THE BURNING TRUTH IN THE SOUTH
King, Martin Luther Jr.
The Burning Truth in the South by MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. This article by Dr. King, the celebrated leader of the passive resistance movement in the South, is the first of two studies of the...
...He cannot understand why he is welcomed with open arms at most counters in the store, but is denied service at a certain counter because it happens to be selling food and drink...
...It was first modestly and quietly projected in one community, Montgomery, when the threat of violence became real in the bus protest...
...Nevertheless, the spirit of self-sacrifice and commitment remains firm, and the state governments find themselves dealing with students who have lost the fear of jail and physical injury...
...Through five years of turmoil some advances were achieved...
...The victory is far from complete, but the determination by Negroes that it will be won is universal...
...It would be futile to deplore, as many do, the tensions accompanying the social changes...
...One may wonder why the present movement started with the lunch counters...
...In this event they must live with discord or themselves initiate, and be responsible for, violence with all its evil consequences...
...In one after another of the new African states black men form the government, write the laws, and administer the affairs of state...
...Hence, a period began in which the emphasis shifted from the slow court process to direct action in the form of bus protests, economic boycotts, mass marches to and demonstrations in the nation's capital and state capitals...
...Studies by many commissions, unhappily devoid of power, continue to pose problems without any concrete results that could be translated into jobs, education, equality of opportunity, and access to die fruits of an historic period of prosperity...
...Nevertheless, though explicitly regretting that King George had forced them to this extreme by a long "train of abuses," they resolutely acted and a great new society was born...
...it has lost its fears, and experienced the majestic dignity of a direct struggle for its own liberation...
...Court actions are often surrounded by a special type of red tape that has made for long drawn-out processes of litigation and evasive schemes...
...Lest it be forgotten, the opening of hundreds of schools to Negroes for the first time in history required that there be young Negroes with the moral and physical courage to face the challenges and, all too frequently, the mortal danger presented by mob resistance...
...Thus finally simple logic and justice in their own interests should direct them to the only acceptable solution—to accept equality and maintain it on the best level for both races...
...Indeed, the determination of Negro Americans to win freedom from all forms of oppression springs from the same deep longing that motivates oppressed peoples all over the world...
...It is absurd to think of this movement as being initiated by Communists or some other outside group...
...Second—It denies that vengeance for past oppression motivates the new spirit of determined struggle...
...They are doing this in a nation whose own birth spread new principles and shattered a medieval social society then dominating most of the globe...
...The United States Supreme Court decision of 1954 was viewed by Negroes as the delivery of part of the promise of change...
...King, the celebrated leader of the passive resistance movement in the South, is the first of two studies of the historic sit-down protest of Negro students...
...In unequivocal language the Court affirmed that "separate but equal" facilities are inherently unequal, and that to segregate a child on the basis of his race is to deny that child equal protection of the law...
...Thus, it is consistent with the deeply religious traditions of Negroes...
...This movement is an expression of the longing of a new Negro for freedom and human dignity...
...Never before in the United States had so large a body of students spread a struggle over so great an area in pursuit of a goal of human dignity and freedom...
...It was the high school, college, and elementary school young people who were in the front line of the school desegregation struggle...
...The Negro students, their parents, and their allies are acting today in that imperishable tradition...
...Hundreds of thousands of young Negro men were mustered out of the armed forces, and with their honorable discharge papers and G.I...
...It was the young veteran who gave the first surge of power to the postwar civil rights movements...
...They may make the facilities equally bad for both white and Negro or equally good...
...Though confronted in many places by hoodlums, police guns, tear gas, arrests, and jail sentences, the students tenaciously continue to sit down and demand equal service at variety store lunch counters, and extend their protest from city to city...
...It is no overstatement to characterize these events as historic...
...rather, it will spread to libraries, public parks, schools, and the like, and these too will have to be closed, thus depriving both white and Negro of necessary cultural and recreational institutions...
...The segregationists now face some hard alternatives: They can continue to seek to maintain segregated facilities...
...But with the punishments, something more is growing...
...The simple courage of students and their parents should never be forgotten...
...Or finally, they can accept the principle of equality...
...Some changes did appear—but commensurate neither with the promise nor the need...
...A generation of young people has come out of decades of shadows to face naked state power...
...It has discredited the adversary, who knows how to deal with force but is bewildered and panicky in the face of the new techniques...
...The answer lies in the fact that here the Negro has suffered indignities and injustices that cannot be justified or explained...
...The appeal of non-violence has many facets: First—It proclaims the sincere and earnest wish of the Negro that though changes must be accomplished, there is no desire to use or tolerate force...
...One perceptible aspect was the steady, significant increase in voting registration which took place, symbolizing the determination of the Negro, particularly the veteran, to make his rights a reality...
...In this new method of protest a new philosophy provided a special undergirding—the philosophy of nonviolence...
...In a real sense the "sit-ins" represent more than a demand for service...
...This quality has given it the extraordinary power and discipline which every thinking person observes...
...It is extremely significant that in many places the Negro students have found white allies to join in their actions...
