Part 3

An inevitable step forward in anti-Negro prejudice is being taken in Baltimore, and threatened elsewhere. The colored folk of that city long ago became dissatisfied with a particularly bad system of alley homes. They saved their money and purchased nearly the whole length of Druid Hill avenue--one of the best colored streets in the world. Then they began to expand into parallel streets, one of which was McCulloh. They had been told that “money talks,” and that the surest road to respect in America was financial success. The result was inevitable. The white people of McCulloh street rose in indignation and are importuning the City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting colored people from “invading” white residential districts, and _vice versa_. Their argument sounds strong: colored residents bring down the price of property, therefore get rid of colored residents.

Is this the real logic of the situation? Why do colored people depress property values? Because of an exaggerated and persistently encouraged racial prejudice. In the encouragement of such prejudice, Baltimore and Maryland have particularly sinned. Would not an attempt to allay prejudice be wiser than laws against thrift?

VOTING.

If there is one thing that should be urged upon colored voters throughout the United States this fall it is independence. No intelligent man should vote one way simply from habit. Only through careful scrutiny of candidates and policies can a man put himself in position to help rule one hundred million people. It is because of the suspicion that colored men are not capable of doing this, or are unwilling to do it, that so many American citizens acquiesce in the nullification of democracy known as disfranchisement. Let every colored man who can, vote; and whether he vote the Republican or Democratic or Socialist ticket, let him vote it, not because his father did or because he is afraid, but because after intelligent consideration he thinks the success of that ticket best for his people and his country.

AGITATION.

Some good friends of the cause we represent fear agitation. They say: “Do not agitate--do not make a noise; _work_.” They add, “Agitation is destructive or at best negative--what is wanted is positive constructive work.”

Such honest critics mistake the function of agitation. A toothache is agitation. Is a toothache a good thing? No. Is it therefore useless? No. It is supremely useful, for it tells the body of decay, dyspepsis and death. Without it the body would suffer unknowingly. It would think: All is well, when lo! danger lurks.

The same is true of the Social Body. Agitation is a necessary evil to tell of the ills of the Suffering. Without it many a nation has been lulled to false security and preened itself with virtues it did not possess.

The function of this Association is to tell this nation the crying evil of race prejudice. It is a hard duty but a necessary one--a divine one. It is Pain; Pain is not good but Pain is necessary. Pain does not aggravate disease--Disease causes Pain. Agitation does not mean Aggravation--Aggravation calls for Agitation in order that Remedy may be found.

* * * * *

Two Italians were lynched in Florida. The Italian Government protested, but it was found that they were naturalized Americans. The inalienable right of every free American citizen to be lynched without tiresome investigation and penalties is one which the families of the lately deceased doubtless deeply appreciate.

The N. A. A. C. P.

On the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s birth a call was issued in New York signed by prominent people all over the country for a conference on the status of the colored people.

* * * * *

The first conference met in New York May 31 and June 1, 1909.

* * * * *

The second conference was held in New York May 12-14, 1910.

The second conference organized a permanent body to be known as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The officers of this association are:

National President: Mr. Moorfield Storey, Boston, Mass.

Chairman of the Executive Committee: Mr. Wm. English Walling, New York.

Treasurer: Mr. John E. Milholland, New York.

Disbursing Treasurer: Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, New York.

Director of Publicity and Research: Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, New York.

Executive Secretary: Miss Frances Blascoer, New York.

* * * * *

The work of the N. A. A. C. P. can be summarized as follows up to the present date:

Four mass meetings and ten other meetings have been held to discuss the status of the colored people and efforts for betterment.

One volume of speeches and 6,000 separate pieces of literature are being distributed.

A bureau of information has been maintained which has corresponded with over 500 persons in all parts of the country.

Six articles have been furnished to magazines and eight to newspapers.

Two investigations into educational conditions are in progress.

Effort has been made in three cases to secure legal redress of grievances.

This Association needs $10,000 for its year’s work. We ask for donations and we especially want members who pay from $1 to $25 yearly, according to ability. Anybody may join.

* * * * *

The future plans of the organization include:

The publication of THE CRISIS.

Co-operation with all agencies working for the uplift of colored people.

