nce in his state. In addition to special endeavor for
justice in the Williams case, he has issued a booklet citing with detail
one hundred and thirty-five cases in which Negroes have suffered grave
wrong. He divides his cases into four divisions: (1) The Negro lynched,
(2) The Negro held in peonage, (3) The Negro driven out by organized
lawlessness, and (4) The Negro subject to individual acts of cruelty.
"In some counties," he says, "the Negro is being driven out as though he
were a wild beast. In others he is being held as a slave. In others no
Negroes remain.... In only two of the 135 cases cited is crime against
white women involved."

For the more recent history of peonage see pp. 306, 329, 344, 360-363.]

3. _Social Life: Proscription, Lynching_

Meanwhile proscription went forward. Separate and inferior traveling
accommodations, meager provision for the education of Negro children,
inadequate street, lighting and water facilities in most cities and
towns, and the general lack of protection of life and property, made
living increasingly harder for a struggling people. For the Negro of
aspiration or culture every day became a long train of indignities and
insults. On street cars he was crowded into a few seats, generally in
the rear; he entered a railway station by a side door; in a theater he
might occupy only a side, or more commonly the extreme rear, of the
second balcony; a house of ill fame might flourish next to his own
little home; and from public libraries he was shut out altogether,
except where a little branch was sometimes provided. Every opportunity
for such self-improvement as a city might be expected to afford him was
either denied him, or given on such terms as his self-respect forced him
to refuse.

Meanwhile--and worst of all--he failed to get justice in the courts.
Formally called before the bar he knew beforehand that the case was
probably already decided against him. A white boy might insult and pick
a quarrel with his son, but if the case reached the court room the white
boy would be freed and the Negro boy fined $25 or sent to jail for three
months. Some trivial incident involving no moral responsibility whatever
on the Negro's part might yet cost him his life.

Lynching grew apace. Generally this was said to be for the protection
of white womanhood; but statistics certainly did not give rape the
prominence that it held in the popular mind. Any cause of controversy,
however slight, that