Minneapolis spokesman. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1960-05-13
Negroes To Use
Dollars In Fight
Aqoinsf Ruee Bios
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Dollars In Fight
Against Raee Bios
CONTINUED from Page u
store diningroom manager, very
mobtrusively, If they could be
served lunch; they were shopping
In the store. A telephone call to
the store office resulted In their
being seated, at a corner table,
where they were served without
incident.
Method Questioned
Weeks later, police had to break
up a lunch-counter demonstration
at a chain store in the same city.
The husband of one Of the women,
the president Of a large business,
said. They're trying to do what
we're trying to do, but they're
going at it in a different way. I
think they're right in what they're
trying to accomplish but wrong
In how they're going at 1t. One
thing though, were all fighting
with money"
That's the important thing fire.
quently overlooked in the current
campaign in the South: The Negro
today is fighting with a weapon
new to him: the Negro dollar. In
the next decade Of race crisis in
Dixie, that dollar may accomplish
more for the races civil rights
than the years of struggles on
moral and ethical, Legislative and
legal grounds.
How much will be accomplished,
and how quickly anything will be,
will depend to a considerable ex-
tent on whether the Negro econ
omic power can be organized and
coordinated- Dollar pressure has
very real possibilities as techni-
que for speeding desegregation II
1t can be as highly organized as
the races legal maneuyers were,
according to Mrs. Ruby. Hurley,
head of the Southeastern District
Of the National Association for
the Advancement Of Colored
People.
Other TechnIques
Until the lunch-counter demon
strations began, neither NAACF
nor the Congress of Racial Equal
ty (CORE) had any direct role In
the quiet efforts of Negro business
and professional people in most
fragrant discriminatory policies Of
stores. Indeed, there is no evidences
that either organization was re.
sponsible for the protests by Ne
gro students against the refusa
to serve them at white counters
in chain stores. Both groups were
concentrating at the time on othel
techniques-legal and Legislative
efforts.
It is different now, of course
NAACP and CORE moved into thG
counter demonstrations quickly, II
work with student groups to CO
ordinate protests and demoRstra
tons and extend them from the
more progressive Piedmont ares
Of the Carolinas into the more re
sistant Deep South
The students demonstration
were considered a troublesome
harassing development at first
NAACP and CORE participation
and mobilizing northern sentiment
have combined to make them {
much more serious issue. Blu
many southern white businessmen
suspect the problems are only be
ginning to show up. They say
frankly, putting aside some Of tn
emotionalism of the race issue, tina
the real threat they face il one o
mustered Negro buying power.
Important Money
Negroes in Charlotte, NC.
spend an estimated $3.50, 000, 90,
or more annually. This Ii import
ant money in the community
In any community. Withheld from
white stores, it can mean the diff
ferences between operating In tn
black and running in the red
Negro dollars are just as i'm
portant other places, and for tn