
          A 1988 Report from the Southern_Regional_Council
          By StaffStaff
          Vol. 10, No. 6, 1988, pp. 14-15
          
          EDITORS'NOTE: The following material is excerpted from
the 1988 Annual Report of the Southern_Regional_Council.  The report
outlines past and present activities of the SRC in five key areas:
voting_rights, labor and the workplace, civil and criminal justice,
education, and information and the exchange of ideas. The report is
sent to SRC members and associate members. Others may obtain a copy by
writing to Steve Suitts, executive director, SRC, 60 Walton Street,
NW, Atlanta, GA 30303. Membership information for joining the Council
is found on page 23 of this issue of Southern
Changes.
          For more than four decades the Southern_Regional_Council has
promoted democracy and opportunity for all people of the South and
beyond. The Council's staff carries out research, provides technical
assistance, develops educational and experimental programs, and brings
together Southerners of good will to address important regional
issues. We seek to engage both public policy and personal
conscience.
          Through its 120 members and a small staff, the Council has become
perhaps the nation's premier regional organization. No group knows a
region better nor has been more consistently effective in it. The
Council is the South's oldest interracial organization. SRC members
usually include major public officials, college presidents and noted
educators, labor and business leaders, community organizers, civil
rights leaders, and others. As a Council of local, state, regional,
and national leaders--men and women, black, Hispanic and white--who
live across eleven Southern_states, the organization keeps up-to-date
on changing problems and opportunities. Over time, SRC has developed
several institutional strengths accounting for its longevity and
effectiveness. These strengths emanate from:
          * our capacity for data collection and analysis, aided by
developing accessible technologies;
          * our network of diverse leaders and activists who help to identify
issues, opportunities, and trends and to understand practically how to
address these in the region;
          * our ability to focus public attention and media coverage in the
South on issues and developments;
          * our understanding of decision-making processes and how
information actually shapes and influences those decisions;
          * our institutional memory about the region, its people, and its
places.
          Before the Southern_Regional_Council moved from its former
headquarters at 5 Forsyth Street in Atlanta, Gunnar Myrdal revisited
some of the organizations then still occupying the old structure,
which was slated to be torn down. "This," Myrdal told a
New_York Times reporter, "is where it all
began." "Where what began?" he was asked. "Why the New
South, young man," he replied, "the brand 

new American South."
          The opinions of others echoed the same sentiment. Newspaperman
Ralph McGill (one of SRC's founders) said, "I think of that old
wreck as a sanctuary for renegades who insist on telling the
truth."
          "Sooner or later," Julian Bond said, "the people who work
there figure in most of what is important to the South and much of
what is important to the nation."
          Of course, not everyone agreed: "The whole place is crawling
with subversives," charged former segregationist governor Lester
Maddox.
          "As a result of their efforts," the Times
concluded, "schools and a variety of other institutions have been
integrated, a million black_people registered to vote, elections won
and lost, white politicians tempered, and popular racial traditions
challenged and changed."
          Many of the Council's original objectives have been achieved, but
its work continues to be vital to the South and the nation. Indeed,
the very achievement of many goals has had the ironic effect of
disguising new ways in which opportunities are blunted, the
disadvantaged abused, and democracy denied.
          Now, as in the past, the Council's teak is to provide research,
information, and technical assistance to individuals and groups who
are able to bring positive change, and to provide forums for
Southerners of good will to think and act together.
          In a new era aptly called the "Age of Information," the Council is
uniquely suited to help shape the region's future--and the
nation's--for the better.
        
