New England bulletin., 1949-04-30

them to keep their eyes closed an' The first bit of precious prose Al had ever written had been in scribed with the help of pen knife on the backyard fence of his school teacher mothers home in Brook Iyn's Bedford -Stuyvesant section and had been an eloquently simple tribute to a deceased grandparent. It went like this: = "Grandma is dead. Now am sad. If she would come back again, I would be glad"
 Thanks to MT. Young's influence, Duckett began writing prose ana poetry somewhat more mature and significant, won a school poetry award and had number. of his poems and stories published in the class magazine at graduation
 At Boys High School, a kindly English department head named Neufield decided Duckett had 2 writing flair, encouraged h1m ana gave him an opportunity on the schools weekly newspaper, on which he held various positions and the literary and senior maga- zines. When he finished Boys, 1t was with the distinction of becom. ing the first Negro editor-in-chlef of the senior classbook and having written three years in succession the "Vale" message to the gradu- ates.
 For some time, prior to h1gh school graduation, Duckett had plans about studying journalism at NYU. but along came columnlng opportunity on the New York Age, which developed into editorship of that papers Brooklyn section. Ever since then, for over ten years, he's been working for newspapers.
 His favorite stories - the time he covered the strike of a group of labor unionists in Brooklyn, who resented Negroes using the same rest rooms; went out to the plant and accompanied some of the Ne gro workers from the plant to the subway while scores of the preJu- diced strikers followed them threat eninglv with clubs, milk bottles and stones. His page one story in the AGE on this caused the state head
  strikers to return to work and 1s- sue an apology for their lntoler' ance.
 The time he made headlines ir the Big Ten of the nations week lies with an exclusive on a New York Supreme Court judge Wht was about to take a fair Puerto Rican baby away from it's Negro mother and give it to a white Puer' to Rican foster mother with the comment that ''white childrer should not be brought up by Ne gro parents. The judge, headline sensitive, hastily recovered himself ducked behind the old ginmlcE that he had been misquoted ant gave the baby to it's rightful par ents
 The time he wrote the first story in Negro weeklies, PM and The New York Post, revealing that th' Metropolitan Life Insurance Com pany-sponsored Stuyvesant Towl was going to be jim-crow projec when constructed. A letter iron Metropolitan's housing director t' Duckett was used by Walter Whit of the NAACP in that organiza tion's fight on the tax-supporte' segregated project.
 He has enjoyed interviews witt Will Rogers. IT,, Thomas E. Dewey Charles A. Poletti and wartlm' President Osmena of the Philip pines.
 Duckett thinks the public inagi nation about newspaper exposes is overworked. He feels this busi ness of discovering the sensationa exclusively and making world his tory by inscribing it upon iron pages in flaming terms is decided ly the unusual. He admits, how ever, that he did two expose job' of which he is proud.
 Probed Biased Hospital
 One consisted of series in Nev York's Amsterdam News and tolt of the biased treatment Negro pa tients were receiving in a secula: hospital where inattention and un kind treatment were in force. To ward the end of the series the "bie break" came when a Brooklyn wom an gave him an account of tht birth of her baby who was bor1