ustxtxb_obs_1967_10_13_50_00004-00000_000.pdf

for this include the geographical divisions such as the railroad-industrial strip along 5th Street, and class, ethnic, or religious barriers, all of which isolate people from each other. But as these latter divisions between Negroes and Mexican-Americans, property owners and renters, or Catholics and Protestants are being done away with, so the gulf between residents north and south of the tracks is being narrowed. For example, both groups have recently begun to consider sponsoring a joint fund raising affair to help support the community development project throughout the year. Not only would this lead to mature community control over what is done in the neighborhood; it would cause more people from different sections of the area to become involved in working for a common goal. In the railroad tracks symbolize the internal divisions of the area, the State Cemetery, located in the northeast corner of the neighborhood, expresses the separation between the people of the eastside and the majority Anglo population to the north or west. Only veterans of the Texas War of Independence or of the buried in that ground. In this way the cemetery represents that anti-Mexican, anti-Negro, and pro-power-structure senti ment that has so long frustrated the aspirations of the people of this area. At the same time, the entire northern part of the cemetery is empty and will not be used for burial; yet the land is not available for community uses. To a neighborhood in need of space for recreation, this cemetery and its symbols of discrimination represent the death of the community when that land could be a part of its life. Therefore, misunderstanding and suspicion exist between the project area and the larger community, as well as within the neighborhood. One of the goals of the AFSC project is to increase communication across both the internal and external barriers , so that all resources can be used by the people in solving their problems. FINALLY, WHILE the people are becoming more aware of the nature of their problems, they are also identifying the strengths of the neighborhood and are taking pride in its resources. The ends to which the people are committing their activity are based on life in what has been defined by housing, income, and educational indices as a deprived area. However, it is the people’s understanding of the strengths of the community that motivates them to try to find ways of saving it from decaying into an urban slum or being bulldozed by governmental edict. On the one hand, the people speak about absentee-owned housing maintained far below code standards, lack of recreational facilities and programming, unsanitary and dangerous conditions near vacant lots and junkyards, and job discrimination against both Mexican-Americans and Negroes practiced by certain labor unions as well as by businesses. On the other hand, the residents talk of such positives as the area’s proximity to the central business and shopping district, its character as created by the predominance of single family dwellings, many of which are owned by local residents, and the feeling of community solidarity based on family and ethnic ties, supported by neighborhood churches, schools, businesses and social groups. As a teacher in a parochial school pointed out, “Our people have many problems that need to be dealt with, but in many ways this is a comfortable place to live and raise children.” For this eastside area, then, “community development” ensures people the power to conserve as well as to change by bringing together neighborhood residents to work out their problems and Austin residents to help with what in the long run is a problem and responsibility for all citizens of the city. In Hurricane Beulah s Wake V Hurricane Beulah was more than a phenomenon of nature. The storm spawned two major developments in Texas public affairs. It left in its wake perhaps the most vitriolic exchange to date in the long-standing feud between Gov. John Connally and US Sen. Ralph Yarborough. And the chances for the success of La Huelga, the Starr county farm workers’ strike, were seriously undercut by Beulah. V Yarborough says he became concern ed that Connally was slow in asking that Texas be declared a disaster area by Presidential proclamation. During a visit to the state, the Senator says, “county officials, private individuals, newspaper publishers and others had asked me about the delay and asked me to aid in obtaining a disaster declaration. They told me of various turn-downs that they’d received in trying to get certain types of aid, because of the fact that there was no disaster declaration.” Yarborough was critical of Connally’s delay in making the request of the President. The Senator, while in South Texas to tour the storm area, said that Connally was “playing politics with disaster.” Yarborough did not elaborate on this statement. 4 The Texas Observer V Back in Washington Yarborough, on the Senate floor, repeated hiS complaint about Connally’s not making the request and introduced into the record telegrams sent Yarborough by the county judges of San Patricio, Aransas, and Starr counties requesting federal help. id . [D]espite these telegrams, and despite numerous requests the Governor of Texas failed and refused to ask for the declaration of a disaster area. In my lifetime I have never seen, and have never before experienced, a situation where, with a disaster of major proportions raging all around, caused by one of the three most terrible huricanes in the history of this country, with a billion dollars damage and one million people suffering, that a Governor refused to ask for the declaration of a disaster area.” Connally Replies v Connally, in Austin, responded to Yarborough’s charges of playing politics by calling the Senator a “very despicable man.” The Governor maintains that he had to determine the extent of storm damage before he could make the request of the President. The storm hit Texas on Sept. 20; two days later Yarborough wired the White House requesting the disaster desig nation. He was informed later that same day that this could be done only after a request by Connally. Sept. 27 Connally requested the disaster designation, which was promptly granted by the President. V Some federal officials were reported ‘ to have privately expressed surprise at Yarborough’s attack on Connally, saying that the Governor was not exercising any unusual delay. Cong. Kika De La Garza, Mission, whose district was hardest hit by the storm, told the President that there was no delay in getting federal help to the people there prior to the disaster designation. But Yarborough is convinced that Connally waited too long to request the designation, which is a prerequisite to receiving aid under a federal statute that provides for disaster relief. V Two Mission attorneys, James Mc Keithan and Will P. Ellis, Jr., wrote Yarborough that “It has been argued that an emergency designation after the storm and flood is effective, since the designa tion is retroactive to cover disaster costs incurred from the beginning. This, over looks the vital factor that federal per sonnel and equipment is available under Public Law 87-502 only after such a certi fication. Federal personnel and equipment were needed while the waters were rising. Monetary compensation after the event