◆ SpookStack

a a a 8 Le a ae re! ——e eee ee EEE EE SS eee Favailadle tor general public nantly white group is not to ree Be , he authenticity of { the photograph has not been i questioned, What has been " queationed is the propriety of board.‘ for even such a critic "as THE TENNESSEAN has pub- ished it more than once as a ‘news photo. There ts a fine + Hne there somewhere. > Im general, the critics are ; like Hamlet when he said, § All ef which 1 most power- fully and potently believe, but | i hold jt not honesty te have it thuszet down.” - Civic" leaders are reported i hibition of the billboards, but } nope “thatlenge the authen- iticlty of the photograph. ; Theré seems to be little in- , terest iff whatever truth is ‘back of-the sign, but excited i concern for its possiile ef- (fect on “some commercial or ; political image. ; - ee | t- 1 ' intemperate Often the criticisms are aa ) Intemperate in style aa they , are irrelevant to the substan- , tive jague. A Chamber of Com- _ merce official falsely charact- _ etizes the Citizens’ Council an , “clandestine,” and epeaks of ; “hooded Ku Klux Klanners.” | cont TENNESSEAN of June 13 Geporin oe nee a= continued a front-page story : about the Nashville billboards to Page 6-A, where the con- [ tinuation Jies under a photo- ~ graph of a Klan group in Natchez,. Miss. There is no Hne between the picture of hooded «men standing under one of the nationally distrib- uted biliboards and the two- column-head “Citizens’ Coun- cil,” which does not Include the usual catch line, “contin- ued from page one.” ~y cea Oy ama cep ey a photograph of tha Citizens’ Council in Mashville, Tenn, when ‘it is actually a photo- graph of the Kian in Natchez, py make-up, or very good. Be that as.it may, the Council and the Klan have no con- nection” with each other. If THE TENNESSEAN and the Chamber of Commerce official Imagine that thelr own obvi- “ sus imputation ef guilt by as- » soclation is merely paying the Council in its own kind, they “may have failed to refiect bh the Ciivane’ Caun- wee ee we ae ¥ eit hag no control over who i stands under one of its signs to be photegraphed, Martin ‘ Luther King certainly did t have centrol over whether he went to a Communist training ethool of net. + The Chamber of Commerce _ man is as absurd as he is pom- ,; pous when he delivers tha dic- . tn . "No good can ever come : from maligning « race through fone of its leaders.” Of course, | : artin Lather King | face all the facts about Dr. Waal, f a dm he i, inal , BeeOC cng ublishing it. Gr, more exact- § y. of displaying it on a hbifl- | in the press as deploring ax: . - i the “right of free speech unde The effect is that hers‘ls— Miss.’ This is either very slop-*: G,_ PRoeone , ng. 158 Man nas af image malign a race—certainly not the Negro race, Incredibly, this spokesman for the Nash- ville area business communi- ty, in affecting to deplore the creatioh'of “ill will,” anys: that the Citizens’ Council billboards remind him of the “era of ha- tred Which existed in Dallas before “President Kennedy's murder.” The Chamber of Com- merce’s own image ia hardly going to be helped efther in Dallas or Tennessee by that kind of immoderate outburst. (Editors Note: The Cham- ber official quoted here was Ed Saath, executive vice pres!- dent.}, Better Balanced Better balanced Is the com- ment of the Metro Human Re- lations Committee chairman, an quoted in THE TENNESGEA of Juné 20, for he observes cor- rectiy that no action could be taken-to prevent display of the billboarda without infringing! the first’ amendment.” Yat- this dignitary too deplores the | billboards, “which serve no’ Purpose other than to cause | strife and tension in the com- } ‘ munity.” i (Editor’s Nete: The official | quoted here was Robert J. Warner Jr.) Perhaps he has not followed - | the career of Martin Luther King. King has stated that his ¢ basic method of operation is! , the development of “creative | , tension.” And from the Mont- ! , gomary bus boycott of 1956 to the Selma march of 1965 he: hss done # remarkable job of | creating tension. If you are against tension, tt Is hard to j t eee how you can be for Mar- tin Luther King. - 1 It should be added that the | hillboards do serve another | -Snd as very useful purpose, which is the presentation of an important fact about an im- portant man. The lawyers have a saying, “Res ipsa loquitur,” the thing speaks for itself, The basis of Anglo-Saxon justice, the basis of the doctrine of freedom of the press, is that! citizens may judge of and from facts. . ‘I? the photograph of Martin Luther King at Highlander were fake, the billboards should come down. Since it is enuine it should be = ( ee or its meaning, not avoided with a shudder. If interpreta- tions vary, let the dispute go on. Nothing je gained by fear- ful or obstinate silence. Not even communism is more omi- Hous for the future of Ameri- | ca than the reluctance of lead- _ ere to face facts. | Image of Piety ° “:. Not that it is pleasant to eee MM a ‘will be beld in about. | of piety, which it may neant! impious to deface. B22 wi. rector J. Edgar Hoover haa a! good image too. And either, Martin Luther King or J. Ed- far Hoover ts a liar. A hard choice, hut we have to take one or the other, We can't have both. Mr. Hoover called Dr. King a Nar. Therefore, if Dr. King jis not a iar, Mr. Hoover is one. Vice versa, if Mr. Hoover is not a Har, then Dr. King is one, Yes, it may be said, but do we have to talk about te Bince not only our way of life but our lives may be at stake, we should. But It needs no blast from’ J, Kdgar Hoover to raise ques- tione about King’s veracity. ‘When the biltboards first ap- Fraret in Lopisiana and Ala- | 8, Dr. King was quoted by the Associated Press ag saying n' of the Highlander Folk School, spent exactiy one hour there beck in 1988. If T was trained there ft was mighty sbort training.” That the visit r seems to have been in 1987 rather than 1956 ie not Impor- tant, and there la no need to quibble over the probability. that it Jasted “exactly one hour.” But several things about this statement are tm portant: First. King does not deny that the Highlander Foik Bchool was a Communist training center. : Second, what he doen deny --which is that he could have received & significant amount of training in the short time he was there—is something which the billboard never said. Tt saya simply, “Martin Luther Ming at Communtet ta Training School.” have been there not to recefve training but to give it. Anoth- er photograph exists, as noted above, showing him at a sort of lectern. He could, of course, he. -- — = ss eo o.. & Oave Elven & SIPMIIICanL ico! ture In an hour. 1 Third—and most important othe spirit of King’s ostensi-. bly facetious remark is totally’ misleading. However brief the. time he apent at Monteagle, he has collaborated over a period of years with the Highlander: inatitution. The following ap-: peared in the New York: Times of Feb. 23, 1960 under. the by-line of Claude Sitton: “Atlanta, Feb. 22 — The Southern Christian Leadership. Conference and the Highland- er Folk School have joined forces to train Nerro leaders for the civil rights struggte.. The program was disciosed here by conference headquar- ters. The conference js made up of various anti-segregation ups and is headed by the v. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A conference spokesman, ‘jaaid eleven Negroes had just. completed a week's training cource at Highlander. Anoth-, sr class of fifteen or miore. He could —