A Quiet Protest
The civil rights movement plans to continue using the demonstration as its chief means to gain civil liberties for America's Negro population.
Its leaders seemingly feel it is the only weapon by which, at the same time, they can draw national attention and attack the power structure of the various communities, thus stimulating Negroes to become involved in the widespread fight for equal opportunities.
Austin Scott, writer for the Associated Press, in a recent article in the Kansas City Star, quoted a white civil rights leader in Mississippi as saying, "We must demonstrate because it is the most effective method we can use. We have been trying to go to court for 100 years; you can demonstrate for a month and get the decision you want."
That demonstrations have been effective in their own right was proved at KU last spring when students demonstrated. They were fighting for equal opportunity in the Greek society living system and for a statement by the University Daily Kansan as to its advertising policy concerning advertisers who discriminate against minority groups in housing. The Board of Regents has gone on record as supporting the demonstrators in their aim to remove all discriminatory clauses in fraternity and sorority charters.
Without a doubt these activities will be resumed here again this year when the occasion arises. Perhaps new problems will be solved and the cause of civil liberties will be furthered.
But, in the drama and excitement of all these happenings, some very important factors in this cause have been overlooked. A "quiet revolution" has been going on in our society for many years which has been relatively unnoticed.
This "quiet revolution" was the subject of an article by George S. Schuyler, author and editor for several Negro newspapers and magazines and author of the book, "Black No More." In this article he discusses the six million Negro school children who are waging their own battle through education.
He said, "More and more of the youths headed for school and colleges recognize that not even all the speeches of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., nor all the picketing of James Farmer can make a doctor or a lawyer out of a dropout." These educated and well-trained Negroes, he points out, are gaining more and more every day in the area of civil liberties and equal opportunity.
At one time in our history, only as far back as the 1920's, a college education for a Negro had very little meaning. Once he had his degree there was very little he could do. Today opportunities are opening up in almost every profession. Scholarships and loans are available for all minority groups to aid them in attaining that important college education. Those quiet Negroes who have used education as a means, are, in part, responsible for all these things.
Schuyler goes on to point out that civil rights
alone are not enough to insure continual peace and happiness. If this were the only factor, then all white people would be prosperous and happy. Next must come, in his words, an answer to "automation, urban decay, family disintegration and the entrapment of urban slums."
Sitting for long hours in front of a Chancellor's office, singing "We Shall Overcome" on the court house steps or carrying pickets up and down in front of restaurants and apartment houses will not solve these problems.
One should not paint over this real and vital problem with a shiny veneer or pollyannisms or abstract nice little principles that sound good and prove nothing. The problem is definitely there, a very unjust, inhuman and terrifying situation. But, it is easy to disagree with that Mississippi leader who says demonstrations are the most effective method without qualifying the goals they are to achieve.
Of course the demonstrations have produced court actions, have aroused attention, have gained more civil liberties, have made many previously silent voices heard. But these are not the only methods to gain all the desired ends.
Schuyler's "quiet revolution" is not restricted to the Negroes who are trying in a quiet way to prove their value to themselves and take a place that is rightfully theirs in this society. There are many silent white people also involved in this fight.
It goes without saying that attitudes have changed in America in the past few decades. Quietly many professions have begun hiring qualified and capable Negroes. In numerous communities Negroes are attending schools and churches and readying and studying alongside American Indians, immigrant children and the so-called "white" American children.
These people who have taken the fact of persons of a different skin color or a different religion to be a part of their lives, who now do not consider these factors in any way, who have not picketed for them or against them, also have had a great role in this movement.
Our generation is markedly different in its outlook toward minority groups than the older generation was and is. But not all of us throw ourselves into a demonstration to prove that we are concerned about the situation. Treating another person, regardless of everything, as another human being is one of the most important steps in assuring the growth of civil rights in America.
There is great danger of the demonstration losing its effectiveness. It must be used judiciously for situations involving matters than can be best handled in that way. But, taken to the extreme to which it has been taken in many parts of the United States, it will soon become such a run-of-the-mill occurrence no one will take notice. The silent protesters have their place and their battles to win. They must be given a chance instead of being branded complacent and uncaring.
Janet Hamilton
The People Say...
The Editor:
AN INDIAN STUDENTS charge of hypocracy levelled against Pakistan's president brought to mind William S. White's recent comments about India in the Kansas City Times, September 6. White says:
"Among all the world's self-righteously hypocritical neutrals, moreover, India has long been incomparably the most self-righteous, the most sleazily hypocritical, of all. Year in and year out she has screeched for 'self-determination' for the world's peoples—so long as her own thirsts were not involved."
