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Description: NET At Issue: Title: Brunswick, Georgia - Quiet Conflict Episode #51 Guests Interviewed: City Manager, Bruce Lovern; Georgia Gibbs, Treasurer Brunswick Chapter NAACP; Reverend Julius Caesar Hope; Bill Williams, VP Glynn County Citizens Council; Mayor Joseph Mercer; A.M. Harris, Jr., President First National Bank of Brunswick OBD: Jan-65 TRT: 60 min Description #1: This month AT ISSUE examines the racial attitude of a traditional Southern city, six months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Brunswick, GA., a city of 23,200, has a Black population numbering 41 percent. Like many other cities and towns in the South, some degree of desegregation has been achieved in Brunswick. The difference in this Georgia city is that the civil rights progress made to date has been conspicuous by its lack of violence. AT ISSUE: BRUNSWICK, GA – THE QUIET CONFLICT, probes the factors responsible for Brunswick’s peaceful desegregation methods and considers the prospects for its continuance in the future. Probably, the most important factor cited to date is economics. Tourism and big industry are major livelihoods in Brunswick, and the people are well aware that outbreaks of racial violence would only serve to destroy the tourist trade, and to drive industry from the region. Significant as well have been the efforts of local officials working together with members of the local NAACP Chapter to keep open the lines of communication s between the two races. Notable in this regard is the bi-racial committee now operating in Brunswick, composed of members of the city’s white and African American chambers of commerce. To say that Brunswick’s attempts at peaceful desegregation have gone unopposed would be incorrect. The Glynn County Citizens Council, a white citizens group, has fought federal intervention and other civil rights attempts every step of the way. However, most of Brunswick’s Caucasians, though not necessarily favoring desegregation, are slowly accepting the fact that it must come, and while progress toward integration has not been spectacular, it has been achieved quietly, with dignity, and without publicity. Description #2: Six months after passage of the Civil Rights Act, “At Issue” candidly evaluates the peaceful manner in which one Southern city is copy with the African American’s struggle for desegregation on “Brunswick, GA – Quiet Conflict.” Like many other Southern communities, Brunswick, GA, has taken steps toward desegregation. Though much still remains to be done, what makes Brunswick’s approach to racial problems unique is that it is being conducted through peaceful means. N.E.T. executive producer, Alvin Perlmutter, crystallizes the story of Brunswick by taking his cameras and microphones into every part of the Georgia city to learn first-hand how a city, steeped in the tradition of the South, could achieve even partial desegregation without violence – and without publicity. One of the major factors focused on by the producer in the videotape documentary is the economic status of Brunswick. The Black community numbers nearly fifty percent of the total population, giving them considerable economic influence. In addition, the white people of Brunswick, though not necessarily favoring integration, are fully aware that tourism and big industry, the city’s business mainstays, would be driven away should racial violence break out. Another factor considered on the N.E.T. program is the joint effort being made by local government officials and the city’s African American leaders to maintain open lines of racial communication. As an example, a bi-racial committee, composed of members of Brunswick’s white and Black chambers of commerce, has been set up to deal with the desegregation issue. Rounding out the study of the Brunswick racial picture, “At Issue” takes a close look at the opposition to the civil rights movement – the Glynn County Citizens Council. The Council, a white citizens group, contends that the federal government has no role in Brunswick’s desegregation efforts, and that the community should be left to deal with the matter as it sees fit. Among those presenting the views of Brunswick’s major factions on the program are City Manager Bruce Lovvern and Mayor Joseph Mercer, white moderates instrumental in the peaceful integration process; the Reverend Julius Caesar Hope, the leading African American spokesman and the president of the local NAACP chapter; Bill Williams, a member of the Glynn County Citizens Council; Catherine Gibbs, a co-founder of the Brunswick NAACP, and Dr. and Mrs. J. C. Wilkes, an African American couple who now live in one of Brunswick’s previously all-white areas, and whose baby was the first African American born in the city hospital’s white section. “At Issue: Brunswick, GA – Quiet Conflict” is being broadcast across the country on National Educational Television’s network of 89 affiliated non-commercial stations. The producer is Andrew Stern, and the associate producers are Lois Shaw and Robert Squier. The director is Robert Squier.

Keywords: Racial Discrimination