Byline: Ray Sprigle; 1948-08-31; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; pages 1
Report: "I Was a Negro in the South for 30 Days" - Ray Sprigle - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Tags: education, georgia, jim crow, posed as, racism
Article LinksStrangely enough, the Negro in the South doesn’t hate the white man. It could well be that my four weeks as a Negro in the deep South falls grievously short in equipping me as an authority on the subject. But I’ll still stand on my opinion. Remember that I talked at length with the real leaders of the Negro not all of them by any means - but with scores of them in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee. They are the men on the firing line who are battling for Negro rights and Negro progress where it’s dangerous to do it. They are the local heads of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ministers, business men, college professors, doctors, lawyers, school teachers, Negro plantation owners, men of substance and influence in their own communities among both whites and blacks. I wasn’t a white man interviewing them, remember. I was a Negro from the North, a friend of Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP. I was a guest in their homes. We sat for hours over their dinner tables. I slept in their guest rooms. We were just a group of Negroes talking things over.
Description:Sprigle, disguised as a black man, talks to southern black community leaders about voting rights and education reform
Rights: Access to online material.