The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1923-03-03
INTERRACE BODY
GETTING RESULTS
Committees Strive Quietly to
Erase Stubborn Prejudices;
" Says Officer

Like most movements of it's kind
the Inter-racial Movement had its
birth in great crisis. During the
war the white and colored people ot
the South had, in a very remarkable
way, forgotten their differences ano
united in a supreme effort to win the
war. Promises of better things were
made to all of our boys, black and
white. The colored soldier accepted
these promises at face value. He
played well his part in the war
When upon his return to his home
land these promises were not real
lied, his heart was filled with bitter
ness. The lines We're more tightly
drawn and barriers to his progress
seemed more stubborn and relentless
than ever.
Conferences Called.
AS race riots broke out and fear of
a general race conflict gripped the
country, a group of white men, con-
fident that the good will and cooper
alton secured between the races dur
ing the war could be perpetuated,
called into conference a number of
representative colored men in the
spirit of prayer and supplication, and
adopted platform upon which all
could stand. The planks of this plat
form included justice before the law,
the prevention, of lynching, and the
correction of other injustices to the
colored people. Some of the most
widely known people of the South
accepted places on the commission,
among whom We're ministers, college
presidents, bishops and capitalists.
As q Iater develePme many of the
South's leading women have become
associated with the movement.
The commission does not pretend
to have discovered a shortcut to the
millennium or to have brought into
existence a perfect organization, nor
does it believe. that it has found a
solution to the race problem that can
be worked out in day. It recog-
nizes, IN the language of George
Madden Martin, that prejudices are
stubborn, and that to overcome them
is not a task for limited sympathies
and petty natures; that it is not a
task that can be done by machinery
or mere organization; that it is a
spiritual task, a task to be carried
out in the spirit and according to the
ethics Of the Man of Galilee. These
principles emphasize first the truth
that contact is necessary in the solu-
ton of any human problem. Differ
ences are at first minimiZed, then
they disappear. -.
Works At Lynching.
The leaders perfected duly or
ganized commission with membership
representing thirteen states and head
quarters in Atlanta. In addition to
this commission, each of the thirteen
states has a commission directing
the work in that state. Some eight
hundred of the twelve hundred coun-
ties in the Southern states have or
ganized local committees of repre-
sentative white and colored people.
In thirty-seven years, from 1885 to
1921, there were 437 lynchings in
Georgia and only one indictment. In
1922 alone, with eight lynchings,
twenty-five persons were indicted, of
whom four have been convicted and
sent to the penitentiary and fifteen
are still to be tried. The evidence
in these cases was collected largely
by the inter-racial secretary and
committees in Georgia. This is one
illustration among many of the ef-
fectiveness of the movement.
Need Cooperation.
What the commission needs more
than anything else is. the confidence
of the community, white and eolored.
It seeks the sympathy and co-opera-
|tion of the members of the churches
and social organizations, to the end
that this greatest problem confront
ing the American people today may
be settled by the principles Of JUS
tice and fair play, and according to