Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1957-12-21
Five Homes
Continued from Page On,


on the Fountain Heights race-ir-
spired bombing: "We- are going
to do all we can to find the person
or persons who did this and send
them to the penitentiary. This
dynamiting of homes is terrible
thing, and first thing you know
somebody is going to be killed.
Over a long period of years,
Fountain Heights has been COM
posed of religious, economic, and
social minorities. Darted into the
neighborhood has always been q
few Negro families who were mis-
erably situated, or lived under
conditions of other years have left
Fountain Heights, a neighborhood
which is yielding to the pressure
of Birmingham's expansion.
A second factor is that the city
of Birmingham that is, its elected
officials and their successors, are
under a federal court injunction
which restraints them from enforc-
ing any residential zoning laws
based upon race. Federal courts
have ruled restrictive covenants
unenforceable. Real estate men
have found the Negro housing
needs figurative gold mine.
However, Commissioner Conner
quoted was by the Birmingham
News, on Sunday, Dec. 8 as say
ing:
These bombings are terrible and
have to stop. We are going to do
everything we can to stop them"
lone of the things that can he
done is that the real estate board
should void the licenses of firms
and statesmen who sell homes to
Negroes in white sections"
"They know when they sell those
houses that it is liable to cause
trouble, and the Negroes them
selves should know not to buy
those homes"
II would like to personally call
on the real estate board to look into
these sales this year they have
been bombings, and tc get the
statesmen responsible on the carpet,
to let them know that the next
time a firm or salesman sells a
house to a Negro in a white settle
ment that they are going to Eave
their license revoked"
Surely if the board can give
a man or firm license to sell,
they have a right to take it away
from him doing things he knows he
shouldn't do"
at is going to take the full CO.
operation of the board. the white
and the colored, and the police de-
partment to stop these bombings
before some one gets killed"
"You can count on the Birming-
lam Police Department doing ev-
erything possible to find who has
been doing this bombing and to
send them to the penitentiary."
"Now, I'm asking the real estate
board and the purchasers and sell
ers of these homes to do their part
in helping to stop this terrible
thing"
In the meantime, Negro civic and
civil rights leaders have made no
comment for publication on the
fresh outbreak of housing violence
on Fountain Heights. Nor has the
real estate board mentioned by Mr..
Conner issued at this time its reac-
tons.
Whether the cancellation of a
brokers' license on racial housing
grounds would be valid in light Of
the federal court injunction, pres
ent federal housing policy, or risky
in view of the vast Negro housing
market, remains unsettled.
The question also might be rails
ed as to how and where Mr.. Con-
nor's statement puts him in view
of the federal courts restraining
order with reference to Birming-
hams racial residential zoning.
Should the real estate board at
tempt to implement Mr.. Connor's
suggested approach, would that
bring them into clash with the
federal courts restraining order?
Yet the fact remains that the
terrible" bombings have continued
over a 10-year period without any
body being brought to bar for these
acts of lawless violence. Negro
leaders have not come up with
goodwill spotlight of enlightened
public opinion on these spreading