Dynamics of Desegregation; 1; Tale of Two Ladies

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emma bower race relations of the most important domestic problem facing our nation today and no national concern has ever been so clouded by emotion and misinformation a rational understanding of the problems complexity by thoughtful americans is sorely needed most of us however have either ignored the problem or have relied on dangerously oversimplified explanations were taken to look at race relations and see if we can clear up some of these misconceptions using the tools and techniques of the sociologist and the social psychologist this is an expression among negro americans it goes if you're white you're right if you're black step back its truth is dramatized daily in the restrictions placed on the negro where the jim crow system of

segregation a subtle system in the north a blatant system in size in various forms in disguises segregation and they go it's been with us ever since slavery was abolished and nigger americans have voiced their protests against its indignities from its very inception consider the case of ms catherine bryan one brisk winter day was my only child woman in the chambers of the united states senate so that by train from washington dc across the potomac river and visit alexandria virginia little did she realize that her twenty five cent roundtrip rail ticket untitled her to fire an opening shot in a long struggle against jim crow for this was eighteen sixty eight mrs brown was integral to her trip was to prove his story right over to virginia was

quiet and pleasant but her attempt to return the same day was needed quiet more pleasant no segregation was practiced by the erroneous train's leaving washington which trains leaving alexandria had a special car for all passenger as of color catherine brown hair didn't take your seat in the jim crow car instead she made herself comfortable in the car reserved for whites people attended some spotted karen informed care of the jim crow car but ms brown refused to leave work on the quote the later legal description the man attempted to put her by great force and violence with himself and indignities she was compelled to employ a physician and remain under treatment only advice of the senate committee which tell a hearing in her shanty home ms brownstein there were over twenty thousand dollars in a local court a jury decided in her

favor and awarded her fifteen hundred dollars at this point there i wrote defendants took their case on appeal to the united states supreme court the eighteen seventy three arguments before the high court have a mid twentieth century ring even though the fourteenth and fifteenth constitutional amendments were not involved the case she's seen revolved in large part around the meaning of the congressional charters to the aromas that asserted that no person should be excluded from the car's on account of color ray lawyers contended that this provision was met mother separate jim crow car that issue of economic growth to be excluded from the entire train mrs brown's lawyers disagree they maintain at the chart a provision meant no racial discrimination and that separate facilities were in themselves discriminatory the supreme court

ruled in favor of mrs brown upholding the lower court action and hears an important point on the matter of separate cars the court opinion weekend in the future by reaching the same conclusion the warren court was to reach in the school segregation cases in nineteen fifty four namely that separate racial facilities cannot ever be equaled by the very fact of being separate when another cold day in nineteen fifty five at seven years after mrs brown had refused to you oversee the scene was repeated in montgomery alabama ms rosa parks and middle wage be perceived as stunted home one evening weary from her day's work at a department store after boarding a city boston walking past the reserve white section she slumped in the first scene of the rearing

jim crow section assigned to neighbors soon the bus filled up with actors the driver ordered her and three other negroes to give up their seats the white man who had just boarded the other negroes comply with the order witnesses parks just as mrs brown before her quietly refuse she was arrested at once just four days after the arrest ms parks was tried for disobeying the city's segregation ordinance she was found guilty and fined ten dollars plus four dollars court costs her case made an excellent test of the legality of segregation and was immediately appeal six months after the arrest alabama federal judges ruled that the city bus segregation statutes were in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution and later the supreme court upheld the slate a court ruling many previous arrests following similar bus

instance the whole size but this was the arrest that ignited the negro community resist parks was highly respected among the city's niggers is soft spoken much admired woman arrests shocked negro leaguers mr bowers the idea to boycott against the buses have been formulating and agree upon within twenty four hours the midwest leaflets calling for boycott it been widely distributed boycott began emeritus during the trial that momentum until virtually no negroes were riding in buses in new leader dr martin luther king became the chief symbol of this form of protest there is to my mind as one of the greatest demonstrations are the fact that negroes and not satisfy our wait a second class citizenship with segregation and all with a lot of building right so that there should and bands of

senators and representatives a negro citizens of the united states are determined to be free as always the new survey of these nonviolent methods and what's included the practice so you see the montgomery movement triggered by the quiet seamstress and become a major turning point in the race relations struggle even more important than the legal victory achieved in montgomery however was the impetus inform the boycott gave to the negroes protest in america the technique of nonviolent protest was added to the legal and political weapons that had long comprise the negro arsenal soon the technique would be fashioned by negro youth into the city in freedom ride protest against

jim crow katherine brown and rosa parks old acted in times of great social change and racial progress yet neither the incidence was premeditated or plan so each of the action set off a chain of historic events both were brought about by a simple demand for the american dream of equality to apply in direct and concrete ways both women and passively complied with racial discrimination so it their whole lives but on these occasions they were exhausted and returning home after a long day and the gentleman is as parks words was fed up with jim crow right now the actions of negro americans is determined and set up as mrs brown and his parks are steadily inscribing the epitaph for jim crow but if we are

