Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1956-05-13

poir Of Los Angeles marbles chomps.
$4,000 profit and agreed to move.
Last october a Negro couple with
three children moved onto Chal-
fonte street. A mob of about 1000
collected and hurled rocks at the
home. Two policemen were injured.
The family sold and moved.
These are just two incidents.
There have been others. Still the
outward flow of Negroes from Cen
ter City continues.
Close Police Wotch
Detroit is city where racial
tensions are watched closely by the
police. In fact, the city maintains
a bureau of special investigation
which deals largely with racial in
cidentS.
Two of the detectives in this
bureau are Sergt. Thomas Nicker-
son and Ed Boggs.
Our job" said Mr.. Boggs, sis
to maintain order. Whatever we
think we keep to ourselves. Any
time anybody wants to throw brick
at house in Detroit, he had better
remember one thing: There is going
to be a cop between him and his
target"
Mr.. Boggs and Mr.. Nickerson said
also they always expected trouble
after racial incident in the South.
After the Till murder case down
in Mississippi" said Mr.. Boggs. I'VE
must have investigated 40 beatings
Of whites by Negroes. They just
wanted to take it out on somebody"
1.-TWO white men were acquitted
of charge of numbering Emmett
Till, l4-year- old Negro boy, in Mis-
sissippi last summer after he al
legedly made an impairment remark
to a white woman. The defense
contended that the body of a youth
found in a river was not Till'sO
But There Is Progress
Despite all the troubles OF the
North with discrimination there is
no real comparison with segrega-
ton in the South, where the races
are separated by law. The North Is
making steady progress toward
equality.
In Los Angeles, Augustus F.
Hawkins, Negro member Of the
State Legislature, observed, 1T Is
becoming unpopular to be preju-
diced in California"
In Baltimore Dr.. Furman Tenn
pleton, Urban League director. said,
THE white community itself has
made it unpopular to be rabid on
race relations"
There is an incident which. per-
haps. illustrates something of the
difference. l went into a small bar
in New York's Harlem just of
Seventh avenue near One Hundred
and Twenty seventh street and
asked with my Southern accent,
Bourbon and water, please" The
bartender kept on wiping the bar.
After l repeated the order he
sOmething-boy?"
grinned and said, who you
calling boy-boy?" He grinned and
l grinned and l got my bourbon.
In New York it would have been
illegal for him to refuse service
because of race-or origin.
This is the case in most of the
North. and this is where the North
ern Negro is making his most prog
ress-under the law Custom is
less rigid in the North, too, but it
is toward the law that he looks for
full equality. In the South. both
law and custom are often against
him.
In most Northern cities, white
and Negro policemen are in the
same stations: white and Negro
firemen in the same firehouses.
Deep South Negro policemen are
not allowed 10 arrest whites. Negro
firemen may put out fires in
white part of town but the Negroes
serve in segregated companies.
Social Progress Slow
In the North, custom may be
more tolerant, but in some ways it
is proceeding little faster than in
the South Socially, for example,
particularly in college fraternities.
Leading honorary fraternities,
like Phi Beta Kappa, the scholastic
group, have no national policies OF
discrimination because of race, color
or creed, and have initiated Negroes
in many local chapters.
Social fraternities have moved
more slowly OF 90 mems fraterni-
ties. only have formal policies ex-
Guiding non-whites; of 80 women's
sororities, only /. But this doesn't
mean that a majority are admit
ting Negroes. Many have been
more liberal toward other nom
whites. such as Asiatics, and North
ern chapters are more liberal than
those in Southern colleges
In practice, says Alfred McClung
Lee. president Of the National COM
mittee on FraternitieS in Education,
about Is mems national fraternitieS
now have Negro members. but how
many members in how many chap
tiers are figures, he says, that are
not available.
THE Associated Press