African Americans; United States -- Race relations
Yes, there are courts in the South; but not for black people—not when
the mob chooses to relieve civilization of the onus of law and order.
At Honeapath, S. C, a Negro was lynched in November 1911, charged, of
course, with "the usual crime." The charge had not been proven, or
investigated; but the man was lynched. The howling mob which did him
to death was composed of "prominent citizens" who had made up
automobile parties to ride to the affair. Among those present was the
=dis=-honorable Joshua Ashley, a member of the state legislature. He
and his friends cut off the man's fingers as souvenirs and were proud
of their work. Why shouldn't they? You see, it helps to keep "niggers"
in their place. And then, besides, isn't this a white man's country?
Gov. Blease of South Carolina was also proud of the event and said
that instead of stopping the horrible work of the mob he would have
resigned his office to lead it. In Okemeah, Oklahoma, last June, a band
of white beasts raped a Negro woman and then lynched her and her
fourteen-year-old son Nothing has been done to them. And it is not
that the facts are unknown. At Durant, Okla., and elsewhere, the
savages have posed around their victim to have their pictures taken.
One man, from Alabama sent to the Rev. John Haynes Holmes, of
Brooklyn, N.Y., a post-card (by =mail=) bearing a photograph of such a
group. "This is the way we treat them down here," he writes, and,
after promising to put Mr. Holmes' name on his mailing list declares
that they will have one, at least, each month.
In Washington, Ga., Charles S. Holinshead, a wealthy white planter,
raped the wife of T.B. Walker, a decent, respectable Negro. As his
wife returned to him dishevelled and bleeding from the outrage
perpetrated on her, Walker went to Holinshead's store and shot him
dead. For this he was tried and condemned and, while the judge was
pronouncing sentence, Holinshead's brother shot Walker in the
court-room. They held his head up while the judge finished the
sentence, Then he was taken out and lynched—not executed Nothing was
done to the other Holinshead.
The New York =Evening Post=, on October 23rd said in an editorial that
"there has hardly been a single authenticated case in a decade of the
Negroes rising against the whites, despite the growing feeling, among
them that there should be some retaliation since no tribunal will
punish lynchers or enforce the law." I am glad that the =Post= noticed
this. I had begun to notice it myself. When President Roosevelt
discussed lynching some years ago, he severely reprobated =the Negro=
for their tendency to shield their "criminals" and ordered them to go
out and help hunt them down. So was insult added to injury.
But, putting my own opinion aside, here are the facts as I have seen
them. In the face of these facts, the phrase, "the white man's
burden," sounds like a horrid mockery.
SOCIALISM AND THE NEGRO
1. Economic Status Of The Negro
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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