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About The Omaha guide. (Omaha, Neb.) 1927-19?? | View Entire Issue (Jan. 9, 1943)
LARGEST ACCREDITED NEGRO NEWSPAPER WEST OF CHICAGO AND NORTH OF KANSAS CTlT —MEMBER OF THE ASSOCIATED NEGRO PRESS ~E5S?ph.»°fwl. my1”*' ~ Saturday, January % 1943 OUR 15th YEAR^NtTlS7 City Edition, 5c Copy A SHINING EXAMPLE OF A GREAT MAN—HE GAVE TO ALL MANKIND, THE FRUITS OF HIS LABOR. .. .1 ■ .. i.)-ii. ... - GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER Carver, Great Negro Scientist Dies Tuskegee ,Ala., Jan. 5—Dr. Geo rge Washington Carver, the great and noted Negro scientist, died at 7:30 P- m. Tuesday at his home at Tuskegee Institute to which he as a member of the faculty, had been attached since 1894. Dr .Carver had been in failing health for some months and was confined to his bed for the past 10 days. Born of slave parents, at Diam ond Grove, Mo., he was never sure of his birth date, but once estimated that it was “about 1864.” Dr. Carver was recognized as one of the outstanding scientists in the field of agricultural research. He was a guest this summer of Henry Ford in Detroit, where he went it was said to discuss the utilizing of the soy bean. He discovered scores of uses for the sweet potatoes, pea. nuts and clay. From the peanut he has made an oil in which many ca< es has helped in the cure of infant ile paralysis. He developed inks pigments, cosmetics, paper, paint, | and many other articles from i>ie South’s red clay. While Dr. Carver was best known ! for his contributions to southern agriculture, he also was a noted ai - tist whose works have hung in a number of well-known galleries. He was an humble man who pass- j ed up worldly gain "to work among the trees and the ferns and fne grass of God s good earth.” They tell of a time when a pecan blight struck Alabama and Florida trees in the 1920’s. A grower came to Dr. Carver with a plea for a cure offering a large sum of money if he would undertake research. Di\ Carver developed a cure and h's price to that grower and all others was merely the postage stamp nec essary to mail it- This is just one of the many things in his work for which he asked no price tit monetary reinbursement When Dr. Carver was quite young he and his mother were kidnapped from the Missouri farm where he was born and taken into Arkansas. His master, MoSes Carver, ransom ed him with a fine blooded race horse, but his mother had disap peared by the time a messenger j had reached the kidnapers. His cherished goal was a college education and he surmounted many difficulties to achieve this end. He was graduated from a Minneapolis. Kansas high school and then enter ed Simpson college. Iowa, where he earned his tuition by working in the college laundry. The future scien tist spent the next few years at Iowa State college, accepting a fac ulty position there after he had at ACE WHITE COMMENTATOR HITS BACE Navy to Investigate Vallejo, Calif. Riots NAACP URGES PUNISHMENT OF INSTIGATORS Vallejo. Calif..—The wounding of two Negro cooks during the riots December 26-27 involving some 775 Negro and white sailors and a few civilians here brought from the NA ACP in New York the following tel egram to Secretary of Navy Knox: “Attack by southern whites on Negro sailors and civilians to pre vent latter from continuing as in past to use places of public accom modation in Vallejo. California, em phasizes again necessity for strong er policy by Navy Department in summarily punishing those who at tempt to enforce southern racial patterns on northern communities. It is ironic and disheartening te read press statements that the dis turbance was quelled when marines turned machine guns on the Negro es. It is also significant that only Negroes were injured, when the evidence seems to establish that white southerners were the aggres sors in attacking Negro patrons of tavern. Courtmartial and punish ment to full extent of law in this and similar cases will do more than anything else to prevent furtehr out. break. We respectfully urge such action-.” Following the disturbances 1800 Negro sailors were confined to quarters at Mare Island Navy yard whlie authorities investigated the rioting in a town in which before the wartime influx of workers and marines and white sailors from Texas. Oklahoma and Other south ern states, there was no apparent prejudice against Negroes, no