The Nebraskan
Page 5
CAMPUS RESPONSE ALMOST IMMEDIATE
Monday, September 19, I960
3
Students
(Continued from Pg. 2, Col. 8)
only a token victory. All
the world had marveled at
those brave young faces,
beautiful under the taunts
and spittle. If they had not
stood fast, the battle would
have been lost; it was their
bravery alone, that won it.
.But it was a battle offi
cered by' their elders, and
like all the quarrels
amongst their elders now
adays, it ended in a mor
ally meaningless compro
mise. From the first sit-ins, the
young have kept the com
mand in their own hands.
No "regularly constituted
outside authority" has been
able to catch up with them.
The sit-ins sweep the South
so rapidly that it was im
possible to catch up with
them physically, but it was
even harder for routinized
bureaucrats with vested in
terests in race relations and
civil liberties to catch up
with them ideologically. The
whole spring went by be
fore the professional lead
ers began to get even a
glimmering of what was
happening. In the mean
time, the old leadership
was being pushed aside.
Young ministers just out
of the seminary, maverick
young teachers in Jim
Crow colleges, choir mis
tresses and school marms
and Sunday school teachers
in all the small cities of
the South, pitched in and
helped and let the stu
dents lead them, without
bothering to "clear it with
Roy." In a couple of
months, the NAACP found
itself with a whole new
acdre sprung up from the
grass roots. The only or
ganization which under
stood what was going on
was CORE, the Committee
On Racial Equality, organ
Ized years ago in an evac
uated Japanese fjat, "Sakai
House," in San Francisco,
by Bayard Rustin, Caleb
Foote and a few others, as
a direct-action, race-relations
offshoot of the Fel
lowship of Reconciliation
(the FOR) and the Friends
Service Committee. CORE
was still a small group of
intellectual enthusiasts and
there simply weren't
enough people to go around.
To this day, 'most Negroes
know little More "of CORE
than its .name,' which they
have seen in the Negro
tress, and the , bare fact
that its program is direct,
gon-violent action. This
didn't deter the high school
and college students in the
Jim Crow high schools and
Colleges in Raleigh and
Durham. They set up their
own direct non-violent ac
tion organization and in
ipitation of CORE gave it
a name whose initials
spelled a word, COST. Soon
there were COST "cells"
in remote hill-country high
schools, complete with
codes, hand signals, couri
ers, all the apparatus of
youthful enthusiasm. Need
less to say, the very words
frightened the older Negro
leadership out of its wits.
The police hosed and
clubbed the sit-inners, the
Uucle Tom presidents of
the captive Jim Crow col
leges expelled them in
droves, white students came
South and insisted on being
arrested along with the
Negroes, sympathy picket
lines were thrown in front
of almost every chain va
riety store in almost every
college town in the North.
Even some stores with no
branches in the South, and
no lunch counters any
where, found themselves
picketed until they cleared
themselves of anv implica
tion of Jim Crow.
The effect on the civilized
white minority in the South
was extraordinary. All but
a few had gone on accept
ing the old stereotypes.
There were ood Negroes
to De sure, but they didn't
want to mix. The majority
were ignorant, violent, bit
ter, half-civilized, incapable
of planned, organized ac
tion, happy in Jim Crow.
"It would take another two"
hundred years." In a mat
ter of weeks, in thousands
of white brains, the old
stereotypes exploded. Here
were the Negro children of -servants,
sharecroppers and
garbagemert "their"
servants and sharecroppers
and garbagemen who had "
always been content with
their place, directly en
gaged in the greatest con
trolled moral action the
South had ever seen. They
were quiet, courteous, full
of good will to those who
abused them; and they
sang, softly, all toother,
under the clubs and the
firehoses, "We will not be
moved." Long protest walks
of silent Negroes, t w o
abreast, filed through the
Active in
provinical capitals. A ma
jor historical moral issue
looked into the eyes of
thousands of white specta
which were so locked in
"our way of life" that they
were unaware they lived in
a great world. The end of
Jim Crow suddenly seemed
both near and inevitable.
It is a profoundly disturb
ing thing to find yourself
suddenly, thrust upon the
stage of history.
