St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1960-07-08
SETTING AN EXAMPLE

: nave known nothing else but sub.
serVience to segregation all theil
lives have found new hope and
courage in the students example
Harold Bardonille, a junior al
South Carolina State College in
Orangeburg, SC, was telling
several students at the Raleigh
conference how the old Negroes
from surrounding farms had come
to the college to offer their help
when they heard that police had
broken up a prayer march by turn
ing fire hoses on the students and
had made mass arrests.
When they heard about it, a
group of tenant farmers came up
to the campus" Bardonille ex-
planned. And 1 mean these were
real tenant farmers-dirt farmers.
You know? They went up to one
Of the profs and said, 'What're you
gonna do about all those chillun
that got hosed?' They said they
wanted to help, and they'd do any,
thing they could. They don't know
what they can do, but they look
to us for leadership. They're eager
to be a part of this"
Harold Bardonille told the story
with a kind of awe, which was only
appropriate Those tenant farmers
in the depths of South Carolina are
the kind of Negroes whom King
describes with the lines of the
Blues that say Been down so long
that down don't bother me-" But
now even they are looking up be-
cause a new generation has shown
them it is possible. To the students,
in fact, it is not only possible but
necessary.
/ Camus wrote in his novel The
Plaque that the people who risked
their lives to join the sanitary
squads" that fought the disease
did so not out of any sense of
heroics, but because they knew
it was the only thing to do, and
the unthinkable thing would then
have been not to have brought
themselves to do it." That is the
spirit in which the Negro students
seem to have taken up their fight
against the plaque" of segrega-
ton. 1t seems so LUMINOSITY OBJ
vious to them that what they
are doing lis the only thing to do"
Those students who came from
every state in the South to the
| conference at Raleigh went about
their business with a quiet deter
mination and minimum of
oratory; to look at the small
! groups of students scattered on
the grass of the campus in the
afternoon workshop sessions, or
seated in the humid Classrooms
in the earnest discussion periods,
you might imagine you had STUN
bled into an ordinary spring day
of study at any small college. In
the breaks" between sessions the
students smoked and talked, ex-
changing news of what was going
on in their own school and city
Billy Smith, a student at A & 7
College in Greensboro, was telling
a Nashville student how he and
his friends had been training the
high school kids in the town to
take over the sit-ins when the
college term ended for summer
vacation.
They'll carry it right on till we
get back in the fall" he said. 1--WE
can't let it stop just because of va
cation. We're ready to keep on
going for five or six years, or
whatever it takes. This is no fad
this is it."
Only the Beginning
And 1T" does not mean merely
the end of segregation at lunch
counters. AS Harold Bardonille put
it, Were trying to eradicate the
whole stigma of being inferior"
The lunch-counter protest is only
a symbol Of the students express
sion that they aren't having it
any more" Already students in
many of the cities have broadened
their work to include help in vot-
ing registration and preparation Of
economic boycotts among the adult
community. Billy Smith said when
he got to Greensboro that he and
his fellow students would be start
ing a "door-to-door knock" in the
Negro community to inform them
about 'selective buying
The reports Of the ten workshops
that studied the major phases Of
the movement from the Philoso-
ply of Non-Violence" to Jail VS..
Bail" revealed the scope and COM
mitment Of the students ideas.
The young girl from the Jail VS..
Bail" committee reported quietly
that her groups recommendations
were that the students arrested in
demonstrations receive no bail and
pay no fines; that all persons ar
rested stay in Jail. This" she ex-
planned, will show that arrest will
not deter U.S."
One group OF students studied
the role of college administrations
and decided that Negro college
presidents and administrators
should back the students action
a. kE,o "a