This year even the "White Noose," the exclusive suburban belt that rings Washington, has firmly slipped to some extent. The President's order barring discrimination in federally assisted housing let Negroes move into the suburbs for the first time.

But the progress made so far has been laughably small compared to what remains to be done. Few of the suburbs have been integrated, and none of those that offer the best housing and schols. Dean Rusk's neighbors in suburban Spring Valley had to sign restrictive covenants forbidding the sale of their houses to Negroes or Jews. (Rusk made a special agreement which excepted him from signing the covenant.) Even the more attractive sections of Washington proper still exclude Negroes, although the number of discriminatory areas in the city is small now.

The second great problem in jobs, which are still largely segregated. The government has taken on more Negroes, but most of them still labor in low-pay, low-status jobs. Hany complain that although they have remained in the very lowest government service classifications, they have trained whites who have risen to the highest levels.

The large private firms are worse; although most of the department stores now employ Negroes in "high visibility" positions (since Negroes make up so much of the buying market, this is not unsound policy), many industries still refuse to budge. Julius Hobson, the President of Washington CORE, explains that "we picket a company and they take their one Negro out of the stockroom and put him on display to show that they're integrated. Then the pickets leave and he goes back into the stockroom."

But Washington's greatest problem is still its schools. The racial balance so carefully fostered in 1955 has now been altogether eradicated. Vast influxes of Negroes have crowded the tiny classrooms beyond the limits of their capacity, yet there is no sign of improvement. The same schools which in 1955 held slightly less than 104,000 pupils now must provide for more than 126,000, and there have been few new schools built.

The overcrowding and the poor school conditions compared to those in the excellent schools in Maryland and Virginia, have been the major causes of the whites' desire to have their children in suburban schools. The number of Negroes in District public schools, however, is unquestionably a factor, and that number is growing every year. In 1955, the year after the city's schools were integrated, 58,936 Negroes were going to school with 44,897 whites. Since that time Negro enrollment has almost doubled to 112,000, more than 85 per cent of the total, while white enrollment has halved to 22,000.

Ninety-four thousand of the Negroes attend schools in which 90 per cent or more of the students are Negroes. 27 schools have no white students; on the other hand, three schools have no Negroes and 1 others are more than 90 per cent white. The well-balanced school racially is rare indeed.

Washington's future is not promising; there are too many unsolved problems, too many problems whose solution can only be taken on by as unwilling Congress, to create any optimism about the situation. The signs of a virulent white reaction to the renewed civil rights activities of CORE the Afro-American newspaper, and other militant elements, are already visible.

There is only one thing that will give the district a chance to solve its own problems and that is home rule. The chances of its passing in the next Congress seems incredibly slim; even a Republican takeover in the House would leave the Southerners with eight or nine of the 24 seats on the committee, and a sympathetic agreement with the conservatives who dominate the Republican side.

Yet it now seems that only in the unlikely eventuality of the city's being granted self-government will the racial conflicts be stilled.

Race Riot

Washington got a taste of what may be to come last Thanksgiving Day when 50,000 spectators crammed into the District of Columbia Stadium to watch the annual city championship football game. It was a close, exciting contest until the fourth quarter, when St. John's, a predominantly white parachoial school, scored two touch-downs to go out ahead of the 99 per cent Negro Eastern High School.

With a few minutes left in the game, a frustrated Eastern tackle, thinking he had been pushed by a St. John's player, went almost berserk and had to be restrained by three teammates There was fighting on the field for the rest of the game while St. John's cheer-leaders cried out "Back to Africa." As the game ended, several hundred Eastern fans rushed across the field and up into the St. John's section. Perhaps they meant to start a fight, or perhaps they did not. In any case, pushing matches started at the exits, and a full-scale race riot ensued. Gangs of Negroes roamed through the parking lote yelling "Get the whites," while whites were trying desperately to get away. An hour later, 100 police brought order to the chaotic scene. Forty people were injured seriously and 14 jailed.

No one in Washington has forgotten the Thanksgiving Day Massacre," as the riot was quickly dubbed. The Afro-American and Rep. Adam Clayton Powell both took the opportunity to predict that the District would have "a fantastic race riot," as the Afro put it, if Negro living condition did not attempts are made to integrate a city as an example of what happens when attempts are made to integrate a city which is largely Negro.

If Washington's rulers fail to learn their lesson from the Stadium riot, the militants' predictions may well come true, and the riot may be dwarfed by other, greater ones. And there are very few signs that the District's Southern lords are willing to take the affair as anything but a demonstration of Negro barbarism. If they do not, and if living conditions for the city's Negroes do not improve soon, Washington will be in trouble.