Race prejudice has always existed since the races have lived together; but, whether because taught to the boys of the Reconstruction epoch, or whether because the Negroes have made slower progress than was hoped, it is sharper now than in the whole history of the question. Is it founded on an innate race repulsion? Does the white man necessarily fear and dislike the Negro? The white child does not, nor the lowest stratum of Whites, who are nearest the Negro intellectually and morally. John Sharp Williams says: "If I were to call our race feeling anything etymologically, I would call it a 'post-judice' and not a 'pre-judice.' I notice that nobody has our race feeling or any race feeling indeed until after knowledge. It is a conviction born of experience." Right here the champions of the Negro discern a joint in the armor; thus, DuBois: "Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the natural defense of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the 'higher' against the 'lower' races. To which the Negro cries Amen! and swears that to so much of this strange prejudice as is founded on just homage to civilization, culture, righteousness, and progress, he humbly bows down and meekly does obeisance." Is not this the crux of the whole matter? Is it prejudice against a low race, or a black race? To say that the white Southerner looks down upon and despises every black Southerner would not be fair, for there is still much personal liking between members of the two races, and the South is right in claiming that it has a warmer feeling for individual Negroes than Northern people. Said a Southern judge once: "If my old black mammy comes into the house, she hugs and kisses my little girl. But if she should sit down in the parlor, I should have to knock her down." That is, he liked the mammy, but the nigger must be taught to keep her place. The phrase commonly used to describe this feeling is, "The danger of social equality." Here is one of the mysteries of the subject which the Northern mind cannot penetrate. Southern society, so proud, so exclusive, so efficient in protecting itself from the undesired, is in terror lest it should be found admitting the fearful curse of social equality; and there are plenty of Southern writers who insist that the Negro shall be deprived of the use of public conveniences, of education, of a livelihood, lest he, the weak, the despised, force social equality upon the white race. What is social equality if not a mutual feeling in a community that each member is welcome to the social intercourse of the other? How is the Negro to attain social equality so long as the white man refuses to invite him or to be invited with him? It sounds like a joke!