Essay: WHAT THE NEGRO HAS-AND HAS NOT-GAINED

(6 of 6)

If not all Negroes covet white skin, all of them without exception seek after the white man's freedom of choice. The Rev. James Jones, the white Episcopal Urban Vicar of Chicago, who moved into a Negro ghetto, argues that Negroes will not live up to their full responsibilities and potentials as citizens until the white majority grants them that freedom. "In the ghetto," he says, "there are no choices, no power, no ability to make responses. Therefore there is no responsibility." Considering that the U.S. is the first society in history to adopt as its national goal the full economic integration and social equality of different races, the Negro's choices are widening with fair rapidity. The U.S. has certainly come an incredibly long way since Abraham Lincoln, shortly before the end of the Civil War, asked his logistics experts to determine whether the U.S. could muster enough transportation to export the Negroes—only to be told that Negro babies were being born faster than all the nation's ships could carry them from the country.

The Negro has been a permanent part of America ever since then, and perhaps the greatest advance of recent years is the realization by white people that his problems cannot be ignored. The Negro's recent progress, far from making him content, has greatly intensified his aspirations. The job of helping him to meet his legitimate needs may well continue to be the nation's most urgent piece of domestic business for decades to come.