African Americans; African Americans -- Politics and government -- 20th century; African Americans -- Social conditions -- To 1964
Under the Southern program it is sought to exclude colored men from every
grade of the public service; not only from the higher administrative
functions, to which few of them would in any event, for a long time
aspire, but from the lowest as well. A Negro may not be a constable or a
policeman. He is subjected by law to many degrading discriminations. He is
required to be separated from white people on railroads and street cars,
and, by custom, debarred from inns and places of public entertainment. His
equal right to a free public education is constantly threatened and is
nowhere equitably recognized. In Georgia, as has been shown by Dr. DuBois,
where the law provides for a pro rata distribution of the public school
fund between the races, and where the colored school population is 48 per
cent. of the total, the amount of the fund devoted to their schools is
only 20 per cent. In New Orleans, with an immense colored population, many
of whom are persons of means and culture, all colored public schools above
the fifth grade have been abolished.
The Negro is subjected to taxation without representation, which the
forefathers of this Republic made the basis of a bloody revolution.
Flushed with their local success, and encouraged by the timidity of the
Courts and the indifference of public opinion, the Southern whites have
carried their campaign into the national government, with an ominous
degree of success. If they shall have their way, no Negro can fill any
federal office, or occupy, in the public service, any position that is not
menial. This is not an inference, but the openly, passionately avowed
sentiment of the white South. The right to employment in the public
service is an exceedingly valuable one, for which white men have struggled
and fought. A vast army of men are employed in the administration of
public affairs. Many avenues of employment are closed to colored men by
popular prejudice. If their right to public employment is recognized, and
the way to it open through the civil service, or the appointing power, or
the suffrages of the people, it will prove, as it has already, a strong
incentive to effort and a powerful lever for advancement. Its value to the
Negro, like that of the right to vote, may be judged by the eagerness of
the whites to deprive him of it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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