by C.J. McNaspy hcN rrVi.f;U- AoO 0&6U let's talk sense about the Negro IMPRIMI POTEST: John J. McGinty, S .J. Provincial: New York Province NIHIL OBSTAT: Austin B. Vaughan, S.T.D. Censor Librorum IMPRIMATUR: Francis Cardinal Spellman March 14, 1981 The nihil obstat and imprimatur are official declarations that a book or pamphlet is free of doctrinal or moral error. No implication is con- tained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat and imprimatur agree with the contents, opinions or statements expressed. Copyright 1961 by The America Press D08cmecf ^ 420 $32 SMI/ LET’S TALK SENSE ABOUT THE NEGRO by C. J. McNaspy, S.J. A ms is meant simply as a short plea for reason and justice and humanity. It is addressed by a priest to fellow Catholics, though he hopes that most of what is said will make sense to Protestant and Jewish people too. It does not pretend to be an original contribution, much less a complete case. Wiser and better qualified scholars have said what needs to be said, but their works are not always as available as a 15-cent pamphlet. And they are sometimes written at such length and in such tech- nical language that the average busy reader is frightened away. My claims for a hearing are few: that I have read and tried hard to evaluate what the scholars have done; that I am a native Southerner both of whose grandfathers were Confederates; that I have lived in a segre- gated world for almost half a century; that I am now living far enough away to see the problem, I hope, a bit more clearly and fairly; that I am intensely proud of being both an American and a Southerner; that I am a priest. 1 Q. Why have we got segregation in America? A. Like most big problems, this one goes back farther than our personal memories; it is the outcome of a long history. Slavery, having slowly died in the Western world under the influence of Christian principles, was revived in America for economic rea- sons. It was found to be a good investment to own and use human beings. Unflattering as it is to recall, our ancestors actually enslaved and bought and sold other human beings like chattel, property. A hundred years ago one of the worst wars in history was fought, in part at least, over the slavery issue. The side that loses a war is not quick to forget; resentments often last on and on, leaving scars. The clumsy and often brutal period of Reconstruction after the Civil War solved little. Our grandparents could not easily forget; they even put up monu- ments to keep us from forgetting. Once carpetbaggers and other selfish profiteers moved out of the picture, the South was left, with no Marshall aid, to work out problems that would have staggered the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job (as we can imagine old-time orators putting it). While many Negroes moved North in quest of what they hoped would be a better life (often it was worse), many more remained South. 9 There arose what recent historians call a "new peculiar institution”—a situation that found a large part of the population only second-class citizens, if not less. "Jim Crow” became the accepted social pattern. I should add that it is a rather recent pat- tern. Southern historians like Prof. C. Vann Woodward have clearly demonstrated that "Jim Crow,” as we have known it, goes back only to the beginning of our century. Yet it is so habitual a thing now to many white Americans that only by living away for a good while (or at least by doing a lot of serious reading) can most of us realize how shocking and abnormal and inhuman the whole thing is. Q. Why has segregation continued? A. For a number of reasons. One is the common psychological fact that it is usually easier not to change. Change, if effort is involved, is unpleasant, something like having to get out of bed in the morning when the bed is comfortable and hard work lies ahead. If things are going smoothly for us, we don’t like to "rock the boat.” There are other reasons, but pervading them all is the awful fact of selfishness. By and large, the Negro has been "kept in his place.” People, thanks to their sinful- ness, naturally want to have somebody below them. The Negro, for historical 3 reasons and the obvious one of “color,” makes the perfect victim, especially for those of us who can claim no ground of superiority except that of “color.” It is no secret that the loudest anti-Negro ele- ments of our race are those we would not enjoy inviting to our homes or having our relatives marry. Being “kept in his place,” the Negro has, on the whole, been deprived of many advantages and opportunities open to other Americans. He has often been discouraged from trying to improve himself. If some colleges have been open to him, they have either been far away, or usually under the stigma of being segregated. Besides, the rewards and incentives that made other Americans want to struggle upward beyond what their parents had—the motive of self- 4 improvement that meant so much to our ancestors and other immigrants to Amer- ica—have been shut off from the Negro. Unlike other Americans, he did not come to America as a land of opportunity; he was forcibly brought to America, kept here until all ties with any other home were brutally broken, then made to feel that this was not his home after all. Another reason is the deep subconscious or unconscious resentment that many white people feel toward the Negro. He is on our conscience, and we don’t like to admit that we’ve done him wrong. It is a common psychological fact that men tend to hate those whom they have harmed. Finally, to limit myself to just a few reasons, there is the inescapable fact of social identification—or in plain language, the fact of color. Other nationalities, other minorities have been able to fight their way in, to blend in, to become part of the great American melting-pot, by changing their names if necessary. The Negro is almost always identifiable and can’t simply blend in. He is kept out. Besides, in this country color is remembered as a symbol of ex- slavery, even by people who haven’t studied history. This is a modem and a local symbolism, but as things are most Ameri- cans find it hard not to take “color” as a symbol of inferiority. A lot of education and good will are needed to get over this prejudice. 