Wr;DNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1948 In the Land of Jim Crow Ray Sprigle, Pultizer prize-winning reporter and staff member of "The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette," recently disguised himself as a Negro and for four weeks "lived black" in the South among his fel low Americans. This is the seventh of a series of twelve articles in which he presents his findings. Mr. Sprigle has changed the names of persons and places in some instances to protect those involved. Black of the rich earth and green of the springing cotton plants stretch from horizon to horizon. This is the fabulous Mis sissippi Delta, last outpost of feud alism in America. Here is land more fertile than any other in the world. Here close to half a mil lion Negroes toil from childhood to the grave in the service of King Cotton, from sunup to sundown if they share-crop, from 6 to 6 if they work by the day. Here are feudal baronies that run from 5,000 to 20,000 acres, where as many as 6,000 share cropper families, wives and chil dren, parents and grandparents, follow the one-mule plow and the chopping hoe all their lives. On these tight little Delta prin cipalities "The Man" (landlord) is the middle justice, the high and the low . Mississippi law stops dead inits tracks at their boundaries. No sheriff, no peace officer takes a man, black or white, off these acres until "The Man" tells him he may. Briefed on Tactics Back in Jackson, the night be fore we started our expedition in to the Delta, half a dozen Negro leaders briefed us on tactics, stra tegy and general behavior for our Delta tour as if we had been going into an occupied country to join the Underground. "Don't talk to share-croppers either at work or along the roads." "Don't argue if a 'rider' stops you and asks questions. ("Riders," by the way, are the mounted patrols that plantation owners maintain as field foremen and general over seers. Mounted field foremen fre quently are trusted Negroes. Over seers are white.) In any event—whether because of the briefing or because our smil ing brown faces aroused no sus picions—nothing happened. We did stop one woman share cropper near Scott, Miss., on the vast Delta Pine Land Company holdings. All we wanted was to find out where we were. The wom an regarded us suspiciously and then started to give us road direc tions. Suddenly she broke off, slip ped down the road embankment and disappeared. We found out why when we heard a horn honk behind us. We had blocked the narrow road when we stopped and a Mississippi car with a couple of white men in it had pulled up behind us. That's What had scared the woman away. I didn't feel so good myself. But when we pulled out of the way the car rattled on. AU the Negro leaders I encoun tered insisted that Negro life in the Delta was not far past the days of slavery. I couldn't agree with then. In the first place, the Negro share-cropper or field hand can pull up stakes and leave whenever he wishes. No longer do deputy sheriffs pursue fleeing share-crop pers and drag them back to the plow and hoe to work out their debts. The Federal Government broke that up ten years ago. But the Negroes still take no chances. I talked with one share-cropper who was getting ready to leave. He'd gotten his parents away on a "visit." He was planning to send his children away in a few days. A relative had sent him tickets to Chicago. "Best way is to just leave quiet at night," he confided. "That way there just can't be any trouble. Delta Negroes are undoubtedly cheated out of their eyeteeth by "The Man," but certainly not to the extent that their brethren in Georgia are. None of them ever sees a statement of the prices brought by their cotton or of sup lies they have bought from the lige commissaries maintained by e plantation owners. But there are few of them who get less than $5OO cash at settlement time P OO2 s‘letit Pull 'lleJ . 3 41 ul compared with Georgia. For one thing, the cheating is more honest here. It's the accepted Delta custom that the Negro gets about four cents less a pound for his cotton than "The Man" sells it for—so all the Ne groes I talked to assured me. Normally, life flows peacefully and uneventfully for the Delta Negro. Seldom, almost never, does the Delta break into the headlines of By Ray Sprigle the nation with the sensational lynchings and wanton Negro mur ders that spatter the bloody rec ord of Georgia and South Caro lina. Your Delta Negro seldom has my trouble with his white folks. Or if he does, neither the trouble nor the Negro lasts very long. Iron-Clad Despotism ,Reason is that the Delta Negro lives under an iron-clad despot ism so ruthless and so efficient that your ordinary share-cropper and field hand seldom comes in contact with it. In the Delta, the Negro not only "knows his place but he keeps it - faith fully from childhood to old age. Or he never lives to reach old age. It's seldom that the white folks have to kill a Delta Negro. But when they do it's done quietly. and expeditiously. And there are no "political and civic" leagues as in Georgia to start raising hell about it, either. Even the remarkably efficient and almost omnipresent N. A. A. C. P. functions limpingly in Mississippi. The white folks see to that. Typical of Delta Negro killings was one that a group of Negro friends in one of the little Delta towns told me of. A Negro under taker happened to be calling on a Negro share-cropper to collect a small balance on a bill. A "rider," gun-hung like a one-man army, came