Southern belief rarely strays out of this codified expression of thought. Get into converse with a Southerner on the subject of the Negroes, and you will almost always be able to refer his talk to 1 or 6 or 10 or some other paragraph of the foregoing. It is sufficiently pat and parrot-like to be amusing at last. The Negro himself is amused and pained by it. It amounts to this: The Southerner has made the Negro a pair of boots and he says they fit very well. The Negro says they don’t fit. But the Southerner says he’ll risk his salvation on it—he made the boots, and he knows his trade. The Negro, however, has to wear them.
Perhaps if it were merely opinion, the idleness of the spoken word, the Southern point of view would merit less attention. Talk might be discounted, as mere talk is discounted by responsible minds. But it has unfortunately a remarkable counterpart in action. It is the concomitant of mob murder and torture. It is expressed not only in narrow and bitter phrase, but in actual flesh twisting; not only in the flames of fanaticism, but in real flames.
Lynching is a popular sport in the South. It is perhaps popular in idea all over the world. Even in Great Britain, where the policeman is on a sort of moral pedestal, and is paid immense respect, how often among the masses does one hear the sentiment that such and such a person should be put against a wall and shot. Even in a nation that has such a phrase as “the majesty of the law” the idea of taking the law into one’s own hands is generally popular. In Russia, samosudi, as they are called, are frequent, and there is a short and terrible way with pickpockets when the crowd finds them out. France’s passion for la lanterne does not need to be enlarged upon.
It is said that in countries where the laws are badly administered and the police held in little respect, lynchings are the more frequent. This is so. And while lynching can have a moral sanction at first, it may, if unchecked, grow to be a popular sport, a means of “national” holiday, like the shows of Rome, the auto-da-fé’s of Spain, bullfights, and boxing competitions. When sufficient cause for a lynching is lacking, cause may have to be invented, just to let the folk have some “fun.” In the United States to-day there are not sufficient crimes committed by the Negroes to satisfy the hunger of the crowd for lynchings. So inevitably many innocent black men are sacrificed just for sport’s sake.
Last year seventy-seven Negroes were lynched in America; fourteen of them were burned alive. Burning appears to be on the increase, and is an obvious indication of growing mob lust. This form of brutality has long ago ceased in the Europe from which perhaps it was derived. Spaniards burned the Indians. Indians burned the settlers. Settlers burned their runaway slaves. And still to-day in comparatively large numbers the white Southern mob burns its Negro victims. It has its historical background. The thought of burning supposed delinquents alive is common in Southern minds. “Make ‘em die slow” is even a watchword.
The Southern half of the United States is fond of saying that the North is now quite as bad in its treatment of the Negro. Happily, that is untrue. Seventy-two out of the seventy-seven lynchings occurred south of the Mason-Dixon line, and the rest occurred in the Western States. The North was immune. Unfortunately, this good record was marred by some bad race riots in Northern cities.
Of all the States, Georgia had the worst record for lynching. During last year she lynched twenty-two persons, almost twice as many as the next worst, Mississippi. Two of these were for alleged attacks on white women. The rest were for a variety of crimes and misdemeanors. Thus, in April, a soldier was beaten to death at Blakely for wearing his uniform too long. In May, at Warrenton, Benny Richards was burned to death for murder. In the first week in August a soldier was shot for refusing to yield the road, and another was hanged for discussing the Chicago race riots. At Pope City another soldier was lynched for shooting. In the belief that the Negroes were planning a rising, Eli Cooper was taken at Ocmulgee and publicly burned at the stake. On September 10th, in the Georgian city of Athens, another Negro, Obe Cox, was burned for murder. In Americus, in October, Ernest Glenwood was drowned as a propagandist. On October 5th, Moses Martin was shot for incautious remarks. Next day, at Lincolnton, one Negro was shot for misleading the mob, and two others were burned alive for committing murder. Next day another was shot at Macon for attempted murder. Two were hanged at Buena Vista for intimacy with a white woman, and before the end of the month three more met their end from the mob for shooting and manslaughter.
As far as Georgia is concerned, this record disposes of the theory that lynching only takes place when white women have been attacked. As a matter of fact, the commonest motive for lynching of Negroes throughout the United States has been shown to be mob condemnation, of violence—not of lust. By far the greatest number of lynchings are for supposed murder. The mob lynches the Negro as a man shoots his dog when the latter has turned on him. Formerly, attacks on women provided the greater number of cases. If the Negro were fool enough ever to make eyes at a white woman, he risked his life. Many innocent admirations and misunderstandings have resulted in lynchings. As for rape, the Negro who commits it is bound to come to a violent end. Very few escape lynching, and the South claims that whatever immunity it enjoys from Negro sexual crimes is due to the deterrent of lynch law. It claims that if the criminals were merely dealt with according to the law, sexual crimes would speedily multiply.
White people with the white-race instinct are generally ready to condone lynching when it is proved that it thus acts as a deterrent. Perhaps they are right, and they ought not to put it to themselves from the black man’s point of view. But there is the other point of view, and there is the collective opinion of the colored people on the subject, and that opinion is being organized and will make itself felt. It is worth attention and sympathy.