The sex and race have reached high-water marks through the editorship
of “Free Speech,” by Ida B. Wells; “Ringwood’s Magazine,” Mrs. Julia
Costen; “St. Matthew’s Lyceum Journal,” Mrs. M. E. Lambert; “Virginia
Lancet,” Lucindia Bragg; “The Boston Courant” and “Woman’s Era,” Mrs.
Josephine Ruffin; “The Musical Messenger,” Miss Tillman; and “Woman’s
Light and Love,” a journal of Home and Foreign Missions, published at
Harrisburg, Pa., by Mrs. Lida Lowry and Mrs. Emma Ransom.
Victoria Earle of Waverly’s Magazine, Lillian A. Lewis of the Boston
Herald, Florence A. Lewis having charge of editorial departments of
Golden Days and the Philadelphia Press, show unerringly the value of
our women’s work in this line of effort. Miss Frazelia Campbell’s
translations from the German give her high rank in this field of work.
Mrs. Mary E. Lee, wife of Bishop B. F. Lee, Miss Mary Britton, Mrs.
Layton, of Los Angeles, Mrs. Alice Felts, wife of Rev. Cethe Felts,
Anna E. Geary, Elizabeth Frazier, Frances Parker, M. E. Buckner, Mattie
F. Roberts, Ada Newton Harris, Bella Dorce, H. A. Rice, Josephine
Turpin, Washington, Katie D. Yankton, Lucy Wilmot Smith, Cordelia Ray,
Lucinda Bragg, Fannie C. Bently, Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams, Kate
Tillman, Mrs. Silone Yates, Florida Ridley, Medora Gould, Miss Dora
J. Cole, Irene DeMortie, Maria Ridley, M. Elizabeth Johnson, Leslie
Wilmot, Alice Ruth Moore, Mrs. Susie Shorter, Mrs. Mollie Church
Terril, Miss Virginia Whitsett, Dr. Alice Woodby McKane, Dr. Lucy
Hughes Brown, Maritcha Lyons, Mrs. Majors, Mrs. Scruggs, and Mrs. I.
Garland Penn, have done good work in the past, and in many cases are
still doing such work in literary lines as must reflect high honor on
their race and sex.
The profession of medicine has proven more attractive, and more
lucrative also, to Afro-American women than either of the other liberal
professions. We have some dozen graduates of the finest institutions in
the country; among the earliest is Dr. Susan McKinney, a graduate of
the Women’s Medical College of N. Y.; having been a student under Dr.
Clement Lozier is largely to the advantage of Dr. McKinney. As a member
of the Medical Staff of the Women’s Dispensary and of the City Society
of Homœopathy the Doctor is doing efficient work; this combined with a
large and rapidly growing practice makes her labors along race efforts
especially worthy of commendation. Dr. R. J. Cole and Dr. Caroline V.
Anderson were the pioneers from the Phila. Women’s Medical College; Dr.
Cole is also an excellent German scholar. Dr. Anderson, although not an
author in her own right, yet gave valuable assistance to her father,
Wm. Still, Esq. in the preparation of his famous work “The Underground
Railroad.” Dr. Anderson conducts a Dispensary in connection with the
mission work of the Berean Presbyterian Church, South College Ave.,
Phila., of which her husband, the Rev. Matthew Anderson, is pastor.
The doctor has secured through the kindness of wealthy friends an
additional aid to the work of this mission by the gift of a cottage at
Mt. Pleasant to be used as a retreat for invalids. Dr. Verina Morton is
practising in partnership with her husband, an eminent physician of
Brooklyn, N. Y. Dr. Alice Woodby McKane was resident physician at the
Haynes Normal and Industrial School until her marriage with Dr. McKane.
She has lately organized a Nurses’ Training School at Savannah, Ga.
