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- Project Emphasis
- Dear Editor
Ode to President JimThe Daily Athenaeum, 1967 Jim was a West Virginia University student body president who had trivialized the causes of long haired politically active students and warned of incipient violence. I used insipient as more descriptive of the potential violence. Every time and for everyLittle Cause? War, student rights, civil rights There is Long hair everywhere And that is bad Long hair is no little cause It is strength But insipient violence Lying not so deeply Under the square-jawed Short-haired Light skinned Protestant Aryan
Fraternal sort of fellow Is the violence of our freedom Ah! He is our spirit He is our salvation Uncorrupted with variety He is most qualified To handle Big causes Like Long Hair Project EmphasisThe Daily Athenaeum, October 17, 1967 Dear Editor Because such programs as Project Emphasis carry so much hope for increasing the awareness of the students of this university, I write to suggest some additions. In the section entitled, “Man in Relationship to His Creation”, I suggest that three of West Virginia’s worst problems cannot be overlooked and they are: strip mining, water pollution and air pollution. To miss these timely topics of such urgent importance in favor of automobile safety is an interesting choice of priorities. In the section entitled, “Man in Relationship to Himself;” only officials from riot-torn cities are being invited to participate in a discussion on racial relations. That’s like having a program on the cowboys and Indians and only inviting the cowboys to speak and show their old movies. If the city officials hadn’t been out of touch with the realities of what caused the racial riots there would very possibly not have been any riots. Who has been invited to represent “the people” in this issue? How about Floyd McKissick or Father Groppi, to name just a few possibilities. Last year the racial issue wasn’t even included in the program and this year it appears that we might hear from city officials and police chief types that what caused the riots were hoodlums and subversives—we get enough of that from Senator Byrd. And somewhere under some title there has to be a frank two-sided discussion of the war in Vietnam—this is hardly what Chet Huntley will give. And somewhere, somehow, it seems something on student activism and the “hippie” revolution would have been included. Project Emphasis has the glorious but dangerous potential of awakening the long dull and slumbering WVU student. Let’s live dangerously for a change and make this a 20th century university.
I hope you will agree that it is a dangerous business to use federal law to deny persons their rights. Vista volunteers, Appalachian Volunteers and others were organizing poor people to seek redress of their grievances by among other activities, picketing and demonstrating. In Mingo County, West Virginia, these groups succeeded in purging 3,000 non-residents and dead people from the voting rolls. After such success the rules were changed. Vista volunteers were no longer assigned to community groups for the purpose of organizing for action. Vistas were to be assigned to do good works but not in community organizing. They could work in clinics, food pantries etc., but no politics allowed. The Vista threat to the local power structures was ended. Narragansett Circa 1967. (This was never sent.) Dear Editor,A friend and I just spent a very wonderful vacation in Narragansett. It was our second year there and we intend to return many more times. We love the beach and the ocean and we delight in walking in the evening along the sea wall. We enjoy watching the surfers and it may surprise you to know we get a kick out of seeing the kids on their motorcycles, with their long hair and lovely dress, dancing and just hanging around—they seem to be of a free and refreshing spirit. The ocean is new to us and so we still thrill in finding shells and stones as we walk along the beach. We had visited the beach after five o’clock everyday except the last day of our vacation. You might imagine the shock and disappointment when we were asked to pay a dollar each to walk on the beach that we had thought was free to meander about. The money wasn’t the problem. Two dollars wasn’t going to break us up. To us the ocean belonged to everyone. No person, government or corporation should be allowed to build a fence around it and charge to see it as if it had been captured in some faraway land and brought to Narragansett for exhibition. If you come to the Appalachians you won’t have to pay to look at the mountains or to smell the flowers—they belong to everyone, as should the ocean. In order not to have to pay “filthy lucre” to visit our new friend and comforter, the ocean, we would even be willing to pay a recreation tax to Narragansett or Rhode Island or an additional gasoline tax or anything! One of our sanctuaries is now the ocean, please don’t make us pay to pray and meditate there. Pesticides and Patriotism To The Appalachian Center at West Virginia University, January 17, 1968 This letter is in response to your cover letter of January 1966 to Mr. Lewis McLean’s speech on pesticides and fertilizers. I thought Mr. McLean had some sound arguments for the use of pesticides but am at a loss to understand why he chose to not so subtly associate those who are against the use of pesticides with hippies and insinuate that critics are un-American. This line of argument was not necessary to get his point across. I cannot understand why people choose to destroy the character of those who disagree with their point of view. It might be more intellectual and more worthy of a publication produced by the Appalachian Center to print speeches and reports that stick with the substance of issues and refrain from character assassination. It appears that, perhaps, Mr. McLean did have an ax to grind for on the first page of the speech he seems to be addressing himself to fertilizer dealers which leads me to believe that he was seeking their approval. I find it distasteful that you believe that it is important to recognize the “character” of those who are against pesticides or man-made synthetics. Character has nothing to do with an opinion on such subjects and whether a man is for or against pesticides has nothing to do with whether he is American or un-American, hippy or non-hippy. I never in my wildest nightmares expected to see the American flag waved in a speech on pesticides and chemicals—unless of course, the speaker has a vested interest in promoting the sale of pesticides and chemicals. I later learned that Mr. McLean was speaking under the sponsorship of Velsicol Chemical Corporation. This was written three months before I resigned as Foreign Student Advisor and headed for San Francisco. My exodus was encouraged by the new WVU administration after I participated in a picket protest at the 1967 graduation ceremonies. We, me and members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), were objecting to the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Senator Robert Byrd. Besides bringing millions of dollars in pork to WVU, Byrd’s most memorable political action was to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He joined the Ku Klux Klan in 1942 and held the offices of Exalted Cyclops and Kleagle (recruiter). In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore Bilbo: “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.” Byrd later wrote a letter to the Grand Wizard of the KKK saying, “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation.” While running for the House of Representatives in 1952 Byrd said that he was no longer a member of the clan and was not interested in it. In 1956, I heard Byrd say, after a patriotic speech to a Baptist Church in Morgantown, that he was proud to have been a member of the Klan. While on the house committee that oversaw the District of Columbia, Byrd made gratuitous and racist entries into the Congressional Record that were damaging to the African-American population of the District. When it was no longer expedient for Byrd to be a racist he shifted gears and hired an African-American staff member. Directory: julian julian -> Permanent Residence julian -> Juliana Ealy Mr. Williams Eng. 8 Pd. 1-2 julian -> Julian Opie Interviews and Texts – from his own website Guardian Online – 2003 Download 0.77 Mb. Share with your friends:
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