Atlanta Daily World

Minister Tells Group Fight For Schools Is White Man's Job
BY CARTER JEWEL

TAPPAHANNOCK, Va.-(ANP) -Dr. W. L. Ransome told a capacity audience at the closing session of the 14th annual conference of the Virginia Voters league here last week that the fight over desegregating public schools is the white people's fight.

The minister, pastor, First Baptist Church, South Richmond, compared the flare-up over the U. S. Supreme Court's decision outlawing segregated public schools with the Civil War. While the North and South were fighting over slavery, he said, the Negro got free.

AWARDING CERTIFICATES

The closing session of the state body was held at First Baptist Church. A feature of the session was the awarding of certificates of merit to Dr. Ransome and his wife, Mrs. Mary M. Ransome, on behalf of the league, for their fine record of leadership in Virginia and the South for Negro advancement.

Dr. Ransome, who was introduced by James P. Spencer, president of the league, spoke en "The Stream of Liberty." He reviewed briefly the struggles of men for liberty and noted that man has denied liberty to others which he sought for himself. This denial was the complaint which the speaker stressed throughout his speech.

"If the majority felt that liberty is as essential to the minority as it is to the majority, we would not need the NAACP," he declared, adding that democratic liberty includes "our social, rights, political rights, civil rights and religious rights."

A NEGRO FROM AFRICA

The speaker asserted that "the liberty of no American is as circumscribed as the liberty of American Negroes." Even a Negro from Africa will be treated better than a Negro born in America, he said.

The discrimination, segregation and inequalities from which the Negro suffers, the minister said, "hinder the stream of liberty from flowing through the life of Negroes."

Continuing, he said, "all men are sons of God." Negroes, the speaker said, "must take the obstructions out of the stream" of liberty "so that the inflow of the water will be greater than the outflow." He stressed the point that "we Negroes must get rid of all obstructions" so that all people will enjoy liberty equally.

These obstructions, Dr. Ransome listed as "segregation, class legislation, poll tax for voting, exclusion of Negroes from certain unions, discriminating clauses in contracts and segregation on common carriers."

Amos C. Clark, executive secretary of the league, made a brief statement on the fall poll tax and registration campaign of the league. Spencer spoke on the importance of keeping alive the work in the civic field carried forward by the late Dr. Luther P. Jackson, former history professor at Virginia State College and the league's first president.