Early civil rights movement : a mid-century inventory (Part 1 of 2); The Negro in America

I speak of they has taught at this university St. Augustine's college North Carolina College of Durham and Howard University in 1956 he became professor and chairman of the Department of History at Brooklyn College. He has also served as a visiting professor in several American universities including Harvard University of Wisconsin Cornell and the University of California at Berkeley and also the University of Hawaii abroad. He has served twice as a professor at the seminar in American Studies in Austria as a visiting lecturer at the seminar on American Studies at Cambridge and has lectured in many German cities. In 1963 he was a pit professor of American history and institutions at Cambridge University and a fellow of St. John's College in Cambridge. His writings are many and well-known. His first book The free negro in North Carolina was published in 1943 in 1907. He brought out the Civil War Diary of James the heirs. And also in 1947 From Slavery to Freedom A history American Negro

has a revised edition of which appeared in 1936. Also I think that the six he published the militant south in the fall of 61 his addition of two were gays a fool's errand was published in the John Harvard library and in the spring of 62 the Beacon Press published his edition of Higginson's life in a black regiment. His reconstruction after the Civil War was published in 1961 in a universe in Chicago series on American civilization in 1963. Doubleday published the American edition of his emancipation proclamation. He's contributed articles to leading journals the United States and Europe for 15 years. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Negro history. In December fifty eight he was elected to the council the American Historical Association and was chairman of the executive committee until the expiration of his term on the council and I think it's I think you can see from these brief comments why he is so well suited for the complex topic at

hand. I'm very pleased and very honored to present to you Professor John Hope Franklin. Will the history of the negro in the United States essentially the history of it be curious ambivalence on the part of many people in dominant positions with regard to the question of freedom justice and equality. This ambivalence which is much too complex and difficult a problem to be described as hypocrisy although some prefer to call it that. This ambivalence explains much of what has happened to the negro since he was introduced into the new world in the 16th century. Indeed it explains the emergence of the institution of human slavery in the English colonies that were at the same time presumably dedicated to securing greater economic political and religious freedom for those who settle in the world. The first charter of

Massachusetts declared that all who lived in the new colony were to have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects. But within a few years slavery was firmly entrenched in Massachusetts and the other English colonies. This ambivalence on the question of freedom explains the perpetuation of slavery during and after the war for independence and 774 Mrs. John Adams in a letter to her husband said it always appeared almost iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have. But slavery survived the war for independence and the Survived of the Constitution of the United States. That incidentally was designed to quote preserve the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity. In the years following the establishment of the new government this ambivalence on the

question of freedom justice and equality persists and it explains the development of blatant racists fear is during the years that Jacksonian democracy was seeking a general improvement in the condition of men. It explains the civil war that was fought a century ago. It explains the limited and equivocal emancipation of slaves and the steady decline in the position of the negro in the post-reconstruction years. Abraham Lincoln sought the franchise for a selected number of Negroes. Charles Sumner sought complete civil rights for all. The Congress sought to write guarantees of equality in the Constitution. But the most cursory examination of the closing years of the 19th century reveals not merely ambivalence on the question of equality but an appalling indifference on the part of a vast majority of the people of the United States. Nor was the situation significantly different in the

early years of the present century and a very special way and the US was no in the present century joy in tongue goody. Thus one sees the phenomenon of a president of the United States fighting a war to make the world safe for democracy. And at the same time sanctioning the introduction of new measures of segregation and discrimination in the United States and these new measures that he sanctioned of course made a mockery of his 14 points and his position as an internationalist. Surely this in Congo it is that we witnessed during the war. To save the world for democracy contributed to the revival of the Ku Klux Klan. And after World War One it contributed to the savage reaction of the nation against Negroes in the uniform of their country and against all efforts of Negroes to realize at home some of the things

for which they fought in the Jim Crow Army abroad. A similar situation developed during World War 2. The United States emerged in the 1940s as the leader of the free world. But the income goodi of this nation's position was dramatically underscored. By the painful and the grudging concessions to equality at home that were literally wrung from the nation by those who were determined not to repeat the farce of World War One. Just as one surveys the history of this country and as one examines its fundamental tenets one sees ambivalences and in Congo it is with regard to the place of the Negro in American life and as one surveys the scene today one sees these same phenomena. They nag the conscience of the nation undermine its position abroad blur its image for those who

look to it for guidance and confound both the friends and the enemies of the country. This impressive fact the persistence and continuity of ambivalence indifference and hostility with regard to the equality of the Negro in American life must be remembered. If we are to understand where we are at mid-century and what the forces are that operate against the full realisation of a society where race and color should become irrelevant factors in human relations history does not repeat itself but it contains many lessons that can be learned with profit. It teaches us much about the attitudes of Americans toward equality and freedom. History tells us for example about William Allen the agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society who

in the eight hundred forty years was determined to see to it that his friend Owen Lovejoy the abolitionist should go to Congress and Alan declare to Lovejoy. I'm going to stump your district. I lecture where I can go to church hall a schoolhouse a private home or a bar. And if I can get none of them and I had parents medically that there were times when he could get none of them he said I'll call meetings to talk abolition in God's open air and I'll keep it up till this thing is done. But history that tells us about the courageous and heroic actions of William Allen. It also tells us about the distinguished South Carolina scholar a contemporary of Allen Dr. Thomas Cooper who said in the in the 30s we talk a great deal of nonsense about the rights of men. We said that man is born free and equal to every other man. Nothing can be more untrue.

