Anarchism (1912)

The Crisis has continually insisted that peonage, false arrest and injustice in the Southern courts were responsible for the mass of so-called Negro crime. The testimony to this comes continually from white Southerners themselves. In nearly every Southern State this has been asserted from time to time in official reports, but perhaps the latest and strongest of these confessions comes from Alabama. The Federal grand jury of Jefferson County says that justices and constables are deliberately enriching themselves by a system of extortion and intimidation:

For victims, whether male or female, it singles out, in every instance, those too poor or ignorant, too humble or frightened to protect themselves. A very large majority are Negroes. Were they not Negroes, but members of a more resentful race, anarchism would be prevalent.

WERE THEY NOT NEGROES!

---

Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1912. “Anarchism.” The Crisis. 4(4):182.