To the Editor:

. . . In David Danzig’s understandable zeal to adduce all possible evidence in support of the assertion that almost all Negro organizations endorse group solidarity, he has helped perpetuate a totally false account of an incident in connection with our 1966 convention [“In Defense of ‘Black Power,’” September 1966]. He states, “Jack Greenberg, the white head of the NAACP conference Defense Fund, was asked not to attend the very NAACP conference at which Roy Wilkins denounced ‘black power’: a less obvious and more typical concession to the rising feeling among Negroes that important posts in the civil-rights field should be filled by their own people.”

Since, in one of the versions of this egregious error the “barring” of Jack Greenberg was attributed to his being a Jew, Mr. Danzig could just as well have claimed that the action reflected a concession by the NAACP to rising anti-Semitism among Negroes.

In fact, it is totally untrue that Jack Greenberg was asked “not to attend” the convention. He would have been perfectly welcome at the convention as would any of his staff. What did occur was that I wrote Mr. Greenberg in response to his inquiry to advise him that, in our judgment, the holding by the Legal Defense Fund of a pre-convention series of lawyers’ meetings would be inadvisable. In past years, these preconvention sessions featuring prominent personalities have attracted wide media attention and have inevitably resulted in the statement of positions and policies and the announcement of programs which, as presented to the public, appear to be those of the NAACP. They have, consequently, tended frequently to blanket the opening of the NAACP convention, at which we want maximum attention focused on the executive director’s keynote address.

The matter has been discussed back and forth in this perspective for several years. This year, we concluded that the public-relations problems dictated the request that the Legal Defense Fund not hold its meetings in our convention city and in inescapable conjunction with our meetings.

I am more sorry than I can say that Mr. Danzig did not see fit to seek the facts out before he gave them the kind of currency which they will inevitably have in COMMENTARY.

John A. Morsell
Assistant Executive Director
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
New York City

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To the Editor:

Bayard Rustin is correct in his appraisal of “black power” as suicidal in the face of the fact that there are only 20 million Negroes in the United States—a fact that makes coalition politics an obvious necessity [“‘Black Power’ and Coalition Politics,” September 1966].

Both Mr. Rustin and Mr. Danzig, however, failed to stress the fact that the cry of “black power” as voiced by Carmichael, McKissick, et al., does not merely imply the abandonment of non-violence as a tactic—it tells the ghetto dweller to get out on the streets and “burn baby, burn!” It’s time to stop kidding ourselves and start listening carefully to the harangues of the leaders of SNCC and CORE—the need for Negro leadership must be obvious at this stage. Yes, we do need “black power” to challenge the position of black nationalists who are intent on raising the banner of segregation and racism among the embittered and frustrated.

. . . Almost every “liberal” in every organization understands by now what must be done; what we really don’t seem to know, however, is how to achieve our goals. Why can’t we, for example, form a coalition to operate in the selection of candidates with a commitment to A. Philip Randolph’s Freedom Budget in much the same way as we have sponsored anti-Vietnam candidates in Democratic primaries? Why can’t we organize a coalition to force labor unions to abandon discriminatory practices?

Alas, the typical problem of the intellectual is how to attack the latest problem verbally. It’s time for Rustin and Danzig to suggest to their supporters the methods of direct action to achieve their admirable goals.

(Dr.) Bernard Flicker
Hunter College
City University of New York
New York City

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To the Editor:

. . . When he speaks of the civil-rights coalition being replaced by the Negro movement, David Danzig is tracing a new stage in the Negro revolution. When the Negro movement has completely superseded the old coalition, the Thermidorian reaction will have arrived. In the meantime, we must go through a (hopefully) short Jacobin period with Stokely Carmichael apparently playing the role of Robespierre. Perhaps liberals (both black and white) should not be overly sad that the open, creative, Girondist stage of the Negro revolution is over. Had we had history in mind, we would have known that the spirit of the early 60’s could not last.

But of course we were hoping for much more from the Negro revolution, a transformation of the whole American way of life. Unfortunately, Negroes will not bring this regeneration about. Contrary to the unspoken but implicit hopes of liberals, Negroes are no better than white men, and no different.