Se gregation So far as restaurants and bars were concerned. The first fight on Saturday night December 26. which seemed to crop out of a false report that a white marine had been stabbed by a Ne gro sailor, followed mounting com plaints of discrimination against Negroes. Negro sailors had com plained that they were being bar red from restaurants, bars and oth er public places. The injured Ne groes, Leo Shaw. 18, and George Carpenter 26, were first taken to Vallejo Hospital where they told the attendants they were "innocent bystanders" and had nothing to do with the fighting. Later they were removed to Mare Island Hospital. OITBREAK EXPECTED; WILKES'S DECLARES: New York—The outbreak at Val lejo. California, was "in the cards" and its occurrence is "no surprise," it was declared here by Roy Wil kins. assistant secretary 0f the NA ACP. who returned two weeks ago from a two months t®Ur of the Pac ific coast •'I was in Vallejo on November 9," said Mr. Wilkins, "and Negro sailors who had been transferred there from the Great Naval Train ing Station were already bitterly complaining about the treatment they were receiving from citizens and white sailors. The heavy in flux of southerners into California cannot be imagined; it has to be Charge Jim-Crow Pat tern Forced on North by Army, and ISlavy Washingon. D. C.—Repeated at-5 tempts on the part of southern ar my and navy personnel to enforce southern race patterns on non sou thern areas were assailed again this | week by Walter White, executive I secretary to the National Associat- | ion for the Advancement of Colored People, who in a letter to the Sec retary- of War Stimson said: “We submit again that the War Department needs to speed up the formulation of a more clearly de fined program in accordance with, the highest standards of democracy to avert further trouble and to 6erve notice upon bigots that the decent thoughtful people of the Uni ted States yvho constitute the over whelming majority, are going to j determine the patterns of action of | the country- as a whole and not the bigots themselves.” The NAACP called Stimson's at tention to a memorandum issued by order of Major Ralph S, Hardiman through A. J. Brown, 1st 14- QMC, Adjutant of Headquarters. Second Battalion. 47th Quartermasttr Reg iment at Fort Sill, Okla., in which were quoted sections 201, 204, 207 and 209 of the Oklahoma Statute providing for segregation in feder al carriers with penalty for violat ion thereof and to which was added the further note that “the follov : ing is published for the information |and guidance of all concerned.” The NAACP inquired if Secretary seen. In addition, the fact that Mare Island Navy Yard is locat'd there means that large numbers of white sailors, mostly southerners, are in and out of town. There had been several minor clashes before I arrived and the colored sailor3 with whom I talked were in no mood to stand much more of the insults they were receiving on every hand. Restaurants were asking them to ‘take out’ sandwiches white j sailors were openly taunting them on the streets or beaing them up if Negroes' were not in a large gri>uo. “This news is no surprise to me. The colored lads held a special meeting with me after the regular mass meeting was over declared flatly they were not going to stand the treatment any longer saying they thought the organizations and newspapers ought to get the Wash ington officials to do something a ‘ bout it and if nothing was done ' they would use their own judge ment” I Stimson believed it to be a proper , function of the War Department to ! assist states in the enforcement of laws enacted to discriminate against citizens on account o trace or color. AFL TRANSIT UNION FLAYS BIAS IN DC. BUS DISPUTE Washington. D. C.