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Here are just a few excerpts from my husband's letters, written while in the armed forces.  Read them!  Are not these the words of a true leader of the people, loyal to the best that is in America?

[[italicised]] June 19, 1944: "His (Du Bois') forthright proposals for formulations for the American delegation to write into the principles of policy in respect to trusteeship, etc., and the brilliant speech he made in presenting them deserve a tribute from all serious leaders of the people.  In my opinion Du Bois went far beyond the minor role of State Department observer to be the unofficial lobbyist and spokesman for the silenced millions of the world's darker peoples."

February 27 1945: "Only the people's vigilance and strength of organization behind correct administration of U.N. policies can assure the defeat of the unburied corpse of fascism and reaction at home and achieve that peace and prosperity which alone can dignify the sufferings and deaths of those who have marched to lock arms with the fascist beast."

March 1945 From Assam, India, in an article entitled, "Focus on the Far East":  "The west cannot honestly hope to attain a very high stage of democracy as long as the people of the East are held in colonial subjugation.  The people of the Far East have been stirred mightily by the winds of freedom emanating from this Great War of National Liberation.  This ferment can never again be contained within the framework of ante-bellum colonial possession."

July 19, 1945:  "One thing is self-evident, U.S. imperialists will not seriously interfere with the feudal economic basis of the South's political oligarchy.... It seems to me the SNYC and other Negro and progressive organizations in the South should build the organizations in such large numbers to take the offensive against the Ku Klux Klan and for the fulfillment of the Four Freedoms promised, which is so long overdue...."

August 1945:  "The application of the atomic bomb principle to industry may constitute a means for the revolutionary development of the formerly economically backward countries and for the speedy reconstruction of war devastated countries.... Great age to be alive in!" [[/end italicised]]

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Returning home on board the USS General Stewart, he wrote in the ship's paper in an article entitled, "Every Tenth American":

[[italicised]] "With good humor and ready hands, we have carried our share of the soldier's burdens in this war for the Four Freedoms and the liberation of the oppressed peoples.... We did our part.  Now we are going home.... We've dreamed of the peace, the security, and the warmth of friendly smiles, the at home feeling of belonging and being wanted.  We also are coming home with one or two things on our minds: We've been around the world serving in an army which has been fighting tyranny, fighting for freedom, for the dignity and rights of the little people, fighting the concepts of the master race with its self-appointed power to circumscribe the lives and discriminate against other peoples.  We like the banner of the Four Freedoms that we have carried to the liberated peoples of the world - and we believe in it....  But we are not stupid.  We never have forgotten the limitations imposed upon our people in our native land because of their color....  So we want some changes made in America.  Let the donors keep their medals, but let Congress not fail to make into a law of the land 'the right of all men to work at jobs of their choice without discrimination because of race or religion'....  We want all the amenities of our American democratic heritage open to us in our home towns in the South....  We want to continue to enjoy the cultural exchange and comradeship we shared with our fellow white Americans during Army life, free from the shackles of punitive Jim Crow and lynch law...." [[/italicised]]

The Columbia Youth Conference

Jack was mustered out of the Army with the rank of sergeant in February of 1946.  Together we made a south-wide tour, speaking on "Which Way America - War or Peace?"  I had just returned from the [[underlined]] World Youth Conference held in London. [[/underlined]]

Returning to the Southern Negro Youth Congress, my husband led in the organization of the post-war Youth Legislature which was held at the end of that summer in Columbia, South Carolina.  The Seventh Congress of the SNYC attracted a thousand delegates and some nine thousand visitors bought tickets to attend its three successive public meetings.

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