CHIAROSCURO

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I was interested to read the critiques of Dr. Martin Luther King's civil rights work by Jacob Brackman and Ellen Lake, but I regretted that neither writer had even tried to give a balanced picture of the man. In my opinion, Dr. King would like to be first a minister of God, second an American, third a Negro, and fourth (and a rather low fourth) a social revolutionary. Others might not agree with this order, but many would probably agree that Dr. King will be best remembered (like many other Peace Prize winners) for what he has said, rather than for what he has done; and his greatest speeches have been an inspiration for Americans of every color.

The fact that he appeals to whites as well as Negroes does not make Dr. King a "Tom"; if the "Negro problem" is really the problem of American whites, as many since Myrdal have suggested, someone needs to prick the whites into action. Anyway, if the Negro community is truly worried about its welfare under present leadership, it should be able to throw up new leaders to replace Dr. King.

I was also annoyed by something I thought I read between the lines, perhaps inaccurately, in Mr. Brackman's article. Mr. Brackman and other, more radical "white liberals" seem occasionally to slip into almost wistful speculation that the American Negro may lead a "radical social upheaval" or "social revolution" which would then presumably benefit all Americans of a radical persuasion. Personally, it strikes me that most American Negroes would be very happy to settle for a nice home in an integrated, middle-class suburb, if only white society would allow them to buy the home, and to make enough money to afford it. To solve these dilemmas must be the task of whites in the North (and, eventually, in the South as well). As for the Negroes, their task is of a primarily political nature, as Miss Lake remarked in her article. In the North I think Negroes should concentrate on developing tight party organization, which could soon enable them to fill the governments of many of the largest Northern cities with Negroes, from mayor on down. This was the route that white outsider groups like the Irish and Italians took toward integration into Yankee society; ultimately the Negroes' problem may not prove to be so very different in kind, only in degree of difficulty. Richard B. Child, '65