Word: halberstam
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Recently in these columns David L. Halberstam '55 presented a well-documented review of the segregation problem entitled "The Negro in the South." He might have been more accurate, however, had he entitled his three pieces "The White in the South." His observations begin with a conscientious appraisal of segregation, but they soon degenerate into an only slightly veiled apology for white supremacy...
Drawn from his experiences as a Northerner living in the South, Mr. Halberstam's remarks explain the white man's attitude toward the Negro, the "Other Side" seldom understood amid the "quivering emotion" and "finger-shaking" of the Yankee liberal. He states that he is "convinced of the basic evils of white supremacy" and "the equality of all races." He proceeds, however, to spin a web of selective evidence to show how the Southern white is justified in his own eyes (and in the eyes of "intelligent" people generally) in keeping the Negro down, for the time being at least...
...wide attention to a distorted picture of the colored man's misfortunes, the NAACP drives racists and other less enlightened Southerners to intensify repression. He maintains that meanwhile there is no "Negro organization, philanthropic or agitative, dedicated to sanitary and social uplift among the Negroes of the South." Mr. Halberstam, despite his later denial of any partial viewpoint, strongly implies that the NAACP would be well advised to transform itself completely from an effective political pressure group to a neighborhood clean-up, paint-up, fix-up organization...
There is little doubt that the "emotionalism" of the NAACP has aggravated the guilty pride of the Southerner, and in publicizing the Till case the NAACP set out to provoke aggravation. For, as Mr. Halberstam says, "there is a double standard of justice in Mississippi, one for Negroes, the other for whites. On the assumption that the evidence clearly pointed to Milam and Bryant as the kidnappers and murderers of Emmett Till, the group sought to focus national and world attention on the small Southern courtroom. The state attorney general had brought the defendants to trial, but this conscientious action...
...Halberstam accuses the NAACP of neglecting the poverty and squalor of the Negro while turning to fruitless political activity. But national publicity has been the NAACP's way of defending the Negro, and it is not likely to be abandoned. There is no reason why the group should throw away its weapon and fight with a bouquet. The Negro has neither the financial resources nor the access to power necessary to help himself effectively. More important, the NAACP feels that only through community action will the Negro's status be improved. The economic and social system has forced the colored...