Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / Jan. 4, 1958, edition 1 / Page 2
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PAGE TWO THE CABOUNA TMES SATURDAY, JAN. 4, 1958 A SIB> IN WE RIGHT MRKTION The best that can be said of the appointees to the mayor’s newly created Hunuui Rela tions Committee is that it is a step in the right direction. That the membership in its entirety will not meet the approval ot all lay ers of Ihirham society is to be expected. That the mayor did a far better Job in the selec tion of the white members of the committee than Negro memben is also to be expected. The mayor had little or no personal knowl edge as to whom or what kind of representa tive a majority of Negro citizens would ap prove as members of such a committee and probably was forced to rely on informers of one type or another. A majority of thinking Negro citizens here are anxious that some kind of effort be put forth in the creation of such a committee that they are willing to go ^^.along with most any person or persons the mayor might name from their group. They takfl the attitude that this is no time for criticism but a time for all of Durham citizens to lend their support to the effort with the hope of making the work of the committee a success. While the mayor was probably not trying to make selections from a cross-section of the white citizenry or the Negro citizenry he either by accident or incident, in naming ’■'"“White committee members, not only named a l)£rmer member of the city council but a representative of the legal profession, two representatives of the ministerial profession, one of whom is also an educator, a repre sentative of the press and a business execu tive. In nnmlng the Negro members of the conmiittee only business and educatioq are represented. This means that so far as Ne groes are concerned the pulpit, the legal pro fession, labor and the press are left entirely out of the picture. Just how far the Negro appointees will be able to go in interpreting the hopes, aims and aspirations of the Negro citizeni^ as a whole will depend upon how active their representatives will be in the future in moving in and out of all strata of their own group. It is our hope that whatever transpires in the future that the members of the Human Relations Committee will be seekers of the truth rather than seekers of false ideals, false goals and mirages. The Committee should approach its task with the understanding that Negro citizens want no more or no less than other citizens, and that to pursue that end they are willing to use patience, for bearance, and politeness but the end will be pursued until human dignity shall be the at tainable possibility of every deserving Amer ican without regard to race, color, or creed. This newspaper that for more than a quar ter of a century has again and again pleaded for such a committee, both in the local and state level, pledges its whole-hearted sup port to the Human Relations Committee. It is our hope that its efforts toward a ^tter understanding the people of all races in our city will be crowned with success. Tpward this end we invoke the aid of Almighty God and call upon our readers to lend their full support. Hie Meaning Of Little Rock f Editor’s Note: Followinc Is the bus, will 4nd a way to com^ro- secoBd and portion miae with the more poUtitally of aa excerpt reprinted Irom the •ophiiticated Southern t)emo- Moatblr BeHew for November, crats, the "moderates”, who are The flnt tnrtallmeat was pre seated last week. However, in spite ot tiie De mocratic luccMS in the ofit-year election, th«« is every reason to suppose that Uttle Rock—giv en the Republican Party wilUng- neM to exploit It to the utmost— could throw the Negro vote, na tionally, to the Republicans. There is at least a v>od chance that the Negro vote could be the decisive factor In enough nor them cities to assure continued Republican dominance of the ns' tionai administration for the vis ible future. If this in fact would happen, failure would add to the strains on an already divided willing to concede i token amount of Integration to'satisfy the law, while preserviDg the substance of the Southern socio political order. In this view, Uttle Rock Is merely a tempest in a teapot, and everything can soon be expected to return to normal Titis is no doubt a Republican as much as a Democratic dream. But it is a pipe dream all the same. The forces that produced Little Rock are still at work, ob scurely in the background but none the less inexorably and with growing power. What la new in the present political situ ation is only a teginnlng; there Democratic party. Long a bun- is much more to come, and it die of contradictions held to- will again force the band of Re- gether only by lack of princ^le publicans and Democrats alike, and love of office, the Demo- not once, but many times, cratic Party