5 Q. If segregation is wrong now, why wasnt it always wrong? A. Like most questions this is easier to ask than to answer. The eternal principles of right and wrong are, of course, un- changeable. But it is not always equally clear how these principles are to be applied. Time can make some changes: we don't allow children things that will be allowed them when they are grown up. And it may be that for some time, as a temporary measure and for the benefit of the Negro, some amount of segregation was in order. Precisely to help the Negro, as she did to help the Irish and the Germans and the Slavs and other minorities, the Church did make special provision for him. Special churches, however, came to be the accepted thing only as “Jim Crow” came in. This was done reluctantly, and only as a tem- porary measure, like the other 'national churches” for minority groups, and never meant as more than a temporary expedient. To return to the problem of applying eternal principles of morality. All ethicians agree that circumstances can change the application of moral principles. What, for the sake of example, may be tolerable and licit in one set of circumstances may be intolerable and illicit in another. Driving 60 miles per hour may be innocent in itself; but driving so fast on a crowded street, or in a school zone, or under the influence of 6 liquor, may easily be a serious crime. The principle hasn’t changed here; the applica- tion has. In somewhat the same way, not all forms of segregation are immoral (we segregate men and women in dressing rooms, for instance). What we are dis- cussing here is not segregation in the abstract—or even as it may have been prac- ticed in other circumstances quite different from here and now—but segregation as we have it today on the basis of race. Today, as we shall see later, the moral issue is quite clear. Q. But doesn't the Bible order or encour- age segregation? A. It is impossible in a pamphlet to pursue every possible text proposed in favor of racial segregation. I have tried to study every passage of Holy Scripture used for this purpose (beside reading the entire Bible in the original languages). I can best give my honest conclusions in the words of Fr. Louis F. Hartman, C.SS.R., Execu- tive Secretary of the Catholic Biblical Asso- ciation of America: “Catholic Scripture scholars are agreed that there is absolutely nothing in Holy Scripture that favors racial segregation as we know it in our country.” The texts sometimes brought up are either mistranslations, or, more usually, it was a question of failure to study the context. All Biblical scholars agree that verses taken 7 from the Bible have to be understood in their setting. Moreover, there is the larger context: how does this passage fit into the whole of divine revelation? As Archbishop Denis Hurley (of Durban, South Africa) well said in a recent state- ment: The Bible does not support race segregation but rather the breaking down of race barriers. There may be words to justify separation of peoples in the earlier books of the Bible, but these must be understood in their his- torical context. They refer to a time when the Hebrew people, privileged recipients of God’s revelation, were in danger of losing it through powerful political influences bearing down upon them from all sides. In an authoritative study of the morality of segregation, the renowned American theologian, Fr. Robert W. Gleason, S.J., concludes: No Scripture scholar worthy of the name, Protestant, Jewish or Catholic, has found in the Old Testament any- thing which justified enforced segrega- tion based upon race. Considering the variety of interpretations which we meet among various Scripture scholars on most points, their unanimity on this point is quite striking. But we can say more than that the Scrip- ture gives no foundation for segregation. 8 According to Fr. Gleason, the New Testa- ment is positively opposed to it. He says: It is strikingly clear in the New Testament what was the attitude of Christ toward racial discrimination. He always aimed at social unity and He did insist very strongly that the final judgment would be largely based upon the question of how we have practiced love for our neighbor. He insisted that we must treat each person as a neighbor, and the parable of the Good Samaritan is told to this point. This parable is peculiarly applicable to the question of race relationships because it is the very type of person whom the racists despise whom Christ would hold up to their admiration. At no point did Jesus imply that love for our neighbor is without problems, that it is easy or does not demand humility; but He never excused from this universal obligation. Q. Yet, isn’t the Negro really inferior? A. Which Negro? Like all human beings, some are inferior and others superior. But if the question means: has the Negro, on the whole, been forcibly kept