Right now we have some criticism and some reflective thought on how this has been transpired. The NAACP, of course, is one of the key organizations sponsoring today’s demonstration here in Washington and members of the NAACP from all over the country came to Washington today. The president of the Greater Hartford NAACP had this statement for ERN reporters.

We hear next from Mr. Lewis Fox, a practicing attorney in the City of Hartford, a member of the Hartford Board of Education and an active layman in Hartford’s Congregation Beth Israel. Mr. Fox.

Thank you very much. It is a real privilege to speak as an individual on station WSCH on the very important matter of integration and brotherhood. I feel very deeply that the question of integration, the question of civil rights, the question of our attitude towards our Negro brethren is at heart a spiritual question. A civil rights problem in America is a spiritual problem. Basically all of us, Christians and Jews alike, believe that we are made in the image of Almighty God. The dignity of man stems from the fact that he is a creation of God.

If you take this away, there is very little left. If all men are created in the image of God, then all men are created equal. We are brothers because we have the same Father. The great difficulty has been that we have compartmentalized our religion. We have limited it. We have confined it to particular spheres of our lives. We say we owe obligations to God as far as our attitude towards our families is concerned. We say we owe obligation to God as far as our personal conduct on the matter of sobriety and integrity is concerned. But when it comes to a matter of treating our fellow Americans as equals, we say this has nothing to do with religion. It seems to me this isn’t attack on religion. This is an attempt to confine religion.

There is a Christian hymn that goes, “crown Him Lord of All.” And someone has said if Christ is not crowned Lord of All, he is not crowned Lord at all. Jews believe God is the Father of all men everywhere. Now if this is true, we cannot be good Jews or good Christians unless we look upon all men as objects of a concern of our common Father in Heaven. To me it is inconceivable that one can go to a church and synagogue and not feel at one with brethren of every creed, of every color, of every race. We need laws that will protect the rights of the Negro.

As has been said, laws regulate conduct and religion can shape our attitudes. Basically and fundamentally, we must think of ourselves as all subject to God’s judgment and we must realize that we have all been recipients of God’s love and God’s grace. This is basic and this is utterly necessary and this is important. Now where does this lead us? It means that we must be concerned that Negroes and whites have an opportunity for the best education possible. It means that a qualified person should have a right to work, regardless of a color of his skin. Of course it means that everyone who is qualified should have the right to vote.

It means that every person should have a chance for decent housing, to live in decent neighborhoods and to be respected as a person who has within his heart and soul, a spark of divinity. Perhaps I can sum up some of the things I’ve been saying by stating that we must regard our Negro brethren not as these people, not as they, but as we. Of course at the very moment you call another person part of a group known as they, you are alienated from them and you are saying that God makes different classes and different categories of persons. In our schools we need to have enough guidance.

We need to have persons who love boys and girls, who have time enough to develop their potentialities and we must contribute money to an educational system so that every boy and girl will have a chance to develop his potentiality. Let me close the statement of faith by saying this and making this strong appeal. We Jews are everlastingly grateful to God for giving the Covenant of Sinai to us and through us to the world. We are everlastingly grateful to Him that He brought us out of a wilderness into the Promised Land.

And we are reminded again and again of a first commandment; I am the Lord, thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of a house of bondage. And we are reminded in the Bible to remember a stranger within thy gate, for thou too, who art a stranger in the land of Egypt. Speaking as an individual layman, I do not see how a Jew can believe in God, can take him seriously and not be concerned with a lot of his brothers, regardless of creed or color. Christians ask for God’s grace. Christians are grateful for Christ’s death on the cross and Christians know that Christ died for all men, not for men of a particular color.

If we come to God in prayer, if Christians come to Christ in prayer, in time of sickness and time of temptation and time of need, should we not then, out of gratitude and our thanksgiving and out of love, embrace our brothers, our fellow Americans, as sons of God, as brothers under Him, only will we make God the Lord of our lives and dedicate our soul, our whole selves to him, our bodies, our minds and our souls, can we ever establish brotherhood in America.

I hope this day, this October 28th will be marked not only by an impressive and orderly demonstration in the capitol city, but I hope that all of the length and the breadth of the land, millions of Americans of every color and of every creed will re-dedicate their lives to God and will crown him Lord of all their being. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis Fox. This is Dick Beech in Hartford.