as we have known. These forces can be grouped it far too long would then at last' under three headings: NO LEADERSHIP As far as the South’s perceptible attitude 'towsHt moving a little nearer to the Union and national law are concerned, the effect of the Little R9ck incidents have meant abso lutely nothi^. It has been several weeks now since the details of that crisis were spell ed out in umnistakable terms to anyone who cared to see. Every American regretted the chain of events made necessary by Little Rock, but they r^arded them as necessary. On the other hand, the South seems ^y to regretted the reaction by federal au- (u’ defiance of federal pro- Bt that this is the real Aa- failed to chadSe ^ns on^ authority government. As was expected, in Virginia, Just a few days after the episode, the voters elected by a large majority a man who ^omised in so mwy words to do the same thing Faubus did in Arkansas. Lately, Alabama voters, in an apparent mixture of flight and vengeance, decided to deny Ne groes a voice in Macon coimty affairs by abolishing the county. These are the things which have taken place in the South in race relations since Little Rock. In both these in stances, the results were not surprising and were to be expected. But what is more disturbing is the big void in the area of positive action in bringing the South closer to the Union. Absolutely nothing has been done, as we were given every right to expect, to prepare tor tne prevention of anotlier Little Kock. The reason for tiiis in action is due directly to the fact tiiat ieader- snip m the bouth lias iallen into the iiands of “moderates," wno are uttie disposed to act. Ihey are the ones wno prevent the South trom owning up to its pasi sins by attempt ing to recogmze two opposing points oJ: view as the trutn. they were the ones who rush ed mto the breach at Little Rock alter PreS' ident naa acted and gave tne nation and tne,>outh the idea tiiat at last there were meik i^the Ibouth who ^ere willing to take a step on their own in tifl right direction. caa* as in so laany others, the lomplisned was ;overnor )(5ur- Itimate end only ne can explain. , we were told to>support the "moderates” because tney otier the best hope for an even- t^uai r^oiutiqn of Uie discrepancy between the southern political system and the prin ciples oi American democracy enunciated by me U. S. Constitution and more recently by a cnain of federal court decisions. *Bttt atter such repeated failures, we wonder if the “moderates ’ are prepared for the Job which must be done in tiiis region. It seems instead ot attempting to lead tne section to the truth, they are merely varnishing the old lies with a new color. Sb|i; WHERE WE STAND Three major developments on the race re lations froi^i in 1957 were of such significance to overshadow all other events of the year in the continuing struggle to eUminate racial discrimination and segregation. They were (1) the enactment of the Civil Rights law, the first such statute to be passed by Con gress in 82 years; (2) the use of United States troops to sustain a federal court de cree ordering the admission of nine Negro children, to tlie previously all-white Central High School of Little Rock, Ark.; and (3) the enactment of a New York City ordinance banning racial and religious discrimination in private housing, the first measure of that kind ever enacted into law in any American community. There were, of course, other happenings during the year which had important bear ings on the course of race relations through out the country. Some of these pMative, con tributions to the realization of the American goal of equal opportunity; others were negative, feeding the flames of racial strife. However, the advances made in 1957 were encouraging. The Civil Rights Act empow- WwCaiMagiwg PvtilMMtf MMry SstitrAwi «t Bmrtwm, K. C. bv VtM** rnkH«h«ri, Inc. L. X. AVSmr, PmUmU m. K. JOHMSOM, P'inelpal Ottc* Lantea At 4M lut Frttl«nw It, Durham. Nartt Cmllna Wlnoton-Stfcm Oftic*: SOS N. Cbntnut StrMt -entered u ncond cU« nattvr at tba FMt OOm ak 'urnam. N. C. under the Aet •( Hank I, ItTC. Mas. DOiwTHnr mamnnm, Mewwer siiBSCRipn*M RATsa; «sao m ysax protect the right to vote and set up machin ery for the execution of this power. In addi tion, the law established a bi-partisan Civil Rights Commission charged with the re sponsibility of investigating violations of the civil rights. When he sent troops into Little Rock to up hold a federal court order. President Eisen hower served notice that the Executive Branch of the government is prepared to sus tain the federal judiciary in its desegregation orders. This was the administration's reply to the southern doctrine of interposition which, if acceded to, would have meant an archy. While the need for such action was widely regretted, there was general rec ognition that the President had been goaded into taking