Hartford chronicle., 1946-09-14
ITS LIKE THIS
By Martin D. Richardson

\ 41R0
 By Martin D. Richardson
 Should it ever happen that you want to really do a joF on a group of people, say race, or religion or a nationality, get con- trol of the radio, the newspaper and the movie. Through those agencies of propaganda you can, within an almost incredibly short time, so caricaturize, so ridicule, so misrepresent and so malign that group you want to do away with until only an act of God can restore them to the good graces of the public.
 Don't Know Me From Adam
 I am writing this from the northwestern tip of the state of Vermont. There is not another colored person within 30 miles. Out of possibly 200 white peo- pie with whom I have come into contact within the past two weeks, fully half saw their first Negro in their lives when I ap- peared on the surprised scene. Of the others, some had seen a colored person or so from a dis tance. Others had seen them on trains or in railroad stations. A few had known one or two of my duskier brethren personally, and, as they hastened to inform me, eminently satisfactorily. On the whole, however, these people don't know me, as a Negro, from Adam. Adam in Genesis or Adam Powell.
 Enter the Strange Fact
 {. And yet here Is strange thing. The moment many of these peo- ple-and they are good, kindly, neighborly people, too-laid eyes on me, they knew beyond any possible doubt several things about me-as a Negro, you un- derstand. They knew that CD I was considerably less honest than the other (and I suppose more human) people they had known; (2) I carry a knife, and would use it on the slightest provoca- tion (and, when no knife is avail able, I tote a razor), and (3) that I have some strange sex prac- tices that cause me to resort to violence should I find the going kind of rough in an amatory sort of way. These weren't just things they believed, they finally sheep ishly admitted to me, but things they knew for sure.
 Something Must Be Wrong With Me .
 After two hard weeks of try ing, I have finally convinced few of these people that I don't carry a knife, that I am too dumb to steal, and that my sex habits compare favorably, have been assured, with those of a rather casual Eskimo. A few I have even been able to convince that in @ fairly busy lifetime of meeting folks, mostly cullud folks, I have known only one or two people who either stole, or packed cut cry and forced other folks of op- posite sexes into ways of sin. I am not too satisfied with the de- gree of success I have had, though; I still feel that quite a few of the folks here think that if I am not a thieving, carving sex-fend, then I am not like all the rest of my people, and some thing must be wrong with me.
 Not A One-Man Job
 If the tax-collector doesn't seize my little acre or two up here 1 in Northwestern Vermont, I ex- pect to devote quite a few Sum- mers to the long hard task of convincing well-meaning Yer monters that colored people are not victims of any peculiar here dity that assures them life-times of stealing, chopping and raping. But even if my whole remaining : ten years were spent in the task, I should have reached few of Yer mont's 35O,OOO citizens. And if l I converted the whole state to the truth, without missing a man, woman or wide-eyed child, there'd still be the 40 million Americans in the rest of the 47 states to sell my peculiar doctrine to. So won't make a dent in the pile of transformation, of deliberately subversive, hate4building propa- ganda that newspapers, radio and screen spew out by the gross of reams hourly. It's not one man task.
 Times Adjusting
 It is, instead, the most vital kind of an all-out battle, and the time to start it is now. When