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"Purity and the Negro," [1905]

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SPEECHES & WRITINGS FILE

Purity and the Negro
In compliance with your request to present some facts on the purity of
the Ngro I submit the following, in the hope that it will open the eyes
of a few, even if it does not convert them to my view.  In discussing the
moral lapses of colored people it is customary for people who try to be
fair-minded both to forget the past and ignore the present, while they
fail to give environment and heredity a passing thought.  It is a notorious
fact, also that those who throw stones at the moral character of
colored people do not spend much time in studying comparative statistics.
During slavery it was impossible for bond-women to protect themselves
from the lust of their masters, the sons of their masters or their
master's friends.  The system put a premium upon immorality and made chastity
an impossibility.  By the slveholders themselves virtue in a slave woman
if it was ever thought of at all, was regarded as a joke.  Nothing that 
the cunning ingenuity of lustful men could conceive or their wicked
passions conceive for the degradation of the colored women 
of the South was left undone. Since the war, colored women have been
regarded as the rightful prey of every white man who has looked upon them 
with lustful eyes, and they have been protected from the wiles and lechery 
of their destroyers neither by public sentiment nor by law.  The more
beautiful, prepossessing and intelligent a colored girl is in the South
to day, the more difficult is it for her to escape the pitfalls laid for 
her by white men in the South today.  In discussing conditions in a certain 
southern city a friend who was visiting there wrote me last summer
as follows: "This is a small place but such a wicked one.  All the prominent
white men here have their colored mistresses and families.  The children
who are the result of such unions all go by their fathers names and
consequently there two families, a white and a colored, for each name."
When I was a student at Oberlin College, one of my teachers told me that 
a colored girl who is virtuous in the United States deserves a great deal
more credit than a white girl who is pure.  When this remark was made,

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My feelings were deeply wounded, because I thought it implied an innate
tendecy to immorality on the part of colored girls.  But since I have studied
the conditions which exist, where the majority of colored girls live
I understand exactly what my teacher meant.
And yet in spite of the fateful heritage of slavery, in spite of the fact
that safeguards usually thrown around maidenly youth and innocence are in
many sections of the South entirely withheld from colored girls to day,
in spite of the temptations to which they are subject by those belonging
to what they have always been taught is the superior race and in spite
of the fact that white men may despoil colored girls in the South without 
fear of punishment by law or incurring the censure of those among whom
they live, in spite of all this, statistics compiled by men who would not
falsify in favor of my race show that immorality among colored women is 
nos so great as among women whose environment is similar in France, Italy
Germany and Sweden and France.
Among what is called the best class of colored people a scandal rarely occurs. 
Personally I do not know of a single social circle of representative
colored people, that is those who have had the advantage of education and
moral training in a sigle city North, East or West, in which there have
been proportionaely so many divorces and so many glaring, ugly 
transgressions of the moral law as there have been in New York City among
people blessed with fabulous wealth, having been blessed with advantges
which education, culture and heredity bring and having every possible
incentive to lead correct and decent lives.  And yet, it will be exceedingly
difficult for many good and fair-minded people to believe that the 
proportion of moral colored people in the United States is so large.  
There are no women in this or any other coutry who more virtuous
than the the colored women in the United 
States who have been well educated and carefully reared.
Those who insist that colored people are brutes with respect to their

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sexual natures, as is often asserted by the enemies and traducers of
the race, either ignore or maliciously misrepresent the facts.
Nothing has done as much to attach the stain of licentiousness to the
character of colored men as the charge of violating white women, preferred
against them by the mobs in the South who hang them, shoot them to
death and burn them alive.  In discussing the subject of lynching in the 
June number of the North American Review which show that out of every 100
colored men who are lunched, only 12 or 15 at the most are even accused
of what is so falsely and maliciously called the usual crime.  It has also
been stated on most reliable authority that in the city of Chicago
one white man or boy out of every 20,000 assaults a woman, whereas
only one colored man or boy out of every 100,000 in the South is guilty
of the same heinous offence.  And yet, in spite of these uncontrovertible
facts staring them in the face and pointing the finger of accusation at
them, southern gentlemen well-known on the literary, social and political
life of the nation, unblushingly declare that Negroes are lynched in the
South on account of this unmentionable crime.  With one breath these spokesmen
for the South admit that during the war, when the men of that section
generally speaking were on the battle field fighting to keep the iron
heel of oppression upon the neck of their slaves, the dusky bondmen, left
behind on the plantations protected the mothers, daughters and wives of
their masters with a tenderness, a fidelity and sacredness of trust which
the men of no race have ever surpassed.  With the next breath they insist
that these men and their descendants have changed so radically in sentiment
and conduct as to have become sexual degenerates and brutes, unable
to control their passion for white women and unwilling to bridle
their low desires.  But one would search history in vain for a revolution
in the nature of a race of men so sudden and violent as that which the
South claims has taken place in the mental and moral fibre of the colored
men of the United States.  All colored men are not perfect.  It would indeed




4

be strange, if they were.  There is no desire on the part of the writer
to minimize defects or to deny the truth.  Colored men transgress the moral
law no doubt, as their white brothers do.  The colored man is nothing, if
not imitative.  He learns his lessons quickly and well.  The system of slavery
in which the foreparents of the present generation acquired their notions
of correct living, and imbibed their ideals for nearly 300 years was
not calculated to set their moral standard very high.  But when those who
wish to be just consider the examples of immorality so generally set colored
people by their masters throughout the regime of the awful bondage
they endured, the enforced ignorance of the masses in many sections of
the South where schoolhouses are so rare today, the temptations to
which the women and girls are subjected by the men whose attention naturally
flatters them, the degrading environment of multitudes of the youth
and the wicked methods employed by the people of the section in which the
majority live to keep them as near the level of brutes as they possibly
can, [ ] men occasionally yield to their base
desires, not colored women and girls occasionally go astray, but that the
race as a whole adheres as strictly to the path of virtue as
statistics prove they does.
Although I have seen the moral status of colored women discussed many
times both by friend and foe, I have never read a word or suggestion from
anybody concerning the great responsibility resting upon the white women
of the South toward their sorely tempted and shamefully debauched sisters
of a darker hue.  And yet nobody who has considered the matter at all
doubts that the white women of the South might, if they would, exert a
powerful influence for the elevation of colored women, if they chose.
Instead of trying to arouse the conscience of the public toward the open
and shameless debauchery of colored women by their husbands, fathers and
sons, the white women of the South who discuss the subject in the public
prints at all, seem to delight in exposing the weakness of colored women

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and appear to gloat over their vice. In several articles which have appeared 
in one of the best magazines in the country southern white women 
have declared without qualification or reservation of any kind that there 
is no such thing as a vortuous colored woman in the United States. 
Mrs. L. H. Harris of Nashville Tenn. who frequently writes for the Independent 
and who is an author of reput made the most violent, unfounded 
and unchristian attack upon the colored women of the South about two years 
ago that I have ever seen. Since then another white woman living in the 
South has taken her pen in hand to besmirch the character of colored women. 
In the article which the latter writer contributed to the Independent, 
she declared that although she had been brought up among colored women, 
she felt certain she had never seen one who was virtuous and she doubted 
whether a virtuous colored woman could be found in the United States. 
Even if these writers believed what they said was true, it is diffucult 
to understand why they should wish to bring discredit and dishonor 
through the public prints upon the womanhood of the whole race. It is impossible 
to explain such hardness of heart and such bitterness on the 
part of the women belonging to a strong and superior race toward those 
who [???]  belong to one which labors under innumerable disadvantes and is 
[???????] because of its weakness and public scorn except on the ground of 
heredity. Descended from generations of mothers who were accustomed to 
look upon the wholesale debauchery of colored women without a protest and 
without the shock to their moral natures which they would be expected to 
receive, their daughters have inherited this indifference to the degradation 
of colored women by the men of the present day. Morally speaking slavery 
[?????????] was a weapon which shot both ways, wounding those who 
fired as well as those who were hit. So far as slavery is concerned, the 
one feature connected with it which I have never been able to explain was 
the acquiescence of the white women of the South in the fearful transgressions 
of the moral law by the masters of female slaves which there was no 



6
effort to conceal. It is just as dificult to comprehend the attitude of 
the white women of the South toward their colored sisters to day. For 
surely they must know that so long as men may despoil the women of any 
race with impunity, the prevailing standard of morality must necessarily
be very low. If it really is no concern to them, therefore, whether 
the girls and women who serve them and who touch their lives in a variety 
of ways are helped to lead decent lives or not, surely interest in their 
fathers, husbands and sons should prompt them to shield in every possible 
way from the lust of their men. When one thinks what the white women 
of the South might do for the elevation of their ignorant, poor and unprotected 
sisters of a darker hue, their responsibility seems great indeed. 
When he is obliged to acknowledge that the virtuous, Christian, intelligent 
women of the favored race are doing practically nothing for the moral 
elevation of their sisters who so sorely need their aid, he does not 
know whether to marvel more at the short sighted policy so recklessly pursued 
or the hardness o hardness of heart which displayed.
In answering the question "Why is the prejudice against the colored man 
in the North greater now than at any time since the war"?, the American 
Missionary Magazine for November made the floowing reply; I. "The constant 
iteration on the part of the dominant South that the Negro is a 
failure, that the education of the Negro only makes him more indolent and 
dangerous, though absolutely false, secured attention by virtue of its 
repetition, and comes to be accepted as true by those who have not the 
evidence to the contrary." Nothing has been said bearing on the race 
problem truer or more forcible for a long time. In the same way the 
slurs against the moral character of colored women and the charges of bestiality 
preferred against colored men may be explained. From the constant 
repetition of the foul slanders against colored women not only are 
many white people in the South who try to be fair-minded and just persuaded 
to believe them, but multitudes in the north are converted to this

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view. It is a notorious fact that those who circulate most diligently the
foul aspersions upon the character of colored women are the descendants
of those who were responsible for the moral degradation of their female
slaves and who are themselves imitating the example of their departed
sires. In reading accounts of the terrible assaults committed by colored
men upon white women which appear in the press, one should always remember
that mistakes frequently occur. Gov. hywood of South Carolina has just
respited the sentence of Aaron Williams, a Negro, sentenced to hang Fridg
at Camden to Dec. 23. for committing rape upon a white woman. Some of the
best citizens of Kershaw county petitioned the Governor as follows: We,
the undersigned citizens of Kershaw county firmly and honestly believe
that there are circumstances connected with this case which will appeal
to Your Excellency why the defendant in this case does not deserve the
imposition of the death penalty, respectfully petition your excellency to
grant a respite in this case for at least 30 days, until we can make the
proper and convincing show why Williams should not be executed and our
reasons therefor. On Oct. 17th Governor Haywood declined to grant this
petition because it was too general in terms and showed no specific
reason why it should be granted. Then the following affidavits were
submitted; County of Kershaw; Personally appeared J.J.B. Truesdale on
oath to say that Aaron Williams did not commit rape on Mrs. Langley.
Aaron Williams was intimate with Mrs. Langley for some time with Mrs.
Langley's consent and that J. J. B. Truesdell does not think Aaron Williams
should be hung and should be sent to penetentiary for life. Personally
appeared Samuel Amons under oath to say that Aaron Williams did work for
Mrs. Langley for several days after it was reported to Langley that Aaron
Williams had raped his wife, and that he, S.J. Amons, does not believe
that Mrs. Langley was a virtuous woman, and that Aaron Williams has been
living in adultery with Mrs. Langley for some time before this happened.

