EPITAPH FOR JIM CROW

[Music] [Applause] [Music] e [Music] if you're white you're right if you're black step back so goes a familiar expression among negro Americans its truth is dramatized daily in the restrictions placed on the Negro by the Jim Crow system of segregation a subtle system in the north a blatant system in the South the Stark signs of Jim Crow tell the story whites only we wash for white people only in various forms and disguises segregation has been with us ever since slavery was abolished the very name Jim Crow is made up of two derogatory slang terms commonly used for the Negro and negro Americans have voiced their protest against its indignities from its Inception consider the case of Mrs Katherine Brown one brisk winter day Mrs Brown a charwoman in the chambers of the United States Senate set out from Washington DC to cross the pomac river and visit Alex Andria Virginia little did she realize that her 25 cent roundtrip Rail ticket entitled her to fire an opening shot in the long struggle against Jim Crowe for this was 1868 Mrs Brown was a negro and her trip was to prove historic her ride over to Virginia was quiet and pleasant but her attempt to return the same day was neither quiet nor Pleasant no segregation was practiced by the railroad on its trains leaving Washington but trains leaving Alexandria had a special car for all passengers of color Catherine Brown however did not take her seat in the Jim Crow car instead she made herself comfortable in the car reserved for whites a Depot attendant soon spotted her and informed her of the Jim Crow car but Mrs Brown refused to leave whereupon to quote the later legal description the man attempted to put her out by great force and violence with insult and indignities she was compelled to employ a physician and remain under treatment on the advice of a senate committee which held a hearing in her Shanty home Mrs Brown sued the railroad for $220,000 in a local Court the jury decided in her favor and awarded her $1,500 at this point the railroad defendants took their case on appeal to the United States Supreme Court the 1873 arguments before the high court have a mid 20th century ring even though the 14th and 15th constitutional amendments were not involved the case revolved in large part around the meaning of the Congressional Charters to the railroad which is asserted that quote no person should be excluded from the Cars on account of color unquote now the railroad lawyers contended that this provision was met by the separate Jim Crow car that assured that no negro would be excluded from the entire train Mrs Brown's lawyers disagreed however they maintain that the charter provision meant no racial discrimination and that se separate facilities were in themselves discriminatory the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mrs Brown upholding the lore Court action and on the matter of separate cars the court opinion pretended the future by reaching the same conclusion the Warren Court reached in the school desegregation cases in 1954 namely that separate racial facilities can never be equal by the very fact of being separate in 1955 87 years after Mrs Brown had refused to yield her seat the scene was repeated in Montgomery Alabama M Roser Parks a middle-aged negro seamstress started home one evening weary from her day's work at a department store after boarding a city bus and walking past the reserve white section in the front she slumped into the first seat of the Jim Crow section in the rear of the bus soon the bus filled with passengers and the driver ordered her and three other Negroes to give up their seats for white men who had just boarded the other Negroes complied with the order but Mrs Parks just as Mrs Brown before her quietly refused she was arrested at once Just 4 days after the arrest Mrs Parks was tried for disobeying the city's segregation ordinance she was of course found guilty and fined $10 plus $4 court cost her case made an excellent test of the legality of segregation and was immediately appealed 6 months after the arrest Alabama federal judges ruled that the city bus segregation statues were in violation of the 14th Amendment of our national Constitution and later the Supreme Court itself upheld this lore Court ruling now there had been many previous arrests following similar bus incidents throughout the whole South but this was the arrest that ignited the Negro Community Mrs Parks was highly respected among the city's Negroes a softspoken much admired woman her arrest shocked negro leaders in a matter of hours the idea of a boycott against the buses had been formulated and agreed upon within 24 hours mograph leaflets telling of the arrest and calling for a boycott had been widely distributed the boycott began in Earnest during the trial and picked up momentum until virtually no Negroes were riding in Montgomery's buses a new leader Dr Martin Luther King became the Chief symbol of this protest this to my mind is one of the greatest demonstrations of the fact that Negroes are not satisfied uh with uh second class citizenship with segregation and uh with the lack of voting rights so that this should convince the senators and representatives that negro citizens of the United States are determined to be free and the rest of America indeed the world watched fascinated as these developments unfolded the nonviolent bus boycott idea spread quickly to other American cities and even to South Africa the Montgomery movement triggered by the quiet seamstress had become a major turning point in American race relations even more important than the legal Victory achieved in Montgomery was this impetus and form the boycott gave to the Negro protest in America the technique of nonviolent protest was added to the legal and political weapons that had long comprised the Negro Arsenal soon the technique would be fashioned by negro youth into the cyan and freedom ride demonstrations against Jim Crow Katherine Brown and rosu Parks both acted you see in times of great social change and racial progress yet neither of the incidents was premeditated or planned though each of the actions set off a train 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 had passively complied with racial discrimination throughout their whole lives but on these occasions they were exhausted and return returning home after a long day and each of them in Mrs Park's words was fed up with Jim Crow right now the actions of negro Americans as determined and as fed up as Mrs Brown and Mrs parks are steadily inscribing the appeti for Jim Crow indeed race relations have become the most publicized and important domestic problem facing our nation today but no National concern is so clouded by emotion and misinformation as race relations a rational understanding of the problem's