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By Rev. A. Powell Davies D.D.
May 23, 1954
If you believe—as I do—that
mankind is now in the crucial stage of a race between morality and
disaster, you will often be depressed at the trend of events. Too
much that is happening is lowering the moral level and increasing
the pace at which we seem to be careening towards catastrophe. At
times, the scene takes on an aspect of nightmarish unreality. Can it
be, you wonder, that people are willing to act in such utter
disregard of what has come to be their situation? Do they know—have
they ever really absorbed it?—the awesome nature of the problems
they must solve if they are not to perish?
Do they know that these problems are not merely military? Do they
realize that two-thirds of the earth’s population, none of it
white-skinned, is on the march, determined to put an end to hunger
and destitution, oppression and misery? Or are they taken in by the
propaganda that tells them that all this is manufactured in Moscow?
That, of course, is what they are invited to believe: that the
Asians and the Africans—and perhaps some of the South Americans—have
been so poisoned by Communist propaganda that they have come to
think that famines can be ended, that epidemics can be controlled,
that parasitic oppressions can be overthrown, and that human life,
even in Asia and Africa, can have dignity.
What our people have been blind to, here in America, is that it is
our own success—our success in raising the standard of life of
ordinary people—that is the incitement everywhere in the world to
seek a similar advancement. It is likewise our own Revolution—not
the Communist one—that has given the backward peoples a basis to go
upon. What is necessary; so far as Americans are concerned, is that
the moral principles upon which their won nation was founded shall
be applied—and boldly—to the problems of a world of ferment and
transition. It is the only way, tolerable to Americans, by which the
problems of mankind can be brought towards solution.
Our great principle, for instance, that all men are endowed with
equal natural rights holds more promise for world security than any
other principle ever enunciated. It is the only possible basis for a
world community of free people. There is no other foundation—none
whatever—for a peaceful world society that includes all races. And
quite obviously, a world society, whether peaceful or otherwise,
must include all races. But unless it is to be a society ruled by
tyranny, and therefore foredoomed to the dissensions which, in the
presence of the modern weapons, must end up in disaster, it must be
a free society of equal peoples.
Nothing is more short-sighted than to think of the race problem as a
local problem, or a problem of certain states in the American South,
or even as an American national problem: it is an all-inclusive
problem of the modern age. We have been slow—dangerously slow—in
seeing the problem in its true dimensions. But others have seen it.
Hitler, for instance, saw it, and proposed to deal with it with
brutal cynicism. There shall be, he said, a master-race, the
Germans; at the next highest level will come the other white races
under German guidance and dominion, the lower levels will be
composed of the non-white races, enslaved for the advantage of those
at the top. The Japanese at one time had a similar plan for the
Orient. The Communists, although they promise an eventual equality,
would enslave the entire world under a privileged bureaucracy—and it
would be foolish not to see that this bureaucracy would harden into
a permanent class of overlords, though, of course, it might be
interracial.
Now, let us state a very simple fact—so simple that it seems odd
that there should be any need to state it. The race problem does not
arise because of agitators or even because of idealists who are not
agitators; that race problem arises because mankind is composed of a
number of different races. The primitive reaction to this fact is
one of hostility. Whatever is different is potentially dangerous it
is necessary to be defensive against it. Sometime, this has meant
the annihilation of people of one race by people of another.
Sometimes, it has meant enslavement. But always, as any two races
have remained in contact, there has been increasing comprehension of
each other; and always they have mingled. Neverthe less, down to now
the primitive reaction has never been subdued—not entirely—by a
civilized recognition of realities. The fact of the oneness of
humanity, although religion has extolled it, has been acknowledged
without being observed. High morality, like true rationality, has
been available but has not been used. And race attitudes have
remained very largely primitive.
At the time, however, that the United States was founded, it was
well understood, at least by some among the founders, that the human
equality they were adopting as a principle should be applied
universally, and therefore without racial reservations. Jefferson
and John Adams both wanted an immediate end of Negro Slavery.
Unfortunately, their wish did not prevail. But the principles was
declared, and the declaration was unequivocal.
