|
Spiro Agnew Speaks to
Black Baltimore
Statement at
Conference with Civil Rights and Community Leaders
By Spiro T. Agnew
Governor State of
Maryland
|
Agnew angered many African American leaders
by lecturing them about their constituents
in stating, "I call on you to publicly
repudiate all black racists. This, so far,
you have been unwilling to do."—Wikipedia
When the
city of Baltimore rioted in 1968, in the
aftermath of the assassination of King, Agnew
asked 50 black leaders to meet with him. Most
walked out as he immediately asked them to
denounce inflammatory remarks from Carmichael
and Brown.—MLKProject |
State Office Building
Baltimore, Maryland
April 11, 1968
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Hard on the heels of tragedy
come the assignment of blame and the excuses. I did not
invite you here for either purpose. I did not ask you
here to recount previous deprivations, or to hear me
enumerate prior attempts to correct them. I did not
request your presence to bid for peace with the public
dollar.
Look around you and you may
notice that every one here is a leader—and that each
leader present has worked his way to the top. If you'll
observe, the ready-mix, instantaneous type of leader is
not present. The circuit-riding, Hanoi-visiting type of
leader is missing from this assembly. The caterwauling,
riot-inciting, burn-America-down type of leader is
conspicuous by his absence. That is no accident, ladies
and gentlemen, it is just good planning. And in the
vernacular of today—"that's what it's all about, baby. "
Some weeks ago, a
reckless stranger to this City, carrying the credentials
of a well-known civil rights organization, characterized
the Baltimore Police as "enemies of the black man." Some
of you here, to your eternal credit, quickly condemned
this demagogic proclamation. You condemned it because
you recognized immediately that it was an attempt to
undermine lawful authority—the authority under which you
were elected and under which you hold your leadership
position. You spoke out against it because you knew it
was false and was uttered to attract attention and
inflame.
When you, who
courageously slapped hard at irresponsibility, acted,
you did more for civil rights than you realize. But when
white leaders openly complimented you for your
objective, courageous action, you immediately
encountered a storm of censure from parts of the Negro
community. The criticism was born of a perverted concept
of race loyalty and inflamed by the type of leader who,
as I earlier mentioned, is not here today.
And you ran. You
met in secret with that demagogue and others like
him—and you agreed, according to published reports that
have not been denied, that you would not openly
criticize any black spokesman, regardless of the content
of his remarks. You were beguiled by the
rationalizations of unity; you were intimidated by
veiled threats; you were stung by insinuations that you
were Mr. Charlie's boy, by epithets like "Uncle Tom."
God knows I cannot
fault you who spoke out for breaking and running in the
face of what appeared to be overwhelming opinion in the
Negro community. But actually it was only the opinion of
those who depend upon chaos and turmoil for
leadership—those who deliberately were not invited
today. It was the opinion of a few, distorted and
magnified by the silence of most of you here today.
Now, parts of many
of our cities lie in ruins. You need not leave these
City limits to verify the destruction and the resulting
hardship to our citizens. And you know whom the fires
burned out just as you know who lit the fires. They were
not lit in honor of your great fallen leader. Nor were
they lit from an overwhelming sense of frustration and
despair. Those fires were kindled at the suggestion and
with the instruction of the advocates of violence. It
was no accident that one such advocate appeared at eight
separate fires before the fire chief could get there.
The looting and
rioting which has engulfed our City during the past
several days did not occur by chance. It is no mere
coincidence that a national disciple of violence, Mr.
Stokely Carmichael, was observed meeting with local
black power advocates and known criminals In Baltimore
on April 3, 1968—three days before the Baltimore riots
began.
It is deplorable
and a sign of sickness in our society that the lunatic
fringes of the black and white communities speak with
wide publicity while we, the moderates, remain
continuously mute. I cannot believe that the only
alternative to white racism is black racism. Somewhere
the objectives of the civil rights movement have been
obscured in a surge of emotional oversimplification.
Somewhere the goal of equal opportunity has been
replaced by the goal of instantaneous economic equality.
This country does not guarantee that every man will be
successful but only that he will have an equal
opportunity to achieve success. I readily admit that
this equal opportunity has not always been present for
Negroes—that it is still not totally present for
Negroes. But I say that we have come a long way. And I
say that the road we have trodden is built with the
sweat of the Roy Wilkinses and the Whitney Youngs—with
the spiritual leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King—and
not with violence.
Tell me one
constructive achievement that has flowed from the
madness of the twin priests of violence, Stokely
Carmichael and Rap Brown. They do not build—they
demolish. They are agents of destruction and they will
surely destroy us if we do not repudiate them and their
philosophies—along with the white racists such as Joseph
Carroll and Connie Lynch—the American Nazi Party, the
John Birchers, and their fellow travelers.
The bitterness of
past and present days has been brewed by words like
these:
|
We have
to retaliate for the deaths of our leaders.
The execution for those deaths will not be
in the court rooms. They're going to be in
the streets of the United States of
America.... Black people know that they have
to get guns.—Stokely
Carmichael: Washington, D. C., April 5, 1968
And:
To hell with the laws of
the United States.... Your brothers in the
ghettos are going to wake up with matches...
if a white man tries to walk over you, kill
him... one match and you can retaliate.
Burn, baby, burn... We're going to tear the
cities up....—Stokely
Carmichael: Miles College, April 4, 1967
And:
Get yourselves some guns.
