The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-09-17
DOES THE NEGRO GET JUSTICE IN
OUR COURTS?

Charlotte News.
The Charlotte Observer makes the
sweeping statement regarding the ne
gro: He is not ill-treated nor i'm
properly Disseminated against except
in the courts, and for the injustice
done him there, there seems to be no
remedy"
As the courts are supposed to be the
final recourse for the obtaining of justice
wherever else injustice may be done, this
rather astonishing statement would mean
that the neg1o has no redress for injustice
anywhere in the South. The statement
is astonishing for another proposition con-
cealed within it, namely, that the very
same men who will treat the negro fairly
and without discrimination elsewhere, be-
come his oppressors just as soon as they
take their oaths of office as judges or
jurors. q ia
And this statement goes out to those
who do not know the South, to any North
ern exchange, for instance, with this whole
sale accusation against our people and
with the note of despair that there is any
remedy.
We suppose that the ignorant and de-
y W
the prey of the petty tyrants who too
often get into the insignificant positions
where they can fatten on the fees which
it is to their interest to collect from
those that they fine. Yet it is seldom
that any deserving negro cannot get some
friend among the white people to see that
he is not imposed upon in the petty
courts.
When a negro is able to hire a lawyer,
it is nonsense to say that his lawyer Is
not as able and as willing to protect his
client as though that client were white.
And as a matter of fact, in all the lesser
crimes for which the negro is constantly
appearing in court, there is a very strong
feeling that he should not be judged TOO
strictly that he should not be judged
by the white mans standard, even though
he is condemned by the white mans laws.
There is a sentiment of pity in the breasts
of all decent white men for the negro in
trouble, and the lawyers know how to APP
peal to that sentiment. In fact so evident
is this that we have sometimes heard the
question mooted, whether the lenlency of
Southern juries toward the negro, for
thefts drunkenness, and the loose sexual
relations that obtain, among them is not
bad thing for the negro. Who does not
know that a white man convicted OF
larceny would not receive just as heavy
sentence as negro, perhaps heavier,
and that the sentence would be imposed
with a good deal more of righteous lndlg-
nation than in the case of a negro.
The only ground at all for this sweep
ing indictment of whole people is in
the matter of those crimes in which the
negro is involved with a white man or
white woman. 1t cannot be denied that
the race feeling enters here. In the case
of crimes against white women, however,
it ought to enter, for the crime itself IS
an unnatural one, in the crossing of racial
lines, and is doubtless, in most cases a
product of race hatred. Even here, how
ever, the punishment of the criminal is
only what it should be. 1t is swift and
sure. But there is no more desire to
punish Unfortunately, to punish the
wrong man, than in the case of the white
man.
In the case of murder of a white man
by a negro, there is some of the same
feeling, yet in most cases it was the
race feeling that provoked the murder.
Nor do we believe that it can be proved
that the juries or the courts are any
less severe in such a case than they
should be in cases of murder.
Just the other day, in Mecklenburg,
there was an alteration between some
whites and negroes, and a negro pulled his
pistol, the whites being unarmed, and
killed one of them and wounded others.
He was sent to the penitentiary for ten
years Jersey justice would probably
have decreed capital punishment, even il
all the parties had been white.
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