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Friday, April 16, 2021

Former Gov. Bickett Pleads on Behalf of Negro, April 16, 1921

Bickett Pleads on Behalf of Negro

Hampton, Va., April 16—Thomas W. Bickett, former governor of North Carolina, declared Friday at the 53rd anniversary celebration of Hampton Institute that “the negro is entitled to equal and exact justice before the law and the white man must accord him that justice or be false to all those traditions that have made the Anglo-Saxon race the glory of the world.”

The former governor referred to Hampton Institute as a foundation and shrine “from which are constantly flowing streams that make waste places glad and attract pilgrims who come to Hampton for a new birth of courage, faith and love. The Ku Klux Klan believe in the whisper,” he said, “and that it why I rose up and hit it in North Carolina with all my might. The one safe path for the negro to follow is the path that leads straight to the door of the white man’s conscience.”

Dr. Talcott Williams of New York spoke on economic independence through industry and pointed out the important economic independence which is to be won through peace and harmony between the two races.

Front page of The Charlotte News, Saturday, April 16, 1921. The photo of Thomas W. Bickett is from the Library of Congress. Bickett would die the end of 1921 on December 28th.

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