Canute County
By PETER FaRSTER 7- BELIEVE in three things,' remarked my lunch 'hostess in Georgia earlier this year, an elderly lady of immense charm, 'Segregation, the Mon- roe Doctrine, and resistance to all progress!'
This was after she had apologised because 'I was brought up to believe you should always serve one white, one green and one red vegetable, and today we had no red.' We were walking in the grounds of her house on a river bank some miles from Savannah, and having learned that I wrote novels, she went on to tell me she remembered her mother carrying Trilby from her father's study with a pair of fire-tongs, and depositing it in the river. When I admired the house, she recalled how one morning shortly after the last war her husband told her he had just placed one and a half million dollars to her account, and if she thought she could build a place within this limit, to go ahead. She overspent a little, and the result made Scarlett's Tara seem like a squatter's bungalow.
My hostess was a lady of culture, wit and great generosity. She would certainly be admired, and her views would be shared, by Governor Ernest Vandiver. The most important practical difference between their positions is that Gover- nor Vandiver has it in his power to shut down every public school in Georgia, thus depriving some half a million children of their education; and this autumn it seems quite likely that he will do just that.
For the Supreme Court's decision on integra- tion of schools, the slow fuse burning down through the South, has now reached Georgia, most British, most elegant of the Confederate States. in Georgia it is still 1788; the affluence is still startling, the beakers are still full of the Deep South, and in Savannah especially race relations have always been good because in early days the economy set them on the employer- employee, rather than the master-servant basis, whose legacy bedevils other States. But the powder-kegs nestle beneath the pleasant verandas. and nobody doubts it.
The Constitution of the State of Georgia for- bids integration. Some time ago Federal Judge Hunter in the State capital, Atlanta, ordered the State to implement the Supreme Court's decision and integrate schools. To buy a delay, the State Legislature set up a Commission to consider the problem this summer. If no satisfactory plan is forthcoming by the early autumn, Judge Hunter is expected to order integration forthwith. In that -case, Governor Vandiver has said that he will carry out his threat to cut off State funds to the schools, which would mean their closure.
Two points may be borne in mind when con- sidering this from outside. First, that in the South it is the whites who are segregated. Just as when they talk of 'the War,' they tend to mean the Civil rather than the Global, so they have little idea, let alone understanding, of opinion outside the South. Second, that what elsewhere is taken to be a matter of moral and political principle, in the South is often seen as simple civics.
Thus when in Savannah you talk of the colour bar, the reply will probably be to do with the County Unit System. This is much like our former way with rotten boroughs. Georgia is divided into one hundred and fifty-nine counties, each returning a representative to the Legislature, which means that a city is on a par with some barren backwoods county of a few hundred people. Four votes in Chatham County, in which stands Savannah with its 120,000 population, are worth one country vote. Conceived as a device to prevent the large centres gaining too much con- trol over the people in the outback, the system has long since been turned to the advantage of the political machine associated with the name of Talmadge, whereby the poor white farmers, bribed by such means as good roads and election- time largesse, keep the reactionaries in power. Change the County Unit System, say your South- ern moderates, and you have p chance of settling the integration problem. The State Legislature, not the Supreme Court, now holds the ball.
But to change that system is in effect to ask the boys to vote themselves out of office and profits. Moreover, there is an election to the Legislature this month, which is bound to preserve the status quo during another four years. A Savannah editor told me: 'The two things every candidate for political office in this State stands for are segregation in the schools and the County Unit System, and if he wants to be sure of not getting in, let him try the opposite plat- form. Why, even Ellis Arnold, the most liberal Governor we've ever had, said in 1940 that no decent white man would stand for change in those two respects!' He admitted cautiously that there might be need for change, but pointed out that, even so, September's elections are likely to turn on civic issues as much as racial. In Chatham County, for instance, the current major controversy is over the proposal to extend the Savannah city limits a short distance. This would, incidentally, bring them to the verge of the roll- ing acres of my lunch hostess's estate. `They're just set on pushing us into the river!' she said indignantly when the subject cropped up.
However, faced with the prospect of their children deprived of education, some decent enough white men are trying to avert disaster by yielding to the tide. But not many. A newspaper reporter, associated with the 'Hope' movement to keep the schools open come what may, even integration, said: People are afraid of reprisals, social and economic. I worked for two months here in Savannah trying to start an organisation, but nobody cared. Teachers daren't protest .be- cause they're paid by the State, and anyway they have to sign a loyalty oath saying they don't belong to any "subversive" organisation. The atmosphere is like when the Nazis burned the books. I know the State Commission may come up with this Pupil Placement Scheme—having a Board place children in the appropriate schools, and this could be a wonderful thing properly used, segregating the bright from the dull, im- proving our low educational standards. But if it happens, it'll only be a device for perpetuating segregation.' It was noteworthy that the most open and intelligent mind with which I discussed these problems in Savannah considered this man a `troublemaker.' However, she did think the Pupil Placement Scheme the one re- motely feasible compromise in sight, even if it meant only that: `Nobody could prove they'd been split up for reasons of colour. Have one pilot school where they are truly integrated, get lots of photos and publicity, and that would stall things for the time being!'
