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Title: The crisis (vol. 1, no. 1) : A record of the darker races
Author: Various
Language: English
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THE CRISIS

A RECORD OF THE DARKER RACES
------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume One NOVEMBER, 1910 Number One
------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited by W. E. BURGHARDT DU BOIS, with the co-operation of Oswald
Garrison Villard, J. Max Barber, Charles Edward Russell, Kelly
Miller, W. S. Braithwaite and M. D. Maclean.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY THE

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
AT TWENTY VESEY STREET NEW YORK CITY

ONE DOLLAR A YEAR TEN CENTS A COPY

ONE OF THE SUREST WAYS
TO SUCCEED IN LIFE IS TO
TAKE A COURSE AT

The Touissant Conservatory
of Art and Music

253 West 134th Street
NEW YORK CITY

The most up-to-date and thoroughly equipped conservatory in the city.
Conducted under the supervision of

MME. E. TOUISSANT WELCOME
The Foremost Female Artist of the Race

Courses in Art

Drawing, Pen and Ink Sketching, Crayon, Pastel, Water Color, Oil
Painting, Designing, Cartooning, Fashion Designing, Sign Painting,
Portrait Painting and Photo Enlarging in Crayon, Water Color, Pastel
and Oil. Artistic Painting of Parasols, Fans, Book Marks, Pin Cushions,
Lamp Shades, Curtains, Screens, Piano and Mantel Covers, Sofa Pillows,
etc.

Music

Piano, Violin, Mandolin, Voice Culture and all Brass and Reed
Instruments.

TERMS REASONABLE

Along the Color Line

POLITICAL.

The “grandfather” clause of the Arkansas Constitution reads as follows:

“SECTION 4a. No person shall be registered as an elector of this State,
or be allowed to vote in any election held herein, unless he be able
to read and write any section of the Constitution of the State of
Oklahoma; but no person who was on January 1, 1866, or at any time
prior thereto, entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at
that time resided in some foreign nation, and no lineal descendant of
such person, shall be denied the right to register and vote because of
his inability to so read and write sections of such Constitution.

“Precinct election inspectors having in charge the registration of
electors shall enforce the provisions of this section at the time of
registration, provided registration be required. Should registration be
dispensed with the provisions of this section shall be enforced by the
precinct election officers when electors apply for ballots to vote.”

This amendment has been voted upon and the votes canvassed, but an
official count has not been announced, and probably will not be until
just before the general election in November.

* * * * *

The Hon. J. C. Napier will replace the Hon. W. T. Vernon, of Kansas, as
Register of the United States Treasury. The Chattanooga _Times_ gives
the following reasons for the change:

“It appears now that Vernon has outlived his usefulness, since he
could not help the administration to stem the insurgent wave that
recently swept over the Sunflower State, and that his reappointment was
contingent on his success in that campaign. It is learned from that day
he was marked for retirement.

“Tennessee Republican politicians readily recognized the opportunity to
make a master stroke and impression on the Negro vote in Tennessee, by
recognizing one of their race with an important office.

“Napier for eight years was a member of the Republican State Committee,
but the white members fell out with him at the recent state convention
when it was believed that he had agreed to use his influence with the
Negroes in favor of Patterson. Since he was deposed the committee has
been without Negro membership, and this sop is held out to pacify the
rebellious Negroes all over the state.”

* * * * *

Senator Cummins, of Iowa, will introduce a bill into Congress
for direct primaries in selecting candidates for President and
Vice-President. He says:

“To me the injustice is plain of permitting the 4,000 Republicans of
Mississippi to cast 20 votes in the convention, while Iowa, with
300,000 Republicans, can cast only 26. It it right that Georgia, with
only 30,000 Republican voters, should have exactly the same number of
delegates as Iowa, with ten times that number of Republican votes?
Every one recognizes that the Republican party--such as it is in the
far Southern States--is composed almost wholly of Federal officeholders
and those who want Federal office. It has been demonstrated time and
time again that the delegates to Republican national conventions from
these states are absolutely venal and that they uniformly vote with the
administration forces, which purchase them by means of postoffices and
collectorships.”

* * * * *

The United Colored Democracy of the State of New York has been
organized for the coming campaign. They demand a colored regiment in
the New York National Guard, and also colored policemen and firemen.

* * * * *

J. C. Manning and the Progressive Republicans in Alabama are fighting
Mr. Washington’s political influence in that state.

* * * * *

The newly elected Governor of South Caroline, Blease, made his fight
on a platform opposing Negro education and prohibition.

* * * * *

The Negroes of South Carolina gained complete control of the State
Republican Convention.

* * * * *

The Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback, once Reconstruction Governor of Louisiana,
has been appointed to the Internal Revenue Service in Cincinnati, O.

* * * * *

The Colored Independent Political League has decided to support the
Democratic ticket in Ohio, New York and New Jersey; the Republican
tickets in Delaware and West Virginia, and to favor Senator Bulkeley,
of Connecticut, and oppose Senator Lodge, of Massachusetts. Local
Independent organizations are at work in New York, Ohio, New Jersey,
Utah and Missouri.

* * * * *

The National Executive Committee of the Socialist party have appointed
Lena Morrell Lewis and George A. Goebel a committee of two to
investigate the condition of the Negro in America.

* * * * *

Suit has been brought in the United States Circuit Court to compel the
city of Annapolis, Md., to register colored voters. Annapolis by city
ordinance has attempted to nullify the Fifteenth Amendment.

* * * * *

The Democratic platform in Missouri says:

“The Democratic party when it came into power in 1871, took over the
Lincoln Institute and made it a normal school for the higher education
of the Negro teachers, and it has always made liberal appropriations
for that purpose and for the education of the Negro school children
of the State. It never has and will not discriminate against the
Negro, either by criminal laws or on the question of their rights of
franchise, and it deplores the action of the present chief executive
of this State in seeking to make political capital by creating race
antagonism.”

R. S. Rutledge so resents this plank that he has withdrawn from the
race for nomination as United States Senator.

* * * * *

The colored people of Cleveland, O., have received twenty-three
appointments to minor offices to reward their support of Mayor Baehr,
who defeated Tom Johnson. Beside these officials the colored people
have a member of the Legislature and a member of the City Council.

* * * * *

The Negroes of Atlanta prepared an elaborate program on the occasion of
Theodore Roosevelt’s speech to them.

* * * * *

The Republicans have nominated Thomas Briar, a colored man, to run for
Congress in the Fourth District of South Carolina.

* * * * *

In the twelve counties of the Eighth Congressional District of
Georgia there were only 392 colored men registered as voters. Even
these, however, very nearly held the balance of power in the last
Congressional election.

* * * * *

A press dispatch from Panama says:

“It became known to-day that Mendoza sent a messenger asking
Colonel Goethals to call at the Presidential palace. The army man,
by messenger, asked if he was wished personally or in his official
capacity. Several other notes were passed back and forth, Goethals
finally going.

“When he reached the palace, Mendoza refused to see him. It is said
that the snub was caused by Colonel Goethals drawing the color line in
the first place, Mendoza being a Negro.”

* * * * *

EDUCATION.

Miss Alice Byington has left Hampton Institute $260,750.

* * * * *

New Orleans has four Negro schools with white teachers and ten with
Negro teachers. It has been decided to place Negro teachers in the new
Thomy Lafon School Annex.

* * * * *

Tuskegee has received about $400,000 from the Dolger bequest.

* * * * *

A Negro industrial school is talked of in Pueblo, Col.

* * * * *

White Sawyer, a Missouri Negro, has lost the suit in which he attempted
to compel the school trustees to transport his children. There is only
one colored school in his township and that is six miles from his home.

* * * * *

An industrial school is to be founded in Nicodemus, Kansas, a colored
colony planted at the time of the exodus.

* * * * *

A. B. Johnson, of Mississippi, states that in his own county with less
than 7,000 Negroes of school age over 5,000 have never been to school.

* * * * *

Effort is being made in Washington, D. C., to remove R. C. Bruce, the
colored superintendent, for alleged incompetency.

* * * * *

In a talk to white Atlanta ministers a colored preacher asked that
influence be used to improve public school facilities for the Negroes.
He said the Negro school children of Atlanta number 10,000 and he
declared 5,081 of the number are out of school. “The Negroes of this
city pay $10,000 for education of their children,” he stated, “that the
whites get free.”

* * * * *

The city of Chattanooga has refused to take steps toward establishing a
Negro normal school. It is much needed.

* * * * *

H. T. Kealing, formerly editor of the _African M. E. Review_, has been
elected president of Western University, at Quindaro, Kansas.

