Congressman Emanuel Celler, New York Democrat, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and co-author of the 1965 Civil Rights Bill, warned here today that black nationalist and other “sinister influences” among Negro groups “can very well sabotage efforts to pass a forceful and meaningful Civil Rights Bill of 1966.”
Speaking to a dinner meeting of the American Jewish Committee, at the Americana Hotel, Congressman Celler singled out groups such as the Black Muslims and the Black Panthers and writers such as Le Roi Jones and James Baldwin as practitioners of “racism in reverse.” He stressed that because of these forces some congressmen “who have a passionate concern for Negro rights are saying privately, if not yet publicly, that we should forget about the Civil Rights Bill of 1966.”
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