5.

6.

Indictments of Black leaders and officials;

An indifferent and/or hostile executive branch of the

government;

Replacement of Black elected officials with white officials by appointment;

7. Transfer of power from local to state level;

8.

Transfer of control of local Black controlled governmental bodies to the State.

Incidents have occurred in the West Alabama Black Belt which fall into each of the stated categories. Those

not successful in preventing Black political participation, an atmosphere is created which allows physical violence to be employed with impunity. I know that some will point to the Voting Rights Act as a bar to this possiblity, but I remind you that we had a constitutional amendment last time. Any act or constitutional amendment is only as effective as the enforcement by the executive branch. This is a striking example of the executive branch via the Justice Department being a part of the problem rather than a part of the

solution.

CONCLUSION

The Justice Department has brought many charges. It has

tried 142 of the charges (this is the against Albert Turner, Evelyn Turner, James Colvin and Bobbie N. Simpson).

sum of the counts Spencer Hogue, Jr.,

The score is now

Justice Department 0, the people 142. The sad fact is that the people could win every legal battle and loose the political war with reduced voter participation. That is the nature of the Justice Department's sweeping attack.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Senator Sanders. The next member of the panel to testify is Albert Turner of Marion. He was a defendant in the first trial and is the president of the Perry County Civic League.

Mr. TURNER. I would like to say good morning to the panel. I would further like to say not only am I president of Perry County Civic League at this time, but from 1965 until 1972 I served there as the State director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. That was the highest position in the State of Alabama for Martin Luther King's organization and it was during the time when we had-the Department was trying to get the right to vote, trying to become citizens of any nature.

I further assert I was the individual who led the funeral procession in Dr. King's funeral, along with the fact that I have served throughout this area and throughout this State in various political organizations trying to obtain the rights of people in whatever field was necessary, not just the right to vote. I served as manager of a Farmers Cooperative that served about 10 counties in the Black Belt of Alabama for about 7 years.

During that time, we developed a process called gasohol and received the first license in the country to produce motor fuel from grain. I presently serve as cochairman of something we call the Campaign for the New South and that is a Black Belt organization that is Black Belt-wide where we, as a people, have gotten together to try to survive in the Black Belt of Alabama.

I keep talking about things but I think it is important that you know who may be talking to you and from whence I come. I was

the person who was one of the leaders that led the march across the bridge on Bloody Sunday. I was in the second column but was considered one of the four people who led that demonstration. I was further one of the leaders in the demonstration when Jimmy Jackson was murdered in the streets of Jackson in 1965. And I led the county that got one of the first voter registrars in the South from the bill that was introduced in 1958, during the Eisenhower administration.

So I want to bring to you this morning a meaning from the area and I want to try to identify the fact that someone talks to you that has been involved in the whole State of Alabama and the Black Belt in particular.

I would also like to state that I served as campaign manager for Senator Sanders who was the first black senator elected since Reconstruction time. I was very involved in the process of reapportionment of the State of Alabama that caused some 25 black people to be elected to the State House in Montgomery.

I was involved in the process that caused black people to be able to be reapportioned in the counties, and this has created a situation where blacks can run from districts instead of from at-large voting and has created a situation where minority blacks will be elected in key positions.

I would now like to start my statements by using one President Reagan used the first of the year. He stated that old line blacks were no longer in tune with what the new line blacks were about. I took that as an attack.

Mr. CONYERS. President Reagan said that?

Mr. TURNER. That was what President Reagan said, that the old line blacks, I want to repeat, that old line blacks were no longer in tune with the wishes of the new generation of the black people. When that statement was made, the position of the Government and the position that the Justice Department took about voting rights and so forth then took a new turn. At this point, I accuse President Reagan as declaring war on old line blacks like myself, and I really don't call myself an old line black, but I guess in the civil rights movement I guess I am considered to be old line because I have been here 20 years, but I am not but 49 so I don't think I am in the category of being old and senile in that sense. But from that point, and I want you to listen at this closely, from that point the Government has participated in attacking black people that worked during the days of Martin Luther King and with organizations such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference systematically to remove them from positions of power.

They found out that these people still are in tune to the real problems of the day and that they really understand the political process now. He understands that without removing people like myself and other people that we named and other people that have been politically indicted, that he would not be successful in bringing to power inexperienced, young black people that can be manipulated back into slavery.

So I am accusing the government this morning of participating in a movement to destroy black leadership that is experienced, understands the process and able to cope with the problems of black people. I was singled out as being the very first person to be indict

ed. It is because of the fact they consider me to be in informal terms, the bell cow of the movement. In the area of the State where I live, for background purposes only, I think it is necessary for this committee to understand the makeup and geography of the

area.

