, 1951-08-10
As A Southerner Sees It

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Ten years from today racial segregation as a legal
way of life will be gone from Dixie" said Lillian Smith,
Georgia-born crusader for social Righteousness. Miss
Smith predicts that although signs will still be nailed to t
a few peoples minds and hearts,, the signs over the doors,
"those words White and 'Colored' that have cheapened G
democracy throughout the world, will be down."
She observes that anyone who looks closely at recent
events in the South and measures them against world
events will know that the future holds no place in it for
the philosophy and practice OF segregation. whether
segregation takes the form Of the Iron Curtain as 1t does
in Communist countries, or the Jim Grow practice that we
know in the South, or those severe restrictions that make
up the pattern of life in South Africa" continued Miss
Smith, lit is a belief, an act of the past which the future
cannot use"
Miss Smith summarized the many achievements that
have taken place in the last 10 years in the area of race
relations in the armed forces, higher education, in the
political life of Southern municipalities, and in the poiti-
cal, economic, and social activities throughout the nation
in general.
Unsegregated Southern audiences are becoming more
and more widespread, according to Miss Smith. She makes
mention of the many unsegregated audiences to whom
she has spoken for the past year. She mentions also the
achievements in sports, transportation, and in various
other areas.
Miss Smith declared that there is still much to be
done. "Still SO many barriers that seem as solid as con-
crete. But each change is like a hole in the dam; II.
waters are pouring through; the hole is getting larger
there is no way to plug it now, and soon the old dam will
topple. There is no way because the waters of change are
in flood the world over"
Miss Smith attributes much of the change in race re-
lations in the South to the "breakng of the old conspiracy
of silence" Those who support segregation have depend
ed upon fear and silence to keep it strong, she said, but
now the old silence is gone. Hundreds of men and wo-
men are saying their deep beliefs out loud"
dreaming, talking, acting" Miss Smith continued,
'this is the way that free men bring change about,
whether it is change within themselves, or within their
culture or laws"
In recognizing some of the complications of the prob
lem, she says that there are white and colored people
who do not want to give up segregation because they
make money off of our Jim Grow life" She points out
further, certain psychological reasons why some white
and colored people do not want to give up segregation.
Part of our fear and anxiety today, said Miss Smith,
springs from the knowledge that this changing world re-
quires that each change himself; that a world made
whole means that each of us must be made whole also.
1T seems worth it to me-" concluded Miss Smith, "to
gain a whole new world for this split one that has warred
with itself so long; to gain, in place of our old split-up
personalities, health and stability. In the South we are
making a good bargain in swapping our old segregated
world, our segregated culture our segregated personality,
for love and Wilderness and dignity in mems relationships
with each other and with themselves" And it seems
worth it to us.
DID, LONDON, Aug s-ships from