Arizona sun., 1960-12-29

"A SOlOuTu JIldt CoIIlcQ uS IL Jill
San Angelo and Waco, Texas; Lit
tie Rock, Arkansas; Memphis and
Nashville, and Fayette County Ten
nessee; Baltimore, Maryland;
Chester and Philadelphia, Pennsyl-
vania; and Bo:ton, Massachusetts,
and back here, helped form an Op-
timistic conviction that a great
wave of militancy pervades tn e
spirit of young Negroes Likewise,
a healthy aura of understanding is
developing among the white peop-
lie. And in face of this two-pronged
rising tide, old traditions, old laws
and old fashioned leadership must
inevitably disappear or conform to
new thinking and techniques Of hui
man relations.
Perhaps, most significant truth
becomes evident: No metropolis or
hamlet - South, East or North -
is without some discernible prob
sIem@of race relations. Even Phila-
delphia, ''The City of Brotherly
Love-" and Boston, 1.-The Cradle of
Liberty see problems of diScrim-
ination in housing, school curicula
and jobs arise. These two cities al
so recognize the necessity of agen-
cies and laws to combat misunder-
standings and intolerance that i n
variably seep in, along with the
steady flow of new migrations.
Negroes, in m any instances,
comprise the heaviest proportion of
these urban migrations, and as a
consequence, help create new So
cial and economic problems, just
as quickly as generation-old pro-
blems have finally been solved. U.
S. Census figures, when released,
will show that Negroes, in their
desperate urge to flee the poverty,
violence and confusion of t h e
South, were largely responsible for
population increases in most north
ern and border states cities. T h e
whites, at the same time, moved
from the cities to the suburban Sec
tions.
1T takes at least one generation
to solve the problems of readjust-
ment of Negroes that move into the
cities, DIR. j. Plus Barbour, editor
of the Baptist publication, THE
observed. "Only after the
last war were most problems that.
multiplied during the Depression
resolved. Now leadership must
face new ones. 2"
DR.. Barbour was speaking from
where the Negro popula-
ton spiraled from 10 percent in
1850 to an estimated so percent, yet
his reference was from a NATIONAL
Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr., the militant young south
ern clergyman, served as assistant
pastor to DR.. Barbour's Calvary
Baptist Church while both attended
the Grocer Theological Seminary in
Chester during the middle 4O's.
In our travels, we found n a t !
wherever difficulty and friction be-
tween races arise, there is a ten
dency to look hopefully toward the
young crop of World War II veter-
ans for level headed, aggressive
leadership. The offsprings of these
vets, imbued with this legacy of
freedom, have donned or are dom
ming the mantles of leadership inI
the sit-ins and picket lines, often
under the aegis of CORE or h e
NAACP Youth Councils.
The minimum high school prere-
quiSiteS for job consideration, the
nigh rates in births and migration
have resulted in more Negroes pur-
suing higher educational goals than
they did a decade ago. More and
more enter college, others venture
nto businesses, but larger num-
oers, especially males, seek fu :
,ures in new scientific fields, such
as electronics and allied vocations.
Will this surge for higher educa-
ional standards n d vocational
horizons produce more civic an d
cultural leadership for Negroes in
he near future? i