The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-06-01
The Head Of the Negro Institute
Seeks TO Fore l.
ON PEOPLE AT KTTR6-L
CIVILIZATION OF THE SOUTH Is
THUS IN JEOPARDY.
THE sEABoARD's MANAGEMENT
Is Warmly Approved by Our Torres
pondent.. The Speeches ana me
Action of John r. Hawk-
ms Condemned.

RI tho Editor: Although the rallroau
;+;, room at this place set apart for
,,ao,oas is the larger, more convenient
and more comfortable of the two, the
nacroes of the Kittrell Institute are max
inc nersistent and determined efforts to
invade the one set apart for white people.
Before the waiting rooms. now just
onened. were finished. John 4. HAWKINS,
the secretary, ex-principal and moving
shirt of the institute, wrote to Captain
Whisnant, the superintendent of tins di-
vision of the SeabOard Air Line, urging
that one room be set apart for ladies ana
one for gentlemen. This was. of course
tantamount to urging that the white Ia
dies of this vicinity should be forced 10
occupy the same waiting room ana De
crowded and iostled by the negro girls
from the institute, as they have repeated
" been treated on the streets OF the toWh'
white ladies even while giving half the
sidewalk having on several occasions
heen knocked into the gutter. Captain
Whisnant, very properly. refused 10 de-
part from the custom of the road and
force an indignity on the white people of
Kittrell Nevertheless, last week the in
stitute negroes invaded the white wait
ing room in force. and that, too, before
the colored waiting room was h1led, al
though the session having just closed Il
good many of the pupils We're at the sta
ton to take the cars. Great annoyance
was caused to the Rev. Mr.. Ayeritt and
his wife. who happened to be in the white
waiting room. 1t was only after great
exertions that the railroad agent succeed
ed in getting the negroes out. Threats
We're made by the negroes that they will
yet have the waiting room or kill.
Now as to this negro. John r. Hawk
ins, who has evidently fomented the
whole trouble. He is the same man who
some years back from the hustings at
this place melted the negroes to strive for
social equality or worse by reciting how at
the North. where his race had their
rights. he had escorted white ladies about
and so on ad nauseum. Seven years or
more have passed since then and Hawk
ms fearing the loss of the contributions of
white people to his school, has long been
more guarded and covert in his methods,
but that speech still survives as an agent
of evil in the minds of the negroes.
This institute receives considerable aid
from the white people of the South. Now,
| call upon every white man, South or
North opposed to social equality, TO re-
fuse support or countenance TO SEMI
nary of such pernicious principles. If they
do not refuse then let the decent people
of the country repudiate them.
Efforts will doubtless be made TO gloze
over this matter and to disprove the in
culcation of any such principles. | give
the facts as they are. That Hawkins
social equality speech. his letter urging
Captain Whisnant to abolish all race dis
tinction at this place, the rude Jostllngs
that ladies' of the town have received at
the hands of the institute girls, the refusal
of the institute negroes-Hawkins and
others in authority being present-to va
cate the white waiting room. are the out
come of the spirit and animus of the
school are evident.
While the Seaboard furnishes separate
waiting rooms for negroes and forces
them to confine themselves to such room
| am informed that the Southern what
a travesty upon word hitherto without
reproach) makes no such distinction. Ii
true. it is the duty of the people of the
South to resent it and express in the most
emphatic way their condemnation of the
social equality methods and other in
iauities of the misnamed Southern rail
road Let the people of Raleigh, Dur
ham. Henderson and at all other points
possible patronize the Seaboard or any
other road less anti-Southern than the
IL h, Il
neither alien millions nor official chican-
cry can defy them for a day.
And now a word as to the great ina
portance of the battle which the South
has fought. is still fighting, and must
ever fight against social equality. Without
aid or sympathy from the white race at
large we are fighting its most important
battle-a battle for the purity Of the race
for our branch of it first, for all of it
in the end.
The determination of the Southern
whites to resist every move, be it ever so
slight. towards social equality is the re-
suIt of one of the most wholesome in
st;ncts that nature has implanted in the
human heart. 1t is an instinct working
GOOD and only good, to both sexes. 1t is
tho frst sten that counts. The thin edge Of
head and whole bulk always follows.
Social equality could have but one end
an end very far off using the span OF
individual life as a mete-wand, but all TOO
near in the lifetime of a race. mat end
would be miscegenation, amalgamatlon,
union of races-the conversion OF the
Southern Anglo-Saxon into mongrel
breed, more inert, more depraved than
the mongrel denizens Of Central or South
American. | say more inert more de-
prayed because on no hybrid has nature
set as emphatic seal of protest as upon
the mulatto Immediate physical and
moral deterioration is the almost inevi-
table result.
This is and must ever remain a vital.
paramount question with us. The North
erner can better afford to fiout it. There
are comparatively few negroes with
him. No food of pollution beats and
chafes at its barriers eager to engulf his