"The Vertical Negro Plan" by Harry Golden (1958)

 

Harry Golden was an American-Jewish journalist who self published "The Carolina Israelite" in Charlotte, N.C. during the years preceding the iconic lunch counter demonstrations.

That he did so in a state which has been named "Klansville, USA" due to its having 100 counties, each of which was home to a KKK Klavern, is a testimony to his  wit and candor.

This short piece, published in 1956 and then included in his 1958 compilation "Only in America", is an example of his influence on the Civil Rights Movement. As a Jew he saw the racial struggle of African-Americans as inextricably linked to Anti-Semitism.

Twice dynamited in his residence in Charlotte, which also served as home to his self published newspaper, he survived the tumultuous years of the struggle for racial equality. He died peacefully at home in 1981, respected in both the North and South for his  stand against bigotry.

A few days ago I posted his essay on "The Merchant of Venice" titled "Teaching Shylock."  Not many took the time to read it. It is brilliant in its insight. Here is his much shorter "Vertical Negro Plan."

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"One of the factors involved in North Carolina’s tremendous industrial growth and economic prosperity is the fact that the South, voluntarily, has all but eliminated VERTICAL SEGREGATION. The tremendous buying power of the twelve million Negroes in the South has been based wholly on the absence of racial segregation. The white and Negro stand at the same grocery and supermarket counters; deposit money at the same bank teller’s window; pay phone and light bills to the same clerk; walk through the same dime and department stores, and stand at the same drugstore counters.

It is only when the Negro “sets” that the fur begins to fly.

Now, since we are not even thinking about restoring VERTICAL SEGREGATION, I think my plan would not only comply with the Supreme Court decision, but would maintain “sitting-down” segregation. Now here is the GOLDEN VERTICAL NEGRO PLAN. Instead of all those complicated proposals, all the next [state Legislature] session needs to do is pass one small amendment which would provide only desks in all the public schools of our state — no seats.

The desks should be those standing-up jobs, like the old fashioned bookkeeping desk. Since no one in the South pays the slightest attention to a VERTICAL NEGRO, this will completely solve our problem. And it is not such a terrible inconvenience for young people to stand up during their classroom studies. In fact, this may be a blessing in disguise. They are not learning to read sitting down, anyway; maybe standing up will help. This will save more millions of dollars in the cost of our remedial English course when the kids enter college. In whatever direction you look with the GOLDEN VERTICAL NEGRO PLAN, you save millions of dollars, to say nothing of eliminating forever any danger to our public education system upon which rests the destiny, hopes, and happiness of this society."

Golden, Harry. Only In America, World Publishing Company, Cleveland and NY: 1958, p. 121-122.

"Down to the Crossroads" by Aram Goudsouzian (2014)

Author Aram Goudsouzian explores the march which changed the direction of the Civil Rights Movement in America. Up until the “March Against Fear” in Mississippi in 1966, African-Americans were patiently protesting, in a non-violent fashion, the injustices of the past 100 years since the end of the Civil War and slavery.

But when a lone white man shot and wounded James Meredith; the first African-American to enter the University of Mississippi in 1962, he set off a chain reaction which brought everyone under the umbrella of the Civil Rights Movement to descend on Mississippi in a show of unity. At the time some whites even accused the “movement” of having orchestrated the shooting to drum up national support. I’m not kidding. They actually said that; even as far away as New York.

James Meredith had begun what was essentially a one man march from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi when he was shot on the 2^nd day, just after entering Mississippi. The assailant merely stood in the road waiting for him and announced that he was looking for James Meredith and didn't want any trouble with anyone else. When Meredith stepped forward and identified himself, he was shot.

The whole spectacle was bizarre. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but the iconic photograph of Mr. Meredith being shot does not do justice to what had just happened. Meredith, being trailed by the media and the State Police, was walking along in broad daylight when he was shot by a man who did not even try to get away after the shooting. His only concern was to ask if Meredith was dead. He was visibly disappointed when he was informed that Meredith was still alive. I have never seen such hatred, either before this incident, or since.

In the town of Greenwood the police station boasted a plague dedicated to “Tiger” the police dog who had taken a bite out of several demonstrators in 1963. The animal was a local celebrity.

The main point of this book is to chronicle the change that the attempted assassin’s bullet had upon the Civil Rights Movement as a whole. Within hours of the shooting, members from every sect of the Movement came forward to lend a hand in completing the March which Mr. Meredith had begun. This was also the march which brought the Vietnam War to the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement. With African-Americans dying in disproportionate numbers in that conflict, they had a big stake. As remarked by Vincent Young, a bus driver from Brooklyn, “No Viet Cong ever called me a nigger.”

Joined by Martin Luther King and his troupe, the march also attracted Stokely Carmichael and his group, SNCC. This was the birth of the Black Power movement; within just a few days that slogan would become a household word. And, who you were and where you lived would come to inform the meaning of those words.

