Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-09-24
St. Paul NAACP
Holds Interesting
Monthly Meeting

~
At well attended meeting in the
Halle @. Brown Community House
Tuesday evening, the st. Paul
Branch of the National Association
for the Advancement Of Colored
People, sent a telegram to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him
to reverse the conviction Of Ser.
Alton Levy, who was sentenced to
four months at hard labor and de-
NOTED to the rank of private, for
protesting against the discrimina-
tory treatment of Negro soldiers at
the Army Air Base at Lincoln, Neb.
The President was urged to end
segregation and discrimination in
the Armed Forces of the Nation
by executive order Of the Com
mander-in-C Chief.
Former Sergeant Alton Levy,
who in civilian life was one of the
most gifted song and slit writer's
that has come up through the labor
movement, was put in charge of a
squadron of Negro soldiers at the
Lincoln Air Base.
He protested at officers meeting
against Negroes being kept in camp
while white soldiers were given
passes; Negroes sleeping on old
canvas cots while white troops got
cots with mattresses and all of the
trimmings; Negroes houn d d,
cursed, yelled at and generally mis-
treated.
After a disastrous riot between
Negro and Mexican soldiers at the
base, Levy was closely questioned
by Army Intelligence officers on
critical statements he had made on
the handling of Negro troops in the
Army. Denying the charges that
he had told a w. A. C. that the
General was a drunkard, that his
wife profited from the local bus line,
Levy commented on the real core
of the uneasiness by saying, 81
wouldn't deny the statements on
the NEGRO situation if / could. /
said them and I still say them"
A donation of seven dollars was
voted by the meeting to send to
the Workers Defense League treas
urer in New York City to help in
the fight to get a reversal of Levy's
conviction.
Mrs. Martha Kennedy johnson
told the meeting about the brutal
beating her grandson, Edwin s.
Kennedy, received in Georgia at the
hands of a white mob that beat him
into Inconsistencies. According to
Mrs. Kennedy her grandson, one of
nine grandsons in the Armed Forces
of the Nation, was riding a bus on
which a colored woman with a baby
was riding. The bus driver hit the
woman and the Negro soldier struck
the bus driver in defense of the
woman. It was then that several
whites Joined in the attack on the
Negro soldier and were beating him
to a pulp, when one white man
asked the mob if they were going
to kill the soldier.
This question seemed to have
brought the soldiers assailants to
their senses. Mrs. Kennedy stated
that her grandson was in the hos
pital for several weeks and that he
will never get over the effects of the
beating.
J. Nathaniel Smith and Frank
Boyd were the principal speakers
on the subject of "Recent Trends
In Race Relations" that was dis
cussed as the program feature of
the meeting. Mr.. Smith gave a
resume of the purposes and work
of the Association for Tolerance,
of which George Schuyler, we'll
known columnist, is the director.
The meeting voted to pay for
fifty placards Of the Association for
Tolerance to be placed in various
business and public places in the
community. Mr.. Boyd spoke about
the work of Miss Lillian E. Smith,
a southern white woman, who pub
fishes 'The South Today" a liberal
quarterly magazine, in Clayton, Ga,
which urges the southern whites to
get rid of their prejudices and treat
the Negro as a full-fiedged citizen
of the Nation.
James L. Rowland, chairman of
the special Anti-Poll Tax Commit
tee of the Branch, reported that his
committee had sent speakers to va
rious labor union meetings to speak
on the anti-poll tax bill that is
buried in committee in the Senate.
Thirty-five new memberships were
reported. The 1943 membership
campaign was extended until the
next meeting of the Branch on Oct.
10. Chairman John M. Culver and
his co-workers are planning a
whirl-wind windup Of the campaign.
All persons interested in fighting
discrimination and have not paid
up their membership this year are
urged to do SO by October 10.