No human ever was. Now is or ever will be more free if we are to understand the present relace present state of human relations in the United States. We must know not only William T Alan and Owen Lovejoy but also Thomas Cooper and his dear friend mentor John Calhoun. History also teaches much about the sources of strength as well as the techniques of those who through the years have carried on the struggle for freedom and equality. It is well for us here this morning to examine the condition of the human relations of the United States in the mid century to remember that virtually all the approaches that techniques used in today's struggle for freedom and equality in virtually all of them have antecedents and precedents in the past.

And just as the atomic age rests securely one hopes on the theories and principles of relativity the energy and the like. So does the age of the civil rights revolution rest securely and on the historic principles of equality that are part of our heritage and it rests also on the actions of countless numbers who have sought to achieve it in the past as well as in recent years. And as we take inventory of the position of the Negro in mid-century we can appreciate that position better if we view this position in the light of antecedents and precedents. It is quite obvious that as we survey the scene in mid century the most important development in the history of American Negroes or indeed in the

domesticity life of the United States is the so-called civil rights revolution. It is much easier to make that assertion than it is to pinpoint the onset of the revolution. I would suppose that there would be general agreement if one were to observe that the first significant step taken on the road to revolution was the historic Supreme Court decision of 1954 outlawing segregated schools that supported by the public. But as soon as one makes such an observation it becomes apparent that there were important early intellectual and social developments that made this decision possible. And that continued to have an important impact. Once the judges reached their decision. There was for example the technique of legal action that

became so important in the 40s and 50s. But that goes back to the successful fight against the grandfather clause in the famous case of the game against the United States in 1915. It goes back also to the decades of action against the Democratic white primary that began in 1903. And also it goes back to the fight to equalize educational opportunity that was formally begun in 935 even these concrete approaches were well grounded in certain intellectual ingredients that have their origins far back in the history of the struggle for equality in the United States. Surely an important concept of the equal of equality set forth in the school desegregation cases is to be found in David Walker's appeal in four articles that was published in

eighteen hundred twenty eight. This North Carolina free negro who became in 18 to 26 a secondhand clothes dealer in Boston yielded to no one in his uncompromising advocacy of equality for more than a century ago. Writing in his appeal in four articles Walker said America is more our country than it is the whites. We have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches in all America have risen from our blood and tears and they will dry out and they will drive us from our property and homes which we have earned with our blood. No advocates of civil rights and the like in the 60s was more vigorous or more uncompromising than this. Free negro writing in the 20s. There were other antecedents to the

civil rights revolution. The struggle of a boss the Negro in 855 to break down segregation in the schools of that city. The fight to introduce racially integrated schools during the Reconstruction era the unsuccessful effort to desegregate the schools of the United States and the Civil Rights Act of 875. Then there were the old the very eloquent expressions that came in the 19th century. And in the 20th century that denounced racism and supported equality and these efforts have punctuated the century long struggle for full emancipation that followed. Now the civil war in 1884. Thomas fortune the negro essayist and journalist said the love of liberty carries with it the courage to preserve it from encroachments from

without and from contempt from within. A people in whom the love of liberty is inborn cannot be enslaved though they may be exterminated by a superior force. I maintain the idea that the preservation of our liberty is the consummation of our citizenship must be conserved and matured not by standing alone and upon someone as the melancholy Dane but by imbibing all that is American and entering into the life and spirit of our institutions. To preach the independence of the colored man is to preach his Americanization. And many years later in 1927 the Franklin fish Frazier in his well-known denunciation of racism put the situation somewhat

differently and much more bluntly regarding racial practises in the United States and an article entitled The pathology of race prejudice. Frazier said. Southern Whites write and talk about the majesty of the law the sacredness of human rights and the advantages of democracy. And the next moment they defend mob violence disfranchisement and Jim Crow treatment of the negro white men and women who are otherwise kind and law abiding citizens will indulge in the most revolting forms of Cruelty to negroes. Thus the whole system of ideas respecting the Negro is disassociated from the normal personality and what is more significant. This latter system of ideas seems exempt from the control

of personality. When the National Association for the advancement of colored people's Legal Defense and Educational Fund was busy formulating the arguments against racially segregated schools that its legal counsel was to present to the Supreme Court in 1953 and 1954 and it utilize the talents of two score of intellectuals who provided the deal of the historical and sociological ammunition. And these intellectuals and Target had to dip back in the 1900 train and some of the arguments that have been advanced by the David walkers and the tea Thomas fortunes. As these men and women in the 1950s worked with legal counsel in the search for strong arguments they were making significant contributions to the very notion of possible cooperation between law and social science. What is quite

important. They were standing in a great tradition of making war on injustice a tradition that had been initiated centuries ago before centuries ago by various fighters for freedom. In like manner when the angry young men of the civil rights revolution the Leroy Jones and the John killings is on the James Baldwins made their eloquent pleas for equality and justice in the mid 60s they were standing in the great tradition of the angry men of other ages. The David Walker's The Charles raze the Frederick Douglass's the T Thomas Fortune's writing in his The Fire Next Time. In 1953 James Baldwin said white Americans have never in all their long history been able to look on the negro as a man like

themselves. This point he continues need not be labored. It is proved over and over again by the Negroes continuing position here and his indescribable struggle to defeat the stratagems that white Americans have you and you to deny him his humanity. America the America could have used in other ways the energy that both groups have expended in this conflict. America of all the Western nations has been best placed to prove the uselessness and the obsolescence of the concept of color. But Paul and Dick concluded it has not dad to accept this opportunity or even to conceive of it as an opportunity. When Baldwin wrote this re-invite meant the persistence of racism in the United States. Just a year ago he was doing for his own generation what