* * * * *

There are a large number of applicants for the position of president of
the Kentucky Normal and Industrial Institute at Frankfort.

* * * * *

The colored Baptist Women’s Convention has voted $15,000 to the
National Training School for Girls in the District of Columbia.

* * * * *

The Negroes of Georgia have raised $25,000 as a memorial offering at
the quarterly centennial of Morris Brown College.

* * * * *

The white boys of the Doolittle Public School of Chicago have tried
to get rid of the Negro pupils. The result has been a good deal of
fighting.

* * * * *

THE CHURCH.

A colored institute in memory of Bishop Dudley has been dedicated at
Louisville, Ky.

* * * * *

The convention of the Episcopal Church has authorized suffragan
bishops. This will allow the segregation of colored people under
bishops who will act as assistants to the regular bishops and have no
vote in the convention. The colored people asked for missionary bishops
who would vote in the convention. Such bishops are to be permitted only
in case the bishop and convention consent.

* * * * *

There is considerable interest in Southern white churches over
missionary and educational work among Negroes. The subject was
discussed at a recent Bible institute in the University of Tennessee
and the Atlanta _Constitution_ has had several editorials.

* * * * *

Bishop John Wesley Smith of the African Zion Church is dead.

* * * * *

Bishop T. N. Morrison, of the Episcopal Church, says:

“I would impress upon those interested in missionary work my belief
that there is more of a field for good and advantageous work among the
Negroes of the United States than among the people of foreign countries
and I will urge that missionaries’ work begin at home.”

* * * * *

The twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Episcopal Church workers among
colored people was held this year in the city of Cleveland, O.

* * * * *

SOCIAL UPLIFT.

A congress, which promises to be one of the most influential of our
time, is to be held in London July 26-29, 1911, in the central building
of the University of London. The list of those who have extended to it
their moral support is most imposing. Among the supporters, who hail
from no less than fifty countries, are over twenty-five presidents of
Parliaments, the majority of the members of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration and of the delegates to the Second Hague Conference, twelve
British governors and eight British premiers, over forty colonial
bishops, some hundred and thirty professors of international law,
the leading anthropologists and sociologists, the officers and the
majority of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and other
distinguished personages. The list of the writers of papers includes
eminent representatives of over twenty civilizations, and every paper
referring to a particular people is prepared by some one of high
standing belonging to it.

* * * * *

The Rhode Island Union of Colored Women numbers 12 clubs--one
in Pawtucket, three in Newport and eight in Providence. Each of
these clubs is doing excellent work in its own way, striving to
solve the problems nearest home. But while the local club has its
particular function, the demands of the union upon each individual
organization is equally great. The work is divided into four general
departments--parents, village improvement, hero and race library. One
or two members from each club is represented in each department.

* * * * *

The Associated Charities of Lexington, Ky., are giving talks to colored
people on consumption.

* * * * *

Mr. Booker T. Washington while in Europe received much social
attention. In an interview in the _Morning Post_ he said that the race
problem in the South is becoming more and more reassuring. On landing
in America Mr. Washington announced that the Negroes in the United
States were better off than the poor classes in Europe.

* * * * *

A Carnegie Library for Negroes will be built in Montgomery, Ala.

* * * * *

The need of a reformatory for Negro youth is being agitated in Georgia.

* * * * *

Colored state fairs are being held this fall in Virginia, Kentucky,
Georgia and other states.

* * * * *

Governor Hadley, of Missouri, has appointed a Negro tuberculosis
commission consisting of six Negro physicians and one lady.

* * * * *

That powerful Negro empires of great size and some culture existed in
the Sudan before the white races entered Africa is the conviction of a
French scientist, M. Zeltner, who reports in _La Nature_ on the results
of his archæological investigations in the basins of the rivers Niger
and Senegal.

Within a triangle formed by the towns of Timbuctoo, Kayes and Bamako he
located fifty-two archæological deposits consisting of ruins of unknown
cities. M. Zeltner’s most interesting finds were made in caves on the
upper Senegal. Here an abundance of runic signs and drawings were found
traced on rocks. They were similar in character to those discovered
in South African caverns. The writings have some resemblance to those
signs found on ancient ruins further eastward in the Sahara desert, and
are believed by M. Zeltner to be related to the present Tuareg alphabet.

The discoveries made have yet to be thoroughly studied. M. Zeltner
thinks that the archæological exploration of the African continent
is yet in its infancy and will doubtless yield surprising results in
establishing the advanced state of development attained by the black
races in early times.--_N. Y. Sun._

* * * * *

ORGANIZATIONS AND MEETINGS.

Clark University has held an interesting conference on the East and
Africa.

The subjects discussed were Turkey, Persia, Bulgaria, Arabia, Egypt
and Africa. Among the speakers were: Dr. A. T. Chamberlain, on “The
Contributions of the Negro to Human Civilization;” G. W. Ellis, F. R.
G. S., on Liberia; the Rev. L. P. Clinton, on West Africa; Professor
Frederic Starr, on the Congo, and E. A. Forbes, on French Africa.
Messrs. Ellis and Clinton are colored.

* * * * *

Colored people in Ohio and Maryland have held celebrations
commemorating the issuance of Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation
Proclamation in 1863.

* * * * *

At the Appalachian Exposition, which is being held in Knoxville,
the Negroes have a special exhibit and are conducting a series of
celebrations.

* * * * *

During the summer the following colored organizations have held
annual meetings: National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, at
Louisville, Ky.; National Association of Colored Physicians and
Surgeons, at Washington, D. C.; National Colored Baptist Association,
at New Orleans, La.; the Niagara Movement, at Sea Isle City, N. J.;
the Independent Political League, at Atlantic City, N. J.; the Negro
Business League, in New York City; the Colored Elks, at Washington,
D. C., and the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, at Baltimore. It is
estimated that nearly 12,000 people attended these various conventions.

* * * * *

ECONOMIC.

Baltimore is aroused over the fact that the Negroes are buying
property on McCulloh Street. They are proposing to pass an ordinance
which provides that, within a section specified, it shall not be
lawful for any white person to move into or begin to occupy any house
as a residence in any street in which a majority of the bona fide
residents are Negroes; and, on the other hand, that it shall not be
lawful hereafter for any Negro to move into, or begin to occupy, as a
residence, any house in a street in which the majority of bona fide
residents are already white people. There is further provision that
it shall be unlawful hereafter for any person to open, or cause to
be opened, any new streets to be used for residences, without first
declaring in the application for a permit to build whether the houses
are to be built for and occupied by whites or Negroes, and the building
inspector is to issue a permit accordingly.

It is to be noticed that this ordinance does not interfere with any
residence heretofore acquired. The invasion of Negro property owners
is put down as a reason for the failure of Baltimore to grow faster in
population.

* * * * *

A similar question has arisen in Kansas City, Kan., where the
Mercantile Club proposes to cut off threatened Negro invasion by having
the state buy the property for parks and boulevards.

* * * * *

In Richmond, Va., a colored syndicate is about to buy property near a
park. This is said to be viewed with alarm at the city hall and the
city is urged to buy it.

* * * * *

In St. Louis a new Civic Realty Company is seeking to organize public
opinion and social ostracism against persons who sell property to
Negroes.

* * * * *

The Baltimore _News_ has sent a correspondent through the South to see
how the Negro ghettos are arranged there.

Most of the cities say that “public opinion” keeps the Negro population
segregated and intimate that mob violence is ready to enforce this
opinion together with social ostracism for the white seller of the
property. In Alabama disfranchisement is said to keep colored folks “in
their places.”

* * * * *

An ordinance for the physical separation of white and black residents
is being urged in Atlanta. Negroes are not to live in white settlements
“except as servants or tenants in the rear.”

* * * * *

The Central Labor Union of New Orleans, La., has written a letter
refuting the statement that increased pay of Negro laborers has
decreased their efficiency.

* * * * *

J. H. Grant has a $20,000 Negro shoe store in Memphis, Tenn., and is
trying to establish a chain of such stores in various Southern cities.

* * * * *

It is charged that the Barbers’ State Board of Examiners of Missouri
refused to license colored schools for training barbers.

* * * * *

The advice given the Negro to go South in the Negro Business League
has given rise to much comment. G. W. Crawford, in the _Evening Post_,
strongly combats the idea. “The Negro question in all its troublesome
aspects must be nationalized,” he says.

* * * * *

BROWNSVILLE.

Attention has been called to the fact that the 25th Infantry, which has
recently been so warmly commended for work in putting out the forest
fires, was the same regiment some of whose members were dismissed
without a trial for alleged but unproven crimes at Brownsville, Tex.

* * * * *

SCIENCE.

A paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of
Science and quoted in _Current Literature_ has an excellent statement
of the physical status of the Negro, placing him high among the races
of the world. The paper concludes that in many points the Negro is more
highly specialized than the less pigmented races of mankind, while in
others he is more primitive. It says that all earlier human races were
probably colored.

* * * * *

A Negro physician of Stanford, Ky., has patented a car-coupling device.

* * * * *

Professor Wilder, of Cornell, reports the case of a white man with an
intelligent brain of about one-half the average weight. This is further
evidence that mere brain weight is no indication of mentality.

* * * * *

ART.

Carl Diton has sailed for Europe to study the piano.

* * * * *

Clarence White, the violinist, is giving a series of concerts
throughout the country.

* * * * *

Mr. Joseph Douglass is making his regular concert tour.

* * * * *

Theodore Cable, of Harvard University, has been admitted to one of the
college musical societies as a performer upon the violin.

* * * * *

Denver is planning a theatre for colored people. One is in operation
in Washington, D. C. There are scores of moving-picture shows opened
recently for colored patronage in the border states.

* * * * *

New York is becoming an art center for colored people, especially in
music and acting. It is the headquarters of Bert Williams, Cole &
Johnson and Will Marion Cook. One of the latest and most interesting
developments is the Clef Club Orchestra of one hundred and thirty
musicians, under James Reese Europe.

OPINION

The only thing that makes me afraid is what you call the race problem
here in America. Its a hard thing to contend with. The colored people
should have been educated first, and then gradually emancipated. It was
a mistake to set them free untutored and helpless.--Cardinal Logue in
the _N. Y. Evening Journal_.

* * * * *

Probably the new census will show that there are ten millions of
Negroes in the United States to-day; that more than one-tenth of our
total population is colored. Statesmen, educators and economists
realize that this mighty force must be reckoned with soberly; that it
must be guided aright or else the consequences to the nation will be
catastrophic.--_Troy Press._

* * * * *

What is the Democratic oligarchy doing in educating the while masses
in the South to-day? For example, let us investigate the conditions
in Alabama. There were, at the taking of the census of 1900, 731,599
children of from five to twenty years of age, inclusive, in this state.
The total school enrollment in Alabama, as shown in the report of the
department of education for 1906-7, was 386,478.

Of those enrolled, and this does not imply average attendance, there
were 258,998 white children. There were, therefore, 133,618 white
children who did not even so much as enroll, inasmuch as there were
392,616 white children of school age in Alabama in 1900. Of the 338,980
Negro children of school age there was an enrollment of 127,480,
leaving just 111,500 Negro children without the experience of a school
enrollment.--Joseph Manning in the _Original Rights Magazine_.

* * * * *

The Negro who is trained to work with his hands, to become industrious,
to own property and to acquire a “stake in the country,” has
been presented with an insurance policy against vagrancy and its
product--crime.--_Atlanta Constitution._

* * * * *

A colored man said in regard to the Baltimore segregation ordinance:

“This ordinance will keep the colored citizens in the alleys and put
the race back where it was 40 years ago. The streets that have been
conceded to the colored people have been Biddle Street, Druid Hill
Avenue, Etting Street, Division Street and Argyle Avenue. How can you
get 100,000 intelligent colored citizens into this small area?”

Mr. Jacob M. Levy, representing the Socialist party, spoke next, saying
the party protested against any measure that would prohibit a man of
any race or color from changing his environment. He said:

“Believing as we do that the whole human family is one brotherhood,
without distinction of race, color or creed, and that all of them
contribute their share to the sum total of our development and
civilization, we are unalterably opposed to any measure that may
deprive the least of them of the same privileges and opportunities
granted to others. On the face of this ordinance is stamped iniquity,
injustice, hypocrisy and special privilege to the few. Property rights
are placed above human rights. We stand for human rights first.

“Although I own property on Druid Hill Avenue end on Lombard Street,
the former occupied by colored people, I would rather see my property
become absolutely valueless than to see human rights placed below the
interests of property.”

Mr. Charles Kemper, secretary of the Socialist party in Baltimore,
followed Mr. Levy. He declared the ordinance to be ridiculous and said
the whole question was not a racial one, but one of property.

“The colored man has been paid such a low wage that he has for years
been unable to live as well as he wished,” he said. “Now that he has
become able to improve his living conditions, do you propose to prevent
him? The last clause of the ordinance gives the whole measure the lie.
It does not prohibit the buying of property by white or black. Do you
think you can prevent a man from living in the house that belongs to
him?”--_Baltimore Sun_, report of hearings on segregation ordinance.

* * * * *

To the Editor of _The Evening Sun_:

On behalf of our glorious sons and sires, on behalf of our virtuous
wives and daughters, on behalf of that dominant and peerless race
nurtured and reared upon the sacred soil of “Maryland, my Maryland,” I
protest, in the name of white supremacy and white manhood, against the
false and dishonoring sentiment “that it is no humiliation nor disgrace
to live next door to a Negro!”--_Baltimore Sun._

* * * * *

The concentration of Negroes in back alleys and elsewhere in the choice
residential districts has been the result of innumerable causes,
the poverty following the war, the long years of depression and the
great age of the town, but now that we are engaged in magnificent
public enterprises for the beautification of the city, such as the
construction of the Boulevard, it behooves us to take thought for
the reclamation of entire residential sections. The segregation of
the races is quite as desirable in Charleston as in Baltimore. The
latter fights to prevent the encroachment of the one race on the
other. Our fight should be to correct what is already an evil of long
standing.--_Charleston_ (S. C.) _News and Courier_.

* * * * *

If a Negro went into a white restaurant in our town and sat at a table
and ordered a meal our citizens would want to lynch him, or he would be
arrested and a heavy fine imposed upon him. The same should be done to
a white person that would go into a Negro restaurant and sit at a table
and eat a meal. Last Sunday night while returning home from the depot
after the excursion train left we saw two white men and women sitting
at a table in a Negro restaurant on Suwannee street and eating supper
and seemed to be just as contented as if they were in a first-class
white restaurant.--_White Springs (Fla.) Messenger._

* * * * *

There was just one thing lacking at yesterday’s session of the
National Negro Business League, when those present were told what was
expected of them if they hoped to do credit to their race and to their
country. A few members of the 25th Infantry in uniform to represent
the dismissed battalion, the fate of which received the attention of
Congress some time ago, would have furnished a welcome touch of color
and reminded the delegates that a grateful nation never forgets. It
would have given point also to the following passage in the address (by
Mr. Roosevelt):

“I am the last man in the world to slur over the injustice that good
Negroes are often subjected to, but I feel that the really substantial
way to remedy that injustice is so to carry yourselves that the white
man will be compelled to recognize in his colored neighbor a good and
honest worker, an effective citizen and a self-respecting man.”

However, judging from the good temper which pervaded the gathering,
and the rapture with which the excellent platitudes were received,
it is clear that a short memory is one of the useful and comfortable
endowments of the Negro race.--_N. Y. Sun._

* * * * *

“I gather from your article in the June _Crown_ that you think the
negro to be as good as the white man. Am I right? I think you are doing
great harm in encouraging the negro in his pretensions. He is all right
as long as he keeps in his place. But he is not the equal of the white
man and he never will be, and we will take care that he stays where he
belongs. We will use force if need be, law or no law. I want to say
that I cannot support a publication that encourages the negro.

---- ---- ----”

* * * * *

FRIEND:

You ask whether, in my judgment, the Negro is as good as the white man.
Now I will not venture to say that the Negro is as good as you, for I
do not know how good you are. But I will put it this way: The Negro is
as good as I am. You certainly cannot object to my appraising myself;
and I say that the Negro is as good as I am. I also say that I am as
good as you or any other man that lives or has lived or ever will live!

You can draw your own inferences.--_The Crown_ (Newark, N. J.)

* * * * *

To those who have taken the trouble to study the moral, social,
intellectual and material progress of the colored people of this
country during the past four decades, the advancement must be
amazing.--_The Banker and Invester._

* * * * *

A white man succeeds a Negro as Collector of Internal Revenue for
Georgia. In making this appointment the President follows the policy
announced by him early in March, 1909, when he said that Negroes would
not be named for office “against the wishes of the whites.” In every
Southern State colored men are thus barred as completely as though
citizenship had never been conferred upon them.

In many Northern States the colored vote might easily put it out of the
power of the Republicans to elect Presidents at all. Ohio in particular
is so situated. That the local politicians recognize the value of
the colored contingent is shown by the platform adopted on July 27
last by the Republican State Convention, in which there was the usual
demand for the strict enforcement of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and
Fifteenth Amendments, with the familiar phrases about equal rights and
opportunities.

