The Assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd, prime minister of the Republic of South Africa, rose from his desk in Parliament September 6 at 2 p.m., as corridor bells announced the opening of another session. At that instant, a man wearing a parliamentary messenger’s uniform emerged from the crowd and suddenly began stabbing Verwoerd with a six-inch blade. Before legislators could drag the assailant away, wounds that would prove fatal within minutes had been inflicted.

The immorality of Verwoerd’s death, most shocking assassination since that of President John F. Kennedy nearly three years ago, was almost overshadowed by the moral issue of racism which so characterized his life. Yet Dimitri Stafendis, the man accused as the assassin, was not part of South Africa’s oppressed black majority, but an immigrant of Greek descent from Portuguese Mozambique.

Early reports said Stafendis had complained that Verwoerd was doing too much for non-whites and not enough for “poor whites.” The 45-year-old bachelor was described as an avid Bible reader who repeatedly sought interpretation of divinely-sanctioned slayings in the Old Testament.

Verwoerd, who would have been 65 two days after the stabbing, was the son of a Dutch Reformed missionary who worshipped regularly at a Reformed church in Rondebosch, a suburb of the parliamentary city of Cape Town. He received significant support from the nine Reformed denominations, even though three of them belong to the World Council of Churches which has long opposed the apartheid (racial segregation) laws of the nation. His most visible antagonists were Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

The nation’s new leader will be chosen by Verwoerd’s Nationalist Party, which has a 3-to-1 majority in Parliament. A leading prospect was Justice Minister J. B. Vorster, 50, a man imprisoned for two years for pro-Nazi activities in World War II who implements the dizzying collection of segregation laws.

Verwoerd himself first achieved prominence as editor of Die Transvaler, organ of the then-minority Nationalists, as he backed Hitler to a degree and opposed South Africa’s participation in World War II.

The Nationalists assumed power in 1948, with Verwoerd as “minister of native affairs” and thus chief architect of apartheid.

The succeeding years made Verwoerd a symbol of political success through racism. His ideal was friendly but absolute separation of populations by race. The 12 million blacks would live on reservations that encompass 14 per cent of the nation’s land, while the 3.5 million whites held the rest. As part of this theory, he welcomed Chief Leabua Jonathan of Basutoland, all-black British protectorate within South Africa’s borders, four days before the assassination.

Under Verwoerd’s racial paternalism, millions were spent to make blacks stay apart. But economics tended to overcome this. Africa’s richest economy and need for low-priced labor caused thousands of blacks to pour into major cities.

Life for blacks under the policies Verwoerd created is hemmed in at all sides. Under the passbook system, a black needs various stamps to hold jobs, maintain residence, travel, or even live with his wife and children. Racial distinctions are based on as much geneology as can be mustered, plus superficial bases like kinkiness of hair or nose shape. Japanese (whose country is a major economic customer) are classed as “white” while East Indians are “Asians.” Stafendis might have heard that a Greek was recently refused entrance to the country because he had a deep sun tan.

In an August 26 cover story, Time characterized Verwoerd as “one of the ablest white leaders that Africa has ever produced. He has a photographic memory, an analytical mind and an endless capacity for work. He is a brilliant diplomat and an inventive politician.”

The full results of such abilities invested in the anachronistic cause of racial separation will only be known at the end of the current worldwide racial revolution.

Test For Voluntary Housing

Southerners returned to the U.S. Senate after Labor Day ready to filibuster the House-passed civil rights bill which includes federal compulsion for fair housing for Negroes.

For non-segregationists who have long given lip service to local, voluntary approaches to open housing, a key test begins this month in Chicago as churchmen, politicians, and businessmen implement a new racial accord.

The test is courtesy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 37, the charismatic Baptist clergymen who got city leaders to join a ten-point racial program August 26 after threatening to lead a march into the hostile, all-white suburb of Cicero. Some more militant than King marched anyway September 4; the day was ugly, but not bloody.

“To King, it’s religion. To a lot of others in the movement, religion doesn’t mean a darn thing,” said a reporter who has covered the Nobel Prize winner in the South and Chicago. Some spout strategy, the observer said, “but you need religion to get them into the streets.” And King got the ghetto, even though some conservative Negro pastors sat on their hands.

Many credit religious leaders as being the third force which brought King’s coalition and the city establishment together. Since 1963, Protestants, Catholics, and Jews have cooperated in the Conference on Religion and Race, chaired by Episcopal Bishop James Montgomery. Prominent in the daily diplomacy last month was sunglasses-wearing Catholic Archbishop John Patrick Cody, who was tempered by years in the New Orleans maelstrom.

