Foreword
| Author | Ira de A. Reid |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/000271625630400102 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
ix
FOREWORD
Within
the
last
two
years
three
momentous
decisions
on
human
rights
have
been
handed
down
by
the
Supreme
Court
of
the
United
States.
On
May
17,
1954,
the
Court
declared
racial
segregation
in
the
public
schools
of
this
nation
to
be
unconsti-
tutional.
On
May
31,
1955,
the
Court
ruled
that
the
defendants
in
the
aforemen-
tioned
case
&dquo;make
a
prompt
and
reasonable
start
toward
full
compliance&dquo;
with
that
ruling.
On
November
7,
1955,
the
Court,
in
effect,
applied
to
public
parks
and
beaches
the
principle
enunciated
in
its
May
17
ruling
that
separate
educational
facilities
are
unequal.
These
decisions
are
being
interpreted
as
expressing
a
gen-
eral
rule
under
which
certain
racial
statuses
of
the
past
are
rendered
null
and
void
and
new
statuses
are
to
be
created.
They
may
well
be
harbingers
of
significant
changes
in
human
relations
throughout
the
country.
The
fabric
of
these
decisions,
however-their
trim
yet
tangled
actuality-is
no
product
of
the
moment
but
has
been
woven
over
the
years.
Public
policy,
state
rights,
decrees
of
judges,
acts
of
legislatures,
popular
and
unpopular
opinion,
have
all
entered
into
the
design.
And
as
abstractions
meet
concrete
situations
in
many
areas-educational,
economic,
political,
and
social-each
will
affect
the other
in
the
impact.
For
the
decisions
reveal
a
society
at
peace
with
confusion,
surging
to-
ward
a
more
democratic
objective.
Their
ideal
is
social
justice
and
their
logic
the
logic
of
things
that
change.
But
what
is
the
meaning
of
these
decisions
for
social
life
in
the
United
States?
What
are
the
matters
of
immediate
and
practical
concern
which
demand
rational
action
and
realistic
planning?
In
general,
we
see
two
processes
at
work-desegre-
gation
and
integration.
Desegregation
we
regard
as
a
neutralizing
process
that
must
occur
when
groups
have
been
prevented
from
having
equal
access
to
the
ma-
terials
of
a
society
and
egalitarian
relations
with
other
groups,
races,
ages,
religions,
sexes,
or
classes
because
of
edicts
or
customs
which
have
limited
the
character
and
extent
of
their
participation.
The
segregated
society
may
be
typified
by
separate
schools
for
races
and
peoples,
white
primaries,
denial
of
equal
access
to
places
of
public
accommodation,
laws
preventing
racial
intermarriage,
and
other
procedures
and
rules.
Desegregation
is
at
once
the
removal
of
these
barriers
and
the
essential
prerequisite
to
integration.
It
is
achieved
to
the
degree
that
it
succeeds
in
modify-
ing
the
social
institutions,
the
personal
behaviors,
and
the
value
systems
which
sup-
ported
the
segregated
structure.
Integration,
on
the
other
hand,
is
the
situation
and
the
process
which
exists
when
men
in
society
are
breaking
down
such
barriers
while
moving
toward
the
full
ac-
ceptance
of
all
people
without
reference
to
their
racial,
religious,
or
ethriic
differ-
ences.
It
is
the
process
of
achieving
full
equality
of
status
and
condition.
The
elimination
of
&dquo;Negro
jobs&dquo;
or
&dquo;Mexican
jobs&dquo;
in
employment,
the
establishment
of
&dquo;open
occupancy&dquo;
tenancy
programs
in
housing,
are
but
first
steps
toward
inte-
gration.
Ultimately,
integration
is
an
ideal
condition
which
ceases
to
exist
once
it
is
achieved.
In
a
culturally
healthy
community
the
condition
may
be
achieved
so
gradually
and
so
effectively
as
to
attract
little
or
no
popular
attention
or
opposi-
tion.
In
other
situations
the
transition
may
be
fraught
with
real
or
imagined
dan-
gers.
Whether
the
transition
‘from
segregation
to
integration
through
desegregation
is
easy
or
rugged,
the
change
always
involves
some
social
cost
to
the
existing
sys-
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