—The Capital Transit company agreed this week to abide by executive order 8802 and consider Negroes for employ ment as conductors, motormen and drivers on its street cars and buses. In officially notifying the Presi dent's Committee on Fair Employ ment Practice of its decision, the company brought to a close a long struggle of Negroes here for tran sit jobs. No obstacle to the employment of Negroes now remains since W. D. Alahon .international president of the union, which holds a contract r-ithin the transit company orde -ed J. G. Bigelow .president of local 68ft here, that there is no bar to Negro membership in the union. NO DATE SET It was not indicated .however, by the company when it expected to employ its first Negro workers. Be cause of the heavy drain of t’ne company's manpower by the armed services and other vital war agenc ies it is expected that varan-res will occur soon which can be filed by Negroes The fight for jobs as mOtOrmt.n conductors on trolleys and as 4r;v cis on buses was an old on"* here as it is m other large cities wher. Negroes arc barred from these jobs. No favorable action on the pait of the cempany was secured, l.ov - ever, until the FEPC committee classed it as a war industry .end or. dered it to comply with Executive Order 8802 which forbids discrim ination in the employment of work ers because of race, creed, color or national origin. TK1ES TO STALL In response, the company asked that it be allowed a period of time in which to comply with the order. It grave as reason the need for pre liminary work to make the Negro workers acceptable to the whites. The FEPC committee, however, in a brusque note, ordered the com pany to comply immediately. In its letter last week .the cOmpahy signified that it would obey. Mahon in his letter to head 0f the Washington local of the union urg ed Bigelow after stating that the Union policy was not in comlict with the committee’s order, to "take into consideration the fact that we are now engaged in a war in whicn the colored man is called upon to do the same line of duty that the white man is called upon to do." He added that other divisions of the union have Negro members if.d that as far as he was able to de termine. “there is no difference in the accident records of white and Negro operators.’’ Other cities in which Negroes are working as bus drivers or trolley motormen and conductors are De troit. Tulsa. New York City, and Cleveland. NEW YORK ORGANIZES FOR ALL Ol'T CAMPAIGN TO PASS ANTI-POLL TAX BILL IN 1943 New York. N. Y.—A city wiila committee wnich will coordinate the forces of labor and Negro and white people's organizations for or ganized action to fight for passage of a federal Anti-Poll Tax Bill in the 7Sth Congress, will be set up here at a conference called by the New York People's Committee for January 9th at the Abyssinian Bap tist Church. Councilman A. Clayton Powell Jr. and Dr. Channing Tobias are co chairman of the People’s Commit tee. which includes virtually every civil, labor, social, youth, fraternal church and educational group in the City's five boroughs. The conference will outline a pro gram of action for 1943, in conform ity with the Harlem Charter adopt ed at a huge Pearl Harbor Anniv ersary meeting held at the Golden Gate Ballroom December 7. MELZAC BRINGS IN LIBERTY SHIP New York (C)-The first colored skipper in American merchant mar in history, this week reported on. the maiden voyage of his charge, the 10.000 ton Liberty ship, Booker T. Washington. ‘ The men all got along nicely", said Hugh N. Mulzac. 66. captain of the ship. “It’s a good crew and she's a fine ship.” Twenty five ptr cent of the crew is colored. The rest of the crew is white and Mexi can. PREJUDICE ) PREJUDICE IS ACQUIRED NOT INHERITED. BAYS ANN HUNTER Chicago. 111.. —Now and then, un heralded and unexpected—like a bolt erf lightning in a clear, summer sky—comes a brilliant, vigorous, protest against the white man’s in humanity to the Negro; a voice of disapproval and of censure, expos ing the inner nature of the white man' and laying bare his hypocrisy and deceit in his studied effort to stifle economically, socially and Politically .his brown, American fellow-man whose greatest misfo tune is but his accident of birth. But dynamic force and lasting ef fect are given the protest when voiced not by a Negro, but by a white person. Such was the voice of famed radio commentator. Ann Hunter, giving her popular broad cast. “A Woman Views the News,’’ a feature Of Station WAIT. In a pleasant, well-modulated tone, she said. •’The strange thing about racial prejudice is that we are not BORN with it: It is* something we AC QUIRE as we grow up!” Continuing her excise of race prejudice. Miss Hunter said: “Suppose for instan e you were able to bring up several children— one black, one white, one brown, one red, one yellow and so on—let them all have equal opportunities and never let them know any of the prejudices that mankind had de veloped .... Do you suppose tha» white child would have