The Michigan chronicle. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1936-current, 1942-04-18
A HALF-MEASURE

HALT -MEhOCRE
However great step it was for the administra
ton to drop the barriers against black Americans
the United States Navy, it can be regarded by true
fighters for democracy only as haf-measure ant
we cannot win a total war with half-meaSures. The
only thing wrong with the new order granting Ne
groes the right to enlist in other than the messman
branch of the service is that the order pays defer
ence to that great American god, Jim Crow Secre
tary Knox of the Navy hastily comforts the Kuxers
and Fascists in the land by explaining that Negroes
and whites will be separated in the Navy and in the
end will be given separate ships If this Jim Crow
ism is carried to its logical conclusion by the Navy
the time may come when Negroes will be given a
separate ocean too.
In openly insisting upon a Jim Grow navy, the
administration gives official sanction to a social
pattern which was created to make unity of the
people impossible and to encourage racial divisions.
The administration defeats its ends and crystal
Lies the theory of separation in democracy which
requires absolute unity in order to survive and IN
order to be worth surviving. Jim-Crowsm is a
greater blow to the concept of democracy than it is
to the sensbilities of the Negro Each step toward
greater racial separatism merely hastens the day
when each racial group seeks to consolidate its power
against the other an ultimately showdown takes
place which may become bloody revolution. Such
is the history of the Europe, and it may we'll be re-
peated in this hemisphere, in our own Americas
At the moment Negro and white soldiers in the
United States army are both suffering from this
social disease Jim Crowsm. We have but to recall
the Fort Dix riot last week and the riots in Arkansas
and Louisiana which have their origins in Jim Crow
ism to clearly the danger inherent in rigid racial
separation. If the small percentage of Negro sol
diers in the Army were integrated throughout the
fighting forces as Americans the worst that could
happen would be sporadic fighting, but certainly no
general rioting Furthermore the for dissen-
sion and rioting would be removed in the first place
if the Negro soldier were properly integrated and
given equal consideration in public and private life
The United States government Ignores the
course of enlightened self-nterest when it sells the
short iJ order to appease the disciples of the
Devil in Dixie who ready to submit to Hitler
rather than to grant Negroes the freedom for which
they have fought and for which they will never stop
fighting. We have learned that appeasement or evil
- only strengthens the wicked, and those who would
sacrifice the best interests of America for the sake
of their preudices must be attacked and routed and
appeased not at all
These no new truths They are the sum
and substance of human experience We cannot
compromise in the pursuit of ends, of peace and
freedom, for in the compromise lies the genesis for
recurrence of war and slavery, the twin phantoms
which negate all that our culture and civilization
have created The hour is proptious for America
to make decision which may be held and fortnight
and utterly just, that there shall be no penalties
imposed upon people solely because of their color
or racial origin This would constitute death blow
to the fascist enemy and lift the morale and fire the
spirit of the United Nations in Asia, Africa and
America, Let/us put teeth in our democracy and
wage total wat while there is still time. Away with
halfmeasures