Man in the Middle

In Bogalusa, La., a paper-mill town of 23,000 near the Mississippi border, gun-toting white and Negro toughs seemed ready to throw themselves into pitched battle against each other. That they had not actually begun open warfare was almost entirely because of the efforts of Louisiana's Democratic Governor John McKeithen--and, as so often happens to the peacemaker, McKeithen himself was under fire from both sides.

In an act that required considerable courage for a Southern Governor, McKeithen flew to Bogalusa to plead with Negro leaders for a 30-day cooling-off period. When he got there, an angry white man demanded: "Why don't you take the state police out of here?" Replied McKeithen: "We would--but about 500 or 600 people would be killed if we did."

The Deacons. He may not have exaggerated. For six months, Bogalusa has been the scene of a civil rights drive by the Congress of Racial Equality and its local affiliate, the Bogalusa Civic and Voters League. They have won a few concessions, such as street lights for the town's Negro neighborhoods. They have also won a few promises, including a pledge to take on two Negro policemen --if they can pass an examination. But for the most part, the demands of civil rights advocates have been thwarted by the Ku Klux Klan. Although Klan rolls are secret, it has been estimated that in Bogalusa and the surrounding countryside there are probably more Klansmen per capita than anywhere else in the South.

Against the Klan, some Negroes have formed the "Deacons for Defense and Justice"; its members, many of them troublemakers long before Bogalusa's civil rights crisis occurred, openly sport pistols and rifles. For months, Deacons have exchanged shots and punches with white roughnecks. In June night riders murdered one Negro deputy sheriff and seriously wounded another. Two weeks ago, a Deacon shot and critically wounded a white heckler during a civil rights demonstration.

White extremists demanded revenge; the Deacons replied that they were ready for anything. McKeithen sent in troopers with rifles and submachine guns to set up roadblocks against an influx of additional combatants. The troopers also gave effective protection to both white and Negro demonstrations, except in one case when security broke down and three civil rights workers were beaten. McKeithen ordered his troopers to confiscate every weapon they saw. He readily admitted that he was bending Louisiana law, which permits the carrying of firearms as long as they are unconcealed. Said the Governor: "When the Supreme Court orders us to give them back, we'll give them back."

"I'm Gonna Move In." Limited disarmament was only a stopgap. McKeithen wanted civil rights demonstrations--which had been specifically sanctioned by federal court order--ended for 30 days so that a durable settlement could be sought. From the state capital at Baton Rouge, he sent his personal plane to Bogalusa to fetch A. Z. Young and Robert Hicks, Voters League president and vice president. "If we don't find the answers in 30 days, you can start demonstrating again," McKeithen told them. He vowed to rid Bogalusa of two of the noisiest white agitators: "I'll have them out of town within six hours after you agree to a cooling-off period."

Young and Hicks agreed, pending approval by their followers. When they returned to Bogalusa, however, they found Negro Author Louis Lomax, who had arrived from Los Angeles with what he called "15,000 of the biggest dollars you've ever seen." When Young and Hicks reported the Governor's request, Lomax made a fiery speech against it. Young and Hicks telephoned McKeithen, getting him out of bed, and told him the deal was off. McKeithen then asked for--and got--an invitation to come to Bogalusa for more talk.

McKeithen met with Young, Hicks, Lomax, Charlie Sims, leader of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, and others. During the hour-and-a-half session, McKeithen asked: "You've been demonstrating for six months and what did it get you?" Retorted Sims: "It got you to come down here, didn't it?" Lomax told McKeithen: "Once we get our freedom here in Louisiana, I'm gonna move in and run agin you." Later, at a mass meeting, Lomax said that CORE would bring in "some of the biggest religious names in the world, the same people who went to Selma." He added: "Let them knock some priests and nuns down for a change, let them shoot up on some Jewish rabbis. We're gonna walk through Bogalusa like John walked through Jerusalem."

As the week ended, the White House responded to pleas from both Mayor Jesse Cutrer and Young, sent a Justice Department mediator to try his hand. McKeithen, who called the Negro refusal to mark time for 30 days "a tragic mistake," mobilized 100 agents of the Wild Life and Fisheries Commission for riot-control training in case reinforcements are needed in Bogalusa.

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