Community 1958-03: Vol 17 Iss 7

dommunity

Why is Housing Segregation Unjust?

RIGHT: Neigh-
bors lend a hand
with the new
slipcovers. These
neighbors live in a
public housing
project where
segregation is
illegal.

(Chicago Housing
Authority Photo)

LEFT: Seven children died when fire de-
stroyed this Chicago building January 23.
Six were in one family, a family that was
renting two rooms for $91.00 a month.
Originally the building had eight apart-
ments. At the time of the fire it had been
cut up into 27 apartments with an esti-
mated 150 residents . . . all Negro.

“Residential fire deaths for non-whites are
more than double the rate for whites,” Den-
nis Clark points out in article which begins
below.

Heer

Injustice Is Five-Fold

HERE ARE MANY PEOPLE that I

meet in my work in racially chang-
ing neighborhoods who do not believe
that there is any injustice involved in
racial discrimination in the leasing and
sale of houses. As a result, the segre-
gation produced by such discrimina-
tion is easily accepted by them. It is
argued at times that non-whites want
to live together and voluntarily choose
to do so, and that it is because of the
economic level of most non-whites that
they usually live together in the oldest
and least desirable housing in our cities.
Such arguments seem to fit together

(Continued on back page)

Ten Cents March, 1958

WHY DID You HAVE T'PICK A
WESTERN WITH INDIANS IN IT,

READERS WRITE:

(Commodore in CHICAGO DEFENDER)

I Like COMMUNITY Because...

Dear Editor: Last summer my dad and |
went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guado-
lupe also, so we really enjoyed the ‘Tale of
Two Vacations” in January COMMUNITY. |
just couldn’t feel very happy in Texas either
—with all their colored restaurants, etc.

DOLORES RIESTENBERG
Perham, Minnesota

Deor Editor: Be assured of my interest and
love for your magnificent apostolate. I'll al-
ways be on the lookout for new subscribers
to COMMUNITY because | consider it so
very necessary—and urgent.

LOUISE MARRA

Jersey City, New Jersey

Deor Editor: Just a word of appreciation for
the COMMUNITY. It seems to get better
every month. | especially thought the Janu-
ary issue was terrific. Page seven told more
thon words (“An Invitation to a Workshop

MARCH, 1958 * Vol. 17, No. 7

COMMUNITY

(Formerly “The Catholic Interracialist’’)
ished by friendship House,

tholi and women
on orggization of Eathol tte hae on the

elimination 7 racial sranidies and discrimination.
p> 1

Editor: Mary Dolan

Circulation Manager: Delores Price

Address all communications to:

4233 South Indiana Avenue
Chicago 15, Illinois
Phone: OAkland 4-9564

Subscription rate: $1 a year er
eign $1.25 a cece Single copy: 10
cents. 10-99 copies: 7 cent per
copy. 100 or more copies: 5 cents
per copy.

Advertising rates on request.
Address chenge: allow one month.
Please send both old and new ad-

dress.
COMMUNITY
ottes of publication: Ticsani thesis
Sereet, Aap eters tem ccrherined oF

Forms =e should be forwarded to
4233 South Indiana Avenue, Chicago 15, Illinois.

——_—_————————————_—

in Building Friendships’’).

| am planning to move to New York
where | hope to make friendships at your
New York City address.

BOB RUDOLPH
St. Louis, Missouri

Dear Editor: John J. O’Connor’s article in
the January, 1958 issue is very provocative,
one of the best that | have seen on the sub-
ject. The whole issue was excellent.

REV. RAYMOND BERNARD, S.J.
St. Louis, Missouri

Dear Editor: The best way of telling you
how much your paper means to me is by
renewing my subscrition, so enclosed is my
dollar—you can be sure that you and all
those working for interracial justice are daily

in my prayers.
WILMA B. KOHLER
New York, New York

HIGHLIGHTS

HOUSING-AND-RACE

IN THIS

Dear Editor: When recently the luxury liner
“Ryndam” docked in New York, among its
many passengers stepping ashore was also
yours truly, coming back from Poland—from
behind the Iron Curtain. During my stay in
Poland, the subject of American Negroes
was brought up many times.

During the war, when | was a teen-ager
here in Springfield, we organized a ‘’Stu-
dents Interracial Youth Council.’’ The mem-
bers were whites, Jews, Negroes. | don’t
know how much good we did, but we tried
our best, and in fact, we had our own week-
ly program, ‘Young America Speaks.’’

While in Poland, | was able to answer
many questions. There were times when peo-

Visits Poland, Queried on Negroes

ple were told by the Communistic press
stories out of this world. Among others—
that the American average man’s pastime
was to take his family for a little ride to
witness mass Negro lynchings. | was in Po-
land at the time of Little Rock. | was able
to point out the bad things and the good
ones, like the work of COMMUNITY.

We Americans can’t go abroad and shout
about democracy and other things, as long
as we deprive some of our own citizens of
the rights that belong to them.

You are doing a wonderful job—keep
at it.

WILFRED E. MIS
Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts

Commends “Bitter Experience” Writer

Dear Editor: The letter in your January issue
entitled “‘A Bitter Experience’’ was very
good. | wish more people had her courage
and foresight. She is certainly to be com-
mended on her stand. Her work with Friend-
ship House is more valuable than a marriage
which would only result in bitter arguments.

| did not think of these things when | got
married. When | speak to my children they
seem to have more understanding than their

years. But when there are foolish outbursts
on your husband’s part, you begin to won-
der if you have lost what you gained. Only
time will tell.

|, too, would enjoy doing more work in
this field but find myself limited to just
writing about it. But as the circulation man-
ager of your paper has stated, COMMU-
NITY does give food for thought.

NAME WITHHELD

We Must Face This Problem

Dear Editor: The remarks by your white
reader (‘On Being a Minority,’’ February
COMMNITY) interested me. | was remind-
ed of the biblical passage that says the sins
of the fathers are visited to the third and
fourth generation.

What we are actually faced with is the
fact that now we want to right a wrong.
These children who are coarse and crude
are the result of the sins of former genera-
tions. We must face this problem. | would
not choose to have my children go to school
with children, whatever their race, who are
vulgar and coarse. But such children must
be helped. When they come into our schools,
it requires a lot of patience and we have to
bring all the goodness we can possibly mus-
ter to try to point out the right way.

The only other alternative, it seems to
me, is flight—which is no answer. | often
think of people who, when they have prob-
lems to face, drink heavily, When they get

sober, they still have the problems. And the
problem of the school is still there, whether
this person moves or not.

And if a family does move away, what
does the parent say to a child? Does he
justify why they moved? When a person be-
gins to justify flight, then he becomes an
instrument of intolerance.

White people who have been taught at
every turn that Negroes are not due respect
find it almost impossible to respect Negroes.
Talking to many whites, you realize that
they know absolutely nothing about Negroes.
They haven’t been in homes of Negroes; few
care to associate socially. As a result they
tend to think of Negroes as all being similar
—and different from whites.

One prefers to be thought of as a human
being with the same desires as all other
human beings.

MRS. MADELINE STRATTON
Chicago, Illinois

Asks Less Harping on Racial, Race

Deer Editor: Just a line about some ideas
that I’ve been kicking around for some time.

