Southerners Should Assume Lead For Integration, Journalist Asserts

Leadership by Southerners themselves will bring integration, John Ed Pearce, a Nieman Fellow at the University, told the Harvard Society for Minority Rights last night.

Pearce, an associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, spoke on the topic "How Louisville Desegregated its Schools without Violence."

He cited gradual preparation and "excellent" political leadership at both the local and state levels as reasons for Louisville's successful integration. Pearce maintained that in any area of the South, "while popular will is not going to bring integration," it can be imposed by Southern leaders. He credited a hard-working, moderate group with effecting the peaceful integration in Louisville. The majority of the people there were against integration but were convinced to accept it, Pearce said. The journalist said that there is no large scale integration because the Negroes are "economically districted" into separate neighborhoods.

Elaborating on the problems facing the South, Pearce thought that the rise of McCarthy had made demagoguery fashionable and brought the "white trash" out of hiding. The worst result of the "tragedy in Little Rock" is that Southern moderates have lost their voice, he said.

Northern liberal groups who continually blast and denounce the entire South, he said, tend to cause great resentment among all Southerners.