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
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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
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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.
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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.
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"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."
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