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About The voice. (Lincoln, Nebraska) 1946-195? | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 1950)
Civil Rights-Gains Indicated By Progress Made The Negro can rightly assert that he does not enjoy all his rights as an American citizen, but • at the same time he can boast that he has made no small amount of progress in those respects which constitute civic advancement. Measured by the rights he has gained and those seemingly within his grasp in the not too far future, he is more of an Ameri can citizen now than he was fifty years ago. VOTING A CITIZEN without suffrage in a democracy is an anomaly, be cause he is deprived of one of his most important privileges. Per haps the main object of the South during the hectic days of Recon struction times was to handicap the Negro by keeping the ballot out of his hands, in spite of the Thirteen and Fourteenth Amendments. KKK white sheets and cross bones and skulls warn ings made Negroes afraid even to go to the polls; while unfair edu cational tests and “grandfather clause” laws secured the desire of the South to have lily-white elections. But by 1917 the United States Supreme Court by declaring “grandfather clause” laws uncon stitutional, had started the assault on the designed and determined effort to permanently disfranchise Negroes. The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Texas primary cases holding “white primaries” to be uncon stitutional, the ruling of Judge J. Waites in South Carolina that qualified Negroes must be per mitted to vote in Democratic pri maries regardless of any legisla tive action to abrogate state reg ulation of primaries, and the fav orable outcome of suits brought by Negroes in other states have re sulted in Negroes in the South go ing to the polls in unprecedented numbers. In 1947 it is estimated that 645,000 Southern Negroes voted. One million voted in the 1948 national election. OFFICE HOLDING DURING the first twenty years after Emancipation Negro sheriffs, county clerk, county school su perintendents, secretaries of state, and members of the legislature were numerous in the South. Then the angry tide of “white supre macy,” fearful of “Negro domina tion,” swiftly swept Negroes out of office. The carpet-bagger went and calmer days came, and with the possible resurgence of de mocracy an increasing number of Negroes are being placed in both elective and appointive office— members of boards of education, city councilmen, policemen, state legislatures even in Southern cities considered almost ultra conservative. While a list of many of the Ne groes who have held responsible offices in the last fifty years might be helpful to some, it can be said that the large number and the efficient service they rendered indicate definite civic advance ment. As the years have been passing, the demand of the Negro for representation on policy-mak ing groups has been increasingly r-1 met. No full measure of citizen ship is enjoyed by a people who collectively are required to com ply with policies always made by others, but are themselves con sistently denied a voice in deter mining those policies. HOUSING CIVIC PROGRESS or the lack of it reflects itself in the homes of the people. Referring to the 1940 census because data obtained by the last census are not yet available, ten years ago 23 per cent of all Negro families were living in their own homes; and these homes w'ere valued at nearly $900,000,000. A reliable approxi mation may be that against 750, 000 Negro-owned homes today there were 450,000 fifty years ago. In housing the Negro’s problem of cari'ying more easily the re sponsibility of paying for his home because of his low-income status has been aggravated by the American pattern of segregated residential communities and blocks. For years this housing pattern w'as preserved by cus tom and municipal ordinances. Municipal ordinances were first attacked in a way to attract na tional interest when the city of Louisville passed an ordinance which expressly forbade a Negro occupying a home in a so-called white block. In what is oftdn called the William Warley case, the United States Supreme Court in 1917 declared such ordinances unconstitutional in that they wrere unwarranted use of the “police power’’ and in violation of the fourteenth amendment. To defeat any changes which the Warley case decision might bring about, advicates of residen tial segregation resorted to “re strictive covenants’’ which meant to confine Negroes, Jews and other minority groups to racial ghettos through the written agreement of white property owners not to sell or rent to mem bers of the prescribed nationali ties. By 1924, fifteen southern states were upholding restrictive covenants; but in 1948, the United States Supreme Court ruled that federal and state courts cannot enforce such agxee ments. The fight on this front is not yet won, but it is a part of the civic gains of the Negro. Federal housing, although it is still posing some problems, is im proving the life of the Negro as a citizen in that it is providing him not only cheaper and more at tractive living conditions but also both physically and morally cleaner environments. EDUCATION Educational facilities for Ne groes today are conceded to be better than they were a half cen tury ago. Even with the reten tion of segregation the reduction of the number of one-room schools, the improvement of school buildings, the erection of iriore modern school houses, and the raising of the standard of teacher qualification with larger salaries for teachers mark pro gress. Separate schools on the ele mentary and secondary level ai*e the rule, and are generally tol erated though not conceded to be the democratic thing. Attack, which can almost be called vio lent, has been made on segrega tion in higher education. Effort to break down the color bar in state-supported colleges and uni versities began a little more than ten years ago with a suit against the University of Maryland which wras won and has made it possible for several Negroes to graduate from that institution’s Law School. But the outstanding cases are those of Lloyd Gaines in Mis souri, Ada Lois Sipuel case in Oklahoma, Heman Sweatt case in Texas, and Lyman Johnson case in Kentucky. The heart of each supreme court ruling in these eases has been that Ne groes must be admitted to white universities unless the state pro vides for them equal facilities in separate schools. Negroes are de termined that they will accept nothing short of absolutely equal facilities in separate schools; meanwhile several of the south ern states are throwing open the doors of their white universities to Negroes. Kentucky is a splen did example, where the Uni versity of Kentucky, the Univer sity of of Louisville, Berea col lege and several other schools are enrolling Negro students. TRAVELING without barriers and embarassment on account of color is another thing that must be achieved in our fight for full citi zenship. Segregation on trains, buses, steamers, and in waiting rooms has been imposed on Ne groes so long and consistently that they had come to think it was uni versal law except in the North. They were disillusioned by the Irene Morgan case which led the United States Supreme Court to decision that segregation of per sons on buses in interstate travel on account of race or color is un constitutional. A recent Supreme Court ruling will be the beginning x>f the end of discrimination in dining cars. EMPLOYMENT is a basic mat ter with any people. In “What the Negro Wants,” a book which came out six years ago to give the opinions of thirteen of the most outstanding race leaders, A. Philip Randolph who has devoted his life to the improvement of the in dustrial and economic condition of the Negro said, “No greater wrong has been committed against the Negro than the denial to him of the right to work. This question of the right to work is tied up with the right to live.” Fifty years ago, which was thirty-five years after the end of ^ the Civil War, the Negro had lost many of the occupations upon which he had up to this time held a monopoly. The problem was to regain lost ground. He did get em ployment in a few fields new to such a worker, but the progress was slow and discouraging until it was stepped up by a threatened “March on Washington,” ener gized by Mr. Randolph while President F. D. Roosevelt was worrying with the problem of manpower needed for the war. As a result of this threat of demonstration against discrimina tion in industry, Mr. Roosevelt is sued the order which set up the Fair Employment Commission whose business was to do what it found possible to end or reduce “discrimination in employment of workers in defense industries or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin.” $1 a week Will Buy a DIAMOND Prices $| Q75 from. up OPEN AN ACCOUNT Your Credit Is Good mm Heartiest Congratulations Best Wishes for Greater Progress KORN POPPER 1413 N Street Same Location 18 Years Congratulations on Half a Century of Progressive Achievements We are proud to have been a part. We pledge continued cooperation for future successes. 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