The holding of mass meetings and conferences.

The issuing of pamphlets at the rate of one every other month or oftener.

The publication of articles in magazines and in the daily press.

The discovering and redress of cases of injustice.

The systematic study of the present conditions among colored people.

* * * * *

The General Committee consists of the officers and the following persons:

[A]Miss Gertrude Barnum, New York. [A]Rev. W. H. Brooks, New York. Prof. John Dewey, New York. Miss Maud R. Ingersoll, New York. Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York. [A]Mr. Paul Kennaday, New York. [A]Mrs. F. R. Keyser, New York. Dr. Chas. Lenz, New York. Mr. Jacob W. Mack, New York. [A]Mrs. M. D. MacLean, New York. Rev. Horace G. Miller, New York. Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr., New York. Mr. James F. Morton, Jr., New York. Mr. Henry Moskowitz, New York. Miss Leonora O’Reilly, New York. [A]Rev. A. Clayton Powell, New York. [A]Mr. Charles Edward Russell, New York. Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, New York. Prof. E. R. A. Seligman, New York. [A]Rev. Joseph Silverman, New York. Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, New York. Mrs. Henry Villard, New York. Miss Lillian D. Wald, New York. [A]Bishop Alexander Walters, New York. Dr. Stephen S. Wise, New York. Rev. Jas. E. Haynes, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y. [A]Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Brooklyn, N. Y. Miss M. R. Lyons, Brooklyn, N. Y. [A]Miss M. W. Ovington, Brooklyn, N. Y. [A]Dr. O. M. Waller, Brooklyn, N. Y. Mrs. M. H. Talbert, Buffalo, N. Y. Hon. Thos. M. Osborne, Auburn, N. Y. [A]Mr. W. L. Bulkley, Ridgewood, N. J. Mr. George W. Crawford, New Haven, Conn. Miss Maria Baldwin, Boston, Mass. Mr. Francis J. Garrison, Boston, Mass. Mr. Archibald H. Grimke, Boston, Mass. [A]Mr. Albert E. Pillsbury, Boston, Mass. Mr. Wm. Munroe Trotter, Boston, Mass. Dr. Horace Bumstead, Brookline, Mass. Miss Elizabeth C. Carter, New Bedford, Mass. Prest. Chas. T. Thwing, Cleveland, O. Mr. Chas. W. Chesnutt, Cleveland, O. Prest. King, Oberlin, O. Prest. W. S. Scarborough, Wilberforce, O. [A]Miss Jane Addams, Chicago, Ill. [A]Mrs. Ida B. Wells Barnett, Chicago, Ill. [A]Dr. C. E. Bentley, Chicago, Ill. Miss Sophronisba Breckenridge, Chicago, Ill. Mr. Clarence Darrow, Chicago, Ill. [A]Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley, Chicago, Ill. [A]Dr. N. F. Mossell, Philadelphia, Pa. [A]Dr. Wm. A. Sinclair, Philadelphia, Pa. Miss Susan Wharton, Philadelphia, Pa. Mr. R. R. Wright, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa. Mr. W. Justin Carter, Harrisburg, Pa. Rev. Harvey Johnson, D.D., Baltimore, Md. Hon. Wm. S. Bennett, Washington, D. C. Mr. L. M. Hershaw, Washington, D. C. Prof. Kelly Miller, Washington, D. C. Prof. L. B. Moore, Washington, D. C. Justice W. P. Stafford, Washington, D. C. [A]Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, Washington, D. C. [A]Rev. J. Milton Waldron, Washington, D. C. Prest. John Hope, Atlanta, Ga. Mr. Leslie P. Hill, Manassas, Va.

[A] Executive Committee.

Athens and Brownsville By Moorfield Storey

(Extract from speech before the Second National Negro Conference.)

WHITE SOLDIERS AT ATHENS.

