Police Prevent Negroes Registering As Voters

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30093, 29 March 1963, Page 11

Police Prevent Negroes Registering As Voters

(N.Z^^.-Reuter— Copyright)

GREENWOOD (Mississippi), March 27. About 100 negroes on their way to register to vote were scattered today by police, United Press International rep rted. Another group of negroes which gathered at the Leflore County Court house was dispersed when a white crowd gathered. Eleven negroes were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and refusing to obey police orders to move on. Police said about 50 negroes gathered on the court house steps after the first group was dispersed in the streets by police using a police dog and backed up by a company of firemen. The group gathered on the court house steps was dispersed and left in twos and threes after the white crowd gathered. Negro leaders immediately protested against the dispersals and arrests, the latest in a series of racial incidents in Greenwood, a North Mississippi city of 20,000. The first group of negroes was halted two sheets from the court house after being turned away from City Hall. One officer held the police dog on a leash until the negroes scattered in small groups, then left the nearby streets.

Among those arrested were Mesons James Foreman and Frank Smith (Atlanta) and Mr Robert Moses (New York)

leaders of the group conducting an intensive voter registration campaign in the area Negro spokesmen said one man was bitten and another h.xl his trousers ripped by the police dog’s teeth. Police declined to comment. the Associated Press reported. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were seen on the street watching the march before it was broken up. In Washington, the Justice Department Mid it was “getting a full report on what happened and preparing to take whatever action that is appropriate as soon as possible.” Asked for clarification of what this meant, a spokesman said: "We’re going to do something about it? The FBI. went to Greenwood after two shotgun blasts were fired last night into the home of the father of a negro, Dewey Greene jum, who recently was denied admission to the University of Mississippi. No-one was injured by the blasts, which shattered glass to a front door and window at the home of Dewey Greenesen, The vote registration drive in the plantation area, where negroes outnumber whites almost two-to-one, has touched off three incidents involving gunfire. One negro L recovering from bullet wounds.

Today’s march came after toe negroes met to a church sang “freedom songs” for about an hour, and held r services.