The honky is your enemy. The brothers are
now calling Detroit destroyed. You did a
good job here. [This City's riot will] look
like a picnic [after black people unite] to
take their due.
—Rap Brown: Detroit, August 27, 1967 |
 |
And:
|
Black people are being
forced to become both judge and jury. We
must arm ourselves with rifles, shotguns,
pistols, bow and arrows (with poison
arrows), BB guns (with poison BBs), gas,
rags, bottles and knives. The only way to
get justice in this evil land is to kill the
white devil before he kills you.—Willard
Dixon in a publication, "The Black Dispatch,
a voice of the Black Ghetto. "
|
What possible hope
is there for peace in our community if these apostles of
anarchy are allowed to spew hatred unchallenged? If we
are to learn from bitter experience, if we are to
progress in the battle for equal opportunity, we must
plan together and execute those plans together. To do
this we must be able to communicate. We cannot
communicate and progress if the lunatic fringes are
included in the problem-solving team.
I publicly
repudiate, condemn, and reject all white racists. I call
upon you to publicly repudiate, condemn and reject all
black racists. This, so far, you have not been willing
to do. I call upon you as Americans to speak out now
against the treason and hate of
Stokely Carmichael and
Rap Brown. If our nation is not to move toward two
separate societies—one white and one black—you have an
obligation, too.
I submit to you
that these men and others like them represent a
malignancy out of control; that they will lead us to a
devastating racial civil war. I submit to you that there
can be no winner from such a conflict and that the
heaviest losers will be the Negro citizens of America.
It is not too late
to return to the true target of the crusade for
equality. The target is the elimination of all prejudice
against Negroes in America and the provision of an equal
opportunity to reach the top. That target will be
realized when every man is judged on his own individual
merit and only on his merit. Divisiveness and the
doctrine of apartheid are impenetrable barriers between
us and that target. With your help they can be torn down
I am sure that these remarks come as somewhat of a
surprise to you; that you expected nebulous promises and
rationalizations and possibly a light endorsement of the
Kerner report. This I could not do.
Some hard things
needed to be said. The desperate need to confront the
problem squarely justified the political risk in saying
them. I need your help, but your help would be of
little value if you did not know and subscribe to the
objectives for which I seek it. We can do much
together—little apart. Blind militancy must be converted
into constructive purpose. This cannot occur so long as
you or I condone or cling to racism, black or white. We
do not deserve the mantle of leadership unless we are
prepared to wear it proudly and, if need be, defiantly.
Above all, I
believe you represent the views of the overwhelming
majority of Maryland's Negro citizens—responsible,
hard-working, decent people who are as horrified by the
events of the past days as you or I. These are the
people who will be unjustly victimized by a hardening of
attitudes in the responsible, decent white
community—white people who clearly repudiated racism in
the 1966 election—white people who could normally be
expected to endorse the 1967 open housing legislation on
referendum this November.
My greatest fear is
this polarization of attitudes as an aftermath of
violence. Next I fear that we cannot endure continuous
tension over the next months—that our community cannot
live in constant fear that any irrational provocation
may cause racial war.
Together we must
work first to prevent polarization and second to reduce
tension. I will need your vision and your voice. Now as
never before your articulate, responsible leadership is
needed. I am prepared to do whatever I can to aid the
innocent victims of last weekend's rampage, to alleviate
clear abuses and to enlarge opportunity within the inner
city. We must do this—as I said in my report to the
people last Sunday night—"not out of fear of reprisal
but out of certain faith that it is right."
So let us begin to
rebuild now—to rebuild our City and to rebuild the image
of Baltimore. Let us work together—not as black and
white—but as responsible citizens of Maryland who uphold
the law; as concerned citizens who are united in their
dedication to eliminate prejudice and poverty or any
conditions which create hopelessness and despair. Let us
promptly and publicly renounce any who counsel or
condone violence. Let us acknowledge that we have a real
stake in our society. Let us proudly acclaim our
patriotism and our recognition that no other nation in
the world offers such opportunity.
The fiction that
Negroes lack any opportunity in this country is
dispelled by the status of those of you in this room.
As Thomas Jefferson said, nearly two centuries ago,
"With all the imperfections of our present government,
it is without comparison the best existing, or that ever
did exist."
Source:
Maryland State Arcives
* *
* * *
Homer Favor and Rev.
Marion Bascom
Interviewed by
Fraser Smith of WYPR
June 2007
Smith: Let’s
cover some ground I know we need to cover. I want to
talk a little about the meting with then Governor Agnew.
I don’t know if you were there. You may have been there.
I know
Reverend [Marion Curtis] Bascom you were there. And
one of the first things you told me when we talked years
ago was that and I think it might have been when you
were walking into the room. It was either walking into
that room or some other room it might have been that one
because of what he said. He looked at you and he said
something like: You disgust me.
Bascom: No
to be more specific, he said: Every time I see you I’m
repulsed by you. By which I answered: That’s a problem
you’ll have to overcome. That was done in his office at
Towson.
Vernon [Dobson], Frank [Williams], Robert Newbold
and I were there. We had been brought there by Robert
Newbold who was Mister Republican during those days. And
it was at that time that we had an unfortunate wrestling
of words.
Smith: So, but you were
there later. Weren’t you on that day?
Bascom: Oh yes.
Smith: I know…
Favor: Let me interrupt you
briefly.
Smith: Sure, sure.
Favor: I am
always late much to the chagrin of my dear friend here.