What do we see in our nation and the
world today? Two major divided camps, Ne-
gro and white, and many minor camps of

ISSUE

“Why Is Housing Segregation Unjust?” by Dennis Clark Page l

EMPLOYMENT-AND-RACE

“Merit Employment Laws in 13 States Prove re

by Mary Clinch

TRAVEL-AND-RACE

“Where Will You Sleep Tonight?”

FRIENDSHIP HOUSES

New York House Offers Afternoon of Recollection, Chi-

cago House Day of Recollection on Laetare Sunday

(March 16)

PLUS REGULAR FEATURES

LINES FROM THE SOUTH:

Page 6

“Blue arene. fourth of
series by Dorothy Abernethy .

VIEWS: Round-up of brief news items by Clif Thomas ..

Page 3
Page 7

BOOK REVIEWS: “Are Women chee Like That?” "=

Sally Leighton ..

Page 7

Irish, French, Italians, Swedes, etc. And yet
God created one human race in the begin-
ning.

Through faith, charity, justice and under-
standing, we should work toward a greater
understanding and realization of the similar-
ity among people than to keep harping on
racial distinctions, racial cultures, racial
this or that.

Some of us should also avoid the tend-
ency, again unconsciously, to place those
whom society has named Negroes up on a
side show platform and treat them as if
they are some strange creatures from outer
space. Unfortunately, many of us, even those
in the apostolate, have yet to wake up to
the full realization that: there is NO sub-
stantial difference between members of the
human race, whether they are called white
or colored. Human nature is the same every-
where. | think that there are still some of
us who are so engrossed with the erroneous
idea of a “Negro apostolate” or “apostolate
to the Negro,’ that we become blind to the
true apostolate mentioned above.

| myself despise words like Negro, colored,
white, or what have you. In a Christian
society there are no places for such names.
For a Christian society is a race-less society.

“And while I’m at it, let’s do away with that

a“

race-conscious word “‘interracial’’ and let’s
begin to talk about a race-less society, na-
tion, world, etc.

Let’s not be so race conscious, and in-
stead let’s start building a Christian society
that is a race-less society.

JOHN ROSENQUIST
New York, New York

COMMUNITY

one ae

rete i

BLUE MONDAY

Lines from the South

Mrs. Abernethy

experiences in the South.

“Whenever Monday moved in damp and dripping, | went to
town to shop.” One Blue Monday shopping trip brought

an encounter with a sad-faced man . . . and some reflections
on climates — mostly spiritual ones.

Subiaco, Arkansas

O WHERE WAS THERE a least

glimmer of sun in the whole sky
that Monday morning. I had looked
outdoors carefully from horizon to hori-
zon to make sure. The eye of the
heavens was shut tight with a thick
eyelid of damp gray clouds. The eye-
lashes—a somber rim of winter trees
at the edge of the horizon—were al-
ready damp and misty. “Glory!” I
thought. “It’s going to rain!”

My yard in Pope County, Arkansas,
was half a mile long and three-eighths
of a mile wide. Its bermuda grass,
pines, and cedars lay in a natural draw
where the first spark from a cigarette
stub carelessly tossed aside by a pass-
ing motorist could start a fire raging
all through my land and miles beyond,
a blind and hasty fire that would not
have sense enough to veer to one side
when it came to the houses, barns, out-
buildings, farm equipment, timber, and
wildlife in its path, nor would it wait
for anyone to plow up fire lanes or draw
up water from the wells. In this region
each land owner was responsible, not
only for his own land, but also for pre-
venting any fire on it from crossing his
boundaries to damage a_ neighbor’s
land.

When the grass was dry, I stayed
strictly at home with my nose alert for
the least puff of smoke.

A Day for Shopping

Stores for general shopping were in
Russellville, ten miles away. Monday
was the best day for shopping as I could
compare prices and judge values in
peace and quiet. Whenever Monday
moved in damp and dripping with the
promise of much rain, especially after
a long dry spell, far be it from me to
agonize over a messy wash day or
grieve for the absent sun. I thoroughly
loved “Blue Mondays.”

And so I went to town with my hus-
band.

He taught at Arkansas Polytechnic
College there, and I could shop all day
until classes and teachers’ meeting were
over. I needed the time because the
“bargains” always had to be looked at
four times—to see whether they were
the kinds of things that would be use-
ful to my family, whether they were
really bargains instead of the usual
things just labeled bargains, whether
the flaws that made them bargains mat-
tered for our uses, and whether they
would meet our needs. Whatever spec-
ials, for instance, there might be on
ham, I already had enough ham in the
smoke house and more on the hoof. But
sea food was another matter.

Also I had to watch such things as
the tags on the bags of cow feed very
closely. However beautiful the cloth
sack was and however much they
featured a 16 or 18 per cent protein
content, a 20 per cent fiber content was
still one-fifth junk.

Then to Sample Store

On this particular Monday, after buy-
ing everything I would need for sev-
eral weeks, I went as usual to Russell’s

MARCH, 1958

Sample Store to “hunt” until Dr. Aber-
nethy came to meet me. This fascinat-
ing place was always piled with odds
and ends of merchandise gathered from
many places, some of it at least 50 years
old. It was somewhat like going
through a museum. Besides, I had
found some Buster Brown stockings in
there one day dating from the time
when good-sized boys wore knee pants.
They were tough and thick and enabled
me to walk through the briary portions
of my yard without leaving the stock-
ings and a good part of the skin of my
legs in the briars!

As there was never any telling what
I might find inside, I opened the door
with a thrill of anticipation and made
my way to the stove to get warm.

Greets Sad-Faced Man

“Good afternoon,” I said to the lone
elderly man moping by the stove, the
soft brown of his face almost buried
under the deep indigo of his expression.

He raised his eyes and gave a little
start. “Good afternoon,” I said again
thinking he had not understood my
greeting.

His eyes opened wider. He stood for
a moment stock still in amazement.
Then his chin slowly drooped, opening
his mouth. After a while a few words
came out falteringly.

“You—you—you—-SPOKE to me—”
he gulped.

“Of course,” I answered stretching
out my hands to the warmth of the
stove.

“But — but you’re — YOU’RE —
YOU’RE a lady—a LADY—”

“I’m one of the human beings God
created.”

“And YOU—a LADY—SPOKE to me
—spoke to ME—”

“Why not?”

“Lady, I never had anything like that
ever happen to me before in all my
life.”

That hurt me to the quick, but I
I had to go on!

“That’s funny. People always speak
where I was born and raised.”

“Even—even—white ladies to the col-
ored folks?”

“Of course. My mother taught me
always to speak to every colored per-
son around as they might feel bad if
I didn’t.”

“Where—where was that place?”

How to Explain?

“North Carolina,” I answered won-
dering how I was ever going to ex-
plain things to this colored man.

“Do you live near any white peo-
ple?” I asked.

“No, Ma’am, I don’t.”

“Maybe if you had lived near white
people there would have been more
chance for them to speak to you.”

“But I always thought they never
bothered ’bout speaking to colored peo-
ple at all.”

“I wonder how you ever got that
idea,” I answered looking out at the
people passing each other on the street.
Suddenly it dawned on me.