the only stand he could by the intransigence of Gov. Orval Faubus of Ark ansas. The Governor had placed troops of the Arkansas National Guard at Central High School to keep the Negro students out in defiance of the court order. Housing has long been the most pressing problem confronting Negro citizens in urban centers. The lipiitation on the Negro’s living space has sometimes been more severe in the North than in the South. This denial of free dom of rraidence has f(^tered de facto segre gation in public schools and in other public facilities, even in states in which such segre gation is legally banned. Accordingly, the New York City ordinance against discrimina tion in private housing ia a measure of vital importance to ever community in which a large number of Negroes reside. EarUer legislation in New York and else where had outlawed discrimination in pub licly aided housing. This has been helpful (Please turn to page Five} be on the way out. It might seem that the Repub licans ought to be so delighted by this prospect that they would enthusiastically espouse th twin causes of Negro emancipation and Democratic ruin. And some of their more ambitious young er men, led by Vice President Nixon, have indeed been follow ing this course. They quite logi cally see in it the road to domi nation of the Party and along tenure of national office. Yet it is clear that the Party as a whole is embarrassed by its increasing reliance on Negro support and seemingly has no desire to knock the Democrats out of the politi cal ring. How explain this ap parent paradox? Every ruling class has what the political philosophers call its arcanum domlnationis, its secret of power, and it is here that we approach that of the American ruling class. The regulation of American political life—supres- sion of the most important issues and management of the secon dary ones has been achieved by an unwritten alliance between conservative Northern Repub licans and equally conservative Southern Democrats. With the somewhat doubtful exception of a few years in the first two Roosevelt administrations, this alliance has worked smool and efficiently. Ultimately, FDR himself clearly recoi by his attempted purge of South in 1038, it und( Uie New Deal and has nil Jpgj: iefr~resurgei Now it is Important t} uni stand that the linchpin of arrangement, is-the Southern oli garchy’s monopoly of political power in its own region. And this in turn has^epended on the disfranchisement of Southern Negroes and the division of the Southern working class into warring black and white fac tions. From which it follows that for Republicans to fight for Negro rights In the South is to seek shortrun partisan advan tage at the risk of possibly very serious long-run damage to their class interests. There are ambi tious politicans willing to do it, and the Party may well come under their control. But the great absentee owners of A- merica, ever the real backbone of the Republican Berty, can never back such a course with consistency and enthusiasm. Like Ike, who is their authentic political representative, they would prefer to live a life of perpetual compromise; like him, they will act decisively only when there is literally no alter native. It might appear to follow' from this analysis that the "new" political situation is not so new after all—or at least that what is new about it will soon pass. The Republicans, so the argument might run, though forced to help slap down a Fau- There WiU Be No Tune To Relax In The Fight For Gvil Rights 1, The economic development of the South under aegis of Big Business. The traditional pattern of Southern race relations has served the purpose of providing a class of helots to wait on the upper-crust whites and to do the community's dirty work. To pre serve this pattern and all the comforts and privileges it brought them, the Southern oU-i garchy deliberately excluded Negroes from most industrial jobs and consigned them to such employment as cotton cultiva tion, domestic and personal ser vices, ditch digging, and the like. Industrialization, which has been taking place at a very rapid pace since the beginning of World War 11, has necessarily changed this situation in many important respects. Corporate capital is interested in profits, not in the availability of a ser vant class. It needs wage labor and it tends to hire by skills and pay scales not by skin color. It is not that old forms of discrimi' nation are destroyed overnight; they are not, of course. But they are subjected to strains; new patterns of labor relations are established; divisions among the ruling whites are created; Ne' groes are given fresh and new hope. Industrialization, in word, siiakes a society to its foundations and sets all of ita parts in motion. This process is now in full swing in the South, and it alone renders illusory aqy hopes of restoring and stabi^ zing the status quo ante. 2. detei dtl^ship. the effects of industiikUzation but also has other equally deep roots: the experiences on Negro youths in the armed forces and in foreign countries during World War II and the Korean War, and, perhaps equally Im portant, the world-wide awaken' ing of the colonial peoples. This is a force which literally nothing can stop; it insures that any compromise situation short of full equality of the races is necessarily temporary and unac ceptable to Negroes. More than that, it is a force which by its very nature is cumulative: every success adds to the self-confi dence of Negroes and to their faith in the ultimate victory of their cause. 