A Positive Approach to Race Relations in the South

Abstract

HE Negro is in the minority in the South. T He feels that racial tension is getting tighter all the time. He wants to be accepted as a citizen and as a member of the community in which he lives. What can he do and what ought he to do about it? The purpose of this paper is an attempt to answer this question. What concerns us here is, does a basis for racial cooperation exist, and if so, how can it be attained? Most people would agree that there is not only a basis for racial cooperation but also a need. Many solutions have been offered and many plans have been tried, but racial tension continues to increase. The central weakness in most theories for improving race relations, is that they fail to advance a positive course of action that is mutually beneficial and acceptable to the majority of whites and Negroes in the average southern community. Until such a theory is advanced and accepted, we cannot have a healthy and prosperous South. Unfortunately, scientific discoveries, sermons, lectures, forums, and public demonstrations have not been too effective in changing the attitudes of the southern white man toward American Negroes. The southern white child has been so indoctrinated with racial prejudice from birth that he is unable to think rationally about Negroes. Nevertheless, since race prejudice is learned it can be unlearned. Therefore some form of natural association must be worked out in the South for whites and Negroes before prejudice will be on the decrease. This form of association must be where they meet as co-workers and it must be unstrained and natural. The responsibility for discovering an interest that brings whites and Negroes together as co-workers rests mainly on the shoulders of educated southern Negroes. The southern whites have proved that they are unwilling or incapable of developing this interest. In order for Negroes to chart a course in the South that will appeal to those southern whites who are fairminded, Negroes will have to develop a philosophy of life that is not yet in evidence. It calls for a complete overhauling of Negro strategy. It means that for the next decade Negroes will shift their strategy from championing the cause of oppressed Negroes to championing the cause of the oppressed South. Negroes must become the champions of a cause bigger than themselves. A sincere attempt at this effort will bring more southern whites to work cooperatively with Negroes than any strategy that has been worked out up to the present time. Why is the cause of the South greater than the cause of Negroes? Let us look at a few facts. In the East North Central States there are 946,000 farm operators; in the East South Central States there are 963,000 farm operators. The numbers of farm operators are nearly enough equal for purposes of the comparisons. In 1940, 28 per cent of the East South Central farm operators produced less than $250 worth of products per farm, whereas only 16 per cent of the East North Central farm operators fell into this category. On the other hand, 50 per cent of the East North Central farm operators produced over $1000 worth of products per farm, but only 11 per cent of the East South Central farm operators produced over $1000 worth of products per farm. This is the difference between the North and South reduced to its simplest terms. Eighty-nine per cent of the southern farmers are not producing enough to support a minimum standard of health and decency. Only fifty per cent of the northern farmers fall into this category. The Northerners have an outlet. They have a highly developed industrial system to offset their agricultural poverty. The South has no such outlet. It has an agricultural economy, with a very low income. It ranks third in the number of people to support and it has the burden of educating one-third of the nation's school children. The South also has the highest morbidity and mortality rates in the United States. The South needs to develop new ways of farming and small industries for processing, storing, and conserving the new products of the South. The biggest handicap to the industrial development of the South is not the lack of capital, machines, nor technicians. The biggest handicap is the low productivity of southern farmers. Before the South can become productive the fertility has to be restored in the soil and crops will have to be grown that are suited to the soil of the South and for which there is a ready or potential market. This point of view has developed from personal