CHAPTER II.DEMOCRACY AND RACE FRICTIONThe East St. Louis HorrorThis nation is now at war to make the world “safe for democracy,” but the Negro’s contention in the court of public opinion is that until this nation itself is made safe for twelve million of its subjects the Negro, at least, will refuse to believe in the democratic assertions of the country. The East St. Louis pogrom gives point to this contention. Here, on the eve of the celebration of the Nation’s birthday of freedom and equality, the white people, who are denouncing the Germans as Huns and barbarians, break loose in an orgy of unprovoked and villainous barbarism which neither Germans nor any other civilized people have ever equalled.How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? so long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down. Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defense of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.The press reports declare that, “the troops who were on duty during the most serious disturbances were ordered not to shoot.” The civil and military authorities are evidently winking at the work of the mobs—horrible as that was—and the Negroes of the city need not look to them for protection. They must protect themselves. And even the United States Supreme Court concedes them this right.There is, in addition, a method of retaliation which we urge upon them.It is one which will hit those white men who have the power to prevent lawlessness just where they will feel it most, in the place where they keep their consciences—the pocket-book. Let every Negro in East St. Louis and the other cities where race rioting occurs draw his money from the savings-bank and either bank it in the other cities or in the postal savings bank. The only part of the news reports with which we are well pleased is that which states that the property loss is already estimated at a million and a half of dollars.Another reassuring feature is the one suppressed in most of the news dispatches. We refer to the evidences that the East St. Louis Negroes organized themselves during the riots and fought back under some kind of leadership. We Negroes will never know, perhaps, how many whites were killed by our enraged brothers in East St. Louis. It isn’t the news-policy of the white newspapers (whether friendly or unfriendly) to spread such news broadcast. It might teach Negroes too much. But we will hope for the best.The occurrence should serve to enlarge rapidly the membership of The Liberty League of Negro-Americans which was organized to take practical steps to help our people all over the land in the protection of their lives and liberties. —July 4th, 1917.“Arms and the Man”In its editorial on “The East St. Louis Horror”The Voicesaid:How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? So long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down.Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defence of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.To this, the New YorkAgemakes reply in two ways. Its editor, in an interview given to theTribune, declares that:The representative Negro does not approve of radical socialistic outbursts, such as calling upon the Negroes to defend themselves against the whites.And in its editorial of last week it insists that:No man, or woman either, for that matter, is a friend to the race, who publicly advises a resort to violence to redress the wrongs and injustices to which members of the race are subjected in various sections of the country at the present time.The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed.Now, althoughThe Voiceseeks no quarrel withThe Age, we are forced to dissent from this cringing, obsequious view which it champions. And we do this on the ground that cringing has gone out of date, thatThe Age’sview does not now represent any influential or important section of Negro opinion. The group which once held that view went to pieces when Dr. Washington died. The white papers in their news items of last week gave instance after instance showing that Negroes not only counselled self-defense, but actually practiced it. (AndThe Age, by the way, was the onlyNegropaper in New York City which excluded these items from its news columns.) If the press reports are correct, thenThe Voicetold the simple truth when it spoke of the new temper which was being developed “unbeknown to the white people of this land.” And an outsider might conclude thatThe Voicewas a better friend to the white people by letting them know this, than The Age was by trying to lie about it.But the controversy goes much deeper than the question of candor and truthfulness.The AgeandThe Voicejoin issue on this double question: Have Negroes a right to defend themselves against whites? Should they defend themselves? (And this, of course, means violence.)The Voiceanswers, “Yes!”The Ageanswers “No!” Who is to decide? Let us appeal to the courts. Every law-book and statute-book, every court in the civilized world and in the United States agree that everyhumanbeing has the legal as well as moral right to kill those who attack and try to kill him. Then the question forThe Ageto decide, is whether Negroes are human beings. To call our view “socialistic” is to call the courts “socialistic,” and displays an amazing ignorance both of Socialism and of human nature.Before we leave this question, it is proper to consider the near and remote consequences of the radical view.The Agesays that unruly tongues will alienate public sympathy from the oppressed. Good God! Isn’t it high time to ask of what value is that kind