Meeting at an Airport:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
MEETING AT AN AIRPORT After seeing them in action, our Editor finds that the followers of agitator Bryant Bowles are swayed by more than the race question By William E. Bohn THE OTHER DAY, I...
...Leader Bowles—straight, slender, dark, distinctively good-looking—called the crowd to order...
...Over near the truck-platform, a moving-picture man representing the Telenews Company had for some time been setting up his paraphernalia on a platform attached to the top of his car...
...Soon a crowd gathered about him...
...The clearest point he made concerned the boycott of retail merchants...
...Where ya from...
...Another man...
...But we can't afford that...
...There were, by the way, no police on the actual grounds...
...I will...
...And there was a constant effort to supplement the speaker's efforts with muttered remarks, such as, "He can't say what he really thinks, but we know what he means...
...The import of it was that the storekeeper was having such a great favor bestowed upon him that he was in duly bound to carry on his life according to the rules laid down by the customer —especially in the matter of race relations...
...But, that morning, the Executive Committee had met and elected a complete slate of officials for the Delaware chapter...
...But they would not listen...
...They don't give both sides...
...See what happens to you...
...We got along fine for years and years," said one speaker...
...This free-lance preacher came strolling up to the loudspeaker with his hands in his pockets, but did take them out, I am glad to report, when he began in his rather free-and-easy manner to address the Good Lord...
...As I heard someone remark, "Most of 'em ain't had too much education...
...to get something on us...
...Then," he said, "we'd have our man up there where they'd have to listen to him...
...They would laugh at the feeblest joke or mutter agreement with any suggestion of action...
...They never would have made any trouble...
...Meanwhile, the reporter about whom the incident started had been run off the field...
...A big, flat-bottomed trailer-truck served as speaker's platform, to be mounted by a rather insecure-looking stepladder...
...That goes for integration or anything else...
...His conversation with the merchant was repeated in detail...
...The niggers was satisfied...
...These people are fools to think they can overthrow the Government...
...From one of these cars a tall, sandy-haired Amazon streaked across to the Telenews man and shouted at him: "All right...
...The people were shifting about, forming here and there in loosely organized groups as conversations developed...
...He don't have to worry...
...The preparations for the assembly were primitive but adequate...
...Many of the conversationalists seemed genuinely puzzled about how all this trouble got started...
...He spoke haltingly and awkwardly, constantly uttering "uh uh," the throat-clearing sounds which betray the insecure and nervous speaker...
...He has been Mayor for thirteen years, He knows his town and his county as well as anyone...
...But instantly the woman brought a crowd from about her decorated car, and somehow they got the film away from the photographer...
...I went down to the Harrington, Delaware airfield, where these meetings are held, with a feeling of animosity and disgust...
...I heard an onlooker remark: "He looks like a damned kike...
...His whole attitude seemed rather apologetic...
...The crowd tried hard to get some excitement out of it...
...But we can think it...
...A reporter appeared with a conventional notebook and went about writing things down...
...The flying field, between Harrington and Mil-ford, is just a wide, level, sandy stretch of ground...
...The young people flocking about these stands gave the impression that the meeting was a welcome means of recreation on an otherwise empty Sunday afternoon...
...So he did...
...A man gets into the Legislature or Congress, and then he thinks he kin boss the people...
...Later, he added modestly, "But censure is in thy hands, O Lord...
...At the center of the commotion were two decorated cars with banners pasted across their hoods proclaiming: "I am proud to be a member of the Association for the Advancement of White People...
...He introduced himself modestly to the Almighty as "the spiritual adviser of the nation," then lit into the United States Government...
...A few were well-dressed, but most of them wore unpretentious clothing...
...The listeners were advised to give the same treatment to Milford merchants who allowed their children to attend the high school while it was polluted by the presence of the young Negroes...
...The idea that it is the poor rather than the rich who suffer from integration was brought up more than once...
...That's just what they want...
...They come from agrarian slums, slums which are hardly recognized and about which practically nothing is ever done...
...MEETING AT AN AIRPORT After seeing them in action, our Editor finds that the followers of agitator Bryant Bowles are swayed by more than the race question By William E. Bohn THE OTHER DAY, I attended one of the well-publicized open-air meetings of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, addressed by its founder, Bryant Bowles...
...The man replied coolly: "All right...
...In the first group I met, a thin, tall chap was holding forth about government: "Those fellows don't listen to plain people like us...
...Since he had been widely advertised as a rabble-rouser, his oratorical effort was disappointing...
...Bowles's speaking completely lacked ignition...
...Later, when we left the meeting, we saw him standing out on the highway, keeping close to the state police...
...Those who have been chosen to rule us," he said, "have made so many mistakes that they are more to be pitied than censured...
...A sound-truck was set well out in the field and wired to the improvised platform...
