Citadel of Democracy

In Washington, the seated figure of Abraham Lincoln broods over the capital of the U.S., where Jim Crow is the rule, where Negroes are barred from downtown hotels and restaurants, segregated at movies and barred from the city's only legitimate theater. Washington's customs are only a shade less Southern than the South's.

Last week 51 New York schoolboys excitedly prepared for a visit to the capital. They were the winners of an annual reward given to the best school safety patrolmen by the Automobile Club of New York. One, an honor-medal winner, would meet the President. All of them would see the sights, march in a parade.

Two days before they were to leave, the trip was called off. Five of the New York boys were Negroes. The Automobile Club could find no Washington hotel which would let the boys room or eat together because "it was not the custom to put up Negro and white guests together."

In Washington, 16,000 school safety patrolmen from 13 states marched down Constitution Avenue, peered at Lindbergh's plane, climbed the Washington Monument. The 51 New Yorkers went instead to New York's City Hall, where they got medals, then to a ball game at Yankee Stadium.

Cried the New York Herald Tribune: "It is about time that Washington, our national city, lifted itself above the regional . . . The humiliation of these [five] New York schoolboys was a national disgrace."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.