St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1960-04-22

most respected forces in current
American life. The struggle is still
uphill. the path still spotted with
lot of tears and a little blood
but today, wherever power is
welded. there are Negroes to
whom white men listen with a new
measure of respect.
The most significant change may
be that the war against racial
injustice no longer is merely the
struggle of the Urban League, or
of the National Association for the
/ Advancement of Colored People,
which fought a parallel 5O-year
battle to sweep away the legal
barriers that blocked action by
men of decent impulse. There is
not a major urban area outside
the South. and few in the South,
without some official or quasi
official organization charged with
the task of helping Negroes-and
whites-to overcome the barriers
Of racial passion.
The paradox, of course. is that
despite the fantastic changes of
the last half century, the conflicts
and CONSERVATION surrounding the
urban Negro are most intense,
more complex, more demanding of
organized approaches to solutions
than ever before. For one reason,
the Negro is demanding more than
he did so years ago. This should
surprise no thoughtful person, for
all of human history tells us that
men who have tasted freedom fight
for a full measure of it with a
thousand times the fervor of alb
jeCt slaves. Secondly, there is to-
day the pressure of sheer numbers
In the minds of many white men,
freedom is bearable for one black
man, intolerable for more than a
few.
And the fact of life today is
that the migratiOns of 1910 were
paltry when compared, for eX-
ample, with the fact that Chi
CagO had an increase of $4,000
nOn-white residents between 1910
and l95O-Or when we consider
the fact that New York City
now has roughly a million Negro
inhabitants.
So the problems remain great,
despite the many areas in which
these Negro newcomers" have
proved their citizenship, their basic
worth, because there remain power
full urban forces which are not
reconCiled to the Negroes presence
any more today than they were in
1910 The truth may be that it is
the very magnitude of Negro pro-
gress that lies behind much of the
fear that leads some white man to
seek to bottle up Negroes in the
slums and ghettoes of our urban
areas. Perhaps it is a measure of
the black workman's proof that
he can compete, in endeavors skill
ed and unskilled, that many white
unionists still seek to bar him from
so many areas.
More than fifty years after
the last anguished audience
stalked away from a perform
ance of DNOn's THE Clans
man, we find stable numbers
of men who seem to need to be-
lieve that the Negro is an in
feriOr animal. These men today
harp on the misdeeds of the
worst of the Negro migrants.
They lose sight-deliberately,
perhaps-Of a fundamental diff
ference between today's Negro
migrant and that Of 1910.
While todays Negro still fees
the injustices and expressions
of his native South, his move
ment is more positive than
that of his grandparents; he
is running toward something -
namely, opportunity, the good life
a sense Of dignity. That he does
not always find them is as much
the tragedy of the cities to which
he runs as Of his own. The provable
fact is that, although still not
fully prepared to cope with urbar
life, the average migrant brings
with him today education anC
skills all but unheard of among
the Negro migrants of 1910.
When our urban areas accept
the fact that the Negro is Of
America and is in her cities tc
stay, perhaps those who contro
our metropolises will face up to a
hard, cold fact: to stunt the
, growth of a stable segment of q
city is to stunt the growth Of ar
entire city. Perhaps, when thi!
becomes a civic truism, the Urban
League will find new allies in tn,
struggle to secure for Negro
youngsters the wholesome environ
ment, the education, the vocationa
opportunities that make for re
sponsible juveniles and adults O.
. dignity and worth.
One cannot say what the mex
so years will hold, of course; on
can only hope that they will MAKE