Frederick Douglas was doing for his contemporaries. More than a century earlier. Writing in 854 about the speciousness of American racism. Douglas said. It is not necessary in order to establish the manhood of anyone making the claim to manhood to prove that such an one equals clayey in eloquence. Henry Clay that is or Daniel Webster or John Calhoun in logical force and directness. Yet something like this folly is seen in the arguments directed against the negro as a human being. His faculties and powers on educated and on improved have been contrasts it with those of the highest cultivation and the world has been called upon by Americans to behold the immense and amazing differences between the man

admitted and the man disputed. If the similarity is uncanny it is the similarity between the observations of Douglas and Bowen. It is also somewhat depressing to discover that the problems to which Douglas and Baldwin addressed themselves in 1854 and 1963 respectively were so remarkably similar. The civil rights revolution at mid-century is also characterized by a rather amazing amount of organizational activity directed against racist philosophies and practices. During the last two decades non-governmental voluntary organizations and associations have been active active in the field of fighting for equality and have multiplied at such a rate and are now so numerous that it is difficult

to keep up with them. Virtually every major religious denomination today has some commission devoted to devoting a major portion of its time and attention to civil rights and related questions. In many parts of the country local and state bar associations have special. Ad hoc or standing committees cold civil rights committees. Many groups in the last decade have joined as friends of the court and the various efforts to secure favorable court decisions in the area of equality. And there have been numerous new organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And these have completely preoccupied themselves in recent years with elevating the

status of the negro and the United States. So the enormous amount of time energy and attention have gone into the struggle have been contributed by the various kinds of associations and organizations devoting a part or all of their attention to the question. Now Association activity observed by Alexis de Tocqueville in 832 as a peculiar characteristic of the American people is by no means new on the civil rights front as indeed it is not new in American life. Organized efforts of the abolitionists of course need not be discussed for the dramatic story of their sacrifices and risks working through their local state and national societies for the abolition of slavery is certainly well known if not well understood and praised by all Americans.

But the story of organized efforts of groups of people during the post-Civil War years is not so well known. And this is largely the story of negroes themselves seeking satisfactory at adjustment and protection in the period of transition from slavery to freedom. When violence against the negro was widespread at the close of the Civil War when the former confederate states withheld the basic civil rights from the grows in the years immediately after the Civil War. And when the federal government itself was indecisive regarding the protection of negroes of the negroes themselves spoke out in their plea for support and protection. And they organized themselves into all kinds of groups dedicated to seeking support and protection

as early as 864. The national convention of colored men asked Congress to use every honorable endeavor they have the rights of the country's colored Patriots respected. Then in the fall and summer of eighteen hundred sixty five Negroes held conventions in many parts of the South and all of them looked toward the improvement of the condition of Negroes. A convention in Nashville Tennessee protested the seating of the Tennessee delegation to Congress because the legislature of that state had not acted in laws not enacted laws that guaranteed justice for all persons. The members of a negro convention in Raleigh North Carolina they Clare that they wanted fair wages education for their children and or appeal against discriminatory

laws passed by state legislation. This convention met in the late summer of eight hundred sixty five. Shortly thereafter Mississippi negroes met in convention and protested against reactionary palaces in their state and they asked Congress to extend the French as two negroes in Charleston mo below. Alexandria nor fall Savannah and many other places it was the same thing negroes meeting organizing and demanding the vote the abolition of the hated black codes and the protection of their rights. One wonders if there was the suggestion of subversion on the part of these as there has been in recent years and recent weeks I should say regarding the suggestion of the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that the civil rights movement in 1964 is infested with subversive

activities and people. Nor did this mood to organize to demand the rights subside after the reconstruction era in 1887 Thomas Fortune called on Negroes to form an organization that would fight for their rights. It has been thoroughly demonstrated fortune said in a moment of black disillusionment that the white people have determined to leave the colored man to fight his own battles. We've got to take hold of this problem ourselves he said and make so much noise that all the world should know the wrongs we suffer and our determination to right these wrongs. At Fortune's suggestion there is state and local groups were organized in New England and Pennsylvania New York Illinois Minnesota California and various southern communities and 18 or 19 more than a

hundred and forty delegates from 23 states met in Chicago and organized the first really nation ill group that was dedicated to fighting for civil rights. This was the Afro American League which said at the time we hope to secure by nonpartizan action by submitting our calls to the entire people. The cooperation of all lovers of justice and fair play. And then it's constitution. The Afro American League stated that its objects were to protest against the against and to secure a more adequate equitable distribution of school funds on those sections where separate schools exist. To insist upon a fair and impartial trial by a judge and jury of peers to resist by all legal and reasonable means mob and lynch law to resist the radical

uses of the railroads steamboats and other corporations where there is segregation and discrimination were memorials from the Culebra public association of Newark New Jersey the National and time Band Association of Springfield Ohio and other groups from all over the country. But their efforts were to no avail. Lynching continued. Riots increased in number and in barbarity and more negroes began to lose their patience if not their temper. Some of course were influenced by the Council of moderation set forth by Booker T Washington but they rejected any suggestion of silent patience. They began to think more and more in terms of action programs that were capable of formulating specific plans to secure their rights. This was the view of the small group of young negro intellectuals who met in Niagara Falls Ontario at the invitation of William E. B to boys in June

