Reformed Presbyterian Minutes of Synod 1961 - Rparchives.org

16 MINUTES OF THE SYNOD OF THE
But the sharpest immediate issue testing the Christianity of
the United States today, and repeatedly making the headlines in
the news is the Negrb question. In 1861 the Civil War started
over stopping the extension of slavery into the territories, and in
1865 the Thirteenth Amendment made all American slaves free.
Now the question is being pressed as to whether they are equal.
The enforcement of the 1954 Supreme Court decision for a
"prompt and reasonable start" toward ending segregation in the
public schools has made some progress. But renewed violent
opposition was shown recently in New Orleans. Next a movement
started to end segregation at lunch and refreshment counters.
Recently the Freedom Riders have pressed the issue as to equality
in interstate travel in the South. Congress has taken some
further action to enforce the civil rights of negroes as to voting.
But the results on all these are limited.
If this seems discouraging, one needs to recognize that some
past progress has been made in Negro education, or some recent
steps would have been out of the question. The 70% illiteracy of
the Negroes in 1880 has been reduced to 11% by 1958; and colleges
reported 74,256 attending, but some colleges did not report.
The problem is not all in the South. Davis Lee, Negro editor
of the Newark Telegram, said that Newark, with 20% of its population
Negro, had only 70 Negroes among its 2,200 teachers and not
one principal. One may say that this is partly because comparatively
few Negroes have the more advanced education expected of
teachers, a fact which is now being changed. But the North is far
from giving full equality in schools, and is not entirely above
criticism, though condemning the South.
Editor Lee declared: "The state of Georgia employs 7,313
Negro teachers and paid them close to $15,000,000 last year." He
went on, "If these states . . . are forced to abandon the segregated
schools, 75% of the Negro teachers in the South will lose their
jobs. Not only that, but approximately 20,000 Negro principals will
lose their jobs as well.'' In the South the Negroes get some things
they do not get in the North; but higher education for the Negroes
may begin to change that in the North.
The colored races of the world, outnumbering the white, are
on the move everywhere. In the change in South Africa as to relation
to the English Commonwealth of Nations, and the Crown, to
maintain the apartheid policy, the move got only 849,958 to 775,978
in the vote, with 11,000,000 non-whites not allowed a voice. It is
largely the non-white nations of Africa and Asia that have swelled
the membership in the United Nations to 99. Every great disturbance
in the U. S. on the color line is reported across the world,
especially by the communists. With the whole world moving to give
consideration to the non-whites, South Africa and our own South