Time is in fact the crucial consideration at present. There is deadlock over principles; what is needed is a possible course of action, and soon. The editor said : `There's no great urge among the negroes for integration—even the representa- tive of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People] here isn't pressing for it. He knows, as they all know, it would bring down their standards; they can do better as things are. As it is, their schools are newer and better than ours. It would mean losing their teachers, too, because we'd never accept negro teachers. Believe me, this thing is more full of angles than geometry. We're not even near to social acceptance of the negro. There's no rancour or hatred of the negro. He's not second-class citizen—you never hear anyone round here say that—each within his own sphere is first-class, and they have their own civic organisation here, called HUB. In Chatham County the negro is not an economic threat to the white man—relations are happy. Integration won't come, and the schools won't shut.' But he would not say what would happen, if not one or the other.
When I asked why segregation is so passion- ately maintained, he shrugged. `Behind it basi' cally is the fear of mixed blood. Social inter- marriage nobody wants. And propinquity is hell of a force l'tolour is not the main considera- tion; for he went on to assure me how readily he would (and did) entertain Indian guests. But local negroes were the descendants of slaves, and primitive fear has no links with logic.
Yet he, let me emphasise, was a moderate-- light-miles more tolerant than the poor whites. the 'wool-hats' (i.e., dyed-in-the-wool segrega' tionists) of the rural Tobacco Roads who feat negro competition. Indeed, it could be said that integration is most opposed by poor whites and rich negroes. But the most alarming feature of all in the present situation seemed to me the bitterness among the Southern moderates. N‘ h0 feel that the Supreme Court decision has cut the ground from under their feet, forcing them to hurry on foolishly when they were .advancing gradually and with some success. As the editor put it: 'The greatest danger now is that the negro will lose the friendship of the Southern white man.' There will be real disaster if the moderates opt for the reactionary camp. It irlaY be that as things stand they tend towards the paternalistic rather than the egalitarian in their . dealings with the negro. But whatever the more! rights and wrongs of that, I might add that would sooner be an aged servant in the Savannah households I saw than an old-age pensioner England. Moreover, I was startled to find the editors contention about integration not being the Wish of all negroes confirmed by the one leader of the local negro community I was able to meet. (The other made, but ducked, an appointment.) He was a bland, courteous young Methodist pastor, who switched off the background organ Muzak on his portable tape recorder a little way through the interview. Like others in his position and of his colour throughout the world, he seemed part- Machivelli, part-Messiah—and, in passing, lest certain hackles have been rising in the course of all this, I must mention that he said he preferred to be called a negro, which is what he clearly and unshamefully was, and found (as I do) something ineffably condescending about the obtrusively tactful use of 'coloured person.' The Machiavelli was prepared to half-hope for closure, 'because that would bring Ellis Arnold out again to have them reopened, and he's a liberal.' Also: 'Integration means poor white teacher% and good negro teachers going north, with lower standards for us.' The Messiah in- sisted that housing projects should be done 'with, not for, negroes.' And: 'I wouldn't like to see schools in Savannah integrated. As father of three, I think it would be degrading for the Whites, levelling down all round. I'm interested in human beings, not just one group.' In between laY a shrewd idealism: 'There are fifteen million negroes in the USA, with an annual income of some fifteen billion dollars—all of which gets spent. Few big businesses; basic industries, are in negro hands—they're run by whites for negroes. (Except for undertakers, by the way.) That's where the inequity lies rather than in education, though often the curriculum in white schools is more advanced. Still, we have modern equipment and are improving—we've just got our first accredited high school here for negroes. So schools aren't the first priority in my view—I'd rather see an effort by the interests in the city to Promote housing, jobs, etc. I don't feel any stigma about segregation, and many segregation prob- lems elsewhere don't arise here—the buses, for example, are used 90 per cent. by negroes, and the 10 per cent. whites are of the same class working with them. If the old pledge of separate- but-equal had been implemented, there would never have been this situation. Now everybody is playing wait-and-see-what-happens. But this is already the most integrated city in the South,' one other vital factor must be mentioned, and that is the white Southern mystique of courtesy. There is a local saying in Savannah: 'Never ex- Plain, complain, apologise!' Acting upon it has resulted in a society extraordinarily tolerant and amiable, but in some ways it has smudged the edges of perception, so that what to brusquer spirits may seem a question of principle seems to i'nemi one of tact. The Methodist minister said: I told them that if they gave me a seat on the School Board I'd guarantee there'd be no trouble over schools here in Chatham County for ten Years.' The editor said: 'There was a proposal 11,,,°l long ago to put a negro on the Stool Board. But the Board has to have a formal dinner out sometimes, and he wouldn't very well be able to crime and sit down with the rest. Well, it was tactful to exclude him, because it would be Humiliating for him to have to keep away, wouldn't it?' But sooner or later they will all have to sit down together, whatever colour the guests, or the vegetables.
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