Jackson advocate. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1939-current, 1956-08-04
Segregation In The North
The Christian Science Monitor

1t is surprising how many Americans believe their
principal racial problem is confined to the South For
the fact that nearly onethird of the Negroes in the
United States live in the North. They largely
concentrated in cities within cities, twelve having
population of 100000 and three nearly 100000 EACH
And adjustments by means always easy peace
full, recurrent disturbances prove.
There is no legal segregation in the North but seq
regation forms the general pattern wherever large
groups of Negroes found. Their desires to live
among their kind plus economic pressures tend to
restrict them to certain crowded and deteroratng neigh
borhoods And since children normally attend schools
nearest their homes segregation naturally there
too as general practice
Such segregation although never touching the ex-
perence of millions of Northerners, greatly
many city and school officials. In they
attempting to force mixing of raceseven going across
normal school to do it. The theory is that mix
ing is itself educational Directly involved is the old
concept of the melting pot an adjunct of de-
mocracy And there is insistence the right of equal
opportunity.
Considering the official and political efforts to
combat segregation in the North it has proved remark
ably persistent. In several respects it resembles
phenomenon American cities have long known-mm-
grants from abroad forming their racial or nation
al encaves, maintaining their customs and lang
uages, their own newspapers. Often the forces
making for such cannishness much from within
as from without.
So it is with the American Negro-in the North and
the South Too often it is assumed that segregation is
wholly artificial pattern enforced by unworthy preju
dice Some of it is like that But much segregation
about naturally through the same processes OF SeecOn
which individuals to choose like minded associates
families to seek congenal neighborhoods And white
resistance to Negro mgraons within cities arises partly
from the fact that such movements usually in
groups due in turn to Negro desires to have friends
or relatives as neighbors
Officials in the North who are trying to force
mixing in the face of such forces of natural selection
should be able better to understand why desegregaton
slowly in the South. So too should Northern
whites who object to their neighboorhoods being chang
ed either by racial migration by industrazation by
any social force causing deterioration And possibly
also Negroes who prefer not to live alone in white neigh
borhoods, preference which reduces the opportunity
for them to be treated individuals and centers atten
ton
All of deal more wisely with this situation
if recognize that here there two rights in conflict
One is the right to equal opportunity The other the
right of the individual to choose his associates Both
closely related to the democratic ideal To enforce either
against the other by law takes something away from
that ideal To seek accommodation of the to the
other by voluntary action supports the democratic ideal
and is likely to bring the most practicable and endur
ing solution.
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