“THE JIM CROW CAR.”
The titles—Porters—Baggage-men—Coleman on the “G. P.”
1892—Mississippi Delta.
Thus far we have seen that mal-treatment, deception in court, murdering,
etc., are associated with the “Jim Crow Car,” for the title itself means
fraud—and all debauchery and injustice meted out to the colored race are
material in the “Jim Crow Car.” If we are to see the state of things as
they are in various parts of the world, we are generally conveyed by “the
train,” as a preference when it is serviceable. In countries where there
is no R. R. locomotives, the stages of higher civilization have not yet
been reached. The first thing therefore, right or wrong, coming under our
notice by the way, is on the “front.”
The car in which the colored people are forced to ride is not marked
“Jim Crow Car.” Most every R. R. line has a different mark. As a rule
“Colored” just over the entrance is marked on the cars designed for the
colored people on the majority of roads. Other marks are: “For Colored
People,” “For Africans,” (L. R. & M. R. R.) “Negroes,” etc. Regular
colored passengers are so well acquainted with the style and inferiority
of their car, it is hardly necessary to read the sign. Carthage, Miss.,
is the county seat of Leake County, and 31 miles from the railroad lines.
Many of its inhabitants have never seen a train. Nevertheless, most of
the colored citizens have heard that the train is a pretty thing, but
the colored folks must pay as much to ride as white passengers, and yet
occupy an awful “Jim Crow Car.”
Two colored men having decided to go off, came to Goodman to “take” the
train. When the train arrived that they desired, the smoke prevented them
from seeing the “colored” car near the engine. The colored passengers
stood quite a distance from the site, refusing to board it, from the
very reason that they feared the smoke. They admired the cars for white
passengers. Although they had purchased their tickets, they decided
to wait for the colored car to come along. After the train made its
departure from the station, the two passengers went in hiding, being
afraid that they would be arrested for not going up to the engine to get
the car. Shortly a freight run in, and the two passengers fully concluded
“that must be that ‘Jim Crow Car’ for the colored folks that we have
heard so much talk about.” With this idea they aimed to board it, when
they were considered intruders, and were driven back to their homes.
PORTERS.
The porters on the passenger trains are chiefly colored men. Their
politeness to passengers and distinct voices in calling stations, render
their appropriateness for the position. They assist in handling baggage,
but they are very rarely allowed to assist colored ladies on and off the
train. They must get off possibly with babies in their arms and valises.
The porter is allowed to help white ladies off by taking the packages and
valises to the platform of the depot, the brakeman and conductor being
too aristocratic to do such, like most southerners are.
BAGGAGEMEN.
There are white and colored employees in large baggage rooms. The bulk
of the white baggagemen abhor the idea of carrying a colored person’s
baggage to the baggage car, although it is checked. They sometimes order
our intelligent colored gentleman to convey his own baggage to the train,
especially if he looks like a “drummer” or travelling salesman.
A young man travelling for a colored Building and Loan firm was shot
and killed at a little town south of Jackson, Miss., by a baggageman,
who failed to compel him to carry his own baggage. The same style of
marking on the door of railway cars for colored people is on the doors of
waiting rooms. Colored department porters are employed to see that the
black people go to their room, but is not allowed to resist white people
putting packages and tying their dogs in the colored room. White convicts
are held in the colored waiting rooms.
COLEMAN ON THE “G. P.”
Concluding my Southern tour in 1892, I left Birmingham, Ala., Nov. 1st,
1892, bound for Durant, Miss. A large number of passengers were on board
when we arrived at Coalsburg, a little town situated in the coal regions
of Alabama, about 15 miles from Birmingham. The depot agent having
flagged the train, ran to the conductor exclaiming:
“You can’t go under two hours!”
“Why can’t I?” asked the conductor. “Why that east-bound local have
jumped the track.”
A vast convict farm is under cultivation by colored convicts at
Coalsburg. To see men and women tied together and working under “Bull
whips” was a delightful scene to the white passengers, both men and
women. The farm is about 60 yards from the depot.
All sorts and conditions of humanity can be seen. Strange it may seem to
true man and womanhood, the fact remains that the brutalized state of
the colored men and women is the pride of the Southern white element.
The passengers stand with pleasure viewing the convicts as they are
lashed and forced to do excessive work. A man who had been on the farm
two years, charged with stealing a pair of boots, attempts to escape,
when four white men on mules and a train of hounds pursue him. An old
ex-slave holder, standing in an attitude to take fine view of the
proceedings, smilingly said: “That looks like old times.” Convicts are
treated more cruel than the slaves were during American slavery.
