University of Virginia Library

G.O.P. Plan May Threaten Blacks

The following column is written by
Roy Wilkins and appears weekly in
the Charlottesville-Albemarle
Tribune. - ed.

The fears of Negro citizens are
being given substance by the first
planning talks out of what will
become the Richard M. Nixon
administration.

According to speculation, one
of the principal Nixon moves will
be to return to the states the
responsibility and control for
carrying out programs on
education, welfare and other social
services. These are the programs
which directly touch people. In
past administrations most of these
programs have been guided by the
federal government.

President-elect Nixon is said to
be committed to the system of bloc
grants to states instead of the
pinpointing of federal monies into
specific localities. If this is the plan
which he will propose and which
his followers in the Congress will
pass, then, as far as the Negro is
concerned, the race will be getting a
slightly modified George C. Wallace
plan.

It is true that, unlike Wallace,
Mr. Nixon does not propose to
repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act or
the 1965 Voting Rights Act or to
nullify almost completely the 1954
Brown ruling of the U.S. Supreme
Court. But if he sends federal funds
for education, for example, in a
lump sum to, say, Alabama, he will
be turning Uncle Sam's back while
the states do as they please about
both distribution and enforcement.

It ought to be remembered that
the whole fight of black Americans
for seventy years has been for
federal legislation, federal executive
action and federal court decisions
precisely because many of the
individual states grievously
shortchanged them. Like other
Americans they are citizens both of
their states and of the United
States. But in their case, many
states have rejected federal
direction. Federal court decisions
have been bypassed or ignored.
Attempts to enact federal civil
rights legislation have been fought
down to the wire.

Thus Senator William J.
Fulbright, chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee, can cry
crocodile tears over the blocking of
attention to civil rights and urban
problems by the expenditures for
the Vietnam War - all the while
having a 100 per cent anti-civil
rights voting record.

Congressman Albert Qui (R.Minn.)
failed in his effort to put all
federal aid to the states in bloc
grant form, leaving the states to
determine the shares to be allotted
to whom. But Congresswoman
Edith Green of Portland, Oregon,
did succeed with her amendment
for bloc grants to the Teachers
corps. Previously, the federal
government sent Teachers corps
members directly into school
districts containing children from
low-income families. Under the
Green plan, the states will decide
which districts will get extra
teaching help and how much.

The statistics on how the states
allocated funds are too voluminous
to be cited here, but anyone who
studies them will be struck with
wonder that Negro children in some
states managed to get any
education whatsoever. The G O.P.
plan, if adopted, will set black
Americans back at least 30 years
and force them to fight a weary war
all over again.

In today's critical infighting, far
removed from the headlines, the
black community needs desperately
the energy, courage, imagination
and alertness of its youth. Exposing
and defeating the bloc grant plan is
more important to the race as a
whole than taking over a college
building or issuing a manifesto.