required a property bond. Monday morning two Huntsville Negroes, Mrs. Fannie Baker and E. L. Cox, put up a $5,600 property bond. As Miss Talbert said, “This has turned everything upside down. Whites went to jail while Negroes stayed out, and the whites were defended by a Negro lawyer and were bailed out by rural Negroes in the heart of East Texas.” The Ninth Day This Monday, according to press reports, 15 hooded, robed members of the Ku Klux Klan marched on Huntsville’s square and drank coffee in the Raven Cafe. One of them, Luther Marce Boyd, a Houston chiropractor, was arrested on charges of being drunk and using abusive language, paid a $28 fine, and was released. According to the Associated Press, “Officers said he told them he recently joined the KKK and paid $17.50 for his white robe, but that he had not yet paid his dues.” There were no other incidents reported in connection with this march. The “open letter” was released; Oliver read it over TV in Houston. The Situation Now The HA-YOU students are gathering information to present to the school board. School segregation ended last year in Huntsville with the admission of a Negro to the first grade. This September, the second, seventh, ninth, and twelfth grades are to receive a few Negro students. HAYOU’s objective is complete integration of all grades this September. HA-YOU also hopes to organize the Negro matrons who are interested in gardening into a gardening club whose members might work in voter registration, too, and HA-YOU plans to contribute to the Huntsville library and ask the library board to stock some of the works of Negro writers. Delegations of HA-YOU members have stood outside grocery stores in Huntsville this week counting the customers by their race, information to be used in consultations with employers asking for jobs for Negroes in the stores. Substantial concessions were reported this week. Gerald Davison, the 17-year-old spokesman of HAYOU, appeared before the civil rights committee of the Texas AFL-CIO in its El Paso convention on Wednesday. August 6, 1965 9 SPLIT RAIL INN 217 South Lamar Austin Where Union Men Meet