In fact the convict lease system is a method of revenge. There are
some ex-slave holders who think that the “nigger” should be “paid” for
fighting against the South for freedom, and now making it felt and known
that they are a main factor in the common wealth. The convict farms
have grown numerous in the Southern States as a means of binding the
Negro down to white masters. Ned Richardson may justly bear the blame
of causing more immorality and disgrace upon the colored race in his
dominion than the slave trade in Africa to-day. The convict lease system
is a satanic giant leading to degradation and ruin thousands of young men
and women, whom, if they had privilege of a house of correction, would
accomplish many good deeds for their country, and Christ, and the Church.
When Mr. D. L. Moody preached at Massey Music Hall, Wednesday, Oct. 13th,
1897, at 3 p.m., he elicited about 5,000 people. Before beginning his
sermon he made some interesting statements concerning the great work
which he had done in his efforts to supply the jails in the United States
with reading matter to be put in the hands of the prisoners. Concluding,
he asked his audience to contribute $500 to the same scheme in Canada.
During his fervent and explicit remarks the lamentable thought of the
Convict Lease system presented itself to me. Though recognizing the work
done by the speaker in the United States as a source of spiritual help
to the colored prisoners, as well as the white ones, I am convinced that
such influential ambassadors of God as Mr. Moody and Mr. Jones could
abate the intense evil in the promoters of working convicts, in a worse
way than any farmer would dare to work his horses in the north and in
many parts of the south.
At the close of Mr. Moody’s service I was profoundly touched with the
idea of asking the evangelist to protest against southern heathenism.
When the rush to shake hands with the speaker had ceased, I could not
refrain from simply asking Mr. Moody to preach against the convict lease
system when he returned south.
The Democratic party in the State of Alabama, during the State election
in 1892, made the convict lease system a plank in their platform,
declaring that the diabolical system would be annihilated if the party
gained the election. A political course in the pursuit of destroying such
an influence and extensive evil will not do the amount of durable good as
will the true Christian principles thoroughly stamped in the hearts of
the upholders of such an inhuman system. One political party may abolish
it, and another reinstate it. It is necessary, therefore, that the way
of convincing the heathen abroad be given to erroneous and barbaric
tendencies everywhere. About nine-tenths of the convicts in the United
States are colored. When I visited Fletz’s farm about 3 miles south of
Winona, Miss., in 1891, there were no whites. The convicts are not only
leased to work on farms, but to railway contractors and mining companies,
etc. The States tolerating the convict lease system receive a revenue.
“KIDNAPPED” ROCK DIGGERS.
Another incident noticeable on my journey to Durant, Nov. 1st, ’92, is
the fact that in the mountainous regions lying on both sides of the
Georgia Pacific Road, is rock suitable for railway bridges, etc. After
receiving orders to leave Coalsburg, the conductor gave the ordinary
notice, “All aboard.” I need not mention the various expressions of joy
to be leaving a place of sorrow and woe. We had not gone more than 40
miles when a company of colored men, directed by a white man, boarded
our train. The porter immediately gave the information that trouble was
awaiting the colored company, of which they were not aware. Just about 35
miles down the road is a path leading out to a rock den, they will have
to go about 18 miles back in the woods to find it, there they will be
worked. Some of them will be worked to death without a cent of pay, said
the porter. When they arrived at their destination, the ghostly “thicket”
at once attracted my attention. Like dumb driven cattle, the men, with
unbalanced luggage, over stepped the rugged mountain, some of whom will
never return.
The Georgia Pacific Railroad is systematized strictly on Southern
principles. Having roughly split bottom seats on the “colored car.” While
at the Union Station in Birmingham, Ala., en route for Atlanta, Ga., we
beheld such a pitiful condition of three colored ladies. Those who have
not in any way come in contact with such a state of human life as seen
in this car, can only marvel at our story, and question whether such
moral character exists amid such a tremendous flow of offensiveness and
pragmatical elements.
