Comments on: Sunday, Jan. 4, 1953: How prejudiced are you?

By: Ben Welter

Ben Welter — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 06:08:22 +0000

Hi, Elise. I can fax you a copy if you like. The article is interesting, but it’s very long and, once you get past the anecdotal intro, fairly dry. I didn’t think it worth the 15 minutes it would have taken me to type it. (I type all Yesterday’s News articles, by the way. Optical character reading software has a tough time interpreting old newspaper articles copied from microfilm.)

By: Ben Welter

Ben Welter — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 05:42:06 +0000

One of my nightside colleagues, John Addington, joined the Tribune in 1959. He recounted an amusing anecdote told by Carl T. Rowan, who later joined the Kennedy administration as deputy assistant secretary of state for public affairs. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Finland and director of the U.S. Information Agency before returning to journalism in 1965 as a nationally syndicated columnist.

While at the Tribune, Rowan did a lot of outside writing, developing a national reputation and earning a pretty good income, enough to buy a fine house in Golden Valley.

One weekend, he was outside “in his grubbies” working on the lawn when a passing motorist, a white man, stopped and shouted, “Hey, what do you get for that?” Rowan said: “Not much, but the lady of the house lets me sleep with her.”

By: Elise Kisch

Elise Kisch — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:09:29 +0000

It would be interesting to see the actual article that this questionnaire accompanied.

By: john caticchio

john caticchio — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:56:33 +0000

Although there are (some) people who believe their are genetic differences in races, historically this battle has been waged over and over again - probably to its conclusion during the Nazi Germany years and thereafter. Where the problems exist today is in the political realm where “roiling” seems to be the goal.

By: Pat Dunn

Pat Dunn — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:01:55 +0000

I was fortunate enough to meet Carl Rowan when he came to work at the StarTrib [I worked in the Credit Union and handled the Mortgage applications.]
At one time he brought in his twin sons.

At that time I felt proud to know him and watched his career from that time on.
Although the above questions were not asked of me then I feel I am more accepting of other races today and I am more willing to accept the differences of other ethnic groups.
In a time when we have more and more different races in our cities we must learn to be more open. We will not be a lilly white community ever again and we need to learn and accept all our differences. There are good people and bad people no matter what race they come from.