Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

If you can step down from the soapobx from which you constantly lecture the South as to how it should and should not behave - and if you have not yet been completely brainwashed by the NAACP and dissension groups of its ilk, you may have sufficient objectivity to see a little of the other side of the picture.
The so-called Freedom Riders in their bus ride through the Southern States have done more to provoke race hatred and disagreement than any of the Federal Government’s most flagrantly one-sided actions in years.

Beverley Britton
Richmond, VA, May 27, 1961

The seeds that have reaped the whirlwind in Alabama had been sown over a period of more than ten years by the NAACP, the AJC, 9,998 Communist front organizations, and the left-veering Federal Government.
But naturally those responsible heap their blame and abuse upon the selected Southern victims of their schooled agitators who incited the riots.

Rudy Simpson
Atlanta, GA, May 25, 1961

You know very well there is no general demand for the people of any color or creed to force integration or even for voting rights. Who is behind all of this agitation? People like Douglas, Humphrey, Morse, Javits, Lehmen, Neuberger. When I find myself in their company, I take another look, for I may be wrong. It would be well for The Tribune to take another look.
The important factor you leave out is the conspiracy of the Communists and Socialists trying desperately to transform the United States into a socialist police state. In order to do that, they must get rid of the Pro-American conservatives in Congress. One way to get rid of them is to get every Negro in the South to vote for every radical the Socialists tell them to.

George A. Birdsall
Annandale, VA, August 14, 1957

I am interested by your conclusion that there is moral rectitude in compelling the integration of Negroes and whites in Southern schools. What a change of morals, or the interpretation of what constitutes morality, has taken place in a short time. Apparently we were terribly deluded by our conviction that morals were long-standing rules of right and wrong. We must have been sorely deceived, for here, within a decade, a whole new set of rules has suddenly become moral, and all of the principles heretofore governing the relationships between the races have become immoral.
But of course, the sane and responsible people of the South are not being fooled by the gales of moral righteousness emanating from power hungry advocates of the new morality. These Southerners fully understand that social innovations can only be effected gradually.

John A Marque
New Orleans, LA, August 30, 1960

I wish some very patient person would explain to me what business “Freedom Riders” from New York have in testing desegregation in interstate transportation in Alabama - aside from the sophistry that they are interstate travelers. I say sophistry because they are not travelling on any other business than to provoke the white citizenry in the South to various ill-considered acts.

John F. Satterlee
Washington, DC, May 25, 1961

Is the Freedom Riders’ right to travel any greater than some of the other rights which are arbitrarily denied the rest of us? Recently I wanted to make a business trip, but I was advised that my chosen route could not be used because certain people had decided to go on strike. What about the freedom of the man who wants to work, but can’t unless he pays tribute to the picket line?

Paul C. Brown
Arlington, VA, May 25, 1961

There is little doubt that the controlling purpose of the “Freedom Riders” incursion into the Deep South was to arouse racial hatred and incite riots. Unfortunately for the South, these racial agitators have succeeded in doing both.

Harvey H. Hewitt
Falls Church, VA, May 25, 1961

At the risk of shocking the well-intentioned people of America, I submit that if my city were invaded by a lawless gang, I would not receive them courteously either.
Like it or not, there are segregation laws still on the books of some cities in the South. Violation of these laws constitutes a form of behavior that cannot be condoned in a democracy.
In spite of the above, I emphatically disavow the segregation policies of the Old South. They are onerous, unjust, and unwise. But cannot the actions of the “Freedom Riders” be similarly described? The problems of Alabama should be handled by the people of Alabama. And the laws should be changed in the courts, not the streets.

J. P.
Washington, DC, May 25, 1961

I am sure that if a group of segregationists from Alabama had visited Washington to protest against integration, you would have shouted from your editorial column that these people were “defying the law” and that they were “intervening in a matter that was not their concern.” You who preach equal treatment for all never measure up to your words in a situation of this type.
States still have laws and the state laws should be obeyed. When the Union is threatened from without, her citizens react to protect her. When a state is threatened from without, is it any more remarkable that its citizens should rally to protect her?

Edward Bradford
Arlington, VA, May 25, 1961

James Meredith would have served the Negro cause much better had he completed his education elsewhere and gone on to press gradually the acceptance of Negroes in such restricted areas as “Ole Miss.”
The wild and deep-seated hatred that has been reawakened in Oxford will be felt in adjoining states as well. This sorry business is not progress as the NAACP thinks it is. It is the most deplorable type of retrogression.

Saul Goodman
New York, NY, October 2, 1962