We, who are living today, live in an age which is most glorious, not only because of man’s achievement in the various sciences, particularly the physical sciences, as evidenced, among other things, by the projection of two Sputniks1 circling the earth in outer apace, but in the proximity to full citizenship in our American Republic, which all its people are beginning to enjoy for the first time without regard to race or color. The entire history of our country, during Colonial days, and since the establishment of our Republic, is blighted with the stain of denying to a sizeable, supporting, and loyal element of its population, full and free participation in the more vital and significant phases of its life, and even fair opportunity to develop its potentials. Our Nation, whose Declaration of Independence is based upon the hypothesis that "All men are created equal" and have "inalienable rights",2 for the first time in its history is beginning to accord its citizens of color the same rights and privileges that Europeans enjoy even when they have been in this country less than an hour. We as a people have not yet reached the Promised Land but we stand at its gate ready to march in.
Three terms express the status or position which the Negro has had, now has, and will have in our American society. In their chronological order, they are, “segregation”, “desegregation”, and “integration”.
The term “segregation” refers to the exclusion, isolation, or separation of an individual or a group of people from the main body of society.
Segregation of Negroes in America is a practice which grew out of the doctrine that white people were inherently superior to people of color. Or as expressed in The Supreme Court Dred Scott decision, of 1857, no Negro has any “rights which the white man was bound to respect".3 This doctrine of inherent racial superiority and therefore inherent racial inferiority, grew up to justify the practice of enslaving the Negro whom much of the Church at the time was trying to evangelize and convert to Christianity. This was done so that one could enslave his fellowman, even his "brother in Christ" without feeling condemned by his conscience and criticized by his fellowmen.
Two factors have been very effective in the development and strengthening of segregation in America. Slavery, with the psychological necessity to justify its practices, was basic in the establishment and strengthening of racial segregation. It has even dominated the scene from the Civil War to this day. Another powerful influence in this direction, since 1896, was the United States Supreme Court decision in the Plessy-Ferguson4 case which justified racial segregation.
Homer Plessy, who was one-eighth Negro and seven-eighths white, entered a railroad coach to travel from New Orleans, La. to Covington, Ky. The conductor told him to that he must travel in a special coach for Negroes only, because he was a Negro. Plessy refused to move. A policeman was called who placed him in jail. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court which upheld the Louisiana Supreme Court action5 in a long decision. This decision became a major legal and sociological justification of segregation in practically all areas of life. The U.S. Supreme Court in Plessy made the following points as outlined by Hill6 and Greenberg7 in “Citizen’s Guide to De-Segregation”.8
"State imposed segregation was not prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment,9 which banned slavery. Segregation was not as its opponents claimed, a badge of servitude" which tended "to destroy the legal equality of the two races, or establish a state of involuntary servitude.
"Although the Fourteenth Amendment10 was intended "to enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law...it could not have been intended to abolish distinctions based upon color, or to enforce social, as distinguished from political equality, or a commingling of the two races upon terms unsatisfactory to either.”
"Public education is "social”, and segregation in public education is an example of state power to segregate where social rights are involved. Segregation in coach travel, which is "social" too, is also constitutional. But although the state may segregate, it must secure, "to each of its citizens equal rights before the law and equal opportunities for improvement and progress. This was taken to mean “separate-but-equal." [emphasis added].
"The railway segregation law was reasonable. Reasonableness (a basic requirement of the fourteenth Amendment) was found in the custom and traditions of the people, which opposed the association of whites and Negroes, and in a need to prevent violence, which would occur if there were no segregation.”
"The Court had this to say:
We consider the underlying fallacy of the plaintiff's argument to consist in assumption that the enforced separation of the two races stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority…The argument also assumes that the social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights: cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition.”
Justice John Marshall Harlan, the only dissenting judge, stated that the Louisiana laws, which were upheld by the Supreme Court decision, placed a "badge of servitude upon the Negro." He also said:
“What can more certainly create and perpetuate a feeling of distrust between these races, than state enactments which in fact, proceed on the
ground that colored citizens are so inferior and degraded that they cannot be allowed to sit in public coaches occupied by white citizens? That, as all will admit, is the real meaning of such legislation as was enacted in Louisiana."
This historic decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Plessy-Ferguson case in 1896, gave moral as well as legal sanction and encouragement in more firmly fixing in our social, economic, and religious fabric and our psychological constitutions or systems, not only the feeling of the practicability but the of righteousness of racial segregation.
Justice Harlan’s position and statements regarding the Plessy-Ferguson case, which was the curse upon the Eastern world, was not only the expression of a prophetic vision, but a guiding light and a powerful creative force that found expression and fulfillment in the same body, the U.S. Supreme Court in its world redeeming and America curing decision, May 17, 1954.11
Many and effective have been the forces at work during these 6l years since the Plessy-Ferguson decision, to free the Negro people directly and America indirectly, from racial, segregation in our country and from the social and spiritual wreckage which it has forced upon the human race.