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and morally to face the world again and begin a new life. Throughout the
Southland there is scarcely a single institution of this kind to which a
colored girl may go and be encouraged to lead a better life, after she
has gone astray. What a blessing such institutions would be to the tempted
unprotected colored girls of the South. 

In considering statistics bearing upon the number of illegitimate children
born to colored women, one should never lose sight of the fact that in
all the institutions to which they are admitted, a careful record is kept
which is easily obtained. On the other hand it is well-known that there
are sanitariums and private institutions to which unfortunate girls of
other races may go in their hour of sorrow without fear that painful
facts will ever go beyond the four walls of their room.

There is no desire on the part of the writer to attribute to colored people
virtues which they do not possess. A proper regard for truth forces
one to admit that colored men and women transgress the moral law, just as
people belonging to other races in this country and abroad. Statistics
and observation prove however, that vicious habits are not, so common
among the colored people of the United States as their enemies and traducers
claim. Finally, when one studies the conditions under which the
masses of the race live in the South, he is surprised not so much at the
morally obliquity which he sometimes finds as he is at the innumerable
examples of virtue, sobriety and decency which confront him at every
turn.

Purity and the Negro. [1905]
[If the Negro and Purity had not been assigned me by tge Program Committee
of the National Purity-Association, I should not have had the
temerity to choose it myself, I assure you. It account it a privilege
to have the opportunity of throwing some light upon the morals of a
race so often misrepresented and slandered intentionally and unintentionally
as the Colored American has been and still is at the present
time. It is admitted by akk who have studied the subject that the morals
of some of the most highly civilized races in the world-races
blessed with centuries of training behind them, spurred on by every psible
incentive to decency, surrounded by infkuences conducive to correct
living and encouraged by friends eager to render aid-the morals
of such racesm I say, often leave much to be desired.
It could hardly be expected, therefore, that a race but forty years
out of the most brutalizing, degrading and dehumanizing bondage the
world has ever seen should present themselves blameless and spotless
before the world.]
When I was a student at Oberlin College, I was greatly shocked and
pained one day, because a teacher of whom I was very fond and on whose
judgment I strongly relied, declared that a Colored girl who grew into
virtuous womanhood, deserved far more credit than did her white sister
who lead a correct life. This statement wounded my feelings, because
I thought [that] my teacher meant to imply that all other things being equal, Colored girls, as a
rule, are innately more immoral than others. After I left college,
however, and began to use my eyes and ears, studying conditions [existing conditions]
under which the majority of Colored girls live, I understood exactly
what my teacher meant.  [and] More than that I agree with her tonight.
Although those who give so much of their time, energy, money and b
brain as do the members of the National Purity Association for the
[moral M]



2
moral uplift of the nation should know as much as possible about the
virtue and vice of a race which composes one tenth of the population
of the United States, still I should have hesitated to discuss the
morals of the Colored American to an audience largely composed of the dominant
race, if I had not been especially requested to do so. And yet, 
there is an imperative need of a thorough, and honest discussion of this
subject, since comparatively few facts bearing upon it [won this subject]are known by the general
public, although much that is unfounded and unfair is asserted and
assumed. Considering how many and how grave are the misapprehensions
which even the broad minded and just entertain about the morality of
[on this subject which are entertained even by the broad minded the]
Colored people, 
[generous hearted and the fair] it is a wonder the misstatements are
so few. For even if we acknowledge for the sake of argument [if we admit] that conditions at the
present are bad enough and that the prospects for the future are no 
brighter than they should be, we must also admit that there is no
phase of the Colored American's character and life so imperfectly
understood as that touching his morals. I account it a rare privilege
therefore, to be permitted to discuss this subject so dear to my
heart to an audience like this.
It is admitted by all who have studied the subject that among
[of a large number of some of] the most highly civilized races in the
world the morals of a large number leave much to be desired. And that, too, in spite of the fact
that the representatives of these races are blessed with centuries o
of training behind them, are spurred on by every possible incentive
to decency are surrounded by influences conducive to correct living and
are encouraged by friends eager to point the path of virtue to the tempted and weak and to help them walk therein [to render aid]. It could [be] hardly be expected, 
therefore, that a race but forty years out of the most brutalizing 
and degrading bondage in which human beings have ever been held should present
[themselves] itself blameless and spotless [before] to the world.
No discussion of the morals of the Colored America to day which failed
[not considered] to refer to the demoralizing effect of slavery upon the race would be either
satisfactory [and] or complete. Without going into the disgusting details incident

particularly when so many temptations beset the 
women and in that section of the country where the 
majority live they draw so little protection either from 
public sentiment or law


                                                                   
                                                                  e3
slavery which are well known to the majority of [these] this audience, I am sure & let us just pause 
just long enough to observe that all the rules and regulations, all the 
customs and laws peculiar to [this pernicious] that diabolical system seem to have 
been designed for the express purpose of debasing the womanhood of 
the enslaved race.
In an article written for the Atlantic Monthly which discussed this phase 
of the subject Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson expressed himself as follows 
"For my part I have been in a positionto know the truth even on its 
worst side upon this subject.  apart from knowledge derived in college 
days from southern students then very numerous at Harvard with whom
I happened to be much thrown through a Southern relative, my classmate.  
I have evidence much beyond this.  I have in my hands written 
evidence unfit for publication, but discovered in a captured town. 
during the Civil War--evidence to show that Rome in its decline was 
not more utterly degraded as to the relation between sexes than was 
the intercourse often between white men and Colored women on a slave 
plantation.  How could it be otherwise, asks Mr. Higginson "when one sex had all the power 
and the other had no means of escape?"
The historyn of enslaved races may be searched in vain for a more 
shocking example of human depravity than the system of slave breeding 
for gain deliberately and systematically pursued by the slave holders 
of the South. [*3-First sentence on the other side of this page--*] When clergymen, priests of the Most High God, 
went through the farce of marrying slaves, they admonished them to 
faithful to each other, until seperated by death or by inexorable necessity. 
[*Over*] And so one example after another might be given to prove 
the truth of the statement made by Rufus Choate, one of the most conservative 
men of his day, that for the Colored women the condition of 
slavery was hell.  And yet, to day, these who are foremost in casting 
foul aspersions upon the character of Colored women are the direct 
descendats of parents who but fifty years ago were directly responsible

Slave women, many of them as beautiful as [pictures] Madonnas, were publicly advertised
as extraordinary breeders were publicly sold on the auction block as such and commanded a higher price on
that account.

[Write this sentence first]

And it is one of the most terrible indictments that can be brought 
against slavery that a bondman was more often seperated from his wife 
or she from him by what southern clergymen called "inexorable necessity" 
than by death.



                                 [*4*]                                        
for the moral degradation of their female slaves.  But thanks to the
brave sons of the North who poured forth their blood like water during
the War of the Rebellion, slavery is dead and [let the dead] to night we shall let that dead and disgusting past bury
its dead.  ¶ Let us consider how the South has treated its former bondmen 
since the Emancipation Proclamation set them free-consider how
it treats them to day.  Have the former masters and mistresses atoned
for the cruel and unspeakable degradation to which their helpless
bond women were subjected for nearly 300 years by [helping] assisting them to  
lead decent and correct lives, since they have been nominally free? [*Over*]  [possible
for the ignorant and tempted women of the race that served them so
long and so faithfully to follow their strong and intelligent master's
virtuous lead?] By answering these questions in the affirmative
would it were possible for me to tell the truth.  In every conceivable way
the path to virtue has been made as thorny and as steep to Colored
women and girls as the former master class and their descendants
could possibly make it during the past forty years. They have been a prey to the evil passions
of the men of the dominant race and have been protected neither by
public sentiment nor by law.  The more beautiful, intelligent and 
prepossessing a Colored girls is in the South to day[m] the more difficult 
is it to shield her from harm a former slaveholder or his son.
The Omniscient Father who reads the secrets of our inmost soul knows
that this statement is made more in sorrow than in wrath-- It is
made more as a plea for the protection of the daughters of my people than an arraignment
of those by whom they are continually destroyed [them however much they may deserve 
it.]
And what is the attitude of the white women of the South toward their 
Colored sisters you may ask?  What efforts are the white women making
to guide aright the daughters of the women whose dusky arms first received them at birth, [welcomed them at berth]
who watched over them with a mother's love and care during childhood, [and]
who tenderly nursed them from illness to health or tearfully

Indeed have they made it possible for the ignorant and tempted women of 
that race which served them so faithfully and so long to pursue the path
of virtue, since the shackles fell from their manacled limbs and theoretically
it has been in their power to choose between right and wrong?

In considering how the S has treated truth

                                                             

5
closed their eyes in death?  [What] efforts are the white women of the 
South making to rescue their Colored sisters from lives of evil and
shame?
Alas!  Blind to the moral welfare of their own fathers, husbands
and sons, if there were no other incentive or reason to start a crusade
against the shocking debauchery of Colored girls, [with] hard
[ness] of heart and cold, indifferent to the wretched fate which they 
know overtakes many a Colored woman and girl, who is more sinned against than sinning, the white women of the
South, generally speaking, are not lifting a finger in the Colored woman's
protection and defense.
More than that, southern white women, who shine brilliantly [in] the galaxy of
letters are not ashamed to prostitute their talent by publicly proclaiming [to the]
their Colored sister's weakness to the world while they gloat in ghoulish glee over
her shame [an innate immorality of Colored Women]. In the press of
the South, as well as in the some of the leading periodicals of the 
North.  A Mrs. L. H. Harris, for instance, a well known [author] writer who lives in Nashville, Tenn., 
declared a short while ago that altho she had been brought up among
Colored people from her earliest childhood, and had known innumerable
Colored women and girls, she was certain she had never seen one who was virtuous
in all her life.  This statement was made over Mrs. Harris's own
signature in an article written for the Independent [which is publishe
in New York] to which Mrs. Harris is a regular contributor.
A short while after there appeared in the same magazine another article
on the same subject written by another southern woman who stated [wt]
without qualification or reservation of any kind that she too, had known
Colored women and girls all her live, had played with them as a child
and had employed them after her marriage as servants in her home, and she was certain
she had never seen a Colored girl who was virtuous, after she was 11
years old.  Both these articles appeared in the Independent, as I have
already stated, a magazine published in New York and [which is] noted far and wide for the breadth and justiceof its

One wd have thot that if they had had no interest
in their col sisters that in order to promote the
moral welfare &



