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116        THE CRISIS

started to build a house. Immediately the town passed the following ordinance:
   "Ordinance No. 62, of the town of Mooresville, N. C. It shall be unlawful for any person or corporation to move or cause to be moved any colored person or family into any house in the town of Mooresville, N. C., within the boundaries hereinafter set out, which is not at this time occupied by persons of the colored race, and any violation of this ordinance shall constitute a misdemeanor, and upon conviction such person or persons or corporation so offending shall be fined $50 for each offense, and each and every day such colored person or persons shall be allowed to occupy any house in said boundaries as above specified shall constitute a separate offense."       J. E. BROWN, Mayor
                         E. C. DEATON, Clerk.
   May 1, 1912.
   In Greenville, S. C., Goldsmith Brothers, colored grocers, bought property on North Main Street for $65,000. Immediately the city council passed an ordinance to forbid the ownership of property by Negroes in white districts. In Richmond, Va., Henry Baker was fined $100 and costs for occupying a dwelling on Ashland Street, where white residents predominate. Baker has appealed. In St. Louis, Mo., the West End Association are trying to have a city segregation ordinance passed. Denver, by means of mass meetings, is trying to stop the sale of property to colored people in certain sections.
   In Jonesborough, Ark., and Clovis, N. M., attempts have been made to drive out Negro laborers.
   At Charlotte, N. C., the employment of a Negro foreman over a squad of Negro workers caused forty-five white employees to strike.
   Colored railway mail clerks in the South are objects of jealousy and attack. Recently such a clerk was run away from Clarkesdale, Miss., another was assaulted at Meridian, Miss., and later W. A. McAlpin, a colored man, was beaten by fifteen white men on his first run to Laurel, Miss.
   The colored soldiers of Fort Russell, Wyoming, have been protesting against the language used by certain theatrical companies' the manager of the theatre has promised to be careful. 
COURTS
   THE United States Supreme Court has set aside the decree of the Supreme Court of Georgia, which enjoined colored men from incorporating a lodge in that State under the name of the Knights of Pythias. Chief Justice White announced the opinion. This decision is fare reaching in its effect, as there has been a general movement throughout the Southern States to restrain the Negroes from using the names or emblems of the white orders.
   The Georgia court based its decision on the rules of law which protect the public against unfair trade methods. Justice Holmes and Justice Lurton dissented: Chief Justice White held that there was no evidence to show that the colored lodges had injured their white namesakes in any way, and inasmuch as the Negroes had maintained their organization without complaint from the whites for more than twenty years, their membership having attained 300,000 the white lodges were guilty of laches and could not be heard to complain in a court of equity under such circumstances.
   The Court of Appeals of the State of New York has decided that the colored order of Elks cannot use the name "Elks," but may use the insignia, colors and ritual.
   In Shreveport, La., City Judge Blanchard announced from the bench that the sworn testimony of a Negro would not be given credence in preference to that of a white man, whether the white man was on trial or not.
   The colored citizens of Shreveport, La., in a public meeting set forth the following recent cases of murder and oppression:
   "The half-witted man taken from the officers in the West End at high noon, and lynched, not quite two years ago. The man who for years had worked for the city, sweeping its streets, and bore the reputation of a peaceful and law-abiding citizen, was clubbed to death by a peace preserver of the law. The man killed by a conductor on the street car. The two innocent men shot down by officers in the West End. The man Miles, lynched only a few weeks ago, said to be by unknown parties. The indiscriminate shooting by officers for any and every cause and the wilful violation of the Hunsicker law. 

        ALONG THE COLOR LINE                117

   "How long can we follow the pursuits of life with safety or shall we seek safety in flight? We have waited patiently to see the men committing these crimes brought to justice, and their guilt or innocence established. Our people are so often beaten and clubbed by the officers that they are afraid and have a horror of being arrested, and invariably break to run and are shot down. There is nothing left for us to do but appeal to our white friends and fellow citizens for better consideration."
CRIME
THE following lynchings have occurred since our last report:
   Dan. Davis burned at the stake at Tyler, Tex.; he was accused of criminal assault on a white woman. This is the fourth Negro lynched in Tyler in the last few years. At Valdosta, Ga., a Negro, Emanuel, is said to have been killed and thrown into the river for shooting at a white man who was not killed. At Nashville, Tenn., J. Samuels, a colored man charged with attacking a white woman, was shot to death. At Salisbury, Md., a number of curious stories have been sent out. A colored farmhand was accused of attacking the daughter of a farmer; then the charge was that he had attacked her several times, but the fact had not been reported. An attempt was made to lynch the man, but he was taken by the sheriff to Baltimore. A well-known white citizen of Baltimore writes us as follows: "I find that the extent and excitement of the mob was greatly exaggerated. A gentleman from the county says that the case of assault was not very clear; you can see for yourself there is something a little peculiar about it."
   Three Negroes hanged in Florida declared to the very last that they were not guilty of the crime charged against them. Richardson, who killed two white men in self-defense, and whose story was told in the last December number of THE CRISIS, has been sentenced to be hanged.
   Negroes have been killed by policemen at New Orleans, Savannah, Louisville, Memphis, Florence, Ala., and Des Moines, Ia.
   White men have killed Negroes at Oxford, N. C., Rocky Mount, N. C., Memphis, Tenn., Beaumont, Tex., and Winston-Salem, N. C.
   There have been two attempts at lynching in New York City and another in New York State.
MUSIC AND ART
A CONCERT took place May 29 at the New Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston, Mass. Mr. Melville Charlton, the organist of New York, presented an effective program. Mrs. Jessie E. Shaw, a pianist, assisted Mr. Charlton.
   On May 17 the Chaminade Music Club, composed of amateur and professional musicians of Boston, Mass., presented the operetta "A Nautical Knot." The production was under the direction of Miss Mary Page, a colored vocal student at the New England Conservatory of Music.
   At the ceremonies connected with the placing of his bust in the opera house at Cairo, Egypt, Camille Saint-Saens, the French composer, conducted his symphonic poem "Africa." The themes of the composition, written for piano and orchestra, show the unusual scale progression and original rhythms of the Negro folk song.
   On May 27, in Chicago, Ill., the Choral Study Club of Chicago, before a large audience, presented S. Coleridge-Taylor's "Blind Girl of Castle Guillé" and Cowan's "St. John's Eve," under the direction of Mr. Pedro T. Tinsley, conductor.
   The soloists were Mrs. Virginia Greene and Mrs. Martha B. Anderson, soprani; Mrs. Clara K. Williams, contralto; Mr. George L. Johnson, tenor; Mr T. Theodore Taylor, baritone.
   The Music News of Chicago gives credit to the soloists for their excellent work, and to the accompanists, Mrs. Pelagie Blair and Miss M. Gertrude Jackson, who assisted the orchestra. The reviewer writes: "The chorus and soloists seemed to enter thoroughly into the spirit of this cantata and the bright and tuneful music, as well as the more serious choruses, were sung with fine effect. Especially impressive was the closing chorus with its sombre coloring 'a la cortege,' emphasized by the majesty of the organ accompaniment."
   It is to be regretted that Mr. Tinsley, who has been ill this spring, will be unable to continue as conductor of the Choral Study Club next season.
   Miss Helen Eugenia Hagan of New Haven, Conn., who finishes her course this year at the Yale School of Music, was awarded on May 24 the Samuel Sanford fellowship, which provides for two years' study abroad.