Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1948-08-21
The Fight For Full
Civil Rights Is
Slow But Sure
DESPITE RACE HATREDS
AND PREJUDICES, DEFINITE
PROGRESS is BEING MADE
From the Louisville (Ky)
Courier Journal
BY John Ed Pearce

III llAShAloA h vi uCl SdOC III
the current Harper's you begin
to wonder if there is any solution
to what we call the Negro pro-
blem. In the story of a Negro
father who fees economic slavery
in the South to find even cruler
oppression in the North, Mr.. Mar
tin shows that the South is not
alone in it's inhumanity to the
Negro race.
In the South the Negro is un-
derpaid, segregated, lynched. And
in the North restrictive covenants
mock the greater personal free
dom which every year lures thus
ands of Negroes from the spauled
shacks of Southern "niggertown"
into the rat infested, firetrap ten
ements of the North.
When we consider the TACT that
in no section of the country has
the white man been willing to
accept the Negro as an equal
participant in the democracy Of
which he boasts, it is little won
der that so many thousands of
Negroes should have found their
way into the carefully-manipulat-
ed hysteria of Wallance-ism. But
the Negro who seeks liberty
through the Communistcontrol
third party is not only sadly de-
luded as to the type of freedom
such an theology offers. He is
also ignoring the tremendous pro-
gress that is being made in race
relations and in achieving for
the Negro his full rights and Ii
berries.
In Kentucky, for instance,
though the Day Law, which makes
the Negro a second-class citizen
under the law, is still on the
books, the recent legislature a.
mended that law so as to per-
nit hospitals to give instruction
in nursing, medicine and surgery
to Negroes. 1t increased the TUT
ion Of Negro students who are
forced by the Day Law to go out
side their own State for an edu-
cation, from $35 to $500. 1t gave
record appropriations to Kentucky
State College, Lincoln Institute
and the Red Cross Hospital.
Throughout the country eff
forts are being made to give the
Negro better employment oppor-
tunities, and the efforts are hav-
ing results. In 1916 New york
and New Jersey established a
State Commission against Dis
elimination. Massachusetts set uI
it's fair employment board in
1916, Indiana and Utah are study
ing these systems for adoption al
home. We may have our Dixie.
Gratis, but we have progress, too
Since 1916 we have had eight
Supreme Court decisions broad.
ening and celebrating the rights
of Negroes. They touched racial
segregation on Interstate buses
exclusion of Negroes from puries
in Mississippi and Florida, and
discrimination against Negro fire
men by the Railroad Brotherhood
of Fremen and Engineers Thu
Oklahoma Admission case ruling
decreed that state must provide
immediate and equal education
facilities for Negroes or admit
them to State colleges.
South Carolina Democrats wsrs
slapped down ii their attempt Il
turn the party into i priysts ciui
and exclude Negroes from tie pri'
marieA. n May the Court rules
that restrictive residential corss,
ants were not enforcsshls ~ Iaws
The Columbus, Ohio case decided
whites could not exclude Negroes
from white churches.
The Civil Rights Commission re.
port was courageous document
and it has not been unheoded
President Truman's challenges ia
Congress for Civil Rights legtsia-
ton was, to say the least. q bravs
stand In defense Of the Negro
at the risk Of political ruin. The
fact that Democratic liberals were
able to revolt on the floor Of the
Philadelphia convention and write
into the platform a strong civil
rights plank is evidence of pro-
gress within the Democratic Party
and step forward for the Negro.
The act to create a Fair EN-
ployment Practices Commission
was approved last February s BY
the Senate Labor Committee seven