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Civil rights and race relations materials, 1957-1964

What You Can Do About Racial Prejudice In Housing Page 23

familiar places, good friends and an accepted niche in community life. Such moves are particularly difficult for children who have grown accustomed to their schools and playmates and who view any move as a threat to their security...especially one made under emotionally upsetting circumstances.
Moving away from a community simply because a few Negro families have moved in can be shown, in this way, to be highly impractical economically for most families. The factors mentioned in the preceding chapter can support these arguments. And moral factors can be used to support the economic ones.
but it is important, too, to be able to give a fearful home owner a feeling that, should he decide to stay, he will not be the only one. For this purpose, it is not only important to be able to point out that many integrated communities exist elsewhere, but also to convince him that his own community can be successfully integrated, too. You should be armed with the names of people who agree with this point of view: the names of those on the block committee; the names of others with whom you have talked and who have indicated their willingness and desire to stay; and the names of people already living in integrated communities nearby. The home owner must be given the feeling that he is joining a substantial group of like-minded people. And when you have convinced him, enlist his aid in convincing others.
In dealing with the question of integration in communities not yet experiencing it, a Human Relations Committee with a community-wide base should be established. Often it can be made up of interested citizens who gather together informally for the purpose of educating others in the community towards the inevitable day when the first Negro family arrives. Sometimes a more formal organization results from the banding together of various local churches and church groups whose Social Action Committees send representatives to a central group. In this case, it is easy for the group to begin its
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familiar places, good friends and an accepted niche in community life. Such moves are particularly difficult for children who have grown accustomed to their schools and playmates and who view any move as a threat to their security...especially one made under emotionally upsetting circumstances. Moving away from a community simply because a few Negro families have moved in can be shown, in this way, to be highly impractical economically for most families. The factors mentioned in the preceding chapter can support these arguments. And moral factors can be used to support the economic ones. but it is important, too, to be able to give a fearful home owner a feeling that, should he decide to stay, he will not be the only one. For this purpose, it is not only important to be able to point out that many integrated communities exist elsewhere, but also to convince him that his own community can be successfully integrated, too. You should be armed with the names of people who agree with this point of view: the names of those on the block committee; the names of others with whom you have talked and who have indicated their willingness and desire to stay; and the names of people already living in integrated communities nearby. The home owner must be given the feeling that he is joining a substantial group of like-minded people. And when you have convinced him, enlist his aid in convincing others. In dealing with the question of integration in communities not yet experiencing it, a Human Relations Committee with a community-wide base should be established. Often it can be made up of interested citizens who gather together informally for the purpose of educating others in the community towards the inevitable day when the first Negro family arrives. Sometimes a more formal organization results from the banding together of various local churches and church groups whose Social Action Committees send representatives to a central group. In this case, it is easy for the group to begin its 23