RAISING THE NEGRO

He Stakes Future On Southern Way

By the Associate Press

The Charlotte Observer

(December 16, 1956)

            Ask State Sen. Sam Engelhardt of Macon County (86 per cent Negro) in southern Alabama to explain his conception of the southern way of life and he says a person would have to live in the South and learn the Negro for at least a year to understand.

            He abhors deliberate efforts to inflame racial passions, nevertheless he is determined that the southern way of life he has known for 44 years shall be maintained.

            Is the negro innately inferior to the white man?

            "Yes," says Engelhardt.

            "If you educate the Negro, what are you educating him for?"

            "Let him have his own society," he replied. "We ought to raise him morally and economically."

            Can the South maintain separate white and Negro cultures of people of equal education without conflict?

            "The vast majority of southerners think so. There might be some conflict, but the white folks would be working hard and trying to head off that conflict."

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posted 24 July 2008