The Boycott in Montgomery
Reddick, L. D.
Suddenly, Montgomery, Alabama, has become one of the world's most interesting cities. It is a handsome little town, restful for an ex-urbanite. In its center is a spacious circle with gently...
...One of the three stated before an open meeting that he had been "tricked" into the conference on the basis of a telephone invitation, asking that he join in a discussion of group insurance for the city...
...They are both wrong...
...All along they demonstrated that their conception of the Negro was the stereotype of the tired field hand or the witless house servant who could he cajoled or forced to do what the white folks wanted him to do...
...In its center is a spacious circle with gently flowing water-spray, covered by soft lights in the evening...
...The speakers, in turn, represent the various denominations...
...The Negro community of Montgomery has neither its own radio station (as does Atlanta, Ga...
...The structure of the society was more or less set...
...The leaders were careful but nobody seemed to be at all afraid...
...The "get tough" policy evaporated overnight...
...Incidentally, the people have "fallen in love" with King, a boyish-looking Ph.D...
...Things now took a turn for the worse...
...VI For a moment the protest movement seemed to be wavering...
...But the local press reduced the sensational disclosure to a bare statement of denial that was buried near the end of a long story...
...Nevertheless, it sounded like a settlement and many persons who read the story felt that the boycott was over...
...So the buses were put back on the routes in the Negro areas...
...The metropolitan dailies have on the scene what have been jokingly called "war correspondents covering the Southern front...
...It is a handsome little town, restful for an ex-urbanite...
...one or more cars of white youths had made com mando raids on the nearby Negro college, dashing through the campus (IS with lights out, throwing out bags of water, eggs, rocks and a tiny flaming cross...
...A few read papers and books while waiting, but mostly the audiences sing...
...Suddenly, Montgomery, Alabama, has become one of the world's most interesting cities...
...In fact this was not so...
...Another clumsy bomb-thrower hit the fence of E. D. Nixon, the president of the local NAACP chapter...
...The emergence of King and Abernathy was almost by chance...
...Moreover, the boycott movement has brought something new into the lives of the Negroes of Montgomery...
...They say that the newspaper was mostly interested in letting the white folks know what the Negroes were up to...
...With all the odds against it, the Negro community of Montgomery has initiated and sustained what is easily the most creative approach yet made to the crisis in race relations...
...This was based on an old anti-labor law of doubtful constitutionality...
...It is legal, nonviolent and effective...
...As a matter of fact, at this point every thing was ad hoc and tentative...
...3) Negro bus operators were employed on predominately Negro routes...
...others were accused of "loud talking", walking on lawns and "congregating in white neighborhoods...
...But the city did care...
...The pattern was established during the first week of the boycott: mass meetings each Monday and Thursday evening...
...The automobile-owning folk, who never rode the buses, and the maids and day-laborers, who depended upon the buses, have come to know each other...
...Some Negroes were ill...
...There are sincere apprehensions that desegregation at any one point will lead togeneral racial integration—and that means intermarriage...
...Many of them had stores that had been hurt...
...A strange stand for one who didn't care if another Negro ever rode a bus again...
...The police were equally sure of the image in their minds...
...Do not get your weapons...
...Perhaps once the spell of not riding was broken, the boycott would dissolve...
...in violation of a Negro boycott...
...Downtown merchants cared, too, for some of their businesses were off by as much as a third since the boycott had begun...
...The indignation and demands for action by the "common people" swept everyone along like a flood...
...Neither side would yield...
...This was supposed to bring Negroes to their knees, crying for the buses...
...III The ex-bus riders soon found themselves face to face with a practical problem: since the buses were taboo, how were the Negroes to get about the city...
...King was amazed...
...V To break the impasse, the city commission pulled a fast one...
...Nobody tried to hide...
...Under prodding, the commissioner did reveal the denominations of the ministers...
...It has been adhered to ever since...
...I didn't think they had it in them," is a frequent comment...
...The mass meeting pattern is relatively simple: songs, prayer, latest news and plans, a "pep talk", collection...
...With a show of anger the mayor denounced the boycott, declared that the white people did not care if another Negro ever rode the buses again, and called upon white employers to stop taking their Negro employees to and from work...
...The story had been sent out Saturday evening by the Associated Press...
...2) white reserve section at the front of the bus, Negro reserve section at rear of bus...
...From it one looks down the main avenue to the white marble Capitol...
