TAPE 1 Searchable Text

[These digitized texts are based upon 1964 typed transcripts of Robert Penn Warren’s original interviews.  Errors in the original transcripts have not been corrected.  To ensure accuracy, researchers should consult the audio recordings available on this site.]

                                                                                      Box 15

                                                                                       KING – FEB. 5

[00:00:47]  Q:      Why do you think that this “Negro Revolt, Negro Revolution” has taken place now and not earlier, what is the pattern involved there?

A:      Well, the change from an agrarian nation to the city, the movement from the far to the city, and especially as far as ________, are concerned, the moving to California, Detroit, Chicago, not so many New Yorkers after World War I, but even, locally, moving to New Orleans Shreveport, the large cities.  In the past, even in the city, there were certain jobs that were know as Negro jobs.  There was an economy, that included the Negro in the menial position, barbers, waiters, street cleaners, chauffeurs, there was no difficulty in getting a job.  Various other groups began to take over these jobs, so that getting a job became more competitive.  And also, labor was organized in such a way that there were actually four labor battalions, white male, at the highest salary, and white female next, then lower Negro male, and then lowest, Negro female.  Negroes were frequently used as strikebreakers, and sometimes just to keep the cost of the production down.  But these separate battalions of labor, have been disappearing.  The Negro can no longer apply for a job in the Negro battalion, as they formerly did.  So it’s an economic problem, in so many instances, people; Negroes coming to the city, found themselves destitute, seeking refuge in relief and charity.  And the reason I give, for this revolt at the present time, is that the economic problem in

(Unintelligible handwritten note in margin)

America, for this is an urban nation, or a nation rapidly becoming urban, so competitive, that the Negro has to be able to complete, on an equal economic level.

[00:03:50]  Q:      How much does the specter of automation have to do with this?

A:      I don’t think on the surface of it, it has a lot to do with it, but beneath the surface it has a lot to do with it.  What I mean is this:  That most of the companies that use ________ have to specialized training, to operate machines, will employ Negroes who are qualified to operate the machines, will employ Negroes who are qualified to operate the machines, but on the other hand, Esso right here in our own neighborhood, many of the white people receive their training, right there at the plant, and learn to operate the machines, whereas Negroes have not been allowed to learn, how to operate the machines.

          In other words, the unskilled white laborer, can advance himself, by entering training courses and classes at the business establishment, on the job.  And the Negro has been denied that right.

[00:04:57]  Q:      That’s a policy, isn’t it?

A:      This is the general policy.  Not only is that policy true here, but I found it true in the steel mills of Pittsburgh.  I lived in Pittsburgh, and called it home for 25 years.  And I’ve been teaching in Louisiana 17 years.  So I travel backward and forth.

[00:05:24]  Q:      Let me take another approach of the same questions another aspect of it.  The earlier studies, particularly, there was enormous competition for jobs, and there was a great crowding out Negroes from jobs that had been traditionally open to them.  And that was 30 years ago.  At that time, there was no organized Negro movement, to ______ it.  There was resentment, and impoverishment – and the attitude was clear, but there was no organized movement, on the part of the Negro.  Now there is plenty of difference between that time and this time, why?

A:      The biggest difference, as I see it, is that in the thirties and even during World War II, we saw far more situations and we still see some of it, in which a Negro receives a lower salary than a white man for doing the same job, but that difference is rapidly disappearing.  So that even though the competition for the lower salaries jobs, was not as keen, as it is now, for the simple reason that the lower salaries job do not have a differential between the white salary and the Negro’s salary.

[00:07:18]  Q:      I see the logic of that.  Let me ask this question still bearing on this matter.  First I will say that ________ I’ve known for some time, both of them ministers, ________, Connecticut, and I asked this question.  And one said, there was no reason, just an accident, why it could not have happened 30 years ago.  The other one, said, there was every reason why it couldn’t happen, 30 years ago.  There was disagreement between them on this point.  ________ this, that if you want to say that this could not happen, ________ because there was not the vest numbers, of educated Negroes to organize, mount this movement, education of 30 years has done that, prepared a whole new generation to know the techniques, ________, range of culture, to know the techniques of organization, and the will is different, not the desire, but the will.  Now these men, they disagreed on this point.  And the one who said it could have happened earlier, __________________________ evolutionary process, etc.  Seemed to be a charged issue, between them.

