The Tribune

I wish to thank you and Dr. L. E. Paxton for your statements in recent issues of THE TRIBUNE.

It was gratifying to see a demonstration of such good sportsmanship as you displayed in your editorial reporting your political defeat. This can only increase the respect of all readers and broaden your opportunities for public service and future office.

Dr. Paxton's declaration that "White people are interested and do help Negroes" is the kind of statement which is needed from prominent Negro citizens.

For so long integration has been a remote ideal that it is so hard to realize that it is actually taking place--and with increasing speed. The long awaited day is the immediate tomorrow, and we have only a few hours left in which to dissolve accumulated wrath if we are to have brotherhood and not strife.

Let the vultures of mankind hover watchfully over dying evils. Christians of both groups must point to the way of love, forgiveness and understanding.

There was a time--only yesterday, only this morning, even--when quick anger was the proper defense against a white supremacy which was too often taken for granted. St. Paul exhorts us, "Be angry but sin not and never let the sun go down upon your wrath." There was good cause for anger this morning, but the sun is setting now.

Through the South whites offer you their hands in increasing numbers. Upon your ability to grasp them in warmth and fellowship the welfare of the nation depends. Will we of the South be torn or welded? The answer lies with you who have uncounted wrongs to harbor-or to forgive.

In support of Dr. Paxton's contention, I offer you a summary of a fight for brotherhood which was instituted entirely by white Southerners within their own group. Readers of my former "Facts and Figures of Good Will" may recall mention of it while it was still going on. At last the full story is in.

The struggle began June 1952 when the Board of Sewanee, the University of the South, situated in Tennessee, met to debate the question of whether "Negroes should be encouraged" to enter Sewanee's Theological School. "Encouraged" was the right word, for no Negroes had ever applied.

Sewanee University, owned by the twenty-two Southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, is a private school, not subject to Federal rulings. Thus its decision to face this issue was entirely voluntary.

The Board decided that Southerners were not "ready" for integration in this school. But--alleluia!--Southerners rose up and rejected this as an insult.

Eight of the nine members of the theological faculty resigned in protest. The students polled themselves and reported that 97 percent favored the admission of Negroes. Southern women's auxiliaries protested against the decision, and letters poured in condemning it.

Church papers ran scathing editorials demanding a reversal of the "unjustifiable decision". And a transplanted Southerner now dean of a famous New York cathedral refused an honorary degree from Sewanee on the ground that he did not wish to be associated with "white divinity".

When the board had its annual meeting June 4th, 1953, it debated the issue again and then voted. The result was SEVENTY-EIGHT TO SIX IN FAVOR OF INTEGRATION!

With alarming rapidity Southern Negroes are being given the terrible ordeal of the opportunity to realize the brotherhood of man. Have they the Christian and the human love needed? Have they the power to renew themselves in forgiveness, the courage to believe that in their hands rests the future of the nation, and the vitality and faith to carry the banner of love?

Leaders like Dr. Paxton, the Rev. Alexander and others make me hope that they have.

Sincerely,
SARAH PATTON BOYLE
Box H183- University Station
Charlottesville, Virginia