Whites Plan To Unseat Negro Representative

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30957, 13 January 1966, Page 6

Whites Plan To Unseat Negro Representative

(AZ. Press Association—Copyright) ATLANTA, January 11. White Georgia State Representatives dined on wild hog tonight as they boisterously discussed ways and means of getting their newly-elected Negro colleague thrown out of the House, Linked Press International reported.

Mr Julian Bond, aged | 25, one of Atlanta’s j more militant civil I rights leaders, angered I the State’s politicians I last week by endorsing a civil rights group’s statement criticising United States policy in Vietnam. Today Mr Bond voluntarily stepped aside when the oath of office was administered to members of the House. A Legislative committee was appointed to determine i [his fitness to serve. Negro leaders immediately j threatened a State-wide boy-1 cott of Georgia's products and! demonstrations at the State Capitol if Mr Bond is denied a seat in the House. Mr Bond promised an allout fight to take his seat in the lower chamber, telling re- ' porters he was not a Communist and said: “I tell you II will never answer that ques-l I tiion again.” Toned-Down Statement Before the House convened Mr Bond issued a toned-down statement on United States policy in Vietnam. He told the House: “The posture of my life for the last five years has been calculated to give Negroes the ability to participate in the formulation of public polices. I “The fact of my eleCon to] public office does not lessen:

my duty or desire to express my opinions, even when they differ from those held by others. “Because of convictions that I have arrived at through examination of my conscience, I have decided that I person-

ally cannot participate ,n war.” The reapportioned 205-mem-ber House has 73 new members, including eight Negroes. All were sworn in except Mr Bond. They were the first Negroes to be elected to the House