A SUMMARY OF THIS PETITION

CHAPTER I BY W. E. B. DU BOIS

There were in the United States of America, 1940, 12,865,518
native-born citizens, something less than a tenth of the nation, who
form largely a segregated caste, with restricted legal rights, and many
illegal disabilities. They are descendants of the Africans brought to
America during the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries and reduced to slave labor. This group has no complete bio-
logical unity, but varies in color from white to black, and comprises a
great variety of physical characteristics, since many are the offspring
of white European-Americans as well as of Africans and American Indians.

The so-called American Negro group, therefore, while it is in
no sense absolutely set off physically from its fellow Americans has
nevertheless a strong, hereditary cultural unity, born of slavery, of
common suffering, prolonged proscription and curtailment of political
and civil rights; and especially because of economic and social disabil-
ities.

If, however, the effect of the color caste system on the North
American Negro has been both good and bad, its effect on white America
has been disastrous. It has repeatedly led the greatest modern attempt
at democratic government to deny its political ideals, to falsify its
philanthropic assertions and to make its religion to a great extent hypo-
critical.
A

communion. Sectional strife over the profits of slave labor and con-
scientious revolt against making human beings real estate led to bloody
civil war, and to a partial emancipation of slaves which nevertheless
even to this day is not complete. Poverty, ignorance, disease and crime
have been forced on these unfortunate victims of greed to an extent far
beyond any social necessity; and a great nation, which today ought to be
in the forefront of the march toward peace and democracy, finds itself
continuously making common cause with race-hate, prejudiced exploitation
and oppression of the common man. Its high and noble words are turned
against it, because they are contradicted in every syllable by the treat-
ment of the American Negro for three hundred and twenty-eight years.

by Earl B. Dickerson

It is a sad commentary on American constitutional juris-
prudence that because of the absence of effective sanctions there exists
a pitiable chasm between the doctrinal idealism of constitutional guaran-
tees and the practical realization of constitutional protection. And
in no phase of American life is this paradox more patently illustrated
than in the status of American Negroes.

by Milton R. Konvitz

Congress has refused to pass laws to declare the poll tax
illegal; to make lynching more effectively subject to federal law; to
make discrimination in private employment in interstate commerce a crime;
to define and guarantee civil rights in the District of Columbia. The
Supreme Court has failed to declare Jim Crowism in intrastate commerce
unconstitutional; to outlaw segregation in schools as a denial of due
process or equal protection of the laws; to outlaw the restrictive
covenant in the sale or rental of property; to declare the poll tax an
unconstitutional tax on a federally guaranteed right or privilege.

by William R. Ming, Jr.

The present legal and social status of the Negro in the United
States can be best described in terms of the appalling contrast be-
tween the breadth of the rights which are guaranteed by law to every
person and those few which Negroes, generally, are permitted to enjoy.
Frequently it is said that the Negro has been relegated to "second
class citizenship". That, however, is an overly simplified descrip-
tion of the plight of a minority when the political and social insti-
tutions of their country fail miserably to protect their lives, liber-
ties or property.

The terrorization of Negroes in the United States by lynching has long been an international scandal.

A lynching is the killing of an accused or suspected person by a mob without trial or before judicial sentence. Statistics of lynching have been kept with some accuracy since 1882 and are as follows:

| Year | Total* | Year | Total | Year | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1882 | 114 | 1904 | 79 | 1925 | 18 |
| 1883 | 134 | 1905 | 60 | 1926 | 29 |
| 1884 | 211 | 1906 | 64 | 1927 | 16 |
| 1885 | 184 | 1907 | 59 | 1928 | 10 |
| 1886 | 138 | 1908 | 92 | 1929 | 12 |
| 1887 | 122 | 1909 | 75 | 1930 | 23 |
| 1888 | 142 | 1910 | 80 | 1931 | 11 |
| 1889 | 176 | 1911 | 72 | 1932 | 8 |
| 1890 | 128 | 1912 | 86 | 1933 | 26 |
| 1891 | 195 | 1913 | 85 | 1934 | 16 |
| 1892 | 235 | 1914 | 69 | 1935 | 24 |
| 1893 | 200 | 1915 | 99 | 1936 | 10 |
| 1894 | 197 | 1916 | 65 | 1937 | 8 |
| 1895 | 180 | 1917 | 52 | 1938 | 7 |
| 1896 | 131 | 1918 | 63 | 1939 | 4 |
| 1897 | 165 | 1919 | 79 | 1940 | 5 |
| 1898 | 127 | 1920 | 57 | 1941 | 5 |
| 1899 | 107 | 1921 | 58 | 1942 | 5 |
| 1900 | 115 | 1922 | 54 | 1943 | 3 |
| 1901 | 135 | 1923 | 26 | 1944 | 4 |
| 1902 | 97 | 1924 | 16 | 1945 | 1 |
| 1903 | 104 |  |  | 1946 | 7 |

*the figures 1882-1903, include whites

Practically no person in the United States has ever been punished for participation in a lynching.

by Leslie S. Perry

Those who would continue to exploit the Negro, politically and economically have first tried to keep his mind in shackles. They have done so by denying him equal access to the educational facilities which this nation has and makes available to all white citizens who choose to use them.