Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1943-07-09
st. Paul NAACP
Hears Reports
on Sioux Falls

The principal feature of the
monthly meeting of the Executive
Board of the st. Paul Branch of
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People
last Friday night in the Halle Q.
Brown House, was a detailed re-
port of an investigation made by
Clarence T. R. Nelson, branch pres
ident, in Sioux Falls, s. D., where
there are several hundred Negro
soldiers stationed at an Army Air
Base. Rev. Nelson was sent to
Sioux Falls by the order of the
executive board and the request of
the national office Of the NAACP,
because of unfavorable reports con-
corning treatment of the Negro
soldiers there.
While in Sioux Falls June "a and
% Rev. Nelson interviewed several
Negro soldiers, several white and
Negro leaders of the city, and the
commanding officer of the Negro
troops, Capt. Wosk. A report will
be made of this investigation to
the public in a mass meeting in the
near future. Rev. Nelson has been
invited to return to Sioux Falls by
citizens committee composed of
both races, including DR.. Prentiss
Pemberton, professor of religion at
Sioux Falls College, and Dean L. T.
Starke of the Episcopal Cathedral,
to reorganize a branch of the
NAACP and to make plans to
change some very unfavorable
conditions in regard to the Ne
gro soldiers and civilians in that
city. He left Tuesday, July 6, on
that mission.
Reports were made for the labor
committee and the legal redress
committee by Frank Boyd and
Maceo Littlejohn.
Plans to prosecute alleged vio-
lators of the equal rights statute in
st. Paul are being made by the le-
gal redress committee and all per-
sons being refused service in any
public place should report the same
to this committee. A report of the
membership campaign was made by
the chairman of the membership
committee, Mr.. John M. Culver.
He announced that Earl S. Dicker-
son, militant Chicago lawyer and
a former member of the FEPC,
will speak at a membership rally
sometime during this month.
Several speakers have spoken to
labor unions on the anti-poll tax
bill now buried in committee in the
Senate. William Heron spoke on
June % to the Building Laborers'
Union, 1872 AFL. Rev. Nelson and
Mrs. Alverta Coram, secretary of
the st. Paul Branch, appeared be-
fore the meeting of the Printing
Freshmen, Local 20, AFL, the same
evening. s. Vincent Owens, a
member of the Executive Board
and executive secretary of the st.
Paul Urban League, spoke before
the Milk Drivers Union July 2, and
reports a very favorable response
from this liberal union. Mrs.
Coram spoke at the meeting of the
st. Paul Industrial Union Council,
July 6. Other speakers are to ap-
pear before various organizations
during the week. The speakers
are sent to the organizations in
the city by the special Anti-Poll
Tax Committee of the Branch of
which James L. Rowland is the
chairman.
Rev. C. B. Wheeler, pastor of Mt.
Olivet Baptist Church, has returned
to the city from Cincinnati, Ohio,
where he attended the recent Sun
day School and B. T. U. Confer
ence. Enroute home he spent sew
eral days in Chicago visiting his
sister, Mrs. Henry Clanton, and on
Sunday was guest preacher at
Prairie View Baptist Church Of
which Rev. E. G. Wallace Is the
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