A:      I think you’ll find one big difference between the last generation and this generation.  It varies from World War I right on up to the World, 1940.  There’s a difference in stability and home ownership, even though home may be just a farm.  But where there’s stability, where there’s home ownership, where there is a certain degree (Unintelligible handwritten note in margin – page 3)  of economic security, people are not as apt to revolt, even in their thinking as they are when they are uprooted, in other words, many of the people have left their farms, they have left their homes, many of them do not own their homes, now, but as  I recall in the, my childhood, and coming on up through World War I and World War II, it was a matter of social position for a person to own his home.  And the people who owned their homes, some of the people who owned their homes, to my recollection, to the most part, were people who found some kind of gainful employment in the neighborhood of their home, if there was nothing to farm. But that day has passed and the second thing is that there has been a change in the Negro’s religious outlook.  At that time, Christianity of the Negroes was a matter of humility, it was a matter of neatness, the church was the stronghold of all the organization.  My father was a minister, and I knew from ________ family.  In those days a person felt that he was out of step with society, if he didn’t go to church every Sunday, and if he didn’t support his church, which gave the minister a dual role, that of formulating their belief and being a symbol for their beliefs on the one hand, and on the other hand, of giving them some sort of social unity in the community.  But now there are too many transients, there are too many people who are moving backward and forth, from one place to another, to have any deep roots in any one community.  The second thing is that my observation is that you have many Negroes who don’t attend church, have no membership in church, and they have no belief.  The only thing they’re interested in is sound economic survival.  (Unintelligible handwritten note in margin – page 4)

[00:12:53]  Q:      Now how does this relate to the fact that much of the leadership particularly in the south, has been from the churches, in the past five years, seven years?

A:      The south, not just the south, but the north likewise, I am thinking of such persons as Adam Clayton Powell, the north has found a force for unified action in the Negro church, and wherever problems have risen, the only organization which the Negro as a whole, has been able to turn to has been the church.  He has no other large influential organization, or group of organized churches to take action.  Furthermore, you will notice that most of these leaders, come from the Protestant churches and I believe the Baptist church, where the church itself, is a sovereign body.  And along democratic procedures, the minister usually carries out the will of the body.  And if the body politic wishes the minister to take the position of leadership, and if he has the sort of influence with them that he lead them to believe that he can be such a leader, why he not only has confidence with the fact that his church will support him, but they in turn have confidence in their minister and will follow his leadership.

Now, I think the point is that despite the fact that there has been a loss of religious fervor among the Negroes, throughout the country, still the leadership comes from the church.  The fact still remains that this is still the basis for ________.

          [00:15:06]  Q:      You think this secularization of the church, rather than ________, is that it?

A:      Yes, I would agree with that.

[00:15:16]  Q:      I think Frazier uses that word, the secularization, I believe,

A:      Yes, that movement has been on for 40-50 years.  Turning the church into a community service, ________, orphanage, playground, swimming pool, classes, with the idea of religious education in the church residual, in the educational function.  And in many instances, even using the church as a springboard for political support.  And again, I will say, principally because of the Negro has no other large social organization, such as for instance, Kiwanis, or the ________ they are - - not large.

[00:16:22]  Q:      You find people like Dr. Abernathy, and Dr. ________ We won’t name them all, and you have a definite theological and moral mind, that’s not secularized, where the church is depending on a theology, nonviolence of ________, nonviolence of King, nonviolence of Abernathy, presumes a theological orientation.  Yes, this organization, sometimes modified by _________  But that ________ is not a secularization, is it?

A:      It may be, it really goes further than just the Christian religion, it may go into transcendentalism, it may go into Thoreau’s civil disobedience, it may go back to the idea of popular sovereignty, which is, incidentally, a part of the dogma of many Protestant churches, the sovereignty of the people.  But that in turn grows out of the humanitarian impulse which is more classical than ________.  However, I don’t find any logical basis for separating the two.

