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FREEDOMWAYS   SECOND QUARTER 1972

Negro is a born fool." Born fools all, we trooped to the polls and voted Coolidge in. Hoover's message to us came through loud and clear; no Blacks were allowed on his southern campaign committees. The Ku Klux Klan backed Hoover. So did we. Three weeks after his election, Hoover announced he would end black and tan political power in the South. 1936, the year of the big switch, Franklin Roosevelt and the depression moved us into the Democratic Party and there most of us have remained ever since. But life was no sweeter for us with the Democrats. Only the threat of a Black march on Washington pressured F.D.R. into ending employment discrimination in defense factories. And even with war raging, he refused to desegregate the armed forces.

Malcolm X said it - Dixiecrats are nothing but Democrats in disguise. The Democrats never left the Dixiecrats. It was the other way around. And even our liberal friend, John Kennedy, stalled two years before ending discrimination in federally financed housing by a simple "stroke of the pen." What about Lyndon Johnson? He bragged about the black 13 1/2 percent of his federal work force, but he didn't tell us they were in the lowest paying jobs. Democrats or Republicans ... how much difference has it really made to Black People? 

In 1969, black median income was still only 60 percent of white income; and a Black man with four years of high school still earned less money than a white man with an eighth grade education. 

In our infinite patience, we have tried year after year, election after election, to work with the two major political parties. We believed the platforms, believed the promises, each time hoping they would come true. Hoping we would not again be sold out ... hoping ... hoping ... always hoping.

We are through believing. We are through hoping. We are through trusting in the two major white American political parties. Hereafter, we shall rely on the power of our own Black unity. We shall no longer bargain away our support for petty jobs or symbolic offices. 

the price of support to political parties 

If we are to support any political party, the price will now run high, very high. 

Frist: we emphatically reject the role of advisor to the party's governing circles. Advisors are impotent. We are strong. Advisors do not vote on vital questions. We must have a vote in every decision which affects the party, Black people and this country. The two 

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HISTORY WILL BE OUR JUDGE     HATCHER 

Richards, Nixon and Daley, as well as Mao Tse-tung, know that power is of the essence. We know that too. Anything short of our complete sharing of power is a sham and is unacceptable.

Second: our sharing of power must take place on every political level, from precinct to ward, to county, to state, capitol hill, to presidential cabinet.

Third: we are not concerned with minute tid-bits of political power. We must be accorded the largest share of political power resulting from the following testes: Our proportionate contribution to the party's vote, or the defeats that would occur were we to withhold that vote, or the importance of the Black question on the American scene. Whichever of these tests yields the greatest amount of political representation, that is what we must have. 

Fourth: we shall name our own candidates for public office and our own party and governmental committee members. No political party to which we attach ourselves may any longer pick and choose Toms and Sallys among us. 

Fifth: the political party with which we identify ourselves must work from the bottom up, not the top down. Before critical national decisions are made, they must be discussed in every nook and cranny of this country, form the tarpaper shacks in the Mississippi delta, to the pine hovels in the Appalachian hills, from the rank and fetid basement apartments of 47th Street to the barrios of Spanish Harlem. The 1968 national party conventions made a mockery of the Democratic process. They were drunken carnivals run for the exclusive few. They debauched electoral politics, and shattered the idealistic hopes of youth.

In considering when a political party may lay claim to our support and fidelity, we come now to the sixth and final point. It is by far the most crucial. Who does the party represent? For whose benefit does it exist? What arouses its indignation? For whom does it have compassion? Who are its allies, and who are its enemies? In short, What does the political party stand for? What is its ideology? Preoccupation with power, while neglecting ideology, is the prelude to opportunism and betrayal. 

This political convention will come to nought, it will be a disservice to the people, if the problems of power are permitted to overshadow the pressing issues of the day and our thoughtful solutions to them. It is alwaysa a delicate balance we must maintain between the two- issue and program on the one hand, power on the other. To neglect either is a disaster. 

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Transcription Notes:
I am not sure if the top part of each page is in bold or not. ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-16 16:06:58 ---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-17 20:20:46