There is no uncertainty in these matters except upon one point. We know
that so far as resolutions are concerned the great Republican heart is
still true to the colored man. We know that all Negroes look alike to
the Republican President and that he will have none of them. We are in
doubt only as to the ticket that the Northern black man will vote in
November, especially in Ohio.--_The N. Y. World._

* * * * *

Just because Johnson has succeeded in reaching the top in pugilism,
it does not alter the fact that he is a Negro and is not entitled to
prestige in the cleaner and better sport of automobile racing.--“Wild
Bob” Burman, driver of Buick cars.

* * * * *

The continued existence of the color prejudice that is peculiar to
the American people is one of the most singular features of our
national life. It is probably due to the lurking consciousness that
the white people of the United States owe a debt to the Negro race
that can never be repaid. None are so unforgiving as those who are
conscious that they have most to be forgiven. It takes more than
common magnanimity to cherish a friendly feeling toward those you have
wronged, and the American people have hardly attained to that point
of magnanimity yet. But we will get there in time, and learn to value
men for their own qualities and not on account of their color or their
pedigree.--_Brooklyn Times._

* * * * *

The recent heated political debates between leading white men of
Georgia has for the time being suspended. Party rules based upon race
lines will compel contestants to submit to the decision of a vote in
the primary that is only partisan to the extent of being anti-Negro.
No candidate, whatever his personal feeling toward his colored fellow
citizens, has dared to put in a word favorable to them. * * * Taxation
without representation was oppressive when the American Colonies
declared their purpose to be independent of the English crown, and it
is no less so when practiced by the descendants of the men who gave
it out to the world. Consider this matter soberly and wisely and then
act.--_Georgia Baptist_ (colored.)

* * * * *

One of the biggest tasks awaiting the energetic and intelligent action
of the American Socialists is our great Negro problem. It is by no
means disposed of by reference to our theoretical declaration for
human equality regardless of race, creed or color. The problem is
here, a momentous part of the general labor problem. For behind all
the antagonism to the Negro lurks the desire of capitalism to keep
the colored people down in a state of political helplessness so that
they may all the easier be exploited for the benefit of the profit
makers.--_The Call._

* * * * *

It is one thing to govern colored peoples. It is another to live with
them. The States has the harder problem, and the problem is not of its
own making. Until we have a Mr. Roosevelt of our own, we shall not
hasten to advise the States, and we shall be as careful in our censure
as in our advice.

But we must recognize, for it is of primary importance, this new
and violent spirit which is growing in America, under pressure of
the Negroes from within and the yellow races from without. This new
spirit--the result partly of jealousy, partly of contempt, partly of
mere physical repulsion--is crushing, if it has not already crushed,
the religious sentiment of the equality of men. How far will the spirit
spread? There are those who see in it the foreshadow of the great
conflict of the future, when, as they believe, the white races will
fight for their existence against the colored races coming up out of
the East.--_The World_ (England).

* * * * *

As is well known in South Carolina, the district funds are not divided
among the schools of the district in proportion to enrollment, but
every Negro child counts as much as a white child in securing funds
for the district. The Negro schools afford the best opportunity for
padding the rolls. In fact, a contract with Negro teachers is not
infrequently made in South Carolina in which the salary to be received
by the teacher is dependent on the number of children enrolled.--State
Supervisor of Rural Schools in the _Charleston_ (S. C.) _News and
Courier_.

* * * * *

Christian people, in general, at the South, are coming to recognize
that the white race cannot pursue a policy of repression toward the
Negroes without repressing and degrading their own race. They are
coming to realize that the only way for the whites to live with an
inferior race all about them, without being injured by the presence of
this different race, is to lift that race up as opportunity offers, by
the exercise of Christian helpfulness.

The trouble about holding another man down is that one cannot get up
to do anything else while he is engaged in the job.--_Raleigh_ (N. C.)
_Record_ (white).

* * * * *

It has been noted that the Negro has secured entrance into occupations
which had been closed to him. It is the opinion of many who have
given the matter attention that the large so-called colored class is
developing greater capacity and desire for skilful pursuits, and that
many individuals have made great personal advancement. To what extent
such conditions have been developed and what future hope there is
for the Negro in heretofore barred fields will be made subjects for
future inquiry and report in next year’s volume.--_Annual Report of
Pennsylvania Bureau of Industrial Statistics._

* * * * *

The _Times_ would be astonished if it could only know the division of
sentiment among Negroes of this State. Hundreds and hundreds of Negroes
“buck” at the lily white Republican ticket, and they have been waiting
to see what the regular Democrats would do on October 6, and should
the Democrats put out an acceptable and in the least conservative
man you will see a larger division of the Negro vote in the State of
Tennessee than ever before. Not all the Negroes now can be led into the
shambles by the ever-alluring “slush funds.”--Colored correspondent in
_Chattanooga Times_.

* * * * *

The white people of a state which does this are hurting themselves.
Self-government is the thing that educates men to be citizens, and
awakens loyalty to the state or nation. The state that takes away the
rights of half its citizens is turning that half into a group that will
eventually have no loyalty to the state--why should they have? But
education is getting down to all in this land. It will reach these. The
papers come to them and they can think. Some day they will organize
and then there will be what? Rebellion? No, for those who are not
citizens cannot rebel. But there will be clashes, demands of rights,
even by blood. And the state that takes away men’s votes on race lines
deserves all the consequences of race hatred this will inevitably
bring.--_Christian Work._

* * * * *

The part of him that was Western in his Southwestern origin, Clemens
kept to the end, but he was the most dissouthernized Southerner I
ever knew. No man more perfectly sensed, and more entirely abhorred,
slavery, and no one has ever poured such scorn upon the secondhand,
Walter-Scotticised, pseudo-chivalry of the Southern ideal. He held
himself responsible for the wrong which the white race had done the
black race in slavery, and he explained, in paying the way of a
Negro student through Yale, that he was doing it as his part of the
reparation due from every white man to every black man. He said he had
never seen this student--never wished to see him or know his name; it
was quite enough that he was a Negro.--W. D. Howells on “Mark Twain.”

* * * * *

The _World_ does not discuss the merits of this question, nor do we.
We even agree that many concessions must be made to the prejudices of
mankind, and that it may be true that any action that tends to create
irritation between the races is unwise. But at the same time the Negro
is a citizen, and it seems to us unfair to lay down a general rule
the effect of which is to exclude him from office, without any regard
whatever to his fitness. But the interesting thing about it all is that
this action is that of a Republican President, the President of a party
that has always professed great devotion to the Negro.--_Indianapolis
News._

EDITORIAL

THE CRISIS.

The object of this publication is to set forth those facts and
arguments which show the danger of race prejudice, particularly as
manifested to-day toward colored people. It takes its name from
the fact that the editors believe that this is a critical time in
the history of the advancement of men. Catholicity and tolerance,
reason and forbearance can to-day make the world-old dream of human
brotherhood approach realization; while bigotry and prejudice,
emphasized race consciousness and force can repeat the awful history
of the contact of nations and groups in the past. We strive for this
higher and broader vision of Peace and Good Will.

The policy of THE CRISIS will be simple and well defined:

It will first and foremost be a newspaper: it will record important
happenings and movements in the world which bear on the great problem
of inter-racial relations, and especially those which affect the
Negro-American.

Secondly, it will be a review of opinion and literature, recording
briefly books, articles, and important expressions of opinion in the
white and colored press on the race problem.

Thirdly, it will publish a few short articles.

Finally, its editorial page will stand for the rights of men,
irrespective of color or race, for the highest ideals of American
democracy, and for reasonable but earnest and persistent attempt to
gain these rights and realize these ideals. The magazine will be the
organ of no clique or party and will avoid personal rancor of all
sorts. In the absence of proof to the contrary it will assume honesty
of purpose on the part of all men, North and South, white and black.

SEGREGATION.

Some people in Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, Columbus, O., and
other Northern cities are quietly trying to establish separate colored
schools. This is wrong, and should be resisted by black men and white.
Human contact, human acquaintanceship, human sympathy is the great
solvent of human problems. Separate school children by wealth and the
result is class misunderstanding and hatred. Separate them by race and
the result is war. Separate them by color and they grow up without
learning the tremendous truth that it is impossible to judge the mind
of a man by the color of his face. Is there any truth that America
needs to learn more? Back of this demand for the segregation of black
folk in public institutions, or the segregation of Italians, or the
segregation of any class, is almost always a shirking of responsibility
on the part of the public--a desire to put off on somebody else the
work of social uplift, while they themselves enjoy its results. Nobody
pretends to deny that probably three-fourths of the colored children in
the public schools of a great Northern city are below the average of
their fellow students in some respects. They are, however, capable of
improvement, and of rapid improvement. This improvement can be carried
on by the community. The community can, however, if it is cowardly and
selfish, shirk this responsibility and pile it on the shoulders of the
Negroes represented by the one-fourth of Negro children who are above
the average, or equal to it; and they can, if they are persistent,
succeed in pushing back and possibly overwhelming a deserving and
rising class of colored people.

