The Omaha guide., 1935-04-27


jured, with eleven persons under
Indictment in a shameless frame
up designed to cover up The truth,
with two courts rapidly grinding
cut Jail sentences on any and nc
evidence against the $50 eli liens
placed under Observation-Disclosures
who; placed under arrest Har.
lem, largest Negro city in the
world, stands revealed by the
events OF the past week as a com
munity i'll which Southern terror,
Suthern Jim Crowism, Southern
brutality, Southern starvation of
the Negro people ARE the order OF
The day. An investigation by the
local Interna. ional Labor Defense
shows Harlem to be, not The "cen-
ter of freedom and plenty" it is
popularity reputed, but a Dixie
come-North, a community with
The customs and practices of the
Southern white rulers transplant
ed into he very soil of New York.
1t was against the customs and
practices that the masses Of Har-
lem directed heir wrath in the
Spontaneous outburst OF March 19
and the stormy days and nights
that followed.
flerceing the fog Of conflicting
rumors, and the barrage Of lies
and SANDER against the Negro
people and the militant white
workers Of Harlem, that have been
diligently spread by city officials,
by police and by the press led the
yellow lynch-sheets OF William
Randolph Hearst, the l.. l.. ID. in
vestigation has been able 10 es-
tablish definite and significan;
facts concerning the Events in
harlem.
Not a Race Riot
What happened in Harlem was
10 Grace riot although this
term has been used almost ex-
clusively by the press to describe
the Harlem events. There was no
general anger against Harlem's
white working class population.
The tales OF attacks agains. white
working people are deliberate lies.
What happened in Harlem was
not an "outburst of savagery,"
a the Hearst press would have
1t, nor were the much-advertised
theft and footing more than spor-
adic, insignificant, negligible in
eidents in the whole affair.
The Harlem events were not
"instiga, ed by agitators attempt
ing to set one race against anoth-
err" as ely officials attempt to
show in their frantic efforts to
throw up a smoke-screen thta will
hide their own guilt.
Teh events of the past ten days
in Harlem we're a revolt against
twentieth century Negro slavery
in New York. An undisciplined,
spontaneous revolt,it is true. But
nevertheless, bascially, an express
sion If the long pent up anger of
the people of Harlem, tormented
by hunger and the stormy indif-
ference of relief agencies, infuri-
ated by the denial of the right to
work even in their own communi-
ty, tortured and goaded by the
sight of children huddled in over
crowded tenements, terrorized by
police trained in the best tradl-
tons of Southern peon farm and
chain-gang, Illuminated and
shamed daily and hourly by the
thousand and n petty insults,
abuses, WEAKNESSES degradations
Of the elaborate complex, subtle
jim Crowism thta holds sway in
New York. Hunger, terror, job
lcssness and humiliation were the
tinded that awaited only the
spark of some particularly brazen
act of oppression. On March 10
that spark kinlded a flame of re-
volt that swept through Harlem
like a prairie fire famed by a
high wind.
These are the truths which hun
drads of Negro and white citizens
are Grady to present to the may
or's committee when it meets in
open session next Saturday.
These are the facts which led the
International Labor Defense and
other militant organizations to de-
mand that the city set free the
arresed workers, indict and try
the police responsible for the Kill
Iings and beatings of the last few
DAYS, put an end to police brutal
tv. abolish discrimination and Jim
Crowism in New York in its every
form. These facts will form the
basis of the defense by the l.. l..
u Of seven workers, three OF
them Negroes, now under indict-
ment in a monstrous frame up de-
signed to cover the truth about
Harlem.
The Spark
Almost any corner OF oppres-
- 1nffor;no Harlem might have