The Stall-In

The plan of CORE's Brooklyn chapter to tie up traffic at the World's Fair tomorrow has stirred a bitter controversy over the tactics of the protest. The proponents of the demonstration point out that the stall-in Would give civil rights groups an invincible bargaining position for their demands on the city administration. A successful protest would embarass the city and in the future the mere threat of another massive traffic snarl would deter thousands from leaving home, decimating the revenues from the fair.

The critics stress the danger of a backwash of resentment against the militancy of a plan to constipate movement of traffic through the city. The stall-in, they argue, will alienate moderates from the civil rights struggle. This would make the city officials more hesitant to act and could reinforce any campaign in the Senate to water down the civil rights bill. And so the debate has raged.

But all this talk has obscured the real issue behind the protest--the failure of the city to come forward with a working plan on key problems of racial discrimination in New York City. The CORE group has demanded a concrete plan from the city to end de facto segregation in the school system and job discrimination at construction sites. They have asked city support of a rent strike in the Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant ghettos and the creation of a committee of civic leaders to investigate charges of police brutality.

Through it is unrealistic to expect an immediate plan on the complex school issue, the remaining demands of the CORE groups are sensible measures. The stall-in threat has been firmly laid down. Even if the demonstration seems unwise, this tactical question must be seen in its proper perspective; the crucial problem is the long-neglected racial injustices in New York.