Legislation to provide specific penalties for those who impose segregation in interstate transportation has been before the Congress, Mr. Chairman, continually since 1948. None of this legislation has ever been brought to the floor of either House for debate and vote. During this same period significant advances have been made in safeguarding the civil rights of American citizens through the courts, through the acts of State legislatures and municipal bodies, through administrative and executive actions and through the efforts of voluntary organizations. Only the Congress has stood still. No Federal civil rights legislation has been enacted by the Congress for 80 years. In recent years there have been frequent declarations that the judicial and executive branches of the Government were acting on civil rights in areas and in ways which are alleged to be more properly the responsibility of the Congress. But those who so contend are the very ones who have consistently denied the Congress an opportunity to express its will on civil rights.

Let them now permit the Congress to record its view. Let them allow the democratic process to work. Let them now at long last, after reasonable debate, permit civil rights legislation to be brought

to a vote.

Mr. Chairman, while the organizations submitting this statement endorse all the measures referred to above and believe that their enactment is long overdue, developments during the past year have especially highlighted the need for legislation to guarantee security of the person, to protect the right to vote and to provide the Justice Department with adequate enforcement powers.

Thus, while lynching has changed in character over the years, protection of the person is still a problem. Organized mob violence and terror of the Ku Klux Klan variety, often in collusion with local enforcement officials, are reappearing in new forms. The present-day lynchers arrange economic reprisals or bombings, as well as acts of personal violence, against individuals who do not conform to established community patterns.

The poll tax is still a substantial barrier to voting in 5 States. Where it does not suffice, discriminatory administration of voter qualification tests serves to bar many who should be allowed to vote. When these have failed, threats, intimidation and even murder have been used with great effectiveness.

Flagrantly and systematically, the right to vote has been denied colored citizens in many parts of the South.

I offer the committee a sample of the kind of ballot used in Alabama elections which have just been concluded. You will note that the ballot carries a rooster and the declaration of white supremacy. It is fantastic that in America at the polling booths there would be such open flaunting of theories of racial superiority.

Mr. Chairman, I pass this for your inspection, sir.

Senator HENNINGS. Mr. Wilkins, would you not like to have this made a part of the record of these hearings?

Mr. WILKINS. I would, sir.

Senator HENNINGS. Without objection, that will be so ordered.

By casting this ballot I do pledge myself to abide by the result of this primary election and to aid and support all the nominees thereof in the ensuing general election.

Democratic Primary Election, May 1, 1956, Montgomery County

Mr. WILKINS. In Alabama the opposition to voting by colored people is not merely symbolic. Macon County, for example, is the seat of Tuskegee Institute a world famous institution of higher learning. In Macon County colored citizens have had a long hard struggle to obtain the right to vote. The latest effort to keep many of them from casting a ballot has been most effective. State officials have simply refused to appoint a full board of registrars. At least two›

members are necessary for the board to function, and at present there is only one.

An interesting commentary on the Macon County, Ala., situation is that State Senator Sam Inglehart, who hails from that county, and who is a State senator, by reason of the fact that many thousands of colored citizens in his county cannot vote, Senator Inglehart is the State chairman of the White Citizens Council in Alabama, which organization is now busily engaged in trying to keep still more Negroes from voting, not only in Macon County but throughout Alabama.

Because there has been a steady increase in the number of qualified colored voters in Louisiana an organization known as the White Citizens Council has started a campaign to purge as many of these voters from the books as possible.

In Monroe, La., representatives of the councils have actually invaded the office of the registrar of voting for the purpose of purging colored voters. It is estimated that at least 500 colored voters have been taken from the rolls because of this activity. At one point the action of those who oppose voting by colored people became so flagrant that a former Governor of Louisiana, Mr. Knowles, went to the office of the registrar to challenge the proceeding. A near fist fight ensued.

It should be noted here that this is an illustration of one of the conditions that would be corrected by a section of the legislation before this committee. These citizens in Louisiana who were summarily purged from the polls a few days before election had no chance to get themselves back on the rolls.

There was no machinery, there was no law, and the Federal Government, the Department of Justice, had no law under which it could proceed. The result was that in 10 days or 2 weeks, after the summary action against them, an election was held and they were denied an opportunity to participate in it.

An Associated Press dispatch from Baton Rouge, La., dated May 14, 1956, reported that Governor Robert Kennon had announced the dismissal of a woman registrar of voters in Webster Parish after complaints from members of the White Citizens Councils that she had failed to enforce voter registration qualifications.

After criticism

says the Associated Press dispatch—

Mrs. Clement (the registrar) applied the law uniformly to both races and disqualified 24 white persons.

For this, of course, she was dismissed.

She contended, "What's fair for one race is fair for the other."

It is an interesting commentary on this situation to interpolate, this woman who saw such fairness in administering the law without discrimination, has been restored to her post, a few days after a new State administration took office in Louisiana. Presumably the new administration regards the fair administration of the voter registration laws as not cause for dismissal from office.

Mississippi has run the entire scale from economic reprisal to outright violence in preventing colored people from voting.

The following is a quote from an issue of the State Times of Jackson, Miss., in March 1955:

An offshoot

says the paper

of a meeting of Mississippi circuit court clerks Tuesday was a suggestion that the clerks seek information of citizen's councils in their counties to halt an overload of Negro voting.

Earl W. Crenshaw, circuit court clerk of Montgomery County, said the councils are very effective. He spelled out their method of operations as followsAnd I quote again:

The council obtains names of Negroes registered from the circuit court clerk. If those who are working for someone sympathetic to the council's views are found objectionable, their employer tells them to take a vacation. Then if the names are purged from the registration books they are told that the vacation is over and they can return to work.

A dramatic illustration of how the program of fear works comes from Humphreys County area of Mississippi. Prior to May 1955, there were approximately 400 colored voters in this county. By May 7, 1955, the number of colored voters had been reduced to 92. On that day, the Rev. G. W. Lee, a leader in the register and vote effort among colored people, was fatally shot in Belzoni, Miss.

Today, Mr. Chairman, there is only one colored eligible to vote in Belzoni, Miss. He is Gus Courts, who once ran a grocery store in the community. On November 25, 1955, he was shot and seriously wounded while in his store, but has since recovered.

I offer the committee a photostat of an envelope and a threatening message mailed by persons unknown in Columbus, Miss., July 30, 1955, to Caleb Lide, one of the few registered Negro voters in Crawford, Miss. The message reads:

Last warning. If you are tired of living vote and die.

I submit the reproduction of the envelope and of the message, Mr. Chairman.

Senator HENNINGS. Without objection it will be admitted into the record and made a part thereof.