of sympathy which is ready to be alienated as soon as Negroes cease to be “niggers” and insist on being men? Is that the sort of sympathy on whichThe Agehas thrived? Then we will have none of it.And, as to the remoter consequences: neither we norThe Agehas a lease on the future. We can but prophesy. But intelligent people reach the unknown via the known, and prophesy the future from the known past and present. And we do know that no race or group of people past or present ever won to the status of manhood among men by yielding up that right which even a singed cat will not yield up—the right to defend their lives. IfThe Ageknows of any instance to the contrary in the history of the past seven thousand years, let it mention that instance. ButThe Agemay ask:“What will self defense accomplish?” Let us see first what the absence of self-defense accomplishes. In its news account of the St. Louis massacre, theAmsterdam Newsshows that whenever the white mobs found a group of Negroes organized and armed,they turned back; whileThe Ageitself had this significant and pathetic sentence:Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield,but the outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those who, for no valid reason, were struck down and murdered in cold blood.Taking the two things together the answer seems clear enough. When murder is cheap murder is indulged in recklessly; when it is likely to be costly it is not so readily indulged in. WillThe Ageventure to deny this? No? Then we say, let Negroes help to make murder costly, for by so doing they will aid the officers of the city, state and nation in instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and lowest elements of our American cities. And we go further: We say that it is not alone the brutality of the whites—it is also the cowardice of Negroes and the lickspittle leadership of the last two decades which, likeThe Age, told us to “take it all lying down”—it is this which has been the main reason for our “bein’ so aisily lynched,” as Mr. Dooley puts it.WhateverThe Agemay say, Negroes will fight back as they are already fighting back. And they will be more highly regarded—as are the Irish—because of fighting back.We are aiming at the white man’s respect—not at his sympathy. We cannot win that respect by any conspicuous and contemptible cowardice; the only kind of sympathy which we may win by that is the kind of sympathy which men feel for a well-kicked dog which cringes while they kick it.“Rights are to be won by those who are ready and willing to fight, if necessary, to have those rights respected.”Who says this? Theodore Roosevelt. So does President Wilson. So does the U. S. Government. That is why we went to war with Germany. Our country always acts upon the best and highest principle and we Negroes have just begun to see that our country is quite right. Therefore, we are willing to follow its glorious example. That is all.The Negro and the Labor UnionsThere are two kinds of labor unionism; the A.F. of L. kind and the other kind. So far, the Negro has been taught to think that all unionism was like the unionism of the American Federation of Labor, and because of this ignorance, his attitude toward organized labor has been that of the scab. For this no member of the A.F. of L. can blame the Negro. The policy of that organization toward the Negro has been damnable. It has kept him out of work and out of the unions as long as it could; and when it could no longer do this it has taken him in, tricked him, and discriminated against him.On the other hand, the big capitalists who pay low wages (from the son of Abraham Lincoln in the Pullman Co. to Julius Rosenwald of the Sears Roebuck Co.) have been rather friendly to the Negro. They have given their money to help him build Y.M.C.A.’s and schools of a certain type. They have given him community help in Northern cities and have expended charity on him— and on the newspapers and parsons who taught him. Small wonder, then, that the Negro people are anti-union.Labor unions were created by white working men that they might bring the pressure of many to bear upon the greedy employer and make him give higher wages and better living conditions to the laborer. When they, in turn, become so greedy that they keep out the majority of working people, by high dues and initiation fees, they no longer represent the interests of the laboring class. They stand in the way of this class’s advancement—and they must go. They must leave the way clear for the 20th century type of unionism which says: “To leave a single worker out is to leave something for the boss to use against us. Therefore we must organize in One Big Union of all the working-class.” This is the type of unionism which organized, in 1911, 18,000 white and 14,000 black timber workers in Louisiana. This is the I.W.W. type of unionism, and the employers use their newspapers to make the public believe that it stands for anarchy, violence, law-breaking and atheism, because they know that if it succeeds it will break them.This type of unionism wants Negroes—not because its promoters love Negroes—but because they realize that they cannot win if any of the working class is left out; and after winning they cannot go back on them because they could be used as scabs to break the unions.The A.F. of L., which claims a part of the responsibility for the East St. Louis outrage, is playing with fire. The American Negro may join hands with the American capitalist and scab them out of existence. And the editor ofThe Voicecalls upon Negroes to do this. We have stood the American Federation