Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
History
Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
It is significant that on the very night that this riot occurred the city
council had under consideration an ordinance prohibiting the use of
screens or other obstructions to the view of the interior of saloons after
closing hours on week days or during Sundays. A committee of the council,
favourable to the saloon interests, had recommended that the ordinance be
not acted upon by council but referred to the people at a distant
election, a proposition wholly illegal. While Stewart L. Tatum the city
solicitor to whom I have already referred, argued to the council the
illegality of the proposal made by the committee the noise of the mob
reached the council chamber and the friends of the ordinance seized the
opportunity to adjourn and delay action that would evidently result in the
defeat of the ordinance.
Finally, as a result of both these riots, the city was mildly stirred; a
Civic League was formed by prominent citizens and the _attack on property_
vigorously deprecated; the passage of the screen ordinance was recommended
and at the next meeting of the council this ordinance, which had been
vetoed by the mayor of the previous administration and had excited
considerable public interest during a period of two years, was passed and
has proved of great assistance to the police department in controlling the
low saloons where the riot spirit is bred.
I turn with pleasure from the story of this lynching to another Northern
town, where I found as satisfying an example of how to deal with a mob as
this country has known.
In Springfield we had an exhibition of nearly complete supineness and
apathy before the mob; in Statesboro, Ga., we discovered a decided
law-and-order element, not strong enough, however, to do much; in
Huntsville, Ala., we had a tremendous moral awakening. In Danville, Ill.,
we find an example of law vindicated, magnificently and completely,
through the heroism of a single man, backed up later by wholesome public
opinion.
_Character of Danville, Ill._
Danville presented many of the characteristics of Springfield, O. It had a
growing Negro population and there had been an awakening race prejudice
between the white workingmen and the Negroes, especially in the
neighbouring coal mines.
As in other places where lynchings have occurred, I found that Vermilion
County, of which Danville is the seat, had also a heavy record of homicide
and other crime. They counted there on a homicide every sixty days; at the
term of court preceding the lynching seven murder trials were on the
docket; and in all its history the county never had had a legal hanging,
though it had suffered two lynchings. The criminal record of Vermilion
County was exceeded at that time only by Cook County (Chicago), and St.
Clair County (East St. Louis), where the horrible lynching of a Negro
schoolmaster took place (at Belleville) in the preceding summer.
_Story of a Starved Negro_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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