The Home Front:
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Souths New Reconstruction THE GREATE Supreme Court decision on segregation in the schools was handed down on May 17, 1954. I celebrated the anniversary...
...The New Deal had something to do with it...
...but not much...
...So, reading this book on this anniversary...
...We have all taken for granted that separation of the races is an old custom south of the Mason-Dixon line...
...The FEPC had its effect...
...Churches are gradually waking up to the idea of brotherhood...
...From 1865 to 1890, the notion of separation had not taken form...
...Jim Crow railway practices were cut down...
...Professor Woodward quotes William Graham Sumner's dicta, "Legislation cannot make mores" and "Stateways cannot change folkways...
...Long before May 17, 1954...
...The irresistible force was running straight into the immovable obstacle...
...Early in the present century, Sumner and many other scholars bowed before racial customs as practically immovable...
...In their enthusiasm, these law-makers made a thorough job of it...
...2.50...
...Professor Woodward records, the only segregation law adopted by the majority of Southern states was that applying to railway passengers...
...The book is The Strange Career of Jim Crow by C. Vann Woodward (Oxford...
...That is one reason I take its statements with a good deal of faith...
...The impression left with the reader is that we are here dealing, not with a mere decision of a court, but with a deep-down social tide...
...During the time of slavery, of course, there had been no such thing as segregation...
...In Birmingham...
...The results could be tragic...
...Negro athletes now play on many Southern teams...
...Up to 1900...
...Integration in the armed forces exerted a powerful influence...
...Professor Woodward writes with all the coolness of the professional researcher...
...It is a very recent set of customs based on a series of state laws and municipal ordinances passed about the turn of the last century...
...The two races went about their business together as a matter of course...
...Professor Woodward regards the change as something based upon a whole series of intellectual, social and economic causes...
...Negro news got a better play in southern papers...
...the chapters of this one were first delivered as lectures at the University of Virginia...
...When the Supreme Court boldly declared that segregation in the public schools is contrary to the Constitution, many good liberals suffered pangs of fear...
...The push to put them through came largely from politicians eager to secure and retain the support of the poorer sections of the white population...
...Nobody needs to force the South to be good...
...I feel pretty good...
...The first of these facts has to do with segregation as a part of Southern psychology...
...In his final section, our author traces all too briefly the story of the easing of racial tensions during recent years...
...I celebrated the anniversary of that historic date by reading a book which adds materially to my hope that the opinions of the nine Justices will be substantially translated into reality...
...The distinguished statesmen of the South were nearly all opposed to these innovations...
...Both are matters of fact...
...If we could get them through the heads of a lot of people both North and South, the great debate would be put upon a more factual basis, and a good deal of the heat would die down...
...Both are completely proved by recorded data to which the author gives references...
...The races lived together in closest intimacy...
...Another is that there is nothing sentimental or emotional about it...
...In some places, they segregated the prostitutes or provided that white and colored witnesses in court should have separate Bibles to kiss...
...In a few racy pages, he proves that segregation of our whites and Negroes in the Southern states is by no means an ancient custom...
...Two points in this little volume are important in connection with the great debate about segregation in the schools...
...Most of the present restrictive regulations were put into effect between 1900 and 1910...
...And we all stand in awe of inbred notions...
...If a custom is a folkway, the theory is that nothing can be done about it...
...The author was born in Arkansas, is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins and has written several books on the history of the South...
...Alabama, an ordinance provided that it was "unlawful for a Negro and a white person to play together or in company with each other at dominoes or checkers...
...the people of the South were making changes in the direction of equality...
...To him it is another reconstruction—only a much deeper and more beneficial one than that which followed the Civil War...
...Lynching finally disappeared...
...These words mores and folkways are professional patter which carry their own authority...
...To this dilemma, historian Woodward furnishes a simple solution...
...It has nothing to do with mores or folkways...
...Here were nine men attacking what was taken to be an old Southern custom...
...The book comes, then, from the heart of the region which is supposed to be against all change...
...In comparison, laws and court decisions are superficial, ineffective devices...
Vol. 38 • May 1955 • No. 22
