The Anxious South

In the South these days everybody’s world seems to be falling apart. People float about in uncertainties. Old landmarks are disappearing. The new ones do not bring assurance. There are calls to action; but will the proposals make things better or worse? Perhaps, some say, it is wiser to sit quietly, trusting that the storm will, in time, blow itself out.

All this, of course, is the ageless problem of men caught up in social change. It is especially true of transitions that are jerky, uneven and frequently obscure. For those who cannot or will not face forward, the indefiniteness, contradictions and paradoxes strengthen the hope that maybe the change is not inevitable; possibly it can be avoided, or at least held back for our day. Posterity may be luckier or more durable.

Glacier-like transformations toward a more integrated society have been taking place in the South for a generation. For example, urbanism and industrialism have just about washed away the plantation. Yet there are those who wish to continue to live in a world with the pattern of human relations that was created by the plantation-centered economy: the elegant and leisurely white folks; the crooning and contented Negro servants; the moonlit evenings under the magnolias.

This dream picture may have never existed in life for more than a few but in a segregated society it was possible to make believe, to imagine. Everyone could ignore the quiet evidence that belied the illusion of graceful, generous white supremacy. The novelists and historians helped perpetuate the myth.

But on May 17, 1954 the United States Supreme Court rudely shattered this dream world. It was no longer possible to look away from the fact that the Southern caste system was done for, that Negroes were not contented to be subordinates and that desegregation was upon us. We all know that facing up to a reality that has been dodged and camouflaged for so long is most painful. This has made the South unhappy and anxious.

The Federal Government would have done us all a favor if it had clearly and firmly, yet with all its dignity and restraint, declared that the rulings of the Supreme Court are the law of the land and thus would be enforced. Rapid and deft surgery, we are told, is the best. There would have been pain but it would have been the lesser pain of the healing stitches; the cankerous tumor would have been out.

If the executive branch of the Government had given its immediate backing to the judiciary, the people of the South would have had only the difficulty of adjusting themselves to a fait accompli. Opposition would have been futile. Dissidents may have puttered a bit; still, who would have taken on an Uncle Sam that obviously “meant business”?

But the failure of Washington to take a firm stand gave heart to those who did not wish to embrace the newer order. The continued silence and indirection permitted at first the challenging, th...