6
views on all questions affecting the oppressed and struggling race.
It is difficult to understand how the women of any race, under any circumstances
or for any reason whatsoever could bring themselves to slander
in so wanton so wholesale and so cold-blooded a manner the womanhood of another
race, particularly, if they with the withering, blighting, character assinating pens[belonged
to a race which is] are the daughters of parents responsible in the sight of God and men for
the heredity and environment of the [those] very women whose moral delinquincies and defects
they publicly expose[d] and assail[ed]. Indeed the attitude of southern
white women toward their Colored sisters is so unkind and unnatural
that it can be explained only on the ground of inherited indifferenc
to the latter's fate. It [is] may be too much to expect, [perhaps,] that the
daughters of mothers who for nearly 300 years calmly [silently] acquiesced in
the debauchery of their female slaves by the silence which they continually and systematically preserved,
who accepted without a general uprising or protest, so far as the records of
history show, the revolting conditions under which they knew their helpless bondwomen forced to live conditions too, which might have been expected to
shock the sensibilities of savages much less those of the delicate, refined white women of the South it may be too much to expect, I say,
that the daughters of generations of slaveholding mothers should resent or take
measures to prevent the despoiling of Colored women to day.
There are few men who can be induced to give damaging evidence against
the character of a woman, no matter how frail or how friendless she
may be, nor how urgent the necessity that her unsavory record be secured. But this
rule of chivalry and charity which is usually observed toward all
women by all men has not always protected the Colored women of the U.S
[South] from some of their white countrymen. In 1895 the President of the Missouri Press Association sent
an open letter to Miss Florence Belgarnie of England, well known
for her interest in the Colored people of the United States [oppressed and struggling race], which is
probably the most unjustifiable and venomous attack upon the womanhood
of a race which was ever made by man or has ever appeared in print. This letter was published in the press of nearly every civilized country in the world. After emphasizing
the breadth and profundity of his knowledge concerning the character,

7
the habits and particularly the vices of the American Negro, Mr. Jacks, for by
a sort of irony of fate or as proof of her sense of the eternal fitness
of things Dame Nature so managed it that the man whom Iam about
to quote was born into [the] family of Jacks, this President of the
Missouri State Federation declared [in the first place] that the American
Negro not only is wholly devoid of morality but he [they] knows nothing whatever about it,
[says Mr. Jacks]. Then after painting in the most lurid colors possible
the depth of the Colored-American's degradation he cites an example
to prove his case against Colored women which for coarse vulgarity
and malicious mendacity cannot be surpassed in the bewildering confusion
of false charges preferred against the victims of oppression and
degradation by those who are responsible for their ruin. According to Mr. Jacks
not only are all Colored women impure without a single, solitary exception, but the depth of depravity
is such that they punish with contempt and scorn any one of their 
number who shows the slightest inclination [dares] to lead a virtuous life. But this is only one of
many examples [of the vitriolic] of the vitriolic slander pour out 
without mercy and without stint upon the defenceless Colored women of the United
States.
Let me assure you my friends that the quotations from Mr. Jacks and from the two women [to whome reference has
been made] whose articles appear in the Independent have been given, not for the purpose of abusing the South
myself or inciting any one else to do so, but in order to tell
one side of the Colored American's story which the public is rarely
permitted to hear. It seldom occurs that a woman [individual] with African
blood in her veins has an oppotunity to show the broad-minded, justice
loving people of the dominant race how huge are the obstacles which
block the colored woman's [race's] path to virtue [correct living] and how relentlessly she
is pursued. And surely one may call attention to the extenuating
circumstances which render the moral lapses of the African-American
less shocking than they would otherwise be, and the transgressors themselves less depraved


8
than they are often represented [to be] without being charged with a desire
to minimize serious offences or to exonerate the moral lepers of
the race. In the short time allotted me to night I wish so to frame
my remarks so that they will appeal to your hearts as a plea for the 
protection of the tempted and slandered [weak] daughters of my race rather than
strike you as a fierce polemic against the South. If I fail to do 
this, I shall not make the impression I desire. The uncharitable and
unchristian attacks upon the moral character of Colored women [by both]
have been cited, simply to show you against what desperate odds the
mothers and daughters of my race are obliged to contend in their 
effort to lead virtuous lives and to establish a reputation for chastity
among the people with whom they live.
When a race or a class is marked in any community, when its vices
and defects are on everybody's tongue and its depravity is conceded [considered
a foregone conclusion] by all, it requires an amount of courage and goodness
and grit such as few human beings possess for even a single individual
in that underestimated or slandered race or group to live down the [vicarious] opprobium
of which he is a vicarious victim on account o existing conditions rather than
any crime or misdemeanor committed by himself It is an axiom that whatever the hardships and misfortunes
of a race may be they fall with the greatest severity upon 
women. The very air which a Colored girl breathes in that section
where the majority live is heavy with traditions and accusations of
the frailty of both her race and her sex.
But the public is being educated to deny to Colored women the consideration
shown those of every other race, class or kind in the United
States not by the South alone, but occasionally by the North as well.
Last years Collier's Weekly under date of November 5th contained
the grossest and most gratuitous insult to Colored women which I have ever seen in a Northern
publication. As many will doubtless recall, a white soldier, John 
Smith by name, married a Colored woman who had nursed him through a

9
serious illness from death unto life. A great commotion was created
about the matter, although the laws of New Jersey where the couple
were united do not prohibit the intermarriage of the races.
[Charges of some kind were preferred aginst the Colored woman,
which were considered sufficiently serious by the Powers that
be to cause the soldier, who had had a splendid record, to]
For this reason, the Powers that Be decreed that John
Smith, who had a magnificent record as a soldier should be dismissed 
in disgrace from the United States Army. According to some of the
newspapers in which the subject was discussed, it was notorious that
the same charges which had lead to John Smith's discharge from the
army, namely that he associated with improper persons, could be preferred w
with equal truth and force against a large number of his brothers
who [would never be disturbed] however were in no danger of being either disturbed or disgraced,  so long as they did not marry Colored 
women. In commenting upon John Smith's marriage Collier's Weekly
de clared editorially: "The usual arguments on intermarriage seem
to us entirely silly. They maintain that a legal marriage is better
than the relations which produce mulattoes in the South. This contention
childishly ignores the fact that social sanction for intermarriage
would reduce what restraint there is." There can be but one
interpretation placed upon these words. If any body else in the North
has ever believed that the white men of this country are justified
under any circumstances in making Colored women their mistresses instead
of marrying them, he has been ashamed to proclaim his contempt
for morality and decency in the public prints so unblushingly and
vulgarly as the writer of this editorial has done. So for as I know, 
no other magazine in the North has ever put itself on record as advocating 
the degradation of Colored women either for the sake of [preventing]
perpetuating the restraint which will prevent intermarriage or for
any other reason. Even the most violent opponent of the intermarriage
of the races must be shocked at the immoral views expressed in the 
editorial to which reference has just been made. Surely there is something
for the National Purity Association to do when a leading magazine


10
in the United States openly declares that [the wholesale debauchery of any race or
class of women in this country is more to be desired than the legal
sanction of marriage] it is better for American men to degrade the 
women of any race by living with them as mistresses instead of making
them their wives. [Could anything do none to] It is difficult to mention anything that would more surely 
and more quickly blunt the moral sensibilities
of Americans than the general acceptance of such views as 
these.
Even in the Courts Colored women are taught by the decisions
rendered against them that no mercy will be shown those who have been
forced to resort to violence to defend themselves or some loved one
from the lust of men [those] who seek their ruin. Under such circumstances
the women of all other races in this country at least are shown great
clemency in the courts, whereas Colored women are not infrequenlty punished
to the full extent of the law. About two years ago in the Capital
of this nation a Colored woman shot a man who had tried to destroy
her sister who was only 17 years old and who was employed as a domestic in his
family. The man referred to belonged to the dominant race and was a high salaried
clerk in one of the government departments in Washington. Fearing longer to remain in the service
of the family from the master of which she was constantly in danger,
the young girl left and went home to her sister, who was several years
her senior. So determined was her employer to accomplish her destruction,
however that he pursued her even unto her sisters home and tried to intimidate her under her sister's roof. In an effort to
protect her young sister the elder [sister] woman shot the man who dared
to invade her home. Although the Colored woman's attorney emphasized
the fact that his man had gone in his client's home to dishonor
her young sister, his former servant, and although the Colored woman
had inflicted but a slight flesh wound from which the government clerk shortly
recovered, nevertheless this Colored woman [who was obliged to resort
to violence] was obliged to serve a long sentence in jail at the Capital of the U.S. Is there
anybody here who believes that a similar sentence would have been 
passed upon a woman of any other race under the circumstances for the
same offence?

After a thorough investigation had been made,
it was claimed that evidence against the moral character
of the Colored woman was discovered.



11
And so, my friends, whenever you discuss Purity and the Negro [the Negro and Purity], remember,
I beseech of you, that both the press and the Courts of law
are in many instances making it exceedingly difficult for Colored
women to lead virtuous lives. Remember that unintentionally, perhaps,
but very effectively, alas, the opinions expressed in the [one] public prints and the
decisions rendered by the [other] courts are educating the public to place
Colored women in a class apart, so far as concern the consideration,
the charity, the sympathy and the assistance which the women of all other
races, classes and kinds have a right to expect in the United States
and which they usually receive.
No one who has studied conditions as they exist in the South to day c
can doubt for a moment that if an effort were made in a southern court to mete out justice
to the white destroyer of a Colored girl's honor, and this is
rarely if ever done, such an effort would signally fail.
Although hundreds of Colored girls are being tempted in some instances
and in others actually forced to lead lives of shame in one great section of 
this land, it is a well known fact that the autors of their destruction
are not only exempt from the law but lose prestige neither
in society nor in the Church.
Indeed so notorious has this condition become that it seriously affects
the Servant problem in the South. "I would rather see my daughter
deadd, said the mother of a prepossessing Colored girl in a certain
southern city not long ago, "than have her hire out in many of the
families here." And this woman voiced the sentiment of many a Colored
mother"s heart. When the Circuit Court convened in Jackson Miss.
last December, the key note of Judge Anderson"s charge to the grand jury was what he called
the "Unlawful, Habitual Relations existing between Colored women 
and white men. Among other things he declared that the facts were
too well known to try to conceal them."The evil", he declared, "is not

One of the Causes 


Boston Hearld. 


If The Herald had said it in the same 
caustic language, we suspect there would 
have been no end of condemnation of our 
ignorance of real conditions in the South. 
We have spoken of it guardedly in discussing 
the Atlanta affair, but a southerner 
blurts out the truth in a southern newspaper — 
The State, of Columbia, S.C. He 
signs his communication "Southerner", 
and there is no reason to suppose that 
the editor of the State does not know the 
writer and that his signature is truly descriptive. 
He makes his statement as the 
result of personal observations "in almost 
every nook of every county of every state 
in the South," and what he declares is 
this: "Much of this trouble is caused by 
the vile, low, contemptable cohabitation
of self-styled southern gentlemen with negro 
women," and he adds: " What I am 
writing is no secret . ... Our women 
know it and blush with shame." 
This is the example of virtue which the 
"superior" race is setting before the 'inferior," 
and at the same time protesting  
with vociferous indignation its fear of race 
degeneray through miscegenation if the  
negro is not deprived of political rights 
and prevented from obtaining justice in 
the courts.