So that day I was trying to get there. I was running
late and the news came on and they went on to say that
Governor Spiro Agnew had . . . they didn’t say . . .
cursed that’s what it meant, out the black leaders and
had humiliated them and tried to set them correct etc.
And so I said um, I wasn’t even at the meeting yet, it
hadn’t started. It was scheduled for say twelve o’clock
and this news was at twelve. So I went in and said:
Wait! This is a trap! A trap! I called Parren [Mitchell]
a side. Marion, I said it’s a set up. I explained to
them that they already given news clippings that he’s
going to cuss us out. And the cameras were up there
rolling so. Verda Welcome says no! No! We don’t .
. . I said let’s leave! Let’s leave! No! No! Let’s
stay and hear. That’s the only reason we stayed.
Smith: I think Juanita
Mitchell was there and she stayed. Because I think she
wanted to hear the rest of it.
Favor: Well that was what
was said.
Smith: Enough people did
leave, right?
Favor: No, what happened…
Smith: Well a few people
left, I think.
Favor: Well
a few I took them out and then they went back after they
insisted and we‘d hear them out. We stayed that would
have never happened. That’s the point I’m trying to
make.
Smith: I see. I see.
Bascom: I
think it’s fair to say that it happened so spontaneously
quickly. Until it’s all most difficult to be overly
specific as to the immediate logistics of what occurred.
One thing I know: That we were seated there an um . . .
We had been brought in by a young black PHD who was
Secretary to Agnew. I can’t think of his name. But at
any rate the room was pretty much full. And it was at
the State Office Building; I think on the fourteenth
floor. At any rate when Mr. Agnew preceded to begin his
diatribe against the Black Community . . . I don’t
know who got up first. But I know there was a . . . an
unusually amount of unrest that just shook the room. And
um, I guess before I knew it I was on my feet walking
toward the door. I do remember Juanita specifically
saying: I’m going to stay.
But I’m very sure
that from there we walked around to Douglas Memorial
Church where I served them and had a meeting. It’s
unfortunate that we did not write some of these things
down. As Homer has become an Octogenarian of sorts. Much
of this we did not write down with great specificity.
But the fact is: Some of us went and it seems to me that
Mr. Levi who was President or Vice President of the
Mercantile Bank a number of others of us went to Douglas
Memorial and had a lengthy discussion as to our
resentment. And I guess the rest is fairly vague to me.
This is one of the reasons we so often need to sit down
and recollect.
Smith: One
of the things I wish you would comment on is the very
difficult position that you were in. You were accused of
not helping quell things. Meanwhile you’re out there in
the street at some risk to yourselves, I would imagine.
And ministering to people who are outraged about has
happened to King. And being seen, probably from that
quarter, as being too compliant with what officials
wanted you to do and on the other hand you’re being
upbraided by the Governor who says you’re not doing
enough.
Bascom: Well
the notion of a Scapegoat is gone way back into Jewish
history out in the wilderness. And Mr. Agnew needed a
scapegoat the State of Maryland needed a scapegoat. So
we were the scapegoat to go out to be driven into the
wilderness. Because the state and the city had failed so
miserable to do so many of the things that they should
have done. That’s about as far as I can go with it.
Favor: Well
actually, me personally never took him seriously. He was
an empty vessel, he was a pseudo intellectual. He [was]
an effete snob and that kind of nonsense. But he had no
substance. I remember one time I put my finger right in
his nose and told him what I thought of him; because he
was so small.
Smith: You know I think your
perception of what happened there is right on.
Favor: I remember that like
it was yesterday. I was the one who called them out.
Smith:
Tommy D’Alesandro told me that he had urged Agnew
not to do this. And I said: What do you mean. He said: I
saw a copy of what he intended to say. So apparently
they released it even before you know people got into
the room. Tell me what you saw on the street when things
were pretty hazardous there on those two or three days
when the city was burning.
Favor: Let me say Marion was
Commissioner, first black Commissioner of the Fire
Department.
Bascom: Fire Department.
Favor: And
they pull up in front of my house and the town was
burning in a jeep and say: come on let’s go. So I say:
I’m going to risk my life, my family, for this. And we
remember Martin Jenkins telling Jim Rouse, he said: We
can not expect to live comfortable amidst all this
despair, this dissonance and disharmony and it might
blow at any time. It’s like a bunch of dirty rags. So
than when it blew, here we are going out trying to . . .
It was like when I was in the military I had no idea
when . . . I had never thought when we were out there
Marion that we would ever see a peaceful day. That’s how
it was. When will it ever quiet? I mean I didn’t . . .
There was no solution. So we saw . . .
Smith: At the peak of it you
were . . . ..
Favor: Right. We saw a lady;
a lovely lady nondescript had two or three children. And
they knocked a window out to a cleaning shop and next
door was a liquor store. She had the bottles of liquor
and they had the clothes that they took out of the
cleaners. We spoke to them and they said: Mind your own
business.
Smith: What could you say?
What did you say?
Bascom: I
don’t think you could say anything but to deliver your
presence there. The terrible stench of smoke that could
be seen across the city, vandals loose in the field. And
of course I’m not going to curse out those vandals
anymore than I would curse out the Irish or any other
group who find it convenient to get things for free, the
same thing that happened in New Orleans. And essentially
you have to remember, you don’t have to but I suggest
that you remember that people who have lost a kind of
saviour discover that he has been brutally murdered who
had such high hopes. You know most people forget that
during the time of Martin
Luther King. There were there were high hopes in the
country and it was when they had crucified him that
hopelessness reigned supreme. I suspect that’s about as
much as I can say about it, other than . . .
