By Carlton E. Spitzer
Two years after World War II, and 7 years before school integration was declared mandatory, attorney general Tom Clark persuaded President Harry Truman to send a “Freedom Train” to southern cities, following the courageous example of civil rights leader James Farmer, whose Freedom Riders stood up to segregationists and reminded them our nation was built on the principle of equality.
It is difficult today to comprehend the depth of their conviction, or the magnitude of their courage.
The KKK’s inhumanity to blacks had not been diluted one iota by the sterling performance of black troops who defended freedom in World War II. Blacks who came home with Purple Hearts, Silver Stars and Battle Ribbons were expected to resume the second-class citizenship they and their parents and grandparents had endured before the war. But these veterans were defiantly determined to take their rightful place in the mainstream of American society.
When Tom Clark sketched out his plans for a Freedom Train at the White House, whites were demonstrating in city streets - in the north and in the south - against any suggestion schools’ should be integrated. The idea that a white patient might share a hospital room with a black was totally unthinkable. Segregation dominated political philosophy and action, and was as evident in Chicago and Buffalo as it was in Memphis and Dallas.
So it was no small undertaking when Clark assembled representatives of business, labor, religion, the news media, the American Legion and Daughters of the American Revolution, to promote his plans for a Freedom Train that would carry historic documents to cities throughout the land, including the Emancipation Proclamation, the Bill of Rights, and the Charter of The United Nations.
Winthrop W. Aldrich, chairman of the Chase National Bank, raised private funds through a coalition called the American Heritage Foundation, to still rumors that public money would be used. The only African-American member of the coalition was Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP. Black writer Langston Hughes wrote a poem, “The Ballad of the Freedom Train,” which protested the “white version” of freedom and democracy and pleaded for racial equality. He noted that every Marine who guarded the Freedom Train was white.
Clark understood their anguish, and was persistent. “When you find a man who is prejudiced against some certain group because of color, race or religion,” he said, “ you can set it down that he is an ignorant man.” Powerful words from a cabinet officer in 1947. That whites and blacks would travel on the train together further infuriated segregationists.
Southern members of Congress were outraged that Truman, a native of Missouri, would “humiliate them” by sending the train to their cities, and were determined to enforce historic Jim Crow laws that strictly segregated whites from blacks, blocked blacks’ right to vote, and excluded them from adequate education and meaningful employment. The war was over. But blacks were still blacks.
A new General Electric diesel engine, “The Spirit of ’76,” pulled three exhibit cars decorated in red, white and blue. Pullman cars segregated staff. The train was warmly received in northeast cities, but was banned by city fathers in Memphis and Selma. Famous black achievers came aboard for a day or two, among them Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber” heavyweight boxing champion; educator W. E. B. Du Bois; singer Marion Anderson, United Nations negotiator Ralph Bunche. Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt rode the train for several days to show her support for desegregation.
But the little secret no one acknowledged until long after the train had been retired was that the only time blacks and whites actually mixed was when they exited the Freedom Train and lined up together to hear children sing a song composed by the great Irving Berlin to commemorate the traveling exhibit: “Inside the Freedom Train you’ll find a precious freight; those words of liberty, the documents that made us great.” Robert Parker, who worked as a waiter on the train, and later helped to integrate the Senate Dining Room, tells us in his book, Capital Hill in Black and White, that whites and blacks actually rode and ate in separate cars. And in southern cities that allowed the train to stop, they stood outside in segregated lines as well.
The hurt and humiliation of our black brothers and sisters can only be imagined by white citizens today, especially young people who did not live through those degrading times. The conviction of a Tom Clark, the courage of a Jim Farmer, the wisdom of a Harry Truman, all made the Freedom Train of 1947 a worthy precursor of Congressional legislation that eventually desegregated schools and hospitals, opened the doors of colleges and universities to black students, and executive suites and professions to qualified black candidates. But it was not accomplished easily, or neatly, or without blood on our streets. The remnants of those Jim Crow attitudes still surface from time to time at universities, in business circles, and on Capitol Hill, making us cringe. We have come a long way but still have a long road to travel.
Hypocrisy rode that segregated Freedom Train in 1947. Too much of it is evident in our society today.
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