Very substantial progress in civil rights has been made throughout the United States in recent years, according to a report issued today by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Henry Edward Schultz, national chairman of the League asserted in the report that “law has achieved what seemed impossible not too long ago in the struggle for greater equality in this country.”
The report emphasized that “the progress made in the past ten years in the civil rights field cannot be measured in terms of what Congress has done. The executive and judicial branches of the Federal Government also left their permanent mark and certain gains which Congress failed to accomplish by legislation were achieved in full or in part by executive or judicial action.”
“As a result, restrictive covenants have lost their effectiveness as a weapon to keep neighborhoods free from ‘undesirable’ minority groups. But other methods, such as the ‘club’ device, are being tried to keep Jews or Negroes out of certain neighborhoods. These too, are of doubtful constitutional validity. At any rate, the difficult process of freeing neighborhoods from racial and religious barriers is slowly making headway.”
The report pointed out that in 1947 only four states had enforceable Fair Employment Practices laws compared with 13 at the end of last year. These 13 states, the report said, have one-third of the nation’s population. In addition, the report said that more than 40 cities had passed ordinances against discrimination in employment.
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.