3. The increasingly urgent need of the American ruling class for friends and allies in a predominantly colored world. This, we may be sure, was one of the reasons which weighed heavily with the Supreme Court in its crucial desegregation de cision. It must have been upper most in Eisenhower’s mind as struggled with the Little crisis. If anything is certain In this world, it Is that the internl' tlonal situation will become more, not less, important in shaping Washington’s future at titudes and policies toward se gregation and all other racial (continued on page 7) I MY 50N~I'NA meoOUJMM MD HAPPY THAT MY TIME 'S UP— you'll find things, W AN A^FUL STATE OP AFfWltS- RACE -RELIGIOUS -ANP COLOR HATRED ON TUB RAMPAGE!! Spiritual Insight THEY LIED TO THE HOLY GHOST By REVEREND HAROLD ROLAND Ptutor^ Mount Gilead BaptiU Church Life Is Like That PAY NO ATTENTION By H. ALBERT SMITH It would be well for altof ua as we enter the New Year to bear in mind that the things upon which we focus our atten tion are for us destiny-making forces. They become for us either creative elements that fill our lives with inner peace, joy and strength or destructive ele ments that transform us into im- happy, timid and even vindictive persons who miss the path of! life. Happy, therefore, is the per son who realizes this and ad justs himself accordingly. Not Easy In view of the foregoing state ments, one might expect me to Ipoint out that upon which wa ought to focus attention at the outset of this year and tiirough- out itai duratlmi. But, Instead, It Is my purpoaa to rsmind us, on* and all, that the matter of not paying attention Is quite impor tant and essential to our well being. I would not state that this negative approach is as essen tial as the i>ositlve. But, in the light of the trouble given us by some experiences, and the gravl- tational or downward pull they have upon our lives, it is in or der to recommend them from our thought. Now, to speak of dismissing something from one’s thinking may suggest an action easy to perform, Qut, believe me, It la no easy tai^. And that Is due at least in part to two factors. First of all, the weakness of our frail humanity is always a factor to reolnm with. And, second, therei Is the nature ot the experieoea Uie Impact of which lays n» feathery touch upon our inner selves. What Is Take for instance ^ shar^ (oontlmied on pa#e 7) “Annias, why has satan fUled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and keep back a part of the price of the land?” Acts 5:13 Annias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost and created a tragic episode in the early Christian family. Selfishness and greed tempted them to hold back for themselves what belonged to God and the Church. How. many such vows breakers d^f w^ have in our churches nowt Unfortunately this spirU^jM holding beck cbur^^^^Ksaotruth ^ that it sti^VHnues after' two thousand years. They ignored the highest vow: The Vow Made To God. Thus, Peter had to ask them a spiritually em- barrasing qu^tion: “Wb^ has satan flU^ thine heaH fo He to the Holy Ghost?” They lied to the Holy Ghost and we do too when we keep for ourselves what we have already promised to give to God. We do it with our lives as well as with our gifts. Bro ken vows were tragic for this man and his wife. Breaking vows we make to God are al ways spiritually and morally tragic. Are you a spiritual brother of Annias and Sapphira? You are if you do not keep the vows you made to God and the Church. Can God count on you to keep your word. Can the Church count on you to give what you have promised? Or do you, too, in greed and seUisbness commit the same pirituai folly of wh:^ this irlCe werejiglty? when you keep back seU what you have promisM to give to God. Let not the dead ly sin of greed cause you, too, to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back for self what be longs to God and Your Church. A habit of constant lying to the Holy Ghost leads to spiri tual, moral or physical death. How can you grow in Christ- likeness if this becomes a fix ed habit in your Christian life? The truth is you cannot grow. A rare kind of spiritual life of Holy beauty came to Barnabas. Why? Because he was a man of