Negro star sets records—

n the brutal world 6f"pro-

fessional football the public
pronouncements of its coaches
and stars are often in honeyed
contrast to the mayhem that oc-
curs on the playing field.

A coach or a player is much
less likely to be blind-sided, as
they say in the trade, by a public
utterance than a participant in
the game is in prospect of being
knocked down when he isn’t look-
ing. The latter happens almost

every time the player isn’t looking.

It is refreshing, therefore, to
See one of the best, ifnot the best,
Player in the National Football
League Speak frankly about a
umber of things—most notably
about the treatment of Negro
athletes,

Jimmy Brown, fullback for the
Cleveland Browns, is the best ball
Carrier in the NFL and one of
the great fullbacks of all time,
For this, the Browns, who de-
feated the Baltimore Colts for
the NFL championship, are pay-
ing him more than $50,000.

Whereas many of the top

money-makers in sport tend to be
even more silent than their
lesser-paid contemporaries, for
‘fear that maybe a sweater manu-
facturer or a packer of apple
juice won’t ask them to endorse
his product, Brown has done just
the opposite,

In a current book, “Off My
Chest,” which he co-authored
with Myron Cope, Brown says
things like,"“The acceptance of
the Negro in sports is really an
insignificant development that
Warms the heart of the colored
Man less than it does that of the
white man, ...

Portions of the book also ap-
Peared in Look magazine on Oct,
6 and Oct, 20.

Brown puts the racial issue on
the line more frankly than any
Major professional star today,
with the possible exception of
Bill Russell, the great star of the
Boston Celtics basketball team,

“The fact is,” says Brown,
“the more successful a Negrois,
the more difficult it becomes for
him to accept second class citi-
zenship, Can anyone think that it
does my heart good to sign 20
autographs in a hotel lobby and
then be turned out of the hotel
dining room?”

Brown’s language is as straight
and as hard as the straightarm he
uses on tacklers,

“Speaking for myself, I do not
Want the white man’s love. If he
will love me, fine, but I ask only
for just laws and the enforce-
Ment of them,”

One wonders how Brown would
have reacted if he had been a
baseball player and a member of

the San Francisco Giants at the
time of the now-deposed manag-
er, Alvin Dark, was quoted by an
eastern newspaperman as having
at the very least patronizing, if
not an outright racist, view of
his Negro players,

Brown sees his position as one
of responsibility to speak out.
+ .. lamina better position than
most Negroes to attempt to

both on and off the field

awaken the white man to the fact
that the time is not tomorrow
but now... .”

The big Cleveland fullback tells
how he was once invited to the
White House by President John-
son, who told him he had just
heard EdSullivan describe Brown
as the best football player he had
seen in his time.

This compliment, Brown re-
calls, was tempered by the knowl-
edge that “a few miles away in
Virginia” whites were closing
schools rather than allow their
children to attend classes with
Negroes,

SPORTS

Brown discusses frankly asit-
uation that has intrigued a num-
ber of observers—the attitude of
white southerners in professional
sports who find themselves play-
ing with Negro teammates for
the first time,

~®Southern whites coming into
pro ball are, for the first time
in their lives, exposed at close
quarters to a black man, There
is a difference between knowing
all the field hands by their first
names and being forced to work
and travel with black teammates,

“The Negro football player is
not good old Mose who sweeps
out the general store: he is col-
lege - educated, well- paid and
proud, ...Sofor the white south-

Jim Brown

erner who becomes his team-
mate, an educational process
begins. However, I doubt if it
accomplishes much, White team-
mates may develop respect and
even affection for acolored play-
er, but there is a tendency to
the rule, In other words, he’s not
one of those shiftless Negroes,”

But the most controversial
thing Brown has to say, some=
thing that has already elicited
considerable comment, concerns
the Black Muslims.

