LETTERS
LETTERS Political Prisoners Editors: There are now two political prisoners behind bars in New Hampshire. On June 28, Hugo De Gregory was jailed for refusing to answer questions in New...
...The population of Haywood Country is 27,000, 52% of whom are Negro, and that of Fayette County is 35,000, 78% of whom are Negro...
...However, this is not the issue in these present evictions...
...The government contends that this right has been breached in these eviction orders in Fayette and Haywood Counties...
...104...
...Supplies of various kinds must be purchased...
...His imprisonment climaxes six years of persecution by N. H. Attorney General Louis Wyman, who holds the position of one man investigating committee...
...The nine families already evicted are resettled on the land of a Negro farm owner, Shepherd Toles...
...Drainage and sanitary facilities must be made safe, or serious illness is a threat...
...Ross ANDERSON, WALLACE NELSON, MAURICE MCCRACKIN — a deputation team from Peacemakers...
...If you can buy some share in financing this, please send your check to: Operation Freedom, c/o Rev...
...On June 28, Hugo De Gregory was jailed for refusing to answer questions in New Hampshire's "subversive investigation...
...They call their settlement "Freedom Village...
...The names of the charter members of the two Negro Leagues were circulated promptly among all white business and professional people in the two Counties and later the names of those who had registered were added and all, under threat of themselves being boycotted if they did not comply, were ordered to have no business or professional dealings with League members or voting registrants...
...Only one of the 700 had not registered to vote...
...Food, shelter and clothing for as many as five thousand people will need to be provided in Freedom Village for an indefinite period...
...The urgent need is for a LOAN FUND...
...The immediate purpose of these organizations was to launch a Negro registration and voting campaign...
...The Be Gregory Defense Committee is working to let people know about New Hampshire's contempt for civil liberty that has put these men in jail, and to raise funds for appealing the littlepublicized De Gregory case to the higher courts...
...The morale of the village is high but living conditions are hazardous and difficult...
...The Civic and Welfare League in each County, will set up boards or committees to administer the fund...
...Health services have been cut off and these farmers are unable to buy food, clothing or gasoline for their machinery...
...Machines are displacing tenant farmers and sharecroppers all over the south, and in the past some have moved from Haywood and Fayette Counties for this reason...
...Because of the injunction order, only nine of the 700 families have actually 103 left their farms...
...Both men were sentenced for indeterminated terms of at least one year, and the Attorney General has already stated that he hopes to start proceedings against them all over again at the end of the year terms...
...The injunction order of the Circuit Federal Court of Appeals on December 30 effected a six weeks injunction, ordering that there be no evictions until the court can determine why the eviction orders have been given...
...Forty-three children and 16 adults are now living in Freedom Village...
...If you would like to help, please contact the committee at the address below...
...Maurice McCrackin, 1111 Dayton Street, Cincinnati 14, Ohio...
...There is an immediate need for cash...
...The Federal Civil Rights law says that no action shall be taken which seeks to prevent a citizen from exercising his voting rights...
...Wyman—to help him slander people I know to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing...
...De Gregory, a 46-year-old factory worker, was taken to Boscawen Jail, where Dr...
...All these people have intangible needs also...
...Fayette and Haywood Counties lie in the extreme southwest corner of Tennessee...
...An Appeal for Help Editors: A team of investigators, just returned from Fayette and Haywood Counties, in Tennessee, report conditions are fully as bad as the press has pictured them...
...Under threat a few have left, since the court injunction...
...Thirty salesmen once called upon him but they all quit within a two-week period under pressure from white landowners...
...PRISCILLA DI GIOVANNI, treasurer Be Gregory Defense Committee Box 103, Hanover Street Station Boston 13, Mass...
...In a statement issued just before he was jailed, Be Gregory said, "The state has shown once more that it is stronger than the individual...
...Willard Uphaus was recently imprisoned for a year for invoking the First Amendment...
...There is need to raise a large sum of money for a loan fund "to make the crop...
...In Haywood County 300 families and in Fayette County, 400, were ordered to move by January 1, 1961...
...I still refuse to become an informer for Mr...
...O'Dell Sanders, Haywood County leader, was forced to close his grocery in Brownsville...
...Counter organizations of White Citizens' Council groups, meeting in local churches, were formed immediately...
...But it has also demonstrated that it is powerless to compel an individual to commit an indecent act...
...Families are living on dirt floors...
...The others wait the final court decision...
...I go to jail with a clear conscience...
...Early in 1960 State Charters were granted to the Fayette County Civic and Welfare League and to the Haywood County Civic Welfare League...
...They are out in the front line, standing up for freedom and human dignity...
Vol. 8 • January 1961 • No. 1
