Jackson Advocate

THE BELL TOLLS

By LEONARD H. BELL

A revolution is taking place in the South. There are no armed outbreaks. There are no scattered riots. There is no occasion for national alarm. For this is a social revolution.

And this revolution will be successful for its motivating power is being promulgated by the people, both white and black, who live there. Their names are legion, and their contributions and acts are bold and forthright. And alarm at this inexorable movement that is slowly, but surely changing the customs and structure of the old South, is to be found only among a handful of absentee landlords, manufacturers and die-hard white supremacists. But most of these are old, both in age and in thought and their rantings and former power has become dissipated. For what can age, emaciated age, do against the fullness and vibrancy of youth? For youth, in age and in thought, is spear-heading this revolution.

Only recently a mixed conference of whites and Negroes was held at Atlanta University, with some 300 educators and students representing more than 100 colleges and universities in southern and border states, where separate schools are maintained by law.

At this conference a resolution was unanimously adopted calling for the removal of segregation laws in education. The conference also agreed that "campus opinion" among students and teachers in white schools of higher learning was largely in favor of unsegregated attendance. And in keeping with these findings, they urged that Negro institutions in the South be made available to white students, so that segregation in southern education will be completely abolished.

Yes, these portent actions and many others that are happening weekly throughout the South are sure signs that a revolution, a social revolution, is taking place in the South.