fully to understand this important process we must mirror sales of a variety of the rawness and dangers oversimplification so by race relations perhaps most damaging tendency many others simply didn't either why we asked ourselves to keep a barracks in america before the world by constantly demanding their rights are they keeping so stirred up well such questions can only be as by white americans for only white americans can deny the importance of the problem negroes must face the problem each day otherwise they cannot deny indeed much as we may not like to admit it our nation now has to face the problem constantly true for jim crow was our most conspicuous denial about own lofty national ideals of freedom and opportunity for all no wonder white americans wish to deny the problem for we're all guilty

of betrayal of our own highest values that we're nation have come to a point in history where we can no longer afford to deny but even when we face the problem squarely there are no single approach is no simple solutions that adequately fit this tragic american problem we must view it from at least six different approaches six perspectives that each had a necessary element consider for example this frequent comment of course the negroes have a real grind but you know what comes from it all started with slavery we've never had slavery there wouldn't be a race problem in america today this man makes an important point slavery but to clean its unique american warm did plant the roots of present day discrimination against their grades in a real sense the tuna grow ladies were forced to surrender their seats because the slaves status so long

associated with brown skin still had fourteen eighteen sixty eight and even in nineteen fifty five this and other historical considerations or important first approximations to understanding american race relations in all when sweeping sprouts history or blinds the scope and direction of the process but after immersing grossly over simplifying the problem many other parts of the war or brazil france and slavery even longer than the united states and today we have race relations patterns very different from ours knocking he explained why when almost everything else changing at an unprecedented rate has there been so little change in race relations over the past century since slavery to set sail or ceding incidents could happen at seven years apart obviously no one factor such as the historical fact of slavery can do justice to the complexity of

race relations yet how often do you continue to here said simple theories and simple solutions here's another one if you ask me the reason for the race problem in the south is because it's been a poor agricultural region for so long so the people down there was this change every way they can the once big business and industry and then they'll bring with them all kinds of changes desegregation is sure to be one of them this stresses the importance of industry is feeling the process from the social cultural perspective a perspective that updates and sharpens the historical now says as far as he goes he's perfectly correct note that the desegregation of schools and lunch counters tends to occur first in the big modern cities atlanta nashville memphis used to house indeed jim crow was frequently the last vestige of the

nineteenth century left in these rapidly growing industrial centers and it sort of joint with the times in the cities it should be obvious that all segregation is for doomed in in fact welsh when gael the noted publisher and calmest of the atlanta constitution once remarked that racial desegregation was introduced in the south by the boll weevil which is you know in danger the cotton economy and push the region into industrial expansion but once again we see if this one factor accurate as it is within minutes does not offer a complete explanation birmingham alabama by way of illustration birmingham as the pittsburgh of the south is a big sprawling steel center that it's our friends oversimplified requirement for desegregation and yet the city has been the scene of repeated racial violence in the last decade and is one of the area's most defiantly resistant to racial change in the whole south nor

can our friend explain why many white southerners approved it was as parks arrest and many others living in the same communities were deeply ashamed were doing is they were the most complex i'm not an additional complexity is represented by this attitude the whole trouble seems to me to come from people not getting to know and understand one another better what we really need is more contact between the two races you know getting the negroes and whites together more here's another dimension that a contact between the races in various ways and the various circumstances this situation or dimension cannot bail out for as harry dolan of only in america famous point at that particular situation can completely restructure race relations he noted that his long literary standing up

saturdays to stand up to objecting to mixing freely with regrets probably is the beginning is harry says when the races some polling suggested his now famous article plan for desegregation that is you take care of all seats of the school's lunch counters and then you desegregate the time you can slowly reverted back to cease by first having the students some customers leaving down at ten degrees and then at twenty degrees and so forth for these things that marks polling with a glaze with the tunnel eric and forth the difficulty with this proposed solution for the problem simply more interracial contact is that it makes an erroneous assumption more contact or say between groups does not necessarily make for better relations ambrose and whites had more contact in the south than anywhere else in the nation and yet my native set is not conspicuously famously center towers the crucial thing is

what kind of contact their waning we just heard is not alone in her naive assumption many well meaning people who sincerely wanted help in the writing of jim crow that i made the same assumption and that consequently in my opinion wasted much of their effort brotherhood week instead of brotherhood here is one expression of these other steps but such endeavor largely fails because it does not directly confront americans as mrs brown and this sparks confronted us with a concrete problem that we must solve at their dinners at fifty year and our supply tell each year run the risk of allowing influential americans to relieve annually their guilt over the treatment of their fellow americans for a modest tax deductible song without actually doing anything now that same deal is directed into useful channel is urgently needed let's listen

