History in Georgia

By unsegregated plane and Pullman, in segregated buses and in Jim Crow railroad coaches, delegates of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People descended on Atlanta, capital of the Deep South. They met in the Deep South for the first time since an earlier convention in Atlanta in 1920. Thirty-one years had made startling changes in both the N.A.A.C.P. and Atlanta.

Unlike the earlier convention, which had met quietly in a small church in the city's Negro district, most of last week's sessions were held in the city's marble-front municipal auditorium. The 781 delegates and their wives were officially welcomed by Mayor William B. Hartsfield, who showed a spirit rare in Southern officeholders by greeting them as "distinguished guests, ladies & gentlemen."

No Trouble. The 1920 convention had taken a defensive stand by deploring lynchings (65 that year, against 2 in 1950) and pleading for more civil rights. Last week such speakers as Author Lillian Smith, Dr. Ralph Bunche and N.A.A.C.P. Secretary Walter White, the son of an Atlanta mailman, hammered away at the convention's main theme: End Segregation Now! They had met in Atlanta to dramatize their fight against segregation, but, unlike Communist groups, did not defy it in practice just to stir up trouble. Only French Singer Josephine Baker tried to get into one of the city's first-class hotels, and being refused, stayed away from the convention. Most delegates stayed at private homes or in dormitories at Atlanta (Negro) University.

Police bent over backwards to see that delegates were not molested. One bus driver, who seemed more confused than indignant when two girl delegates, one white and one colored, entered his bus and sat together, called for a cop. After the policeman spotted the convention badges worn by the girls, he instructed the driver to go ahead and say nothing. The city's segregation ordinance was also quietly set aside so that delegates could hold a dance at a local dance hall.

Police Escort. Atlanta's largest nonsegregated audience since Reconstruction days jammed the municipal auditorium to hear a speech by Nobel Prizewinner Bunche, which closed the six-day convention. He lashed the Senate for failing to pass Civil Rights legislation, said bluntly: "I can never be fully relaxed in Atlanta, fine city that it is ... since I abhorracial prejudice and its evil end products, discrimination and segregation. I can find more than enough of that far to the north . . . Among those heroic men fighting for the freedom of all of us in Korea are many American Negroes. But not one of these Negro heroes, even if he wore the Medal of Honor, could rent a hotel room in Atlanta. Yet any non-Negro, even if he were a deserter, a traitor or a Communist conspirator, could do so ... Equality is all the Negro citizen demands, and I am positive that the Negro will never give up this struggle until he achieves it . . ." After Dr. Bunche's speech, a white police escort rushed him to the airport. It was the first time in Atlanta's history that such an escort had ever been provided for a Negro.

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