Freedom Riders Travel to Mississippi
MONTGOMERY. Ala. — (UPI)— An interracial group of Freedom Riders left this riot-scarred city today in a Trailways bus and headed down Highway 80 toward Jackson, Miss. — the hard-core center of segregation in the South.
They were escorted by 16 highway patrol cars, containing three guardmen and two highway patrolmen each.
The Justice Department in Washington said the Kennedy administration had been given assurances by Mississippi officials that the students would not be harmed.
Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett issued an immediate appeal urging citizens to "just let the officers handle the situation."
But he said the inter-racial group would be arrested if violated Mississippi segregation laws.
More than 250 National Guardmen and highway patrolmen ringed the Montgomery bus terminal to protect the students while they boarded the bus. Only a few bystanders watched from across the street.
The first scheduled stop for the bus was just across the border at Meridian. Miss.
About a dozen U.S. Marshals were reported to have arrived at Meridian during the night. The city's police force was alerted and scores of highway patrolmen poured in during the night to augment local forces.
The bus took Route 14 to Selma, Ala., and headed into Route 80 on the northern outskirts of Selma. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the integration movement in the South, followed the group in a car.
about three blocks of Selma and then cut back on the open highway.
The bus passed through only
Mississippi State Highway Patrol Commissioner T. B. Birdson arrived at Meridian, about 18 miles inside the border, to take charge
The south before the bar of public opinion.
The freedom group was made up of 10 Negroes, including two Negro girls, and one youth. The white youth was Paul Dietrich of Washington, D.C. He said he was making his first freedom ride.
of the patrol units which have moved in there.
"I'm a little anxious," he conceded before the bus left Montgomery.
ert F. Kennedy expressed confidence today that any new outbreaks of mob violence in connection with the Freedom Riders' Southern tour will be controlled by local law enforcement officers.
Daily hansan
White House News Secretary Pierre Salinger and Soviet Security Chief Lt. Gen. Nikolai Zakharov worked out the general plan for the conference yesterday and today.
The students were attempting to complete a trip started by a group of Freedom Riders that began their journey in Washington, D.C. several weeks ago bound for New Orleans.
Kennedy said in a statement that he had been in "frequent contact" with officials in both Alabama and Mississippi.
Although Kennedy will fly in from Paris, June 3, Khrushchev will make the long journey from Moscow by train, arriving June 2.
The students purchased tickets for Jackson in the white waiting room.
"There is no basis at this time to assume that the people of Mississippi will be lawless," he said, "or that the responsible state and local officials in Mississippi will not maintain law and order and protect interstate travel."
The original group had to cancel their tour when they met with violence at Anniston and Birmingham, Ala.
Vienna buzzed with speculation that the Soviet Premier had decided against flying because of recent unexplained crashes of Soviet IL18 planes of the type he usually uses.
The sources said arrangements had been made for the two to lunch together on June 3 and 4 and spend both afternoon talking.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
In Washington, Attv. Gen. Rob-
VIENNA — (UPI) — President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev are expected to spend eight or more hours in intimate talks on East-West issues during their summit meeting here next month, official sources said today.
He issued the statement shortly after one busload of Freedom Riders departed from Montgomery, Ala., for Jackson, Miss.
Alabamans Oppose Violence
Two residents of Montgomery, Ala., who are in Lawrence on business say they are shocked by Northern press coverage of trouble in then hometown.
One of the men is Yankee by birth. He has resided in the Alabama capital city for nine months. The other is a native Alabaman.
The Yankee was asked about the feelings of his neighbors just before the Freedom Riders arrived.
The Southerner believes that the hated NAACP is behind the entire movement. He doesn't believe in mob violence but comments:
"You'd think we had armed guards on every street corner," said one, "when it's actually difficult to find any federal men at all. The whole thing is grossly overplayed, but then what racial stirring in the South isn't? The subject is a political football."
Wednesday, May 24, 1961
Summit Talk Issues Told
A Justice Department spokesman said new federal legal actions in the wake of the Alabama violence were expected today.
"The colored people of Alabama aren't ready for integration yet. They're scared — plain scared," the Southerner continued. "Neither are the white people ready. We're progressing—by God, we're progressing, but nobody likes to be told what to do. Force only hinders our progress."
"What right have a handful of people to so violently challenge the beliefs of 133,000 others (the population of Montgomery)? What right have they to tell a people of an entirely different culture than their own that they must make an immediate change?
"They don't believe in mob violence, but they feel that these so-called Freedom Riders asked for violence by continuing against an injunction to halt at Birmingham," he replied.
The Southerner spoke up:
"You know these people are just as damaging to our country as the outlawed Communist party agitators. They should be classed in the same light—traitors," he said. "Sure there is moral value in equality, but I say again—it cannot be forced on us."
How has the Montgomery Advertiser-Journal, the city's only paper, treated the affair? The Yankee answered:
"The Advertiser has treated the matter with almost complete objectivity, but they have played up something that the press services and other papers across the nation have not. All the major big business leaders of Montgomery have signed a petition against mob violence. They are constantly campaigning for calm and rationality. 'Nothing can be resolved this way' the petition says. Nearly all of these men are native Southerners."
whole problem of integration in the The Southerner commented on the South;
Could the Alabama State Patrol have handled the matter without the aid of national forces? The Southerner replied:
"Yes, I think they could have. They would have handled it in their own way — let a few hotheads get clubbed a few times first — but they could have stopped it. You can't blame them for being a little biased."
"We have many problems that too many Northern 'freedom riders' prefer to ignore. The colored masses of the South (in most cases outnumbering whites 3-1) are basically illiterate. We not only have to offer them education but force them to take advantage of it. Southern whites would be forced to place their whole lives in jeopardy by integrating completely immediately. It's not so much a question of a way of life but just cold economics. You can't expect the whites to give up and move out, leaving their home country to illiterates and fifth. It would be worse than the carpetbagger era."