any reason to suppose he was superior to thr black child, or the brown child su perior to the yellow? And so on. I think not. Racial prejudice is a fly in the ointment of civilization, and' unless the existing intolerance sucn as the white people display towards colored races, gradually die away— then even this war will not sec Lira the peace for which we are all hop ing Don’t you think that if—over generations of course—the Negro es in this country were given bet ter living conditions, better educa tional facilities, more tolerance and less social distinctions—they could become as well bred and clever as their white cousins? I think they could! i “Tnere nave already been many distinguished Negro personages in this country: to mention but a few -Dr. George Washington Carver, famous Negro scientist—he is the founder of the now vital peanut oil industry. Miss Marian Anderson, the brilliant singer—for whose sake Mrs. Roosevelt resigned from the j Daughters of the American Revolu tion because the DAR in Washing ton would not grant a concert hall for Miss Anderson to sing in. Book er T. Washington, famous long be fore our time. Paul Robeson, e qually well known for his wonder- 1 ful voice. Since Mr. Robeson knew j of the racial prejudice in this coun try-, he sent his only son to be ed ucated in England—where prejud ice against any coolred race is al most non-existent “It is in England right now that the American forces are having dif ficulties over racial prejudice. The Negro Brigadier-General Benjamin O. Davis recently visited the Brit ish Isles to investigate the alle.g (Continued on pagefSJp^) tained his master’s degree. In 1894, Dr. Washington asked him to join the Tuskegee institute staff and Dr. Carver became the School’s first director of agriculture As he grew older, he was released from his faculty duties to become the institute's consulting chemist and director of a United States ag ricultural experiment station. He will be buried in Tuskegee cemetery, where also lies Booker T. Washington, founder and first president of the institution. _ < EDITORIAL f OF THE WEEK • • • (from the Des Moines. Ia., Register December 28, 1942) The official announcement of fig ures on Negro draftees and enlist ments quashes two ugly rumors. It ends the rumor that Negroes were not drafted in proportion to their numbers in the population— they were, and a little bit more, though at first the rate was slow er. For with segregation in the ranks .they sometimes had to wait on new facilities and the organiz ation of new units. It also ends the rumor that Ne groes don’t think the country worth defending. They are justi biably critical about the way they are sometimes treated. But this is THEIR country, too, and 16 percent of the “volunteers entering the ar my through selective service” were Negroes. Moreover, 10.1 percent of the soldiers “inducted into the army through Selective service” were Ne groes, though Negroes make up only 9.8 percent of the population. ' SECOND OFFICERS The War Department announced in their promotion of Negro officers of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, the promotion of two young women of Nebraska in the persons of Gertrude Jacaqueline Peebles, wife of Lt. Wm. Peebles of thi3 city, and Miss Charline Jane May of Palls City, Nebraska. Both were promoted to Second Officers. CONTINUES FIGHT TO BLOCK -JIM CROW UNION Portland, Oregon—The Portland NAACP branch announced this week that it intended to "stand Pat” against the proposal of Tom Ray, business agent, for a Jim crow auxiliary to the Boilermakers Union of AF of L. Local No. 72 at the Henry J. Kaiser shipyards. De claring that Negro workers as a whole are against the establishment of any such auxiliary, regardless of press reports to the contrary-, the NAACP said that it will fight to the 1 finish against discrimination in lo cal unions where workers in war industries are affected. CARVER, LOUIS, AND ROOSEVELT 4 DR. GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER, JOE LOUIS, AND MR. K. ROOSEVELT, WHEN THEY APPEARED ON THE AIR TO GETHER LAST YEAR. EISENHOWER PRAISES NEGRO TROOPS ACTION IN AFRICA INVASION IENGLAND—Soundphoto—Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, left, shown [with his deputy, Maj. Gen. Mark W. Clark who is in charge of ad l^anced front-line headquarters in North Africa. The two officers i»re shown when they briskly saluted while walking in _London recently. ~ SHOW GREAT COURAGE AND DARING IN UNLOADING EXPLOSIVES UNDER ENEMY FIRE BRIGGS JUBILEE ENSEMBLE OVER WOW SUNDAY, JAN. 1(| The Briggs Jubilee Ensemble will be heard over station Wo\V Sunday Januarj- 10. 