The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-03-26

| negro in the Black Belt
 | The Black Belt planter will tell you that the Black Belt negro has always been what he is now--that he always ! will be. If there is any change In him 1t Is for the worse. Nearly all of us agree with the Black Belt planter, too, when he tells us that for the past thir- | ty years the negro in the Black Belt has had every opportunity to make | farmer and citizen of himself and to ] help the white man make more, of the Black Belt. He has failed-- -miserably failed.
 The negro's failure to accept the op- portunities that emancipation gave him. --thrust on him--is certainly strik- fngly evidenced and illustrated by his present station and condition in life and his status commercially In the Black Belt few own land and make livelihood. That is all. The white planter says that their lands are actually deteriorating in quality and productiveness by their lack of at- tention to 1t and their abuse of 1t. That Is not what the Black Belt wants. It wants to he improved The others are shiftless. incapable and unwilling subjects who despise work. They are useless citizens and bad citizens to community. The land owner gives him a strip of land, builds house on it for him to live in. advances him money and tells him to make a crop. The landlord takes from his production a nominal portion for his rent and depends on the negro's energy and capability and the price of cotton. to get his money back.
 The negro idles and frolics. He abuses his live stock and his land. He Is negligent. He mires into debt to the butcher. the baker and the candle- stick maker. At harvesting season he reaps the very little he sowed. It is not enough to pay the landlord and the merchant much less to start a new l crop. He sinks deeper into debt His own stupidity caused 1t. | Ignorant. he doesn't care. Stupid. he doesn't try to do better the next year when the process is repeated. He re- [ mains poor. blind and careless to his own faults. There is no improvement in him--no hope for him.
 As strong as his unworthiness as a lyaborer against him is his unworthi- table social feature. When the Black Belt negro gets slothful he gets indo- lent insolent and lawless. Ton to one against the white man the negro
 strikes him down and goes into his
 home. He is a coward who glories | least provocation or no provocation at all in his thirst for blood he strikes at the white men who has cast him T off He Is a menace to society and civ ilixation.
 When the Black Belt negro gets to
 this stage he realizes his advantage
 in numbers over the white man and
 he accepts it. A prominent Wilcox
 County man told me not long ago in
 discussing the characters of two would
 be murderers that you can never judge
 a negro by his character The mean
 ness is in him." said he, "and 1t is lbound to como out"
 Here Is the advantage tho Black Belt negro has:
 The census of 1900 shows that iu
 Dallas County there were 45.372 ne. groes to 9,2S5 whites; in Wilcox Coun. ty, 2S,652 to 6.97s; in Lowndes County
 3o.ss9 to 4.762; in Marengo County
 29,473 to s.S4i;- in Macon County, 1s.-
 STA to 4,252: in Perry County. 24.96. 5.s3o; in Greene County. 20,s75 to g.
 so7; in Hale County. 25,s47 to 5,ss4
 in Bullock County. 2s.os7 to 5.s46.
 Thus Is those ton counties tnert
 were five years ago 1,693 negroes tC
 S1,6S7 whites. or 210,006 in the major.
 ity. The majority Is greater now.
 How remarkable 1t is that with that
 dark, threatening horizon about the
 patriotic planters of tho Black Belt
 that lynching Is just about as extra
 ordinary an occurrence there as in any
 other section of the South Does that
 go to show that the white man is ltyrannical toward the nefiro. Ray
 Stannar6 Baker says lynching is an
 American crime. He knews.
 was impressed with two things
 last week on 8 visit to Wilcox County
 where I was with sheriff's posse
 hunting two negroes who without pro-
 vocation shot down one of the com
 munity's most useful citizens. One
 was the utter aversion of the mem
 bers of the posse to lynching. and the other conservatism of the citizens in dealing with the great problem of
 law and order.
 Said a member of the posse to an-
 other:
 We must capture the black rascal, for If we don't the negroes in this community will shoot our citizens l wantonly, thinking they can escape | punishment"
 The other member of the posse | agreed with him.
 Said still another member of the posse to me:
 l "we know the man we are after will | fight and we don't propose to let him l get the upper hand. We don't want q | lynching If we find 1t necessary we'll shoot. and shoot to kill. but that will | be all."
 l Is that sentiment confined to the black belt? Just like Ray Stannnard | Baker says, 1t Is American sentiment. | Then the white man in the black belt