Smith: You know I heard
about that day . . . about the day of the assassination.
What do you remember?
Favor: I
remember walking into my dining room and my wife telling
me that they had murdered King and I cried like a baby.
Cried like a baby because I said: when is this going to
stop; the killing of the prophets? When’s it going to
stop? A story I’m going to share with you. I never said
this publicly. I might be making a mistake; I hope not.
But Jim Rouse was a very dear friend of ours he called
me within a week of this and I had learned that down at
the Morris Mechanic Theatre. People, business men were
there. Someone was showing the dogs that could be used
to control people, guns and all that.
So he said Homer:
if I showed you a picture of one of your cohorts,
compatriots torching a building would you believe it?
Would you do anything about it? And I didn’t know what
to say to him. I respected him, I loved him so finally
it occurred to me I said: Jim, I’m sorry you asked me
that. I said: because I feel unclean because I didn’t
burn down a building! These people were protesting the
brutal treatment that we got and I did not participate
in it. So I don’t know and that was the end of the
conversation.
Smith:
Gibson tells me that when you ask people about 1968 . .
. this is a generalization and not true across the board
. . . but he says: If you ask white people what happened
in that week: they say there was rioting in Baltimore
and if you ask black people what happened they say:
Somebody killed Martin Luther King.
Favor: I
never referred to it as riot it was civil disturbance.
Riots you go after people. You cut off the heads of
pretty little young girls, you shoot and stab and cut
anyone. We didn’t do that. They just lashed out in
despair. It was a disturbance. I never called it a riot.
Bascom: I
would agree with you and suggest even further that um .
. . when people lose all hope you expect them to behave
hopelessly. And you’ll remember that those were the days
when corner stores and corner liquor stores invested the
black community and liquor that would cost, whatever it
would cost at a given point would be far different from
liquor in the inner city. So then you’re talking about a
people that were stripped bare. Who expected to act as
if they had achieved something in the death of Martin
Luther King. You ask me how I felt. I felt hopeless. You
ask me how I feel today. And though there are those who
have made it I still have a sense of hopelessness and
helplessness. Because, until the nation decides to act
grown up and to put it’s energies on educating and
housing we can expect this to happen again.
Smith: So if
we look back we can’t say we made a tremendous amount of
progress . . . in some areas we have but in the areas
you’re speaking of we haven’t made a lot of progress.
Favor: Well, you know in the
midst of this Marion. You recall we had these
discussions, this goon squad . . .
Bascom: Ah hum.
Favor: And I
said we are celebrating. But the enemy quote unquote has
hired the best and the brightest, formed them into think
tanks and an oxymoron that’s one to crank out a vile
destruction of a people known today as the Heritage, the
American Enterprise Institute, and on and on. And so
while we are celebrating they are redrawing. So what do
we have now the neo-cons and they’ve come back with. . .
. We’ve had this assault upon Affirmative Action. As
black people we never benefited by Affirmative Action.
White females did, other minorities did. We got a
smidgen. But it was our blood, our sweat, and our tears
that got that. So what we see now is a massive effort to
turn back the clock.
Smith: Did
you ever think the Civil Disturbance had the opposite
effect that it might have had? That it that it might
have sent people into sort of a retrenchment and a
reaction against civil rights?
Favor: I
sure some people said they’re looking for anything right
now. They look for things to support that which is
wrong. So a kid kills a kid out here on the corner here
tonight and I find that abhorrent. So does Marion; he
has to bury him. But I can’t curse those kids because
they were put on that corner by public policy. There
daddies worked at Sparrows Point, Martin Marietta, Armco
Steel, Crown Cork and Seal. Where are those jobs now?
And we’re over there exploiting people making beautiful
clothes for us to wear, working round the clock, kids
can’t go to school and we’re exploiting labor there and
we’re exploiting labor here. So we tell those kids to go
to work, doing what: flipping hamburgers. Two jobs no
benefits. Go to the military be what you can be. You get
your guts blown out.
And so now when
they stand on the corner, if they are on my corner and
you sitting here overtaking my corner. I say if you kill
them, I’m going to kill you. Bam! Bam! All this is
related to drugs. The jails are full of youngsters
related to drugs. They give our youngsters… You have to
have a hundred times white cocaine in order to get the
amount of time you get for that much crack cocaine.
That’s racist it’s classist, it’s absurd, it’s in
humane. But that’s what there doing. I know it the media
knows it but we’ve corrupted the media. When I saw Ted
Koppel and the rest of them riding around on the trucks
saying they were imbedded. They were talking about
figurative. When I say literally they were imbedded.
Smith:
Laughing . . . oh, right, right. When Tommy was in here
talking to us on the same subject and he said that first
of all there was the general hope that, I think because
of McKeldin and because, because he had been somewhat
more liberal and willing to talk to people, that maybe
Baltimore would escape the difficulties that were
sweeping the country. And for a couple of days it looked
like that would be the case.
Favor: We did escape in '67,
that’s when the other cities burned.
Smith: Right.
Favor: So we were relaxed—it’s
all over. But they came along in 1968 Bobby Kennedy got
whacked and then Martin Luther King got whacked and
boom! It exploded.
Smith: And
the other part of that though was that their hope I
guess in the bunker down there in the 5th Regiment
Armory was that if you got to Sunday and people went to
church that might also be something that might calm some
people’s unhappiness.