“The first thing the white man
must understand is the depth of
our protest, Does he realize that
the Black Muslim’s basic attitude
toward whites is shared by almost
99% of the Negro population? I
protest prejudice, but I am a
prejudiced man, The white man
has forced me to be prejudiced
against him, ..,

“I’m not one of the Muslims,
yet I’m all for them because we
need every possible element go-
ing for us, The more commotion
the better, Do I sound bitter? I’m
not in the least bitter, You don’t
have to be bitter to fight, If
people throw rocks at your home,
you don’t have to be bitter to
come out ready for action,”

Brown is full of praise for Dr.
Martin Luther King and what has
been achieved through non-vio-
lence, but he expresses acertain
skepticism about the long-range
effectiveness of such methods,
He has faith, however, in Negro
unity,

“But the white man again fails
to understand us if he leaps to
the conclusion that we are ahouse
divided and will fall; we know
that if peaceful means fail, the
black man, whether Muslim or
whatever, will be on the side of
the black man,”

Brown’s ability to jar people
obviously is not confined to the
football field,

—Steve Murdock
(People’s World)

Ancient Inca tongue
more widely used
than ever before

he language of the ancient

Incas not only survives to-
day; it is more widely used than
in their heyday four centuries
ago.

Quechua is the only language
spoken by millions of present day
inhabitants of Peru, Bolivia and
Ecuador, There are about 28 dia-
lects, the National Geographic
Society says,

Ironically, the spread of
Quechua was partly the work of
Spanish missionaries who fol-
lowed in the footsteps of the em-
pire-shattering conquistadors,
Having learned this one Indian
tongue, the priests imposed
Quechua on tribes that had never
spoken it even under Inca dom-
ination and brought it to others
outside the Inca domain.

© saab

Today, missionaries are again
learning the language to work
among the Indians, The Bible is
being translated into Quechua,

At several universities—Cor-
nell in the U,S, and San Marcos
and Huamanga in Peru—Quechau
is taught to students planning

- social service careers in western

South America,

Though Spanish is spreading
slowly among Indians through the
increase of educational facilities;
the language barrier is massive,

An estimated five million
Peruvian Indians speak only Que-
chua, In Ecuador, more than half
a million use two of its dialects;
in Bolivia somewhat fewer speak
Quechua and Aymara, a related
language,

The modern linguist translat-
ing the Bible into Quechua meets
with great difficulties in vocabu-
lary and grammar, The language
lacks many words common to

Indo-European languages, And
translating philosophical con-
cepts can lead into verbal acro-
batics,

Mrs, Julia Woodward of the
Gospel Missionary Union report-
ed that to translate “For thereis
no respect of persons with God”
(Romans 2:11) she had to resort
to the Quechuan equivalent of
“God to one rather than another
not says: ‘You are better,’ ”

The grammatical structure of
Quechua, with its multiplicity of
suffixes and particles, makes it
more complicated than most lan-
guages, In addition, Mrs, Wood-
ward wrote, “The problems of
grammatical structure are made
greater because of the fact that
most grammars ,, , usually fol-
low the form ofthe language which
was more or less standardized by
the Roman priests, who first re-
duced the language to writing and
attempted to fit it into the mold
of Latin grammar,”

Though much Inca tradition
disappeared after the Spanish
conquest, students of Quechua
are beginning to uncover folklore
and myths thought to have been
entirely forgotten,

Surviving fragments of the

‘spoken - literature indicate that

the ancient Inca tongue, though
complicated, was capable of ex-
pressing great beauty with re-
markable simplicity, One such
surviving poem was the death
chant of the Emperor Pachacutec,
who died in the 15th century:

I was born as a flower in the
field;

As a flower I was cherished in
my youth,

I came to my full age; I grew
old,

Now I am withered, and I die,

— Western Weekiy Supplement

Promise
To A New Born

The following poem was written by MRS. L. HOCKING, Prince
George nurse and mother of three,who is one of the founding mem-
bers of the CCND in this northern B.C. centre. We think it is most
appropriate to reprint it in this, our first edition of the ’new born”

year.

I’11 watch over you, my son,
And I will march side by side with others

—In your name,

I’ll watch over you—so that I may never see
Your little body burnt and twisted;
Filled with terror and endless pain,

I’1l watch over you, my son—

And I will fight for you too,

My weapon will be pure logic:

That we were born to live!

And courage will flow when I look at you,
Oh, such love I have to give;

My strength will come from unity

With those who know as I

That to achieve Peace throughout the world,
We must raise our voices high, 2

As I rock you gently,

I think of the work to be done ~

To lay the grounds for brotherhood
So that Peace may be won,

It may be a long, hard journey

But until our fight is done,

Sleep sweetly, my dear Edward—
I’ll watch over you, my son,

January 8, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 9