Richmond planet. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1883-1938, 1930-09-20
VIEWS OF
THE PUBLIC
BISCUITS AND BERRIES VS..
PRINCIPLES AND PROGRESS
Concluding Article.)


In his release, to which this article
is the third and concluding rejoind-
er, Professor Gordon B. Hancock
charged, by intimation, that the mil
liant attitude of Negro publications
and radicals in the North was doing
more to hurt the Southern Negro
than help him. That such a conclu-
sion is out of harmony with the facts
all VINO are not biased will readily
agree.
In the first place, one will look
in vain to find the Negro publication,
North or South, that speaks out in
a clear and consistently radical tone
against the wrongs visited upon the
race or that is openly opposed to
the existing economic and social or
der, out of which these wrongs grow.
The Chicago Defender and The Crisis
are the only race publications that
occasionally strike a radical note.
neither of them, however, ventures
beyond a spasmodic, surface-consid-
Grafton of the race problem; both OF
them religiously avoid q thorough
and clear-cut discussion Of the polit-
ico-economic phase of the problem.
While it is admittedly true that
every Negro is at heart a radical, it
is however equally true that his rad
icalism is largely of racial nature
directed against the disadvantages he
faces, and not against the economic
and political conditions upon which
racial and other prejudices feed.
This explains whv spIve OF the
sincere 90 many Negro intel
-.,u leaders no appreciable
progress has been mace toward q So
luton of the so-called race problem.
Our intellectuals and leaders have
been shooting at the effects Of race
prejudice and not at the cause.
The only other publication in the
North which can be said to exercise
any substantial influence upon the
Southern Negro is the Pittsburgh
Courier. However, with the refresh
ing exception of George s. Schuy-
ler's column there is nothing in the
Courier which entities it to be class
ed as a radical paper. To his cter-
nal credit Schuyler has kept con-
stantly before his readers the light
of economic radicalism and the race
as a whole is appreciative OF him
while the editor Of the Courier with
good business sense and vision rec
ognizes the value to his paper Of q
radical columnist. Other Negro edi-
tors might yet see the wisdom OF
adopting a similar course of action.
In every other respect there is no i'm
portant difference between Negro
publications in the North and those
in the South.
In the second place, the conditions
against which every Negro should
cry out, are no longer confined to
the South, or, to the Unied States
for that matter. In Brooklyn q few
weeks ago, a Negro boy accused OF
snatching n white woman's pocket
book was saved from being lynched
by a mob only because Of timely ap-
pearance of police officer. Recent
ly in Marion, Indiana, a mob invaded
the prison and lynched two Negro
youths who were being held for trial
on a charge Of murder and rape.
Even as these lines are being written
special dispatch to the New York
Times states that on Labor Day, TO-
900 Klansmen held field day exer-
cises at Peekskill, N. Y, where they
burnt the usual cross, and that dele
cations of Klansmen were present
from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New
York and Massachusetts,.
In the face of these facts Profess
sor Hancock's charge against North
ern race publications and radicals is,
to say the least, grossly unfair. The
Negro problem is no longer provin-