The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1966. Black Power—White Backlash

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31152, 31 August 1966, Page 12

The Press WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1966. Black Power—White Backlash

It is not easy to discern, in current events, progress towards equality of rights for Negroes in the United States. Periodic outbursts continue to mark the struggle of the Negro minority to attain a status denied them—though technically conferred by the Constitution—for a hundred years. White counterrioting in recent weeks, notably in Chicago, tends merely to confuse an issue which, in its fundamental aspects, seems clear enough. The hoodlum elements among the young whites have as little regard for what may be called the politics of the civil rights struggle as have the young blacks who find some easing of their frustration in violence. Indeed, what has recently been pointed out, particularly since the publication of a manifesto on “ black power ” written by members of the Student Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee, is that the problem of Negro rights is becoming more and more racial rather than legal, economic, or constitutional.

There is an increasing tendency for black nationalism to come uppermost in debate. The moderates among the Negroes say the operative principle of black power is simply that of political organisation for the achievement of ends that are, in themselves, essentially political. For others, especially the younger militants—whose ranks, incidentally, attract the agitators whose creed spells social disturbance in any context—black power connotes a form of racism which finds logical expression in the repudiation of white authority. For example, the S.N.C.C. “ position paper ” contains this and a good deal more like it: “ If we are to proceed towards true “ liberation, we must cut ourselves off from the white “ people. We must form our own institutions, credit “ unions, co-ops, political parties; write our own “ histories.... If we are to continue to rely on white “ financial support we will find ourselves in the “ tentacles of the white power complex that controls “ this country ”.

It is not to be supposed that the civil rights struggle will necessarily degenerate into something approximating revolution. The moderate leadership in the movement for Negro emancipation knows that the millions of black people add up to no more than a 10 per cent minority, and that while progress towards full citizenship is painfully slow, rioting, with its accompaniment of looting and the destruction of property, tends to cancel out gains already made by alienating white sympathy. For it is reasonably certain that a majority of white Americans desire peaceful progress, both social and political, for the Negroes, even if they are not yet prepared to accept the idea of full social integration. President Johnson urged at a recent press conference that the proper course for all American citizens was to “ co-operate with constituted “ authority ” so that progress towards Negro betterment could be made in an orderly manner. Yet “ constituted authority ”, as expressed by Congress and the State courts, continues to make no more than tardy recognition of the justice of Negro demands. The House of Representatives has refused, for example, to go all the way with the Administration’s policy, expressed in the Civil Rights Bill, of banning discrimination in the sale or rental of houses and flats as a means of excluding Negroes from certain areas. Mr Johnson had hoped to have the Bill apply to all privately-owned homes. The House, however, sent it forward to the Senate with discrimination outlawed in respect of only about 40 per cent of all houses and flats—a modification which the Senate, itself conscious of private property “ rights ” and the feelings of white electors even passively opposed to integration, may be expected to endorse. Yet progress towards reform is being made, even while many white Americans in the riot-torn areas may be wondering whether time is still on the side of an accommodation with Negro demands. In the northern cities, where summer heat has been emphasising discomfort, squalor, and degradation, the reality of the ghetto pushes argument about civil rights into a background which, for most Negroes, is academic and unreal. Yet in the six southern States there have been accomplishments which may seem almost to confound tradition, such as the addition of 16 per cent of Negro names to the voting rolls, making a total of 1.3 million registered Negro voters where only a few years ago there were none.