expected. These regulations of segregation destroy completely the dignity of man and the basic principles of equality in our form of government. The National Association For the Advancement of Colored People supports S. 1725 and S. 1734 without reservation. We further suggest that in part 1, title I, of S. 1725 on the establishment of a Commission on Civil Rights, we urge the striking out of all matters beginning with section 101, page 4, line 20, through sections 102 and 103 in their entirety, and substituting therefore the language of S. 1734 beginning with section 2, line 7, page 2, through section 9, ending on page 6, line 6. This is not a question of one section of the country against another section of the country. It is not a question of one political party against another political party, because both major parties are com mitted to the civil-rights program in their platforms. This bill does not raise the question of one racial or religious group against another. Rather this legislation makes a serious effort to make possible the creation of a oneness of thought, oneness of principle, and oneness of the respect for our Constitution, our statutes, and our individual human and civil rights, the very basis of our democracy. Before Mr. Wilkins starts, I would just like to make one other mention which is not in my paper; that is, that I cannot too strongly urge the necessity for this, as I said before. At least two-thirds of my time is spent in the South and the deep South. I think that progress is being made, but I think that if we are going to make real progress the Federal Government is the agency that has to stand out and make it clear as to what these rights are. Then I think the educational program that we all want can proceed. But it cannot proceed without what we consider a minimal program; as I understand it, this bill is just a minimal program. The only final thing that we suggest in here is that we would suggest that if possible S. 1734 be made a part of the bill because there are stronger provisions in there; so that, if we are going to have the Commission, I, for one, am very interested in the whole bill; and, without any reservations whatsoever, we wholeheartedly endorse it and will do all we can to help on getting passage of it. Senator McGRATH. Thank you. Mr. MARSHALL. Thank you. STATEMENT OF ROY WILKINS, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE Mr. WILKINS. Senator McGrath, Mr. Marshall took up the technical points of the bill and the legal aspects of it. This is only an attempt to outline what we consider the need for this legislation. Senator MCGRATH. You also speak for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People? Mr. WILKINS. That is right. I estimate this will take abut 10 minutes of your time. Mr. WILKINS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, of which I have the honor to be the acting executive secretary, wishes to express its appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you and testify in support of this legislation. This association has a membership of 500,000 white and colored persons organized into 1,600 local units located in 45 States, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Hawaii. It has been devoting all of its energies since its founding in 1909 to securing the civil rights of the Negro citizens of the United States; and in this effort, as the record will show, it has preserved and protected the civil rights of white Americans as well. It is natural, therefore, that our association should be in favor of this type of legislation. American citizenship, with its rights and privileges, is cherished beyond price because of the principles of freedom and equality of the opportunity for the individual enunciated by the founders of the Nation. It was obvious from the beginning that the mere enunciation of these principles would not suffice to secure to the individual citizen his rights under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As the Nation grew, our courts had to interpret the Constitution. Our legislatures had to enact laws. There is no necessity, we are sure, to recite in lengthy detail here the reasons why it has become imperative that the Congress enact the type of civil-rights legislation embodied in S. 1725 and S. 1734. The issue of human rights has become the concern of the nations of the world. An important section of the Charter of the United Nations relates to these rights, because it has come to be recognized that deprivation or abridgment of them on any wide scale in any nation creates a condition which could strain the relations of nations and perhaps lead to war. Human rights also have become the concern of our own country not only because of our position of leadership among the nations but because of a desire on the part of increasing millions of our citizens that every American shall be protected in the enjoyment, insofar as law can protect and guarantee, of the fundamental rights of men and citizens in a great democratic commonwealth. The concrete expression of that concern was contained in the report of the President's Commission on Civil Rights, entitled "To Secure These Rights." Therein, as