[00:18:02]  Q:      Well, I don’t propose a separation, logically, it’s just an emphasis in use of an institution where you have a appeal to transcendental or Christians ________, as opposed to __________

A:      Well, I think it would be oversimplifying to say it was any one to the exclusion of the other.

[00:18:35]  Q:      I’m certain that would be true.

A:      In other words, I think there are opportunities who use the organization of the church, to foster their program, that is not to say that their programs are not worthy.

[00:18:49]  Q:      Oh no.

A:      But I will also say that there are some, and I believe, especially like Powell and Martin Luther King, fall into this classification, who are merely caught in the sequence of events, and they could not be true to their congregations if they did not carry out the wishes of their congregation. ________ Baptist Church.

[00:19:32]  Q:      Tell me this. _________ from the time of Dubois, ________ of the problem of the psychic split for the American Negro.  Of his thoughts.  I even have a quotation from Dubois, articles.  I scribbled down.  One the one hand, a sense of identity with, loyalty, to the Negro community, and Negro tradition, even African, tradition, this is one identification, one loyalty one sentiment.  As opposed to another sentiment, identification, which would lead to the integration in the pure sense, ________ civil rights, suggesting the loss of ________ identity, even, outnumbering by the population.  This division, for some people is a very real problem, in the very real sense.  And even though this is not a problem of anguish, simply of speculation, where ________.  (Unintelligible handwritten note in margin – page 7)

A:      This is a very profound problem, is very difficult to even orientate the problem, for the simple reason that as I see it, the problem is an emotional one, and more so, than it is a ________ one.  The average Negro knows nothing about his African background.  No more than what he sees in the movies.  He knows nothing about his forebear, he doesn’t even know what section of African they came from.  He knows little about the culture of African.  So he finds himself in a situation in which he has an open mind for ________.  He finds himself in a situation in which he has to evaluate his whose search for ________.  On the one hand, he is taught that the white man is full of hatred and prejudice.  He also finds that he himself suffers as a result of prejudice.  Well, the upshot of that is, the first thing that he seeks solace in person who suffer just as he suffers, furthermore, the social community ________ based on any particular ghettos, of Negro residences, Negro churches, Negro business establishments, of Negro schools.  But my observation has been that when it comes to prejudice and hatred, that if there is any such thing as evaluating, there is far more prejudice among the colored people toward white people, and there’s more hatred among colored people towards white people than there is among white people towards colored people.  I’ve been in communities where it appears that the average white person is totally unaware of the existence of the Negro until he sees one.  On the other hand, I’ve observed that the average Negro thinks in terms of race prejudice, and all of its social relationships and all of its economic relationships, and ________ with the idea of prejudice is faced with the hatred, the psychological hatred, if not an emotional hatred, ________.  And he attempts to circumscribe or exile, excoriate, any Negro who appears to be friendly with white people, and especially if it’s an intermarriage.  I have observed intermarried couples in places like Pittsburgh, for the most part they couldn’t live in the Negro community, it would have been made uncomfortable for them.  They lived in the white community.  I’m trying to remember the name of a club, there’s a club of about 50 intermarried couples in St. Paul who organized themselves into a social group, there are many instances of which heard, that the average Negro resents any member of his race marrying a white person.  And he then turns his bitterness toward that Negro who marries a whit person.  If a person, a Negro, happens to get a job, and gains employment which in which he may be the only Negro there, and all the other workers beside him, are white, he’s the object of ridicule.

[00:26:30]  Q:      By other Negroes?

A:      By other Negroes.  And frequently they make it very unpleasant for him.  There are places right now where I am very uneasy, if I could go there, there are places where I feel very unwelcome.  In fact, some people go out of their way to make me feel unwelcome, and sometimes they even say so.  For the simple reason, that they may see me at some time in conversation with some white person, or he may be visiting my house, or I may be visiting his house, or he may be riding in my car.