...No figures were ever given out but the general impression is that very few persons were willing to subsidize the National City Lines, an economic giant that is spread out over the cities and towns of the Middle West and South and has its main office in Chicago...
...But we will continue to stay off the buses...
...something to think about...
...Rufus Lewis, an ex-football coach and presently a civic-minded business man, is the cool-headed chairman of the motor pool committee...
...It is estimated that the boycott has cost Montgomery $1,000,000...
...Understandably, people were becoming battle-weary...
...nor a widely-read local newspaper...
...Few persons thought that these three Negro ministers would dare challenge the veracity of the city fathers...
...As Abernathy said later, it was never "a one-man-show...
...The terms of the "agreement" were: (1) courtesy to all...
...Some Negro and white high school students had clashed...
...In court it came out that the two were good friends and that they were merrily crossing the street, arm in arm, near a bus...
...One old rule forbade more than three persons to sit on the front seat of an automobile...
...He calmly submitted to arrest and jailing...
...But for some reason on Thursday afternoon, December 1, 1955, Mrs...
...The police searched the books for laws that would dry up the motor pool...
...At the Sunday church service, Negro ministers hammered home their endorsement of the projected one-day "protest"—as they consistently called the boycott...
...The law required segregation, but did not specify the manner of seating so long as it was segregated...
...Messages and money contributions from many parts of the nation as well as from remote parts of the world have confirmed this belief...
...Under the circumstances, the channel into which the Negroes of Montgomery have poured their energies and resentments is the best answer thus far to the question of what to do...
...In a sense, they have already won...
...That day, of course, has long since passed...
...This was the established pattern of paternalism...
...All day long on December 5 Negroes stayed off the buses...
...But through this story many Negroes got the news of the Monday plan for the first time...
...And again nobody was frightened...
...It was a marvel of quick organization...
...There is high purpose these days in the Negro community...
...Even now, after 14 weeks of "education," the commissioners seem not to comprehend the intelligence, resourcefulness and resolve of the people with whom they are dealing...
...The police stopped this by warning the taxis that by law they must charge a minimum fare of 45 cents...
...At first, the demands of the boycotters were limited—courtesy, fair play, fair employment...
...Mrs...
...King, standing on the front porch of his "bombed" home, pleaded with the angry Negroes: "Wq are not harmed...
...And so almost everybody—the bus company, the city commissioners and the white public—expected Negroes to be back on the buses in a few days...
...He said that white businessmen informed him that they were discharging Negro workers who were participating in the boycott...
...She is attractive and quiet, a churchgoer who looks like the symbol of Mother's Day...
...but they did...
...The news spread through the Negro community like wildfire...
...The Negroes foiled this maneuver by a combination of luck and quick action...
...and it did not disturb the status quo...
...Few whites attend these meetings although they are open to all...
...She was not sitting in the section reserved for whites (as the New York Times mistakenly reported) but in the first seat of the unreserved section...
...This was a sobering jolt for the city commissioners...
...Even the timid member of the trio mustered up enough bravado to go on television, and join the "get tough with Negroes" act...
...Here is organized struggle and group solidarity...
...1V By 7 p.m., the time the meeting starts, virtually every inch of space is taken, including standing room...
...Many inquired of the sheriff's office: "Is my name on that Grand Jury list...
...For over three months, life had been like a military operation for the Negro Improvement Association...
...All three commissioners let it be known that they had joined the White Citizens Council...
...And so the one-day boycott passed into an indefinite protest that, as of this writing, has run for fourteen weeks...
...They continued to roll empty...
...They did so with such enthusiasm that there was a general feeling that "we ought to continue this...
...Almost overnight Montgomery saw a network of private cars spread over the city, picking up and depositing passengers, from dawn until early evening...
...Often the pastor in whose church the meeting was held would preside or, after preliminary re marks, would turn the meeting over to some official of the Montgomery Improvement Association...
...Many Negroes wanted to launch a counter-of fensive...
...M. L. King Jr.—the audience unanimously adopted the following declaration as read by Rev...
...The judge who tried Mrs...
...This suggestion was made but the planning committee never got around to it or concluded that "the people prefer to be together," as several persons had said...
...But the failure of negotiations and the crude brutality of the "get tough" policy convinced the most conservative ex-bus riders that an attack had to be made upon bus segregation itself...
