Rustin to C.B. Powell

On July 8, the League issued a “Call to Prayer” to clergy members across the country, asking them to pray for the young men who refused the draft and thereby followed “the still, small voice of conscience.” Given A. Philip Ran-dolph’s secular approach to politics, as well as Rustin’s ongoing belief that civil disobedience should have a spiritual dimension, it seems likely that the Day of Prayer was Rustin’s idea.

Four days after issuing the Call to Prayer, Rustin joined Randolph in leading a group of picketers at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Rus-tin also organized a July 17 rally in Harlem, where Randolph announced that the League would picket the registration office in Washington, DC, on August 16. Randolph added that he was fully ready to “oppose a Jim Crow Army until I rot in jail.” But he would not find himself even close to jail, let alone rotting in it, because nine days later President Truman would issue Executive Order 9981, declaring “that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin. This policy shall be put into effect as rapidly as possible, having due re-gard to the time required to effectuate any necessary changes without impairing efficiency or morale.”

Randolph responded initially by stating that the executive order did not seem to eliminate segregation. Henry Wallace, the presidential candidate for the Progressive Party, weighed in with a critical tone, too. “The President’s order on equality of treatment in the armed services says nothing, promises nothing, does nothing—and leaves segregation intact,” Wallace stated.

Rustin, Randolph, and the League were pressured to disband their efforts following the president’s issuance of the executive order, and below is Rustin’s reply to such pressure from C. B. Powell, the editor of the Amsterdam News. Randolph signed the letter—a pointed lesson on civil disobedience in the United States—but it was Rustin who had drafted it.

August 2, 1948

Dear Mr. Powell:Your editorial implies that civil disobedience is contrary to the spirit and tradition of America. On the contrary, the Boston Tea Party is an

early example of civil disobedience in American history. You will recall that the thirteen colonies were under the direct rule of England, who determined and levied the taxes. The colonists refused to pay the taxes on the tea, which they then dumped into the sea. This was an out-right act of noncooperation and civil disobedience with the established government. Many of the contemporaries of these men called them “agitators” and “traitors”; but today our history books describe them as “defenders of liberty” and “true patriots.”

The colonists argued “no taxation without representation.” Today Negroes and white people who love freedom say, “no first-class dying for second-class citizenship; no service without equality for all.” The Underground Railroad, which played so great a role in Negro freedom, also was a direct violation of the fugitive slave law.

Later you indicate that “the end result” of our movement “would be the breakdown of law and order.” I maintain that those who consci-entiously refuse to go along with unjust laws do not destroy but rather defend and maintain real law and order.

Civil disobedience against one law cannot destroy good govern-ment. Even if no Negro entered the armed forces there would be a reduction in military strength of only about 10 percent. But if it did involve the fate of 20 percent, 50 percent, or 80 percent of the Army, the responsibility for civil disobedience must rest upon those who pass unjust laws and upon those who support them. If you believe that civil disobedience will destroy government, you in effect are saying that seg-regation in the armed forces at the present time is necessary to maintain government since the government can eliminate our civil disobedience movement any time by getting rid of racial segregation in the armed forces. The aim of our movement always will be to improve the nature of the government, to urge and counsel resistance to military Jim Crow for the maintenance of the highest law—the principle of equality and justice upon which real community, security, and government in the long run depend.

You imply that our campaign will encourage dangerous groups like the Ku Klux Klan to continue to follow a similar course of non-compliance with law. Civil disobedience cannot logically be so com-pared. The Ku Klux Klan and other such anti-democratic movements

seek to perpetuate injustice through intimidation, fear, hatred, and force of violence; on the other hand, our civil disobedience campaign seeks to gain freedom and to maintain justice by an entirely different method—nonviolence, goodwill, direct action. This means that the fol-lowers of civil disobedience take into themselves whatever suffering is involved in social change, unlike the Ku Klux Klan, which directs suf-fering into others.

For more than twenty-five years, Negro leaders like yourself, white liberals and trade unionists have waged a campaign to wipe out military Jim Crow. Today, as in the past, we are faced with promises which con-tinually go unkept, an example of which lies in the 1944 Republican Party platform, which promised the elimination of military Jim Crow. But last June it was the Republican steering committee which voted to kill . . . amendments which would have outlawed segregation in the Army. Scarcely a month later, however, at its Philadelphia convention, the Republican Party again went on record against military segregation. We are faced with repeated broken promises to outlaw the curse of Army segregation by both the Republicans and Democrats. What now are we to do?

All traditional methods should be pursued relentlessly. We should certainly call upon Congress, the President, and the Supreme Court for action and clarification, but when these methods fail, as they have, to bring results, we should not be forced into a position where no course of action is open to use except that which has failed us for twenty-five long years. Under the circumstances, are we not duty-bound to find new and challenging methods?

I sincerely believe that those who dislike to see Negro and white youth engage in civil disobedience have a very important task to per-form. It is not to deter those who cannot in clear conscience register for or serve in a Jim Crow army. Those who dislike civil disobedience should work now to encourage the Republicans in control of Congress to pass an amendment outlawing segregation in the Army. They should urge President Truman to issue an executive order now eliminating segregation in the services.

Only through Congressional or executive action outlawing mili-tary Jim Crow can the civil disobedience movement be called off. For

the civil disobedience movement springs not from my call but from the deep humiliation and resentment that Negro and white youth feel at being forced to serve in a segregated army.

A. Philip Randolph