Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1915-04-16
The Negro a Challenge to
American Democracy
and Christianity

dency to class educatlon anu uis-
franchisement. The effect of segre-
CATION is to handicap and thwart the
Negroes progress. Some try to hyp-
notice US into the belief that it means
simple harmless spatial separation.
But some of us who are hard subjects
to hypnotic continue to see aid to
say that every single fact Of color
segregation in this country, where it
does not mean absolute independence,
means subordination and degradation
for the weaker party. We have a
right, therefore, to suspect that deg
radiation is the aim; it is at least
such huge temptation that no white
organization or community has ever
yet successfully resisted the tcmpta-
ton to degrade after segregatlng.
Our various "Jim-crow" arrange
ments are an illustration; there is not
a railroad in this country required to
furnish separate accommodations for
white and black, which makes these
accommodations equal. In many cases
the arrangements for the colored pas
senger are unsanitary and indecent;
overcrowded cars, one toilet for both
sexes, and the white trainmen and
rougher Negroes permitted to smoke
in the face of colored women. some
times see the colored waiting room
lined with cobwebs, spittoons that
have not been emptied or disinfected
for weeks. In all cases, mind you,
the Negro pays equal first class fares.
However much he may he rated as in
ferior in this country, he is counted
equal in the payment of fares, fines
and taxes; equal in the bearing of
burdens, only inferior in the sharing
of privileges and opportunities.
Residential segregation by law is
about the worst form in which this
evil genius has yet appeared. We
were formerly told that we were given
inferior respect and accommodations
because We deserved it. that we were
unsanitary at home, that we pre-
ferred alleys and novels; that if we
got money and handsome things, 9TH
ers would take us at our own valua-
ton. But when we got the money
and started out of the alley and the
howell, the hypocrite, not satisfied
with his own overwhelming economic
superiority to thrust us back, has
summoned the forbiddiig arm Of stat
ute law. But, says he, the law is
lust and equal and constitutional, is
it not? 1t does not discriminate, it
says that blacks shall not move in
where majority Of the residences
are black. With equal degree of con-
sistency fifty years ago, before the
Negro acquired any land, law might
have been made that Negroes should
not buy lots where white people were
the majority owners, and justice
might have been equally Knocked by
adding the useless clause that white
people should not buy lots where Ne
groes were the majority owners. Let
us make law that the rich shall not
lend to the poor, and then make it
just and constitutional by adding that
the poor shall also not lend to the
rich; that the intelligent shall not
teach the ignorant, nor the ignorant
the intelligent. The segregation law
in effect means that those who have
no homes shall not acquire homes OF
those who have homes, and adds
mockingly that those who have homes
shall not acquire homes of those who
have them not. Reverse the conditions
Imagine, 0 white men, the Negroes
owning all the best residential sec
tons, the Negroes on the avenues and
you in the alleys, the Negro at the
same time being judge and jury in
every contested case, would you still
see the justice of this circumscribing
law?
See what color segregation has al
ready done by economic repression,
without the aid of statute; in most
towns the Negro sections are with
out lights, without sewers, unpaved,
unpoliced, and the legal dumping
ground of the brothels of both races.
Do you fear "social equality?" Is it
law or custom that man must asso-
ciate with all who live on his street,
who ride in his car and get their mail
at his postoffice?
Some friends of the Negro have
been shocked to find the intelligence
of the Negro. race opposed to laws
forbidding intermarriage of white and
colored persons. They may be shocked
also to learn the reason why it is be-
cause experience has shown that the
effect of such law is to lower the
status of colored women. A law is to
be judged by it's effect rather than
by its wording. There Is no problem
between the black man and the white
woman, and the intermarriare law
simply makes the colored woman
legal prey by giving immunity to a
certain type Of white men. Misceken-
alton would be more discouraged by
Legislation in the opposite direction !.
a law to legitimatize children and to
compel the father to marry the moth
err would be effective and salutary.
The motive of the black man in this
instance is not a desire of mixed
family, but for the protection Of her
own colored family.
Continued Next Weekly
KEOKUK ITEMS.