...He said that people had been complaining because the Association was not well enough organized, and went on to explain that such imperfections had hitherto been inevitable...
...Many of the men were in overalls on this Sunday afternoon, and many of the women wore what are politely called house-dresses...
...They always make it look as if we was wrong...
...I am sure that not more than half that many were there...
...It's them lawyers, it's white men, it's them people from the North started all this...
...I was in the perfect spot for a reporter...
...Most of them never came...
...He was plucky and put up a good argument...
...A feeling of disappointment and discouragement was only partially concealed...
...I have no means of knowing...
...What ought to be done is a long story...
...Questions were hurled: "Who are ya...
...Mayor Edward C. Evans of Milford told me that the people of lower Delaware may be divided about 50-50 on the subject of segregation, but that 95 per cent of them are in favor of enforcing the laws of the state and of the United States...
...My over-all feeling was that here were a lot of hard-working people who felt neglected, abused, frustrated...
...In the first place, the organization itself is a poor little thing...
...Over and over again, different men and women said in substance: "They never report it right...
...As cars came rolling in and people piled out, I strolled about in the growing crowd, keeping my mouth strictly shut...
...Other men quickly rushed in to separate the pair, shouting to the assailant, "Stop, ya fool...
...This attitude toward the press was finally crystallized in a dramatic incident...
...When he saw the fracas developing about the reporter, he got out a still camera...
...The address of Leader Bowles was on the cautious and apologetic side throughout...
...He went over to the photographer's car and asked what the trouble was...
...Finally, at 2:45 on that sunny afternoon, a group of the leaders of the movement assembled on the improvised platform...
...These people are against all the agencies, persons and groups which they think of as above them...
...There aren't enough of them to do anything...
...Presently, Bowles appeared...
...He don't care what we think...
...The news reports the next day said 3,000 persons were present...
...You can depend upon it...
...They were dramatic expressions of the attitudes of a group of American citizens—how large a group...
...The grammar and the vocabulary were of the sort not recognized in the schools...
...We got our guns and we got powder, ain't we...
...Of course, he [Bowles] can't talk about violence...
...He talked so quietly that I thought he was going to have the film restored to its owner...
...I am not speaking disrespectfully: A large part of our trouble, I think, comes from the fact that we pay too little attention to people who use bad grammar...
...Their taciturn tendency to violence is the result of a feeling of being neglected, overlooked, unconsulted...
...What paper d'ya write for...
...Meanwhile, I hope no one will think that the crowd which follows Bryant Bowles represents the decent people of Milford or Harrington or any other Delaware town or country region...
...Then came a prayer by the chaplain of the Association, the unofficial clergyman without a parish, Manaen F. Warrington...
...Go ahead and take a picture of that fight...
...He had nothing against the Negroes...
...speaking along the same line, finally exclaimed in exasperation: "Something's got to be done...
...The involvement of the Negroes is incidental—as was that of the Jews in Hitler Germany...
...What ya sayin' about us...
...We are with you, Mr...
...There was one state detective—and the young fellows who seemed in control of things showed what they thought of him by boxing his car in so that he could not leave without their consent...
...The race issue is used as a means of bringing to the surface an ancient gripe...
...Soft drinks and hot dogs were available at hastily constructed stands...
...One man remarked about Delaware's Governor J. Caleb Boggs: "He took his little girl out of public school and put her in an expensive private school...
...Into my waiting ears the earnest speakers poured every thought in their minds...
...In disgust, he backed his car out of the crowd and began to dismantle his equipment...
...They're only too anxious to get something on him...
...Finally, a gigantic fellow who had obviously been drinking struck the man twice...
...These words and incidents were not mere sporadic exhibitions of bad temper...
...he said, "there will be no trouble around here...
...The same underdog feeling came out whenever the press or radio was mentioned...
...The man did not get his film back...
...The chosen Delawareans were introduced to the audience—with unmistakable emphasis on every nearby address...
...He made quite a story out of the fact that he had recently bought a suit of clothes...
...In a nearby group, another orator suggested that it was time to start a new party and run Bryant Bowles for President...
...They are against the Government, the press, the radio, the courts, the lawyers, the churches, the rich—against all the controlling centers of our society...
...Some were small business people, some were laborers from nearby towns, but most of them were not-very-prosperous farmers...
...I saw him walking toward the highway with a number of rather fierce-looking chaps in close pursuit...
...I came away feeling sorry for that whole crowd of people—including their leaders...
...And all we want is to go along the way things have always been...
...In a spirit of optimism, the sponsors of the gathering had laid out white parking lines which stretched away toward the horizon, providing room for thousands of cars...
...He shied away from advising his listeners to boycott Mil-ford High School if the ten Negro students were readmitted...
...But finally he merely remarked that he was not responsible for what happened before the meeting was called to order and walked away...
Vol. 37 • November 1954 • No. 44