of Labor just about long enough. Join hands with the capitalists and scab them out of existence—not in the name of scabbery, but in the name of a real organization of labor. Form your own unions (the A.C.E. is already in the field) and make a truce with your capitalist enemy until you get rid of this traitor to the cause of labor. Offer your labor to capitalism if it will agree to protect you in your right to labor—and see that it does. Then get rid of the A.F. of L.The writer has been a member of a party which stood for the rights of labor and the principle of Industrial Unionism (the 20th century kind). He understands the labor conditions of the country and desires to see the working man win out. But his first duty, here as everywhere, is to the Negro race. And he refuses to put ahead of his race’s rights a collection of diddering jackasses which can publicly palliate such atrocities as that of East St. Louis and publicly assume, as Gompers did, responsibility for it. Therefore, he issues the advice to the workers of his race to “can the A.F. of L.” Since the A.F. of L. chooses to put Race before Class, let us return the compliment.Lynching: Its Cause and CureLast week we had occasion to comment on the resignation of Mr. John R. Shillady from the secretaryship of the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Shillady’s statement accompanying his resignation contains these significant words:—“I am less confident than heretofore of the speedy success of the association’s full program and of the probability of overcoming within a reasonable period the forces opposed to Negro equality by the means and methods which are within the association’s power to employ.”That the N.A.A.C.P. is not likely to affect the lynchings in this land can be seen with half an eye by any one who will note that Governor J. A. Burnquist of Minnesota “is also president of the St. Paul branch of the association and one of the staunch supporters of its work”; that the Minnesota lynching of last week was one of the most cynically brutal that has occurred North or South in the last ten years, and that the association has offered and is offering to give the Governor all the assistance possible.In most of the other cases of lynchings it is assumed that all the officials were in collusion with the forces of violence, or were at any rate in acquiescence. In the present case, however, the Governor of the State is himself a high officer of the association. Yet we venture to prophesy that no more will be done in the case of the Minnesota lynchings than in the case of lynchings further south.This leads us to a front face consideration of the problem of lynching. Why do white men lynch black men in America? We are not dealing here with the original historical cause; nor even with its present social application. We are considering merely the efficient cause. White men lynch black men or any other men because those men’s lives are unprotected either by the authorities of the commonwealth or by the victims themselves. White men lynch Negroes in America because Negroes’ lives are cheap. So long as they so remain, so long will lynching remain an evil to be talked about, written about, petitioned against and slobbered over. But not all the slobber, the talk or the petitions are worth the time it takes to indulge in them, so far as the saving of a single Negro life is concerned.What, then, is the cure? The cure follows from the nature of the cause. Let Negroes determine that their lives shall no longer be cheap; but that they will exact for them as high a price as any other element in the community under similar circumstances would exact. Let them see to it that their lives are protected and defended, if not by the State, then certainly by themselves. Then we will see the cracker stopping to take counsel with himself and to think twice before he joins a mob in whose gruesome holiday sport he himself is likely to furnish one of the casualties.“Let Negroes help to make murder costly, for by so doing they will aid the officers of the city, State and nation in instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and lowest elements of our American cities.” The law of every State says explicitly that killing in defense of one’s own life is strictly proper, legal and justifiable. Therefore, if Negroes determine to defend themselves from the horrible outrage of lynching they should have the support of every official and every citizen who really believes in law and order and is determined to make the law of the land stand as a living reality among the people that made it. —July, 1920.
This nation is now at war to make the world “safe for democracy,” but the Negro’s contention in the court of public opinion is that until this nation itself is made safe for twelve million of its subjects the Negro, at least, will refuse to believe in the democratic assertions of the country. The East St. Louis pogrom gives point to this contention. Here, on the eve of the celebration of the Nation’s birthday of freedom and equality, the white people, who are denouncing the Germans as Huns and barbarians, break loose in an orgy of unprovoked and villainous barbarism which neither Germans nor any other civilized people have ever equalled.
How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? so long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?
And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down. Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.
At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defense of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.