complexity by thoughtful Americans is sorely needed most of us however have either tried to ignore the problem or have relied on dangerously oversimplified explanations for example listen to these two gentlemen here it is again in the paper more trouble with the whites and the Negroes down south what's surprising about that well I just don't understand I mean why don't they leave well enough alone why do we have these men like Martin Luther King and these this NAACP stirring up trouble it gives America a bad look overseas I think the Negroes have a real gripe they've had it rough ever since they were slaves the whole problem is slavery if we'd never had slavery there wouldn't be any trouble today the first gentleman simply denies the problem and resents the activities of those who force him to recognize that everything is not perfect in race relations if he had brown skin I'm afraid like Mrs Brown and Mrs Parks he would find it difficult to ignore the second class citizenship granted dark Americans the second gentleman we've just seen faces the problem and makes an important historical Point slavery particularly in its unique American form did plant the roots of present day discrimination against Negroes in a real sense the two negro ladies were forced to surrender their seats because the slave status so long associated with brown skin still had force in 1868 and even in 1955 this and other historical considerations are important first approximations to understanding American race relations in bowl and sweeping Strokes history outlines the scope and direction of the process but our friend s in grossly oversimplifying the problem many other parts of the world Brazil for instance had slavery even longer than the United States and today have race relations patterns very different from ours nor can he explain why with almost everything else changing at an unprecedented rate has there been so little change in race relations over the past Century that two set similar seating incidents could happen 87 years apart obviously no one factor such as slavery can do justice to the complexity of race relations yet how often do we continue to hear set simple theories and Simple Solutions witness these three discussions but Harry this whole business of race it pivots on the point that the south is a PO agricultural area when more industry comes into the area why desegregation will come right in on its heels oh I don't think industry has anything to do with it that doesn't make people like other people anymore I think the whole problem is that these people don't have enough contact with one another if we could only get the Negroes and the whites together more like Brotherhood good week dinners oh you can blame it on anything you want but I know these Southerners they're just a bunch of stubborn bigots who naturally hate the Negro take it from me nothing is going to change their minds Ralph mcel the noted publisher and columnist of the Atlantic Constitution once remarked that racial desegregation was introduced into the South by the bo Weevil this incisive Insight refers to the vast social changes that have been occurring in the South during the past few decades with the B Weevil acting as a vital impetus to the South to release itself from the clutches of King Cotton this way of looking at racial change as part of the broader social changes going on in the society can be called the social cultural approach a perspective that updates and narrows our historical analysis the first gentleman we've just seen who stresses the importance of industry is viewing the process from this social cultural perspective and as far as it goes he is perfectly correct note that the desegregation of schools and lunch counties tends to occur first in the big modern cities of ler Nashville Memphis Houston Dallas indeed Jim Crow is fre quently the last vestage of the 19th century left in these rapidly growing industrial centers and it is soort of joint with the times in these cities that it should be obvious that segregation in all its forms is for Doom too but once again we see that this one factor accurate as it is within limits does not offer a complete explanation take uh Birmingham Alabama by way of illustration Birmingham is the Pittsburgh of the South a big sprawling Steel Center that meets our friends oversimplified requirement for desegregation and yet this city has been the scene of repeated racial violence in the last decade and it is one of the areas most defiantly resistant to racial change in the whole South nor can our friend explain why many white Southerners approved of Mrs Park's arrest and many others living in the same communities were deeply ashamed we're dealing you see with the most complex phenomenon now the concerned lady we just heard from adds another dimension that of contact between races in various situations now this situational Dimension cannot be overlooked for as Harry golden of only an America Fame was pointed out the particular situation can completely restructure race relations he notes that as long as everybody is standing up segregationists seem not to object to mixing freely with negro trouble usually begins when the race is sedan so golden suggested is their famous vertical plan for desegregation that is take out the seats from schools and lunch counters and then desegregate in time you can slowly revert back to seats by first having the students and customers reclining at 10° and then 20° and so forth for these things remarks golden with a Glen's eye must be done very gradually the unfortunate difficulty with the lady's proposed solution for the problem simply more interracial contact is that it makes an erroneous assumption more contact per se between groups does not necessarily make for better relations Negroes and whites have had more contact in the South for instance than anywhere else in the nation and yet my native region is not conspicuously famous for its interracial tolerance The crucial thing is what kind of contact now the lady is not alone in her naive assumption many well-meaning people who sincerely want to help in the writing of Jim Crow's epap have made the same assumption and have consequently in my opinion wasted much of their effort Brotherhood week instead of Brotherhood year is one expression of these honest efforts but such an Endeavor largely fails because it does not directly confront Americans as Mrs Brown and Mrs Parks confronted us with a concrete problem that we must solve indeed Brotherhood dinners at $50 or $100 a plate hell each year run the risk of allowing influential Americans to relieve annually their guilt over the treatment of their fellow Americans for modest tax deductible sum without actually doing anything now that same guilt directed in a more useful channel is urgently needed