area, attending many of the meetings as Neighborhood Action Committees were formed. He took VISTA workers around to see some of his houses ("certainly nothing to brag about, but I just wanted to let them see them and let them know what we were doing to try to improve things").

The basic theory for VISTA work, has, is "a very fine approach" But, he laments,

instead of just taking a simple approach and saying, 'these are the needs' and 'here's what we do about it,' and 'what govern. ment funds are available to help solve this problem?' somewhere along the line things get twisted around to where the white com. munity is blamed for all these ills and it's used as a wedge to pit race against race and build a political action group out of these Neighborhood Action Committees "

Mann is convinced that Neal, the Concerned Citizens, Mrs. Mamie Nelson, the NAACP leader. and the like are not representative of the black community he has known through the years.

"I don't doubt they want to improve the welfare of the blacks," he said, "but they want to be the ones handling the money and writing the checks.

"And if they ever do get into power, they'll find out this is eo utopia either."

He cites Green County, Ala.,! where economic conditions worsened when blacks won a political takeover, and whites filed. "Now the tax base is low, and they want the whites to come back. You don't miss the water until the well runs drv."

Expects Black Voters 'Going to get Wise'

Mann also thinks that when elections do come this summer, the Lee County blacks "are going to get wise to the Conearned Citizens Council and realize they have been leading them down the wrong path."

It's at this point that Mann's closeness to the land becomes most evident.

"There have been other black groups that have worked bere Constructively-one is the Cucumber, Okra and Peas Association. The black assistant county agent, Henry A. Smith Jr., has done an excellent job in getting small Negro families involved in truck farming operations to raise their income.

"Now this is the approch you've got to take."

Mann does a lot of letters-tothe editor writing and has taken out advertisements to try to get the situation calmed down. Generally, he has dismissed Neal's and the Concerned Citizens ar Livities as militancy.

2

"Certainly not everything in Marianna is right, but there are a lot more rights' than there are 'wrongs' and it is time for people to speak out and quit letting this small group of professional hate-mongers and agita tors call the shots," he said in a letter to his Mann's Ginn customers last summer at the height of the economic boycott. Mann keeps a folder of news accounts and magazine articles, anything connected with the town's racial situation. He underlines points he feels signifi cant and makes marginal notes refuting, pointing up his contentions, or stating what he feels was wrong in the account.

Prepares Rundown
On Future of City

Last week he prepared for the Gazette a rundown on the "Fu ture of Marianna."

He feels the downtown business community is going to be reduced in numbers of business for a long time because there is no incentive to build back "in the present atmosphere," and that even with racial peace, problems of any downtown such as obsolete buildings and inade. quate parking will have to be considered.

It's hard to conceive of new industry coming to the town with its racial troubles, he said, and with a black majority that so readily embraced the United Auto Workers unjon as they did at Douglas and Lomason. an industry that has seen a steep reduction in the number of workers after a threatened shutdown last year. Existing indutries will be reluctant to expand, he says, leaving agriculture and related industry the "only basic income producers we can expect. Athletic programs lane once proud of ning teams - face an 111 cli because of rumblings from militant black students, be states. Attendance at games has dropped, hurting the programs financially. Colleges aren't interested in giving scholarships to militant protestors "who have, shown little respect for discipline and co-operation," he

says.

18

In politics, he notes that the black vote "must be recognized as having a much greater influence, but it remains to be seen whether blacks exercising an honest secret vote will follow the militant leadership...."

His feelings on such conservative white groups as the Citizens Council:

"Certainly they have a following here. They appeal to the frustrations of people who just say, "I'm tired of all this rebellion and defiance.' And they offer a very simple solution to it.

"And right now,with the frus-! tration so great when you try to, say keep the public school system alive, and you see the very people you are trying to help. see them involved in a movement to wreck it it makes you wonder if they don't have some logic in what they're saying."

Mann Target
Of Bullet,
Police Say

Gazette State News Service

MARIANNA - Lon Mann, president of the Lee County School Board, was shot at about 10 p.m. Thursday as he entered his home, the police said Saturday.

Mann was not injured.