In the Black Belt of Alabama, Perry County in particular, 30 percent, 30 percent of the work force in Perry County leaves that county every day going to another place to find work. In that area the voting polls open at 1 o'clock and close at 5. So when a man drives 50 to 100 miles to work, there is no way for that 30 percent of the voting population to have a chance to vote in person.

Another startling factor that you might be interested in is that 15 percent of the population in general in that area is over the age of 65. These 15 percent of the people are the people who struggled in the 1960's to get the right to vote. They were the ones who were brutalized and beaten on the bridge that Sunday and to deny those people the right to vote is almost like having a war.

So you might wonder why so many people vote that are disabled but the reason is because these people that were 50 years old 20 years ago are now 70 years old now, and they are in the nursing homes and disabled, but they are the real ones who understand what voting is all about, because they had to fight to get that right in the streets of Alabama.

Some of their sons and daughters were murdered. Ladies had abortions in the streets and these people have not forgotten those experiences and they call up and want to know when their people are coming to vote. Instead of us going out to find them, they look for us.

This is a very serious

Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Turner, if you will forgive the Chair, there is a vote on the floor of the House so we are going to have to recess, but as soon as we get back, and I hope it won't be very long, we will complete your testimony.

So we will recess at this moment.

Mr. TURNER. All right.

[Recess.]

Mr. EDWARDS. The subcommittee will come to order.
Mr. Turner, you may proceed.

Mr. TURNER. When I stopped, I was trying to establish the fact that there was a great need for absentee voting in the area and that without that, that there was no way of us winning elections in that area because of the fact of people being elderly, significant number of people who were leaving the county each day to work. I am not the only individual who knows that, and until we learn that fact, there was no way for us to win elections.

The first 5 or 10 years of our life, we did the same identical thing we are doing now in terms of trying to elect people to office. The difference came when we learned that we had this large number of people that it was absolutely impossible for them to vote otherwise than the possibility of using the absentee ballot. I was the individual person who went to the State attorney general's office, the workshops with the State attorney general, to learn the law of the absentee ballots. We had various workshops with lawyers to learn the law of the absentee ballots.

Once I learned, myself, then it was my job to go out through the area and teach the rest of the counties how the law worked. That became my job and my duty. We were not interested in trying to break the law, we were interested in trying to see the law was carried out to the letter.

I think also this is one of the reasons why you find it so difficult to convict people in these vote fraud cases, because we studied the law and tried to the best of our ability almost to be perfect in carrying it out. That was my personal responsibility.

I also feel that one of the reasons why I was so severely attacked is because I was the person who was instigating or leading this and showing people how to do this. We went to the census figures and found out the breakdown of the number of people who were sick and working outside the county and these type things.

One of the greatest effects, I think, that will happen now is these people have been questioned, and I will say to you that there is no less than 1,000 old people have been questioned, and almost each of those five counties we have had as many as 200 plus citizens who were questioned in these investigations.

I said that these people were doing this only for intimidation purposes, and I base my facts on the fact that 90 percent of the people who were questioned by the Government, the FBI, was people whose ballots had nothing wrong with them at all. They went to the people in the beginning with a ballot in their hand where there was no conceivable wrongdoing at all on this ballot, and they simply went up to these old people and asked them: "Is this your ballot or did you vote this way?" They said, "Well, you see my name there, or you see-I assume this is my ballot.'

What I am saying is that there was no indication that any wrongdoing had been done on this vast number of ballots, and these people still were interrogated and questions. It leads me to believe that this was done for no other purpose than the scare tactic. Some large, whole busload of people was loaded on a Greyhound bus and carried from Perry County to Mobile, which is 160 miles away from their home base. A large number of these people had never left home before. The majority of these people was better than 70 years of age, and most of them had to have the assistance of doctors and nurses to go.

One man had a stroke while he was down there, and another one suffered a heart attack. These were the kind of people that they had carried to the witness stand to try to establish a case.

Mr. EDWARDS. How many on that bus, Mr. Turner?

Mr. TURNER. The bus was filled. I would say at least 25 or 30 people were on that bus. They had about seven or eight State troopers who guarded the bus.

Mr. EDWARDS. Was there more than one bus?

Mr. TURNER. It was one bus the first time. They made three trips in all. In other words, the grand jury had three different sessions, but the first session they had only one bus that went the first time. But we had three different sessions of grand juries. This went on for roughly about 6 months with about 10 or 15 FBI agents participating in the investigation throughout the county.

But once these people were approached, they were told that they would receive $300 to go in an effort to try to entice them to go,