Civil Rights: The Continuing Confrontation

Chomping on a long black cigar in an amber holder, stubby, silver-haired Leander Perez, segregationist boss of Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, gave the Senate Judiciary Committee the lowdown on what Negroes are really like. "They are of immoral character," drawled the Democratic politician. Their only interest is "to get welfare checks," he said. "They are a low type of citizenship."

Give them the vote? Poppycock, puffed Perez. Why, in a neighboring parish there were 800 registered Negroes, "and every damn election they've got to bribe them." What is more, he added, they had to...

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