Police recovered the bullet, which lodged in the house near an outside door. The bullet was fired from either a .30-06-caliber rifle or a 30-30-caliber weapon, Mann said.

The slug was sent to the State Police laboratory at Little Rock for examination, the county sheriff's department said.

Mann has been criticized by blacks and whites in his efforts to help solve the city's eightmonth-long black boycott of downtown business and the recent black boycott of the schools.

84-847 - 72 - 10

3

Olly Neal Jr. disrupts a barrage of phone calls to reach across his cluttered desk and welcome a reporter. When he stands he seems to fill the cramped little garret that is his office in the Lee County Co-operative Clinic.

He is 6 feet 21⁄2 inches tall and a solid 185 pounds and has had He dark ping-pong paddles and a voice that rumbles. He is the black bogean that the whites of Marianna mares.

Papers are stacked everywhere ad No Smoking signs are taped in every corner. On

wall is the popular poster of Vice President Spiro T. Agnew

hipple garb, a crude ceramic

en African dancer and an oil painting of a young black holding out his hand as if seeking aid.

There are few minutes alone with Olly Neal.

Andrew Williams tells him the bathroom has run out of toilet paper; Dr. Irwin Redlener, one of the two white doctors, pokes his bead in to say there's some talk that Senator Edward Kennedy (Dem., Mass.) would look into the Marianna situation; the OEO head is on the line doublechecking on another application; Harry Conrad, a Montana native with VISTA teaching sanitation methods, is lining up his departure after a year.

Below, technicians are bustling
about taking blood pressures,
filling out forms, guiding pa-
tients to the right room. The
clinic is always crowded - it
was a home partitioned into a
hospital. White faces are not in-
frequent.

Attitude Is One
Of Hope, Optimism

Things are active, the attitude
one of hope and optimism.
There also seems to be an air of
powes.

Which is what Lee County Cooperative Clinic and Olly Neal Jr., 31, son of a small farm owner just outside Marianna and a 10-year veteran of black activism, are now all about.

What was founded two years ago as a venture in helping the poor has become a nucleus for a powerful coalition of blacks with, the idea of changing ideas more than a century old.

A health clinic in politics? Is this proper?

Explains Neal without hesitation.

"In terms of direct political activity there has to be none. But in terms of the situation, the

efforts here are very political as

are the efforts of almost any

poverty group that is going to be

So Olly Neal became administrator for the Lee County Co-operative Clinic at a salary of about $8,000 a year, the articulate leader for his people, and the brain of a white community which thought it was moving right and proper to solve the problems of the races.

"I feel that because I am em-. ployed here at the clinic-in spite of what some of the community white leaders saythat I must be involved in the other things that go into this community, particularly as they relate to the progress or the lack of progress strictly for our patients' community.

"Therefore I will not suggest to you that I am not interested in the [economic] boycott.... I will use my influence when I can to influence the direction these things take."

He Is Aware

He Has Influence

He is well aware that he has considerable influence or at least the ability to juggle the complex feelings of the black society.

He was raised with two half brothers, five brothers and a sister. He went to school in the little New Hope community and former Morton High, where he was graduated in 1958. He went on to LeMoyne College in Memphis, majoring in chemistry. While there, he became involved in the historic 1980 Memphis sitins. He left the following year "out of lack of what I considered adequate progress toward solving the difficulties suffered by black folks."

He went to Chicago, where he worked for the Post Office Department and in a paint factory for several years. He served a two-year stint in the Army, six months of it in Vietnam where he was attached to a supply outfit. Then back to school, this time at Lane College in Jackson, Tenn., a predominantly black school. He became a spokesman for a group of students seeking change in the school and two months before graduation was expelled, appariently for his part in a campus disturbance.

(According to Jackson, Tenn., policemen, Neal was among 200 demonstrators present during the burning of a library building. He was charged with inciting to riot, but the charge was reduced to disorderly conduct. Neal was fined $52.50.

(His "arrest" record also inIcludes some of those charges so many civil rights activists have acquired he was charged twice in 1960 in Memphis with conspiracy to obstruct trade and commerce, but fined only on lesser charges.)