in an inferior social position and not allowed to develop as freely as other groups in our country? the answer must be, to our shame, that often this is so. But if you mean: is the Negro inherently, biologically inferior? is his intellectual capacity inferior? the an- 9 swer is that all scientific tests give no justi- fication for this opinion. The classic case, well known to eductional psychologists but not to certain racists, is the analysis of Army Alpha scores during World War I: Negroes from four Northern states had a higher median score than whites from four Southern states. (It might be more prudent not to name the states.) Evidently, what mattered was not color, but educational opportunity. Recent studies by Dr. Anne Anastasi, professor of psychology at Ford- ham University, and by other authorities on intelligence testing, show results that would make the segregationists very un- happy. The opinion of contemporary an- thropologists on the subject of racial differ- ences has been summed up by Fr. J. Franklin Ewing, S.J., professor of anthro- pology and Director of the Institute of Mission Studies at Fordham University, in these words: Science has been unable to find any connection between racial differences and any characteristic which might be important in human society, such as intelligence. The differences between human groups are the results of dif- erent cultural conditionings and differ- ent cultural histories. This has nothing to do with biology—skin color, hair form, or what-have-you. And these differences are culturally changeable. You cannot quote science when you 10 state that one group is ‘inferior or ‘superior’ to another. Q. If the Negro is not inferior, why hasnt he created great civilizations? A. It would take at least a volume to answer this question. I can only sketch here what many years of study and teach- ing of cultural history have taught me about the main theories on what causes civiliza- tions to arise. Nazi historians reduced it to blood, race, the superior Nordic man. Marxists reduce all history to economics. Independent historians reject both these theories. Much as they differ in detail, they agree that the causes of civilization are complex and multiple, having nothing to do with color or blood. Indeed, the basic civilizations were created by men of differ- ent races and different colors. Climate, geography, rivalries, challenge- response, contact and cross-fertilization, culture diffusion in general, and many other causes enter in, and in varying proportions. At one point of world history a given people will be very high in civilization; at another (without any change of blood) it will be low. The white Nordic nations were among the last to be highly civilized, and became so only after contact with Greco-Roman culture. Greece, Egypt, Persia, Sicily, China, India, etc., have at times been among the most highly civilized nations 11 of the world and at other times among the most backward. Scientific historians agree that blood has nothing to do with it, in any case. Moreover, modem ethnology and arche- ology have uncovered several high Negro civilizations in Africa before the Negro was enslaved. Our European ancestors contributed almost nothing to civilization until they were civilized by contact with Mediterranean cultures. Had deserts and jungles thwarted this contact, it is probable that few of us (except those from the Mediterranean countries) could read or write now. No nation or race has any monopoly on culture. Besides, a nation can be very cultured in one field and not in another: can we compare America’s con- tribution in music to Italy’s? or Italy’s political contribution (in recent years) to ours? The whole matter of cultural history is very complicated, but, to repeat, it has nothing whatever to do with color. 12 Q. But look at the Congo: the Negro is only a little removed from savagery. A. So are we all. But an anthropologist would laugh at this objection, since savagery has nothing to do with race. Any group of people (as we have seen so sadly in some demonstrations in our own South) can act like savages. None of us are far removed from savagery and for that reason we spend a lot of money keeping up a large police force. If the Congo has gone through such tragic convulsions, much of the blame goes to the white men who exploited the Congolese, both before and after freedom. After breaking down his own way of life and compelling him to live in the Western world,* we gave him no opportunity to prepare himself for self- government in a world he was not allowed to know. And, of course, Communists (members of the white race) have greatly added to the turmoil and trouble. To get back to savagery and inheritance, for a moment. Scientists today know that men do not inherit acquired characteristics. That sentence must be reflected on: we do not inherit biologically what our parents or ancestors learned. It is strictly unscien- tific and against all the evidence to believe that it matters at all whether your ancestors; were cultured or not: they handed on by biological inheritance absolutely nothing of what they had acquired. What does matter 13 is environment, the way we are brought up. Everything has to be learned by the individual. If two children are brought up in exactly the same way from the very beginning, there is no way of telling which was the son of the illiterate and which the son of the Doctor of Medicine. It would depend simply on “genes” and not at all on how educated or civilized the father had been. For, to repeat, the learning of the father does not descend to the son by blood, but by environment. Now, it is plain that where racial segre- gation has been forced on the Negro, gen- erally the Negro has suffered from his environment. If some Negroes show tend- encies toward delinquency, if they suffer from lack of ambition, lack of drive, apathy —we may blame this on the environment we have compelled him to live in, not on some imagined inferiority in his biology. This is not my opinion; it is the conviction of all scientific psychologists and anthro- pologists. Q. But, aU the same, the Negro is inferior now, and I dont want my children to asso- ciate with him . A. This is a serious difficulty, and I have no trouble sympathizing with parents who feel it. There is no quick, easy answer. But I suggest a few points that we need to meditate on prayerfully and sincerely. 