TREND AMONG U.S. WHITES IS AWAY FROM RACISM
A recent Gallup poll in the United States reports that there has been a definite shift in white attitudes towards Negroes in the past two years. Two years ago Southern white parents, by a ratio of about three-to-two, said they would object to sending their children to a school which included several Negro children. The latest opinion poll shows that this ratio has now been reversed’ so that only ~ two out of five Southern white parents would object to their children attending an integrated school. .
The results of the latest poll are contrasted below with a similar sampling taken in May 1963:
‘Question asked: “If colored people came to live next door, would you move?" —
1963 1965
Yes, definitely 20% 13% ~
Yes, might 25% 22%
No . 55% 65%
Question asked: "Would you move if colored people came to live in great numbers in your neighborhood?"
1963 1965
Yes, definitely 49% 40%
Yes, might Lo. 29% -.. 29%
No 22% 31%
These figures confirm the important findings made public by the Scientific American in July 1964 showing a very deep, long-range trend among the whites in the United States away from racism. The study reported by the Scientific American showed that the trend held not only in the North but in the South, including areas that had been scenes of violence. The trend had become so pronounced that this serious journal could report that an absolute majority of whites in the United States now are in favor of integration.
On the basis of this study, World Outlook called attention to the overestimation of the "white backlash™ in the 1964 presidential campaign, an observation that was completely borne out. [See World Outlook September 11, 1964.]
Negro militants have often been warned to go slow on their drive for Freedom Now because their vigorous activities would alienate the white population, increase racial prejudice and erase gains already made. The classic argument has been: you can't legislate
hate, fear and ignorance out of the hearts of men; only a long, slow process of education can wipe out prejudice and discriminatory practices.
The militants' answers have been: Maybe we can't legislate what goes on in the human heart but we can legislate to protect our lives, our jobs and our civil rights -- and we can educate the white population by our daily battles to defend and extend our rights and our human dignity.
‘Scientific tests of shifts in sentiment among whites show the correctness of these arguments. The drive for racial equality has reached new heights during the past couple of years. The struggle has continued to press on and on, the participants refuse to be content with a few token crumbs. This unyielding, uncompromising perseverance has left a deep impression on the ‘minds -- and hearts -= of all American citizens. Americans have been educated for hundreds of years by the slavemasters and the wage-slave bosses == and racial prejudice and Jim Crow practices flourished. The Negro community is now providing some new textbooks, some new lessons, tens of thousands of new teachers =~ and racial tolerance has taken a few steps forward.
The hypocrites in Congress and the White House are quick to take credit for any gains in the field of civil rights, It should be emphatically clear who deserves credit. in this instance: the freedom fighters in the streets of the South and the ghettoes of the North.