[Submitted by the National Association for the Advancement Colored People. Headquarters: 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, January, 1920.] Supplementary to data previously submitted as to why Congress should investigate race riots and lynchings the following is submitted: 1. Increase in cruelty and ferocity of lynchings. Number of Negroes burned at the stake: 1918, before death, 2; after death, 4; 1919, before death, 11; after death, 3. 2. Local sheriffs and peace officers have allowed prisoners to be taken from them without bona fide efforts being made to protect prisoners and to hold them for legal trial: 1918, 13; 1919, 34. In the year 1918: Alabama, 2. November 10, William Bird, taken from jail at Sheffield; November 12, George Whiteside, taken from Colbert County jail at Tuscumbia. Arkansas, 1. December 17, Willie Jones, taken from jail at Newport. Georgia, 4. March 26, Spencer Evans, taken from Taliaferro County jail, Crawfordsville, Ga.; May 23, James Cobb, taken from jail at Cordele; August 11, Ike Radney, taken from sheriff and two deputies at Colquitt; September 3, John Gilham, taken from sheriff and deputy near Gray, Jones County. Illinois, 1. April 5, Robert F. Praeger, taken from four policemen at Collinsville. Louisiana, 2. April 22, Clyde Williams, taken from deputy sheriff near Monroe; August 8, Bubber Hall, taken from sheriff at Bastrop. Mississippi, 1. April 18, Claud Singleton, taken from county jail at Poplarville. North Carolina, 1.* November 5, George Taylor, taken from "deputized citizen" at Rolesville. 111 before death; 3 after. South Carolina, 1. February 23, Walter Best, taken from sheriff and two deputies at Fairfax, Barnwell County. In the year 1919: Alabama, 3. June 22, Frank Foukal, taken from sheriff in county jail at Bay Minette; September 29, Robert Croskey, taken from county officials near Montgomery; September 29, Miles Phifer, taken from county officials near Montgomery. Arkansas, 2. April 23, Sam McIntyre, taken from county jail at Forest City; November 11, Jordan Jameson, taken from officials at Magnolia. Colorado, 2. September 13, Salvador Ortez, taken from jail at Pueblo; September 13, Jose Gonzales, taken from jail at Pueblo. Florida, 4. March 13, Joe Walker, taken from officers at Greenville; March 14, Bud Johnson, taken from officers near Castlebury; September 8, Bowman Cook, taken from jail at Jacksonville; September 8, John Morine, taken from jail at Jacksonville. Georgia, 5. April 14, unknown Negro taken from jail at Millen; May 24, Berry Washington, taken from jail at Millen; August 5, unidentified Negro taken from city barracks at Cochran; November 3, Paul Jones, taken from 2 deputy sheriffs at Macon; December 21, Charles West, taken from officers on train going from Jacksonville, Fla., to Americus, Ga. Louisiana, 3. January 30, Sampson Smith, taken from sheriff near Monroe; September 6, unidentified Negro, taken from sheriff at Morehouse Parish; October 23, Gus Jackson, taken from police or sheriff at Shreveport. Mississippi, 3. June 28, unidentified Negro, taken from marshal near Richton; November 8, Robert Motley, taken from jail at Lambert; November 28, Neville Foxworth, taken from officers at Foxworth. Missouri, 2. May 28, Jay Lynch, taken from officers in court at Lamar; November 16, Halley Richardson, taken from Macon County jail. Nebraska, 1. September 28, Will Brown, taken from jail at Omaha. North Carolina, 2. February 6, John Daniels, taken from jail of Onslow County; August 20, Walter Elliott, taken from sheriff at Louisberg. Tennessee, 1. October 26, Henry Booth, taken from jail at Humboldt. Texas, 3. January 20, Bragg Williams, taken from jail at Hillsboro; June 17, Lemuel Walters, taken from jail at Longview; July 24, Chilton Jennings, taken from jail at Gilmer. Washington, 1. November 11, Britt Smith, taken from jail at Centralia. West Virginia, 2. December 15, E. D. Whitfield, taken from sheriff and deputies while being taken from Chapmanville to Huntington; December 15, Earl Whitney, taken from sheriff and deputies while being taken from Chapmanville to Huntington. 3. Convictions noted in only two cases in 1918 and 1919: The only convictions noted were those of 15 men sentenced to from 14 months to 6 years for attempting to break into the jail at Winston-Salem, N. C., for the purpose of lynching Russell High, a Negro; and the fining of 12 men who pleaded guilty in court to the lynching of Frank Foukal, a white man, at Bay Minette, Ala. The men pleaded guilty by agreement and the fines ranged from $100 to $300. REWARDS OFFERED FAIL TO PRODUCE RESULTS. The publishers of the San Antonio (Tex.) Express, who established a fund of $100,000 to be used as rewards for bringing about conviction of lynchers, telegraphed on January 10, 1920, that since the establishment of the fund, on August 4, 1918, No claims for reward have neen presented." In addition to the San Antonio Express reward fund, liberal rewards have been offered in three instances for the apprehension of participants in lynching mobs. In the case of the lynching of Berry Washington, at Milan, Ga., $1,500 reward was offered, $1,000 of which was offered by Gov. Dorsey; $750 of a $1,300 reward was offered by Gov. Dorsey for the apprehension of the lynchers of Eli Cooper at Ocmulgee, Ga.; and Gov. Bickett, of North Carolina, has offered rewards of $400 each for the arrest and conviction of members of the mob which lynched a negro at Franklinton, N. C., on December 27. In many instances special grand juries were called, but their reports have generally been that they were "unable to find information as to the identity of any of the lynchers." These convictions were in 1919. 