under five. The Niagara group discussed their mutual problems and then drew up a declaration of principles. And in this declaration they demanded the suffrage for Negroes. Equal treatment in places of public entertainment. Equal economic opportunity in the common school education free to all citizens. Justice in the courts. Equality in the labor unions and employment opportunity is the elimination of all the Jim Crow cars and the free opportunity to complain and to insist loudly on their equality. And for the next three years members of the Niagara group met and renewed their protests against unjust treatment. And I generate the movement had won the respect and support of large numbers of other negro organizations including

equal suffrage League and the National Association of colored women's clubs. When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was organized and I didn't attend the only Negro selections were delighted to join with whites and with others to launch an organization to work for the abolition of enforced segregation for equal education for Negro and white children. The complete enfranchisement of the negro and the enforcement of the 14th and 15th Amendments the history of this pioneer 20th century into racial civil rights organization is well-known through legal action pressure for civil rights legislation and solicitation of support from all elements of the American population that believed in equality in the end up with ACP move toward the formulation of a program that was to place it in the forefront of all groups working for the integration of the Negro

into American society. Organizational activity that began a century ago had by the middle of the 20th century become an effective weapon in the struggle for equality. In 1956 the negroes of Montgomery Alabama began to boycott the bus lines of the city to protest the abuse of Mrs. Rosa Parks who had refused to move to the back of the bus. They wanted to obtain a more satisfactory seating practice on the buses and to secure the employment of Negro drivers on buses serving predominantly negro sections of the city. And those negroes proceeded with this boycott in Montgomery Alabama in 156. Another weapon in the struggle to achieve equality was displayed.

Of course the white community was enraged. Some 90 negroes were indicted under a one thousand twenty one anti-union law forbidding conspiracy to obstruct the operation of a business. Their leader the Reverend Martin Luther King was the first to be tried and he was found guilty. Immediately he served notice of appeal while the bus company. By this time suffering under the boycott frantically sought to settle the problem before it became completely bankrupt. The monk gum really gross finally won their battle and the effective weapon of boycott gained in popularity as Negroes of Tallahassee Atlanta and Nashville successfully tested the practice of picketing and boycotting as direct civil rights direct action civil rights weapons. On the first of February four years later in one thousand sixty four students from the Negro agricultural and Technical College of Greensboro North Carolina

entered a variety store. I made several purchases and sat down at the lunch counter and ordered coffee. They were refused service because they were negroes and opening their books to study their lessons they remained in their seats until the store closed. In May 1961 and even more dramatic attack on segregation and discrimination that Siddons was undertaken by the Congress of Racial Equality. It sent Freedom Riders through out the south to test segregation laws and practices in interstate transportation in Alabama the interracial team was attacked in Aniston and in Birmingham. The attorney general was obviously a bit annoyed by the aggressiveness of these unorthodox fighters for civil rights and he said that there ought to be a cooling off period. But to his credit when the Civil Rights Fighters decline to cool off

he did order the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the matter. He made it clear that the Freedom Riders would be protected. In the summer of 1961 the jails of Jackson Mississippi and other Southern communities were virtually filled with Freedom Riders who had been arrested for alleged violation of the law. By that time also many young Negroes and whites Spight friends had been arrested for alleged violation of the law of trespassing and disorderly conduct of sitting in restaurants waiting in Beaches kneeling in churches lying in hotels and studying in libraries. It must be added hastily that although many whites view with alarm the aggressiveness of negroes and their white associates and even suggested that they were inspired and supported by foreign powers hundreds of restaurants in the south desegregated their facilities and public transportation generally became the segregated and middle parts of the South and

indeed in some parts of the north and west. There was dismay over the impatient and uncompromising position of those seeking equality in American life. We Negroes students were criticized for their actions in Atlanta. They placed a full page advertisement in the white Atlanta Constitution in which they said we do not intend to wait placidly for those rights which are already legally morally ours to be meted out to us one at a time. They and their white friends run the march to secure their rights. They were successful in opening up many facilities that were previously close to negroes. When they were not successful they boycotted white businesses and engaged in what they call selective purchasing thus bringing to bear of an effective weapons to secure their rights. This led inevitably to other forms of protest Negroes in Albany Georgia South Carolina very how Alabama and other set is began to

demonstrate their plight. Back marching through the streets and holding mass meetings. Hundreds were arrested. But marching picketing and other forms of public demonstration continues. In March 1860 1063 the negroes of La Flor County Mississippi began the march at order to dramatize a voter registration drive sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And April 1963 Dr. King inaugurated 40 days of marching in Birmingham Alabama during which time more than 2500 negroes were arrested in the Birmingham marches inspired scores of others north and south. And somewhere it ended as you know by violence and rioting. They were the occasion Moreover for the focusing of attention on the Black Muslims who used the march to point out one of the basic tenets of their position namely that the whites of the United States would never grant equality to Negroes

negroes therefore should reject any effort a semblance of cooperation and turn their attention to the development of their own culture as well as their own political and economic institutions. The movement was not so large in numbers but its popularity remained considerable even among those who rejected its program. Negroes and their white friends enthusiastically and understandably embraced the new techniques of sitting in freedom ratting picketing and demonstrating and promoting massive voter registration campaigns. And as they embraced these various actions these direct active it is. They were not always mindful of the fact that they were not creating new approaches and techniques but were merely following in the glorious tradition of large numbers of those who were picketing Birmingham and various other citizen the South did not realize that as early as 1915.

