STATEMENT OF WILLIAM PORTER, CHAIRMAN, INTER-PROPERTY STEERING COMMITTEE, NATIONAL CAPITAL

AUTHORITY PROJECTS

HOUSING

Mr. PORTER. Mr. Chairman, my name is William R. Porter. I thank you for the privilege of testifying before this committee. I am a tenant of public housing, a native of Washington. I would like to say that as a result of the attention of Mr. Washington this summer, a program was initiated in this city to give to us a very cool summer, a very pleasant fall, a very refreshing winter, and certainly an enjoyable spring.

We had programs which would overshadow anything that you have seen or witnessed on "Mission Impossible." The program went out to deal with our youth and adults to initiate job training, cultural activities, educational development. This was the result of Mr. Washington's vision in organizing a branch of National Capital Housing Authority called the Community Organization and Social Service.

We, the tenants of National Capital Housing, have decided that in this city of monuments, that we are going to build a living monument to Mr. Walter Washington by trying to endorse better conduct of our people, better understanding between those of us in public housing and those in private housing. We feel very proud and very grateful to have a man of the caliber of Mr. Washington to be chosen as Commissioner of this great city.

On February 10, 1967, a day that was filled with a snowstorm, 10,000 people turned out to witness a tribute to Mr. Walter E. Washington. The city proclaimed that day Walter E. Washington Day. We are very proud, and we thank you, and we ask you for your consideration when we say that speaking for the grassroots persons of this city, they say that no one speaks for the majority of the people, but when it gets down to brass tacks, there is no one in the capacity of Mr. Washington, who has reached at least 50,000 persons in the National Capital Housing plus those on the outside of National Capital Housing, and we say that a man who has dealt with the people on the grassroots level, who has come out into the streets, met with us in our meeting places, who has listened to our demands, who has been abused in treatment and still has been able to hold his head high and endorsed our programs and give to us an enlightenment and uplifting of our image we wholeheartedly ask that you endorse this man, and certainly we give our support in the name of Walter E. Washington as Commissioner of the District of Columbia. The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for a very fine statement. The Senator from Oregon?

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Vermont?

Our next witnesses will be Mr. Aketi Kimani, vice chairman, Washington Committee for Black Power, accompanied by Mr. Chuck Stone.

84-529-67-3

STATEMENT OF AKETI KIMANI, VICE CHAIRMAN, WASHINGTON COMMITTEE FOR BLACK POWER; ACCOMPANIED BY CHUCK STONE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Mr. KIMANI. Mr. Stone and I, both members of the Black Power Committee of Washington, D.C., would like to make a statement against what we call the "I spy team" of Walter E. Washington and Thomas Fletcher.

The Washington Committee for Black Power wishes to express its opposition to the Presidential appointments of Walter E. Washington as Commissioner and Thomas W. Fletcher as his assistant.

We do not believe these two men in themselves, or the reorganizational plan they represent, will in any way alter the political and power realities in the District of Columbia. In fact, this committee knows as well as we do the two appointees gained no new power and acquired no new mandate to change this city. The District of Columbia is still going to remain a segregated, white-dominated, city.

We are also opposed to the phoney white liberal doctrine that the "numerical preponderance of black people in the District made mandatory the appointment of a black man as Commissioner."

It is time to bury this myth once and for all. The history of appointments of black men under the Johnson administration proves that the black Presidential appointees have been just as eager to carry out the policies of segregation in housing and education as their white segregationist predecessors.

The Washington Committee for Black Power, therefore, believes the appointments of "Uncle Toms" and safe "House Niggers" in no way increases the pride of black people in their Government. They recognize a "trick bag" when they see it. Nor do such appointments alter the lilywhite power establishment which castrates black people physically and psychologically.

Let us stop this ridiculous and superficial talk of unity on the basis of skin color. True unity is that unity which is based on a common interest and a common objective in life.

Mr. Washington as a black man has nothing in common with the black people of the District of Columbia.

Because of these facts, we condemn the wretched, vulgar, poisonous propagandists who would raise the expectations of black masses to believe these two appointees will miraculously better themselves and their conditions.

We ask you to look at the records of the two appointees. Neither has a proven record in fair employment, nor the promotion of black people on the basis of merit within the previous agencies they headed. Neither appointee demonstrates any competence in or understanding of the complex problems of urban inner city education for deprived black children.

Neither appointee can refute the charge that both have been strong supporters of the Federal Government's "separate but equal" public housing policy. Both appointees have carried out such a policy without ever publicly saying it was wrong.

Neither appointee can deny they are both committed to a policy of urban renewal which really means "black removal."

Neither appointee has ever pursued an administrative policy which places people before things, human beings before highways and families before subways. On the contrary, both appointees have operated on the basis that the physical construction of our cities is far more vital than the moral reconstruction of its inhabitants.

In a city which is 65 percent black, the District government itself is not only the sorriest example of racism in employment, but has persistently shown a criminal complicity in maintaining racial barriers in all areas.

The Washington Committee for Black Power believes the Senate. Committee on District Affairs should ask the two appointees what they intend to do about the following five conditions and what kind of programs they would undertake:

(1) As of June 1966, the 206 District government jobs, GS-14 and above, included only 27 black people (12 percent).

(2) Of the 40 major agencies, departments, and commissions which run the District of Columbia, only 5, or 10 percent, are headed by black people. Those departments are: The Corporation Counsel's Office, the Department of Recreation, the Recorder of Deeds and the Commissioners' Council on Human Relations (the last being such a nonpaleolithic appendage in government it should be abolished immediately.)

(3) Of the Federal agencies which have statutory responsibility for the District of Columbia, not one is headed by a black man. These agencies are: The District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency, the District of Columbia Armory Board, the National Capital Planning Commission, the National Capital Transportation Agency and the Washington City Post Office.

