An advocate of Black separatism last night described integration as a threat to the Negro’s cultural identity and argued before 250 Jewish community relations leaders for partitioning an independent Negro “homeland” in the United States where blacks could create a “majority culture.” His separatist arguments ran contrary to the views of the agencies comprising the National Community Relations Advisory Council, who have rejected “separate but equal” as “equally fallacious whether advanced by white segregationists or Negro separatists.”
Prof. Robert S. Browne of Fairleigh Dickinson University, a leader in the Black Power Conference, told the NCRAC plenary session here that “full integration can only mean full assimilation – a loss of racial identity.” He said that “this sobering prospect has caused many a black integrationist to pause and reflect, even as have some of his similarly challenged Jewish counterparts.”
Bayard Rustin, the Negro civil rights leader, who debated the issue with Prof. Browne before the NCRAC gathering, rejected separatism as “totally unrealistic.” The Negro community lacked economic, political and sociological elements for a viable partitioned state, Mr. Rustin said.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
