Negro Segregation

Report Outline
Segregation and Civil Rights of the Negro
Development and Spread of Negro Segregation
High Cost of Bi-Racialism in America
Prospects of Change in Segregation Pattern

Segregation and Civil Rights of the Negro

Extent of Segregation in the United States

Race Segregation, long firmly established in the southern states and now widely practiced in other parts of the country, is meeting sharp challenge from Negro leaders, Negro organizations, and other interested groups. The courts are currently flooded with suits attacking the legality of various segregatory practices, and strong pressure is being exerted upon federal, state and local governments to deal with this form of discrimination by statutory enactment.

Addressing the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at Washington, June 29, President Truman expressed the hope “that we have reached a turning point in the long history of our country's efforts to guarantee freedom and equality to all our citizens.” And the President's Committee on Civil Rights, in a report issued Oct. 29, called for the immediate elimination of all forms of segregation, declaring that there is “no adequate defense” for the practice today.

Persistence of a strong feeling against the intermingling of the races has been indicated, however, by a number of recent events. Gov. Thompson of Georgia stated, Sept. 23, that he considered “complete segregation of whites and Negroes” essential to the maintenance of good race relations in the South. In St. Louis the strong protest of 700 Catholic parents against the admission of Negroes to parochial schools of the city led Archbishop Ritter, in a pastoral letter, Sept. 21, to threaten the group with excommunication. School strikes against the admission of Negroes have been reported from Gary, Ill., and Los Angeles, Calif., during the year. In Chicago nearly 1,000 policemen were called out, Aug. 16, to cope with a threatened race riot when several Negro families were admitted to a predominantly white housing development.