When in school in Oberlin my professor in debating and oratory was so prejudiced that he would not let the other colored boy and me be on teams together. We asked him repeatedly, but he always refused. We decided to work on a debate for all there was in it and compel him to recognize the fact that we could measure up to the other members of the class. When we finished he praised our work in the highest terms. After that he began to take an interest in me and finally told me that he did not know anything about Negroes and just felt that there was nothing worth while in them. He tried to persuade me to teach, and when I left he gave me one of the best letters of recommendation that I have ever seen. That shows what contact can do.
Not a race problem.—A Negro business man said:
There is no race problem; if the white people would only do as they would be done by we would not have need of commissions to better conditions. This won't be done, but an easier plan is to enforce the law. The laws are good enough but they are not enforced. Riots grow out of hate, jealousy, envy, and prejudice. When a man becomes a contented citizen there will be little chance of causing him to fight anyone. Give us those things that are due us—law, protection, and equal rights—then we will become contented citizens.
For better race relations in Chicago.—A Negro alderman said:
1. Pass a vagrancy law that will take the idle, shiftless and intolerant hoodlum off the streets. Put the burden of proof on the one so arrested.
2. Close all vicious poolrooms and dens of vice, and permit no boy under nineteen years of age to enter poolrooms.
3. Forbid loitering on the street corners, especially transfer points.
4. Prohibit vicious and race-antagonizing campaign speeches on the streets of the city and in public halls. Races must not be arrayed against each other.
5. Make more rigid the habeas corpus act, tighten up on the parole and probation laws and enforcement of the truancy law.
6. Stop the newspapers from referring to the territory occupied by the colored people as the "Black Belt."