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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 28, 1963)
ISovam Makes Long Journey By HENRY KEYS United Pren International Washington-H'Pti-From Con go street, McMinnville, Ten nessee, to Ita-Kaivotuisto 21, Helsinki, Finland, is a few thousand miles in point of distance. But in point of'time the two were 20 years apart for a young Negro boy who in 1943 revolted against the boredom and squalor of life in the Ne gro section of a small, middle Tennessee town. The boy, now a man hold ing high rank in the State De partment in Washington, had no conception 20 years ago that he would one day be chosen by a president of the United States to occupy the U.S. Embassy on Ita - Kaivo tuisto as U.S. Ambassador to Finland. Nonetheless, 1943 was the beginning of his long journey. The new ambassador-elect to Finland, Carl Thomas Rowan, vividly recalls the year in his book, "South of Freedom," a factual account of what it meant to be an American Negro living in the American South. Writes Account To appreciate the epic achievement of Rowan's jour ney it is important to read his own account of its beginnings. "I remember 1943," he writes, "as the year of the " 'great rebellion.' For it was in the summer of 1943 that my mind, heart, and soul rebelled and ceased being part of a green .small - town Negro youth, well-schooled in the ways of his native south . . . "For nearly eighteen years, practically all my life, I had lived in McMinnville. I had mowed lawns, swept base ments, unloaded boxcars of 11 ' ' fix kMhmi if "-in t it If u -sr. in v a NOW IN EMBASSY Carl Thomas Rowan (L) waits here to testify before Senate For eign Relations committee on his nomination as ambassador to Finland. It was in 1943, when he began to rebel against life in Negro section of McMinnville, Tenn., that me price K CORDUROY BOOT sizes 4-io in lush black. One of many styles from which to choose! REDUCED TO men's-boys' BASKETBALL OXFORD Rugged and comfortable with built-in arch support. In white or black. Men's sizes 6'2-12. Boys' sizes 2'2-6. Youths' sizes 11-2. Also available in high tops. FIRST QUALITY DRESS SHEER NYLONS 2 REDUCED TO 230 E. Main OPEN FRIDAY Jhtrt m coal, dug basements, hoed bulb-grass out of lawns and done scores of other menial tasks that fell to Negroes by default. Until 1943, 1 did these jobs because all McMinnville Negroes did such jobs; the community expected it of us . . . "One morning in late Oc tober I was ordered to active duty (by the U.S. Navy). On October 30, 1943, my second hand clothes in a borrowed suitcase, I boarded a Jim Crow train and left the past and present of a life that I had begun to abhor. Rolls Back Time "In 1951, nearly eight years later, I returned to McMinn ville. It was the opening of old wounds. It was like roll ing back time. I found that Negro youths still leaned against the First National Bank building, where I once leaned hour upon hour. We had no place to go, nothing to do except wait for a white man to come along and offer twenty-five cents an hour for whatever job had gone with out white takers . . . "There was the colored sec tion of town. It was the same squalor, the same unpainted dwellings huddled close to narrow, hole - filled streets. There, on Congo street, was the little frame house in which I had lived. To the rear of it was a row of privies, and in front of it had been a junk yard. I recalled hot summer days when I sat on the rough oak front - porch with my brother and sisters. On those sultry afternoons we would watch the mountains, waiting for them to belch up the rain that we knew was coming. As the downpour rode across the distant fields like a wind- he began the journey that has now led to the embassy in Helsinki. At right is Edward Korry of New York, waiting to testify on his nomination as ambassador to Ethiopia. (UPI) is right a! p!s 66 Phone 773-9081 NIGHTS ter 200 fill's shot storts in Iht wtst REDUCED TO yfi driven silver wave, we young dreamers would pretend that this was a magic puff of rain that would cleanse McMinn ville of junkyards and privies, pave Congo street and give it a new name, and transform our frame house into a stone mansion with a huge brick chimney . . ." Rowan Changed But even if McMinnville had not changed and the frame house had not been transformed into a stone man sion, Rowan himself had changed in those eight years. His call to duty with the navy had taken him to an officers' training school at Washburn university, Topeka, in Kansas, to join a training unit of 335 sailors, 334 of them white. "I reached the campus and stared up a long, tree-lined driveway at the