Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1956-03-10
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IA R is H
S 7 R < < 7
By PERCY GREENE

could get that U. S. News and
World Report Magazine what it
was in so / thought while was
eating my fish and drinking my
beer that l would let you see what
| said, and bout what lotta folks
has written me letters about in
that long distant telephone inter
view published in the aforesaid
Magazine. So here it is.
@. Mr.. Greene, as editor of a
Negro newspaper, how do you find
conditions since the decision on de-
segregation by the Supreme Court?
A. think they are very much
worse.
@. Worse than year or two ago?
A. The situation is infinitely
worse than it was in 1858.
@. You feel, then, that lines be-
tween the races are hardening?
A. Yes, definitely. Negroes have
become victims Of hate and frus-
tration and kind of apathy: hate
engendered by the propaganda to
which they are being subjected
from various sections of the Negro
rress and certain sections of Negro
leadership, and by the opposition
of the prosegregation groups such
as the Citizens Councils in the
South. And apathy from being
told that there is a short cut-for
instance, that the decision of the
Supreme Court relieves the Negro
of any personal individual response
bility at the local level, in coopera-
ton with the white people, to try
and work out these problems.
Q. That it is going to be handled
from above and he doesn't have to
do anything about it?
A. That's right.
Q. Is there any impression that
the National Government might use
troops to enforce desegregation?
A. Well, you see, that impress
sion has gotten around. think
it is mainly one of the psychologist
cal effects of the type of things
that Negroes are reading and that
Negro speakers are saying - that
Negroes themselves are looking
forward to the day when they can
see somebody come down here and
force these people to do something
they don't want to do.
I don't think among intelligent
Negroes that there is any such
hope or that it is a prospect with
in the immediate future. But the
masses of Negroes have all kinds
of notions and dreams of something
cataclysmic happening, relieving
them of responsibilities - troops.
the Supreme Court, some other
agency outside the local level conf
ing down here and correcting, this.
| think that is part of the apsy-
chology that | was talking about
before.
It's creating the Illustration and
fear and hate in them. Of course,
none of that is coming to pass.
@. What do you think is respon
sible for the intense feeling in the
South on this question of mixed
schools
A. The spreading of the idea that
the Negroes No. l ambition is not
equality under the law but associa-
ton with white people. The idea
has been fostered by the fact that
some Negro leaders have divorced
their Negro wives and married
white women. Southern Congress-
men know about these things
they feel that is the No. l OBJ
jective of the Negro.
You see, I was born and raised
in Mississippi, in the South. | am
S. years old and | took a direct
leadership in advocating that the
Negro have the right to vote long
before any of these other people
who are talking now had anything
to do with the NAACP, and | had
responsible white people helping
in doing that.
I say that there is nothing going
to happen in the South of any good
until program can be laid down
which will enable intelligent white
people and Negroes to get together,
even if its compromise of the
decision-the implications of the
decision - of the U. S. Supreme
Court.
@. believe you suggested not
so long ago that there be permitted
voluntary segregation, didn't you
A. No. didn't. That was some
body's Interpretation, l think. !
have advocated, even to the Mis-
sissippi State Legislature, that seq
regation by law be abolished. II
segregation by law was abolished
and a real effort made to establish
equality under the law, think
that ethnic forces will bring peo-
pie of like kind together more close
ly than force and compulsion, which
is the segregation law.
You can put that down-that's
my idea about it. That's the Ne
gro's entire resentment - he is
resenting something and it's due to
the fact that he is being forced
and compelled.
With relief from force and COM
pulsion and re-establishment OF
equality under the law, | believe
all this tension would be relieved
In that idea / offered q seven
point program to the Governor and
rI~yscnrxy norm