...It is equally significant that on a mass scale students and adults in the North and elsewhere have organized supporting actions, many of which are still only in their early stages...
...Almost every Negro has experienced the tragic inconveniences of lunch counter segregation...
...The arresting upsurge of Africa and Asia is remote neither in time nor in space to the Negro of the South...
...Time will reveal that the students are learning lessons not contained in their textbooks...
...They may close the facilities as they have done in many places...
...A revolution is occurring in both the social order and the human mind...
...Hundreds have already been expelled, fined, imprisoned, and brutalized, and the numbers continue to grow...
...Fourth—Many Negroes recognize the necessity of creating discord to alter established community patterns, but they strongly desire that controls be built in, so that neither they nor their adversaries would find themselves engaged in mutual destruction...
...It is a final refutation of the time-honored theory that the Negro prefers segregation...
...Many related, interacting social forces must be understood if we are to understand history as it is being made...
...One hundred eighty-four years ago a bold group of men signed the Declaration of Independence...
...There were such young Negroes in the tens of thousands, and no program for integration failed for want of students...
...The outcome of the present struggle will be some time in unfolding, but the line of its direction is clear...
...The number of registered voters reached a point higher than exists today...
...But the implementation of the decision was not to be realized without a sharp and difficult struggle...
...The suddenness with which this development burst upon the nation has given rise to the description "spontaneous...
...Few Americans outside the immediately affected areas even realized a struggle was taking place...
...First, we should go back to the ending of World War II...
...What relation have these events to the student sit-downs...
...These students were anchored to lunch counter seats by the accumulated indignities of days gone by and the boundless aspirations of generations yet unborn...
...Bill of Rights grants, they received a promise from a grateful nation that the broader democracy for which they had fought would begin to assume reality...
...These young people have connected up with their own history—the slave revolts, the incomplete revolution of the Civil War, the brotherhood of colonial colored men in Africa and Asia...
...The second article by James and Wilma Dykeman Stokely, the prize-winning writing team in the South, will present a first-hand report of how the sit-downs work and what they are achieving...
...In communities like Montgomery, Alabama, the whole student body rallied behind expelled students and staged a walkout while state government intimidation was unleashed with a display of military force appropriate to a wartime invasion...
...If their struggle had been lost they had signed their own death warrant...
...They believed in this promise and acted in the conviction that changes were guaranteed...
...This would be a step backward for the whole of society...
...This mass action infused a new spirit of direct action challenging government to act forthrightly...
...An electrifying movement of Negro students has shattered the placid surface of campuses and communities across the South...
...Hence for a decade young Negroes have been steeled by both deeds and inspiration to step into responsible action...
...Negroes have also experienced sharp frustrations as they struggle for the realization of promises expressed in hollow legislative enactments or empty electoral campaign oratory...
...Then, the new will and determination of the Negro were irrevocably generated...
...In the years 1958 and 1959 two massive Youth Marches to Washington for Integrated Schools involved some 40,000 young people who brought with them nearly 500,000 signatures on petitions gathered largely from campuses and youth centers...
...Yet it is not without clearly perceivable causes and precedents...
...In "the affluent society," the Negro has remained the poor, the underprivileged, and the lowest class...
...The key significance of the student movement lies in the fact that from its inception, everywhere, it has combined direct action and non-violence...
...Fifth—Having faith that the white majority is not an undifferentiated whole, Negro leaders have welcomed a moral appeal which can reach the emotions and intellect of significant white groups...
...The Negro has also become aware that token integration was not a start in good faith but a new form of discrimination covered up with certain niceties...
...The contrast is a burning truth which has molded a deep determination to end this intolerable condition...
...The appeal of the philosophy of non-violence encompasses these many requirements...
...Struggles of a local character began to emerge, but the scope and results were limited...
...These are the precedents for the student struggle of today...
...But in state after state in the United States the Negro is ruled and governed without a fragment of participation in civic life...
...Tension and conflict are not alien nor abnormal to growth but are the natural results of the process of changes...
...Conferences from the lowest levels of officialdom up to the Chief Executive in the White House result in the clarification of problems—but not their solution...
...They are an integral part of the history which is reshaping the world, replacing a dying order with modern democracy...
...In this case they still have two alternative approaches...
...It was inevitable, therefore, that a more direct approach would be sought —one which would contain the promise of some immediate degree of success based upon the concrete act of the Negro...
...It will appear in the June issue of The Progressive.—The Editors...
...However inadequate forms of education and communication may be, the ordinary Negro Jim Smith knows that in primitive jungle villages in India still illiterate peasants are casting a free ballot for their state and federal legislators...
...they represent a demand for respect...
...This decision brought hope to millions of disinherited Negroes who had formerly dared only to dream of freedom...
...But this will not end the movement...
...But it burst from this limited arena, and was embraced by masses of people across the nation with fervor and consistency...
...Third—It brings to the point of action a great multitude who need the assurance that a technique exists which is suitable and practical for a minority confronting a majority often vicious and possessed of effective weapons of combat...
Vol. 24 • May 1960 • No. 5