Dr. Hallie Tanner Johnson, the eldest daughter of Bishop B. T. Tanner
of the A. M. E. Church, is resident physician at Tuskegee University,
Ala. This lady had the honor of being the first woman of any race to
practise medicine in the State of Alabama. She has since entering
upon her work at Tuskegee established a Nurses’ Training School and
Dispensary at that institution. The Doctor has lately become the wife
of Prof. John Quincy Johnson, President of Allen University. Dr. Alice
Bennett, of the Women’s Medical College, is pleasantly located in the
East. Dr. Consuelo Clark, a graduate of the Cincinnati Medical College,
is an eminently successful practitioner. Dr. Georgiana Rumly, deceased,
was a recent graduate of Howard University. Meharry Medical College,
Nashville, Tenn., has two female graduates, Dr. Georgia L. Patton of
the class of 93, now an independent Medical Missionary at Monrovia,
Liberia, and Dr. Lucinda D. Key, class of 94, a successful practitioner
at Chattanooga, Tenn. Dr. Lucy Hughes Brown, the latest graduate we
have to record in this honorable profession, is now an alumnus of the
Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia. Dr. Brown has entered upon an
excellent practice at Wilmington, N. C. Miss L. C. Fleming, who has
labored very efficiently as a missionary in South Africa, has entered
upon her medical course at the above institution. We have in the
profession of pharmacy, three graduates of Meharry Medical College,
these ladies having taken their degrees at this year’s Commencement,
Miss Matilda Lloyd, of Nashville, Tenn., Miss Margaret A. Miller, of
S. C., and, Miss Bella B. Coleman, who has entered a drug store at
Natchez, Miss.
Dr. Ida Gray, our only known graduate in dentistry, hails from the
University at Mich., receiving her degree in 1890. Dr. Gray at once
entered upon her work and has found herself highly appreciated. The
Doctor has a charming personality.
We have as trained nurses Mrs. Minnie Hogan, of the Nurses’ Training
School of the University of Pa., Miss Annie Reeve and Mrs. Nicholson
of the Women’s Medical College, Mrs. Georgian Rumbly, lately deceased,
took a Nurse’s course at Howard University and practised this
profession prior to entering upon a Medical course.
We have in the profession of law three graduates, Mrs. Mary Shadd Cary,
of Washington, D. C., Miss Florence Ray, of N. Y., and Miss Ida Platt,
of Chicago. The first named is also an eloquent lecturer, the second
an author of merit. Miss Ida B. Platt, of Chicago, has the honor of
being the only representative of the race now practising at the bar.
Miss Platt is a native of Chicago, a graduate of the High School of
that city, at the early age of sixteen she had finished the course
taking first rank among the students of that institution. At a later
date this studious young lady entered an insurance office acting in the
capacity of stenographer and private secretary where the correspondence
required proficiency in the German and French languages. In 1892 she
entered a prominent law office as stenographer and at a later date she
established an independent office of law reporting and stenography,
(Germans as it must be said to their credit in this as in most similiar
cases giving the largest percentage of patronage received from the
dominant race). Two years ago Miss Platt entered the Chicago Law School
from which she has recently graduated with the exceedingly creditable
average of 96. This lady deserves unstinted praise for her courage and
perseverance. Busy at her usual work during the day she had only the
evening hours in which to pursue her chosen profession and yet ranked
among the best students of her class.
No woman of the race has completed a theological course so far as
we can learn, but large numbers inspired with zeal for the Master’s
kingdom have gone forth to evangelistic and mission work. Amanda Smith,
now laboring in Canada, spent many months with Bishop Taylor in the
opening up of his mission work in Africa.
Perhaps it might be said we have done the least in the line of State
work and yet we believe, that according to the opportunities accorded
us we have done our share. In time of war, in famine, in time of fire
or flood, and especially during the horrors of pestilence the women of
this race have done noble work often calling forth public praise; as
was the case at Memphis, a few years ago, when the mayor of that city
complimented the women of the race for the kindness to the sufferers in
the awful epidemic that had recently visited that district.
In the East and West, on the School and local option question they have
given able support, in local and ward charity they have always done
their share of the work in hand. Miss Amelia Mills, of Philadelphia,
has been for years a most efficient worker especially along the line of
the Country Week Association.
During the World’s Fair we had five experienced refined and cultivated
women upon the World’s Fair State Committees, Miss Imogene Howard, of
N. Y., Mrs. Fannie Barrier Williams, of Chicago, who read a most able
paper before the World’s Parliament of Religions, Miss Florence A.
Lewis, of Philadelphia, who was also World’s Fair correspondent for the
Philadelphia Times. Mrs. S. A. Williams, of New Orleans and Mrs. M. A.
Curtis, of Chicago.
