Democrat and Chronicle from Rochester, New York • Page 6

Democrat and Chronic! Rochester, N.Y., Qf FrL. April 23, 1965 ThoRoadto 8 Negroes Integrate State Legislature fl INTEGRATION A FUUTZEK PRIZE-WINNING SERIES If 7- xfc: I lip iHHi iriv yf For the Negro in the New York State Legislature, success in politics isn't something that will come tomorrow. It's here today. Here is another the Gannett-sponsored "Road to Integration" series. By DAVID H.

BEETLE Special Correspondent Gannett News Service ALBANY While Negroes in Alabama are slogging along in a voter registration drive, those in New York are beginning to see the fruits of political activity. The 1965 New York State Legislature has eight Negro members. It had nine until Mrs. Constance Baker Motley, a Harlem lawyer, resigned as senator to become borough president of Manhattan. The previous high had been six.

But more important, the legislature has its first Negro committee chairman a senator and assemblyman who are respective education chairmen in each house and a senator who heads the sought in the South. None of the legislators felt their race a major obstacle in getting white voters. Whether it would be or not in areas where Negroes are much fewer they didn't know. All are Democrats. Perhaps they wish it were otherwise.

Unquestionably they believe in the two-party system. "The best thing that could happen would be for the Republicans to elect a Negro legislator here," says Thompson. They did, at least once: Yale Phi Beta Kappa and Harvard Law graduate, Francis E. Rivers, Harlem assemblyman, 1930. handing out literature urging San Antonio to put Negroes on its sanitation squad.

Thompson is a regional NAACP director. Mrs. Chisholm was Brooklyn College "alumna of the year." Baker, an active ten-' nis player, helped get Al-thea Gibson admitted to the Forest Hills Club. ALL SEE OPPORTUNITIES for the Negro in politics, but the Negroes, are only beginning to see them. It is a major irony that Negro registration in New York usually runs well behind that of whites, in percentages, at a time when registration is so deeply ASSEMBLYMAN BAKER Shop Fish's at 10 to 9 daily, 10 to Pittsford Plaza 5:45 on Saturday.

he could give up his subway job until 1960. That year he became confidential aide to a judge and in 1963, assemblyman. NATURALLY ALL EIGHT have been active in politicssome of them from their teens on. They have rang doorbells and distributed petitions. Southall says that as an elevator operator he got 60 out of 63 of the tenants out to vote.

Nearly all won primary fights to get and sometimes to keep their seats, though often against Negroes. None of the Negro legislators has fewer than 45 per cent Negro constituents. In Harlem, the proportion may hit 99 per cent. When the Negro vote mounts, bias is no problemat least within the district. At county levels, it has been, but things are changing.

Warner is Bronx County chairman for the Democrats. Baker, an assemblyman 17 years and the dean of the group, doesn't think he was very warmly welcomed when he early joined a local political club as one of six Negroes among 2,500 members. Mrs. Chisholm feels women's groups helped her as did a fluency in Spanish that pleased Puerto Ricans. Her "big break" came when she ran against two lawyers in the primary and accepted their invitation to appear in public three-way debates.

From high school days debating had been her cup of tea. Appointive jobs political or otherwise have helped some. Browne was an assistant DA in Queens and had once worked as a federal narcotics investigator. Southall got 18 months' work as an office boy in a depression-era government agency. Baker was a deputy collector of internal revenue and a confidential inspector to the Brooklyn borough president.

Warner for nine years ran the New York City office of a Democratic congressman. All have coupled a political interest with active military affairs committee. For the first time, Negro legislative employes are frequent in Capitol corridors. "I think there were four a year ago and now there are between 30 and 35," says William C. Thompson, the Senate military affairs head.

By no means is Negro representation confined to Harlem. For the first time, there's a Negro legislator from Queens (Assemblyman Kenneth M. Browne) and one from upstate (Erie's Assemblyman Arthur Hard-wick). For the Negro youngster who looks about the Harlem ghetto and gets a sense of hopelessness, there's a brand new inspiration one that reaches them via the Albany project. Started from Assembylman Percy E.

Sutton and funded in part by white merchants in Harlem, the project brings weekly to Albany one or two busloads of school-selected junior high pupils from Harlem. They gather on the Assembly floor shortly before a Tuesday session, meet Negro legislators, and, for balance, at least one legislator who is Jewish, one Italian, and one Irish. They go home knowing that for them a career in politics is possible. IF THE YOUNGSTERS check closely into the careers of the Negro legislators, they'll find a common thread: A determination to get an education no matter what the sacrifice. For most of them it wasn't easy.

