THE NOTTINGHAM EPISODE came in time to prevent any holier-than-thou
feelings about the latest turn in the Little Rock dispute, or about the case of the Alabama Negro sentenced to death for the theft of a few shillings. These are ugly symptoms; yet again, the remarkable thing in the US is the way in which violent racial strife has gradually eased in the last few years. The lesson to be learned from American experience is that endless patience, endless refusal to be panicked, is needed. We hear about Little Rock: we do not hear about the hundreds of towns where over a period of years Negroes have been admitted to White parks and libraries, then to White colleges and schools, by a gradual but determined civic process. An English royal commission investigating the colour problem would do well to look not at Arkansas or Alabama but at Kentucky, where the community is solving
a colour problem far more difficult than it is ever likely to become in England. *
Previous page