In 1922 Charles Garland, a wealthy young man desiring to help humanity, set up The American Fund for Public Service12 to which he gave his entire fortune of almost a million dollars. The officers of the Fund opposed segregation and believed that an effective stand could be taken against it, with a coordinated legal program more than with piecemeal emergency work. The Fund allocated $100,000 to plan and carry out such a project in the areas of education, transportation, housing, jury discrimination, voting and forced labor. Mr. Nathan Margold, former assistant U.S. Attorney, member of the New York Bar and a Harvard Law School instructor, was engaged to head up the Campaign in 1930. In 1934 the Garland Fund gave the N.A.A.C.P. one-tenth of its original commitment [that is $10,000]. The depression had greatly reduced its securities. In the same year Dr. Charles H. Houston, the dean of the Howard Law School, graduate of the Harvard Law School and a recipient of the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from the University of Madrid, was elected to direct the Campaign succeeding Mr. Margold, who had left the program to become Solicitor of the Department of Interior. When Dr. Houston became the head of the Campaign the following announcement was made:
"It should be made clear that the campaign is a carefully planned one to
secure decisions, ruling and public opinion on the broad principal instead
of being devoted to merely miscellaneous cases."
Judge William H. Hastie said of Dr. Houston after his death in 1950:
He “led through the legal wilderness of second-class citizenship. He was truly the Moses of that journey. He lived to see us close to the promised land of full equality under the law, closer than even he dared hope when he set out on the journey, and so much closer than would have been possible without his genius and leadership."
Prior to May 17, 1954 the N.A.A.C.P. won several cases in the courts which gave impetus to the program of desegregation. The Donald Murray13 cases which resulted in his admission to Maryland Law School established an important precedent, social and legal. Its outcome showed that desegregation in professional education worked well.
Hill and Greenberg state that the more than forty cases pressed by the N.A.A.C.P., most of which were won or settled in the lower Courts, increased the cost of segregation and brought greater economic strength to the Negro community. The cases set the face of the law clearly against segregation and discrimination. These decisions were of great significance socially and politically. Negro political power in the south became an important force. "The Restrictive Covenant cases” resulted in actual changes in Negro housing patterns.14 The segregation pattern in segregated transportation was changed by the Mitchell15and Morgan16 cases.
“In seven of these cases the federal government felt morally bound to take the part of those who attacked discrimination or segregation.”
“The Sweatt,17 McLaurin,18 and Henderson19 cases were all decided on the same day, June 5, 1950. In each of them the court unanimously ordered that segregation of the Negro plaintiff cease.”
“As a result thousands of Negro students entered formerly all white schools.”
The famous decision of the United States Supreme Court of May 17, 1954, barring segregation in public school is too well known to need emphasis.20 The highest authority of the United States both outlawed segregation and denied the grounds on which it is based. Other decisions of the United States Supreme Court and lower federal courts outlawed segregation in transportation, public parks, swimming pools and public housing. A new order has begun, new responsibilities face us.
Within four months of the decision, of May 17, desegregation had begun in public schools in four major cities (Washington, Baltimore, St. Louis, and Wilmington), as well as more than forty cities and towns.”
In a survey made by the Southern Regional Council21 of segregation in the South between May l954 and May 1956, nearly 1100 instances of desegregation were discovered. They were almost evenly divided between the “border” states on the one hand and the twelve “Southern” states on the other. Virtually all of them took place "smoothly and harmoniously.”
The survey goes on to say that, while court decisions and other legal directives prompted desegregation in certain fields--notably in public education, transportation and recreation—many changes were the result of voluntary decision, according to this report. The report also stated that the results of the survey suggested that beneath the surface of turmoil of southern resistance, deep running currents, are steadily eroding the undemocratic patterns of the past. "The causative forces are many—moral, economic, political and international—but not the least of them is the insistent stirring of a broader conception of human dignity among Southerners, white, and Negro."
Desegregation has been described as a neutralizing process that must occur when groups have been prevented from having equal access to the materials of a society and egalitarian relations with other groups, races, ages, religions, sexes, or classes because of edicts or customs which have limited the character and extent of their participation. “Desegregation is at once the removal of these barriers and the essentials prerequisite to integration. It is achieved to the degree that it succeeds in modifying the social institutions, the personal behavior and the value systems which supports the segregated structure.”
Dr. Herbert Blumer22 says, “desegregation is not a task of eliminating or reversing the process which led to segregation, but rather of arresting or immobilizing its end operation."
Desegregation laws get some white people who want to stop segregation and discrimination off the hook. They can claim that they did not initiate it and therefore avoid the criticism of the local white community for starting integration or being “nigger lovers”.
More laws are needed in Baltimore and the state of Maryland to remove segregation and discrimination in such areas as restaurant and hotel accommodations, and employment. In all probability more laws on the statute books will be necessary to get this done. Therefore more people who are suffering from these discriminatory practices and others who want to see democratic principles in our fair state, will need to register if they are not already registered, and vote for persons who will see the proper laws are passed which will guarantee full civil rights for all the citizens of the state without regard to race, or color or religion.
