The Negro in America; Social consequences of discrimination

We are fortunate to have a speaker today someone who has worked in the area of minorities and intergroup relations. He has recently completed a book. In which he attempted to synthesize what we know about the relations between members of majority minority groups. His book they and we racial and ethnic relations the United States was published by Random House earlier this year. He was the editor of the research bulletin of intergroup relations from 1959 to 63 and is the new chairman of the committee of intergroup relations in the society a study of social problems. He was also coeditor of a special issue of social problems entitled The threat of war. Currently he teaches sociology and anthropology at Smith College and at the University of Massachusetts. I'm very pleased to present Professor Peter Rose. On two occasions during the past year. Once in Los Angeles last summer and again in Boston last spring I was asked to help draft statements expressing the sentiments of social scientists on the civil rights bill

as it was being maneuvered through Congress gathered together for annual meetings of of these societies sociologists felt it necessary to indicate not only their support for the bill but also the reason for the NIF decision to speak officially on public issues and this is something that sociologists or rather want to do. As scientists not as politicians as researchers not a social engineers. Last August the members of the so-called triple ISP Society for the study of social problems unanimously approved a strong resolution supporting the civil rights bill and sent to the late President Kennedy and every member of the United States Congress about three months ago the members of the Eastern sociologic society endorsed a similar statement. We mailed this to President Johnson and to all the members of the Senate and the statements incidentally were used in the debates themselves they were entered in the congressional record and not merely a perfunctory matter.

And I brought with me an that's on the very McCarthy ish. I can really show it to you. And I brought with me a statement that I just received the other day which is even more exciting than the two minor coups we pulled out of the Southern sociological society unanimously approved a similar kind of statement. Now the resolutions of which I speak are similar in content if not in form. And I want to quote you from one of them. Quote The does not have full rights to Negroes and other minority groups is America's most serious social problem. Overwhelming evidence indicates that segregation and other forms of discrimination whether private or public are psychologically economically and socially detrimental to those who are deprived. They are detrimental to society as a whole and the sociologist went on to say and I continue the quote the effect of racial discrimination contributes to the initiation and perpetuation of many other social problems and the sociologists encourage the passage of the bill as one of a

number of means to begin to turn the tide and notice I say only one of a number of me lest And again I quote dislocation and strife be the fate of America. Now I think that the short term sentences in a sense are a summary of what anyone can say on the social consequences of discrimination. For a while it's true that segregation in its consequence is a complex story. The ending of that story is brutally simple. Discrimination is psychologically economically and socially damaging to those who are excluded in the project. It is damaging to their children and to their children's children. The malaise of most of the poor in the United States but so-called one fifth of the population about what about whom we've heard so much recently is animate Lee though not exclusively connected to patterns of segregation which exist in this country for non-whites. And I include here Puerto Ricans and Indians Mexican-Americans as well as Negroes. Segregation is not merely a residential phenomenon. It extends beyond the

reservations beyond the barrios. Beyond the ghettos and it reaches into every nook and cranny of daily life. Its effect isn't difficult to assess. You people all know this one doesn't have to. One doesn't have to be a sociologist to see that the gray areas of our great cities those sandwiched between the better residential sections and the commercial districts and the brown areas of the rural sections are blighted by deprivation and despair. And although the term as the term is out of fashion the people who live in these areas are in a very real sense marginal man. Those who Herbert Blumer who I guess is one of the few locals in the area Herbert Blumer has said are both beyond and below those who belong to the dominant group. And it is true I think that even at the city center these people remain or at least have remained on the metaphoric margin. They are marginal men. Before I discuss any specific consequences of

discrimination America and especially reactions to it let me say a very free a very few words about possible causes. This is very dangerous and you should have several lectures just talk about possible causes of discriminatory behavior. There have been many attempts to explain one popular view Sigma suggest the discrimination is simply an extreme form form of exploitation. Keeping a whole category of persons down is efficient is an efficient and profitable way of maintaining a cheap labor supply and indeed as John Hope Franklin says in his book A Stanley Elkins says in slavery in probably said here negroes were brought to the shores of the cheaps force as a source of labor for Southern planters. Not because they want to torment Africans though torment and torture them they did. Another theory of discrimination suggests that people get such psychological satisfaction. From

discrimination one's ego is inflated by the sense of superiority he feels toward those who are weaker. A third explanation leans toward the notion that discrimination is based on the weariness of the unknown and an ethnocentric fear of the strange the different. And there is another view that discrimination is a response to a real. Rather than an imagined threat. We hear this particularly today in some of the industrialising areas of the South. In actual fact I would contend that it's highly probable these disparate theories economic exploitation psychological satisfaction ethnocentrism and fear of competition are closely related because there are advantages accruing to people who discriminate John Dollard made this very clear in his famous study caste and class in the southern town and in his analysis. I think it's interesting to point out in dollars analysis that so-called

Marxian and so-called Freud interpretations are joined. As he shows. For people who are in superordinate positions. The rewards can be both material and psychological. At any rate discrimination exists a bottom because there are advantages in maintaining it persists I think for another reason as well. Inertia and that by inertia I mean the comfort one feels with what he knows and the support one gets from seen how others behave and think similarly. I'm always reminded of the fact that when plebiscites were held during the German era the Nazis sometimes got as high as 98 percent support. This means that it's difficult to overcome and it's becoming increasingly clear that the voices of sweet reason and the voices of exhortation from the puppets have seldom helped reduce the prejudices and the

discriminatory patterns that successes have only come when situations are redefined or to put it more bluntly. When once appropriate behavior is made inappropriate when discrimination is deemed wrong. And I think there's sufficient evidence gathered by social scientists to indicate the behavior rises to meet expectations and when expectations change so does behavior and thus I don't think it's inconceivable that even those Southern whites and northern ones too who feel they have much to lose through integration may go along with the changes wrought by strong legislation and more importantly a situation forced me. I don't expect to like it but perhaps that's not what's important surely. An English judge eloquently made the distinction between prejudice as an attitude toward a group of people and the kind of discrimination I've been talking about here. His comment pertained to the the riots of the Notting Hill riots several years ago and was directed at nine men convicted of race rioting. He said and I quote

