A third form of injustice in the South which shows signs of increasing is segregation of residential sections by city ordinances. These laws are unconstitutional because they prevent a man from selling or renting his property to whomsoever he chooses. But, they are also teeming with evils which do not appear on the surface. Segregation does not simply mean that the races live apart in separate districts. It means that these segregated divisions for colored people will be almost automatically converted into slums. For, in them police improvement and sanitation will be of the poorest sort, appropriations for street improvement and sanitation will be few and far between. It means that there will be no escape from this environment within the city limits for even the most worthy and aspiring citizens of my race. You can easily see the dilemma which exists in the South today where segregation is enforced. If we are not thrifty and have no desire for education and moral uplift, we are depicted to the world as the most worthless of human beings. On the other hand, if we wish to develop ourselves and our children into citizens worthy of this great Republic, in the South we are prevented by the Law. If we ask for those privileges of the law to which we are entitled, we are told we are not yet ready for them. If we ask for the opportunity to prepare to exercise those privileges, we are told we would not make use of them if we had them—and they are denied to us. The policy of the South is illogical, inconsistent, indefensible. Unless the South squarely faces the problem before its doors, unless it seeks to solve the problem instead of repressing it, and deals with the problem with intelligence and sympathy, then inevitably there must result, for my people and for yours, stagnation, disease and death! It is not necessary for me to call your attention this evening to the widespread practice in the Southern states of denying the right of trial by jury. Can any state expect to develop law-abiding citizens while the laws themselves are freely broken in the matter of punishment? To summarize the situation in the South, life is cheap, property is always in danger, and lawlessness reigns supreme. As a result of it all, the law of retributive justice brings it about that the South is the retarding cog in the machinery of our democracy. World conditions demand that the machine be set in prime to meet future responsibilities and duties. The problem is neither local or racial—it is national. It is not a matter of racial misunderstanding involving only one section of the country. It is a matter of eleven million citizens of the United States being subjected to flagrant injustice. Its solution involves not only the welfare of my race, but the future of the Republic.