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Title: The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments
The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16

Author: Archibald H. Grimke

Release Date: February 20, 2010 [EBook #31331]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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OCCASIONAL PAPERS, NO. 16.

THE AMERICAN NEGRO ACADEMY.

THE BALLOTLESS VICTIM OF
ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENTS.

ANNUAL ADDRESS
BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE

PRICE, 15 CENTS.

WASHINGTON, D. C.:
PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY,
1913

THE BALLOTLESS VICTIM OF ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENTS.

The legal status of the Negro in the United States is difficult to define
or describe, because on paper he is an American citizen, entitled to the
rights of an American citizen, but in practice he does not get what he is
entitled to or anything like it in certain parts of the Republic. His life
is safe-guarded by written law, and so is his liberty and his activities
in pursuit of happiness and to better his condition. Moreover in order
that he may protect himself against the predatory aggression and greed of
other citizens he is invested by the supreme law of the land with the
right to vote, with a voice in the Government, to enable him to defend
himself against the enactment of bad and unequal laws and against their
bad and unequal administration. Certainly the Negro seems to be the equal
in rights of any other American. That he is on paper there is not a doubt,
but that he is not in reality there is not a doubt either. What he is
entitled to does not anywhere in the South and in some states of the North
square itself with what he actually enjoys. There is an enormous
discrepancy in his case between National promise or guarantees and
National performance or possessions. He is an American citizen under the
National Constitution. To be sure he is, but with a big qualification. He
has the right to reach up and out and to gr