(Ed. Note: Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, retired president of Morehouse College was interviewed last week by Mary Lackie on the views of the National Advisory Commission of Civil Disorders report.)

Dr. May has been awarded 21 honorary degrees and is the author of four books and numerous articles on the Negro and civil rights. He was one of the four-member delegation which included then Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, who represented the Untied States at the funeral of Pope John XIII:

Q. Do you think the recommendation of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders will be implemented or will the report go the way of similar reports since 1922?

A. I believe we have no choice but to do everything in our power to implement the recommendations. It is a huge task. I think the commission’s findings are irrefutable. The members have been direct in what they found and what they saw. The problem is to get Congress to implement the findings.

Q. Can we afford the costly program recommended by the commission in view of the expenditures for the Vietnam War?

A. Congress could finance it. There is no doubt about it. We could afford to pay more taxes, and if the war continues, we are going to pay more taxes. I don’t think we should ever neglect what should be done at home in order to put everything into the Vietnam War. We could lose the war at home, too, you know. If we have the will to do it, we can come up with the money. It isn’t a matter of ‘either-or’; it is a matter of ‘both-and’.

Q. What is your opinion of the commission appointed?

A. The President made a wise choice in his selection of commission members. It was well balanced and representative. He had two very able Negro members - Roy Wilkens, who has been in the civil rights movement all the while, and an astute politician, Senator Edward Brooke. I think it was very significant that Chief Herbert Jenkins from Atlanta was appointed to the panel.

Q. In your opinion, what is the most important issue revealed in the report?

A. The fact of white racism. I would absolutely agree with the report. You cannot deny that when you take 250 years of slavery, another 100 years of staunch aggregation, and consider the fact that every effort has been put forward in some sections of the South to resist implementation of the U.S. Supreme Court decision to resist implementation of federal legislation, it is the white attitude. And when you have lived as a Negro, as I have, the commission is saying what every black man knows. It is no revelation for us as far as I am concerned.

The commission has made the accusation that the white American is responsible for the slums, that he has created and maintained them, and it is his responsibility to change this. I am sure this is shocking to many people, but I don’t think you can deny it.

Q. Do you think this statement is shocking to white Americans?

A. It is shocking to a good many, but not all. I have talked to many white Americans who agree wholeheartedly that the report is true. Racism is simply one ethnic group feeling it is inherently superior to another. Any person who believes this has to be a racist whether he is a Negro or a white. If you really believe that you are ‘superior’ then there is absolutely no hope in the world that you can treat another person with decency and respect.

Q. Do you speak for the young Negro? Will he be as patient as you have been?

A. I have never been patient. I have to make that clear. You see, some of us have been battling long before these young people came on the scene. I’ve been driven out of pullman cars, dining cars, almost lynched. I have protested every item of discrimination as long as I can remember, and at a time when you could almost be arrested if you went in a store and someone called you ‘boy’ or ‘uncle’ and you resented it. But I have been understanding of the situation.

Whether the young people will take my view, I don’t know. I know this, they will learn as they grow older that problems are not necessarily solved. The only way they are going to learn this is by living. When I was young, I guess nobody could tell me. I had to find out for myself.

Q. What method can the young Negroes use to bring about changes?

A. Whether they will resort to violent methods to achieve goals quickly, I don’t know. I think ultimately this is a futile path. I don’t see anything wrong with the non-violent methods of Martin Luther King, Jr. The NAACP has demonstrated to see that the decisions of the Supreme Court were implemented. The National Urban League works to see that Negroes are qualified for jobs. I don’t think you can carry a reasonable number of American people with you if you go out and try to shoot up a place or advocate violence.

Of course, in every protest, there is potential violence, even as a result of non-violent demonstrations. But I don’t think you should precipitate violence. I think eventually the young people will turn their backs on leaders who advocate violence. There is nothing constructive in it, and it will die of its own weight.

Q. According to the report, over 40 per cent of the non-white American population, mainly Negro, live below the poverty level with an annual income for an urban family of four less than $3,335. Would you give job opportunities priority over housing and education?

A. I think they are all tied together, but jobs are first. If a man doesn’t have a job, he can’t respect himself. You are what you are not by what your name is, but by what you do. If a man doesn’t have a job, he isn’t anybody. If a man can get a job, then we can do something about the housing situation. I think this is what the commission had in mind. Some program must be designed so that the man can learn a skill and be paid while he is being trained. This is basic, but I don’t put education first because education is a much longer process.

Q. Dixie Hills was cited in the report as one area of ‘serious disturbance’ last summer. Do you think unemployment was a factor in the disturbance?

A. I don’t know if it was wholly a lack of jobs. You have to realize that many riots occurred, such as the one in Detroit, where people who had jobs participated in the riots. In the emotional heat of a riot, anything could happen. Even if you have a job, if you live in the area, you may find yourself getting a gun and participating in the riot. You get caught in them.

Q. According to the report, 14.8 million of 21.5 million Negroes are crowded into urban areas. The commission reports widespread complaints of police practices. Does this apply to Atlanta?

A. Chief Jenkins has done everything he could to get better educated men on the police force in Atlanta. As a rule, police are not very educated men. Another problem is that police are poorly paid throughout the United States, and it is a dangerous job. Third, I think that there ought to be improved training schools for the police.

