St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1944-08-11

'CA y 1dCC d11u 1IdI1OIld11IyS SO1O1
Hundreds of Southerners are devot-
ing their careers to Negro schools
and to interracial movements of
various sorts. White teachers
groups in many Southern states
are the chief sponsors of equal
pay for Negro teachers. The As
ISOLATION of Southern Women for
the Prevention of Lynching has
publicly scorned the claim that
lynching is necessary to their pro-
lection, pointing out the danger of
mob violence to all the values of
home and religion. In almost every
Southern city committees of the
Commission on Interracial Coop
Grafton, composed of leading citi-
zens of both races, meet regularly
to protect Negro rights and to
plan for the common community
interests of both white and colored.
An influential Southern journalist,
Mr.. Virginius Dabney of Richmond,
recently proposed the repeal of
Virginia's segregation laws on pub
lie carriers, on the grounds that
these practices did not peacefully
separate, as originally intended,
but now contributed to interracial
friction and added an intolerable
humiliation for the Negroes.
1t is time for other sections of
the country to declare their indie
pendence, to secede from the old
patterns of discrimination. Through
started development which ended
slavery in all the Northern states
the long years the South has de-
manded that Northerners leave the
South alone on the race question.
eve Southerners will solve our
problems in our own way" they
said. Now the North is by way
of taking up the same slogan. We
are beginning to say to the South,
keep out. Your traditions have
no bearing on attitudes in the
North. We will solve our race re-
lations in our own way-the Ameri-
can way"
Each of Americas four great
wars has been fought for the idea
of freedom. In each of them Ne
groes have climbed another mighty
rung toward freedom and equality.
The Revolutionary War fixed our
minds on the rights of man. It
and outlawed the further import of
slaves. While the South continued
a huge bootlegging of blacks, and
while the world cotton industry
brought an upsurge of the planta-
ton and slavery, the Revolution
set tide toward freedom that was
never wholly checked.
The Civil War brought emanci-
patton and a national declaration
of equal rights for all without re-
gard to race, creed, or color. 1t is
true that, following a brief period
of Reconstruction, the Southern
states found ways to evade the ma
tional will. 1t is true that real free
dom could not be created over
night by any edict for four million
people who had never known any
thing but the abject dependence of
slavery. Real independence had to
be won by the. freed men them
selves-in education, health, eco
nomic competence, self-discipline,
sef-reliance. And ever since the
Civil War, Negroes have been pain
fully but steadily climbing toward
that independence.
The First World War gave the
Negro his first big opportunity in
industry and started the great mi
grafton out of the South. 1t is true
that, after that war, there were race
riots in Northern cities and fierce
suppressions throughout the South.
But the Negro had gained a new
status. And he has been steadily
building on it ever since.
The Second World War has given
an opportunity for another adj
vance toward democracy in Ameri-
ca. It is true that the national
Army and Navy have not thrown
off the old pattern of segregation
even in this life-and-death struggle.
But the Army has enrolled nearly
a million Negro youths and given
them some combat duty on all
fronts, including the thrilling and
heroic air service. It has COM
missioned hundreds of colored Of
ficers, and in many of the officer
training camps, even in the South,