“Look out there on the street,” I

fourth of a series |

Mrs. Abernethy is a Southerner who has fi (ify Jw

eae and lived in various parts of Amer-

a. “Lines from the South” is a series de-
caitlin her encounters with racial preju-
dice. Last month she told of finding Jim
Crow in the North and West. Previous ar-
ticles described her childhood and school

said. “See those two white women
walking nearer and nearer each other?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I do.”

“Let’s see if they speak to each other
when they pass.”

He looked intently for awhile. “They
—they didn’t even notice each other,”
he said in astonishment.

“Now let’s watch these next ones.”

“They — didn’t — speak — either,” he
said slowly as if he couldn’t believe
what he saw.

“Here’s some more coming,” I com-
mented.

We watched while several white peo-
ple passed apparently unaware of each
other. The colored man turned back to
the stove and sighed.

Maybe They Don’t Know How

“Now,” I said, “maybe you won’t feel
quite as bad the next time some white
person passes you without speaking.
Maybe a lot of white people just don’t
know how to speak to people readily.
Maybe God didn’t give my people as
much of the ability to notice and re-
spond to the folks around them as He
did to your people.”

“TI—I never thought about it that
way,” he said as the indigo began to
evaporate from the expression on his
face leaving a glow in its place.

“God doesn’t forget anybody,” I an-
swered. “He gives good things to all
His people but He doesn’t always give
them all the same things.”

“No, Ma’am. Maybe He don’t.”

“And you really can’t blame my peo-
ple for not having something God
might not have given them in the first
place, can you?”

“No, Ma’am—I—I reckon you can’t,”
he said sympathetically.

“You’ve got a lot to be thankful for
for what God has given to your peo-
ple, haven’t you?”

“Yes, Ma’am, you’re right there,” he
said as the glow of contentment and
thanksgiving to God transformed his
bearing as well as his facial expres-
sion.

His wife came from the rear of the
store then, through with her shopping,
beaming over her bundles and maybe
over the conversation, too, as it could
easily have been heard in that part of
the store. At any rate, as she left, she
sent me a smile Ill always treasure.
Not one of those impersonal grimances
held on to the face frantically like a
plaster cast to make it look as though
the wearer is smiling, but a smile
tossed gracefully all the way over to
me.

+ a a

There are many sections of the Unit-
ed States today that have always been
in a natural draw, so to speak, where
a carelessly tossed remark might set
off a riot most of the time. The main
concern of the people living there, for
some time now, has been to stay strict-
ly at home, never venturing beyond

LORD...

THE FORTY FORTY How

the boundaries of the status quo, their
ears on the alert for the slightest re-
mark that might be smoky.

Different Spiritual Climate

But times sometimes change, like the
weather, not so much as a result of
our own plans, programs, and legisla-
tion, but because God grants a differ-
ent spiritual climate—a cloudy time
fringed with tears of remorse for er-
rors past, in which we can safely leave
the status quo for awhile to do some
shopping for things that will improve
our situation.

Here, we will be beset by the “bar-
gains” offered by this, that, or the
other pressure group. We must look
at these “bargains” carefully, not in
the limitations of our confused human
judgments, but in the light of the val-
ues that God, the Merciful Father of
every human of every hue, has gen-
erously given to us through His Son
Jesus Christ. With prayer, courage, and
imagination we may find a number of
practices that will improve our situa-
tion, things we can make use of in a
slightly different way from what was
originally intended by the pressure
groups.

Our first concern, of course, is the
fundamental needs and rights of our
human family. Frills can come later—
if there is time.

What if there are Little Rock storm
clouds all over the sky these days from
horizon to horizon! What if the rim of
a wintry press has been damp with
criticism for months! Glory! God is giv-
ing us a time of Grace, a BLUE MON-
DAY.

Why should we agonize over the
messy wash day of making clean justifi-
cations out of past dirty events, or
grieve for the sun of the “good old
days”? At last we can safely leave our
status quo for some intelligent shop-
ping. And God help us if we don’t use
this BLUE MONDAY to good advan-
tage!

—Dorothy Abernethy

ats

manne

(TODAY Magazine)

LET’S LOOK AT RECORD OF “‘FEPC”’:

FEPC laws create a state Fair Employment Practices Commission whose
duty is to eliminate discrimination in employment by means of
conferences, conciliation, persuasion. These peaceful methods
are a far cry from the gestapo-approach many fear.

TATE SENATOR Hayes Robertson
of Illinois, whose factory has for
years employed many Negroes, made
some strong comments about proposed
Fair Employment Practices Commis-
sion (FEPC) legislation during the 1957
session of the General Assembly.

“Employers would be faced by a
gestapo type of official in every town.
One liberty we must guard is freedom
of choice. Integration problems will be
solved as they are being solved, if we
don’t incite discord with such laws as
we are considering here.”

Many state legislatures and the Con-
gress have heard objections to FEPC
legislation similar to Mr. Robertson’s,
although not often from men with such
excellent records for fairness in their
own employment practices.

Fortunately it is not necessary to be
guided by what opponents—or advo-
cates—of FEPC laws think will hap-
pen, should such legislation be passed.
Fifteen states currently have FEPC,
some of the laws having been in force
over a decade.

Thirteen of the 15 states with FEPC
laws have the kind of law which per-
mits bringing justified complaints to a
public hearing after all other means
of reaching a settlement have failed.
These are Colorado, Connecticut, Mas-
sachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ore-
gon, Pennsylvania, Rhode _ Island,
Washington, and Wisconsin. The other
two with FEPC, Indiana and Kansas,
rely on conciliation procedures alone.

So, let’s “look at the record.” What
has been their actual experience?

FEPC Cases Show:

¢* Primary methods
are conferences,
conciliation

These laws create in each state a
Fair Employment Practices Commis-
sion. The Commission’s primary duty is
to eliminate discrimination in employ-
ment by means of conferences, con-
ciliation and persuasion.

These peaceful methods, carried out
by well trained staff people, are a far
cry from the gestapo approach feared
by Mr. Robertson and many of his fel-
low employers throughout the nation.

The commissions receive complaints

filed by persons who believe they have
been discriminated against on the basis
of race, nationality, or religion by em-
ployers, labor unions, employment
agencies, or fellow workers.

The complaints may relate to hiring,
firing, upgrading, or job transfer. Reli-
gious, charitable, and non-profit organ-
izations are usually exempt from the
provisions of the laws.

Commission representatives investi-
gate complaints to determine whether
“probable cause” exists for the com-
plaint. If probable cause is found, a
conference is arranged with the “re-
spondent” who is usually an employer.
(Other agents, such as unions, have also
had to answer complaints which are
filed against them.)

The give-and-take of conference
methods leads to conciliatory attitudes
on the part of employers as many of
their fears are allayed. They are now
persuaded to take some step toward
employing qualified members of min-
ority groups on a merit basis.

FEPC Cases Show:

* Few go into court;
most end with
compliance order

Should the commission, in the course
of the hearing, find the employer in
violation of the FEPC law, it may then
issue cease and desist orders. If the
discriminatory practice does not cease,
then, and only then, can the employer
be taken to court and possibly fined or
imprisoned.

e The Oregon commission reports
that during its first five years of op-
eration only one public hearing has
been necessary. In this case cease and
desist orders were issued but the panel
provisions of the law did not need to
be invoked to secure compliance. The
Oregon commission holds that this
demonstrates the success of the meth-
ods of conference, conciliation, and per-
suasion and adds that the whole em-
phasis is remedial, not punitive.

e Rhode Island secured compliance
by conciliation and persuasion alone in
all cases handled during its first six
years under the law.

e In Massachusetts, the history-mak-
ing Pullman case, which upset the tra-
ditions of half a century, did not have

What is Your State ?

Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California

Maine

Louisiana

Maryland
Mississippi

Missouri
Montana

Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
lowa
Kentucky

Nevada

Nebraska

New Hampshire
North Carolina
North Dakota

Ohio
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas

Utah
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia
Wyoming

If it is one of the 33 above, your state does not have a Fair
Employment Practices (FEP) law. Accompanying article de-
scribes how FEPC has worked in states which have it.

NEW YORK: Ansco
Film Company devel-
ops good racial policy,
too.

(New York State Committee
Against Discrimination photo)

to go to a hearing. The Pullman Com-
pany within that state has agreed—it
might better be said: is now free—to
hire whites as porters and Negroes as
conductors.

FEPC Cases Show:

* Hiring unqualified
worker not required

Another objection some employers
have is that FEPC would encroach
upon employers’ right to hire the best
qualified workers available for job va-
cancies.

Let us look at a few actual FEPC
cases,

e A New York publishing house fired
a secretary after one month of employ-
ment because her typing was poor, her
stenography hopeless and much of her
work had to be done over. She filed a
complaint charging that she was fired
because of her religion.

The commission investigator pro-
posed that she take a simple test in
his office. She refused and the com-
mission determined that she was prob-
ably unqualified and had no cause for
complaint.

e In another New York case a Ne-

Z
Merit Employment Laws in 13 States Prove Wor

gro charged that he had been refused
employment as a welder in a steel com-
pany because of his color. After inves-
tigation the commission found that the
man would not have been hired in any
event as he lacked the amount of ex-
perience required by the company. His
complaint was dismissed.

What about personality and appear-
ance qualifications? Can companies re-
tain these under FEPC? Certainly, if
these are essential to job performance.
But appearance may not include color
or racial characteristics.

FEPC Cases Show:

* Defending against
complaints not
burdensome

Opponents of FEPC may think that
freedom of choice is preserved at a
great cost in time, effort, and money,
necessary to defend themselves against
charges of discrimination by the com-
mission.

Again the experience of the FEPC
states does not bear them out.

e In 1954, a typical year, New York
investigated complaints involving 189

OREGON: Portland Traction Company hires
qualified drivers irrespective of race.

(ST. JOSEPH Magazine photo)

COMMUNITY

Morkability

firms and found some discriminatory
practice or policy in only 52 cases. The
other 137, after full investigation, were
found to have no discriminatory pat-
terns whatever.

FEPC Cases Show:

* No quotas used—
for or against

The phrase “discriminatory patterns”
arouses some employers’ fears that an
FEP Commission will force “quota”
employment of minority group mem-
bers on them, thus limiting their free-
dom of choice. However, the quota sys-
tem is excluded from all FEP legisla-
tion and commission practice.

e One employer, found guilty of re-
fusal to hire Negroes, later had such a
change of heart that he asked the com-
mission to help him recruit ten Negro
clerks for new job openings in his com-
pany.

The commission advised the employ-
er that the commission is “not an em-
ployment agency, and does not recom-
mend applicants. It is also against the
letter and spirit of the Law Against
Discrimination for employers to select
employees on the basis of race, creed,
color or national origin.

“All applicants must be judged and
evaluated on their individual qualifica-
tions and merit. . . . Naturally, we ap-
preciate the motive that prompted you
to state that you would like to employ
persons of the colored race.

“However, to do that without con-
sidering white persons would be as un-
democratic and unlawful under the
Law as to place a limitation whereby
Negroes would be excluded.”

While searching for patterns of dis-
crimination and the means of altering
them, commissions must consider many
factors and judge each case on its
merits.

FEPC Cases Show:

* Follow-up work
is helpful

And the closing of a complaint does
not always mean that the commission’s
work with that employer is finished.
In cases where discriminatory practices
or policies have been found, the agree-
ment reached with the employer in-
cludes commitments for future action.

The commitments may include things
like the promise of removal of ques-
tions about race, creed, or nationality
on application blanks or the future hir-
ing of qualified minority group mem-

bers. Later investigations and confer-
ences may be conducted by the com-
mission to determine whether the com-
mitments have been fulfilled.

e During such a follow-up investiga-
tion a commissioner wrote to an airline
company personnel director as follows:

“You will recall that in our confer-
ence I pointed out to you that the total
absence of any Negroes from any cler-
ical positions in this company, while
not conclusive as to a discriminatory
policy in itself, is so contrary to the
experience of the Commission where
honest effort has been made of com-
pliance with the provisions of the Law
as to raise serious question as to the
hiring practices. .. .”

Happy Endings

Some months later the personnel di-
rector reported that a Negro girl had
been hired as a reservation clerk in
one of its offices and that she seemed
happy with her position as well as
popular with her fellow workers.

A second follow-up revealed that
two Negro girls were employed in the
main office of the air line. And the per-
sonnel director was now saying that
he was working hard to integrate min-
ority group members into all positions
of the company.

e Similarly a bank hired its first Ne-
gro in a clerical capacity as a result
of conferences for the settlement of a
complaint filed by a Negro girl. Later
the commission reviewed the case and
found seven Negro clerks in the bank.

The employer said that there might
have been some people in the bank
who had felt that Negroes would not
fit in with the other employees, but
that if so, they had changed their
minds.

FEPC Cases Show:

* Commissions do
vital job of
education

The experiences of these employers
and their employees, who have been
helped by their commissions to change
—in fact, to want to change—their
practices, illustrate the vital education-
al role that an FEP Commission plays.

Once it becomes known that the
commission offers this kind of assist-
ance to companies, unions, and work-
ers, the help of the commission is
sought voluntarily by these groups
when integration problems arise.

The duty of commissions to carry on
constant educational work is spelled

NEW YORK: Ability determines position
in office of Philip Morris Company.
(New York State Committee Against Discrimination photo)

MARCH, 1958

OREGON: In 1946 Port-
land appointed first Ne-
gro policeman (right).
Fire Department is also
integrated.

(ST. JOSEPH Magazine photo)

out in all FEPC laws.

e During a conference with repre-
sentatives of a company which had re-
fused to hire a Negro engineer, the
employer appealed to the commission to
help eliminate discriminatory attitudes
in the supervisory staff and thus permit
the company to utilize the much need-
ed skills of Negro engineers.

The agreement reached in this case
provided that the commission conduct
nine training sessions using films,
group discussions, and other tried
methods, to assist the staff in over-
coming their discriminatory habits.

This, then, is a representative cross-
section of the experiences of states
where FEPC laws have been in actual
operation.

A second article in next month’s
COMMUNITY will discuss the limita-
tions of voluntary merit employment
programs.

—Mary Clinch

Miss Clinch is on the staff of the Illinois
State Employment Service, working in one
of the Chicago-area offices. She was for-
merly a staff worker at Chicago Friendship
House.

NEXT MONTH

What About Voluntary
Merit Employment Programs?