I was at the first Louisi
ana sit-in with a girl from
the local paper who had
interviewed me that morn
ing. She was typical, full of
dying prejudices, misinfor
mation and superstitious
fears. But she knew it. She
was trying to change. Well,
the sit-in did -a good job
of changing her. It was
terrific. A group of well-
bred, sweet-faced kids from "
Southern University filed
into the dime store, hand
in hand, fellows and girls
in couples, and sat down
quietly. Their faces were
transfused with quiet, inno
cent dedication. They
looked Jike the choir com
ing into a fine Negro
church. They weren't
served.' They sat quietly,
talking together. Nobody,
spectators or participants,
raised his voice. In fact,
most of , the bystanders
didn't even stare rudely.
When the police came, the
youngsters spoke softly and
politely, and once again,
fellows and girls hand in
hand, they filed out, singing
a hymn, and got in the
paddy wagon.
The newspaper girl was
shaken to her shoes. Pos
sibly it was the first time
in her life she had ever
faced what it meant to be
a, human being. She came
to the faculty party for me
at Louisiana State t h a tv
night. Her flesh was Still
shaking and she couldn't
stop talking. She had come
up against one of the big
things of life and she was
going t" always 1e a little
different afterwards.
The response on the cam
puses of the white colleges
of the South .was immedi
ate. There had always been
inter-racial committees and
clubs around, but they had"
been limited to a handful
of eccentrics, These in
creased tremendously, and -involved
large numbers of
quite normal students. Man
ifestations of sympathy with
the sit-ins and joint activi
ties with nearby Negro
schools even came to in
volve student government
and student union bodies.
Editorials in college papers,
with almost no exceptions
gave enthusiastic support.
Believe me, it is quite an
experience to eat dinner
with a fraternity at a fash
ionable Southern school and
see a can to collect money:
for CORE at the end of
the table.
More important than
sympathy actions for and
Peaceful
with the Negroes, the sit
ins stimulated a similar
burst, a runaway brush
fire, of activity for all sorts
of other aims. They not
only stimulated the activity,
they provided the form and
in a sense the ideology.
Non-violent direct action
popped up everywhere
so fast that even the press
wire services , could no
longer keep track of it, al-'
though they certainly
played it up as the hottest
domestic news of the day.
The actions dealt with a
few things: compulsory
ROTC, peace race rela
tions, civil liberties, capital
. punishment all, in the
final analysis, moral is
sues. In no case were they
concerned with politics in
the ordinary sense of the
word.
Here the ROTC marched
out to troop the colors and
found a line of students
sitting down across the pa
rade ground. In another
' school, a protest march
paraded around and
through and between the
ROTC, apparently to every
body's amusement. In other
schools, the faculty and
and, in one place, the gov
ernor joined in protest ral
lies against ROTC. There
were so many peace and
disarmament meetings and
marches it is impossible to
form a clear picture they
seem to have taken place
everywhere and, . for the
first time, to have brought
out large numbers.
Off-campus, as it were,
the lonely pacifists who had
been sitting out the civil
defense propaganda stunt
in New York, called their
annual "sit out" and were
dumbfounded at the turn
out. For the first time, too,
the court and even the po
lice weakened. Few were
arrested.
The Chessman execution
provoked demonstrations,
meetings, telegrams, on
campuses all over the coun
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Action Against Discrimination, ROTC,
try. In Northern California,
the "mass base" of all
forms of protest was among
the students and the
younger teachers. They
provided the cadre, circu
lated petitions, sent wires,
interviewed the Governor,
and kept up a continuous
vigil at the gates of San
Quentin. All this activity
was unquestionably spon
taneous, At no time did the
ACLU or the regular anti-capital-punishment
organ
izations initiate, or even
take part in, any mass ac
tion, whatever else they
may have done. Chessman, :
of course, had a tremen
dous appeal to youth; he'
was tough, he was an in
tellectual, even an artist of
sorts; before his arrest .he
had been the kind of per
son they could recognize,
if not approve of, among
themselves. He was not
very different from the
hero of "On the Road,"
who happened to be locked
up in San Quentin along
with him. As his life drew
ta a close,, he showed a
beautiful magnanimity in
all he did or said. On all
the campuses of the coun
try of the world, for that
matter he seemed an al
most typical example of
the alienated and outraged
youthful "delinquent"v of
the post-World War II era
the product of a de
linquent society. To the
young who refused to be
demoralized by society, it
appeared that that society
was killing him only to
sweep its own guilt under
the rug. I think almost
everyone (Chessman's sup
porters included) over
thirty-five, seriously under?
estimates the psychological
effect of the Chessman case
on the young.