everyone irrespective of the color of his skin is entitle to walk through our streets in peace and with his head held high and free from fear. These courts will uphold these rights. Think what you like because once you translate your dark thoughts into savage acts the law will punish you and protect your victim. I think the implication here is one which I personally support that one must attack the normative system first. And this is why I began by talking about this. The riots in the Notting Hill riots several years ago and was directed nine men convicted of race rioting. He said and I quote everyone irrespective of the color of his skin is entitle to walk through our streets in peace and with his head held high and free from fear. These courts

will uphold these rights. Think what you like because once you translate your dark thoughts into savage acts the law will punish you and protect your victim. I think the implication here is one which I personally support that one must attack the normative system first. And this is why I began by talking about the civil rights bill. What I see as its major significance although I don't see that it's the end all the be all today although today may be the day passes. The fact of the matter is the discrimination continues and that so far the changes have been relatively few and far between. And even if the bill passes today or tomorrow as it well might this is but one little step I think in the whole process of changing the normative pattern. Now to turn to a slightly different point but related let me say that the long history of the Negro in Ameriyah in

America is a story of social deprecation of psychological deprivation. I don't think I have to recount that history here I presume you've been hearing it all week and reading about it in your text. But I want to remind you of just several points. One is the fact that from slavery to the present from slavery in the period of the middle passage to the very present few Negroes of ever enjoyed anything approximating the freedoms which whites take for granted. I don't mean changes have not occurred. Of course they have slaves. Slavery was abolished in what Elkins is called the first emancipation and for a time it seemed as if Negroes would no longer have to play the parasitic roles demanded by their white masters and by the black codes. A civil rights bill was passed in Congress a long time ago. It was passed an eight hundred sixty six and it was signed by the first President Johnson in 1067 a million negroes were enfranchise and yet we must not forget the temper of the times. The

tensions the political climate. Radical Reconstruction couldn't last. And it did. A new era merged with the birth of widespread resistance officially beginning with Hasan's compromise of 1877. I might dig rest for a moment to say that a recent issue of Ebony which I read and voted or were discussed the president to help the negro the least and roof would be Hayes got the A man's vote. Federal troops are withdrawn from the south and it wasn't long before the emancipated slave was disenfranchised first and then reduced to secondary status in a world market by the unequal separation of almost all social institutions. And we know that this was legally sanctified by the United States Supreme Court in the famous Plessy case of 1896 at the time of Plessy v. Ferguson. Nine out of ten negroes lived in the south 80 percent of them in rural areas and well

de facto segregation existed in the states outside the Old Confederacy. It was in the south of the negro suffered most. Well one must remember that Europe's refugees were flocking to the eastern seaboard into the northern cities but Negroes didn't begin their mass migration northward until the European influx was slowed or cattail by the First World War and then between 1910 and 1920. Half a million negroes moved to northern cities. And here they settled in tenement districts forming Black Islands in a sea dominated by people yet people more foreign and yet the less alien to the city than they themselves. And they stayed city became their home in the ghetto became their jail. The end of the war didn't bring about the reverse migration for poor as it was the north seemed somehow better somehow somehow more palatable in the south. The devil had always been the white man with a lynch rope but not with veterans returning

with all American sentiments at an all time high. All American metallics negroes in the north find themselves isolated alone under attack wherever they dared cross the barriers established by whites. The barriers of segregation. In the summer of 1979 for example a hundred negroes died in St. Louis and race riots in 1900 bloody race rioting occurred in Chicago after a negro boy swam into a so-called white area in Lake Michigan. That was the summer that some of you historians will remember as referred to by James Well Weldon Johnson as the red summer. The competition continues continued and negroes were given the least desirable jobs when they were given jobs at all. And I think it's no wonder that the caricature of the Southern Sambo was transformed into a Northern Stepin Fetchit the Darkie was seem to some of the darkie in quotes was seen as a domestic servant one

elevator boy or a petty thief or con artist or a pimp. And these are very often the things he had to be in order to survive. And then when the depression hit it hit everyone but those who were traditionally the last hired the first to be let go suffered most. And so quite understandably domestic laborers the luxury of the wealthier classes in both instances negroes numbered very hard. And then came the next war northward migration increased again and so did the Western migration. First it came in a stream and the stream increased to a torrent and negroes began to find jobs in defense plants and earn higher wages than those they'd ever known before. At least a million negroes enter the armed forces during the Second World War. But even during that time and I think it's curious that particular war negroes found themselves in segregated units of the army and specialized branches of the Navy usually as stewards. And it's a fact the military was not ordered integrated until 1948.

Three years after the end of World War Two. And it's also true that the order was not implemented until 1952 during the Korean War by President Eisenhower who himself had fought against this ordinance several years earlier. Negroes in the north and in the south shared in the economic boom of the post-war era. But while the absolute gains they made were so were sometimes considerable. The gap between the white and colored communities remained as wide as ever. Negroes in the north and in the South took pride in the emergence of Africa. Many thought that independence movements there might help set them free too. It didn't. And most important I think was a Supreme Court decision of 1954 which overturned Plessy. And gave no hope of segregation now ruled illegal. Would force the white community to move with all deliberate speed as we know too well only token measures

taken and negroes continue to be second class in name but more tragically in fact. For the record let me give you some statistics sociologist you're supposed to report statistics so I thought I would give you some differences wrought directly or indirectly by segregation and its legacy. Some facts which demonstrate the extent to which color matters and what it means to be black in America. The United States as you probably don't have to be told is a racially dichotomous society. I mention this because in most of the other Americas we have what I would call a racially continuous society where there are gradations and these gradations make a difference. But in this is siding we separate people into social arbitrary social categories not into actual logical subgroups.

