White "Liberals" In Black Organizations: How Much Conflict?

Stokely Carmichael, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, brought a simple message with him when he visited Boston in mid-August: the leadership and support of the different organizations in the ghetto must be controlled by NegroesOver and over, he repeated the theme, "We must do it ourselves.'

Now, at least, the situation is not that simple. Many of Roxbury's civic organizations are directed, manned, and maintained by both whites and Negroes. Some organizations could not survive without the "Green Power" supplied by white members; other groups insist that often the white members are better trained and have more leisure time to perform the tasks which they admit ideally should be held by Negroes. However much Carmichael dislikes discussing the split between various groups in "the movement" before a national (integrated) audience, the differences persist.

There are, of course, arguments on both sides. The groups which have followed Carmichael's advice insist that it is more important to have indigenous Negroes showing their brothers in the ghetto that they can fill the posts traditionally held by whites. To most of the advocates of this position, it is more important to establish an image of Negro competence and pride than it is to obtain white financial and technical support. "We'd rather do our own teaching than have some lilly white teacher talking about Snow White to our black children," Carmichael said to a Roxbury gathering.

Other organizations which employ whites tend to feel that, as organizations, they are more mature and have conquered the fear that "whitey is trying to take over" when black and white are actually both working towards the same goals. Some, in this category, say that whites are a necessary evil in their groups and must be put up with until "they have worked themselves out of a job"--have trained a Negro replacement.

But to describe two prototypes as indicative of the struggle going in within the "movement" is grossly inadequate. There are groups which have reached compromises between the two extremes which can't be wedged into either category. If Carmcihael's own organization, SNCC, is representative of the extreme left in the civil rights spectrum and NAACP at the extreme right, there are other groups which have reached a middle ground solution to the problem of whites working in Roxbury.

O. I. C.

Opportunities Industrialization Center is a radical group working in Roxbury which trains Negroes in technical skills. Rev. Virgil Wood, Board Chairman of O.I.C. and one of its Boston founders said that Negroes have to determine which roles they must retain for themselves and which roles can be delegated to white workers. For now, Wood continued, the liberal white must accept the role determined for him--be it supportive or advisory.

"The only legitimate organizations in Roxbury are those which sustain a Negro leadership and are supervised by a community board," Wood said. The other illegitimate groups, Wood continued, are fast losing their influence and, he predicted, will either be ignored or physically "pushed out of the community."

"There are still white educators coming into Roxbury interested only in getting a grant to make guinea pigs out of Negroes. It's all for themselves and none for us. We don't want these dilettantes any more," Wood said. "We must keep Dr. Funk out of the picture and do it ourselves," Wood added.

Rev. Earl W. Lawson, O.I.C. program administrator, said that his organization was powerful and popular because "we train people within the poverty belt." What is important, he continued, "is visibility and not theory." Some people say that it does not matter who directs an organization, Lawson said, but this "is idealistic and not realistic." It is important for the Roxbury constituents to be able to see that their organization is run by Negroes, and that any whites who are working in the office are "in our hands."

"The only way a Negro will believe that he is doing something for himself is if he sees a black man directing the program." If the residents understand that they have their own people directing the organization, then organizations can use white tutors and counselors without worrying about the image they project.

"We have put the right content into black Power: Black Power means indigenous leadership -- it does not mean violence," Lawson explained.

Exodus

Rev Wood mentioned Exodus, a project that buses Negro students to white schools, as one of the Roxbury organizations which is both legitimate and effective. Wood, one of many parents interested in Exodus (he is not in a leadership position) praised its work. But if Exodus is "legitimate" it is also involved in the cross-fire controversy between those who think whites can work effectively in the Negro ghettos and those whose hopes have been dashed by experience. A Mrs. Butler, a parent worker at Exodus, said: "It seems silly. We're just people working together, it doesn't make any difference whether you're white or black. White people come in every day and I introduce them around. It doesn't make any difference."

A Mrs. Hill, in the same office, was less optimistic about the experience she had had with white volunteers: "I don't think I should talk about it because I had a bad experience with the white tutors I worked with this summer. They really shouldn't be down here trying to help us, they're sick and should help themselves."