“There are soft spots in the no-
tion of voluntary programs.”—
Another article on merit employ-
ment will appear in April issue
of COMMUNITY.

Governors Form
Committee

EW YORK, New York—A

standing committee of Gover-
nors on Civil Rights was formed
in December by governors of 12
states having FEPC laws. Their
goal: to seek greater job oppor-
tunities for members of minority
groups.

The group urged that state
agencies, where they exist, be
given the job of policing merit
employment in companies hav-
ing federal contracts because “we
have the machinery and willing-
ness to eliminate job bias, and the |

federal government does not.”

A report on the work of the
state agencies was presented to
the Governors by the American
Jewish Congress. In presenting
the report AJC staff member
Shad Polier stated:

“The widespread acceptance of
the anti-discrimination laws
proves their value. It shows that
discrimination can be combatted
by legislation that avoids criminal
penalties and instead establishes a
specialized state anti-discrimina-
tion agency that relies primarily
on education and conciliation, but
also has the power to issue, where
necessary, specific orders enforce-
able in the courts.”

INDIANA: Interracial staff of hospital
cares for newborn baby.

(Holy Cross Central School of Nursing photo)

i
nF

ash k aeiet eee eae

_ |SLEEP TONIGHT?

Are you sure you'll find accommodations for you and your family?
Would you like a vacation in any of the 48 states 1 minus rebuffs?

Are you ready for any highwayemergency -even in a hostile town?

Advertisements like the above appear from time to time

in Negro papers—offering information where Negroes can
secure overnight accommodations travelling in various areas.

Survey Hotel Discrimination

ECENTLY the Anti - Defamation

League undertook a national sur-
vey, the first of its kind, to examine
the admission policies of 3,014 hotels
in the United States, Canada, Mexico,
Hawaii, Alaska, and the Caribbean.
The results indicate that nearly one out
of every four resort hotels in the United
States practices religious discrimination
in the admission of guests!

More significant than the figures ob-
tained was the overwhelming evidence
of evasiveness and covert practices on
the part of resort establishments. Many
hotels, which depend greatly on off-
season convention groups, will accept
Jews included in a convention but
would refuse the same people admis-
sion as individuals. Such hypocrisy has
been met by a growing resistance
among business and professional or-
ganizations to holding their conventions
in resorts that raise religious bars.

The ADL survey indicated forcefully
that vigorous enforcement of state laws
against discrimination in public accom-
modations is the principal key to the
elimination of the problem of hotel
bias. For example, in three New Eng-
land states which have laws against
discrimination by places of public ac-
commodation — Connecticut, Massachu-
setts and Rhode Island—only 15 per
cent of the hotels discriminate against

The anguished face and ragged clothes of this young Chilean

Jews. In the adjacent states of Maine,
Vermont, and New Hampshire, the sur-
vey placed the discrimination rate at
56 per cent.

—The Christian Friends Bulletin

Rule Against Hotel

NEW YORK, New York—Elmer A.
Carter, head of the New York State
Commission Against Discrimination,
ruled that the New York office of the
Homestead, a resort hotel in Hot
Springs, Virginia, violatéd the state
law against discrimination by rejecting
patrons because of their Jewish faith.

Mr. Carter closed the case “with the
specific reservation” that it is subject
to reopening at any time “upon suf-
ficient evidence that the respondent
has resumed its activities in the state
without compliance with the law
against discrimination.”

Mrs. David Kaplan, the complainant,
of New York City, said that she and
her husband applied in April, 1956, for
a reservation for July 22 to August 4

and that her application was rejected .

because of her faith. Mrs. Valarie
Courtenay, also of New York City,
made an identical application at the
same time and was accepted.

boy are mute evidence of the destitution in many parts of the
world. Catholic Relief Services work to aid such children
in Chile and throughout the world. March 16, Laetare Sun-
day, is date for annual collection for CRS.

Visitors Share Experiences,
Join in Varied Work (..

ILL HAD ALL the enthusiasm one

would hope for in a college senior
—determined to change the world after
the sheepskin due in a few months—
or at least the world of the traditional
South, centered in his Mississippi home-
town. He stopped in to see us at
Friendship House on his way back to
school in Minnesota the last day of his
Christmas vacation.

Already he was building from others’
experiences toward that dream of an
interracial group at home—after grad-
uation and his Army years.

Many young students like Bill, sin-
gle men and women, married couples,
young and not-so-young, people of dif-
ferent races and religions, have come
to Friendship House of Chicago—a
Catholic interracial center in the heart
of the city’s Negro ghetto. They come
to exchange ideals and ideas toward a
real Christian community free from the
injustice prejudice brings and to give
many hours of their free time working
within the House itself or in their own
area, putting those ideas into practice.

Helping at the Center

Working within the House, volun-
teers help the staff with the hundred-
and-one-editorial and promotional jobs
behind publishing COMMUNITY or in
the general business routine — book-
keeping, typing, filing, mimeographing.

Others will join in with the work of
planning programs such as arranging
informal visits across the color line,
formation programs for teenagers, pub-
lic forums and lectures, socials, Days of
Recollection, or Communion Break-
fasts.

Still others, for a change from their
regular jobs, may put their energies to
washing walls or scrubbing floors in our
janitorless “mansion.”

Working Away from FH

A good number of our regular vol-
unteers we seldom see at the House.
They work quietly from their own
homes, meeting in small groups with
one of our staff, helping each other
find answers to the racial injustices
that disturb them in their own neigh-
borhoods.

In their own homes, too, many busy
mothers have taken on the jobs of writ-
ing thank-you notes to Friendship
House donors, sending announcements
of our public forums to newspapers,
and typing letters (dictated by a staff
worker over the phone) to answer in-
quiries on race that come to Friend-
ship House by mail from all over the
country.

Assisting the staff in the responsibil-
ity of policy-making decisions is an
advisory board which was formed last
October. Its members offer a repre-
sentative outlook on the wide commu-
nity — housewives, married couples,
business men and women, teachers, so-
cial workers, former staff workers.

Constantly Changing Picture

Over the 20 years of its existence
Friendship House has constantly stud-
ied the changing race relations picture
and often rejuvenated programs in the
light of the present moment. From the

early days in New York’s Harlem,
where the first House was founded in
1938, the movement has tried to keep
pace with the needs of the time. Re-
cently this has meant eliminating ac-
tivities of a settlement house type in
order to expand the traditional effort
for interracial justice, to meet more
effectively the pressing problems of
1958.

Monsignor Daniel M. Cantwell, chap-
lain of Chicago Friendship House since
its beginning in 1942, has summed up
the present goals well: “To strive to
increase our contacts with Negro and
white people in order to eliminate ra-
cist thinking, racial discrimination, ra-
cial segregation; to attain in our time
justice, unity, equality among racial
groups; and thus to glorify Christ in
Whom we are all ONE.”

Extending the Effort

You, and others like you, can help
FH on the way to these goals.

1. There is always need for more and
more people with a Christ-like zeal for
interracial justice to carry these ideas
into the market place. Why not begin
where you are?

2. Friendship House is supported by
individual donations — mostly from
those who themselves have meager in-
comes.

3. We are looking for a fourth full-
time staff worker—a man to be ex-
ecutive director. You can be “talent
scouts.” The staff is paid a modest
allowance — satisfaction, more than fi-
nancial remuneration, is the chief com-
pensation for the workers.

