The Illinois times. (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-19??, 1961-04-17
EDITORIAL.
THE EDUCATION
OF THE SOUTH
~
TINE. APRIL T. 1851

TINE, APRIL T. 1901
The law which is a great teacher,
seven years ago wrote a hard lesson
for the US South: It's white schools
must accept Negroes and, by ex-
tension, its white people in their
daily lives must accept this as
moral right Negro students-Who,
as it turned out, can also be effective
teachers-added to the laws lesson by
exploding, with sit-ins, the comfor-
table white belief that the Negro was
content with segregation. Now the
lesson is sinking in deeply. Things
are changing in the South, writes
James Jackson Fitzpatrick, the Rich
mond News Leader editor who five
years ago revived the legal doctrine
of ''interpoSition" in an unsuccessful
attempt to halt school indignation.
Il state the proposition for what it
NAV be worth. For the first time in
their lives, thousands 80. $500.
of Southerners are beginning 10 see tn
Negro in a way they never saw HIM be
fore. 1t is like getting new glasses =.
Aspects of segregation that once were tn
whites non-concern now trouble his spir
it uncomfortably; Sit-ins. Segregated Ii
braries.. Certain job discrimination. Gen
timely unequal schools in some areas.
Dying Resistance. So far only toke
compliance with the school desegregatio
law prevails. In the public schools o
Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Scout
Carolina. indignation IS nonexstent. |
Louisiana. it consists of four little Negr
girls in two New Orleans schools. Fightin
case by case against the long arm c
judicial tyranny extremists deefy rae
'mongrelization by the "Jew-backe
Even moderates double
think up evasions by every legal means
Yet Southerners-76fo of them, say
Pollster George Gallup-now general
concede that desegregation is ineVitabl
Tn 1854 public schools were wholly segr'
gated in II states, today in only four.
Tennessee, where the Nashville city couI
Gil now has both Negro and white men
bers, state legislators last month az
journed for the first time without intrC
ducing a segregation bill. In once hot
resisting Virginia segregation has val
ished in many schools most buses and a
public Libraries. In the 1907 gubernatori
campaign how to fight desegregation wi
probably not even be an ISSUE
In Georgia, state Legislators recent
abandoned massive-resistance laws thi
were billed as sufficient to keep schoo
segregated for 1000 years In Ne,
Orleans, businessmen have begun openl
advocating real public school desegrega
ton, and Catholic laymen have Jus
formed a group to prepare desegregatiol
OF parochial schools. In Jackson. Miss
last week nine Negro college student
held the states first sit-in demonstrate,
at public ibrary-and duly got arrested
When 100 more Negroes applauded then
two days later in front of the court COD
attacked with clubs. guns and police dog.
Yet the fact that Negroes even raise
their heads in last-ditch Mississippi be
spoke a new attitude.
A Wholly New Negro. The lesson
difficult because of the Southern white
almost traumatic shock at the sight of
wholly new Negro. Whites in all sincerit
used to regard Negroes as stereotype Aun
Jemimas, happily content with their LOT
Now servants train themselves not to b
subservient the old smiling Ma am2
has become a cool Il didn't hear" or
crisp Pardon me- When Negroes de
lberately step into traffic against re,
light. or even throw an oath at a driver