nd no maintenance could she possibly
obtain for her child from the white man who wronged her. Intermarriage
between the races has been made illegal by every Southern state and by
some Northern states also. Such a law makes colored women the safe quarry
of white men, and nowhere in the South do law or public opinion impose
upon them any deterrent punishment, moral or legal, for their crime, but
quite the opposite. For such men do not lose standing in Southern society
or the church or the state in consequence of their sin. In all this sexual
inequality and iniquity the South has eyes but sees not and ears but hears
not what is taking place everywhere in its midst.

On the other hand what happens to the black man who ventures to look upon
a white woman with love or carnal desire, or who is even suspected of
doing so? Ask Judge Lynch, ask the blind and murderous sex fury of white
men, the red male rage of Southern mobs. Nevertheless black men cannot be
made to see the difference between the lust of black men and the lust of
white men, or to acknowledge the justice of such a distinction. Hold the
blacks responsible by all means for the crimes they commit, but hold the
whites responsible also for creating social and legal conditions which
lead directly to the growth of crime among both races. Race and color not
efficiency and character are the basis of the Southern caste system, and
such a system produces unavoidably ill-will, oppressions, and resentments
between the races which lead directly or indirectly to the commission of
crime. For all those who are black, regardless of what nature and
education intend them to be are born into a fixed state of social and
political inferiority, and all those who are white, regardless of what
nature and education intend them to be are born into a fixed state of
social and political superiority, and for no other or better reason than
that those of the first class are black, and those of the second class are
white. Civilization finds it well nigh impossible to advance under such
iron bound conditions and against such a fatal obstruction to progress,
while civic righteousness must certainly share the same fate. Such social
injustice is as sure to provoke crime as stagnant water is to produce
disease. Yet, in spite of this iniquitous caste system the leaven of
democracy, of equality has found lodgment in the black man's mind, and he
craves the chance to become all that the white man has become