Following the Color LineAn account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
I have not wished to darken our observations with too many statistics, but this tendency is so remarkable that I wish to set down for comparison the figures of a “white county” in northern Georgia—Polk County—which is growing whiter every year.

7,805

Driving out Negroes

One of the most active causes of this movement is downright fear—or race repulsion expressing itself in fear. White people dislike and fear to live in dense coloured neighbourhoods, while Negroes are often terrorised in white neighbourhoods—and not in the South only but in parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, as I shall show when I come to treat of Northern race conditions. I have accumulated many instances showing how Negroes are expelled from white neighbourhoods. There is a significant report from Little Rock, Arkansas:

(Special to the Georgian.)

Little Rock, Ark., Jan. 1.—Practically every Negro in Evening Shade, Sharp County, in this state, has left town as the result of threats which have been made against the Negroes. For several years a small colony of Negroes has lived just on the outskirts of the town. A short time ago notices were posted warning the Negroes to leave the town at once. About the same time Joe Brooks, a Negro who lived with his family two miles north of town, was called to his door and fired upon by unknown persons. A load of shot struck the house close by his side and some of the shot entered his arm. Brooks and his family have left the country, and practically every member of the Negro colony has gone. They have abandoned their property or disposed of it for whatever they could get.

[Pg 72]From the New Orleans Times Democrat of March 20, 1907, I cut the following dispatch showing one method pursued by the whites of Oklahoma:

[Pg 72]

BLACKS ORDERED OUT

Lawton, Okla., March 20.—“Negroes, beware the cappers. We, the Sixty Sons of Waurika, demand the Negroes to leave here at once. We mean Go! Leave in twenty-four hours, or after that your life is uncertain.” These were the words on placards which the eighty Negroes of the town of Waurika, forty miles south of Lawton, saw posted conspicuously in a number of public places this morning.

Dispatches from here to-night stated that the whites are in earnest, and that the Negroes will be killed if they do not leave town.

Not a few students 
 Prev. P 65/279 next 
Back Top
Privacy Statement Terms of Service Contact