12
confined to any caste or standard of society, but the best men of
the community, men with beautiful wives and children at their homes
maintain illicit relations with Colored women, and the result has been"
continued the Judge,"that I believe to a great degree the servant
problem has become more serious, resulting from this condition
of affairs. In many instances, said this "the very stars of society, said this very
and courageous [and honest] southern judge, walk along the street and 
meet their unlawful children and see them going to school. The condition
has become so extreme that it is to a great degree the great
problem between the races, as many of the good Negroes now condemn
and are fighting against it. The Colored women should not be made
more to blame," said the Judge, "than the men. There is no use going 
down into the slums, where disreputable women live to correct this
evil. The example should be made of the white men who brazenly indulge
in this vice and are living double lives, while many of them
have beautiful wives and daughters at home. I think", he concluded,
"as I said before, the servant problem is greatly chargable to this
bad practice of the white men. In many instances instead of the servant
being willing to give references, she herself wants reference,
before she will go to work." [*Over*]
[Under such circumstances can you wonder] that Colored mothers [are]
who love their daughters and hold their honor dear are loath to see
them work in service in communities where their downfall is almost
certain and where when dishonor and misfortune overtake them they
have absolutely no redress. But this side of the servant problem as it
affects the Southern Colored girl [in the South] is rarely if ever told. Her enemies
and traducers declaim eloquently about
her laziness, her irresponsibility, her lack of skill and her inordinate
vanity which alone they claim causes her to shun domestic service, but the dangers




13
which confront the Colored domestic in the South who wishes to
lead a decent life are rarely revealed to the public and seldom discussed.
Some startling revelations on this subject have recently made by
Miss Kellor, however, who is General Director of the Inter-Municipal
Committee on Household Research. After a thorough and careful investigation, 
this capable and energetic woman has discovered that
there are employment agencies which resort to all kinds of schemes
and offer all sorts of inducements to get Colored girls North,
ostensibly to secure good paying places for them as servants in New
York, Philadelphia and other cities of that section, but [which] really
to place them in houses of illfame. The contract which the ignorant 
Colored girl sign in the South places her for at least two months
completely in the power and at the mercy of the unscrupulous agent,
after she reaches what she believes in her innocence and hope will
be a veritable Eldorado or Promised Land.
While some of these agencies may intend to place the Colored girls
whom they lure from the South in good homes in the North, Miss Kellor
says, the majority have no such intention at first. According to
this same high authority the employment agencies licensed by the
Northern seaport cities are the chief mediums through which disreputable
houses get their supply of women. To the charge that Colored
girls taken from the South by employment agancies to engage in domestic
service in the North have already started on the road to immorality,
before they leave home, Miss Kellor replies that in many cases it can
be proved beyond a doubt that the Colored girl's first wrong step 
was taken in the North, where she was friendless and subjected to
dangers greater than those that beset any other woman except the most
ignorant of immigrants.
But why do Colored girls want to leave the South, you may ask.

Page 183      Thaddeus
amiable  timidity
When a southern white man publicly admits that Colored domestics [are]
stand in such dread of the men in the families for whom they work 
in the South that they themselves ask[s] for refernces, guarantees, so 
to speak that they will be permitted to work in peace, unmolested by 
the men, can you wonder&

14
Although this step often leads to disgrace and shame, alas, the 
Colored girl's desire to leave the South for the North is both legitimate 
and natural. The wages paid Colored women for general house work 
in some parts of the South are rediculously low. One need go no further 
South [to substantiate this point] than Richmond Va. to find Colored 
women doing the cooking, washing, ironing and chambermaid work for 
families of 7,8, or 9 people for the small sum of $5 and perhaps in 
some cases $7. a month. [what wonder is it then] With the brilliant 
promises of [big] large wages and [easy] little work so deftly made by dishonest 
agents ringing in her ears, what wonder is it, then, that Colored 
girls are willing to exchange a life of drudgery and poor pay in the 
south for [one which they regard as] what they are assured will a veritable Heaven by comparison in the North. 
[Has it never occurred to you that] And so it is perfectly clear that so far as Colored women are concerned the question of purity and the servant problem are 
indissolubly linked and intertwined. 
With the trade unions increasingly hostile to them the industrial 
outlook for Colored men is gloomy and threatening enough. But to 
Colored women who are forced to earn their own living, the cruel, unreasonable 
race prejudice in this country which excludes them from 
most of the gainful occupations and limits them to an unlucrative few 
means in many cases misery and despair. There is no doubt whatever 
that the inability to secure employment has caused [many a] more than one Colored 
girl to lead a life of shame. For this reason it is difficult to discuss 
the subject of the Colored woman's purity without referring to 
the labor question as it affects them. With the exception of teaching, 
sewing, nursing and a few menial pursuits there is little that a Colored 
girl in this country van get to do no matter how intelligent or how good she may be and no matter how great her need. So overcrowded are the few 
occupations in which Colored women may engage and so poor is the pay 
in consequence that only the barest livelihood can be eked out by the 
rank andfile. Those who are interested in the moral welfare of Colored 




15                                                                         [*next page 13*]
girls therefore can not consistantly ignore the industrial boycott by which 
they are so seriously handicapped in the struggle for existence, and 
which not infrequently [causes them to yield to temptation] leads to their ruin. [*Begin*] It is of 
the highest importance, therefore, that  those who are interested in the moral elevation of this nation 
should do everything in their power to create a humane public sentiment 
[be created] in the Colored girls behalf, so that she may have the same 
chance as others to earn a decent living by honest toil.
The picture which pains the heredity of the Colored woman of the 
present day based on the unspeakable degradation to which her grandmothers 
were subjected for nearly 300 years, which depicts the environment 
from which it is impossible for thousands of them to escape, 
which outlines the customes and laws which seem to be designed for 
the express purpose of debasing Colored women in at least one section 
of our land such a picture is hideous and depressing indeed.
But there is another side to the canvas [just described], I am glad to 
say. One of the most convincing and encouraging signs of the Colored 
American's development is the high moral standard in which those who have 
blessed with education and high moral training believe to which in 
their daily lives they rigidly adhere. Among what is called the best 
class of Colored people comparatively speaking a scandal rarely occurs. In a social circle of such people if a girl or a woman transgressed the moral law, it 
would be practically impossible for her to retreive her lost reputation 
or ever occupy again the position in society which she formerly 
held. If a Colored wife became enamored of her husband's best friend 
or he with her and a convenient divorce made it pssible for the 
guilty twain to wed, I doubt very much that such a couple would be received 
in what is called good society among Colored people in any city 
of the United states. We are an imitative people , however, and are 
prone to imitate the example of our superios, so there is no telling 
what we may do, when we are further advanced.

16
But in spite of the fateful heritage of slavery, in spite o f the numerous
pitfalls and traps to ensnare Colored girls and though the safeguards
usually thrown around maidenly youth and innocence are in some sections
entirely withheld from them [Colored girls], statistics compiled by men not
inclined to falsify in favor of my race show that immorality among
the Colored women of the United States is not so great as among women
similarly situated in several foreign lands. And when figures showing
the number of [illegitimate] children born to the unmarried Colored women of
the United States are considered and compared with statistics on illigitimacy
among women of the dominant race, [other]  [home] it should be remembered that in one section prejudice and the
poverty in all sections of erring or unfortunate Colored women and girls make it impossible
for them to enter sanitariums and other institutions to which their more favored [conceal their immorality and guilt in sanitariums]
sisters may go and in which they may [and other institutions where their more fortunate sisters may go to]
bury their misfortune from the eyes of the world and hide their shame. [*Over*]
No discussion of the Colored American's [attitude on the subject of pu]
purity would be complete without special reference to the men.
Wherever I go in the United States, if lynching is discussed, no
matter how broad and just and well informed on the race problem may be the individual who expresses
his views [or how broad and just he may be], I have invariably
discovered that the misapprehension on this subject was as prodigious
as it was painful. In order to mislead and poison the mind of the
North against the Colored man and to offer a palusible excuse for the 
awful atrocities perpetrated upon him, distinguished southern gentlemen
whose words unfortunately carry great weight in the North are constantly declaring in the halls of
Congress, in the pulpit, on the lecture platform and in the press that assaults upon
white women by Colored men are responsible for most of the lynchings
in the South. And that, too, in spite of statistics compiled by white 
men themselves and [which are] available to all [and] which show that out of
every hundred Colored men who are lynched, from 75 to 85 are not even

It is very easy to keep [tab] an exact account of
the number of sins a Colored girl commits, because
neither she nor anybody else makes the slightest effort
to conceal her guilt



17
accused of what is so falsely and maliciously called the usual crime
by the South. And among the 12 or 15 in a hundred who are accused of
it, it is safe to assert that some are absolutely innocent of the
charge. More than once white men in the South bent on committing some
foul crime have blackened their faces, so as to fasten the guilt upon
Colored men and thus escape detection themselves.
But [Just] a few weeks ago [*Sept. Oct. 1905*] in Alexandria Va., just across the river from
the national Capital two women were attacked by a highwayman who was
described by the victims as being a Negro. But a close inspection of
some marks left on a package of money which the highwaymen had tried
to snatch proved beyond a doubt that however black the face and hands of the highwaymen were at the time
he committed the crime, they were not black when he was born, [nature had nothing whatever do]
Among the police who investigated the matter there was no doubt that the highwayman's [do with the highwaymen's ebony hue at berth. There was no doubt that]
swarthy complexion which lead the women who were waylaid to describe
their assailant as a Negro was acquired for the purpose of concealing his identity by an allopathic application
of lamp black.
[*Over*]
[Our friends in the North are frequently imposed upon by the press accounts
sent from the South which announce in startlung headlines] [*Begin*] that the
Colored man who was put to death by a mob composed of the best citizens of the place confessed
[to] the crime of which he was accused, before he was shot to death
or burned at the stake. But these so called confessions
of Colored victims of mob violence in the South should be taken with a grain of salt by those who
want to know the truth as well as that other statement so frequently made that the
black criminal was positively identified by his white victim before he was perforated with bullets or consumed by flames.
[Less than two months ago] On the 27 of last July, [*1905*] [in fact] a Colored
boy was charged with robbing three white women and attempting a 
criminal assault upon one was released from jail in Roanoke, in spite of the fact
that he had been positively identified by all three of the women as
their assailant. His alibi, however, which was testified to by reputable
white people including the man and his wife by whom he was employed

Again it is easy to understand why there is so
much misapprehension in the North about the brutality and immorality
of Colored men [people]. Whenever a lynching occurs
in the South, [the] accounts of it are sent North by
the Associated Press, whose representations are
usually Southern men. In their zeal to shield
their section from the course it so justly deserves
if they do not distort the facts, they present
only the South's side of the story to the world.
And of nothing is it truer than that there are always
two sides of a lynching story in the South.
And so it happens that the Northern newspapers
announce in sensational headlines.



