THE 1IWHITE PROBLEM

ALBERT BIGELOW

BUS BURNING in Anniston, cowardly brutality making ends meet, reflect on the conditions of your in Birmingham, cynical injustice in Jackson-during Negro fellow citizens in the South. recent months many people in this country and through­ A Negro "girl" (who may he sixty years old) com.,. out the world bave been appalled by news of the inci­ to work for her white "lady" (who may he half her age) dents involving Freedom Riders and 8egregationi~t.'i, in Sumter, South Carolina, at eight in the morning. which began in Alabama on Mother's Day (UMother's She scrubs clothee and floors, cooks and serves. the Day the Southern Way"). The very officials who arc main meal of the day at noon, nurses, iroDs, dUsts, supposed to uphold law and order have connived at, vaeuum8 and sweeps. At four she goes home to care for and even abetted, lawlessness and disorder. her own family. She does this five days a week, eight Perhaps you regard such incidents as the exception. hours a day. Her pay is ten dollars a week. She can h~ If so, I suggest that you become a Freedom Rider and fired without cause and without notice. At least ten take a look at Dixie from the inside. The shameful "girls" are waiting to take her job. happenings of recent months are only the symptoms of Tulane University, in New Orleans, is a renowned a sickness that is chronic, cleep.scated, and deadly. Here institution of higher learning. The cafeteria employee. are Borne facts about this sickness 8S it exists in the there are Negroes, whose work ie hard, hot, and dirty. South. They work eight hours a day, six day. a week. For this Voting. The right to vole is an essential ingredient they are paid eighteen dollars a week. of democracy. In the eleven states that comprised the The millions of decent white people in the South are Confederacy only a quarter of the Negroes of voting age eilent, except to S8Y thut they understand the ~'nigra \, dare to register at the polls. In the states of the Deep and can solve the prohlem, if they are left alone. In the South-Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and hundred years that have elapsed .ince the Civil War, South Carolina-less than fifteen per cent are registered. they have obviously not managed to solve the problem. Not long ago, one Negro in Louisiana who had the Perhaps they .hould ask themselves the penetrating temerity to register was shot dead on the grounds 1')£ question: "Who benefits?" And perhaps the rest of us, the State Capitol in Baton Rouge. Naturally, no one ha. all over the nation, should ask ourselves whether that been prosecuted for his murder. hedsheet, that coke, that plastic pencil are not hargaim Education. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled th.t heeause of the suffering, segregation, and slave labor segregation of schools violates the law of the land; it that have gone into their manufacture. urged "a11 deliberate speed" in integrating the existing "separate but equal" school facilities. But seven yean; Justice. Di8crimination at once degrades the opprcssell later, the states of the Confederacy have achieved 1e3s and dehumanizes the oppressor. We have seen in N:.1zi than two per cent integration. In four of them there Germany, COllllllunist Russia, and other tyrannies, the are no integrated schools whatsoever. In Louisiana there rapid degeneration and limitless depravity tl,at this are only four integrated Negro pupils, in North Carolina dehumanization can bring about. Make no mistake of only fifty, and in Virginia only a hundred and seventy. it, the same terror exists to a degree in our own country. At the time of the Court's ruling, some of the other And to the extent that each of U8 tolerates it, it exists Southern states, 815 well 88 the District of Columbia, in ourselves, does it not? had completely segregated schools. By now, the District What happens to the Southern Negro who refuses of Colmnbia's school system is almost fully integrated; to accept the debased position of the "good nigger"? West Virginia and Delaware are about half way, Ken­ And to the white who befriends him? They will suffer tucky and Missouri ahout a third, Maryland and Okla­ condant police harassment, economic reprisals, threats, homa about a quarter. Progress has been made, and none beatings, and other kinds of persecution. A friend of of the dire prophecies uttered by white Southerners mine has heen jailed twenty-eight times in tl,e last year has heen fulfilled. (and often held ineommunica