I have a friend who teaches here at Berkeley an anthropologist who was stationed in Montgomery Alabama and was in 1957 I believe one of the only white members of the NAACP there. And he once wrote an editorial to the newspaper in which he said if you were really serious about this color business you should put anthropological tiles along the seats in the buses and then people could match their skin color against this. And. They couldn't. System. But this isn't the way it works here. Anyone who has a trace of Negro ancestry is ipso facto negro. And the extent to which this categorization is officially sanctioned is an evidence of the census definition of Negro. It reads in addition to people of being we're called Negro persons of Negro ancestry and of mixed Negro and white descent. These are categorized as Negro and it goes on to say that it includes quote people of mixed American Indian and they grow descent unless the Indian ancestry very definitely predominates or unless the individuals regarded as an Indian in the community. Bruton

Berry published a book recently in which you describe those people of Rick Smith of mixed racial parentage who call themselves Indians. And in the book he indicates that recognizing the stigma of being a negro. As being worse today at any rate than being Indian. He said One man told him that it's better to be red than black. Even an off shade of red. But very very few people are able to join the Indian or white world and most Americans with negro ancestry cannot in any case according to these crude indices the United States. The 1962 census figures indicate that there were approximately one hundred sixty five million whites in the United States. Twenty one and a half million negroes and a million and a half Americans classified as members of other races and this includes American Indians negroes around 10 percent of the total and 94 percent of the nonwhite category. I mention the latter five because the breakdowns I'm

going to give you just very few of them compare whites to non-whites. They don't separate Negroes out but 94 percent of these non-whites are negroes. Here's some random statistics. In 1960 white males had a life expectancy at the time of birth of 67 years. Non-white males 61 females who were white could expect to live seventy four years nonwhite women 66 infant mortality in 1961 was twice as high for nonwhite babies both male and female as it was for whites. Maternal mortality was approximately 25 deaths per 100000 live births for whites and four times that for nonwhite mothers and 961. And I must point out that in these instances we're talking about registered deaths discrepancy is

probably greater in actuality. I use these particular familial type statistics for a particular reason because of family problems. I think I earned deed a basic part of the total picture and the extend far beyond differential rates of fertility or mortality. In a recent volume called mental health and segregation Martin gross Sarc a psychologist contends that 20 percent of Negroes have disrupted families and only one parent present. I think the figure might even be higher in the US he suggested at least at least in one in five. Of these families the family is dominated by mothers or and or grandmothers fathers are frequently unemployed and unemployable because I'll point out a few minutes and thus are poor providers. Desertion sometimes seems the best way out of this rather intolerable situation and one of the many results of the situation is the fact that mothers were frequently more

employable than fathers who were out and work leaving children to care for one another but another equally serious result is the frequent preference on the part of women for their female children and the rejection of male youngsters who are already confused by the female world in which they live. And in which there are no adequate male role models. Many of these children especially the boys here become drifters. Children who avoid home. Children who avoid school. Crippled by rejection. They very frequently find learning difficult and they give up when they're very very young. Now in addition to those who have difficulty learning to read as many of these children do. We've talked a great deal recently about providing compensatory services particularly in the learning of verbal skills for deprived children. In addition to these we find that seven and a half percent of all nonwhite children

compared to one and a half percent of whites over the age of 14 were found illiterate in the 1960 census reports and unschooling I can give you some figures if you want to write them down and then I'll give very few more statistics. This is from the 60 census. The census shows that the median number of school years completed for whites twenty five years of age or older was ten point nine for non non whites. It was a point to have 50 percent of the non-whites had seven years or less schooling. Compared to one in five or 20 percent of the whites. One third of the non-whites. Had attended high school. Though only 14 percent completed for whites 45 percent of time in high school and 25 percent graduated 10 percent more than the non whites. Finally eight percent of the non-whites have gone to

college including 3.5 percent a one from four years or more. Seven excuse me seventeen and a half percent of the whites attended and 8 percent graduated and or went on. Now I haven't distinguished here in any of these figures between northern and southern rural urban segregated and integrated schools or areas. However since most Negroes still continue to live in the so called black belt Let me cite some findings from the 1961 civil rights report regarding segregated schooling. Seven years after the Supreme Court decision. And now it's ten. Only seven hundred seventy five of almost 3000 biracial school districts in 17 southern states that required racial segregation in the public schools. And that date May 17th 54 had taken any action to abolish racial segregation. In many of the school districts some Started been made

but actual desegregation was minimal. When the 61 report was written and is minimal today the figures have not changed very much in the last three years they've changed but not much is token and integration but not a great deal of that. Moreover not to be overlooked is the fact that de facto segregation exists in northern and western schools as well. And this is of course intimately tied to the patterns of residential segregation here in the Bay Area. And I'm a stranger telling you about your area. A report by Wilson record will speak here next week I understand indicates that in the small print of the 960 census we find the following in concert. Forgive me if I mis pronounce the names of your counties in Contra Costa County 90 percent of the Negro population was concentrated in 8 percent of the census tracts half of the Negro population lives in three census tracts one fourth in a single try covering extremely substandard area an area known as North

Richmond. Record cites evidence showing the same pattern in San Mateo and other Bay Area counties and the extent to which residential segregation is a reality and in and the extent to which range of residential segregation is a reality. He points out that in the report submitted to the official Moran County Committee on discrimination in 1959 it was said quote responsible qualified negroes and Orientals were tempted to rent or buy houses from thirty seven active real estate and building firms in the county. Were in all but three cases refused. And examples of this don't have to be drawn from the Bay Area. We can find them in reports of Los Angeles and Chicago and New York and Boston and Baltimore institutionalized segregation in housing is widespread and the sentiments of whites are quite clear. They were made very clear in the Louis Harris poll last summer he found that 51 percent of whites all over the country would object to having in the GRO

family as a next door neighbor. You might wonder what the difference was in the south. It was 74 percent in the south. On the other hand and to shift gears for a moment according to that same poll a mere 17 percent said they would object to working with Negroes on the job. And yet here in ASM housing discrimination continues apace but the job market I think is even more complex and points back to the more basic problems when deprived of decent care when raised frequently in broken homes when given inferior or inadequate schooling in these two things are not always the same when driven into the streets or into the fields at a very early age. Many negroes are relegated to the ranks of the unemployable even though they would welcome more. Were they skilled enough to perform or trained or well enough trained to perform and those recent figures indicate that approximately one in nine Negro males are unemployed.

