abody, an American merchant and patriot,
established the Peabody Educational Fund for the purpose of promoting
"intellectual, moral, and industrial education in the most destitute
portion of the Southern states." The John F. Slater Fund was established
in 1882 especially for the encouragement of the industrial education of
Negroes.]

Along with the mob violence, moreover, that disgraced the opening years
of the century was an increasing number of officers who were disposed
to do their duty even under trying circumstances. Less than two
months after his notorious inaugural Governor Vardaman of Mississippi
interested the reading public by ordering out a company of militia when
a lynching was practically announced to take place, and by boarding a
special train to the scene to save the Negro. In this same state
in 1909, when the legislature passed a law levying a tax for the
establishment of agricultural schools for white students, and levied
this on the property of white people and Negroes alike, though only the
white people were to have schools, a Jasper County Negro contested
the matter before the Chancery Court, which declared the law
unconstitutional, and he was further supported by the Supreme Court of
the state. Such a decision was inspiring, but it was not the rule, and
already the problems of another decade were being foreshadowed. Already
also under the stress of conditions in the South many Negroes were
seeking a haven in the North. By 1900 there were as many Negroes in
Pennsylvania as in Missouri, whereas twenty years before there had been
twice as many in the latter state. There were in Massachusetts more than
in Delaware, whereas twenty years before Delaware had had 50 per cent
more than Massachusetts. Within twenty years Virginia gained 312,000
white people and only 29,000 Negroes, the latter having begun a steady
movement to New York. North Carolina gained 400,000 white people and
only 93,000 Negroes. South Carolina and Mississippi, however, were not
yet affected in large measure by the movement.

The race indeed was beginning to be possessed by a new consciousness.
After 1895 Booker T. Washington was a very genuine leader. From the
first, however, there was a distinct group of Negro men who honestly
questioned the ultimate wisdom of the so-called Atlanta Compromise,
and who felt that in seeming to be willing temporarily to accept
proscription and to waive political rights Dr. Washington had given up
too m