The <cite>Brown</cite> decision changed the SRC's strategy
The <cite>Brown</cite> decision in 1954 changed the SRC's strategy. Before <cite>Brown</cite>, the Council worked to strike down legal segregation; after, it sought to ensure that the law was enforced. This excerpt may require some untangling: Wright says that the SRC grew more militant in the 1950s, but also says that the absence of persecution dimmed the group's ardor. He may mean that in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the <cite>Brown</cite> decision, the SRC fought fiercely, but after the law was settled, so did the Council.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Marion Wright, March 8, 1978. Interview B-0034. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
Looking back over the different periods of the SRC, do you see any real
difference in the strategies that the Council pursued, say, up until
1954 and then after 1954? Real breaks in what the Council was trying to
do?
- MARION WRIGHT:
-
I think there was a definite change in strategy. Up until 1954, your
whole concern was to get segregation declared to be against the law. At
that time the Southern Regional Council had the law against it;
segregation was on the books. From 1954 on, the law was on our side. So
whereas up until the Supreme Court decision we put all of our efforts
into seeing that laws are enacted and that courts correctly interpret
them, after that point the task becomes one of persuading the public to
abide by the law. Up to that time, you were trying to persuade the
public to repeal the law; now you've got it repealed. You would want to
move into a new atmosphere as peacefully as you could. So I think the
whole thing was that we were militant when militance was what was
needed, and I think we have been persuasive where persuasion has been
needed.
- JACQUELYN HALL:
-
Do you see the Council as being more militant in the fifties?
- MARION WRIGHT:
-
Yes, until the law was on the books we benefitted from persecution. And
Talmadge and Wallace, you name them, were all fighting us.
They'd have people go to meetings and get license numbers
of cars and trace down who were the owners and take snapshots of those
present so on. So it appealed a little bit to your feeling of intrigue.
[Laughter]
And I think people could show more fervor. Early Christians
probably were a darned sight more fervent than the later ones because
they were being persecuted. And we, in a sense, were being persecuted,
so you had the temptation to fight back. When there is no occasion for
fighting, you have a tendency to lose your ardor.