“The Recorder’s 14th Annual Human Relations Honor Roll,” Indianapolis Recorder, January 6, 1962, p. 1 – Transcript || Annotation || Archive
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new.”
The year 1961 was one during which the old order in Indiana’s human relations took several jarring jolts, and at least began to change.
The outlines of what will hopefully be a new order appeared in the activities of such bodies as the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, the Mayor’s Commission on Human Rights (in Indianapolis) and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission as its work was reflected in this state.
It was a big year for Human Relations in Hoosierland.
Therefore The Record is proud to salute – as individuals and as representatives of many other men and women of good will on both sides of the crumbling “Color Curtain” – the following 10 Hoosiers:
HON. MATTHEW E. WELSH of Vincennes, Governor of Indiana, whose farsighted and insistent leadership in the field of civil rights has at long last pulled the Hoosier government out of the swamp of backwardness and placed it on the highroad with most advanced states of the nation – especially as regards Fair Employment in public service.
MRS. H. L. BURTON, wife of the pastor of Phillips Temple CME Church in Indianapolis, who has demonstrated a consecrated Christianity as she organized the Happy Hour Blind Club and labored tirelessly to maintain the group and to give unstinting aid to the blind of both races.
ALBION HARDIN of Indianapolis, president of Local 5709, Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, who courageously stood for the brotherhood of man, by exposing discrimination in employment allegedly then existing at Indiana Bell Telephone Co.; doing so at the risk of opposition by a sizeable number of members of his own union.
REV. THEODORE M. HESBURGH, C.S.C:, president of the University of Notre Dame, who service as a member of the United States Civil Rights Commission was capped by the issuance of a forthright personal statement denouncing racial discrimination in all its forms.
REV. JAMES W. JONES, executive director of the Mayor’s Human Rights Commission of Indianapolis and pastor of the People’s Temple Christian Church, who did a tremendous job of combating discrimination and resolving tensions in only his first six months in office.
GEORGE MARTIN, proprietor of the Senate Avenue Store, 1140 N. Senate, who conducted himself with manly self-respect and self-control under great provocation, and succeeding in bringing about the employment of Negro bread-truck drivers.
DAVID MYERS of Noblesville, Hoosier-born and bred young Freedom Rider and college senior, who served 23 days he defied the evil of race hatred in the very heart of its stronghold.
RAYMOND J. HILL, JR., of Gary, president of the Indiana State Association of Elks, who with personal bravery and unyielding determination led several caravans of help to the abandoned tenant farmers of “Freedom Village” (“Tent City”), Tennessee, carrying to them truckloads of supplies and helping bring their plight to public attention.
REV. ROBERT L. SAUNDERS of Anderson, NAACP leader and pastor of that city’s Second Baptist Church, who spearheaded a boycott of the United Fund campaign because of the Anderson YMCA’s anti-Negro policy; a fearless action looking toward civic righteousness.
JOHN PRESTON WARD, brilliant and selfless young attorney of Indianapolis, now serving as administrative assistant to the city’s NAACP president; who has given lavishly of this time, talents and tact to every movement for civil rights and governmental progress, and whose efforts have proved widely effective.