This is the history of color discrimination in general in Philadelphia,
New York and Chicago. When the discrimination comes in various lines
of life, it does not bear simply on those who are not hurt by it--who
do not feel it, and who by their position naturally fall outside the
lines of discrimination, but it comes with crushing weight upon those
other Negroes to whom the reasons for discrimination do not apply in
the slightest respect, and they are thus made to bear a double burden.
Further than this, when the discrimination is once established,
immediately the public provisions for the segregated portion become
worse. If it is discrimination against poor people, then the schools
for the poor people become worse than those for the rich--less well
equipped and less well supervised. If it is discrimination against
colored people, the colored school becomes poor, with less money and
less means of efficiency.

The argument, then, for color discrimination in schools and in public
institutions is an argument against democracy and an attempt to shift
public responsibility from the shoulders of the public to the shoulders
of some class who are unable to defend themselves.

BALTIMORE.

An inevitable step forward in anti-Negro prejudice is being taken in
Baltimore, and threatened elsewhere. The colored folk of that city
long ago became dissatisfied with a particularly bad system of alley
homes. They saved their money and purchased nearly the whole length of
Druid Hill avenue--one of the best colored streets in the world. Then
they began to expand into parallel streets, one of which was McCulloh.
They had been told that “money talks,” and that the surest road to
respect in America was financial success. The result was inevitable.
The white people of McCulloh street rose in indignation and are
importuning the City Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting colored
people from “invading” white residential districts, and _vice versa_.
Their argument sounds strong: colored residents bring down the price of
property, therefore get rid of colored residents.

Is this the real logic of the situation? Why do colored people depress
property values? Because of an exaggerated and persistently encouraged
racial prejudice. In the encouragement of such prejudice, Baltimore
and Maryland have particularly sinned. Would not an attempt to allay
prejudice be wiser than laws against thrift?

VOTING.

If there is one thing that should be urged upon colored voters
throughout the United States this fall it is independence. No
intelligent man should vote one way simply from habit. Only through
careful scrutiny of candidates and policies can a man put himself in
position to help rule one hundred million people. It is because of
the suspicion that colored men are not capable of doing this, or are
unwilling to do it, that so many American citizens acquiesce in the
nullification of democracy known as disfranchisement. Let every colored
man who can, vote; and whether he vote the Republican or Democratic
or Socialist ticket, let him vote it, not because his father did or
because he is afraid, but because after intelligent consideration he
thinks the success of that ticket best for his people and his country.

AGITATION.

Some good friends of the cause we represent fear agitation. They say:
“Do not agitate--do not make a noise; _work_.” They add, “Agitation
is destructive or at best negative--what is wanted is positive
constructive work.”

Such honest critics mistake the function of agitation. A toothache is
agitation. Is a toothache a good thing? No. Is it therefore useless?
No. It is supremely useful, for it tells the body of decay, dyspepsis
and death. Without it the body would suffer unknowingly. It would
think: All is well, when lo! danger lurks.

The same is true of the Social Body. Agitation is a necessary evil to
tell of the ills of the Suffering. Without it many a nation has been
lulled to false security and preened itself with virtues it did not
possess.

The function of this Association is to tell this nation the crying evil
of race prejudice. It is a hard duty but a necessary one--a divine
one. It is Pain; Pain is not good but Pain is necessary. Pain does
not aggravate disease--Disease causes Pain. Agitation does not mean
Aggravation--Aggravation calls for Agitation in order that Remedy may
be found.

* * * * *

Two Italians were lynched in Florida. The Italian Government protested,
but it was found that they were naturalized Americans. The inalienable
right of every free American citizen to be lynched without tiresome
investigation and penalties is one which the families of the lately
deceased doubtless deeply appreciate.

The N. A. A. C. P.

On the one hundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s birth a call was issued
in New York signed by prominent people all over the country for a
conference on the status of the colored people.

* * * * *

The first conference met in New York May 31 and June 1, 1909.

* * * * *

The second conference was held in New York May 12-14, 1910.

The second conference organized a permanent body to be known as the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The
officers of this association are:

National President: Mr. Moorfield Storey, Boston, Mass.

Chairman of the Executive Committee: Mr. Wm. English Walling, New
York.

Treasurer: Mr. John E. Milholland, New York.

Disbursing Treasurer: Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, New York.

Director of Publicity and Research: Dr. W. E. B. DuBois, New York.

Executive Secretary: Miss Frances Blascoer, New York.

* * * * *

The work of the N. A. A. C. P. can be summarized as follows up to the
present date:

Four mass meetings and ten other meetings have been held to discuss the
status of the colored people and efforts for betterment.

One volume of speeches and 6,000 separate pieces of literature are
being distributed.

A bureau of information has been maintained which has corresponded with
over 500 persons in all parts of the country.

Six articles have been furnished to magazines and eight to newspapers.

Two investigations into educational conditions are in progress.

Effort has been made in three cases to secure legal redress of
grievances.

This Association needs $10,000 for its year’s work. We ask for
donations and we especially want members who pay from $1 to $25 yearly,
according to ability. Anybody may join.

* * * * *

The future plans of the organization include:

The publication of THE CRISIS.

Co-operation with all agencies working for the uplift of colored people.

The holding of mass meetings and conferences.

The issuing of pamphlets at the rate of one every other month or
oftener.

The publication of articles in magazines and in the daily press.

The discovering and redress of cases of injustice.

The systematic study of the present conditions among colored people.

* * * * *

The General Committee consists of the officers and the following
persons:

[A]Miss Gertrude Barnum, New York.
[A]Rev. W. H. Brooks, New York.
Prof. John Dewey, New York.
Miss Maud R. Ingersoll, New York.
Mrs. Florence Kelley, New York.
[A]Mr. Paul Kennaday, New York.
[A]Mrs. F. R. Keyser, New York.
Dr. Chas. Lenz, New York.
Mr. Jacob W. Mack, New York.
[A]Mrs. M. D. MacLean, New York.
Rev. Horace G. Miller, New York.
Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr., New York.
Mr. James F. Morton, Jr., New York.
Mr. Henry Moskowitz, New York.
Miss Leonora O’Reilly, New York.
[A]Rev. A. Clayton Powell, New York.
[A]Mr. Charles Edward Russell, New York.
Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, New York.
Prof. E. R. A. Seligman, New York.
[A]Rev. Joseph Silverman, New York.
Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, New York.
Mrs. Henry Villard, New York.
Miss Lillian D. Wald, New York.
[A]Bishop Alexander Walters, New York.
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, New York.
Rev. Jas. E. Haynes, D.D., Brooklyn, N. Y.
[A]Rev. John Haynes Holmes, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Miss M. R. Lyons, Brooklyn, N. Y.
[A]Miss M. W. Ovington, Brooklyn, N. Y.
[A]Dr. O. M. Waller, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Mrs. M. H. Talbert, Buffalo, N. Y.
Hon. Thos. M. Osborne, Auburn, N. Y.
[A]Mr. W. L. Bulkley, Ridgewood, N. J.
Mr. George W. Crawford, New Haven, Conn.
Miss Maria Baldwin, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Francis J. Garrison, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Archibald H. Grimke, Boston, Mass.
[A]Mr. Albert E. Pillsbury, Boston, Mass.
Mr. Wm. Munroe Trotter, Boston, Mass.
Dr. Horace Bumstead, Brookline, Mass.
Miss Elizabeth C. Carter, New Bedford, Mass.
Prest. Chas. T. Thwing, Cleveland, O.
Mr. Chas. W. Chesnutt, Cleveland, O.
Prest. King, Oberlin, O.
Prest. W. S. Scarborough, Wilberforce, O.
[A]Miss Jane Addams, Chicago, Ill.
[A]Mrs. Ida B. Wells Barnett, Chicago, Ill.
[A]Dr. C. E. Bentley, Chicago, Ill.
Miss Sophronisba Breckenridge, Chicago, Ill.
Mr. Clarence Darrow, Chicago, Ill.
[A]Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley, Chicago, Ill.
[A]Dr. N. F. Mossell, Philadelphia, Pa.
[A]Dr. Wm. A. Sinclair, Philadelphia, Pa.
Miss Susan Wharton, Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. R. R. Wright, Jr., Philadelphia, Pa.
Mr. W. Justin Carter, Harrisburg, Pa.
Rev. Harvey Johnson, D.D., Baltimore, Md.
Hon. Wm. S. Bennett, Washington, D. C.
Mr. L. M. Hershaw, Washington, D. C.
Prof. Kelly Miller, Washington, D. C.
Prof. L. B. Moore, Washington, D. C.
Justice W. P. Stafford, Washington, D. C.
[A]Mrs. Mary Church Terrell, Washington, D. C.
[A]Rev. J. Milton Waldron, Washington, D. C.
Prest. John Hope, Atlanta, Ga.
Mr. Leslie P. Hill, Manassas, Va.

