One day last April a Negro labourer who had been working for Mrs. Sefton, a highly respected widow who lived alone, appeared in the house in broad daylight and criminally assaulted her. His name was John Green, a Kentucky Negro; he was not only ignorant, but half-witted; he had already committed a burglary and had not been punished. He was easily caught, convicted, and sentenced. But the town was angry. On April 30th a crowd of men and boys gathered, beat two or three Negroes, and drove many out of town. They never thought of mobbing the city officials who had allowed the Negro dives to exist. And, as in Atlanta, the decent Negroes suffered with the criminals: a crowd broke windows in the home of George Edwards, and threatened other respectable coloured men. As in Atlanta, the better white people were horrified and scandalised; but, as in Atlanta, the white men who made up the mob went unpunished (though Atlanta did mildly discipline a few rioters). As in Atlanta, the newspaper reports that were sent out made no distinction between the different sorts of Negroes. The entire Negro population of Greensburg was blamed for the crime of a single ignorant and neglected man. I have several different newspaper reports of the affair from outside papers, and nearly all indicate in the headlines that all the Negroes in Greensburg were concerned in the riot and were driven out of town, which was not, of course, true. As a matter of fact the respectable Negroes are still living in Greensburg on friendly terms with the white people. _Human Nature North and South_ In fact, the more I see of conditions North and South, the more I see that human nature north of Mason and Dixon's line is not different from human nature south of the line. Different degrees of prejudice, it is true, are apparent in the two sections. In the South the social and political prejudice the natural result of the memories of slavery and reconstruction, of the greater mass of Negro population and of the backward economic development, is stronger. In the North, on the other hand, comparatively little social and political prejudice is apparent; but the Negro has a hard fight to get anything but the most subservient place in the economic machine. Over and over again, while I was in the South, I heard remarks like this: "Down here we make the Negro keep his place socially, but in the North you won't let him work." This leads me to one of the most important phases of race-relationship in the North--that is, the economic struggle of the Negro, suddenly thrown, as he has been, into the swift-moving, competitive conditions of Northern cities. Does he, or can he, survive? Do the masses of Negroes now coming North realise their ambitions? Is it true that the North will not let the Negro work? These questions must, perforce, be discussed in another chapter. CHAPTER VII THE NEGROES' STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL IN NORTHERN CITIES