(4) Of the 2,081 skilled trades apprentices in the District, only 384, or 18.5 percent, are black. An even harsher indictment of the unconscionable racism practiced by the District's labor unions is the fact that there isn't a single black journeyman, glazier, lather, pipefitter, plumber, sheet metal worker, tile and terrazzo worker, machinist, photoengraver and nonconstruction painter in the District.

(5) Of all the people living in slums or substandard housing, 87 percent are black and of those families in the District earning $3,000 or less, 83 percent are black.

Does anybody on the Senate District Affairs Committee seriously believe that both Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher are going to vigorously attack these problems?

The Washington Committee for Black Power committed as it is to the empowerment of the black community, believes it has a responsibility to do more than just criticize. And while we remain unchanged in our opposition to the two appointees' timid readiness to tackle the problems of the District, we nevertheless are leaving a program of administrative action for them to implement within 6 months after taking office or else:

(1) Overhaul the District employee force to triple the number of black people in GS-14 jobs and above.

(2) Appoint black people to head the five departments of General Administration, L censing and Inspections, Public Health, Public Welfare, and the Zoning Commission. (This would still only increase the percentage of black people heading major District of Columbia departments from 12 percent to 15 percent-in a city which is 65 percent black.)

(3) Appoint black people to head the following three agencies having statutory responsibility for the District: District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency, the National Capital Planning Commission and the National Capital Transportation Agency..

(4) Issue an order banning all labor unions from working on District of Columbia construction sites if such unions do not have a minimum of 50 percent black workers and a minimum of 50 percent black apprentices.

(5) Establish a crash hard-core unemployment program to go into the streets, the alleyways, the gutters, and put men in jobs. Such a program must obviously be headed up and staffed completely by black people.

(6) Make no urban renewal changes or decisions in any part of the city without the complete concurrence of the people in the areas affected. Also, such residents must agree on the timetable and the degree of the urban renewal to take place.

In closing, the Washington Committee for Black Power wishes to go on record that these two appointees, the "I spy team" are not a substitute for home rule. Neither one of these men will be responsible to the people of the District of Columbia, but to the administration which appointed them. So, the black masses lose, democracy loses, and the Nation's Capital loses.

These two appointments also show the tragedy of this administration's inability to learn something from the rebellions in the cities all over this country during the last 2 years.

What were the lessons of these rebellions? They were loud and clear:

"We're tired of you jive people playing trick games on us.

"We're tired of you running the same game on us by appointing the same old tired, wornout, used up, and useless 'Uncle Toms' and 'House Niggers' to speak for us.

"We're tired of phony promises, the game of musical chairs by balancing black man here over against a white man there."

The Washington Committee for Black Power predicts that within a year the black people of this city and black people of this Nation will be thoroughly disgusted with the performance of the "I spy team." Let's wait and see who's right!

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Glad to have your statement. There is the temptation to make a response, which temptation I shall resist. Mr. Washington has been nominated because it appears he is eminently qualified to meet the challenges and the difficult problems which we have here. I have great confidence in each of these men. Many fine people have spoken to us about him. Certainly talk of rebellion and lawlessness isn't the correct way to get a difficult job done. I have no comments to make.

The Senator from Oregon.

Senator MORSE. I only want to make a comment. I have known Mr. Stone for many years, as one of those white liberals but not guilty of the charge set forth in the statement.

I want to say we have got to continue to work together. The objective of maintaining in this Republic, including the District of Columbia, a system of government by law; that system of government

by law places upon itself the responsibility to see to it that wrongs are righted, but I insist that those wrongs must be righted within the procedures of government by law.

Sure there are many reforms that need to be worked out in the District of Columbia and the country, and I think we can count upon the people that believe in the philosophy I am outlining to continue to dedicate themselves to accomplish that purpose.

We speak about home rule. Of course, the system of government under which Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher are going to have the responsibility of administering along with the other appointees that will subsequently follow is not home rule. You will remember I said in the Senate a few weeks ago I think it is a step toward it.

I am going to continue to do what I can to obtain that objective. You know the great strides that we have made toward that goal already. And who can predict, but I am going to go way out on a limb of prediction and say that if we don't have home rule in the District of Columbia within the next 2 to 4 years and I am not an overnighter then I will eat the words I am speaking today. I think it is in the offing.

I plead with you. You have expressed your viewpoint to the extent of Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher and the city council that is going to be appointed. But I know you are capable of extending the cooperation that will make it possible, without giving consideration to a color line. As far as the senior Senator from Oregon is concerned, there is no color line, I am never going to recognize a color line, so Í believe in that Declaration of Independence of equality, and we have got to make equality a fact, and to that end I am going to continue, may I say, to cooperate with Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher and to listen to just such complaints as you gentlemen through this statement today have filed, and do whatever I can to help ameliorate and alleviate any basis for complaints which are based upon fact.

Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Vermont.

Senator PROUTY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am sure that both Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher know that this just had to come to an end, but I think sometimes the testimony which is overly sensational makes it more difficult for men of good will, who are trying to face up to some of the existing problems and challenges to carry out their purpose as effectively as would otherwise be the case.

I think I speak for Members of the Congress, certainly for members of this committee, and I know also for Mr. Washington and Mr. Fletcher. I am confident that they are going to perform their function, their duty, without fear or favor of any man in the District of Columbia, jointly cooperating with the Congress and people of all races, in an effort to make this a model city which, as the Capital of the United States, it should be.

If there are dissisents, if there are people who feel now that they will not achieve these objectives, let them wait and see and give them an opportunity to criticize after the fact, not before. In my judgment that is the way to make real progress, the real progress that I am confident we are going to make.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from New York.