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166      The Crisis

[[image - drawing of a Mosque]]
[[caption]] THE MOSQUE AT JENNE [[/caption]]

in the plantations of the New World the cities of the desert have been laid waste by enemies, who, if they did not have more courage than their black opponents and certainly were morally their inferiors, were able to conquer them by superiority of weapons. When the black man was weakened by perpetuous warfare against such tremendous odds, the roving tribes of the empire of Morocco preyed on him still further. Only within recent years has he learned how to defend himself. It is safe to prophesy that now he has learned a lesson, the march of progress in the Soudan will be startlingly rapid. 

The railway will put the country in touch with modern ideas and the French are willing to be fair with the people. Although they may fall short of their ideal of liberty, equality, fraternity, it is still an ideal. They are still ashamed when it is violated. 

The black Soudanese of the West is coming into his own again. Before very long there may be re-established along the yellow waters of the Niger the old civilization and perhaps even the old power.

SOME LETTERS

FROM THE SOUTH
May 8, 1911.

Kind Sir:

I am not an educated man. I will give you the peonage system as it is practised [[practiced]] here in the name of the law. 

If a colored man is arrested here and hasn't any money, whether he is guilty or not, he has to pay just the same. A man of color is never tried in this country. It is simply a farce. Everything is fixed before he enters the courtroom. I will try to give you an illustration of how it is done:

I am brought in a prisoner, go through the farce of being tried. The whole of my fine may amount to fifty dollars. A kindly appearing man will come up and pay my fine and take me out to his farm to allow me to work it out. At the end of a month I find that I owe him more than I did when I went there. The debt is increased year in and year out. You would ask, "How is that?" It is simply that he is charging you more for your board, lodging and washing than they allow you for your work, and you can't help yourself either, nor can anyone else help you, because you are still a prisoner and never get your fine worked out. If you do as they say and be a good Negro, you are allowed to marry, provided you can get somee [[some]] one to have you, and of course the debt still increases.

SOME LETTERS      167

 This is the United States, where it is supposed that every man has equal rights before the law, and we are held in bondage by this same outfit.
 
Of course we can't prove anything. Our work is nothing. If we state things as they are, the powers that be make a different statement, and that sets ours aside at Washington and, I suppose, in Heaven, too.

Now, I have tried to tell you how we are made servants here according to law. I will tell you in my next letter how the lawmakers keep the colored children out of schools, how that pressure is brought to bear on their parents in such a manner they cannot help themselves. The cheapest way we can borrow money here is at the rate of twenty-five cents on the dollar per year.

Your paper is the best I have read of the kind. I never dreamed there was such a paper in the world. I will subscribe soon. I think there are a great many here that will take your paper. I haven't had the chance to show your paper to any yet, but will as soon as I can. You know we have to be careful with such literature as this in this country.

What I have told you is strictly confidential. If you publish it, don't put my name to it. I would be dead in a short time after the news reached here.
One word more about the peonage. The court and the man you work for are always partners. One makes the fine and the other works you and holds you, and if you leave you are tracked up with bloodhounds and brought back.

FROM A UNITARIAN CLERGYMAN
PHILADELPHIA

To the Editor of THE CRISIS:

I cannot forbear expressing my hearty sympathy, not only for the work you are doing, but the way you are doing it. The five numbers of your magazine so far received have been to me of great value-I drew on them somewhat for my Memorial Sunday address on the "Aftermath of Slavery." It is well to have the issue made clear, to know where America stands to-day. For all our disappointment, it may help to awaken all lovers of true Democracy and inspire them to fresh efforts to complete the work begun a century ago. Here in Philadelphia-such at least is my impression-race antagonism is relatively slight. Nor has the spirit which inspired the anti-slavery movement wholly died out. Yet even here your appeal is needed-on the one hand for character, on the other for justice and brotherhood. The earlier Abolitionists may have solved or thought to solve the race problem too easily. Neither emancipation nor enfranchisement could suddenly overcome the handicaps of long centuries of semi-barbarism or generations of slavery. Yet real progress have been made; and I believe there are hundreds of thousands whose hearts will respond to your challenge to keep wide open the door of industrial opportunity, of intellectual progress and of social recognition. We want no helot race in this twentieth century. Negro inferiority, if real, is not something to be rejoiced in, but to be overcome, ere it drag us down. And to this end-well among many things-the children of the freedman, I believe, must not only develop still more widely efficiency and culture and self-control-but be prepared to contend more strenuously for their rights as men. Whatever the faults of the "white man," he has as a rule more respect for the man who knows what he wants and will fight for it.

"Oh," said a colored girl to Dr. Howe on that black day when Burns was marched down State Street, back into slavery, "Oh, if only had the courage to commit suicide!" 

Suicide is not called for to-day - but frankly, I believe the role of suffering servant has been a bit overdone.

So keep up the good fight.

Fraternally yours,

K.E. Evans.


A FRIEND OF THE CRISIS

Before I close I want to express my deep interest and pleasure in THE CRISIS. There is no better way to keep up one's enthusiasm and yo learn more regarding any subject than to take some fair-minded periodical devoted to the subject; for no matter how far away duty or pleasure may take us between times, the regular arrival of the magazine calls us back and common courtesy demands that we at least say "How do you do?" by running over the pages, thereby getting an idea of the contents, and even in the briefest glance always something to stimulate fresh thought. The June CRISIS is perhaps the finest yet, there being so many interesting illustrations, while the reading matter maintains the high standard set in the first number. It is impossible to overestimate the influence for good exercises by such a periodical, dealing as this does so fearlessly and yet so fairly with this great problem of our national life.

May we not sometime have pictures of the offices of the association? I feel sure I am not the only subscriber who would welcome them among the other fine things presented from month to month.

Very truly yours,
KATHERINE TIFFANY SPRAGUE.