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
"What's the trouble here?" asked the judge.
"Coke," said the officer.
"Ten-seventy-five," said the judge, naming the amount of the fine.
They buy the "coke" in the form of a powder and snuff it up the nose; a
certain patent catarrh medicine which is nearly all cocaine is sometimes
used; ten cents will purchase enough to make a man wholly irresponsible
for his acts, and capable of any crime. The cocaine habit, which seems to
be spreading, for there are always druggists who will break the law, has
been a curse to the Negro and has resulted, directly, as the police told
me, in much crime. I was told of two cases in particular, of offences
against women, in which the Negro was a victim of the drug habit.
So society, in pursuit of wealth, South and North, preys upon the ignorant
and weak--and then wonders why crime is prevalent!
One has only to visit police courts in the South to see in how many
curious ways the contact of the races generates fire.
"What's the trouble here?" inquires the judge.
The white complainant--a boy--says:
"This nigger insulted me!" and he tells the epithet the Negro applied.
"Did you call him that?"
"No sah, I never called him no such name."
"Three-seventy-five--you mustn't insult white people."
And here is the report of the case of a six-year-old Negro boy from the
_Georgian_:
Because Robert Lee Buster, a six-year-old Negro boy, insulted Maggie
McDermott, a little girl, who lives at 507 Simpson Street, Wednesday
afternoon, he was given a whipping in the police station Thursday
morning that will make him remember to be good.
The case was heard in the juvenile court before Judge Broyles. It was
shown that the little Negro had made an insulting remark to the
little girl.
_Story of a Negro Arrest_
The very suspicion and fear that exist give rise to many difficulties. One
illuminating case came up that morning. A strapping Negro man was brought
before the judge. He showed no marks of dissipation and was respectably
dressed. Confronting him were two plain-clothes policemen, one with his
neck wrapped up, one with a bandage around his arm. Both said they had
been stabbed by the Negro with a jack-knife. The Negro said he was a hotel
porter and he had the white manager of the hotel in court to testify to
his good character, sobriety, and industry. It seems that he was going
home from work at nine o'clock in the evening, and it was dark. He said he
was afraid and had been afraid since the riot. At the same time the two
policemen were looking for a burglar. They saw the Negro porter and
ordered him to stop. Not being in uniform the Negro said he thought the
officers were "jes' plain white men" who were going to attack him. When he
started to run the officers tried to arrest him, and he drew his
jack-knife and began to fight. And here he was in court! The judge said:
"You mustn't attack officers," and bound him over to trial in the higher
court.
_A White Man and a Negro Woman_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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