Mr. Lewis Fox being interviewed by representatives of ERN station WSCH in Hartford, Connecticut and we’ll be jumping back and forth to member stations of the ERN throughout the evening to bring you the feelings of how this march went as viewed from their respective cities. Of course the biggest problem right now in this capital city of Washington, DC is how to get these 200,000 people away from the Lincoln Memorial, back to their train and the proper train, by the way, and out of town.

We just had a report from our representative down at Police Headquarters where all of this traffic movement is being correlated. It now turns out that there are 13,000 people in the concourse at Union Station in Washington, DC. This is just several blocks away from the capitol building, right in the heart of Washington. The first train did depart from Washington right on time at 5:10.

The next train at roughly forty minutes from now, at 6:20 daylight savings time, will be leaving for New York and because of the crushing crowds there, the 13,000, the gates are being opened early so that some of these people can file into their train cars, be seated, get off their weary feet and be ready to move out at 6:20 when the train is scheduled to depart. As of 4:55, the southbound lane of Memorial bridge which leads right into the back of Lincoln Memorial has been opened to traffic to help get some of the people out of town who have been traveling by cars and were lucky enough to find a parking place.

You’ll remember that Washington police ask everybody who was driving private cars to please park outside the city limits. Some people did get in early, of course, as did some of our men with cars. These people can now live the southbound lane. It hasn’t been estimated yet when the northbound lane coming into town will be opened on this memorial bridge. From 75 to 100 buses have now left Washington without police escorts.

Again, let us remind you that police departments in Montgomery County of Maryland and in Washington, DC and the park police going out the Baltimore Parkway, have set up pools of people and motorcycle men to escort these buses, to get them out of the city traffic and on their way. Well so far, 75 to 100 have left on their own accord and evidently are making it okay. To quote the police department, "everything is running smoothly." We now have a report from our site by the reflecting pool and this is an interview with Dick Gregory and we’ll call on our reporter there, Cal Nossiter.

Cal Nossiter is not available at the moment but this is Dave Edwards and Arnie Shaw. We’re resting our weary bones on what’s left of our recording equipment here and surveying the litter and the four or five policemen who remain and the few children who are playing in the litter and sticking their feet into the reflecting pool. Arnie, what do you make of it all?

I make up one thing, that’s the fact that we’ve already started the clean-up. One gentleman is up there on the hill raking away and I would imagine that in the DC standard action, this place will be sparkling clean tomorrow morning. The other thing is that most people, almost everyone has left this area as they have been instructed.

I see four marchers still here though. Shall we find out who they are? Give us your name and where you’re from.

Ellen Stone, Chicago, Illinois.

Betsy Harrison, Washington, DC.

Faye Robbin, Chicago, Illinois.

Regina Green, Washington, DC.

Thank you. Well Arnie...

I understand that we have a report coming from master control so now back to George Geesey.

Our affiliate in New York, WNYC for the Educational Radio Network has a statement that they recorded by playwright, Arthur Murray. Let’s switch now to New York City.

Good afternoon from WNYC New York. This is Bill Price. Oh, about 25 or 30 minutes ago, we were lucky enough and able to get an interview with playwright Arthur Miller. Let’s listen to that right now.

We’re speaking to Arthur Miller, author and playwright at his residence in Connecticut. Arthur Miller is the author of Youth from the Bridge, Death of a Salesman and many other great American plays and considered by most, by many, just about the greatest American playwright alive today, at least by myself, anyway. I’d like to talk to Mr. Miller, get some of his views on what’s happening today in Washington, the freedom rights march, rights for jobs and freedom. Mr. Miller, what are some of your views on this?

Well I think it’s a great thing they’re doing. I think it’s, for years we felt that a lot of people have that until the Negro people themselves stood up and demanded their legal rights, they would never get them. And it was not enough for a few or a few well meaning white people to struggle for them or just for a few educated Negroes to do the struggling, it had to be the whole people and evidently now that’s what’s happened and I think it would be a turning point in not only the race history of this country but the whole face of the country could be changed for the better by this.

Most of your plays have to do a lot with communication I know and I feel that’s one of the things you’ve discussed many times in private and in public, communication between human beings. Do you think that had something to do with it today in Washington?

