years [16] there have
been lynched in the South about 4,000 Negroes, many of whom have been
publicly burned in the daytime to attract crowds that usually enjoy such
feats as the tourney of the Middle Ages. Negroes who have the courage to
protest against this barbarism have too often been subjected to
indignities and in some cases forced to leave their communities or suffer
the fate of those in behalf of whom they speak. These crimes of white men
were at first kept secret but during the last two generations the culprits
have become known as heroes, so popular has it been to murder Negroes. It
has often been discovered also that the officers of these communities take
part in these crimes and the worst of all is that politicians like
Tillman, Blease and Vardaman glory in recounting the noble deeds of those
who deserve so well of their countrymen for making the soil red with the
Negroes' blood rather than permit the much feared Africanization of
southern institutions.[17]

In this harassing situation the Negro has hoped that the North would
interfere in his behalf, but, with the reactionary Supreme Court of the
United States interpreting this hostile legislation as constitutional in
conformity with the demands of prejudiced public opinion, and with the
leaders of the North inclined to take the view that after all the factions
in the South must be left alone to fight it out, there has been nothing to
be expected from without. Matters too have been rendered much worse
because the leaders of the very party recently abandoning the freedmen to
their fate, aggravated the critical situation by first setting the Negroes
against their former masters, whom they were taught to regard as their
worst enemies whether they were or not.

The last humiliation the Negroes have been forced to submit to is that of
segregation. Here the effort has been to establish a ghetto in cities and
to assign certain parts of the country to Negroes engaged in farming. It
always happens, of course, that the best portion goes to the whites and
the least desirable to the blacks, although the promoters of the
segregation maintain that both races are to be treated equally. The
ultimate aim is to prevent the Negroes of means from figuring
conspicuously in aristocratic districts where they may be brought into
rather close contact with the whites. Negroes see in segregation a settled
policy to keep them down, no matter what they do to elevate themselves.
The sout