What does all this mean. What are all these facts and figures. What am I really telling you. Many of you who I understand know the figures better than I do. It means that in category after category Negroes and whites are different. Not physically different but socially different and economically different. And sadly despite the nice sentiments Malva in the classrooms across the land the words that tell us that everyone has a great place in this new great nation of ours that any man can be anything if he tries hard enough. But this is a truly free society. Sadly as I said these patriotic sentiments and phrases are for many Americans simply abstract words with little me. For Negroes in this country at least for most Negroes these words apply to them not us. As Charles Lieberman as Charles Silberman says so bluntly in Crisis in Black and White A recent bombshell that Random House published. He said what we're discovering in the United States is that all of a north as well as

south west as well as East is a racist society a racist society in a sense and to agree that we have refused to admit much less face color does matter. And the United States has made it matter. For many years certain historians and some sociologists have suggested. That the urbanization of the negro was simply another case of immigrant adjustment in the tide of urban growth with acculturation they argued. Negroes like others before them would find their niche and begin climbing the ladder and other people not so the social scientists and other people less scholarly have suggested and you've all heard these things expressed in your communities I'm sure occasionally and the frequency with self-righteous indignation that no other minority groups ever receive so much attention is that given to Negroes and Puerto Ricans and some say that they

themselves had to fight their way out of the east side or out of the south side or out of some other notorious tenement district by their own efforts without the aid of special services without the aid of special schools without the aid of special agencies. And many point out that in the old days only hope and a belief in the American dream were needed to spur them on. For many Irish and Italian Polish Jewish Americans these things are true. It's true. But was all What. But what's also true is that opportunities for Europe's emigrants even those desperately poor were always far greater than those ever afforded colored people and especially negroes. The Economist The Harvard economist John kind of called Go Braith is reported to have quip quipped recently if you have to be poor at least have the good sense to be born in a time when everybody is poor. Now I want to change this being born to being entering the

urban economy because this is only part of the problem. Not only are Negroes entering the urban economy at the wrong time. According to The Globe rape victim. But I'm like most other minorities they have rarely very rarely in the past been able to establish a sense of community of fellow feeling which could serve to strengthen in-group ties which could provide a sense of positive rather than negative identity a sense of cohesiveness and a spread of core which would aid negroes in preparing them for concerted action to upset the status quo. The reasons for this are manifold and of course they're tied directly to Negro history in this country. I can't go into the whole thing but let me make some remarks on this. Suffices to say that Negroes discriminated against at every turn have by and large lacked the opportunities to form organizations and institutions which could generate a groundswell of popular political activity throughout the long and bitter history of

the Negro in this country of their vote. Only been fleeting moments. When they have taken pride in their racial heritage and very often spurious leap back and fleeting instances of revolt I don't mean to to play down Nat Turner slave revolts or anything else but these are relatively minor in the whole history of the Negro community. There have been exceptions yes but I cannot overemphasize the fact the by and large for many and maybe most Negroes whose homes are in the ghettos of the north or west or in the so-called quarters of the South unlike the emigrants against whom they are invariably And unfortunately compared failure not hope has been the prevailing modus vivendi. This is the a very important point I wish to make today. The theme of failure rather than theme of hope which is pervaded many of the. Areas in which negroes live and the outside

world the world of the majority and to a considerable extent the world of other minorities has hardly helped to exacerbate the situation and thus for many decades the general condition has been one in which the majority of Negroes felt themselves trapped into a corner out of which there seemed little room to maneuver. They couldn't help themselves or each other nor it seemed could could anybody else. There has always been this problem of low status reinforcing a negative self concept. Until recently only certain avenues seemed open to those discriminated against and these avenues or alternatives are the things I wish to dwell on in the rest of the time remaining. That was a very long introduction sir. In my own work recently I found it convenient to discuss the negro self-image and his reaction to discrimination in terms of a simple type ology and I don't mean to use your type ology to dehumanize or as one of my

non sociological colleagues to sociology as the issues but an attempt to clarify them. The Thai policy which I'll put on the board for you is based on two very simple questions. Number one does he. The negro or any minority member accept or reject the image of subordinate status imposed upon him. I repeat the question. Does he. That is the negro except. Or does he reject the image of subordinate status imposed upon him in other words you see him self as well as others see him. And secondly is he willing to play the segregated role as expected of him by the members of the majority group for years. Indeed since segregation replaced the pattern of slavery many Negroes have reacted to discrimination by accepting inferior status and by plain

inferior roles or segregated roles. American folklore is filled with stories of Uncle Toms an engine minus the handkerchief heads bowed and scraped and cracked jokes played dumb just to please the white folks. And tragically as we all know Uncle Toms exist in real life too. There have always been those who believe that the best way. To live is to accept second class status and do the white man's bidding. Me I was of the Southern whites Uncle Tom has always been the person who knew the score and could play the tunes well. Many of you will remember the pitiful portrayal of submission by a shorty the elevator operator and Richard Wright's powerful autobiography black boy. Here shorty would shorty did I do anything to gain the favor of the white man. He stooped. If you remember that passage literally not figuratively to permit a white man to give him a vicious kick in order to win the quarter.

He covered it so. Not some people have interpreted shorties playing the role of buffoon as clever manipulation. After all he got what he wanted he got his quarter and yet his behavior also indicates the depth the depth of his submissiveness for he played the game according to the white man's rules. Now for some indeed for most this kind of acceptance of subordinate status is viewed as the only way to eke out a living. Or perhaps to live at all. The most unfortunate consequence of even pragmatic acceptance of submission is the fact that as one writer put it quote people can learn to adjust to and even accept. Extremely diverse circumstances that seem strange painful or evil to those who have received different training standards of value by which the desirability of a given status is judged as well as the status itself or product of society and will bust. For some individuals acceptance of such inferior roles is simply conformity to the

traditions of the community in which one happens to be raids and thus as many whites learn that they are superior to Negroes as part of a more general socialization experience. Negroes at least some Negroes have accepted the standards of racial inferiority and for these the acceptance of inferior status may be viewed in my mind as a condition reaction in a prejudiced society that is normal not abnormal. As society changes and society is changing the number the numbers of those who play at Uncle Tom and the number of those who are ample times and there is a difference is rapidly diminishing. This pattern of acquiescence or submission is but one type of reaction discrimination. A second type the second cell is the denial of identity or the patterns of total or partial assimilation in quotes. In this case as in the first the individual accepts the majority's image of his group and because of

