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NEW NEGRO OPINION NEW NEGRO OPINION OFFICIAL ORGAN OF NEW NEGRO ALLIANCE 1232 You St., N.W. Decatur 2371 EDITORIAL STAFF FRANKLIN THORNE - Editor WILLIAM H. HASTIE - Associate Editor ISADORE WILLIAMS - Associate Editor DUTTON FURGUSON - Associate Editor BERTHA McNEILL - Associate Editor HOWARD FITZHUGH - Business Manager RUDOLPH RENFROW - Advertising Manager MELVIN BARKER - Circulation Manager FOR THE ALLIANCE: MORE MEMBERS, MORE DOLLARS When this issue of the OPINION reaches its readers the New Negro Alliance will have launched a city-wide campaign planned to secure the funds necessary to carry on the struggle for economic justice in Washington during 1934. The Alliance has demonstrated several significant things since the summer of 1933. It has proved that corporations and other private employers in Washington will respect the demands of organized Negro consumers. If they must hire Negroes or else lose trade, they will hire Negroes. The Federal and District governments also respect the organized protest and demands of the Negroes of Washington. While vicious discrimination still exist under the local CWA, organized protest, in which the Alliance has participated, has improved the situation greatly. But, perhaps, more important than a showing of what we can do by united action from the Alliance is a living monument and example of what we are doing through such action. Two circumstances have restricted the activities of the Alliance so far. One is lace of sufficient workers. The other is lack of money. Those deficiencies will be remedied only when every Negro in Washington becomes in name, and in activity, a part of the Alliance. Don't wait to be solicited for money and services. Take your contribution to the Alliance headquarters. But that is not all. After making your own contribution, talk to your friends and keep on talking until they line up with the Alliance. The issue is squarely up to the colored people of Washington. Whole-hearted response to the appeal of the Alliance for members and dollars will be the most significant thing they have ever done as a group for their own benefit. ECONOMICS --- NEW YORK STYLE Recent legal difficulties of the New Negro Alliance have given it a much needed opportunity to re-enforce and strengthen its organization. Now, that the picketing activities are temporarily halted, a much more effective means of reaching the public and controlling the purchasing power of Negro consumers in Washington can be developed by a thorough-going organization of members, affiliates and well-wishers of the Alliance. The plan of the organization is as follows. The City of Washington is divided into thirteen districts which are heavily populated by Negroes. Each district is under the supervision of a deputy administrator who is held responsible for the enrolling of members, the collecting of signatures of affiliates, and the collecting of statistical data on purchasing power, incomes, and expenditures of Negroes in their districts. Their duties include the dissemination of information to the residents of these districts and the admonition to withhold trade from certain enterprises or businesses which are unfavorable to Negro labor, as well as suggestions directing the purchasing power of these residents to businesses which are complying with program of the New Negro Alliance to secure economic advancement for our group. Each of the thirteen districts in further subdivided into ten divisions. A district captain is responsible for carrying on the work of this division. Each district is further sub-divided into blocks, and a block captain is places in charge of each block. Each of these captains will have three block workers, each of whom is responsible for the work of one city block. From this organization outline it can be readily seen that any project of the Alliance can be put into operation almost instantaneously by this division. If the X. Y. Z. department store expresses its policy of not employing Negroes in capacities which comply with the Alliance program, word can be passed down that all Negro trade with this store is to be immediately curtailed. The block worker will call at each home in the block informing residents of the decision, explaining to them clearly what the Alliance is seeking and getting the signatures of the heads of each family in the block that they will not make purchases at this store until the objectives of the Alliance have been reached. A perfectly working organization such as this is far more effective than any other means to open new avenues of employment and advancement for Negroes in trade, commerce, and industry. The plan can be made so effective that the full co-operation of every Negro of the 142,000 in Washington will be obtained. Negroes in Washington spend $30,000,000.00 a year for the bare necessities of life. Business firms want this money and want it badly. Through the type of strong organization which we are working hard to perfect, we will be able to guide this large amount of money into those channels where it will bring the largest return to Negroes in the form of employment which they deserve. INDUSTRIAL BANK REORGANIZATION The reorganization of the Industrial Bank is still in progress. The citizens of Washington have been asked to buy 5,000 shares of stock at $13 per share. If every Negro in Washington with full time permanent employment would purchase one share of stock, there would be an immediate over-subscription. Even if every colored school teacher and government employee with an assured salary would buy one share, the problem would be solved. Most of us can make this investment if we will. We have here an opportunity to undertake a business venture that is also a service to the community. [[advertisement]] For Ladies dresses .. shoes millinery .. lingerie hosiery [full-fashioned chiffon] 59c - 2 pairs $1.15 .. 