university buildings. It was a warm night, with the kind of breeze poets write of, and sailors and their girls lined the driveway like Burma Shave signs. I saw that they all were white sailors, and I wondered, as I walked toward the nearest building, where the back road was. Because of my background, I thought they must have reserved another road for Negro sailors and their girls ... the looks on a few faces made me feel as if I had barged into a ladies' restroom. I paused under a street light and re - read my orders ... I was at the correct school." No Back Road A new life had begun for Rowan. There was no back road for Negroes. From Washburn, Rowan went to midshipman school at Fort Schuyler, in the Bronx, MLDrOHD New York City, renamed then as "the laundry because it washed out so many candi dates. But Rowan was not among those "washed o u t." He emerged from Fort Schuyler with the rank of ensign, one of the first 15 Negroes ever to be raised to officer rank in the navy. He saw service in the Atlantic in the last years of the war aboard fleet tank ers, rising to the rank of lieu tenant, junior grade. The next turning point in Rowan's life came in 1948, when he joined the Minneapo lis Tribune. By this time the spirit that characterize him independence of mind and today had taken firm hold. He walked into the Star and Tribune personnel depart ment and asked for a job, "the way any other applicant would have done. I wanted the same kind of job that any other applicant would expect . . . the only terms on which I would work for the Tribune were that I be just another newsman, that I not be a specialist in so-called Negro news." Starts at Desk Rowan started on the copy desk of the Tribune, but his bent and interest was report ing. Three years later, after a short stint in the usual run of general assignment report ing - covering fires, police courts, speeches, meetings and the small time things that come the young reporter's way - Rowan proposed to the Tribune the assignment that was to alter the course of his life dramatically. He should return to his native south, travel through it and report what it was like to live as a Negro in the south. The Tribune agreed. Out of that journey came a scries of articles that drew a flurry of letters to his paper and re sulted in his first book, "South of Freedom." Rowan's in-depth approach to the problems of his time did not go unnoticed. In 1954, he was selected as one of "America's 10 Out standing Young Men of 1953" by the United States Chamber of Commerce. In 1954, too, the State De partment asked him to go to India to lecture on "The Role of the Newspaper in Social Change" as a measure to help interpret America to Asians. That assignment took Row an backwards and forwards across India for 10,000 miles in four months. Writes Books Out of his Indian assign ment and subsequent travels through southeast Asia - Bur ma, Malaya, Indonesia, South Vietnam, The Philippines, Pakistan - Rowan produced another book, "The Pitiful And The Proud," which also was ranked among the best books of its year. Two other books arc "Go South To Sorrow," and "Wait Till Next Year," a biography of Jackie Robinson, the first Negro to break the color bar in professional baseball in the United States. Professional honors have been heaped upon Rowan but few of them match the call that won him away from his beloved newspapering. Rowan tells it simply. "I was in bed in Pasadena, Calif., where I had gone to cover the New Year's Day football game two years ago. My phone rang. A high offi cial of the Democratic party was on the line. He asked me if I would consider taking a Foresters Schedule Grants Pass Event "Helicopter Logging" will be discussed at a meeting of the Siskiyou Chapter of the Society of American Forest ers at the Josephine county courthouse, Friday, March 1. John O'Leary, associate professor of forest engineer ing at Oregon State univer sity, will speak. He will use movies and slides to illustrate his lecture. O'Leary spent some time in New England states gathering information about helicopter logging during the past year. Members of the Siskiyou Chapter, foresters and other interested persons are invited to attend. Ribicoff Asks for July 4 Bell Ringing Washington-l'Pli-Sen. Abra ham A. Ribicoff (D Conn.) asked Americans today to ring out on July 4. He introduced legislation that would urge Americans to ring bells on Independence Day as a reminder that the Liberty Bell was sounded 187 years ago in Philadelphia. KING PLEDGES EYES New York -H'Hi- King Hus sein of Jordan has pledged his eyes to an eye-bank he opened recently in Jerusalem, it was announced here