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202 THE CRISIS

fellows and find real-estate men coining this prejudice into gold, they have no right to blame the unhappy victims of their barbarism, but they must blame that barbarism misnamed race pride.

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A SOUTHERN NORTHERNER.

My Dear Sir:

I HAVE read carefully the clipping that you have sent me dealing with the assault upon a white woman by a Negro. It is needless to say that every normal humans being who reads of such an atrocious crime must cry out in horror and condemn the crime in unmeasured terms. The black criminal who commits a crime of this kind is doubly a criminal in that he not only injures his victims but his entire race. Unlike a white man, a Negro’s sins are ascribed to his race, and are said to be characteristic of his race. We have frequent cases of rate by white men to deal with in New York City and in our Northern rural communities, but somehow or other we seldom hear the, spoken of as white fiends, nor has it ever been found necessary to resort to lynching as a cure for these fiends. With all respect for your point of view as a Northern man resident in the South, and your belief that unless “the fear of lynching is held before these black fiends” such crimes “would be repeated constantly in the South,” we cannot believe that mob murder is a remedy for anything or even a deterrent. Lately they have been lynching colored women in the South—in Georgia, in Oklahoma, in Tennessee—yet bestial crimes such as you describe and such has recently happened at Cordele, Ga., take place. Does lynching ever act as a deterrent against crime, whether the criminal be black or white, or does it help criminals to control their animal passions? A few years ago I spent some time in a county in Alabama which had had a record for lynching, beginning with burning. The white sheriff himself told me how, afterwards, the lynchings got so frequent on any excuse that he found it necessary to send to the chain gang a number of white men who were thus dealing out “justice” to the Negro. The Spanish Inquisition went our American lynchings one better. They inflicted more tortures than even our American mobs; but was it successful in stopping what the Church of Rome deems heresy? Of you have studied the history of England you will know that at the very time the severest punishments were in vigués there was more crime than at any other period in its history. 

The simple fact remains that lynching cures nothing, and does incalculable harm because it makes a murderer of every man participating in the mob and starts the blood lust agoing in the heart of every person who participates in the crime or watches it. This may be a subconscious influence, but it is there none the less, and I would call your attention to the fact that nowhere else in the world is this procedure tolerated save in this so-called Christian and civilized country, although the crime of rape is known in every country and in every age.

You speak of the Negro as being lazy, careless, indifferent, shiftless, and given to theft; now if this is the case, after fifty years of management of the blacks in the South by the White people, would it not seem to be worth while to ask, in a purely scientific spirit, if the policy in vogue which has produced these results ought not to be changed for one which would recognize the self-respect of the colored people and grant them greater social, industrial and political freedom than they now enjoy? It is easy to say that the Negro has failed in the South since emancipation, but is it not time to ask whether the white masters of his destiny have not also failed?

We would not have you misunderstand our position. We have the greatest sympathy for both whites and blacks in the difficult and trying position in which they find themselves. Our realization of that has created our association, which desires to help one race quite as much as the other.

Very truly,
(Signed) OSWALD GARRISON VILLARD.

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THE N.A.A.C.P.

The fourth annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will be held in Chicago, beginning April 28 and continuing three days. This was determined at a meeting held at Hull House in January 15, at which time a committee on organization was formed, with Mr. Robert McMurdy as chairman. At a subsequent meeting held at Hull House on January 27, the committee on organization adopted the following plan of arrangement:

The conference shall be in charge of a general committee, to which all other committees shall report; to consist of the chairmen of all other committees; to have power to add to its membership. Such committee shall co-operate with the National Association.

The honorary chairman of the general committee shall be Miss Jane Addams. The active chairman of the general committee shall be selected by the committee form its own membership, or otherwise. The secretary of the general committee may be a paid officer.

Headquarters shall be provided in the Loop.

There shall be a finance committee, chairman not named; a press committee chairman,  Mr. Charles T. Hallinan; reception committee, chairman, Mrs. Ida Wells Barnett; committee on halls and speakers, chairman, Dr. Charles E. Bentley; entertainment committee, chairman, Miss S.P. Breckinridge; advisory committee, chairman, Mrs. Celia Parker Woolley.

The secretary and treasurer shall be Mr. T.W. Allinson. 

With present information, Sunday, April 28, is recommended as the opening day of the assembly, provided that the speakers can be secured on the basis of that date. Sunday evening is recommended for the opening event, and it is further recommended that, as far as it can be brought about, all the pulpits of Chicago on that day take up the subject of lynching; also, to that end, that a pamphlet on the subject be issued by the association to be issued by the ministers in preparing their sermons.

The impetus to the Chicago conference was given by Mr. Oswald Garrison Villard, who spent January 11 in that city. Mr. Villard was the guest of honor at a luncheon given by Mr. Julius Rosenwald and Miss Jane Addams, and attended by many prominent publicists and educators. The City Club of Chicago entertained him at dinner, and he was the principal speaker at a meeting held in the interests of the National Association in Handel Hall.

Commenting on Mr. Villard's "sincere and powerful addresses" at these meetings, the Chicago Herald said in part:

"To hear Mr. Villard was to sympathize with him and indorse his position fully. The association stands primarily for truth and knowledge, for simple justice to the colored population, for defense to the protection against lynching and outrage. The association renders legal aid to poor or threatened Negroes; it investigates and gives the public the real facts in cases of actual or supposed Negro crime; it enforces the law or sees that the authorities enforce it.

"There is not a city of any size in the country which does not need a branch of this association. The branches should have their legal-aid features and should be liberally supported by men and women who really believe in the principles of the American Republic. It cannot be doubted that such activities and education as the association is carrying on will in the course of time change the whole atmosphere in the communities where the Negro cannot obtain elementary justice or due process of law."

¶ At a public meeting in Boston, on February 8, addressed by Prof. Spingarn of New York, Mr. Moorfield Storey presiding, there was formed a branch of the National Association, with the following officers:

President, Mr. Francis J. Garrison; secretary, Mr. Butler R. Wilson; treasurer, Mr. George G. Garrison; members of the executive committee, Mss Maria L. Baldwin. Dr. Horace Bumstead, Mr. Joseph P. Loud, Mrs. Joseph P. Loud, Miss Adelene Moffat, Mr. Clement G. Morgan.

The Boston branch adopted a constitution, endorsed by the National Association, which should stand as a model