When it was deadly dangerous the interracial team of office spending on and William Pickens were picketing and demonstrating in the streets of Memphis Tennessee to call attention to racial injustices there. Two years later in 1070 following in the wake of the massacre that is known in respectable circles as the East St. Louis Illinois incident in which at least 40 negroes were murdered. Negroes staged a highly successful silent protest parade up Fifth Avenue in New York City. Hundreds of men women and children carried banners some of which read Mother do lynchers go to heaven Mr. President. Why not make America safe for democracy and pray for the Lady Macbeth's of East St. Louis.

Picketing and boycotting continue during the decades a decade of the 20s and even during the Depression decade in 1990 and the national Negro business league and the colored Merchants Association launched a jobs for Negroes movement in St. Louis where the National Urban League led a boycott against a white owned chain store whose trade was almost exclusively Negro but employed no negroes. The movement spread from St. Louis to Pittsburgh Chicago Cleveland and other Midwestern cities. And then he rose found employment because of the pressure brought on by employers and Negro sections and New York City. The Reverend John H. Johnson organized in 1933 the citizen's league for fair play and attempted to persuade white merchants to employ negro clerks when their first efforts failed. They resorted to picketing and appealing to negroes with the

motto don't buy where you work. The campaign resulted in the employment of hundreds of negroes in the white stores of Harlem and in such public utilities as telephone electric and bus companies. Not even the Black Muslims were original in their ideas and approaches. There have been negroes of an earlier day who were better defiant and frustrated that they resorted to rather extreme measures to make some effective representation. And the resentment against their condition as Negroes moved to the cities during and after World War One. The strain of adjustment in a hostile and are environmental left them completely disillusioned and willing to accept. More drastic solutions present perhaps any solution to their problems. That is why so many of them in the early 900 20 years embraced an organization that was known as

the universal Negro Improvement Association. Founded by Marcus Garvey. God insisted that the negro had no future in the United States and he declared that the only hope for American Negroes was to flee the United States and return to Africa to build up a country of their own. Garvey is universal African Legion the Black Star steamship and his numerous orders of African nobility captured the imagination of many negroes who of course did not know that the their Africa was well and secure that divided among the European powers and that where it was not the sovereign nations of Africa had no intention of being invaded and overrun by groups of negroes from the United States. Garbus projects but not before they had given many frustrated negroes a sense of hope and dignity that had long been denied them its momentary success was a testimony

to the extent to which negroes entertained doubts about gaining first class citizenship in the land of their birth. And it formed a kind of backdrop the historical antecedent for the movement that today is known as the Black Muslim. In the year of the emancipation of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation 963 the civil rights revolution reached a kind of peace which the numerous successful demonstrations marches suggested to the leadership that one massive march on Washington might dramatize to the nation and to the world the importance of solving the problem of the status of the negro in the United States once and for all. So plans were made to carry out the march on the 20th of August 1963. All of the major leaguer organizations joined in formulating the plans and they were joined by scores of other organizations white and Negro a

wide eyed world watched in wonder as a quarter of a million Negroes and whites converged on Washington from all over the United States by every conceivable mode of transportation and on to every conceivable auspices indeed the world had been watching for many weeks as the plans for the March on Washington unfolded. It was my privilege. And the week before the March on Washington to be the commentator on an hour long television program over the British Broadcasting Network that was called the Freedom of promise with but which I secretly call the Englishman's guide to the March on Washington. Washington had never seen such a day as this the businesses in the downtown area closed not out of respect to the marchers but because of fear of rioting and looting most of the federal employees took the day off some to participate in the March others to get as far from the center of

things as possible before the impressive memorial to Abraham Lincoln. The civil rights leaders spoke president of the United States cordially receive the leaders various followers called on their representatives and senators. The nation and the world looked on by television. Read it by newspapers and witnessed the most remarkable testimony and behalf of equality of mankind that was ever made in this or any other country. One important figure was conspicuous by his absence. Fifty odd years earlier he had assumed the leadership in the fight for equality. On the eve of March will maybe the boys and his ninety sixth year and a citizen of Ghana passed away in Accra he could not wait any longer for America's redemption of mankind. But the continuity of the struggle for the civil rights movement in the United States was underscored by Ron Wilkins when he said on the Mall in Washington that the journey that had begun that had been begun by W.B.

Dubois in 1982 had led that place and time in 1963. If the 1963 March on Washington was a success as it surely was it was due in large measure to the experience gained by its most important leader during the months before the outbreak of World War Two. As the nation placed itself on a war footing The only benefit that Negroes derived was in securing jobs that were deserted by whites who were attracted by higher wages to plants making weapons of war. The federal government made several gestures to discourage discrimination and one hundred forty and forty one but they were few and it's discrimination against Negroes. America's industries American industries position was described by the management of a West Coast aviation factory which said we will receive applications from both white and colored workers. However the Negro will be considered only as janitors and in

other similar capacities regardless of their training as aircraft workers. We will not employ them. The management declared. Such attitudes as these were indications to Negro leaders that they should develop a program for drastic action. And in January 1991 a Philip Randolph who was to lead the march on Washington in 163 president of the brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters events the notion in January 41 that 100000 Negroes should march on Washington and demand that their government do something to ensure the employment of negroes and defense industries. The idea was received with enthusiasm by many negroes. While federal officials viewed the prospect as most regrettable a full scale march on Washington movement had developed and when the president of the United States and all his aides including his wife and Mayor

