How to Improve Race Relations in the South, Oct. 8, 1919

From The University of North Carolina News Letter, Chapel Hill, N.C., Oct. 8, 1919.

A Southern Race Program

Recognizing that the Negro is a permanent and increasingly important factor in the development of our national life, The Southern Sociological Congress considers the solution of the problem of race relations as the most delicate and difficult single task for American Democracy.

We believe that no enduring basis of good-will between the white and colored peoples of this country can be developed except on the fundamental principles of justice, cooperation, and racial integrity. The obligations of this generation to posterity demand that we exert our utmost endeavor to preserve the purity of our democratic ideals expressed in the American Constitution as well as the purity of the blood of both races. With this belief the Southern Sociological Congress has worked out a program for the improvement of race relations, and we respectfully submit it to the Conference of Governors in the earnest hope that this body of distinguished leaders may lend its powerful influence toward making this program effective throughout the Union.

The report to the conference of Governors in Salt Lake City was presented by Bishop Theodore D. Bratton, president of the Southern Sociological Congress, and Dr. J.E. McCulloch, the secretary.

The Program

The Negro should be liberated from the blighting fear of injustice and mob violence. To this end it is imperatively urgent that lynching be prevented.

1.       By the enlistment of Negroes themselves in preventing crimes that provoke mob violence.

2.       By prompt trial and speedy executions of persons guilty of heinous crimes.

3.       By legislation that will make it unnecessary for a woman who has been assaulted to appear in court to testify publicly.

4.       By legislation that will give the governor authority to dismiss a sheriff for failure to protect a prisoner in his charge.

The citizenship rights of the Negro should be safeguarded, particularly

1.       By securing proper traveling accommodations.

2.       By providing better housing conditions and preventing extortionate rents.

3.       By providing adequate educational and recreational facilities.

Closer cooperation between white and colored citizens should be promoted, without encouraging any violation of race integrity

1.       By organizing local committees, both white and colored, in as many communities as possible for the consideration of inter-racial problems.

2.       By the employment of Negro physicians, nurses, and policemen as far as practicable in work for sanitation, public health, and law enforcement among their own people

3.       By enlisting all agencies possible in fostering justice, good-will and kindliness in all individual dealings of the members of one race with members of the other.

4.       By the appointment of a standing committee by the governor of each state for the purpose of making a careful study of the causes underlying race friction with the view of recommending proper means for their removal.