[A] Executive Committee.

Athens and Brownsville
By Moorfield Storey

(Extract from speech before the Second National Negro Conference.)

WHITE SOLDIERS AT ATHENS.

We cannot perhaps wonder that ordinary citizens make race distinctions
when they are made by the President of the United States. In the autumn
of 1904, at Athens, Ohio, soldiers belonging to the 14th Battery of
Artillery in the regular army attempted to break open the jail in order
to rescue a comrade who had been arrested for some offense. In the
attempt they killed one militiaman and wounded at least two others.
I quote from a letter written by General Grosvenor, the Republican
Congressman from the district, to Mr. Taft, then Secretary of War, thus
summing up the facts:

“Fifty to seventy men marched into the most public street in a village
like this in the early hours of a pleasant summer evening, and without
the slightest provocation, meeting the provost guard, fired from 50 to
75 shots from loaded weapons, killing one, wounding two, and hitting
a citizen, and firing into the corridors and walls of a building, and
yet all this has been obliterated as though the waves of the ocean had
swept through sand. And not only that, but the Government officials--a
representative of the War Department bearing a commission, and a Deputy
United States District Attorney--appeared in the town and manipulated
the preliminary examination of witnesses and boldly denounced the
prosecution. And we are powerless, and the blood of Clark, a fine young
man * * * will go unavenged because of the interference of the United
States through its officials.”

One soldier was sentenced to a year in the penitentiary and another was
fined. There was no other punishment. The action of the War Department
was taken by order of the Acting Secretary, and from the letter written
by Secretary Taft in reply to General Grosvenor, the following extract
is made:

“I should think it doubtful policy on the part of the Government to
direct its officers to defend enlisted men against acts which, as
charged, are certainly offences against the state, unless there is
some ground to presume that the acts are in the discharge of lawful
duties of the enlisted men. The action of the Acting Secretary of War,
however, was based on the helplessness of the men, and the necessity
that no matter how guilty a man is he is entitled to be defended by
counsel. It probably would have been wiser had application been made to
court for the assignment of counsel. Still, an enlisted man is more or
less a ward of the Government, and if the Government steps in merely
to see that he is tried according to law, it seems to me that it is an
exercise of a discretion which the Government has.”

Here the facts were clear, but the guilty men were white.

NEGRO SOLDIERS AT BROWNSVILLE.

Two years later it is charged that some soldiers of the 25th Infantry
fired into the town of Brownsville, Texas. No evidence fixing the
guilt upon any one has ever been found, and though investigation has
been had, it remains doubtful whether any of the soldiers, and if so,
who fired the shots. The whole battalion has for years maintained
its innocence. Yet the colored soldiers, each presumably innocent,
were discharged without trial, and the act has since persistently and
violently been defended by its author. Theodore Roosevelt was President
in 1904, as well as in 1906. Why did he not apply the same rule in both
cases? He who from an eminence some distance off saw the colored troops
charge and carry San Juan Hill, knew that they could fight and die
as well as their white comrades. What became of Mr. Taft’s doctrine,
“That no matter how guilty a man is, he is entitled to be defended
by counsel.” Why were the Brownsville soldiers not “wards of the
Government” as well as the soldiers who fired on Athens? The soldiers
of Brownsville were colored.

THE BURDEN

STEVE GREEN’S STORY.

Steve Green was born in Tennessee in 1862. He has never been to school
a day, and has worked for his living since childhood. He married and
settled in Arkansas, choosing a place where there was good schooling
for his children. What befell him there is told in his own words:

“In 1910 the landlord, Mr. Saddler, raised the rent from $5 an acre
to $9. I and all of the other tenants moved away. Mr. Saddler sent
after me, and said that if I did not work for him I could not work
in Crittenden County. I moved to a place a mile away, but after the
death of my wife started to break up housekeeping. Meantime I hired
out for a day to a neighbor, when Mr. Saddler rode by on his horse.
He said, ‘Green, didn’t I tell you that if you didn’t work on my farm
that there was not room enough in Crittenden County for you and me to
live?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir; you told me so.’ He answered, ‘I meant just
what I said,’ and drew his revolver. I ran, but he shot me in the neck,
left arm and right leg. I kept on running and reached my house, got
my Winchester and shot at him. They say that I killed him. The others
still chased me and I jumped into the river. I stayed in the top of a
tree until midnight. Then I got some cartridges from a colored man and
went to a town some miles away, which took me three nights to walk,
wading in creeks because of the bloodhounds. My friends brought me food
and blankets and I stayed on an island in the Mississippi River three
weeks. Colored friends gave me $32, and I traveled on foot and by rail
to Chicago, arriving August 12. I was betrayed by a colored friend who
told the police. The policeman arrested me, saying that I had stolen
some ties, which I knew nothing about. He took me to the Harrison
street station. For four days they gave me no food or drink. I ate two
boxes of matches trying to kill myself. They kept questioning me about
Arkansas. At last I look sick and they put me in the hospital, where
the doctor told them I was starving, and they gave me something to eat.
Finally Saddler’s nephew came and I was identified, and Sunday night
we left for Arkansas. He said a thousand people were waiting to burn
me. The colored people of Chicago had heard of the story and got out
a writ of habeas corpus. They offered a reward of $100 to the sheriff
who would reach me and telegraphed all along the line to catch me. The
sheriff of Cairo got me just as we were nearing the line. He is the man
who replaced the former sheriff--the one the Governor held responsible
for the mob in that city. I was stopped and sent back to Chicago.”

Steve Green’s friends have engaged lawyers and are fighting his case
for him. The outcome of their efforts to save this unfortunate man will
be recorded in THE CRISIS.

THE PINK FRANKLIN CASE.

Pink Franklin, a colored man, was charged with breaking his labor
contract. The labor contract law of South Carolina says that a farm
laborer who leaves his job before the end of the year owing his
employer, is guilty of a criminal offense and may be severely punished.
In the dead of night the constable broke into Pink Franklin’s house,
shot at him and wounded him. Franklin could not see who was shooting
and had no means of knowing that it was an officer of the law. He leapt
from bed and returned the fire, killing the constable.

He was arrested for murder, threatened with lynching and condemned to
be hanged. Two colored lawyers defended him and appealed finally to the
Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court gave no relief
and Pink Franklin still lies under sentence of death. Effort is now
being made to induce the Governor of South Carolina to reprieve him.

* * * * *

She was a well-educated, attractive colored teacher.

“Some people,” she said, “think Charleston to be the prettiest city in
the Southland. The houses are big and cool with lovely gardens. And
then there is a park. You ought to see it! I don’t believe any park
could be prettier.

“I have only seen it once,” she went on. “I did want to visit that
park before I left Charleston, so I asked one of the while Northern
ladies--we were teaching in the same school--if she would take me
there. She was the right kind, and we walked all through it. Of course
every one thought I was her maid. It certainly was a pretty place.”

“But why should the colored people of Charleston,” I asked, “be
deprived of a public place of recreation? Don’t they contribute to the
city by their work and rent and taxes?”

“They certainly do,” she replied, “but that makes no difference. The
park I visited is a white folks’ park. It is very beautiful and so they
keep it to themselves. Do you know,” she added, thoughtfully, “I don’t
believe they would be happy there among the trees and flowers if they
thought people who were poor and black could get in.”

* * * * *

A Chicago schoolboy, claiming that a twenty-five-cent piece had been
stolen from him, accused the only colored boy in the class, who was
suspended. The quarter was subsequently found where the owner had
carelessly placed it and forgotten it, but the teacher made no mention
of this. The colored boy’s mother came to inquire into the matter after
several days and protested against the accusation. “You shouldn’t
mind so much,” said the teacher. “You know it is a common saying that
colored people are dishonest.”

WHAT TO READ

AFRICA.

Railway and Engineering Progress. J. H. Knight, Eng. M.,
April.

Stanley’s Africa; Then and Now. J. M. Hubbard, Atlantic,
March.

Diana in Africa. Helene, Duchess of Aosta, Harper’s Weekly,
March 12, April 30, May 7, August 6, August 20.

