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Show Viewpoint A Book Congress Should Ban two professors who will be in Room 300 of Harry's Place after 8 p.m. can't afford to leave it on the newsstand -uchjonger. rhicaeo's massive McCor-Chicago McCor-Chicago b summer ful exhibit was in the WHILE INSIDE garish efts-plays efts-plays depicted the Negro's con-StiJtotheennWa con-StiJtotheennWa nf Lifefrom Booker T. wasn mtonTto Jimmy Brown"- STessed, Signified Negro sat in the foyer and hawked copies of a discreet little book entitled "The Bronze American Ameri-can Travel Guide." The tfUe is simply a euphemism euphem-ism for an index listing the places you can eat sleep, buy gas, and go to the toilet if you happen to be a Negro traveling trav-eling in the United States. The book is designed, according to its salesman, to save the buyer "inconvenience and embarrassment embarrass-ment in front of friends and family." NOTHING NOT the Birmingham Birm-ingham church bombing, not the murder of Medgar Evers, not even the march on Washington Wash-ington could have demonstrated demonstrat-ed the plight of the American Negro so forcefully. In the very building containing a tribute to his greatest accomplishments, he is offered a book telling him in alphabetical order by States where his place is. It is an irony worthy of great tragedy. If the Chicago exhibit displayed dis-played the Negro's greatest triumphs, it also displayed by contrast his greatest failure; the failure to win for himself human dignity, no matter how great his achievements and sacrifices. sac-rifices. A more eloquent statement state-ment of the aims of the Negro revolution, could not have been made. To us, The Bronze American Ameri-can Travel Guide is a dirty book far dirtier than Tropic of Cancer, Fanny Hill, or Naked Lunch. It portrays the most squalid aspect of American Amer-ican Life today the casual denial of human dignity to 20 million American citizens. As is the case with most tasteless writing, it will not lose its popularity until its subject matter is no longer relevant. The legislation that can go a long way toward accomplishing ac-complishing this will be put before the U.S. Senate in the next few days the Public Accommodations Ac-commodations 'Section of the Omnfbus Civil Rights Act 'Hopefully, the Senate will move swiftly to put the Bronze American Travel Guide in the Rare Books Room. America |
