A Zealot's Stand

Ever since Cambridge, Md.'s racial demonstrations began in December 1961, the avowed goal of the city's 4,000 Negroes has been acceptance at white restaurants, bowling alleys, taverns and other public accommodations. Last summer's madness, sparked by a June 11 riot in which three whites were shot and three white businesses firebombed, led to a truce that met many lesser Negro demands--desegregation of all Dorchester County schools, hiring of a Negro in the state employment office, and creation of a biracial commission. Still hanging fire was the public accommodations issue.

Last week a public-accommodations measure--in the form of a city charter amendment--was put to Cambridge's 5,282 registered voters. It failed by 274 votes (1,994 to 1,720). Only 600 of the city's 3,747 registered whites failed to vote; less than half the 1,535 registered Negroes bothered to. The failure can largely be chalked up to Gloria Richardson, 41, the gaunt, fierce-eyed leader of Cambridge's Negroes.

Ringing Doorbells. City officials without exception, businessmen with some exceptions, the clergy almost unanimously, and the local press, all fervently endorsed the amendment. Moderate white groups rang doorbells in favor of it. But what everyone failed to reckon with was not only the impassioned sentiments of segregationist whites, but also those of Mrs. Richardson.

Gloria and her Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee were in the forefront of the June-July demonstrations that shook Cambridge and put it under Maryland National Guard law. She was a power in the biracial negotiations that followed. Militantly against any sort of compromise, she was unbending in her demand that a public accommodations ordinance be passed by the Cambridge city council. But the council simply could not bring itself to take such a bold step, decided instead to try for a charter amendment, which led to last week's referendum.

Making Threats. With a zealot's fervor, Gloria exhorted Cambridge's Negroes to boycott the election because, she said, it was wrong to submit "the constitutional rights of our people to the whim of a popular majority." Officials of other civil rights groups begged her to change her stand. She wouldn't. The result was the amendment's defeat and threats of renewed demonstrations by Gloria's group, which caused Cambridge Postmaster J. Edward Walter, leader of the white moderates, to predict: "This town is gone. I don't see how we are going to survive."

It all seemed a strange brand of leadership, particularly at a time when in some parts of the U.S., her fellow Negroes were shedding blood in their struggle for the right to vote.

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