Under the accord, the Conference is now responsible for education and direct action on Negro housing. Specifically, it will set up housing centers by the end of this month where suburban realtors and homeowners can come into the ghettos and meet Negro customers. In a 2½-month pilot version this spring, only seven families were placed, but conference housing director Howard Smith, 36, a United Church of Christ minister, thinks even that is significant. The new centers, unlike the earlier versions, will have paid staff, not volunteers.

Graham Daughter Weds

Anne Morrow Graham became the bride of dentist Daniel Milton Lotz in an evening ceremony September 2 at Gaither Chapel of Montreat, North Carolina, College. The wedding was performed by the fathers of the bridal couple. Anne is the nineteen-year-old daughter of evangelist Billy Graham. Lotz’s father is a Baptist pastor on Long Island.

The bride wore a gown of candlelight peau de soie with a portrait neckline, long sleeves, and chapel train. Her full length mantilla was of Alencon lace. She carried a bouquet of white spray orchids and stephanotis.

The couple plans to live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lotz, 29, is a six-foot-six-inch former basketball star at the University of North Carolina.

VIRGINIA SOMERVILLE

‘Minister Of Community Outreach’

A pair of Roman Catholic priests joined Protestant clergymen of five denominations to lay hands on American Baptist Ted Adams in Oakland, California, last month. Adams, 26, is a white member of the predominantly Negro Church of the Good Shepherd, affiliated with the American Baptist Convention. His first assignment will be as “minister of community outreach” for the new-this-year North Oakland Christian Parish.

The parish is an interdenominational, socially oriented effort operating out of a rented storefront. Its ministry is described as dealing in education of the poor, police-community relations, anti-poverty programs, welfare rights, minority employment, and low-income housing. Adams is given the role of “troubleshooter” in community social crises, as well as investigator of social complaints, group-action organizer, and ecumenical liaison man.

Parish spokesmen list among parish accomplishments so far the establishment of a “North Oakland Service Center” to draw federal funds through the anti-poverty program. The center’s announced aim is to look after fair city housing code enforcement and adjustment within parish boundaries.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Is Cassius A Clergyman?

A New York lawyer who fought for hundreds of Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking draft deferments as conscientious objectors during World War II is now masterminding a similar legal battle in behalf of boxer Cassius Clay. While Clay was preparing to defend his heavyweight championship against Karl Mildenberger September 10 in Frankfurt, Germany, lawyer Hayden Covington announced a new strategy: Clay would ask to be excused from military service on grounds that he is a Black Muslim minister.

“This man has pursued the ministry of the Black Muslim faith since 1964,” said Covington.

He asserted that Clay, whose religious name is Muhammad Ali, was “appointed a field minister of the Muslim faith by Elijah Muhammad in 1964. He wasn’t ordained, as such, because that isn’t part of his faith.”

Clay has also sought deferment as a conscientious objector. But getting a deferment on those grounds would mean a two-year stint in service as a noncombatant or two years in civilian humanitarian employment. If Clay wins deferment as a clergyman he will be exempt from all obligations—and free to continue his lucrative boxing career uninterrupted.

Joseph Richard Sizoo

Joseph Richard Sizoo, one of America’s best-known clergymen and a highly acclaimed preacher, died last month at the age of 81.

Since 1952 Sizoo had occupied the chair of religion at George Washington University in Washington, D. C. He achieved prominence before that, first as pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in the capital, then of the Collegiate Reformed Church of St. Nicholas in New York City.

Sizoo was stricken with a heart attack in the vestry of Manhattan’s Brick Presbyterian Church moments after he had finished a guest sermon there on “How to Handle Doubt.” A doctor was summoned from the congregation, but the clergyman was pronounced dead on arrival at Doctors Hospital.

The Holland-born Sizoo also served for a time as president of New Brunswick (New Jersey) Theological Seminary and as a vice-president of the old Federal Council of Churches.

Other Deaths

ELMER T. CLARK, 79, World War I correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune who became 14-year editor of World Outlook and secretary of the World Methodist Council; credited with helping raise more than $100 million for Methodism; in Birmingham, Alabama, of a coronary attack.

LIONEL A. HUNT, 62, Canadian electrical engineer who led children’s evangelistic rallies part-time for 22 years, and full-time since 1956; in Toronto.

LEYMON W. KETCHAM, 51, director of development for Gordon College and Divinity School; in Boston, of cancer.

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