18
accounted for every hour yes every minute of his time when the alleged assault
and robbery took place. It was just one of the innumerable cases of 
mistaken identity which has put the halter around the neck of more than one innocent Colored man in the South [or applied the torch to mo]
applied the torch to his quivering frame. [more than one innocent Colored man in the South.]
Just a few days before I took the train for La Crosse, on the 23 of [Se]
Sept., a Colored man was lynched by a mob composed of the best citizens 
of Conway Ark.m altho the[re] sheriff and others in a position to know the facts declare that there is not the slightest doubt that he 
was perfectly innocent of the crime of assault with which he was
charged.
Just a short while before another Colored man accused of
what is called the usual crime was to be hanged in Fayetville, N.C.
last April, the Governor of that State received a letter from the white
woman whose testimony he was convicted and sentenced to death
stating that she had sworn falsely on the witness and acknowledging that she had perjured herself because [one was paid$10 to perjure herse
and] she had been paid $10 to swear away an innocent man's life. But this is side of the [Colored
American's] big, black, burly brute's story which rarely appears in glaring headlines in the
daily press.
Does it not seem strange that there should be such a sudden 
sharp revolution in the Colored American's moral nature in the short space of forty years as to metamorphose
him into such a bruteand monster as his enemies represent him to
be? But forty years ago the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of
the men who lynch and burn Colored men to day were left[*see 1*], (in charge of
[the] slaves on the plantations all over the South) while the masters
were off fighting forever to keep these slaves and their children in
the most cruel bondage the world has ever seen. And yet the records of history [I challenge
any one to prove that] shows that not a single white woman was harmed by a slave
through out the entire Civil War. Far easier would it be for the leopard
to change its spots and the African his skin than that the moral
nature of a whole race of men should be so radically revolutioned in
the

19
the short space of forty years as their enemies [of the oppressed and 
struggling race] would have the world believe.
In connection with the Colored Ameri-can's unblemished record both
before and during the War of the Rebellion it is well to remember also
that in the West Indies assaults upon white women by Colored men are
practically unknown. Not long ago in the International Quarterly
over his signature an English official, familiar with the judicial
statistics of the West Indies paid the Colored men of the Island a
glowing tribute. After stating that he was the head of a household
of women and girls who have frequented the suburbs of Kingston and
lived for weeks and months in remote country districts with neither
himself nor any other white man within call, this Englishman emphasized
the fact that assaults committed by the natives upon women almost never occur. 
And the only terror sad he "in the highways and byways of Jamaica
are [from] the white sailors, wastel runaways from European vessels."
In discussing the Negro and Purity at least four facts must be well
kept in mind, in order thoroughly to understand the sbject and justly to
decide upon the merits of the case. In his native land the conduct of
the untutored African savage toward women is irreproachable and his ideals of
virtue are high, measured by his standard, of course, and judged from
his point of view. In Africa, the penalty for the violation of woman 
is death and if a woman diliberately transgresses the moral law she is punished
in the same way. In the second place [The attitude of the slaves] throughout the War of the 
Rebellion the attitude of slave men toward their white mistresses who were entrusted to their
care, were completely at their mercy and absolutely in their power
on hundreds of southern plantations all over the South bears eloquent testimony to
their honor, their high regard for woman and their self control.
Thirdly, the unblemished record of the Colored man in the West Indies is but
another proof of the same fact. [*Over*]

In the fourth place, the crime of rape as committed
by the naives of Liberia is practically unknown,


20
Let me hasten to assure you that there is no desire or intention on [m]
my part to represent the men of my race as perfect or the women as
entirely above reproach, for like the rest of mankind of whatever
race or color they are human and are prone to err. From the very nature
of the case the Colored-American needs constantly to be instructed
concerning the righteousness of correct living as well as encouraged to
adopt and to adhere to high moral ideals. From the very nature of the
case he needs as many precepts and particularly as many examples of 
virtue and morality as can be presented to his view. [The great pity of it is that
so little precept and example is furnished him in the very section
where the majority of the Colored people of the United States
live.]
The pity of it is if actions speak louder than words, that where the majority of colored people live,those in power in that section 
those who make the laws, those who admonister them, and those who mould public sentiment [the men and the
women, too, also] are doing everything in their power to make it
difficult for the race in general and [particulary] for the women in particular to lead virtuous
lives. Laws against intermarriage have been enacted in almost every
State in the South. [* See Below*] How rigidly On the other hand illicit relations between
Colored women and white men are openly maintained wthout receiving
the condemnation from the dominant race as a whole which one would
naturally expect. [*Over*] Particularly [In many instances the white men representing the culture,]
[*begin*] the wealth and the aristocracy of the communities in which they 
live [and] openly flagrantly rolate the moral law, while they are neither banished fromgood society nor disciplined in the 
Church [*Next pars to Page 2/ and begin Strangely enough &c*]. How rigidly these laws against intermarriage are enforced, [however,]
may be seen from a case which has recently occurred.
On the 28th of Sept. 1905 [just passed] a white woman in Magnolia Miss.
was sentenced to the penetentiary for ten years for marrying a Negro,
and that too, in spite of the fact that the woman stoutly maintained
she did not know he had a drop of African blood in his veins. In passing

Particularly from men and women who call
High Heaven to witness that they would rather
die the death than hear their superior blood tainted
by that of an inferior race. [As Judge Henderson 
of Miss openly declared, white men openly]
As has already been stated, southern white men
representing the culture,



21
sentence upon her the Judge regretted that he could make the punishment
no heavier. [*Return to page 20 and begin with the words On the other hand &c*]
Strangely enough it seems never to occur to the white mothers and
wives in the South that the debauchery of Colored women cannot be 
winked at and condoned without blunting the moral sensibilities of
their respective communties and corrupting the lives of their own
husbands and sons from which their fair daughters must inevitably
suffer. And I sometimes wonder if the white North realizes how
closely the two sections are interwoven and intertwined and how inevitably
the moral taint of one is felt by the other.
Let me emphasize the point that
in describing conditions as they exist
in the South today, in referring to [describing] the temptations to which Colored
women and girls are constantly subjected, in enumerating the snares
and pitfalls laid to trap their unwary feet, in showing how perilous and
thorny is the Colored girl's path to virtue, I have neither intended
nor desired to shield my erring sisters from whatever reproach [which] they
[highly] deserve nor do I wish to exonerate them from their complicity
in guilt.
I have tried to present the truth and nothing but the truth, tho to an audience like this the
whole truth could not possibly be told. I have tried to present the
Colored woman's side of the story, and leave you to pass judgment
upon her yourselves. There is no doubt that in many instances Colored women
and girls are responsible for their own downfall and have nobody to blame but themselves. [They lack]
Like the weak and tempted women of other races they lack the decency and 
the courage to turn a deaf ear to the tempter's voice. If there
are extenuating circumstances in the shameof many Colored a girls reared in the South, however,
it is that the tempter frequently belongs to the race which she
[have always looked as superior] has been taught is superior to their own, so that she feels greatly
flattered by the attention he condescends to bestow. It is that the tempter is in many cases wealthy
or at least in comfortable circumstances and the Colored girl is

22
as poor in prospects as she is in pocket at the time the temptation
presents itself owing to the prejudice against her race and is thus dewn irresistably drawn to her ruin by the
alluring promises of a future free from the want she has always known and full of the comforts
[and luxuries] which she has always desired but which she is persuaded can come to her in this way alone. [money alone can
bring.] Again in many instances the Colored girl's ignorance is pitted 
against the intelligence, the craftiness and above all against his
ability to present just those specious reason and the plausible arguments
which would appeal to his victim most. [most strongly to the Colored girl's heart.]
And so among intelligent, thoughtful Colored women all of this country the conviction
is growing more and more that they themselves must put forth herculean 
efforts to save their girls. All through the South, all over the
country, in fact, Colored women who are as pure and good as the women of any other race can
possibly be both by precept and by example are pointing the path of virtue to
their girls.
As a race we are eager to work out our own salvation along mental,
moral, spiritual and other lines and we are doing so with might and
main. But we need the help of the race which is stronger in numbers,
in intelligence, in opportunity and in wealth and blessed with an [superior in he]
heredity and environment superior to our own. There is much that the broad of mind and
generous of heart among the more favored race can do to solve the 
vexed race problem in the United States. By word and deed they can
teach the people of this country to treat a struggling and oppresses
race with common humanity by giving thts representatives a fair
chance and a square deal in every field of labor or human endeavor in
which they are fitted and trained to work. By pursuing such a magnanimous
course not only would the citizens of this Republic demonstrate
to the world that is Christian in fact as it is in name, not only
would they atone in part at least to a race, many of whose vices and
defects are attributalble to the cruel bondage in which it was held
for 250 years, [not only would they] and help [to] lift it to a higher plane
[that race], but they would use one of the swiftest, surest and most effective 
means of purifying the morals of the mnation as a whole which
can possibly be employed.


[*1905*]
PURITY AND THE NEGRO.
When I was a student at Oberlin college, I was greatly shocked and
pained one day, because a teacher of whom I was very fond and on whose
judgement I strongly relied, declared the Colored girl who grew into virtuous
woman hood, deserved far more credit than did her white sister who lead a 
correct life. This statement wounded my feelings, because I thought my
teacher meant to imply that all other things being equal Colored girls, as a 
rule, are innately more immoral than others. After I left college, however,
and began to use my eyes and ears, studying conditions under which the majority
of Colored girls live, I understood exactly what my teacher meant
more than that, I agree with her tonight.
Although those who give so much of their time, energy, money and
brain as do the members of the National Purity Association for the moral uplift
of the nation should know as much as possible about the virtue and vice
of a race which composes one tenth of the population of the United States,
still I should have hesitated to discuss the morals of the Colored American
to an audience largely composed of the dominant race, if I had not been especially
requested to do so. And yet there is an imperative need of a 
thorough, and honest discussion of this subject, since comparatively few
facts bearing upon it are known by the general public, although much that is
unfounded and unfair is asserted and assumed. Considering how many and how
grave are the misapprehensions which even the broad minded and just entertain
about the morality of Colored people, it is a wonder the misstatements
are so few. For even if we acknowledge for the sake of argument that conditions
at the present are bad enough that the prospects for the future are
no phase of the Colored American's character and life so imperfectly understood
as that touching his morals. I account it a rare privilege therefore,
to be permitted to discuss this subject so dear to my heart to an audience [l]
like this.
It is admitted by all who have studied the subject that among the
most highly civilized races in the world the morals of a large number leave
much to be desired. And that, too, in spite of the fact that the representatives
of these races are blessed with centuries of training behind them,

2
are spurred on by every possible incentive to decency are surrounded by influences
conductive to correct living and are encouraged by friends eager to
point the path of virtue to the tempted and weak and to help them walk there. 
It could hardly be expected, therefore, that a race but forty years out of
the most brutalizing and degrading bondage in which human beings have ever 
been held, should present itself blameless and spotless to the world.
No discussion of the morals of the Colored American to day which
failed to refer to the demoralizing effect of slavery upon the race would be
either satisfactory or complete. Without going into the disgusting details
incident to slavery which we are well known to the majority of this audience
I am sure. Let us pause just long enough to observe that all the rules and
regulations, all the customs and laws peculiar to that diabolical system seen
to have been designed for the express purpose of debasing the womanhood of
the enslaved race.
In an article written for the Atlantic Monthly, which discussed 
this phase of the subject, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson expressed himself
as follows: For my part I have been in a position to know the truth
even on its worst side upon this subject, a part from knowledge derived in
college days from southern students then very numerous at Harvard with whom
I happened to be much thrown through a southern relative, my classmate. I 
have evidence much beyond this.I have in my hands written evidence unfit for
publication, but discovered in a captured town. During the Civil War— evidence
to show Rome in its decline was not more utterly degraded as to the 
relation between sexes than was the intercourse often between white men and
Colored women on a slave plantation. How could it be other wise," asked Mr
Higginson "when one sex had all the power and the other had no means of escape?"
[*Don't copy*] The history of enslaved races may be search in vain for a more
shocking example of human depravity than the system of slave breeding for
gain deliberately and systematically pursued by the slave holders of the
South. Slave women, many of them beautiful as Madonnas, were publicly advertised
as extraordinary breeders were publicly sold on auction block as 
such and commanded a high price on that account. [*Begin*] When clergymen,