Yes, well they have not been able to make themselves, the true nature of the Negro known to the rest of the society and I guess this is the only way they can do it. I hope that the Congress is impressed with it and they should be. I don’t now another 100,000 or 200,000 people who would leave their homes and their work to show what they feel. These people are doing it. It’s a marvelous, a marvelous demonstration I think.

Yes, many people left New York City here at two in the morning, one in the morning, three in the morning, four, five and six, just so the highways wouldn’t be crowded you know, with boxed lunches and things like that.

Yes, I think that the discipline the Negro has shown throughout this struggle has been a great credit to them. I don’t know of another struggle that I’ve ever read about that was conducted with such dignity and such self-restraint, considering the grievances that they’ve got.

And before when we were talking, we were interviewing Mr. Miller before, we were cut off, you were mentioning something about the white man’s problem. Could you talk about that a few moments, please?

I think that’s basically what the problem is. The Negro has problems but it’s basically the white man’s view of him that has to be changed and if it isn’t changed, it will be a disaster for everyone. The Negro is an equal man and that’s the long and the short of it. That’s all that’s got to be recognized and when it is, there will be tranquility again.

Uh huh. Also your plays, according to yourself, also Tennessee Williams, a few other playwrights I imagine, will not allow their plays to be presented before a segregated audience.

That’s true. I hope that the movie people, whoever makes movies or produces or directs or acts in them or writes them will insist on the same thing and it could solve that part of the problem quite easily, I think.

Uh huh. You mean have the movies the same thing as the plays?

Yes, there’s no reason why we should break the law. It is against the law to segregate audiences.

Yes, it is.

And I don’t know why artists have to be part of that.

No?

There is no, there’s certainly no force that could make that possible.

In other words, if you think the movies got up to date more or less with plays, it would really help the cause.

Yes, of course. They play to many more people than plays do, much more popular than plays are and they could have an even greater effect than plays have. Other than that, wiping out of segregation in terms of audiences for plays.

Well of course plays are always considered to be more outspoken and with rougher language and more meat in them than the movies. For some reasons, the movies seem to water things down.

Well, not always. I think that’s another, another subject but in recent years the movies have been pretty good from time to time. We’ve had very little to boast about on the stage the last few years but I hope it gets better.

Well I think if you, as you are doing, writing another play, I think the stage would get a whole lot better, Mr. Miller. What are you working on now?

I just finished a play and it’s called After the Fall or, I’ll just call it After the Fall for the moment.

That’s going to be presented by the new repertory group here in New York City?

It’ll be the opening play of the repertory company of the Lincoln Center, yes.

Yes and that tent...

Well it’s not a tent. It’s a steel building and I hope it will remain permanently. That’s what the plan is really. There might be, I hope we end up with two theaters which is what we need anyway.

I hope so, too and I hope the play’s a success which I’m sure it will be.

Oh, thanks very much.

And thank you very much, Mr. Miller for talking.

While the interview with Arthur Miller was being played on the tape recording. Stepping into our studios just while the interview was on was a Mr. Thomas Adul Kwainer from Ghana. He’s a teaching assistant of the University of California and at this moment he’s attending the Friends World College Summer Project here in New York City. We’d like to talk to him for a few moments and have some of his reactions to the civil rights march in Washington today. How do you do, Mr. Kwainer?

How do you do? I’m very much in favor of the march in Washington because having lived in Little Rock where I did my undergraduate studies, I was there in ‘57 and I saw what happened in the plight of the Negro and all what followed and this, I think is a great improvement from ‘57, Little Rock in ‘57 to the present time.

And coming from Africa where we have a racial situation in South Africa, there have been some previous demonstrations, mass demonstrations against some of the apartheid laws of South Africa and the South African government which are leaded by just killing a lot of people. And if this is very successful, it will focus universal attention on any mass project as large as this one going on in Washington and then if the South Africans were to march again with well attention focused on that, I don’t think the apartheid government will again do what it did when they tried similar thing in South Africa.

So what I can see as a foreign student is that this march is going to create an international concern in similar marches in the future time and that goes for South Africa and Angola but I think it’s a very great thing and the organizers have to be congratulated for having organized it so well and I hope it should be very successful and emulated in other parts of the world.

Do you think this will cause a chain reaction? In other words, the civil rights on Washington today will cause a chain reaction of demonstrations throughout the world, is that what you mean?