Along the line of Art we have one noble representative: the work
of Edmonia Lewis, the sculptress, is so well known that it scarce
needs repetition; her “Cleopatra Dying,” exhibited at the Centennial
Exhibition, received a medal of honor. Most of her works have been sold
to titled persons of Europe. Elizabeth Greenfield Selika, Flora Batson
Bergen, Madame Sisseretta Jones, Madame Saville Jones, Madame Nellie
Brown Mitchell, Madame Dessiro Plato, Mrs. Lizzie Pugh Dugan, and Miss
Agnes Tucker rank as the Pattis and Nilssons of the race. In many cases
not only delighting the millions of the common people, but receiving
marked tokens of appreciation from the crowned heads of the European
nations, Hallie Quinn Brown, Ednorah Nahr, Henrietta Vinton Davis,
Alice Franklin, now Mrs. T. McCants Stewart, Mary Harper, Matilda
Herbert and Emma White take rank among the finest elocutionists of the
United States. As accomplished pianists we have Madame Montgomery,
Madame Williams, Mrs. Ida Gilbert Chestnut, Miss Inez Casey and Mrs.
Cora Tucker Scott. The women of this race have always been industrious,
however much the traducers of the race may attempt to make it appear
otherwise. They are proving daily the truth of this assertion.
The following word of praise from a recent writer, in the “Boston
Transcript,” voices this self evident truth as set forth in the present
condition of the most humble of our women, laboring in the Southland.
This writer in the closing lines of an exceptionally truthful article
entitled, “The Southern Plantation of To-day,” gives this tribute to
the Afro-American woman of this section of our fair land. “Too much
credit cannot be given these hard-working wives and mothers, who hoe,
rake, cook, wash, chop, patch and mend, from morning until night; very
often garments will be patched until scarcely a trace of the original
foundation material can be seen, and there are many cases where the
wife is much the best ‘cotton chopper’ of the two, and her work far
more desirable than her husband’s. The wife works as hard as her
husband--harder in fact, because when her field work is over she cooks
the simple meals, washes the clothes, and patches the garments for her
numerous family by the blaze of a lightwood torch after the members
of the household are rolled in their respective ‘quilts’ and voyaging
in slumberland. She does more than this, for she raises chickens and
turkeys, sometimes geese and ducks, using the eggs for pocket money.”
The women of this race have been industrious but it is only in late
years, that they have reaped the fruits of their own industry. Many
have built up businesses for themselves that net thousands of dollars.
Mrs. Henrietta Dutërte, the oldest and most successful undertaker of
color in Philadelphia, is a brilliant example, Mrs. Addison Foster is
also a successful worker in this field of effort.
Mrs. Winnie Watson of Louisville is a graduate of the Clark School
of embalming. She graduated in a class of forty-five, three colored
and forty-two white, and yet took first honor. She has entered into
partnership with her husband who is an undertaker.
Mrs. Caroline E. White is a retired dry goods merchant of Philadelphia.
Mrs. Margaret Jones, cateress, and many of our women in the Eastern
and Western States having handsome millinery, dressmaking, and hair
dressing parlors, carried on successfully attest the business capacity
of the Afro-American woman. For years the finest tonsorial parlor on
the Pacific coast, was owned and conducted by a woman of the race. As
managers of the finest grade of hotels, they have been a marked success.
It is stated on the authority of numbers of reputable journals, that in
the camp at Yasoo, Montana, a colored woman named Millie Ringold ran
the first hotel at that place and established an enviable reputation as
a prospector and also, that Mrs. C. Whetzel, a resident of St. John,
New Brunswick, becoming widowed in early life continued the ice trade
formerly carried on by her husband. She first secured a long lease on
the only body of fresh water within city limits; with this advantage
secured she placed the whole business on a secure footing, providing
all modern improvements to secure the desired end, and at present has
the monopoly of this business in that city. Of late years she has
invented an ice house, whereby meats and other provisions may be kept
for months without losing their sweetness.
As stenographers, type writers, book keepers, and sales women those of
the race who have gained a foothold in these employments have never
failed to give satisfaction.
Mrs. M. E. Elliot years ago secured a patent on several toilet articles
and opened branch establishments in many cities.
