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Since the Supreme Court anti-segregation decision of May 17, 1954, the Negro people fight with the law on their side against all manifestations of segregation and discrimination. The Dixiecrat officials of the South are the law breakers -- the traitors to America -- the troublemakers who should be prosecuted and jailed. Historic legal victories won by the NAACP have improved the conditions of struggle for Negro rights, each one a powerful lever for freedom when taken by the masses into their own hands, as in the Montgomery bus boycott and in the student sits-ins today.

The Negro people in the South enjoy the moral support of the overwhelming majority of the American people, if for no other reason than the shame and disgrace which the brutal oppression of the 18 million Negroes brings to the U.S. in the eyes of the world. Starting from this point of affront to their patriotic pride, million of while Americans are beginning to learn that the cruelty and barbarism imposed upon Negro Americans degrades them and destroys the nation's moral integrity. Hence, one of the most significant and promising of the new features of the present situation is the increasing numbers of southern whites who support the crusade of the Negro youth.

Victory for the heroic, fearless Negro students in their battle against segregation in eating places; victory in the battle for passage of strong civil rights bill in Congress; victory against the unbridled lynch terror and frame-ups against the Negro people and their militant leaders in the South and nationally; victory in enforcement of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments -- all of these add more victoried for democracy and freedom can snatched from the jaws of violence, brutality and racisms now consuming the South.

What is needed is a strategy for victory! Time is of the essence! The Dixiecrat officials and Klan terrorists are itching to drawn the struggles of the Negro people in blood.

Unity and more unity of the Negro people themselves--in their churches, lodges, women's and youth organizations; unity with their white labor and democratic-minded supporters -- this is the key to victory. Division of any kind, whether based on race, color, creed or political affiliation, is grist to the mills of the Dixiecrats and racists. Above all, the poison of anti-Communism-- however much one may disagree with the Communists--is the secret weapon of the segregationists. It is with this weapon that they count upon undermining, degrading and destroying the Negro people's movement and in tearing apart Negro-white unity. Anti-Communism is the last but most dangerous refuge of the white supremacists. It paralyzes unity of action and hands victory to the segregationists on a silver platter. Full unity behind the brilliant and magnificent battles of the Negro student youth in the South!

Secondly, this massive anti-Negro offensive is first of all a challenge to the white workers of the nation, to organized labor and especially to the AFL-CIO. It is a grave threat to labor's own vital self-interest. As Karl Mark said 100 years ago: Labor in a white skin cannot be free as long as labor in a black skin is branded.

Through picket lines, demonstrations, protests--through every form of militant organized action--labor should meet this challenge. It cannot do so with mere words and resolutions, however noble paper declarations may sound. Action is called for -- action in solidarity and support of the Negro students and of the Negro people's many-sided battles for freedom. Protest action taken by as yet a few unions need to be spread to all of organized labor.

Labor cannot advance in America--in organizing the unorganized in the South, in defeating anti-labor legislation, in the battle against the wage-cutting and against forced unemployment of automation--except through ever-expanding democracy. At the heart of the struggle for democracy is the present flaming front of Negro rights. Labor itself will pay on its own back for every victory of the Dixiecrats. It will pay for every racist attack that George Meany makes upon an A. Phillip Randolph or upon an Adam Clayton Powell. The jim-crow chains that bind the Negro people in the South and nationally, cripple organized labor. An anti-Negro attack is an anti-labor attack.

Thirdly, victory can be achieved through the all-out use of the federal power, executive and legislative as well as judicial, brought to bear against the Dixiecrats, against the Republican-Dixiecrat coalition in Congress, in behalf of the law of the land expressed in the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and in the anti-segregation decisions of the Supreme Court. The allies and supporters of the Negro in the South are too limited; this struggle needs the all-out support of the