. At all points, the brutal
reactionary tendencies in
American life were being
challenged, not on a po
litical basis, Left versus
Right, but because of their
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patent dishonesty and mor
al . violence. The most
spectacular challenge was'
the riot at the hearing of
the Un-American Activities
Committee in San Francis
co. There is no question but
that this was a completely
spontaneous demonstration.
The idea that Communist
agitators provoked it is
ludicrous. True, all that
were left of the local Bol
sheviks turned out, some
thirty of them Stalinists
and the two groups of Trot
skyites. Even the "youth
leader" who, twenty-eight
years before, at the age of
thirty, had been assigned
to lead the Y.C.L., showed
up and roared and stomped
incoherently, and provided .
comic relief. Certainly no
one took him seriously.
There was one aspect about
the whole thing that was
not spontaneous. That was
the work of the committee.
They planned it that way.
Over the protests and warn
ings of the city administra
tion, they deliberately
framed up a riot. When the
riot came, it was the cops
who lost their nerve and
rioted, if rioting means un
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controlled mob violence.
The kids sat on the floor
with their hands in their
pockets and sang, "We
shall not be moved."
Spectacular as if was,
there are actions more im
portant than the San Fran
cisco riot. Here and there
about the country, lonely,
single individuals have
popped up out of nowhere
and struck their blows. It
is almost impossible to get
information about draft re
sisters, non-registrants, con
scientious "objectors, but"
here and there one pops up
in the local press., or, more
likely, in the student press.
Even more important are
the individual actions of
high school students whom
only a hopeless paranoiac
could believe anybody had
organized. A sixteen-year-old
boy, in Queens, and then 1
three in the Bronx, refused
to sign loyalty oaths to get
their diplomas. As kudos
are distributed in a New
York suburban high school,,
a boy gets up and rejects
an award from the Ameri
can Legion. Everybody is
horrified at his bad man
ners. A couple of days
Frost
' IbtWl ,Tf' - " ' "34 "O" Street
later two of his prizes are
offered to the two runners
up, who reject them in
turn. This is spontaneous
direct action if ever there
was. And the important
thing about it is that in all
these cases, these high
school kids have made it
clear that they do not ob
ject to either loyalty oaths
or the American Legion be
cause they are "reaction
ary," but because they are
morally contemptible.
The Negro faculties and
presidents of the Jim Crow
colleges who not only op
posed the sit-ins, but ex
pelled dozens of the sit
inners, now found them
selves faced with deserted
campuses. They were over
taken by a tremendous
groundswell of approval of
their youngster's actions
from Negro parents, and
were dumbfounded by the
sympathy shown by a broad
strata "of the white South.
One by one they swung
around, until Uncle Toms
who had expelled students
taking part in sit-ins during
their Easter vacations in
other states, went on public
record as saying, "If your
I 4 tx r fer f4J , i 7
WELLS
Ph. HE 2-3474
fj U34 "
Chessman
son or daughter telephones
you and says he or she has
been arrested in a sit-in,
get 'down on your knees
and thank God."
Not only did the New Re
volt of Youth become the
hottest domestic copy in
years, but It reached the
ears of all the retired and
semi-retired and comfort
ably fixed pie-card artists
of every lost and every
long-since won cause of fie
labor and radical move
ments. Everybody shouted,
"Myself when young1" and
pitched in with application
blanks. The AFL-CIO sent
out a well-known leader of
the Esperanto movement
who reported that the kids
were muddled and confused
and little interested in the
rade-union movement
which they, mistakenly in
his opinion, thought of as
morally compromised.
YPSL chapters of the
Thomasite Socialists rose
from the graves of twenty
years. Youth experts with
theories about what their
grandchildren were talking
about went on cross-country
tours. "Dissent" had a
(Continued to Col. 1, Page 6)
FROST