Yeah, that’s what I mean. I think it is going to do that and then what is going to happen is, what had happened before in South Africa will never happen again you see because the whole world will be very much interested in similar marches and look out and try to support something like that.

And with the whole world looking upon such a march and the publicity it has been given, I think the apartheid government of you know, [incomprehensible], who replied to similar marches by shooting and killing people, would hesitate if not find it very impossible to do, you know, what it did when it was confronted with such a march and I think there will be a chain reaction all over Africa.

This should also help your cause in the UN, don’t you think?

Yeah, you know, I think it does you see because, especially if you think of the [incomprehensible] solutions which were passed, you know, one on South Africa and one on Portugal.

You mean selling the arms?

Yeah, yeah about selling the arms. I think it’s going to mobilize world support behind it [incomprehensible] countries who are trying to do something about the question in Angola, South Africa, Mozambique and part of New Guinea. And we welcome it a whole lot, you know, and I hope it becomes very successful.

How about as far as you’re concerned? How long were you in the United States for Mr. Kwainer?

Oh, I’ve been here for the past seven years and...

Uh huh. You haven’t seen Ghana in all that time?

No, I haven’t seen Ghana, you know and I went to school mostly in the south, in Little Rock, Arkansas and ...

Little Rock, Arkansas and ...

I did some sit-ins myself when I was there and ...

Oh you did?

Yeah and I really enjoyed doing it.

Were you manhandled in any way?

No, if they know you’re a foreign student, they usually try to treat you nice.

Well how can they tell if you’re a foreign student?

Oh, they can tell from the way you talk, you know.

Yes, you do have that British sort of an accent.

Oh, I wouldn’t call it British. It’s African.

It’s African?

Yeah, African accent.

Uh huh. Well thank you very much for stopping by and we appreciate your talking to us about the civil rights march in Washington today. We’ve been walking with a man from Ghana, Thomas Adul Kwainer. He’s a teaching assistant at the University of California, now attending the Friends’ World College summer project here in New York City. And prior to that, we spoke to Arthur Miller, the playwright. In a short time we hope to have an interview with two psychiatrists. The one, a Negro, a director of the Harlem Hospital. Meanwhile, this is Bill Price, WNYC New York.

Thank you Bill, we’ll be returning to New York and your reports right after 6:00, daylight savings time here in the east. Right now the biggest problem is moving these people back to their trains and their buses. And on the scene down at the Washington Monument grounds, all day in fact and probably a little weary himself at this time, let’s call in Malcolm Davis.

Yes, George, I think you’re quite right now. I am a little weary and very hungry, without food all day but I’m going to have a good dinner this evening, I hope. The scene down here at Washington Monument is much the same as it was about a half an hour ago when we were talking to Al Hulsen. The place is pretty much deserted now. There are only a few stragglers leaving.

I can see still about 60 buses that are yet to be loaded and to leave the sea of debris. It’s not quite as bad as it was up there at Lincoln. In fact, quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, looking up towards the Washington Monument ffrom the stage, there is more debris in the press area than there is on the rest of the field, right beneath the column. Radio and television seem to have an enormous amount of debris around.

The only thing going on here at present is the [incomprehensible] system and the announcer up there is trying to match lost children with parents and lost husbands and wives and trying to direct various groups to the locations where there buses can be to leave the city. Otherwise, I can say that there is only one radio outfit left here. We are practically the last. Radio and television have wrapped up and frankly, I think that actually concludes the report for ERN from the Washington Monument.

Malcolm, has this problem of lost children and parents, I guess, quite a problem?

No, I wouldn’t say it’s quite a problem but I have seen about 6 or 8 children come up in this particular area which really isn’t bad in view of the number of people that have been involved here. Now similar in observation and regard to something you and Al were talking about a little earlier was the Red Cross tents. I’ve been watching those all day long and at one stage, the only people I saw sitting in there were policemen and nurses, just idly passing time but there was nothing going on there at all. I don’t think I saw one sick person being treated when I walked by a couple of times this afternoon.

Traffic right now, George, is slowing back down Constitution Avenue, at what looks to be a perfectly normal pace and the city trucks, water trucks are spraying the streets and clearing it up, I guess, hoping that everything will be ready for tomorrow morning. I really do think that’s about all I can say at this point, George. Hope to see you back at the station later on tonight when they wrap up and be able to contribute a little more then.

