Microfilm Reel 285, File 543, "Lynching"

effort to re-enslave us and to force our assent to, and our impotence against, any legislation of our opponents. To this policy the black man does not, cannot and will not agree. Of it, our intolerance is cumulative. Against it, we shall exert our righteous efforts until not only every eligible black man but every eligible black woman shall be wielding the ballot proudly in defense of our liberties and our homes.

We are appealing to you neither as vassals nor as inferiors. Bull Run and Appomattox fixed our status in this nation. We are free men. We are sovereign American citizens— freemen who have purchased with our own blood on every battle field from Bunker Hill to Carrizal full rights and immunities such as are freely granted others but systematically refused us.

We are writing to you, gentlemen, that you may give us the assurance and quarantee which every American citizen ought to have without reference to color. We are loyal and will remain so, but we are not blind. We cannot help seeing that white soldiers who massacred our black brothers and sisters in East St. Louls have gone scot free. We cannot help seeing that our black brothers who massacred white citizens in Houston have paid the most ignominous penalty that can come in this country to a man in uniform. Do not these undemooratic conditions, these inhumanities, these brutalities and savageries provoke the rulers of the nation to speak out of their long sphinxlike silence and utter a voice of hope, a word of promise for the black man? Do the rulers of the nation also hate us, and will they, Pilate-like, forever give their assent to the crucifixion of the bodies, minds and souls of those in whom there has been found nothing worthy of the death we are dying, save that we are black. May not your silence be construed as tacit approval or active tolerance of these things? The effect on the morale of black men in the trenches, when they reflect that they are fighting on foreign fields in behalf of their nation for those very rights and privileges which they themselves are denied at home, might be discouraging.

We appeal to you in the name of democracy!

We appeal to you in the name of our American citizenship!

We appeal to you in the name of God, and,

We would be heard!

P. J. Bryant, Chairman L. H. King, Secretary G. W. Andrews John Harmon W. H. Ballard R. H. Singleton J. H. Myers C. A. Wingfield C. G. Cray R. T. O’Neal W. J. Jones W. A. Austin E. P. Johnson J. A. Williams L. J. Wilder H. D. Gorman G. W. Young W. F. Paschal W. F. James C. H. Robinson J. M. Gates J. T. Dorsey J. R. Cardner

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F. M. Hutchinson J. C. Adams D.L. Lowe A. D. Williams H. R. Rucker D. W. Cannon John Hope J. W. E. Bowen D. Weaver Thos. I. Brown H. H. Pace W. H. Crogman A. P. Melton Henry M. White J. S. Flipper M. W. Reddick R. H. Singleton Joseph Griffith B. G. Brawley J. C. Lindeay J. A. Hopkins Wm. F. Penn W. M. Smith E. Mitchell J. W. Jones J. B. Watson W. A. Aderhold Jesse L. Relford Chas. H. Sharp J. A. Robinson Wm. Driskell A. C. Simmons J. C. Sherrill J. A. Wimberly H. W. B. Wilson W. J. Trent Jas. R. Porter F. J. Wimperly J. W. Wynn J. W. E. Linder L. C. Harris Chas. H. Stokes Ed Jones J. S. Speer J. C. Chapman J. H. Goss Jr. J. S. Bell Geo. L. Pace J. L. Holloway E. W. Hatchett James Stokes Arthur Raindrop J. A. Moore W. H. Whitaker Lewis Foster Peter Cibbs Jas. A. Mitchell Thos. W. Alexander W. A. Fountain E. H. Oliver Geo. H. Mahone J. F. Demery L. M. Hill I. H. McDuffie Willis Murphy W. J. Williams D. D. Crawford H. R. Butler R. M. Reddick R. L. Goodrum David T. Howard L. H. Ingraham Robt. R. Smith Kemper Harreld

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C. P. Bishop J. R. Hamilton J. L. Wheeler L. J. Price R. P. Johnson T. J. Jarrett L. A. Townsley Peter Harris Lawyer Taylor R. L. Edmondson O. T. Sutton R. L. Craddock H. D. Canady W. H. Nelson M. Thompson M. L. Glenn A. J. Lewis F. E. Eberhardt Alex D. Hamilton Richard Woodward C. W. Towns

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18 WU JM 118 NL 4 ex

RM., Boston, Mass., March 5,1818.

The President, Washington, D.C.

Realizing extraordinary need of racial amity in presence of extraordinary world war, alarmed by extraordinary epidemiC of mob murderings colored Americans, the National Equal Rights League, in home of Crispus Attucks who gave first life that country might be nation, on 148th anniversary his death in Boston massacre, in his name petition you publicly urge cessation lynching, and removal from American stage extraordinary attack upon racial peace, glorifier of lynch law, the "Birth of Nation," Photo-play barred from Boston as act of patriotiom by Mayor Boston, doing away with creator of race hatred, while making world safe for democracy make us safe for colored protection from lynching mob lynching propaganda.

Emery T. Morris William Brigham, William Trotter.

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838 East Front Street, Plainfield, N. J., March 5, 1918.

Hon. Joseph P. Tumulty Secretary to the President, Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. Tumulty:—

I enclose a letter addressed to the President which I confidently leave with you at your discretion.

During the time of the Japanese-Russian war, when the Czar refused to meet the waiting people, I told my wife at the breakfast table that the Czar missed a paychological moment for Russia and that we would live to see the downfall of that empire because the people had lost faith in the "Little Father." I feel that in a smaller way we (the white people of the United States) are in a parallel position with the colored people, not because they are not loyal and staunchly so, but because they are losing faith in our justice - thinking that courts are only for white men - and there are ten millions of them.

"Sunset" Cox in his charming book "Diversions of a Diplomat in Turkey" said that the Turk would stay in Europe because of justice between themselves regardless of their treatment of other people. It would be a fine thing if we had that same justice among ourselves.

In my opinion, one of the best and strongest strokes of policy at this time would be for the President, in his usual fine way, to say something on this subject. May I courteously make that suggestion and still be within order?

With sincere good wishes, 1 am, Cordially yours,

Charles Stewart Sminck.

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