ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the autobiography of race rather than merely a personal reminiscence, with the idea that peculiar racial situation and problems could best be explained in the life history of one who has lived them. It argues that this evil group formed minority and a small minority of the nation and of all civilized peoples, and that once the majority of well-meaning folk realized their evil machinations, we would be able to secure justice. The upheaval took place on the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth. Eventually one hundred seventeen indictments were brought in against the rioters but there was almost no actual punishment. The Niagara Movement itself had made little progress, beyond its inspirational fervor, toward a united and constructive program of work. The Southern white workers had for years been lashed into enmity against the Negro by Tillman, Vardaman, Blease, and Jeff Davis of Arkansas. Finally and in a sense inevitably, the World War actually touched America.