LaGuardia of New York and others failed in their attempt to head off a movement the president family and one adds reluctantly reluctantly agreed. In June 1941 to issue an order declaring that there should be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries or government. Because of race color creed or national origin. Then the fair employment practices committee was established and this was the beginning of the involvement of the federal government in securing equality of employment opportunities for Negroes. And this was the experience that Philip Randolph was to find useful as he masterminded the March on Washington in the summer of 1963. We have seen that so far as the civil rights revolution in the mid 60s is concerned. It has significant and important antecedents and precedence in the area of legal action in organizational activity and

various forms of direct action such as picketing demonstrating marching and the like. We have discovered these antecedents and precedents for most of the developments that we have been observing and the mid-century inventory. It is remarkable that in one of the most significant developments namely the involvement of the government at all levels the antecedents and precedents are strikingly few even during the Reconstruction Era. The government clearly became weary of trying to achieve a symbol of equality and freedom for all. The laws that the Congress enacted we the declared unconstitutional war they were indifferently enforced if enforced of the whole by the executive branch of the government. In later years some northern states did enact civil rights laws but they were on the whole ineffective. And there if you paid attention to them while at the same time those who were supposed to be under the ban of the civil rights

legislation develop new and I pull ways of evading the granting of civil rights to all. Even when the distress of the negro citizen was obvious in the face of indescribable acts of intimidation and indignity the federal government may maintain a hands off policy that is frightening to recall as recently as the administration of Franklin D Roosevelt. The instances of atrocities involving negroes are both numerous and appalling. Near Tuscaloosa Alabama two negroes accused of attacking and murdering a white woman in 1033 were lynched as they were being transferred to another county for safekeeping in the fall of that year a Negro was lynched near princes and Maryland. After one of his ears had been cut off by a white child who blissfully exhibited the human flesh as a trophy in Nashville Tennessee a young negro was lynched because his bicycle it struck a child. The

president was on numerous occasions during the 1930's asked to use his high office to the end that such barbarism will cease to blot the fair name of America. As one writer put it hundreds of letters poured into the office of the attorney general asking for intervention and protection. It was my privilege just this past year to examine. Scores and scores of these letters. And it was once more surprising to find such plaintive pleas for protection and help so recently as the New Deal period even when the secretary of interior Harold Ickes who you will recall had been president of the Chicago branch of the end of Lacy people before he became secretary of interior even when he raised the question about what the Justice Department might do for the protection of these people. The Justice Department gave him the scene even replied. That literally hundreds of needles received the letters are precisely the same they were

not all that I could say about them is that they were not mimeograph they were varied. Neatly typed but they were precisely the same letters that went something like this. As you are undoubtedly away from the subject matter in your letter is one to be dealt with primarily by state authorities. The federal statutes which would have any possible bearing on the matter are extremely limited but they are receiving a careful and careful study and consideration. One hastens to add that there are no instances which I know that the matter received favorable consideration by the Department of Justice. One can say therefore that for the most part the involvement of the government in behalf of the negro and in support of some of the civil rights generally is of recent origin. The most recent the newest thing in the whole civil rights revolution. In the years following World War Two there was a significant modification of local

and state policies regarding civil rights in the cities and states of the north and west. Surely the extensive urbanization of the negro and the sections of the country had something to do with the changed attitude between 1940 and 960. The negro population not only increased generally but outside the Old Confederacy increased two and one fourth kinds from nearly four million to more than nine million representing some forty eight percent of the total Negro population. Most of this growth of Negro population outside the South was in the central cities of 12 of the largest metropolitan areas of the United States New York Los Angeles Chicago Philadelphia Detroit San Francisco Oakland Boston Pittsburgh St. Louis Washington Cleveland and Baltimore. These 12 areas now hold some 31 percent of all the Negroes in the United States and these areas and other areas where the Negro population is concentrated are where the negro wields the greatest

amount of political influence. And where incidentally the most significant changes in the status of the negro have been taking place during the past decade. By 1964 some 21 states had enacted enforceable fair employment practice laws. By 1964 Nineteen states and fifty five cities had barred discrimination in some aspect of housing in several other states many volunteer fair housing groups have been organized to seek to do work without benefit of legislation. Courts especially the federal judiciary continue to support the general principle of equality in 1055 one year following the Supreme Court's decision in the school desegregation cases. The Court remanded the cases to the courts of origin and indicated that it expected the courts to require that the states make a prompt and reasonable start toward full compliance with the decision. When 10 years later in 1064 the court looked at the piece to be segregation. Mr Justice Black

speaking for the court said that from his point of view they had been much more deliberation than speed. The court had made it clear in 1062 also that it would not tolerate any form of segregation and transportation whether it was interstate transportation as was pointed out in the decision of Morgan against Virginia and I think 44 or in prostate transportation. The court said in 62 we have settled beyond the question that no state may require segregation of interstate or intrastate transportation for some of this. The question is no longer open it is foreclosed as a little global issue. And in 1964 you will recall the court ruled unconstitutional the separate but equal provisions of the Hill Burton Act providing federal funds for hospital construction. And even the Congress had begun to react favorably to the winds of change that was

speaking over the United States in mid century. In 1957 it passed a Civil Rights Act the first such legislation has been passed by the Congress since 875 among other things the act created a Civil Rights Commission as a continuing agency that was to be concerned with the enforcement of civil rights. At the same time the act enlarged and strengthened the civil rights section of the Department of Justice that had been created in 139. Furthermore the Act authorizes the Department of Justice to institute injunction proceedings against persons conspiring to deprive citizens of their rights. Certainly the act was in no sense revolutionary as Minutes other congressman claimed. But it did focus attention on the government's responsibility in the area of civil rights in a way that certainly had not been done in the last 90 years. Having broken its silence after so many years in

