Atlanta Daily World

Author Calls Segregation Moral Problem

NEW YORK Robert Penn Warren, Kentucky-born Pulitzer prizewinning author, today called segregation a "moral problem" for the South which is solvable only 'when enough people cannot live with themselves any longer or realize that desegregation is just one small episode in the long effort people make for justice.'

In the statement of his views appearing in the current (July 9) issue of LIFE Magazine, the author of "All the King's Men" and other novels calls himself a "gradualist" on the segregation issue in the sense that he feels it will take time, for an educational process.

And I mean a process of mutual education for whites and blacks. Part of this education should be the actual beginning of the process of desegregation.

DISMISSES RACIAL AMALGAMATION

Warren indicates his non-concern with the possibility of racial amalgamation resulting from desegregation efforts. "I don't even think about it. We have to deal with the problem our historical moment pro-
Author Calls
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...poses, the burden of our time. Anyway, we can't legislate for posterity."
At the same time the noted Southern author sees the reaction of his native South to this issue as the key to the area's future contribution to the national life:
"If the South is really able to face up to itself and its situation it may achieve moral identity. Then in a country where moral identity is hard to come by, the South, because it has had to deal concretely with a moral problem, may offer some leadership. And we need any we can get if we are to break out of the national rhythm, the rhythm between complacency and panic."