self-hatred or expediency or perhaps both. He was draws from his group. He seeks absorption by the majority. For some people passing is then the modus operandi. But this course is open only to those who lack identifying racial characteristics or those who can skillfully mask them for other special skills or talents. Most super see color as a condition for acceptance. Sometimes negroes will become expatriates or entertainers or engage in such illicit activities as gambling and prostitution. Gain admittance into the world of whites. Some are expected are just accepted in spite of their race. But to put it bluntly in too many cases when such a person steps out of his specialized role he's just another nigger. It wasn't so long ago that negro college students at Ivy League schools in the east northeast I'm talking about fear the day he would graduate and return to the world of discrimination

and hostility. And even today in many parts of the south and west the negro soldier is reluctant to leave his army post. He knows full well what to expect beyond the gates. Fortunately submission and attempted assimilation are gradually becoming relics of the past for a variety of reasons. We're beginning to see the end of accommodation. We're seeing the beginning the beginning of the end I think of passing. And let me spend the rest of the time talking about the last two types of reaction those utilized by negroes who reject the idea that they are inferior. Those who attempt to destroy the myth of Sambo or of the happy Negra or of the noble savage or of the shiftless watermelon eaten darkie or I might add of a natal athletic prowess or of rhythm or of sensuality. Before the war or times powder maker wrote a book called After freedom in which he pointed to the fact that many negroes who had risen

to relatively high status positions in their own segregated world were most resentful of those who submitted to the indignities imposed by whites the ones on the other side of the line decrying the loose morality and ignorance by which they felt the lower class negro lent credence to unfair notions about their race. These members of the New Black which was set up their own society song and especially Frank and Fraser called it a sham society and escape into a world of make believe. Others argue that this kind of avoidance. And I would call that SELP the avoidance self avoidance and separatism is the typical response of any upwardly mobile minority group. And yet as I mentioned earlier there's always been something unique about the negro segment of the population compared with other American minorities. And though some would disagree vehemently I think. I think that Negroes have long been a social category without a culture of their own. I've been a group without an

ethnic identity in the United States the negro's history is so intimately tied in to the world of whites that until recently even the so-called Negro institutions have been blackface parodies of the white world. And I'm talking about things in addition to the skin whiteners and hair straighteners advertise in the Negro slicks and Ebony and Jet and tan the whole world of the black was was is riddled with the preeminence of white middle class standards. A colleague of mine who recently read that highly charged article by Norman Podhoretz my negro problem and ours and commentary said I never knew his kind of negroes my kind were so goddamn proper It was embarrassing. And they were Uncle time and either they were decent upright very pious almost pure term people like these have for many years been seen as models for little Negro children to seek to emulate. And some would say the Booker T Washington would have loved them and said they do us proud.

But most of them came into their own as it were between 110 Street and Lenox Hill or on the south side. You know these reference points that is within the ghetto. They've rejected inferior status. They've gotten mighty high as the saying goes but not too close. They've complied with voluntary segregation. And what I want and what I would term a conventional response to separate treatment of play to say a sex segregated and separated role. I say conventional response because that third cell has two categories. One conventional and one radical patterns of avoidance. But before I do that let me parent thought of please say a word about Booker T Washington who's gotten attacked from all sides in recent years by historians and sociologists. As far back as this as the beginning of the century the now largely

discredited discredited Washington sought to come to terms with the basic problem he was operating in a southern context and he was a Southern one groom. He saw the hope of the negro. At least those in the south land in the land of deep rooted segregation in terms of the development of pride and self-esteem and in the Puritan values of thrift and practicality in the learning of skills of the honest tradesmen his famous speech that Latin one thousand ninety five has been interpreted as clear capitulation to separation even to accommodation and acquiescence. In a sense I guess it was the implication was clear. Negroes were not ready according to speech to take their place besides whites. At least this is what the argument. The argument mounted by Washington's critics. Yet Washington never condoned discrimination and in fact in December 1915 in a posthumous letter which was published in The New Republic some of you might look at this Washington State it is from opposition to segregation itself. What he and others saw and perhaps only now can we

begin to take a second look. It was not Uncle Thomas M as his most extreme critics claimed and continue to claim but a kind of pluralism and acceptance not of inferior status but of separate roles. In his most famous address later called the Atlanta compromise he did of course and I quote the wisest among my race understand of the education of questions of social equality is the extremist folly. That was the loaded line and the progress and the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than artificial forcing. He also said it is important and right that all privileges privileges of the law be ours. But it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges and then in the most famous most quoted phrase of the famous speech he said in all things that are purely social we can be as separate is the fingers yet as one of the hands in the hand. In all things essential to mutual progress.

Now in a recent volume sociologist Milton Gordon has suggested the behavioral assimilation. Similar to what Washington said and what I would call. Social separation or structural pluralism Gordons term structural pluralism is the pattern of life which has prevailed in American history not Anglo conformity nor the romantic melting pot. And in a masterful study of five New York City's major ethnic groups Nathan Glazer and Daniel Moynihan give empirical evidence to support the same thesis. What I'm saying here and opening I suppose a Pandora's Box is that Washington wasn't entirely wrong although I disagree fundamentally. Personally with the kind of position he took at least he seems to have understood that half of the problem the problem of self the problem of community. At Tuskegee Institute the southern Washington sought and succeeded to some extent in implementing his plan for uplift and for a time he became the

negro's idol. And to this day he remains a symbol for many whites especially too many schoolteachers of the responsible and reasonable negro. Today few Negroes share these sentiments. In fact it was MOST him bitter critics his pleas for the learning of trades and taking pride in being a negro or merely masks for the acceptance of it of inferiority and no one denounce Washington more bitterly than W.B. Dubois the founder of the NAACP. Dubois felt that Washington misplaced the responsibility for making amends and for bringing about a redress of the negroes grievances segregation was not the negro's problem claimed the early members of the unit of the NAACP. It was the white man's separation in any form was seen as appeasement. And the alternative of protest was offered. The story of the NAACP is interesting but I think I'll leave that to Wilson record next week who knows much more about it than I do.

