National opinion has enabled this last class
to maintain the Negro common schools, and to protect the
Negro partially in property, life, and limb. Through the pres-
sure of the money-makers, the Negro is in danger of being
reduced to semi-slavery, especially in the country districts;
the workingmen, and those of the educated who fear the
Negro, have united to disfranchise him, and some have urged
his deportation; while the passions of the ignorant are easily
aroused to lynch and abuse any black man. To praise this
intricate whirl of thought and prejudice is nonsense; to in-
veigh indiscriminately against "the South" is unjust; but to
use the same breath in praising Governor Aycock, exposing
Senator Morgan, arguing with Mr. Thomas Nelson Page, and
denouncing Senator Ben Tillman, is not only sane, but the
imperative duty of thinking black men.
It would be unjust to Mr. Washington not to acknowledge
that in several instances he has opposed movements in the
South which were unjust to the Negro; he sent memorials to
the Louisiana and Alabama constitutional conventions, he has
spoken against lynching, and in other ways has openly or
silently set his influence against sinister schemes and unfortunate
happenings.
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