the importance of this being done and of sound measures being put into effect by those who are so competent.

In view of the testimony in Atlanta and Chicago that the ceiling on section 221 (low-cost relocation housing) mortgage insurance is too low for new housing in urban areas, and in view of the recent action of Congress in approving an increase in the permissible amounts of FHA mortgage insurance, including an increase in the ceiling on section 221, consideration should be given to raising the section 221 limitations to levels consistent with the cost of new housing in urban areas. Consideration should also be given to proposals made by leaders of the housing industry in the Commission's hearings for the reduction of the cost of financing housing for lower income residents, including proposals for special mortgage assistance through the Federal National Mortgage Association and for direct loans such as those provided at 3% percent interest for 40 years in the college housing program of the Community Facilities Administration.

Without trying to appraise particular proposals, it can be said that programs to overcome the housing shortage for lower income Americans are not luxuries but are essential needs of the nation.

PART FIVE. THE PROBLEM AS A WHOLE

Through its studies of three particular aspects of civil rights-voting, education, and housing-the Commission has come to see the organic nature of the problem as a whole. The problem is one of securing the full rights of citizenship to those Americans who are being denied in any degree that vital recognition of human dignity, the equal protection of the laws.

To a large extent this is now a racial problem. In the past there was widespread denial of equal opportunity and equal justice by reason of religion or national origin. Some discrimination against Jews remains, particularly in housing, and some recent immigrants undoubtedly still have to overcome prejudice. But with a single exception the only denials of the right to vote that have come to the attention of the Commission are by reason of race or color. This is also clearly the issue in public education. In housing, too, it is primarily nonwhites who lack equal opportunity. Therefore, the Commission has concentrated its studies on the status of the 18 million Negro American citizens, who constitute this country's largest racial minority. If a way can be found to secure and protect the civil rights of this minority group, if a way can be opened for them to finish moving up from slavery to the full human dignity of first-class citizenship, then America will be well on its way toward fulfilling the great promises of the Constitution.

In part this is the old problem of the vicious circle. Slavery, discrimination, and second-class citizenship have demoralized a considerable portion of those suffering these injustices, and the consequent demoralization is then seen by others as a reason for continuing the very conditions that caused the demoralization.

The fundamental interrelationships among the subjects of voting, education, and housing make it impossible for the problem to be solved by the improvement of any one factor alone. If the right to vote is secured, but there is not equal opportunity in education and

1 The Commission has not been unmindful of somewhat similar problems faced by the 797,000 Puerto Ricans in the continental U.S. (Facts and Figures, April 1958 edition, Migration Division, Department of Labor, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico), the 259,397 Oriental Americans (1950 Census Report P-B 1, Bureau of Census), the 2,281,710 Spanish and Maxican Americans in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas (1950 Census, Report P-E, No. 3C, Bureau of the Census) and the 469.900 American Indians (1957 estimate of U.S. Public Health Service, Indian Health Branch). Some State Advisory Committees were able to give considerable attention to these problems. A more comprehensive study of them is indicated.

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housing, the value of that right will be discounted by apathy and ignorance. If compulsory discrimination is ended in public education but children continue to be brought up in slums and restricted areas of racial concentration, the conditions for good education and good citizenship will still not obtain.

If decent housing is made available to nonwhites on equal terms but their education and habits of citizenship are not raised, new neighborhoods will degenerate into slums.

On the other hand, there is a positive correlation, too. In Atlanta, according to uncontradicted testimony by both white and Negro leaders, the extension of the right to vote to Negroes some years ago has contributed to improvement in racial relations in other areas, including housing.2

Similarly, the establishment in Atlanta many years ago of a number of institutions of higher learning for Negroes, now organized in the Atlanta University system, has been a significant factor in making possible both Negro voting and increasing opportunities in housing. Racial tolerance, according to Mayor Hartsfield, "goes up with education and down with lack of education." 3

And in its turn the new areas of high standard Negro housing in Atlanta appear to be raising the standards of both Negro education and voting. The Commission saw the new schools being erected in the Negro suburbs. There is clear evidence that the proportion of Negroes registered to vote is highest in districts with good housing and lowest in slums, as is true among white citizens.*

Many racial problems which now appear so difficult "will be less difficult tomorrow," said the chairman of the Citizens' Crime Committee of Atlanta, "when and if the blessings of proper housing for