Bascom: But
what they didn’t understand was that Sunday belongs to a
few worshipers that there are far more people out in the
streets on Sunday mornings than in church. Sunday would
not solve the problem. It would take something more
deeply entrenched.
Favor: Marion you remember
our Good Friday service?
Bascom: It was at your
church.
Favor: That year all the
Mayor and everybody else came to that Good Friday
service. The next year it was diminished. The next year
. .
Bascom: It was diminished.
Favor: Well one thing I’ll
also say: We settled the garbage strike. Tommy
D’Alesandro was the Mayor. Remember Marion we sat in
there all night long?
Bascom: In the City Hall.
All night long.
Favor: They brought goons in
from…
Bascom: All over. . . .
Source:
UB Archives
* *
* * *
"'68: The Fire Last Time," Part 4
Sunni Khalid - Narrator
WYPR 's Five-part Documentary Series, '68: The
Fire Last Time
Some people
call it a riot - others refer to it as a citizen
uprising . Both terms describe a period of
confusion, anger, and tension that engulfed the
city in April 1968 following the assassination
of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. '68:
The Fire Last Time, looks at the aftermath of
the upheaval
* *
* * *
Homer E. Favor,
a young African American faculty member, arrived at
Morgan State College in 1956 and sowed the seeds of
urban studies. His dissertation was on property value
and race-a topic that aroused his interest in poor urban
communities. His arrival at Morgan began a period of
intense involvement in community planning activities in
Baltimore neighborhoods. His outreach to the community
led to the establishment of the Urban Studies Institute
in 1963. This unit was funded through the general
college appropriations. With the support of then
University President, the late Martin D. Jenkins tied to
Dr. Favor's untiring commitment to urban problems, a new
entity—the Center for Urban Affairs—was developed at
Morgan in 1970. President Jenkins' personal connections
at the Ford Foundation helped secure grant support for a
four-year period. When the grant expired, the state's
increasing share of the funding eventually supported all
programs.— Morgan
* *
* * *
 |
Marion C. Bascom—I
was born in Pensacola, Florida, March [the]
14th, 1925, which makes me 81 years old. I,
of course, went to school in Pensacola for
the greater portion of my twelve years. I
graduated from Washington High School in
Pensacola Florida and then went to Florida
Memorial College in St. Augustine.
I’m,
also, a graduate of Howard University
Divinity School which is located in
Washington. I’ve done some study at Garrett
Biblical Institute in Evanston Illinois, as
well as, a little work at Wesley Theological
Seminary in Washington.
I guess that is my academic portfolio. |
I have, of course, been honored by Florida Memorial College with a
Doctor of Divinity, which is honorary, and I
have been granted an honorary degree from
Morgan State University where I served for
two or three years as Director of the Morgan
Christian Center. . . . after finishing
college, I went on to become the pastor of
the First Baptist Church in St. Augustine
and for a brief while became president of
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People the local
branch.
It was there that I
became really active because I had come out of a
college that was quite active in the city. [And]
as a result after becoming pastor of the First
Baptist I recognized some things that things
that were going on in St. Augustine in St. Johns
County. St. Augustine, as you probably know, is
the oldest city in the United States; it still
has a slave market at the heart of the city.—Marion
Bascom Interview November 2006
In 1946, Bascom
earned his B.S. degree in English from Florida Memorial
College. He also served as pastor of Shiloh Baptist and
First Baptist Church, both in Pensacola. In 1948, he
earned his bachelor's of divinity degree from Howard
University. The following year, Bascom began his 46-year
tenure at Douglas Memorial Community Church in
Baltimore, Maryland.
While at Douglas, Bascom demonstrated his strong
leadership skills in the pulpit as well as the
community. In 1962, he created "Camp Farthest Out," an
overnight summer camp for underprivileged children. In
1963, Bascom participated in the Gwen Oak Park
Demonstration, a protest that led to the desegregation
of Baltimore's amusement parks. Bascom was appointed
Baltimore's first African American Fire Commissioner in
1968, and under his leadership and direction calm was
restored to the city after the disturbances following
Martin Luther King's assassination. In 1970, he received
an honorary doctorate of divinity from his alma mater,
Florida Memorial College.
Bascom also founded the Association of Black Charities,
an umbrella organization of the United Way. Bascom's
commitment to the community includes the development of
Douglas Village, a 49-unit apartment complex, The
Douglas Memorial Federal Credit Union and a
"Meals-on-Wheels" program for the sick and elderly.
After his retirement from Douglas Memorial in 1995,
Bascom served as the interim Director of Morgan
University's Christian Center. He has received numerous
awards for his civic and community leadership. He is a
member of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance,
the National Council of Community Churches and the
Baltimore Hospitals Commission Board.—TheHistoryMakers
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* * *
Spiro Theodore
Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was
the 39th Vice President of the United States
(1969-1973), serving under President
Richard Nixon, and the
55th
Governor of Maryland (1967-1969). He was also the
first
Greek American to hold these offices.
During his fifth year as Vice
President, in the late summer of 1973, Agnew was under
investigation by the
United States Attorney's office in Baltimore, Maryland, on
charges of extortion, tax fraud, bribery and conspiracy. In
October, he was formally charged with having accepted bribes
totaling more than $100,000, while holding office as Baltimore
County Executive, Governor of Maryland, and Vice President of
the United States. On October 10, 1973, Agnew was allowed to
plead no contest to a single charge that he had failed to report
$29,500 of income received in 1967, with the condition that he
resign the office of Vice President.