Housekeeping in Africa. I. V. Simonton, Delineator, April.

Can Africa Be Christianized? A. W. Holsey, Missionary
Review, June.

Feasts of the Heathen Shambalas. Dupre, Missionary Review,
March.

Rise of the Natives. H. H. Johnston, Quarterly Review,
January.

Slavery as It Exists To-day. T. Buxton, Missionary Review,
June.

Exploring Tour in West Africa. W. M. Dager, Missionary
Review, January.

Purification of Blood in West Africa. W. M. Dager,
Missionary Review, January.

Liberia and the Powers. Living Age, June 25.

AMERICA.

American Negro as a Political Factor. Kelly Miller,
Nineteenth Century, August.

Brave Sheriff. Outlook, March 5.

Discussing the Negro Problem. Nation, May 19.

Grandfather Clause in Oklahoma. Outlook, June 18.

Negro Property. W. E. B. DuBois, World To-day, August.

New Disfranchisement Plan. Independent, March 31.

Noteworthy Book on Negroes. Roosevelt, Outlook, June 4.

Racial Conflict in America. Living Age, July 30.

Alcohol and the African. L. Probyn, Nineteenth Century,
June.

Story of the Negro. Review, Survey, May 28.

Closing the Little Black Schoolhouse. M. W. Ovington,
Survey, May 28.

Educate Six Million Negro Children. B. T. Washington,
World’s Work, June.

Jeanes Fund. M. W. Ovington, Survey, January 29.

University Education for Negroes. B. T. Washington,
Independent, March 24.

Negro in Cincinnati. F. W. Quillan, Independent, February
24.

Burden of the White Taxpayers. Independent, March 10.

Democratic Split in the South. Independent, May 26.

Negro and Agricultural Development. A. H. Stone, Annals
American Academy, January.

Negro Suffrage in Maryland. Outlook, April 16.

Negro’s Part in Southern Development. B. T. Washington,
Annals American Academy, January.

Nullification in Maryland. Nation, April 7.

Race Rioter (Story). H. M. Lyon, American Magazine,
February.

Southern Question. W. G. Brown, Nation, August 4.

Suffrage in Maryland. Independent, April 21.

Kinks in the Negro’s Hair. J. M. Boddy, Scientific
American, April 30.

Position of the Negro Among Human Races. Current
Literature, September.

Position of the Negro and Pigmy Among Human Races. A.
Keith, Nature, July 14.

Souls of White Folk. W. E. B. DuBois, Independent, August
18.

With a Cargo of Black Ivory. A. Edwards, Harper’s Weekly,
July 2.

Negro and Religion. H. H. Johnston, Nineteenth Century,
June (Current Literature, August).

Marvel of Brownsville. H. Bumstead, Independent, May 12.

Decadence of the Plantation System. U. B. Phillips, Annals
American Academy, January.

Slavery in Virginia. S. T. C. Bryan, Nation, May 12.

Slave’s Reminiscence of Slavery. M. W. Ovington,
Independent, May 26.

Liberia and the United States. Outlook, May 7.

Negro Suffrage in a Democracy. Ray S. Baker, Atlantic,
November.

Chapters from My Experience. B. T. Washington, World’s
Work, October.

Marrying of Black Folk. W. E. B. DuBois, Independent,
October 13.

The Lady of the Slave States. E. J. Putman, Atlantic,
October.

* * * * *

A long awaited and striking evidence of earnest and deep-seated
interest in race questions is the appearance of a new quarterly at
Clark University, Worcester, Mass. It is known as the “Journal of
Race Development,” and is devoted to a scientific discussion of the
primitive races. It is edited by Professor Blakeslee, and the editor of
The Crisis is a contributing editor.

RECENT BOOKS

O. G. Villard--John Brown; a Biography, Fifty Years
After. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

Lindsay Swift--William Lloyd Garrison. G. W. Jacobs & Co.

M. J. Moses--The Literature of the South. T. W. Crowell.

T. Roosevelt--African Game Trails. Scribner.

Herbert Ward--A Voice from the Congo. Scribner.

J. A. Wright--Cuba. Macmillan.

B. D. Comyn--Service and Sport in the Sudan. John Lane.

C. H. Stogan--To Abyssinia. Lippincott.

G. Lagden--The Basutos. Appleton.

Duke of Mecklinburg--In the Heart of Africa. Cassell.

H. L. Tangye--In the Torrid Soudan. Badger.

B. L. P. Weale--The Conflict of Color. Macmillan.

South African Folk Tales. Baker & Taylor.

Handbook of the Interscholastic Athletic Association of
the Middle Atlantic States. W. A. Joiner and E. B.
Henderson.

E. Dayrell--Folk Stories from Southern Nigeria. Longmans,
Green & Co.

Publications of the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People--No. 1, The
Disfranchisement of Negroes, Rev. John Haynes Holmes;
No. 2, Secondary and Higher Education in the South for
Whites and Negroes, Dr. Horace Bumstead.

Race Prejudice. Document No. 77, Republican Club, New York.

H. W. Odum. Social and Mental Traits of the Negro.
Columbia University.

William Archer. Through Afro-America. Chapman & Hall.

Sir Harry Johnston. The Negro in the New World. Methuen &
Co.

------------------------------------------------------------------

_THE CRISIS ADVERTISER_

Marshall’s Hotel

127-129 West 53d Street
Telephones 4693-4694 Columbus

The Leading Colored Restaurant in America
Cuisine Unsurpassed. Everything Up to date

Shell Fish a Specialty Restaurant Open All Night

------------------------------------------------------------------

Mme. Beck’s School of Dressmaking

THE LATEST, BEST AND MOST
MODERN METHODS TAUGHT Fancy Work, Flowers, Etc.

238 WEST 53d STREET, NEW YORK CITY

------------------------------------------------------------------

I MAKE CIGARS 59 West 133d Street, New York

Havana and Domestic Cigars Box Trade a Specialty

------------------------------------------------------------------

VACUUM CLEANING

By the NEW YORK CAREFUL CLEANING BUREAU

(Cleaners and Renovators for Particular People)

MEANS COMPETENT WORKMEN
AND SATISFIED PATRONS

We clean anything from a rug to a private house. Anything--by the hour,
the day, the job or contract. Drop a card to

12 WEST 135th STREET

------------------------------------------------------------------

OSCAR SCHEIN

Manufacturer of

FINE HAVANA CIGARS

=Ferdinand de Alba and La Panilla Brands a Specialty
Salesroom and Factory, Lenox Ave. and 127th St.
Branches: 504 Lenox Ave., 1488 Broadway=
Telephone 662 Harlem

------------------------------------------------------------------

=Wilson House= Neatly Furnished Rooms
F. C. HOLMES, Proprietor 261-263 West 54th St., New York

=TELEPHONE 3067 COLUMBUS=

------------------------------------------------------------------

THE INSTANT RELIEF ASSOCIATION
Incorporated.

COMMERCIAL TRUST BUILDING, JERSEY CITY, N. J.
A Sick, Accident and Death Benefit.
J. W. WATKINS, Secretary, 1931 BROADWAY, N. Y.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Telephone Ten Years with
7189 Morningside DR. JAMES A. BANKS Dr. D. C. White
_Dentist_
Porcelain, Crown and Pure Nitrous-Oxide
Bridge Work a Specialty Gas Administered
204 WEST 133D STREET, NEW YORK

------------------------------------------------------------------

Can’t See Well? See Me

when your eyes feel painful, hot, uncomfortable and grow weary while
reading, writing, sewing or looking at near objects, letters run
together while reading and become blurred.

[Illustration: eye glasses]

Eyes examined by me and fitted with glasses accurately made never grow
weary, but are perfectly comfortable. You may not like to wear glasses,
but do you like headaches, red eyes and wrinkles better? Scientific
examinations of the eyes for defective eyesight is my specialty.

=Dr. R. G. ADAMS, Optometrist=
Physical Eye Specialist
=16 West 124th Street. New York City, N. Y.=

------------------------------------------------------------------

Only Colored Dairy Lunch in New York

=Rose’s Dairy Lunch=
=J. W. ROSE, Proprietor=

34 WEST 135TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
BETWEEN FIFTH AND LENOX AVENUES

NEAT, CLEAN AND
QUICK SERVICE

Open Day and Night

Everything Strictly First Class and Up to Date

------------------------------------------------------------------

NYANZA DRUG CO.
(Incorporated.)

=35 W. 135th ST., NEW YORK CITY=

=CAPITAL STOCK, $15,000=
Shares $5.00

Write for information. The best paying investment ever offered our
people.

