Jack Thorne

“ Hiland Silkirk was just the man to win friends among Southern people, and he won them among both white and black citizens in that old town. This is the case in every Southern community. A Negro man of prominence can retain his popularity on certain lines among the whites if he keeps out of politics and in all race troubles remains neutral. But he cannot take this stand and be universally loved. His reward will inevitably be the contempt of his own race, which he cannot afford to engender. And no man who loves his people can hide his light under a bushel; can keep quiet when they are assailed. ”

“ We have made a discord in the sweetest music that ever thrilled the human heart—the music of love. I believe that there is that pathos, that true poetry in Negro love-making that no other race possesses. When a child I used to love to listen to the simple and yet pathetic pleading of the Negro boy for the hand of the girl, whom to protect and defend he owned not himself. ”

“ So radical is the Negro woman, that it is worth a husband's, or brother's, or sweetheart's good standing in the home or society to assay to vote a Democratic ticket. Such a step on the part of a Negro man has in some instances broken up his home. The Spartan loyalty of the Southern white woman to the Confederacy and the Lost Cause was not more marked than is the fidelity of the Negro woman to that party which stood for universal freedom and the brotherhood of man, and whose triumphant legions so ignominiously crushed Freedom's sullen and vindictive foe. ”

“ Wilmington is the Mecca for North Carolina's interior inhabitants who flock thither to breathe in its life-giving ocean breezes when Summer's torrid air becomes unbearable, and lazy Lawrence dances bewilderingly before the eyes. The Winter climate is temperate, but not congenial to Northern tourists, who like swallows, only alight there for a brief rest, and to look around on their journeying to and from the far South: yet Wilmington is cosmopolitan; There dwells the thrifty Yankee, the prosperous Jew, the patient and docile Negro, the enterprising, cunning and scrupulous German ”

“ Our Southern gentleman will not be deprived of the Negro woman. There is no ocean too wide for him to cross; no wall too high for him to scale; he'd risk the fires of hell to be in her company, intensely as he pretends to hate her. Wilmington, North Carolina, the scene of that much regretted phenomenon—the fatal clashing of races in November, 1898, was not, and is not without its harems, its unholy minglings of Shem with Ham; where the soft-fingered aristocrat embraces the lowest dusky sirene in Paddy's Hollow, and thinks nothing of it. ”

“ Some of our most skilled politicians in the South are among the women of both races. Although they do not take the stump and sit upon platforms in public assemblages, they are superior house-to-house canvassers, and in their homes noiselessly urge the men to do their duty. For earnest persistence and true loyalty to the party of her choice, the Negro woman of the South outdoes her sister in white. Give the ballot to the women of the South, and give her dusky daughters an equal show, and a Solid South would be a thing of the past ”

“ Did this man know that Sam Hose committed the crime for which he suffered such a horrible death? Can men capable of committing such deeds as the burning and mutilating the body of this wretch be relied upon for truth? If Cranford was one of that mob of cowards who shot to death those manacled men at Palmetto, the knocking out of his brains would have made a man of another race a hero. ”

“ Only when politics and the race question are being discussed is such a gathering possible in the South. There is a loud rap: the hum of voices ceases. The individual who gives the signal stands at a small table at the end of the long narrow hall. One hand rests upon the table, with the other he nervously toys with a gavel. He is a tall, lean, lank, ungainly chap, whose cheek bones as prominent as an Indian's seem to be on the eve of pushing through his sallow skin. A pair of restless black eyes, set far apart, are apparently at times hidden by the scowls that occasionally wrinkle his forehead. ”

“ The troubles through which we are passing are the reaping of the fruits of the sowing of our fathers. The conduct of our people on the 10th of November shows plainly to my mind that we are making the same mistakes. We are foolish enough to sow that which will cause the harvester to curse us in his misery. Here were boys not over twelve years of age armed and licensed to insult women, tear their clothes from them and humiliate them." "Humiliate them!" echoed Mrs. Bruce, with a sneer, "as though such creatures could be humiliated. They are entitled to no respect from white men." ”

“ What a power for evil is the newspaper! The newspaper arrayed on the side of the right hurls its mighty battering-ram against gigantic walls of oppresion until they fall; takes up the cause of the bondman, echoes his wails and the clanking of his chains until the nation is aroused, and men are marching shoulder to shoulder on to the conflict for the right. What a power for good is the newspaper! I once heard a great editor say that "although newspaper work was hard and laborious, requiring a great store of intellectual strength it was nevertheless a fascinating work." ”

“ The education of the Negro is giving him an advantage that justifies our apprehension. This, combined with accumulated wealth, make him a subject for grave and careful consideration. We are in a condition of subjection under Negro rule and domination that justifies the taking of the sword. We are God's chosen people, the banner carriers of civilization. We civilized the Negro and set him free, and it's our right to return him, if necessary, to his former condition of servitude. ”