Wednesday. The Jordan eye bank was the first such ovcr icai facility set up by MEDICO. Post-mortem eye donations will be used in cor r. jl transplants. MAIL Imount, i.icurvno. top job in the State Depart ment. "I said I would he glad to consider it. "I had other calls, too. In cluding one from Senator Hubert Humphrey, majority floor leader in the Senate. "Then came the offer -deputy assistant secretary for public affairs. "I did not really want to leave newspaper work and it took me two weeks to make up my mind. But I'm glad that I accepted because it has all been a tremendous educa tion for me, an education and experience which will be in valuable to me when I return to newspapering." Rowan, today, has no doubts that he will return to his profession, but when he docs not know and will not guess. Although far from satisfied Shop at Scars and Save Satisfaction Guaranteed or Your Money Bark Ont.uOi4 To State Department with the advance toward in tegration, Rowan says there has nevertheless been prog ress. "Even the most militant Negro must admit that Ne groes have come a long way in the last 20 years," he says. "Nowhere has the change been more dramatic than in Washington. Ralph Bum-he once refused to come here be cause of Jim Crow racial dis crimination. And that was only a decade ago. "When I came here 10 years ago, I could not get into a first rate hotel or res taurant. I could not even buy something to eat at a simple hot dog stand. Social Revolution "What has happened in Washington is one of the great social revolutions of our time, but this docs not mean that MATTRESS as ( r in Fresh New Goods... 1963 Models there are not still problems. or that there are no bigots. But Washington is a shining example of what can be done in other communities. "You know, this whole racial issue is the key prob lem we live in, if we are going to live in any kind of world at all." President Kennedy's selec tion of Rowan as Ambassador to Finland came as much of a surprise to Rowan as the phone call which led to his job in the State Department. It followed a three-month stint at the United Nations from September to the end of December last year, assisting U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Adlai Stevenson. Stevenson recomm ended his appointment as U. S. Am bassador on the trusteeship council with the rank of ambassador. - BOX SPRING SALE! Specially Purchased for Sears in the Northwest SEARS TnunbUAt, tbttttuAHY 2d. Ibb3 It was a position for which I did not think I was cut out," says Rowan, "I doubted that I was the best man to argue racial and colonial questions there. Kennedy Ready "But when I returned to Washington I found that Pres ident Kennedy and Dean Rusk were ready to accept Stevenson s recommendation. "However, the Presidenct accepted my reasons for not wishing to accept the posi tion. "He asked me if I would be interested in a foreign ap pointment as ambassador and offered me Helsinki. "I accepted gladly for many reasons, but chiefly because I hope and believe that the President and the secretary both believe that I will be a good ambassador, not because I am a Negro. Some of the Finest We Have Ever Sold! NO MONEY DOWN ON ANY MATTRESS PURCHASE ! Mattress or Reg. 34.95 NOW ONLY Heavy itripcd Ticking Ideal for Spare Bad Mattress or Reg. 39.95 Twin iia Good for bunk. Sean Reg, Quality Limited Quan tity Come early 375-Coil Combination Reg. 99.95 F3 ?VQQ 3 Ont of our most popuUr Harmony Houit Guinmtot Limited quintiry Com airly 573-Coil Combination Few Finer Quiliry Rnl 5 -J p port Comfort A Bcjuriful Combination Our Finest 1083 Coil Set Reg.13995 Jumbo Thiclr mora comfort Fmeit Tick I construction Chooie this one Save Tue. t:30 901 E. JACKSON ST, PHONE 773-6661 FREE PARKING "I would not want to be just a Negro ambassador." Family To Go Rowan's wife, Vivien, and his two young sons will go to Helsinki with him and be fol lowed in the summer by their 19-ycar-old daughter. After the summer vacation. Bar bara. however mav return tn ,hc United States to completa ncr eaucation. me Doys will go to school in Helsinki. Mrs. Rowan, an attractive young matron, is looking for ward to her husband's Hel sinki assignment with en thusiasm. To prepare for it, she is studying Finnish. Rowan is a fanatical golfer and bowler. "One of the first things I checked was whether Hel sinki had a good golf course," he said. "It bus. The boys wanted to know if there wera bowling alleys. There are." Box Spring 1 H ""S Onlr Box Spring uou Twin or Full Sot Twin ar Full Sat 2988' Sii Only PQ88 If II mm Twin er IVTI ij Full Set STORE HOURS ,,Wcd., Thun,, Men., Fri., Sat. :30 A.M.- A.M. - 5:30 P.M. P.M.