Right, thank you for your reports, right from the monument grounds where I guess most of the people have moved out by this time. We’ve gotten a report again from Mike Rice down at Police Headquarters on the number of vehicles behind used by policemen today in keeping the peace and actually it was kept very well. There were about 150 scout cars and cruisers used in the area of the march and in the outlying districts of course, regular police activities had to continue for the rest of Washington, about 50 scout cars and cruisers were used there.

Metropolitan Police used about 86 motorcycles in the escorting of buses and the transferral of men from place to place. There were twelve buses used by the police. I’m afraid I can’t explain that at this point, but twelve buses were used. Twenty-four jeeps were used along with the National Guard to carry men back and forth and twenty-three tow trucks were used earlier today to move cars from the restricted areas where signs were posted to mark parking for the buses which have come into the town. And we had an earlier report that about forty-six cars had to be impounded because they were parked past 12:01 this morning when the signs said there would be no longer parking available to private vehicles.

Of course the big number of policemen on duty today totaled over 1,900 uniformed men and some 300 plainclothesmen. There were 2,000 parade marshals from New York helping out. The National Guard had about 2,000 troops standing by and we’re all glad they weren’t used and police in nearby areas totaled another thousand and the FBI had no figure available but they did have agents circulating through the crowd as plainclothesmen and observers, watching for known agitators in some of the trouble spots. Well, we have another report now from Rhode Island. Our interview with an NAACP delegate.

We visited with Senator Claiborne Pell for two hours this afternoon. Senator Pell is a co-sponsor of the omnibous bill and he said that he will support the bill in its entirety, that he will vote for cloture if necessary and that he believes that the three fifths rule which is now in effect, would be sufficient if the leadership of the Senate is sincerely interested in limiting the debate and affecting the end of a filibuster and he will vote for the end of a filibuster if the need arises.

And the significant part of our interview with Senator Pell, I believe, was the fact that he believes that there must be a concentrated effort by the leadership in the Senate toward whatever end the administration wishes to end up with on this bill and he believes that if the leadership does exert enough pressure, they have enough votes to change the, to limit the debate. Thank you.

A report from our affiliate at WSCH in Hartford, Connecticut and it was an interview with the member of the NAACP. The Educational Radio Network and its affiliates today will continue in just a moment to bring you more of this live coverage from Washington on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Brought to you since nine this morning over most of these stations of the Educational Radio Network.

Washington freedom march highlights, a repeat of the day’s significant events, will begin at 7:00 this evening, followed at nine by a special panel discussion on the implications of the freedom march. This is WGBH FM, 89.7 megacycles, Boston.

This is George Geesey again from WAMU FM, the ERN station in Washington, DC, where we’ll still standing by to have a report from the White House on the delegation of men from the March committee who are reportedly meeting now with President Kennedy and perhaps there will be a public statement. While we’re waiting for that, we’d like to return to our studios in New York and ERN affiliate, WNYC where Bill Price has another report.

From WNYC New York, this is Bill Price here in New York. I have on the other side of the table at our studios, Dr. Frank Abram Hale, is a practicing psychiatrist here in New York City on the fashionable Upper East Side. And he’s also a member of the William Allanson White Psycho-Analytic Institute. Also, Dr. Elizabeth Davis, director of the Department of Psychiatry at Harlem Hospital in New York and assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia University here in New York City.

We’d like to discuss with them exactly what psychiatry has to do with what’s happening in Washington today. I have to get my words perfect because I’m sitting across from two psychiatrists who know a lot about communicating, as you’ll see as we go on with the interview. The first question I’d like to ask, I’d like to address Dr. Davis, what was it that got these southern Negroes started say after a hundred years?

I think that the really salient factor was the Supreme Court decision of 1954 in which it was clearly stated for the first time by the government structure of this country that inequality as perpetrated and perpetuated by segregation was unconstitutional and therefore wrong.

Now Dr. Hale, you for a moment please, what do you think about this? Especially why do you think these people remain so amazingly non-violent throughout the years?

Gandhi recently was so instrumental in freeing India of its colonial position in the world. He did this by means of his non-violence and he got these ideas surprisingly enough, from an American, Thoreau, who was the author of Walden and who wrote his famous tract on non-violence. One of the other influences was Tolstoy, the Russian author of War and Peace, whose views were known as anarchistic. I think that these effects have given the Negro, especially the southern Negro who was responsible for starting this urge toward further independent and equality; these were the effects that gave the surge which we now see.

