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University Daily Kansan Tuesday, March 23.1965
The Time Is Now
The time is now for this campus, with its present, intensified concern for civil rights, to deal not only with the tangible aspects of discrimination and racial prejudices, but to recognize and deal with the more elusive fears and myths that haunt us—even after legislation.
The administration, the faculty, the All Student Council, and student leaders can comply with the demands of the Civil Rights Council. Machinery can be organized to ostracize and castigate individuals and organizations practicing blatant discrimination.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN CAN refuse space to advertisers found to discriminate. The University can deny recognition to fraternities and sororities found to discriminate on racial grounds. The ASC can pass more bills as a gesture of good faith. A host of other measures can be implemented to make conditions unpleasant and embarrassing for those who practice racial discrimination.
Steps such as these may even satisfy the demands of the CRC. These superficialities will give us pride. We will congratulate ourselves on our liberal and humanitarian attempts to deal with the problem. But unless we do more, we would be acting like a doctor who recognizes the outward symptoms of a serious illness, but who hesitates to employ surgery to remove the cancer.
Kobert Penn Warren, writing in the March 23 issue of Look magazine, states a formula that we know only too well. He says:
"In the South, the Negro is recognized, but his rights are not.
"In the North, the rights of the Negro are recognized, but he is not.
"If, in the North, the Negro's rights are recognized, they are recognized only in the legal sense; the shadow of a 'human right' rarely clouds the issue," the author continues.
Here on Mt. Oread, this ugly situation confronts us. We seem to be dealing with it in the typical pattern. Committees have been appointed, ASC bills have been passed, more bills will be passed, petitions have been signed. We are going to assure the Negro student every legal right to which he is entitled. Are we going to recognize his human rights?
What is needed now is a new approach to a frustrating problem. The Negro is no less to blame. He needs to explore fresh approaches to
racial barriers if he hopes to gain the human dignity to which he has every right.
THE NEGRO STUDENT AND THE WHITE student need to confront each other in normal social intercourse to meet head-on the prejudices with which both are afflicted.
Along the same line, what, may I ask, do the faculty members who signed a petition supporting the right to protest peacefully for civil rights hope to accomplish? Here was an opportunity for the faculty to originate new programs to increase contact between Negroes and whites and get at the root of the problem, instead of hitchhiking along with the CRC. The faculty could accomplish in other ways much more than it will by circulating a petition.
With indignation so aroused and dramatized, it may be foolish to suggest alternatives. It seems more foolish, however, to let this opportunity slip away.
WE HAVE FALLEN TO BICKERING among ourselves over trivial specifics and general platitudes. Let us get at the problem. We have a People-to-People program on this campus, the purpose of which is to increase contact and social intercourse between the American student and the foreign student. What we need more drastically is an effective program of a similar nature to bring Negroes and whites together in a friendly, social atmosphere. Only by mixing together and understanding each other will the Negro and the white begin to recognize the real nature of his prejudices and fears.
We are evading the issue when we square off at the negotiating tables, or face each other with pickets in hand. We can negotiate and protest for legal rights, but not for human rights and human dignity.
WHY NOT USE "MORAL SUASION" TO bring not only the leadership, but the average students of both races together? Let us begin tearing down the personal ghetto which confine white and black alike. Let us set an example for the outside world. We can have no pride until this is accomplished.
The responsibility for inaugurating such a program rests with the administration, the faculty, and the students. A fresh, original approach, I hope, will come from one of these sources.
Gary Noland
The People Say
To The Editor:
I WITNESSED THE CRC DEMonstrations in Strong Hall and before Chancellor Wesoe's residence. Each time I come in contact with one of these demonstrations I wonder just exactly what it accomplishes. Each time someone carries a picket sign, some amount of antagonism is created.
That night as I watched, I heard leerogatory comments directed toward the demonstrators as they asked the spectators to keep the sidewalks clear. I also witnessed some of the disorganization present in CRC when Pam Smith was reprimanded by one of the co-chairmen for allowing a newsman to interview her. Neither of these actions is right.
Each time I see picket signs and sit-ins, I ask myself why. I can find no answer, for each time I try, my
mind goes back to one of the most persecuted peoples in history; the Christians. The Negro today has a long uphill fight, but at least he is not thrown to the lions or crucified because he is black. The early Christians, on the other hand, were. I might even venture to say that the Christians had it a little bit tougher than the Negroes of today.