A colored woman has a contract for hauling sand at a small town in
Florida. In connection with this work she carries on a small farm and
poultry yard gaining thereby more than a comfortable living for herself
and family. Miss Maud Benjamin, of Washington, has patented a call
bell. Mrs. N. F. Mossell, of Phila., has invented a camping table and
portable kitchen. Many unique inventions are now in the possession of
Afro-American women too poor to secure patents.
That the women of this race did not lack force of character, was shown
at an early day, when Elizabeth Freemen, popularly known as “Mum Bett,”
and Jennie Slew of Ipswich sued for their liberty under the Bill of
Rights, both winning their cases.
It is also on record that Deborah Gannet, who had enlisted during the
Revolutionary war in Captain Wells’ company, under the name of Robert
Shurtliffe, serving from May, 1782, until October 23, 1783, discharged
the duties of her office and at the same time, preserved inviolate the
virtue of her sex, and was granted therefore a pension of thirty-four
pounds.
“‘Happy’ or Kate Ferguson, born a slave, opened a Sunday School in
Dr. John Mason’s Murray Street Church, in New York City, in 1774. She
secured homes for forty-eight children, white and black. The school
growing, the lecture room was opened, Dr. Mason and his teachers
assisting ‘Happy’ in her work.” So says Colored American, a book
printed through a fund bequeathed by Lindley Murray, “to promote piety,
virtue and the truths of Christianity.” This was the beginning of the
Sunday School in Murray Street Church, and Kate Ferguson, the colored
woman who had been a slave is believed to have thus gathered the first
Sunday School in New York City. Says W. E. Chandler in his history of
the Sabbath Schools of New York City, after stating the above facts,
“God bless the dusky hands that broke here an alabaster box, the
perfume of which still lingers about the great metropolis.”
We have in the line of musical composers, Miss Estelle Rickets,
Miss Bragg, Miss Tillman, Mrs. Yeocum and Mrs. Ella Mossell. In
artistic work, Miss Julia F. Jones, Mrs. Parker Denny and Miss
Nelson, now an art student of Philadelphia, take rank with those
who are doing successful work. Miss Ida Bowser is a graduate of the
Musical Department of the University of Pennsylvania. We have also
several graduates of the Boston Conservatory of Music. The New York
Conservatory has also several of our girls as pupils; Miss Blanche D.
Washington is a student in harmony and composition. Madame Thurber’s
invitation and Prof. Dvorak’s statement that the future music of
this country must be founded upon what are called Negro melodies,
has given great encouragement to the young of the race who are
ambitious musically. Of late years the dramatic instinct has developed
sufficiently to enable the presentation of many of the best plays. The
Afro-American woman taking her part therein with an ease and grace that
astonishes those who go to mock her efforts. Perhaps the effort that is
most unique and yet entirely consistent with the character of the race
has been done along the line of philanthropic work. Within these later
years since better opportunities for educational and industrial work
have been opened to them in the more favored sections of the country;
many of our women have turned aside from laboring for their individual
success and given thought to the condition of the weak and suffering
classes. They have shown that the marvellous loving kindness and
patience that is recorded of the native women of Africa, by Mungo Park,
the great African explorer, that forms the tie that still holds captive
to this day the heart of the white foster child of the “black mammies”
of the Southland was not crushed out by the iron heel of slavery but
still wells up in their bosoms and in this brighter day overflows in
compassion for the poor and helpless of their own down-trodden race.
Two of the earliest laborers in this field of effort were “Moses” and
“Sojourner Truth.” Harriet, known for many years as “Moses,” was a
full blooded African woman, who escaped from slavery on the Eastern
shore of Maryland. She returned to the South nineteen times, carrying
off four hundred slaves. Gov. Andrew of Massachusetts, sent her as
a scout and spy with the union army during the war; at its close
she labored for the soldiers in the hospitals and later with the
“Freedmen’s Bureau,” she is now living at Auburn, N. Y., where she
looks after the poor and infirm of her race. “Sojourner Truth” was born
in Webster County, N. Y., she escaped from slavery and labored for
years in the Anti-Slavery, Woman’s Suffrage and Temperance movements.
She was a woman of magnificient presence, great power and magnetism.
She possessed at her death a book called by her, the “Book of Life,”
it contained kind words and thoughts for her from the great of every
land. Mrs. Mary Ella Mossell, wife of Rev. C. W. Mossell, labored with
her husband for eight years at Port Au Prince, Hayti, establishing at
that point a mission school for girls. Mrs. Mossell died in America two
years after her return to their home at Baltimore, Md. The school is a
portion of the work of Foreign Missions of the A. M. E. Church, and has
been named the Mossell Mission School in honor of its deceased founder.