4. This papér COMMUNITY con-
stantly seeks additional subscribers to
reach more and more people with its
interesting reports of interracial ex-
periences and practical ideas on what
one can do for interracial justice. Sub-
scriptions are $1.00 a year (subscrip-
tion blank on page 8).

5. And, of course, your prayers.

We would like also to be of service
to you in your own specific efforts. The
“Workshops in Building Friendships”
described in January 1958 COMMU-
NITY can be arranged for out-of-town
groups, as well as local ones. These
workshops are one-evening or one-
afternoon programs, arranged during
the week or on weekends, consisting
chiefly of informal social visits between
members of different races. We have
found no greater, simpler way to be-
gin loving than to begin knowing.
(Couples can bring the family along;
baby-sitting and a children’s recrea-
tional program will also be provided.)
To arrange such a program, contact us
a month in advance.

We also welcome your queries and
comments by mail.

We will hope to hear from you—at
Friendship House, 4233 South Indiana
Avenue, Chicago 15, Illinois. (Phone:
KEnwood 6-9039.)

—Betty Plank

Betty is Education Director of Chicago
Friendship House. She was formerly on the
staff of the Confraternity of Christian Doc-
trine in Columbus, Ohio,

Friendship House invites you on Laetare Sunday
March 16, to a Time of Recollection

* NEW YORK CITY: Father Greg-
ory Smith, O.Carm., will give an
Afternoon of Recollection at Little
Sisters of Assumption Convent.
Phone Friendship House (WA
6-3563) for details and reservation.

* CHICAGO: Father Richard Rose-
meyer will give a Day of Recollec-
tion at Marillac House. Phone
Friendship House (KE 6-9039) for
details and reservation.

Please make reservation by March 10

COMMUNITY

ai tte and Gat Ged

- .

Law School Group Votes to
“Censure” Discriminators

SAN FRANCISCO, California — The
Association of American Law schools
defeated a motion to expel law schools
who refuse to admit qualified Negroes.
This motion came up at a recent three-
day meeting of the group. The associa-
tion instead voted to “censure” the of-
fending members.

The motion to expel failed when west
coast law schools joined most southern
institutions in opposing it.

Admit Negro Colleges to
Southern Association

RICHMOND, Virginia—More than 1,000
white delegates from southern states
voted recently to accept 18 Negro col-
leges in Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Mississippi, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Vir-
ginia, to full membership in the South-
ern Association of Colleges and Sec-
ondary Schools. On the vote only a
few dissenters shouted no.

The move gave the Negro schools for
the first time in history equal recogni-
tion with white schools for purposes of
accreditation and setting of educational
standards.

Bus Line Quits as
Boycott Cuts Business

ROCK HILL, South Carolina — Star
Transit Company, which had operated
city bus service here, went out of busi-
ness early this year without the re-
quired 30-day notice.

Busses had been under boycott by
colored citizens since last summer,
when a driver ordered a colored wom-
an passenger out of the seat beside a
white woman. The white woman had
invited the Negro to sit with her.

The line was faced with mounting
losses in revenue, and prospects of Fed-
eral Court action.

First Air Stewardess
Hired by New York Line

NEW YORK, New York—Another em-
ployment barrier went down as Mo-
hawk Airlines here announced the hir-
ing of the first Negro flight stewardess,
Ruth Carol Taylor of New York City.

The hiring of Miss Taylor follows by
a little more than a year the hiring of
the first Negro pilot by a scheduled
passenger airline—Perry Young, pilot
for New York Airways.

Defeat City FEPC; Two
Say Negroes Satisfied

LOS ANGELES, California—A city
Fair Employment Practices (FEPC) or-
dinance lost here recently by one vote.

Councilmen Cathcutt and Navarro,
whose constituents are predominantly
colored, said they voted against the
ordinance because they believe colored
people of the community were satisfied
with conditions as they are.

There has never been a colored per-
son elected to the Los Angeles city
council.

Report Negro Lynched

In Mississippi

RULEVILLE, Mississippi — George
Love, 38-year-old Negro, was cornered
by a mob three miles outside Ruleville
in early January and killed. His body
was riddled by 76 bullets.

Medgar Evers, National Association
for the Advancement of. Colored Peo-

MARCH, 1958

Ld

BOOK REVIEWS yk paar ”
Are Women Really Like That?

Book on marriage rewards close study, but reviewer
questions one chapter: “The picture of the ideal

woman simply does not fit all.”

MARRIAGE IS HOLY, edited by H.
Caffarel, 219 pages. (Fides Publishers,
Chicago 19, Illinois, $3.75.)

CCUSTOMED AS WE ARE to the

“case history” approach so evident
(and useful) in today’s offerings on
marriage, this book asks more than we
are wont to give: a deep look into our
own “case histories” as married people,
and into our success or failure in relat-
ing our married lives wholly to God’s
love and providence. As such, it is
not a book for light Sunday afternoon
reading. Each paragraph, even each
phrase, requires close study.

Those who make the effort will be
well rewarded in additional insights
into that eternal mystery which is hap-
py, holy wedlock. The newly married
may not find such a book immediately
useful or rewarding because Marriage
Is Holy would seem to require the
background of several years of married
life in order for its truth to stand out
in bold relief.

Are Exceptions Perverse?

One chapter gave this reviewer some
difficulty: that on The Personality of
Woman. My objection is chiefly this:
while the author sets out firmly that,
of course, there are exceptions to the
generalities that he (or she) considers
to be the proper fulfillment of Chris-
tian womanhood, he (or she) promptly
cites these exceptions as the perverse
members of the female sex.

Obviously, if genes, chronosomes,
and temperaments were divided neatly
down the center, this for him, this for
her, there could be no quarrel. We
might then safely say that a tender
man was unnatural, trying to be a
woman; or that an ambitious woman,
perhaps, was trying to be a man. Na-
ture has not been that “cut and dried”;
should we really expect people to be?

To illustrate, it is said (page 79)
“... she carries within her a world of
extraordinary richeness ... she is made
to give herself totally.” All very flat-
tering, but always true? Also: “The
fundamental sin of woman is the re-

fusal of her femininity. ... The woman
who says ‘no’ to her inner personality,
to her dignity of woman, corrupts ev-
erything she touches.”

Two Who Chose Nursing

I cannot help thinking of two fem-
inine “brains” with whom I graduated.
Both chose nursing, thereby fulfilling,
one assumes, the qualifications of
“womanliness.” Yet considering the
personalities of the two women, I can
say without further aplomb that I
would as soon be nursed by an IBM
machine as by one of them. The other
is any good nurse’s ideal.

I truly believe that the former would
have made a top-notch nuclear physi-
cist. That she did not follow such a
course is due to just such pressures
to be “like other girls” as is expressed
in this chapter saying what all wom-
en “should be.” Had my fellow grad-
uate’s mother begun replacing the
chemistry sets so dear to her heart
with dolly formula sets, there is some
question whether her mind would have
accepted such restrictions, even while
her childish head nodded in resigna-
tion.

