in the newspapers of the North, unless
in the South the Negroes write some articles to say amen, and highly
sanction the white man's dictums and positions on the Negro questions
that happen to be up. But there are a few who are able to write on
some questions in our defense without compromise, and yet so
skillfully as not to offend. In speaking of the attitude of the white
press, and its representations, it is not assumed that there is no
disposition of fairness on the part of the writers of the white press.
Many of the great editors mean to be fair from their standpoint. The
Southern white people are prejudiced and supersensitive on some points
beyond all reason, and in all questions between the Negro and the
white man, as man to man, the assumptions, without an exception, are
arrogant beyond all naming, so that it comes about at any point of
issue, where men differing, usually would permit the opponent his
views as fitting from his side of the question, what the Negro has to
say, if he is emphatic and decided, is called impudence. The writer
must be skillful, then, to write uncompromisingly and yet not be of
the "impudent." There are a few men among us who are able to write for
the Southern white papers with reserve, yet without compromise,
greatly to our advantage. Among those few, prominent are Prof. G. W.
Henderson, of Straight University, New Orleans, and President W. H.
Councill, of the College, Normal and Industrial School at Normal,
Alabama. Prof. Henderson is a graduate of Middlebury College, Vermont,
and Yale Theological Seminary, having taken the fellowship from that
institution and studied in Germany two years. His writings show his
scholarship and refinement. He has been persistent and valiant in all
race matters, especially in educational lines in Louisiana, and his
articles, though uncompromising, have from time to time found a
hearing and forced respect from the great dailies of New Orleans.
President Councill is the most widely accepted in the Southern white
press of all Negroes. On some points of disagreement between the
Negroes and the white people he concedes more to some of the white
man's claims than any other Negro who writes. Secondly, he is truly a
great man, and has gained his right to a hearing in intelligent
sources. As a writer, pure and simple, he is forcible; and while the
whole of his attitude may not be accepted generally by his own race,
there is no doubt about his uncompromising attitu