Flood (1927)

We hope that every Negro that can escape from the slave camps guarded by the National Red Cross for the benefit of the big planters of Mississippi and Louisiana and the lynchers of Arkansas will leave this land of deviltry at the first opportunity. Let them ride, run and crawl out of this hell. There is no hope for the black man there today. Relief funds are being used to pamper white folk and in some cases are actually being sold to black folk as the basis of contracts for their compulsory services in the future. Fully 75 per cent of the refugees have been Negroes and we doubt if they have received 25 per cent of the relief funds.

We do not know where the refugees from the Mississippi bottoms can go, but we are frank to say it would be better for them to starve in Memphis and Chicago than to be slaves in Arkansas and Mississippi. Even if eventually they have to return, they can make better terms than by staying.

And they can expect no help from Coolidge or Hoover. Mr. Hoover is too busy having his picture taken and Mr. Coolidge, when the Arkansas mob burns the body of an imbecile, feeding the bonfire with lumber torn from a Negro church, while the Mayor of the city keeps the Negro leaders imprisoned in their own business block—Mr. Coolidge tells the world of the privileges of American civilization.

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1927. “Flood.” The Crisis. 34(5):169.