The Lexington advertiser. [volume] (Lexington, Miss.) 1904-1985, 1962-04-05

~
bic whammy. In no other Sec
ton of the country except the
West Coast has there been
such a dramatic rise in in
dustrial activity. Southern
cites have mushroomed ard
southern villages have
emptied. The sharecropper is
nearly gone. The easy, old
social stability which was i'm
posed upon a complacent
peasantrv by a comfortable
landed gentry has been shak-
en- to pieces. The South is
mobile and moving.
Much of the black South
has moved North. New York
City row contains more Me-
grOes than the whole state
of Louisiana. The most Ne
groid big city in America is
Washington with a colored
population Of "a per cent.
Between 1850 and 1860 the
Negro population of Wiscon-
sin tripled while that ir Mis-
sissippi dropped eight per
cent.
This has put something of
a strain on the northerners'
much-vaunted tolerance, and
a lot of them haven't passed
the test.
Grover Hall, the able edi-
tor of The Montgomery Adj
vertiser, a couple of years
ago grew tired of the swarms
of northern reporters who de-
scended on his state every
time there was a racial in
cident. He travelled north,
talked to social workers,
judges, and police officers. He
discovered that serious race
disturbances in some north
ern cities had been ignored
by local newspapers on their
theory that nothing would be
gained by publicity. But a
bus station arrest anywhere
in the Deep South was al
ways good for page one and
a hot editorial in these same
papers.
Halls classic series, "Tell
1t Not in Eskelon," remains
a masterpiece of bitter but
justified, Journalism.
The sad result of this hypo-
crisy and carpetbagging on
the part of the North has
been an increase in rigid and
defense reactions in
the South. The old southern
contention that the southern
Negro wants no change is
getting tattered. He may have
been reasonably content once
but the steady drumfire of
agitation from the colored
press is having its effect. The
are getting stronger
and more popular. So the
southern white is beginning
to take refuge in "over-my-
bodyism," and this, too, isn't
very rational.
The white southerner has
a problem. He can't solve it
by fleeing to ar. all-white SUI
as many white norther-
ners are doing. Nor can he
solve it by the continued and
indefinite denial of civil
to people who are, af-
ter all, citizer.s and taxpay-
ers.
It's time that the too-wide
gulf between northern and
southern attitudes were mar
rowed. The South is no long
er a quiet, sun-drenched relic
of the rural 18th century. To-
bacco Road is paved now,
ard much of it is four-laned.
Nor is the North any longer
a stranger to race problems.
Neither section has a corner
on wisdom and holiness.
One way to start narrow
ing this gap would be a let
up in the ur.justified libeling
of the South. This means a
change of attitude on the part
of some of the South's own
literary geniuses, who have
won too many prizes cussing
their own kind. 1t means a
rev and more realistic treat
ment of the South by Broad
way, Hollywood, and the
northern magazines and dali
les.
1t is well that The Cleve-
land Plain Dealer under edi-
tor Wright Bryan, a former
raises this issue. 1t
is we'll that the New York
under the managing
editorship of former issis-
sippisn Turner Catledge, is
beginning to marvel at how
EASY it is to sell a mean and
scenario about the
South.
Les blow this holier-than-
ihou bunk out the window.
A-~ocoo~ ;nol,,I;r4 tho