Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/684

670 The majority of the speakers were of the opinion that the prejudice against the negro is on the increase. When one remembers some of the stories that the newspapers have been giving us during the past few months, this certainly was not surprising. Some of the speakers told how they had found western hotels closed to them, which a few years ago were willing to entertain them. But one of the wisest of the women present was of the opinion that race-hatred was not on the increase. She said:

She admitted that the state of affairs was still far from ideal—that there was much to make right-thinking people of both races sad. She alluded to the fact that one of the prettiest schoolhouses for colored people in the South had been destroyed within a few weeks by a white mob. She said that one of her friends—a teacher in the school—had, during the past year, spent $100 of her own money for pictures for the walls. But she reminded her audience that, if a schoolhouse for colored children had been erected in that neighborhood twenty-five years ago, its destruction would have been a matter of course. Further, she was absolutely certain that that school would be rebuilt, and be rebuilt largely through the contributions of the white people of the South. She told us how many of the best southern white people were interested in the colored people, and in some instances even were willing to cultivate social relations with them. She mentioned the fact that a wealthy planter had visited her home and had said to her, "with tears in his voice, if not in his eyes": "I wish that my wife had reached the point where I could invite you to our house." And this noble-hearted, broad-minded woman added: "Of course, I knew that