Yet for some strange reason, Jesus Christ didn't carry a picket sign. In fact, he was so behind the times, he didn't even have sit-ins. For some ridiculous reason, he thought that the way to equality was not through legislation or executive orders, but through men's minds and hearts. So all silly foolish Jesus did was to go out and talk to people, and to show them that to be a Christian was a fine thing. Well, the funniest thing happened. After a while, the people
Well, anybody knows that this type of thing won't work for the civil rights movement. Everybody knows that to get on the good side of the white people and to gain equal rights through their respect you've got to picket and sit-in and demonstrate and riot and bomb the Black Muslims and march on Washington and boycott and sing freedom songs and get arrested. Just plain talking won't do any good.
that persecuted them found out that they really didn't have anything to hate, and miraculously, being a Christian got to be a pretty normal thing. It was even fun sometimes.
PORTRAIT IN BROWNSTONE, by Louis Auchincloss (Dell, 75 cents).
BOOK REVIEWS
Auchinloss, with "The Rector of Justin," has achieved considerable standing and popularity, and this is a novel he had published in 1962. It is the story of Ida Hartley, a woman of around 60, wife of a New York financier, who recalls her life.
She takes the reader back to the turn of the century, treats her marriage, her friendships, and particularly her relationship with a cousin, Geraldine. An especially effective portrait is that of the husband—a tough hero who knows where he's going and make no apologies.
The book is best in its telling of the past, and some readers may be reminded of Henry James and Edith Wharton. Others will find that the book's touches are much more those of the soap opera of yesterday's radio.
I've got this wild idea though. I think that the majority of the American people are ready for and want equal rights and an end to discrimination. But every time there is another demonstration, it gives some extreme group a good excuse for another hate session. I think that if the Negro people stopped their sit-ins and picket lines and simply got down to the business of letting people know and understand how they can be just as fine a people as any other, that these groups would find that they didn't have anything to hate anymore. Without anything pushing the people, the people couldn't push back. Right now the huge middle section of the people isn't doing anything, but as long as the minority on one side pushes hard, so will the minority on the other side. A new law or an executive order can't change an attitude, but good will and understanding can. Christ made it without a picket sign or an executive order, so why can't the Negro?
Greg Sipe
San Lorenzo, Calif.
junior
COMMEMORATING THE ACTION AT MONTGOMERY ALABAMA, MARCH 1965,
WHEN LAW OFFICERS AGAIN
FEARLESSLY LASHED AND CLUBBED
UNARMED MEN AND WOMEN
ADMINISTRATION OF GOV. GEORGE WALLACE
HERBLOCK
THE WASHINGTON POST
Faculty Acts to End Conflict in Viet Nam
Dear Colleagues:
The following notice is to inform you of action being planned by University of Michigan faculty members in an effort to achieve an end to the war in Viet Nam, including an immediate cease-fire and an unyielding effort to reach a negotiated settlement.
- Participating faculty members will suspend all classes and other scheduled activities on Wednesday, March 24 and will, instead, conduct a day-long school to discuss the moral and logical necessity of the policy advocated.
- Civic and religious organizations are being requested to hold one hour sessions of prayer and discussion for which a faculty member will be made available as a resource person.
- A large advertisement analagous to one presented by the faculty of Michigan State University will be placed, prior to this date, in appropriate newspapers.
- A steering committee will prepare an agenda of activities for further direct action adequate to the protest of a policy which kills needlessly, threatens escalation into world war, and violates international law.
- Requests for similar activities are being made to colleagues at other Universities, colleges and professional organizations.
- The group will send a faculty delegation to Washington on April 8th and 9th to join delegations from other Universities in a direct appeal to executive and congressional leaders. We also pledge full support for the student march to Washington on April 17th.
The faculty group sincerely regrets that the urgency of this issue and the current lack of responsiveness to responsible world opinion make it necessary to put aside normal duties in order to focus our total attention to the promotion of viable alternatives to the present policy. The condition in Viet Nam is so serious that any less direct effort would be hard to justify in good conscience.
All plans are subject to change by the steering committee.
t your participation, sympathy and support. Contact:
We request your participa
For information
Prof. William Gamson
Department of Sociology
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
To contribute money Roger Lind, Treasurer 702 Sunset Road Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sincerely,
Marc Pilisuk, Ph.D.
Publicity Chairman for STOP
(The University of Mich. Committee to Stop the War in Viet Nam)
Dailij Hänsan
111 Flint Hall
UNiversity 4-3646, newsroom
UNiversity 4-3198, business office
University of Kansas student newspaper
University of Kansas student newspaper Founded 1889, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily
1908, became biweekly 1904, triweekly 1908, daily Jan. 16, 1912. Member Inland Daily Press Association, Associated Collegiate Press. Represented by National Advertising Service, 18 East 50 St., New York 22, N.Y. News service: United Press International. Mail subscription rates: $3 a semester or $5 a year. Published in Lawrence, Kan., every afternoon during the University year except Saturdays and Sundays, University holidays, and examination periods. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kansas.
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
Leta Roth and Gary Noland Co-Editorial Editors