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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VI. Justice - 27. Violence and Intimidation - 1. The Pattern of Violence
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CHAPTER 27
VIOLENCE AND INTIMIDATION
I. The Pattern of Violence
It is the custom in the South to permit whites to resort to violence and
threats of violence against the life, personal security, property and freedom
of movement of Negroes. There is a wide variety of behavior, ranging
from a mild admonition to murder, which the white man may exercise to
control Negroes. While the practice has its origin in the slavery tradition,
it continues to flourish because of the laxity and inequity of the administra-
tion of law and justice. It would not be possible except for the deficient
operation of the judicial sanctions in protecting Negroes^ rights and liber-
ties. Both the practice of intimidation and violence and the inadequate
functioning of justice in the region are expressions of the same spirit of
relative lawlessness j
both are tolerated and upheld by the same public
opinion. Both are rooted in this strange Southern combination of conserva-
tism and illegality.® Both are expressions on the part of the Southern
public of its dissatisfaction with formal laws, its disregard for orderly
government.
The social pattern of subduing the Negroes by means of physical force
was inherent in the slavery system. The master himself, with the backing,
if needed, of the local police and, indeed, of all white neighbors, had to
execute this force, and he was left practically unrestricted by any
formal laws. After Emancipation the Black Codes,’’ of the period 1865-
1867, were attempt^ to legalize a continued white control over the freed-
men. Most of these laws were abolished during the Congressional Recon-
struction, but their spirit prevailed in the complex of laws protecting the
planters’ interests—labor enticement laws, crop lien laws, vagrancy laws®
—
by which the states sanctioned the actions of the police and the courts in
virtually upholding peonage, in spite of its being a federal offense. As the
federal judiciary agencies have lately become active in stamping out
peonage, and as the decline in the foreign market, the A.A.A. crop restric-
tion policy, and other factors have made labor supply relatively abundant
• Sec Chapter 20, Section 7.
® See Chapter 10, Section 3.
”
See Chapter 10, Section 4.
S5«
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