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26     THE CRISIS

Southern woman, displays a far greater breadth of view and a far more democratic attitude in her comments than many a Northern woman, we fear, would be able to show:

"The majority of people stand for fair play, and we believe that the persecutions of race prejudice which the Negro endures express the feeling only of a small minority of his fellow citizens of the white race, and that the great majority are completely ignorant of the heavy burden of injustice which he carries. Ignorance is always the bulwark of prejudice, and race prejudice is singularly dependent upon an ignorance which is, to be sure, sometimes wilful, but which is for the most part unintentional and accidental. It has come about, however, that the small minority who cherish their prejudices and persecute the black man because he is black have had the power to make life increasingly hard for him. And to-day they not only refuse to sit in the same part of the theatre with him and to let him enter a hotel which they patronize, but they also refuse to allow him to live on the same street with them, or even in the same neighborhood. Even where the city administration does not recognize a black 'ghetto' or 'pale,' the real-estate agents who register and commercialize what they suppose to be a universal race prejudice are able to enforce one in practice. It is out of this minority persecution that the special Negro housing problem has developed."

In Chicago this active prejudice has resulted in the gradual establishment of four colored districts. By forcing the colored people into those districts the real-estate interests have enabled the landlords there to obtain extortionate rents. One of the most glaring exhibits in this report is that revealing the rents exacted of the colored family. There is, for example, a table comparing what the colored family has to pay for a four-room apartment and what the immigrant families in various districts have to pay:

[[2 column table]]
| DISTRICT  |  MEDIAN |                                 
| Jewish | $10.00 to $10.50 |
| Bohemian | 8.00 to 8.50 |
| Polish | 8.00 to 8.50 | 
| Stockyards | 8.00 to 8.50 |
| South Chicago | 9.00 to 9.50 |
| Colored (south side) | 12.00 to  12.50 |
| Colored (west side) | 10.00 to  10.50 |

Historic Days in November

1. Revised constitution of Mississippi promulgated, 1890.
2. Disfranchisement defeated in Maryland the second time, 1909.
3. Riot at Danville, Va., growing out of the exercise of the elective franchise by Negroes, 1883.
4. Massachusetts made declaration against man stealing, 1646.
6. Convention of Negroes at Indianapolis asked for suffrage, 1866.
7. Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy, while defending his presses against the assault of a pro-slavery mob, was killed at Alton, Ill., 1837.
8. Rev. Elijah P. Lovejoy born, 1802.
9. Benjamin Banneker born, 1731.
11. Nat. Turner executed, 1831.
12. Twenty slaves petitioned New Hampshire legislature to abolish slavery, 1779.
13. Liberty party named J.G. Birney for President, 1839.
15. John M. Langston died, 1897.
16. First attempt by England to establish systematic slave trade, 1618.
17. Stephen S. Foster, abolitionist, born, 1809.
19. Organization of the 29th Connecticut Volunteers authorized, 1863.
20. Lemuel Haynes, first Negro in North America licensed to preach the gospel, 1780.
25. Andrew Carnegie born, 1837.
28. The French evacuated Haiti, 1803.
29. San Domingo annexation treaty negotiated, 1869.
    Wendell Phillips born, 1811.
     
L. M. HERSHAW. 


EDITORIAL
[[image - drawing of a desk with an owl sitting on a pen]]

THE SECOND BIRTHDAY.

IT is natural that there should be many misapprehensions concerning the origin of THE CRISIS as well as its object. Every man with a cause longs to voice his belief. Most men, however, like the editor of this magazine, are held back by a very genuine doubt as to whether the public will recognize any worth in the proposed message. They know - or they think they know - that when the message is voiced, and the world realizes its full import, it will welcome and help actively in its spread.

The problem is then how to begin, how first to spread the message. Capital must be had for the launching of such an enterprise, but how may one raise it and whence? It seemed to the editor of THE CRISIS in earlier years that the benevolent right might be approached with such a proposition. He forgot that the benevolent are besieged with schemes of all sorts and have little time or ability to judge a matter the justification of which lies in the far future. They are used to helping the thing that has already proven its worth.

A second method would be to furnish the necessary capital oneself and thus bridge the starving period. Now the capital that an American colored man, working at "colored" wages, can afford to put into a periodical of purpose is small. THE CRISIS is a small magazine run on extremely economical lines with a small - much too small - working force; but THE CRISIS costs over $1,000 a month to publish and distribute. Persons proposing to start small magazines should remember this. Yet an earnest agent who is about to buy twenty-five copies a month writes us: "I will handle your magazine if you will promise to enlarge it soon!"

The push of the unspoken thought that demands utterance is strong. So, despite cost and trouble, the editor attempted seven years ago a small magazinelike weekly, published at Memphis, Tenn., and called The Moon. The editor gave all his savings, some twelve hundred little dollars, into the hands of an ambitious young printer, turned the whole business responsibility over to him and furnished his services as editor free. The result was a flash of popularity, a year of unsystematic struggle, and then the clear realization that either the editor must give his whole time and help in the business management or give up. Now as the editor was earning his daily bread as well as capital for The Moon by his work as a teacher, giving this up seemed impossible and the Moon set.

Immediately friends came forward and said: "But we must have such a periodical as you sought to give us. Suppose we help you bear the expense?" The result was a miniature magazine called The Horizon, published for nearly three years in Washington, D. C., by men who themselves paid the deficit out of their shallow pockets.

Here we faced a new problem. Scarcely 500 copies of the magazine were sold monthly, and, as the young manager flatly put it, it seemed as if "the people don't want it."

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