What is significant for our discussion is the apparent bifurcation of the theses for improving the lot of the American Negro. One in the tradition of Washington emphasizes separation and self-help. The other begun by Dubois though he himself changes approached several times stressed integration and civil rights. And despite their personal animosity the two men were not afraid not as far apart as those movements which followed in their wake. From the beginning of the century the two themes constantly played against one another each vying for the support of the negro masses. And neither ever generated enough to bring about the dramatic changes within or outside the Negro community. Change is sufficient to break the backbone of segregation. Until very recently most Negroes remain too and intimidated to act and whites too recalcitrant to bring the changes or the or more importantly and probably more. More accurately too oblivious to care. Professor Howard Broad suggested that Washington's theme of accommodation turn toward one of

separation as Negroes especially lower class negroes joined the ranks of the Garvey movement in the 1900s. An interesting link between Washington and Garvey I think follow Daddy Grace in the 1930s and join the Black Muslims and other separatists X more recently and I talked about the bifurcation before. I meant that it was really moving away from the central theme. And yet each one of these including the Muslims was and is a truly uplift organization. It's an old Washington phrase uplift the Muslims give the give a sense of identity to downtrodden followers a measure of importance lessons and proper decorum and above all a purpose for living. And in this tradition an increasing number of negroes especially those poor and frustrated by the false promises of a Northern Exposure have reacted with more radical methods and we're still in this third So they not only maintain separation but they foster

the rejection of white standards in this way they differ from the conventional responder's they proclaim the virtue of blackness and the superiority of negroes and designedly as Washington was conciliatory. They seek an identity to call their very own. Until recently the most famous of these of course was the survey by the Africa movement that reached its peak of influence in the 20s Garvey's black Zionism made the downtrodden lower class negro feel like somebody among white people who said they were nobody. Today a lot of them have been as Muslims have the same appeal I think but with a vengeance. It's very hard to estimate how large the Muslim group is. I've seen figures of a hundred thousand I've seen figures of two hundred fifty thousand. Depends whose figures you read theirs or other people's. At any rate the nationalist movement has great appeal in the urban slums and is gaining converts every day. It's professed aim is the separation of the races and the establishment of the Black Union to its critics of course it is a black man's clan and it's true that it not only stands for

racial superiority but curiously some members of the Ku Klux Klan of support of the Muslims particularly in terms of the mutual belief in separation. Not many others including Norman George Lincoln Rockwell as Nazis have applauded its existence and especially its occasional tirades against the Jews. And it cannot be denied that in northern cities anti-Semitism runs high among lower class negroes. One writer said Justice Society must have a scapegoat. So hatred must have a symbol. Georgia has the negro and Harlem has the Jew but I think the situation is much more complicated for because of the patterns of ecological change in many northern cities Jews are often the white men with whom poor negroes have the most intimate contact and is frequently in situations of real or imagined economic exploitation that they meet. Well Mr Charlie of the South is invariably a Protestant. The man in Harlem may be Jewish in Boston. He's Irish in other cities. He's of another ethnic group. On the other hand I might say parenthetically that

many of those most active whites in the civil rights movement in the north. And if you read the paper today in the south are Jews and Jewish defense agencies and religious organizations have been at the forefront of intergroup relations for the last half century. Let's get back to the Muslims. Muslims are also of course anti Christian. But for a very different reason than those who are anti semitic or anti Semitic. Christianity it's argued has sold the Negro a phony bill of goods. The doctrine of brotherhood and equality. Some leaders of the temple of Islam have come from the ministry itself. Men who said that they suddenly realize one day that the tracks they were passing out really weren't written for them at all. And even aside from religion for the city negro in the northern slum where there's no way to get where to go. The temple of Islam or the recent nonsectarian black nationalist coalition is mighty appealing. William Berry whose executive secretary of the Chicago Urban League said quote Hell the Muslims make more sense of the Negro on the street than I do. Whitney Young hasn't said so but I think

he knows it too and so do many other civil rights leaders. The Black Muslims they call themselves the Black Muslims have a strong case and are pushing it hard. Their appeal and the degree to which some negroes are willing to go to express their I'm talking ism toward whites was I think most clearly stated by James Baldwin in James Walden's New Yorker piece which I'm sure all of you have read. Let me just quote from one paragraph from a letter from a region in my mind. Baldwin said the brutality with which negroes are treated in this country simply cannot be overstated. However unwilling white man made a bid maybe to hear it in the beginning the negro just cannot believe the white people are treating him as they do. He does not know what he's done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him is nothing to do with anything he's done but the attempt for of white people is to destroy him for that's what it is is utterly gratuitous. It's not hard for him to think of white people as devils. BALDWIN tried to impress this point on Robert Kennedy the widely touted meeting in the spring of

1963. He warned of the seething hatred of the restlessness of the intensity of bitterness of the impending danger and through a secondary source who was with Baldwin last week. He said the attorney general simply didn't get the message. It's probably true that the white man any white man cannot truly five in what it's like to be a Negro in America. Maybe it's presumptuous of me to speak but more important I think is the fact that for too long too many people in too many places have been unwilling to try. And then these very same people in the north and in the south are surprised when the negro climbs on the Muslim bandwagon and decries the lack of understanding in what he sees to be as no more than the half hearted support of the liberals and the shark when he listens to anyone who says The time is right to get the man. Now there's another group of Negro activists by far the most significant today one equality without any strings. They don't want to be separate and equal.

They don't want to be separate and superior separate and equal in the old sense and they want to be separate in spirit here. They want their equality straight and they fall within the fourth cell of the type ology. I hope I can go into that. So. The real desegregation push has come from the south. And though in the last year or last two years it spread north compared to the reactionary Muslims the southern appeal has as far as the leadership has been concerned has been intimately and ultimately to connected to a faith in Christian charity to the notion of universal brotherhood of integration rather than uplift. And those most prominent of the wedge at the point of the wedge being driven the mores of the old south are active leaders of religious congregations names you know King Abernathy Shuttlesworth Williams others. Their appeal is different from the nationalist and so are their slogans. They claim that the movement afoot in the south will prove to be the very last attempt made by American Negroes to achieve acceptance. Notice the word metallics is acceptance in the Republic will be the very last attempt to

force the country to honor its own ideals its goal quote is nothing less than liberation of the entire country from its most crippling attitudes and habits. And every day we hear reports of conflict in the south. They claim Birmingham Greensborough war lings Tuscaloosa Memphis Cambridge Americas and every day this month St. Augustine the most striking thing about these is that perhaps for the first time since the beginning of segregation the Negro is fighting back relentlessly and winning in almost every turn. Organizations have of course played a big role in generating the willingness to protest to demonstrate and fight back organized protests fostering full integration began with the founding of the NAACP in 1009 and since its inception the organization has fought for Negro rights primarily though not exclusively through its Legal Defense and Education Fund. The NAACP s greatest achievement was the part it played in the Supreme Court decision which ten years ago May and May 17th struck down the separate but equal argument the 1955 decision to order school districts to move with all deliberate