Regional Housing Hearings, p. 448. "In city planning the city fathers began looking at the needs of all citizens regardless of color," testified a Negro historian who recalled that "before the Negro actually voted in large numbers there were many Negro areas where the streets weren't paved and didn't have any street lights" (id., at 589, 593). "Before we were voting in larger numbers we did not get the type of cooperation from the previous city administration that we are getting now," said a Negro business leader (id. at 459). With the increase in the Negro vote from 6,000 to 25,000 in 1946 "the social climate of Atlanta changed very definitely with respect to the Negro getting the amenities and facilities needed for housing," said another Negro witness (id. at 526-27). The president of the all-white Atlanta Real Estate Board and a leading white developer agreed. (Id. at 539-40).

(Id. at 442.) This center of Negro education, in the opinion of a white community leader, "has been one of the things which has helped us most to solve our problems here in Atlanta (id. at 450).

Following the Commission's Atlanta hearing, one of the witnesses, Professor C. A. Bacote of Atlanta University, submitted a supplemental exhibit showing that in Atlanta precincts comprised of upper income Negroes the percent of those registered of the population of those precincts ranged from 40 to 52 percent (precincts A and D of ward 7 and B of ward 3), compared with 14 to 21 percent of lower income Negro precincts (precinct N of ward 3 and H of ward 6). Similarly, the percent of those registered of the population of upper income white precincts ranged from 39 to 56 percent (precincts A, B, and C of ward 8), compared with 13 to 19 percent of lower income white precincts (precinct D of wards 1 and 6). There is a correlation of higher registration with both better housing and with higher income, which go together.

all classes and segments of the population is available. As housing improves and incomes rise, people of all races and classes lose many of their differences, and many people lose their genuine fears and frustrations." 5

In this complex picture there are, of course, other major factors that the Commission has not studied directly, particularly questions of discrimination in employment, in the administration of justice, and in public accommodations. A number of the Commission's State advisory committees have studied these subjects. Their importance was made clear by the Commission's own studies in voting, education, and housing. The low income and employment status of a majority of Negroes emerged as a central fact in the discrimination in housing. Negro concern for equal justice is one of the main motivations behind the drive to get the vote, and fairer administration of justice appears to be one of the main fruits of attaining the right to vote. In Atlanta, as a result of a large Negro vote, the following improvements in the administration of justice were reported:

Negro policemen have been hired. Race-baiting groups such as the Klan and the Columbians have been suppressed. City officials have been more courteous and sensitive to the demands of Negroes. Courtroom decorum has improved. Several Negro deputies have been added to the Fulton County sheriff's offices. For the first time a Negro has been elected to membership on the Atlanta Board of Education. ✦✦✦ For the first time two Negroes have been elected to the city executive committee.'

The problem is seen at its sharpest and worst where all these factors are negative. In Wilcox County, Alabama, for instance, which was one of the counties involved in the Commission's Alabama hearing, Negroes constituted over 70 percent of the voting-age 1950 population but none was registered to vote in early 1959. In that county only some 10 percent of the dwelling units had hot running water and a toilet and were not dilapidated, according to the 1950 Housing Census. On a national average, some 63 percent of all dwelling units meet these standards. In the first 25 counties from which

• Regional Housing Hearings, p. 571.

To get a full picture of civil rights problems, these other subjects would need to be studied on a national scale. The President's Committee on Government Contracts and the President's Committee on Government Employment Policy are both working to secure equal treatment and job opportunity in Federal service and in employment in private industry working on Government contracts. The Commission has been in close touch with both these agencies, but has not attempted to appraise their work. Nor has the Commission studied the question of discrimination in the administration of justice by local or State governments or the policies of the Department of Justice respecting any such discrimination. Nor has it studied discrimination in public accommodations on a local, State, or Federal level. In the limited time available the fields of voting, education, and housing seemed most urgent. But no study of American civil rights could be complete without consideration of these other aspects.

Regional Housing Hearings, p. 589.

The median school years completed by persons over 25 in Wilcox was 5.6 in 1950 compared with the U.S. average of 9.3. The median family income in Wilcox was $655 a year compared with the U.S. median of $3,073. In Wilcox, 86 percent of the families had incomes of less than $2,000.