3
priests of the Most High God, went through the farce of marrying slaves,
they admonished them to be faithful to each other, until separated by death or
by inexorable necessity. And it is one of the most terrible indictments
that can be brought against slavery that a bondman was more often separated
from his wife or she from him by what southern clergymen called" inexorable
necessity" than by death. And so one example after another might be given
to prove the truth of the statement made my Rufus Choate, one of the most 
conservative men of this day, that for the Colored woman the condition of 
slavery was hell. And yet, today, those who are foremost in casting foul
asperations upon the character of Colored women are the direct descendents
of parents who but fifty years ago were directly responsible for the moral
degradation of their femal slaves. But thanks to the brave sons of the 
North who poured forth their blood like water during the War of the Rebellion,
slavery is dead and tonight we shall let that dead and disgusting past bury
its dead.
Let us consider how the South has treated its former bondmen since
the Emancipation Proclamation set them free— consider how it treats them to
day. Have the former master and mistresses atoned for the cruel and unspeakable
degradation to which their helpless bond women were subjected for
nearly 300 years by assisting them to lead decent and correct lives, since 
they have been nominally free? Indeed have they made it possible for the 
ignorant and tempted women of that race which served them so faithfully and
so long to pursue the path of virtue, since the shackles fell from their
menacled limbs and theoretically it has been in their power to choose between
right and wrong? By answering this question in the affirmative
would it were possible for me to tell the truth. [*Before*] In every conceivable way
the path to virtue has been made as thorny and as steep to Colored women and
girls as the former master class and their descendants could possible make
it during the past forty years. They have been a prey to the evil passions
of the men of the dominant race and have been protected neither by public
sentiment nor by law. The more beautiful, intelligent and prepossessing
a Colored girl is in the South to day the more difficult is it to shield her 
from harm a former slaveholder or his son. The Omniscient Father, who
reads the secrets of our inmost soul knows that this statement is made more

4
in sorrow than in wrath— it is made more as a plea for the protection of 
the daughters of my people than an arraignment of those by whom they are
continually destroyed.
And what is the attitude of the white woman of the South toward
their colored sister you may ask? What efforts are the white 
women making to guide aright the daughters of the women whose dusky arms
first received them at birth, who watched over them with a mother's care
during childhood, who tenderly nursed them from illness to health or
tearfully closed their eyes in death? What efforts are the white women
of the South making to rescue their Colored sisters from lives of evil
and shame?
Alas! blind to the moral welfare of their own fathers, husbands
and sons, if there were no other incentive or reason to start a crusade
against the shocking debauchery of Colored girls, hard of heart and cold,
indifferent to the wretched fate which they know overtakes many Colored
woman and girl, who is more sinned against than sinning the white women
of the South, generally speaking, are not lifting a finger in the Colored
woman's protection and defense.
[*Begin*] [More than than,] Southern women who shine brilliantly in the
galaxy of letters are not ashamed to prostitute their talent by publicly
proclaiming their Colored sister's weakness to the world while they gloat
in ghoulish glee over her shame. The press of the South, as well as in
some of the leading periodicals of the North. A Mrs. L.H. Harris, for
instance a while ago that although she had been brought up among Colored
people from her earliest childhood, and known innumerable Colored women
and girls, she was certain she had never seen one who was virtuous in all
her life. This statement was made over Mrs. Harris's own signature in
an article written for the independent to which Mrs. Harris is a regular
contributor.
A short while ago there appeared in the same magazine another
article on the same subject written by another southern woman who stated
without qualifications or reservation of any kind that she too had known


5
Colored women and girls all her life, had played with them as a child and had
employed them after her marriage as servants in her home, and she was certain
she had never seen a Colored girl who was virtuous, after she was 11
years old. Both these articles appeared in the Independent, as I have already
stated, a magazine published in New York and noted far and wide for 
its breadth and justice of its views on all questions affecting the oppressed
and struggling race. It is difficult to understand how the woman
of any race, under any circumstances or for any reason whatsoever
could bring themselves to slander in so wanton, so wholesale, and so 
cold-blooded a manner the womanhood of another race, particularly, if 
they with the withering, blighting character assassinating pens are the
daughters of parents responsible in the sight of God and men for the
heredity and environment of those very women whose moral delinquincies
and defects they publicly expose and assail. Indeed the attitude of
southern white women toward their Colored sisters is so unkind and unnatural
that it can be explained only on the ground of inherited indifference
to the latter's fate. It may be too much to expect, that the
daughters of mothers who for nearly 300 years silently acquiesced in the
debauchery of their female slaves by the silence which they continually
and systematically preserved, who accepted without a general up rising or
protest, so far as the records of history show, the revolting conditions
under which they knew their helpless bondwomen were forced to live— conditions
too, which might have been expected to shock the sensibilities of savages
much less those of the delicate, refined white women of the South
it may be too much to expect, I say, that the daughters of generations
of slaveholding mothers should resent of take measures to prevent the
despoiling of Colored women to day.
There are few men who can be induced to give damaging evidence
against the character of a woman, no matter how frail or how friendless
she may be, nor how urgent the necessity that her unsavory record be secured.
But this rule of chivalry and charity which is usually observed
toward all women by all men has not always protected the Colored women of
the United States from some of their white countrymen. In 1895 the President
of the Missouri Press Association sent an open letter to Miss Flor-

6
Belgarnie of England, well known for her interest in the colored
people of the United States, which is probably the most unjustifiable and
venomous attack upon womanhood of a race which was ever made by man or
has ever appeared in print. After emphasizing the breadth and profundity
of his knowledge concerning the character, the letter was published in
the press of nearly every civilized country in the world. The habits
and particular the vices of the American Negro, Mr. Jacks, for by a sort
of irony of fate or as proof of her sense of the eternal fitness of things
Dame Nature so managed it that the man whom I am about to quote was born
into the family of Jacks, this President of the Missouri State Federation
declared that the American Negro is not only wholly devoid of morality
but he knows nothing whatever about it. Then after painting in the most
lurid colors possible the depth of the Colored-American's degradation he
cites an example to prove his case against Colored women which for course
vulgarity and malicious mendacity cannot be surpassed in the bewildering
confusion of false charges preferred against the victims of oppression
and degradation by those who are responsible for their ruin. According
to Mr. Jacks not only are all Colored women impure, without a single
solitary exception but the depth of their depravity is such that they
punish with contempt and scorn any one of their number who shows the [slit]
slightest inclination to lead a virtuous life. But this only one of 
many examples of the vitriolic slander poured our without mercy and without
stint upon the defenceless Colored women of the United States.
Let me assure you my friends that the quotations from Mr. Jacks
and the two women whose articles appeared in the Independent have been 
given, not for the purpose of abusing the South myself or inciting any
one else to do so, but in order to tell one side of the Colored-American's
story which the public is rarely permitted to hear. It seldom occurs
that a woman with African blood in her veins has an opportunity to
show how the broad-minded, justice loving people of the dominant race,
how huge are the obstacles which block the colored woman's path to virtue 
and how relentlessly they pursue. And surely one may call attention to
the extenuating circumstances which render the moral lapses of the African
American lass shocking than tey would otherwise be, and the transgressors
themselves less depraved than they are often represented without being
charged with a desire to minimize serious offences or to exonerate the


8
[in which the subject was discussed, it was notorious that the same
charges which had lead to John Smith's discharge from the army, namely,
that he associated with improper persons, could be preferred with equal
truth and force against a large number of his brothers, however were in
danger of being either disturbed or disgraced, so long as they did not
marry Colored women. In commenting upon John Smith's marriage Collier's
Weekly declared editorially; "The usual arguments on intermarriage is
better than the relations which produce mulattoes in the South. This 
contention childishly ignores the fact that social sanction for intermarriage
would induce what restraint there is". There can be but one
interpretation placed upon these words. If anybody else in the North
has ever believed that the white men of this country are justified under
any circumstances in making Colored women their mistresses instead of 
marrying them, he has been ashamed to proclaim his contempt for morality
and decency in the public prints so unblushingly and vulgarly as the 
writer of this editorial has done. So far as I know, no other magazine
in the North has ever put itself on record as advocating the degradation
of Colored women either for sake of perpetuating the restraint which will
prevent intermarriage or for any other reason. Even the most violent
opponent of the intermarriage of the races must be shocked at the immoral
views expressed in the editorial to which reference has just been made.
Surely there is some thing for the National Purity Association to do
when a leading magazine in the United States openly declares that it is
better for American men to degrade the women of any race by living with 
them as mistresses than to make them their wives. It is difficult
to mention anything that would more surely and more quickly blunt the
moral sensibilities of Americans than the general acceptance of such
views as these.]
[*Begin*] Even in the Courts Colored women are taught by the decisions
rendered against them that no mercy will be shown those who have been
forced to resort to violence to defend themselves or some loved one from
the lust of men who seek their ruin. Under such circumstances the women
of all other races in this country, at least, are shown great clemency 
in the courts, whereas, Colored women are not infrequently punished
to the full extent of the law. [About two years ago in the Capital of 
this nation a Colored woman shot a man who tried to destroy her sister]

9
[who was only 17 years old and who was employed as a domestic in his
family. The man referred to belonged to the dominant race and was a high
salaried clerk in one of the government departments in Washington.
Fearing longer to remain in the service of the family from the master of
which she was constantly in danger, the young girl left and went home to
her sister, who was several years her senior. So determined was her
employer to accomplish her destruction,however, that he pursued her even
unto her sisters home and tried to intimidate her under her sister's 
roof. In an effect to protect her younger sister the elder woman shot
the man who dared to invade her home. Although the Colored woman's
attorney emphasized the fact that this man had gone to his client's home
to dishonor her young sister, his former servant, and although the Colored
woman had inflicted but a slight flesh wound from which the government
clerk shortly recovered, nevertheless this Colored woman was obliged to
serve a long sentence in jail at the Capital of the United States. Is
there anybody here who believes that a similar sentence would have been
passed upon a woman of any other race under the circumstances for the
same offence?] [*Begin*] And so, my friends, whenever you discuss Purity and the
Negro, remember, I beseech of you, that both the press and the Courts of
law are in many instances making it difficult for the Colored women to
lead virtuous lives. Remember that unintentionally, perhaps, but very
effectively, alas, the opinions expressed in the public prints and the
decisions rendered by the Courts are educating the public to place Colored
women in a class apart, so far as concerns the consideration, the
charity, the sympathy and the assistance which the women of all other
races, classes and kinds have a right to expect in the United States and
which they usually receive.
No one who has studied conditions as they exist in the South to day 
can doubt for a moment that if an effort were made in a southern
court to mete out justice to the white destroyer of a Colored girl's
honor, and this is rarely if ever done, such an effort would signally fail
Although hundreds of Colored girls are being tempted in some instances
and in other actually forced to lead lives of shame in one great section
of this land, it is a well known fact that the authors of their destruction
are not only exempt from the law but lose prestige neither in society
nor in the Church. Indeed so notorious has this condition become that
it seriously affects the Servant problem in the South. "I would rather