When I was in high school, I was told that Negroes were not allowed to play on the football team, but I went out for the football team, and I made it.  And in the evening, around 4:30, 5 o’clock, I walked home with the other players, because I was the only colored player, so one Saturday afternoon, I was reproached for socializing with white boys, to the exclusion of colored boys, I wouldn’t walk home with my kind.  I was attacked. My nose was broken, and ________.  That is a personal example of the sort of thing I mean.  The Negroes resent any other Negro being ________

[00:28:02]  Q:      ________ set back on the starting point there, the feeling of identification with the Negro group is so strong there, that ________ any Negro who tries to move, or does move to have natural/to white associations.

A:      That is correct.  In some instances, it is very violent, but in most instances, it’s just a resentment.  It’s a resentment which may be expressed innocuously.

[00:28:38]  Q:      Now _______ one side of the question, that’s one pole of the discussion; the other one being, the impulse to move into the white society, in the ________ sense of the word, to break down all barriers of all kinds, identify with the ________ society, ________ ________ biological possibility.  Or certainly, where there are no distinctions of friendship, or ________ based on that.  They’re quite opposite things, aren’t they?

A:      Yes.

[00:29:29]  Q:      Now, what, is it a split?

A:      Definitely.  It is a split, definitely, but I would say it’s one of which the average Negro is not aware.  He doesn’t think of it.

[00:29:46]  Q:      But the

A:      I might further point out that the average Negro in my opinion is not at all interested in almagation, social equality, economic security (Unintelligible handwritten note in margin – page 10)

[00:30:32]  Q:      Yes, just that, the immediate ________ but the other things, _______ barriers dissolved, friendships take place ________

A:      You mean, the inevitable

[00:30:44]  q        The inevitable ________ associations takes place of all kinds, and this ________ this wall of Black Muslim is drawn, the resentment of the Negro, of other Negroes with white associations, would no longer exist.  Would be a society of ________ mobility.  And these two extremes ________ the impulse for ________ mobility, and the impulse for identification with Negro groups, in its extreme form, Black Muslim, are two quite contradictory impulses.

A:      And I think that ultimately they will split the ________ Negro into two groups.

[00:31:35]  Q:      That’s what I’m getting at, you think it will

A:      I think it will.  I think there will be some, who from any several viewpoints, the aesthetic viewpoint, there are some who feel that the typical Negroid face, features, facial features, bodily features, are beautiful, and they want to preserve them.  There are some who are just as adamant about that, as let’s say, the Irish are, in New York, St. Patrick’s Day, for instance, as the Jews are, all over the world, and to some extent, I believe, Chinese in their various Chinatowns, especially when it comes to intermarriage.  ________ But I also believe that there will be some who will say --  move in the other direction and will be swallowed up by the whit race.

[00:32:44]  Q:      I have a friend who is a psychiatrist in Connecticut, who is a Jew, and we have talked about this division of impulse, among the Jews.  And the fact and Jew is a nonbeliever, he is a Jew by blood, and by heritage, but has no theological ties.  And

A       And sometimes he changes his name to _

[00:33:17]  Q:      He may have, my friend hasn’t, but he’s not to any extent acting as non-Jew.  He says  -- I am a Jew, but he has no theological tie, ________ cultural sentiment.

A:      ________ conservative Jew as compared with the orthodox.

[00:33:35]  Q:      This man is outside of Jewishness in any theological sense, he’s a scientist, and he’s ________ free of this ________ in a sense.  ________ the identity, group identity as opposed to ________ transformation to open society, ________.

A       Somewhere around 1930, 1932, the late Helen Miller, made a study of United State Census reports, up to 1920, there was a census report of negro, Caucasian, or ________, or whit and nonwhite, ________.  He studied such as we had, ________ immigration, and he studied the growth of the so-called Negro race.  And from 1890, to 1930, the Negro race as prolific as it is, increased from a little better to 9 million people to 10 million people in the census reports, meantime the mulatto census had been discontinued.  And some, I think, 3 or 4 million people that had been carried in that census, should have run the Negro census from 9 million to about 13 million, but it didn’t, but at the same time, see, when you check above the whites, the immigration, birth and death, figures against the census of the previous 10 years, each one of the three decades, had an increment of 160,000 people per year, 1, 500,000 people in a 10 year period, _______ and at the same time, approximately the same number of Negroes disappeared.  And it was his conclusion that

Q:      Absorbed.

