Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 February 1956 — Page 10

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11 Dropped Athletes Many people were disturbed by Indiana Uwiversity’s dropping of eleven athletes last week because t]jey failed to pass final examinations. Mast of these people«fieel that the school should make exceptions for outstanding »JHletes who bring glory in the field of sports. The obviousness of the wrong sense of values inherent in this feeling is not as clear to these people as it is 1 to others. A universitv, especially a heavily-endowed tax-supported institution such as Indiana U., has a great responsibility to the donors who give big sums from their own pockets and to the state which gives large sums of taxes annually. That first responsibility is to produce adults capable of leading societv. The university's first duty is to keep building the foundations for a secure society, constantly to assure that there will always be a nucleus of well-educated, well-rounded individuals who can be at one and the same time stabilizing, yet progressive forces for the common welfare. We are not ; of course, denying the great importance of a good athletic program; the Greeks long ago realized that academic study and physical fitness went hand-in-hand. Nor do we deny the importance of the “spectator” interest in sporls to the students not actively participating. Cenrtainly many students would not “feel right” if they couldn’t*wave pennants and yell themselves hoarse. In proper perspective, a good sports program is an asset to any insitution of learning. That perspective becomes improper, however, when the players themselves do just enough work to get by, or less. It is equally improper when other students or outsiders condone the players’ attitudes. A university is still an institution of learning. If a student is not going to learn, even if he is a Milt Campbell, he does not belong in a university. If sports fans are more interested in sports as such that in sports as part of a college program they should concentrate on the professional teams where the emphasis is as it should be. We are pleased to learn that one or two of the players are going on professional teams. There they can develop into really great players, perhaps, without any worry of having to pretend to be college students.

Butler University Items Two recent issues of the “Butler Collegian” contained items which made us stop and think. The first, in a column by Herm Albright, noted that Negroes were not very well integrated into the cammis life of the university. Specifically, it mentioned that “now at Butler, there are no races except white on the Student Council, in the Young Men’s Christian Associaiion: or in any honorary societies.” The other was a letter to the editor, signed by one Caryi Newton. While her opinion on the Supreme Court anti-segre-gation rilling seems the result of clouded thinking, she makes one statement which seems founded on fact: ‘‘On this campus there is no indication of the Negro wanting to participate.” She say? ouite plainly, ‘‘There are no Negroes on the board (that is, the Student Union) because they have not shown the interest.” Saying that “the YM-YWCA has open membership drives, as do most groups during the semester,” she noted also that it has a cabinet composed of 70 members who wrote letters asking for admittance. “Again,” she says, ‘the Negro student has shown no interest.” Her punch-line is: “The only thing asked of a student in order for him to belong to. a campus, group is payment of dues, interest, and attendance T’ We admit that we have not investigated the entire picture at Butler University. From time to time we have heard stories, apparently substantiated, of segregation there. However, the school does seem to have done away with its own jimcrowism. so that Miss Newton’s “charges” would seem to be correct. If she is right, and all the Negro does have to do is to pay dues, be interested and attend, the conclusion is obvious. Whether she is right or not in this one instance, we do know that many times the Negro cries about being left out, when all he has to do is show inerest. In Indianapolis we know of no area of volunteer leadership where the Negro is excluded. We do know of several where the Negro has shown no interest. We have repeatedly seen local Negroes lose out on chances to get in on the ground floor in various undertakings because of lack of interest. Let us always be sure we have tried to jparticipate in an activity before we accuse its sponsors of discrimination. Lowered School Levels David Lawrence in a column last week pointed out that integration has lowered the achievement level in Washington, D. C., schools. He noted that tests made since Negro and white children were rut in the same classes showed that the educational level has dropped below the natjonal^average. “Previous tests in all-white schools in Washington,” he said ; “showed that national averages had been generally attained.” The Lawrence column goes on to express various opinions. viewpoints, consequences, etc., which, like the Bible, might be used to prove anything. Thus, he does admit that the findings indicate Negro children have not been given satisfactory education in separate schools. On the other hand, he ends by saying ‘the parents of w'hite children m^iy be petitioning the federal courts some day with the argument ihat the ‘psychological effects’ upon their children are adverse.” His use of “psychological effects” in quotes is a reminder that the Supreme Court, in making its historicschool- segregation decision, pointed out that the separation of Negro pupils “from others of similar age and qualification solely because of their race generates feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.” To our way of thinking, only one conclusion can be rightfully made: that the “separate” schools in Washington have been anything but, “epual,” that the situation is likely true everyplace else, and that the sooner the “separate but equal” theory is junked, the better. Many educators we know will privately admit that separate Negro schools are seldom equal in quality to white ones. There are interesting theories about w hy this is true—theories we cannot discuss now because they would need several full editorials for themselves alone, but whose existence w r e mention merely to hint that we deny the “equality” with a good conscience. Everyone knows that a chain is as strong as its weakest link. If substandard education for Negroes is a result of sepa rate schools (and we are confident it is), the method of the .'trengthening of-a w^eak chain* is clearly indicated. In other w-ords, the findings of lowered achievement levels in Washington offer just one more reason for rapid integration. Far better to have the whole chain honestly weakened for four or five years than to continue to have it dishonestly weakened forever.

