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106  THE READER'S DIGEST  

reaching advance got under way when the Supreme Court ruled against racial segregation in our public schools a year and a half ago. Complete equality for Negroes is still to be achieved. Housing, especially, is a sore spot. Negroes form only four percent of our college students although they make up ten percent of the population. But, as the record proves, the gaps that separate Negroes from the rest of us are rapidly closing.

So rapidly have these gaps been closing that the goal of equality, long but a visionary dream for the distant future, is now clearly in sight. In fact, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has set 1963, the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, as the year by which it hopes to see the "elimination of second-class citizenship in the United States."

Throughout much of the world, and especially in the Asian countries that have but recently emerged from colonial rule, the greatest single obstacle to friendship and cooperation is ignorance of the great changes that have taken place in the status of the Negro. Typical is the question which Prime Minister Nehru of India says he is repeatedly asked: "What guarantee do we have, if we side with the Western World instead of with Russia, that we won't eventually be treated as Negroes are treated in the United States?"

To such barbed questions many of us in the past could make no clear answer except to affirm our personal disavowal of prejudice and to point out that a caste system and discrimination were not official policies of our national Government. Today there is another answer, a truthful and inspiring one, which can be made proudly though not complacently by all Americans, Negro and white. As Al Smith used to say, "Let's look at the record."

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From the Swimming Pool Annual: "After 24-48 hours' filtration, the pool becomes so clear that when the water is calm you can read 'heads' or 'tails' on a dame lying 8 1/2 feet below the surface" . . . From an ad in the Sioux City, Iowa, Sunday Journal: "This is the model home for your future. It was panned by Better Homes & Gardens". . . From the Shreveport, La., Journal: "The head teller celebrated his 50th year with the bank and was still going wrong" . . . From the Pittsburgh, Pa., South Hills Record: "She enjoys accompanying her husband on business trips, as do several of the women out our way" . . . From the Winnipeg Free Pres: "H. H. Hill has been taking port in a program of alcohol education sponsored by the Manitoba Temperance Alliance" . . . From the Kingsport, Tenn., Times: "The All-Girl Orchestra was rather weak in the bras section" (Quoted in Charlotte, N.C., News)