A:      And it was his conclusion that these mulattos, ________ in the white race ________ or perhaps.  So the problem is going, or has been going on since Civil War Days, I guess, _______ the Cyrus Long family of Ohio, or similar family which have disappeared, because the last ________ and the Young family, and the Warren G. Harding family.  Well, they have, the Cyrus Long, _____ in Ohio, ________ no, Salem, Ohio, every year, and every year they have a group of members of the family who, are white, and some members of the family who are colored.  And in Caroline County, Virginia, you have the same thing, the two families of colored people, who, on the hand, Byrd and their cousins, the ________, and their fathers are the descendents of ________.

[00:35:43]  Q:      ________ Robert Carter.

A:      But ________ that while the Byrds are having their family reunion, in Central Point, Virginia, the white Byrds are having theirs in Richmond.  So there’s something that has been going on for quit a long while, goes all the way back, to the Rutledge ________, with the settlement of West Virginia, and ________.  So there’s no starting point, as far as history is concerned.  Not unless you say the starting point was humanity.

[00:36:34]  Q:      I have a quotation here, that I took from Dr. Kenneth Clark, on the philosophy of Martin Luther King, (RPW:  --  reads Kenneth Clark’s quotation)  “On the surface, King’s philosophy appears to have health and stability, while Black Nationalism betrays pathology and instability.  A deeper analysis, however, might reveal that there is also an unrealistic if not pathological basis for King’s doctrine.  The natural ________ to injustice, oppression, ________ the forms that such ________ may take need not be overtly violent, but the ________ of the human spirit which is involved is inevitable.” ________ remark about.

[00:38:24]  “It is seen that if a man is the victim of oppression, be required to ________ the oppressors, places an additional and ________ burden upon these victims.”

[00:38:42]  That is the first quotation from Kenneth Clark, and continues, “it has been argued that the proper interpretation of King’s philosophy of love, must take into account his Christian background, this I ________ wouldn’t ________ but it is unlikely to ________ understanding by the masses of Negroes, ________ and where there is deep disturbance, inner conflict and ________.”

          [00:39:27]  Here he expresses himself as a psychologist, you see, ________ a theologian.  What do you make of that?  What, do you ________ find in that?

A:      I am not sure that I understand it all, Clark’s viewpoint, but I think I do.

[00:39:49]  Q:      Do you want to paraphrase it?  King’s ________ seems healthy and seems emotionally stable.  But it’s  really pathological and unstable, because the natural human reaction is to resist, resent, ________ understanding or forgiveness, then he’s going to have, he’s gonna get sick.  He’s gonna have the intolerable burdens of guilt.

A;      Well, that was what I thought I meant.  Well, I would say that there is a branch, they have several branches of psychology, which is incompatible with theology.  I would say that any psychological viewpoint based on average and norms, is unsound.  Average and norm, is unsound.  I would say that religious practices and religious teaching are not always together.  The religious teaching, theology, ________, idealistic, something prescribed for which the average person never attains.  But I would say that there are many branches of psychology that have a tendency to regard the person who does not act as the group acts, who is an individual, who is a thinker, who is a person who clings to his beliefs, regardless of line of logic which is predicted, as an abnormal person.  I think that any system of psychology, which attempts to remove fears, any of the normal emotional responses of a human being, which attempts to make all people fit into particular molds, which attempts to do away with complexes and rationalization to ________, and whenever you take such a viewpoint such as violence, as so many of the areas of psychology want to deal with, why you can make any religious creed or dogma or tenet, look psychologically unsound.  IN other words, there is a place for fear in religion, a very wholesome place for fear in religion, a desirable place for fear in religion, but there is hardly any wholesome personality, or the well balanced person.

[00:44:04]  Q:      Apparently, Martin Luther King, has made this doctrine, ________ and I talked with a friend of mine who was in Birmingham, the night of the riot, staying in the motel, and he said ________ ________ somehow converted into the doctrine of nonviolence.  Magically.  ________ now whether these ________ stick later, they remain.

[00:45:19]  Q:      The psychological and theological don’t have much but somehow ________ the psychological data might very well be the ________ it does work.  Do you think that the nonviolence program can continue? 