And again:
"When India's self-interest has been present, however, she has turned about and been ten times more 'imperialist' than those Western powers she has so unsleepingly hated. Persistently she has refused — this hot-gospel preacher for the right of nations to find their own destiny—even to consider allowing Kashmir itself to vote as to where Kashmir should go as betwixt India and Pakistan."
And again:
"And a few years ago this self- appointed 'moral leader' of Asia
raised hypocrisy to unexamplied arrogance by invading tiny Goa to swallow it up in an India which has bored the world for nearly two decades with sermons against 'aggression.' But the same India which gladly attacked defenseless Goa has been comically ineffectual against the contemptuous occasional frontier incursions of big China."
Once more:
"Year in and year out India has played the Communist system off against the Western system, grabbing a bit on the cheap, first from one and then from the other side, but nearly always managing in the end to throw her weight
S. Sadiq
"If the Pakistanis have behaved badly, as they have, under President Ayub Khan, they have at least behaved like men—if blind men. The same cannot be said of the Indians."
P. Kaurq Pakistan graduate student
against that West, which gave her independence and ever since has alone sustained her in this world."
The renowned American journalist concludes.
2
Daily Kansan Thursday, October 7, 1965
Daili'Hänsan
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"I Say The U.S. And Russia Are On A Collusion Course!"
On the Side Female Take Over
“. . shall be denied to any person by reason of race, color, religion, national origin or 'SEX.'”
It does read something like that, and, for the most part, it seems agreeable, but that last word probably poses more threats to the courts, employers, and male laborers of American than those lawmakers could begin to imagine. (Perhaps they could imagine the problems they might cause, but were afraid to face their wives if they didn't include it.)
No, this is not a wild tirade against women or sex, but merely against the former's place in the union halls and unemployment lines of America. (Actually, I'm all for women, and sex, too.)
OTHER COUNTRIES have shown us that they are ready to let women step into the work shoes of their men, but look at the countries.
The Viet Cong has found that women make better bombers. The U.S.S.R. had the world's first woman Cosmonaut (or should that be Cosmonette?) And only yesterday our beneficent bearded despot to the south (No, not you, Gov. Wallace), named a woman as ambassador to Britain. (Maybe that's why the previous one defected.)
Those women who are satisfied to remain in their posts as clerks, stenographers, dental technicians and receptionists are the smart ones. Why try to infringe on the masculine jobs?
The only good I could see in this would be the injection of a little mirth into a traditionally sombre part of a newspaper, the obituary page.
WHAT "GRIM REAPER" wouldn't be pleasantly shocked to see an item such as the following come across his dreary desk?
"Mrs. Maualdin Murphy, long-time church leader and veteran longshoreman, (Local 69, AFL-CIO) here in Baltimore, died today in the Baltimore jail while awaiting extradition to Hawaii to stand trial on charges of pineapple smuggling.
"Mrs. Murphy, a longshoreman for nearly 20 years, was catapulted to national fame and also to the presidency of her beloved Local 69, AFL-CIO, with the publishing of her two books on labor and its pains."
"Strikebreaking for Fun and Profit," her first book, sold nearly 78 copies. Her last book, "14-B? Who Needs It!" will appear on book shelves soon...
Surely, any obit editor would almost rejoice at Mrs. Murphy's passing and the subsequent injecture of vitality into his dismal task.
Let's take an "in depth" look at what hiring practices, such as those now being advocated, would do to American labor.
UNLESS REQUIRED BY more legislation to dress as her male counterparts did on the job, our lady laborer would probably show up for work dressed in the knee-tickling skirts so much in vogue nowadays. Men, being men, would cast secretive glances in her direction as she slapped on a blob of mortar with her jeweled trowel, only to find themselves forgetfully tripping over the chalk line they had just laid and tumbling into a freshly excavated basement. Distractions are hazardous, and women on the job would be very distracting.
LET'S FACE IT. America simply isn't ready for the placement of women into jobs strictly for men. And, perhaps more important, if any valid relationship can be drawn between governmental systems and the persons these governments are now hiring as bombers and ambassadors; such "non-sex discrimination" hiring practices as these—now on the increase in America—could be a foreboding sign of things to come in our own young system.
Eric Johnson