Race & Realism

THE ECONOMY

The headlines out of the troubled South are dominated by the politicians and demonstrators, but it is often the businessmen who are quietly negotiating the solutions or the compromises. The Southern businessman is wrestling with a crisis of conscience; his emotions say "never" to integration, his civil instincts say "perhaps some day," but his cash registers say "now." The dominant sentiment is expressed by Real Estate Executive Sidney Smyer, chairman of the businessmen's committee that negotiated a truce of sorts in Birmingham: "I'm not an integrationist, but I'm not a damn fool either."

Integration demonstrations, and redneck resistance to them, are alike bad for business. Sales of Birmingham's downtown stores dropped 10% when Negroes began boycotts and picketing, fell another 15% when the city brought out the fire hoses and police dogs. Birmingham's pass-through tourist trade is off 40%, and New Orleans lost an American Legion convention with 70,000 potential customers because that city's hotels are segregated (the Legion shifted to Miami Beach, which began to cross the color line in 1958). Sales of Southern school-bond issues are sluggish. Businessmen are also aware that no new factories came to Little Rock for two years after its 1957 crisis.

Acting Together. Many businessmen still stubbornly resist integration, of course, and have a different idea of what song their cash registers are ringing. A North Carolina bowling-alley proprietor argues that "white people just aren't going to bowl with colored people--they don't want to use a ball that Negroes have been using." John Carswell, a Chapel Hill drugstore owner, contends that desegregation of his lunch counter would cause "incidents," and many Southern hotelmen profess to fear that if they admitted Negroes, their white trade would go to competitors.

To all this, Motel Operator John Taylor replies: "Hogwash." He began admitting Negroes to his three North Carolina motels two years ago, has experienced neither a surge of Negro guests nor a drop in white business. But for defensive reasons, most Southern businessmen prefer to act jointly when they integrate: 50 Atlanta restaurants desegregated in a body last week, and 21 Charlotte drive-ins will do so this week.

In the past fortnight some kind of desegregation has taken place in 98 Southern cities--and predominantly business groups have done most of the local nudging. Says Birmingham Real Estate Man William P. Engel: "You cannot depend on the politicians or the extremists. The businessman must take the leadership."

While some Southern businessmen have ventured where local politicians fear to tread, many admit to having been stimulated by the Federal Government. One executive of a large Southern firm remarks that "when the President of the U.S. calls you in and takes you into his confidence--well, very few men could remain unmoved." The white businessmen who respond most quickly are seldom merchants, who face customers every day and fear boycotts, but those in more cloistered occupations, such as bankers, lawyers and insurance men. A favorite spokesman now is Atlanta's John Sibley, 75, retired chairman of Trust Co. of Georgia, who has been invited to lunches of business leaders in Birmingham and Chattanooga to present the delicate case for upholding the law, preventing disorder, and doing both "with patience and forbearance."

Topic A. Southern businessmen are sharply critical of vacillation by big national retail chains with links in the South. Complains a Nashville executive: "We do all the work and take all the blame. They're too afraid that what they do in one place may complicate their problems elsewhere." Sears, Roebuck takes refuge in saying, "We have a decentralized operation. We have decided to take action on programs decided in local communities."

But the agonizing over integration has spread far beyond the South, is now Topic A in board rooms throughout the nation. Some companies, such as Los Angeles' Lockheed Aircraft, have Negro advisers on hiring practices. A number of department stores are actively seeking to promote qualified Negroes to supervisory posts. RCA, Jersey Standard and Colgate consult regularly with the Urban League on means of recruiting Negroes for skilled jobs. Many companies now express a desire to seek out the right kind of "qualified Negro" (the favorite phrase of the day) to try out in jobs that Negroes were not previously considered for, and are convinced that the nation's painful experience in self-education these past months will make their acceptance by colleagues much easier than before.

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