KU
kansan
Serving KU for 77 of its 101 Years
77th Year, No.14
WEATHER FAIR
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
Details on page 5
Thursday, October 6, 1966
KC Negro leaders define 'Black Power'
Two hundred and fifty KU students heard black power defined by four Kansas City civil rights leaders last night in the Kansas Union Big Eight Room.
In a KU Civil Rights Council (CRC) presentation, Alvin Brooks, director, Kansas City, Mo., Congress on Racial Equality (CORE); Leonard Hughes, president, Catholic Interracial Council; Carl Randolph, director, Kansas City, Kan., CORE; and Robert Waters, director, Kansas City, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); gave their organizations' interpretations of and their personal opinions on "black power."
ALL SPEAKERS first expressed surprise and amusement at the
ALVIN BROOKS
"You got upset when we said 'now.'"
shock and fear with which much of the American white community has reacted to the recently coined term.
"I am somewhat astounded by this reaction." Hughes said. "However, if I had a guilt complex, I imagine I wouldn't be astounded—I'd be afraid."
Waters said, "The meaning of black power comes in how you respond to it. If you think it means that the black wants to do to you what you've done to the Negro, then you may have reason to fear."
"Black power is merely Negro solidarity." Hughes said. "Black power is for economic power for all Negroes."
The civil rights spokesman, however, said there is little substance to white fears that "black power" connotes Negro violence against the white person.
Brooks stated the CORE definitions as: "The mobilization of Negro masses to develop political and economic power."
HE NOTED that what frightens the average American white person is the presence of immediacy in the term.
"You got upset when we said "now". Brooks said. "As long as we didn't say 'now' you went along and sang the song."
Vital to the concept of black power is the fact that it is aimed at all strata of the Negro community, panel members said.
"We feel that the group which will be in power in the ghetto across the nation is the group that backs black power." Brookes said.
your exclusive restaurant," he said.
"Public accommodations, integration, poll taxes—these aren't important to the mass Negro, the ghetto Negro.
"They don't have the dime to go across town for a cup of coffee in
"INTEGRATION is still important, but first we've got to do something about the people at the bottom who don't give a hill-of-beans about integration," said Brooks.
Riots are not inherent in the "black power" concept, he added.
"They've been having riots for a long time and nobody had coined the term "black power," Randolph said. "We're not talking about throwing any bombs, because we know you've got the H-bomb. We don't want any wars, because we know who's going to be hurt."
"I can tell you for sure, black power is the same as white power," Randolph said. "We shall organize the black ghetto and we shall teach the Negro that he doesn't have to be ashamed to be black."
Said Brooks: "We're saying, black and white together, we shall overcome—now."
CARL RANDOLPH
"I'm from a Negro Ghetto and
I'm not ashamed . . ."
City too has labor shortage
The city of Lawrence is having the same problems, unfilled jobs, as the KU campus. There are too many jobs and too few people to fill them.
With unemployment almost non-existent, job openings can't be filled in either Lawrence or on the campus.
University kitchen and janitorial services are feeling the pinch of short crews. The university civil service is short of clerical workers. Lawrence businesses, too, are short handed.
SUNFLOWER ARMY Ammunitions Plant in DeSoto has contributed to the labor drain. Since re-opening about a year ago, the plant has employed about 4,000 persons.
Lawrence Chamber of Commerce reported that an industry hiring mostly women decided against opening here because a female labor force no longer exists.
Unemployment for the nation last May was 3.7 per cent. Unemployment in Lawrence last April was 1.6 per cent. High during the year was 2.3 per cent. In general, the city has increased employment in recent years.
The problem is universal, according to Ed Mills, interviewer for the Kansas State Employment Service in Lawrence. It's "a matter of finding qualified people to match the job openings," he said.
EMPLOYMENT HAS RISEN STEADILY, but some job openings remain vacant for want of qualified applicants.
Some persons are unemployed because they are unqualified for the jobs which are available.
Philip Rankin, director of KU personnel services for nonteaching positions, cited three conditions during the summer which hurt the university's employment recruiting this year.
First, Sunflower has not let up in its hiring as expected. Secondly, Hallmark Cards is doubling its employment, and third, the Topeka tornado clean-up demanded immediate attention.
THE OPENING OF NEW dormitories and other buildings simultaneously with increased research activity made further demands for workers.
"We've been hurting ever since Sunflower opened a year ago," Rankin said. "Quite a few of our employees worked out there during the war and returned. Not as many left as anticipated, though.
"WE'RE RESTRICTED BY CIVIL service wage scales, so we can't be as flexible as we'd like," he continued. Many graduate students or graduate students' wives, the traditional source of new clerical help in the autumn, have been attracted by Sunflower pay. The normal turnover in the spring is 20 to 25 per cent.
"One day we have a full crew, the next day we're short a few." Rankin said. He foresees no let-up in the shortage, unless Sunflower reduces its recruitment."
Vox Populi, the oldest existing party on campus, underwent political surgery last night in the Kansas Union.
Vox kills plan to die; begins to build anew
The result was a dramatic change in structure and a repudiation of the recently formed Kansas University Political Alliance (KUPA).
PROPOSING MAJOR change in Vox structure was the Vox General Assembly, a group of living group representatives affiliated with the party.
AFTER REJECTING the suggestion to disband, members of
In reply to the Vox executive council's week-old suggestion to disband in light of the formation of KUPA, the assembly members decided that the ideals of KUPA "would be most effectively recognized within the framework of the two-party system" now in use.
"As far as we're concerned, KUFA is an alliance, not a party," said Ken North, Shawnee Mission sophomore and temporary Vox chairman.
the General Assembly began work on a new constitution which, among other things, would dissolve the executive council.
Other plans for the new constitution include making the general assembly instead of the executive council the policy determinator of Vox.
North said that under the new system, party officers would be elected from the assembly in an effort to eliminate the influence of "back room politics" from party decisions.
HOPEFUL FOR the future of the reorganized party-on the campus for nine years-North said, "The old Vox is dead. There is a new Vox, new blood, and a new approach.
Party members plan to have the new constitution completed by Monday.
"Now, Vox will concern itself with one thing—intelligent university reform and student responsibility," he added.
CHECKING OUT KEYS
-UDK Photo by Joel Ahibrandt
Three co-eds anxiously checked out their keys yesterday afternoon when they first became available. Pictured left to right are Jackie Jenkins, Amarillo, Tex., junior, Becky Butcher, Lawrence junior, and Susan Young, Lawrence senior.