a result of public hearings, research, and exhaustive study, it was recommended that legislation of the kind under consideration by this committee be enacted by the Congress. The Negro minority, being the largest in the country and the most. easily discerned, has been the principal victim of inadequate legislation and indifferent enforcement of such laws as touched upon its condition. Negroes have been lynched with impunity, and no law has operated to punish lynchers. We cite the March 1949 report of the Southern Regional Council, an organization of white and colored southerners with headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., which declared: But it should be remembered that a lynching is only an extreme example of a general lack of regard for the individual. The climate which produces lynchings is one of daily insult, intimidation, and the lesser forms of violence, directed against a whole segment of the population. The council asserted in this report that a pattern of violence exists in the South. In what ways, aside from lynching, has this pattern of violence operated against Negro citizens? I think Senator Wiley asked that of Mr. Marshall. Well, in great numbers they have been denied access to the ballot box though trickery, intimidation, terror, and violence not short of murder. So recently as at the last primary election in the State of Georgia, in September 1948, Isaac Nixon, of Toombes County, was shot down and killed in his home after the polls closed simply because he exercised that day his right to vote. In Montgomery County in the same State of Georgia, D. V. Carter, father of 10 children, was beaten up and driven from his home and the State because he advised his people to vote and carried some of them to the polls on election day. On numerous occasions prior to elections, members of the notorious Ku Klux Klan have paraded through areas inhabited by Negroes with the avowed intention of preventing them from voting. Part 2 of title II of S. 1725, dealing with protection of the right to political participation, is therefore an immediate need. The Negro has suffered not only deprivation of the right to vote through violence but deprivation of due process in cases involving life and liberty. Last November 20 Robert Mallard was set upon by a mob in Toombes County, Ga., and shot to death in his automobile in the presence of his wife and child. It was said that Mallard was not the "right kind of Negro" and was "too prosperous." No one has been punished for this crime. Nineteen days ago at Irwinton, Ga., Caleb Hill was shot to death while in the custody of a law officer, and on June 14 two men suspected of his murder were freed by a grand jury on the grounds of insufficient evidence. That even so small a part of due process as the arrest of an offender is considered abnormal in the locality is indicated by the comment of Solicitor C. S. Baldwin, who is quoted by the Associated Press as saying: Most Georgia sheriffs would have shot the Negro instead of taking him to jail. It should be noted in passing, in connection with the cases cited above and with others not here cited, that a new procedure has developed in certain areas in the handling of lynchings and other instances of mob violence. It is now the fashion to make a quick arrest of a suspect or suspects and present the case to the grand jury. More often than not the grand jury refuses to indict. In the cases where it does indict, a trial is held and a speedy acquittal secured. May I say that no one should be deceived into believing that an improvement has taken place over the old days when not even an arrest was made. In those days the law-enforcement officers frequently could truthfully say they were not present. The courts could say a case was not before them. Both could join in denouncing mob action. The present procedure is even more outrageous because it uses the forms of the law to place the stamp of approval on lawlessness and murder. Violence has flared in the Birmingham, Ala., area in an effort to prevent Negroes from buying and occupying homes. Dynamite has been used freely, and mobs have threatened further violence. Having become emboldened by their attacks upon Negroes, masked mobs have now turned to threatening and attacking whites, including white women. They have addressed themselves to the regulation of marital affairs, the care of the home and children, to private associations between individuals, and to the guests one may invite into one's home. In free America our citizens, both black and white, are subject to the whims and brutalities of storm troopers. All this and no authority, Federal or State, seemingly willing or able to call a halt. It is glaringly evident, therefore, that part 1 of title II of S. 1725 is a necessity if law and order and the rights of individuals are to be preserved. With respect to part 3 of title II, it is well known that Negro citizens for many years have had to accept humiliating and discriminatory second-class travel in interstate movement while paying first-class fare. The key to this inequality and robbery has been segregation, for inherent in segregation is discrimination. The myth in the phrase "separate but equal" has long ago been exposed. There can be no equality with segregation in the services and treatment of the citizen by the Nation or any subdivision thereof. It may be asked, as it has been asked before, why the Federal Government should act in these matters. Why not leave the guaranties of civil rights to the several States? The inquiry deserves the answer. First, Americans are citizens both of the United States and the States in which they happen to reside. As United States citizens they have certain rights which may not be denied or abridged. By their adherence to the Constitution, the several States are obligated to secure to the citizens within their borders the rights and privileges of dual citizenship. If any State fails in this duty, the rights of the United States citizens must be protected by the Government of the United States. We cannot have nullification as an entrenched policy, or we will have in truth no union. Thus, the States which deny or abridge the rights of citizens, or aid and abet denial or abridgment by means of studied and long-standing indifference or neglect, and which opposes the entrance of the Federal Government to correct the evils, are in reality seceding from the United States and setting up a State of their own. This cannot be tolerated. Second, certain of the States have demonstrated over a period of a half century that they are either unable or unwilling to guarantee civil rights to all citizens without distinction as to race, color, religion, or national orgin. How much longer will these millions of mistreated citizens have to wait? After 50 years a group of southerners—not New Yorkers-asserts in this year of 1949 that a "pattern of violence" exists in the South. Shall we wait another 50 years in order to be sure that the States will not act? Surely not. In his Lincoln Memorial speech in June 1947, President Truman declared: We cannot wait another decade or another generation to remedy these evils. We must work as never before to cure them now. We can no longer afford the luxury of a leisurely attack upon prejudice and discrimination. We cannot, any longer await the growth of a will to action in the slowest State or the most-backward community. * The millions who live helplessly in humiliation and fear echo that sentiment. Third, it is no secret that we are in a contest trying to persuade the peoples of the world that they should follow the democratic way of life rather than the totalitarian path held out to them. This is the task of our Federal Government, which has had thrust upon it the leadership of the nations in the postwar world. It is not a simple task at best; with the constantly emerging evidences of totalitarian terrorism within our own State the difficulties are multiplied. If this be democracy, why should any people choose it as a way of life? If they do not choose it, what will become, in the not too distant day, of such freedom as we have? Will we have permitted the indulgences, the prejudices and hatreds, the sectional prides, and the myths of supremacy and superiority of the stubborn few to lose for our people the priceless liberties and the shining promise of this great Nation in the Western World? For freedom, as so often has been said, is indivisible. The rights of all must be secured, or the rights of none will be secure. Mr. Truman said again in his 1947 speech: Our case for democracy should be as strong as we can make it. It should rest upon practical evidence that we have been able to put our own house in order. Our National Government must show the way. the The enactment of this legislation will help our Government show way. Senator MCGRATH. Thank you. Mr. WILKINS. Thank you, Senator McGrath. Senator McGRATH. Mr. Samuel Markle. Mr. EDELSBURG. Mr. Markle was coming from New York. His plane hasn't arrived. I wonder if you could go on with your next witness, Mr. Chairman. Senator MCGRATH. Do you have a list of witnesses that you want to present? Mr. EDELSBURG. No; Mr. Markle would be testifying for the AntiDefamation League of B'nai B'rith. Senator MCGRATH. Miss Marilyn Kaemmerle? Mr. William Hall? Those are the listed witnesses. Are there any other witnesses who wish to appear? STATEMENT OF HERMAN EDELSBURG, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE, ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE OF B'NAI B'RITH Mr. EDELSBURG. If it is agreeable to the chairman, I will make the statement for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. I am Herman Edelsburg, Washington representative of the league. The committee has already received a comprehensive and detailed analysis of S. 1725, and I shan't burden the chairman with another recital of analysis of the provisions. I shall ask leave, however, to present this formal statement in evidence and make it part of the record. If I may, I should like to make some observations about my organization and its interest in S. 1725. Mr. YOUNG. Could you identify from whom we have received this comprehensive analysis? Mr. EDELSBURG. From the representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. YOUNG. You mean the statements we have just received now. I see. Thank you. |