4. Governors confess themselves powerless: In addition to the fact that convictions are rare and that local authorities do not protect prisoners from lynching mobs, governors have confessed themselves powerless to prevent lynchings or to act unless requested to by local authorities who fear offend mobs and who are at times participants in lynchings. Gov. Bilbo's declaration that "I am utterly powerless," etc., has already bee alluded to in our printed brief of September, 1919. In a letter addressed to the secretary of the association February 21, 1918, Go Tom C. Rye, of Tennessee, said: "I deplore this murder (that of Jim McIlheron at Estill Springs) as much as you association or any other citizen of our common country, but I could not anticipa that local officers, whose duty it is to take custody of prisoners, would fail to accor protection, nor could any action upon my part be taken without being requested s to do by the local police authorities or court officers." In his annual report submitted to the legislature July 3, 1918, Gov. Hugh M Dorsey of Georgia said: "When information of impending mob violence is brought to the attention of th executive he should not be handicapped by having to await a call for military assist ance from local authorities." STATEMENT OF MR. ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKÉ. Mr. GRIMKÉ. I am head of the local branch of the national asso ciation here, and my legal residence is in Boston. Mr. Chairman, I have been tremendously interested in this hearing and I think you ought to know how it has reacted on me, a colored man, 70 years of age. A most appalling situation has been described here, wrongs which are almost incredible, and the effect that has been produced on me when these 12,000,000 of people have come up here to speak to the lawmakers, the great Judiciary Committee of the House (all of you, I suppose, are authorities on constitutional law), the reaction on me is a certain apathy on the part of the committee in the presence of these wrongs. "What can we do about them? We know they exist; they are terrible, and you have our sympathy." But do you know that lynchings are going on of these 12,000,000 of people and that this thing is burning into them. What is it? Criminal anarchy in the United States, which the Attorney General is pursuing night and day when the colored people are not involved in it. Now, what we want, we want you to look at our case, just to look at our case as we would look at it as American citizens. Here we are, a part of the United States; we have been here 250 or 300 years, with our never having done anything to it but on the good side amd never having gotten anything out of it but on the bad side. And from a few millions of people we have grown to twelve millions and this terrible wrong is eating into the souls of these twelve million people in your own midst. (Thereupon, at 12.15 o'clock p. m., the committee took a recess to 2 o'clock p. m.) AFTER RECESS. The committee reconvened pursuant to recess at 2.15 o'clock p. m., Hon. Andrew J. Volstead (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. I think we might as well proceed. It is very difficult to get a full attendance of members of the committee at this time. I assume you will want to have your views put in the record so they can be read as a part of the hearing. STATEMENT OF MR. ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKÉ-Resumed. Mr. GRIMKÉ. Mr. Chairman, I was wondering just as this comimttee adjourned at noon how long it would take the Committee of the Judiciary to find the way to reach a situation in the South in which the whole thing was reversed, where the colored people not only were in a large majority but actually had the money power and the physical power and were lynching at will and burning white men who committed what they call rape upon colored women. It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, to inquire what would be done under such circumstances? Would not this committee find a way to put an end to that situation in which members of the white race, men, women, and children, were being outraged in that way. Such a situation would not exist. it would not exist more than two or three weeks once it got up here. Of course, what we are up against is outhern propaganda in which the colored people are put down as brutes, and that the main thing for which colored men are lynched is this usual crime. That is distributed all over the country by newspapers and word of mouth, and the southerners are here in the North and everywhere talking the thing up and have infected everyody with it so that if you are a white person you are not free from the infection. That is what we are up against. I think that we have shown in this case what underlies the whole thing is that there is this propaganda based on inferiority of a certain class of people in the country, and the thing is preached night and day subconsciously and consciously to the white men and white women and taught to the white child. All these colored people whom you see are so utterly inferior to you that there is no possible way for them to ever get up to your level. Now, you see what the effect of that sort of teaching is going to be on reole, unless there is anything introduced to change the rsychology of the Nation because that is the only way you can abolish lynching. That sort of thing affects the self-respect of the colored people; it affects the sense of justice and the conscience of white people, and Would make a white man believe that this person is not a human being, but he is a human being, with rights and wrongs just like white people. Nobody seems to believe it, because you can listen apparently with utmost indifference to these terrible outrages, which burned themselves into us while the committee had not even heard of them; 32 persons lynched in one year in the United States, 78 of them colored people. Why? Because the papers keep all that out. There is no propaganda to spread and to develop public opinion against this lynching thing. Why? Because persons who are lynched are colored. In Mexico where there were only 29 lynched in a year in the whole of that country, the powers of the National Government are stirred to excite the indignation of this country and bring it to the boiling point of war. There is absolutely no comparison between the two. The rights which we ask here are the simple rights of American citizens. Can not we live in this country at peace with ourselves and at peace with our neighbors? If we walk upon the street and happen to jostle a belligerent white man in the South, it is a signal for what? For a lynching bee. It is an impudent Negro. That is the cry. If a man wants to look into a Bible in a white church— this really happened and took the Bible out of the church, he was lynched because he wanted to read the Scriptures belonging to the |