Ivan Warner, the Bronx, Senate education chairman, admits he was "a high school "Everyone was leaving school," he says, recalling his Manhattan West Side boyhood. "I got a job as shipping clerk. That was in 1938. But by 1945, I had become interested in politics and I saw that I could not get anywhere without more education." As a clerk, stenographer, and later a ship-fitter at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, he went to classes evenings first at high school and University) and a discrimination-free boyhod at Nevis, gave him a head-start. Coming to New York at 17, he got a job as a department store porter but took a correspondence school course in accounting on the side.

At 22 he was running his own accounting business in Harlem serving mostly white clients. Hardwick, a Chattanooga, "high school dropout," came north when a Negro friend who was a foundry "straw boss" in Buffalo offered him a job. He took it but went to high school nights. Building on this he got a number of jobs in business until IS years ago he opened his own liquor store. He also runs a records store.

Mark T. Southall, a Harlem-Washington Heights assemblyman, turned 19 about the time the Depression hit. Fatherless and "broke," he helped support the family by pin-setting in Brooklyn. Later he ran an elevator and in 1938 began selling subway tokens. His "big year" was 1947, when, after studying on the side, he passed exams to become a notary and to sell general insurance, life insurance and real estate.

Only after that did he return to school to get an equivalency diploma and take some advance courses in insurance specialties. He has run a modest real estate and insurance office in Harlem but didn't feel A RELIABLE NEW CAR FOR ONLY $1655 WHY BUY A USED CAR? 6.M. 2 Ytar Warranty D0RSCHEL BUICK-0PEL 41 Genesee St. ID 1090 Wt recommend that you read Red Smith, dean o( America's sport writers. You'll And hit column In daily and Sunday editions of the Democrat and Chronicle.

(Adv.) pen now: Flah's Sand and Surf Shop Multi-racial Society Sighted by Graham New York Times News Service NEW YORK Rev. Billy Graham predicted yesterday that the United States would create "a truly multi-racial society" within a generation. The Baptist evangelist spoke it Mayor Wagner's second annual prayer breakfast at the participation in community activities often on behalf of the Negro. Sutton says he was arrested at 13 for MRS. CONSTANCE MOTLEY later at.CCNY and New York Law School.

Sutton, whose slave-born father was principal of a Negro high school in San Antonio, was one of 12 children who finished college. "We all helped each other," he says. He began attending Negro colleges in the South but later sandwiched in graduate work at Columbia and law classes at Brooklyn College while working at a postal clerk and subway conductor. BROWNE, SON OF A postal clerk in Harlem, saved his pennies as a cabaret bus boy and drug store delivery boy to earn tuition at McGill. Canadian relatives helped.

Then the war came long and after that the GI bill saw him through Columbia Law School. With Mrs. Shirley Chis-holm, Brooklyn Assemblywoman, and William C. Thompson, Brooklyn senator, things were a bit easier. A lot of "A-plusses" won Mrs.

Chisholm scholarships and she went on to an M.A. at Brooklyn College and graduate work in childhood education at Columbia. Thompson, an only child, was easily able to commute to nearby Brooklyn College. After the war, the GI bill saw him through law school. Brought up in the British West Indies, Bertram L.

Baker, Assembly education chairman, thinks the British school system (he attended a St. Kitts School operated by Cambridge yourself, In an Eve-shaper mm. Waldorf Astoria. Graham told 727 leaders of the city's business and government affairs that the na tion was now alert to the problem of injustice and was "making the greatest attempt that any nation has ever to achieve racial a ity- Rev. Billy The lean, Graham tanned, youthful-looking evari gelist spoke here before at tempting a series of integrat ed evangelistic rallies in central and southern Alabama.

In addition to racial ten sion, he said, the nation faces grave crises of crime, war, population growth and moral apathy. Graham said afterward that he would hold integrated out door services at Dothan, Saturday night and Sunday afternoon at the invitation of "both the Negro and white ministers." Dothan has a population of 50,000, almost half Negro. Next Monday evening Graham will speak at the Univer sity of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Tuesday night at Tuske- gee Institute. oung Folkfanders are good sports And they choose clothes for casual adventures from a complete collection. One must-have: a length water-repellant jacket closed with an industrial zipper.

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All are in beautiful all functional and spirited and smashing. The collection, in toto, is as pleasing to seekers after the unusual and witty as it to seekers after the sun. Com. tee it in all its brilliance you'll find the precise suits, covers and accessories to start you off on a glorious summer. Sand and Surf Shop, at Pittsford Plaza.

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