From Julian Bond to Lerone Bennett, 3 June 1968

June 3, 1968

Mr. Lerone Bennett Johnson Publications 1820 South Michigan Avenue Chicago, Illinois

Dear Lerone:

I have borrowed extensively from your writings in The Negro Mood and in your last summer's speech to the Negro officials meeting in an article in the May, 1968 Motive magazine.

I also wanted to write to ask what you thought about the feasability... both economically and physically... of beginning what would amount to a journal of black politics. What I'm think about is something that would cover the nation, would (if, for example, an issue were published last week) include articles on the Chicago races, the South Carolina Campaign of Attorney George Payton against Mendle Rivers, a look at political prospects for blacks from the 1968 Democratic and Republican Conventions, and so on.

This ought not be looked at as the same sort of publication that Negro Digest is, in terms of staff and size, but rather like the Nation or New Republic,

(more)

Mr. Lerone Bennett June 3, 1968 Page two

edited by a two or three man board, printed very inexpensively (but with quality), and distributed at a cost low enough to make it generally available and just high enough to enable it to break even.

I know that Representative Conyers has thought on these lines. We are weak, politically, weverywhere in this nation, and while politics ... old or new ... will never solve all of our problems, it will get some things done that won't be done any other way.

At any rate, I hope you can find time to give this some thought. Ideally, such a venture ought to have been begun some months ago, but I have not been able to settle myself down long enough to write to anyone about it.

Drop me a line and let me know what virtues, if any, the idea has.

Sincerely,

Julian

JB:nb