Congress and I gather 60 took another step by enacting civil rights additional civil rights legislation opposition had not been still and only after one of the longest and bitterest debates in the nation's history the Bill of 1960 become law. The law singled out for punishment in a person or persons defacing or damaging synagogues churches and other public buildings. All election officials were required to keep registration and other records for 22 months and to make them available upon request to the attorney general or his representatives. And if a court found a pattern or practice of denial of the right to vote by reason the race or column in any row within the effected area was entitled to vote upon proof of qualification and court appointed referees were to be. Empowered to receive applications take evidence and to report their findings to the court. No dramatic

or startling changes stem from the laws of 1957 or 1960 of the Civil Rights Commission. Again very important information on the status of the rights of citizens. And there has been a groundswell of interest in and support such legislation. One of the most amusing of the findings of the civil rights was the testimony given before the Civil Rights Commission by white woman registrar and Louisiana who reported that she had indeed turned down negroes who had sought to qualify to vote and she said when she asked them to. Spell she found that they could not spell and in her written report this registrar self misspelled spell. The breaking of the ice of 1957 and 1968 certainly had something to do with the breaking of the local jazz club jam of

1964 that had up to last week been struck about obstructing and much stronger civil rights bill. The executive branch of the federal government was in recent years even more active than other branches and promoting equality in American life. The work begun vigorously and courageously by Truman and continued in a somewhat indifferent that was carried forward forward with some great evader by Kennedy and Johnson the Kennedy administration saw in various ways to implement its stated commitment to equality. The Department of Justice participated in numerous litigations for the protection of civil rights. The Federal Bureau of Investigation that's a Geisha was called upon to investigate numerous complaints regarding discrimination and anality rights and it also was authorized to conduct numerous schools and institutes for law enforcement offices that was looking of course toward a better administration of justice. Nine hundred twenty nine hundred sixty two. The president signed the long awaited

much deferred order prohibiting discrimination and federally assisted housing in several emergencies such as the University of Mississippi the University of Alabama crisis and the Birmingham demonstrations. The president moved with dispatch to protect the civil rights of the persons involved. It was the aftermath of the Birmingham demonstrations that indicated to President Kennedy that he and the federal government should assume even greater responsibility in the protection of the rights of citizens. In June 1963 he asked Congress to enact a new civil rights law that would guarantee to all citizens equal access to the services and facilities of hotels restaurants places of amusement and other establishments that would authorize the attorney general to start school desegregation strict desegregation suits. When he as was requested by someone who was unable to do so. Made Possible broad federal action to stop discrimination in federal jobs and activities financed wholly or in part by the federal government. It was also look toward the creation of a

community relations service to act as a mediation agency in areas where racial discrimination was occurring and where racial tension was high. It also sought to make it clear that the federal government was not required to furnish any kind of financial assistance to any program or activity in which racial discrimination occurs. The vigorous support given the proposed legislation by President Kennedy then by his successor have much to do with the favorable prospects for early passage. I had no interest in canvassing the specific areas in which Negroes have made contributions. All these specific arenas that Negroes have for the first time in it. I have omitted such matters because I have assumed that the crucial problem in the history of the Negro at mid-century as in all of the previous periods is opportunity if opportunity is available.

The civil rights are protected. If the climate of safety is improved if indeed this is an art heaped upon the negro he will function as other human beings and will enter every area of activity that attracts him. As one looks about him he sees the persistence of the ambivalence that has characterized America's attitude toward race from the very beginning. But one also sees operating some strong forces that tend to eliminate that ambivalence are to reduce it significantly. And this in turn gives negroes as they entered their second century of emancipation greater opportunity to function as American citizens working to make their country strong and great. Thanks. Thank you. Would you permit me to get through to the broader question if I thought about sniffing it out on my commute to an important factor in the whole civil rights development. Is the intellectual ingredient which not only tells

us something about what I was trying to suggest today. Namely the continuity of most of these developments but also of the of the way in which our society has become pluralistic if we don't have. That. I think that the right civil rights movement will indeed fall on its face. If one examines the history books most of them today and social studies books generally what is impressed with the first the absence of any objective and critical examination of American life and history. And secondly with the astounding omissions and distortions of history. As long as the Negro has either an invisible man in American history. Or there may be more a food or a dupe as he is so frequently portrayed.

Not only will the Negro children be be crushed any notion that they might themselves aspire to be someone but the white children will be stimulated in their. Elevated and erroneous view of their own superiority and this will in turn perpetuate a system of society that is that would be racist and that would be discriminatory. I would say that until we can do something at this level in connection with the materials that were used to teach our children are we going to be we're going to have some great difficulty. This is an important factor an important consideration in any kind of movement to improve our society. Let's stop talking about Negroes and it took to improve our society. We need to have these these supports these ingredients that can

come from from the kind of justice and teaching materials that we are seeking in the courts at the election booth and everywhere else. Yes I am hopeful. I think they are. I must say that they were almost as late as Scranton. B. But one doesn't want it one doesn't want to take any We're living away from their. Recent found coverage and I would say that that that they have been. Rather rather rather strong and vociferous and courageous and in recent months with respect to the achievement of civil rights. What one is amazed at is and I was I was

I was thinking about this. I was working on this is the is the remarkable sounds of the church in this area. Down to 1954. Amazing amazing. I'm not thinking just of the Southern Baptists the Methodist church south I'm thinking of the so-called organized religion in the United States been remarkably silent if it was not and if it if it was not in favor of it all right. Take a stand. But but now to get involved now it's not really terribly dangerous to be involved now and I think it's not a show of great of great initiative but might show some courage with certain of its own initiative to be out now holding a great vigil at the Lincoln Memorial you see. Behind me my mosque. On that. Comment.

