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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. © Reprintect by: Demod·atic Natt8FMA1ttee Integration Impact Desegregated Concerns In South Say Patronage Holds Up in Long Run Some Hotels, Restaurants Do Better; Atlanta, Dallas Cite Larger Convention lVIarket New Rights Often Not Used By JAJ\'1ES C. T ANNER Staff Revorter of THE "WALL STREET J OURNAL ATLANTA-Things are swinging thes e days at the Wit's End, a swank North Side night. club which opened its doors last November. Though the Treasury's new expense account rules made things tougI:i at first, the~ Wit's End is now packing in cus tomers regularly .. In Memphis, the 126-room Downtowner ·Motel is doing so well its occupancy is even running ahead of last year 's booming 9.5% raite. · The Downtowner has been filled to, capacity much of the time in recent weeks and a ll signs point to a record year. The financial fortun es of thes.e Southern establis hments are of special interest because both are among those that have begun serving . Negroes for the first time. Their experiences, , plus those of scores _of other businesses from Texas to the Carolinas, point up a significant and perhaps surprising fact: Among those restaurants , hotels, theaters and other places of public accommodation in the South that have begun serviJ:)g or hiring Negroes, only a few r eport suffering any lasting economic consequences. A sizable number, in fact , declare that business has been better than ever. "Couldn't Have Been Smoother" "We were scared to death-we could just see all our white <:ustomers walking out the minute the first Negroes walked in," says Paul Stickney, manager of the Wit's End. "But things couldn't have been any smoother. We know of only one white couple who walked . 1963 by Do w J ones & Company, In c. A ll Rights R eserved. MONDAY. JULY 15, 1963 \ 1730 K Street, N.W .. Washington 6, D.C. out because we admitted Negroes and they Negroes Making Major Strides came back within two weeks. As far as stirring Southern businessmen generally express · things up around here, it's been one big zero." strong opposition to this section of the proThe Wit's End is; one of only three Atlanta posed civil rights legislation. But even withnight clubs s erving both! whites and Negroes. . out such a law, Negroes are making major A'.!l this is not tOJ s ugges t that desegregation · strides in their push to break down segregawoul'd go smoothly, for all Dixie establishtion barriers. The Justice Department reports ments. At Ormond Beach, Fla., near Daytona that some desegregation of commercial faciliBeach, motel operator George Tliomas fs still ties occurred in 143 cities in Southern and reeling from the financial punch delivered by border states in the four weeks ended June 18; boycotting whites when he decided it was the others are joining the list daily. Last week, for instance, a bi-racial com" right thing" to desegregate his 32-unit Star mittee in strongly segregationist Fort Worth of the South Motel sev:en months ago. "My announced that all of the city's public facilibusiness at first dropp·ed about 50%,." he reties, .including hotels, restaurants, theaters, deports. But he adds that an influx of Negro partment stores and athletic contests, would guests quickly took i.w much of the slack, and be desegregated in September when the city's he expresses confidence that many of his schools are scheduled for integration. white customers eventually will return . If the pattern emerging in other Southern But most business m en questioned by The · cities holds true, Fort Worth merchants can Wall Street Journal report no grave economic dislocations, from integration and they leave · expect some protests and loss of business when they first begin accepting Negroes. But no doubt tflat desegrega tion of commercial fa. experience shows that such a dverse effects cilities has, been less painful than expected. are rarely lasting. No Loss of Business Fred Harvey, president of Harvey 's Depart" Tliings have been going like c!ockworkment Store in Nashville, says that when his we're, surprised a nd plea;;ed ," says Dallas hotel store desegregated its lunch counters in 1960 man Henry Rathe,r of last summer's decision only 13 charge accounts were closed out of by the city's major hotels and motels to inte60,000. "The greatest surprise I ever had was graite. Mr. Rather sa-ys a recent check of the the apparent 'so-what' attitude of white cus. city's 35 largest hos telries fail ed to turn up a tomers," sa ys Mt:. Harvey. single ins ta nce of lost bus iness becaus e of deE,ven where bus iness losses occur, they segr egation. " There were a few letters a nd usually are only· tempora ry .. At the 120-room a .crank ca ll or two at firs t, but that's all," Pe.a chtree Manor Hotel in Atlanta, owner comments Mr. Rather. Irving H. Goldstein says his business dropped o.fi 15% when the hotel desegregated a year Broader access to privately owned places ago. "But now we are only slightly behind a . of "public convenience," s uch as hotels, resyear ago a nd we can see we are beginning tauraints, amusement facilities and stores, ha s to recapture the business we initially los t," · become a prime goal of Negro es lately. The declares Mr. Goldstein. ·recent riots in Birmingham, and subsequent Willia m F . Davoren , owner of the Brownie dis.turbances in such cities as Sava nnah, Ga., Drug Co, in Huntsville, Ala., reports that J ackson , Miss. , Danville, Va. , a.nd Tallahassee though his business fell a bit for several weeks Fla., primarily revolved around Negro deafter lunch counters were desegregated, he's mands that merchants open their facilities to Negroes-in some cases as customers and in · now piclted ·up alf that he lost. Says ne: "I . could name a dozen people who regarded it as others as employes. a personal affront when I started serving Ne- . The question has taken on added imporgroes, but have come back as if nothing had tance in recent weeks with the a ppeal to Conhappened." · gress by President Kennedy for Federal power . Memories Are Short to outlaw racial discrimination in a ll pla!!es Even a segregation-minded businessman In of public accommodation. This is unquestionHuntsville agrees that white customers freably the most controversial provision of the quently have short memories when It comes Kennedy civil rights · program and seems to the race question. W. T . :flutchens, general likely to become the focal point of the coming manager at three Walgreen stores there, says Congressional battle over civil rights. he held out when most lune~ counter operators gave in to sit-in pressures last July. In one shopping center where his competition desegregated, Mr. Hutchens says his business shot up sharply and the store's lunch counter volume registered a 12% gain for the year. However, this year business has dropped back to pre.,integration . levels "because a lot ot people have forgotten" the defiant role his stores played during the sit-ins, he adds. Some Southern businessmen who have desegregated say they have picked up extra business as a result of the move. At Raleigh, N.C., where Gino's Restaurant was desegregated this year, owner Jack Griffiths reports only eight whites have walked -out after learning the establishment served Negroes, and he says "we're getting plenty of customers to replace the hard-headed ones ." In Dallas, integration of hotels and restaurants has "opened up an entirely new area of convention prospects," a ccording to Ray Bennison, conv~ntion manager of the Chamber of Commerce. "This year we've probably added $8 million to $10 million of future bookings because we're integrated," Mr. Bennison says. Conventions for Atlanta Within a day after 14 Atlanta hotels announced on June 13 they would begin accepting Negro guests who come to the <eity with conventions, the Atlanta Convention Bureau had na iled down three organizations for 1964 and 1965 meetings, a total of 3,000 delegates who otherwise would not have visited Atlanta. Walter Crawford, executive vice president or the Convention Bureau, says the hotels' decision opens up "the remaining 40% of the convention market that we estimate we haven 't even been able· to talk to before." · One frequently expressed fear of Southern white businessmen, that their establishments would be overrun by Negroes if they integrated, apparently is not materializing. "The Negroes want the right to enter your place of business, but they're not s o anxious to use the righ t," says a Nashville banker. At Knoxville, Tenn., William Tiller, assistant manager ot the city's larg!lst hotel, the Andrew Johnson, reports that although the hotel has been integrated more than a month, "we've h!i-d only three Negro families and two couples." �