The Petal paper. [volume] (Petal, Miss.) 1953-19??, 1959-10-22

Till affair are correct, this is
what ineradicably remains; two
adults, armed, in the dark, kid
nap a fourteen-year-old boy and
take him away to frighten him.
Instead of which, the fourteen
year-old boy not only refuses to
be frightened, but, unarmed,
alone, in the dark so frightens the
two armed adults that they must
destroy him.
What are we Mississippians
afraid of? Why do we have so
low an opinion of ourselves that
we are afraid of people who by
all our standards are our infe-
riors? - economically: i.e., they
have so much less than we have
that they must work for us not
on their terms but on ours; edu-
cationally: i.e., their schools are
so much worse than ours that the
federal government has to threat
en- to intervene to give them
equal conditions; politically: i.e.,
they have no recourse in law for
protection from nor restitution
for injustice and violence.
! Why do we have so low an
opinion of our blood and tradi-
tons as to fear that, as soon as
the Negro enters our house by
the front door, he will propose
marriage to our daughter and she
will Immediately accept him?
Our ancestors were not afraid
like this-our grandfathers who
fought at First and Second Ma
nassas and Sharpsburg and Shi-
lob and Franklin and Chicka-
manga and Charlottesville and
the Wilderness; let alone those
who survived that and had the
additional and even greater cour-
age and endurance to resist and
survive Reconstruction, and so
preserved to us something of our
present heritage. Why are we,
descendants of that blood and in
heritors of that courage, afraid?
What are we afraid Of? What has
happened to us in only a hum
dred years?
The American Dream
For the sake of argument, let
us agree that all white Southern
ers Gall white Americans maybe)
curse the day when the first
Briton or Yankee sailed the first
shipload of manacled Negroes
across the Middle Passage and
auctioned them into American
slavery. Because that doesn't mat
ter now. To live anywhere in the
world today and be against equal
ity because of race or color, IS
like living in Alaska and being
against snow. We have already
got snow. And as with the Alas
kan, merely to live in armistice
with it is not enough. Like the
Alaskan, we had better use it.
Suddenly about five years ago
and with no warning to myself,
/ adopted the habit of travel.
Since then I have seen Ga little
of some, a little more of others
the Far and Middle East, North
Africa, Europe and Scandinavia.
The countries I saw were not
Communist Chem of course, but
they were more: they were not
even Communist-inclined, where
it seemed to me they should have
been. And wondered why. Then
suddenly I said to myself with a
kind of amazement: It's because
of America.
These people still believe in the
American dream; they do not
know yet that something hap
pened to it. They believe in us
and are willing to trust and fol-
low us not because of our mater
ial power: Russia has that: but
because of the idea of individual
human freedom and liberty and
equality on which our nation
was founded, which our founding
fathers postulated the word
america" to mean.
And, five years later, the coun-
tries which are still free of Com
munism are still free simply be-