On. My. Family I guess I thought briefly through the black. Book That I think the role of black Muslims this is one is a is a kind of negative one and when I say that I am not altogether denigrating it although I must admit that I. Do not have any personal regard for it. Negative in the sense that it will it will be a measure of the despair and frustration of negroes who have no other way of manifesting their desperation and their frustration. And it will also continue to be a kind of a measure or a barometer of the extent to which there is there continues to be this ambivalence which I mentioned to which I referred

or this denial of equality in the United States about Muslims do not do not have. An effective constructive program as I see it. Four of them four of the individuals I think they do have some wrenching things with respect to home and family life and morals and that sort of thing but but but they don't have a constructive and effective tangible program to solve their problem of the problem the negroes generally but they stand in a very interesting position in the whole struggle. Amazing position the Black Muslims have been created. Their effectiveness has been created by the American press and radio television. And that Malcolm X I would have been abroad twice this you know written letters to lots of people back home and nobody paid attention to.

Malcolm X Malcolm X went to Mecca and wrote a letter home and it's on the front page of The New York Times. He didn't say much and it he goes saying that it like it is worse and more every day. What you've got here is is an expression of love making love on the part of the white white as expressed in the various media media at the possibility of the possibility however remote might be that a movement like this extreme movement as they call it might grow a sluggish and might cause problems. There's a lot of consideration closely connected with that is and that is that the plight Muslims provide for the American white public something that gives it some comfort in as it view this

situation the civil rights situation that is it gives them. An extreme in the civil rights movement and and relieves the white public including the leadership at the highest points of the United States of appearing ridiculous by describing it as the extremes in the civil rights movement the Citizens Council on one hand and then on the other. You see you heard President Eisenhower say that we have to watch these extremes on both sides you see and what he was talking about was. Was the. Was a Citizen's Council in the U.S. people that's in that ICP saying standing up saying Please support the Constitution no we want the constitution we want that doesn't that doesn't sound terribly extreme. But if you've got if you've got if you've got a group over here that say you know down with the white man you know we hate them all. And it's wonderful we got an extreme. And that makes everything look a

little more balanced so that so they point to it and don't forget the extremes out there. And threw off the world. This group of a few thousand people have provided this kind of come for this kind of security whatever it is whatever it is now is secure that people want when they talk about the saving society from extreme so that you've got a you've got a good balance. We like nothing better than we like something in the middle of it of course has also I think stimulated people to support these moderate organizations like go or. And then they'll play safety. Because if they don't you know the goblins might get you and that will be a terrible. Thing. This is the this is the most far reaching piece of civil rights legislation

that's ever been proposed in the history of this country. We had three civil rights acts and 89 in the reconstruction period. But all of them except the last one hundred seventy five sought Maryland to define status and that sort of thing. But the riot act today is really far reaching and it's not it doesn't turn this world upside down. Don't get me wrong but it's fair far reaching in its public accommodations provisions particularly on its fair employment provisions and certainly the provisions which have which at least permit I don't require but permit the federal government to withhold funds from any institution organization practicing discrimination and segregation. Blood will not flow in the streets as a result of this to any considerable extent. If if there is if the law and then law enforcement agents maintain their majesty.

There will be no difficulty there will not be difficult in many places even if they don't. I'm always amazed surprised at the extent to which change can occur. I was riding the bus two weeks ago from. Durham North Carolina to Greensboro North Carolina was the first time I've been on a bus in the south in years. I'm sort of curious about this first of its intrastate you see and I just didn't know what what the situation was I don't know but I thought in North Carolina it was unthinkable. And that wasn't long ago. It was unthinkable for a negro to sit in front of a white person it just wasn't done. You know and for the peace and good order of the community done it boasted that we don't have any riots and disturbances here. Well obvious that.

You go there when the only grows to disturb their peace. But two weeks ago yesterday as I rode that bus I saw a negro sitting in front of whites in white sitting behind me in rows and negroes getting in and sitting in front of white and mixed up. No one could have cared less. I mean no one paid attention to any of this. Just not any of the same is true and a little town to which I visit several times a year in North Carolina on the lunch counters. I mean the eastern part of the state you know literally why all art is not so hard as nails in its opposition to any kind of change. And yet you go and sit on the ledge counting on the white girls I just say what can I serve you. Three years ago unthinkable and this without the support of federal legislation that you see when you get federal legislation behind these people there are

some people who would be really I think really them and I don't want they'll call me naive but I think there are people who would be relieved. It's all so silly and if they could just they could have some excuse for doing it. If they if they could be saying that the neighbors wouldn't think hard of them for doing it. I think me and many other would do it whatever the reason and call me naive if you want to I probably am. I would say that after this is going to be a great deal of change there will be of course resentment in the tone of the Russell will continue to say that you know this is a this is an expedition a punitive expedition on the south he can't have it both ways and he says on the one hand that things are terrible in New York and we got that we ought to do something about it you know. He wanted to investigate the subway thing at. You know. Subway Vollertsen whatnot.

We regard we who live in New York regard the Civil Rights Act as being an expedition to New York to where you say you need to need a few expeditions. So that you can't have it both ways you can't say now the fact is past it's directed at the south it's directed wherever their malpractises and I don't know in the United States where there are not practices of discrimination and segregation. That exist and that in minutes and says off like you've been listening to John Hope Franklin professor of history at the University of Chicago speaking for UC Berkeley 1964.