Uh huh, passive resistance is what you’re talking about.

Passive resistance is another name for it.

That’s what they call it now and you think that came from Gandhi, from Tolstoy and Thoreau?

I think a very important factor in the ability of the organized freedom movement in the South to remain non-violent is the long tradition of Christianity among Negroes in the South who have particularly used the Christian ethic of peace and of loving one’s neighbor, even if one’s neighbor hates one and mistreats one, to help them to tolerate the abuses they have suffered throughout the centuries and particularly during the demonstrations in the recent past. This tradition, together with the theoretical and practical ideas of Gandhi and Thoreau, have been very important. I think also that the Negro learned through many, many years of repression, that violence was ultimately dangerous, destructive and useless.

Well if you’re listening to our programs throughout the day, you’ll notice from Washington that everything is orderly and everyone expects it to be orderly and everyone expects what they call passive resistance, is what we’ve been discussing. I’d like to ask Dr. Hale about a case he had some years ago. You psychoanalyzed a Negro WAC?

Yes, this was after the WAC had been discharged from service. She had a variety of neurotic complaints and unfortunately at that time I was inexperienced in dealing with the hostility of a member of a minority that had been downtrodden and thus made very hostile and I wasn’t able to deal with her hostility. She said that she improved in some ways but she remained rigid and I suppose basically a hostile woman. After that, I reviewed a very interesting book by a European psychiatrist who had moved to Africa. He did an analysis on an African medicine man who became his close friend.

As the result of this analysis, the medicine man changed into a revolutionary who led his people to further search for equality. The Negroes under his tutelage and guidance started building cottages of their own on the lands that were not theirs so that this was illegal. It was a kind of squatter movement and he went on to do other things for his people. Now in more recent years, I have analyzed a psychiatric social worker with whom I could make better contact. I think this was partly because I was able to lead her to express her hostility.

Also, my part of her treatment was done in group therapy so that she was integrated into a group of whites and I encouraged her to express her hostility. This of course was at the same time that the whites were expressing their hostility. They were talking about anti-Semitism, even though there were Jewish members in the group and so there was a general expression of hostility. This girl went on to visit parts of Africa that were declaring their independence when she was right there and now she’s doing more work with the Negroes this summer on some of the islands in the West Indies and will continue this kind of work.

And Dr. Davis, do you have any comments on that?

Yes, I think Dr. Hale has touched on some very important dynamics as we call them of the Negro in the United States. People in general who are chronically frustrated, chronically deprived and are in fact continuously abused and can pass into the treatment of quoted other members of their society, become angry. If there is no permissible and acceptable outlet for this anger, it becomes impounded. In order to control the anger which arises out of frustration and deprivation, people must frequently not only control their anger but also reduce their self-assertiveness, their natural self-expression.

They lose their initiative. They become depressed and unable to act and perform to the limits of their potential. It seems to me that the case Dr. Hale was describing clearly illustrates this kind of limitation which prejudice can produce in part, at least, on an individual and certainly the inability of the Negro to move forward in the hundred years succeeding the Civil War, up until very recently must be related to the fact that he was unable to mobilize his initiative, his resources because of the necessity to control the anger he felt.

This is why I feel the Supreme Court decision was so important because it gave Negroes in this country a feeling of recognition, of being accepted, of being understood in their suffering by people of power and influence in the nation. And this certainly contributed a great deal to the surge forward which young people and particularly at first, the educated members of the Negro group in the United States have been able to get off the ground.

Then I have spoken about the fact that my last Negro patient visited parts of Africa that were declaring their independence just at that time. Surely the independence of a large part of Africa had a tremendous effect on the Negro in this country. For instance, if the Jew felt more secure having a homeland in Israel, then the Negro would feel much more a base for further action with a homeland that he could consider his own.

I agree with this, Dr. Hale. I’m reminded as you spoke of the novel by Ralph Ellison and published some years ago, entitled The Invisible Man. It seems to me that Mr. Ellison described in that novel the sense of non-recognition which at times can get to be almost a sense of non-existence which Negroes have suffered. Those of you who have ever been in a Southern bus station or railroad station may have noticed the invisible barrier which seems to exist between the group of Negroes and the group of whites waiting at the station. They do not look at each other; they do not speak to each other. They act as though the other group isn’t there. It is...