Agnew is the only Vice
President in United States history to resign because of criminal
charges. Ten years after leaving office, in January 1983, Agnew
paid the state of Maryland nearly $270,000 as a result of a
civil suit that stemmed from the bribery allegations. . . .
Agnew ran for the position of
Governor of Maryland in 1966. In this overwhelmingly
Democratic state, he was elected after the Democratic nominee,
George P. Mahoney, a Baltimore paving contractor and
perennial candidate running on an anti-integration
platform, narrowly won the Democratic gubernatorial primary out
of a crowded slate of eight candidates, trumping early favorite
Carlton R. Sickles. Coming on the heels of the recently
passed federal
Fair Housing Act of 1965, Mahoney's campaign embraced the
slogan "your home is your castle". Many Democrats opposed to
segregation then crossed party lines to give Agnew the
governorship by 82,000 votes.
As governor, Agnew worked
with the Democratic legislature to pass tax and judicial
reforms, as well as tough anti-pollution laws. Projecting an
image of racial moderation, Agnew signed the state's first
open-housing laws and succeeded in getting the repeal of an
anti-miscegenation
law. However, during the riots that followed the
assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., in the spring of
1968, Agnew angered many African American leaders by lecturing
them about their constituents in stating, "I call on you to
publicly repudiate all black racists. This, so far, you have
been unwilling to do."—Wikipedia
* *
* * *
Military
response—With the spread of civil
disturbances across the nation, Maryland
National Guard troops were called up for state
duty on April 5, 1968, in anticipation of
disturbances in Baltimore or the suburban
portions of Maryland bordering Washington, DC.
When rioting broke out in Baltimore on April 6,
nearly the entire
Maryland National Guard, both Army and Air,
were called up to deal with the unrest. The
notable exceptions were the state's air defense
units (which manned surface to air missile sites
around the state), those units already on duty
in the Washington, DC area, and a unit
positioned in
Cambridge, Maryland (the site of race riots
in 1963 and 1967). The Adjutant General of
Maryland, Major General George M. Gelston,
commanded the National Guard force and also was
given control of the city and state police
forces in the city (approximately 1,900 police
officers)
The combined National Guard
and police force proved unable to contain the rioting and on
Sunday, April 7, federal troops were requested. Late that
evening, elements of the
XVIII Airborne Corps at
Fort Bragg, North Carolina began arriving on the scene. With
the intervention of federal forces, the Maryland National Guard
was called into federal duty, resulting in a shift from state
control (reporting to the Governor of Maryland) to federal
control (reporting through the Army chain of command to the
President). The federal force, Task Force Baltimore, was
organized into three brigades and a reserve. These were
(roughly), the XVIII Airborne Corps troops, the Maryland
National Guard, and troops from the
197th Infantry Brigade from
Fort Benning, Georgia (which arrived two days later). The
1,300 troops of the
Maryland Air National Guard were organized in a provisional
battalion and used to guard critical infrastructure throughout
the city, as well as an ad hoc detention facility at the
Baltimore Civic Center. Task Force Baltimore peaked at 11,570
Army and National Guard troops on April 9, of which all but
about 500 were committed to riot control duties
Rioting continued for several
days as the Task Force sought to reassert control. Early on
April 12, federal troops began to depart and by 6 pm that
evening responsibility for riot control returned to the National
Guard. At midnight Task Force Baltimore ceased to exist and the
remainder of federal troops were withdrawn. Maryland National
Guard troops remained on duty in the city until April 14, when
Maryland Governor
Spiro Agnew declared the emergency over and sent them home.
After action reports credited
both the National Guard and active Army forces for being
extremely disciplined and restrained in dealing with the
disturbance, with only four shots fired by National Guard troops
and two by active Army troops.—Wikipedia
* *
* * *
|
Ruling Class
Talks ‘Non-Violence’ Sends 61,000 Troops in Reign of
Terror—By Naomi Goldstein—April 11, 1968—Troops with
bayonets bared marched through the streets of eastern
and western Baltimore Monday, where 100,000 Black people
live in poverty.
April 7, Johnson
had 2,000 troops dispatched to Baltimore at Gov. Agnew’s
request to help the 6,000 National Guardsmen and 1,600
city and state police. By April 8, there were 10,848
troops in Baltimore. Five killed, 12 critically injured,
over 500 injured and 3,200 arrested added to the
mounting nationwide list of Black people murdered and
wounded. The fifth person killed in Baltimore was a
Black mean shot down in the street for “suspected
looting.”
|
 |
One New York
Times report of April 9 revealed that cops were
using dogs against the people in the Afro-American
communities. April 8, it was reported that the Black
people were beginning to use guerrilla warfare tactics
to drive off the armed invaders. Police were shot at and
stoned from the roofs and pelted with bottles and bricks
as they patrolled the besieged Black communities.—Workers
* *
* * *
Voices for Change JHU—The History of Black
Student Activism at Johns Hopkins
University”—By Adam Lovett Senior Thesis
2008—A record number of destructive
riots had erupted in predominantly black
neighborhoods in cities all across the
country; this resulted from mounting
discontent and despair over economic
decline, racial tension, and a history of
police brutality.
On
April 4, 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther
King was assassinated. As a result of anger
and frustration, radical black leaders and
the poor and unemployed Blacks whom they
recruited into the civil rights struggle
reacted with riots in 125 cities. In
Baltimore, riots broke out on Saturday April
6; originating on Gay Street, the riots
lasted 6 days and eventually spread over
many parts of the city. Governor Spiro T.