Miss Elizabeth Ralls, the organizer of the “Sarah Allen Mission and
Faith Home,” of Philadelphia, is a remarkable character. Without
education or wealth, with a heart overflowing with love to the poor,
she has from childhood, labored in season and out of season in the
mission cause. For many years she served a Christmas dinner to the poor
of her race, in Philadelphia, over five hundred being present. Boxes
of clothing and food were distributed monthly. Of late years she has
rented a house and taken in the aged who could not gain admittance
to other institutions. She takes her basket on her arm and goes to
the market, gleaning for her poor. The whole work is carried on by
faith. Her sweet, loving countenance, the “darlings” and “dovies”
that drop from her lips as she places the hands on one’s shoulder
and looks lovingly into the eyes of the person addressed carries
conviction. Her coffers are always filled to the extent of the actual
need of “her poor people,” as she calls them. Mrs. Sarah Gorham is
now a laborer in Africa under the Women’s Mite Missionary Society of
the A. M. E. Church. Mission work has also been done in the South by
Miss Lucy Laney, of Augusta, Ga., and Miss Alice Dugged Cary, Mrs.
Lynch, and Mrs. McClean, in the West and Southwest are doing good
work. Mrs. S. A. Williams, of New Orleans, has organized an orphanage
which is succeeding. Mrs. Mary Barboza, a daughter of the late Henry
Highland Garnet, late consul to Liberia, sacrificed her life laboring
to establish a school for girls in Liberia. Mrs. Roberts, widow of
ex-president Roberts, of Liberia, is laboring to establish a hospital
for girls at that point. Mrs. Fanny Barrier Williams has co-operated
with a corps of physicians in establishing a hospital and Nurses’
Training School in Chicago. Mrs. Maria Shorter, wife of Bishop James
Shorter, of the A. M. E. Church, by a large contribution, assisted
in the opening of Wilberforce College. Mrs. Olivia Washington, the
deceased wife of Prof. Booker Washington, of Tuskegee Industrial
School, did much by her labors to place that institution on a secure
footing. Mrs. I. Shipley, of Camden, N. J., has established a Faith
Retreat at Asbury Park; she also does much mission work in her native
city. Misses Fanny and Alma Somerville, of Philadelphia, are quiet but
efficient mission workers, especially along the line of Working Girls’
Clubs. Miss Planter, a wealthy lady of color, gave a large bequest
to Livingstone College, N. C. Mrs. Catherine Teagle and Mrs. Harriet
Hayden both bequeathed handsome sums to the cause of Afro-American
education. Mrs. Stephen Smith and Mrs. Mary A. Campbell, wife of Bishop
J. P. Campbell, and Mrs. Margaret Boling have given largely of their
means and labors toward the establishment of the Old Folks’ Home at
Philadelphia. Miss Nettie Wilmer, who has done efficient mission work
in various lines, is now laboring for the upbuilding of the Gloucester
Industrial School, Va.
The Lend a Hand, Christian Endeavor, Epworth League and like
institutions have a large contingent of our women as efficient workers.
The last effort at organized work by the womanhood of this race has
been the organization of two associations, namely, the Woman’s Loyal
Union of Brooklyn and New York, and the Colored Woman’s League, of
Washington, D. C. These associations have for their work the collecting
of statistics and facts showing the moral, intellectual, industrial,
and social growth and attainments of Afro-Americans. They aim to foster
unity of purpose, to consider and determine the methods that will
promote the best interests of the Afro-American race, to bring into
active fellowship and organic union all movements which may be classed
under the head of Woman’s Work. It is also their intention to receive
and distribute information concerning the activities of Afro-Americans
throughout the length and breadth of the land.
Perhaps the greatest work in philanthropy yet accomplished by any woman
of the race is that undertaken and so successfully carried out at the
present hour by Miss Ida B. Wells.
This lady is a native of Holly Springs, Miss. She received a liberal
education for the greater part at Rust University. A teacher for a
few months in the State of Arkansas, she at a later date became a
resident and teacher at Memphis, Tenn. This position she held for
some seven years. Criticism of the condition of affairs prevailing
in the colored school of Memphis gained the lady the ill-will of the
Board of Education, and at the following term she failed to receive an
appointment.
