Jesuit vs. Nazis, part 2
Father Twomey preaches against racism while jackbooted goons protest outside
I wrote earlier in “Jesuit vs. Nazis” about the night in May 1961 when Father Louis J. Twomey, SJ, speaking at a meeting of the New Orleans chapter of the NAACP, assailed the American Nazi Party while the hate group’s jackbooted “Storm Troopers” protested outside. Tonight I found an additional news story about Father Twomey’s strong words at a time when white Southerners were willing to speak boldly for the Freedom Riders and against neo-Hitlerist George Lincoln Rockwell’s “Hate Bus.”
At that time, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) was organizing Freedom Rides, through which student activists challenged policies of segregation in interstate bus lines and terminals. American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell responded with a sick publicity stunt, launching a“Hate Bus” (actually a Volkswagen van) covered with racist signs. He and his minions drove the vehicle into Southern cities to speak at Ku Klux Klan meetings and to harass people attending events sponsored by Jewish or African-American groups.
On May 24, 1961, the “Hate Bus” rolled into New Orleans, where the American Nazi Party members proceeded to protest at the premiere of Exodus (the film dramatizing the founding of the State of Israel) and at the local headquarters of the NAACP and CORE. As I wrote before, Father Twomey was speaking that night at an NAACP rally at the Corpus Christi Auditorium when Rockwell’s goons showed up to protest outside the doors.
The news story I discovered today on the remarks Father Twomey made that evening (see above) quotes the Jesuit as he condemns an attitude voiced by Louisiana Gov. Jimmie Davis. Faced with the prospect of simultaneous visits to New Orleans by both Freedom Riders and American Nazi Party members, Davis had attempted to both-sides the controversy by announcing that no “agitators” would be welcome in New Orleans, whether from the “extreme left” or the “extreme right.” In response, Twomey said at the NAACP meeting, “To compare the American Nazi Party with CORE is an insult to fair-minded Americans.”
“No matter what people think of CORE,” Twomey added, “they cannot deny its objectives are for the protection of God-given, constitutionally guaranteed rights.”
In contrast, Twomey said, the objectives of neo-Nazis were incompatible with the principles of American democracy: “We fought a war to do away with the vicious racial tactics which were the basis of Hitlerism. It is a startling paradox when neo-Nazis, like communists, can use the basic rights of American government in an attempt to undermine America.”
Reading Father Twomey’s words, I see once again why Dr. Daniel Thompson, a prominent African-American sociologist of Twomey’s time, said of him that “he troubled the conscience of the people.”
I’ve discovered that Father Twomey was the first Catholic ally of Martin Luther King, Jr. Currently I am writing a biography of him, to be published by the University of Notre Dame Press. If you would like to support my work, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to Matters Twomey. And in any case, please support me with your prayers. Thank you and God bless you.