ustxtxb_obs_1966_05_27_50_00007-00000_000.pdf

course, I was just a lawyer with no business and I was interested in the campaign, so I called around to find out where I could go to do something, and I ended up at the Harris County Democrats office. Of course, nobody there knew me, but I just offered to do what I could do, so I addressed envelopes, and I licked stamps. “One night, somebody who was to make a talk at the Rev. L. H. Simpson’s church here in the Fifth Ward didn’t show up, and they asked me if I would do the reading of whatever had to be read. I said I’d be happy toanything that needed to be done, and I did that, and ever since then, it looks like I’ve been shot into political orbit. “I ran twice for the Legislature-1962 and 1964. I had about 46,000 votes in ’62 and about 62,000 in ’64, these county-wide races. Now, I think we ‘have the best district in the state from which a Negro might be elected. “There is a commission studying the city charter at this time, and one of the things that they’re going to talk about will be carving the city up into districts so ‘that city councilmen can run from a given district. Now, they run at large. As long as it remains as it is, with a city-wide or a county-wide race, the chances are going to be very, very slim for a Negro. It takes too much money, and the votes of those who would be interested in seeing a Negro get elected would ‘be diluted by the votes of those who are not interested in seeing one elected. The only solution to this is going to be to carve the city up into districts and get the commissioners precincts districted on a proportionate population basis. I suppose a lawsuit similar to the one that gave us redistricting on the state level is a possibility. The prediction can safely be that eventually, this one-man-one-vote kind of representation is going to be translated in terms of local politics. “My organization is a combination. I’m on the ticket of the Liberal Democratic Coalition and, insofar as a cooperative effort on my part, working with them wherever possible, we’re using that existing structure of the Coalition. There are people who are personally committed to my campaign, and I do hope to hold them intact after the election is over so that we won’t have to start from the beginning every time a Negro decides he wants to run for something. I think that we do have the makings of an organization with some degree of permanence. ” I THINK Charlie Whitfield is just personally ambitious. When Charlie decided to move over here, he called me. I was working in the county judge’s office at the time as ‘his [Judge Elliott’s] assistant. Charlie said, ‘I hear you’re thinking about that Senate race over there in the 11th District. Have you decided, or are you just talking about it, or what? And I said, ‘Well, Charlie, I’m just taking ‘a very serious look at that. As a matter of fact, I’ve just about got the commitment of support from the traditional liberal organizations here for it, and I’m going to take out after it.’ And he responded, ‘Well, I’m going to move over there, and I’m going to look at it, too. I don’t know what’s A Social Note Richard Morehead, the chief of ‘ bureau for the Dallas Morning News’ Austin operations, has detected in the election of Miss Barbara Jordan and other Negroes to the Legislature a grim side-effect for the statehouse denizen’s accustomed to the lush “freebies” arrayed by the members of the Third House. Morehead wrote in a column item: “Election of Negroes to the Texas legislature may create some social problems here, especially a Negro woman senator. Legislative social affairs for generations have been allwhite. One result of political desegregation may be to reduce the festivities sponsored here by lobbyists and others.” going to happen. I’m in a district where the only thing I could get elected to is maybe chairman of the John Birch Society, and I just can’t have any future over there, so I’m just moving over.’ “He said, ‘Now the commissioner’s post of V. V. Ramsey,’ \(Who was going to run for Congress if Albert Thomas had ‘Ramsey might run for the Congress, and I might take out after the county commissioner’s job.’ He says, ‘Really, what I’m going to do ‘is go over there and play musical chairs. Whatever comes up, I’ll be in a position to go into it.’ I ‘says, ‘Well, okay.” Within a couple of weeks, Charlie had announced for the Senate.” Soon after the campaign started, Whitfield and Miss Jordan sought the endorsement of the liberals who call themselves the Harris County Democrats. Miss Jordan won the endorsement handily, and Whitfield led his followers out of the meeting to stage a rump meeting of their own. The Observer asked Miss Jordan about what happened that night. “I wouldn’t call that a rump group. The pressthe Chronicle, at leastcarried the story with a headline: ‘Liberal Democrats Split.’ Well, there were more than 900 people at that meeting, and about 50 walked out. I don’t think that’s very much of a split. And the ones who walked out were people who had not worked with the Harris County Democrats anyway, and were not a part of the structure of it, and didn’t really go along with the program, but simply were people who had been brought in. Whitfield had made every effort to get them there, too. He had run an ad in the paper asking all of his friends to come out, and he sent letters telling them to come out and ‘let’s make our stand tonight.’ He made every effort that he could to get his friends to the meeting. And I guess all 50 of them showed up. “I think he’s finished. Charley has burned his bridges as fast as he can run, and I don’t see how he can ever build them back.” “LET’S SAY organized civil rights work has been tangential with me. I have always been active with the NAACP here. I have always served on the board of directors of the Houston branch, and now since we have broken down into several branches, I’m on the board of the branch which is in this area, and I have given it financial support and have helped in its programs in any way that I could. This has been a major part of what I’ve done in the civil rights movement. “When I got back here to start practicing law and establishing myself, most of the demonstrations in Houston were over, and the situation was going into a kind of a lull with the accomplishments that had been made under the Progressive Youth Association. “‘I think the civil rights situation here is in kind of a lull. I think that there is unrest among those Negroes who have never been involved in the middle-class civil rights organizations like the NAACP. Unless, somehow, we break through the crust and get down to those people who really have not received any benefits whatsoever from the gains that we consider we’ve made in Houston, then we will be in trouble. The city administration has to understand this, as well as everyone else that has ‘anything to do with it. “We can go into the cafeterias, the movies and the hotels. And, of course, these are status gains, as far as I’m concerned. Until we get the welfare gains, we are , not going to see any progress over here on the North Side. The reason why the people live in these shanties over here is because they can’t earn any more money to improve their houses. Until we can really break wide open this problem of training and employment, there will not be significant gains made over here in the North Side. I could care less about eating at the counter at Woolworth’s. I guess some people think this is the height of their ambition. This is all fine, and it removes the visible traces of discrimination, but the underlying cause the eating cancer of the whole business ha really never been attacked over here. I’m just still looking forward for the day when it will be. “‘I realize the point where we have to start is education, and I don’t mean that we have to delay everything until we make everybody PhD’s. “There are proposal’s and programs that the liberals of this state have always been interested in. Bob Eckhardt has done a very excellent job in trying to push them, and I’m just going to step up and follow suit on industrial safety, effective air and water pollution, and minimum wageall of the traditional programs we’ve always been concerned, about. I think we need a sound and resolute voice pushing these things. I also expressed great concern, in the campaign, over Charlie Whitfield’s support of the city sales tax in the last session of the Legislature. A source of funds for this state is always an issue, and I understand that there’s going to be a necessity to find new sources of revenue, and I want May 27, .1966