...Before last December, a visitor to Montgomery would have noticed Negroes standing up in the city buses, while there were empty seats right before them...
...A few are in "hot water" for real or suspected sympathies with the boycotters...
...The worst was yet to come...
...This was untrue...
...Again, Negroes saw that the vary instruments of law and order were being used against them...
...The chief weakness of the movement for desegregation is that so little is done to remove the unfounded alarms of the thousands who in desperation are flocking to the hate organizations...
...One evening the commandos were ambushed and bombarded with bricks...
...These seem to recapture the long history of the Negro's suffering and struggle...
...Opposition seemed futile...
...When the local dailies did not print his statement, one of the three ministers purchased space for a three-inch ad saying: "The rumor that is out that I agreed with the commissioners on the proposal that they issued is an untrue statement...
...Hours before meeting time, 7:00 p.m., people began filling up the place...
...also the police...
...It was to he a field day...
...And so she was arrested and for a brief moment jailed...
...The city commissioners, however, remained adamant...
...Meanwhile, a group of Negro business and professional men asked the city for permission to operate a jitney service...
...Often as many listeners are outside as inside...
...For example, the names of the "prominent ministers" were not given...
...A forced subsidy was made possible by raising the bus fare from 10 to 15 cents...
...Some drivers were already tired...
...People come hours ahead of time to get a seat at these mass meetings...
...It is here that morale is built and sustained...
...They would be loath to give it up...
...For about a month negotiations were on and off...
...This was absurd...
...Chicago Negroes had thrown a picket line around the offices of the parent bus company, so it was more willing than ever to come to terms...
...Result: word got around so well that the next day the buses rolled empty as usual...
...There had been other incidents...
...Confident, orderly, loyal to each other, the Negroes again manifested their collective will and esprit de corps...
...Moreover, fewer whites—probably out of sympathy with the boycott—seem to be riding...
...2) passengers were seated on a first come, first serve basis—Negroes seating from the hack of the bus toward the front while whites seat from the front toward the back...
...She appealed...
...This is probably why frequent mass meetings have proved a necessity...
...Negroes began rushing down to the jail in such numbers that King was released without having even to sign his own bond...
...A stick of dynamite was thrown on the porch of Rev...
...This time a white business men's club intervened...
...Personal difficulties might be adjusted through some prominent Negro, who would speak with an influential white person...
...He knew absolutely nothing about any settlement...
...Montgomery Negroes were fed up with the bus service in particular and, like Negroes throughout the South, with race relations in general...
...The daily press printed next to nothing about the wholesale arrests and harassment...
...The job was amateurish...
...King and Rev...
...These twice-a-week get-togethers are the soul of the boycott...
...At the Sunday morning services, the ministers excoriated the "fake settlement" and repeated that the "protest" was still on...
...Out of approximately four thousand persons present, only two voted in favor of calling off the boycott...
...The white people of Montgomery have been amazed by the group discipline of the Negro community and by the intelligence and organization with which the boycott has been maintained...
...the damage slight...
...Rowan then called King again...
...Next, private cars began giving "friends" a lift, along the bus routes...
...Physically, Montgomery is ideally fitted for a bus boycott...
...Negroes themselves wanted to get into action...
...Hymns such as "Onward Christian Soldiers," "Abide With Me" and "Higher Ground" are moving but the really stirring songs are the lined, camp-meeting tunes, of low pitch and long meter...
...Some ex-bus riders, while waiting to be picked up, were told that there was a law against hitchhiking...
...Thus the ground is cut from under any institutional or sectarian jealousy...
...Why had the "leaders" given in?, they asked...
...At first, he was not to be let out on bond...
...But nobody was impressed...
...They are the real and obvious leaders of this mass upsurge...
...So the command for her to "move back" meant that she would have to stand while a white male passenger, who had just taken the bus, would sit...
...To remain human, the Negroes simply could not stand by and do nothing...
...Minor regulations that are seldom invoked in this normally easy-going town were resurrected and severely enforced...
...Another commando car was captured by special police...
...The first reaction of the bus company officials was one of arrogance...
...They seem to feel that they can not afford to yield...
...But the main force that keeps the people and their leaders together is the idea of the movement itself...
...A non-segregated society is merely a crude, basic pre-condition for creating a social order in which the higher sensibilities can flourish...
...March 15, 1956 Fm...
