The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-28

1897 I visited a small colored school conducted by few white northern women, and situated in the heart of the black belt. On every side was a l population of ignorant black peasants, l who were engaged in tilling the vast l cotton plantations on which they lived
 some of their older children being | students at the school. Now, these fair young women from the North were without any other protection than that | afforded by their black students, their l black neighbors, and two or three 1 black teachers who were employed in l the school. There was not a white man l within a mile who could come to their rescue if needed even if he wanted to- and the presumption was rather in favor of his not wanting to, so strong
 was the prejudice against white teachers of coored children. In fact,
 some of the white men of the neighbor- hood had been so hostile to the school
 and it's mission that the older students
 were in the habit of arming themselves with sticks and stones and quietly 1 following the young white women when 1 they went out for a walk-under the
 mistaken impression, apparently, that l they needed such protection from the ] wicked design of white men! There
 was certainly no fear of the blacks in | the minds of these young women, nor | did there seem to be any reason on 1 earth why they should fear them. 1t was a wonderful sight on commence
 ment day, when the black peasants 1 gathered around the school-house from
 many miles around to listen to the 1 recitations of their children-their 1 black, homely faces shining with enthu-
 siasn, gratitude and reverence. It l was easy to believe that these were the same people that had defended their
 masters home and honor in his absence | during the civil war, and it was not l easy to convince me from that hour l that these people had changed and l become monsters in human shape--be- | cause, forsooth, they were free,' in l the narrowest acceptance of the term. 1 I was told that the neighborhood had i been selected because it was the most Godforsaken degraded community in 1 the whole of the black belt, as far as the blacks were concerned. The fair white women are still living there,
 however under black protection, though am told they are now on somewhat better terms with their White l neighbors.
 | But leaving our personal impressions and observations, the statistics on | lynchings bear out my statement that there is no ground whatever for con- ' demning the race as guilty of | monstrous tendencies in excess of crimes proved against other races. Not
 more than 25 per cent of all the ne-
 groes lynched during the past 16 years were even accused of such tendencies and of those accused, hanged and burned without trial, how many may
 not have been innocent?
 The hue and cry against the negro for his monstrous and unnatural brutal ity has no basis of fact for it's support. Doubtless the popular excitement
 created by mob violence has had the
 usual effect on two classes of weak
 minds; it has stimulated here and there the degraded vicious negro to attempt crime he would not otherwise have thought of attempting; and it has oc- casionally affected the hysterical weak white woman to the extent of imagin- ing crime has been designed or attempted where none has been
 thought of
 There is no way of accounting for the prevalent belief in the overwhelming danger of this crime being committed when it has not really been committed to any extent to correspond with the amount of public excitement on the subiect-unless one concludes that it is ,:I T >f fl,n capitalists inherited antipathy to the existence of a growing class of com
 paratively independent negroes.
 The charge is in fact another phase of
 social ostracism, another way of prov ing that the negro is not man. It has
 become more than form of per- secution The belief in the monstrous
 depravity of the negro is now social
 dogma as dear to the southerner as his
 belief in the Trinity.
 To sum up briefly: The negro's prob
 lem is how to steer his way in the
 South through community that wants
 his work and denies all the rights of
 his manhood: how to escape from his
 class conditions without letting his ex-
 ploiters know that he has escaped.
 His problem all over the country is
 the labor problem plus the inherited
 prejudices of employer and fellow
 workman in the North. plus the bitter
 jealousy in the South of a proud people
 who were conquered by the sword while
 defending their dogma that "the negro
 is not a man.
 A more difficult task was never
 placed before any race or nation The
 negro needs all the optimism, faith and
 joyousness of his African inheritance to carry him through-all the touching songs and melodies that his musical fancy can create to tighten him on his Journey. He is the only music maker the only original muscian-that this country has yet produced His history is surely strange and sad enough to stir even the dullest people into song Caroline H. Pemberton in the New York Worker.
 AN ATTENUATED GOOD STORY.