wisdom—^he kept his vows to God and life for him because of things rich spiritual beauty. He be came a blessing to the chiurc He found peace and joy y own soul. His life wa ing and acceptable to contrast, however, life of this man and his wife stands as a symbol of a lack of spiri tual growth and the tragic re sult was dea^. k^enlbiiiihis yov will rich, spiritual beauty in his or her life. The vow breaker, however, will find that his or her life will become weak with the final spiritual, moral or physical r^ult being death. Let luu. then, as believers in Christ Jesus guard against the Deadly Sin Of Greed which moves us to break our vows to God. Let us not fall victim to this sin of holding back for ourselves what we have vow ed to give to God. By ROBERT SPIVACK Watch on the Potomac SPIVACK TWO RUSSIANS—History, ac cording to an old saying, is writ ten by the survivors. If, as some fear, there must one day come a military showdown between the U.S.' and the U.S.S.R. the place that Nikita Kturushchev will oc cupy may be determined by which of the two nations “sur vives”—if any nation can sur vive in the Hydrogen-and-Mis- siles era. Until that happens, and I for one do not believe such a itow- down is inevitable, we jnurt be content to take Khrushchev as we find him. In my judgement he is the “man of the year”. But what kind of man is he? I have read the reports of those who have, met him and talked privately with some of! than. It’s my impression that he is a sharp-witted cynic who be lieves that Russia’s most press ing problem is to stall for time. Almost everything that Khrush chev does seems aimed in that direction. Yet even so brilliant a tacti- as Khruiludiev tpairiMi mis- takes. On one occasion be said to the Americans, “We will bury you.” And on anottier occasion he said the trouble with Poland was Oiat there were “too many Abramovltches” in its go^em- m«>t, a remark that was inter preted to be antl'^emitlc. When the first Sputnik went tq> Into outer space the Soviet press, fol lowing his lead, taunted us wtth remaiiu about how etBdait we were in making bettor tall Wm Ml our cars, but how “back ward” we were in the sciences. Khrushchev has, of course, never been to this country. I sus pect that he has read very little about it. Certainly the one thing he does not seem to understand is the American character and that is our real “Secret weapon.” You can push Americans only so, far and then, as Hitler learned, they will begin to push back. We’re almost at that stage now. Losing the Olympics to the Rusisans didn’t mean too much, because it’s like a football game. Someone was bound to win and someone to lose. We take those things philosophically. Even losing the race to outer- space didn’t bother us at first. It was only after Khrushchev be gan implying that we had grown soft, lacked dedication and were morally decaying that wd began to sit up and get mad. THE SMARTER APPROACH Khrushchev’s mistake may prove costlier to the Russians than it does to us. Because once we get into action I doubt that they can keq^ up. A Soviet scientist, Prof. D. X. Blokhintsev, who recently visit ed at Stanford Univowlty, takes a much more realistic view of the situation than the Commu nist Party boss. Bolkhlntsev headed a delegation of four So viet physicists who participated in the winter mwottng of Qie A- merican Physical Society. Un like Khrushchev he didn’t seeaa to be Hoiiirftny himself or his own people. Hs was also well mannered and not at all otffeo- sive or boastful, unlike Khrush chev. When interviewed by newspa permen Prof. Blokhintsev said without a moment’s hesitation that the United States ranked far ahead of the Soviet Union in pure science. “The rate in our country is going up very greatly so we hope sometime to achieve the same level as America,” “Blokhintsev said. Without the usual bombast about how they can “burry” us, he went on to say that he and his colleagues were impressed with the nuclear physics equip ment at the University of Cali fornia and Stanfnrd. “We have aem a lot of very nice pieces of work” he said, ad ding that he was “no Chx4sto- pher Columbus because I knew much about it before coming.” He continued in this vein for some time, addhig that the A- merican Scientists he saw were well-trained and that there ap- pear«l to be many of them. As I compare the statements of the Soviet scientist and the Soviet politician I can’t h^ thinking how similar it is te thfB situation in our country. Here, the Dixie dema|p>gues clutter things up with racism while our sdentlsts say there is no superkn* race. There, Soviet politicians teU thehr hungry people that poverty is proq>^ity. In both cases ^ve me the pure, adsntist any time.
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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Jan. 4, 1958, edition 1
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