RACE INEQUALITY IN U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25328, 30 October 1947, Page 7

RACE INEQUALITY IN U.S.

Truman Committee Urges Reforms WORLD OPINION CONSIDERED (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) WASHINGTON, Oct 28. The Committee on Civil Rights appointed by President Truman proposed to-day that racial segregation be wiped but of American life. It added that for moral, economic, and international reasons “the time is now.” The committee’s report urges the enactment of Federal anti-lynching, anti-Sill-tax, and fair employment practice ws. Congress and the States are urged to outlaw segregation and discrimination based on race, colour, creed, or national origin in trains, buses, schools, hospitals, theatres, hotels, restaurants, the armed services, and private employment, and also “restrictive covenants” whereby property owners bind themselves not to sell or lease to “undesirables.”

The committee says: “The United States is not so strong and the final triumph of the democratic ideal is not so inevitable that we can ignore what the world thinks of us or our record.” The report says that the “separate but equal” idea, as when a State has one school system for whites and another for negroes, “is one of the outstanding myths of American history. It is almost always true that while indeed separate these facilities are far from equal.” The committee also criticises “the irresponsible opportunists who make it a practice to attack as Communists every person or group .with whom they disagree.” It concludes: “A state of near hysteria now threatens to inhibit the freedom of genuine democrats.”