14 1. The stories we have heard against Negroes are sheer legend or gross exagger- ation, what sociologists call 'racial myths.” Those of us who have worked with Negroes know this. I have personally had the priv- ilege of baptizing and administering the sacraments to as many Negroes as whites. Other priests with more experience will join me in assuring you that people are people, and that color doesn't matter. Who, for instance, behaved better in December 1960 at the Frantz School in New Orleans, the Negro parents or the white? During the boycott of segregated buses in Mont- gomery, Alabama, 50,000 Negroes prac- ticed non-violence and refrained from re- taliating to provocations that ranged from insults to dynamite. I personally consider that heroic. Besides, as far as dangers are concerned, most of us Southerners (of a certain age) have been entrusted to Negro maids or guardians during our youngest and most impressionable years. I don't recall any of my friends suffering from this close association. We hear no objections to Negroes having charge of our food or the care of our homes. This is surely a more intimate contact than going to school or church together. In fact, it is hard to think about this inconsistency without laughing at ourselves. 2. Those parents who are afraid that desegregation will lead to intermarriage show very little confidence in themselves. 15 Marriage will never be forced on anyone: it is a free contract. The more superior we white people feel, the less concerned we should be with this possibility. Besides, isn’t it a bit conceited to suppose that Negroes want to marry us? Whatever mis- cegenation has occurred between races has been the other way—white people wanting union with Negroes, usually outside of marriage. The record here is not compli- mentary or edifying. (This problem has been well studied by a group of psychia- trists in a pamphlet recommended below.) 3. We are naturally selfish and interested in our tiny self-centered worlds. But today, with the whole world our neighbor as never before, Christ’s command to love our neighbor, to practice social responsi- bility, needs heeding as never before. Can He go on pleading that we know not what we do? 4. We ought to remember that no prob- lem involving people is ever easy to solve. We think nothing about the blessings we have had handed down to us from our forefathers. They have left us with this responsibility too. If it is not our fault, neither is it the Negro’s fault that our ancestors brought him here. Two centuries of slavery and another of heartless dis-> crimination have not been easy on him. Nor is it easy for him to hear us discussing whether or not to give him his rights. (I hope no Negro reads this pamphlet. It 16 would embarrass him; yet I feel it has to be written.) 5. Think of what we ask of the Negro. Can we go on, as John Steinbeck so elo- quently puts it, demanding that the Negro be “wiser than we are, more tolerant, braver, more dignified, more self-controlled, self-disciplined, good-tempered, more cour- teous, more gallant, more proud, more steadfast,” more virtuous generally? Yet that is exactly what we demand of him. And don’t think he is satisfied. If some individuals say so, it may be that they are timid about saying what they really think. They are more open with priests and others that they trust. Q. But isn’t this whole business being forced on us? What about States’ rights? A. I believe in States’ rights too. Our wonderful American system of checks and balances must be preserved. But what happens when local or State governments persist, year after year, for a whole century, in deliberately depriving a large body of Americans of their rights as citizens? The, behavior of some of our Southern governors and rubber-stamp legislatures tends to make a mockery of the whole system. Precisely because these States have failed, not only by doing nothing, but positively by various schemes of evasion, can our citizens be blamed if they have recourse to the National 17 Government? Those who shout loudest for States’ rights, while doing nothing about States’ responsibilities, seem to me the real betrayers of our States’ rights. It is a bit humorous to see that some of our Southern leaders have, while blaming Washington for encroaching, continued to appeal to Washington for financial aid. During one recent year the eleven ex-Confederate States contributed 12.52 per cent of Federal revenue collections, but received in return over 27 per cent of Federal funds. Q. But hasn’t this become “government by the courts’’? A. This is a good debater’s phrase, but what does it really mean? Our triple divi- sion of government into legislative, judiciary and executive branches, with built-in checks of one branch on