continuously since. In Georgia the law says that: “All white electors who have duly registered … irrespective of past political affiliations are hereby declared qualified and are invited to participate in said primary election.”

[6]

Mississippi

”

Under the new suffrage law of Mr. Booker T. Washington’s state of Alabama. Montgomery county, which has 53,000 Negroes, disfranchises all but one hundred of them. In 1908 the Democrats of West Virginia declared in their platform that the United States Constitution should be so amended so as to disfranchise all the [7] Negroes of the country. In December, 1910, the lower house of the Texas legislature, by a vote of 51 to 34, instructed its federal Senators and Congressmen to work for the repeal of the two amendments to the national constitution which confer the right of suffrage upon Negroes. But the funniest proposal in that direction came from Georgia, where J. J. Slade proposed an amendment to the state constitution to the effect that colored men should be allowed to vote only if two chaste white women would swear that they would trust them in the dark. But, however it has been effected, whether by force or fraud, by methods wise or otherwise, the great bulk of the Negroes of America are political pariahs to-day. When it is remembered that they once had the right of suffrage, that it was given them, not upon any principle of abstract right, but as a means of protection from the organized ill-will of their white neighbors, that that ill-will is now more effectively organized and in possession of all the powers of the state,—it can be seen at a glance that this spells subjection certain and complete.

[7]

constitution

 II—Economic 

Political rights are the only sure protection and guarantee of economic rights. Every fool knows this. And yet, here in America to-day we have people who tell Negroes that they ought not to agitate for the ballot so long as they still have a chance to get work in the south. And Negro leaders, hired by white capitalists who want cheap labor-power, [8] still continue to mislead both their own and other people. The following facts will demonstrate the economic insecurity of the Negro in the South.

[8]

Up to a few years ago systematic peonage was wide-spread in the South. Now, peonage is slavery 

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