City Prepares For Negro Protests

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30146, 1 June 1963, Page 11

City Prepares For Negro Protests

(W.Z Press Association—Copyright)

JACKSON (Mississippi), May 31.

Two huge fairground exhibition buildings were converted into makeshift gaols in Jackson yesterday, ready to handle thousands of negro demonstrators against the colour bar.

City officials are preparing to meet any protest marches against the colour bar, strictly in this Southern city, by sending all demonstrators immediately to gaol.

About 500 negro students surged from Lanier High School on tiheir noon lunch break yesterday and staged a noisy 20-minute antisegregation demonstration. The incident occurred about the time police in Jackson's business district were arresting 11 more racial demonstrators, including a grey-haired negro woman, who burst into laughter when officers picked her up bodily and loaded her into a Black Maria.

The arrests brought to 36 the total number of integrationists . taken into custody since negroes two days ago launched what they promised would be a massive desegregation drive. The Lanier students milled around the school grounds in a predominantly negro neighbourhood clapping their

hands and chanting: “We want freedom.” Police moved into the area but made no effort to put down the protest. Negro leaders warned that the demonstrations were just beginning and that the pace of the protests would quicken unless city officials agreed to make a start toward desegregation The demonstrators in the business district carried signs telling negroes to boycott stores that practiced segregation. .

Governor Ross Barnett was holding a press conference at the Capitol, three blocks away, when the demonstrations started, but he refused to comment on the protests Parks Desegregated

In Memphis, Tennessee, yesterday, officials announced that all the city’s recreational facilities except wading and swimming pools, were being desegregated immediately The pools were to be closed for the time being.

Parks officials met with the City Commission for nearly two hours today in the Mayor’s office and then issued a statement noting the de-

cision to close the pools was in the “manifest best interests of all the people of Memphis, both white and negro.” Several Memphis, recreational facilities were previously desegregated, including the zoo, five golf courses, a number of tennis courts, libraries, and the fair grounds Today's decision extended integration to all tennis courts, golf courses, playgrounds, parks, and community centres Demonstrators Trained

A “New York Times” reporter this week attended a negro “school" in Jackson this week where integrationists are trained before taking part in demonstrations against segregation. Each morning in the last week the Mississippi director for the Congress of Racial Equity, Mr David Dennis has conducted a one-hour class in non-violent picketing and sitin methods for the negroes and whites who demonstrate in the cit# later in the day. Mr Dennis emphasised the need for a relaxed attitude during demonstrations, the “New York Times” reported. “Don’t tense or you will feel the full impact of the blows.” he said. “Probably .it’s a good thing to chew some gum."

To illustrate another threat demonstrators may face. Mr Dennis, brandishing a knife, advanced on a student. The student retreated slowly "You’re not going to let me get that close with a knife.” Mr Dennis told the student, "brotherly love or no brotherly love.” Another student, a white girl, asked Mr Dennis what to do if someone approached from behind with a dangerous weapon. "If he comes from behind, you have to hope and pray that you reach that man’s conscience before it’s too late." he replied