Articles

We Need More Voters, Not Just Hand-Wringers
Journal and Guide, Norfolk , VA. , 31 January, 1959

By Vivian Carter Mason

Everybody's going to school these days and this has no reference to the place where the three R's are being taught. This school has classroom in the U. S. Congress, in Virginia, Georgia and even in Cuba . The lessons being taught day in and day out concerning the operation of power politics and the effect such power has over the very lives of the citizens of this country. If Negroes can't learn this lesson, they should be excluded from the company of those who understand the ruthless inexorable crushing of the rights and aspirations of minorities by those who occupy the front seats of the political bandwagon in Virginia and other southern states.

Not being a political expert, the evaluations of professionals in that arena comes in handy. For an example, the adroit move of Senator Lyndon Johnson in offering a so-called “civil rights” bill in Congress recently smells to high heavens. In the first place any bill that seems likely of passage because the southern senators approve it, must on the surface be an innocuous, ineffective piece of legislation. It contained nothing on the subject of school integration, concentrating on bombings the extension of the life of the present Civil Rights Commission and provided subpoena powers for the Attorney General and the commission.

Previously, this same senator has arranged a “compromise” ruling in the filibuster club by conjuring a number of new senators who were supposed to be in the camp of the “liberals.” Dazzling a piece of tender carrot in the form of membership on wanted committees, the new lawmakers conveniently forgot pledges they had made only a few days before to stand by Senator Douglas and others in support of all out busting of filibustering by changing the rules on debate. Politicians in a position of influence wield great power and no elected officeholder is without this power.

Men battle and struggle to be elected to public office. Is there anyone so naïve as to believe that their ambitions are altruistic and that they are there for the public good? Politics in the United States is a rich trough whereby trading influence, all kinds of advantages can be obtained. Perhaps it will mean government money for a new airport or a governmental installation or the site of a missile base at the hometown. All sorts of groups bring political pressure on public officials and in too many cases exert a baleful and sinister hold on city councils, state legislatures and governors.

In Cuba , Fidel Castro long ago discarded the idea that education bridges of communication or the exertions of people with religious affiliations would bring justice, food, health, freedom, education or security to the millions of underfed and oppressed people of his country. He judged and rightly so that no lasting changes could be affected without political power.

In Virginia no Negroes was in the local City Council or in the State Legislature to exert pressure so that the “will of some of the people will find expression.” This lesson cannot be lost upon the Negroes of this state. Every resource that we possess must be commandeered to develop an independent, articulate, highly organized electorate comprising hundreds of thousands of voters. The churches are rallying to the cause. The teachers in the public schools must teach children who in turn can teach their parents that to pay the poll tax, register and vote is tantamount to preserving their life and securing their liberties.