After a brief time at Memphis with the poverty program. he returned home in 1969 to visit his father, now a widower in failing health. It was then that he became interested in the 'VISTA program just getting under way there.

He found that one of the prob lems the new program was hav ing was ineffectiveness ir mob lizing the community.

"They felt they could be much more effective if they had with them some articulate blacks who also had some pull with the community."

Neal was the one.

Lon Mann, his counterpart in the white community, terms Neal, "very capable, very artic ulate, very energetic, but a very bitter person. I think he could be very helpful to this community if he had an attitude of co-operation instead of ar attitude of defiance."

Neal sees Man this way, "He gets loud and tries to take over."

What Mann, the school superintendent and others don't derstand. Neil says, is that blacks want to be in on the planning, not just the program.

'There Ought to Be Spirit of Recognition'

"There ought to be a spirit of recognition by white folk that black folk do make up a sizeable percentage of the population over here, and that just by justice and by right ought to have some real influence in what oc curs over here. If they did that we would arrive at a point! where there is not a black controlled or community white-controlled community, but a commurity that truly reflects the desires and wishes of the larger community."

a

Neal points to efforts for a vocational-technical school that ran into opposition from the blacks.

"They [the whites) couldn't understand why many people in the black community couldn't acept their concept of vocational education. Of course, I understand it very clearly. I personally think vocational education. is needed, but black folks ought

to have some input into what kind of direction to take, not just in terms of supporting a program when [school superinteddent] Dr. [H. C.) Dial presents it,"

Blacks accept selective buying as a "legitimate tool to force whites to deal with them in a manner that would suggest that they are equal to whites," he said. The blacks recognize that such a boycott has a negative effect on the white business and political, community and are convinced that it will bring either recognition by whites that they must deal equally with blacks "or an unfortunate death to the community."

In the case of the latter, he said, it has been said by many and preached in black pulpits that "perhaps this town needs to be born again.

Marianna Could Be Example for Others Neal, however, is optimistic. "You know," he says, "If we are successful and I don't know if we can be, we could become another Cairo [Ill.)-but if we could successfully cross a couple of bridges, Marianna would potentially be the spot that would be an example for other communities where there's a large black population.

He adds that he thinks one of the big issues at Marianna is that whites feel threatened by the large percentage of blacks and so aren't as co-operative because "blacks are in position to assume final control.

"We've come up in a country where blacks have been slaves and always the lesser of the two races and I think it's a very natural followup that white folk want to retain certain control." What if the blacks do take over?

"White folks ought to have the opportunity to attend a few black church meetings they could learn a lot of things. Black folks are very, very committed to be fair and just.

"I think that if black folk held all the political offices whites hold over here now, I think white folk would be in pretty good shape because black folks would be very, very good to them-they'd want to make certain that they don't do the wrong thing."

Another thing whites don't understand, he says, is that blacks will tell them one thing while actually doing another-helping fuel the white's contention that many blacks participate in the movement because they are afraid of other blacks.

"The average black person will say, 'Well, I'm just sort of following my folks,' even though he might have been one of those who stood in the church and said, 'We must do this,' " Neal says.

"It's because of our relationship with whites that we find an excuse. If I'm working for you and have no other source of income. I'm not going to incur vour wrath if I can find some excuse.

"We've had some to ask, 'What am I going tell Mr. Man?'

"We say, "Tell him you're scared to death. Lay it on Rev. erend [T. V.1 McKenzie.'

Ousting VISTA Won't Solve Controversy Over the Clinic

For those-such as the Arkansas Citizens Councils, the County Judges Association and the Arkansas Farm Bureau and area legislators-who have petitioned for removal of VISTA from the state, it might come as a surprise that the loss of VISTA would not mean the loss of those persons these groups feel have been the biggest thorns in their sides. Besides, there won't be any VISTA workers there before the year is out national VISTAS are being phased out in favor of fully salaried Office of Economic Opportunity employes.

Olly Neal Jr., the controver sial black administrator of the Lee County Co-operative Clinic, from which VISTA's work, is paid strictly with OEO money. So is Dr. Irwin Redlener, the Clinic medical co-ordinator whose name gets in the news most frequently with the Clinic.