MISCELLANEOUS MUSINGS

By T. C. Johnson

The Churches Repent

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’AND NOW SENATOR EASTLAND OF MISSISSIPPI PAYS HIS RESPECTS.'

VOICE FROM THE GALLERY

By ANDREW W. RAMSEY

Prelude To Second Civil War

The above is the subject of an article in this month’s READER’S DIGEST, which got it from HARPER’S MAGAZINE. It relates to developments in interracial worship since it began about ten years ago. One of two preachers in a luncheon discusision at Washington, D. C„ just after the Supreme Court’s school decision said of the decree: “It is a great challenge. The church must prepare the people to ace ept integrated schools in a Christian spirit.” The other preacher replied: “I wonder if there is anything convincing, we can say about racial understanding w'hen the church itself is the most segregated institution in America.” According to the article two facts in defense of the church should be cited before condemning it for hypocrisy. The first is that churches face more difficulties in desegregation efforts than secular institutions do. The second is that quite a number of churches have confussed the sinfulness of segregation and are trying to end it. HOWARD UNIVERSITY’S School of Religion Dean F. T. Wilson is quoted as having concluded: “The church will take longer to achieve integration because it is undertaking a much greater achievement. Worshiping together is a more personal thing than riding trains or attending movies together. • Tolerance is not enough; it must be real brotherhood or nothing.” Of 17.900 Protestant churches surveyed in 1946 only 860

had racially mixed congregations Most of the 860 were white churches attended by one or two Negro families. The National Council of Churches in a later check found that 13,597 churches of three Protestant denomination* had 1,331 mixad congregations. That was more than 9 f /, as contrasted with a little over 4'; shown in the 1946 study. The Federal Council of Churdhtis in 1'946 declared that segregation is “unnecessary and undesirable and a violation of the Gospel of Love.” The Council therefore requested member churches to “work for a nonsegregated church and a nonsegregated society.” AT ST. LOUIS in June. 1954. 9,000 southern delegates to the Southern Baptist Con--vention w-ere amazed when a resolution asking active support of the Supreme Court school decision was oflered to the convention. It probably would ha\e been defeated overwhelmingly if the beloved Professor. Jesse Burton Weatherspoon of the Southern Baptist Seminary of Louisville, Kentucky, had not taken the floor in its favor. The venerated teacher spoke as follows: “We have over our heads the banner Forward With ’ Jesus Christ.. Our only question is, what is the most Christian thing to do. "If we withdraw this motion we will say to the people of the United States count Southern Baptist out in this matter of equal justice for all. I do not beleve we wart to

Following the Civil War. the Southern Whites, forced forced against their walls to give up slavery, sought by other means to reestablish white supremacy. They or-gan-izrd the Ku Klux Klan ih Pulaski, Tennessee in 1866 and at about the same time the Knights of the W’hite Camelia in Texas. Both of these terrorist organizations, which quickly spread throughout the states ol the late Confederacy, used terrorism in denying to Negroes the rights voted him by the Congress and those decreed by the Supreme Court. So bad did the situation become that a series of laws was passed by Congress between May, 1870 and April, 1871 outlawing undercover societies and protecting the civil and political rights of the Negroes. Leaders of the movements of violence were hailed before Federal Courts and Federal Courts and Federal troops were sent into many parts of the South to protect the rights of the newly freed Negroes. BUT BY 1876 the white supremacists had had sufficient headway in both political parties that it made little difference whether Tilden. the Democrat or Hayes, the Republican w'as elected. The election ended in a stalemate, neither candidate having received the necessary number of electonal votes. The matter had to be decided by a special Congressional Committee, which after a month of dickering with the votes of Florida. Louisiana and South Carolina, gave the election to Hayes, “who belonged to that wing of the Republican Party which had grown desperately tired of federal interference in Southern politics.” Early in 1877, federal troops were removed and the

