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\.* grangMenr BY HEGRO AMERICANS 4.’ THE PRESIDENT AND ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNTTED STATIS We, the undersigned Negro Americans, strongly condemn your hysteria-breeding arrests of national leaders of the Commnist Party, and call upon you to take positive action to protect civil rights instead of persecuting political minori- ties, We raise here no defense of the principles of the Commmist Party, Our concern is to defend the right of political and other minorities, especially the Negre people, to fight for the kind of society which they consider necessary to give full expression to the principles of American democracy, We agree fully with the declaration of Henry A. Wallace: "Defense of the civil rights of Commmists is the first line in the defense of the liberties of a democratic people. The history of Gerrany, Italy, Japan and Franco Spain should teach us that the suppression of the Commmists is but the first step in an assault on the democratic rights of labor, national, racial ani political minorities, and ell those who oppose the policies of the government in power," The obvious purpose af these Gestapo-like arrests of Commminst leaders is to frighten people away from the Wallace Movement and progressive people's organi- zations generally, practically all of which have been slandered as “commmnist” or "subversive" by the Attorney General and the Un-American Activities Committee, Here, clearly, is an attempt to strengthen the current drive to war and reaction in general by intimidating all political opposition to such a program, It is significant that the indictment of these Commmist leaders does not even charge them with any attempt to use “force and violence", for political or any other purpose, Indeed, the asserted basis of their indictment has already been overruled by the Supreme Court of the United States -- in the "Schneiderman Case", where the late Wendell Willie served as defense attorney, We take special note of the fact that two Negro leaders are among those involved in the recent “Communist round-yp” --one a veteran, the National Administrative Secretary of the Commmist Farty; the other a lawyer, whom some 60,000 citizens voted to elect to the Council of the City of New York, The significance of these facts will be understood by the Negro people. We call upon our Government to halt its fascist-like attacks upon opposition iwinorities, and to act for the protection of minority rights, We call upon the Attorney General to use the power of his office to defend the lives and liberties of the Negro people in the South, We cali upon the President to give more than lip-service to civil rights (while acting to destroy them) -~ to use his executive authority to abolish discrimina- tion in federel employment and segregation in the armed forces; to throw the full influence of his office into the fight to have Congress repeal the poll tax, establish a national FERC and outlaw lynching, wa