"New Orleans is Scene of Racial Riots,"
"Georgia University to Close if Negroes
Attend," Family Evicted for Breaking
Integration Boycott." These are only a
few of the appalling headlines appearing
in today’s newspapers throughout the
country.
In my estimation, one of the most dis
appointing and terrifying thoughts is the
fact that the Civil War was fought as a
lost cause. We are still fighting over th e
racial issue.
Today's Negro population, on the whole,
is no better off than when they were slaves.
They have, or are supposed to have, the
same rights as the white man, but you'd
never know it. And what good has it done?
They aren't allowed to attend the same
schools, ride the same buses, use the
same restaurants, etc.
Being a Negro is a fight from childhood.
Neighborhood children are taught by their
parents that you are different and they
are to have nothing to do with you —you
play by yourself. In school, you are
shunned again. Children have their own
ideas now, but grownups have them so
indoctrinated with false impressions that
all Negroes are bad, that their first
reaction is cruelty and mockery —you seek
schools even if it means lower
ing your educational standards. Finally,
you're out on you own, no teachers and
parents to take your part. For weeks you
canvass offices and answer want ads,
only to find that good jobs are strictly
for white personnel. What good is your
education? For you must give in and accept
a job using brute force, moving in compl
iance with orders, given no chance to do
your own thinking.
Any endeavor on your part to find a
home would also bring failure and disillus
ionment. Cities are marked off by invisible
lines into black and white sections. When
a Negro steps across the boundary and moves
into a white area, the whites move out. The
are has soon been transformed into a solid
black section. The white's excuse for
moving is that they believe that if one
Negro family moves in, the area will soon
become over-run with blacks. This will
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happen only if the whites do not move out.
If they stay there will be no room for any
other Negroes to move into the area. If the
situation is handled in this way, the one
black family may move out. Or they may
become friends. But there is no intelligent
reason for leaving the area. The standard
of living of the Negroes is most often no
less higher than the whites. It isn't
going to make a slum out of the section
because one (or maybe two) families has
moved next door. Stay in your home.' If
you fear invasion by blacks, the surest way
to get it is to move out and create homes
for them.
The newspapers play up the criminal
incidents among Negroes, but the crime rate
among whites is actually higher than the
blacks'. If you were mistreated and shunned
wouldn’t you rebel? I don't believe this
is any excuse for breaking the law. I'm
not making excuses for their misdemeanors.
But I would like to know how we can explain
our high rate. We have no semblance of a *
reason. Stop picking on the Negro. Think
a little of their feelings toward you.
If these southerners who are making such
a fuss about integration would just take
time out to analyze the situation they are
creating, they would realize the foolishness
of the incidents. How could fourteen Negroes
in a school of over six hundred pupils make
any real difference in the school schedule?
I think we could do well to remember the
Golden Rule "Do unto others as you would
have others do unto you."
**Si*****#*** * * * * * # H« * *
Time to be yourself. . . .
Faced with crisis, the man of character
falls back on himself. He imposes his
own stamp on action, takes responsibility
for it, makes it his own. . . Difficulty
attracts the men of character, because
it is in embracing it that he realizes
himself.
President de Gaulle