4 I 9 - .. S r -.. ,V " '40 Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, March -25, 1956 Sunday, Mordi 25, 1956 THE MICHIGAN DAILY -..__ a # _ _ r r £eredationt: THE NEW TENSION IN THE SOUTH By ROY AKERS (EDITOR'S NOTE: The writer, who has grown up in South, bases these observations on a re- cent visit to Richmond, Virginia) 1HE South of today and tonight is a land of silent tensions. Wherever one walks there is the mask of fear and distrust. And the Negroes and whites who yes- terday were at least talking and laughing with each other now pass by with their faces expressionless and their tongues still. The law-makers of Washington think they have an answer, and the editorial pages of the Northern newspapers are brimming over with solutions. But looking upon the pained, black and white faces of Dixie the observer realizes that the answer to human problems must come as much from the heart as the mind. The basic problem is still there; still, as much as it ever was, more economic than racial. The same poor Negroes and the same poor Whites are competing for the same menial, marginal jobs. The Negro, as he always did remains a pawn; but this time in a new and more difficult role. The South, caught' in its own dilemma, is raging mad; -not at the Negro-but at the "damnYankee" government that is trying to control it., Whatever may or may not be said for an enforced abolishment1 of segregation these things do{ remain: There are the memories handed down by word of mouth from the Civil war. Memories of burned plantations, raped women and the sudden, horrible decadence of a way of life. The Southerners are a talking people and their1 words only make the legends grow bigger. There are, as we said, the1 spoken memories.1 There is, as well, a hostility to-; ward Northern capital that has1 exploited, and continues to exploit,l the manpower and natural re- sources of the Southland. And ,to1 the average Southerner, the fed-I eral government is still personified by the "Revooner" chasing the1 illicit moonshiners through thez hills. Washington, for all its prox- Imity, is still as remote to Rich- mond as San Francisco. ABOVE and beyond the line of reasoning there is the immedi- ate, overt action. The small, white newsboy doesn't look up as he yells, "Read all about the Lucy case," into the ears of a passing Negro lady who doesn't look down. And the black and white boys who were once fishing partners have for- gotten, somehow, either to speak or to smile. In the libraries of the homes of New Orleans and Mobile freshly- cleaned rifles lean poised in the corners of polished walnut rooms. Men are speaking again in soft voices of a once-lost cause. And the listener is not left doubting that these men would fight and die-not for or against the Negro- but for the freedom of their own personal beliefs and way of life, no matter how right _or wrong those beliefs and that way of life might be. The universities and colleges that were becoming receptive to mixed classes, in mind at least, have now built a defensive wall of hos- tility around their campus grounds. Autherine Lucy has assumed the status of General Grant and the prospective Negro student is told, "The Northern colleges would just love to have you. Go North, young lady, go North!" The clinging vines of Ivy have become fragile bars of stainless -steel. The liberal voices of professors and preachers in Richmond, At- lanta and Chapel Hill are gradu- ally being stilled. He who speaks for the Negro now is speaking against the South. And he who speaks against the South is quite likely to find a wooden cross burn- ing on his lawn. The Ku Klux Klan is again donning its anonymous and cowardly robes. THIS, then is Southland, U.S.A. post Anti-Segregation. A South not as it should be, but as it most certainly is. The law has been passed and tested in the courts, and the editorial writers have of- fered their many varied solutions. Still the problem remains. The old Southland of mint julips and magnolia blossoms has long since disappeared, finding its clos- est reality today in the fiction of Faulkner, Welty and Capote. But the social mores have carried over into a newly industrialized clime dotting with sprawling chemical plants and textile mills. The neigh- borly intimacy of a rural society is disappearing, and the black and the white men are becoming strangers. Is anti-segregation enforced by the courts really the answer? No one, including the Southerner, really knows. But here and there one finds a glimpse of what might tend to create a mutuality among peoples. There was, for instance, the Richmond barber who said to us, "I wouldn't trust any Negro in the world except Harvey." "Who is Harvey?" We asked. "Harvey," the barber replied with a smile, "is my friend." And friendship, one of the more elusive facets of human relation- ships is still to be earned by the white and black men of Dixie. / DA Education Paris Style PAPER AIRPLANES & PANDEMONIUM As The Photo( enjoy BGgraph tone quality wSMALL-ph ono weight, size! come to DA NLELDS . t - :.,. . a .. a , , ... --- / = See the World's Smallest, Lightest Automatic 3-Speed Phonograph with BIG folded- horn speaker in the lidI! 9 95.; By EARL BRABB (EDITOR'S NOTE: Earl Brabb, Dartmouth graduate who re- ceived his master's degree from Michigan, is spending a year of study in Paris-ostensibly learn- ing geology, but actually learn- ing much more about the Paris student, as this article testi- fies.) COLLEGE education in France is marked by characteristics which the Michigan student, ac- customed to mass education but also inclined to comfort, may find somewhat startling. The rules for entrance are rig- orous. It- isn't enough to be in the upper 10 percent of your high school class, a distinction which of- ten suffices under the American system, but the student is often prevented from reaching college by a series of tests. Those that fail go into, vocational schools or go to work. Once