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(1944) [MARC] Author: Gunnar Myrdal
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Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 845
frage and other civil liberties. It does not attack segregation but stands up
against discrimination." The South is far from having achieved the Com-
mission’s aims, and the liberal forces of the region are weak. The Commis-
sion is, therefore, compelled to adopt in practice a gradualistic approach.
“Sometimes asking for all you want is the best way to get nothing.” R. B.
Eleazer, the Educational Director of the Commission, has explained these
tactics in the following words:
The philosophy of the movement is not that of “seeking to solve the race problem/’
but simply that of taking the next practical step in the direction of interracial justice
and good will.®®
The chief political means of approaching the goal set up by the Commission
are conciliation, moral persuasion and education. Its practical task is formu-
lated as the attempt to promote:
. . . the creation of a better spirit, the correction of grievances, and the promotion
of interracial understanding and sympathy.*^

*


“The Commission has taken positive and public stands in its monthly paper The
Southern Frontier^ in its county forums, and at annual state conventions, on questions
involving political and economic equality and extension of equal participation in all
social and public welfare benefits. These include elimination of the white primary,
abolition of the poll tax as a qualification for voting, Negro policemen, equal pay for
equal work, including equalization of teachers’ salaries, equal training in skilled and semi-
skilled work, opening of tax-supported hospitals to Negro doctors, and equal provision of
recreational centers for Negroes. Legislatively, the Commission, in cooperation with state
committees, has worked to secure appropriations for graduate and professional training for
Negroes and for the creation of training schools for Negro girls 5
in fact, the Commission’s
program, through its state and local committees, has included every field of public service
supported wholly or in part with tax funds.” (Memorandum by Jessie Daniel Ames,
August, 1940.)
**
A Practical Approach to the Race Problenty pamphlet issued by the Commission on
Interracial Cooperation (1939)} cited by Bunche, op, cit.y Vol. 3, p. 456.
The difference in tactics between the Commission and other organizations such as the
N.A.A.C.P., as viewed by the Commission itself, is expressed in a lecent report from the
Commission’s Negro field secretary. Dr. C. H. Bynum, communicated to me by Emily II.
Clay (in a letter of August 24, 1942). Bynum says:
“In my opinion there is no fundamental difference in the programs of the Commission
and other more vocal groups. The differences are in the approaches to the problem of race
relations. We break down the general objective and others use the general compounded
objective. We consolidate gains j
others attempt ‘blitz splits in the lines.’ We use educational
agencies j
others seek greater concentration of governmental control. We balance permanent
gains against probable imposed ruptures} others fight for violent ruptures predicated upon
revolutionary changes.
“My personal predictions are without value, but history indicates that we may suffer
heartbreaking reversals in race relations when peace comes. Southern culture patterns may
bend, but they will not break. Who knows what will be the outcome of continued ‘invasion
of states rights’? No pessimist am I, but I prefer the surety of acceptance to the resentment
of imposition. Acceptance may become a part of the general culture; imposition will

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