However necessary and important desegregation is, it is not enough. It is an important step but only a step. Desegregation can change the practice but integration is necessary to establish the values needed for all people regardless of race or religion to be accepted and appreciated for what the individual is in himself and not as a member or a particular race or religion. Attitudes supporting brotherhood and a sense and appreciation of the human worth are things of the spirit and not external matters.
Integration is complete when people of majority and minority groups are treated as individuals with no conscious concern for their ethnic background. "It means a lack of color sense." Therefore, the goal is not desegregation. The goal is integration and thus the principle must be in a sense of relatedness to put it in religious terms, brotherliness. We must employ a method which will give some hope of achieving both legal equality and relatedness.
Robert Weaver23 said, "Integration is the situation and the process which exists when men in society are breaking down such barriers while moving toward the full acceptance of al1 people without reference to their racial, religious or ethnic differences. It is the process of achieving full equality of status and condition."
Proper social attitudes cannot be developed in a vacuum. Attitudes of racial
superiority or racial inferiority or hostility developing logically out of the social situation already described, must be changed and replaced by mutual respect and brotherly love. Whatever attitudes one might have were "learned" and not inherited biologically. They can be "unlearned” through experience, properly guided, enriched and controlled. Socially unhealthy attitudes can be replaced by socially healthy ones.
The simple basic principles of Christian faith expressed in the idea of the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of all men, should compel mutual respect and a sense of the dignity of personality.
The belief that God made from one, every nation of man to live on the face of the earth, should give us a sense of our common destiny. The admonition, “So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them,” and “You shall love your neighbors as yourself,” are guiding principals which have not been surpassed. The acceptance and practice of them in various types of interracial contacts will give new appreciations of each other and help develop in us more fully integrated and happier personalities. Various types of experiences should be provided for members of both racial groups on the basis of equality. Well planned activities by churches, educational, social, labor and professional groups tend to speed up the growth of the spirit of brotherliness and the absence of any consciousness of race or religion.
I here repeat a statement which I made in 1927 to the American Baptist Convention meeting in Chicago. “Racial antagonisms and misunderstandings will not be solved by mere discussions and debate but by cooperative activity. There is so much more likeness than difference, so many more common problems, interests, and destinies than self-centered ones, that if everyone should lose himself in the common task of solving the common problems, a new appreciation would be developed. A new sense of interdependence would be realized and incidentally the spirit of brotherhood would force out the spirit of antagonism and hate. We would awake to find ourselves in a new world; in the Kingdom of God—a society which not only makes it possible for but which is conducive to the highest and best fulfillment of personalities of all people, of all races, classes and conditions. The goal will not be reached until every American boy or girl, man and woman can face the flag of our great nation and say in the Pledge, with no reservations, but with enthusiastic joy: One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
* John Lee Tilley was a Civil Rights Leader and the first permanent Executive Director of Dr. martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This article was written in November-December of 1957.
[Notes not in original. Research by: Oren Graupe, Research Assistant]
1 Sputnik I was the first artificial satellite successfully launched into space. It was launched October 4, 1957. Sputnik II was launched November 3, 1957. http://apod.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap001007.html
2 Declaration of Independence, [2] (1776).
3 Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857).
4 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
5 Ex Parte Homer A Plessy, 45 La. Ann. 80 (1893).
6 Herbert Hill (1924-2004), Labor Director of the N.A.A.C.P. 1951-1977, Civil Rights activist.
7 Jack Greenberg (b. 1924), Succeeded Justice Thurgood Marshall as Director Counsel for the N.A.A.C.P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund 1961-1984, Civil Rights activist.
8 Hill, Herbert and Greenberg, Jack. Citizen’s Guide to Desegregation: A Study of Social and Legal Change in American Life. US: The Beacon Press, 1955.
9 Amendment to U.S. Constitution: passed by Congress January 31, 1865. Ratified December 6, 1865.
10 Amendment to U.S. Constitution: passed by Congress June 13, 1866. Ratified July 9, 1868.
11 Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, et al., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
12 Also known as the Garland Fund. Its Mission was "to aid groups disadvantaged under the present conditions, especially industrial workers, farmers, and minority groups."
13 Pearson v. Murray, 169 Md. 478 (1936).
14 See Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). Corrigan v. Buckley, 271 U.S. 323 (1926). Hansberry is the true history behind playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun based on the author’s experiences growing up in a Chicago neighborhood.
15 Arthur W. Mitchell v. United States, 313 U.S. 80 (1941). (Richard E. Westbrooks and Arthur W. Mitchell, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellant)
16 Irene Morgan v. Virginia, 328 U.S. 373 (1946).
17 Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629, (1950).
18 McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Ed., 339 U.S. 637 (1950).
19 Henderson v. U.S., 339 U.S. 816 (1950).
20 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
21 The Southern Regional Council. See: www.southerncouncil.org
22 Herbert Blumer (1900-1987). Professor at the University of Chicago (1928-1952); Chair of Sociology department at the University of California at Berkeley (1952-1972).
23 Robert Weaver (1907-1997). Held various Federal and State agency positions (1933-1966), including head of the federal Housing and Home Finance Agency. The inaugural Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (1966), and the first Black ever to hold a U.S. Cabinet post.
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Resolution
1954 Decision