------------------------------------------------------------------

NYANZA PHARMACY

is the only colored Drug Store in New York City, and the purpose of
the Corporation is to establish chains of stores, carrying Drugs
and everything incidental to the Drug business. It is really the
indisputable duty of every self-respecting member of the race to give
it his support.

=AGENTS WANTED EVERYWHERE=

------------------------------------------------------------------

$100,000 STOCK ISSUE
TO BUILD AN
=Auditorium in Greater New York=
CONTAINING

=Reception, Concert and Banquet Halls, Modern Offices and Lodge Rooms=

This proposition is bound to succeed, because it is giving the people
what they want.

We are offering
=10,000 Shares at $10 Each, Par Value=
Stock sold in blocks to suit the investor on easy terms.

The capital already in hand and the rapid increase of business means
the realization of the Auditorium. This enterprise assures each
investor Safety of Capital and Growth of Income. Call or write for
further particulars.

=I. L. MOORMAN, Mgr., 83 W. 134th St.=

------------------------------------------------------------------

ALLEN’S CLEANING ESTABLISHMENT

=800 Eighth Ave.=,
Bet. 48th and 49th Sts.

Telephone Bryant 2535

=LADIES’ AND GENTLEMEN’S CLOTHING CLEANED=

Valet service, pressing, scouring, dyeing, repairing and altering
neatly done. Suits sponged and pressed while you wait. Hats cleaned,
blocked and retrimmed. Goods called for and delivered.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Does This Interest You? High-Grade Work at Reasonable Prices

============================
ROBERT N. WOOD

=Printer=

202 EAST 99th ST., NEW YORK
============================

TELEPHONE 6667 LENOX

WE BOTH MAKE MONEY IF YOU DEAL WITH ME

------------------------------------------------------------------

STANDARDIZE
============================ WITH THE ============================
L. C. Smith & Bros.
Typewriter

[Illustration: typewriter
(ALL THE WRITING
_ALWAYS_ IN SIGHT)]

The DuPont Powder Company of Wilmington, Del., the most prominent
manufacturers of explosives for Government and private use in the
world, purchased on a single order--

=521 L. C. Smith & Bros.=
=Typewriters=

To Standardize their equipment, _acting on unanimous recommendation of
a board_ of five of their mechanical engineers, to whom all competing
makes were submitted.

It will pay you to standardize your typewriter equipment with the L. C.
Smith & Bros. Typewriter for the same reason that decided this shrewd,
hard-headed business corporation--superior merit of the machine!

And the reason holds good whether you use _one_ typewriter or _five
hundred_.

_Write To-day for the Free Book._

=L. C. SMITH & BROS. TYPEWRITER CO.=

SYRACUSE, N. Y., AND ALL LARGE CITIES

------------------------------------------------------------------

Do You Want
a Position?

Best Places
Best Families

The New York and New Jersey Industrial Exchange, through its Employment
Agency Department, furnishes more Colored Help to the leading families
in the city and in the suburban towns than any other medium in New York.

It is located in the acknowledged best section of the city, being
in the Henry Phipps’ Model Tenements for Colored Families. No other
Exchange is so well patronized by the foremost families, many of whom
have never employed Colored Help before.

Our demand for competent Southern Help exceeds the supply many times
over. Call and register. No charge. Bring your references. We can place
you in a good position. If inconvenient to pay our required office fee,
you are at liberty to take advantage of our Credit System. This new
feature has proven extremely beneficial to many worthy persons seeking
employment.

----------------------------------------------
N. Y. & N. J. Industrial Exchange
237-239 West 63d Street
Telephones 5016-4546 Columbus

[Illustration: HENRY PHIPP’S MODEL TENEMENTS FOR COLORED FAMILIES]

------------------------------------------------------------------

Cosmopolitan Automobile School

[Illustration: Auto shop]

The aim of the School will be to give its students a sufficient
knowledge of the theory and practice of Automobile and Automobiling to
enable them to meet the emergencies that constantly arise to make those
who complete the course competent to run machines, take them apart and
assemble them properly, and to make such repairs as may be necessary
and possible on the road.

TUITION--Six weeks’ course, including Shop and Road Work, $25;
installments if you wish, payable $5 on enrollment and $20 by the
completion of the fourth week.

SHOP WORK--Consists of naming all the parts of the automobile, taking
the engine and the rest of the automobile apart and putting them
together again properly, and making such repairs as may be necessary
and possible.

ROAD WORK--When the shop work is complete the student takes up the
operating and handling of cars on the road until he is competent.

If there is any special information which you desire respecting the
course or opportunities in the automobile business we shall be glad to
hear from you.

COSMOPOLITAN AUTO CO. of New York
Telephone 803 Columbus School: Hotel Macao, 213 West 53d St.
LEE A. POLLARD, Mgr.

------------------------------------------------------------------

The New York Negro as a Tenant

Every Negro resident of New York City prior to the year 1900 remembers
too well the great difficulty always experienced in trying to find
anything like a decent place to live. Never before this time was the
question of “How much rent shall we pay?” anything like as important as
“Where can we live?”

The Negro as a tenant was wanted nowhere except in the very poorest
section of the city and there only in such houses as were so run
down that even the poorest of whites refused to longer occupy them.
In these houses Negroes were crowded together without any regard for
their health or morals. Here they were bullied and even insulted by
independent landlords, who were very careful to do little or nothing
for their erstwhile not wanted tenants except to squeeze from them
every dollar of rent possible.

This was a “condition, not a theory,” that we faced when in October,
1900, we opened our office as the first Negro Real Estate Agents in New
York City, making a specialty of the management of colored tenement
property. Our very best friends all told us that we were attempting
the impossible, that we could not succeed, that we would starve in our
undertaking. For the first year and a half they proved to be prophets
indeed. Our many disappointments, heartaches and actual sufferings
during this period would fill a book and read like a romance. Every one
could tell us how we could NOT make it, but none how we could.

We were real estate agents making a specialty of the management
of colored tenement property for nearly a year before we actually
succeeded in getting a colored tenement to manage. Our first
opportunity occurred in West 134th Street as a result of a dispute
between two landlords. To “get even” one of them turned his house over
to us to fill with colored tenants. We were so very successful in
renting and managing this house that, after a time, we were able to
induce other landlords in whose houses vacancies had occurred due to
the opening of this house for colored people, to make the change and
give us their property to manage.

This was the beginning of the turning over to Negro tenants of one of
the very best sections of Manhattan Island and in no part of the city
are there any better built or more modern tenements for any class of
people than are now occupied by Negroes in this section. By opening
for colored tenants first a house in one block, and then a house in
another, we have finally succeeded in securing for the colored people
of New York over 250 first-class flats and private dwellings in a
fine section of the city, conveniently located as to transportation
facilities, etc.

To this extent our ambition has been gratified. There is, however,
more work to be done in another direction before we shall be entirely
satisfied with the condition of the Negro tenancy in this great
city. We feel that our personal experience both as a Negro tenant
and a landlord has peculiarly fitted us for the work. Dr. Booker T.
Washington in his latest book, “The Negro in Business,” says: “_Mr.
Payton has had an opportunity during this time to learn something
of the condition under which colored tenants live, sometimes are
compelled to live, in New York. Stranger than all else, he was, as he
has confessed to me, several times put out of houses, bag and baggage,
for inability to pay his rent. He has thus been able to see how an
ejectment suit looks from both the point of view of tenant and of
landlord._”

There is every reason why colored tenement property should be managed
by Negro agents. From them, the tenant may be certain of receiving
more real interest, sympathy and respect. Were the Negroes to demand
it to-day, at least 90 per cent. of the colored tenements in this city
could be controlled by agents of their own race. This would not only be
of benefit to the tenant but to the entire race.

Tell your landlord that you prefer to have your rent collected by a
Negro agent. In this manner you will be aiding your people in their
struggle for commercial advancement. You owe it to your race to do this.

=DESIRABLE APARTMENTS FOR DESIRABLE TENANTS=

=Philip A. Payton, Jr., Company=

=New York’s Pioneer Negro Real Estate Agents=
=BROKERS--APPRAISERS=

67 West 134th St., New York City
TELEPHONES 917-918 HARLEM

------------------------------------------------------------------

Transcriber’s Note:

This book is a reprint edition provided by Arno Press, A Publishing
and Library Service of the New York Times, New York, 1969.

Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation
in the text. These have been left unchanged. Misspelled words were not
corrected.

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, _like
this_; those in bold are surrounded by equal marks, =like this.= One
footnote has multiple anchors; it was moved to the end of the section
in which the anchors occur. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards,
upside down, missing or partially printed letters, were corrected.
Final stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were
added.

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The crisis (vol. 1, no. 1) : A record of the darker races" ***

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