Not All Women Fit Role

The author’s picture of the ideal
woman simply does not fit all women.
Her role as handmaiden, serving her
husband and children in all required
capacities for their nurture, has dig-
nity and strength—but it is a “role”
handed out willy-nilly, one which could
ill be “played” with any sense of real-
ity by many women, simply because
their personalities have a strong lacing
of so-called masculine characteristics.
Have women all, indeed, a strong de-
sire to give themselves totally, which
they perversely deny? Some may think
they are fulfilling their deepest needs!
It is useless to think that any human
person comes equipped with all the
appurtenances, physical, psychological,
and spiritual, which are deemed by ex-
perts to be most desirable for the vo-
cation he or she chooses. We can edu-
cate people to see the value of par-

ticular traits in a particular role; we
cannot be judge and jury as to wheth-
er or not these same people are “fail-
ing” if they do not copy out carefully
our advice.

I believe that natural selection takes
care of some of these problems. In gen-
eral, men seek out women who comple-
ment their best characteristics, and
soften their worst. A quiet man mar-
ries a vivacious wife; a sensitive wom-
an marries a clod. Perhaps they “fill
up” one another’s needs. It seems to
work out in so many cases.

No Serious Pursuits

Although other chapters of Marriage
Is Holy bring out the fact that wom-
en’s individual personalities ought to
be developed, one cannot help wonder-
ing if any serious woman reader would
not be frightened off any such attempts
by such blanket statements as, “ . .
Her mission is to have no mission other
than that of her husband.” Anything
more seriously pursued than an after-
noon tea would seem to make grave
inroads on all these people who de-
pend upon her!

While finding much food for thought
throughout this book, especially in the
chapters on Unity, Fidelity, Marriage
as Sacrament and Mystery, and Life
Through Love (about the most sensible
and sensitive piece on having a family
to appear in some time), so much of
the whole picture depends upon the
right interpretation of women’s role in
the spiritual quest that I reserve at
least one regret. Could not the key-
stone of the arch be made to fit more
snugly and securely into the mind and
heart of modern women? She is not
unwilling to do her job; she is just un-
willing to be squeezed into a mold that
doesn’t fit. After all, even the Blessed
Virgin ascertained that the integrity of
her desired vocation would be pre-
served before she made her fiat.

—Sally Leighton

Mrs. Leighton is the mother of seven
children. She has written frequently for
AMERICA, GRAIL, and other periodicals.

ple (NAACP) field secretary,, reporting
on the lynching, said Mr. Love was
being questioned about the death of an
aged colored couple. “As I understand
it,’ Mr. Evers said, “a night marshal
questioned Mr. Love as a suspect in
the killing, and when the marshal at-
tempted to search him, Mr. Love hit
him.”

Shortly after, over 25 persons—in-
cluding a number of teen-age whites—
banded together and launched an all-
night search for Love. They staged a
reign of terror in the Negro commu-
nity, invading and searching homes and
questioning people.

“A number of convicts from the
Parchman State Penitentiary were also
in the party,” Mr. Evers added.

Court Rules Against Color
Bar in FHA Housing

ALBANY, New York—lIn a far-reach-
ing decision the New York State Su-
preme Court last January ruled illegal
the barring of a Negro tenant from an
apartment built with FHA assistance.

Affected by the ruling are more than
50,000 apartments built in the state
with FHA assistance since July, 1955,
when the state’s anti-segregation law
was passed.

If the owner Of the test-case build-
ing fails to comply with the court or-
der in a reasonable period, a contempt

citation can be brought. Such citation
could result in fines or a jail sentence.

Attorney for the owner said the rul-
ing would be appealed.

First Georgia Challenge
to School Segregation

ATLANTA, Georgia—A group of Ne-
gro parents in January filed the first
suit challenging segregation in Geor-
gia’s public schools. Governor Marvin

UR POLITICAL LEADERS with-

out exception deplore violence.
They have no truck with the Ku Klux
Klan. But my contention is that they
set in motion forces which bred the
Klan and the very violence they now
condemn. What they advocate, in es-
sence is disrespect for law. They choose
to limit such advocacy to one law —
that relating to the public schools. But
when you enter the area of disrespect,
there is no such thing as a limited in-
fection. It spreads.

There may be more than a thread of
connection between what governors
and senators say and what men in Mis-
sissippi did to Emmett Till.

Marion A. Wright
From a talk by Mr. Wright, former presi-

dent of the Southern Regional Council,
quoted in the NEW SOUTH magazine.

Griffin has repeatedly declared that he
will close schools before allowing in-
tegration.

No date had been set for the hearing
as of mid-February, but it was expect-
ed shortly.

While this is the first suit against
public schools, one is pending in United
States District Court brought late in
1956 by four Negro students for entry
into Georgia State College. Also, a suit
against segregation on Atlanta buses
has been filed by two Negro ministers.

—Clif Thomas

A regular contributor to COMMUNITY,
Clif works for the Chicago Housing Author-
ity. He is a former FH staff worker.

FOR THE EASTER VIGIL

Baptismal Robe—Kit of materials
and instructions—$3.50

Beeswax Candle—six 9 by 1%
inches—boxed—$1.50

We also have Easter cards in $1
and $2 assortments

ST. LEO SHOP
Newport, R.I.

a non-profit corporation
for the liturgical apostolate

Housing Segregation a Five-fold Injustice

Denies Negro families their natural dignity
Fosters and perpetuates housing conditions that injure family

life

Imposes an unfair economic burden
Restricts and distorts social participation
Promotes among whites a false superiority

(Continued from page 1)

for people who have not met many
Negroes and who do not understand
housing conditions.

If people have a respect for principle,
it is important for them to understand
that there is injustice involved in hous-
ing restrictions based on race. Housing
segregation is frequently spoken of as
a social problem, as a threat to civic
harmony, and as a mass expression of
mental illness. Before all else, however,
it is a question of justice, and we must
not be diverted from this point.

Out of Experience

In what does the injustice of housing
segregation consist? My response to
this question may lack some of the
niceties of the professional textbook
teachers of ethics, for my answer grows
out of my own experience with this
problem of residential restrictions, and
presents the works of injustice that are
most prominent to my view. I will re-
strict my comments to those injustices
that are borne by the family, for hous-
ing discrimination in its practical ef-
fects usually touches families and is
not limited to difficulties between in-
dividual people. It is not only single
personalities who are involved with
this problem, but families, the basic
units of society.

How is injustice visited upon fam-
ilies by housing discrimination and seg-
regation based on race?

1. Housing Discrimination Denies Ne-
gro Families Their Natural Dignity

By excluding Negroes from equal
opportunity in the housing market,
white citizens deny to non-white fam-
ilies the social dignity and respect that
is due to them. This dignity and re-
spect is due to such families because
of the uniqueness of human nature that
reflects in all of us the image of God.
My contact with dozens of white audi-
ences has convinced me that racial in-
tegration in housing is rejected and
unpopular because whites assume in a
stubborn and vigorous fashion that Ne-
groes are innately inferior to them. This
assumption that Negroes are a caste
apart, lacking ambition, potential, re-
finement, and self-respect, is an injus-
tice to many, many Negro families.
There are Negro families who have,
no doubt, debased themselves, but even
these are essentially God’s children.
We dare not assume that all Negroes
must be set apart and segregated be-
cause of the failings of some who would
make bad neighbors. To do so denies
that which every family merits: the
right to be regarded and treated as
accepted members of society at large
unless some specific and definite fail-
ing prevents this.

