St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1960-06-10


in his book that, after the boycott
was over, the Montgomery whites
had a new respect for the Negro
citizens. It is certainly true that
the Negroes gained great dignity
from what they did, and that by
all rational standards the white
people should have gained a great
er respect for them. But the feel
ings involved in this conflict have
little or nothing to do with ration
ality. Judging from the whites 1
talked to recently in Montgomery,
the successful boycott did not in
crease their respect for the Ne
groes who carried it out, but rather
increased the mistrust and hatred
of them.
The sentiments of the majority
of local whites toward the Rev.
erend King and the leaders Of the
boycott are probably reflected with
accuracy in the outrage vented on
them by the press. To The Ala
bama Journal, Mr.. King is a de
spicable character" In denouncing
the recent sit-in demonstrations,
the Montgomery Advertiser had
this to say about the Reverend
Ralph Alternately, who is now the
head of the Montgomery Improve
ment Association (the Negro group
formed by King to carry out the
bus boycott:
Instead of diplomas and teacher
certificates, they (the Negro stu
dent sit-in demonstrators can
mount in a frame upon the wall
a picture of Dr. Alternately jazzing
around in his Gandhi representation
for the TV and Life Magazine
cameras, using them as potted
palms in his act of aggrandize-
ment.
Negro leaders like King and
Alternately are especially despised
and ridiculed, for they are not the
Negroes who fit the image of the
shuffling old Uncle Toms - the
image which the white so tenaci-
ously holds on to because it gives
meaning to his whole rationable
that the Negro isn't yet ready for
equality, and is in fact genetically
and educationally Cor BOTH incap-
able of assuming the responsibility
les of full citizenship. Part of the
insistence by Southern whites that
the movement for Negro rights is
plot engineered by outsiders
Jews and Communists) is based
on the reasoning that the Negro
is unable to carry it out himself.
The emergence of Southern Ne
gro leaders like King and Aber-
nathy confounds the old comfort
able theories-but does not dis
prove them to the segregauonist.
Even today, the Southern white
can say with conviction, along
with Carl Bear, that the majority
/ of Negroes do not want integra-
ton. How do they know? Why
they asked. I have never yet been
in a city in the South in which
at least one white person didn't
explain to me that Negroes didn't
really want Indignation; they had
been assured of this only the other
day when they asked their maid,
or their yard man, who had been
with them all these years and
surely wouldn't lie. Perhaps the
example that best explains the
irony of these reports is one told
by a white citizen of Montgomery
who was present when the family
maid was asked what she thought
about the bus boycott. "Oh, my
folks don't want to have anything
to do with that kind of trouble" "
the maid had assured her en-
ployers. Me, I walk to work, and
my brother Jim, he drives and
picks up some other folks and takes
'em to work, and we just stay
away from those buses-we don't
want to have anything to do with
that boycott"
The Negroes They Love
Much is made of the genuine
love that Southern whites feel for
the Negroes, and such love indeed
exists, as long as the Negro stays
lin his place"-which is out in
the cottonfield, mindin' his business
and hummin' a tune. A recent edi-
torial in the Alabama Journal tells
us how warm the feelings are for