The press reports declare that, “the troops who were on duty during the most serious disturbances were ordered not to shoot.” The civil and military authorities are evidently winking at the work of the mobs—horrible as that was—and the Negroes of the city need not look to them for protection. They must protect themselves. And even the United States Supreme Court concedes them this right.
There is, in addition, a method of retaliation which we urge upon them.
It is one which will hit those white men who have the power to prevent lawlessness just where they will feel it most, in the place where they keep their consciences—the pocket-book. Let every Negro in East St. Louis and the other cities where race rioting occurs draw his money from the savings-bank and either bank it in the other cities or in the postal savings bank. The only part of the news reports with which we are well pleased is that which states that the property loss is already estimated at a million and a half of dollars.
Another reassuring feature is the one suppressed in most of the news dispatches. We refer to the evidences that the East St. Louis Negroes organized themselves during the riots and fought back under some kind of leadership. We Negroes will never know, perhaps, how many whites were killed by our enraged brothers in East St. Louis. It isn’t the news-policy of the white newspapers (whether friendly or unfriendly) to spread such news broadcast. It might teach Negroes too much. But we will hope for the best.
The occurrence should serve to enlarge rapidly the membership of The Liberty League of Negro-Americans which was organized to take practical steps to help our people all over the land in the protection of their lives and liberties. —July 4th, 1917.
In its editorial on “The East St. Louis Horror”The Voicesaid:
How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? So long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?
How can America hold up its hands in hypocritical horror at foreign barbarism while the red blood of the Negro is clinging to those hands? So long as the President and Congress of the United States remain dumb in the presence of barbarities in their own land which would tip their tongues with righteous indignation if they had been done in Belgium, Ireland or Galicia?
And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down.Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.
And what are the Negroes to do? Are they expected to re-echo with enthusiasm the patriotic protestations of the boot-licking leaders whose pockets and positions testify to the power of the white man’s gold? Let there be no mistake. Whatever the Negroes may be compelled by law to do and say, the resentment in their hearts will not down.Unbeknown to the white people of this land a temper is being developed among Negroes with which the American people will have to reckon.
At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defence of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.
At the present moment it takes this form: If white men are to kill unoffending Negroes, Negroes must kill white men in defence of their lives and property. This is the lesson of the East St. Louis massacre.
To this, the New YorkAgemakes reply in two ways. Its editor, in an interview given to theTribune, declares that:
The representative Negro does not approve of radical socialistic outbursts, such as calling upon the Negroes to defend themselves against the whites.
The representative Negro does not approve of radical socialistic outbursts, such as calling upon the Negroes to defend themselves against the whites.
And in its editorial of last week it insists that:
No man, or woman either, for that matter, is a friend to the race, who publicly advises a resort to violence to redress the wrongs and injustices to which members of the race are subjected in various sections of the country at the present time.
No man, or woman either, for that matter, is a friend to the race, who publicly advises a resort to violence to redress the wrongs and injustices to which members of the race are subjected in various sections of the country at the present time.
The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed.
The Negro race is afflicted with many individuals whose wagging tongues are apt to lead them into indiscreet utterances that reflect upon the whole race. … The unruly tongues should not be allowed to alienate public sympathy from the cause of the oppressed.
Now, althoughThe Voiceseeks no quarrel withThe Age, we are forced to dissent from this cringing, obsequious view which it champions. And we do this on the ground that cringing has gone out of date, thatThe Age’sview does not now represent any influential or important section of Negro opinion. The group which once held that view went to pieces when Dr. Washington died. The white papers in their news items of last week gave instance after instance showing that Negroes not only counselled self-defense, but actually practiced it. (AndThe Age, by the way, was the onlyNegropaper in New York City which excluded these items from its news columns.) If the press reports are correct, thenThe Voicetold the simple truth when it spoke of the new temper which was being developed “unbeknown to the white people of this land.” And an outsider might conclude thatThe Voicewas a better friend to the white people by letting them know this, than The Age was by trying to lie about it.