2. Housing Discrimination Fosters and
Perpetuates Housing Conditions
That Injure Family Life

It is a vividly evident and unshake-
able fact that Negroes have tradition-
ally been alloted only the left-overs of
the housing market. Negro families are
confined by racia! restrictions to the
most overcrowded, oldest, and least
desirable districts in city after city. Ra-
cial barriers freeze this situation and
frustrate remedial action such as re-
location, slum clearance, and urban re-
newal. In such areas family life is at a
severe disadvantage. In physical terms
there is often inferior heat, light, ven-
tilation, sleeping space, space for exer-
cise, privacy, and cleanliness. Even
with the best intentions householders
wage a losing battle against overcrowd-

ing, structural deterioration, and in-
flated rents.

Every family has the responsibility
of caring for the health and education
of its members. Housing conditions that
prevent parents, through no fault of
their own, from setting up tolerable
domestic conditions in which they can
meet this divinely imposed responsi-
bility, are gravely unjust. The segre-
gation system confining Negroes to in-
ferior housing reinforces this injustice.

In my own city I know of many
very exemplary families who must bat-
tle dreary housing with poor plumb-
ing and dismal rooms because they are
tired of being rebuffed because of color
in better neighborhoods. In my city
most Negroes live in the areas built
before 1920. These areas were poorly
built to begin with in many cases. In
them residential life is up against traf-
fic, manufacturing, and old schools and
facilities. Negro families pay the toll.
Health is poorer. Residential fire deaths
for non-whites are more than double
the rate for whites. And over-crowding
is fearful. How can families maintain
their health and integrity and build
the educational bulwark of wholesome
family life under such a blight? This is
injustice rampant on a huge and dis-
gusting scale.

3. Housing Discrimination Imposes an
Unfair Economic Burden on Negro
Families

We know that overcrowded Negro

families in slum areas often pay almost
half their income for rent, but the un-
fair economic penalties of housing dis-
crimination extend far beyond this. Ne-
groes must look longer and harder for
decent houses because of the limita-
tions of their choice. Such looking re-
quires extra money in carfare and other
small costs. If a home is found for
sale to Negroes, it may very well have
an extra premium added to the price.
Negroes frequently pay more than
whites for comparable housing buys.
Because Negro families are largely re-
stricted to older areas of the city, their
down payments and mortgage pay-
ments on housing purchases will be
much higher than on new homes, from
which non-whites are almost totally
barred. Older houses have higher main-
tenance costs also. All of these added
costs mean that the Negroes, who are
the largest element of our low income
population, are forced to pay propor-
tionately more for homes than those
who have many more advantages.
From limited income is taken the tax
imposed by housing segregation. The
natural tendency toward home owner-
ship that is so beneficial to families and
communities is thwarted and retarded
by the premium charged by racial dis-
crimination.

4. Housing Discrimination Restricts
and Distorts the Social Participa-
tion of Negro Families in Full Civic
Life

Every family has an obligation to
serve the community. Families should
be free to take a full part in the po-
litical, educational, cultural, and voca-
tional activity of their city or town
and to mingle in the general civic ef-
fort. But Negro families are excluded

from full civic activity because as a

practical matter they are confined to

segregated areas that are usually lower
income neighborhoods with all of the
disabilities that this implies. The Ne-
gro family cannot move about freely
in community circles. Many cultural
areas are closed to such families be-

cause of the simple facts of geograph-
ical distance or social rejection. Hous-
ing segregation perpetuates this situa-
tion. Not only that, but it tends to fos-
ter distorted social expression where
natural social expression is denied. It
propagates racism and makes the ut-
terly foolish factor of skin color the
basis for community organization and
activity. Such a condition is not only
unjust, it is perverse.

One cannot pass over the damage to
the morale of Negro families that seg-
regation works. All of the complexities
and problems added by discrimination
to the fundamental tasks of fulfilling
so basic a need as housing weigh heav-
ily upon the Negro family. These dif-
ficulties undermine confidence, restrict
ambition and produce a morbidness
that can poison family life.

5. Housing Discrimination Promotes
Among White People a False Sense
of Superiority and a Complacency
Toward Injustice

White families who live under cona-
ditions where housing segregation pre-
vails quite naturally try to explain and
justify this system to themselves. As
has been noted previously, it is a very
wide response of white people to as-
sume that they are placed beyond con-
tact with Negroes because they are, “de
facto,” better than Negroes. This sense
of superiority, sometimes reaching pro-
portions of arrogance, is a necessary
prop for the segregation system. Men
want reasons for what they do, and
white men have historically sought to
give this reason of superiority for their
discriminatory actions. Housing dis-
crimination is today the most wide-
spread expression of the superiority
cult.

In addition, it must be recognized
that housing segregation provides a
screen for all of the injustices men-
tioned above. People tend to accept the
social situation they are in and to ig-
nore what they feel is separated or
segregated from them. Housing segre-
gation prevents the intimate personal
contact that would lead people to see
the basic misfortunes caused by this
system. Tradition supports the system
and condones it, lulling whites into a
complacent acceptance of racial es-
trangement.

* a *

There are many strong arguments

that can be leveled against housing seg-

“Spreading Concentrations”

“The Negro has to pay an inflated
price for inferior shelter in a neigh-
borhood he wouldn't choose if he had
the freedom of choice.

‘The fast-rising Negro population
in (New York) city is spreading rap-
idly in all directions. . . . But none
of this is a true dispersal of Negroes
among whites. What is spreading are
concentrations of Negroes.

“In a true dispersal, whites and
Negroes would live beside each other
in full stabilized neighborhoods. But
that is not happening... .

“The Negroes are not to blame for
this, nor is the situation to their lik-
ing. In fact, they are victims of it.
The causes are a monumental short-
age of low and moderate-cost hous-
ing in the city combined with the
hard residential segregation against
the Negro race... .

“Negroes are not, as many whites
suppose, overtly driving out the
whites. The Negro’s housing dollar
buys where it can, and the only place
it can buy is in neighborhoods that
are already changing, already over-
crowded, already deteriorating, or al-
ready suffering from obsolescence.”

—Robert S. Bird, in
New York Herald Tribune

regation. It is out of harmony with our
national ideal of full citizenship for all
without regard to race. It works against
school integration in many places. It
produces tension and sometimes vio-
lence. It permits foreign peoples to
question our devotion to democracy
and so on. But the central and pre-
dominant fact about this system is that
it is unjust. It denies our fellow men
that which is their due, not in some
matter of convenience or luxury, but
in the matter of shelter, one of the
three basic necessities of life. This is
what we must answer for.

At the present time we need men
who have heart enough to attack this
problem not for political gain or civic
expediency, but because they find ugly
the sight of injustice. We need men
who not only hunger for justice, but
who have the appetites of lions for
justice in order to solve this twisted
and difficult problem.

—Dennis Clark

On the housing division staff of the Phila-
delphia Commission on Human Relations,°
Mr. Clark has written for SOCIAL OR-
DER, AMERICA, GRAIL, INTERRA-
CIAL REVIEW, and INTEGRITY, articles
retlecting his major interest: race and ur-
ban affairs.

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