The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1919-08-16
CHARGES SOUTHERN ANTI-NEGRO
PROPAGANDA IN RIOTS.
Statement by James Weldon John
son, Field Secretary, National As
sOciation for the Advancement Of
COlOred People.

There has been for a number OF
years a well directed propaganda
issuing principally from the South
which has had as its purpose placing
the brand of rapist on the Negro
race. This propaganda has been
there is the direct relation in the
public mind the idea that mob vio-
lence against the Negro.
Whenever the Negro protests
against lynching. nearly all southern
newspapers and great many north
ern newspapers call upon him to
depreciate the crime which leads to
lynching. The authentic statistics
on lynching prove the falsehood on
which this proganda is based.
In the twenty years down to 1908
there were 1885 Negroes lynched in
the Southern States. OF that num-
Der rape was assigned as the cause
in only GA cases. In 1910 cases
other causes were assigned.
In the past thirty years fifty Ne
gro women have been lynched. In the
past twelve months five Negro wom-
en- have been lynched.
In the five-year period, 1904-1918,
264 Negroes were lynched in the
United States, exclusive of those
killed at East st. Louis, and out of
this number rape was assigned as
the cause in only % cases.
Contrast these records, bad as they
may appear, with the records for
New York County, which Is only a
part Of New York CITY, and we were
indicted for rape in the first degree.
That is, in just a part of New York
City, number of persons indicted for
rape in the first degree were nine
more than the total number of Ne
groes lynched on the charge of rape
in the entire United States during
the period 1914-191S. Among these
81 persons indicted by the New York
County Grand Jury there was not
a single Negro. The evidence re-
1uired by the Grand Jury of New
York County to lndict person
charged with rape must be more con-
elusive than the evidence required
by a mob to lynch Negro accused
of rape.
When the Congressional Committee
on immigration in 1911 made its
study of crime in the United States,
an investigation was made of 1852
cases in the New York Court of
General Sessions and II that investi-
cation Il was found that percentage
for the crime CT rape was lower for
the Negro than for either the foreign
born or native born whites. The ac-
iual figures were for foreign born
whites, 1.8; for native born whites.
s.; and for Negroes, s..
The echoes from the Washington
riots are a present illustration of
how this propaganda against the Ne
gro works. The newspapers have
been filed witt attacks on white wo-
men as an excuse for the riots, and
these attacks on white women" are
now being used by southern papers
as an excuse and justification for
the first acts of the white mob.
a retired Judge Of the Superior
Court of North Carolina. writing on
the Washington riots In the will
mington Dispatch. speaks of Negroes
selling automobiles and riding and
snorting through the streets of WASH
ington while the raping went mer-
rily on" What are the facts?
According to the data of Major
Pullman. Chief of Police of Washing
ton, there took place in the District
of Columbia between June 25, 1919,
and the outbreak of the riot, one
case of rape and three cases of at
tempted rape. The first case of at
tempt was on a Colored 81 hOol teach
er. In three Of these cases the sus-
pect was one man and he was in
jail when the riots broke out. No
publicity was given to the fact that
five weetks before the riots, town
white men, a motorman and a con-
ductor on a street car, attempted
rape upon two Colored girls who
were the only passengers in the
car when It reached the end Of the
line. These two men are now under
heavy bail.
repeat that there is direct
plan Of propaganda on the part of
the South to brard the Negro with
being rapist in order that he may
be robbed of all sympathy and public
interest when ne Is lynched and mob
bed. The truth Is. the Negro Is moi
more addicted, and is perhaps less
addicted, to rape than any other
group in the country.