Black and White
By RICHARD H. ROVERE student ever admitted to the University 'of Alabama, is still being forbidden to attend 'classes. As all the world must know by now, Miss Lucy attended one lecture—that was en February 3—and the protest that followed led to a university order restraining her from further attendance. The car she rode in was stoned; a fiery cross was set in front of the dean's 11°„ tne; there was a threatening demonstration outside the home °t the president. It is said that the mob was mainly from °Litside the university. A small minority of the enrolled were involved. In any case' the university capitulated. , Meanwhile, in Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, one hundred or so leaders of the coloured community are under arrest for having organised a boycott against the municipal ?Qs system. The cause of the boycott was segregated seating In the vehicles and the refusal of the Nis line to hire Negro tirivers. Since December 5. Montgomery Negroes in large numbers have been engaged in a form of passive resistance, Te main feature of which is car pools. This has taken a good eal of planning and organising, and Alabama, like most States, has statutes prohibiting organised boycotts under certain conditions. The Negro leaders do not deny that their action constitutes a technical violation of the anti-boycott laws. the intend merely to assert that enforced segregation violates "e Constitution.
What we have here is the backlash of progress, at least in the view of those of us who consider court decisions limiting segregation as instances of progress. There is no doubt what- ever that the immediate effect of these decisions has been to situation racial tensions in the deep South. In many areas the have is worse than it was before, and worse than it would rye been had there not been this whole series of court rulings. ,t is entirely conceivable, for example, that if the Supreme s'ourt had not ordered an end to segregation in the State- stuPPorted schools, Miss Lucy would now be pursuing her Sun tidies unmolested and unprotested. For years before the voluntarily, Court ruling, Southern universities had, more or less Tuntarily, been admitting small numbers of Negro students. The first Negro was admitted 'to the University. of Texas ',Ighteen years ago, and there are now only a handful of 'tTenthern schools that are 100 per cent. white. There have en no significant protests on the part of students or the „eoPle in surrounding communities. Miss Lucy's case raised it' storm not because anyone really objected to one Negro student of library management in an institution with an enrol- ill`ent of 7.500, but because shb appeared on the scene in a moment of widespread exasperation caused by the determina- tion 1 or Negroes to secure the many privileges the courts have b";e1Y ee awarding hem. The Mntgomery bus boyott elongsb ton a somewhatt different ordero of things. Defiancec on this scale would lead to reprisals and trouble at any time. However, the boycott would not have been organised but for what the Negro leaders recognised as a favourable climate for such an undertaking. Both they and the white authorities who ordered their prosecution are interested in testing the laws and sampling the new climate. '
One can be fairly certain that no more Alan 5 per cent, of Southern whites welcome the Negro advance toward full equality. On the other hand, the militant white supremacists. those who will join organisations and actually give part of themselves to a resistance movement, are no greater in number. In between is a mass committed by custom, apathy, and reason in varying proportions to the values the militant leaders pro- claim. But all the Smith knows the general direction of the drift, and the zest for fighting a lost cause is likely to mount as it becomes more and more apparent that resistance will in the end prove unavailing. For months and perhaps for years there will be outbursts of violence and increased repressive- ness. There will also be court decisions favouring the Negroes. Only last week three federal judges in Louisiana—natives all —ruled that the whole body of Louisiana's segregation laws were in violation of the Constitution. These decisions will embolden the Negro leaders to press forward to new privileges and to equality in new areas. This will heighten resentment and breed new frustration, as it has these past few months, and new heights of futility and absurdity will be reached in the effort to defend the indefensible. The heights of futility that are achieved will be in a sense the measure of the real pro- gress that is being made. But the pity of this is that the world will not see it in quite this light.
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