The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1963. Toward Racial Equality In The U.S.

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30155, 12 June 1963, Page 14

The Press WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 1963. Toward Racial Equality In The U.S.

Racial integration has probably become the most important domestic issue of United States politics since 1865; and President Kennedy faces decisions no less critical than those Abraham Lincoln had to make. The campaign against racism has entered a new and urgent phase. Negro outbursts are no longer confined to the Deep South; and there is a real danger that violence will erupt in many centres as social pressures build up. Court orders. Federal marshals, and troops may suffice to quell localised disturbances such as those at Oxford, Mississippi, or Birmingham, Alabama; but a widespread loosening of restraints would present the Federal Government with very formidable problems indeed. Hitherto, with a few exceptions, moderate counsels have succeeded in preventing excesses by either negroes or die-hard segregationists. How much longer this moderation will prevail is doubtful. The peaceful Gandhian philosophy of men such as Dr. Martin Luther King is unlikely indefinitely to satisfy the thousands of negroes throughout America who see' their relegation to second-class citizenship as a denial of essential human rights rather than of privileges to be sought from or withheld by the white American. Extremism on both sides is the fearful risk that the Administration runs in delaying a dramatic gesture of reconciliation. And that gesture will need to be far more meaningful than President Kennedy’s latest appeal for racial tolerance before the American mayors’ conference in Hawaii. When the United States Supreme Court called eight years ago for the desegregation of public schools, it urged that the process should take place “with all “ deliberate speed ”. In the last few weeks the Court has indicated that the time for deliberation has passed, and that speed must be

the objective. It has severely restricted the rights of restaurateurs and shopowners to refuse service to negroes; it has confirmed the President’s right to send troops to Alabama in anticipation of violence; it has ruled against delay in desegregating parks and playgrounds, and against further delay in desegregating schools. Much as its pronouncements may influence policy, the Court cannot legislate for the Administration. Mr Kennedy and his advisers are preparing a legislative attack on discrimination in all shops and restaurants. This will be based upon the Federal Government’s power to regulate inter-State commerce, and thus to deny supplies from outside the borders of its own State to any undertaking that breaches the Federal law. Inevitably, such legislation raises the delicate issues of States’ rights and of the citizen’s personal freedom to control his own property. Inevitably, also, it will provoke charges that the Administration is capitulating to negro militancy, and that negro arrogance of the kind fostered by the Black Moslems will be encouraged. Again, the more conservative elements of American, political thought consider that the President should adhere to the established policy of “ gradualism ” in spite of demands from many quarters (both white and black) for an end to what the “ New York Herald “ Tribune ” describes as “ the farce of tokenism ”. For 100 years, since Lincoln freed the slaves, the American negro has been relatively quiescent under legal. educational, and other social disadvantages—disadvantages that, according to a literal reading of the Constitution, they should not have suffered. Even in the present state of American national enlightenment Mr Kennedy will require great courage to translate into fact the letter of the Constitution; but this anxious task can hardly be postponed.