Ruining a Reputation

If any major city of the Deep South had a reputation for inspirational cooperation between whites and Negroes, it was Atlanta. The city long ago integrated its public schools, parks, golf courses, swimming pools and some restaurants and hotels. Only recently, May or Ivan Allen Jr. testified in Washington in behalf of a federal public-accommodations law. Negro and white leaders for years kept communications open and helped each other resolve many potentially dangerous situations. Atlanta's white leaders especially were fond of boasting about the city's pioneer work in race relations, its enlightened atmosphere, its sweet and easy black and white common sense.

But all that was only a veneer. Last week Atlanta churned with scenes as ugly as those in any other race-torn city: Negroes rolled in the streets in front of paddy wagons, cops wrestled demonstrators off to jail, and whites and Negroes cursed and battered each other with their fists.

What had gone wrong? Despite its vaunted reputation, the city's actual racial progress had long been bogged down in tokenism--and militant young Negroes finally got fed up. When respected Negro Attorney A. T. Walden, 78, co-chairman of an Atlanta Summit Leadership Conference of nine civil rights groups, tried to negotiate with the city's white hotel and restaurant owners and seemed to be getting nowhere, the younger Negroes took the matter out of his hands.

Demonstrators started off by picketing a local chain of restaurants. After two weeks and 24 arrests, the owners agreed to serve Negroes. When other restaurant owners still resisted, Walden again counseled against demonstrations. At a Summit meeting, an angry young Negro shouted, "To hell with you, Uncle Tom," and walked out; others followed immediately. The Summit Conference itself then decided to go along with the militants.

Last week the main target was a restaurant and nightclub owned by Charles Lebedin. Demonstrators rushed into his place, urinated on the floors when he locked the rest rooms. Other Negroes surged screaming through a motel. During the week 300 people were jailed, a dozen were injured. Mayor Allen hoped to head off worse violence. Said he: "Atlanta will accept no ultimatums and bows to no threats. At the same time, it will not lag in its efforts to ensure all of its citizens their full rights of citizenship."

Neither side seemed to be listening.

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