The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1904-07-28
DEMANDS NEGRO EQUALITY.

DEMANDS NEGRO EQUALITY.
One A. II. Grimke, writing in the
Atlantic Monthly, says the Meridian
Star, demands political and social
equality FOR the negroes of the south,
through FEDERAL interference in the
affairs of this section.
In speaking of the acknowledgements
of the negro this new advocate of
malignant sectionalism says:
"Can Acknowledgement settle the
question for the negro? do not
think it can! am sare that it will
not, for the simple and sufficient rea-
son that the negro will not consent to
such a scttlement;-a settlement
which virtually decitizenizes him,
and relegates him to a condition of
practical servitude III the republic.
He has tasted freedom, he has tasted
manhood rights, he has tasted civil
and political equality. He knows
that his freedom, his American citi-
zenship, his right to vote, have been
written into the constitution of the
United States, and written large there
in three great amendments. -
The Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution of the United
States were both given to the country
at Philadelphia, the City of Brother
ly Love. They were both aadopted by
northern and southern representatives
and no one asked or demanded that in
either of them the negro should have
a part This was because the negro
was unfit to take part in white
mans government. The negro had
been elevated from the, lowest condi-
tion of barbarism to the position of
servitude for the white man and with
this condition he was the happiest
and most ccntented creature on earth
and was given more comfort and ease
than the laboring classes of any other
country. He did not ask for free
dom but it was thrust upon him by
a jealous and malignant sectional
ism, which denounced the constitution
as league with hell and a coven-
ant with death, and in order to
perpetuate is power and rob the
south, it gave him the ballot.
Thus without an effort on his part
the negro secured what it took the
white man thousands of years with
brain and toll and blood to win. 1t
was the most horrible mistake of the
nineteenth century and 1t brought
about such condition of darkness
and depsair of crime and bloodshed
as no other people on earth ever
endured. It was demonstrated to all
Intelligent men everywhere that the
negro was incapable of self-govern.
ment and though backed by a mil
lion bayonets he was disfranchised by
white minority shorn of its politi-
cal power. Grimke continues:
''No party, no state, no section.
can, therefore, deprive him of those
rights without leaving in his mind a
sense of bitter wrong, of being cheat
ed of what belong to him, cheated in
defiance of law, of the supreme law of
the land, and in spite Of his just
claim to fairer treatment at the
hands of his fellow countrymen. He
will understand chat this enormity
was committed against him on account
of his race and color. He will see
shat it was done by the white race-a
race that has ever wronged him, that
has never failed to take from him,
because it had the power, whatever he
cared most for IN the world. Moth
ing could possibly make MIN, under
such cruel circumstances, love such
a race, such an enemy. He will
learn to hate the white race. there
fore. with all the strength and rSncor
of centuries of accumulated outrages
and expressions
"The relation of the two races in
the south could not, then, be one
of mutual respect, confidence, and
good will. 1t would become, on
the contrary, one of mutual fear,
distrust and hatred.''
This is not true. In the south the
negro knows his place and is made to
keep 1t. He has been disfranchised
by the same laws that eliminate white
men from the polls in Massachusetts,,
and that deny them the right to vote
in Mississippi. If he can measure up