79c - 2 pairs $1.50 For Men Friendly Five Shoes REID'S DEPARTMENT STORE Owned and Operated by Negroes [[/advertisement]] Persons and Affairs... By William H. Hastie DuBOIS Ex-Leader of Negroes For fifty years prejudiced white men and abject, boot-licking, gut-lacking, knee-bending, favor-seeking Negroes have been insulting our intelligence with a tale that goes like this: Segregation not an evil. Negroes are better off by themselves. They can get equal treatment, and be happier too, if they live and move and have their being off by themselves—except, of course, as they are needed by the white community to do the heavy and dirty work, and why should we object to being set off by ourselves if we are with our own people, who are just as good as anyone else. The answer to all of this is plain. In theory there can be segregation without discrimination, separation without unequal treatment. But any Negro who uses this theoretical possibility as a justification for segregation is either dumb, or mentally dishonest, or else he has, like Esau, chosen a mess of pottage. The only reason for segregation is that the Negro is considered inferior and not deserving of equal treatment. The other argument, that we oppose segregation because we don't want to be with our own race is just as silly. We oppose segregation because it will always mean discrimination and because even without discrimination, segregation would still be a gross insult. A man does not resent being spit upon because saliva does him bodily harm. But why bother to rehash an old story? Because on page 20 of the Crisis for January, 1934, Editor DuBois indulges in all these old sophistries and half-truths. If you don't believe it, read it for yourself. I refused to believe it until my own eyes had convinced me. DuBois, William Edward Burghart, himself—or not himself— making a puny defense of segregation and hair splitting about the difference between segregation and discrimination! Oh, Mr. DuBois! How could you Don't you know that the only place for you is in the forefront of the battle, on the left where the fight is the hottest. How uncomfortable you must feel back in the safe but overcrowded "amen" corner with "good," "sound," "conservative" Negroes. And somehow, I do not believe that fraternity will ever really welcome you. You fought them too long and too hard. It has been a real blow to [[?]] Mr. DuBois, and we will not [[?]] your statement, coming from you [[?]] powerful weapon in the hands [[?]] enemies. But the ranks will close over the spot where you stood as [[?]] drive on. We shall always remember that for many years you had a stout heart, a clear mind and as honest a pen as ever dipped ink. They were your birthright! Oh, Esau! Alliance Campaign Speakers Through Attorneys Belford V. Lawson, Jr., and Jesse W. Lewis, chairman and co-chairman, respectively, of the membership campaign of the New Negro Alliance, an impressive array of speakers have been engaged to address the campaign workers, friends, and the public at large at the daily pep-meetings of the Alliance. Scheduled to appear in the Y.M.C.A. each evening at 7 o'clock, beginning Friday, January 26th, the following church, civic, legal, banking, and literary leaders are to give three-minute talks at the daily pep-sessions: Friday, January 26th, W.H.C. Brown, president of the Industrial Savings Bank. Saturday, January 27th, Bishop E.D.W. Jones, of the A.M.E. Church. Monday, January 29th, Sterling Brown, poet and professor of English, Howard University. Tuesday, January 30th, Wm. Stevenson, of the Supreme Liberty Life Insurance. Wednesday, January 31st, Dr. Charles H. Houston, Dean of the Howard University School of Law, and Crawford Defense Attorney. Thursday, February 1st, Dr. T.A. Williston, an outstanding physician. GIFTS COMMITTEE LISTED Under the direction of Colonel Harry O. Atwood, chairman of the special gifts committee, the following workers were announced at the office of the Alliance: Miss Louise Arrington, Mr. Clyde McDuffie, Miss Carol Carson, Mrs. Alma Scott, Attorney William H. Hastie, Mrs. Barbara Scott, Mr. J.D. Campbell, Miss Elizabeth Fry, Miss Dorothy Davis, Dr. Joseph L. Johnson, Dr. Numa P. Adams, Miss Elizabeth Welch, Miss Carolyn Welch, Mr. Charles Baltimore, Dr. Thomas Williston, Miss Norma Ottey, Miss Clarice McEntree, Miss Elizabeth Dowling and Miss Elsie Dowling. It has been learned that before the official date of the membership campaign was announced by Attorney Lawson, many persons gave or pledged money to the New Negro Alliance for the continuation of the work of the organization in its buy-where-you-can-work campaign and its injunction fight in the courts.