10
see my daughter dead, said the mother of a prepossessing Colored girl
in a certain southern city not long ago, "than have her hire out in
many of the families here. " And this woman voiced the sentiment of
many a Colored mother's heart. When the Circuit Court convened in Jackson
Miss. last December, the key note of Judge Anderson's charge to the
grand jury was what he called the "Unlawful, Habitual Relations existing
between Colored women and white men. Among other things he declared 
that the facts were too well known to try to conceal them. "The evil", 
he declared, "is not confined to any caste or standard of society, but
the best men of the community, men with beautiful wives and children at
their homes maintain illicit relations with Colored women, and the result
has been " continued the Judge", that I believe to a great degree the servant
problem has become more serious, resulting from this condition of
affairs. In many instances said this very courageous and southern Judge
the very stars of society, walk along the street and meet their unlawful
children and see them going to school. The condition has become so extreme
that it is to a great degree the great problem between the races,
as many of the good Negroes now condemn and are fighting against it.
The colored women should not be made more to blame," said the Judge", "
able than the men. There is no use going down into the slums, where disreputable
women live to correct this evil. The example should be made of the 
white men who brazenly indulge in this vice and are living double lives,
while many of them have beautiful wives and daughters at home. I think"
he concluded, "as I said before, "the servant problem is greatly chargeabl
to this bad practice of the white men. In many instances instead of the
servant being willing to give references, she herself wants reference,
before she will go to work. When a southern white man publicly admits
that Colored domestics stand in such dread of the men of the families for
whom they work in the South that they themselves ask for references,
gaurantees, so to speak, that they will be permitted to work in peace, unmolested
by the men, can you wonder that colored mothers, who love their
daughters and hold their honor dear are loath to see them work in service
in communities where there downfall is almost certain and where, when dishonor
and misfortune overtake them, they have absolutely no redress? But
this side of the servant problem as it affects the Southern girl is rarely
if ever told. Her enemies and traducers declaim eloquently about
her laziness, her irresponsibility, her lack of skill and her inordinate
vanity which [above] they claim causes her to shun do-
[*continued on page 11*]

11
mestic [domestic] service, but the dangers which confront the Colored domestic in
the South, who wishes to lead a decent life are rarely revealed to the 
public and seldom discussed[*Page 8*].  Some startling revelations on this subject
have recently made by Miss Kellor, however, who is General Director
of the Inter-Municipal Committee on Household research.  After a thorough
and careful investigation, this capable and energetic woman has discovered
that there are employment agencies which resort to all kinds of
schemes and offer all sorts of inducements to get Colored girls North,
ostensibly to secure good paying places for them as servants in New York,
Philadelphia and other cities of that section, but really to place them
in houses of illfame.  The contract with the ignorant Colored girl signs
in the South places her for at least two months completely in the power
and at the mercy of the unscrupulous agent, after she reaches what she
believes in her innocence and hope will be a veritable Eldorado or the Promised 
Land.
          While some of these agencies may intend to place the Colored 
girls whom they lure from the South in good homes in the North, Miss
Kellor says, the majority have no such intention at first.  According to
this high authority the employment agencies licensed by the Northern seaport
cities are the chief medium through which disreputable houses get
their supply of women.  To the charge that Colored girls taken from the
South by employment agencies to engage in domestic service in the North
have already started on the road to immorality, before they leave home,
Miss Kellor replies that in many cases it can be proved beyond a doubt
that the Colored girl’s first wrong step was taken in the North, where
she was friendless and subjected to dangers greater than those that beset
any other woman except the most ignorant of immigrants.
          But why do Colored girls want to leave the South, you may ask.
Although this step often leads to disgrace and shame, alas, the Colored
girl’s desire to leave the South for the North is both legitimate and
natural.  The wages paid Colored women for general house work in some

12

parts of the South are ridiculously low. One need go no further South than
Richmond Va. to find Colored women doing the cooking, washing, ironing
and chambermaid work for families of 7,8, or 9 people for the small
sum of $5 and perhaps, in some cases $7 a month. With the brillian promises
of large wages and little work so deftly made by dishonest agents ringing
in her ears, what wonder is it then that Colored girls are willing to
exchange a life of drudgery and poor pay in the South for what they are assured
will be a veritable Heaven by comparison in the North. And so it is
clear, that so far as Colored women are concerned, the question of Purity
and the Servant problem are indissolubly linked and intertwined.

With the trades unions increasingly hostile to them the industrial outlook
for Colored men is gloomy and threatening enough. But to Colored women who
are forced to earn their own living, the cruel, unreasonable race prejudice
in this country which excludes them from most of the gainful occupations
and limits them to an unlucrative few means in many cases misery and despair.
There is no doubt whatever that the inability to secure employment
has caused more than one Colored girl to load a life of shame. For this
reason it is difficult to discuss the subject of the Colored woman's purity
without referring to the labor question as it affects them. With the
exception of teaching, sewing, nursing and a few menial pursuits there is
little that a Colored girl in this country can get to do, no matter how
intelligent or good she may be and no matter how great her need. So overcrowded
are the few occupations in which Colored women may engage and so
poor is the pay in consequence that only the barest livelihood can be eked
out by the rank and file. Those who are interested in the moral welfare of
Colored girls, therefore, cannot consistently ignore the industrial boycott
by which they are so seriously handicapped in the struggle for existence
and which not infrequently leads to their ruin. It is of the highest importance,
thereforem that those who are interested in the moral welfare of

13

this nation should do everything in their power to create a humane public
sentiment in the Colored girl's behalf, so that she may have the same chance
as others to earn a decent living by honest toil.

The picture which paints the heredity of the Colored woman of the
present day based on the unspeakable degradation to which her grandmothers
were subjected for nearly 300 years, which depicts the environment from
which it is impossible for thousands to escape, which outlines the customs
and laws which seem to be designed for the express purpose of debasing
Colored women in at least one section of our land- such a picture is hideous
and depressing indeed. But there is another side to the canvas, I am
glad to say. One of the most convincing and encouraging signs of the Colored-
American's development is the high moral standard in which those who
have been blessed with education and high moral training training believe and to
which in their daily lives they rigidly adhere. Among what is called the
best class of Colored people, comparitively speaking, a scandal rarely occurs.
In a social circle of such people, if a girl or a woman transgressed
the moral law, it would be practically impossible for her to retrieve her
lost reputation or ever again to occupy the position in society which she
formerly held. If a Colored wofe became enamored of her husband's best
friend, or he with her, and a convenient divorce made it possible for the
guilty twain to wed, I doubt very much that such a couple would be received
in what is called good society among Colored people in any city of the
United States. We are an imitative people, however, and are prone to imitate
the example of our superiors, so there is no telling what we may do,
when we are further advanced.

But in spite of the fateful heritage of slavery, in spite of the numerous
pitfalls and traps to ensnare Colored girls, and though safe guards
usually thrown around maidenly youth and innocence are in some sections
entirely withheld from them, statistics compiled by men not inclined to
falsify in favor of my race show that immorality among the Colored women.

14
of the United States is not so great as among women similarly situated in 
at least five foreign lands. And when figures showing the number of children 
born to the unmarried Colored women of the United States are considered 
and compared with statistics on illiegitmacy among women of the dominant 
race, it should be remembered that in one section prejudice and in 
all sections the poverty of erring or unfortunate Colored girls make it 
impossible for them to enter sanitariums and other institutions to which 
their more favored sisters may go and in which they may bury their misfortune 
and hide their shame from the eyes of the world.

No discussion of the Colored Americans purity would be complete 
without some reference to the men. Wherever I go in the United State, if 
lynching is discussed, no matter how broad, and just and well-informed on 
the race problem may be the individual who expresses his views, I have invariably discovered that his misapprehension on this subject was as prodigious
[??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????] awful atrocities perpetrated upon him, distinguished Southern gentlemen, 
whose words, unfortunately carry great weight in the North, are constantly 
declaring in the halls of Congress, in the pulpit, on the lecture platform 
and in the press that assaults upon white women by Colored men are responsible 
for most of the lynchings in the South. And that, too, in spite of statistics 
compiled by white men themselves and available to all which show 
that out of every hundred Colored men who are lynched, from 75 to 85 are 
not even accused by the South of what is so falsely and maliciously called 
the usual crime. And among the 12 or 15 in the hundred who have been accused 
of it, it is safe to assert that many have been absolutely innocent of 
charge. More than once white men in the South bent upon the commission of 
some foul crime have blackened their faces, so as to fasten their guilt 
upon Colored men and escape detection themselves.

15

But a few weeks ago (Sept. Oct. 1905) in Alexandria Va., just across
the river from the National Capital two women were attacked by a highwayman
who was described by the victims as being a Negro. But a close inspection
of some marks left on a package of money which the Highwayman had tried to
snatch proved beyond a doubt that however black the face and hands of the
highwayman were at the time he committed the crime, they were not black when
he was born. Among the police who investigated the matter there was no
doubt the the highwayman's swarthy complexion which lead the women, who were
waylaid to describe their assailant as a Negro was acquired for the purpose
of concealing his identity by an allopathic application of lamp black.

[*Begin*]
Again it is easy to understand why there is so much misapprehension in the
North about the brutality and immorality of Colored men. When ever a
lynching occurs in the South, accounts of it are sent North by the associated
press, whose representatives are usually Southern men. In their zeal to
shield their section from the censure it so justly deserves, they do not distort
the facts, they present only to the South's side of the story to the
world. And of nothing is it truer than that there are always two sides of
a lynching story in the South; and so it happens that the Northern newspapers
announce in sensation headlines that the Colored man who was put to
death by a mob composed of the best citizens of the place confessed the
crime of which he was accused, before he was shot to death or burned at the
stake. But these so called confessions of Colored victims of mob violence
in the South should be taken with a grain of salt by those who want to
know the truth as well as that other statement so frequently made that the
black criminal was positively identified by his white victims before he was
perforated with bullets or consumed by flames. On the 27 of last July, 1905
a Colored boy who was charged with robbing three white women and attempting
a criminal assault upon one was released from jail in Roanoke in spite of the
fact that he had been positively identified by all three of the women as

16

their assailant. His alibi, however, which was testified to by reputable
white people including the man and his wife by whom he was employed accounted
for every hour, yes every minute of his time when the alleged assault
and robbery took place. It was just one of the innumerable cases of mistaken
identity which has put the halter around the neck of more than one
innocent Colored man in the South, applied the torch to his quivering frame.
Just a few days before I took the train for La Crosse, on the 23 of Sept. a
Colored man was lynched by a mob composed of the best citizens of Conway
Ark. although the sheriff and others in a position to know the facts declared
that there is not the slightest doubt that he was perfectly innocent of the
crime of the assault which he was charged. Just a short while before another
Colored man accused of what is called the usual crime was to be hanged in
Fayetville, N.C. last April, the Governor of that State received a letter
from the white woman on whose testimony he was convicted and sentenced to
death, stating that she had sworn falsely on the witness and acknowledging
that she had perjured herself, because, she had been paid $10 to swear away
an innocent man's life. But this is the side of the big, black burly
brute's story which rarely appears in glaring headlines in the daily press.

