St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1962-08-17
STATE ALARMED
OVER REVERSE
FREEDOM RIDERS
BY Staff Correspondent

Louisiana chortle with glee, a Min
nesota town Of 1925 persons, Red
wood Falls, MINI, is wrestling
with the problem Of what to do
with five Negroes sent there as
Reverse Freedom Riders" from
Lake Providence, La.
Redwood Falls got its first
Freedom Rider" about Is days
ago. He was a man by the name
of Jim Reed who told Redwood
Falls people he was placed on a
bus in Lake Providence, given 50
and told there would be a job
waiting for him in Redwood Falls
There was no job waiting. Reed
was treated well, but could not
obtain a job in the town where
there is already unemployment
among local residents.
He left the town Saturday,
hitching a ride with a truck driver
bound for Arizona.
Woman and 8 Children Arrive
Five more persons arrived here
in the past week. They were Mrs.
Betty Beal, her three children, AL
berta three, Linda six, Curtis eight
and her sister Barbara, 10.
Mrs. Beal said they spent two
days on a bus and were told by
the Louisiana sponsors Of their
trip that a man would meet them
in Redwood Falls and that she
would be provided with a job. She
said she brought along her sister
Barbara to baby sit for her and
her families. She said a deputy
sheriff gave her the ticket and put
her and her family on the bus.
The Reverse Freedom Move
ment," is a southwide program of
whites who are determined not to
allow Negroes in the south to en-
joy full citizenship, the right to
vote, and unsegregated use of pub
lie Accommodations.
This group blames the north
on the series of onslaughts on its
system Of jimcro and disfranchise-
ment which has had its Negro
population living in virtual slav-
cry since about 1873. The Negro
has been kept from exercising his
franchise, kept from decent
schools, libraries, parks and other
public Accommodations, until the
past decade when Negroes en-
couraged by us. Supreme Court
decisions, have challenged the Sec
ond-class status they have been
forced to accept heretofore.
State legislatures alarmed at the
rise of Negro defiance of local
segregation laws, the economic
boycotts which Negroes in urban
areas have successfully carried
out; amazed and dumbfounded by
the Montgomery bus boycots, the
continuing pressure of the federal
courts to end school segregation
and its facilitating effect on the
education Of the Negro child, have
appropriated sums Of money to
sell the north on the idea that the
American Negro is half-human and
should be isolated from the rest OF
the population, unless he appears
in the role of a servant, cook OF
maid. They have also established
the line that the north is meddling
in the south's business.
A number of outfits similar to
the one being operated in Lake
Providence have been trying to
make a racket out of collecting
money to send dissatisfied" Ne
groes to northern communities
particularly to towns like Ken
nedy's summer home Hyannisport
Mass, in an effort to embarrass
whites in the north who have sup
ported the movement to extend
freedom and justice to all Amer
leans regardless of color.
These organizations have raised
considerable money to buy bus
tickets for unsuspecting jobless
Negroes, many of whom already
have had secret hopes to flee
north, in any manner they can gel
there.
Promoters of the Reverse Free,
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