"Live with the Change"

On the question of segregation in Southern public schools, Editor Ralph McGill of the influential Atlanta Constitution (circ. 173,591) has long steered an enlightened but discreet course. But last week, in his daily column, McGill spoke bluntly. "What the various Southern state legislatures are doing," said he, "as they busy themselves with plans to carry on school segregation without legal compulsion, is admitting [that] segregation by law is finished ... It, therefore, seems important that we discuss the problem as rationally as possible.

"There are those who insist that segregation protects the 'integrity' of both races. There are others who believe, with deep sincerity, [that] Negroes are 'better off' under it. Conceivably this might be argued with some logic. It does not matter. The world, in the throes of a social revolution which began with the coming of the industrial revolution, and which was tremendously accelerated by two great world wars, has moved on. Segregation by law no longer fits today's world . .

"As a matter of fact, segregation has been on its way out for a good long time . . . Two great forces have been at work on ... the problem of race. One is secular, the other religious. The Christian of today cannot help but wince at the full implications, and the jarring clash of his creed, with discrimination against any person because of color. To send missionaries to colored peoples and then to argue that because of the color of skin the two may not . . . worship the same God together is an impossible contradiction.

"It is this very fact which causes our Communist enemies to be able to present us in a bad light before the Oriental and Asiatic peoples. They can say . . . that our claims to Christian brotherhood and democracy are hypocritically untrue. Christianity cannot well afford to be on the wrong side of a moral force.

"The other influence is secular. Segregation implies inferiority . . . Across two great wars now we, along with other free peoples, have preached the rights of men everywhere to be free and equal--we have encouraged long-oppressed peoples to rise. They have done so, and to date the Communists, with great shrewdness, have exploited successfully many of these nationalistic revolutions.

"An end to segregation--when it comes --will not, of course, force people to associate socially . . . But it will bring on change . . . Segregation is on its way out, and he who tries to tell the people otherwise does them great disservice. The problem of the future is how to live with the change."

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