Integration and Violence

Two weeks ago, four members of the Southern Non-Violent Coordinating Committee were shot by Mississippi segregationists while trying to register Negroes to vote. One man nearly died of bullet wounds. SNCC's work had progressed to the point where they were registering as many as 200 people a day in one country, and evidently the segregationists were becoming frightened.

SNCC members were bound by principle not to retaliate violently. The organization has always adhered closely to the policy of non-violence, hoping that it will exert a strong enough moral force to help rapid integration. But non-violence does not work at pistol point, especially if there is no effective agency of the law to deter prospective killers. The FBI and Justice Department in Mississippi have not been effective.

As Southern Negroes work to gain equal rights, Southern segregationists become increasingly frightened. This is true throughout the South, but especially so in Mississippi. Segregationists channel their fear into violence. Most integrationist groups are non-violent, and the Government's agencies are ineffective. This kind of situation can naturally lead to real pogroms, if it lasts. It probably won't last. Among Negro leaders, the tactic of violence in self-defense has become increasingly acceptable. Among Negro people, the constraints of ghetto life have become increasingly intolerable. If the Government does not act to enforce the law of integration, then Negroes will almost certainly resort to violence in self defense: to gain their constitutional rights.

So far the Kennedy Administration, from the Chief Executive down to his law enforcement officers, has done little more than offering gestures to integration. They are harder to enforce. Many people felt that the Administration's actual attitude about integration was reflected in the President's speech during the Oxford Mississippi riots. Although James Meredith succeeded in enrolling at the University of Mississippi, the President's speech did not mention the word "integration" at all. Nor did it mention the word "Negro." To many who heard Kennedy, especially Negroes, the talk appeared to be an apology to Mississippi white people for the Government's need to retain face in a difficult situation.

There are no good reasons preventing the President from going before the country with a speech that states explicitly that integration is necessary for this country. If it is fear of Southern voters or their representatives that dissuades him from doing so, he is choosing the most short-sighted kind of expediency. All moral arguments aside, there is not even surface calm in the South at present. If the Government does not act soon, violence will be wide-spread.

In a speech supporting integration, the President would be obliged to explain the attitude of different groups in the country. He would have to speak of the feelings among Negroes, among Southern white people, among Northern white people. The talk would have to be unusually skillful, attempting to bring each group to a closer understanding with the others. But finally it would have to insist before all groups that integration is the law of the land.

But no single speech will bring about integration. The Administration will have to follow it up by making sure that the laws are enforced by committed agents of the Government. That may mean replacing Southern-born FBI men who are still sympathetic to segregation with people who will work for the achievement of equal civil rights. It may also mean putting pressure on State governments to hire sheriffs and policemen capable of recognizing that laws apply to members of both races in equal measure. It may mean supervising Justice Department officials to make sure that they don't succumb, in Southern courts, to the prevailing will of Segregationists. These would be strong measures for a Government which has so far been more interested in maintaining a temporary national harmony than in enforcing the laws of the country. Yet the alternative to them is civil violence, involving both Whites and Negroes with guns.

The moral arguments for enforcing integration are obvious. They have been stated and restated for one hundred years, with relatively little effect. Now the Government must realize more than that discrimination in America is morally intolerable. It must also realize that if integration is not enforced by the President and officers of the law, it will be fought for by men who have waited 300 years to attain full citizenship. The fight will be carried on with violence as well as words. And civil violence is in nobody's best interest.