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C h a p t e r 4 Mass Civil Disobedience People all across the nation tried to make sense of the new and radical approach to integration. The call for disobedience made it into the pages of major national newspapers, when news on black issues rarely appeared in white publications.1 The civil disobedience campaign was a serious enough issue that reflections on its implication for the country and national security were considered necessary. Even Southern papers reported on Randolph ’s radical step in the quest for full civil rights.2 Newsweek published a three-page article on the issue, expressing understanding for the impatience and frustration Randolph and Reynolds experienced. It reasoned that Randolph’s radical attitude resulted from the humiliation and denial of manhood that African American males had suffered from due to white treatment for so long. ‘‘A large mass of Negro veterans of the recent war, with their scars and humiliations still fresh upon them, regard it even more as a matter of outraged manhood and self-respect.’’3 Clearly differentiating between Walter White’s NAACP, and Randolph’s more radical approach to civil rights, Newsweek described White’s method as ‘‘careful and cautious.’’ White was so incensed by the characterization that he wrote to the editors of Newsweek, keen on bolstering his self-proclaimed status as a ‘‘dangerous radical.’’4 He considered it necessary to justify his objection to civil disobedience in order to dissuade the impression of ‘having gone soft’ in comparison to Randolph. The NAACP and he, White emphasized, had not stopped their fight against military segregation, but there was ‘‘no obligation on my part to accept unquestionably that proposal.’’5 While White felt that the article questioned his dedication to civil rights, Reynolds thanked Newsweek for its ‘‘fair and objective’’ reporting and further noted that, ‘‘the daily press’’ had otherwise ‘‘failed to grasp the significance of this movement and has little conception of the widespread Mass Civil Disobedience 83 bitterness which makes Negroes determined never again to submit to a jimcrow draft.’’ According to Reynolds, the public had to be more thoroughly informed by more articles similar to the one published in Newsweek, in order to make them aware of the ‘‘explosive issue on its doorsteps.’’6 Newsweek might have defended Randolph and Reynolds’s stance on civil disobedience to a certain degree, but most other white publications did not show much sympathy and dismissed their move as endangering national security and racial tolerance. Although many papers criticized segregation or at least its rigidity, they still maintained that civil rights demands ought not to hamper the passage of UMT, the draft, or military service in general, which was considered essential for the nation’s survival. A New York Times editorial described racial segregation and UMT as ‘‘separate problems’’7 that, for the sake of the nation’s security, should not be mixed. The military was, according to the Washington Post, not a place for ’’social experimentation ,’’ although the paper described segregation as ‘‘a wasteful procedure that does not make the most efficient use of manpower.’’ The paper further noted that the call for civil disobedience represented an ‘‘essentially cheap appeal’’ and noted that most blacks were loyal to the United States.8 Occasional criticism from readers existed, but most white papers and their readers agreed that blacks’ denial of military service could not wipe out discrimination; only dedicated military service would ultimately lead to equality.9 Even if they claimed to understand African Americans’ impatience about the refusal to desegregate the military, white newspapers and commentators tried to disassociate Randolph and Reynolds from the African American community and turn them into a minority within an otherwise patriotic black community. White’s concern over the militancy of Randolph’s efforts was an increasingly popular stance in the press and Congress. Deeply invested and concerned blacks and whites, civil disobedience supporters and opponents sent letters to Randolph and Reynolds. A number of segregationists directly addressed Randolph, repudiating his actions. A white woman from Bethpage, New York, who, fearing reprimands from the ‘‘Society of the Advancement of Colored People [sic],’’ wrote under the alias Ellen Hunt, expressed what many other white people most likely felt. She claimed that blacks should ‘‘take pride in their outfits’’ and stay among themselves instead of tearing down the morale of everybody else. Accusing blacks of a serious lack of racial pride was a common and hurtful allegation on the part of white segregationists. The...

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