There are those who say that if this is what was intended, it was
intended only by the few. The conscience of the many did not require
it. This is a plausible objection—if we do not stop to notice what
would need to have been the alternatives. First, could the
Declaration of Independence have avoided a statement on the equality
of human rights? The answer is that it could not: some such
statement was a pollitical necessity. There were many who did not
like it but the temper of the times meant that it had to go in. It
is true that Jefferson had his difficulties; the opposition was
formidable. Yet, he represented—and knew that he represented—the new
spirit of the age. He spoke for an authentic revolution. Very well,
then, the clause had to go in. The next question is, why was it not
phrased: “All white men are endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights”?
The answer is obvious: it would have destroyed the entire principle
of natural rights which was being asserted. Later, of course, a case
was made out, not only in legislatures but from pulpits, that the
rights of white men and the rights of Negroes were not the same. But
this could not have been done, I think, at the time of the
Revolution. You cannot found a nation upon a labored argument. It
has to be—as it was—something that can be called self-evident. And
to the American Revolutionaries the equal rights of all—as natural
rights—did seem self-evident.
But it had to be all. The whole revolutionary impulse required it.
The conscience of the time required it. The equal rights of some men
while excluding others could never have been said to be endowed by
man’s Creator. And they would not have been self-evident.
So the declaration was unreserved and unequivocal. But it was in
conflict with the man-made facts. White Americans were ceaselessly
aware of the conflict; gradually, the outer world became aware of
it, too. The American Declaration caused a surge of hope wherever it
became known, but the American performance brought resentment and
dismay. Within the United States, little by little, the principle
nevertheless wrote itself into the Constitution—but not without an
agonizing struggle. In the conscience of the world outside==a world
drawing smaller and nearer—this struggle had continuing impact.
It was noticed how hard we labored to retain the principle and yet
avoid its implications. After all, the principle itself we could not
abandon: it was the basis of American democracy. So we enunciated
such doctrines as “separate but equal,” refusing to see that when
you put your fellow-man in a category apart, you are denying that he
is your equal. You are saying to him, “I will give you something as
good as I am keeping for myself, if only you will stay away from me;
for although I know I have a duty to you, you are offensive to me.”
That—in simple, honest words, words which it was important never to
speak—was what was meant by “separate but equal.”
Last week, the Supreme Court, to its everlasting honor, set us free
from this hypocrisy. In a decision as historic as any ever rendered,
it gave unqualified effect to the most basic of our founding
principles. It correctly interpreted the meaning of the American
Revolution. It spoke for the conscience of the Founding Fathers: as
it did also for the conscience of Americans from then till now. It
was the right decision, restoring to us something of our
self-esteem.
And it was also constructive—nothing has been more so—in our
relations with the world outside. At a time when our prestige has
been declining and other nations have doubtful of our leadership,
this decision reafferms American morality. We are willing to be true
to our principles.
It is not the case, of course, that the decision has been
universally popular. Right decisions seldom are. But it is
remarkable—and reassuring—to see the extent to which those who do
not like the decision nevertheless acknowledge it as the law of the
land and are prepared to abide by it.
All this is good. Here is something that is not depressing, but
points towards hope and gives us courage.
A decision, however, no matter how enlightened, is that and nothing
more until we have begun to carry it out. And in carrying it out,
everything depends upon what is in the hearts of the people. Yes,
and in their minds as well. We must think clearly if we are to act
wisely. And if we do, we shall see, however reluctantly, that
although we can make great gains in meeting the problems of race
relationship, we are not likely within a short time to bring them to
complete solution. Indeed, as to this we should understand that the
full solution of race problems will only come when the races are
indistinguishable. In short, as long as there are races there will
be race problems. In the same way that as long as there are young
and old there will be problems between the generations, and as long
as there are men and women there will be problems between the sexes.
This, I was at pains to point out in a sermon I preached from this
pulpit in January, 1946, at a time when you felt much more lonely if
you happened to believe as I did and felt the need to speak out
about it. I said then, and I repeat now, that it is important to
reckon with realities, one of which is that wherever there are
differences there are problems. But the problems can be lessened. We
can become more mature in dealing wisely with them. We can grow in
character and in breadth of humanity as understanding deepens and we
increasingly act upon it.
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