our third discussion voices an often heard Northern appraisal of the Southern scene the south is full of bigots he introduces a fourth perspective needed for understanding American race relations the personality approach the approach which considers the individuals in the process now I hope you'll excuse me as a native Southerner myself if I take exception to his oversimplified use of this perspective there are many reasons why a white Southerner discriminates against Negroes one of the important reasons to be sure as the gentleman has already indicated is pure unadulterated Prejudice and bigotry but important too is the motivation to get along with these neighbors to follow in the path of least resistance in a word to conform AR to the stern dictates of Southern Culture when your parents discriminate against Negroes when your peers discriminate against Negroes when your teachers at school discriminate against Negroes when refusing to discriminate against Negroes mean certain social ostracism you do not have to be a bigot to discriminate against Negroes yourself so powerful are the South's pressures to conform one prominent Southern scholar C van Woodward has observed that white Southern segregationists are not nearly as afraid of Communists and the Supreme Court and Yankees and Negroes their four favorite targets as they are afraid of each other we should ask too just what our Northern friend who is so impressed with Southern bigotry is doing to Aid race relations himself is he one of the many white Northerners who believes in desegregation for the South but who refuses to have Negroes buy homes in his neighborhood if he is then he fits perfectly the favorite even if strange defense of the Southern segregationist namely but the north is as guilty of mistreating The South The Negro rather as the South now don't misunderstand me I'm not defending the South by pointing out Northern bigotry rather I'm trying to show that the two regions ever since Katherine Brown's fateful ride in 1868 have been excusing their own forms of Jim C by emphasizing the sins of the other region both the North and South could make a strong case of course but two wrongs hardly make a right let's Eve drop once more on a typical discussion of American race relations but it's different here in the north we can't understand how the average white Southerner feels about the race problem they might have a point look if we live down there we'd probably look at things the way they do we'd probably think differently about the integration of schools and restaurants and buses yeah right and if you ask me the Negro ought to improve himself before he demands acceptance of the white people two more perspectives in which to view race relations have been added by these people the first person is particularly concerned with how white Southerners themselves perceive race relations and thus contributes yet another perspective from which the must be viewed unlike the previous four approaches his perceptual approach attempts to study the problem Through The Eyes of the people in the situation for obviously how they look at the process and not how we look at it directs their behavior however for example did the Montgomery Bus Driver interpret his calling of the police to arrest Mrs Parks now to guess what he thought on the basis of what the most vocal Southern sources say the politicians the segregationist newspaper editors and the organized resistance groups is most dangerous instead we must turn to public opinion poll studies to cut through the racist Den set up by these loud and conspicuous interpreters of the Southern scene and when we do we find that gallop Poes show four out of five white Southerners do in fact favor racial separation of public facilities but they also show that two or three of these same people realize that racial desegregation is inevitable furthermore research in Charlottesville Virginia indicates that white attitudes slowly but steadily become more favorable towards School desegregation after school desegregation has been in operation for a while now you'd hardly expect it uh from listening to the professional races most white Southerners you see actually expect and accept desegregation even if they do not welcome it in other words the handwriting on the wall is now so clear that even illiterates can easily read it the six and final perspective we need to evaluate properly American race relations Is introduced by the second gentleman we've just heard from by contending that negroes need to improve themselves before demanding acceptance by whites he raises questions about the object of the whole desegregation process the Negro American himself now this last approach then we might call the stimulus object approach there are many important issues to be raised from this perspective but our discussion is is laboring under two popular and damaging misconceptions first he apparently believes that Negroes should Advance under handicaps never faced by white Americans that is that the Negro must Prosper under Jim Crow denials of adequate education employment housing and so forth before desegregation should occur if he's genuinely interested in the advancement of negro Americans it would be more logical wouldn't it for him to work for the ending not the perpetuation of segregation he also seems to feel that the goal of current negro protest is to be accepted by whites now apart from the racial conceit and the arrogance it's implicitness assumption our friend is ignoring the essential Simplicity of the Negro americ aims namely to be allowed to be more more not less of an American to be a first class citizen with full rights and personal dignity recall the simple demands of Katherine Brown and Roser Parks they did not ask for white acceptance as such but merely for seat on a public conveyance indeed you remember Mrs Parks was already in the Negro section and weily wanted only to retain her seat at the end of a long day thus we see the epap for Jim Crow is now being written in many different ways if we are to understand this exciting process we must not limit ourselves to a single narrow perspective or to a casual Global statement that does not do justice to the problem's complexity we must Trace 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 negres and the quiet courage of such Americans as Katherine Brown and Roser [Music] [Applause] [Applause] marks [Applause] [Applause] cast in order of appearance Russell mares Russell Hayden Freeland Maris Donna Fraser Sherman kingsburry Neil Powell and Hal Pike Epitaph for Jim Crow is a presentation of the commission on extension courses 75 Mount Auburn Street Cambridge 38 Massachusetts in association with the LEL Institute Cooperative broadcasting Council WGBH TV Boston this is NE National educational television