The Need for Broader Action

A Concluding Statement to the 1961 Report

This report has shown that despite substantial progress the nationalobjective of equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, faith, or ancestry, is not yet fully achieved. At home, delay frustrates legitimateprivate hopes, impedes important national programs, and seriouslyhinders development of our national strength. Abroad, as PresidentKennedy has said: "the denial of constitutional rights to some of ourfellow Americans on account of race . . . subjects us to the charge ofworld opinion that our democracy is not equal to the high promise ofour heritage." 1

The effort to achieve that promise must be based on full understanding of the challenge that confronts us. In this report the Commissionhas attempted to contribute to that understanding, and to suggest someguidelines for action. The report deals separately with civil rights problems in different areas, and suggests differing remedies. Yet these areasare not wholly separate from each other; through all of them run certaincommon threads which form a single web of discrimination. So also,there are some common premises underlying many of the Commission'srecommendations.

The Commission's studies indicate that civil rights problems occur incomplex settings from which they cannot readily be isolated. Discrimination in one context is apt to be interlinked with discrimination in othercontexts. Inferior schooling, for example, makes it difficult for Negroesin some areas to achieve the vote2014and, combined with restriction tomenial jobs, makes it difficult for them to assert other rights. 2 Similarly, there can be no doubt that inequalities in educational opportunitynecessarily produce inequality of employment opportunity; 8 and, tocomplete the circle, a choice of careers that is restricted by discrimination undercuts the hope that might lead the minority group youth topursue his education to the full extent of his capabilities. 4 It is also clearthat racial restrictions in the housing market help to produce segregationin the schools, 5 and that this in turn generally means inferior schoolsfor minority group children. 6 Discrimination in housing also often

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The Need for Broader Action

limits the choice of employment for its victims. Thus the Personnel Director for North American Aviation told the Commission: "When wemove into new areas . . . there tends to be a lack of appropriate housing for minority groups and as a result it is difficult for us to transferpeople into these areas . . . they can't find appropriate housing at aprice they can pay so they will turn the job down, maybe even give upthe job altogether." 7 Finally residential segregation tends to produceand perpetuate slums, a breeding-ground for juvenile delinquency andcrime, which in turn invite police misconduct. 8

United Auto Workers' President Walter Reuther described this ring

of discrimination in the Commission's Detroit Hearing: 9

Discrimination begins . . . long before the Negro approaches

the hiring stage. In most cases it begins when he is born into afamily enjoying about half the annual income of the average whitefamily ... .

In most cases . . . the Negro child is born into a black ghetto,a slum or near slum of overcrowded, inadequate housing. Alltoo frequently he goes to a school that by any standard is inferiorto that attended by the average white child in the same city. Alltoo frequently he drops out of school too soon2014either because hisfamily needs whatever money he can earn or because he knows that,even if he continues through high school and college, his opportunities of getting employment of as high a level and rewardedwith as much pay as a white person with the same educationalaccomplishments are very limited.

These relationships suggest that no single, limited approach will bring anend to discrimination. While attention to one civil rights problem at atime may achieve substantial progress, simultaneous action on manyfronts is far more promising. Thus the Commission's studies of Southern black belt counties suggest that assuring the right to vote, fundamental as that is, will not quickly assure equal protection of the laws inother aspects of the Negroes' life. Similarly the opening of new careeropportunities to a particular minority will be of little use if its membershave had no opportunity or reason to prepare themselves for such careers2014or if they are barred from living near the "new" places of work.

The need for broader action is underlined by the fact that problemsof discrimination are often intimately related to other problems. Forexample, the slums that blight our urban areas pose problems of majorconcern to a Nation whose future lies increasingly in the cities. Urbanrenewal is not in itself a civil rights problem, yet discrimination2014inhousing, in education, and in employment2014contributes in major degreeto the creation and preservation of the slums. If they are to be abolished, discrimination will also have to go. Metropolitan...