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The Friend: The State of Civil Rights in 1963

You can read the original article in Yiddish here.

The Friend was the bi-monthly Yiddish-language bulletin of the Workers Circle. 

Thank you to Josh Horowitz, the Workers Circle’s Yiddish Cultural Activism Fellow, for the English translation! 

This article is from the current events series that was at the beginning of all issues of The Friend, called "In loyf fun tsayt" (in English: Over the course of time). This article was written by Benjamin Gebiner who was serving as Executive Secretary of the Workers Circle (at the time, Workmen’s Circle). 

English Translation:

Our country, America, is going through a true revolution. The country is in great danger. By this, we refer to the struggle which is carried out now on the part of the Negro population and their proponents, not only in the southern states, but also in other parts of the world. The mood of the Negro population has reached its boiling point. It bubbles and roils in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Louisiana, and in other places, but the Negro population is not restful in the big cities of the northern states either. This impatience and anger of the Negro population is entirely understandable.

It has been more than a hundred years since the Civil War, the Lincoln years when the Negro population was freed from slavery; and it has already been eight years since the Supreme Court in Washington gave the historic verdict about the abolition of segregation in the public school school throughout the country, and very little has actually been enforced, even in the domain of schools, already ordered by the Supreme Court.

In the southern states, some governors are obstinate and stubborn in their approach to segregation despite it all. They want, above all else, to hold on to this stain on the fabric of our American democracy. They don't want to abolish segregation in the public schools and the universities, in hotels, in restaurants, in employment and other parts of life.

It is very easy to say that the Negroes must be patient, that things will get better with time. But it is well-remembered that when President Kennedy ran his campaign for nomination and later for the office of the presidency, he promised that he would bring the full force of his prestige to bear in service of the honorable struggle of the Negro population.

Truthfully, it must be said that President Kennedy and his administration have made an effort to do something important on behalf of the Negro population in America. But one would expect that President Kennedy, with his dynamism and with his personality, would have long ago done everything possible to rouse public opinion in the country against the stubborn, reactionary Democratic congressmen and senators in the south, who want, through coercion and parliamentary filibusters, to preserve segregation. To that purpose, the Republican reactionaries play right into their hands, wanting to catch fish in the muddy political waters of the southern states.

Recently, President Kennedy has begun actively rousing and waking up the public perception of these dangers. His stance against the Governor of Alabama, and his history-making speech of the highest moral fiber about the equality of and freedom for the Negro population, which he gave Tuesday, June 11th, in connection with the events in Alabama, have raised Kennedy's prestige to the new heights. In the coming weeks, one can expect Congress in Washington to negotiate an important bill which President Kennedy will send regarding expanding civil rights to the Negro population and empowering the Justice Department to establish those rights.

There are demagogues who incite the Negro population across the land, calling them to riot and to fight for their rights. This threatens our country's internal security, and gives it a bad name in the eyes of the world.

We find ourselves in a difficult position, because the Negro revolution and the demand for equal rights for the Negro population should took place long ago. One cannot speak of American democracy, of a country of equality for everyone, when a significant part of our population lives in a state of restriction, in a state of segregation, in a state of oppression.

We, Jews, as a national minority, having lived through the diaspora in various parts of Europe, comprehend very well what the just struggle of the Negro population and the drive for freedom and equality means. We must help them to win their fight quicker, for them, and for our country America, which must become, in real life, a country of true freedom and of equality for all.