Violence and Non-Violence in Race Relations

Report Outline
Danger of Violent Race Conflict in South
American Experience with Negro Protest
Non-Violent Resistance to Segregation

Danger of Violent Race Conflict in South

Flare-ups of VIOLENCE in connection with “sit-in” demonstrations at lunch counters by colored college students in the South suggest that the Negro's campaign for full equality with white citizens has entered a new and potentially dangerous phase. Until the present student protests got under way, the Negro had directed his main drive for racial equality through courts and legislatures. Notable progress has been made there in recent years in establishing principles which the Negro is now seeking to apply in every field.

The sit-in movement began peacefully in February and in the main has been conducted without disorder; its leaders say they are guided by the principles of non-violent resistance developed by Mohandas K. Gandhi in his campaign for the independence of India. But so-called passive resistance is provocative in that it may develop feelings of frustration in opponents and lead to physical attack upon the resisters. The student demonstrators have already experienced some violence, but there has been nothing to date that could be called a race riot.

Non-violent resistance is not new to the American Negro; he has practiced it many times in the past. Most recently it was used with success in the Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott of 1956. What is new is the sudden widespread commitment to this tactic by Negro students, with the full support of their elders and with the full support of established Negro organizations.