Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 15 February 1996 — Page 15

Depression continued from page 14 and spacious lawns is the backbone of American living and should become of the greatest features of stabilization among colored people. Highland Avenue can be visualized as being a shopping center and it should contain a theatre. New and commodious churches should be a part of the plan in the future. We should plan for both a YMCA and YWCA and an American Legion Home in that locality. Suitable playgounds and a park should be provided some place near the center of the proposed community. Fire and police protection and perhaps a governing body directly responsible to the local city authorities can be developed. Crime in a district such as this should be at a minimum How can this be accomplished? Will the colored people like this sort of an arrangement and how can it be financed? It can be offered only as a plan and made attractive to the people so they will want to move into the section after they have been shown all the advantages of one community. In unity there is strength. From the financial angle all owners of real estate in this community will profit from the improvement made to surrounding properties and those owning property in other sections of the city will be benefited by the strengthened value caused by the transition. This will make more homes available for an increased white population To reach the ultimate goal of this planned pattern, a holding company should be formed to finance the outright purchase of Austin Heights and the homes already there. In turn, the lots and the homes can be sold and the money returned to the investor company. Eventually a yield of profits from this organization plus contributions could be used for the placement and construction of churches, the YMCA and the YWCA. Investors, naturally, will be drawn to the business section of this thriving community and before long, new store buildings and a theatre likely will be the result of such a highly developed section. Volumes might be written and the facts given about the advantages to the colored race of a project of this sort and the effects of it upon the moral character of its people, the housing conditions and the financial strengthening of values of all surrounding real estate. This plan and pattern is presented as a workable instrument and one of great importance to the colored race. This plan should be pursued for the good of Muncie and so that all of us may have a healthy and happy place in which to live and call our home.

Two white men presented this plan to the Negro community at a mass meeting held in the Odd Fellows building at the comer of Willard and Hackley streets. The hall was packed and, since the night was warm and beautiful, people overflowed into the streets trying to hear what was going on. As the proposal was read, the audience was simply shocked. After the presentation and some questions, several people expressed their disgust at what they deemed a crime against Muncie’s Negro community in the form of a planned ghetto. This negative reaction to the plan rendered its two spokesmen speechless; lacking any adequate response to these unexpected rebuttals, they were described as having looked for a place to hide. One person remembered, “It seemed there was a dawn of enlightenment that came upon Muncie’s Negro community during the process of that meeting.” The entire plan seemed to be an attempt on the part of white Muncie to collect all Negroes in the Whitely area to make room for a growing white population that could have all the rest City fathers apparently got the message because there were no subsequent efforts to implement this plan. Examples of segregation are abundant during the 1940s. In Indiana, Crispus Attucks was the only high school for Negroes in Indianapolis and it was only admitted to the Indiana High School Athletic Association in 1942. In 1947 a number of organization launched a concerted drive to desegregate department stores, restaurants, theatres, lunch counters, hotels, and other public facilities in Indianapolis against stout resistance from these establishments. A law prohibiting school segregation passed the State Legislature finally in 1949. Muncie’s school had never been segregated so there wasn’t that battle to fight for, but other forms of open discrimination continued. For example, when the highly successful Muncie Central athletic teams travelled out of town, white members stayed in downtown hotels while Negro members were sent to room with “a nice colored family in the colored section.” Moreover, Negro athletes were forced to eat sandwiches on the bus while their white teammates ate in good restaurants. Ball State Teachers College still excluded Negro students from dormitories, as did Indiana University. An incident involving overt prejudice prompted a letter to the Muncie Star Public Letter Box on April 18, 1949. Mrs. Charles Booher wrote: If you have not read Patricia Braggs’ letter in the Public Letter Box, April 15, pertiaps you, as Muncie citizens, should. This very fine Central High School girl who went to lunch with her French class was told by the waitress at the Varsity Restaurant that coloreds were not served there. The class was to have a lesson in table manners given by a French student while they were having their lunch. What would you have done if you had been the French teacher? Given Patricia the key to your apartment and have her go there and wait alone, while the

The Muncie Times, February 15,1996, Page 15 rest of you had lunch as the teacher did? Or would you have taken your whole class to your apartment and had your lesson on table manners there? This teacher then would have been giving a concrete lesson in true democracy. I am sure that as a member of the French Club, Patricia expected more loyalty from her classmates. What do you think? Muncie is certainly trailing far behind in human relations when a teacher will not take a stand for all her pupils regardless of race. Can you imagine the humiliation in leaving your class and having to walk out of the restaurant alone with all the eyes on your back? Some feeling sorry for you and others not caring one way or the other. It must have been a long walk for Patricia to the door, a walk most of you will never take, I hope. For her then, to go to the teacher’s apartment and wait all alone for her class to have lunch and then join her while she drank a glass of milk. I wonder how she was able to drink? For surely her cup runneth over. Many cities are making great strides in the field of human relations. Just what is wrong with Muncie? Don’t we all want to see democracy to which we give so much lip service really work? If we do, let’s all pull together and make this a better city for all, regardless of race, creed, or color. If this will help regain in a small way some of the prestige we have lost throughout the world because of our treatment of minorities. If you really feel you’d like to do something now along Coach Harry Evans this line) fine. Why not really get to know Negroes well? You will no doubt be surprised to find him as human and as real as your next door neighbor. You will find that he is concerned with the same problems of health, happiness and security. Another suggestion: Why not as a club project invite some Negroes to your next meeting? Why not actually notice the Negro who passes you on the street or sits next to you in the movies or on the bus? Notice him! He is no different than you. Try to think of him as a human, with human capacities for suffering, see DEPRESSION on page 16