"A few days after the convention, [August 1904] a major but short-lived uproar developed over an editorial in the 'St. Luke Herald.' Entitled 'The Georgia Burning,' the piece... read:
"'The burning of two negro men at Statesboro, Ga., last week does not shock us. It used to, but now on airing each morning, we simply look to see how many negro men, women, and children the brave (?) Christian (?) white men of the South have murdered.
"'We have no comment to make. The whole South is being Mississippized. When a negro is arrested, he might as well, nay better, fight the officer who comes to arrest him and kill him and get killed in return as to be locked up and die like a rat in a trap.
"'It is better to die fighting . It is less painful than to be saturated with oil, placed upon a woodpile , set on fire, burned to death--and then have your bones sent by express to the president of the United States with the polite message, 'You won't have a chance to eat with these two niggers.'
"'While some of the Southern papers see fit to denounce the murders, we have not seen one which calls upon the governor of Georgia to arrest the murderers and bring them before the law.'
------------
"For a few days, articles and one editorial appeared urging suppression of the 'Herald ' for inciting violence, but nothing came of it. The 'Herald' printed a robust response , which included the following paragraph:
"'Our editorial was not inflammatory and the mere saying so ... does not make it so. If the Negro cry aloud in his anguish when he sees black men, women, and children murdered and burned to death, tortured in the most inhuman ways, if the Negro moans aloud at the very horror of his treatment, if the worm stepped upon turns over and utters a cry of pain, papers like the 'News Leader' say it is inflammatory.'"
P. 95-96, "Theory into Action," A RIGHT WORTHY GRAND MISSION : MAGGIE LENA WALKER AND THE QUEST FOR BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT by Gertrude Woodruff Marlowe (2003)
Sunday, August 9, 2015
"THE GEORGIA BURNINGS"
"A few days after the convention, [August 1904] a major but short-lived uproar developed over an editorial in the 'St. Luke Herald.' Entitled 'The Georgia Burning,' the piece... read:
"'The burning of two negro men at Statesboro, Ga., last week does not shock us. It used to, but now on airing each morning, we simply look to see how many negro men, women, and children the brave (?) Christian (?) white men of the South have murdered.
"'We have no comment to make. The whole South is being Mississippized. When a negro is arrested, he might as well, nay better, fight the officer who comes to arrest him and kill him and get killed in return as to be locked up and die like a rat in a trap.
"'It is better to die fighting . It is less painful than to be saturated with oil, placed upon a woodpile , set on fire, burned to death--and then have your bones sent by express to the president of the United States with the polite message, 'You won't have a chance to eat with these two niggers.'
"'While some of the Southern papers see fit to denounce the murders, we have not seen one which calls upon the governor of Georgia to arrest the murderers and bring them before the law.'
------------
"For a few days, articles and one editorial appeared urging suppression of the 'Herald ' for inciting violence, but nothing came of it. The 'Herald' printed a robust response , which included the following paragraph:
"'Our editorial was not inflammatory and the mere saying so ... does not make it so. If the Negro cry aloud in his anguish when he sees black men, women, and children murdered and burned to death, tortured in the most inhuman ways, if the Negro moans aloud at the very horror of his treatment, if the worm stepped upon turns over and utters a cry of pain, papers like the 'News Leader' say it is inflammatory.'"
P. 95-96, "Theory into Action," A RIGHT WORTHY GRAND MISSION : MAGGIE LENA WALKER AND THE QUEST FOR BLACK ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT by Gertrude Woodruff Marlowe (2003)