speed and the recent court ruling which proclaimed desegregation the IC's must be accelerated. And yet despite a successful court cases many negroes and some whites too for that matter have called the NAACP a conservative organization. The main objection is that while effective in lodging complaints and filing suits it is not pushed hard enough or given support to extra legal means of protest. And it is true that the speed of action has been less than encouraging test cases take a long time to when their way through the courts especially since as you know they're built on a letter of costly appeals. But even more significant is the argument the NAACP has operated in a vacuum and into this vacuum of come a number of other groups all of which practice what I would call radical pacifism. Now this is not passive ism asses it's passivism with C with a C. While some preach the ideology of pacifism almost all practice the strategy of nonviolence. They relentlessly demonstrate in the finds of timeworn customs and

against discriminatory codes. This highly controversial movement is thus far proven in my mind to be the most effective yet devised for stimulating change and for actually accelerating the process of desegregation. As I told a Smith College Assembly last October the technique is neither new nor is it an American. It was the Rosa say on civil disobedience as a matter of fact which laid down the pattern of reaction which provided the the model and the essence of today's resistance by many degrees for a moment to hear again the words of throw. One is struck by their similarity the compelling oratory of Martin Luther King in Thoros time it was slavery and war. War in Mexico about which he prayed he wrote and protested. Today there are those who in Massachusetts Maryland even Mississippi have like Thoreau agreed and I quote him. To pay the price of being men first and subjects and subjects afterwards those who feel in their right peaceably demonstrate in March and disobey local ordinances get arrested and go to jail

challenging the very same institutions about which the road wrote segregation and war. And he was talking about war in Mexico at that time. There are several organizations which have recently gained recognition this promulgators of the massive demonstrations the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by the Reverend Martin Luther King. The student nonviolent coordinating committee the Congress of Racial Equality and others all of them are important but I'd like to spend a minute talking about core because core to me is the most interesting for it was core that was the first to formally advocate the defiance of institutionalized inequality through civil disobedience. Kaur was born of pacifism. Today curiously those in the peace movement just seem to be discovering the civil rights struggle. And now with a test ban assure they're joining with fresh though I must say much belated vigor in the early 1940s. It was the other way around. When pacifists failed to stem the entry of United States into the second world war and when many of them had second thoughts about nonviolent means of curbing the menace of German racism

and the general genocidal policies of the Third Reich they turned their attention to the development of nonviolent techniques to combat racism at home. They took their lessons from the successful teachings of Gandhi who himself had been so so so moved by the writings of throw. It was through Rose said We remember if quote If the laws of such a nature that requires you to be an agent of injustice to another then I say break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. It was Gandhi you remember who used to sit down strike to its fullest advantage who sought and succeeded in stopping the machine and it was Baird Ruston and James Farmer two young negroes who were active in the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation and Ruston is still a member of the War Resisters League who first began to use the sit in as a device to protest against discrimination in the United States. In February nine hundred forty two. Twenty two years ago pharma recommended the funding of an organization made up of both passive Sonam passiveness an

organization committed to nonviolent action against racial discrimination. A group of people willing to use and I quote relentless non-cooperation economic boycotts and civil disobedience to fight for racial equality equality. The first notable sit in took place in Chicago and its success led to the founding of the Chicago Committee on Racial Equality out of which corps was born. All during the 40s and 50s Korg was gaining followers and I don't know if you realize that it was conducting sit ins and freedom rides before these two words ever became part of the American vernacular. A recent article describing the history of the radical this radical movement stated that from the beginning the sitter's phone eating places their most convenient targets. But as the movement gain momentum and the organization increased in membership Neeland and segregated churches weighed ins at segregated beaches regions inserted libraries and even Stalins and other forms of protest caught the imagination of the predominantly youthful followers. But the economic boom of the post-war era in which numerous

partially shared as I said earlier with the emergence of African independence movements and which some took pride in especially with the Supreme Court decision of 54. It did seem the door was finally opening. And yet the disillusionment that resulted from the fact the changes were slow in coming seem to trigger the massive rebellion which ricocheted around southern cities and college towns and following the example set by core new organizations emerge including Sneck ACLC and others but not a rose without opposition. Opposition came from different sides. There was and there is the expected reaction of the militant bigots and the hate mongers. There was and there is a lot of those traditional advocates of continued segregation who continued to excuse me who claimed and perhaps believed or wanted to believe that Negroes were equal votes separate. Opposition came from the gradualist some moderates to those who said that being illegal civil disobedience slows rather than hastens inevitable desegregation.

Those who contend that the movement builds more Walls and Bridges some opposition came from the headquarters of the NAACP which as I've suggested could traditionally fought its battles in the courtroom. Not of the candy counter and which was sympathetic to the aims of the young idealists was wary of the methods they advocated parents radically it must be stated that in the last few years the NAACP has also turned an extra legal methods and at times formed an uneasy coalition with core and other precipice groups. Best evidence I think by the successful New York school boycotts of the past winter and the unsuccessful City Hall March a month ago. And I think it should also be pointed out that a detente has been reached between the civil rights groups in New York and gross in the last two days which is interesting finally. And most importantly until quite recently opposition has come from within the ranks of the Negro community itself a community whose members hesitated to march for fear of losing their jobs or whatever status they helped including It should be noted many Negro teachers and college professors

especially in the south. And yet despite the black the setbacks despite the hollowness of many victories despite the opposition from the outside and from within the negro element the demonstrations have I think in fact brought about the most significant gains the American Negro has made. Only this movement has succeeded in a rousing the white majority from its lethargy from its failure to come to grips with the reality of racism and discrimination. The problem is not an easy one to solve. Mark many negroes in the most are poorly educated are ill trained are unskilled are second class citizens. As I said for too many shame and self-hate prevail where pride should reign despair exists instead of hope. This is the legacy of the system which tonight and continues to deny the majority of Negroes the opportunity to fulfill their own potentialities in the pursuit of happiness we also glibly discuss. And as long as segregation continues the majority of America's Negro