Miss Wells, nothing daunted, purchased a one-third interest in the
Memphis _Free Speech_. The paper was much benefited by this fact and
continued to be an eminent success from every point of view.
March 9, 1892, occurred at Memphis (in a section of the town called
the Curve) a most brutal and outrageous lynching of Afro-Americans. An
attempt was made by the press of Memphis to justify this crime by the
most flagrantly untruthful statements regarding the conduct of the men
lynched.
Miss Wells at once began in _Free Speech_ a series of letters and
editorials setting forth the true state of the case. These editorials
were succeeded by a series of articles criticising and condemning the
treatment of her race in Memphis.
At a later date, during the month of May, 1892, there appeared in the
columns of _Free Speech_ an editorial from the pen of our heroine that
has since become famous.
Starting out on a visit to Oklahoma and later to New York City, Miss
Wells stopped in Philadelphia on a visit to Mrs. F. E. W. Harper and
to take a peep at the doings of the A. M. E. General Conference then
in session at that city. What was her consternation to find letters
pouring in upon her from friends and correspondents at Memphis warning
her not to return to her office on pain of being lynched. She was
informed that her newspaper plant had been destroyed and the two male
editors had been forced to flee for their lives.
Miss Wells was at once placed upon the staff of the New York _Age_,
and in the issue of that paper of June 27, 1892, gave the facts that
led to the suspension of her paper and the real motive for Lynch and
Mob Law.
In the early fall Miss Wells entered upon a lecturing tour among her
own race in the United States; later a committee of ladies under the
title of The Woman’s Loyal Union of Brooklyn and New York gave her a
grand reception, a testimonial purse of $400 and also a beautiful gold
pen engraved with the legend “Mizpah.”
Miss Wells continued her lecturing tour meeting with a hearty welcome,
especially in the city of Boston. The press of that city gave her a
flattering reception, publishing lengthy interviews and carefully
reporting her addresses. Mrs. Josephine Ruffin, of the Boston
_Courant_, used her influence to get Miss Wells’s cause a hearing
before the most exclusive Women’s Clubs of Boston and with great
success. The Moral Educational Association, of Boston, was of this
number.
The ire of the Memphis press was aroused by the courtesy shown Miss
Wells at Boston, and retaliated by flooding the North with slanderous
accusations against the martyr editor.
During the late fall Miss Wells was visited at Philadelphia by Miss
Catherine Impey, of London, England, editor of _Anti-Caste_. By
this lady’s invitation Miss Wells sailed to England in the spring
to present her cause to the reform element of English society. She
lectured on “Lynch Law,” in England and Scotland, for many weeks,
speaking at forty meetings in most of the prominent cities of England
and Scotland. At Glasgow, London, Liverpool, Edinburg, Aberdeen,
Huntley, Morningside, Manchester, Carruter’s Close, and many other
points, she was heartily welcomed by the best people; great interest in
the cause she represented was thereby aroused. This interest culminated
in the formation of an important society.
In the drawing-room of Mrs. Isabella Favie Mayo, April 21, 3 P. M.,
1893, at Aberdeen, Scotland, with Miss Wells, Miss Catherine Impey and
Dr. George Fernands, together with fifty of the most prominent clergy,
professionals, tradesmen and others, was put in operation a force that
will tell on the life of unborn generations. A second meeting was held
later on at Music Hall, Aberdeen, April 24th. Professor Iverach offered
a resolution condemnatory of lynching, which was seconded by Rev. James
Henderson, the son of an ex-Mayor of this city.
The society formed received the name of “The Society for the
Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man.” Its aims were stated in the
following declaration:--
(_a_) The Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man
declares itself fundamentally opposed to the system of race
separation, by which the despised members of a community are cut off
from the social, civil, and religious life of their fellow-men.
(_b_) It regards lynching and other forms of brutal injustice
inflicted on the weaker communities of the world as having their root
in Race Prejudice, which is directly fostered by the estrangement and
lack of sympathy consequent on Race Separation.
(_c_) This Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man
therefore requires its members to refrain from all complicity
in the system of Race Separation, whether as individuals, or by
co-membership in organizations which tolerate and provide the same.