...Like minute men, the ministers of the Montgomery Improvement Association went themselves or sent messages to all of the night clubs and taverns in the Negro community, informing the Saturday night revellers of the attempted hoax...
...Some whites were jubilant...
...Negro taxi drivers really caught it...
...Instead, doubtful would-be bus riders were pushed into the motor pool...
...Many, of course, give assurances privately...
...King himself...
...The inflammatory appeals seemed to give the signal to the violent elements...
...At which point, additional whites stayed off the buses...
...King's home...
...The charge was 15 cents for "gasoline expense...
...Rosa Parks refused to "move back" when she was ordered to do so by the bus driver...
...Abernathy make it plain by their words and by their sharing of the speakers' platform that they are not self-appointed "leaders" but only "spokesmen" of the movement...
...As it came over the wires into the office of the Minneapolis Tribune, the reporter Carl T. Rowan, who had been down to Montgomery to cover the boycott, did what any good reporter would do: he called Rev...
...The answer was an almost total rejection...
...Aside from a Lutheran minister who has a Negro congregation, no local white preacher has publicly identified himself with the Negro cause...
...At times this was done courteously...
...On the other hand, it helped convince the patient hopefuls that an allout fight was the only kind that made any sense...
...Then without the usual money-raising salesmanship, the crowd —inside and outside of the church—filed in and placed dimes, quarters and dollars on the collection table...
...And there are journal...
...Most of all, the bus company cared—each day it cared more and more...
...The city fathers, who had been making speeches at the drop of the hat, lapsed into their usual quietude...
...to verify the story...
...Moreover, the mass meetings have given many persons some place to go...
...If this was a release from the city commission, would any newspaper naively print such an important front-page story without first checking with the known Negro representatives, who had been negotiating with the bus company and city commission for weeks...
...King and his colleagues by a process of checking soon identified the "three prominent Negro ministers...
...Most residents could walk to most places in the city...
...The meetings are serious but thoroughly relaxed...
...This meant that 75 per cent of the bus riding public was "out," and it cut some $3,000 from each day's revenue...
...Some transportation problems that the bus company had grappled with for twenty years were, apparently, solved overnight...
...A careful reading of the article raises the question whether it was just poor reporting or something much worse...
...Negro drivers, who appeared to be in the motor pool, would be questioned about their employment, the balance due on the purchase of their automobiles and the firms with which they had their insurance...
...Outdoor loudspeakers were set up...
...There are quips and jokes—a great deal of genial humor...
...By the next day, the "three prominent Negro ministers" had publicly repudiated the commission's press announcement...
...This was turned down on the grounds that sufficient transportation was already available...
...They look upon Abernathy, also young and an M.A., as a tower of strength...
...But if this move was intended to frighten King, it fell flat...
...At the time every seat in the bus was taken...
...Apparently to impress the Negro community with what it could lose, the bus company abruptly stopped all service to Negro neighborhoods...
...11 There had been a long history of abuse by the bus operators...
...An absurd goblin hovers over every white household...
...Unity is expressed in words and in the little kindnesses that the people show to each other...
...It was at this moment that non-violent resistance almost faded...
...The city commission sided with the bus company, condemning the boycott and declaring that "first come, first serve" would be illegal...
...Probably this saved the city from a race riot...
...It let it be known that it would agree to any seating arrangement that the city commissioners would approve...
...We are all indebted to the Negroes of Montgomery...
...Negroes have no faith at all in S'outhern law-making and law-enforcing agencies, for these instruments of "justice" are all in the hands of "the brothers of the hoodlums who attack us...
...Race relations in Montgomery have traditionally been "good" in the sense that Negroes have seldom challenged their state of subordination...
...These were all within the segregation laws of the city and state...
...Here and elsewhere they were willing to fight it out—if the fighting was "fair...
...The fact is that desegregation has been magnified so greatly in the minds of so many Americans, both Negro and white, that they do not realize how ordinary and natural a non-segregated society is...
...On second thought, the bus company decided to re-establish the discontinued lines...
...The morale of the masses, once again, revived the morale of the leaders...
...At first, they called upon the taxis for cheap-rate jitney service...
...Southern whites feel that it will precipitate disaster...
...Persons who had not received a traffic ticket in years were booked...
...Whenever the boycott ends, it will be missed...
...Some of the drivers in the motor pool were becoming exhausted...