again to an observer of the racy if you asked me the whole thing over for the whites in the south most of them just naturally hate the negro and nothing is going to make them change their minds this man voices and often heard northern appraisal the southern see signs for people hate the neighbor now he's looking at the situation to what is termed the personality approach the approach which considers the psychological makeup of the individuals in the process you'll excuse me if as a southerner i take exception to is oversimplified uses perspective there are many reasons why a white southerner discriminates against nicolas when the most important reasons as a gentleman indicates is pure unadulterated prejudice and bigotry but important to as a motivation to get along with his neighbors to follow a path of least resistance in a word to conform to the stern dictates of southern culture so

powerful sized pressures to conform one prominent southern scholar c vann woodward has observed that way it's southern segregationists and not really is afraid of the communists the supreme court yankees and negroes their four favorite targets as they are of each other footnote to this personally apart so many northerners were so impressive sound and bigotry i'm doing my state race places and sales many of them who believe in the segregation for the south waziristan agrees my home is in their own neighborhoods they then cut the favorite though strange defense of the southern segregationists namely that the north is as guilty of mistreating the negro as the south and the misunderstanding i'm not defending us out by pointing out lloyd and bigotry rather trying to show that the two regions ever since catherine brown this fateful ride in eighteen sixty eight

had been excusing they're all forms of jim crow by emphasizing the sins of the other region bolt a lot unsaid can make a strong case of course but to long's hardly mckellar i was here another typical approach to american race relations you know now there's been talk all you want but you might not feel the same if you lived in the south bank of the river that it might even lead judge people when in the new issue of the speaker introduce yet another perspective from which the problem must be viewed how white southerners themselves perceive race relations unlike the previous four approaches this that approach the perceptual approach tends to study the problem through the eyes of the people in the situation obviously had they look at the process and not how we look at it directs their behavior how for example that the montgomery bus driver

interpret his calling of the police to arrest ms potts and i guess we thought on the basis of what the most bolton southern sources say when the politicians the segregationist newspaper editors and they organize resistance groups the most dangerous instead we must turn to public opinion polls studies to cut through the racist did it's set up by these loud and conspicuous interpreters of the southern same when we do this we find it gallup polls show as sort of five white southerners do in fact favor of racial separation of public facilities but they also show that almost three at a floor southerners realize but racial desegregation is inevitable that you would not suspected from listing to the professional racist and most white southerners expecting seven erased desegregation even if they do not walk on in other words

the wall is so clear that even though it's easily me you know why people tell us we should improve ourselves before we can expect them to accept us we are asking to be accepted we just want to be able to do what other people do to live the way other people live and to be treated like anybody else the six and final perspective we need to evaluate american race relations is introduced by the object of prejudice and segregation the negro american himself this last approach than we might call this stimulus object approach there are many important issues to be raised from this perspective but white people who demand that the negro first improving sales are laboring under two popular and damaging misconceptions first they apparently believe that negotiated than send the handicaps never faced by white americans that is the pentagon must prosper and in jim crow

denials of adequate education wyoming housing and so forth before desegregation should occur but if they're genuinely interested in the advancement of negro americans would be more logical for them would have to work for the ending of segregation the same critics also seen this deal with the goal of current nigro protest is to be accepted by whites within the racial can see in art and simplicity in this assumption they nor the essential simplicity of the negro americans aims mainly to be allowed to be more not less of an american to be a first class citizen with all rights and personal dignity recall the simple demands of catherine brown rosa parks they didn't ask the wide acceptance but merely for a seat on a public complaints indeed says parks was already in the negro section and warily wanted only to retain her

seat at the end of a long day our brief review of the six approaches the historical the social cultural the situational the personality the perceptual and the stimulus out with seals why so many different types of efforts are needed before this problem so deeply rooted in our society can be alleviated this is there not been simply a theoretical discussion the various factors underlying jim crow it also has direct implications for action are changing the present situation we often hear people say that it's all a matter of education or that it's all a matter of war or economics but actually as we have noted it's a matter of all these considerations this is why there's such a multiplicity of groups working in this field than any educational groups the national association for the

advancement of colored people the naacp with its legal attack on segregation the national urban league with its economic attack on segregation and the non violent groups such as dr king's southern christian leadership conference with their direct action attacks on segregation thus we see the epitaph the jim crow is now being written in many different ways we're understand this exciting process we must not to limit ourselves to a single now are perspective what do a casual and global statement that does not do justice to the problems complexity we must raise its historical roots see its development in our social and cultural institutions allow for the influence of the particular situation and think of the personal qualities and special points of view

that the individuals in the process possess most important of all perhaps we need to remember the effects of segregation on negro americans and the quiet courage of catherine bryan and rosa parks on nino it's been nice nice nice it's nice but

nina as bad still production costs were provided invite with assistance grants from anti defamation league of my breath commonwealth who often in the gloria be mr easel stone foundation this is an ep a national educational television