Jackson Advocate

The AVC And Civil Rights

(From The Memphis World)

The American Veterans Committee has made what seems to be a logical move toward eliminating political confusion and the use of civil rights as a political issue.

This veterans organization has called upon both Presidential candidates to take civil rights out of their campaigns. This can be done, according to the AVC by sincere nominees making a declaration to support all reasonable and necessary steps, including the enforcement on a federal level, to guarantee all Americans 1. The right to vote in all primary and general elections 2. The right to equality of employment opportunities. 3. The right of security of person.

It seems that if both political parties would adhere to the logic in the above proposal, we would at least eliminate one vital stumbling block in all of our political affairs, namely the race issue which has become a key instrument in campaigns for political factions. The principles of civil rights, which parties and factions have used to make heated political disputes out of, are already written in the United States Constitution. What is really needed, is for these principles to be enforced by the people in office who have the instruments at hand to do so.

The issue of civil rights should not have to be in political platforms in the first place. But some political leaders have seized upon the value of the idea to achieve votes and as a result, a lot of people are made to suffer the consequences.

Negro voters in America, really see no need for civil rights to be made such an issue in all political campaigns, and from all indications they would be willing to go along with the above proposal made by the American Veterans Committee. But if the issue of Civil rights is to be continued to be exploited by political leaders without netting anything for Negro Americans and other minorities, they must be forced to vote in a bloc in order to force consideration of rights which already by American standards are theirs.