Los Angeles revolt

On August 15th I had an interview on the subject of the uprising in the black community in Los Angeles with Frank Greenwood, chairman of the Los Angeles Afro-American Cultural Association. Mr. Greenwood is the director of a touring group of actors and is founder of an Afro-American youth group called the Toussaint L'Ouverture drill club which, he says, is designed "to teach the kids drill and bearing and instill in them the pride and dignity of being black." Q- What did cause the uprising? Rh. Three hundred years of oppression of the black man in America = unemploy= ment, police brutality, white supremacy, poor housing, over-all white oppression of the black man in America. It's not just local conditions, but general resentment at such things as the failure to bring freedom to the South while they send troops off to Vietnam. A black person on Central Avenue (a major area of the uprising) feels oppressed by most white people in America, with dam few exceptions. A white employer exploits him, the white labor unions discriminate against him. The white liberals are all talk. The whites who go into that community do so as exploiters. The white reporters speak from a racist point of view. The schools teach white history. The black man on Central Avenue thinks in terms of black versus white, and it's based on living reality. Q. What about Rev. Martin L. King's statement that the riots are a great setback to the freedom movement and that the full force of the police and military should be used to suppress them? A. I differ. This rising shows the deep-seated resentment which they have tried to say didn't exist. It's the Afro-American striking out in pain and anguish, a direct result of the poison of the poisonous society we live in. If the power structure hasn't got sense enough to get to the causes I believe the whole society is in great danger. King's statement is farcical. Why didn't he advocate non-violence of the police? They've killed over 20 of our people in these days. Dr. King is a most contradictory advocate of non-violence. I wonder whose side he's on. This whole outbreak shows the complete failure of the non-violent movement, its failure to do anything for the people on Central Avenue - on all the Central Avenues. Q. Who are the leaders of this uprising? A. I thought at first there was no leadership at all. And there probably wasn't, at first. But judging from what happened, from the way stores have been selected, it seems there is some systematic activity. But is's none of the known groups or leaders. Qe What, in yout opinion, is the general attitude of the Negro community toward the uprising, the looting, and so on? A. Overwhelmingly favourable. There may be a few, mostly older people, preachers, etc., who "deplore"it, but the great majority are in favour. You see, nobody says anything about the 300 years the whites have been looting the blacks. If blacks looted this country for 100 years they couldn't make it up. The country owes the blacks something and it will have to pay, either socially, granting the demands of the black community, or antisocially, facing one catastrophe after another. You heard the man they interviewed on T.V. He said, "I'm not a criminal, I'm taking all I can because I'm poor." I say those people have a right to help themselves.