We cannot perhaps wonder that ordinary citizens make race distinctions when they are made by the President of the United States. In the autumn of 1904, at Athens, Ohio, soldiers belonging to the 14th Battery of Artillery in the regular army attempted to break open the jail in order to rescue a comrade who had been arrested for some offense. In the attempt they killed one militiaman and wounded at least two others. I quote from a letter written by General Grosvenor, the Republican Congressman from the district, to Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, thus summing up the facts:

“Fifty to seventy men marched into the most public street in a village like this in the early hours of a pleasant summer evening, and without the slightest provocation, meeting the provost guard, fired from 50 to 75 shots from loaded weapons, killing one, wounding two, and hitting a citizen, and firing into the corridors and walls of a building, and yet all this has been obliterated as though the waves of the ocean had swept through sand. And not only that, but the Government officials--a representative of the War Department bearing a commission, and a Deputy United States District Attorney--appeared in the town and manipulated the preliminary examination of witnesses and boldly denounced the prosecution. And we are powerless, and the blood of Clark, a fine young man * * * will go unavenged because of the interference of the United States through its officials.”

One soldier was sentenced to a year in the penitentiary and another was fined. There was no other punishment. The action of the War Department was taken by order of the Acting Secretary, and from the letter written by Secretary Taft in reply to General Grosvenor, the following extract is made:

“I should think it doubtful policy on the part of the Government to direct its officers to defend enlisted men against acts which, as charged, are certainly offences against the state, unless there is some ground to presume that the acts are in the discharge of lawful duties of the enlisted men. The action of the Acting Secretary of War, however, was based on the helplessness of the men, and the necessity that no matter how guilty a man is he is entitled to be defended by counsel. It probably would have been wiser had application been made to court for the assignment of counsel. Still, an enlisted man is more or less a ward of the Government, and if the Government steps in merely to see that he is tried according to law, it seems to me that it is an exercise of a discretion which the Government has.”

Here the facts were clear, but the guilty men were white.

NEGRO SOLDIERS AT BROWNSVILLE.

Two years later it is charged that some soldiers of the 25th Infantry fired into the town of Brownsville, Texas. No evidence fixing the guilt upon any one has ever been found, and though investigation has been had, it remains doubtful whether any of the soldiers, and if so, who fired the shots. The whole battalion has for years maintained its innocence. Yet the colored soldiers, each presumably innocent, were discharged without trial, and the act has since persistently and violently been defended by its author. Theodore Roosevelt was President in 1904, as well as in 1906. Why did he not apply the same rule in both cases? He who from an eminence some distance off saw the colored troops charge and carry San Juan Hill, knew that they could fight and die as well as their white comrades. What became of Mr. Taft’s doctrine, “That no matter how guilty a man is, he is entitled to be defended by counsel.” Why were the Brownsville soldiers not “wards of the Government” as well as the soldiers who fired on Athens? The soldiers of Brownsville were colored.

THE BURDEN

STEVE GREEN’S STORY.

Steve Green was born in Tennessee in 1862. He has never been to school a day, and has worked for his living since childhood. He married and settled in Arkansas, choosing a place where there was good schooling for his children. What befell him there is told in his own words:

“In 1910 the landlord, Mr. Saddler, raised the rent from $5 an acre to $9. I and all of the other tenants moved away. Mr. Saddler sent after me, and said that if I did not work for him I could not work in Crittenden County. I moved to a place a mile away, but after the death of my wife started to break up housekeeping. Meantime I hired out for a day to a neighbor, when Mr. Saddler rode by on his horse. He said, ‘Green, didn’t I tell you that if you didn’t work on my farm that there was not room enough in Crittenden County for you and me to live?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir; you told me so.’ He answered, ‘I meant just what I said,’ and drew his revolver. I ran, but he shot me in the neck, left arm and right leg. I kept on running and reached my house, got my Winchester and shot at him. They say that I killed him. The others still chased me and I jumped into the river. I stayed in the top of a tree until midnight. Then I got some cartridges from a colored man and went to a town some miles away, which took me three nights to walk, wading in creeks because of the bloodhounds. My friends brought me food and blankets and I stayed on an island in the Mississippi River three weeks. Colored friends gave me $32, and I traveled on foot and by rail to Chicago, arriving August 12. I was betrayed by a colored friend who told the police. The policeman arrested me, saying that I had stolen some ties, which I knew nothing about. He took me to the Harrison street station. For four days they gave me no food or drink. I ate two boxes of matches trying to kill myself. They kept questioning me about Arkansas. At last I look sick and they put me in the hospital, where the doctor told them I was starving, and they gave me something to eat. Finally Saddler’s nephew came and I was identified, and Sunday night we left for Arkansas. He said a thousand people were waiting to burn me. The colored people of Chicago had heard of the story and got out a writ of habeas corpus. They offered a reward of $100 to the sheriff who would reach me and telegraphed all along the line to catch me. The sheriff of Cairo got me just as we were nearing the line. He is the man who replaced the former sheriff--the one the Governor held responsible for the mob in that city. I was stopped and sent back to Chicago.”