A:      I’ve been thinking about that, I need a chance for more observations.  What I have observed so far, is it has been more or less the nonviolence program being carried on by N.A.A.C.P., especially when it was spearheaded by Thurgood Marshall, I’m not sure about the situation as it is ________.

          On the other hand, it appears to me, especially in this section, of being a violent program being carried on by Congress of Racial Equality.

[00:46:42]  Q:      By CORE.

A:      Yes, by CORE, and also in other sections of the country, but not in this particular section, by the Black Muslims.

[00:46:51]  Q:      Of course, there’s the other end of the spectrum.

A       But especially in Louisiana, CORE has been inclined to incite people to demonstrate, and if necessary, you could go into violent demonstrations, whereas the N.A.A.C.P. program, has been not a group program, by that I mean, they do not depend upon getting large groups of people, to demonstrate and act, but rather an individual spokesman, one person, goes peacefully through the courts, up to the United States Supreme Court.  Also, I have noticed that N.A.A.C.P. has depended upon persons in key political, social and religious positions, to help mold opinion, so far as the United State Supreme Court decisions have been.  I’ve also noticed recently, that’s why I spoke as I did, that certain people have at one time been identified with N.A.A.C.P., and at another time, identified with CORE, and I’m referring to certain leaders in given communities.

          [00:48:27]  A person can belong to both.

A:      Oh yes, he can.  But I’m referring to a person who is cited in one particular instance, as a high official in CORE, and in another instance, as a high official, not just another member, of the N.A.A.C.P., and that confuses me, I think that’s true under certain circumstances, which group is spearheading a particular action.  And that became quite pronounced, I would say, in the last 6 to 9 months, the last half of 1963, but prior to that time, I could see a different procedure.  On the one hand, N.A.A.C.P., and on the other hand by the Congress of Racial Equality, and I think, if I understand your question correctly, I believe that recent legislation ________ into action, ________ for any particular action, but finally it depends upon public sentiment, as to whether or not it has done any good.  And I believe that the method used, or that has been used by N.A.A.C.P., winning friends and influencing people, getting a program before the American people, to give the more logical insight into the situation, is much more effective in the long run, than violence of any kind.

[00:50:05]  Q:      Well, now CORE has promoted demonstrations, and the demonstrations have been nonviolent, ________ accepted arrest, or accepted the ________, just haven’t struck back.  I’m thinking of demonstrations in Birmingham, Montgomery, and other places.  CORE and the Southern Christian Leadership groups, and SNCC groups, they have not struck back, their theory is nonviolence.  Is that running out?

A:      But their theory is also to incite the opposition to violence.

[00:50:45]  Q:      Is it inciting, or is it just by existing?

A:      Well, putting yourself in the position in which you have every logical reason to know that they will be incited to violence.  To let the world know, as they put it, to let the world see, what the situation is.  You see, the Negro has now become aware of the fact that as an American Negro, he is not a forgotten man.  But obviously, he has an international image, and he’s falling back on that international image, as far as the American image abroad is concerned.  In the United Nations and in Russia’s satellite countries, and he realizes that Russia and Russia’s satellite countries, have used every bit of propaganda they can, to help them in this particular fight.  On the other hand, to give the world an unfavorable picture of America.  Therefore he falls back on demonstrations, with the hope that the white group will resort to violence.

[00:52:00]  Q:      Yes, but is his, the position he takes, as I understand it, that this is a legal position, he has a right to be there, he has a legal right to be in this particular spot on this day.  That his right to be there is legally valid.

A:      Yes.

[00:52:29]  Q:      And he attacks practices ________

A:      Yes.

[00:52:35]  Q:      That kind of provocation cannot be called incitement to violence.  If he has a legal right to be there, and the white man doesn’t want him there.  That’s stick, isn’t it?

A:      Well, it is, it is, but I would say, it’s something like my being a man driving toward a red light, at 70 miles an hour, and I know he doesn’t have a possible chance to stop.  But I have a green light, so I drive my car right out there in front.  Legally, I am right.  Legally he’s wrong.  But I think there is an issue that is more profound, more far reaching than that, especially, when I see a situation in which people, not only presume that violence will take place, but they hope that it will, so that they will win more friends to their cause.