the others, is fundamentally American and has, by and large, worked for our greater freedom and security. The courts do not make laws; they apply them. This is always their function, even when it works against our preferences (laws almost always go against someone’s preferences). A mere law on paper is worthless unless applied. Our judiciary, carefully selected with as much independence as humanly possible from politics, partisanship and mob whims, is in the best position to defend the common good rather than the good of some minority 18 or majority. When we have decisions applying the law to ever recurring cases, each with varying circumstances, the courts will inevitably “stretch” or “shrink” the existing law so as to settle justly the new situations. This is unavoidable in our Ameri- can system and must not be thrown out whenever it happens to go against what we would like. Regarding any legal stand for the segre- gationists I have personally interviewed leading professors of four Southern law schools and have found them unanimous on the matter. The canon and civil law- yer, Fr. Louis Hiegel, S.J., of the Loyola University School of Law (New Orleans), sums up the legal situation in a few words which he has allowed me to quote: “The segregationists have no legal leg to stand on. This is especially true since the throw- ing out of ‘interposition’ recently in the Louisiana struggle.” Law is calculated to defend the common good. We all belong to some minority, or rather to several minorities, whether we are Catholic, or Baptist, or Methodist, or Jewish, or blonde, or bald, or red-headed, or blue-eyed, or 70 years old, or over six feet tall, etc. Once you allow anyone, even a majority, to deprive a member of a minority of his rights as a human being, the way is open to tyranny. Law and con- stitutional government—of which the courts are an indispensable part—are our only 19 safeguards against mob tyranny. What, honestly, would our attitude be if we were in the Negro minority? Q. If segregation is immoral, why hasn't the Church given a solemn definition of the fact? A. The Church does not act this way, as anyone familiar with her history should know. She has not given out a solemn def- inition that murder is immoral either. Yet it is her normal teaching, and this is what Catholics live by. Definitions are rare, exceptional events covering matters of dogma. The Church exercises her teaching commission in more ordinary ways, de- pending upon time and circumstances. She has repeatedly condemned racism in every form. Segregation as we know it now is so plainly against the whole teaching of Christ that an explicit definition that it is evil would seem no more necessary than an explicit definition that sin is evil. We are expected to have some judgment. The Church did not start by roundly condemn- ing slavery; that would have been a futile, ineffectual, and self-destructive gesture. But she undermined it, and it was grad- ually wiped out in consequence of Christ’s teaching. Segregation is one of the last traces of the disease of slavery. What all Catholic ethicians and moralists have seen clearly and been telling us clearly for some 20 time is that we are no longer justified in postponing its abolition. Q. Why cant we leave things to work themselves out peacefully without all this fuss? A. The trouble is that things don’t natur- ally slide upward. Change, when it goes against our natural laziness and egotism, costs effort, often painful effort. Until the efforts of hard-working, dedicated groups did something definite and positive, the Negro’s freedom and basic civic equality remained a beautiful dream. We Catholics, ashamed as we are of the un-Christian con- duct of certain prominent men who claim l to be Catholics, can be proud of the clear, strong stands of our great American car- dinals, Spellman, Ritter, Cushing, Stritch, Meyer and others, of the work of the Josephites and other religious orders, of the Catholic Interracial Councils of Fr. John 21 LaFarge and others, and especially of the official statement made by the teaching Church in America—the entire American hierarchy. This entire statement should be read, but I quote the central passage: Can enforced segregation be recon- ciled with the Christian view of our fellow man? In our judgment it can- not, and this for two fundamental reasons. 1. Legal segregation, or any form of compulsory segregation, in itself and by its very nature imposes a stigma of inferiority upon the segregated people. We cannot reconcile this with the Christian view of man’s nature and rights. Here again it is appropriate to cite the language of Pope Pius XII: “God did not create a human family made up of segregated, dissociated, mutually independent members. No. He would have them all united by the bond of total love of Him and conse- quent self-dedication to assisting each other to maintain that bond intact.” 