galloping up. In the friendli est tone imaginable he called out: "Jim, I just had to kill that bro ther of yours down near his place. Better see to getting his body out of there"—and galloped off again. The undertaker, right on the scene, got the body. Next day the Negro minister preached the fu neral sermon. They put the dead man in the ground and that was that. No fuss, no questions. No Negro votes in the Delta. In all Mississippi with its more than a million Negroes, not more than 10,000 vote and those only in the larger cities where selected hand fuls of Negro leaders are permit ted to go through the motions of I voting. But Mississippi, like Geor gia a few years ago, is having Su preme Court trouble when the folks try to kill a Negro by "due process' with a rigged jury. So just recently the county of ficials of one of the Delta counties called in a Negro friend of mine. "Asa, we've got to make new ar rangements," they told him. "We war* about six Negroes we can trust. We'll let 'em register and vote so we can put 'em on the jury list. "Supreme Court's held up hang in' of a nigger down below Jack son because no Negroes were call- \\_% # * ,4 /4io ste So why not make the Harmony Shop your headquarters for all musical supplies. You'll see what fine Christmas gifts our record albums and famous make, low-priced radios will make. Stop in today! The Harmony Shop THIS WEEK'S McCLELLAN'S SPECIAL 1940 PONTIAC 4-DOOR SEDAN • New Rubber • Good Paint • One-Owner Car • Must be seen to be appreciated Always A Large Selection To Choose From McCLELLAN CHEVROLET INC. 642 E. College Ave. DIAL 6766 THE DAILY COLLEGIAN, STATE COLLEGE, PENTIFSN'LIIANIA Patrons Give Name Have you ever wondered how the Rose Room, the Blue Room and other rooms named for every color of the rainbow, got their name? You may think that the owner's mother-ins-law simply put her foot down and that was that. Well, maybe so. But the Allen crest Tea Room is using a new angle. They've decided to let the guys and gals who dine there have the final say about the name for the newly-decorated room. Furthermore, they're offering a $lO prize for the best name sub mitted. The contest closes No vember 26. Everyone is invited down for a look-around and a chance to decide upon an appro priate name. Who knows? Maybe you'll be the winner. Brunner to Lead FFA Music Group Dr. Henry S. Brunner, profes sor of agricultural education, again has been named to direct the National PTA Band, inaugur ated at last year's convention of the National Future Farmers of America. Dr. Brunner, with Prof. Glenn Stephens, also of the department of agricultural education, left this week to attend the 20th Anniver sary Convention of the group, to be held in Kansas City, Mo., Nov. 14 to 18. This year's band includes 120 Future Farmers from 44 states, Pennsylvania having seven high school boys participating. The group will perform at several concerts and parades during the convention. Professor Stephens, represent ing the College chapter of FFA, said that although receiving lit tle' attention at the annual con ventions, the local chapter has been growing in size and scope of activities. (Continued frost page one) that military reservation stuff," said Jones. ' "I'm sure the SMU boys would love to meet Penn State again. As far as Penn State is concerned, some of the boys have been talk ing a bowl game since the first of the year." ed for jury duty. We got to see that that can't happen here." Who said Mississippi white folks wouldn't let Negroes vote? Next: A Marble Monument to Cruelty. To Dining Room— For a Price Bowl Prospects ng . Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth." Hort Club Names New President Louis Rave was elected presi dent of the Hort Club to fill the vacancy caused when William Custer, former president, enlisted in the Navy. Rave.was vice presi dent of the club. The new vice president is George Rosenkranz. Other club officers are George Teel, secre tary, and Robert Calhoun, treas urer. William Wilson was elected as the new sophomore represen tative to Ag Student Council, and John relty was added to the pro gram committee. Nightmare Gadget Lawn Sweeper That vacuum sweeper you've seen on campus lately isn't the Rube Goldberg creation that it resembles. The gadget is a highly efficient lawn sweeper that will do the work of six men in picking up the leaves, according to Walter E. Trainer, supervisor of lands caping. Continuous Quality Is Quality You Trust BOTTLED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY BY Coca Cola Bottling Company of Altoona PAGE THREE Army Scientist Inspects Project Dr. N. F. Beardsley, scientist for the I.J.S. Army Air Force, visited the College physics de partment Friday afternoon to in spect a research project now in progress. The project, in charge of Dr. R. C. Raymond, associate professor of physics, is concerned with the development of equipment for measuring the transmission of atmosphere in the very long infra-red zone. This is the range between visual light waves and radar waves and is a compara tively unexplored field of le search. Dr. Beardsley, physicist for the Air Materiel Command of the U.S. Army Air Force, traveled here from Wright Field, Dayton. Ohio, where his office is located. He visits the College every two months to confer with members of the physics department con cerning government resea r c h projects. Ask for it either way ...both trade-marks mean the same thing. Ird 1948. The Coco-Cola C
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers