Jackson advocate., 1962-12-22
See Tide,,.

Continued From Page One)
been there nmmering under
the surface all the time.
By now, it must be recog-
nized in all its potent dimen-
sions, critically, understand
ingly examined, delicately and
swiftly dealt with before it
boils over and scalds all the
progress we Americans have
made on the problem Of race
relations in the last decade.
Everybody presumably has q
certain capacity for hatred, in
varying degrees. Nobody, sure
ly, likes to be hated, in what
ever degree. Indeed as a ma
ton we have made a kind of
cult out of a craving to be
"liked and we are puzzled and
hurt when we find that we
are not.
A Negro makes this punish
ing discovery after birth; ex-
perience quickly teaches him
that he is the despised minor
ity in a white mans world.
Should the white man, then,
be so staggeringly surprised to
discover a Negroes capacity to
return the hate?
The difficulty for many Of
us whites, expect, stems from
a SNUG indifference to the Me-
gro's real problems. We re-
mark and marvel at his pa
tience, his courage. the dignity
Of his self discipline, forget
ting that there is a limit to all
of these because he too is hu-
man.
So the more the whites nod ap-
proval of "gradualism" and "tok-
enism" in the Negroes struggle for
first-class citizenship the more the
black citizens, after not just one
but many centuries of oppression
may loathe those terms. And from
the loathing could come terrible
violent action as one vast reac-
ton to ages of Illustration and in.
suit.
On Thanksgiving Day in Wash.
ington's spanking brand new mul.
ti-million dollar stadium a non
segre 6 a te d but predominantly
white Catholic team, st. Johns
won the District high school foot
ball championship by a score o.
2O-7 over Ea tern High whos'
players were all Negro.
A fight on the field snapped ten
sion in, the stands and agfastl,
helee snsued which could -aat h
brushed off simply as team rival
ry.
In a moving letter published II
the Washington Post, SimeoI
Booker, the Washington bureau
chief of Ebony, Tan and Jet, Negr'
magazines, described his own an
guish in witnessing IAN explosion
of hate (which) stemmed mostl,
from my own people"
'I saw the stadium" Bookel
wrote, FILLED to great extent b.
Negroes, suddenly terrified by row
ing herds of hoodlums who Sc
upon whites, men, women and chill
dren, with the most profane Ian
guage and physical mistreatmen
Booker criticized school author
tiles and police for failing to an
ticipate the ingredients of explo
sion, but he put heavier respon
sibility on Washington's Negr,
leadership to tackle rowdyism an
delinquency, not with excuses. Q
seokements, but planned correctiv
programs.
The games violence was tn
event I mentioned; in a sense tn
essay was more violent still - "a
letter From a Region of My Mind
by Negro author James Baldwin
in the New Yorker Magazine o
Nov. II.
But for citizens q open mind
hope and good wil~this is mus
reading. Is is a true Philippe
plunging it's blades of anger agaiI
and again into the hollow heart o
hypocrisy, into the sallow liver O.
injustice of our so-called Christian
society.
Baldwin's lie tt er, drenched il
bitterness, comes very near to be
ing, nevertheless, a communiqu,
from the human soul. 1t may mari
the nearest anyone has ever CONF
to leading a white man intellect
kually into a furnace of tormen
THAT has been, and still is. a blacl
man's fate.
The letter may first shock ant
ienrage even the most thoughtful
minds who then, however, are Like
Il ly to wilt in shame and humility
before the major truths that Bald
win insists on assembling. The
largest truth of all is that time is
running out on the opportunity fo1