That’s taking both groups at the same time.

That’s right. It is this barrier, this invisibility of the one group to the other which, along with which goes a lack of understanding, lack of sympathy and the capacity to inflict great wrong without even recognizing that one is doing it, which is so much a part, has been so much a part of the American scene. What has happened in the last eight years is that Negroes have refused to remain invisible and certainly today in Washington, they are clearly visible.

Yes, that’s true. There’s some communication anyway, even though it may be 25,000 or 100,000 people marching around the reflecting pool in Washington, DC. One other thing I wanted to ask Dr. Davis again, have you had any individual cases where the Negro had mental problems because of being a Negro? I guess there are millions of them no doubt, but have you got one good case in point you could point out for us?

The fact of being a Negro in this country today has so many ramifications that it would be very surprising if a Negro who was suffering from a mental illness, did not have as part of this illness some aspect related to his being a Negro. Negroes, mental illness can be contributed to in several ways. The Negro may be more susceptible to mental illness because being a Negro, he shares with his brothers the low self-esteem which this society imposes.

Low self-esteem.

The economic, the literal realistic economic deprivations imposed by segregation and discrimination put him in a position where he is more subject to all the conditions, poor housing, poor education, large and unplanned families, family breakup and all the other factors which we know are contributing factors to the development of mental illness in individuals who have that potential and since most individuals have some potential for developing mental illness when many of these factors are present, the likelihood of its development is greater.

Certainly a particular instance which occurs to me is one in which an individual complained bitterly of rats in the apartment, too many children, deserted husband, because of no job and so on but ultimately, the most bitter feeling she had was the fact that in spite of all of her efforts to get help on these various things, there seemed to be no one who cared and she attributed that fact to her being a Negro, rightly or wrongly. The mere fact that she could attribute her desertion by the world to her being a Negro reflects, I think, some of the feelings which many Negroes in this country have had and suffered for a very long time.

Now if I could add something to this...

Go ahead Dr. Hale.

Dr. Davis was mentioning The Invisible Man, the excellent novel by Ellison and she mentioned in this regard that The Invisible Man is non-existent. I think that this is a good way of putting it. That is his existence itself has been interfered with so that he feels that he’s not in the world, not in this time and not in this place. If he feels this way, he has no ability to act. He has no ability to choose. There can be no commitment, no “engagement,” as the French existentialists say. In order for him to feel free to act therefore, he must feel in the world.

He must feel in the here and the now. Then he can become involved. And this is the fine thing that the March demonstrates that was instituted by the Supreme Court decision after a hundred years of waiting, after a hundred years of inaction, after a hundred years of a lack of democratic processes as far as Negroes were concerned. We can only hope that this sort of action will eventuate in more action and more commitment to democratization of the country as a whole. Just this morning in The Nation magazine which just came out, the September 7th issue, there’s an article by the well-known novelist, Harvey Swados, which is called Revolution on the March.

One person that he quotes is the head of the student non-violent coordinating committee. John Lewis, the shy young chairman of SNCC, told Swados that he expects a new generation of leaders, even younger than himself to emerge from the rural south in the days ahead and to emerge from those whose prospect will have been broadened by the experience of the March itself. “Everything we’ve done so far has been preliminary, almost a rehearsal. On August 28th, the curtain goes up on the first act of the revolution.”

And would you like to make a final remark Dr. Davis?

Yes, I’d like to simply change in my opinion, the last word of that comment. I believe that the March on Washington today perhaps represents a victory march in the revolution and is the first act of an evolutionary process which will be to greater or lesser extent...

I’m sorry New York; we have to interrupt here from Washington. There is an announcement that there will be something said now from the White House. We join The Voice of America.

We feel that it was profitable. We discussed at length the problems involved in securing the enactment of Civil Rights legislation. Our expert, Mr. Roy Wilkins presented the problems of legislation to the President and then various members of the committee made comments on same. It is our belief that it is possible to get civil rights legislation enacted in this Congress. However, we know that this is not going to be easy. We are looking forward to bipartisan support.

