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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IX. Leadership and Concerted Action - 39. Negro Improvement and Protest Organizations - 11. The Commission on Interracial Cooperation
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Chapter 39. Improvement and Protest Organizations 849
main tactics must be condoned. These tactics are radical in the South, and
among white people they can secure the backing of only the small group of
Southern liberals.
If this is agreed, the question remains, however, whether the Commis-
sion could not be made into a more efficient organ for Southern liberalism.
While liberalism generally has been on the advance, the interracial move-
ment seems to have been losing out during the ^thirties. The Commission
has not fulfilled the promises it once gave. The South has been changing®
and there have been many new possibilities which the movement has not
utilized. When the writer traveled in the South in 1938-1939 and observed
the great needs and weak efforts, he felt strongly that there was room for
more courage and vision in the work of the Commission. The res’pectahility
the Commission has built up for interracial work in the South is a form of
capitaly
but as such it is of no use at all if it is not investedy
and. even risked
y
in new ventures. What is called for is, indeed, something of the spirit of
the young W. W. Alexander when he first led the movement and before
he was drawn into other important activities—that spirit, expanded and
adjusted to the new situation. The post-war crisis in the South will not be
minor. Already there arc signs of unusual restlessness among both whites
and Negroes in the South. A revitalized Interracial Commission will be
much needed.
From this viewpoint the reestablishment of state and local committees,
which has been started, seems to be an important move in the right direc-
tion. So as to be more influential in the political development of the region,
a broader appeal must be attemptedy in order to reach directly even the
middle and lower classes of whites. Until recently the Commission has been
working mainly with the ‘intelligent leadership” of the South and it admits
that “the mass mind is still largely untouched.”^^® The reservation should
be made, however, that through the press, the churches, and the schools
the Commission has already been influencing even the “mass mind.” The
new labor unions offer an opportunity for far-reaching work with the
industrial workers.
The efforts to tie larger groups of the Southern people to the Commis-
sion’s work are important also in order to lay a firmer financial basis for its
work. It is demoralizing for the South to rely nearly exclusively on North-
ern philanthropy. The movement is working for interests which are vital
for the future of the South. The liberals in the region should be made to
feel that they are accomplishing something by their own sacrifices. There are
people in the South with substantial incomes, and, while it is true that most
of them are conservative and inclined to look upon any sort of activity in
the field of race with apprehension, some are liberal and might be made to
see their responsibility. But even apart from such gifts, ordinary people
* Sec C\\apter ii, Section
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