Last Issue Todav
Today's Daily Kansan is the last issue for the spring semester. Publication will be resumed during the summer session.
Examination Schedule Correction
Early copies of today's Kansan contain a typographical error in the examination schedule on page 12. Please notice changes for 10 A.M. TTS sequence and for 11 A.M. MWF sequence.
Alabama Seen as JFK's Power Trial
LONDON — (UFI) — American allies in Europe yesterday pictured the racial crisis in Alabama as "President Kennedy's domestic trial of strength,"—a trial that will affect the future of Washington's African policy.
Communist news media agreed, but in stronger language that referred to "fascist race agitators," "race pogrom in Alabama" and "worst examples of savagery."
Most reaction was from newspapers, since government officials refused to comment on an American domestic problem.
In Portugal, newspapers criticized the United States for its anti-Portuguese vote in the United Nations while being unable to smash racial barriers at home. One paper said the riots were "the savageness of white responding . . . to the black savageness of wild beasts on the loose in Angola."
The London Daily Express said America has no right to comment on Britain's troubles in Rhodesia.
In Tunisia, the Daily As Abah said the riots and Alabama's defiance of Kennedy "are odious and prejudicial to U.S. prestige in Africa, which includes millions of Negroes among its people."
But the angriest outcry came from Berlin, where both Western and Communist publications viewed the Montgomery crisis as a manifestation of the racism that brought Hitler to power.
"People are chased like wild beasts," said the pro-American
B. ZM. "They are spit upon and bloodily beaten only because they are colored.
"Where? In the United States of America, in the heart of the free world. That's a glaring contradiction.
"This affects us, too," it said, "for one reason: The policy of the United States in Asia and Africa becomes incredible, when it can't stop race agitators at home.
"This is Kennedy's domestic trial of strength. He has to master these problems, not only for America's sake, but for ours, too."
The Communist East German news service ADN said that "since Abraham Lincoln. Washington hasn't made a serious attempt really to solve the racial problem and curb the Ku Klux Klan and the race agitators..."
In Paris, correspondent Jean Pierre Cornet of Combat said that "either the American government will put its integration program energetically into execution, whether Montgomery wants it or not, or the prestige of the United States, delivered into the hands of the racists, will suffer another decisive blow that will compromise the future of its African policy.
But another Paris paper, Figaro, spoke sympathetically of the "indig-nant southern whites who talk justi-fably of provocation."
In Copenhagen, the newspaper Information wondered what America's allies could do to "demonstrate there are some American states we don't like to be allied to."
Robinson Center of KU Campus and Problem
By John Peterson
Robinson Gymnasium, an old, ivy clad, somewhat anonymous stone building, stands at the center of both the campus and a complex problem.
The 54-year-old gymnasium stands on the best campus site for a proposed classroom building which it must soon make way for. But at present there are no plans to replace Robinson—unless the students put up the money.
When Robinson is razed in the next two to four years, KU officials foresee no funds to replace the gymnasium, which means there may be a period of years when KU is without any physical education building.
KU's primary need is another major classroom building, and the primary spot for that building is where Robinson and Haworth Halls now stand at the center of the campus.
Administrators feel additions and new buildings for the physical and social sciences, for example, should receive priority. They do not believe a physical education building is so essential that it should be included in the annual priority list submitted to the Board of Regents.
There has been discussion as to
whether KU should continue building on its present campus or shift to the two-campus institution, but the dual campus possibility has been rejected by Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe as impracticable.
Thus, for one campus to be adequate for 22,000 students, the number projected for KU at its peak enrollment in the 1970's, it must be compact to enable students to get from one class to another.
The administration eventually wants to have all major classroom buildings at the center of the campus with separate academic schools on the fringe located in such buildings as Murphy Hall and Summerfield Hall. Research facilities are planned beyond this fringe on the periphery of the campus.
Chancellor Wescoe had a plan to finance the physical education building through student funds collected from enthusiasts of the University's athletic program, but the All Student Council voted against this.
"Right now I'm stymied." Dr. Wescoe says. "I have no plans for the new physical education building at present."
The administration is planning to bring a proposal before the students again next year, asking that they
construct the physical education building.
Thus far there have been two plans advanced for student financing of a new gymnasium. The first was tied to a reserved seating plan which the ASC rejected. The other is for an increase in the student activity fee.
If successful, Robinson could be torn down, Haworth razed and the classroom building planned immediately. It would probably be in fiscal year 1964's state appropriation for KU.
Raymond Nichols, executive secretary of the University, says the fee has been discussed and that if such a plan were put into effect, the increase would be $5 a semester.
So today there are four alternatives open to the University in regard to Robinson and the new classroom building. They are:
1. Moving the physical education building into a priority position and asking the state for the money in the 1964 budget request.
2. Razing Robinson and Haworth Halls and going without physical education facilities for a period of years until the physical education building eventually is considered in line for state appropriations. It is not in KU's 10-year plan now.
4. Obtaining student financing.
3. Asking nothing and waiting for a gift from some donor, or some other solution.
The question that has been raised is why the University does not move the construction of a new physical education building onto its list of priorities.
John Conard, chairman of the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, says that "there is no opposition to building a physical education building through state appropriations in the legislature. I feel certain the legislature will go along with whatever the governor requests."
Everyone agrees Robinson is out-
(Continued on page 16)
Stop Day Is Friday
The second annual stop day will be Friday, May 26. The only finals scheduled for this day are Engineering Mechanics 1, 1t, 16, 48, 49, 55, and 57 from 1:30 to 3:20 and English 1, 1a, and 1B from 1:30 to 3:20. No other classes will be held on this day.