Death of a Town

The petition to the city council began simply: "We the undersigned wish to live in the city of Tuskegee." The 760 signers were former Negro citizens of Tuskegee, Ala. (pop. 4,700), who last July saw their homes jigsawed out of the city limits by the state legislature. The gerrymander bill left exactly nine Negro voters within the city limits (instead of 420), touched off a Negro boycott of white merchants. "My God," said a council member as he reviewed the petition for readmittance last week.'Tf we back down now, we'll lose the whole works." The petition was promptly turned down--and with it, both sides grimly agreed, the chances of preventing the slow death of a town.

The Macon Theater was the first major business to close its doors--to both its "separate but equal" wings. For food, Negroes queued up at small Negro-owned markets or shared rides to neighboring Auburn and Columbus. Tuskegee's Fortune Fish Market shut down. Then Cooper's Market, on the town square, folded, along with a Texaco service station and the David Lee Clothing Store. White clerks began counting their days at idle five-and-ten counters. Some clerks lost their jobs. Merchants advertised special sales, open credit, looked in vain for expected "sympathy motorcades" of white shoppers from other Alabama towns. Says Proprietor L. M. Hill, who is closing his shoe store: "What's the sense of losing money forever? Business is off 50% and it doesn't look like it's coming back."

No Victor. No one claims a victory, least of all the Negro spokesman, Charles G. Gomillion, 57, assistant professor of sociology and dean of students at influential Tuskegee Institute. "Believe it or not, we love Tuskegee. It's our home. That's why we asked to be taken back. For years we've tried to help build a better Tuskegee, one in which we share in the privileges as well as the responsibilities. But Negroes don't feel they can retain their self-respect by surrendering. We do not live by bread alone.

"The white Southerner has been telling the Negro for years, 'Get educated; get good jobs, obtain property, and then!' Well, we have all these, and we seem to be worse off than if we didn't. What incentive is there for Negro youths to try to get good educations and to amount to something when they see this?"

No Spoils. State Senator Sam Englehardt Jr., author of the original gerrymander, has already attempted to counter the boycott by asking for an investigation of Tuskegee's huge Veterans Administration Hospital, where nearly 2,000 (mostly Negroes) work. And up for referendum just eight days before Christmas is State Constitutional Amendment No. 18, a plan to consider abolishing Macon County (now 84% Negro) by dividing its land among five neighboring counties. A poll by the Montgomery Advertiser indicated that Macon County is in favor of the abolition amendment. If the rest of the state agrees, Tuskegee will lose its position and resulting trade as the county seat. "You find the people of many cities trying to build, but few trying to destroy themselves," said Professor Gomillion last week. "We have about reached the point of no return."

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