you make it, however, edu- cation is virtually free of charge. My tuition at the Sorbonne was three dollars, and food and lodg- ing were heavily subsidized by the government. , But in return for this consideration, the amount of work required is tremendous, even at the elementary level. A com- mon sight on Paris streets is the seven or eight-year-old lugging home a briefcase full of books for study at home. HE BIG handicaps are almost total lack of student-professor relationship until the graduate level and poor facilities which strongly influence the character of the student. In general the French school buildings are very old, the equip- ment is either outdated or lack- ing, and there is little library space for the student to study. Only the technical schools with eco- nomic importance are modern and well-equipped, perhaps a point for philosophic comment. The French Institute of Petroleum near Paris, for example, has a futuris- tic facade of glass and stone, ex- cellent equipment for study and research and fine library space. This is the outline of the sys- tem. But the specific case is some- thing amazing from an American's point of view., I will describe the geology lecture hall at the Sor- bonne of the University of Paris. THE HALL seats about 200 and is in the form of an amphi- theatre. Since only one-half of the seats give a good view of the blackboard, and since there are over 200 students in each geology, there is always a rush for seats. The mob forms about 45 min- impatiently waits for the last class to leave. This means that the door to the lecture hall is fre- quently opened and slammed shut and a few paper airplanes flown through the crack in the interval. A herald is usually slipped into the class to give the alarm the minute, the professor finishes the last phrase. Once the alarm is given, pande- monium breaks loose. All of the students try to get through the' door at once. The alarm has also1 been the signal for the late com- ers to form a flying wedge and try and crash through the mob. ONCE through the door the stu- dents leap madly across the tiers of benches and triumphantly plant a coat, two or three brief- cases, or even their body across as many places as they can secure. Prior possession is considered in- violate, and even the tip of a pen- cil in an outstretched hand will hold a place. One of the most amazing para- doxes of French society is that the, battle for seats is led by the; "weaker" sex, who make up about 60 percent of the class. The French male waits i nthe cafe discussing politics and philosophy until his girl friend has won the battle for him and secured him a place. At the last minute before the class he' strides majestically in and sits down. A N UNPLEASANT aftermath of the grand battle for seats con- cerns the problem of ventilation. There isn't any. The heat of battle naturally produces a large amount of body odor, and since only 16 per cent of Paris families have a bathtub or shower, this effect is not only lingering but accumula- tive. I have never taken a ther- mometer to class, but I will bet that even in January the tempera- ture is more than 90 degrees. Once inside and seated, there is a half-hour of boredom waiting until the professor arrives. The half-hour of waiting is passed in different ways, nearly all involv- ing the throwing of an object. The most common object is the paper airplane, usually made from some leaflet passed out before class ,(the French are even more leaflet conscious than the Ameri- cans. The Communists and the Church seem to print the most). Once the leaflets have been ex- hausted, however, the quest turns to other objects. Orange peels, waste paper, erasers, chalk, and apple cores are flung from one end. of the hall to the other. The eras- ers are usually well dipped in chalk before throwing to achieve that ANOTHER popular diversion is occasioned by someone entering the room with a hat on. There are sentinels poised for such occasions an dtheir screams of "Chapeau l Chapeau!" alert the rest of V class. The screaming is accom- panietd by a stamping of feet and, in the student restaurants, by the banging of knives on the tin trays. The noise continues of course until the offender removes his or her hat. For some reason or other the Africans seem to bitterly resent taking off their hats and will resist until it is obvious that the noise will never stop unless they comply. I once saw an African walk out of a restaurant with his hat- still on his hear rather than obey the wishes of the crowd and remove it. Nearly all the courses are mime- ographed by a student co-opera- tive. Since the courses do not' change substantially from year to year, a student can buy the notes of the course for around 75 cents and merely make additions or cor- rections. The notes are particularly valuable for the drawings, but the organization is helpful also. Text- books are very expensive and are rarely prescribed. L AST, but not least, is the ques- tion of the love affairs of French students. Although I am certainly no expert on this matter, a few observations are amusing. I have seen a boy and girl exchange kisses and caresses in the middle of a classroom occupied by 200 students. What is even more re- markableIs that no one of the 200 students made anysremarks. This situation is also true on the streets, in the subway and in the restaurants, and is probably one of the reasons why Paris is called the city of love. I have had many discussion with the French students on this mat- ter and they tell me that the usual reason they embrace in public is that there is nowhere else to go. They certainly can't neck at home, an old American' custom. The morals of the French and in par- ticular the French girls have been directed and protected. by- the Church for centuries, and even today the French girls have very little freedom - contrary to the opinion of most Americans. 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