WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 1963 (UPI) -- Seven Negro leaders from the Deep South met with President Kennedy Thursday to urge the dispatch of federal troops to Birmingham, Ala.
The group, headed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., believes that troops are needed to keep order in the city in the wake of last Sunday's church bombing.
Presidential Press Secretary Pierre Salinger disclosed Thursday that Mr. Kennedy has arranged a White House meeting Monday with a delegation of Birmingham city officials who want to give him a first-hand account of the racial situation in their city.
The White House announced Thursday's meeting with Negro leaders shortly after Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), appealed to Mr. Kennedy to cut off all federal funds to Alabama.
Wilkins, who held an airport news conference while on his way to Birmingham for the funeral Wednesday of three young Negro girls killed in the bombing, also urged the administration to "go for broke on the civil rights bill" and make it far tougher than the one now before Congress. He also backed the plea for federal troops.
The Rev. Frank L. Shuttlesworth, a veteran of Birmingham's integration battles and one of the seven scheduled to see Mr. Kennedy, said that a "small show of federal force" would help ease the fears of possible new strife there.
"The state troopers who are here now are threatening people and Negroes are not safe neither ion their homes nor in their churches," he said. "I realize the President has many world problems on his mind and no citizen wants to unduly burden him, but the situation here in Birmingham is critical."
Washington Negro leaders plan to stage a silent protest march Sunday by some 3,500 persons to express "sorrow and outrage" over the church bombing. The marchers, probably wearing black armbands, will hold a 30-minute silent vigil without prayers or speeches in front of the White House. Mr. Kennedy is expected to be in Newport, R.I., with his family at that time.
Wilkins criticized what he termed the "hesitance and piecemeal approach" the administration has taken toward protecting civil rights. He said the Birmingham church bombing was an act of war by civil rights foes. "We feel the federal government ought to conduct a 'war' in our behalf. We are citizens too."
