Immediate Release

H a m p t o n Institute Press Service

RACE RIOTS: PREVENTIVE
MEASURES
BY JAMES E. GREGG
Principal of Hampton Institute

race
occurred in Washington and Chicago
THEpersonsriots whichkilled, several hundred wounded, and That
recently have shocked and shamed the whole nation.
forty
should be
two
thousand left homeless by the burning of their dwellings all this
taking place, not in a raw, rough, semi-barbarous frontier community, but in two of the greatest cities of the land, one of them
the National capital, the other the metropolis of an important
Northern State—and that this should be made possible by the
failure of the civil authorities to maintain law and order, is a
stain upon the honor of the United States which must sadden the
heart of every loyal citizen. Moreover, such events are alarming,
ominous.
If in Washington and Chicago mobs made up of the basest
element in the population can commit such deeds of brutal violence,
and bring to pass a reign of terror lasting for days, where may
not such things happen? What town is safe ? When shall we
read of similar atrocities in widely scattered cities ?
The all-important question to be asked and answered is:
What can be done to prevent such horrors from ever happening
again ? Yes, ever again. These race riots of 1919 ought to be the
last that disgrace the United States; and it is the duty of us all to
see that this ideal is made fact.
Without attempting to fix precisely the responsibility for
these two outbreaks, it seems clear that in both Washington and
Chicago there was a "history," as the medical men say, of
neglected opportunity to cultivate mutual understanding between
the races.
Ignorance regularly breeds enmity, and racial antipathy
always flourishes most rankly among the people who are the
lowest in intelligence, in manners, and in spiritual culture.
In
democracy most of all, this class of persons must be enlightened,
led, guided, and, if need be, controlled. Broadly speaking they
are the people who make a police force necessary. They should
never be allowed to become a mob.

Experience in more than one Southern community has proved
that committees of conference, representing the best men and
women of both races, can overcome difficulties, remove friction,
settle disputes, create a wholesome public opinion, forestall interracial conflicts, and,best of all,promote such a sympathetic mutual
knowledge as makes the growth of race-hatred impossible.
Washington and Chicago should have had such representative
councils long ago, when it was evident to every observer that
trouble was brewing.
Every city, North or South, East or West, which has any
considerable Negro population should heed the sound advice on
this point of Dr. Robert R. Moton, principal of Tuskegee Institute,
ex-President Taft, and Dr. George E. Haynes, Director of the
bureau of Negro Economics in the U. S. Department of Labor,
and other competent authorities, and establish such joint committies immediately, without waiting for the bitter lessons which
Atlanta, Chester, East St. Louis, Springfield, Coatesville, Washington, Chicago, Knoxville, and Omaha have had.
Furthermore, it is an obvious, absolute necessity that something substantial, unmistakable, and unforgettable should be done
in the way of punishing the persons who are guilty of this
infamous bloodshed. If Negroes have not merely exercised the
right of self-defence but have been assassins and murderers, let
them suffer the full penalty of the law; but, if white men—as
now seems undeniable—have committed these crimes, let them
suffer exactly the same penalty.
Still further, especially as we remember the loyal service of
colored soldiers, the time seems ripe for the removal—by Federal
action, if necessary, though State action is much to be preferred;
by legislation, if necessary, though the quiet common consent of
one community after another is far more effective—of the
grievances, injustices, and heavy burdens of exploitation and
oppression which the Negroes, in the North as well as in the
south, have borne with much more patience than white men
would have shown.
Simple fairness: in the courts; in buying and selling; in the
conditions of labor, housing, and travel; in educational and
recreational facilities; in the exercise of the right to vote;—simple
fairness is all that the Negro asks. Neither the white people
of the North nor the white people of the South, as they think it
over,willwish to grant him less.
N(owhite man who is honest can help putting himself, in
imagination, sooner or later, in the black man's place; and then
the solution of the problem comes swiftly, in the light of that
fundamental justice which is the Golden Rule of love.
ReE rinted from The Southern Workman, published by Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va.