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Publicity for the Burlington Self-Survey on Human Relations

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Speech delivered Cosmopolitan Club NYC  for the --- of Negro Colleges

Since I was invited to take part in this forum as a small town gal from the Middle West, I will begin by describing my environment. Our Self-Survey came about, as you will see, in a very different setting from Minneapolis. Burlington, Iowa is a quiet town on the Mississippi River with a population of only 31,000. Somehow the town partakes of the slowness and the placidness of the river, for, over the last 50 years, there has been little change in size of population or in kind. Negroes numbered not much more than one percent in 1900 and that ratio still holds today. Moreover, present inhabitants of both races are merely another generation of the same families already well established here fifty years ago. Changes in social practices, the introduction of new ideas, even reforms in local government have been equally slow moving.

Quite naturally, you are wondering what happened to our town. Why did 200 people suddenly begin to survey their community about race relations? A dramatic case of injustice? Violence? An influx of war workers from the South? We are often asked these questions and the answer is, "Nothing happened. [really] Nothing at all."

In 1949 when the proposal for a Self-Survey arose, there were cordial relations between whites and Negros. In the opinion of a majority of people, [quote] "There is no problem here." Not everybody would finish his sentence, but when this happened he would add, "if you talk about it any

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Speech delivered Cosmopolitan Club NYC for the --- of Negro Colleges Since I was invited to take part in this forum as a small town gal from the Middle West, I will begin by describing my environment. Our Self-Survey came about, as you will see, in a very different setting from Minneapolis. Burlington, Iowa is a quiet town on the Mississippi River with a population of only 31,000. Somehow the town partakes of the slowness and the placidness of the river, for, over the last 50 years, there has been little change in size of population or in kind. Negroes numbered not much more than one percent in 1900 and that ratio still holds today. Moreover, present inhabitants of both races are merely another generation of the same families already well established here fifty years ago. Changes in social practices, the introduction of new ideas, even reforms in local government have been equally slow moving. Quite naturally, you are wondering what happened to our town. Why did 200 people suddenly begin to survey their community about race relations? A dramatic case of injustice? Violence? An influx of war workers from the South? We are often asked these questions and the answer is, "Nothing happened. [really] Nothing at all." In 1949 when the proposal for a Self-Survey arose, there were cordial relations between whites and Negros. In the opinion of a majority of people, [quote] "There is no problem here." Not everybody would finish his sentence, but when this happened he would add, "if you talk about it any