For instance, for a bill for fair employment practice and also for part three, which is very significant and important to our whole civil rights struggle. Now we are greatly delighted and proud over the demonstration here in Washington today, in the interest of civil rights, we believe that it is one of the biggest, most creative and constructive demonstrations ever held in the history of our nation. Now prior to the demonstration, there were all sorts of prognostications about the nature of the demonstration.

Some fears were intimated about what might happen but today we had a peaceful demonstration, an orderly demonstration, one for which every American could be proud. Certainly the members of our committee are proud of this demonstration today. It will have its influence, I believe, not only on the Congress, but on the moral behavior of the people of our country.

On this question of freedom, equality and human dignity. We believe that it is going to have its effect on the image of our country all over the world because it will indicate that not only are Negroes struggling to achieve, a transition from second class to first class citizenship but that our white brothers and sisters are marching arm and arm with the Negro citizens of the country, for the purpose of achieving this objective and consequently, this is and has been a great American experience.

I think it will certainly have a profound effect on all of the developments and the future with respect to the achievement of civil rights legislation and in as much as this is an historic effort and in as much as we have developed unity among the leadership of the Negro and our white brothers and sisters, I want that you may hear a word from some of the members of our committee because I think history was written today which will have its effect on coming generations with respect to our democracy, with respect to our ideals, with respect to the great struggle of man towards freedom and human dignity and I want to have Dr. Eugene Carson Blake to express his views at this time. Dr. Blake is president of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in America.

Mr. Randolph, the only thing that I would like to say is that as far as the churches are concerned and perhaps here I speak for the synagogue council and the Roman Catholic Group Interracial Commission which was represented here, that we I think proved that our judgment was right. The thing we wanted to do was get in behind the leadership of the Negro community. Clearly the religious leader of this occasion was Martin Luther King and we are proud to have served behind and strengthening the witness that he’s been carrying.

The other thing is that we did produce a non-segregated march and we hope that there aren’t going to be anymore all black protest marches on this, that there will be the chance for us all to work together as Americans to get this thing moving and moving as a moral and not as a partisan political issue.

I want to also present our expert on civil rights legislation and the acknowledged leader of the civil rights movement in the United States of America and a great American, Roy Wilkins, secretary of the NAACP.

We had a very satisfying conference with the president. Although he felt that we could help; we could help a little more than we have done on some of the difficult tasks of accomplishing the civil rights legislation enactment. We here, from our conferences this morning, with Congressional leaders and winding up the day with a conference here at the White House, welcome all support for the civil rights legislation.

We invite the Republicans and the Democrats to come together in this great civil rights crisis and the Republican leadership has indicated that it will help and the Democratic leadership has indicated that it will continue to press the President’s program. Together, these two parties can accomplish our objective and satisfy the people who came here today from every section of the country.

I want to at this time present one of the towers of strength in the struggle to achieve a successful march on Washington and also to win civil rights legislation. One of the great leaders of labor in America, as well as a great American, Walter Reuther of the United Automobile Workers of America.

Those of who have participated in this March, I think are very pleased that the March went so well and while the March was directed essentially upon the first targets which was to call upon the members of both political parties to rise above any partisan differences and unite for the enactment of a meaningful civil rights program, we believe that the significance of what we have done here today goes far and beyond the question of legislation.

I believe that this civil rights demonstration today is the beginning of the building of a broad coalition of conscience in which we mobilize men of goodwill of all races and all creeds and all color and of all political persuasion so that men of goodwill searching in the light of reason, by rational and responsible action, can make meaningful progress towards the fulfillment of equal rights and equal opportunity. And we believe that after we get legislation and we believe we will get legislation, then we will be confronted with a practical job in every American community to take the new tools that the legislation will provide us and then find a way to apply those tools to the solution of these basic human problems.

As I said this afternoon, only is men of goodwill, find the answers and the light of reason, can we be certain that the apostles of hatred will not search for the answers in the darkness of night and I believe that the real significance of what we have started here today is that we have laid the groundwork for the building of a functioning, broad coalition of Americans from all walks of life, of all points of view, from all races, creeds and color, who can carry on, not only the common struggle to achieve an effective and meaningful civil rights legislation, but who can do this practical work, the day-to-day job of fighting discrimination in education, in housing, in employment, in public accommodation and I think this is the true significance of what we have started today.

And it’s a pleasure now to present the moral leader of our nation, one who has conducted a massive, moral campaign in the Southern area of the nation, against the citadel of racism, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.