But the controversy goes much deeper than the question of candor and truthfulness.The AgeandThe Voicejoin issue on this double question: Have Negroes a right to defend themselves against whites? Should they defend themselves? (And this, of course, means violence.)The Voiceanswers, “Yes!”The Ageanswers “No!” Who is to decide? Let us appeal to the courts. Every law-book and statute-book, every court in the civilized world and in the United States agree that everyhumanbeing has the legal as well as moral right to kill those who attack and try to kill him. Then the question forThe Ageto decide, is whether Negroes are human beings. To call our view “socialistic” is to call the courts “socialistic,” and displays an amazing ignorance both of Socialism and of human nature.
Before we leave this question, it is proper to consider the near and remote consequences of the radical view.The Agesays that unruly tongues will alienate public sympathy from the oppressed. Good God! Isn’t it high time to ask of what value is that kind of sympathy which is ready to be alienated as soon as Negroes cease to be “niggers” and insist on being men? Is that the sort of sympathy on whichThe Agehas thrived? Then we will have none of it.
And, as to the remoter consequences: neither we norThe Agehas a lease on the future. We can but prophesy. But intelligent people reach the unknown via the known, and prophesy the future from the known past and present. And we do know that no race or group of people past or present ever won to the status of manhood among men by yielding up that right which even a singed cat will not yield up—the right to defend their lives. IfThe Ageknows of any instance to the contrary in the history of the past seven thousand years, let it mention that instance. ButThe Agemay ask:
“What will self defense accomplish?” Let us see first what the absence of self-defense accomplishes. In its news account of the St. Louis massacre, theAmsterdam Newsshows that whenever the white mobs found a group of Negroes organized and armed,they turned back; whileThe Ageitself had this significant and pathetic sentence:
Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield,but the outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those who, for no valid reason, were struck down and murdered in cold blood.
Since the massacre, which will go down in history alongside the atrocities committed in Brussels and Rheims, a delegation of Negroes has held a conference with Governor Lowden at Springfield,but the outcome of this meeting will not bring back the lives of those who, for no valid reason, were struck down and murdered in cold blood.
Taking the two things together the answer seems clear enough. When murder is cheap murder is indulged in recklessly; when it is likely to be costly it is not so readily indulged in. WillThe Ageventure to deny this? No? Then we say, let Negroes help to make murder costly, for by so doing they will aid the officers of the city, state and nation in instilling respect for law and order into the minds of the worst and lowest elements of our American cities. And we go further: We say that it is not alone the brutality of the whites—it is also the cowardice of Negroes and the lickspittle leadership of the last two decades which, likeThe Age, told us to “take it all lying down”—it is this which has been the main reason for our “bein’ so aisily lynched,” as Mr. Dooley puts it.
WhateverThe Agemay say, Negroes will fight back as they are already fighting back. And they will be more highly regarded—as are the Irish—because of fighting back.
We are aiming at the white man’s respect—not at his sympathy. We cannot win that respect by any conspicuous and contemptible cowardice; the only kind of sympathy which we may win by that is the kind of sympathy which men feel for a well-kicked dog which cringes while they kick it.
“Rights are to be won by those who are ready and willing to fight, if necessary, to have those rights respected.”
Who says this? Theodore Roosevelt. So does President Wilson. So does the U. S. Government. That is why we went to war with Germany. Our country always acts upon the best and highest principle and we Negroes have just begun to see that our country is quite right. Therefore, we are willing to follow its glorious example. That is all.
There are two kinds of labor unionism; the A.F. of L. kind and the other kind. So far, the Negro has been taught to think that all unionism was like the unionism of the American Federation of Labor, and because of this ignorance, his attitude toward organized labor has been that of the scab. For this no member of the A.F. of L. can blame the Negro. The policy of that organization toward the Negro has been damnable. It has kept him out of work and out of the unions as long as it could; and when it could no longer do this it has taken him in, tricked him, and discriminated against him.
On the other hand, the big capitalists who pay low wages (from the son of Abraham Lincoln in the Pullman Co. to Julius Rosenwald of the Sears Roebuck Co.) have been rather friendly to the Negro. They have given their money to help him build Y.M.C.A.’s and schools of a certain type. They have given him community help in Northern cities and have expended charity on him— and on the newspapers and parsons who taught him. Small wonder, then, that the Negro people are anti-union.
