National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

“ Unless the colored child can be educated he is at a fearful disadvantage. An uneducated Negro population menaces national well-being. This education should be of hand and brain and can be adequately done for all Negro children, not the fortunate few, only by public schools. ”

“ No class of citizens can be denied the protection of the law with impunity.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fights this evil, as others in its program, with spiritual and legal weapons. Its appeal is to the heart, the mind, the conscience of America. It insists upon "ordered law and humane justice," to quote a phrase used by President Wilson in his appeal to the country against lynching. ”

“ In another case it is the common belief in the community in which a Negro was lynched for "killing a white woman" that the husband of the woman was himself the murderer. No charge has been brought against him, however, by the authorities. In such cases, Negroes are usually too fearful of danger and too hopeless of anything being done, to initiate legal action. In an additional case a bank cashier declared in an interview in an Alabama paper, that a certain lynching victim had committed no offense, that there had been a mistake made in the man the mob was after. ”

“ To emancipate in fact, as well as in name, a race of nearly 12,000,000 American-born citizens.
The only means we can employ are education, organization, agitation, publicity—the force of an enlightened public opinion. ”

“ Most atrocious of all, so far as the community was concerned, was the five days' orgy in Brooks and Lowndes Counties, which has been made the occasion for special publicity and special efforts by the Association, to which reference is made on page 9 of this report. In that case the particularly vicious brutality of the mob went beyond what one is prepared to expect from Georgia mobs—and one expects a good deal in the way of "cruel and unusual punishments" from them. ”

“ An increased executive and clerical staff has permitted the Association to devote more time and thought to its Anti-Lynching work and to conduct a more energetic campaign for legal trial of Negro alleged offenders, than in any previous year of the Association's history. Lynching is rapidly becoming a national issue. Under the stress of war time, mob violence has menaced communities heretofore relatively immune. ”

“ Correspondents have written and callers at the National Headquarters have assured the National Officers of the value of this publicity work. In some cases local leaders among the white citizens have called upon colored people to assure them of their concern for the well being and protection of the good Negro and incidentally, we are told, to advise them against allying themselves with "northern agitators." ”

“ In the absence of combined action by Negroes forcibly to protect members of their race, the lynching of black men and women by white men for all causes and no cause, so far as crimes are concerned, can only {7}be compared, although in lesser degree, to Russian pogroms against Jews under the Tzarist regime, or to Turkish attacks upon the Armenians. ”

“ The Solicitor carried on an investigation for two weeks, examining 21 white and 9 colored witnesses. The coroner's jury ran true to form, finding that the victim came to his death at the hands of "parties unknown" to the jury.
The two leading Raleigh newspapers, one of them owned by Secretary of the Navy Daniels, carried strong editorial comment against the lynching and criticized the dereliction of the officers in allowing their prisoner to be taken from them. One of them commented directly and favorably on the Association's telegrams to the Governor. ”

“ Philip G. Peabody, of Boston, Mass., in the fall of 1916, toward a fund of $10,000 to be used in a vigorous campaign against the lynching evil. The Association's president, Mr. Moorfield Storey, contributed a second $1,000 and as the result of a wide-spread appeal an amount slightly in excess of $10,000 over and above the cost of the appeal was subscribed. The Association is endeavoring to raise approximately $10,000 annually to carry on this work.
The principal activities of the anti-lynching campaign include:
Investigation of as many of the lynchings as possible. ”