Deception (1916)

One of the unforgivable things about the southern white press is the way in which it deliberately deceives its readers as to the attitude of civilized communities toward Negroes. Even the Columbia, S. C., State stoops to this petty deception. The State records the facts that hoodlums chased a Negro in Boston, and argues that the lynching spirit so far as Negroes are concerned is just as bad in Boston as in South Carolina, only that there are more policemen in Boston, and southern men are more “sensitive.” This is nonsense. The fact of the matter is that Boston is more law-abiding, and that an accused black man there even in the midst of a mob can appeal to law- abiding bystanders and receive protection. In South Carolina the well- known innocence of a black man could only in exceptional cases appeal to the white bystander. The Atlanta, Ga. Constitution assumes that the appointment of Miss Bosfield to a position among white clerks in a hospital in Massachusetts was something exceptional ard that they revolted against it just as Georgia would have. This is untrue and the Constitution probably knows that it is. There are dozens of colored clerks, male and female, working with their white fellows in all parts of Massachusetts. Just as long as the South receives from its daily press the silly impression that other parts of the world are as crazy and unreasonable in their racial hatreds as are the southern United States, just so long there will be no appeal to reason in those half civilized districts.

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1916. “Deception.” The Crisis. 12(2):81–82.