Does it not seem strange that there should be such a sudden sharp
revolution in the Colored American's moral nature in the short space of forty
years as to metamorphose him into such a brute and monster as his enemies
represent him to be? But forty years ago the mothers, wives, sisters and
daughters of the men who lynch and burn Colored men to day were left the
plantation all over the South, in charge of slaves, while the masters were
off fighting to keep forever their slaves and their children in the most
cruel bondage the world has ever seen. And yet the records of history show
that not a single white woman was harmed by a slave through out the entire
Civil War. Far easier would it be for the leopard to change its spots and
the African his skin than that the moral Nature of a whole race of men should
be so radically revolutioned in the short space of forty years as their

17

enemies would have the world believe.

In connection with the Colored American's unblemished record both
before and during the War of the Rebellion it is well to remember also that
in the West Indies assaults upon the white women by Colored men are practically
unknown. Not long ago in the International Quarterly over his signature an
English official, familiar with the judicial statistics of the West Indies
paid the Colored men of that Island a glowing tribute. After stating that
he was head of a household of women and girls who have frequented the suburbs
of Kingston and lived for weeks and months in remote country districts
with neither himself nor any other white man within call, this Englishman
emphasized the fact that assaults committed by the natives upon women almost
never accur. And the only terror said he "in highways and byways of
Jamaica are the white sailors, wastel runaways from European vessels." In
discussing Purity and the Negro at least four facts must be well kept in
mind, in order thoroughly to understand the subject and justly to decide
upon the merits of the case. In his native land the conduct of the untutored
African savage toward women is irreproachable and his ideals of
virtue are high, measured by his standard, of course and judged from his
point of view. In Africa the penalty for the violation of woman is death
and if a woman deliberately transgress the moral law she is punished in the
same way. In the second place through out the War of the Rebellion the
attitude of slave men toward their white mistresses who were entrusted to
their care, were completely at their mercy and absolutly in their power on
hundreds of southern plantations all over the south, bears eloquent testimony
to their honor, their high regard for woman and their self control. Thirdly,
the unblemished record of the Colored men in the West Indies is but another
proof of the same fact. In the fourth place, the crime of rape as committed
by the natives of Liberia is practically unknown. Let me hasten to
assure you that there is no desire of intention on my part to represent the
men of my race as perfect or the women as entirely above reproach, for like

18

the rest of mankind of whatever race or color they are human and are prone to
err. From the very nature of the case the Colored American needs constantly
to be instructed concerning the righteousness of correct living as well as
encouraged to adopt and to adhere to high moral ideals. From the very nature
of the case he needs as many precepts and particularly as many examples
of virtue and morality as can be presented to his views. The pity of it is
if actions speak louder than words, that those in power in that section
where the majority of Colored people live, those who make the laws, those
who administer them, and those who would public sentiment, are doing everything
in their power to make it difficult for the race in general for the
women in particular to lead virtuous lives. Laws against intermarriage
have been enacted in almost every State in the South. How rigidly these
laws against intermarriage are enforced, may be seen from a case which has
recently occurred. On the 28th of Sept. 1905, a white woman in Magnolia
Miss. was sentenced to the penetentiary for ten years for marrying a Negro
and that too, in spite of the fact that the woman stoutly maintained she
did not know he had a drop of African blood in his veins. In passing sentence
upon her the Judge regretted that he could make the punishment no
heavier. On the other hand illicit relations between Colored women and
white men are openly maintained without receiving the condemnation from the
dominant race as a whole which one would naturally expect. Particularly from
men and women who call High Heaven to witness that they would rather die the
death than have their superior blood painted by that of an inferior race.
As has already been stated, southern white men representing the culture, the
wealth and the aristocracy of the communities in which they live openly,
flagrantly violate the moral law, and while they are neither banished from good
society nor disciplined in the Church. Strangely enough it seems never to
occur to the white mothers and wives in the South that the debauchery [in the
South]

19
of Colored women cannot be winked at and condoned without blunting the moral sensibilities of their respective communities and currupting the lives of their own husbands and sons from which their fair daughters must inevitably suffer. And I sometimes wonder if the White North realizes how closely the two sections are interwoven and intertwined and how inevitable the moral taint of one is felt by the other.

Let me emphasize the point that in describing conditions as they exist in the South today, in referring to temptations to which Colored women and girls are constantly subjected, in enumerating the snares and pitfalls laid to trap their unwary feet, in showing how perilous and thorny is the Colored girl's path to virtue, I have neither intended nor desired to shield by erring sisters from whatever reproach they deserve nor do I wish to exonerate them from their complicity in guilt.

I have tried to present the truth and nothing but the truth, tho to an audience like this the whole truth could not possible be told. I have tried to present the Colored woman's side of the story, and leave you to pass the judgement upon yourselves. There is no doubt that in many instances Colored women and girls are responsible for their own downfall and have nobody to blame but themselves. Like weak and tempted women of other races they lack the decency and the courage to turn a deaf ear to the tempter's voice. If there are extenuating circumstances in the shame of many Colored girls reared in the South, however, it is that the tempter frequently belongs to the race which she has been taught is superior to her own, so that she feels greatly flattered by his attention he condescends to bestow. It is that the tempter is in many cases wealthy or at least in comfortable circumstances and the Colored girl is as poor in prospects as she is in pocket at the time the temptation presents itself owing to the prejudice against her race and is thus down irresistibly drawn to her ruin by the alluring promises of a future free from the want she has always known and full of the comforts which she has always desired but which she is persuaded can

15

who were entrusted to their care, were completely at their mercy
and absolutly in their power on hundreds of southern plantations all
over the South, bears eloquent testimony to their honor, their
high regard for women and their self control. Thirdly, the unblemished
record of the Colored men in the West Indies is but another
proof of the same fact. In the fourth place, the crime of rape as
committed by the natives of Liberia is practically unknown. Let me
hasten to assure you that there is no desire or intention on my
part to represent the men of my race as perfect or the women as
entirely above reproach, for like the rest of mankind of whatever race
or color they are human and are prone to err. From the very nature
of the case the Colored American needs constantly to be instructed 
concerning the righteousness of correct living as well as encouraged
to adopt and to adhere to high moral ideals. From the very nature of
the case he needs as many precepts and particularly as many
examples of virtue and morality as can be presented to his views.
The pity of it is if actions speak louder than words, that those in
power in that section where the majority of colored people live,
those who make the laws, those who administer them, and those who
would public sentiment, are doing everything in their power to
make it difficult for the race in general and for the women in
particular to lead virtuous lives. Laws against intermariage have
been enacted in almost every State in the South. How rigidly these
laws against intermarriage are enforced, may be seen from a case
which has recently occurred. On the 28th of Sept. 1905, a white
women in Magnolia Miss. was sentenced to the penetentiary for ten
years for marrying a Negro and that too, in spite of the fact that
the woman stoutly maintained she did not know that he had a drop of
African blood in his veins. In passing sentence upon her the Judge regretted
that he could make the punishment no heavier. On the other
hand illicit relations between Colored women and white men are openly



16

maintained without receiving the condemnation from the dominant race
as whole which one would naturally expect. Particularly from 
men and women who call High Heaven to witness that they would
rather die the death than have their superior blood painted by
that of an inferior race. As has already been stated, southern white
men representing the culture, the wealth and the aristocracy of the
communities in which they live openly, flagrantly violate
the moral law, and while they are neither banished from good society
nor disciplined in the Church. Strangely enough it seems never to
occur to white mothers and wives in the South that the debauchery

17

of Colored women cannot be winked at and condoned without
blunting the moral sensibilities of their respective communities
and corrupting the lives of their own husbands and sons
from which their fair daughters must inevitably suffer. And I
sometimes wonder if the white North realizes how closely the two
sections are interwoven and intertwined and how inevitable the
moral taint of one is felt by the other.

Let me emphasize the pont that [that] in describing conditions
as they exist in the South [in the] to-day, in referring
to temptations th which Colored women and girls are constantly
subjected, in enumerating the snares and pitfalls laid to trap
their unwary feet, in showing how perilous and thorny is the
Colored girl's path to virtue, I have neither intended nor desired
to shield my erring sisters from whatever reproach they
deserve nor do I wish to exonerate them from their complicity
in guilt.

I have tried to present the truth and nothing but the truth
tho to an audience like this the whole truth could not possible
be told. I have tried to present the Colored woman's side of the
story, and leave you to pass the judgement upon yourselves.
There is no doubt that in many instances Colored women and
girls are responsible for their own downfall and have nobody to
blame but themselves. Like weak and tempted women of other races
they lack the decency and the courage to turn a deaf ear to the
tempter's voice. If there are extenuating circumstances in the
shame of many Colored girls reared in the South, however, it is
that the tempter frequently belongs to the race which she has
been taught is superior to her own, so that she feels greatly
flattered by his attention he condescends to bestow. It is that
the tempter is in many cases wealthy or at least in comfortable

18

circumstances and the temptation presents itself owing to the
prejudice against her race and is thus down irresistibly drawn
to her ruin by the alluring promises of a future free from the 
wany she has always known and full of the comforts which she has
always desired but which she is persuaded can come to her in this
way alone. Again in many instances the Colored girl's ignorance
is pitted against the intelligence, the craftiness and above all
against his ability to present just those specious reasons and the
plausible arguments which would appeal to his victim most. And
so among intelligent thoughtful Colored women, all of his country
the conviction is growing more and that they themselves must
put forth Herculean efforts to save their girls. All through the
South, all over the country, in fact, Colored women who are as
pure and gold as the women of any other race can possibly be,
both by precept and by example, are pointing the path of virtue
to their girls.

As a race we are eager to work out our own salvation along
invidual, mental, moral, spiritual and other lines and we are doing
so with might and main. But we need the help of the race which
is stronger in numbers, in intelligence, in opportunity and in
wealth and blessed with as heredity and environment superior to
our own. There is much that the broad of mind and generous of
heart among the more favored race can do to solve the vexed race
problem in the United States. By work and deed they can teach
the people of this country to treat a struggling and oppressed
race with common humanity by giving its representatives a fair
chance and a square deal in every field of labor or human endeavor
in which they are fitted and trained to work. By pursuing
such a magnanimous course not only would the citizens of this
Republic demonstrate to the world that is Christian in fact as

19
It is in name, not only would they atone in partat least to a race, many of whose vices and defects are attributable to the cruel bondage in which it was held for 250 years, and help lift it to higher planes, but they would use one of the swiftest, surest and most effective means of purifying the morals of the nation as a whole which can possibly be employed.
Mary Church Terrell,
326 T St., N.W.
Washington, D.C.

Transcribed and reviewed by contributors participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.