8:30 a. m. Th, y will be the guest of Rev. R. it. Brown and his choir on their Sun day morning broadcast and will •,]. so appear on their Sunday niglit services at the Omaha GoSpel Tab ernacle at 7:15 P M. Henry Wash ington. Director. -— Eight Dead In South Africa Riot Pretoria, South Africa, (C. .Seven natives were fatally shot and '.0 wounded and a white soldier was stabbed to death in a riot last week following a meeting of natives em ployed by the Pretoria municioal ity to demand immediate paym nt of higher wages. Three armored cars and a detachment of troops were summoned. I Basie to Play for NAACP Dance 35TH NAACP BIRTHDAY DANCE TO HAVE BASIE Ml'SIC FEB. 26 New York, N .Y.—As their part in a gala tribute to be given by the amusement world to the NAACP for its successful effort in getting bus transportation for Negro orch estras. Count Basie and bis band will contribute their playing to the NAACP Birthday Ball commemor ating its 35th anniversary it was learned this w-eek. The dance, at which will be presented many out standing personalities, Negro ani white, from the entertainment world, will be held this year at the Golden Gate Ballroom on Fridav, February 26. Proceeds from the dance will go to the NAACP gener al fund for continuing the associat ion’s unrelenting fight against dis crimination and brutality, against Negro soldiers and civilians, the further wiping out of inequalities in education and the outlawing of the Democratic white primary in the south. Admission to the dance is SI.00 and tickets are now on sale at the NAACP offices at 69 Fifth Avenue. Subscribe Now! TO THE OMAHA GUIDE Encourage your white neighbors to subscribe! to THE OMAHA GUIDE and learn what the dark er one tenth of the American population is think-! ing and doing. ; The Omaha Guide, A Paper with A Purpose. Founded on the Principles of Service to Our Race, to Our City, to Our State, and to Our FTaJ i '-'Orth "Africa esoier-^Uieat enant General Dwight D Eisenhow er, Commander-in-Chief of the Al lied Forces in North Africa, has commended the courageous service of the American Negroes in the United States Army during action in North Africa. Among the Amer ican units in those operations are several Ordnance ammunition l>at talions and one Quartermaster Truck Regiment composed of color ed troops. General Eisenhower reported that Negro soldiers had taken part ef fectively in the campaign. Amer cans of the colored race should he proud of the service of their rep resentatives in combat, the Gener al continued. He cited especially the steadfastness and bravery of the Ordnance Company which suc cessfully handled the delivery of igh explosive bombs at Arzew, con tinuing to put the bombs ashoro under heavy fire at this little port near Oran. General Eisenhower said that this demonstration of courage was a significant indication of what could be anticipated from American colored troops in the future. T AACP QUESTIONS l .S. CENSOR SHIP OF NEGRO NEWS Washington, D. C.—Byron Price, director of the Office of Censorship here, was asked this week by ihe National Association for the Ad vancement of Colored People, if a rule barring the sending 0ut from the U S. of any news regarding the Negro and Negro-white relations in the United States has been estab lished, what categories of news have been barred and wh:ft purpose does the Office of Censorship ex pect such censorship to serve. The NAACP stated that the exis tence of such a eensorsh;p is evid enced by the fact that newspapers and magazines printed in the Uni ted States and containing such item are received in other countries w’ith these items cut out of the is sues. The Nation for example, re ports that one of its subscribers in Mexico received an issue 0f the mag izine from which an editorial deal v>n„ me «ume, ua„ attack on Roland Hayes had been cut. Tthe XAACP also reported that no part of the address made by Wendell 'Willkie at the annual con ference of the XAACP held in l.os Angeles. California. July 19, had been permitted to go Out of the Uni ted States and that other referenc es in speeches to the race question had been similarly barred.