Labor unions were created by white working men that they might bring the pressure of many to bear upon the greedy employer and make him give higher wages and better living conditions to the laborer. When they, in turn, become so greedy that they keep out the majority of working people, by high dues and initiation fees, they no longer represent the interests of the laboring class. They stand in the way of this class’s advancement—and they must go. They must leave the way clear for the 20th century type of unionism which says: “To leave a single worker out is to leave something for the boss to use against us. Therefore we must organize in One Big Union of all the working-class.” This is the type of unionism which organized, in 1911, 18,000 white and 14,000 black timber workers in Louisiana. This is the I.W.W. type of unionism, and the employers use their newspapers to make the public believe that it stands for anarchy, violence, law-breaking and atheism, because they know that if it succeeds it will break them.
This type of unionism wants Negroes—not because its promoters love Negroes—but because they realize that they cannot win if any of the working class is left out; and after winning they cannot go back on them because they could be used as scabs to break the unions.
The A.F. of L., which claims a part of the responsibility for the East St. Louis outrage, is playing with fire. The American Negro may join hands with the American capitalist and scab them out of existence. And the editor ofThe Voicecalls upon Negroes to do this. We have stood the American Federation of Labor just about long enough. Join hands with the capitalists and scab them out of existence—not in the name of scabbery, but in the name of a real organization of labor. Form your own unions (the A.C.E. is already in the field) and make a truce with your capitalist enemy until you get rid of this traitor to the cause of labor. Offer your labor to capitalism if it will agree to protect you in your right to labor—and see that it does. Then get rid of the A.F. of L.
The writer has been a member of a party which stood for the rights of labor and the principle of Industrial Unionism (the 20th century kind). He understands the labor conditions of the country and desires to see the working man win out. But his first duty, here as everywhere, is to the Negro race. And he refuses to put ahead of his race’s rights a collection of diddering jackasses which can publicly palliate such atrocities as that of East St. Louis and publicly assume, as Gompers did, responsibility for it. Therefore, he issues the advice to the workers of his race to “can the A.F. of L.” Since the A.F. of L. chooses to put Race before Class, let us return the compliment.
Last week we had occasion to comment on the resignation of Mr. John R. Shillady from the secretaryship of the N.A.A.C.P. Mr. Shillady’s statement accompanying his resignation contains these significant words:—
“I am less confident than heretofore of the speedy success of the association’s full program and of the probability of overcoming within a reasonable period the forces opposed to Negro equality by the means and methods which are within the association’s power to employ.”
That the N.A.A.C.P. is not likely to affect the lynchings in this land can be seen with half an eye by any one who will note that Governor J. A. Burnquist of Minnesota “is also president of the St. Paul branch of the association and one of the staunch supporters of its work”; that the Minnesota lynching of last week was one of the most cynically brutal that has occurred North or South in the last ten years, and that the association has offered and is offering to give the Governor all the assistance possible.
In most of the other cases of lynchings it is assumed that all the officials were in collusion with the forces of violence, or were at any rate in acquiescence. In the present case, however, the Governor of the State is himself a high officer of the association. Yet we venture to prophesy that no more will be done in the case of the Minnesota lynchings than in the case of lynchings further south.
This leads us to a front face consideration of the problem of lynching. Why do white men lynch black men in America? We are not dealing here with the original historical cause; nor even with its present social application. We are considering merely the efficient cause. White men lynch black men or any other men because those men’s lives are unprotected either by the authorities of the commonwealth or by the victims themselves. White men lynch Negroes in America because Negroes’ lives are cheap. So long as they so remain, so long will lynching remain an evil to be talked about, written about, petitioned against and slobbered over. But not all the slobber, the talk or the petitions are worth the time it takes to indulge in them, so far as the saving of a single Negro life is concerned.
What, then, is the cure? The cure follows from the nature of the cause. Let Negroes determine that their lives shall no longer be cheap; but that they will exact for them as high a price as any other element in the community under similar circumstances would exact. Let them see to it that their lives are protected and defended, if not by the State, then certainly by themselves. Then we will see the cracker stopping to take counsel with himself and to think twice before he joins a mob in whose gruesome holiday sport he himself is likely to furnish one of the casualties.