population will remain second class. They know this and now that the revolt is at hand it will not be quelled. There is no turning back. If the civil rights bill passes today the demonstrations will increase. If it doesn't pass the demonstrations will increase in the north and in the West. The situation has always been different from the south and in many ways it's more a school that potentially I think more explosive defacto segregation is building up in the north as rapidly as does your segregation has been broken down in the south. The entire Negro community not just the extremists said one person one immediate steps put it to put life in the legal paper mâché that stands instead of really court that stands instead of real equality in the north. And as we've seen recently one way or other they're going to try to get it in the past year the movement has grown with such force that many will for years have been frightened too frightened or too apathetic to speak out. I've been caught up in the revolutionary fervor and it is essential to recognize the massiveness of support has gradually but perceptively

begun to change the character. The focus and the leadership of the movement itself and went well in these three points briefly. The character the focus and leadership movements of the character I think will change were or will continue to change from movement of middle class people seeking their slogan freedom now that has equality in housing for which they can pay access to jobs for which they're already skilled to that of a poor people who are not ready to compete. And not only know it but you know why this change is bringing about or will bring about a change in focus. The movement has and must become increasingly introspective. Even as militancy increases Negritude the term bird in the corner of dusting anthropology texts is becoming a watchword as pride in being a man black or white increases. Whites are being eased and sometimes pushed out of positions of leadership to make room for those who can more closely identify with and more importantly be identified with

the negro masses. But despite the profound shifts in scope and method there appears to be a constant running through the ranks of the majority of those who lead the revolt in most of their followers. The radical tactics are being employed not to subvert the system but to join it and thus the values they seek to emulate are middle class values. Integration remains the goal. During the past few years that a new answer to the problem of discrimination has been offered the negro masses for the first time slowly gradually and now with accelerating speed are beginning to assert themselves beginning to act on their own or beginning to overtly reject segregation in its requirements in order to enter the mainstream of American life. America's negro's in my mind are only now becoming Negro Americans hyphenates as some sociologist would call and as a result of the boycotts and demonstrations in the north and south Negros across the nation are for the first time developing not sufficient cohesion.

But I spoke of in the introduction that's sufficient cohesion necessary to engage in extended action directed toward political ends. And we must recognize that as every victory brings them closer to total victory and every defeat heightens the desire to set to upset the status quo. They will be increasingly attracted to proposals which involve a radical break with the past measures designed merely to assuage the guilt of those who maintain the patterns of segregation are simply no longer acceptable. They do not want to remain forever below and forever beyond the pale of acceptability. They do not want to remain forever separated by the BEP barrier of carrots and one by one the sacred institutions of society are becoming targets. The schools the churches factories the neighborhoods themselves even the glittery World's Fair which is viewed by many is an anachronism in the same city pock marked by squalor and segregation has come under attack. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is coming out into the open and many middle class individuals

white ones and Negro ones too for that matter are confounded by as militants by the shrillness of the protests by the sharpness of the demands Jules Feiffer one of my favorite cartoonists summed up the feeling of many of these frightened in the world of people the gentle people who talk so long and did so little about segregation. One of his cartoon characters says Silberman reports this in his book civil rights used to be so much more tolerable until the Negroes got into it. This is bitter humor for soup too many so-called liberals. It's true the once apathetic now anxious white community has been rudely awakened to reality. The Negro community is desperately trying to say goodbye to Uncle Tom forever. It would be fitting I suppose to end my remarks on the social consequences of discrimination or reactions to discrimination on a note of crime with visions of a new world a coming waving the flag and so

forth. For the present I can't. We live in a racist society where color comes with prejudice and discrimination are widespread. We're measurable damage has been done to Negroes that damage for lunch for which both Negroes and whites must now pay a price and I think only a clear appreciation of these facts of life will help to bring an end to racism and a better life for those minority group members who suffer the stigma of having been brown. Having been born brown or black. In a white man's country. Was. Let him instead let you know about the paper here on those. Who suffer from. Cancer. Your comments about the effect of the. Crackers are his.

Well there's no question in my mind that the much more damaging effect is on those who are discriminated against. There may be moral harm done to the person who practices discrimination but I happen to be a little callous in this and I'm not sure that the damage is all that great personally to the discriminatory. I think that he may be wrestling with his conscience. But I I don't think you can. But I don't think I don't think he wrestles very long and hard. In other words let me put it differently. I think the mirrorball was wrong. Throughout most of this country. I don't think there's been a discrepancy between Creed and deed in this country of very large percentage of the white population and almost a majority of the whites and self never accepted the creed to begin with so that they have not had pangs of conscience. I don't think about discrimination. However I also believe something else that discrimination hurts the pocketbook.

You know if it doesn't hurt you in the heart and I think that hitting people in the pocketbook now is a very effective way of overcoming discrimination. And that Southerners right now particularly moderates and people in border states and this may be true in this area I just don't know the area many of them as I use the term moderate loosely. Many people who are not bigots and I mean this very sincerely very sincerely who are traditional separation and segregation and so forth who know changes are coming. Merchants in particular welcome the passage of the civil rights bill even though they're continued to support the White Citizens Council because then they can say as those zones over Washington were making me do what they know of themselves they must do. I don't think they know they must do it because they're good Christians. Personally I think because it's good business. What you know of it. Or. Even me if I'm. Wrong I'm. Unfortunate when one constant we constantly hear sociologists

colleagues of mine comparing Negroes to other minorities saying this is simply another minority group. Look at the Jews look at the Irish look the Italians and so forth who are coming in in a time where unskilled labor was needed desperately. Negroes are flocking to the cities now in increasing numbers this has been going on since the war. But the jobs are not there to be had. This is the exact thing that that you're talking about. This is what I mean by entering the economy at the wrong time. One of the answers to this incidentally in my mind is the industrialization the south which is going to stand both of the Southern white and Negro to gain a great deal. We found in Arkansas for example after the Little Rock crisis industry just didn't move into Arkansas in the Little Rock area. I'm not sure the broom barrel Bernhardt is so far off when he says that if we cut off funds to Huntsville in Mississippi that we might find or threatened that we might find people singing a different tune or simply because of the economic factor. Now this may help to relieve the pressure I don't think it's going to be the answer.