St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1950-02-17
Lillian Smith Decries
Fellow SOutherner's New
Defense Of Segregation
Holding Carter Book
ASsoiled For Position


Assoiled For Position
On Race Separotism
SOUTHERN LEGACY. BY HOd-
ding Carter. 1856 PIP. Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State Uniyer.
sity Press. So.
By Lillian Smith In the NJ.
Times
In the Nineteen Thirties the
vanguard of liberal opinion in the
South became profoundly aware
of the effect of racial segregation
not only upon the Negro but upon
the white mans culture and his
integrity of mind. Out of the re-
gion, since then, have come edi-
torials in Southern magazines,
books analyzing the meaning of
the strange ceremonial of segre-
cation, novels that lay bare the
torn personalities that are the re-
suit of our way of life. Recently,
church groups and university
women have taken a stand against
specific forms of the Jim Crow
ritual. The human beings right to
freedom from shame is today a
concept that many white Souther-
ners openly accept.
1t is, therefore, somewhat sur
prising that Mr.. Carter, a for
ward-looking Mississippi editor
and Pulitzer-Prize winner, should
write book in 1850 based on the
assumption that segregation can
not be questioned in Dixie. Not
only can it be questioned, it has
been questioned by all of the
South's serious thinkers. It is
questioned and it is crumbling. A
number of Southern city libraries
have opened their doors to Ne
groes; several graduate schools
have one or more Negro students;
a few Southern churches now have
Negro members; a few civic
boards have at least one Negro on
them.
While the Dixiecrats and Repub-
hcans in Congress go into huddle
to figure out tricks to keep the
civil rights program from coming
to a vote, Southerners at home are
making civil rights a reality, at
least here and there. 1t is spotty,
much too slow for the stern nee
essities of our times, but it is
happening.
In Southern Legacy Mr.. Car
ter tries hard not to offend his
fellow-southerners. Actually, he
makes out rather a poor case for
the South. The level of its peoples
intelligence is not so low as he
implies, their interest is not 80
CONSTRUCTED, their imagination not
so dull, their conscience not so
numb. In his efforts to say cheer
ily that all, or practically all, is
well with the South, if only the
North would leave 1t alone, he in
advertently paints a portrait of
the middle-class group that is de-
vastating: pompous, self-satis-
fled, stupidity blind to human need,
unaware Of the intellectual cur
rents sweeping across the earth.
There are undoubtedly many
such people, North and South,
with a thick color-glaze on their
imagination, many who are tight
little provincials, and some in
every Southern town. But there
are others who are profoundly
troubled by the split between their
ideals and their acts, burdened by
the authoritarian pressures of
white supremacy fearful of what
the practice of segregation is do
ing to their own children's growth
as human beings. The South has
many people capable of deep feel
ing, people who have minds that
can draw subtle distinctions and
are sensitive to beauty and ideas,
dreamers who are in love with the
dream of freedom and human ex-
cellence and cannot bear for their
dream to die. The trouble is, some
times, they do not know how or
where to speak.
am not guessing. AS an author
1 receive thousands of letters from
Southerners who feel this way.
One of the most prominent
women in the South wrote me not
long ago, My friends and I are
sick to death of segregation. If
we could only be free of it so that
we could bend our energies to
more interesting matters"
Perhaps we are taking Mr.. Car
ter's book too seriously. It is act