Negro Editor Urges Black Power Proponents to Emulate Jewish Drive for Excellence

A Negro editor called upon proponents of Black Power to emulate the Jewish drive for success and go after “Black excellence.” Louis Martin, editor of Sengstacke Publications, said in a column in the Chicago Daily Defender, a Negro newspaper, that “there is something to Jewish culture, some dynamic factor that seems to impel them to excel.” The Jews “have a passion for excellence,” which has carried them to the top in the arts, science, business and professions despite a long history of persecution, he said.

Mr. Martin dismissed alleged Negro anti-Semitism as something “deliberately manufactured” by a handful of Black nationalists and a few Jewish unionists in the recent New York City school strike. He accused the press of giving it disproportionate coverage. “The big time journalists grabbed this story with all the glee of a hungry dog in a meat house. The prospect of Jews and Negroes beating each other over the head is a Christian delight,” Mr. Martin said there was not a Black man in America who was not a direct beneficiary of Jewish interest and investment in liberal causes. “It would be an example of incredible stupidity for Blacks to single out of white society the Jews for special scorn.”