The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1922-05-27
MISSISSIPPI

AsdI1A11, WHICH is great reVelaClOn
of the actual state of affairs in that
more or less great commonwealth.
Among other things the writer
says:
"The Mississippi of today bases it's
activity and it's ideals on the rosy
tradition of 'befo' de wah.' The Re
volt of '75' destroyed, as far as Mis-
sissippi was concerned, the fruits of
the war: emancipation a Negro citi-
zenship. Since then the effort has
been to go on as though there had
been no war. Slavery, of course,
could not exist in name, but as far
as possible the institution has been
preserved in fact"
"The colored tenant farmer must
accept the planters figures for set
Element. There is no tribunal to
which he can appeal if he considers
the settlement unjust. I heard a
planter tell, with roars of laughter,
that Jeff done sued me TO- seven hun
der dollars after the settlement
celebrating on the tenants fine book
keeping and the smart aleck lawyer
he got to file, the suit. 1 inquired
when the case would be tried. I was
met with a stare of blank amaze
ment, and then the indignant ques-
ton: DO you think there's a cot in
Mississippi gwine to entertain mig
gers suit against a white man ?
That there suit was throwed out O.
cot mos afore it got in
"A friend once telephoned me:
We can't get in to play cards to-
night. s. had to give a niger a
whippin' today and it alters makes
him so nervous he can't wo nothin'
but go to bed.'
"The jovial singing courteous
Negro of Southern plantations has
passed away from Mississippi, if he
ever existed outside of felton,"
"In many country districts there
are no schools for colored children.
In all counties the country schools for
colored are wretchedly equipped
drafty little sheds, with plank
benches, a few tattered, out-of-date
books, few cracked states, no black
boards, no desks, no pens, pencils, or
paper, no pictures, no. music and a
teacher scarcely less illiterate than
his pupils"
GAS far as he can achieve it, the
Mississippi planter will keep the Me-
groes slaves, overwerked, malnour-
ished, terrorized into submission,
lacking initiative or ambition, dull,
laudess."
"The color line in Mississippi is
devious thing for Northerners to
trace. - There are, of course, Jim
Crow cars on trains, Jim Crow wait
ing rooms, theater galleries and
street car sections. The school sys-
TENS are entirely separate, as are
the churches. But colored people
patronize white sores,' and are at
liberty to try one any hat, garment,
or pair of shoes they fancy. I have
often seen colored women trying on
expensive dresses which were hung
back on the racks and later tried on
and purchased by white customers.
Town Negroes use the banks and
stand in line beside white folks
though they could not do so in
street car aisle. Doctors and den
lists minister to white and colored
alike, though there are separate
wards in the hospitals, with colored
nurses for the colored wards, work.
ing under the direction of white
nurses. White children of the we'll
TODD classes are left almost entirely
to ~colored nurses.
Kept women are as apt to be
colored as white. There are two re-
markable statements I heard again
and again from Mississippians in the
same breath in which they protested,
BY God there'll never be social
equality or mingling Of the races in
this state. There isn't full-blooded
niger in the state of Mississippi,
and there's not a virgin Negress over
fourteen years old in this state.'"
sBut even in Vicksburg, where the
relations between the two races are
particularly good, the colored people
are kept in their place. They are
not citizens. They neither vote nor
hold office, though they pay, taxes. A
crime against colored person is not
punished as is crime against a
white person."
Mississippi is undeniably back
ward state. It has fewer hospitals
than any other state in the Union.
It's educational appropriation is $7.49
per 'educatable child"
Humanity is an outworn and dis
carded institution. That, at least
humanity has left behind. A society
based up an institution, tested, found
basically wrong, and cast aside can
not itself be sound and capable Of
normal growth. Mississippi has.
made every effort to keep her. colored
population slaves in fact, if not in
name. In attempting to retard the