To the marchers in Mississippi it meant getting the vote and respect; to the people living in the ghettos it meant exactly what it said; Black Power. They would begin to exert economic power in their neighborhoods, buying from African-American merchants only. This kind of puzzled white people because to them it represented nothing short of the discrimination which African-Americans were fighting against themselves.

Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael were not the bitter rivals that history would have us believe. The older man saw in Carmichael something of himself 10 years earlier during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. His only real concern was that the rhetoric of Black Power would do harm to everything which had been accomplished up until that point. For Carmichael’s part, he didn’t want to distance himself too far from King, since doing so would mean losing the support of the press, which was solidly behind the older man.

Local Mississippians lamented the march as the work of outsiders coming to foment trouble. This ignores the fact that people had to come from all over the country precisely because the locals were afraid to march. They stood to lose their jobs, their homes, and even their lives. The African-American was so cowed by fear that in the town of Grenada the local blacks turned in anyone who even spoke of civil rights, ensuring their own continued inequality. Can you even imagine being that “beat down” in spirit? I can’t. Can you imagine doing that to someone else? (Fill in your own response here.)

During the march a local man named Ben Chester White was shot and killed by 3 local men whom he knew well. They called themselves the Cottonmouth Gang, and simply went by his house and asked him to help them look for their dog. He came willingly, as he had always obeyed white men without question. They drove him to a nearby bridge and shot him with 2 shotguns multiple times, disposing of his tattered corpse in the river.

Mr. Goudsouzian has left no stone unturned in this riveting portrait of the march itself, as well as the movement as a whole. He carefully chronicles the changes which were taking place in the movement at the time, as African-Americans began to act on their unwillingness to wait patiently any longer for something that was theirs to begin with.

The March against Fear was a pivotal moment in a time filled with moments which would all add up to a big change in America as regards Civil Rights. Although almost 50 years have gone by since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the job is not done. Even as I write this; in a country with an African-American President; there are still people who want to roll back that historic law, along with all of the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement in all of its diverse forms.

From the NAACP to SNCC and even the Black Panthers Party, all of these groups have contributed to change. Without any one of them in the mix it is doubtful that the Movement would have remained cohesive after 1968, when Martin Luther King was murdered. It’s important to remember that. Diversity within the Movement is precisely what saved it in the long run.

One of the most ironic moments in the book occurs when Mississippi Highway Patrolman Fred Ogg remarks; at the end of a long day; “I’m just about overcome.” 

"Society's Child" - Janis Ian (1967)

When Janis Ian recorded this astonishingly mature song in 1967 she was barely 17 years old. This performance is from the Smother’s Brothers Comedy Hour, which was always pushing the envelope in relation to political and social issues. It’s the main reason they were taken off the air in the politically charged late 1960’s.

I have been searching forever to find a copy of the first recording of this record, which was done without the electric organ, or any other instrument for that matter. I haven’t seen it since I took the accompanying book out of the library several years ago, which contained a disc featuring Ms. Ian singing the song with only her acoustic guitar. If you think she looks and sounds young here, you should here the other version. It’s even more plaintive and powerful when you consider that she had to be about 16 when she wrote it.

Sunday nights in America underwent a radical change during the second half of the 1960’s. The slick variety shows were making way for more edgy forms of entertainment. It seemed, suddenly, that America was not satisfied with Ed Sullivan’s talking mouse or a troupe of acrobats any longer. The audience wanted entertainment which reflected the changes that were taking place in their own cities, towns, and even in their homes.

In this semi-live performance you will notice a few vocal differences from the recorded version. Although portions of the music were pre-recorded, Ms. Ian is singing live, with the help of some unnecessary reverb at certain points. These were the days when the cameramen focused on the faces of the musicians, rather than their hands, which is what I was always looking to see. I didn’t care how the performer looked, just as long as I could see their hands and try to make the same chords.

As for the recording itself; it was banned in some cities, mainly by Chicago’s WLS, a 50,000 watt station, making it one of the larger stations on the air at the time. In spite of, or maybe because of, this ban, the record went on to reach #14 on the Billboard charts and hung there for several weeks during the “Summer of Love”. And of course, it has become a classic in its own right for the brave stand Ms. Ian took by writing and performing it. She actually received death threats and hate mail for this recording.

Ironically, as Sunday night’s evolved from the benign shows of the 50’s and 60’s, many bemoaned the fact that America was losing her spirituality by veering away from traditional entertainment. I have to disagree on that point. Songs like “Society’s Child” were actually a step toward a higher consciousness, addressing the important social inequities of the time. In this respect, I submit that performances like this were much more spiritually oriented than a talking mouse.

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Eydie  Gorme - 1966

The fabulous Eydie Gormet has passed away, taking part of an era with her. Whether performing solo, or with her husband Steve Lawrence, she lit up the stage during the 1960's, She broke into the big time while with Kay Kyser's Musical College, and the rest is history.  This performance, from You Tube, was filmed in 1966.  Ms. Gorme was 84. RIP Eydie.