Ex-Confederate States “lapsed quietly into the control of the native whites” as historian Arthur Schilesingqr mildly puts if. So the President gave tacit admission of the South’s right to solve the "Negro question” in its own way. Ali of . the foregoing was cited merely to point out thv* similarities of the situation prevailing in 1876 and in 1956. THE TERRORIST white supremacy ohganizaf ioms exist in the same states as in the Reconstruction period and their purpose is the sani' 1 . Now' as then they employ intimidation, violence and conomic sanctions to denv to Negroes their civil rights -fthd political rights and their civil liberties. As in the 1870 s. Northern voices are raised against these crimes against humanity but there is a difference. Except in a few rare cases all of voices raised in protest are the voices of Negroes. No important American statesman, religious leader, writer, journalist, radio announcer, educator and union leader has come out strongly condemning the lynching of democracy in Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama. Georgia or Virginia—that is no white ones. . Not only has the Federal government lent deaf ears to the cries of distress of the embattled Negroes, the President of the United States has urged the NAACP and others to allow the bill to give Federal aid to education to be passed without safe guards preventing racial discrimination. And as in 1876 both poli-

tical parties seem bent upon allowing the South to deal with the Negro in any way it sees fit. THE LACK OF ACTION on the part of the administration clearly indicates the attitude of the Republicans, w’hile that of the Democrats may be deduced from the fact that the Democratic Parly is in control of Congress and its leaders have noe pressed for ligislative action to halt the program against the Negro citizens of the backward areas. Not only that, but the frontrunning candidates for the nomination for the presidency are discretely silent on the matter. Not only will the Federal government not send troops into the South this time, the FBI chief prefers to criticise the Negro NAACP leader in Mississippi than to attempt to ferret out the malefactors who have committed the outrages against Negroes in that benighted state. To Negroes in Amrica and to liberty loving people elsewhere as well as to our ideologicial enemies, it seems that the “Second Civil War” is about to be w r on by the South by the way of default. • WHEN THE POLITICIANS coma to the conclusion that it is better to have the South’s votes than its democratic behavior, they are far from the spirit that motivated Teddy Roosevelt to say, “This country will not be a really good place for any of us to live in if it is not a really good place for all of us to live in.”

Some People” Say ■ —In Our Town By W. ALEXANDER CHAMBERS

Mayor Phillip L. Bayt announced recently that he is cooperating wth officials of the local public transit sytem because traffic and transit are everyone’s problems. In this connection he proposes a traffic study to be followed by, among other things “a speeding up of public transit service ’ and of all things imaginable “low'er fares.” The mayor said, “If we can help the company make riding the buses more attractive to people here, we can possibly get more people to leave their cars as home when they go to and from work.” Otherwise comment on proposals or the transit problem, term it highly optimistic. Many patrons of the public transit system assert that using the system can be made more attractive. They venture that greater Indianapolis must have a metropolitan type of public transit system in the near future to meet growth cf the city. Yet they see no really practical solution to problems involved unless, or until a public transit auothority is c stablished. The prospects of such a development, at this point, are rather complicated. But assuming the way was cleared with the idea of the city eventually acquiring title to the public transit system there is strong opposition to the pro-

Lynching

To the Editor: There have been many people who disagreed with the author of the article concerning the Mississippi approved murder but I don’t fully disagree with him because the lynchers are free men and are helping otners who will murder, lynch and rape the Negro people. I don’t believe the accusation oi moral depravity should be confined to Mississippi for the symptoms indicate it is an American approved lynching. No one in America has been big enough to stop this sort of thing. When Dwight Eisenhower was running for president he said he would go to Korea if it meant saving at least one life, but the same man doesn’t think it is necessary to go south on America even if it meant saving the life of one Negro child, or even comment on it. So by this 1 say it is an American approved lynching. It the Rwpublicans won’t take the lead in this matter, then the Negro people will turn to the Democrats, and if they are too afraid to do anything, the Negro people can only turn to something that is good for them, regardless of how unpopular it is with the majority. O. E. Banks, 725 N. Pershing Avenue.

Abraham Lincoln 1809-1865 /Tveryone knows his story, but HERE IS HIS LITTLE KNOWNSWEMENT ON SLAVERY: “...THE MAN WHO COULD GO TO AFRICA AND ROB HER OF HER CHILDREN AND SELL THEM INTO ENDLESS BONDAGE, WITH NO OTHER MOTIVE THAN DOLLARS AND CENTS IS SO MUCH WORSE THAN THE MOST DEPRAVED MURDERER THAT HE CAN NEVER RECEIVE A PARDON AT gY HANDS \