September 1961 5 A woman Freedom Rider was, with myself, among This process is part o{ the unfinished husiness of the last three persons to leave the burning hus at An­ the American revolution. It constitutes a revolution in niston, Alabama. It was a near thing, but we had one itself, a revolution that is nonviolent, GanDiane Nash, Jero111e Smith, Ralph you sec, does not admit of snch luxuries as pity, compo:)­ Abernathy, Henry Thomas, }fax Francis Moultrie, sion, or respect for womanhood. Charles Jones, jimi McDonald. Their heads ain't bendiu' Peaceable, nonviolent demonstrators have been struck low, and you don't call them HJoc". They are convinced with fists, chains, clubs, and pipes. In Jackaon, Missio­ that it is just as sinful to consider yourse1I lower than sippi, the police set ferocious dogs on pickets wbo were, another man as to consider yourself higher than another in an orderly fashion, exercising their right of protest man. They {cel you cannot call yourself a man anJ under the First Amendment. accept treatment as something less than human. Huntsville, Alabama is in the "Bible Belt". It is also They are convinced that democracy is meaningle:is the scene of frantic activity ill rocketry. These rockets if one is born in a segregated hospital, goes to a segrr­ are supposed to defend democracy froll the threat of gated school, lives out one's days in a segregated neigh­ godless Communism. A Negro in Huntsville was recently borhood, stays in segregated hotels, eats in segregated shot dead by a wbite man. The white man said that he restaurants, patronizes segregated theaters, worship5 tllought the Ncgro was insulting his wife. Nothing has in segregated churches, swims in segregated waters, been done about this murder. drinks at segregated fountains, and is finally buried by Lynching has been outlawed by the Federal govern­ a segregated mortician in a seg.regated ccmetery, with ment. But it has not been eliminated in Dixie; it ha:! the promise of eternal lifc in an integrated Heaven. merely gone underground. Now Negroes simply disap­ They are saying, rather, that the Kingdom of Heaven pear. ~T here, for e.xample, are the witnesses in the is at hand. infamous Emmett Ti1l1llurder case? Soon after the trial, Is it not time that we rose up as a nation and insisted all the witnesses had vanished from l\iississippi-anll that tbc Congress of the Unjted States bc freed from apparently from the face of the earth. domination by a perverse minority of Southern segrega­ How docs one deal with corruption and degenera(:y tionists? Should not the President of the United States of this magnitude? The millions of dccent white Sonth­ put principles abead of politics and disdain elcctornl erners arc, with rare exceptions, more intimidated than votes that have been contaminated with the tribute the Negrocs.l\iost of them withdraw to a state of fantasy, money of segregation? a conspiracy of silence. This hideous problem is the product of compound It is the despised and downtrodden Negroes who ace ignorance and acts of immorality, stretching back for exhibiting dignity, decency, and couragc. I hopc th"t generations. But it will have to be solved in our lifctimt.... some of you who read this will be able to attend their It will bc solved only through the good will, tho revo· mass Dleetings and share the inspiration, faith and hopt! lutionary fervor and the genuine patriotism displayell that is generated there. When you join in the singing by our courageous Negro brothers, qualjties that in­ of the "Freedom Song", such phrases as "We arc DlJt spired some of ns whites to join the Freedoul Rides. afraid," and "Love conquers all," will take on a new 'Vhat is commonly designated as thc Negro problem meaning, because you will realize that they arc not just is really a white problem. Will we whjtes continue to phrases that have been incorporated into the lyrics pas. by on the other side and deny or evade the proh­ of a song, but refer to principles that have been put lem? How about the house next door, the worker along­ into practice. Not otle blow has been struck by a Negro side you, the Kingdom of Heaven within you? Cun we in a Southern demonstration since the beginnjng of the any longer afford our cowardly and convenient igno­ Montgomery bus protest five years ago. The Negroes ranee? Are we not now forced to choose between com­ have literally turned the other cheek and returned good. plicity and fraternhy? Choose which you like: integra­ for evil. Truly, the last are now first. tion or-disintegration. You cannot have both.

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