To the vast majority of Negroes, the policeman doesn’t mean protection, he means brutality. The Negro history of contact with the police is a dismal history. I can understand how the average man in the ghettos would be afraid of the police.

Q. Have you seen a change in the attitude of police since you came to Atlanta?

A. I wouldn’t hesitate for a minute to ask an Atlanta policeman any question. And I am not likely to be insulted. But to people in the little towns of the South, the policeman is psychologically an enemy. He must be accepted as a helping hand in the community.

Q. As an educator, do you feel the commission’s recommendations for improving standards of schools and for programs of adult education are idealistic? A. They look terribly idealistic, but you have got to move toward it. When you set up standards, you know perfectly well that to implement them 100 per cent cannot be, but you have to put it in that drastic, compelling manner in order to get people to move.

Q. The commission pointed out that our present system of public welfare is designed to save money instead of people and tragically ends by doing neither. Would you agree with this statement?

A. For the past seven months, I have been working with the National Commission on Hunger and Malnutrition, a part of the Crusade against Poverty, headed by Walter Reuther. Welfare programs have never been designed to really help people get on their feet. They have been designed to keep them from starving quickly.

The welfare regulations and restrictions are rigid, and I think the people who framed the legislation were not social workers, they were politicians who were trying to save money, not help the people. And this puts the social worker in a bad light. She has to follow the guidelines.

Q. Among other complaints cited in the report were inadequate recreational facilities, unresponsible political machinery and biased administration of justice. Do you agree with these complaints?

A. I think in every part of the city there should be centers and recreational facilities properly supervised so that kids don’t have to play streets and alleys. I cannot speak about the political machinery, but I am sure the commission must have had good reason in their investigation, or they wouldn’t have mentioned it. I think we all know there is a miscarriage of justice. I suspect for the most part that the Negro’s chance of getting justice in the courts is not as good as that of the white men.”

Q. The report noted the economic advancement of white immigrant families. Is it possible for the Negro to become a part of the mainstream of American life?

A. Well, if we didn’t have racism in America, he could. The Negro is the only ethnic group in the United States that has had to demonstrate, to sit-in, to spend millions of dollars in the federal courts lobbying for what the federal constitution gives you. The Irish, the French, the Italians didn’t have to do this. No white American has ever had to demonstrate in order to get a sandwich downtown.

Q. What is the responsibility of the middle-class Negro to those still living in the ghettos?

A. I don’t think the middle-class Negro can take the position that ‘I have made it.’ If he sets himself off from the Negro poor, he gives credence to the Carmichaels and Rap Browns, because in their estimation the middle-class Negro is not Negro, he is white. He has taken on the standards and attitudes of the whites. The Negro who has withdrawn to suburbia may be as black as the ace of spades, but to the person in the ghetto, he is a white. It is good for the middle-class Negro to be reminded that he can’t cut himself off-from the Negro poor nor from any poor people in the world. The Negro has to assume a position of responsibility for the poor in the community. I take this position as a minister, because I feel keenly about it.

Q. Chief Jenkins, in commenting on the report is quoted as saying, “certain fundamental attitudes are clear. Of these, the most fundamental is the racial attitude of white Americans toward black Americans. Race prejudice has shaped our history decisively. It now threatens to affect our future.” Have you noticed any change in the attitude of white Americans?

A. The emphasis in the report on the ‘white attitude’ has made a lot of people mad. If it does, that is proof of the fact that their prejudice is deeply there. Has the white American accepted the Negro because he felt it was right, or because the government said so? This is what the Black Power men are talking about-that the time will never come when white America will accept black Americans. They are saying democracy cannot function across racial lines. This is a challenge to white America. Do you do this because you have to do it, or because it is the right thing to do?

Q. What is the role of the Church in bringing about a change in this attitude?

A. The responsibility of the Church is to make clear that this kind of philosophy of race has to be changed. It is unchristian. This has never been man’s Church, it is God’s church.

But when you talk about the Church, you are talking about people in the community. The Church is the people. People who resisted opening up their establishments, the man with deep-seated prejudices, whether it is against Jews, or Negroes, or someone else, the businessman, the politician, the governor. The people in the community and in the Church are the same people.

Q. Can politicians and pastors change the attitudes of prejudice?

A. The politician may think if he spoke out, he would jeopardize his position. I don’t think a man loses his position if he speaks out for what he thinks is right. But the average politician doesn’t risk it. And this is true of most pastors, I’m afraid. He isn’t going to say too much that he thinks the congregation doesn’t want to hear. If there are certain influential members in the church who contribute heavily, he is going to step lightly, and rationalize by saying, ‘well, you can’t take them too fast, if you take them too fast, it won’t do any good at all.’ Some of the newspapers in their editorial columns are very forthright. I think the leading newspapers are ahead of the churches in expressing themselves on the basic issues of our times.

Q. Will it be the Negro who will bring the Christian to a point of decision? To a point where he must decide between prejudice and Christian commitment?

A. The test of American Christianity and American democracy is the Negro. This is something I have been saying for a quarter of a century.

Q. Must Negroes and whites work together to implement the reports of the commission for the ‘realization of common opportunities for all within a single society’?

A. We have absolutely no choice but to work together. In every area, the destinies of white America and Negro America is one destiny. Whether we like it or not, we’ve got to work together.