...AN AUTHENTIC REPRODUCTION OF THE GUN THAT KILLED LINCOLN,A 44 CAL. CAP AND BALL DERINGER

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posal among people standing to gain very much, or again lose in a new trend of buying habits of all the people. Once long ago it was said that a metropolitan type of public transit system involved laying tracks or rails in the streets. This can not be said today. And the system can be made more attractive^ by establishing twelve (12) dr more “real cross - town” cast and west bus lines intersecting twelve (12) or more “real cross-town” north and south bus lines. * * * Emil Mazey, secretary-Areasui - er of the United Auto Workers’ Union, speaking here recently refuted the suggestion that labor leaders have become nclitical bosses. Commenting on charges made against or-ganiz-ed labor by partisan politicians here and there he said: “We are engaged in political action as citizens because we cannot achieve economic and social justice through collective baragining alone. We seek the election oi men and women to public office on the county, state and federal levels who place human rights above property rights. This is necessary to achieve an abundance and secure life for the people of our country. ’ The matter was discussed with a rugged old-timer in the ranks of organized labor. His comment: Partisan politicians raise war funds with $100-a-plate Jackson Day Dinners and Lincoln Day Dinners and such affairs are acclaimed from one corner of the land to the other. But if things look like the boss politicians may not be able to fool the working man one more time, the word is passed along that, labor leaders have become political bosses and have a barrel of money to spend in each precinct in the land. * * * “IX OUR TOWN”: A fewlocal working men of the press recently engaged in a discussion of Abe Lincoln and the various . characteristics that made him stand above many other men, even where the pages of history appeared a bit crowded. This writer always thinks of Abraham Lincoln’s home-spun philosophy or ready wit, even under stress of fire or the failing fidelity of friends. Thus according to the legend Mr. Lincoln was asked on one occasion, how' long a man’s legs ought to be. He replied, “ a man’s legs ought to be long enough to reach the ground.” There is no rrfeord that anyone ever asked Mr. Lincoln how far a man’s mind ought to reach, (how long it ought to be). But one might conclude his life and endeavors reflected a fitting answer. It follows that universally men have had a common chance to reach the ground with their legs. And where a man originates or starts is not so significant, as where one is determined to go. Herein determination might he compared with “prayer” as

say that.” THE RRSOLUTION was adopted by a great majority. Virginia lx>rn Catholic Bishop Vincent S. Waters of North Carolina is one of the most effective opponents of segregation in churches. In ordering desegregation throughout his diocese he said: “I am not unmindful, as a Southerner, of the force oi this virus of prejudice. I know', however, that theie is a cui" for this virus, »ml that is om ir.ith. As paste* of your souls. “I am happy to take the responsibility for any evil which might result from different races worshiping God together, but I would be unwilling to take the responsif ility of those who refuse to worship God with a person of another race.” All but 400,000 of the nine million American Negro church attenants are Protestants. Integration among Protestants, therefore, is a greater problem than it is among Catholics, who long have practiced integrated worship in many places. One Xmas morning in the great St. Louts Cathedral at New Orleans I was surprised to find numerous Negroes kneeling close to importantlooking white persons. A SIGNIFICANT occurrence was a completely nonscgrcgaled meeting of 300 white and 100 colored women from 60 southern cities at the YWCA camp in a Blue Ridge, N. C. four-day conference held in June, 1954. (A follow-up article dealing with some conclusions regarding Integrated worship will appear here soon. noted by an Arabic Pp^t remote antiquity. Among versions of his concept of “prayer,” one is as follows: Prayer is the soul’s desire. Yet uttered, or unexpressed; The motion of a hidden fire. That trembles in the breast. —Omar Khayam. Abraham Lincoln was born in Hardin County, Kentucky. Feb. 12, 1809 of hardy pioneers said to be of Quaker 'Friends) stock from Pennsvlrania. No American of comparable historical stature was ever born in anything like as lowly surroundings. Yet as the times required he rose to heights of the nation's greatest prophet of humanitarianism Mr. Lincoln in his philosophical thinking (no doubt reasoned that our Republic was ordained a nation,” a new order of things, as they “by right ought to be.” The “greatest commoner” or son ot the soil, kept this faith and his great tribute is one paid by Thomas Jefferson, long ago, to his kind as follow's: ‘Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God if He ever had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made peculiar deposits for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which He keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise might escape from the earth.” The story of Lincoln is one of the sacred fires which otherwise have not escaped from the earth, and it is known to all communicating humanity. Voice of The People TRAINING CHILDREN To the Editor: Today you find many parents who do not realize the foundations of a child’s life begins at home. A child’s training should begin in itts infancy so the buds of evil will not grow in him. Although many parems love their children, all that seems necessary is to feed and shelter them. This leaves a great problem for our teachers, social workers, ministers, etc. Many people say they love children, yet do not undersstand what causes them to go wrong. Now’ days many teenagers go wrong and become juvenile delinquents and our schools and recreation hall are sometimes blamed. Wordly, careless and unconcerned parents leave children on their own. Love and proper home training is often neglected. Such reasons as these are often the cause of juvenile delinquents. Alfred Corbett, Evansville, Ind.

Commends Honor Roll Selections To the Editor: I wish to commend you for selections made this year for The Recorder's Race Relations Honor Roll. Each one of these men are worthy and stand out predominantly In their field. Needless to say, I admire jour paper and your editorials are superb. The WTitings of T. C. Johnson. Andrew Ramsey and Richard Henderson are contributing factors that make The Recorder Indiana’s greatest. REV. FORD GIBSON

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