Agnew called out thousands of National Guard
troops and 500 Maryland State Police to
quell the disturbance. When it was
determined that the state forces could not
control the riot, Agnew requested federal
troops from President Lyndon B. Johnson. By Sunday
evening, 5000 paratroopers, combat engineers, and
artillerymen from the XVIII Airborne Corps in Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, specially trained in riot control
tactics, including sniper school, were on the streets of
Baltimore with fixed bayonets and equipped with chemical
disperser backpacks. By the time the riot was over, six
people were dead, 700 injured, 4,500 arrested and over
1000 fires set.—JHUScholarship
* *
* *
Remembering the Riots—By Mile Field—On
the morning of Saturday, April 6, 1968, two
days after Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated in Memphis, memorial services
took place across Baltimore. The city
remained quiet until about 5 p.m. that day.
Then on Gay Street, looting started near the
corner of Orleans, a half mile from the
Johns Hopkins Hospital. In the end, the
Baltimore riots would last three days, kill
six, injure more than 700, and require the
National Guard and 5,000 paratroopers to
restore order. By then, 4,500 people would
be arrested, and a thousand businesses would
be looted or burned. . . . “When the
Eighteenth Airborne comes in and closes your
city down with curfews starting at 4 p.m.
and they put a machine gun nest on the roof
of your building, it gets your attention. It
was hard to think that these sorts of things
could occur in America.”
Seidel
also sees the riots as a turning point. “At
that time,” he says, “we hadn’t made
sufficient effort to work constructively
with the people among whom we were living.
We weren’t communicating on a satisfactory
level. After ’68, I remember [future mayor
Clarence] ‘Du’ Burns working with [future
hospital president] Bob Heyssel. Things
began to change.” And Adkinson, looking back
from 41 years, marvels at what he has
witnessed: “I think I and many others are
amazed at how far we’ve come. It may
indicate not a linear path but an
exponential one as to what’s possible. It
gives me hope for the nation and for our
society. It affirms the possibility of
healing.”—HopkinsMedicine * * * *
*
 |
Stokely Carmichael,
"Black Power"—Kalen M. A. Churcher—Speaking
at Morgan State College in Baltimore on
January 28, 1967, Carmichael displayed the
very different style he used when addressing
a predominantly black audience. Joking about
how he partied at the school and
participated in a sit-in near campus when he
was younger, he also gave his audience at
Morgan State a serious charge: overcoming
the negative connotations of "black" that he
had talked about in Berkeley. "If you want
to stop rebellion," he said, "then eradicate
the cause."
Carmichael then spoke of
their responsibilities as leaders and
intellectuals within the black community:
"It is time for you to stop running away
from being black. You are college students,
you should think. It is time for you to
begin to understand that you, as the growing
intellectuals, the black intellectuals of
the country, must begin to define beauty for
black people."— Stokely
Carmichael, "At Morgan State," in
Stokely Speaks; Black Power Back to
Pan-Africanism, ed. E.N.
Minor (New York: Random House, 1966),
61-76.—Archive |
* *
* * *
What We Want
By Stokely Carmichael
A
Christian Goon Squad in Black Baltimore
Clarence Logan and the Northwood Movement
/
Reverend
Marion Bascom Civilrighting
Roy Wilkins and Spiro Agnew in
Annapolis /
Agnew Speaks to Black
Baltimore Leaders 1968
* *
* * *
Walter Hall Lively
Forty Years of Determined Struggle
Putting
Baltimore's People First
Dominance of Johns Hopkins
A Brief Economic History of Modern Baltimore
Understanding the Monumental City: A
Bibliographic Essay on Baltimore History ( Richard
J. Cox)
* *
* * *
The End of Black Rage? Class and Delusion in
Black America (Jared Ball)
The Black Generation Gap (Ellis Cose) /
* *
* * *
Black
Power, A Critique of the System
/
Black
Power / What We Want
Amite
County Beginning
Kish Mir Tuchas
A
Tribute to Kwame Toure/Stokely Carmichael
* *
* * *
|
Stokely Speaks; Black Power Back to
Pan-Africanism
By Stokely Carmichael
Stokely
Standiford Churchill Carmichael—(June 29, 1941 -
November 15, 1998), also known as Kwame Ture, was a
Trinidadian-American black activist active in the
1960s American Civil Rights Movement. He rose to
prominence first as a leader of the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, pronounced
"Snick") and later as the "Honorary Prime Minister"
of the Black Panther Party. Initially an
integrationist, Carmichael later became affiliated
with black nationalist and Pan-Africanist movements.
He popularized the term "Black Power."
In 1965, working as an SNCC activist in Lowndes
County, Alabama, Carmichael helped to increase the
number of registered black voters from 70 to 2,60 —
300 more than the number of registered white voters. Black residents and voters
organized and widely supported the Lowndes County Freedom
Organization, a party that had the black panther as its mascot,
over the white dominated local Democratic Party, whose mascot
was a white rooster. Although black residents and voters
outnumber whites in Lowndes, they lost the county wide election
of 1965. |
 |
Carmichael became chairman of SNCC later in 1966, taking over
from John Lewis. A few weeks after Carmichael took office, James
Meredith was attacked with a shotgun during his solitary "March
Against Fear". Carmichael joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Floyd McKissick, Cleveland Sellers, and others to continue
Meredith's march. He was arrested once again during the march
and, upon his release, he gave his first "Black Power" speech,
using the phrase to urge black pride and socio-economic
independence:
"It is a call for black
people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to
build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to
define their own goals, to lead their own organizations."
