50 years ago ... CIVIL RIGHTS AND ETHICAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

from the March/April 1951 issue

The first ethical duty upon each of us is that of ethical growth--ethical growth in our understanding of ourselves and in the rounded and integrated development of our own physical and intellectual, aesthetic and ethical capacities. The second duty is the understanding, appreciation, and development of the good things in our fellows. Out of such growth can flow a life of deeper happiness and greater effectiveness for the values we hold most sacred.

In this light it is clear that each of us must not only continue to grow and outgrow any of the prejudices of his past but must participate in the ongoing effort to include all human beings in the forward moving effort toward a more inclusive organization of a democratic society. One of the heartening developments of recent years in our country has been the increasing awareness that we cannot and dare not permit the continuance of certain forms of discrimination and segregation and persecution which have been characteristic and accepted in the past.

Whether we foster educational programs which teach the good in every group--as when we develop intercultural and interfaith and international programs for mutual understanding--or whether we attempt to expose propaganda and hate-mongering, there is no substitute for the actual experience of living and working and playing together. In other words, the most effective way to overcome the prejudices and fears and hatreds which prevent good human relations is to bring people together in natural and vital functional relationships. Yet our democracy has been characterized from the very beginnings by intolerances, which in practice have meant the denial of basic civil rights to large numbers of citizens.

In the colonies the vote in some instances was denied to those who were Catholic, Jew, or atheist. So, too, it was denied to those who held no real property. The anti-Catholicism and anti-Semitism of nineteenth-century America were expressed in denials of freedom of residence and of employment opportunity. The prejudice against the foreign-born was turned against each new wave of immigrants in the very years when these immigrants needed help to learn the language and American ways in order to move out of the ghettos in which they tended to concentrate at their first arrival. But the larger test of democratic conviction and practice has been found in the treatment of the Negro.

Few Americans had ever dreamed that equality of rights and opportunities for the Negro could be achieved rapidly or easily. The Civil War ended slavery; it did not create the conditions which would make true freedom and equality for the colored people a reality. The bitterness of the South, the fear of many communities that they would be outnumbered politically, that their "white purity" would be impaired, that they would lack cheap labor, contributed to extremes of racism in idea and organization and action. But we have seen great gains. Out of the suffering in the Depression where minority groups suffered as the first to be fired from their jobs, out of the war and the need for labor and unity, came the idea of "fair practices."

Although we can rid ourselves of prejudices only by education and experience, we can actually rid ourselves of much of the discriminatory practices and the segregation and persecution by changes in our laws and policies. We cannot prevent a man from hating another or force him by law to love another. We can prevent him from practicing his hatred in the form of violence or in denying another his right to vote or his right to an education or his right to a job. So, also, we can use the resources of the government to favor nondiscriminatory practices when the government offers jobs or contracts or engages in productive projects or when it offers services to the people....

One of the heartening developments in recent years was the creation of a Fair Employment Practices Commission. Although the federal agency created by President Roosevelt was destroyed after the war, and although Congress has not been able to reestablish it over the stubborn filibusters of the Southern bloc, the existence of the agency during the war years helped to change the pattern of private industrial and commercial employment, as well as the traditional practice of government departments. Some of the states have adopted state fair employment practices acts. Some have extended the principles to "fair employment practices." And beyond these irreversible changes for the better through legislation are the heartening decisions of the United States Supreme Court in cases involving segregation in transportation and educational facilities. Even more fundamental than these is the trend to "fair housing practices." The U.S. Supreme Court decision that neither state nor federal courts might be used to enforce restricting covenants has been one of the first and most significant developments in this direction. The ruling by the Federal Housing Agency that federal funds might not be used to insure mortgages on properties with restrictive covenants was an added step in this direction.

Yet our democracy is still characterized in large areas by a segregation in which groups are not merely kept from knowing one another but are kept from sharing as equals in the American way of life--and are brought up believing in inequality.

Segregation is not limited to the South. In New York, in Illinois, and in countless other northern states there is segregated housing. This means segregated schools, playgrounds, hospitals, social services--generations of children growing up without any experience of living, working, studying, playing together as fellow members of a democracy.

No one knows the true cost of these patterns of segregation. Studies now being carried on will reveal the extent to which segregation means higher infant mortality, impairment of the will and capacity of children to learn in school, destruction of family life, physical and mental illness, crimes and mistrust of the democratic way. It becomes more and more evident that when we segregate human beings by color or creed or national origin or economic circumstances, when we hem them into a ghetto or Harlem, we hurt not only the minority directly affected but we destroy good relationships for all groups and endanger the larger community. We cannot hope to confine to other people the diseases or rate of gang delinquencies which we generate by conditions of segregation and inferiority. We live in close interdependence. These ills will spread out into the larger community. From the viewpoint of decent human values and justice and love of people, from the viewpoint of hardheaded selfish motives of self-preservation, segregation is a dangerous practice out of the past which must be eliminated in the future.

Because of this we have been saying in the past few years that, if any company or community wants to build housing for the low-income groups in the population and wants the benefit of public funds, the federal government and the state and the municipality have not only the right but the duty to demand that, as a condition of that aid, the housing shall be rented without discrimination. Thus in New York State, public housing and private housing built with public assistance must by law be free of discrimination and segregation. In New York City this is not only the law but the practice. All public housing projects have been truly democratic. The original spirit of the LaGuardia administration, the caliber and vision of the housing officials of the city, an alert citizenry educated to the practice of cultural pluralism, and clear public policy contributed to the adoption and carrying out of a policy of mixed housing. Care in site and tenant selection, provision for those evicted, a mixed housing staff, imaginative community programs, and good housing management have helped encourage good neighbor relations among young and old in each of the public projects. The breaking down of walls between racial and religious and national groups has worked. Apart from preliminary tensions and a few personal difficulties, the reports of "community with diversity" are most heartening and indicate that this policy is here to stay....

The right of freedom of residence is one of the sacred rights of free men. The right of freedom of residence is essential if free men are to be able to spend their earned income for the things they need and want for themselves and their families. And beyond all others, citizens of a democracy should be able to rent or purchase the kind of shelter which we all want: safe, fireproof, with good sanitation, free from vermin and rats, with sun and air, with ample space and privacy, and in a good neighborhood and with good neighbors. Without this right assured without regard to color or creed or national origin, what good is the gain of fair employment practices?

Here, then, is a battlefront for men of good will who are ready to work that their fellow Americans may enjoy the rights they wish for themselves. Here is a way of helping this nation stand forth before the colored peoples of the world as a democracy which practices the principles it preaches. In this cause, which means so much to human personality and to family living and to good intergroup relations and to national unity and peace, all men can join, regardless of differences of theology and metaphysics. Here is a program in which religious people can go beyond worship and education and social service to a unity in social action.

It is evident that a better life must come through the efforts of the people themselves. It will not come through the paternalism and intervention of some supernatural power. Nor will it come through the benevolence of the White House or the Capitol or the centers of political or economic power in the various states. It must come through the clear desire of the majority of people informed and stimulated by that small band of civic-minded leaders and experts who are able to crystallize the people's conscience and the people's will into practical legislative and policy proposals. This is the method of making civil rights real for all Americans through the acceptance of our ethical responsibilities as citizens.

Algernon D. Black served as chair of the Board of Leaders of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, as chair of the New York State Committee on Discrimination in Housing, and as cochair of New York City's City-Wide Citizen g Committee in Harlem. This article is excerpted from the original Humanist piece.