[00:53:33]  Q:      Tactical violence.

A:      Yes.

[00:53:39]  Q:      In relation to that, there is another question I raise often in my and I had a ________ statement out of it.  This is in the old book, What The Negro Wants, and this is by Gorden B. Hancock, “the color question is a social question, and as such is not essentially different from any other social problem, and by reason of this fact, involves the same pressures of adjustment, or maladjustment, Social problems, by their very nature, do not lend themselves to instantaneous or absolute solution.  Put that over against “free now”  --  what do you make out of it?

A:      The question is to whether Dr. Hancock, is losing himself to social problems, in a sociological sense, or whether he is including economic problems in the socio-economic sense.

[00:55:21]  Q:      I see what you mean.

A:      If he is excluding the economics, why then I would say that certainly he has taken into consideration the fact that biases and prejudices, and viewpoints cannot be changed overnight, emotional reactions cannot be changed overnight.  This ________ but if he means the social including the economic and political, if he means the culture, then I would say that we have to take his reactions with a grain of salt.  I do think that you could legislate political and economical regulations which would clear up many of the difficulties under which the Negro has been made ________ and still have in the limited sense, the sociological problems which this generation may never, and I believe, will not be able to solve.  ________

[00:56:32]  Q:      The other question I want to ________ quotation, though I can’t remember the ________ a quotation from a very eminent Negro, sociologist, ________ the point he makes is this  --  that the Negro liberation, integration is contingent upon the association with causes which set the whole white population, and can be ________ in isolation from the climate of ________ and a climate of a crisis, which involves the Negro situation, but ________.  For instance, the question of image to the world outside now, involves us all – an American problem.  The Negro problem, the Negro effort toward justice in America, insofar as he associates with that, is taken in isolation, would not gain.  In the complex of attitudes that have been built up over some years, that make it possible now, by associating the situation of the Negro with that of other situations, so that it becomes a general issue, a general issue, not an isolated issue, that’s the only way toward success.  Resolving the problem.  One ________ of course, is such a thing as racism, much less evident now than it was 100 years ago. ________  In a way, that only a few Bilbos would do now.

A:      I wonder about that.  In a certain sense, yes ________ but I also believe that it has just become more subtle.  I think it’s become more subtle.  I think that the difference perhaps, is that I get the impression as I observe diaries, essays, ________ that the American white man then hated the average American Negro.  He just hated the conception, that it was just repugnant to him.  And not a social group, but that he loved the individual.  And as far as any particular segment of American society constituting a proscribed African ________, ________ called Negro, he just didn’t have to face that problem, despite the fact that you think of antebellum south, as a situation in which Negroes lived in a community together.  I find that that was not at all true, some of them lived in the big house, some of them were recognized as left handed tenants, and there were quite a few indentured servants that ________, but this is an outgrowth of the end of the reconstruction period.  And to a large extent, of the urban movement, because ________ can go through various sections of Maryland and Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, as well as Kentucky and Tennessee, you’ll that a Negro may live on one farm, and will be surrounded completely by white owners.  But as the, as the urban movement took places, especially during World War I, and World War II, then got a real group, organized, not organized in the sense of unity, but I mean, as living locality is concerned, you begin to get these groups that were more or less isolated in ghettos, now we got a situation in which the average white man, either became indifferent toward the Negro problem, ________ outright ________, or he took the other side of the thing.  He was the sort of person who had a humanitarian attitude toward the Negro problem.  He love the Negro race, but he needed ________ in other words, he didn’t want any one of them coming into his community and live there, he didn’t want any of them coming into his church, he didn’t want any one of them attend the same school that his children attended; so it was just a reversal of ________ in which the earlier white man loved the individual, and hated the face, and now the situation in which the person who calls himself a liberal, loves the race, but not the individual.  

[01:02:54]  Q:      Yes, that’s an interesting formulation of it.  Let me ask a question that bears on that.  ________ what resistances there were in play time, among the players, and this was another, you know, thoroughly happy occasion.

                   END OF REEL --  Box 15, King  --  Feb. 5