Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1906-08-30
REIGN OF NEGRO LUST.

REION Ot NEORO AOS i /.
This time it is Wayne county, KY,
that is stirred with racial excitement
over the attempt of a negro named
Perry Copenhaven to assault white
girl, Miss Fairchild, IA years old,
near Monticello. The negro is I'M
der arrest and has been taken to
Somerset to escape a mob bent on
applying to him the unwritten law.
This makes five Of these outrages in
Kentucky in as many weeks and in
other Southern States the situation
is still worse. Only two days ago
5-year-old child was assaulted by a
negro at Bertrand, Mo. In hardly
Southern state from Missouri to
South Carolina has there been free
dom from these horrid crimes dur
ing the present year and the num-
Der in the aggregate is larger than
for years. There seems to be an
epidemic of lustful violence, en-
dangering the safety of the women
of the South wherever negroes are
found. A great negro convention is
now in session in Atlanta, presided
over by the ablest of all negroes,
and these plain words are addressed
to it in an editorial in the Atlanta
Georgian, edited by John Temple
Graves:
when Booker Washington with
his National Afro-American Business
League meets in Atlanta on Wed
nesday, he and the negroes who
come with him to participate in this |
convention, are entitled to the |
considerate treatment of the people |
of Atlanta.
They come here on the invitation
of the may the city council and
the Chamber of Commerce, and |
whatever the general feeling which
may exist in Atlanta at this time,
these negroes of the better class |
gathered in peaceful and delibera-
tive assembly, should not be treated |
with anything less than sympathy
or consideration. -
Having said this much, let us say
that it would be both impolitic and !
imprudent for this body of men to
spend any of their time while they
are here IN either making orations
or passing resolutions in condemna
ton of lynching as they have done
at previous sessions.
If the Afro-American Business
League would commend itself to the
sympathy and respect of the people
Of the South it should utilize this OPP.
portunity to pass resolutions OF the
strongest and most emphatic nature
condemning in blistering terms the
criminals of their race, calling upon
the teachers, the preachers and the
editors Of the race to devote the bulk
of their time and their space to
preaching hell and dannation to
these criminals and advising their
race as individuals and as organized
bodies to cooperate heartily in help
ing the white man to hunt down and
to bring to justice the criminals OF
the negro race and to condemn as
particeps criminis any negroes who
shelter or help or expedite the es-
cape Of the rapist in any part Of the
South.
This is the first great racial con-
vention that has assembled here
since the race issue became so acute
in the South. And, if Booker Wash
ington wishes to vindicate the rep
utation he has attained for leader
ship and good sense, he will not miss
this opportunity to speak in thunder
tones along these lines and to rule
the deliberations of this convention
to this general END"
These words are rendered neces-
sary by the failure Of the negroes
1 everywhere to condemn the crimes
of their race. In all the recent
reign of lust the aid rendered by the
negro hack driver, Kelsy, at May
field, is the one exception where
negro has rendered assistance in
hunting down these human mad
dogs. Kelsy, ignorant workman as
he is, is greater friend to his race
than the so-caIled leader who pirates
loudly about Justice" to the rape
fiend, who forfeits his life the mo-
ment he attacks the virtue of a
wife or a daughter. The way to
stop lynching is to stop criminal as
saults.