2. It is a matter of historical fact that segregation in our country has led to oppressive conditions and the denial of basic human rights for the Negro. Surely Pope Pius XII must have had these conditions in mind when he said: “It is only too well known, alas, to what excesses pride of race and racial hate can lead. The Church has always been energetically opposed to attempts 22 at genocide or practices arising from what is called the color bar.” How can anyone call himself a Catholic when he tries to evade this clear teaching of our Pope and bishops? The Pope, by comparing racial segregation to genocide, shows how close in spirit our segregation- ists are to the Nazis and Communists, who have continually practiced this crime in Russia, Hungary, and elsewhere. When we complain of individual crimes of individual Negroes, how often do we remember and beg God’s forgiveness for the massive crime of our race against the entire Negro race? The white man has sinned against the Negro by organizing an entire social structure against him. To heaven it must seem one of the most monstrous crimes of all mankind’s history, and yet some Christians are willing to shrug their shoulders and let things somehow take care of themselves. May God forgive us. Q. But isnt the movement against segre- gation really inspired by the Communists? A. The question is so preposterous that I find it embarrassing to think that intelligent, sincere people could ask it. Yet it is thrown out so irresponsibly that one has to say something. If this movement were Communist- inspired, our bishops, our Pope and other 23 religious leaders would warn us against it instead of strongly favoring it. They have been unanimous rather in warning us of the evil of segregation. For some years I have been making a close study of Com- munist propaganda as it appears especially in Pravda, and have published my findings in America magazine. They agree with those of the historian, Fr. Charles E. O’Neill, S.J., who has also made a close study of the Communist propaganda use of 1960’s happenings in New Orleans. He concludes: “To put it bluntly, the White Citizens’ Council officials and similar spokes- men are in point of fact the very ones who play the Communist game and feed— albeit unwittingly—the Communist propa- ganda machine.” The very last thing the Communists want is for us to solve the huge scandal of racial discrimination, which is actually one of the few true charges they can make against us. We are not, of course, accusing segre- gationists of being Communists or even intentionally helping the Communists. But their method of procedure is the very one the Communists like to use: as the Nazis called their opponents Communists, Com- munists call those who oppose them Fas- cists. It is the totalitarian technique. Name- calling blinds people to one’s own doings. Please God, our segregationists (Southern and Northern) would stop if they knew what they were really doing. 24 Besides, reputable Negro leaders have totally repudiated any Communist support. When we think of all they have suffered, it is a wonder and a credit to them that they have refused all Communist blandish- ments. With an insight and patriotism hard to match, Negroes have rejected both Com- munism and violence. Some segregationists, as the whole world has seen, have acted like sulking children: when they don’t get what they want, they either pout or throw tantrums of wild lawlessness. Another dangerous device of totalitarians is to try to persuade good, peace-loving, law-abiding citizens that everything is really all right, that change might be dangerous. “Don’t rock the boat,” they say. Communists would like nothing better than for America to continue segregating 10 per cent of our American citizens, de- priving them of their full rights as Ameri- cans and human beings, forcing them to live partly in and partly out of society, regardless of personal merit, personal achievement, personal dignity. The Negro wants nothing but to be accepted as a human being, as a person, for what he personally is. He does not want to be automatically treated as a special kind of thing. He has been in America for 10 to 15 generations (how many of us have?), longer than our country has existed as a nation. He has waited a long time. How much longer can he wait? 25 As Bishop Victor Reed of Oklahoma City and Tulsa recently warned: “We cannot afford much time in granting that equality and equal opportunity7 in society which the law commands and which right con- science demands/' To do nothing, or to do too little, or to do it too slowly at this crucial moment of history, is the easiest way to serve the Communist cause through- out the world. When you find yourself trapped in a swamp, the only way to get untangled is to rock your canoe (or shall I say, pirogue?). SUGGESTED FURTHER READING Best of all, read the Catholic Bishops' Statement of 1958 and Bishop Albert L. Fletcher’s catechism on segregation. An excellent, brief treatment is Fr. Robert Guste’s pamphlet, For Men of Good Will. These three short works are available through the Confraternity' of Christian Doc- trine, 7845 Walmsley Ave., New Orleans 25, La. For a fuller study, see the scholarly works of Fr. John LaFarge, S.J., the most recent being The Catholic Viewpoint on Race Relations (Hanover House, N.Y.). The Interracial Review is a reliable Catholic monthly (20 Vesey St., New York 7, N.Y., $2 per year) and will help one keep abreast of the problem. 26 Emotional Aspects of School Desegrega- tion , is a brief but profound study published by the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (104 East 25th St., New York, N.Y., 1960). Thought magazine (Fordham University, New York 58, N.Y.) devoted a full sym- posium in its Autumn, 1960 issue to impor- tant aspects of segregation. Nine eminent Southern historians have recently published The Southerner as American (U. of N. Carolina, 1960), a work which helps us Southerners to under- stand ourselves and this problem. Several works of Prof. C. Vann Wood- ward, The Burden of Southern History, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, and others (Louisiana State U. Press), are fair and accurate correctives to various myths that aggravate the problem. 27 • • . : • v . v, v