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OCCASIONAL PAPERS, NO. 16.

The American Negro Academy.

 

 

THE BALLOTLESS VICTIM OF
ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENTS.

 

ANNUAL ADDRESS

BY ARCHIBALD H. GRIMKE

 

 

PRICE, 15 CENTS.

 

WASHINGTON, D. C.:
PUBLISHED BY THE ACADEMY,
1913

 

 


[Pg 3]

THE BALLOTLESS VICTIM OF ONE-PARTY GOVERNMENTS.

The legal statusof the Negro in the United States is difficult to defineor describe, because on paper he is an American citizen, entitled to therights of an American citizen, but in practice he does not get what he isentitled to or anything like it in certain parts of the Republic. His lifeis safe-guarded by written law, and so is his liberty and his activitiesin pursuit of happiness and to better his condition. Moreover in orderthat he may protect himself against the predatory aggression and greed ofother citizens he is invested by the supreme law of the land with theright to vote, with a voice in the Government, to enable him to defendhimself against the enactment of bad and unequal laws and against theirbad and unequal administration. Certainly the Negro seems to be the equalin rights of any other American. That he is on paper there is not a doubt,but that he is not in reality there is not a doubt either. What he isentitled to does not anywhere in the South and in some states of the Northsquare itself with what he actually enjoys. There is an enormousdiscrepancy in his case between National promise or guarantees andNational performance or possessions. He is an American citizen under theNational Constitution. To be sure he is, but with a big qualification. Hehas the right to reach up and out and to grow in every direction likeother American citizens whose race and color are different from his own.Not a doubt of it in legal theory but when he puts his theoretical rightsto the test of fact he finds that he is different, that he may not do manyof the things which white men all about him are doing all the time. Hefinds that even the Chinese who are denied citizenship in the Republic,receive better treatment, are accorded larger liberties as men than areallowed him in the South.

Why is this? Why does the Negro occupy this very anomalous position in hiscountry? Is it because he is an alien? It cannot really be that, becausehe is not an alien. But perhaps it is because the whites choose to makebelieve that he is an alien, which comes nearer the real reason.Nevertheless no alien is he any more than are the whites themselves, ifduration of occupancy of the soil has anything to do with making a racenative and to the manner born. Is it because the Negro has proved himselfan undesirable citizen? Certainly not if past services to the country ofthe greatest value are any proof to the contrary. In the Revolutionary Warhe was no insignificant factor in achieving American independence; and inthe War of 1812 which defended this independence against Britishaggression; and in the Civil War which[Pg 4] saved the Union and abolishedslavery; and in the Spanish-American War which removed a chronic peril tothe National peace and added immensely to the National domain. Nor has hefailed as a laborer, for he does annually his share of the work of theNation, and in the production of its wealth. Without Negro labor how muchless cotton would the South produce annually, or sugar or rice or tobacco,think you? His labor besides is very much in evidence in southern minesand mills and trades. T

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