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Unlike the Caucasian immigrant of an earlier day, a Negro can scarcely ever hope, even in the North, that the white society will really accept him on his human merits. Negroes are more prone than whites to break the laws, rules and customs of society because they are excluded from full membership in it. In gross and subtle ways, from unwritten bans on employing Negroes to the faintly patronizing tone that even liberal-hearted whites take toward them, Negroes are made to feel alien and inferior. This pervasive discrimination holds down capable Negroes at the top of the social ladder, dims their voices among their own people, builds up tensions and resentments inside the Negro society, and keeps great masses of Negroes segregated in ghettos where the standards of personal morality, discipline and responsibility are lower than those in the white world outside.
"Slam enough doors in a man's face, and he may break one of them down," said San Francisco's Negro Deputy City Attorney R. J. Reynolds last week. The way to reduce the percentage of Negro crime, he believes, is to stop slamming the doors, or at least, as a start, give the Negro a new hope that maybe the next door won't be slammed. Spreading the message of that new hope, he says, is a responsibility that Negro leaders will be very glad to assume.