...By 7 o'clock every seat had been taken and some 3 or 4 thousand standees over-flowed into the street...
...It was now late Saturday night...
...So the best that the business men could offer was little more than the old "fake" settlement that had been palmed off on the "three prominent Negro ministers...
...All classes are present in the audiences but the bulk of the attendants are working class people...
...Under such heavy blows the voluntary pick-up system began to weaken...
...At one point, the Negroes would have called off the boycott for just the "first come, first serve" arrangement...
...The Negroes were brought closer together...
...Ralph Abernathy: Negroes were not to resume riding the buses until (1) courteous treatment by bus operators was guaranteed...
...No matter how packed a bus might be with Negro passengers, they were prohibited from sitting in the first 4 seats (which hold about 10 persons) . Theoretically, the last 3 back seats (holding about 10 persons) were similarly reserved for Negroes...
...The mayor said, let them ride the buses now rolling empty through the streets...
...And after that,—there would be the local judges and juries...
...AImost everybody could tell of some unfortunate personal experience that he himself had had or seen...
...This man said that, neither he nor the other two Negroes present agreed to any settlement, declaring that they were unauthorized to speak for the ex-bus riders...
...Non-segregation already prevails in many areas of Southern life—the super markets, for example—with scarcely passing notice...
...The so-called White Citizens Council solicited contributions for the poor suffering bus company...
...The politicians and White Councils exploit these fears...
...If it was, the caller let it be known that he would come down immediately...
...Amid the singing of hymns and some first class oratory—led by Rev...
...It is curious that meetings were never scheduled in different parts of the city at different hours on the same night or rotated to different parts of the city on different nights—in order to accomodate the crowds...
...She had told the cops this before the arrest was made but the police believed that there were goons— there had to he—so they saw what they were looking for: "believing is seeing...
...Its population, 130,000, is about 40 per cent Negro...
...These people know that they are fighting a big battle and that it is a vital part of a larger war...
...No leader was calling the shots...
...Instead, he found her guilty, fining her $14...
...To date the latest move to break the boycott has been the indictment of the leaders of the Improvement Association...
...This was only the first of a series of misjudgments on the part of the city fathers...
...3) special, all-Negro buses during the rush hours...
...It is just 27.9 square miles in area...
...all-too-often it was an undisguised insult...
...Nobody expected such a response...
...This clue was enough...
...Many others do not come at all because they know they cannot get near the church...
...Lights, brakes, even the position of 1!0 license tags, were checked by the police frequently...
...King himself humorously stated that he got a chance to see the insides of many a night spot...
...So the leaders, though reluctantly, submitted the proposals of the business men to the rank and file at one of the mass meetings...
...They pretended that the Negroes were demanding that the company violate the law...
...Her trial was set for the following Monday, December 5. Out of nowhere, it seems, written and mimeographed appeals appeared in the Negro community, saying: "...This has to be stopped...
...This flurry of violence had no noticeable effect on the boycott...
...And even those of us who have watched developments unfold day by day are reluctant to say that we understand fully what we see or that we can predict the outcome of it all...
...The outrage of the Emmett Till murder was alive in everybody's mind...
...still others feared that they could not stand much more provocation without striking back...
...It is neither so glorious nor so dangerous as pictured, even in terms of the values of the opposing groups...
...The article said: "The above agreement is concurred in by all three members of the City Commission, as well as by representa tives of the bus company and the group representing the Negroes of Montgomery...
...The city commision stated that it had nothing to do with the question of employment...
...The inter-denominational, inter-class integration of the Negro community has called forth much comment...
...The cops stopped this, too, by insisting that drivers had to have a taxi permit and license...
...The water, they found, was just "fine...
...This was altogether spontaneous...
...Let us not answer hate with hate, violence with violence...
...They say that they are confident of ultimate victory...
...It turned out that they were neither prominent nor members of the negotiating committee...
...Parks, had he looked into his crystal ball, would have probably dismissed the case...
...the intent vicious...
...The boycott held its own...
...Twelve or thirteen weeks 'of free, voluntary service, four or five hours per day, is fatiguing...
...Most of these drivers have jobs and other obligations...
...Parks was ideally fitted for her role...
...Somebody could then explain that according to local practice, these unoccupied seats were reserved for "whites only...
...Only a fraction of Negro bus riders saw these unsigned appeals but one of the notices did fall into the hands of the local paper, which put it on the front page...