Here are the facts on the Clinic's fiscal and personnel. makeup.

The Clinic gets about 80 per cent of its funds from the federal Office of Economic Opportunity. It received $39,875 from OEO from January 1, 1970, to August 31, 1970; $133,043 from OEO from September 1, 1970, to Augusta 31, 1971, and $90,000 from OEO from September 1, 1971, to February 29, 1972.

29?

What happens after February

"We hope to get some additional funds," Neal says.

The Clinic has applied for $772,563 in federal OEO funds for the period March 1, 1972, to February 28, 1973, to expand the Clinic program in several ways, The major ones are (1) To replace the VISTA volunteers with permanent full-time personnel so the program will have better continuity (VISTAS are ap pointed for one year and leave at the end of the year); (2) tobave three doctors on the staff Instead of two; (3 to establish a dental program, and (4) to increase the Clinic's "outreach program" which deals with all factors contributing to a person's lack of health.

The Clinic now has a staff of 24. Eleven are VISTA workers whose salaries are paid by VISTA. They are:

Dr. Gilbert A. Sartore, one of two doctors on the staff. Three nurses, two of them registered, one an LPN. One pharmacist.

A young woman training to do work in early childhood development.

A sanitarian who works with families on environmental deficiencies where they live, helping, them to construct sanitary outhouses and to locate their water wells in the right place so it won't be contaminated by the l

1

outhouse. and working with them on rodent control.

* Four community health advo cates who work in the low-income communities to explain the kind of services available at the Clinic and how to take advantage of them.

The salaries of the other 13 staff members are paid with the OEO funds. They are: Neal, the administrator. a laboratory technician; a secretary-recep tionist; a bookkeeper; a social counselor; a driver who transports patients to the Medical Center in Little Rock; a housekeeper (parttime); five health aides who do nursing work in the Clinic under the supervision of the nurses and Dr. Redlener.

Dr. Sartore is leaving July 1 to go into a residency program. As the VISTA workers' terms expire this year, some will be considered by the Clinic Board for full-time positions. Others will leave.

The Clinic recruited all the VISTA workers except the four community health advocates The community health advo cates are black and the othe seven VISTAs are white.

Folksinger
To Arrive

On Monday

Gamette Bate News Service

MARIANNA-Joan Baez, the folksinger, who has agreed to help raise funds for financing construction of a new building to house the Lee County Co-operative Clinic here, is to arrive here about noon Monday to tour poverty areas, a clinic spokesman said Friday.

Miss Baez's tour will be cover by national television and press, spokesmen said.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, the clinic medical director, said Miss Baez would hold a press confer ence about 5 p.m. after she completes the tour.

Miss Baez says she plans to campaign nationally to help poor people get better medical care and that she will help the clinic here to focus attention on the problem.

For almost two weeks, Gazette newsmen have been al Marianna interviewing the prin. cipals in the school, business and VISTA controversy. This is the second and last in a series of articles.

The sign on the glass door in downtown Marianna informs

passersby that by walking up stairs they can obtain legal services or a loan from the Dag. getts. Or they may walk through a ground level door and obtain a prescription or a soft drink in Daggett's Drug Store.

At 5 p.m. there were few per. sons on the streets and only one black person was in sight, and he wasn't buying.

Up and down the street were empty stores, many with for rent signs in doors and win

dows.

A disgruntled merchant was closing out his business and said he was tired of talking about the mess. He pointed to a black couple shopping the sale

"It's a shame what has hap pened here. The black couple was afraid to come in the front door, so I had to let them in the back way. That's the way it is here now.

"I've never mistreated a black in all my life. In fact I've helped a lot of them and they've help me.

He was ruined financially now, the man said, because 40 percent of his business came from blacks At least 13 busifolded nesses have since the black boycott began June 11. The merchant hands a mimeographed sheet to the reporter' and says "This is what they claim started it all." The sheet shows that the baycott was started because a black woman was arrested for ailing 1 pay $2.06 for a pizza

"Why? I don't know why, just as I don't know on the white side There's definitely a hardening of attitudes, there's no doubt about that," replies Jesse Daggett, who joined his family's, law firm after graduation from the University of Arkansas Law School in 1970.