“ Let the prejudiced scoffer say what he will, the Negro has done his full share in making the now illfated city blossom as the rose. We who have for so many years made our abode elsewhere, have made our boast in Wilmington as being ahead of all other Southern cities in the recognition of the citizenship of all of her inhabitants; unstained by such acts of violence that had disgraced other communities. To be laid to rest 'neath North Carolina pines has been the wish of nearly every pilgrim who has left that dear old home. ”

“ The German citizen has never been a manufacturer or a farmer; he is in no business that gives extensive employment to wage earners. But, as a corner grocer, he lays for the Negro as he goes to and from his toil, and, with cheap wares and bad whisky, he grows fat upon his unwary customer. The German usually comes to this country poor, enters small towns, and, by the aid of other older residents of his nation who have already grown prosperous, he goes into business on a small scale—grocery business as a rule. ”

“ He lay down beneath a clump of bushes to rest; but there was no rest for this poor innocent wretch, outlawed by ruffians and compelled to leave his wife and little ones, and be hunted as a wild beast in the forest. This is the fate of many a Negro who had committed no more offense against law and order. But this, to such characters as Rev. Silkirk, was no evidence of God's displeasure. Men more righteous than he had been compelled to flee for their lives; yea, suffer death for truth's sake; men of whom the world was not worthy. ”

“ I wonder sometimes how the black woman could even look with favor upon the man who to her has been and is a sneaking coward, as well as a hypocrite in conduct toward the women of his own race. To us he abuses the Negro women, makes her the subject of ridiculous cartoons, shows her up before the world as a beast with his lips wet with kisses from her mouth, and she suckles at her breast the child of his begetting." "We can't afford to be too plain on that subject, Marjorie," interrupted Mrs. Bruce. ”

“ Look! up Front Street comes an excited crowd of men and boys. Every one of them seems to be wrought up to the highest pitch of excitement. Every individual is struggling to get to some one who is in the centre of the crowd. On they come! struggling, pushing and swearing. As the mob draws near, the tall, stately figure of an old man is seen towering above them. His abundant hair and beard are shaggy and gray. He stares wildly at his tormenters, and begs them to spare his life. They shove, they kick, they slap him. "Shoot the Yankee dog! Hang him to a lamp post! Nigger hearted carpet bagger! ”

“ Book learning in colleges dooms the negro to be fit for nothing. They think they cannot do manual labor. What my people need is an industrial, moral, common school training. Lynching does no good, and makes bad worse. The brute who will commit these crimes never sees a newspaper. Sam Hose and all such should die, but not at the hands of a mob. The negro must be taught to abhor crime from principle, not through fear. ”

“ I don't believe McKinley is going to do anything to offend the Southern whites if they kill every Negro in the South. The interests of an alien race are too trivial to risk the sundering of the ties that are supposed by the North to bind the two sections. Each State according to the Southern view, is a sovereignty itself, and can kill and murder its inhabitants with impunity. There is no John Brown, Beecher, nor Sumner, nor Douglass, Garrison, Phillips and others of that undaunted host who were willing and did risk persecution and death for us ”

“ No; but I realize as never before just who and what I am, and your trying to flatter me into the belief that I am better than black women who try to be pure, is a revelation to me who and what you are. There are men whom you have named to be killed whose only offense is that they are respectable and independent; and women who are hated because they are not easy victims such as I am—women who will live honestly upon bread and water. ”

“ Men whom he had met in his common every-day life in Wilmington, men who had been cordial and gentlemanly in their greetings, now either hurled bitter epithets at him, or passed him with averted eyes. Several times during that morning were guns pointed into his face as he paused here and there to stop collisions that were constantly occurring between white and black men, fatal in every instance to the blacks, who, without arms, were no match for the well-equipped whites, who took advantage of their helplessness to bully them. ”

“ This Manly is a new Nigger—a product of Yankee schools and colleges. Freedom and education have worked only harm to the Negro by putting high notions into his head. Blacks of Wilmington have had more sway than was for their good, and they need checking, and it has come at last. We will have no more black lawyers, doctors, editors and so forth, taking the support from our own professional men. And no more such disgraceful scenes as we have been compelled to endure—well-dressed Negro women flaunting about our streets in finery, when they ought to be in their places. ”

“ The flogging of the Negro did not keep him from returning to the German to trade, and the German prospered, and to-day is among the foremost property owners in the South. I do not exaggerate when I say that the German's wealth has come to him solely through Negro patronage; not even to-day does the people known as the best people trade with Germans. ”

“ The Northern white woman in the South, in order to maintain her social caste, generally allows her patriotism to cool. But the Negro woman sings patriotic airs on each 30th of May as she twines wreaths of pine to lay upon the graves of those who died for her. Of course, these women who had gathered in the parlor of Mrs. West's cottage were intensely interested in the coming election in Wilmington, and were ready to discuss the event with all the fervor of their patriotic souls. ”