Steve Green’s friends have engaged lawyers and are fighting his case for him. The outcome of their efforts to save this unfortunate man will be recorded in THE CRISIS.

THE PINK FRANKLIN CASE.

Pink Franklin, a colored man, was charged with breaking his labor contract. The labor contract law of South Carolina says that a farm laborer who leaves his job before the end of the year owing his employer, is guilty of a criminal offense and may be severely punished. In the dead of night the constable broke into Pink Franklin’s house, shot at him and wounded him. Franklin could not see who was shooting and had no means of knowing that it was an officer of the law. He leapt from bed and returned the fire, killing the constable.

He was arrested for murder, threatened with lynching and condemned to be hanged. Two colored lawyers defended him and appealed finally to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court gave no relief and Pink Franklin still lies under sentence of death. Effort is now being made to induce the Governor of South Carolina to reprieve him.

* * * * *

She was a well-educated, attractive colored teacher.

“Some people,” she said, “think Charleston to be the prettiest city in the Southland. The houses are big and cool with lovely gardens. And then there is a park. You ought to see it! I don’t believe any park could be prettier.

“I have only seen it once,” she went on. “I did want to visit that park before I left Charleston, so I asked one of the white Northern ladies--we were teaching in the same school--if she would take me there. She was the right kind, and we walked all through it. Of course every one thought I was her maid. It certainly was a pretty place.”

“But why should the colored people of Charleston,” I asked, “be deprived of a public place of recreation? Don’t they contribute to the city by their work and rent and taxes?”

“They certainly do,” she replied, “but that makes no difference. The park I visited is a white folks’ park. It is very beautiful and so they keep it to themselves. Do you know,” she added, thoughtfully, “I don’t believe they would be happy there among the trees and flowers if they thought people who were poor and black could get in.”

* * * * *

A Chicago schoolboy, claiming that a twenty-five-cent piece had been stolen from him, accused the only colored boy in the class, who was suspended. The quarter was subsequently found where the owner had carelessly placed it and forgotten it, but the teacher made no mention of this. The colored boy’s mother came to inquire into the matter after several days and protested against the accusation. “You shouldn’t mind so much,” said the teacher. “You know it is a common saying that colored people are dishonest.”

WHAT TO READ

AFRICA.

Railway and Engineering Progress. J. H. Knight, Eng. M., April.

Stanley’s Africa; Then and Now. J. M. Hubbard, Atlantic, March.

Diana in Africa. Helene, Duchess of Aosta, Harper’s Weekly, March 12, April 30, May 7, August 6, August 20.

Housekeeping in Africa. I. V. Simonton, Delineator, April.

Can Africa Be Christianized? A. W. Holsey, Missionary Review, June.

Feasts of the Heathen Shambalas. Dupre, Missionary Review, March.

Rise of the Natives. H. H. Johnston, Quarterly Review, January.

Slavery as It Exists To-day. T. Buxton, Missionary Review, June.

Exploring Tour in West Africa. W. M. Dager, Missionary Review, January.

Purification of Blood in West Africa. W. M. Dager, Missionary Review, January.

Liberia and the Powers. Living Age, June 25.

AMERICA.

American Negro as a Political Factor. Kelly Miller, Nineteenth Century, August.

Brave Sheriff. Outlook, March 5.

Discussing the Negro Problem. Nation, May 19.

Grandfather Clause in Oklahoma. Outlook, June 18.

Negro Property. W. E. B. DuBois, World To-day, August.

New Disfranchisement Plan. Independent, March 31.

