ISC Comments on Civil Rights

The more subtle forms of discrimination in housing, job opportunities and social relationships can never be eliminated by legal means.

This comment is made in the latest report on racial discrimination in the United States, presented by the Research and Information Commission to the 11th ISC in Christchurch, New Zealand.

It can only be eliminated, the report continues, by a change in the minds of men. This can only come about by education, persuasion and understanding.

The 27-page report sketches the range of the problem, the aims of the civil rights struggle and its various means of implementation. After its presentation to the Conference a resolution congratulating the Congress of the United States on the passage of the Civil Rights Bill was passed. A resolution supporting Federal intervention in areas of the South whenever the basic right to vote and to peaceably assemble to demonstrate were threatened by violence or intimidation was passed.

The United States delegate commented that it was intended to provoke violence in Mississippi to get intervention by the Federal troops. This was the only way to break the power structure.