Breitman Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From The Militant, Vol. V No. 43, 25 October 1941, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
Editor:
I would like to call your attention to a mistake in the editorial entitled Whitewashing Jim Crow in the October 18 issue of The Militant.
In this editorial you declared that “while Elliot was dismissed from command of Fort Bragg, he was not dismissed from the army. He was only transferred another fort, where he will be able to continue to carry out the same practices and policies he carried out at Bragg."
Colonel Elliot, who was in command at Fort Bragg the night of the shooting of Ned Turman, Negro draftee, and the terror that followed, was transferred from Fort Bragg, but not to another fort. He has been transferred to the job of instructor in the ROTC at Mississippi State College.
I make this correction in the interests of exactness, and not because I have any disagreement with the main point in your editorial.
For even if Elliot had been dishonorably discharged from the army, rather than transferred to a minor post, it would still be true that this is no “victory for Negro rights” as the Stalinists pretend. Elliot was only carrying out the official Jim Crow policy of the army, and he was dismissed to cover up the fact that this Jim Crow policy is maintained on orders from the White House itself. Regardless of who took Elliot’s place, the Negro soldiers at Bragg will still be segregated and discriminated against.
|
|
Albert Parker |
Breitman Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 21 March 2019