...In short, this latest "agreement" was merely a re-statement of the status quo ante bellum...
...Even the local press had to concede that the pick-up system moved with "military precision...
...This, everybody was sure, would make front page news...
...But it is not the White House of the Confederacy, preserved in Montgomery by aged daughters of the Lost Cause, that attracted the newspaper men, sociologists, and just plain visitors who have been floating in and out these past few weeks...
...To counteract this economic squeeze, the mayor called on the white public to support the buses...
...M. L. King Jr...
...But Negroes knew on whose side the police and the lily-white militia would be when they came in to "put down disorder...
...The silence and inaction of the Federal Government, in the face of the daily abuse, beatings and killings of Negro citizens, was maddening...
...every Negro stay off the buses Monday in protest of this arrest and trial...
...The mayor and the other commissioners embarked upon a "get tough" policy...
...The Negro ministers, rising to the occasion, improvised a declaration of principles...
...Accordingly, on February 1 a suit was filed in the local federal courts, asking for the end of bus jim crow on the grounds that it is contrary to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States...
...V11 Meanwhile, a fresh effort was made to re-open negotiations...
...Normally, the church holds about 1500 persons...
...Early newspaper stories started off in this fashion: "Negro goon squads reportedly have been organized here to intimidate Negroes who ride...
...Obviously, this announcement was a calculated maneuver to get the ex-bus riders back on the buses Sunday morning...
...On Sunday, January 22, the Negro community was astounded to read in the morning paper that a settlement had been reached...
...The meetings are rotated from church to church...
...First come, first serve" would obtain for the unreserved, middle section...
...The bus company summarily rejected the proposal of the Negroes...
...Negroes laugh when they tell about this...
...Within minutes hundreds of Negroes flocked to King's home...
...Furthermore, the court was asked to stop the city commissioners from violating the civil rights of Negro motorists and pedestrians...
...Here markers tell the visitor where Jefferson Davis stood when he swore allegiance to the Southern Confederacy...
...The police would "cut the legs off" the boycott by a campaign of arrests for real and imaginary traffic infractions...
...Many whites who would like to see the boycott ended and who feel that the demands of the Negroes are reasonable, are afraid to admit this...
...ists from Japan, England, France...
...These two men symbolize the poise, the thoughtfulness and the ability of the independent ministers...
...The declaration of courtesy carried no machinery for assuring its practice...
...Both the press and the police expected violence...
...Several of the leaders felt that maybe the boycott might as well be called off since in the end the courts would settle the issue...
...others disliked "tangling with the law...
...if Negroes did not ride the buses they could not operate...
...Rowan then contacted one of the Montgomery commisioners who confirmed the story but refused to give the names of the Negro ministers involved...
...It stood to lose part of the $20,000 in taxes it received from the bus company each year...
...Communication is by word of mouth and through churches mainly...
...Since the Negro ministers were cagey about revealing who was directing the movement, that seemed to whet the appetite of the reporters...
...The Negro ministers had hastily scheduled a mass meeting for Monday evening...
...In reply, the Negroes organized a voluntary motor pool...
...They have given us a magnificent case study of the circumstances under which the philosophy of Thoreau and Gandhi can triumph...
...The commissioners lost face...
...The business men's club met several times, separately, with the city commission and a committee from the Montgomery Improvement Association...
...Moreover, if white passengers were already occupying all of their reserved seats and additional white passengers boarded the bus, Negro passengers, sitting in the unreserved section immediately behind the whites, might be asked to get up and "move back" by the bus driver...
...Surely, a man had the right to give someone a ride in his own automobile...
...Accordingly, they arrested a college student, saying that he had pulled a Negro woman from a bus as she was attempting to get on it...
...the Montgomery Improvement Association is the brains...
...The more vulnerable intellectuals stay discreetly in the background...
...For two months the Negroes had clung to the hope of a settlement on the basis of their limited demands...
...something to absorb their energies...
...It is the bus boycott...
...Other omissions were equally strange...
...The high point of the "get tough" operation was the arrest of Rev...
...AS FOR THE FUTURE, nobody can be sure...
...All this, of course, was the traditional, Confederate, flagwaving appeal to white supremacy...
...Negroes seem to feel that desegregation will work overnight miracles...
...These words have never been contradicted...
...They fear that to "give in" on this means that "all" is lost...
Vol. 3 • April 1956 • No. 2