In the car with the three colored ladies were five convicts chained down
to their seats in a most ghastly condition, and 15 white men. The ladies
were compelled to hoist the windows in hope of shirking the profane
language and intense heat and smoke from 15 cigars. The ladies were
evidently professional ladies, and of no mean ability and character,
but their high attainments were depreciated, being told abruptly, “Go
in that car there, that’s the nigger car.” Many ministers and other
representative colored men are smokers per force. They must ride in cars
with the lowest smoking classes, but when the smokers are through, retire
to the “white car.” Many persons who would never smoke, are forced to
smoke to protect their system during their ride in a car filled with
deathly odor.
MISSISSIPPI “DELTA.”
The real state of affairs in the Mississippi “Delta” or “Bottoms,” are
unknown to those who have not travelled the plantations and rivers,
viewing the situation of the people as they are. Indeed many parts of
that turbid valley are inhabited by a people whose object is to humiliate
the farmer as did the slave holder in his time. Newspapers and other
mediums of spreading the happenings abroad are not used. This dismal
section of country lies about 50 miles west of the Illinois Central
Railroad, separated from Arkansas by the Mississippi River. There are two
other smaller rivers, viz.: Yazoo and Tallahatchie. On the banks of these
rivers are colored immigrants from many southern States, with the hope of
bettering their condition.
Soon after slavery many men, women and children, exiled to the
Mississippi Delta, the employers, to curtail railroad expenses, put
the emigrants in freight box cars, after getting them a distance from
their homes. Their present condition is grievous and miserable, some
plantations having as many as 500 employees and a white family. The
agents are what the overseer has once been. The general environments
are such that even 500 persons must stoop to the command of 4 or 5 men.
Some laborers have not had a payment for their work. They are furnished
with pickled pork and corn bread for food, but few of them are allowed
to have money. Wooden cheques from five cents and upward are paid to
those who pay to the Church. In this case the cheques are only good
at the plantation store. That which 25 cents could profitably buy in
the Dominion of Canada or the northern States, costs one dollar at
the “plantation store.” Cotton is the chief product; and owing to the
unfavorable atmosphere the colored people are told that whiskey must be
used to prevent sickness. In this way many unfortunate persons are misled
to the degraded habit of drinking excessively.
East Mississippi is usually called the “Hills” by the inhabitants of
the swamp. When any one succeeds in making good his or her escape, it
is by the “underground railroads,” or a similar channel to that of the
abolitionist in securing colored men and women into Canada in the days of
slavery. Mr. Mark Coleman, brother of the author of these facts, has been
and is to this day operating the underground railway line on the Yazoo
River. His beginning of this movement was attended with many experiences
which attended the rugged way of the beloved white men and women who
sympathized for the black man to the extent of devising a road on which
he could reach the safe shores of Canada.
An investigation of the oppressed people in the Mississippi Delta is
necessary, and is solicited. The high water of 1897 revealed a part of
the destitute cases near the rivers and railroads, but “Wild Woods,” and
a host of other obscure islands have never been heard from. The ways
of right cannot be properly diffused among the people of color in the
Mississippi “bottoms.” The word of the Lord should have free course. Any
instruction leading up to higher morality and Christianity is impeded.
The Arkansas side of the valley is chiefly barren; especially that
being parallel with the Little Rock and Memphis railroad. The labor
record of the Negro has grown ever since the landing of 20 at Jamestown,
Va., in 1619. “He has made America what it is,” for this reason the
colored people of many Southern States have been solicited to settle
in this vast watery territory along the L. R & M. R. R. In view of the
hardships which befell those in Mississippi Delta, the Negro refuses the
offer. The refusal of the Negro to occupy the Arkansas desert is looked
upon by his enemies as being slothful. But this view of the Negro is
commonly taken when he is shrewd enough to shirk danger. The Oklahoma
movement in 1892 was upheld by the colored Southerners with a hope of
reaching a home where equal rights would be imparted to all. Since their
settlement in Oklahoma, they have fallen victims to the mob and rope
bands of white men, who have made it a famous event to enter the homes
of the black men and overpower them with war arms, and commit rape on
their wives and daughters. Bishop Turner, in defence of his race, gave
advice that they should protect themselves. This advice was given in the
Voice of Missions, missionary organ of the A. M. E. Church. Numerous
Northern newspapers endeavored to put the entire South against the godly
Bishop for attempting to protect _the ladies_ of his race from being
destroyed by night mobs. The Bishop’s _idea_ of family protection in
many _unfriendly_ localities is commendable. The Indians in the Oklahoma
regions and elsewhere have always protected their families. 25 white
citizens of Oklahoma were killed by Indians in Jan., 1898, by way of
race _protection_.