Jackson advocate., 1963-09-28
ALook At The Recent Birmingham
Church Bombing

SAu1 Nh OO1x1Uk1kk
The recent church bombing tragedy, in Bir-
mingham, bringing death to four young Negro
girls which shocked the nation and caused outraged
reaction around the world has focused the spotlight
anew relations in Alabama and in the entire
nation; and while accusing fingers have been point
ed at the Governor of Alabama, and the President of
the United States, among thinking Negroes in Ala
bama, and throughout the nation, outside of the
ranks of the professional Negro race leaders, and
civil rights crusaders, there is the possibility that
somber thoughts are causing many fingers to be
pointed at the professional Negro race leaders and
civil rights crusaders and, among those Negroes of
deep and abiding religious faith, and knowledge of
the Bible, might not the incident be compared with
that incident, when outraged Jesus used the
scourge, to drive the money changers out of the
temple?
In the light of long held trust in the pow
er OF religion, with it's history and tradition as the
source which provided us with the faith and hope
that sustained throughout all the years of slav-
cry and after the coming of emancipation led to the
early rise among us of our church, the Negro
church. to provide with knowledge, and pride,
and the confidence and courage that has so far
abled us to breast the currents of freedom through
one hundred years of unprecedented progress we re-
ected the thesis that the civil rights crusade has
moved out of the realm of politics to become a
moral issue, a fact that demands that preachers
OF the Gospel become leaders of the civil rights cru
sade and justifes the of the church edifice as
the place to hold all kinds of meetings and money
the Sabbath Day, despite the sacred injunction to
keep the Sabbath holy
Our primary rejection of any idea that civil
rights have become moral rather than political
ISSUE is because in our opinion the idea reveals,
more than anything else, the desperate effort of
certain forces in this country to separate the Ne
gro from his religious faith and convictions in or
der to better use them in their continuing plan for
Goddess world revolution.
In view of the rising tension, and constantly
widening gulf between Negro and white people in
every section of this nation, fact that is easily
seen in daily reports of racial incidents from one end
of the nation to the other, predict that the Bir
mingham incident will prove to be just the begin
ming of sorrow for Negroes throughout the south
particularly, if the Negro church members of the
south, continue to allow their preachers to use
these churches as meeting places for civil rights
crusaders, and centers for planning boycotts sit
ms, marches and other forms of public demonstra-
tions.
The very foundation of the tension and con-
sanity widening gulf between Negro and white peo-
pie in Alabama, and throughout the nation is the
NAACP led demand for the integration of public
schools below the college level; see in the Birm
ingham incident justification for long held
viction that the NAACP change from it's demand
for equal to that of integrated education for Ne
groes in the south, was and is the greatest mis-
take in the history of the American Negro struggle
for full citizenship Without the school integration
issue having come about, of the opinion that
other forms of public segregation would now be
abolished.
In the matter of public schools, in the light of
the Birmingham incident, we see the time as hav-
ing come for new leadership to arise, out Of the
southern Negro masses and reassert our pride in
our own Negro schools, and Negro teachers and
again call for all-Negro school as did our
fOrefathers in the early years following emancipa-
ton; while at the same time directing our efforts
to eliminate all forms of discrimination in the allo
cation of public money for educational purposes; in
the firm conviction that Negroes are Amer
icans and with all other things being equal, school
with nothing but Negro children, taught only by
Negro teachers is just much an American school
one filled with nothing but white children, and
taught only by white teachers
We think the time has come for southern
Negroes to take new and closer look at the whole
subject of integration the ideas concerning the
subject having been brought to us, in the very be-
ginning, from people outside the Negro group
The American population is made up of groups of
people of practically every race color, religion, and
national origin in the world. Under the heterogen-
eous canopy that is really America, wherever
found in sufficient numbers, these various grouI
manifest their pride in their racial and national
origin and their desire to be separate by establish