CORE's Farmer Acclaims Gains of Freedom Riders

James Farmer, National Director of CORE, said last night that the Negro Freedom Riders "are breaking the back of transport segregation in the South." He also asserted that the rides have brought about "an awakening in the Negro community which is likely to have great effects in the years to come."

The tall, imposing Farmer, who is presently under indictment for breach of the peace in Jackson, Miss., told a Liberal Union audience at 2 Divinity Ave. that "the gap is closing between civil rights laws and their effective implementation." Segregation signs, which the whites pull down before the arrival of the riders, are staying down after the riders leave, he reported.

Farmer answered the charge that the riders should "mind their own business" and leave the testing of integration to local Negroes. He said that "these groups have been cowed to impotency by the threat of economic reprisals. Our work has aroused them," he added, "made them conscious of the 'new Negro.'"

To illustrate this statement, he told a story about Sam, the colored man in Mississippi who came to see his white boss, Mr. Charlie. He said, "Mr. Charlie, have you hoard about the 'new Negro'? Well, I'm one. And from now on it won't be Mr. Charlie, but just Charlie."

As Sam was leaving the office, he turned around, saying, "And Charlie, there's no more Mississippi anymore. It's 'Sippi now." The Freedom Riders now refer to that state as simply 'Sippi.

Testing Segregation

As of Nov. 1, the riders will, without publicity, begin testing segregation in bus terminals in Alabama "to see if the law still exists in that area." The law is an ICC ruling which prohibits such segregation, but Gov. Patterson has recently said the law does not apply to his state. If necessary, Alabama will close its terminals and have the buses stop at telephone poles, he has said.

After the speech, Farmer told the CRIMSON he has heard of "a mutual assistance pact" recently concluded between the American Nazi Party and the Black Muslims, a radical Negro nationalist group.

Nazis to Help Muslims

Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the Nazis, has written letters to two of Farmer's friends disclosing that the Nazis have agreed to help the Muslims obtain "black and" in return for black storm troopers who will guard Nazi meetings.

There was a further agreement: Nazis will make certain that whites leave Negro women alone if Muslims assure them that Negroes will stay away from white women.

Farmer predicted that the Muslims will definitely lose prestige if they have signed with Rockwell.

Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government, introduced Farmer with the assertion that "liberalism has been retreating over the past ten years."

"Quite a Beating"

"I'm glad you're shocked by that fact," Beer said, "because I am." Although the French Social Democrats and British Labor Party have suffered most in post-war years, the American left "has taken quite a beating."

Beer laid the retreat of the left to the irrationalism of the Cold War.