Noteworthy Book on Negroes. Roosevelt, Outlook, June 4.

Racial Conflict in America. Living Age, July 30.

Alcohol and the African. L. Probyn, Nineteenth Century, June.

Story of the Negro. Review, Survey, May 28.

Closing the Little Black Schoolhouse. M. W. Ovington, Survey, May 28.

Educate Six Million Negro Children. B. T. Washington, World’s Work, June.

Jeanes Fund. M. W. Ovington, Survey, January 29.

University Education for Negroes. B. T. Washington, Independent, March 24.

Negro in Cincinnati. F. W. Quillan, Independent, February 24.

Burden of the White Taxpayers. Independent, March 10.

Democratic Split in the South. Independent, May 26.

Negro and Agricultural Development. A. H. Stone, Annals American Academy, January.

Negro Suffrage in Maryland. Outlook, April 16.

Negro’s Part in Southern Development. B. T. Washington, Annals American Academy, January.

Nullification in Maryland. Nation, April 7.

Race Rioter (Story). H. M. Lyon, American Magazine, February.

Southern Question. W. G. Brown, Nation, August 4.

Suffrage in Maryland. Independent, April 21.

Kinks in the Negro’s Hair. J. M. Boddy, Scientific American, April 30.

Position of the Negro Among Human Races. Current Literature, September.

Position of the Negro and Pigmy Among Human Races. A. Keith, Nature, July 14.

Souls of White Folk. W. E. B. DuBois, Independent, August 18.

With a Cargo of Black Ivory. A. Edwards, Harper’s Weekly, July 2.

Negro and Religion. H. H. Johnston, Nineteenth Century, June (Current Literature, August).

Marvel of Brownsville. H. Bumstead, Independent, May 12.

Decadence of the Plantation System. U. B. Phillips, Annals American Academy, January.

Slavery in Virginia. S. T. C. Bryan, Nation, May 12.

Slave’s Reminiscence of Slavery. M. W. Ovington, Independent, May 26.

Liberia and the United States. Outlook, May 7.

Negro Suffrage in a Democracy. Ray S. Baker, Atlantic, November.

Chapters from My Experience. B. T. Washington, World’s Work, October.

Marrying of Black Folk. W. E. B. DuBois, Independent, October 13.

The Lady of the Slave States. E. J. Putman, Atlantic, October.

* * * * *

A long awaited and striking evidence of earnest and deep-seated interest in race questions is the appearance of a new quarterly at Clark University, Worcester, Mass. It is known as the “Journal of Race Development,” and is devoted to a scientific discussion of the primitive races. It is edited by Professor Blakeslee, and the editor of The Crisis is a contributing editor.

RECENT BOOKS

O. G. Villard--John Brown; a Biography, Fifty Years After. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Lindsay Swift--William Lloyd Garrison. G. W. Jacobs & Co.

M. J. Moses--The Literature of the South. T. W. Crowell.

T. Roosevelt--African Game Trails. Scribner.

Herbert Ward--A Voice from the Congo. Scribner.

J. A. Wright--Cuba. Macmillan.

B. D. Comyn--Service and Sport in the Sudan. John Lane.

C. H. Stogan--To Abyssinia. Lippincott.

G. Lagden--The Basutos. Appleton.

Duke of Mecklinburg--In the Heart of Africa. Cassell.

H. L. Tangye--In the Torrid Soudan. Badger.

B. L. P. Weale--The Conflict of Color. Macmillan.

South African Folk Tales. Baker & Taylor.

Handbook of the Interscholastic Athletic Association of the Middle Atlantic States. W. A. Joiner and E. B. Henderson.

E. Dayrell--Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria. Longmans, Green & Co.

Publications of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People--No. 1, The Disfranchisement of Negroes, Rev. John Haynes Holmes; No. 2, Secondary and Higher Education in the South for Whites and Negroes, Dr. Horace Bumstead.

Race Prejudice. Document No. 77, Republican Club, New York.

H. W. Odum. Social and Mental Traits of the Negro. Columbia University.

William Archer. Through Afro-America. Chapman & Hall.

Sir Harry Johnston. The Negro in the New World. Methuen & Co.

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