The Cavalier daily. :: Wednesday, May 7, 1969 :: University of Virginia Library

Mr. Farmer, former director of
the Congress Of Racial Equality,
now Assistant Secretary of the
Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare, spoke in Lynchburg in
a visit sponsored by the Afro-American
Student Alliance of
Lynchburg Colleges.

"Changing Agenda"

His experience with officials of
the Los Angeles school system
typifies the kind of situation which
creates the "changing agenda." He
said at first the educators would
not admit that their schools were
segregated. Then they said that
there was segregation, but de facto
and not de jure.

"When they admitted the existence
of the problem, they did not
know what to do about it. Now
they have a plan to present," but
Mr. Farmer warned that their plan
will probably meet with hostility in
the black community.

Mr. Farmer cited two reasons
for what has been called the "civil
rights revolution." In the period
from 1954 until 1964, many
victories were won in the civil rights
movement.

No Change

However, "those victories have
not yet proved meaningful to the
mass of black people - they
haven't changed anything," he said.
The main benefit of this decade of
work was improvement in the
upward mobility of the middle
class; it has not helped those who
never had any mobility at all.

The second reason for the
change in emphasis is that there is
more segregation now than there
was in 1954. In the West, Mr.
Farmer said, there were few Negroes
15 years ago, but they lived
where they pleased. With an increase
in the Negro population
came segregation.

Mr. Farmer said that the movement
has underestimated the extent
of racism. He referred to the Kerner
Commission's Report's "saying that
we have been programmed, conditioned,
even brain-washed by elements
of the national culture which
present the white man as superior
and the black man as inferior.

"It is hard to grow to adulthood
without at least residues of these
traditions," he noted.

Particular instances of this cultural
influence included children's
books and textbooks, as well as
Hollywood. Mr. Farmer said that
these and other media have perpetuated
the "magnolia myth" of the
happy slave. Negroes have seldom
been presented in any but traditional
and subservient roles.

Mr. Farmer spoke of the necessity
for black people to learn
self-love. He emphasized that this
does not imply counter-hate.

Ethnic Entity

"America is not a melting pot,"
he said, "and I think we would do
well to stop talking about it. We are
pluralistic.

"We must enter the society as a
group, an ethnic entity; but make it
or not as individuals."

Mr. Farmer thinks society has
abandoned the "myth of color-blindness."
He said that what is
needed is "color-consciousness" to
wipe out color discrimination. At
last we have gotten over the idea
that there's something wrong with
black people getting together. It's
not separatism or discrimination in
reverse."

Mr. Farmer said that unemployment
and poor housing were not
the causes of the riots in the past.
The cause was lack of a stake in
society. "People do not tear down
what they own, control, or have a
stake in."

Closing with a commentary on
national governmental policy, Mr.
Farmer said, "it is vital that the
Nixon administration make good
on its promises to advance the
economic development" of black
citizens.