M. A. W.

But here, too, one encounters ambivalence. Mothers for Adequate Welfare (MAW) is a group of Roxbury mothers on welfare. A Mrs. Bland, staff worker for MAW, said that members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), many of them white college students (described by Carmichael as the "kids who go to Europe one summer and to Alabama the next"), were the ones who got MAW started. "I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world," she said. "We don't care whether you're blue, purple, or brown with yellow polka dots, we want you to work with us if you are sincere."

The community indeed seems split. Carl F. Senna, at the Roxbury Community Council, said, for example, that a lot of people don't agree with Carmichael's solution because "Roxbury is integrated--about 65 per cent Negro and 35 per cent white." There is a division, he said, between the Negroes who have lived in Roxbury for about 40 years and who are well established, and those who have just moved into Roxbury during the last decade. The newcomers, according to Senna, are more likely to identify with "Black Power" and groups that exclude whites; the older inhabitants tend to be liberal but not radical in their views--they believe in integration.

Some also say that Negroes do some jobs better, because they are Negroes, and that whites do other jobs better because they are white. Senna mentioned famliy visits as an example "There are just some places where a white would not be as effective as a Negro." On the other hand, Mrs. Anne Briggs, a white staff worker at the American Friends Service Committee, said that she was often able to work better with the "White System" than Negroes. "When you're dealing with a white landlord, he's more apt to give you a sympathetic hearing if you're white. I never heard or had it intimated to me that because I am white my work is neither wanted nor appreciated here."

Whites and Negroes often face strong conflicts when they work with each other. Mrs. Alice Ansara, director of the reading program at the Urban School has advocated that Roxbury high school students make the effort to help themselves by coming out of the ghettos during the summers to take classes at the Urban School's evening study program. This is a controversial move, because many of the more radical leaders feel that students should receive their education in their own neighborhood and from their own people. Carmichael, when he came to lecture at Harvard, said that the brightest Negro students were "selling out" to offers from big name schools and Universities like Harvard when they should be helping to uphold the standards in the Negro schools. What happens only too often, Carmichael believes, is that these bright students go on to serve "the white establishment instead of the Negro ghettos."

Thus when Mrs. Ansara says that she thinks it is good for Negroes to get out of the ghetto for a while to further their education at an integrated school, she is going against what the more radical members of the movement prescribe.

"The ghetto exists within the larger community, and its problems, however unique, are problems of the total community as well," Mrs. Ansara said. "No individual group can solve the problems of the community."

By over-emphasizing the importance of community work, radical civil rights groups risk isolating the community to the point where it is a self-contained unit which perpetuates some of the worst aspects of the ghetto, Mrs. Ansara said. "I deplore the distorted emphasis which has been put on people 'doing things for themselves;' we must reach out to help each other."

Lee Daniels, a Roxbury resident who attends Boston Latin and who took courses at the Urban School this summer, said that although most of the teachers were white, "it didn't bother me there; it's different from the Boston School System. It doesn't seem to matter whether your teacher is black or white. They're interested in teaching you something," Daniels said. It is also good to get out of Roxbury and see what other places are like, Daniels, who is applying to Harvard, added.

Urban School

Phillips Brooks House, which had a Book Exposure Program last year operating within the Boston School System in Roxbury, faces Daniels' dilemma in reverse. PBH will expand the program again this year and re-name it the Roxbury Education Program. Co-chairmen of REP, Hayden A. Duggan '68 and David B. Palley '68, hope to have about 90 volunteers who will distribute books to school children in the first through sixth grades and work with them one day a week.

While PBH workers have until now been gleaned from the Harvard un- dergraduates, Duggan and Palley plan to find twenty local volunteers to work on REP with them this year.

Carmichael would be the last to approve of their plans. From what he said on his speaking tour of Boston, REP would represent for him the epitome of what Roxbury needs least: a bunch of white college students projecting the wrong image on young Negro students.

Both Duggan and Palley agree. "We want to work ourselves out of a job.