While Black Power was not a new concept, Carmichael's speech
brought it into the spotlight and it became a rallying cry for
young African Americans across the country. According to Stokely
Carmichael : "Black Power meant black people coming together to
form a political force and either electing representatives or
forcing their representatives to speak their needs [rather than
relying on established parties]. Heavily influenced by the work
of Frantz Fanon and his landmark book Wretched of the Earth,
along with others such as Malcolm X, under Carmichael's
leadership SNCC gradually became more radical and focused on
Black Power as its core goal and ideology. This became most
evident during the controversial Atlanta Project in 1966.
SNCC, under the local
leadership of Bill Ware, engaged in a voter drive to promote the
candidacy of Julian Bond for the Georgia State Legislature in an
Atlanta district. However, unlike previous SNCC activities—like
the 1961 Freedom Rides or the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer —
Ware excluded Northern white SNCC members from the drive.
Initially, Carmichael opposed this move and voted it down, but
he eventually changed his mind. When, at the urging of the
Atlanta Project, the issue of whites in SNCC came up for a vote,
Carmichael ultimately sided with those calling for the expulsion
of whites, reportedly to encourage whites to begin organizing
poor white southern communities while SNCC would continue to
focus on promoting African American self reliance through Black
Power.
Carmichael saw nonviolence as a tactic as opposed to a
principle, which separated him from moderate civil rights
leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Carmichael became critical
of civil rights leaders who simply called for the integration of
African Americans into existing institutions of the middle class
mainstream.
Stokely
Carmichael—Black Power Speech
* *
* * *
Obama and
Black Americans: the Paradox of Hope—By Gary Younge—But for all the ways black America has felt
better about itself and looked better to others, it
has not actually fared better. In fact, it has been
doing worse. The economic gap between black and
white has grown since Obama took power. Under his
tenure black unemployment, poverty and foreclosures
are at their highest levels for at least a decade.
Millions of
black kids may well aspire to the presidency now
that a black man is in the White House. But such a
trajectory is less likely for them now than it was
under Bush. Herein lies what is at best a paradox
and at worst a contradiction within Obama’s core
base of support. The very group most likely to
support him—black Americans—is the same group that
is doing worse under him.—TheNation
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
 |
The End of Anger
A New Generation's Take on Race and Rage
By Ellis Cose
From a venerated and bestselling voice
on American life comes a contemporary
look at the decline of black rage; the
demise of white guilt; and the
intergenerational shifts in how blacks
and whites view, and interact with, each
other. In the heady aftermath of
President Obama's election, conventional
wisdom suggested that the bitter, angry,
and destructive elements of
discrimination were ebbing at last and
America was becoming a postracial
nation. . . . Weaving material from
myriad interviews as well as two large
and ambitious surveys that he
conducted—one of black Harvard MBAs and
the other of graduates of A Better
Chance, a program offering elite
educational opportunities to thousands
of young people of color since 1963—Cose
offers an invaluable portrait of
contemporary America that attempts to
make sense of what a people do when the
dream, for some, is finally within reach
as one historical era ends and another
begins.—Ecco, 2011
|
* *
* * *
|
Here lies Jim Crow: Civil rights in Maryland
By C. Fraser Smith
Though he lived throughout much of the South—and even worked his way into parts of the North for a time—Jim Crow was conceived and buried in Maryland. From Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's infamous decision in the Dred Scott case to Thurgood Marshall's eloquent and effective work on Brown v. Board of Education, the battle for black equality is very much the story of Free State women and men. Here, Baltimore Sun columnist C. Fraser Smith recounts that tale through the stories, words, and deeds of famous, infamous, and little-known Marylanders. He traces the roots of Jim Crow laws from Dred Scott to Plessy v. Ferguson and describes the parallel and opposite early efforts of those who struggled to establish freedom and basic rights for African Americans.
Following the historical trail of evidence, Smith relates latter-day examples of Maryland residents who trod those same steps, from the thrice-failed attempt to deny black people the vote in the early twentieth century to nascent demonstrations for open access to lunch counters, movie theaters, stores, golf courses, and other public and private institutions—struggles that occurred decades before the now-celebrated historical figures strode onto the national civil rights scene. |
|
Smith's lively account includes the grand themes and the state's
major players in the movement—Frederick Douglass, Harriett
Tubman, Thurgood Marshall, and Lillie May Jackson, among
others.—and also tells the story of the struggle via several of
Maryland's important but relatively unknown men and women—such as Gloria Richardson, John Prentiss Poe, William L. "Little Willie" Adams, and Walter Sondheim—who prepared Jim Crow's grave and waited for the nation to deliver the body.—Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008
* *
* * *
 |
Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change
By John Lewis
The Civil Rights Movement gave rise to the protest culture we know today, and the experiences of leaders like Congressman Lewis have never been more relevant. Now, more than ever, this nation needs a strong and moral voice to guide an engaged population through visionary change. Congressman John Lewis was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and played a key role in the struggle to end segregation. Despite more than forty arrests, physical attacks, and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence. He is the author of his autobiography, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of a Movement, and is the recipient of numerous awards from national and international institutions, including the Lincoln Medal; the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage” Lifetime Achievement Award (the only one of its kind ever awarded); the NAACP Spingarn Medal; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor, among many others. |
* *
* * *
The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
* *
* * *
Ancient African Nations
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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