Commissioner for the District of Columbia. I am appearing here as president of the United Givers Fund. My name is William Calomiris. Walter Washington has served as a member of the United Givers Fund Board of Directors for 12 years. During this time he has been a diligent, faithful, and dedicated volunteer worker on behalf of the UGF program. His present term as a member of the board will expire in 1968. For 5 years prior to his depature to New York City, Mr. Washington served as secretary of our board. He has been a member of the executive committee for 4 years. In 1962 when I was general campaign chairman for the United Givers Fund drive, I selected Walter Washington as one of my cochairmen. He served faithfully and effectively in this assignment.

It was that year that the United Givers Fund of the National Capital area reached the dollar goal on time for the first time in history. Much of this success was due to Walter Washington's outstanding effort and hard hitting drive. His ability was recognized nationally by the United Community Funds and Councils of America when in 1964 they elected him a member of the national board. In 1965 they further recognized his great ability by electing him vice president and a member of the executive committee. He is presently serving on this board.

As president of the United Givers Fund I would like to go on record as saying that Walter Washington has always displayed a deep understanding of the voluntary social services in our community and the important part they play in our community's life. As a volunteer worker he has made a substantial contribution to the health, welfare, and recreational needs of our city. He has always been a diligent board member; he made many major contributions in the board's deliberations. He has been of great help to me during the 2 years that I have served as the president of the United Givers Fund. I wholeheartedly endorse the confirmation of Mr. Washington as Commissioner for the District of Columbia.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Calomiris, for your statement, a very effective statement.

The Senator from Oregon?

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. The Senator from Vermont?

Senator PROUTY. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. Our next witness is Miss Flaxie M. Pinkett, chairman of the District of Columbia Health & Welfare Council.

STATEMENT OF MISS FLAXIE M. PINKETT, CHAIRMAN, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HEALTH & WELFARE COUNCIL

Miss PINKETT. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am Flaxie M. Pinkett, chairman of the District of Columbia Health & Welfare Council. We thank you for this opportunity to testify today on behalf of the nomination of Mr. Walter E. Washington, Commissioner of the District of Columbia, and we urge his confirmation.

Through the health and welfare council, a voluntary association of citizens and social welfare agencies, Mr. Walter E. Washington has served all of the people of this city and of this metropolitan region. The leadership he gave on a voluntary basis, working with other

volunteers in many vital health and welfare council projects, reflects, we believe, his broad appreciation that community progress demands a strong government, balanced with dynamic private and voluntary action. More than 100 voluntary agencies which are members of йWC and the thousands of people they serve, have felt the constructive impact of his mature judgment, his sense of commitment and readiness to work hard to carry it out, his loyalty to this community, his sensitive understanding of people's needs, his intelligent grasp of complex community problems, his creative approach to new solutions, his forthright determination to face issues squarely, and his clear and well organized follow through to achieve agreedupon action.

We have seen these qualities in the leadership Mr. Washington gave as cochairman of the HWC Committee on Non-Discrimination which persuaded all social welfare member agencies to serve all people without regard to race, an action achieved on a voluntary basis several years before it became a requirement for united fund solicitation in the Federal Government. We have experienced this leadership in Mr. Washington's participation as a member of the Voluntary Services Study Committee which laid directions for emphasis by voluntary social welfare agencies to reach out into neighborhoods, to pioneer with preventive programs, and to operate under efficient management. Mr. Washington gave counsel to HWC as we gave leadership in establishing the United Planning Organization, and then served as one of HWC's representatives on the UPO Board of Trustees. He served as the President of a neighborhood settlement. house, and on the HWC committees concerned with juvenile delinquency, crime, urban renewal, dependency, poverty, and neighborhood services. Mr. Washington served as vice president of HWC for four terms.

Through his association with the health and welfare council, Mr. Washington met with and inspired other citizen volunteers from all segments of our community. He passed his know-how on to others. He persuaded, he convinced, he changed people's minds and attitudes, he brought unity where there was division, he urged action where there was inertia, and he gave of himself.

We who have known him for many years as a volunteer, and worked with him to achieve difficult tasks, are convinced that Walter Washington has the qualities and the dedication to provide our city with the leadership needed in the new Commissioner of the District of Columbia. He has and will have our full support.

Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. That certainly is an unusually fine endorsement from one who is in a position to speak with authority. It must make Mr. Washington rather proud to hear those fine things you said about him.

Thank you very much.

The Senator from Oregon?

The Senator from Vermont?

Thank you.

Our next witness is Mr. William R. Porter, chairman of the InterProperty Steering Committee of the National Capital Housing Authority projects.

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

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

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, Licensing 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.)