He is a man in the middle His. face portrays the frustration of failing to find a common ground for blacks and whites to agree.

This failure has caused a change in is thinking, as it has in the community. A person in the middle is a target for both sides

"I've bad a pretty big shift in my opinion in say the last month, since January 13, the day we had the trouble at the school," said Daggett, a mem ber of the schools' biracial advisory committee.

He said the schools were run fairly and that Superintendent Dr. H. C. Dial "had been sent here by God, if you want to put it just that blunt."

He said Dial's "fairness ac

tually gets him into trouble. I that he didn't think was in the don't think he would do anything interest of all students."

Daggett indicated that the black boycott of the schools following the demonstration and arrest of black students sapped him of faith and understanding.

Will Governor Bumpers' task force solve the problems?

"I don't know. They've got a big job. I'm hopeful The attudes around here are real hard, I'm telling you.

"The black community is hurting Marianna downtown, but they can't hurt it anymore. I think it's gone about as far as it

can go.

Down the street and up the stairs in the law offices of Dag gett and Daggett, the question is . asked: Why isn't there some giving on the black side?

Talks of Threats
Against Moderates

The conversation drifted to blacks threatening blacks, telling them to not shop downtown and not to send their children to school. A. L. Johnson, black assistant superintendent, saw his house burn after he publicly announced that he had no desire to

1

be superintendent of schools. Other blacks have complained about attempted firebombings because of their moderate stands. A white deputy sheriff's house also has been firebombed.

"I think there is to some extent fear and intimidation and I think to a certain extent, to the black (an admission of fear or intimidation) is an easy way to get a white off his back," Dagget said

"He says, 'I'm not going to send my child to school because I've been threaten.' You can't argue with that."

The effect, however, is the same in the black community, and for that matter. in the white community when fear and in-1 timidation tactics are employed: The vast majority is frozen, neutralized, leaving decisions to the hard-core groups.

Other Communities
Have Similar Problems

Daggett was asked if he believed the seven member Volun teers in Service to America group stirred up racial problems and whether the city would find relief by kicking VISTAS out.

"I don't know... if they have aggravated the problem that may have already been here or they may have caused the problem. I don't know.

"I know a lot of communities that don't have VISTA [that have] had similar problems. ... Marianna isn't the first community to have such a problem, but I do not know of one that has been so severe."

Change in Attitude
Of Whites, He Says

Daggett said that there was a change in white attitudes "just before Christmas The whites said they would do several things if the boycott would be ended and I was told by Olly Neal Jr. that this was accepta ble to him."

Neal, the black administrator of the Lee County Co-operative Clinic, a federally funded medi

cal facility, receives heavy blame for problems from both sides, but blacks do it quieter.

"The concessions agreed to by the white community, the changes that were to be made. the new jobs that would be offered [and other things] would have been acceptable to him [Neal] as an individual," Daggett said. "We were all convinced that the whites would do what they said they would do.

"But blacks wanted more assurances that these things would be done and a definite time set for the changes to take place."

The blacks had listed 42 demands and among them were city and county jobs, jobs in banks, utility firms and top positions in the schools. The county is populated by about 18.000 permore than 60 per cent

sons, black.

"We went back to the white. community after Christmas after they turned down the con cessions," Daggett said. "They just laughed at us. They weren't interested at all."

He quickly moved his chair up to his desk, taking pencil in band and drawing a squarewith several marks down the middle.

Looking up, Daggett motioned to the drawing: "The business district of Marianna has dwindled to where it could serve a town of 3,000. It's been survival of the fittest.

"It's about down to the point to where we'll just divide the town up. Here's our stores and our businesses and over here's the blacks and they got their stores and their jobs.

"And the only thing you've got in common is that you walk the same streets and breathe the same air."

Many white persons think that blacks want complete control of county and city government and the schools. Daggett believes that complete control by either race creates new problems, but "it's very likely" that it will go to an all-white private school ¡system.

"It's up to the blacks; it's not up to the whites."