Those who want this redemptive transformation will have to look for a new revolution. Where? Perhaps Stokely Carmichael has indicated the answer when he suggested that liberals concentrate on changing the white community.

Martin Luther King’s open housing marches in Chicago have laid bare the depths of hatred prevalent among certain white ethnic groups. These people have rioted, but nobody seems to care why. . . . Perhaps liberals should find out what these second-generation ethnic groups are afraid of, what they want. Perhaps if we did something about their fears and their needs, we could accomplish some real victories in open housing. . . .

In the present, Jacobin phase of the Negro revolution, white liberals should not feel intimidated by Negro leaders who tell them to get out. We should speak our minds, but preferably to Negroes, rather than about them in publications of mass white circulation.

Peter B. Denison
Somerset, Massachusetts

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To the Editor:

. . . For the past fifty years, the federal government has been assuming an increasing role in such matters as welfare, economic redistribution, the fostering of what is referred to as “social justice,” etc. Yet the fact is, “Negroes today are in worse economic shape, live in worse slums, and attend more highly segregated schools than in 1954,” a fact noted by Bayard Rustin himself.

Despite this glaring evidence of . . . the impracticality of federal reform, Rustin . . . never questions the propriety of the cures he believes necessary for the elimination of the Negroes’ main problems. He believes, for example, without a sign of doubt, in the power of A. Philip Randolph’s $100 billion Freedom Budget to resolve all problems. His proposed solutions include the programs of a $2.00 minimum wage, low cost housing, and guaranteed annual income.

This faith in the healing power of the policy of redistribution of wealth characterizes almost all social democrats and is not confined to those whose primary concern is the problems facing minorities. . . . Government programs, one after the other, are suggested to remedy the failures of previous government programs; at the same time study after study, conducted by highly competent (though not very popular) economists, demonstrates that . . . these programs accomplish absolutely nothing.

There is a visible progress from the advocacy of minimum checks on the free-market system of economics by the federal government (with the aim of improving the lot of the needy), to the now well-known proposals ranging from the Freedom Budget to the suggestions of the Manifesto of the Triple Revolution. Each of these measures is a remedy for the failings of previous measures; each of them fails miserably; but the most tragic aspect of all this is that each of the programs has been considered, analyzed, and dismissed as valueless by professional economists—not sociologists and planners—at the time of its theoretical inception.

Mr. Rustin and company continue to dispute the technical and mechanical features of their orthodox welfare-state schemes, without paying any attention to the suggestion that the fundamental assumptions of each of their successive proposals may be responsible for the failure to . . . ease the economic, social, and emotional plight of those whom they regard as oppressed by present standards.

As far as genuine alternative proposals are concerned, it would not damage Mr. Rustin’s store of knowledge to investigate the pages of such journals as the New Individualist Review, Modern Age, The Freeman, etc. . . . where he will find the views of professionals working within a different political and social frame of reference. Moreover, he will discover that the authors are not right-wing lunatics, racists, states’-rightists, and the like, . . . but rather that they propound, in general, the principles of a free-market economy. . . .

Tibor R. Machan
Goleta, California

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To the Editor:

The decline of Bayard Rustin as a philospher who is listened to by the black people, and the cause for that decline, are illustrated by his article. He does not see that his banner of liberalism cannot compete with the concept of “black power” in the struggle against racism. Its cerebral call . . . cannot stand against the visceral appeal of “we blacks.”

“We people” could be such a counter-call. But Mr. Rustin’s white liberal coalitionists are not about to adopt it. Their personal and collective fortunes are founded upon, and sustained by, institutions that thrive upon ethnic sectarianism. . . .

More power to “black power”! May they too learn the ways of other ethnic groups in wresting their share from the waspish society.

John M. Lawrence
New York City

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Mr. Danzig writes:

In response to Dr. Morsell’s letter, I can only say that the facts as I stated them are taken from the New York Times. If there was a repudiation of the Times story by the NAACP, I unfortunately missed it.

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