James Farmer Says Negroes Want Jews to Provide Support in Civil Rights Efforts

James Farmer, Negro civil rights leader and former head of CORE, said tonight that while the Negro wants to win his own freedom, this “does not mean that we are telling our Jewish friends to stay out of the civil rights movement. It does not mean that we do not want to work with Jews or with white Christians. We want the support of American Jewry as we want the support of the white community. Indeed, we need that support. We could not have achieved what we have without the support of American Jews and other members of the white community.”

Mr. Farmer was the principal speaker at the annual conference of the Queens region of Hadassah, American women’s Zionist organization, at Rockaway Park, attended by more than 600 delegates. He paid tribute to the role of the Jews in the Negro struggle as far back as the days of the Underground Railway before the Civil War. About three-quarters of the white people engaged in civil rights activities when they were initiated several years ago were Jews, he recalled. Mr. Farmer said the Negro did not regard the Jew as “just another white man.” He said that “the Black man looks upon the Jew differently. He looks upon the Jew as a man who should better understand the plight of the Black community because of his own experiences with suffering.’